* * *
An odd metallic noise woke me. I poked my head out of the blanket and blinked in the direction of the noise, to find my nose a foot from Jamie’s plaid-covered knee.
“Awake, are ye?” Something silvery and chinking suddenly descended in front of my face, and a heavy weight settled around my neck.
“What on earth is this?” I asked, sitting up in astonishment and peering downward. I seemed to be wearing a necklace composed of a large number of three-inch metal objects, each with a divided shank and a hooped top, strung together on a leather bootlace. Some of the objects were rusted at the tops, others brand-new. All showed scratches along the length of the shanks, as though they had been wrenched by force out of some larger object.
“Trophies of war, Sassenach,” said Jamie.
I looked up at him, and uttered a small shriek at the sight.
“Oh,” he said, putting a hand to his face. “I forgot. I hadna time to wash it off.”
“You scared me to death,” I said, hand pressed to my palpitating heart. “What is it?”
“Charcoal,” he said, voice muffled in the cloth he was rubbing over his face. He let it down and grinned at me. The rubbing had removed some of the blackening from nose, chin and forehead, which glowed pinkish-bronze through the remaining smears, but his eyes were still ringed black as a raccoon’s, and charcoal lines bracketed his mouth. It was barely dawn, and in the dim light of the tent, his darkened face and hair tended to fade into the drab background of the canvas wall behind him, giving the distinctly unsettling impression that I was speaking to a headless body.
“It was your idea,” he said.
“My idea? You look like the end man in a minstrel show,” I replied. “What the hell have you been doing?”
His teeth gleamed a brilliant white amid the sooty creases of his face.
“Commando raid,” he said, with immense satisfaction. “Commando? Is that the right word?”
“Oh, God,” I said. “You’ve been in the English camp? Christ! Not alone, I hope?”
“I couldna leave my men out of the fun, could I? I left three of them to guard you, and the rest of us had a verra profitable night.” He gestured at my necklace with pride.
“Cotter pins from the cannon carriages. We couldna take the cannon, or damage them without noise, but they’ll no be goin’ far, wi’ no wheels to them. And the hell of a lot of good sixteen gallopers will do General Cope, stranded out on the moor.”
I examined my necklace critically.
“That’s well and good, but can’t they contrive new cotter pins? It looks like you could make something like this from heavy wire.”
He nodded, his air of smugness abating not a whit.
“Oh, aye. They could. But nay bit o’ good it will do them, wi’ no new wheels to put them to.” He lifted the tent flap, and gestured down toward the foot of the hill, where I could now see Murtagh, black as a wizened demon, supervising the activities of several similarly decorated subdemons, who were gaily feeding the last of thirty-two large wooden wheels into a roaring fire. The iron rims of the wheels lay in a stack to one side; Fergus, Kincaid, and one of the other young men had improvised a game with one of them, rolling it to and fro with sticks. Ross sat on a log nearby, sipping at a horn cup and idly twirling another round his burly forearm.
I laughed at the sight.
“Jamie, you are clever!”
“I may be clever,” he replied, “but you’re half-naked, and we’re leaving now. Have ye something to put on? We left the sentinels tied up in an abandoned sheep-pen, but the rest of them will be up by now, and none so far behind us. We’d best be off.”
As though to emphasize his words, the tent suddenly shook above me, as someone jerked free the lines on one side. I uttered an alarmed squeak and dived for the saddlebags as Jamie left to superintend the details of departure.