Nine
ASHTON MANOR
February 1746
Katrine was very thin and unnaturally pale. For the first time in his life Lord Richard Wolfe was desperately afraid. Afraid he would lose her and the child she finally confessed to be carrying. Against his better judgment, he was almost convinced to allow her to return home to the loving ministrations of Janet Murray. The Highlands would bring the roses back to her cheeks. Now that she carried his child, he had no fear that she would leave him permanently. Katrine’s sense of duty was too ingrained. He frowned at the glass of ruby-colored liquid at his elbow. The port was strong, and for weeks he had been drinking heavily. Leaving the wine untouched, he walked out of his study to the stairs. There was a loud commotion at the door.
“What is it, Hastings?” Richard asked, his hand on the railing.
“This gentlemen seeks speech with Lady Wolfe.” The butler pointed to a bearded, disreputable-looking figure wrapped in plaid. “I told him she was unavailable, but he will not accept my answer.”
Richard walked toward the door. “Perhaps he will accept mine. My wife is resting, sir,” he said politely. “May I take her your message?”
“I canna’ do that,” the man said in a brogue so thick it was difficult to understand. “Wha’ I ha’ is for the lass, only. Do you ken?”
“Nevertheless, we will not wake her,” insisted Richard firmly. “You may wait in the hall if you like.”
“It’s all right, darling. I’m up now.” All heads turned to the voice at the top of the landing. Katrine, dressed in a loose-fitting gown of soft blue wool, appeared to float effortlessly down the stairs.
“Angus.” She held out her hand to the clansman. “’Tis lovely to see you. Have you eaten?”
Richard’s mouth twisted. Only Katrine, with the beautiful manners instilled into her from birth, would think to ask if this scowling, mud-stained peasant was hungry.
The man called Angus shook his head. “I’m to bring you to Scone, lass. Alasdair is dead and your ma beside hersel’.”
Katrine whitened and swayed. Richard sprang to her side, holding her up with his arm. “Damn you!” he swore. “Can’t you see that she is breeding.”
“Aye.” Angus nodded. “We’ll need a carriage. I brough’ only horses.”
Katrine straightened. “I’ll come immediately.”
“Katrine,” Richard protested. “You can’t be serious. Of course you must go, but ’tis nearly night. A few more hours won’t make a difference.”
She shook her head, her rain-colored eyes filled with tears. “I must leave now, Richard. Please understand.”
In the end, he let her go. It was after dark when the travel coach, emblazoned with the Wolfe crest, pulled out of the courtyard into the long driveway. Richard watched from the steps as the square-shaped cab pulled by six horses turned past the gates and disappeared into the mist. With a bleakness born of resignation, he knew that, given Katrine’s poor health, his child had only a prayer’s chance of surviving the journey.
***
Katrine’s heart lifted as she crossed the borders into Scotland. It was early February and bitterly cold, but she was home. Her brother was dead and nothing would ever be the same again, but she was finally home. That, in itself, was nothing short of a miracle. Here she would heal. She would speak to her mother and learn the source of the frightening nightmares that sucked the sleep from her exhausted body.
Janet Murray took one horrified look at her daughter’s emaciated figure with its large belly and another at her face, where the skin was stretched so tightly across the bones that the girl’s every heartbeat was evident in the blue veins pulsing at her temples, and refused to answer any questions. Instead she ordered her to bed. It wasn’t until later, weeks later, after fortifying broths and soothing plasters and honey-sweetened teas had added pounds to Katrine’s slender frame and filled out her cheeks, that she relented and told her about Alasdair.
He had fallen at Falkirk on the seventeenth of January. The battle was a victory for the prince’s army, but the advantage was not taken. In the confusion of a winter dusk, Alasdair was marched to Edinburgh, and hanged to death on the gallows. There was nothing anyone could do. Stirling surrendered to the prince, but the castle remained in government hands. Charles was at Inverness waiting out the winter weather. The duke of Cumberland, second son of the English king, had reached Aberdeen on the twenty-seventh of February. His army had received five thousand German troops under Prince Frederick of Hesse.
Katrine knew the duke from her London season. He was a heavy, pompous young man in his early twenties with a tendency to overrate his own importance. Still, he was an experienced commander, and the fact that he was in Scotland to command the English troops did not bode well for the Jacobites.
“You should not have returned to Scotland at this time, Katrine,” her mother admonished her. “What were you thinking?”
“I had to come,” Katrine replied softly. “Even if it weren’t for Alasdair, I still would have come. Ever since the standard was raised at Glenfinnan, I planned to return.”
“What does Richard say?”
Katrine bit her lip. “He was against it at first, but I think he was at the point of changing his mind. My illness frightened him. Of course, when Angus brought the news of Alasdair, he couldn’t refuse.”
“Angus went on his own,” said Janet. “I would never have sent him. You were safe in England.” She rose from the side of the bed and walked to the window. “I fear it is all at an end for the clans, Katrine. Your father is convinced that the retreat from London disheartened the troops. He has lost his hope of victory.”
“I did not come home for Scotland or for the Jacobite cause, Mother.”
At the odd note in her voice, Janet turned toward the bed and frowned. “What is it, Katrine? Why did you arrive here thin and pale, on the brink of death?”
Her eyes were huge and filled with terrible purpose. “’Tis the nightmares. They wake me night after night, always the same. Tell me, Mother. Tell me truly. Am I accursed? Am I destined to live the rest of my life with this fear of the night and my own sleep?”
Janet closed her eyes. Oh God, no. Please, no. What have we done, George and I? She looked again upon her daughter. “What is it that you see, Katrine?”
“I see two women from the past.”
“Women?” asked Janet sharply. “There is more than one?”
Katrine nodded.
Her mother sat down beside her on the bed. “Tell me of your dreams.”
Katrine closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the pillow. It was such a relief to confide in someone. Someone who carried the same dark legacy in her blood. “Do you know of Mairi of Shiels, Mother?”
“Aye.” Janet’s lips trembled. She knew more than she wanted of Mairi Maxwell of Shiels.
“She married David Murray before Bannockburn,” Katrine continued. “But she loved King Edward of England. She was killed for giving him the Coronation Stone and cursed by David’s mother, Lady Douglas.” Her eyes were huge in her too-thin face. “The woman was a witch, Mother. Her curse haunts us still. It comes through the women of the Murray line.” In a hushed whisper she told of Mairi’s deception, of how she switched the stones, of the long, narrow passageway, the flickering candles, the netherworld-lit stone in the burial crypt, and the desperate, persuasive power of Mairi’s haunted eyes.
“You said there were two women,” Janet reminded her. “Who else did you see?”
Katrine took several deep breaths, willing her thundering heart to calm itself. “Every night I see it over and over again. There is a wide moor filled with horses and armor and stained with blood. The wounded cry out. ’Tis a horrible sight. It smells of death and rotting flesh. Mountains overlook the moor on three sides.” Katrine wrinkled her nose against the odor and swatted at imaginary flies.
Janet’s hand rose to her throat. Flodden Moor! She could almost see the terrifying images Katrine described.
“A woman, richly dressed, walks among the bodies,” said Katrine. “She searches the wounded on the field, turning them over, one after another, asking those who live, ‘Where is John Maxwell?’ Finally she finds the one she seeks. With a cry, she pulls his head into her lap. ‘You’re very pale, my love,’ he says. ‘You must eat. It isn’t wise for you to go without food. Don’t cry, Jeannie,’ he begs her. ‘Maxwells never cry.’”
Tears rolling down her cheeks, Katrine sat up and grasped her mother’s shoulders. “’Tis my own face I see,” she whispered. “Tell me why Mairi of Shiels and Jeanne Maxwell have my face.”
Janet’s eyes were wide with shock and startled recognition. “Of course,” she said, tracing the bones of her daughter’s cheeks with wondering fingers. “How could I not have seen it? Yet, it was so very long ago when they last came to me.”
“What are you saying?”
Katrine’s horrified whisper pulled Janet back into the present. She sighed and explained. “I, too, was afflicted with the nightmares. They first came when I carried you. After you were born, they disappeared forever. I believe ’tis the curse.”
“But you are a Douglas, not a Murray,” Katrine protested.
Janet shook her head. “I cannot explain everything, my love. Lady Douglas was a Murray and also a Douglas by marriage. She gave her husband three children. Our families have intermarried so often that it would be an amazing thing were we not all related.” Her hands clenched in her lap. “There was opposition when your father and I wanted to wed,” she confessed. “I carry Maxwell and Douglas blood. Your father is a Murray from the line of David and Mairi. Although no one admits to actually believing the power of the curse, they all step carefully around it.” She reached out and brushed the hair back from her daughter’s brow. “I believe there are many who have had the dreams. Otherwise the curse would have long since been forgotten. It is only dangerous when all the conditions are present.”
“What are the other conditions?”
“I’m not sure.”
Katrine’s forehead wrinkled in concentration. “There must be a reason we dream of only these two. Something about them was the same.” She gasped and clutched her mother’s sleeve as a thought occurred to her. Looking into Janet’s dark eyes, she realized her mother had come to the same conclusion. “They have my face,” she whispered. “They died horribly and they have my face.”
“It means nothing, nothing at all.” Janet was on the brink of hysteria. “When you have the bairn, this nonsense will stop just as it did for me.”
Katrine kicked away the confining bedcovers. Taking Janet’s hands in her own, she knelt beside her and spoke slowly and deliberately. “Don’t you see, Mother? I am the one. I must prove Mairi of Shiels did not betray Scotland. I must end the curse or I will not live to bear my child.”
Janet’s eyes burned with an eerie light. For a moment, Katrine thought she recognized the fanatical glow of Grizelle Douglas’s witchery in her mother’s gentle face.
“No, Katrine,” she said softly. “You have it all wrong. The child will be born first. Mairi and Jeanne bore their sons. Otherwise you would not be here.”
“Of course.” Katrine barely whispered the words, but Janet, tuned to every nuance of her daughter’s expression, heard them. “Alasdair will never sire children. There is no one left but me.” She turned determined eyes on her mother. “Somehow we must find the stone. If my child is a girl, she will inherit the curse, and if it is not, then ’tis I who will die.”
Janet did not tell her daughter that she had never seen Jeanne Maxwell in her dreams nor had Mairi ever drawn her down a cold, narrow passageway. Before Katrine had revealed the nature of the curse, she had known nothing of the stone. All that she knew of Mairi of Shiels was of the moments before her death.
There was compassion and pain and tremendous love in the kiss Janet placed on the young cheek beside her. She saw no point in telling Katrine that she was most definitely “the one” and that the child she carried was not a girl.
BLAIR CASTLE
1993
I don’t know when I realized that the words in Janet Douglas’s diary fell far short of the story that unfolded before me. The words were there, of course, and beautifully written but not the way I saw them. There was nothing in the black, carefully bound book that described the clarity of Katrine Murray’s bones beneath her pale skin or the look of anguish in her eyes. Nor did the words describe the sudden meeting of minds between mother and daughter as they stared at one another. I knew what Katrine would do next as surely as I drew breath. I knew because it was exactly what I would do. She would search for the stone.
Brushing away tears, I stood and walked to the window. Rubbing my arms against the cold, I stared outside at green lawns and pine forests. Blair Castle was well heated. The sudden chill in the room had nothing to do with temperature. It had to do with my ability to see into an unalterable past. With an overwhelming sense of despair, I knew that Katrine Murray would fail in her quest. She would fail because I was alive with all the conditions she knew nothing about. All except one. I was not pregnant. Or at least I hadn’t been when Mairi of Shiels first led me down the dark passageway to the stone.
Leaning against the window, I closed my eyes and let the visions clamoring for release inside my head envelop me.
April 1746
Katrine pressed the scented handkerchief against her nose and rubbed her enormous stomach. She was exhausted and longed to rest her aching back against the dungeon wall, but she dared not. The hewn stone ran wet with dampness, and the cold was so intense it seeped through her woolen cloak, past her gown and petticoats to the sensitive skin beneath. She knew she shouldn’t be here. The slick stone stairway with its numbing cold and lonely isolation, with its scurrying rats and shadowed darkness, was no place for a woman in her last month of pregnancy.
The stone was not to be found here at Scone Castle, and it wasn’t at Blair-Atholl. She had searched every room, every hidden stairway, every cell, every rank-smelling and musty dungeon, to no avail. Nothing even remotely resembled the hallways of her dream. The narrow passageway and large burial chamber filled with death masks and glowing light was nowhere to be found. Only Traquair was left to explore. Traquair with its secret stairs and hidden cellars, its ancient library, and tranquil, gracious public rooms. Traquair, a refuge for Catholic priests, a pleasure ground for Scottish kings, Jacobite seat of the Maxwells, and home to Jeanne Maxwell, direct descendent of Mairi of Shiels.
The thought of Traquair terrified Katrine. She and Alasdair had visited the house many times from early childhood. The Maxwells were cousins to both the Murray and Douglas sides of their family. But this was different. Traquair was where Mairi and Jeanne had been killed. It was also the last logical resting place for the stone. There was no other place she could think of to look.
There was another complication that Katrine refused to admit even to herself. Duncan Forbes was at Traquair. The persistence of his suit had not abated even when her pregnancy became obvious. Her English husband was very far away, and his last letter was over four weeks old. It was rumored that Prince Charles was expected at Traquair. Duncan, a Whig and Hanover supporter, had been sent to persuade Charles that his cause was hopeless, to lay down his arms and return to France.
***
Richard Wolfe cursed fluently and kicked the rock under his boot. It had been weeks since he’d heard from Katrine. Now, when he was at Nairn and less than a day’s journey from Blair, his position as aide to the duke of Cumberland made it impossible to go to her. The duke’s army of nine thousand foot and horse soldiers was camped on Drumossie Moor, a wide bare plain that might have been made specifically for the maneuvers of the disciplined infantry.
To the south, across the River Nairn, was the broken, hilly ground George Murray had chosen for the battle site. He had been rebuffed by the Irishman, O’Sullivan. Prince Charles, blinded by the man’s flattery, chose to accept his counsel rather than the hard-headed appraisal of Murray, who had proven himself to be a brilliant military tactician. Richard knew there was little doubt as to the outcome of the battle to come. The five thousand Jacobite troops, weak from lack of provisions, hadn’t a chance.
He drew his cloak around him and looked disapprovingly at the primitive beauty of Drumossie Moor. If he never saw this godforsaken country again, it would be too soon. He missed the manicured loveliness of the England countryside. He missed his valet and his library and the gracious decorum of life at Ashton Manor. He missed breakfast in the sunlit room near the conservatory and the excellent claret waiting for him in his wine cellar. He missed discussing horseflesh with his groom and finances with his secretary. He missed clean sheets and feather mattresses and warm bathwater. Most of all, he missed Katrine. He ached for the mere sight of her. Christ! How had he, Richard Wolfe, become embroiled in this absurdity? He closed his eyes and prayed for the first time since he was a boy. If God was merciful, when next he stood before his wife, it would be without her father’s blood on his hands.
“Richard?” The quiet voice interrupted his thoughts.
He turned, and his eyes widened. George Murray, immaculately dressed in wig and hat, stood before him.
“How did you manage to pass through our lines?” Richard asked.
Murray’s smile was grim. “There are enough Scots in the duke’s regiment to make one more nearly invisible.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Richard’s pain was genuine. Never, in his darkest moments, had he believed it would come to this.
George smiled again. “I didn’t come to blame you, lad. I came to ask a favor.”
“You know I won’t let anything happen to Katrine or your family,” Richard assured him.
“It isn’t Katrine I worry about. ’Tis the clans. Cumberland knows that if the prince’s cause is to find support anywhere in Britain, it will be the Highlands. Use your influence, Richard. Plead for mercy.”
“You speak as if the outcome is a foregone conclusion.”
Murray gestured toward the wide expanse of plain that was Drumossie Moor. “Have you ever seen a more inappropriate ground for Highlanders?” he asked the younger man.
Richard, who knew something of the Highland clans’ sole battle tactic, that terrifying uncontrolled charge followed by merciless work with a broadsword and dirk, had to agree. “I didn’t realize O’Sullivan’s influence carried such weight.”
“O’Sullivan has a way with words,” replied George dryly, turning away.
“Wait.” Richard’s voice stopped him. “How did you leave Katrine?”
“She is well,” replied George without turning around. “Take care, lad. Every bairn needs a father to keep him in line.”
Richard watched his father-in-law’s tall, raw-boned figure disappear into the mists.
***
Charles Edward Stuart looked every inch a prince as he lifted Katrine’s hand to his lips. “Your father never told me that you had married, Lady Katrine,” he said. “Who is the fortunate man?”
She lifted her chin and met the dark eyes of her prince defiantly, “He is English, Your Grace. Perhaps you’ve heard of Richard Wolfe?”
“Indeed I have,” replied Charles pleasantly. “A good man.” He looked pointedly at Katrine’s protruding stomach and grinned. “Apparently marriage agrees with you. In France you were not so encumbered.”
She blushed. “I apologize for receiving you in this condition. My visit to Traquair House was unexpected.”
His eyes twinkled down at her. “Apologies are unnecessary, lass. You are lovely as usual, and motherhood is a noble undertaking. May I escort you to dinner?”
At that moment Katrine realized what it was about this tall, slender young man that won hearts to his cause. She smiled. “I would be honored, Your Grace.”
Dinner was excellent. His lordship’s cook, upon learning that Prince Charlie himself would be dining at Traquair, outdid himself. The roasted lamb was pronounced delicious, the pasties light and rich, the black pudding and haggis the best the assembled guests had tasted.
Herbert Maxwell, laird of Traquair and an ardent Jacobite, was delighted. With the exception of Duncan Forbes at his table, the evening could not have been more perfect. If Duncan’s mother had not been a Maxwell, the man would have been shown the door and hospitality be damned. Maxwell shook his finger at his unwelcome guest. “How dare you suggest that our prince will not be victorious?”
Duncan’s mouth thinned. “Easily,” he replied. “His forces are outnumbered by a highly trained, well-fed, well-paid army.” He focused his attention on the prince. “I beg you, sir. Fall back. Disband your men and return to France. Nothing will come of this but destruction of the Highland clans.”
“Are you omniscient, Forbes?” The prince’s brown eyes glinted with anger. “Can you assure the government forces their victory and my own defeat?”
“It does not take a genius to do so,” Duncan replied bluntly, “only a man with his eyes and ears open.”
The prince inspected his wineglass. “How interesting an interpretation.”
Katrine saw the pulse leap in Duncan’s throat and marveled at his ability to keep his temper. “Are you aware that Cumberland intends complete annihilation of the clans?” he demanded. “There will be no quarter given, not even to the wounded. Glens will be laid to waste and looting sanctioned. Leaders will be executed, and those that are spared will be stripped of their hereditary powers. Is that what you wish for those whose loyalty is yours?”
“Not even Cumberland would stoop to such butchery,” protested Maxwell.
“Would he not?” Duncan spoke softly, but no one could mistake his meaning. “Why don’t you ask Katrine what matter of man he is? She knew him in London. Perhaps another Jacobite can convince you.”
“Katrine?” Charles smiled across the table at her. “Do you agree with Duncan? Shall I call an end to our cause?”
“Would you?” Her large, black-lashed eyes challenged him.
“No,” he replied honestly and grinned.
She smiled wearily and rose to her feet. “Then I’ll bid you good night.” All three men rose, but she waved them to their seats. “Don’t get up. I can find my own way.”
Katrine climbed the stairs that led to the guest bedchambers. But instead of turning down the corridor that led to her room, she moved in the opposite direction toward the secret stairs that led to the hidden priests’ rooms. Last night, in her dreams, Mairi had come to her once again. This time Katrine willed herself to stay calm, refusing to succumb to the terror of the dark passageway and steep, slippery steps. Instead she concentrated on landmarks, committing to memory every turn, every miss, every ancient smoking sconce, on her way to the crypt.
She had awakened early that morning alert and rested for the first time in months, her senses sharp with awareness. Her eyes sparkled, and the dark shadows beneath her lashes had disappeared altogether. Hope surged through her veins. She felt piercingly, vibrantly alive, like a felon destined for the gallows who is unexpectedly reprieved at the final hour. The answer had come to her when she tripped over a jagged irregular step. In a sudden rush of memory, Katrine realized she had traveled this way before, first as a little girl with Alasdair and later with Gavin Maxwell, Herbert’s oldest son. She knew where to find Mairi’s passageway.
Now, all she needed was a chance to search the rooms above the secret stairway in privacy. The men were still arguing among themselves, and her pregnancy had given her the excuse to retire early. Her maid wouldn’t look for her for another two hours.
Rubbing her arms against the chill, Katrine carefully climbed the twisting stairs. The well was so narrow that she found herself walking sideways in order to squeeze through the narrow turns. Her breath came in shallow gasps, and she stopped several times, bracing herself against the walls. Finally, she was at the top. She didn’t bother to search the rooms but went directly to a rosewood panel near the mantel. Mairi had led her down, not up. Wherever the stone was hidden would not be at the top of Traquair House.
Using all her strength, Katrine pushed on the carved wood and held her breath. A door, cleverly carved to match the wall, opened onto a narrow stone tunnel. Sighing with relief, she leaned against the wall and pushed a tendril of hair from her forehead with a shaking hand. This was it, the passageway that led to the Stone of Destiny.
Breathing deeply, she straightened and looked around. Spying a footstool in the corner, she pulled it out, anchored the door open, and stepped inside the tunnel. She walked slowly, shifting her weight to accommodate the stitch in her side that grew more irritating by the minute. Ignoring the tightening bands of pain around her back and stomach, she continued down the passageway. Her excitement grew as she recognized the jagged irregular step from her dream. In the distance a pale glow beckoned her. The space narrowed and darkened. Katrine could no longer see the light. She hurried forward, gasped, and doubled over as a knifelike pain gripped her. Holy God! Could it be the child?
Katrine turned back, frantic with fear. The stone would have to wait. She stumbled as her foot searched the darkness for a hold on the step. How far had she come? Would there be time enough to return? Running her hands along the walls, she climbed, half walking, half crawling her way up, stopping only when the waves of pain rocked her with an intensity that sucked out her breath and drew the waning strength from her limbs. Her stomach felt very hard. Suddenly she gasped. A flooding warmth rushed down her legs, soaking her undergarments and ruining her satin slippers. Was it blood? Horrified at this unknown phenomenon, the fine edge of her control slipped away. Shaking with fear for her unborn child, Katrine cried out, “Help me. Oh, God! Someone please help me.”