Sergeant Marsden scratched his head. “That I can’t answer, sir. I don’t know if Sir Charles knows those Greeks or anything at all about that breed of horseflesh. I can’t say that I’ve heard of them Trojans either.”
“I’m not talking about real horses. I’m talking about a big wooden one with Greek soldiers hiding inside.”
“Our sentries ain’t reported sight of any soldiers. Greeks or otherwise.”
Neil reached up and massaged the fine hairs on the back of his neck and the dull ache beneath them. “I meant the fabled ones, the ones in the stories …”
“What stories?”
“The Greek ones,” Neil replied. “The classic Greek myths and legends that that fool Charles Oliver obviously knows nothing about. Of course he’s never read the classics,” Neil continued, talking more to himself than to the bewildered sergeant as he pictured the scrawny, pimpled youth his commanding officer had been during their school days. “Spotty Oliver could barely read English. He isn’t bright enough to study the classics. He isn’t bright enough to study at all. That’s why his father bought him a commission in the army. The only thing Spotty’s ever excelled in is drinking and fashion. He’s a major general in His Majesty’s army,” Neil complained, “and the imbecile can barely sit a horse! He doesn’t know anything about military strategy. He doesn’t know enough about the army or warfare to keep the female enemy outside his garrison or when to keep male sentries posted on the inside but he knows how to order wine and ale and he knows how to throw a hell of a party.” Neil ended his diatribe against his commanding officer and turned his attention back to the sergeant. “Is Sir Charles still conferring with the stone cutters from Edinburgh?”
“No, sir. Sir Charles dismissed the masons’ guild over an hour ago.”
“Good,” Neil pronounced. “I need to talk to him immediately and it’s best I do so while he’s alone.”
“That won’t be possible, Major,” Sergeant Marsden told him. “Sir Charles retired to his private quarters and left orders that he not be disturbed.”
Neil cast a glance toward the officers’ quarters, then over at the prostitutes roaming the garrison. Spotty Oliver enjoyed a reputation as a fastidious dresser and an inveterate snob. While the women inside Fort Augustus didn’t appear to be his commanding officer’s type, Neil realized that in time of war, even Spotty Oliver was forced to make a few adjustments in his level of personal comforts. He turned to Sergeant Marsden and arched an eyebrow in question.
Sergeant Marsden shook his head and grinned. “Not quite, sir. You see, General Oliver is conferring with his tailor.”
“What?” Neil couldn’t believe his ears.
“Last I saw him, sir, Sir Charles was trying on new uniforms for the celebration tonight.”
Chapter Two
Castle MacAonghais
They kept staring at her. Those Gentlemen of the Clan who had once made up her father’s privy council. At first she thought she was mistaken, thought that the events of the last few days had made her overly sensitive, but Jessalyn MacInnes could no longer dismiss the strange looks coming from the group of ancient warriors gathered together at one end of the great hall. There were three of them left—Auld Tam, Alisdair and Dougal. The same three who had struggled to hoist her father’s body onto their shoulders earlier in the day. Jessalyn bit her bottom lip and wrinkled her brow as she stole another glance at them. They were definitely watching her. She couldn’t blame them. Her father had been dead for over a day and all of her kin—especially the ancient warriors—had a right to know what to expect from their new laird. Auld Tam, Alisdair and Dougal had fought alongside her father. She was a woman. The Gentlemen of the Clan probably thought she was too young, too inexperienced, too female to be the MacInnes. And in her heart, she secretly agreed with them. She didn’t begin to know how to be the MacInnes.
Jessalyn pulled her threadbare shawl around her shoulders, straightened her spine, and tugged discreetly at her skirt, hoping to magically lengthen it enough to cover her bare feet. Not that there was anything disgraceful about bare feet. Every woman and child in the clan was barefooted because there weren’t any shoes, nor a cobbler or a store of leather with which to make them. Her father had spent the last of his guineas on boots and weapons and victuals in preparation for the battle with the Sassenachs. And the leather that hadn’t been used for boots and targes had been confiscated by German George’s troops when they raided the village. As the daughter of the MacInnes, Jessalyn had willingly sacrificed shoes for her own feet so that her clansmen could be properly outfitted for battle. She didn’t mind going barefooted, but she was the MacInnes now and she didn’t think it seemly for the chieftain of Clan MacInnes to shiver with cold. Her father had never shivered. And neither would she. Concentrating on the task, Jessalyn wrinkled her brow and bit her bottom lip in a monumental effort to keep her toes from curling against the stinging cold seeping up through the stone floor. There was no room in her life for womanly weaknesses now. She couldn’t weep and wail like her kinswomen. She couldn’t tear at her hair and cry until her eyes were red and swollen and her throat was raw from her tears. She couldn’t mourn her father the way she longed to do. She had to be strong. She had to become what her people thought she was. She had to prove herself worthy of the honor and the responsibility she’d inherited. She had to become the MacInnes. And in order to do that, she had to do what generations of new lairds had done upon the death of the old lairds. She had to put aside her grief and in a show of strength and continuity, call a meeting of the clan council and formulate a plan for survival.
Jessalyn rose from her seat and prepared to leave.
Andrew MacCurran, the MacInnes clan’s storyteller, paused in the middle of recounting one of the auld laird’s grand and victorious battles against the Campbells and stared at Jessalyn. “Have I upset you, milady? Or displeased you in any way with the retelling of this tale?”
The members of the clan who had gathered around the fireplace to listen to Andrew’s stories turned to look at her and Jessalyn remembered that standing in the midst of a story had been her father’s way of showing his disappointment in or displeasure with the tale. “No,” she hastened to reassure Andrew. “I was just going to retrieve my small writing desk from the solar. Please continue the story. I’ll be right back.”
But Andrew couldn’t continue his tale. He cast a covert glance toward the Ancient Gentlemen of the Clan. If the laird left the room she might unwittingly learn of the plans everyone had gone out of their way to keep secret. If Lady Jessalyn left, her kinswomen would follow and if anyone slipped and spoke out of turn, then Andrew would have failed in the mission the Ancients had given him—that of keeping Lady Jessalyn distracted. But Lady Jessalyn was unaware of his problem, and in order to keep her that way, Andrew pointed to his eight-year-old granddaughter, Hannah, and said, “go fetch our laird’s small writing desk from the women’s solar.”
Jessalyn stared at the nub on the end of Andrew’s arm as he pointed to Hannah. Although his other wounds had healed, Andrew was forever reminded of the losses Clan MacInnes had suffered in the last rebellion. He had lost his right hand trying to protect Harry, his firstborn son, from a Sassenach sword. The loss was threefold. His son had died on the battlefield and been buried clasping his father’s hand to his breast. Hannah had lost her father and Ellen, her husband and Andrew MacCurran, the master swordsman, who had spent his life crafting claymores, forging them from iron and steel and wielding them against the enemy, had taken the place of the bard killed in battle and now earned his keep as storyteller.
“Before the end of the story?” Hannah groaned. “Why can’t Jessie go get it herself?”
Hannah’s mother, Ellen, gasped. “Because Lady Jessalyn is our new laird, that’s why. And it’s not for the laird to run and fetch for herself when there are plenty of others here to do it for her.”
“The story …” Hannah insisted.
“Go,” Ellen hissed. “Do as you’re to
ld.”
Hannah wrinkled her forehead and glanced over at Jessalyn instead. “But Grandpa is telling us a story about how the auld laird saved us. And everyone says that Jessie …”
“Wheesht, child!” Ellen interrupted, ordering her daughter to be quiet.
But it was as if the lid on Pandora’s box had been knocked ajar. The thought was out and it hung over the men and women gathered around the fireplace like a noxious odor.
“What has you so troubled, little one? What is it everyone says?” Jessalyn knelt in front of the little girl and smoothed away the worry lines on Hannah’s forehead.
“Lady Jessalyn, she’s just a bairn. She doesn’t know …” Hannah’s mother began.
Jessalyn glanced over at Ellen. “I disagree. I think she dares to tell the truth because she hasn’t learned to dissemble yet.” She turned to the little girl. “Now, Hannah, please don’t be afraid to tell me what everyone is saying about me.”
“They’re saying that our clan’s in trouble and now that the auld laird is dead, you must learn how to take his place.”
“That’s true.” Jessalyn nodded.
“Well, if you’re the new laird, it seems to me that you should not want to write letters, but should want to stay and listen to Grandpa’s story.”
“And why is that?” Jessalyn bit her bottom lip to keep from showing her amusement.
“Because it’s important and Grandpa hasn’t finished.” Hannah reached out and grabbed hold of Jessie’s hand, squeezing it hard. “Because you’re the new laird and you must listen and learn. Don’t you want to hear the story’s end? Don’t you want to find out how the auld laird managed to save our clan?”
That was exactly what she wanted to know. “Yes,” Jessalyn told her. “Very much. That’s why I was going to get my writing desk. I thought I would make notes while your grandpa spoke and write down a grand plan to restore Clan MacInnes to its former greatness.”
Hannah grinned. “Then if Grandpa won’t mind waiting a minute or two. I’ll run fetch your writing desk.”
An hour or so later, with Jessalyn safely occupied with the copying of her plan of action some distance away, Auld Tam, Alisdair and Dougal huddled together near the door leading out to the old bailey and formulated a plan of their own.
“The lass dinna look so well,” Auld Tam announced without preliminaries to the others.
“She’s takin’ Callum’s passing hard,” Alisdair agreed.
Dougal nodded. “I’m afeard she willna bear up under the weight.”
Unable to stomach the blasphemy, Auld Tam thinned his lips and narrowed his gaze at Dougal. “I said she dinna look well, Dougal,” Tam repeated. “I dinna say she wouldna bear up. She’s the MacInnes. She’ll bear up or die trying. I promise ye that.”
“I know she’s the MacInnes,” Dougal said. “She’s Callum MacInnes’s daughter through and through. That’s what I’m afeard of,” Dougal added. “Did ye not look at her, mon? The lass is no bigger than a minute and as pale as white heather.”
Tam peeked over his shoulder and glanced at the lass in question.
Bent over her writing desk, Jessie MacInnes sat surrounded by the women and children of the clan. She was dressed in a black shift topped off by a tonag, a small square of MacInnes tartan folded and worn as a shawl. And although a small fire burned low in the massive hearth, the damp smoky peat radiated little heat. Still, Tam noticed Jessie had arranged the members of her household so that the children and the infirm could take advantage of the fire’s meager warmth. He grinned, sucking air through the yawning gaps between his four remaining teeth, then reached under his bonnet and scratched his balding pate. They had done the right thing in accepting Jessalyn as the MacInnes. There was no doubt about it. She was doing auld Callum proud by taking notice of the needs of her people and putting their comforts before her own. But then, wee Jessie had always done her father proud, had always thought of her clan first and herself last. Which was why he and Alisdair and Dougal conspired well out of her range of hearing.
The auld MacInnes had been loyal to a fault and his loyalty to the Stewart cause had cost him dearly, but no one could ever accuse Callum MacInnes of being a fool. He had known what he was about when he chose to support the king across the water’s rightful claim to the throne of Scotland. He had recognized the English encroachment onto Scottish lands and understood the threat to the highland way of life. Callum MacInnes hadn’t fought for James Stewart as much as for an autonomous Scotland. And Callum had known from the beginning that the chances of winning were slim. The auld laird had watched his sons and kinsmen die on the battlefield and knowing he had brought them to that end had filled him with sadness and fired him with a greater determination to insure the survival of his line. And insuring the survival of the line meant taking care of Jessalyn because she was the only one of his seven children left.
Now Callum was gone and it was up to the Ancient Gentlemen of the Clan to look out for Jessalyn—even if they had to do it in secret. It was their duty. The auld MacInnes had ordered it from his deathbed.
“Then we’re agreed,” Alisdair said. “We’ll do as the auld laird commanded.”
“Agreed.” The three ancient warriors clasped hands.
“So, how do we go about it?”
Auld Tam straightened his bonnet, drew himself up to his full height, then silently edged his way out the door. Alisdair and Dougal followed close behind him. “We do what we’ve always done,” he replied, once they were safely outside the castle. “We go a-raiding.”
Dougal grinned, a sparkle twinkling in his one good eye. “And where are we going raiding?”
Auld Tam nearly cackled with glee as he announced his plans to his co-conspirators. “We’re going around the loch and down the glen to the village of Kilchumin.”
Alisdair wheezed in reaction. “The Sassenachs are building their fort at Kilchumin.”
“Aye.” Tam nodded. “What better place to find a healthy, handsome husband for our new laird?”
Alisdair snorted. “Any place other than Kilchumin. The whole of Scotland other than Kilchumin. Why, even an alliance with the Campbells would be better for us and for the lass than a match with one of German George’s redcoats.”
“I’ll not be allying the lass with Campbells.” Dougal spat the hated name. “I’ll not send our innocent Jessie into that nest of traitorous vipers! Have you forgotten Glencoe?” It was no secret that the MacInnes had once been loyal to and under the protection of the powerful Campbells, but the massacre at Glencoe had split the clans and now Clan MacInnes and the Campbells were bitter foes. The MacKinnon had taken the disenfranchised MacInneses in and it was to him that they currently owed their allegiance.
“But you’ll wed her and bed her to a Sassenach!” Alisdair protested. “At least the Campbells are highlanders. At least they’re Scots.”
“Bah!” Auld Tam exclaimed. “Traitorous murdering Scots are worse than the English. Scots who spit on their own honor, then kill their countrymen and side with the Sassenachs can never be trusted. The Campbells are allied with German George today, but tomorrow who knows …” Auld Tam shrugged his shoulders. “Better to take a Sassenach and turn him into a good highlander, than to try to make an alliance with the Campbells or their kind. Besides, it’s what the auld laird wanted.”
Alisdair shook his head. “I dinna hear Callum say such a thing!”
“Ye dinna hear it,” Tam told him, “because that’s the way the auld laird wanted it. He knew ye’d be against it and he dinna have the time or the breath to argue. He sent ye and Dougal to call the clan from hiding and to fetch the priest because the alliance had already been arranged, the abduction planned and the husband chosen.”
“How long have ye known of this plan?” Alisdair demanded.
“The auld laird confided his wishes to me on the eve before he breathed his last,” Tam explained. “Despite our loyalty to the ‘king over the water,’ Callum maintained contact with his allies—including
his Whig allies—even while he was in hiding, even unto the eve of his death. Callum dinna trust our highland Whigs, but he trusted the marquess of Chisenden.”
“The marquess of Chisenden?” Dougal breathed the name in a tone of what could only be described as reverence. Everyone in the highlands knew of the English king-maker’s wealth and reputation. Although Chisenden was reputed to have little liking or respect for the lowland Scottish aristocrats, he had a surprising tolerance and regard for highlanders.
“Aye,” Tam affirmed.
“Callum trusted Chisenden?”
“Aye,” Tam repeated. “Because before he was the marquess of Chisenden, he was the earl of Derrowford and the earl of Derrowford was Callum’s relation by marriage. Chisenden’s first wife was the youngest sister of Callum’s father.”
Alisdair scratched his beard. “I’d forgotten.”
“Well, our Helen Rose has been dead many long years now. I was a lad when she died and Callum was still a bairn.” Tam said. “But the marquess of Chisenden was quite taken by our bonny lass. Loved her dearly he did and when she succumbed to the childbed sickness Chisenden was prostrate with grief. And when the bairn died … Well, the family wasn’t sure Chisenden, or Derrowford, as he was known then, would survive his tragic loss. But he did survive and because he was a belted earl he was expected to do his duty once again. The marquess had no choice but to remarry and although I’ve heard the second marchioness is a fine woman, the marriage was arranged. There was no grand passion between them.”
“Our kinswoman is dead. And the blood ties that bound us to her family by marriage died with her,” Alisdair said. “So what does the English marquess of Chisenden have to do with our new laird?”
“Do ye not ken?” Dougal demanded his friend and companion. “The marquess of Chisenden is an important man at the English court. He’s a Whig and a friend to the Hanoverian usurper. He’ll make a right good ally and once we’re allied with Chisenden, the forfeitures and retributions against the MacInneses will end.”