White Rose Rebel

by Janet Paisley

  ‘Snow stop!’ MacGillivray called, pulling the horse up.

  It didn’t seem that long since the last one. Snowflakes drifted against Elizabeth’s hot cheek, melting instantly. MacGillivray jumped down, drew his dirk and picked out Anne’s horse’s hooves quickly and efficiently. Then he turned to his own but, instead of bending to lift the horse’s foot, he plunged his dirk into the ground and reached up. His hands gripped Elizabeth by the waist. With one quick swing he had her down off the horse. Was he going to kiss her? His head tipped forwards, his hands tightened round her waist, he let his knees bend and, with another quick swing, hoisted her up, up behind Anne.

  ‘Your sister’s on heat,’ he said to Anne, by way of explanation. ‘You go ahead, we’ll catch up.’

  Anne urged Pibroch forwards. She seemed to be trembling. Elizabeth pressed against her, mouth close to Anne’s ear so she would hear.

  ‘What’s wrong with him? And why are you shaking?’

  ‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ Anne spluttered, laughing. ‘Can’t you behave?’

  ‘You sound like Mother. Does he like men now, is that it?’

  ‘Isd, no! Can’t you guess? He’s with me.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Elizabeth sat back, shocked. ‘Na can sin!’ She thumped her fist against her sister’s back. ‘You told me you weren’t!’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last time you were home.’ Elizabeth was furious. ‘I asked. You said not.’

  ‘That was then,’ Anne chuckled. ‘Things change.’

  ‘So he was in your bed last night, at Auchterblair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Elizabeth slumped. It wasn’t fair. Anne had a husband.

  ‘Then I hope it’s just for fun,’ she grumbled.

  ‘Now who sounds like mother?’

  They crumped into the snowy yard at Moy, and were off the horse, kicking their boots at the door before Will realized he was needed and appeared, running from the kitchen, stumbling through the drifts.

  ‘It’s all right, Will.’ Anne stopped his apology. ‘Who’s at home?’

  ‘Just the Dowager,’ the lad said. ‘Just like last time.’

  MacGillivray and the others were only a few yards behind.

  ‘You’re still a married woman,’ Elizabeth hissed at Anne as they went inside. ‘You have to realize that makes him fair game.’

  Anne grinned, as if it was a joke.

  ‘I think you’d be wasting your time,’ she said. ‘But don’t let me stop you.’

  Elizabeth grabbed her sister’s cloak, stopping her in the hall. ‘You mean that?’

  ‘Look,’ Anne smiled. ‘If Alexander wanted you, how could I be in the way? I’d be happy for you both.’ She took her cloak off and hung it up. ‘I just don’t think he will, that’s all.’

  The Dowager was coming down the stairs. She stopped with surprise to see them, then hurried down. ‘Anne, a ghràidh!’ she cried.

  Elizabeth took her own cloak off, a slow smile spreading on her face. So he wasn’t forbidden. He would just need persuading, that was all.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Dowager was certain Moy was safe. Military duties kept Aeneas busy at Fort George. Louden’s troops harassed known Jacobites but would not raid Moy, not with the McIntosh chief among their commanders. Anne’s bodyguards returned to their homes or billeted themselves with friends or family in the surrounding cotts. The night was set aside for storytelling. This time there were six around the fire and two storytellers, Anne and MacGillivray. Outside, the snow had stopped. Inside, logs sparked in the grate. Plates of food steamed on the low table by the fire. Tankards of ale were topped up. There was the journey to Derby and a second battle to hear about, but the beginning was the place to start. For MacGillivray, that was just across the border, when they first tried to befriend the English. He had sent Donald Fraser to billet with a Carlisle blacksmith, thinking they’d have much in common.

  ‘So Donald goes in the house, dirk in hand in case there’s any opposition waiting for him. But the smith has fled. There’s only the wife and her grown daughter, cowering in a corner, shrieking fit to burst. He tries talking to them but, of course, he only has the Gaelic.’

  ‘Which they wouldn’t understand,’ Anne added.

  ‘Not a word of it. So, to show he means no harm, he stabs his dirk into the table, out of harm’s way. This only has the two women squealing louder.’

  ‘What does Donald do then?’ Jessie’s eyes shone with eagerness.

  ‘He did the friendliest thing he could think of.’ MacGillivray laughed. ‘And, seeing it had worked in Edinburgh, was bound to work again. He danced.’

  ‘Danced?’ The Dowager snorted.

  ‘Seadh. He starts diddling, puts his hands up, and he does the Highland fling all around the room.’

  ‘Did that do the trick?’ Will asked, expectantly.

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ MacGillivray chuckled. ‘The mother fell to her knees and started to pray, crying to God as hard and as loud as she could. The daughter wept, sobbing and shrieking.’

  ‘So did he stop?’ Elizabeth asked.

  MacGillivray shook his head, near convulsed with laughter.

  ‘No, he diddled all the louder, thinking he just wasn’t getting through to them, and he grabs the girl’s hand, trying to get her to join in.’ He drew a deep breath, holding his chest to still his humour. ‘We were still outside, allocating the others to different houses. The noise was woeful. I had to go in and drag him out, still dancing.’

  He broke down then, laughing till tears ran, the others likewise, hanging on to their stomachs, roaring themselves helpless with laughter.

  ‘They must have thought,’ Anne hooted, ‘that it was some kind of tribal ritual. What with his dirk in the table.’

  ‘And him dancing round it,’ Elizabeth shrieked.

  ‘That he was about to carve them up,’ Jessie laughed.

  ‘And have them for supper!’ Will hollered.

  ‘Oh, dear.’ The Dowager dried her eyes. ‘I need more ale.’

  The night wore on. Not all of the stories were funny. There were some losses, and the Prince’s petulance and lack of heroism disappointed the listeners. But it ended with a victory. They all toasted Falkirk and the cause.

  ‘I didn’t see Clementina there.’ Anne frowned at MacGillivray. ‘The beggar girl from Edinburgh?’ He still looked blank. ‘The one who showed us the way through the marsh at Prestonpans?’

  MacGillivray recalled her now.

  ‘She didn’t come back, stayed behind with her father at Carlisle. He’d turned his ankle and couldn’t march home. But I fancy the truth of it was he’d grown sweet on the widow woman he was billeted with.’

  ‘Then Cumberland has captured them.’ Anne was distressed. It was because she’d given them money that the girl was there.

  ‘If an act of kindness can be blamed.’ MacGillivray took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Cumberland won’t detain children, or women either, for that matter. They might even parole most of the men.’

  ‘So she could be safe home by now?’

  ‘Or with a new mother and still in Carlisle.’

  Anne wanted to kiss him for the comfort he offered, but she refrained. The Dowager was watching and Anne did not feel ready to state her rejection of Aeneas yet, not with so many for company. She let go of MacGillivray’s hand and lifted her ale tankard. There seemed to be an awkward moment before anyone else spoke.

  ‘The loss of Kilmarnock will be a sore one,’ the Dowager said.

  ‘He’s alive and unhurt,’ Anne leapt to reassure her. ‘They took him to Edinburgh Castle, is all.’

  ‘When we defeat them next time,’ MacGillivray said, filling his tankard from the flagon, ‘he’ll be a free man again.’

  ‘Next time?’ the Dowager asked.

  ‘In the spring. We’re home to recoup and rest. Now that Cumberland commands, they risk everything in one throw. If we win, they’ll have nothing left.’

  ‘Will w
e get the chance to see the Prince then?’ Jessie asked.

  ‘I’ve invited him,’ Anne answered, ‘when the rest of the army arrives back, to dine here.’

  ‘I’ll cook for the Prince?’ Jessie shrieked.

  ‘With whatever help you need. But tell no one yet. Louden’s troops in Inverness would be forewarned if they had word of that.’

  Elizabeth was leaning back in her seat, watching the firelight gleam like gold in MacGillivray’s hair. Now she leant forwards, pushing her tankard over to be filled. He looked into her eyes as he did so.

  ‘Is the heat getting to you?’ he grinned.

  She lowered her eyelashes, then looked up at him again.

  ‘Not at all,’ she smiled back. ‘I’m enjoying it.’

  ‘Tell us about Meg’s shoemaker again,’ Will asked. ‘I liked the bit where he said sorry to the redcoat after Meg pitchforked him.’

  The Dowager was already at her porridge and the newspapers when Anne came down next morning.

  ‘Your tea service came while you were away.’ She didn’t look up from her reading. ‘Jessie would have brought you up a pot but you weren’t in your room.’

  ‘No.’ Anne looked through the window at the clean, white world outside. All the edges were blurred, everything smooth, calm and settled. ‘It wouldn’t feel right, using the master bedroom. I can’t stay married to Aeneas, not now.’

  The Dowager considered her. ‘Don’t rush, a ghràidh. That’s a big step. Let time help you take it.’

  Anne sat down, glad that was out of the way. The Dowager had old-fashioned views, believing women, married or not, should just please themselves if they wanted another man. The old Celtic ways carried no disapprobation against a friendship of the thighs. It made things simpler. Their ancestors divorced husbands with ease, for failing to provide or be respectful, if he snored, gossiped, was impotent or just repelled. Divorce was rare now, a matter for the courts, but it was the only answer here. Aeneas had abandoned her. She had turned to someone else. Her choice was made.

  MacGillivray came in then, greeting everyone cheerily and winking to Jessie who’d brought Anne’s porridge. The Dowager slapped the pages of her London Post in annoyance.

  ‘Would you look at this! They have us all as papists, led by the church of Rome.’

  ‘What, because the Prince is Catholic?’ Anne asked. ‘He guaranteed religious freedom, and our parliament will be secular, as it always was.’

  As with both nations, most of their force was Protestant, though many clans were Episcopalian rather than Presbyterian, the dour, national kirk that dominated further south. The Kirk was against the rising, the Catholic church for it, but Scotland’s Episcopal church stayed silent. Jacobite supporters came equally from all three. But religion was a crucial issue for England, where the monarch headed the Anglican Episcopal church and their king could belong to no other faith.

  ‘The Hanoverians will say anything to turn folk against us,’ MacGillivray added. ‘Even that we eat babies.’ He made a growling rush at Jessie. ‘So you better watch out,’ he warned.

  ‘Jessie?’ Anne puzzled, looking round at the girl.

  ‘She’s been outside, being sick, every morning for a week,’ the Dowager said.

  ‘It’s only first thing,’ Jessie protested. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘But with child.’ Anne was delighted. ‘Why, Jessie, I never noticed, and your waist has quite gone. Who is it?’ She paused. ‘Will, it’s never Will?’

  Jessie nodded, embarrassed to be the centre of attention.

  ‘Two is warmer in bed in the winter,’ she said, flashing a look at MacGillivray.

  ‘Indeed it is,’ he grinned. ‘Will’s a lucky lad.’

  ‘Are you wanting to wed?’ Anne asked.

  ‘No,’ Jessie got out, quickly. ‘I’m a long ways off that. He’s pestering me to handfast come haymaking. I said maybe.’ Handfasting committed lovers to live together for a year and a day before deciding if they’d marry. Anne wished she had chosen that route now. In June, she could simply have unmade her bed without fault on either side. Instead, while she’d please herself who shared that bed, until she was divorced or widowed, her responsibility was here.

  ‘So will the baby go to Will’s people when it’s weaned, or will you keep it?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ Jessie became flustered. ‘I’ll get the rest of the porridge.’

  She scurried out. MacGillivray drew his sgian dhubh and carved himself a slice of duck breast while he waited.

  ‘A baby would be nice about the place,’ Anne said.

  ‘Aeneas doesn’t know,’ the Dowager reminded her.

  ‘Well, I’m sure he’d –’ She stopped. She couldn’t speak for Aeneas. His opinion hardly mattered anyway. By the time Jessie’s baby was born, Moy might have a new chief.

  Jessie came back with MacGillivray’s porridge.

  ‘Will says he’s getting your horse ready,’ she told the Dowager. ‘He’ll put what he can in panniers and bring the rest of your things on by himself another time.’

  ‘You’re going home in that?’ Anne asked.

  ‘The road won’t be too bad,’ MacGillivray said. ‘No more snow fell through the night.’

  ‘But more will come,’ the Dowager added. ‘And I’d rather be back in my own house, now I can. If the Prince does take Inverness, he can stay with me. I should make ready, in case.’

  ‘Will can take my horse,’ MacGillivray offered. ‘See you safe home.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Alexander.’ The Dowager stood. ‘I’ll take my leave then.’

  Anne went with her to the hall, helped her on with her cloak.

  ‘You’re not leaving because of us?’ she asked, though she knew the reason.

  The Dowager patted her cheek.

  ‘My dear Anne, I said why I’m going. I speak my mind when I have mind to speak. Alexander is a good man. I’m sure he’s also an exciting one. Pleasures are few and fleeting. They should be enjoyed.’ She tied on her hat and was at the door before she spoke again. ‘I don’t think you’ve done choosing yet,’ she said. ‘Aeneas is also a good man.’

  ‘No, na can sin, he’s not.’ Anne shook her head. ‘He hanged Ewan. I saw him do it in the square, that day I went to see him.’

  ‘Ewan?’ The Dowager was puzzled. ‘I never heard Aeneas had a hand in that. It doesn’t sound like him.’

  ‘Did you tell him I had no desire to shoot him at Prestonpans?’

  ‘How could I? I’ve been here. He’s been busy.’

  ‘Then don’t, because I would shoot him now.’

  ‘Anne, if Aeneas ordered Ewan’s death, he must’ve had good reason. I’ll ask when I see him.’

  They heard Will bring the horses round. The Dowager kissed Anne on both cheeks and left. Good reason? Anne watched them plod off into the everlasting white, broken only by the stark, black bones of half-trees. To reject his wife, that was his reason, to cast their marriage aside. He’d taken his anger out on Ewan and, by doing so, confirmed himself her enemy. Now he guarded Inverness with a small force while an army of ten thousand Jacobites marched his way. Nothing except the landscape was black and white here. The Dowager would warn him. That’s why she went so suddenly. Anne had given the information on purpose. She wanted Aeneas to know his days were numbered.

  When Will returned from Inverness that afternoon, he plodded through a blizzard. White flakes whirled in the air. White earth, white air, white sky, blinding, blinding white. The knowledge of trees kept him on the route, knowing each copse, each individual trunk, the spread of branches whose stark-black multi-fingered hands cupped to catch the snow falling down. His knowledge of horses kept the trust between him and MacGillivray’s beast, never the sudden trip over a blind edge, the slip into a snow-filled crevice, always firm ground under foot. He was seventeen, born to life in the stables, and let the animal go on a light rein as he talked softly to it or crooned a Gaelic lullaby into its flicking ears.

  Sometimes the horse
talked back, a gentle snicker, the gulp of a breath, turning its nose to the side. It wanted to stop, under the trees, did not like this blasting, blinding whiteness or the snowballing in its feet. He dropped down then, knee-deep in the cold white-powdery drift, to pick out its hooves then walk beside its head, holding the bridle, breathing close to its nose, telling the horse about snow, about man, about war, about love and Jessie and babies, talking it home, talking them both home.

  It snickered again as they plodded the last few yards to the stable at Moy. When he led it into its stall, its soft damp muzzle nuzzled him, pushing at his cheek, under his chin, nudging his shoulder. He stripped off the tackle, rubbed it down, put fresh feed out, and ploughed his way through the high drifts against the house, into the kitchens. Jessie had seen him come the last yards, the snow hand-cleared off that window. She was bent over a roaring hot stove, face flushed, a pot of broth bubbling on the top.

  ‘You took your time,’ she complained, barely glancing round as he came in, stamping the snow off his feet.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It’s snowing out.’ She’d been worried. That was something. He sat and supped his soup in silence, listening to the fire crackle in the grate, watching Jessie move about, cooking supper for the house.

  Snow brought peace. The land locked down. Nothing moved for weeks. On the first day after Will returned, Elizabeth looked out her bedroom window to see a snow-made Highland warrior, blue bonnet perched on a fat, round head, standing beyond the edge of the yard. MacGillivray was putting the finishing touch; a twig for a sword. Anne, caped and hooded, ran out to him, laughing. Though Elizabeth couldn’t hear what was said, the white puffs of breath, the way her sister shook and moved told her if it was laughter or talk. MacGillivray spotted her at the window and waved her down. Watching him excited her. Anne wouldn’t always be in the way. Then he’d be hers, indebted to her, and not just flirting. Anticipation sharpened her desire. She began to change into warmer outdoor clothes.

  Out in the crisp air, Anne inspected her new fighter.