43
FALKIRK
I could feel the men close by, all around me in the dark. There was a piper walking next to me; I could hear the creak of the bag under his arm and see the outline of the drones, poking out behind. They moved as he walked, so that he seemed to be carrying a small, feebly struggling animal.
I knew him, a man named Labhriunn MacIan. The pipers of the clans took it in turns to call the dawn at Stirling, walking to and fro in the encampment with the piper’s measured stride, so that the wail of the drones bounced from the flimsy tents, calling all within to the battle of the new day.
Again in the evening a single piper would come out, strolling slow across the yard, and the camp would stop to listen, voices stilling and the glow of the sunset fading from the tents’ canvas. The high, whining notes of the pibroch called down the shadows from the moor, and when the piper was done, the night had come.
Evening or morning, Labhriunn MacIan played with his eyes closed, stepping sure and slow across the yard and back, elbow tight on the bag and his fingers lively on the chanters’ holes. Despite the cold, I sat sometimes to watch in the evenings, letting the sound drive its spikes through my heart. MacIan paced to and fro, ignoring everything around him, making his turns on the ball of his foot, pouring his being out through his chanter.
There are the small Irish pipes, used indoors for making music, and the Great Northern pipes, used outdoors for reveille, and for calling of clans to order, and the spurring of men to battle. It was the Northern pipes that MacIan played, walking to and fro with his eyes shut tight.
Rising from my seat as he finished one evening, I waited while he pressed the last of the air from his bag with a dying wail, and fell in alongside him as he came in through Stirling’s gate with a nod to the guard.
“Good e’en to ye, Mistress,” he said. His voice was soft, and his eyes, now open, softer still with the unbroken spell of his playing still on him.
“Good evening to you, MacIan,” I said. “I wondered, MacIan, why do you play with your eyes tight shut?”
He smiled and scratched his head, but answered readily enough.
“I suppose it is because my grandsire taught me, Mistress, and he was blind. I see him always when I play, pacing the shore with his beard flying in the wind and his blind eyes closed against the sting of the sand, hearing the sound of the pipes come down to him off the rocks of the cliffside and knowing from that where he was in his walk.”
“So you see him, and you play, too, to the cliffs and the sea? From where do you come, MacIan?” I asked. His speech was low and sibilant, even more than that of most Highlanders.
“It is from the Shetlands, Mistress,” he replied, making the last word almost “Zetlands.” “A long way from here.” He smiled again, and bowed to me as we came to the guest quarters, where I would turn. “But then, I am thinking that you have come farther still, Mistress.”
“That’s’true,” I said. “Good night, MacIan.”
Later that week, I wondered whether his skill at playing unseeing would help him, here in the dark. A large body of men moving makes a good bit of noise, no matter how quietly they go, but I thought any echoes they created would be drowned in the howl of the rising wind. The night was moonless, but the sky was light with clouds, and an icy sleet was falling, stinging my cheeks.
The men of the Highland army covered the ground in small groups of ten or twenty, moving in uneven bumps and patches, as though the earth thrust up small hillocks here and there, or as though the groves of larch and alder were walking through the dark. My news had not come unsupported; Ewan Cameron’s spies had reported Hawley’s moves as well, and the Scottish army was now on its way to meet him, somewhere south of Stirling Castle.
Jamie had given up urging me to go back. I had promised to stay out of the way, but if there was a battle to be fought, then the army’s physicians must be at hand afterward. I could tell when his attention shifted to his men, and the prospects ahead, by the sudden cock of his head. On Donas, he sat high enough to be visible as a shadow, even in the dark, and when he threw up an arm, two smaller shadows detached themselves from the moving mass and came up beside his stirrup. There was a moment’s whispered conversation; then he straightened in his saddle and turned to me.
“The scouts say we’ve been seen; English guards have gone flying for Callendar House, to warn General Hawley. We shallna wait longer; I’m taking my men and circling beyond Dougal’s troops to the far side of Falkirk Hill. We’ll come down from behind as the MacKenzies come in from the west. There’s a wee kirk up the hill to your left, maybe a quarter-mile. That’s your place, Sassenach. Ride there now, and stay.” He groped for my arm in the darkness, found it, and squeezed.
“I shall come for ye when I can, or send Murtagh if I can’t. If things should go wrong, go into the kirk and claim sanctuary there. It’s the best I can think of.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. My lips were cold, and I hoped my voice didn’t sound as shaky as I felt. I bit back the “Be careful” that would have been my next words, and contented myself with touching him quickly, the cold surface of his cheek hard as metal under my hand, and the brush of a lock of hair, cold and smooth as a deer’s pelt.
I reined to the left, picking my way slowly as the oncoming men flowed around me. The gelding was excited by the stir; he tossed his head, snorting, and fidgeted under me. I pulled him up sharply, as Jamie had taught me, and kept a close rein as the ground sloped suddenly up beneath the horse’s hooves. I glanced back once, but Jamie had disappeared into the night, and I needed all my attention to find the church in the dark.
It was a tiny building, stone with a thatched roof, crouched in a small depression of the hill, like a cowering animal. I felt a strong feeling of kinship with it. The English watchfires were visible from here, glimmering through the sleet, and I could hear shouting in the distance—Scots or English, I couldn’t tell.
Then the pipes began, a thin, eerie scream in the storm. There were discordant shrieks, rising unearthly from several different places on the hill. Having seen it before at close hand, I could imagine the pipers blowing up their bags, chests inflating with quick gasps and blue lips clamped tight on the chanters’ stems, cold-stiff fingers fumbling to guide the blowing into coherence.
I could almost feel the stubborn resistance of the leathern bag, kept warm and flexible under a plaid, but reluctant to be coaxed into fullness, then suddenly springing to life, part of the piper’s body, like a third lung, breathing for him when the wind stole his breath, as though the shouting of the clansmen near him filled it.
The shouting was louder, now, and reached me in waves as the wind turned, carrying eddying blasts of sleet. There was no porch to give shelter, or any trees on the hillside to break the wind. My horse turned and put his head down, facing into the wind, and his mane whipped hard against my face, rough with ice.
The church offered sanctuary from the elements, as well as from the English. I pushed the door open and, tugging on the bridle, led the horse inside after me.
It was dark inside, with the single oiled-skin window no more than a dim patch in the blackness over the altar. It seemed warm, by contrast with the weather outside, but the smell of stale sweat made it suffocating. There were no seats for the horse to knock over; nothing save a small shrine set into one wall, and the altar itself. Oppressed by the strong smell of people, the horse stood still, snorting and blowing, but not fidgeting overmuch. Keeping a wary eye on him, I went back to the door and thrust my head out.
No one could tell what was happening on Falkirk Hill. The sparks of gunfire twinkled randomly in the dark. I could hear, faint and intermittent, the ring of metal and the thump of an occasional explosion. Now and then came the scream of a wounded man, high as a bagpipe’s screech, different from the Gaelic cries of the warriors. And then the wind would turn, and I would hear nothing, or would imagine I heard voices that were nothing but the shrieking wind.
I had not seen the fight at Prestonpans; subconsciously accustomed to the ponderous movements of huge armies bound to tanks and mortars, I had not realized just how quickly things could happen in a small pitched battle of hand-to-hand fighting and small, light arms.
The first warning I had was a shout from near at hand. “Tulacb Ard!” Deafened by wind, I hadn’t heard them as they came up the hill. “Tulacb Ard!” It was the battle cry of clan MacKenzie; some of Dougal’s troops, forced backward in the direction of my sanctuary. I ducked back inside, but kept the door ajar, so that I could peer out.
They were coming up the hill, a small group of men in flight. Highlanders, both from the sound and the sight of them, plaids and beards and hair flying around them, so they looked like black clouds against the grassy slope, scudding uphill before the wind.
I jumped back into the church as the first of them burst through the door. Dark as it was, I couldn’t see his face, but I recognized his voice when he crashed headfirst into my horse.
“Jesus!”
“Willie!” I shouted. “Willie Coulter!”
“Sweet bleeding Jesus! Who’s that!”
I hadn’t time to answer before the door crashed against the wall, and two more black forms shot into the tiny church. Incensed by this noisy intrusion, my horse reared and whinnied, pawing the air. This gave rise to cries of alarm from the intruders, who clearly had thought the building unoccupied, and were disconcerted to find otherwise.
The entrance of several more men only increased the confusion, and I gave up any idea of trying to subdue the horse. Forced to the rear of the church, I squeezed myself into the small space between altar and wall and waited for things to sort themselves out.
They began to show signs of doing so when one of the confused voices in the darkness rose above the others.
“Be QUIET!” it shouted, in a tone that brooked no opposition. Everyone but the horse obeyed, and as the racket died down, even the horse subsided, backing into a corner and making snorting noises, mixed with querulous squeals of disgust.
“It is MacKenzie of Leoch,” said the imperious voice. “Who else bides here?”
“It is Geordie, Dougal, and my brother with me,” said a voice nearby, in tones of profound relief. “We’ve brought Rupert with us, too; he’s wounded. Christ, I thought it was the de’il himself in here!”
“Gordon McLeod of Ardsmuir,” said another voice I didn’t recognize.
“And Ewan Cameron of Kinnoch,” said another. “Whose is the horse?”
“Mine,” I said, sidling cautiously out from behind the altar. The sound of my voice caused another outbreak, but Dougal put a stop to it once more, raising his own voice above the racket.
“QUIET, damn the lot of ye! Is that you, Claire Fraser?”
“Well, it isn’t the Queen,” I said testily. “Willie Coulter’s in here, too, or he was a minute ago. Hasn’t anyone got a flint box?”
“No light!” said Dougal. “Little chance that the English will overlook this place if they follow us, but little sense in drawing their attention to it if they don’t.”
“All right,” I said, biting my lip. “Rupert, can you talk? Say something so I can tell where you are.” I didn’t know how much I could do for him in the dark; as it was, I couldn’t even reach my medicine box. Still, I couldn’t leave him to bleed to death on the floor.
There was a nasty-sounding cough from the side of the church opposite me, and a hoarse voice said, “Here, lass,” and coughed again.
I felt my way across the floor, cursing under my breath. I could tell merely from the bubbling sound of that cough that it was bad; the sort of bad that my medicine box wasn’t likely to help. I crouched and duck-walked the last few feet, waving my arms in a wide swathe to feel what might be in my way.
One hand struck a warm body, and a big hand fastened on to me. It had to be Rupert; I could hear him breathing, a stertorous sound with a faint gurgle behind it.
“I’m here,” I said, patting him blindly in what I hoped was a reassuring spot. I supposed it was, because he gave a sort of gasping chuckle and arched his hips, pressing my hand down hard against him.
“Do that again, lass, and I’ll forget all about the musket ball,” he said. I grabbed my hand back.
“Perhaps a bit later,” I said dryly. I moved my hand upward, skimming over his body in search of his head. The thick bristle of beard told me I’d reached my goal, and I felt carefully under the dense growth for the pulse in his throat. Fast and light, but still fairly regular. His forehead was slick with sweat, though his skin felt clammy to the touch. The tip of his nose was cold when I brushed it, chilled from the air outside.
“Pity I’m no a dog,” he said, a thread of laughter coming between the gasps for air. “Cold nose … would be a good sign.”
“Be a better sign if you’d quit talking,” I said. “Where did the ball take you? No, don’t tell me, take my hand and put it on the wound … and if you put it anywhere else, Rupert MacKenzie, you can die here like a dog, and good riddance to you.”
I could feel the wide chest vibrate with suppressed laughter under my hand. He drew my hand slowly under his plaid, and I pushed back the obstructing fabric with my other hand.
“All right, I’ve got it,” I whispered. I could feel the small tear in his shirt, damp with blood around the edges, and I put both hands to it and ripped it open. I brushed my fingers very lightly down his side, feeling the ripple of gooseflesh under them, and then the small hole of the entrance wound. It seemed a remarkably small hole, compared to the bulk of Rupert, who was a burly man.
“Did it come out anywhere?” I whispered. The inside of the church was quiet, except for the horse, who was moving restlessly in his own corner. With the door closed, the sounds of battle outside were still audible, but diffuse; it was impossible to tell how close they were.
“No,” he said, and coughed again. I could feel his hand move toward his mouth, and I followed it with a fold of his plaid. My eyes were as accustomed to the darkness as they were likely to get, but he was still no more than a hunched black shape on the floor before me. For some things, though, touch was enough. There was little bleeding at the site of the wound, but the cloth I held to his mouth flooded my hand with sudden damp warmth.
The ball had taken him through one lung at least, possibly both, and his chest was filling with blood. He could last a few hours in this condition, perhaps a day if one lung remained functional. If the pericardium had been nicked, he would go faster. But only surgery would save him, and that of a kind I couldn’t do.
I could feel a warm presence behind me, and heard normal breathing as someone groped toward me. I reached back and felt my hand gripped tight. Dougal MacKenzie.
He made his way up beside me, and laid a hand on Rupert’s supine body.
“How is it, man?” he asked softly. “Can ye walk?” My other hand still on Rupert, I could feel his head shake in answer to Dougal’s question. The men in the church behind us had begun to talk among themselves in whispers.
Dougal’s hand pressed down on my shoulder.
“What d’ye need to help him? Your wee box? Is it on the horse?” He had risen before I could tell him that there was nothing in the box to help Rupert.
A sudden loud crack from the altar stopped the whispers, and there was a quick movement all around, as men snatched up the weapons they had laid down. Another crack, and a ripping noise, and the oiled-skin covering of the window gave way to a rush of cold, clean air and a few swirling snowflakes.
“Sassenach! Claire! Are ye there?” The low voice from the window brought me to my feet in momentary forgetfulness of Rupert.
“Jamie!” All around me was a collective exhalation, and the clank of falling swords and targes. The new faint light from outdoors was blotted out for a moment by the bulk of Jamie’s head and shoulders. He dropped down lightly from the altar, silhouetted against the open window.
“Who’s here?” he said softly, looking around. “Dougal, is that you?”
“Aye, it’s me, lad. Your wife and a few more. Did ye see the sassenach bastards anywhere near outside?”
Jamie uttered a short laugh.
“Why d’ye think I came in through the window? There’s maybe twenty of them at the foot of the hill.”
Dougal made a displeased noise deep in his throat. “The bastards that cut us off from the main troop, I’ll be bound.”
“Just so. Ho, mo cridh! Ciamar a tha thu?” Recognizing a familiar voice in the midst of madness, my horse had thrust its nose up with a loud whinny of greeting.
“Hush, ye wee fool!” Dougal said to it violently. “D’ye want the English to hear?”
“I dinna suppose the English would hang him,” Jamie observed mildly. “As for them telling you’re here, they won’t need ears, if they’ve eyes in their heads; the slope’s half mud outside, and the prints of all your feet show clear.”
“Mmphm.” Dougal cast an eye toward the window, but Jamie was already shaking his head.
“No good, Dougal. The main body’s to the south, and Lord George Murray’s gone to meet them, but there’s the few English from the party we met still left on this side. A group of them chased me over the hill; I dodged to the side and crawled up to the church on my belly through the grass, but I’ll guess they’re still combing the hillside above.” He reached out a hand in my direction, and I took it. It was cold and damp from crawling through grass, but I was glad just to touch him, to have him there.
“Crawled in, eh? And how were ye planning to get out again?” Dougal asked.
I could feel Jamie shrug. He tilted his head in the direction of my horse. “I’d thought I might burst out and ride them down; they’ll not know about the horse. That would cause enough kerfuffle maybe for Claire to slip free.”
Dougal snorted. “Aye, and they’d pick ye off your horse like a ripe apple.”
“It hardly matters,” Jamie said dryly. “I canna see the lot of ye to be slipping out quietly with no one noticing, no matter how much fuss I made over it.”
As though in confirmation of this, Rupert gave a loud groan by the wall. Dougal and I dropped onto our knees beside him at once, followed more slowly by Jamie.
He wasn’t dead, but wasn’t doing well, either. His hands were chilly, and his breathing had a wheezing, whining note to it.
“Dougal,” he whispered.
“I’m here, Rupert. Be still, man, you’ll be all right soon.” The MacKenzie chieftain quickly pulled off his own plaid and folded it into a pillow, which he thrust beneath Rupert’s head and shoulders. Raised a bit, his breathing seemed easier, but a touch below his beard showed me wet blotches on his shirt. He still had some strength; he reached out a hand and grasped Dougal’s arm.
“If … they’ll find us anyway … give me a light,” he said, gasping. “I’d see your face once more, Dougal.”
Close as I was to Dougal, I felt the shock run through him at these words and their implication. His head turned sharply toward me, but of course he couldn’t see my face. He muttered an order over his shoulder, and after a bit of shuffling and murmuring, someone cut loose a handful of the thatch, which was twisted into a torch and lit with a spark from a flint. It burned fast, but gave enough light for me to examine Rupert while the men worked at chiseling loose a long splinter of wood from the poles of the roof, to serve as a less temporary torch.
He was white as a fish belly, hair matted with sweat, and a faint smear of blood still showed on the flesh of his full lower lip. Dark spots showed on the glossy black beard, but he smiled faintly at me as I bent over him to check his pulse again. Lighter, and very fast, missing beats now and then. I smoothed the hair back from his face, and he touched my hand in thanks.
I felt Dougal’s hand on my elbow, and sat back on my heels, turning to face him. I had faced him once like this before, over the body of a man mortally wounded by a boar. He had asked me then, “Can he live?” and I saw the memory of that day cross his face. The same question stood in his eyes again, but this time in eyes glazed with fear of my answer. Rupert was his closest friend, the kinsman who rode and who fought on his right-hand side, as Ian did for Jamie.
This time I didn’t answer; Rupert did it for me.
“Dougal,” he said, and smiled as his friend bent anxiously over him. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed as deeply as he could, gathering strength for the moment.
“Dougal,” he said again, opening his eyes. “Ye’ll no grieve for me, man.”
Dougal’s face twitched in the torchlight. I could see the denial of death come to his lips, but he bit it back and forced it aside.
“I’m your chief, man,” he said, with a quivering half-smile. “Ye’ll not order me; I shall grieve ye and I like.” He clasped Rupert’s hand, where it lay across his chest, and held it tightly.
There was a faint, wheezing chuckle from Rupert, and another coughing spell.
“Weel, grieve for me and ye will, Dougal,” he said, when he’d finished. “And I’m glad for it. But ye canna grieve ’til I be deid, can ye? I would die by your hand, mo caraidh, not in the hands of the strangers.”
Dougal jerked, and Jamie and I exchanged appalled glances behind his back.
“Rupert …” Dougal began helplessly, but Rupert interrupted him, clasping his hand and shaking it gently.
“You are my chief, man, and it’s your duty,” he whispered. “Come now. Do it now. This dying hurts me, Dougal, and I would have it over.” His eyes moved restlessly, lighting on me.
“Will ye hold my hand while I go, lass?” he asked. “I’d like it so.”
There seemed nothing else to do. Moving slowly, feeling that this was all a dream, I took the broad, black-haired hand in both of mine, pressing it as though I might force my own warmth into the cooling flesh.
With a grunt, Rupert heaved himself slightly to one side and glanced up at Jamie, who sat by his head.
“She should ha’ married me, lad, when she had the choice,” he wheezed. “You’re a poor weed, but do your best.” One eye squeezed shut in a massive wink. “Gi’e her a good one for me, lad.”
The black eyes swiveled back to me, and a final grin spread across his face.
“Goodbye, bonnie lassie,” he said softly.
Dougal’s dirk took him under the breastbone, hard and straight. The burly body convulsed, turning to the side with an coughing explosion of air and blood, but the brief sound of agony came from Dougal.
The MacKenzie chieftain stayed frozen for a moment, eyes shut, hands clenched on the hilt of the dirk. Then Jamie rose, took him by the shoulders, and turned him away, murmuring something in Gaelic. Jamie glanced at me, and I nodded and held out my arms. He turned Dougal gently toward me, and I gathered him to me as we both crouched on the floor, holding him while he wept.
Jamie’s own face was streaked with tears, and I could hear the brief sighs and sobbing breaths of the other men. I supposed it was better they wept for Rupert than for themselves. If the English did come for us here, all of us stood to be hanged for treason. It was easier to mourn for Rupert, who was safely gone, sped on his way by the hand of a friend.
They did not come anytime in the long winter night. We huddled together against one wall, under plaids and cloaks, waiting. I dozed fitfully, leaning against Jamie’s shoulder, with Dougal hunched and silent on my other side. I thought that neither of them slept, but kept watch through the night over Rupert’s corpse, quiet under his own draped plaid across the church, on the other side of the abyss that separates the dead from the living.
We spoke little, but I knew what they were thinking. They were wondering, as I was, whether the English troops had left, regrouping with the main army at Callendar House below, or whether they still watched outside, waiting for the dawn before making a move, lest anyone in the tiny church escape under cover of darkness.
The matter was settled with the coming of first light.
“Ho, the church! Come out and give yourselves up!” The call came from the slope below, in a strong English voice.
There was a stir among the men in the church, and the horse, who had been dozing in his corner, snapped his head up with a startled snort at the movement nearby. Jamie and Dougal exchanged a glance, then, as though they had planned it together, rose and stood, shoulder to shoulder, before the closed door. A jerk of Jamie’s head sent me to the rear of the church, back to my shelter behind the altar.
Another shout from the outside was met with silence. Jamie drew the snaphance pistol from his belt and checked the loading of it, casually, as though there were all the time in the world. He sank to one knee and braced the pistol, pointing it at the door at the level of a man’s head.
Geordie and Willie guarded the window to the rear, swords and pistols to the ready. But it was likely from the front that an attack would come; the hill behind the church sloped steeply up, with barely room between the slope and the wall of the church for one man to squeeze past.
I heard the squelching of footsteps, approaching the door through the mud, and the faint clanking of sidearms. The sounds stopped at a distance, and a voice came again, closer and louder.
“In the name of His Majesty King George, come out and surrender! We know you are there!”
Jamie fired. The report inside the tiny church was deafening. It must have been sufficiently impressive from outside as well; I could hear the hasty sounds of slipping retreat, accompanied by muffled curses. There was a small hole in the door, made by the pistol ball; Dougal sidled up to it and peered out.
“Damn,” he said under his breath. “There’s a lot of them.”
Jamie cast a glance at me, then set his lips and turned his attention to reloading his pistol. Clearly, the Scots had no intention of surrendering. Just as clearly, the English had no desire to storm the church, given the easily defended entrances. They couldn’t mean to starve us out? Surely the Highland army would be sending out men to search for the wounded of the battle from the night before. If they arrived before the English had opportunity to bring a cannon to bear on the church, we might be saved.
Unfortunately, there was a thinker outside. The sound of footsteps came once more, and then a measured English voice, full of authority.
“You have one minute to come out and give yourselves up,” it said, “or we fire the thatch.”
I glanced upward in complete horror. The walls of the church were stone, but the thatch would burn in short order, even soaked with rain and sleet, and once well caught, would send flames and smoking embers raining down to engulf us. I remembered the awful speed with which the torch of twisted reed had burned the night before; the charred remnant lay on the floor near Rupert’s shrouded corpse, a grisly token in the gray dawn light.
“No!” I screamed. “Bloody bastards! This is a church! Have you never heard of sanctuary?”
“Who is that?” came the sharp voice from outside. “Is that an English-woman in there?!”
“Yes!” shouted Dougal, springing to the door. He cracked it ajar and bellowed out at the English soldiers on the hillside below. “Yes! We hold an English lady captive! Fire the thatch, and she dies with us!”
There was an outbreak of voices at the bottom of the hill, and a sudden shifting among the men in the church. Jamie whirled on Dougal with a scowl, saying, “What …!”
“It’s the only chance!” Dougal hissed back. “Let them take her, in return for our freedom. They’ll not harm her if they think she’s our hostage, and we’ll get her back later, once we’re free!”
I came out of my hiding space and went to Jamie, gripping his sleeve.
“Do it!” I said urgently. “Dougal is right, it’s the only chance!”
He looked down at me helplessly, rage and fear mingled on his face. And under it all, a trace of humor at the underlying irony of the situation.
“I am a sassenach, after all,” I said, seeing it.
He touched my face briefly with a rueful smile.
“Aye, mo duinne. But you’re my sassenach.” He turned to Dougal, squaring his shoulders. He drew in a deep breath, and nodded.
“All right. Tell them we took her”—he thought quickly, rubbing one hand through his hair—“from Falkirk road, late yesterday.”
Dougal nodded, and without waiting for more, slipped out of the church door, a white handkerchief held high overhead in signal of truce.
Jamie turned to me, frowning, glancing at the church door, where the sounds of English voices were still audible, though we couldn’t make out words as they talked.
“I don’t know what you’re to tell them, Claire; perhaps ye’d better pretend to be so shocked that ye canna speak of it. It’s maybe better than telling a tale; for if they should realize who you are—” He stopped suddenly and rubbed his hand hard over his face.
If they realized who I was, it would be London, and the Tower—followed quite possibly by swift execution. But while the broadsheets had made much of “the Stuart Witch,” no one, so far as I knew, had realized or published the fact that the witch was English.
“Don’t worry,” I said, realizing just what a silly remark this was, but unable to come up with anything better. I laid a hand on his sleeve, feeling the swift pulse that beat in his wrist. “You’ll get me back before they have a chance to realize anything. Do you think they’ll take me to Callendar House?”
He nodded, back in control. “Aye, I think so. If ye can, try to be alone near a window, just after nightfall. I’ll come for ye then.”
There was time for no more. Dougal slipped back through the door, closing it carefully behind him.
“Done,” he said, looking from me to Jamie. “We give them the woman, and we’ll be allowed to leave unmolested. No pursuit. We keep the horse. We’ll need it, for Rupert, ye see,” he said to me, half-apologetically.
“It’s all right,” I told him. I looked at the door, with its small dark spot where the bullet had passed, the same size as the hole in Rupert’s side. My mouth was dry and I swallowed hard. I was a cuckoo’s egg, about to be laid in the wrong nest. The three of us hesitated before the door, all reluctant to take the final step.
“I’d b-better go,” I said, trying hard to control my shaking voice and limbs. “They’ll wonder what’s keeping us.”
Jamie closed his eyes for a moment, nodded, then stepped toward me.
“I think you’d better swoon, Sassenach,” he said. “It will be easier that way, maybe.” He stooped, picked me up in his arms, and carried me through the door that Dougal held open.
His heart pounded beneath my ear, and I could feel the trembling in his arms as he carried me. After the stuffiness of the church, with its smells of sweat, blood, black powder and horse manure, the cold fresh air of early morning took my breath away, and I huddled against him, shivering. His hands tightened under my knees and shoulders, hard as a promise; he would never let me go.
“God,” he said once, under his breath, and then we had reached them. Sharp questions, mumbled answers, the reluctant loosening of his grip as he laid me on the ground, and then the swish of his feet, going away through wet grass. I was alone, in the hands of the strangers.