A Highlander's Redemption

by Aileen Adams

  Though it took hours, he had slithered away from the battlefield like a worm, resenting the fact that he had to do so, bitterness prompting him to survive. He wouldna let the English soldiers win. He wouldna let them find him only to stab him in the back or slice off his head as they had done to his fellows, over whom he crawled as he slowly made his way to the edge of the marsh. By that time, his clothes and exposed skin splotched with blood, mixed with the dirt and the mud through which he’d slogged.

  He was a hunted man now, hunted and haunted by what he had seen, what he had heard. The English wanted, no, they needed to punish the Jacobites, to teach them a lesson. They had searched through the wounded and dying, dealing the death blows, chasing those who had tried to run…

  His horse climbed steadily through the cleft of the mountains, topped a ridge, and then headed down to the lower valleys. He’d found the gelding standing in the midst of the woods on the outskirts of the battlefield, shivering, eyes wild. Alasdair had seen the horse from twenty yards away, and once sure that no one was around, he’d headed toward the beast, speaking softly, trying to sooth its nervous stomping at the scent of blood. His leg burned and threatened to collapse from beneath him with every step, but he was determined to leave this place, this folly of the Bonnie Prince, the reminder of the waste of thousands of men—for what?

  From the trappings of the animal, he gathered that it had belonged to an English soldier. Eventually, he had stumbled toward it, one hand held out toward the horse’s muzzle. Though nervous, the horse was trained for war and warily sniffed at his hand, ears back. He’d snorted once, stomped a massive hoof on the ground, and then stood still as Alasdair reached for one of its trailing reins and then laboriously claimed into the saddle. The animal seemed to be as anxious to leave the blood, death, and destruction behind as Alasdair, for he responded willingly to direction.

  He turned the horse southwest, not so focused on a specific direction as he was with the problem of merely clinging to the horse’s mane, desperately trying not to fall off. Every step of the horse caused a bolt of pain to surge through his body; his left leg on fire now, the wound bleeding anew, his head pounding badly, his eyesight blurry, fighting the dizziness that left him teetering in the saddle throughout his slow ride through the trees that surrounded the marshy field where so many had fallen.

  Wavering in between consciousness and unconsciousness, Alasdair had given the horse its head, praying only that the gelding didn’t attempt to return to its English masters, for if it did, Alasdair was too weak and injured to fend off another attack. Thankfully, when he jolted to awareness, he found that the horse had stopped, and he was leaning precariously to the left. He righted himself and by looking at the stars, was pleased that the horse had indeed kept to the southwestern direction. To the east, the sky grew slightly lighter and in a matter of minutes the stars faded, and the sun rose, just then peeking over the horizon.

  He rode on. Day into night, scrambling for food where he could find it. Early berries, roots, and despite his pain, he’d managed to kill a couple of rabbits after setting a snare for them in the midst of a thick wood. His horse grazed on lush, wet grasses, no worries there. He crossed creeks and drank his fill, as did his gelding. He kept his wounds as clean as he could. They both should have been sewn up, he knew that, but without adequate supplies, he could only hope that he’d cleaned them well enough of mud and dirt, that they healed without becoming infected. If they did, he would likely die before he reached his home.

  Now, weeks after his journey from the battlefield had begun, he felt a sense of relief. He would be home soon. The beauty of the landscape allayed the pain, the anger, and the anguish surging through him in waves. Though he welcomed the rage and the bitterness, which helped distract his mind from the pain of his wounds, he also longed for peace of body and spirit. After a long night of riding, he felt close to exhaustion. His horse needed rest. He needed rest.

  Finally, just after dawn, the horse, scenting water, picked up its pace and indulged in a bone-jarring trot down a slight incline toward a small stream curving this way and that along the bottom of a ravine. Alasdair toppled forward and slid off the back of the horse as the horse dipped his head to drink. He landed in the soft, silky dirt of the stream bank, barely able to prevent himself from shouting from the bolts of pain shooting through his body, muttering a string of soft curses instead. A frightened horse would run, and he needed his horse.

  Gradually, he rolled over onto his stomach and slithered his way to the stream, also drinking his fill, hands submerged in the cool water. His horse stood nearby while he lowered his face into the water, then gently swiped his hand over the gash on his face. The icy water relieved some of the throbbing, at least enough for him to carefully feel the puckered edges of the slash, the indentation into muscle, the gash in his cheek deep enough to feel bone. He shivered and then lifted his face, rolling onto his side to look at his leg.

  Thank God he still had his eyesight. He managed to maneuver himself into a sitting position, his left leg extended in front of him. The wound was deep, and he’d been losing blood on and off since he’d left the battlefield, but if it were a severe injury or had nicked a blood vessel, he would be dead by now.

  Cupping his hands, he washed the stab wound on his thigh, the skin around the injury stinging from the cold water, but washed clean it didn’t look as bad as he had feared it might be. It hurt like hell, but it was healing. Still a lot of healing to do, but if he could keep it clean, he might live. He had nothing to wrap it with. He sighed, staring at the bubbling stream, his thoughts wandering. Past and future. Past, and then future.

  The horse blew a snicker impatiently, and Alasdair glanced up at the gelding, watching him.

  “What’s yer name?” he asked, even that slight movement of his face prompted a wince of pain. The right half of his face felt swollen, stiff.

  He stared at the horse, both of them warily eyeing the other.

  “Fine. I’ll just call ye horse then, for now.”

  It took some doing, but he managed to remount and led the horse downstream. Hours passed, the sun rose high in the sky, but he continued in this direction toward the western horizon. It was just after dark when Alasdair realized he’d dozed.

  The horse had stopped inside a copse of trees, contentedly munching on clumps of grass at the base of a lichen tree. The horse was tired. He was tired. With luck, tomorrow he would reach his home, but it would be foolish to try to continue in this darkness.

  He slid off the horse, this time managing to balance his weight on his good leg. He patted the animal’s neck, received a soft grunt in reply, and then, wrapping his hand around the end of one of the reins, slowly lowered himself to the ground, leaned his back against a tree, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  4

  By the time Alasdair rode into the outskirts of a village he knew—about two hours’ ride from his home—he already had a taste of his new future.

  The horrified looks, the screams of children who saw him, the blatant stares, all reminding him—as if he needed to be reminded—that he was forever scarred, forever damaged. He kept all expression from his face, having somewhat prepared himself, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. Did he truly look so horrible? Was he a monster? Over the past days, his frustration and bitterness had grown, but not just against the English, not just against Bonnie Prince Charlie and his stupidity, but against himself.

  He should’ve known better than to join the Jacobites, should’ve known that it was a potentially useless endeavor. Hindsight. But no, he had left, if not believing in grandiose righteousness and loyalty to the Bonnie Prince, at least with the sense of doing his part, and wasn’t it better to try and fail than never try?

  But now, riding through the village he had grown up in, seeing the faces staring at him with pity, with looks of disgust, he wondered if he’d made another mistake in coming home at all. Where were his friends? Where were Kyle or Lachlan? He saw several familiar f
aces, middle-aged women, a couple of younger ones with children hanging on to their skirts, a few older men, but where were the younger men? The men he had grown up with? He instinctively knew. They, like so many of his soldier comrades, were likely dead, either on the battlefield or having been hunted down by the Sassenachs. Or hiding out in the recesses and mountains of the Highlands.

  He received no greetings and didn’t offer any. Silent and morose, he rode through the middle of the village and then out the other end, spying the small thatched roof of Elspeth Warren’s cottage on the left-hand side of the road leaving town.

  The path that wound beyond her small cottage would eventually take him past the land of Bruce Boyd and his blind daughter, then up to the top of the hill, down into another low valley, and another hour’s ride farther to his home. He saw no one during his ride and focused on the reunion with his father. While his father had tried to discourage him from joining the Jacobites and running off to fight with them, he knew that his father would be glad to see him.

  Yet when he rode into the yard, he heard no call of greeting and saw no movement in the small barn, nor from the garden plot beside the house nor in the fields beyond. He frowned as he spied the chickens plucking at the ground near a small shed. It was just past noon. His father should have been out in those fields, preparing the ground for planting.

  “Father?” he called out, voice raised, head turning this way and that, looking for any sign of his father.

  Had he missed him in town? Someone surely would’ve stopped him, told him his father was there, perhaps at the pub, or perhaps buying supplies from the local merchant. He dismounted, ground tying his horse, still limping, but not quite as badly as he had weeks earlier, as he unlatched the wooden door to their small home. He stepped inside, looked to the left and saw that the kitchen area was clean, the main room also tidied up.

  “Father?”

  A cough from his father’s bedroom beyond the main room met his ears, and he smiled, his healing face still resisting expressions, the left side of his mouth turning upward while the right remained stiff. He stepped to the door of his father’s room, knocked once and opened it, eyes wide with surprise when he saw his father lying in bed, his gray hair mussed and spread out on the pillow around his head. The sallow tint to his skin, his rheumy eyes, and the harsh rattling breath from his chest prompted alarm.

  “Father?” he said, moving quickly to his father’s bedside, going down on one knee beside it, ignoring the pain in his leg as he did so.

  His father blinked and turned toward him, no recognition for several moments until he blinked again, then once more, his eyes now watery with tears.

  “Alasdair,” he whispered, a wan smile on his lips. “Och, my boy… ye’ve made it home.”

  “Aye,” Alasdair replied, confusion, fear, and anxiety racing through him. “What has happened?”

  “I’m dying, lad,” Sean Macintyre said simply. “I’ve just been waiting… for ye to come home.”

  Stunned, Alasdair had no words. He had sent his father a message by courier the week after the battle, told him he’d been wounded but was making his way home. “But… ye are ill? Why didn’t ye send me word?”

  “Ye have yer own life to live, Alasdair. I’ve lived mine.”

  “Who’s been caring for ye?”

  “Elspeth Warren,” Sean said, and then offered a small shrug. “Allison Hegarty and Kathleen Kilkenny… they’ve both helped as well.” With a sigh, Sean lifted a hand, placed it over his son’s, now resting on his chest. “I haven’t long to go, Alasdair. I’ve just been waiting, holding on…”

  His heart thudding with dread, Alasdair stared at his father with dismay, a myriad of emotions rushing through him. He gently shook his head. “Nay, Father, I won’t let ye die. I’m home now. I can take care of ye.”

  Sean blinked, then lifted a trembling hand to gently cradle his son’s face. “It is I who should care for ye, for yer wounds—”

  “Ye’ve cared for me all my life, Father,” Alasdair muttered, swallowing the growing lump in his throat and the pain he felt at seeing his father so humbled, so weakened. “I will care for ye.”

  “I have something to tell ye, Alasdair.”

  Alasdair passed a gaze over his father’s features—the sunken cheeks, the thin, papery skin, the tremors in the older man’s blue-veined hand, riddled now with age spots. Had those spots been there when he left? Why hadn’t he noticed? He had never even considered that something this terrible could happen while he was away. Why, when he left, his last sight of his father had been in the fields, the older man working to bring in his small crop of wheat. He looked healthy, strong, and able.

  “What is this sickness?” he asked, voice soft with dismay.

  Sean tried to smile. “It doesn’t matter, son. I’m not long for this world, but before I go, there’s something ye need to know.”

  “What is it?” Alasdair asked, his heart beating faster, his mind trying to take it all in, his own pain and bitterness forgotten, for the moment.

  “Ye rode through the village?”

  Bitterness that he’d swallowed surged again, and the returning anger prompted him to frown. “Aye. My countenance frightened them and caused the children to hide behind their mother’s skirts—a nice welcome home, is it not?”

  His father squeezed his hand. “When I learned I had not long to live, I made some arrangements.”

  Every few words, his father paused to take a deep rattling breath. Alasdair frowned again. “What arrangements?”

  “Yer betrothed in marriage.”

  For several moments, Alasdair didn’t understand. “What?”

  “It is already done, the dowry received. Ye will marry, as ye should have done years ago.”

  What? His father had contracted a marriage agreement? Why? Why would his father do this?

  “Why?” he blurted. “To which unlucky lass have ye made this contract?”

  His father avoided the first question but answered the second.

  “Beitris Boyd.”

  Beitris— “The blind lass?” he asked in disbelief, his one eye widened, the other only halfway there. Disbelief and shock surged through him. “Why?” he repeated.

  “What’s done is done. By now, the entire town knows ye have returned. Bruce Boyd will surely come by in the next day or two with Beitris. She’s a good lass, Alasdair, a kind and gentle soul. She will make ye a good wife.”

  Alasdair felt a surge of frustrated anger. “But father, she’s blind!” Why had his father done this to him? What possibly could have prompted him to tether him to a blind woman for the rest of his life? He wanted to be angry, to argue with his father, but that deep rattling breath in Sean’s chest, the bloodshot eyes, the purple bags, and the sunken cheeks prevented him from doing so.

  “Father,” he whispered, resting his forehead on his father’s arm. “What have ye done?”

  Sean Macintyre placed his hand on his son’s head, like a blessing. Alasdair lifted his head, tears burning in his eyes. He would honor his father’s wishes. Of course he would, even if he didn’t like it. He didn’t want him to die. Didn’t want to lose the only—

  He nodded.

  His father offered a weak smile, squeezed his son’s hand, and spoke. “I dinna want ye to be alone, son. I want ye to promise me that ye will try, in spite of her blindness, despite yer own injuries, yer own obvious bitterness against what life has dealt yer way, that ye will try.” A pause during which his father gasped for breath, his lungs sounding filled with fluid. “I pray ye will find that ye have room in yer heart for love, Alasdair. I loved yer mother and long to see her again in the afterlife… God willing, ye will eventually feel the same way about the lass.”

  Then, to Alasdair’s horror, his father was racked with a fit of coughing, gurgling, deep in his throat, then gasped, eyes wide. Alasdair quickly reached his arms around his father’s frail shoulders and lifted him up from the bed, trying to help him breathe better, his father’s head re
sting against his shoulder like a small, vulnerable child. He blinked back the tears in his eyes, pushed his anger and dismay deep down as he held his father, his strong arms wrapped around the slender frame, so frail now that Alasdair easily felt his ribs protruding from the thin skin, hanging loosely over his bones as he took his last breath and died in his arms.

  5

  Beitris walked arm in arm with Elspeth toward the cemetery to pay their last respects to Sean Macintyre. The service inside the small church on the south edge of town had only been sparsely filled, according to Elspeth, who whispered information—who had come and with whom, and how they behaved. The truth of the matter was, Sean Macintyre rarely came into the village, so not that many could actually be counted as friends but rather mere acquaintances. Beitris hadn’t had contact with him in years, since Alasdair had left school to tend the family farm with his father when she was maybe twelve or thirteen years of age.

  She didn’t need Elspeth to tell her everything. Her hearing was excellent, as was her sense of smell. She sat on one of the benches somewhere in the middle of the small church, hearing the whispers, the cough of a child or two, mothers admonishing their children to sit still, the rustle of fabric, the heavy clomp of footsteps. She knew from previous experience with deaths in the village that Sean Macintyre would be lying in a simple wooden casket near the front of the church beneath the altar. She would—

  The startled cry of a child followed by a whimper and a mother’s soothing tone interrupted her thoughts. She stiffened and turned to look over her shoulder like any sighted person would do, knowing that someone had appeared in the doorway. Someone who had paused there, gazing over the small congregation.

  “It’s him!” Elspeth gasped, whispering in Beitris’s ear. “Och, good Lord!”