Chapter Three

“I think I should accompany them, Da.” Mara’s older brother, Robert, spoke vociferously into the half light. “They will stand in need of a guard.”

Mara’s father pondered it with the fair-mindedness he afforded all important endeavors. “Maybe so, Son, but you are no’ the man, and we’ve no other at hand.”

“I am no’ the man?” Robert’s voice rose in outrage.

“List, Son—your sword arm serves you not at all, now.”

“But to let my sister go off wi’ a stranger—”

“He has Elliot’s approval, and I would trust Alexander Elliot with my very life. And, Son, you and I ha’ dead to bury here.”

Mara’s heart dropped within her like a stone. She barely recognized the remains of her mother and her young sister, both of whom had perished in the fire. If Mara had not gone up over the hill, wanting to see how far off the Sassenach forces lay, she would have been inside the shieling herself when the foray troop happened by.

And she would now be dead, like Ma and Janet.

She tried to imagine her life ending, and failed. What followed death? Nothingness? Heaven? The kirk insisted the righteous found favor at God’s right hand.

Must be a crowded tiny bit of heaven, that.

And would God strike her down for such irreverent thoughts? Why would He send her up over the hill and save her, only to strike her down now? Indeed, faith made a complicated proposition.

As did allegiance. She turned her gaze on the man who had been thrust into their midst. He might well be one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen—far handsomer, so she suspected, than the real Charles Edward—but she sensed much wanting in his attitude. True, he had just been through a battle she could only try to imagine, and lost his father. But Mara had lost much also and yet intended to keep her head high and hold to the dream of fealty.

Upon that bright, determined thought intruded another: had Ma and Janet suffered before they died? Had they been taken against their will? Two women alone in a shieling… She had heard such tales before. And impossible to tell now, with their bodies charred to the bone.

Suddenly she wanted nothing so much as to be off and away, even if it was in the company of the disagreeable Ramsay. Nay—His Highness. She must form the habit of addressing him properly.

Pity poor Da and Robert, left to do the burying…

“Mara,” Da called, “you must away while still under cover of darkness.”

“Aye.” She nodded, gathered up her pack, and turned her gaze away from the ruined dwelling. They would not be able to travel far before day broke and they were forced to take cover—likely not far enough to get the smell of burning out of her nostrils.

Ramsay stood looking uncomfortable in his new clothing. Ignoring him, Mara turned to her father and brother.

“Go safely and bravely,” Da told her as she pressed into his arms. He held her there a moment, heart to heart. “’Tis a valiant thing you do.”

She hugged Robert next and felt him pass his skean dhu into her hand. “Here,” he said into her ear, “just in case the Ramsay tries to take more than his due.”

“You trust no one,” she whispered back.

“Aye, and with good reason.”

She tried to equate the brother she now held in her arms, stiff and full of pain, with the laughing lad he’d once been. Aye, they were all changed, and not for the better.

“I will get his measure,” she told her brother. From the look of the Ramsay’s wounds—all of which she’d seen in the firelight—he had fought unsparingly and must, at least, be skilled with the sword.

“See you take care.” Robert blessed her with a kiss on the brow and released her.

“Aye, Daughter,” her da told her then. “For family and King.”

****

The first miles through the dark, filled with brittle silence, set Mara’s teeth on edge. She had never been one to chatter constantly and aimlessly like Janet—God rest her blessed soul—but she did like to pass the time, especially when busy at some task or while walking. Ramsay’s expression did not encourage conversation though, being closed tight as if his features had turned to stone.

She stole repeated glances at him in the starlight. What features they were! Fine enough, almost, to match that braw body of his. She felt herself grow warm just thinking on it, but that did not keep her from looking again.

He had a noble brow and a proud nose with just a hint of a bow to it that saved him from prettiness. His eyes, a clear blue-gray, might grace any woman. His hair, now tangled and still splashed with blood despite Mara’s best efforts, had appeared light brown in the firelight, marked with streaks of red-gold.

She wondered how those wide lips would look if he smiled. Judging by present circumstances, she would not likely find out.

He made no true Charles Edward Stuart, lacking the Prince’s warm manner. And she had many a mile to cover with him unless they were caught—in which case they were both very likely doomed to die.

She talked it over in her own head while they moved west and north like hares through the young heather. A troop of the Crown’s soldiers could appear at any time. Laird Elliot had told Da they hunted the remnants of the Highland army without mercy. What a pity it would be if she failed to get her false Prince even to his starting point. She twitched her shoulders and looked backward often, sure she felt English eyes boring into her back.

The plan as she understood it was to make some distance before letting those who scoured the Highlands for Charles Edward catch a glimpse of him. Then the chase would begin in earnest. Da had said to pause and let Ramsay rest when the new day dawned. So at last, when the sun began to color the sky in the east and they reached a ruined round tower on a height, she called a halt.

“We had best lay over here,” she told Ramsay. “’Tis getting too light to go on.”

He gave her a dour look. “Is the point not that we should be sighted? What sort of foxes are we, that the hounds do not see?”

“Aye, but not yet—not so close to danger. I must get you clear away first. Come inside.”

The interior of the tower felt cold and unwelcoming. Littered with rubble from the collapsed roof and portions of a wall, it made no fit place to rest.

Ramsay threw himself down anyway and hauled off his boots. “These accursed things are an abomination,” he spat. “I canno’ wear them.”

“What else will you wear?”

“I would sooner go o’er the heather barefoot.” He tossed the highly polished boots into the rubble and scrutinized his feet.

“The Prince would not go barefoot,” Mara protested.

“Hang the Prince.” Ramsay glared up at her where she stood. “’Tis what will happen to us if we are taken, you ken. We will be hanged.”

“Aye so,” she sneered, “and is your courage no’ up to it?”

“Hanging is an ignoble death with little to recommend it.” His gaze moved over her slowly, lingering on her hair, which streamed down over her shoulders. “They will not keep from stretching your neck merely because you are a woman, you ken.”

Mara made no reply to that but turned and rid herself of her pack and other burdens. He had offered to help carry nothing all this weary way.

Aye, well, and likely neither would the true Prince.

“This scheme is badly flawed.” He spoke bitterly into her silence.

“You think so?”

“I do.”

“Then why did you agree to it?”

That made him shut his lip, and Mara experienced a flash of satisfaction. Had no answer to that, did he, the fool?

“Are you hungry?” she asked after a moment. “I have some food here in my pack.”

He shook his head.

“Truly you should eat.”

“List, Mistress MacIvor, you may fancy yourself my guide and caretaker, but you are neither. I will eat when I am ready and not before.”

“Water?”

He shook his head again.

Fine, then, let him perish of thirst and poisoning from those wounds he carried beneath his finery, as well. She should be outside straining her eyes in the half light, looking for pursuers.

“Tell me more of this ill-fated scheme,” he requested. “Where is the sense in us heading away north? Will the Prince not be expected to make for the coast and a ship back to France?”

Mara dug a small measure of food out of her pack. In truth, she felt too sore and sick to eat; every time she remembered what lay back in the burned shieling, her stomach turned.

“The Prince’s enemies would like naught better than to have him in their hands. Sure, that would put an end to the uprising for good. But they will no’ believe him foolish enough to make straight for France. This scheme has been planned carefully by those far wiser than we. Three teams there are besides that which guides the true Prince, and each given their directions. We were told to head north.”

Diarmad leaned back on his elbows and eyed Mara with implacable hostility. “And so you obey like a good, wee hare—no matter that you may run straight into danger?”

“Danger, is it?”

“Aye, so I think.”

“We exist only to improve the Prince’s chances.”

“So our lives mean naught?”

“As compared with his.”

“But my life is no’ insignificant,” he objected. “My father is dead, and my brother may no’ have survived the battle. That means I maun take a place at the head of my clan.”

Mara said nothing to that, merely eyed him again. Many men such as he had lost their futures and their dreams. Did he think he was the only one?

“Best to get some sleep while you can,” she told him. He would be weary from the fight and shattered by what had come after. “I will keep watch and call you when ’tis time to move on.”

“So I am to trust you, am I, Mara MacIvor?” He glared full into her eyes. “Faith, I am no’ sure I dare.”