Chapter Five

Diarmad paced through the fronds of young bracken while he waited for Mara MacIvor to return, far less than happy with the situation. He’d watched her walk down to the cluster of huts, the last of the light catching in her hair, and up to the door of the nearest cottage. He had seen the door open and a sliver of light spill out before she disappeared inside. Since then he had heard and seen nothing, and cursed if it felt safe to him.

Yet no one had put him in charge of Mistress MacIvor’s safety. He need not assume responsibility for her. Indeed, were she captured or killed, would that not negate the promise he had made to his father? For he could scarcely go on laying a false trail by himself when he did not know the chosen route.

Still, he did not wish for harm to befall Mistress MacIvor—’twould be a damned shame, that. She had a certain mad courage and enough fire to snare the interest of any man, even if she had tossed away her sense and misplaced her loyalty.

In love with Charles Edward she must be—or at least smitten, as women tended to become. He wondered with sudden, sharp curiosity just how far her services might extend were she guiding the true Prince and not just Diarmad Ramsay, a poor imitation. She had made no secret of the fact that she thought Diarmad just that. Traveling alone with the Stuart, would she extend every comfort? Lie down in the fronds of new bracken and welcome him with that lovely body of hers? How warm and sweet would she be when he plunged inside?

To his surprise, he found himself stirring beneath his kilt while contemplating the question. Given the grief he carried, how could he even consider such a thing?

Upon the thought, he heard a sudden cry from below—something between a scream and a shout. He spun where he stood. So distracted had he been by the idea of Mistress MacIvor spreading her legs for him, he had lost track of the passing time; now the dark had deepened all around.

Emotions flooded through him, the same he believed he’d left back on the battlefield or at his father’s death bed: protest and desperate protectiveness.

What harm had befallen her?

No sooner did that question blossom in his mind than he saw Mara burst from the door of the cottage below; a man clad in a Sassenach’s uniform followed, snagged her arm, and hauled her back inside.

Diarmad, reacting without thought, sprang forward, speared by the rage that rose to his head. He charged down the slope on his stockinged feet, the Prince’s poor excuse for a sword already in his hand, a cry stuck in his throat. He had entrusted his own sword to Elliot, to be returned to him when this mad duty was done. He had only the thin rapier and his long knife with which he’d refused to part.

He heard raised voices as he pelted down into the tiny village, which to the eye appeared mostly deserted. Aye, and that alone should have made them suspicious. Patrols of Sassenach soldiers now roamed the hills all around; had they already cleared out this village?

No one but a collie saw him as he gained the road and continued running. He virtually skidded to a halt at the door of the cottage, now open, and looked inside.

The light from within fair blinded him after the soft twilight, but he espied what appeared to be far too many people for the given space. A woman—not Mara but far shorter—cradled two children to her bosom over against one wall, facing a number of soldiers. Blinking and peering further, he saw Mara, captive, struggling in the arms of a Sassenach.

With a roar, rapier raised, he catapulted in. A number of surprised faces, including Mara’s, turned toward him. Diarmad counted five soldiers, all heavily armed.

The first to speak, Mara cried, “Your Highness!”

Damn her, Diarmad thought, even as the first soldier exclaimed in reaction and turned to face him. Instinct took over then—the same Cainnech had drilled into him on so many bright mornings when Diarmad would have much rather been off running the hills.

Cainnech.

The narrow, half-blunted point of the rapier took the first soldier in the throat, and the man fell like a sack of rocks amidst a bright shower of blood.

“Leave go of her,” he snarled to the next man, and when the fellow responded by shoving Mara at his companions and drawing his sword, they engaged one another.

Sassenach weapons might be vastly inferior to a Highland claymore, but as Diarmad knew, not many of the Highlanders fighting at Culloden had possessed claymores. His own sword, while of good quality and much better than this piece of shite with which he now found himself armed, had been just a sword.

Yet somehow he made his current weapon serve. He opened his opponent’s left shoulder and then got in under the man’s guard and pierced his heart. The soldier fell with a thud.

Three men left. Two immediately came at him, leaving Mara in the grip of the last. Diarmad heard one of them utter the name “Charles Edward” even as he drew his long knife from his belt.

The next moments proved fast and furious. The man on the left got in a slash that opened Diarmad’s forearm. He paid for it with a wound to the neck and went down.

Diarmad, his eyes now fully adapted to the light, measured his fourth opponent, who stood in front of Mara and her captor. The fellow had an ugly, sneering face and held his sword competently, as if he knew how to use it.

Before the brute could move, Diarmad leaped and planted a kick to his gut with both feet. The fellow tumbled back into Mara and her captor, and before he could recover Diarmad fell on him. The scent of blood welled in a hot rush as Diarmad cut his throat.

“Well, now.” He drew himself up and regarded the last of the Sassenach soldiers, who looked a bit green, with the same controlled rage that had possessed him back on the battlefield. “You will leave go of her.”

The man shook his head. He had his knife up at Mara’s throat but, to give the lass credit, she did not appear so terrified as she should.

“Aye, so,” Diarmad sneered at the soldier, “you maun wish to die.”

The fellow responded by pressing his blade against Mara’s milk-white neck; a thin line of red appeared there.

The rapier moved, so swiftly even Diarmad could not track it, and embedded itself in the soldier’s right shoulder. Fingers suddenly unresponsive, the man dropped his knife and gasped.

One gasp, two, before the blade ended his life.

All at once they stood in the midst of carnage—he and Mara staring at one another, and the woman standing frozen behind.

A child wailed, snagging Diarmad’s attention. The woman had their faces pressed to her breasts.

Before he could regret what they had just witnessed, their mother breathed, “Your Highness!” and sank into a rough curtsy.

“Och, nay,” he cried hoarsely. “Get up.”

“Your Highness,” Mara echoed and sank down also, her eyes fixed to his, bright and beseeching. The wench thought to use this as an opportunity to lay her false trail, did she? With five men dead.

“I am meant to guide and defend you, Your Highness,” she said. “Not the other way ’round!”

Diarmad became aware of other people at his back, filling the doorway. He spun with the rapier at the ready but saw no uniforms, only villagers—neighbors, no doubt, come to gaze on the spectacle.

“Get up, mistress,” he told the woman again. “Comfort your children.”

She arose, but only in order to clasp Diarmad’s hand, which she pressed to her lips. “Thank you, Your Highness, for delivering us from those monsters! They would have had their way with the young woman and me also. You see, my husband has no’ yet come back from the battle.”

And likely would not, Diarmad thought soberly. What would become of this little family?

“They were looking for our men what fled the fighting,” said an old woman from the doorway. “They would have been happy to seize you, Your Highness! Dhé, and I never knew Your Highness for so great a swordsman.”

“Nor did I.” Mara got to her feet, still gazing at Diarmad like a woman in a dream.

“Brave lass,” said the old woman, “to guide our Prince away to safety. Come ye wi’ me, and I will show you the best route to take.”

Diarmad, the breath still rushing in his lungs, gestured at the fallen men with his rapier. “But—”

“We shall clear away that mess,” assured another woman, from the doorway, “and burn it all. Ye go wi’ Annie now, Your Blessed Highness.”

“Wait.”

Diarmad bent down and rifled through the pockets of the first man who’d challenged him and who he now saw wore the insignia of a captain. “He may have orders that will prove useful to us.”

Diarmad found no orders but did come up with a heavy leather purse, the contents of which he shared out among the villagers.

“Keep that,” he said as he pressed most of it into his hostess’s hands, “in case your husband does not return.”

Again she sank to her knees and pressed her face against his hand. “If I ha’ lost him in the service of such a Prince as yoursel’, I can but count it an honor, Your Highness!”

Thoroughly shaken, Diarmad nevertheless lifted the captain’s sword and boots before following the old woman—Annie—from the cottage with Mara at his back. He listened carefully while the woman described a route that should take them safely north and westward.

Annie concluded by laying a finger to her lips. “And nary a word shall pass about ye having been here, Your Highness.” Her bleary eyes filled with tears. “And ’tis the honor of my life to ha’ met ye!”

Diarmad clasped the old woman’s bony hand. “Nay, ’tis I who stand honored by the loyalty of those such as yoursel’. I admire your courage.”

Annie bowed her head and stood like a woman who had received a benediction while Mara gathered her pack and other burdens from the cottage, and they walked off.

Neither of them spoke for many moments as they left the dwellings and climbed back toward the heights in the gathering gloom.

Then Mara shot Diarmad an intense look. “Well, I must say you left an impression back there. No doubt they will keep a fond remembrance of their Prince.”

Diarmad smiled grimly.

“And the largesse made a noble touch,” she mused on.

“That first woman’s husband is no’ likely to return. What will she do, with two weans to raise?”

Mara shrugged. “What will any of us do? She would fare far better beneath the rule of the true Prince’s father than that poor excuse for a king who now holds the throne.”

“You think so?” Diarmad did not feel so certain. What might Charles Edward, who had saved himself at Culloden, do for such humble folk?

Mara shot him another look. “I had no idea you were such a braw fighter.”

Braw, was it? Suddenly Diarmad felt utterly weary. Five more souls—granted, Sassenach souls—added to the harvest he had already taken.

Aye, and did he care that he might strike Mara MacIvor favorably with his prowess? He eyed her with speculation. Perhaps. For that image he’d had of her while up on the hillside still lingered in his mind.

“By any road,” she mused on, “you could no’ have done better with planting the notion the Prince has come this way.”

“They promised not to tell.”

“And they will no’. They are loyal subjects of their true king, even more so now. Yet such news tends to travel if only in whispers.”

Diarmad grunted. All he’d done was add to the legend of the man he despised so deeply.

He threw himself down in the shelter of a boulder and began stripping the hose from his feet. Mara, forced to pause also, planted her fists on her hips. “What are you doing?”

“These are ruined, and I think the Sassenach’s boots will fit better than the Prince’s.”

“You canno’ go about wearing the boots of a Sassenach—nor carrying his sword.”

“Why not? Think of them as trophies of battle.”

“Charles Edward would no’ sink to such a lowly deed.”

Diarmad shot her a burning look. “And has Charles Edward ever preserved your virtue?”

All the indignation drained from Mara’s tense form. “Nay, and I should thank you.”

“Aye, you should.”

“They would have raped me, and that woman—in front of her bairns.”

“Aye, but”—he paused with a boot in his hand—“I do not doubt you would ha’ considered it a worthy sacrifice made for His Highness.”

“Do not be daft.” To his surprise she sat down beside him. “Are you badly hurt? I saw you take that stroke to your arm. We had best wrap it up before we move on.”

She drew her pack toward her but did not root around in it. Instead, her gaze fixed to Diarmad’s, she said, “I am thankful, Ramsay. I would not wish to endure such a fate.”

When he did not reply, she continued, “I ha’ only ever been with one man. So while you may not ha’ precisely spared my virtue, which was in truth lost to him, you have spared me much pain and shame.”

Diarmad stared at her. He wondered who the man was she’d blessed with her favor. Did they have an understanding? Did she love and long to return to him?

He scolded, “’Twas gey foolish for you to go walking into such a trap. It canno’ happen again.”

She leaned closer, and for one mad moment Diarmad thought she meant to kiss him. But she only whispered the words, strangely seductive in the bright air, “Aye, Your Highness.”