Highland Sunset

by Joan Wolf

  She changed her dress and smoothed her hair and went to wait for Lachlan in Edward's office. "Thank God," she said as the slender, dark clansman came in the door. "Lachlan, go out to the cave and warn Mac mhic Iain to keep inside, that there are enemy ships in the loch. I will get more information to him when I can, but for now he is to remain inside!"

  "Aye, my lady."

  They would never see Lachlan from the water, Van thought as the clansman moved swiftly away. He was like a shadow, silent and stealthy and insubstantial. He would warn Niall.

  Now that she had got the message safely off to Niall, she wanted Edward. Where was he? She went to the window half a dozen times and the last time the sight that met her eyes froze her blood. A great war ship was anchoring off the shore right in front of the castle. Van watched, petrified, as a boat was lowered and men were rowed to the shore.

  Dhé! They were coming to the castle. Where in the name of God was Edward?

  It was a white-faced Morag who brought her the news. "My lady, General Campbell would like to speak to you."

  Van raised her chin. "I will go to the drawing room, Morag. You may show him up in five minutes."

  "Aye, my lady," replied Morag, whose eyes were twice their usual size.

  Van was sitting in her mother's chair, her back ramrod straight, her head high on its lovely long neck, when General Campbell came into the room. She saw his eyes go around the huge, beautiful drawing room before they came to rest on her. Van had chosen her setting quite deliberately. Let the Campbell see he was not dealing with ignorant peasants. She stared him straight in the eye and asked coolly, "And to what do we owe the honor of this visit, General?"

  He crossed the floor toward her, over the Persian rugs, past the Titian portrait of one of her ancestors, and stopped before her chair. Van did not ask him to sit down.

  "Lady Linton," he said, "I am quite sure you know our errand. We are in search of the pretender." . Van raised an elegant black eyebrow. "Well, he certainly is not here, General." She gestured gracefully about the room.

  "I did not think he was in this castle, Lady Linton," Campbell replied a little shortly. "I do think, however, that he may be in Morar."

  Van's cool eyes never wavered. "Morar's loyalty is pledged to the government by Lord Linton."

  "I have no doubt of Lord Linton's loyalty, Lady Linton," the Campbell said, with the very faintest of stresses on the word "lord." "However, the pretender is thought to be in the company of your brother, and the MacIans will consider that their first loyalty is to Mac mhic Iain. Lord Morar and the pretender may well be hiding somewhere here in Morar without Lord Linton's knowledge."

  Van concealed her hands within the folds of her dress so he should not see how they were shaking. "What—?" she was beginning when she heard the door open and Edward's bright head appeared around the fire screen at the door. Van closed her eyes briefly. Thank God.

  "General Campbell," she heard her husband say pleasantly. "I see you have brought quite a company to visit us."

  "My lord." John Campbell of Mamore took the hand Edward was extending and smiled back at the earl's suntanned, good-humored face.

  "Sit down, man," Edward said, and General Campbell, with a quick glance at the silent Van, complied. Morag came in with wine and glasses on a tray and Edward poured a glass for himself and for the general. Van declined. She would have liked the wine but was afraid her hand was shaking too much to hold the glass.

  "I was just telling Lady Linton that we think the pretender may be hiding in Morar," General Campbell said to Edward.

  "Indeed?" Edward seemed perfectly relaxed and appeared to be taking no more than a polite interest in his visitor's words. "I am over the estate all the time, General, and I can assure you that I have seen no sign of the pretender."

  "I do not doubt you," Campbell returned a little grimly. "But he is thought to be with Niall MacIan, my lord. You have been in the Highlands long enough, I think, to know the loyalty a clan feels to its chief. They would shelter him and never "tell you of it."

  "That may well be so." Edward seemed completely unperturbed as he sipped his wine. "You have had no luck elsewhere?"

  "None. The surrounding area has all been thoroughly searched. There is a cordon of troops around Morar, my lord, and we do not think he has gotten through. Captain Scott is in the lower part of Arisaig. I have six men-of-war in the loch here, all with troops aboard. If the pretender is indeed in Morar, we will find him."

  Van felt cold. Icy cold. Her husband was regarding General Campbell with perfect serenity. "If you feel the pretender is in Morar, then of course you must look for him. But"—the merest hint of steel appeared in that pleasant voice—"I do not want to hear of one cottage burned or one man, woman, or child hurt on my property. I hope I make myself clear, General Campbell."

  "Perfectly clear, my lord." The Campbell rose to his feet. "I shall be sure your message is given to all the proper authorities."

  "One thing more." Edward was on his feet as well. "If my brother-in-law should ever come into your hands, I should be grateful if you would inform me immediately."

  Campbell looked once more, swiftly, at Van's silent figure. Then, "Of course, my lord," he said.

  Edward walked with the general to the door and Van sat as if frozen, her brain working furiously. Niall and the prince must get away from Morar. The search here would be too concentrated. They must get away.

  She forced herself to look calmly at her husband as he came back across the room toward her. "Campbell of Mamore is a decent sort," he said. "If he is in charge, there will be no plundering."

  "Van forced a laugh. "I never thought I'd see the day I'd be grateful to a Campbell."

  "Van." He was leaning against the chimneypiece and staring at his linked hands, a thoughtful frown on his face. "Van," he said again, "Campbell isn't going to find anything in Morar, is he?" And he raised his eyes and looked at her.

  Her face was pale under its tan, but the gray-green eyes that met his were clear and truthful. "Not that I know of, Edward," she answered steadily.

  Satisfied, he dropped his hands and nodded. "If they find Niall," he said, "we may be able to free him before they get him to Fort Augustus."

  She was now very pale. "Do you think so?" she asked hollowly.

  He poured a glass of wine and went to her side. "Drink this, sweetheart. Try not to worry so. If it is at all possible, I'll save Niall's skin for him. I promise you that."

  Van sipped the wine and felt her stomach heave. I will not be sick, she said to herself fiercely. I will not be sick. She gave the wine back to Edward, looked up into his concerned eyes, and wanted to cry.

  That night Van sent two messages, one with Lachlan to the cave and one with Donal to Donald Cameron of Glen Pean. Niall and Charles read Van's letter by the light of a burning stick; they were afraid to light a fire for cooking lest it be seen.

  "Campbell is in Loch Morar and Captain Scott is in Arisaig," Niall read out loud. "There are camps and sentries posted all over the hills from the head of Loch Eil to the top of Loch Hourn." Niall looked at the prince. "Van says our best chance is to go southeast, to Sgurr nan Coireachan, and from there to try to break through north. She has sent a message to Donald Cameron of Glen Pean to meet us at Sgurr nan Coireachan tomorrow night. He will guide us from there."

  "Where is Sgurr nan Coireachan?" Charles asked.

  "That great hill you can see from here, sir," Niall replied. "It marks the border between the Camerons' country and ours."

  Charles nodded and gave Niall a rueful grin. "It was too peaceful here to be true, MacIan. It looks as if we must be on our travels again."

  "Aye, sir, that it does," Niall replied with an answering smile. "And we'd best be gone before daybreak."

  "Give my thanks to your mistress," the prince said to Lachlan. "Tell her her prince shall never forget her loyalty or her courage."

  Lachlan nodded, bowed his head, and melted away in the darkness. Half an hour later, Niall and
Charles were on their way as well.

  CHAPTER 30

  Niall and the prince did not make it to Sgurr nan Coireachan. On their way they saw a flock of MacIans moving cattle away from advancing government troops. A clansman told them there were five or six hundred soldiers already at the head of Loch Arkaig. If Niall and Charles continued on their present course, they would run straight into the path of the enemy.

  The two fugitives lay in the heather all day, their only food some milk and bread given to Niall by his clansmen. No one had asked Mac mhic Iain who the unknown young man accompanying him was. At sunset they moved off, deciding it was now too dangerous to attempt to find Donald Cameron of Glen Pean. Instead, the two young men moved cautiously northward and, shortly before midnight, in a hollow between two hills, they were surprised by a man on foot coming straight at them. The late-night traveler proved to be none other than Cameron of Glen Pean, who had received Van's message and was in search of them.

  Donald had spied out the enemy's dispositions, and by paths forbidding even in full daylight, took them to a hill overlooking Loch Arkaig. There was a militia camp not more than a mile from where they lay, but the hill had already been searched, Donald said, and they remained safely hidden there for the whole of the long hot day. They started north again once it was dark.

  Niall had never been more sensible of the feeling that God was with them as he was during that perilous escape from Morar. They hid during the day and moved only at night. From the head of Loch Eil to the top of Loch Hourn there were enemy camps every half-mile, with sentries posted and regular patrols combing the hills. Sometimes they came so close to the camps that they could hear the soldiers talking. The going was treacherous. Charles walked between Niall and Cameron of Glen Pean and more than once the two surefooted Highlanders saved him from a dangerous fall.

  It was early on the morning of July 21 when they passed safely between two sentries in Glen Cosaidh, the outer post of the cordon surrounding Morar. For the moment, they were free of the net.

  By August it was clear to the English command that their quarry had escaped the trap. The Earl of Albemarle, who had succeeded the Duke of Cumberland as commander-in-chief of the king's army in Scotland, gave order for regular patrols to go out from Fort Augustus to search the west for the Old Pretender's son. Burning and looting and murder accompanied the soldiers wherever they marched.

  In Morar they were safe, but word reached them of what was happening in the surrounding country. Van tried her best to go about her daily rounds calmly, to speak quietly, to hide from Edward the anguish and the fury that were growing within her as each atrocity was reported. She felt at times as if she had a tiger hidden within her, a tiger whose existence she must keep out of sight even though it lashed and cried out for release.

  It was mid-August when Lachlan appeared with the information that Lord Edward Sackville was north of Morar, in Knoidart, with a large party of soldiers, laying waste the country and driving off all the cattle they could find.

  "A few of the Knoidart clansmen made off with the colonel's baggage horses, Lady Van," Lachlan told her somberly. He had found her supervising the distribution of clothing for the clan. The government had banned the wearing of the kilt and Edward had sent to Ireland for clothing, as the clansmen had no other garments aside from their traditional garb. "In revenge, the soldiers sacked the area," Lachlan went on. "They first raped the women and then forced them to watch the bayoneting of their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers."

  Van's knuckles went white. "God curse them all," she said.

  "Aye," replied Lachlan. He looked at her from under frowning brows. "The word is that they are coming to Morar."

  "I will speak to Lord Linton," said Van immediately.

  Lachlan's face lightened. "Aye," he said with perfect confidence. "Lord Linton will know what do do."

  Van waited until they were alone in their bedroom that evening before she related to Edward what Lachlan had told her that afternoon.

  He pressed his fingers to his temples as if he had a headache. "Sackville, did you say?" he replied. "He's the Duke of Dorset's son."

  "Do you know him?" Van asked.

  He shook his head. "I know Dorset. I know Sackville was wounded at Fontenoy." He was sitting in the chair before the empty fireplace, his fingers still pressed to his temples.

  "Too bad he wasn't killed," Van said.

  "If it wasn't Sackville, Van, it would be someone else." He sounded very weary.

  The tiger with Van began to pace up and down. "A duke's son," she said. "There is perhaps some excuse for the soldiers, who are ignorant, brutish recruits from the slums and stews of the country. But a duke's son, Edward! A man of education. There is no excuse for him. None."

  "No," he said. "There is not."

  "Well? What are you going to do?" She could hear the rising shrillness in her voice, feel the tiger she was trying so hard to keep hidden coming ever closer to the surface.

  "I will ride to Knoidart tomorrow," he said. "They won't come to Morar if I can help it."

  "When is this going to stop, Edward?" Her voice cracked. She was perilously close to screaming.

  He looked at her. "They want Charles Stuart, Van. Albemarle has sworn that for the chance of laying his hand on the pretender he would walk barefoot from pole to pole."

  She stared at him, her breath coming short and hard through flared nostrils. "Where did you near that?" She was standing at the footboard of the bed with half the distance of the room between them.

  "I received a letter from my mother today. She directed it to Inverary and the duke was kind enough to send it on to Morar." Even in the dimness of the bedroom light his eyes looked blue. "She had further news," he continued. "It seems Cumberland's popularity in England has faltered as word of what is happening here in Scotland has gotten out. When he returned to London in July he was welcomed like a hero, but the tide is beginning to turn."

  Van took a step toward him. "How?" she asked tensely.

  "Well, it seems that when it was proposed that the duke become an honorary freeman of a city guild, the aldermen replied, 'Let it be of the Butchers' Guild.' "

  Van's head went up. "Ah," she said.

  "But the aldermen's reply is not going to change government policy, Van. For as long as Charles Stuart is free, there will be soldiers in these glens."

  Van took another step toward him. "Would not the best thing for all be for the prince to escape?"

  There was a long pause. When he answered at last his voice was very weary. "Should the prince escape, Van, there will always remain the possibility of all this happening again. For as long as there is a Stuart pretender, the Highlands will be involved in plots to restore him."

  "No," Van said. Her voice was profoundly bitter. "We have learned our lesson, Edward. There is no way the Highlands will ever rise for a Stuart again."

  The expression in his eyes was as weary as his voice. "Would your brother agree to that?" he asked. "Or Lochiel?"

  Van looked back at him and did not answer.

  "And the MacIans and the Camerons would follow their chiefs," he continued, "and it would all happen again." He pressed his fingers against his temples once again. "No, I am afraid that the best thing for the Highlands is that Charles Stuart should die."

  The following morning Van watched Edward ride out on the horse he had had shipped to Morar from Ireland. She smiled a little as she remembered the look on his face when the animal had been unloaded. He was missing his own horses badly.

  He was doing so much for them all, had given up so much. And she loved him so. But she wondered if the day would ever come when they could live together without the shadow of this war and this retribution there to darken and distort what they felt for each other.

  She was not free to love him. At night she lay against his big, warm, life-giving body and felt despair and guilt welling up within her. How could she love him when she knew betrayal was in her heart? All she could do was live from da
y to day, waiting, waiting always for some word, some sign, that her brother was safe. Perhaps then she could begin to live again.

  Like so many Highlanders who had fought at Culloden, Alan MacDonald had been hiding and running and hoping somewhere in his travels to find a ship to take him to France. His father had escaped, he learned from clansmen in Lochaber. The wounded chief had boarded a French ship in Poolewe that had .been searching for the prince. Alan hoped to have similar luck but it was mid-August and he was still in the Highlands.

  It was his longing to see Van once more that prompted his decision to return to Morar. Perhaps he could get a ship from Arisaig, he told himself. And so he began to make his way west, from Loch Garry, where he had been in hiding for weeks, toward Knoidart and so to Morar.

  Alasdair MacIan's kilt and shirt were filthy and ragged by now, and Alan's red beard was long and shaggy. He had been mistaken for the prince more than once by clansmen who had only seen Charles from a distance. Alan had often thought of how he would put that resemblance to use should the occasion ever arise.

  He had made it to Knoidart when he was surprised by a party of Sackville's soldiers who were out rounding up cattle. He turned to run for the hills, where no English soldier could follow a Highlander, but Alan's luck had run out. He felt the musket ball thud into his back. The pain was terrible but he fought the mist that was distorting his vision. Dimly he could see a face leaning over him.

  "Villains," he said in the last great effort of his life, "you have slain your prince."

  Edward stared at the arrogant, aristocratic face of Lord Edward Sackville and made a heroic attempt to hold on to his temper. The colonel was dressed magnificently, in a fine scarlet broadcloth coat looped with gold, its blue lapels turned back to show the snow-white lace at his throat. Edward's own clothing was beginning to show definite signs of wear.

  "Your men's behavior flouts all the conventions of war," he managed to say evenly. "You are dealing with a civilian population, Colonel. Your regiment's behavior has been thoroughly reprehensible and I protest it to you strongly."