* * *
Men sprawled through the house, worn to exhaustion, seeking oblivion from gnawing hunger and the knowledge of certain and imminent disaster. There were no women here; those chiefs whose womenfolk had accompanied them had sent the ladies safely away—the coming doom cast a long shadow.
Jamie left me with a murmured word outside the door that led to the Prince’s temporary quarters. My presence would help nothing. I walked softly through the house, murmurous with the heavy breathing of sleeping men, the air thick with the dullness of despair.
At the top of the house, I found a small lumber-room. Crowded with junk and discarded furniture, it was otherwise unoccupied. I crept into this warren of oddities, feeling much like a small rodent, seeking refuge from a world in which huge and mysterious forces were let loose to destruction.
There was one small window, filled with the misty gray morning. I rubbed dirt away from one pane with the corner of my cloak, but there was nothing to be seen but the encompassing mist. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass. Somewhere out there was Culloden Field, but I saw nothing but the dim silhouette of my own reflection.
News of the gruesome and mysterious death of the Duke of Sandringham had reached Prince Charles, I knew; we had heard of it from almost everyone we spoke to as we passed to the north and it became safe for us to show ourselves again. What exactly had we done? I wondered. Had we doomed the Jacobite cause for good and all in that one night’s adventure, or had we inadvertently saved Charles Stuart from an English trap? I drew a squeaking finger in a line down the misty glass, chalking up one more thing I would never find out.
It seemed a very long time before I heard a step on the uncarpeted boards of the stair outside my refuge. I came to the door to find Jamie coming onto the landing. One look at his face was enough.
“Alec was right,” he said, without preliminaries. The bones of his face were stark beneath the skin, made prominent by hunger, sharpened by anger. “The troops are moving to Culloden—as they can. They havena slept or eaten in two days, there is no ordnance for the cannon—but they are going.” The anger erupted suddenly and he slammed his fist down on a rickety table. A cascade of small brass dishes from the pile of household rubble woke the echoes of the attic with an ungodly clatter.
With an impatient gesture, he snatched the dirk from his belt and jabbed it violently into the table, where it stood, quivering with the force of the blow.
“The country folk say that if ye see blood on your dirk, it means death.” He drew in his breath with a hiss, fist clenched on the table. “Well, I have seen it! So have they all. They know—Kilmarnock, Lochiel, and the rest. And no bit of good does the seeing of it do!”
He bent his head, hands braced on the table, staring at the dirk. He seemed much too large for the confines of the room, an angry smoldering presence that might break suddenly into flame. Instead, he flung up his hands, and threw himself onto a decrepit settle, where he sat, head buried in his hands.
“Jamie,” I said, and swallowed. I could barely speak the next words, but they had to be said. I had known what news he would bring, and I had thought of what might still be done. “Jamie. There’s only one thing left—only the one possibility.”
His head was bent, forehead resting on his knuckles. He shook his head, not looking at me.
“There is no way,” he said. “He’s bent on it. Murray has tried to turn him, so has Lochiel. Balmerino. Me. But the men are standing on the plain this hour. Cumberland has set out for Drumossie. There is no way.”
The healing arts are powerful ones, and any physician versed in the use of substances that heal knows also the power of those that harm. I had given Colum the cyanide he had not had time to use, and taken back the deadly vial from the table by the bed where his body lay. It was in my box now, the crudely distilled crystals a dull brownish-white, deceptively harmless in appearance.
My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t speak at once. There was a little wine left in my flask; I drank it, the acid taste like bile on my tongue.
“There is one way,” I said. “Only one.”
Jamie’s head stayed sunk in his hands. It had been a long ride, and the shock of Alec’s news had added depression to his tiredness. We had detoured to find his men, or most of them, a miserable, ragged crew, indistinguishable from the skeletal Frasers of Lovat who surrounded them. The interview with Charles was far beyond the last straw.
“Aye?” he said.
I hesitated, but had to speak. The possibility had to be mentioned; whether he—or I—could bring ourselves to it or not.
“It’s Charles Stuart,” I said, at last. “It’s him—everything. The battle, the war—everything depends on him, do you see?”
“Aye?” Jamie was looking up at me now, bloodshot eyes quizzical.
“If he were dead.…” I whispered at last.
Jamie’s eyes closed, and the last vestiges of blood drained from his face.
“If he were to die…now. Today. Or tonight. Jamie, without Charles, there’s nothing to fight for. No one to order the men to Culloden. There wouldn’t be a battle.”
The long muscles of his throat rippled briefly as he swallowed. He opened his eyes and stared at me, appalled.
“Christ,” he whispered. “Christ, ye canna mean it.”
My hand closed on the smoky, gold-mounted crystal around my neck.
They had called me to attend the Prince, before Falkirk. O’Sullivan, Tullibardine, and the others. His Highness was ill—an indisposition, they said. I had seen Charles, made him bare his breast and arms, examined his mouth and the whites of his eyes.
It was scurvy, and several of the other diseases of malnutrition. I said as much.
“Nonsense!” said Sheridan, outraged. “His Highness cannot suffer from the yeuk, like a common peasant!”
“He’s been eating like one,” I retorted. “Or rather worse than one.” The “peasants” were forced to eat onions and cabbage, having nothing else. Scorning such poor fare, His Highness and his advisers ate meat—and little else. Looking around the circle of scared, resentful faces, I saw few that didn’t show symptoms of the lack of fresh food. Loose and missing teeth, soft, bleeding gums, the pus-filled, itching follicles of “the yeuk” that so lavishly decorated His Highness’s white skin.
I was loath to surrender any of my precious supply of rose hips and dried berries, but had offered, reluctantly, to make the Prince a tea of them. The offer had been rejected, with a minimum of courtesy, and I understood that Archie Cameron had been summoned, with his bowl of leeches and his lancet, to see whether a letting of the Royal blood would relieve the Royal itch.
“I could do it,” I said. My heart was beating heavily in my chest, making it hard to breathe. “I could mix him a draught. I think I could persuade him to take it.”
“And if he should die upon drinking your medicine? Christ, Claire! They would kill ye on the spot!”
I folded my hands beneath my arms, trying to warm them.
“D-does that matter?” I asked, desperately trying to steady my voice. The truth was that it did. Just at the moment, my own life weighed a good deal more in the balance than did the hundreds I might save. I clenched my fists, shaking with terror, a mouse in the jaws of the trap.
Jamie was at my side in an instant. My legs didn’t work very well; he half-carried me to the broken settle and sat down with me, his arms wrapped tight around me.
“You’ve the courage of a lion, mo duinne,” he murmured in my ear. “Of a bear, a wolf! But you know I willna let ye do it.”
The shivering eased slightly, though I still felt cold, and sick with the horror of what I was saying.
“There might be another way,” I said. “There’s little food, but what there is goes to the Prince. I think it might not be difficult to add something to his dish without being noticed; things are so disorganized.” This was true; all over the house, officers lay sleeping on tables and floors, still clad in their boots, too tired to lay aside their arms. The house was in chaos, with constant comings and goings. It would be a simple matter to distract a servant long enough to add a deadly powder to the evening dish.
The immediate terror had receded slightly, but the awfulness of my suggestion lingered like poison, chilling my own blood. Jamie’s arm tightened briefly around my shoulders, then fell away as he contemplated the situation.
The death of Charles Stuart would not end the matter of the Rising; things had gone much too far for that. Lord George Murray, Balmerino, Kilmarnock, Lochiel, Clanranald—all of us were traitors, lives and property forfeit to the Crown. The Highland army was in tatters; without the figurehead of Charles to rally to, it would dissipate like smoke. The English, terrorized and humiliated at Preston and Falkirk, would not hesitate to pursue the fugitives, seeking to retrieve their lost honor and wash out the insult in blood.
There was little chance that Henry of York, Charles’s pious younger brother, already bound by churchly vows, would take his brother’s place to continue the fight for restoration. There was nothing ahead but catastrophe and wreck, and no possible way to avert it. All that might be salvaged now was the lives of the men who would die on the moor tomorrow.
It was Charles who had chosen to fight at Culloden, Charles whose stubborn, shortsighted autocracy had defied the advice of his own generals and gone to invade England. And whether Sandringham had meant his offer for good or ill, it had died with him. There was no support from the South; such English Jacobites as there were did not rally as expected to the banner of their king. Forced against his will to retreat, Charles had chosen this last stubborn stand, to place ill-armed, exhausted, starving men in a battle line on a rain-soaked moor, to face the wrath of Cumberland’s cannon fire. If Charles Stuart were dead, the battle of Culloden might not take place. One life, against two thousand. One life—but that life a Royal one, and taken not in battle, but in cold blood.
The small room where we sat had a hearth, but a fire had not been lit—there was no fuel. Jamie sat gazing at it as though seeking an answer in invisible flames. Murder. Not only murder, but regicide. Not only murder, but the killing of a sometime friend.
And yet—the clansmen of the Highlands shivered already on the open moor, shifting in their serried ranks as the plan of battle was adjusted, rearranged, reordered, as more men drifted to join them. Among them were the MacKenzies of Leoch, the Frasers of Beauly, four hundred men of Jamie’s blood. And the thirty men of Lallybroch, his own.
His face was blank, immobile as he thought, but the hands laced together on his knee knotted tight with the struggle. The crippled fingers and the straight strove together, twisting. I sat beside him, scarcely daring to breathe, awaiting his decision.
At last the breath went from him in an almost inaudible sigh, and he turned to me, a look of unutterable sadness in his eyes.
“I cannot,” he whispered. His hand touched my face briefly, cupping my cheek. “Would God that I could, Sassenach. I cannot do it.”
The wave of relief that washed through me robbed me of speech, but he saw what I felt, and grasped my hands between his own.
“Oh, God, Jamie, I’m glad of it!” I whispered.
He bowed his head over my hands. I turned my head to lay my cheek against his hair, and froze.
In the doorway, watching me with a look of absolute revulsion, was Dougal MacKenzie.
The last months had aged him; Rupert’s death, the sleepless nights of fruitless argument, the strains of the hard campaign, and now the bitterness of imminent defeat. There were gray hairs in the russet beard, a gray look to his skin, and deep lines in his face that had not been there in November. With a shock, I realized that he looked like his brother, Colum. He had wanted to lead, Dougal MacKenzie. Now he had inherited the chieftainship, and was paying its price.
“Filthy…traitorous…whoring…witch!”
Jamie jerked as though he had been shot, face gone white as the sleet outside. I sprang to my feet, overturning the bench with a clatter that echoed through the room.
Dougal MacKenzie advanced on me slowly, putting aside the folds of his cloak, so that the hilt of his sword was freed to his hand. I hadn’t heard the door behind me open; it must have stood ajar. How long had he been on the other side, listening?
“You,” he said softly. “I should have known it; from the first I saw ye, I should have known.” His eyes were fixed on me, something between horror and fury in the cloudy green depths.
There was a sudden stir in the air beside me; Jamie was there, a hand on my arm, urging me back behind him.
“Dougal,” he said. “It isna what ye think, man. It’s—”
“No?” Dougal cut in. His gaze left me for a second, and I shrank behind Jamie, grateful for the respite.
“Not what I think?” he said, still speaking softly. “I hear the woman urging ye to foul murder—to the murder of your Prince! Not only vile murder, but treason as well! And ye tell me I havena heard it?” He shook his head, the tangled russet curls lank and greasy on his shoulders. Like the rest of us, he was starving; the bones jutted in his face, but his eyes burned from their shadowy orbits.
“I dinna blame ye, lad,” he said. His voice was suddenly weary, and I remembered that he was a man in his fifties. “It isna your fault, Jamie. She’s bewitched ye—anyone can see that.” His mouth twisted as he looked again at me.
“Aye, I ken weel enough how it’s been for ye. She’s worked the same sorcery on me, betimes.” His eyes raked over me, burning. “A murdering, lying slut, would take a man by the cock and lead him to his doom, wi’ her claws sunk deep in his balls. That’s the spell that they lay on ye, lad—she and the other witch. Take ye to their beds and steal the soul from you as ye lie sleeping wi’ your head on their breasts. They take your soul, and eat your manhood, Jamie.”
His tongue darted out and wetted his lips. He was still staring at me, and his hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.
“Stand aside, laddie. I’ll free ye of the sassenach whore.”
Jamie stepped in front of me, momentarily blocking Dougal from my view.
“You’re tired, Dougal,” he said, speaking calmly, soothingly. “Tired, and hearin’ things, man. D’ye go down now. I shall—”
He had no chance to finish. Dougal wasn’t listening to him; the deep-set green eyes were fixed on my face, and the MacKenzie chief had drawn the dirk from its sheath at his waist.
“I shall cut your throat,” he said to me softly. “I should ha’ done it when first I saw ye. It would have saved us all a great grief.”
I wasn’t sure that he wasn’t right, but that didn’t mean I intended to let him remedy the matter. I took three quick steps back, and fetched up hard against the table.
“Get back, man!” Jamie thrust himself before me, holding up a shielding forearm as Dougal advanced on me.
The MacKenzie chieftain shook his head, bull-like, red-rimmed eyes fixed on me.
“She’s mine,” he said hoarsely. “Witch. Traitoress. Step aside, lad. I wouldna harm ye, but by God, if ye shield that woman, I shall kill you, too, foster son or no.”
He lunged past Jamie, grabbing my arm. Exhausted, starved, and aging as he was, he was still a formidable man, and his fingers bit deep into my flesh.
I yelped with pain, and kicked frantically at him as he jerked me toward him. He snatched at my hair and caught it, forcing my head hard back. His breath was hot and sour on my face. I shrieked and struck at him, digging my nails into his cheek in an effort to get free.
The air exploded from his lungs as Jamie’s fist struck him in the ribs, and his grip on my hair tore loose as Jamie’s other fist came down in a numbing blow on the point of his shoulder. Suddenly freed, I fell back against the table, whimpering with shock and pain.
Dougal whirled to face Jamie then, dropping into a fighter’s crouch, the dirk held blade upward.
“Let it be, then,” he said, breathing heavily. He swayed slightly from side to side, shifting his weight as he sought the advantage. “Blood will tell. Ye damned Fraser spawn. Treachery runs in your blood. Come here to me, fox cub. I’ll kill ye quick, for your mother’s sake.”
There was little room for maneuver in the small attic. No room to draw a sword; with his dirk stuck fast in the tabletop, Jamie was effectively unarmed. He matched Dougal’s stance, eyes watchful, fixed on the point of the menacing dirk.
“Put it down, Dougal,” he said. “If ye bear my mother in mind, then listen to me, for her sake!”
The MacKenzie made no answer, but jabbed suddenly, a ripping blow aimed upward.
Jamie dodged aside, dodged again the wide-armed sweep that came from the other side. Jamie had the agility of youth on his side—but Dougal held the knife.
Dougal closed with a rush, and the dirk slid up Jamie’s side, ripping his shirt, scoring a dark line in his flesh. With a hiss of pain, he jerked back, grabbing for Dougal’s wrist, catching it as the blade struck down.
The dull gleam of the blade flashed once, disappeared between the struggling bodies. They strove together, locked like lovers, the air filled with the smell of male sweat and fury. The blade rose again, two hands grappling on its rounded hilt. A shift, and a jerk, a sudden grunt of effort, one of pain. Dougal stepped back, staggering, face congested and pouring sweat, the hilt of the dagger socketed at the base of his throat.
Jamie half-fell, gasping, and leaned against the table. His eyes were dark with shock, and his hair sweat-soaked, the rent edges of his shirt tinged with blood from the scratch.
There was a terrible sound from Dougal, a sound of shock and stifled breath. Jamie caught him as he tottered and fell, Dougal’s weight bringing him to his knees. Dougal’s head lay on Jamie’s shoulder, Jamie’s arms locked around his foster father.
I dropped to my knees beside them, reaching to help, trying to get hold of Dougal. It was too late. The big body went limp, then spasmed, sliding out of Jamie’s grasp. Dougal lay crumpled on the floor, muscles jerking with involuntary contractions, struggling like a fish out of water.
His head was pillowed on Jamie’s thigh. One heave brought his face into view. It was contorted, and dark red, eyes gone to slits. His mouth moved continuously, saying something, talking with great force—but without sound, save the bubbling rasp from his ruined throat.
Jamie’s face was ashen; apparently he could tell what Dougal was saying. He struggled violently, trying to hold the thrashing body still. There was a final spasm, then a dreadful rattling sound, and Dougal MacKenzie lay still, Jamie’s hands clenched tight upon his shoulders, as though to prevent his rising again.
“Blessed Michael defend us!” The hoarse whisper came from the doorway. It was Willie Coulter MacKenzie, one of Dougal’s men. He stared in stupefied horror at the body of his chief. A small puddle of urine was forming under it, creeping out from under the sprawled plaid. The man crossed himself, still staring.
“Willie.” Jamie rose, passing a trembling hand across his face. “Willie.” The man seemed struck dumb. He looked at Jamie in complete bewilderment, mouth open.
“I need one hour, man.” Jamie had a hand on Willie Coulter’s shoulder, easing him into the room. “An hour to see my wife safe. Then I shall come back to answer for this. I give ye my word, on my honor. But I must have an hour free. One hour. Will ye give me one hour, man, before ye speak?”
Willie licked dry lips, looking back and forth between the body of his chief and his chieftain’s nephew, clearly frightened out of his wits. At last he nodded, plainly having no idea what to do, choosing to follow this request because no reasonable alternative presented itself.
“Good.” Jamie swallowed heavily, and wiped his face on his plaid. He patted Willie on the shoulder. “Stay here, man. Pray for his soul”—he nodded toward the still form on the floor, not looking at it—“and for mine.” He leaned past Willie to pry his dirk from the table, then pushed me before him, out the door and down the stairs.
Halfway down, he stopped, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. He drew deep, ragged breaths, as though he were about to faint, and I put my hands on his chest, alarmed. His heart was beating like a drum, and he was trembling, but after a moment, he drew himself upright, nodded at me, and took my arm.
“I need Murtagh,” he said.
We found the clansman just outside, cowled in his plaid against the sleety rain, sitting in a dry spot beneath the eaves of the house. Fergus was curled up next to him, dozing, tired from the long ride.
Murtagh took one look at Jamie’s face, and rose to his feet, dark and dour, ready for anything.
“I’ve killed Dougal MacKenzie,” Jamie said bluntly, without preliminary.
Murtagh’s face went quite blank for a moment, then his normal expression of wary grimness reasserted itself.
“Aye,” he said. “What’s to do, then?”
Jamie groped in his sporran and brought out a folded paper. His hands shook as he tried to unfold it, and I took it from him, spreading it out under the shelter of the eaves.
“Deed of Sasine” it said, at the top of the sheet. It was a short document, laid out in a few black lines, conveying title of the estate known as Broch Tuarach to one James Jacob Fraser Murray, said property to be held in trust and administered by the said James Murray’s parents, Janet Fraser Murray and Ian Gordon Murray, until the said James Murray’s majority. Jamie’s signature was at the bottom, and there were two blank spaces provided below, each with the word “Witness” written alongside. It was dated 1 July, 1745—a month before Charles Stuart had launched his rebellion on the shores of Scotland, and made Jamie Fraser a traitor to the Crown.
“I need ye to sign this, you and Claire,” Jamie said, taking the note from me and handing it to Murtagh. “But it means forswearing yourself; I have nay right to ask it.”
Murtagh’s small black eyes scanned the deed quickly. “No,” he said dryly. “No right—nor any need, either.” He nudged Fergus with a foot, and the boy sat bolt upright, blinking.
“Nip into the house and fetch your chief ink and a quill, lad,” Murtagh said. “And quick about it—go!”
Fergus shook his head once to clear it, glanced at Jamie for a confirming nod—and went.
Water was dripping from the eaves down the back of my neck. I shivered and drew the woolen arisaid closer around my shoulders. I wondered when Jamie had written the document. The false date made it seem the property had been transferred before Jamie became a traitor, with his goods and lands subject to seizure—if it was not questioned, the property would pass safely to small Jamie. Jenny’s family at least would be safe, still in possession of land and farmhouse.
Jamie had seen the possible need for this; yet he had not executed the document before we left Lallybroch; he had hoped somehow to return, and claim his own place once again. Now that was impossible, but the estate might still be saved from seizure. There was no one to say when the document had really been signed—save the witnesses, me and Murtagh.
Fergus returned, panting, with a small glass inkpot and a ragged quill. We signed one at a time, leaning against the side of the house, careful to shake the quill first to keep the ink from dripping down. Murtagh went first; his middle name, I saw, was FitzGibbons.
“Will ye have me take it to your sister?” Murtagh asked as I shook the paper carefully to dry it.
Jamie shook his head. The rain made damp, coin-sized splotches on his plaid, and glittered on his lashes like tears.
“No. Fergus will take it.”
“Me?” The boy’s eyes went round with astonishment.
“You, man.” Jamie took the paper from me, folded it, then knelt and tucked it inside Fergus’s shirt.
“This must reach my sister—Madame Murray—without fail. It is worth more than my life, man—or yours.”
Practically breathless with the enormity of the responsibility entrusted to him, Fergus stood up straight, hands clasped over his middle.
“I will not fail you, milord!”
A faint smile crossed Jamie’s lips, and he rested a hand briefly on the smooth cap of Fergus’s hair.
“I know that, man, and I am grateful,” he said. He twisted the ring off his left hand; the cabochon ruby that had belonged to his father. “Here,” he said, handing it to Fergus. “Go to the stables, and show this to the old man ye’ll see there. Tell him I said you are to take Donas. Take the horse, and ride for Lallybroch. Stop for nothing, except as you must, to sleep, and when ye do sleep, hide yourself well.”
Fergus was speechless with alarmed excitement, but Murtagh frowned dubiously at him.
“D’ye think the bairn can manage yon wicked beast?” he said.
“Aye, he can,” Jamie said firmly. Overcome, Fergus stuttered, then sank to his knees and kissed Jamie’s hand fervently. Springing to his feet, he darted away in the direction of the stables, his slight figure disappearing in the mist.
Jamie licked dry lips, and closed his eyes briefly, then turned to Murtagh with decision.
“And you—mo caraidh—I need ye to gather the men.”
Murtagh’s sketchy brows shot up, but he merely nodded.
“Aye,” he said. “And when I have?”
Jamie glanced at me, then back at his godfather. “They’ll be on the moor now, I think, with Young Simon. Just gather them together, in one place. I shall see my wife safe, and then—” He hesitated, then shrugged. “I will find you. Wait my coming.”
Murtagh nodded once more, and turned to go. Then he paused, and turned back to face Jamie. The thin mouth twitched briefly, and he said, “I would ask the one thing of ye, lad—let it be the English. Not your ain folk.”
Jamie flinched slightly, but after a moment, he nodded. Then, without speaking, he held out his arms to the older man. They embraced quickly, fiercely, and Murtagh, too, was gone, in a swirl of ragged tartan.
I was the last bit of business on the agenda.
“Come on, Sassenach,” he said, seizing me by the arm. “We must go.”
No one stopped us; there was so much coming and going by the roads that we were scarcely noticed while we were near the moor. Farther away, when we left the main road, there was no one to see.
Jamie was completely silent, concentrating single-mindedly on the job at hand. I said nothing to him, too occupied with my own shock and dread to wish for conversation.
“I shall see my wife safe.” I hadn’t known what he meant by that, but it became obvious within two hours, when he turned the head of his horse farther south, and the steep green hill called Craigh na Dun came in view.
“No!” I said, when I saw it, and realized where we were headed. “Jamie, no! I won’t go!”
He didn’t answer me, only spurred his horse and galloped ahead, leaving me no option but to follow.
My feelings were in turmoil; beyond the doom of the coming battle and the horror of Dougal’s death, now there was the prospect of the stones. That accursed circle, through which I had come here. Plainly Jamie meant to send me back, back to my own time—if such a thing was possible.
He could mean all he liked, I thought, clenching my jaw as I followed him down the narrow trail through the heather. There was no power on earth that could make me leave him now.