53
THE FRENCHMAN’S GOLD
WE FOUND JOCASTA CAMERON INNES on the window seat in her room, clad in her chemise, bound hand and foot with strips of bed linen, and absolutely scarlet-faced with fury. I had no time to take further note of her condition, for Duncan Innes, clad for the night in nothing but his shirt, was lying sprawled on his face on the floor near the hearth.
I rushed over and knelt by him at once, searching for a pulse.
“Is he dead?” The Major peered over my shoulder, evidencing more curiosity than sympathy.
“No,” I said briefly. “Get these people out of here, will you?” The chamber was crammed with guests and servants, all exclaiming over the newly freed Jocasta, expostulating, speculating, and generally making bloody nuisances of themselves. The Major blinked at my peremptory tone, but retired without demur to deal with the situation.
Duncan was certainly alive, and a cursory examination showed me no injury beyond a large lump behind one ear; evidently, he had been clubbed with the heavy silver candlestick which lay beside him on the floor. He had a nasty color, but his pulse was fairly good, and he was breathing evenly. I thumbed open his eyelids, one at a time, and bent close to check his pupils. They stared back at me, glazed, but the same size and not abnormally dilated. So far, so good.
Behind me, the Major was making good use of his military experience, barking orders in a parade-ground voice. Since most of those present were not soldiers, this was having a limited effect.
Jocasta Cameron was having a much greater one. Released from her bonds, she staggered across the room, leaning heavily on Ulysses’s arm, parting the crowd like the waves of the Red Sea.
“Duncan! Where is my husband?” she demanded, turning her head from side to side, blind eyes fierce. People gave way before her, and she reached my side in seconds.
“Who is there?” Her hand swept in a flat arc before her, searching for position.
“It’s me—Claire.” I reached up to touch her hand, guiding her down beside me. Her own fingers were chilled and trembling, and there were deep red marks on her wrists from the bonds. “Don’t worry; I think Duncan will be all right.”
She put out a hand, seeking to see for herself, and I guided her fingers to his throat, setting them on the big vein I could see pulsing at the side of his neck. She uttered a small exclamation and leaned forward, putting both hands on his face, tracing his features with an anxious tenderness that quite moved me, so at odds as it was with her normal autocratic mien.
“They struck him . . . is he badly hurt?”
“I think not,” I assured her. “Only a knock on the head.”
“Are you quite sure?” Her face turned toward me, frowning, and her sensitive nostrils flared. “I smell blood.”
With a small shock, I realized that while my hands were mostly clean, my fingernails were still heavily ringed with dark blood from the impromptu autopsy. I repressed the urge to curl my hands, instead murmuring discreetly, “That’s me, I expect; my courses.” Major MacDonald was glancing curiously in our direction; had he heard her?
There was a stir at the doorway, and I turned. To my immense relief, it was Jamie. He was disheveled, his coat was torn, and he sported what looked like the beginnings of a black eye, but otherwise appeared undamaged.
My relief must have shown on my face, for his grim look softened a little, and he nodded as he met my eye. Then it hardened again, as he saw Duncan. He dropped to one knee beside me.
“He’s all right,” I said, before he could ask. “Someone hit him on the head and tied up your aunt.”
“Aye? Who?” He glanced up at Jocasta, and laid a hand on Duncan’s chest, as though to reassure himself that Duncan was indeed still breathing.
“I havena the slightest notion,” she replied crisply. “If I had, I should have sent men to hunt the ill-deedie shargs down by now.” Her lips tightened into a thin line, and the high color surged back into her face at thought of the assailants. “Did no one see the rascals?”
“I think not, Aunt,” Jamie replied calmly. “With such a boiling in the house, no one kens what to look for, aye?”
I raised one eyebrow at him in silent question. What did he mean by that? Had Bonnet got away? For surely it must have been Bonnet who had invaded Jocasta’s chamber; boiling or no, there couldn’t be multiple violent criminals at large on the same night in a place the size of River Run.
Jamie shook his head briefly. He glanced at my hands, saw the blood under my nails, and raised an eyebrow of his own. Had I discovered anything? Had there been time for me to be sure? I nodded, and a slight shudder went over me; yes, I knew.
Murder, I mouthed to him.
He squeezed my arm in quick reassurance, and glanced over his shoulder; the Major had at last succeeded in pushing most of the crowd out into the hallway, sending the servants for restoratives and refreshments, a groom for the Sheriff in Cross Creek, the men out to search the grounds for possible miscreants, and the ladies down to the salon in a flutter of excited puzzlement. The Major closed the door firmly behind them, then came briskly over to us.
“Shall we get him onto the bed, then?”
Duncan was beginning to stir and groan. He coughed and gagged a little, but fortunately didn’t throw up. Jamie and Major MacDonald got him up, limp arms about their shoulders, and conveyed him to the big four-poster, where they laid him down with complete disregard for the quilted silk coverlet.
With a faint atavistic sense of housewifeliness, I tucked a soft green velvet pillow under his head. It was filled with bran, but crackled faintly under my hand and gave off a strong scent of lavender. Lavender was good for headache, all right, but I wasn’t sure it was quite up to this.
“Where is Phaedre?”
Ulysses had guided Jocasta to her chair, and she sank back in its leather depths, looking suddenly exhausted and old. The color had left her face along with her rage, and her white hair was coming down in straggles round her shoulders.
“I sent Phaedre to bed, Auntie.” Bree had come in, unnoticed in the scrum, and had resisted removal by the Major. She bent over Jocasta, touching her hand with solicitude. “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of you.”
Jocasta put her own hand over Bree’s in gratitude, but sat up straighter, looking puzzled.
“Sent her to bed? Why? And what in God’s name is burning?” She jerked bolt upright, alarmed. “Are the stables afire?” The wind had changed, and the night air was streaming in through a broken pane above the window seat, heavy with the scent of smoke and a faint, dreadful smell of burned flesh.
“No, no! The stables are fine. Phaedre was upset,” Bree explained, with some delicacy. “The shed by the kitchen garden seems to have burned down; her mother’s body . . .”
Jocasta’s face went quite blank for a moment. Then she drew herself up, and an extraordinary look came into her face, something almost like satisfaction, though with a tinge of puzzlement.
Jamie was standing behind me. He evidently saw it, too, for I heard him give a soft grunt.
“Are ye somewhat recovered, Aunt?” he asked.
She turned her face toward him, one eyebrow lifted in sardonic reply.
“I shall be the better for a dram,” she said, accepting the cup that Ulysses set deftly into her hands. “But aye, nephew, I’m well enough. Duncan, though?”
I was sitting by Duncan on the bed, his wrist in my hand, and could feel him coming toward the surface of consciousness, eyelids fluttering and fingers twitching slightly against my palm.
“He’s coming round,” I assured her.
“Give him brandy, Ulysses,” Jocasta commanded, but I stopped the butler with a shake of my head.
“Not quite yet. He’ll choke.”
“Do ye feel yourself equal to telling us what happened, Aunt?” Jamie asked, with a noticeable edge to his voice. “Or must we wait for Duncan to come to himself?”
Jocasta sighed, closing her eyes briefly. She was as good as all the MacKenzies at hiding what she thought, but in this case, it was evident at least that she was thinking, and furiously, at that. The tip of her tongue flicked out, touching a raw spot at the corner of her mouth, and I realized that she must have been gagged as well as bound.
I could feel Jamie behind me, seething with some strong feeling. Near as he was, I could hear his stiff fingers drumming softly on the bedpost. Much as I wanted to hear Jocasta’s story, I wanted even more to be alone with Jamie, to tell him what I had discovered, and to find out what had happened in the darkness of the kitchen garden.
Outside, voices murmured in the hall; not all the guests had dispersed. I caught muffled phrases—“quite burnt up, nothing left but the bones,” “. . . stolen? Don’t know . . .” “. . . check the stables,” “Yes, completely burned . . .” A deep shiver struck me, and I gripped Duncan’s hand hard, fighting a panic that I did not understand. I must have looked odd, for Bree said softly, “Mama?” She was looking at me, brow creased with worry. I tried to smile at her, but my lips felt stiff.
Jamie’s hands settled on my shoulders, large and warm. I had been holding my breath without realizing it; at his touch, I let it out in a small gasp, and breathed again. Major MacDonald glanced curiously at me, but his attention was at once deflected by Jocasta, who opened her eyes and turned her face in his direction.
“It is Major MacDonald, is it not?”
“At your service, Mum.” The Major made an automatic bow, forgetting—as folk often did—that she could not see him.
“I thank ye for your gallant service, Major. My husband and I are most indebted to ye.”
The Major made a politely dismissive sound.
“No, no,” she insisted, straightening up and brushing back her hair with one hand. “Ye’ve been put to great trouble on our account, and we must not impose further on your kindness. Ulysses—take the Major down to the parlor and find him proper refreshment.”
The butler bowed obsequiously—I noticed for the first time that he was dressed in a nightshirt over unbuckled breeches, though he had clapped his wig on his head—and ushered the Major firmly toward the door. MacDonald looked ludicrously surprised and not a little disgruntled at being given the push in this civilized fashion, he having quite obviously intended to stay and hear all the gory details. Still, there was no graceful way of resisting, and he made the best of it, bowing in a dignified manner as he took his leave.
The panic had begun to recede, as bafflingly as it had come. Jamie’s hands radiated a warmth that seemed to spread through my body, and my breath came easily again. I was able to focus my attention on my patient, who had got his eyes open, though he seemed to be regretting it.
“Och, mo cheann!” Duncan squinted against the glow of the lamp, focusing with some difficulty on my face, then rising to Jamie’s behind me. “Mac Dubh—what’s come amiss?”
One of Jamie’s hands left my shoulder, and reached down to tighten on Duncan’s arm.
“Dinna fash yourself, a charaid.” He glanced meaningfully at Jocasta. “Your wife is just about to tell us what has happened. Are ye not, Aunt?”
There was a slight but definite emphasis on the “not,” and Jocasta, thus put on the spot, pursed her lips, but then sighed and sat straight, plainly resigned to the unpleasant necessity of confidence.
“There is no one here but family?”
Being assured that there was not, she nodded, and began.
She had sent away her maid, and been on the point of retiring, she said, when the door from the hall had suddenly opened to admit what she thought were two men.
“I am sure there was more than one—I heard their footsteps, and breathing,” she said, frowning in concentration. “There might have been three, but I think not. Only one of them spoke, though. I think the other must have been someone I ken, for he stayed far away, quite at the end of the room, as though he were afraid I should recognize him by some means.”
The man who had spoken to her was a stranger; she was positive that she had never heard his voice before.
“He was an Irishman,” she said, and Jamie’s hand tightened abruptly on my shoulder. “Well enough spoken, but not a gentleman, by any means.” Her nostrils flared a little, with unconscious disdain.
“No, hardly that,” Jamie said, under his breath. Bree had started slightly at the word “Irishman,” though her face bore no more than a slight frown of concentration as she listened.
The Irishman had been polite, but blunt in his demands; he wanted the gold.
“Gold?” It was Duncan who spoke, but the question was plain on everyone’s face. “What gold? We’ve no money in the house save a few pounds sterling and a bit of the Proclamation money.”
Jocasta’s lips pressed tight. There was no help for it, though; not now. She made a small growling noise in her throat, an inarticulate protest at being compelled to give up the secret she had kept for so long.
“The Frenchman’s gold,” she said, abruptly.
“What?” said Duncan in bewilderment. He touched the lump behind his ear, gingerly, as though convinced it had affected his hearing.
“The French gold,” Jocasta repeated, rather irritably. “That was sent, just before Culloden.”
“Before—” Bree began, wide-eyed, but Jamie interrupted her.
“Louis’s gold,” he said softly. “That’s what ye mean, Aunt? The Stuarts’ gold?”
Jocasta uttered a short laugh, quite without humor.
“Once it was.”
She paused, listening. The voices had moved away from the door, though there were still noises in the hallway. She turned toward Bree, and motioned toward the door.
“Go and see that no one’s got his lug to the keyhole, lass. I havena held my peace these twenty-five years only to spill it to the whole county.”
Bree opened the door briefly, peered out, then closed it, reporting that no one was near.
“Good. Come ye here, lass. Sit by me. But no—first, fetch me the case I showed ye yesterday.”
Looking more than puzzled, Bree vanished into the dressing room, returning with a slender case of worn black leather. She laid it in Jocasta’s lap and settled onto a stool beside her aunt, giving me a look of faint concern.
I was feeling quite myself again, though a faint echo of that odd fear still rang in my bones. I nodded reassuringly to Bree, though, and bent to give Duncan a sip of watered brandy. I knew what it was now, that ancient distress. It was that phrase overheard, the words by chance the same that a small girl had once heard spoken, whispered in the next room by the strangers who had come to say her mother would not be coming back, that she had died. An accident; a crash; fire. Burnt to bones, the voice had said, filled with the awe of it. Burnt to bones, and the desolation of a daughter, forever abandoned. My hand trembled, and the cloudy liquid ran in a trickle down Duncan’s chin.
But that was long ago, and in another country, I thought, steeling myself against the riptide of memory.
And besides . . .
Jocasta drained her own cup, set it down with a small thump, and opened the case in her lap. A gleam of gold and diamonds showed inside, and she lifted out a slender wooden rod that held three rings.
“I had three daughters, once,” she said. “Three girls. Clementina, Seonag, and Morna.” She touched one of the rings, a wide band, set with three large diamonds.
“This was for my girls; Hector gave it to me when Morna was born. She was his, Morna—you know it means ‘beloved’?” Her other hand left the box and stretched out, groping. She touched Bree’s cheek, and Bree took the hand, cradling it between her own.
“I had one living child of each marriage.” Jocasta’s long fingers probed delicately, touching each ring in turn. “Clementina belonged to John Cameron; him I wed when I myself was little more than a child; I bore her at sixteen. Seonag was the daughter of Black Hugh—she was dark, like her sire, but she had my brother Colum’s eyes.” She turned her own blind eyes toward Jamie, briefly, then bent her head back, touching the ring with three diamonds again.
“And then Morna, my last child. She was but sixteen when she died.”
The old woman’s face was bleak, but the line of her mouth softened, speaking the names of her vanished girls.
“I’m sorry, Aunt.” Bree spoke softly. She bent her head to kiss the knuckles of the hand she cradled, knobbed with age. Jocasta tightened her hand a little in acknowledgment, but did not mean to be distracted from her story.
“Hector Cameron gave me this,” Jocasta said, touching the ring. “And he killed them all. My children, my daughters. He killed them for the Frenchman’s gold.”
The shock of it took my breath and hollowed my stomach. I felt Jamie go still behind me, and saw Duncan’s bloodshot eyes go wide. Brianna didn’t change expression. She closed her eyes for a moment, but still held on to the long bony hand.
“What happened to them, Aunt?” she said quietly. “Tell me.”
Jocasta was silent for a few moments. So was the room; there was no sound save the hiss of beeswax burning, and the faint asthmatic wheeze of her breath. To my surprise, when she spoke again, it wasn’t to Brianna. Instead, she lifted her head and turned again toward Jamie.
“You know about the gold, then, a mhic mo pheathar?” she said. If he found this a strange question, he gave no sign of it, but answered calmly.
“I have heard something of it,” he said. He moved, coming round the bed to sit beside me, closer to his aunt. “It has been a rumor in the Highlands, ever since Culloden. Louis would send gold, they said, to help his cousin in his holy fight. And then they said the gold had come, yet no man saw it.”
“I saw it.” Jocasta’s wide mouth, so like her nephew’s, widened further in a sudden grimace, then relaxed. “I saw it,” she repeated.
“Thirty thousand pound, in gold bullion. I was with them the night it came ashore, rowed in from the French ship. It was in six small chests, each one so heavy that only two at a time could be brought, else the boat would sink. Each chest had the fleur-de-lis carved on the lid, each one bound with iron bands and a lock, each lock itself sealed with red wax, and the wax bore the print of King Louis’s ring. The fleur-de-lis.”
A sigh ran through us all at the words, a collective breath of awe. Jocasta nodded slowly, blind eyes open to the sights of that night long past.
“Where was it brought ashore, Aunt?” Jamie asked softly.
She nodded slowly, as though to herself, eyes fixed on the scene her memory painted.
“On Innismaraich,” she said. “A tiny isle, just off Coigach.”
I had been holding my breath. Now I let it out, slowly, and met Jamie’s eyes. Innismaraich. Island of the Sea-people; the silkies’ isle, it meant. We knew that place.
“There were the three men trusted with it,” she said. “Hector was one, my brother Dougal was another—the third man was masked; they all were, but of course I kent Hector and Dougal. I didna ken the third man, nor did any of them speak his name. I knew his servant, though; a man named Duncan Kerr.”
Jamie had stiffened slightly at Dougal’s name; at the name of Duncan Kerr he froze.
“There were servants, too?” he asked.
“Two,” she said, and a faint, bitter smile twisted her mouth. “The masked man brought Duncan Kerr, as I said, and my brother Dougal had a man with him from Leoch—I kent his face, but not his name. Hector had me to help him; I was a braw, strong woman—like you, a leannan, like you,” she said softly, squeezing Brianna’s hand. “I was strong, and Hector trusted me as he could trust no other. I trusted him, too—then.”
The noises from outside had died away, but a breeze through the broken pane stirred the curtains, uneasy as a ghost that hears its name called from a distance.
“There were three boats. The chests were small, but heavy enough that it took two persons to carry one between them. We took two chests into our boat, Hector and I, and we rowed away, into the fog. I could hear the splash of the others’ oars, growing fainter as they drew away, and then lost in the night.”
“When was this, Aunt?” Jamie asked, his eyes intent on her. “When did the gold come from France?”
“Too late,” she whispered. “Much too late. Damn Louis!” she exclaimed, with a sudden fierceness that brought her upright in her seat. “Damn the wicked Frenchman, and may his eyes rot as mine have! To think what might have been, had he been true to his blood and his word!”
Jamie’s eyes met mine, sidelong. Too late. Had the gold come sooner—when Charles landed at Glenfinnan, perhaps, or when he took Edinburgh, and for a few brief weeks held the city as a king returned—what then?
The ghost of a smile touched Jamie’s lips with ruefulness, and he glanced at Brianna, then back at me, the question asked and answered in his eyes. What, then?
“It was March,” Jocasta said, recovering from her outburst. “A freezing night, but clear as ice. I stood upon the cliff and looked far out to sea, and the path of the moon lay like gold on the water. The ship came sailing in upon that golden path, like a king to his coronation, and I did think it a sign.” Her head turned toward Jamie, and her mouth twisted abruptly.
“I did think I heard him laughing, then,” she said. “Black Brian. Him who took my sister from me. It would have been like him. But he was not there; I suppose it was only the barking of the silkies.”
I was watching Jamie as she spoke. He didn’t move, but like magic, the reddish hairs on his forearm rose, glinting like wires in the candlelight.
“I didna ken ye knew my father,” he said, a faint edge to his voice. “But let that be for now, Aunt. It was March, ye say?”
She nodded.
“Too late,” she repeated. “It was meant to have come two months before, Hector said. There were delays . . .”
It had been too late. In January, after the victory at Falkirk, such a show of support from France might have been decisive. But in March, the Highland Army was already moving north, turned back at Derby from its invasion of England. The last slim chance of victory had been lost, and Charles Stuart’s men were marching then toward destruction at Culloden.
With the chests safe ashore, the new guardians of the gold had conferred over what to do with the treasure. The army was moving, and Stuart with it; Edinburgh was once more in the hands of the English. There was no safe place to take it, no trustworthy hands into which it could be delivered.
“They didna trust O’Sullivan or the others near the Prince,” Jocasta explained. “Irishmen, Italians . . . Dougal said he hadna gone to so much trouble, only to have the gold squandered or stolen by foreigners.” She smiled, a little grimly. “He meant he didna want to chance losing the credit for having got it.”
The three keepers had been no more willing to trust one another than the Prince’s advisers. Most of the night had been spent in argument in the bleak upper room of a desolate tavern, while Jocasta and the two servants slept on the floor, among the red-sealed chests. Finally, the gold had been divided; each man had taken two of the chests, swearing on his blood to keep the secret and hold the treasure faithfully, in trust for his rightful monarch, King James.
“They made the two servants swear as well,” Jocasta said. “They cut each man, and the drops of blood shone redder in the candlelight than the wax seals on the chests.”
“Did you swear, too?” Brianna spoke quietly, but her eyes were intent on the white-haired figure in the chair.
“No, I didna swear.” Jocasta’s lips, still finely shaped, curved slightly, as though amused. “I was Hector’s wife; his oath bound me. Then.”
Uneasy in possession of so much wealth, the conspirators had left the tavern before dawn, bundling the chests in blankets and rags to hide them.
“A pair of travelers rode in, as the last of the chests was brought down. It was their coming that saved the innkeeper’s life, for it was a lonely spot, and he the only witness to our presence there that night. I think Dougal and Hector would not have thought to do such a thing—but the third man, he meant to dispose of the landlord; I saw it in his eyes, in the crouch of his body as he waited near the bottom of the stair, his hand on his dirk. He saw me watching—he smiled at me, beneath his mask.”
“And did he never unmask, this third man?” Jamie asked. His ruddy brows drew together as though by sheer concentration he could recreate the scene she saw in her mind’s eye, and identify the stranger.
She shook her head.
“No. I asked myself, now and then, when I thought of that night, would I know the man again, did I see him. I thought I would; he was dark, a slender man, but with a strength in him like knife steel. Could I see his eyes again, I would be sure of it. But now . . .” She shrugged. “Would I ken him by his voice alone? I canna say, so long ago it was.”
“But he wasna by any means an Irishman, this man?” Duncan was still pale and clammy-looking, but had raised himself on one elbow, listening with deep absorption.
Jocasta started a little, as though she had forgotten his presence.
“Ah! No, a dhuine. A Scot by his speech—a Highland gentleman.”
Duncan and Jamie exchanged glances.
“A MacKenzie or a Cameron?” Duncan asked softly, and Jamie nodded.
“Or perhaps one of the Grants.”
I understood their half-voiced speculations. There were—had been—a staggeringly complex array of associations and feuds among the Highland clans, and there were many who would not—could not—have cooperated in an undertaking of such importance and secrecy.
Colum MacKenzie had negotiated a close alliance with the Camerons; in fact, Jocasta herself had been part of that alliance, her marriage to a Cameron chief the token of it. If Dougal MacKenzie was one of the men who had engineered the receipt of the French gold, and Hector Cameron another, it was odds-on that the third man had been someone from one of those clans, or from another trusted by both. MacKenzie, Cameron . . . or Grant. And if Jocasta had not known the man by sight, the odds on his being a Grant improved, for she would have known most high-ranking tacksmen of clans MacKenzie or Cameron.
But there was no time now to consider such things; the story was not finished.
The conspirators had separated then, each going by his own way, each with one-third of the French gold. Jocasta had no knowledge of what Dougal MacKenzie or the unknown man had done with their chests; Hector Cameron had put the two chests he brought away into a hole in the floor of his bedroom, an old hiding place made by his father to conceal valuables.
Hector meant to leave it there until the Prince had reached some place of safety, where he could receive the gold, and use it for the furtherance of his aims. But Charles Stuart was already in flight, and would not find a place to rest for many months. Before he reached his final refuge, disaster intervened.
“Hector left the gold—and me—at home, and went to join the Prince and the army. On the seventeenth of April, he rode back into the dooryard at sunset, his horse lathered to a froth. He swung down and left the poor beast to a groom, while he rushed into the house and bade me pack what valuables I could—the Cause was lost, he said, and we must flee, or die with the Stuarts.”
Cameron was wealthy, even then, and canny enough to have kept his coach and horses, rather than giving them to the Stuart cause. Canny enough, too, not to carry two chests of French gold in his flight.
“He took three bars of the gold from one of the chests, and gave them to me. I hid them under the seat of the coach; he and the groom carried the chests awa to the wood—I didna see where they buried them.”
It was midday of April 18, when Hector Cameron boarded his coach, with his wife, his groom, his daughter Morna, and three bars of French bullion, and headed hell-for-leather south toward Edinburgh.
“Seonag was married to the Master of Garth—he declared early for the Stuarts; he was killed at Culloden, though of course we didna know it then. Clementina was widowed already, and living with her sister at Rovo.”
She took a deep breath, shuddering slightly, unwilling to relive the events she recounted, unable to resist them.
“I begged Hector to go to Rovo. It was only ten miles out of the way—it would have taken no but a few hours—but he wouldna stop. We could not, he said. Too big a risk, to take the time needed to fetch them. Clementina had two children, Seonag the one. Too many people for the coach, he said; it would slow us too much.
“Not to bring them away, then, I said. Only to warn them—only to see them once more.”
She paused.
“I kent where we were bound—we had talked of it, though I didna ken he had things in such readiness.”
Hector Cameron had been a Jacobite, but was also a keen judge of human affairs, and no man to throw his own life after a lost cause. Seeing how matters were falling out, and fearing some disaster, he had taken pains to engineer an escape. He had quietly put aside a few bags of clothing and necessities, turned what he could of his property into money, and secretly booked three open passages, from Edinburgh to the Colonies.
“Sometimes, I think I canna blame him,” Jocasta said. She sat bolt upright, the light of the candles gleaming from her hair. “He thought Seonag wouldna go without her husband, and Clementina wouldna risk her bairns at sea. Perhaps he was right about that. And perhaps it would have made no difference to warn them. But I knew I shouldna see them again. . . .” Her mouth closed, and she swallowed.
In any case, Hector had refused to stop, fearing pursuit. Cumberland’s troops had converged upon Culloden, but there were English soldiers on the Highland roads, and word of Charles Stuart’s defeat was spreading like ripples near the edge of a whirlpool, moving faster and faster, in a vortex of danger.
As it was, the Camerons were discovered, two days later, near Ochtertyre.
“A wheel came off the coach,” Jocasta said with a sigh. “Lord, I can see it now, spinning down the road by itself. The axletree was broke, and we’d no choice but to camp there by the road, while Hector and the groom made shift to mend it.”
Repairs had taken the best part of a day, and Hector had grown more and more edgy as the work went on, his anxiety infecting the rest of the party.
“I didna ken then what he’d seen at Culloden,” Jocasta said. “He kent weel enough that if the English took him, it was all up wi’ him. If they didna kill him on the spot, he’d be hangit as a traitor. He was sweating as he worked, and more wi’ fear than with the heat of his labor. But even so . . .” Her lips pressed tight for a moment, before she went on.
“It was nearly dusk—it was spring, dusk came early—when they got the wheel back on the coach, and everyone got back aboard. The coach had been in a wee hollow when the wheel flew off; the groom urged the horses up a long slope, and just as we reached the crest of the hill, two men with muskets stepped out from the shadows into the road ahead.”
It was a company of English soldiers, Cumberland’s men. Arriving too late to join in the victory at Culloden, they were inflamed by news of it—but frustrated at not sharing in the battle, and only too ready to wreak what vengeance they could on fleeing Highlanders.
Always a quick thinker, Hector had sunk back in the corner of the coach at sight of them, his head bent and a shawl pulled over it, pretending to be an aged crone, sunk in sleep. Following his hissed instructions, Jocasta had leaned out of the window, prepared to pose as a respectable lady traveling with her daughter and mother.
The soldiers had not waited to hear her speech. One yanked open the door of the coach, and dragged her out. Morna, panicked, had leapt out after her, trying to pull her mother away from the soldier. Another man had grabbed the girl, and dragged her back, so that he stood between Jocasta and the coach.
“Another minute, and they meant to have ‘Grannie’ out on the ground as well—and then they would find the gold, and it would be all up wi’ all of us.”
A pistol shot startled all of them into momentary immobility. Leaning from the coach’s open door, Hector had fired at the soldier holding Morna—but it was dusk and the light was poor; perhaps the horses had moved, jostling the coach. The shot struck Morna in the head.
“I ran to her,” Jocasta said. Her voice was hoarse, her throat gone dry and thick. “I ran to her, but Hector jumped out and seized me. The soldiers were all standing, staring with the shock. He dragged me back, into the coach, and shouted to the groom to drive, drive on!”
She licked her lips and swallowed, once.
“‘She is dead,’ he said to me. Over and over, ‘She is dead, you cannot help,’ he said, and held me tight when I would have thrown myself from the coach in my despair.”
Slowly she pulled her hand away from Brianna; she had needed support to begin her story, but needed none to finish it. Her hands folded into fists, pressed hard against the white linen of her shift, as though to stanch the bleeding of a desecrated womb.
“It had gone dark by then,” she said, and her voice was remote, detached. “I saw the glow of fires against the sky to the north.”
Cumberland’s troops were spreading outward, burning and pillaging. They reached Rovo, where Clementina and Seonag were with their families, and set the manor house afire. Jocasta never learned whether they had died in the fire, or later, starved and freezing in the cold Highland spring.
“So Hector saved his life—and mine, for what it was worth then,” she said, still detached. “And of course, he saved the gold.” Her fingers sought the ring again, and turned it slowly round upon its rod, so the stones caught the lamplight, glimmering.
“Indeed,” Jamie murmured. His eyes were fixed on the blind face, watching her intently. It struck me suddenly as unfair that he should watch her so, almost judging, when she could not look back, or even know how he looked at her. I touched him, and he glanced aside at me, then took my hand, squeezing it hard.
Jocasta put aside the rings and rose, restless now that the worst part of the story was told. She moved toward the window seat, knelt there, and brushed back the curtains. It was hard to believe her blind, seeing her move with such purpose—and yet this was her room, her place, and every item in it was scrupulously placed so that she could find her way. She pressed her hands against the icy glass and the night outside, and a white fog of condensation flared around her fingers like cold flames.
“Hector bought this place with the gold we brought,” she said. “The land, the mill, the slaves. To do him credit”—her tone suggested that she was not inclined to do any such thing—“the worth of it now is due in great part to his own work. But it was the gold that bought it, to begin with.”
“What of his oath?” Jamie asked softly.
“What of it?” she said, and uttered a short laugh. “Hector was a practical man. The Stuarts were finished; what need had they of gold, in Italy?”
“Practical,” I repeated, surprising myself; I hadn’t meant to speak, but I thought I had heard something odd in the way she spoke the word.
Evidently, I had. She turned around to face us, turning toward my voice. She was smiling, but a chill ran down my backbone at the sight of it.
“Aye, practical,” she said, nodding. “My daughters were dead; he saw no reason to waste tears upon them. He never spoke of them, and would not let me speak, either. He had been a man of worth once, he would be, again—not so easy here, had anyone known.” She breathed out, a heavy sound of stifled anger. “I daresay there are none in this land who even ken I was once a mother.”
“You still are,” said Brianna softly. “That much I know.” She glanced at me, and her blue eyes met mine, dark with understanding. I felt the sting of tears behind the smile I gave her back. Yes, that much she knew, as did I.
So did Jocasta; the lines of her face relaxed for a moment, fury and remembered despair displaced for a moment by longing. She walked slowly to where Brianna sat on her stool, and laid her free hand on Bree’s head. It rested there for a moment, then slid down, the long, sensitive fingers probing Brianna’s strong cheekbones, her wide lips and long, straight nose, tracing the small track of the wetness down her cheek.
“Aye, a leannan,” she said softly. “Ye ken what I mean. And ye ken now, why I would leave this place to you—or to your blood?”
Jamie coughed, breaking in before Bree could answer.
“Aye,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “So that is what ye told the Irishman tonight? Not all the story, to be sure—but that ye have no gold here?”
Jocasta’s hands dropped from Brianna’s face and she turned to face Jamie.
“Aye, I told them. Him. Told him that for all I kent, those chests were still buried in the wood in Scotland; he was welcome, I said, to go and dig there, and it suited him.” One corner of her mouth curled up in a bitter smile.
“He wasna inclined to take your word for it?”
She shook her head, lips pressed together.
“He wasna a gentleman,” she said again. “I canna say how it might have fallen out—for I sat near the bed, and I keep a wee knife beneath my pillow; I wouldna have suffered him to lay hands on me unscathed. Before I could reach for it, though, I heard footsteps in the dressing room.”
She waved a hand toward the door near the fireplace; her dressing room lay beyond, joining her bedroom to another—the room that had once been Hector Cameron’s, and was now presumably Duncan’s.
The intruders had heard the footsteps, too; the Irishman hissed something to his friend, then moved away from Jocasta, toward the hearth. The other fellow had come close then, and seized her from behind, a hand across her mouth.
“All I could tell ye from that was that the fellow wore a cap pulled low over his head, and he stank of liquor, as though he’d poured it over himself instead of drinking it.” She made a brief grimace of distaste.
The door had opened, Duncan had come in, and the Irishman had apparently leapt from behind the open door and clubbed him over the head.
“I dinna recall a thing,” Duncan said ruefully. “I came to bid Miss—that is, my wife—good night. I recall settin’ my hand upon the knob of the door, and next thing, I was lyin’ here wi’ my head split open.” He touched the lump tenderly, then looked at Jocasta with an anxious concern.
“You are all right, yourself, mo chridhe? The bastards didna offer ye ill use?” He stretched out a hand to her, then, realizing that she could not see him, tried to sit up. He collapsed with a stifled groan, and she stood up at the sound, coming hurriedly to the bedside.
“Of course I am all right,” she said, crossly, groping until she found his hand. “Save for the distress of thinking myself about to be a widow for the fourth time.” She let out a sigh of exasperation and sat down beside him, smoothing back a swath of loosened hair from her face.
“I couldna tell what had happened; I only heard the thud, and a dreadful groan as ye fell. Then the Irishman came back toward me, and the creature holding me let go.”
The Irishman had informed her pleasantly that he did not believe a word of her claim that there was no gold at River Run. He was convinced that the gold was here, and while he would not dream of offering harm to a lady, the same inhibitions did not obtain with respect to her husband.
“If I didna tell him where it was, he said, he and his companion would set in to cut wee bits off Duncan, beginning with his toes, and advancing to his ballocks,” Jocasta said bluntly. Duncan hadn’t much blood in his face to begin with, but what there was drained away at this. Jamie glanced at Duncan, then away, clearing his throat.
“Ye were convinced he meant it, I suppose.”
“He’d a good sharp knife; he ran it across the palm of my hand to show me that he was in earnest.” She opened her free hand; sure enough, a hair-thin red line ran across the heel of it.
She shrugged.
“Well, I supposed I couldna have that. So I made pretense of reluctance, until the Irishman went to pick up one of Duncan’s feet—then I wept and carried on, in hopes that someone would hear, but the damned servants had gone to bed, and the guests were too busy drinking my whisky and fornicating in the grounds and stables to hear.”
At this last remark, Bree’s face flamed a sudden crimson. Jamie saw it and coughed, avoiding my eye.
“Aye. So then—”
“So then I told them at last that the gold was buried under the floor of the shed outside the kitchen garden.” The look of satisfaction returned briefly to her face. “I thought they would come upon the body and ’twould put them off their stride for a bit. By the time they’d nerved themselves to dig, I hoped I should have found some way to escape or to give the alarm—and so I did.”
They had bound and gagged her hastily and gone to the shed, threatening to return and resume operations where they had left off, should they discover she had been lying to them. They had made no great job of the gag, though, and she had soon succeeded in tearing it away and kicking out a windowpane, through which to shout for help.
“So I am thinking that when they opened the door to the shed and saw the corpse, they must have dropped their lantern in shock, and so set fire to the place.” She nodded in grim satisfaction. “A small price. I could but wish I thought they had gone up with it!”
“Ye dinna suppose they set the fire on purpose?” Duncan asked. He was looking a little better, though still gray and ill. “To cover any marks of digging?”
Jocasta shrugged, dismissing the notion.
“To what end? There was nothing to be found there, and they dug themselves to China.” She was beginning to relax a little, a normal color returning to her face, though her broad shoulders had begun to droop with exhaustion.
Silence fell among us, and I became aware that there had been rising noises downstairs for some minutes now; male voices and footsteps. The various search parties had returned, but it was apparent from the tired, disgruntled tones that no suspects had been apprehended.
The candle on the table had burned very low by now; the flame stretched high near my elbow as the wick reached its last inch. One of the candles on the mantelpiece guttered and went out in a fragrant wisp of beeswax smoke. Jamie glanced automatically at the window; it was still dark outside, but the character of the night had changed, as it does soon before dawn.
The curtains moved silently, a chilly, restless air breathing through the room. Another candle went out. A second sleepless night was telling on me; I felt cold all over, numb and disembodied, and the various horrors I had seen and heard had begun to fade into unreality in my mind, with nothing save a lingering strong scent of burning to bear witness to them.
There seemed no more to say or to do. Ulysses came back, sliding discreetly into the room with a fresh candlestick and a tray holding a bottle of brandy and several glasses. Major MacDonald reappeared briefly to report that indeed, they had found no sign of the miscreants. I checked both Duncan and Jocasta briefly, and then left Bree and Ulysses to put them to bed.
Jamie and I made our way downstairs in silence. At the bottom of the staircase, I turned to him. He was white with fatigue, his features drawn and set as though he had been carved of marble, his hair and beard stubble dark in the shadowed light.
“They’ll come back, won’t they?” I said quietly.
He nodded, and taking my elbow, led me toward the kitchen stair.