* * *
The long days of summer were yielding quickly to darkness, and the lamps were lit well before we had finished our preparations. The night outside was restless with constant movement and the glow of fires on the horizon. Fergus, unable to keep still, flitted in and out of the cottages, carrying messages, collecting rumors and bobbing up out of the shadows periodically like a small, dark ghost, eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Madame,” he said, plucking at my sleeve as I ripped linens into strips and threw them into a pile for sterilization. “Madame!”
“What is it this time, Fergus?” I was mildly irritated at the intrusion; I had been in the middle of a lecture to a group of housewives on the importance of washing the hands frequently while treating the wounded.
“A man, Madame. He is wanting to speak with the commander of His Highness’s army. He has important information, he says.”
“Well, I’m not stopping him, am I?” I tugged at a recalcitrant shirt seam, then used my teeth to wrench loose the end, and yanked. It tore cleanly, with a satisfying ripping sound.
I spit out a thread or two. He was still there, waiting patiently.
“All right,” I said, resigned. “What do you—or he—think I can do about it?”
“If you will give me permission, Madame,” he said eagerly, “I could guide him to my master. He could arrange for the man to speak to the commander.”
“He,” of course, could do anything, so far as Fergus was concerned; including, no doubt, walking on water, turning water into wine, and inducing Lord George to talk to mysterious strangers who materialized out of the darkness with important information.
I brushed the hair out of my eyes; I had tied it back under a kertch, but curly strands kept escaping.
“Is this man somewhere nearby?”
That was all the encouragement he needed; he disappeared through the open door, returning momentarily with a thin young man whose eager gaze fastened at once on my face.
“Mrs. Fraser?” He bowed awkwardly at my nod, wiping his hands on his breeches as though he didn’t know quite what to do with them, but wanted to be ready if something suggested itself.
“I—I’m Richard Anderson, of Whitburgh.”
“Oh? Well, good for you,” I said politely. “My servant says you have some valuable information for Lord George Murray.”
He nodded, bobbing his head like a water ouzel. “Ye see, Mrs. Fraser, I’ve lived in these parts all my life. I—I know all of that ground where the armies are, know it like the back o’ my hand. And there’s a way down from the ridge where the Highland troops are camped—a trail that will lead them past the ditch at the bottom.”
“I see.” I felt a hollowing of the stomach at these words. If the Highlanders were to charge out of the rising sun next morning, they would have to leave the high ground of the ridge during the night watches. And if a charge was to be successful, plainly that ditch must be crossed or bypassed.
While I thought I knew what was to come, I had no certainty at all about it. I had been married to an historian—and the usual faint stab came at the thought of Frank—and knew just how unreliable historical sources often were. For that matter, I had no surety that my own presence couldn’t or wouldn’t change anything.
For the space of a moment, I wondered wildly what might happen if I tried to keep Richard Anderson from speaking to Lord George. Would the outcome of tomorrow’s battle be changed? Would the Highland army—including Jamie and his men—be slaughtered as they ran downhill over boggy ground and into a ditch? Would Lord George come up with another plan that would work? Or would Richard Anderson merely go off on his own and find a way of speaking to Lord George himself, regardless of what I did?
It wasn’t a risk I cared to take for experiment’s sake. I looked down at Fergus, fidgeting with impatience to be gone.
“Do you think you can find your master? It’s black as the inside of a coal hole up on that ridge. I wouldn’t like either of you to be shot by mistake, traipsing around up there.”
“I can find him, Madame,” Fergus said confidently. He probably could, I thought. He seemed to have a sort of radar where Jamie was concerned.
“All right, then,” I conceded. “But for God’s sake, be careful.”
“Oui, Madame!” In a flash, he was at the door, vibrating with eagerness to be gone.
It was half an hour after they had left that I noticed the knife I had left on the table was gone as well. And only then did I remember, with a sickening lurch of my stomach, that while I had told Fergus to be careful, I had forgotten altogether to tell him to come back.