by Jane Yolen
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Prince Across the Water
Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris
To David,
who has shared all my Scottish
sojourns and stood with me
on Drummossie Moor.
—JY
To Kirsty and Mark, to Nik,
and to Elspeth,
the next generation.
—RJH
CONTENTS
RAISING THE BANNERS: AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 1745
1 CROSS OF FIRE
2 THE KING ACROSS THE WATER
3 FIRE AND MARSH
4 FAREWELLS
5 THE MARCH
6 THE KEPPOCH
7 REDCOATS
8 GLENFINNAN
9 NIGHT
10 PRINCE’S TOUCH
11 THE ROAD HOME
12 THE FARM
13 THE GLOAMING POOL
14 LOST
CHOPPING NETTLES: MARCH–APRIL 1746
15 PRACTICE
16 RETREAT
17 APPARITION
18 THE HOMECOMING
19 BREAKING THE NEWS
20 GONE FOR SOLDIERS
21 THE ROAD TO CULLODEN
22 DRUMMOSSIE MOOR
23 BATTLE LINES
24 BATTLE JOINED
25 THE CHARGE
26 FLEEING
27 THE KEPPOCH
28 THE OLD BOTHY
29 THE DEVIL SET LOOSE
PRINCE IN THE HEATHER: MAY–SEPTEMBER 1746
30 RETURN TO GLENROY
31 BUILDING ANEW
32 THE BROOCH
33 LOCH TRIEG
34 THE CAVE
35 THE BOTHY
36 JOURNEY BY MOONLIGHT
37 GLENROY
38 THE GLOAMING POOL
39 FAREWELL
WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT THIS BOOK
A PERSONAL HISTORY BY JANE YOLEN
A PERSONAL HISTORY BY ROBERT J. HARRIS
I. RAISING THE BANNERS
August–September 1745
Ah, who will play the Silver Whistle?
When my King’s son to sea is going?
As Scotland prepares; prepares his coming!
Upon a dark ship on the ocean.
—Scottish folksong
1 CROSS OF FIRE
Mairi was the first of us to see it. She came flying into the cottage, her yellow hair streaming behind her like straw in the wind and the fringe near covering her eyes. Her ankle-length skirt had torn halfway from its belt so that she was all but running in her petticoats.
“There’s fire on the mountain,” she cried. “They’re coming! They’re coming at last.”
She bumped into Ma, almost spilling the plate of fresh-baked bannocks all over the floor.
“Take care, lass!” Ma said. “When the horse is at the gallop, the bridle’s over late.” She meant to chide Mairi, who was always moving before thinking, but as usual Mairi hardly noticed the scold.
Andrew and Sarah started giggling so hard that crumbs of cheese fell from their mouths onto the wooden table. Da silenced them with a hard look and took a swallow from his ale cup. His looks were worth two times Ma’s old “says,” but that never stopped her from using them.
“Where’s she been off to now?” growled Granda from his place at the hearth. “It’s night and not a time for lassies to be off alone. Not disordered the way she is. Look at the state of her clothes. For shame, lass.” He took a deep breath before going on. “Catriona, ye should keep her on a bridle, or she’ll be away into the mists before ye can stop her.”
But Mairi was listening to none of them. Instead she leaped up and down, her bare feet scarcely touching the floor. “But they’re here!” she cried in a pleading voice, turning to me, who was ever her champion. “Just as I always said. Duncan, tell them.”
My mouth was full of bread and I had to swallow before I could speak. “Who, then?” I asked at last. “Who’s here?” Though I feared I already knew what she would say.
She slid to her knees at my feet. “The Sidhe, Duncan. The faerie folk. Come here from the other side of the water. And their prince will be riding at the head of them all, mounted on a butterfly, with jewels flashing in his hair.”
“Shush!” Da growled, since the look had clearly not worked. “I’ve told ye before to wheesht with that nonsense, girl.”
“But it’s true!” Mairi insisted, still looking at me, waiting for me to support her. “I told ye he’d come for me one day.”
We all knew Mairi was soft-headed, a daftie they called her in the village, a girl who saw faeries under every leaf and flower. Usually I was ready to humor her harmless fancies. They hurt nobody and there were already enough people willing to make fun of her. I protected her when I could.
“Dinna ye believe me, Duncan?” she asked, turning her petal face up to me. Her green eyes had the sheen of a holly leaf.
Da was about to warn her again when Ma raised a hand. “Listen, Alisdair,” she said to him, “there is something going on.” She put the plate of bannocks down on the table and cocked her head.
Ma was right. We could all hear the voices outside, now. I stared down at Mairi, her face aglow, her eyes huge in the flickering firelight.
Could it be true? Could it really? The faerie folk riding down the mountainside into our village, all the bells a-jangle on their horses’ bridles? Then I shook my head. I would be crazy myself if I believed in my sister’s nonsense.
Da was up now and, in three great strides, out the door. Granda hauled himself to his feet, moving stiffly after.
Jumping up, Mairi pulled me off the bench. “Come, Duncan, come! Before the fey folk all disappear!”
She dragged me to the open door so quickly, we tripped over Andrew and Sarah as they scampered in front of us. Mairi shooed them on like a dog after straggling sheep, all the while belting up her plaid again.
Outside the stars were bright in the clear August sky and there was a tang in the air from the stacks of peat we’d stored to keep our fire burning through the winter.
A tangle of voices coursed over the road and, as usual, my uncle Dougal’s voice rang loudest of all.
“It’s come!” he was shouting, pointing to the west, then making the sign of the cross over his broad chest. “The summons has come.”
His family followed his lead, gasping, crossing themselves, while his wife, my aunt Fiona, cried, “Oh, oh, oh!” over and over again as if she were more afraid than pleased. The other neighbors cried out as well, an infection of fear and awe.
Then I saw where he was pointing. There on the dark hillside above us blazed a cross of fire, like a sword that had been heated to a crimson glow. Flames danced along the outstretched arms and the fire swayed from side to side as the messenger who had borne it trotted onward to the next village.
“Creau toigh,” Da breathed. “The Cross of Shame.”
I knew then what the burning thing was: the Fiery Cross that summoned the men of clan Donald to follow our chieftain into war. Any man who failed to answer the call would live with the shame forever. I smiled slowly. No man of our village would ever fail in his duty to the clan.
Granda broke into a craggy grin. “At last,” he said, his old voice breaking with a kind of pride.
“Nae, nae,” Ma scolded, adjusting the plaid over her head for she’d had no time to find her white kertch. “The devil with ye men. All ye live for is war and glory. Well, hope is sowing while death is mowing. War is no respecter of families. Is it no enough we’ve children all but starving and nae crops in the field? And thre
e years in a row a ruined harvest?”
“Hush, woman,” Granda said. “What do ye know of honor? We fight for our clan and because our laird calls us out to do our duty. And our duty is to put the rightful king back on the throne.”
The rightful king! James Stuart. My heart nearly burst in two thinking about him across the sea in exile while that usurper, that German lairdie, ruled in London. When everybody knew it should be a Scot—and a Stuart—on the throne. Granda was right. What did Ma, or any woman, know about honor, or about the glory to be won for the MacDonalds when we helped bring the rightful king home?
“Ye see, Duncan,” Mairi squeaked, tugging on my sleeve and dragging me far from the cottage, “they’re coming.” She pointed after the burning cross. “That’s the sign. The whole host of the Sidhe are on their way. And my faerie prince will be at their head, ready to take me to his palace in the west.”
“Nae, Mairi,” I told her, trying to be gentle, even though I was annoyed with her, “come away.” She was acting just like Ma. She did not understand a thing. “It’s got naught to do with faeries. Who’s coming is a real live man, the bonnie prince from across the water—Charles Stuart, son of the rightful king of Scotland and England. He’s coming to win the war that will bring his father home and we’re to help him, we MacDonalds and the other Scottish clans. The prince is here to get his throne back. He’s no here for ye.”
Mairi’s lower lip trembled. Her green eyes shuttered. Any minute she would start to cry. “I dinna mean the prince of the Scots,” she said. “I mean the prince of the Sidhe …”
Losing patience with her, I said, “This is too important for any of yer games, Mairi. This is men’s work. The Stuart has landed. The chief has called. Clan Donald is going to war.”
2 THE KING ACROSS THE WATER
“Men’s work? What do ye know of men’s work?”
Suddenly I was grabbed from behind and shaken violently from side to side. I wrestled free and spun round to see the familiar face of my cousin Ewan.
“Just testing yer mettle,” he said, stepping out of range of my fist. “Maybe in another year or two ye’ll be strong enough to lift a man’s sword.”
Ewan was only a year older than me, fourteen last winter, and already he’d been on a cattle raid with his father and the others. Last summer they had brought back six cows from the land of our enemies, the Campbells, a necessary theft with the harvests so bad. Ewan never tired of reminding me of his part in that triumph.
“Dinna ye worry, Duncan,” he would say, patting my head as if I were a bairn, a wee child, “yer too young yet for a man’s part. Ye must stay here and tend to the milking.”
Milking! Girl’s work!
After a whole winter of his head-patting, I’d finally turned and without warning punched him in the nose. We’d fought for a long time, kicking and gouging and rolling in the dirt, until finally we fell apart, too exhausted to go on. After that, he’d stopped calling me a bairn, stopped patting me on the head. But he’d yet to call me a man.
“If ye want to test my mettle again, then step closer,” I challenged him. “I’m sure ye remember my fist.” His nose surely did, for it was still askew from my winter punch.
He took another step away, laughing. “Oh, I willna fight ye, cousin, for I have to save myself for the true king’s enemy, the English redcoats and the German upon our throne.” His voice was mocking. “You wouldna deny me that, would ye?”
Mairi whirled round and stared intently at him. Then suddenly she jabbed a thin, wee finger toward him and spoke in a strange crooning voice I’d never heard her use before.
“There’s blood on yer head, Ewan, Dougal’s son,” she said. “I see it as clear as if ye were wearing a scarlet bonnet.”
A deadly hush fell over the three of us. I felt an awful shiver go up my back as sharp and fast as lightning.
Then Ewan shrugged. He tried to make light of it, but his face was pale and a deep line creased his forehead. He opened his mouth twice before he could speak and then he said, “Ye had best keep a tight hold on her, Duncan. She’s so light in the head, she’s going to blow away like thistledown.”
I wanted to give him a joke back, but Mairi’s voice had frightened me. She may have been a bit daft, but she’d never had the sight before, never seen past the dark curtain of time and into the future. An old woman named Granny Mags who lived in the next village was said to tell fortunes for a coin or a basket of milled rye, but I’d never believed in her power.
“Dinna say such things, Mairi,” I chided her. “It’s bad luck.” I took her by the shoulder and led her gently back toward the cottage, where Da was looking grim and Granda elated.
As we got to them, Granda was saying, “Ye know what to do, Alisdair.”
“Aye, I know well enough,” Da responded grimly, his fingers sawing through his beard, “though I dinna have to like it. And the men will like it even less. Catriona is right. The crops are all stunted again, and the children go to bed hungry most nights. The Stuart has picked a bad time to come back.”
Granda gave him a startled look. “I never thought to hear you say such a thing, Alisdair. We Scots have been waiting thirty years for the Stuart’s return. I know. I fought back in the ’15 for the prince’s father.”
I was startled, too. “Da, surely this is a great thing, the prince come home …”
He ignored me and spoke directly to Granda. “Dinna fear, old man, I’ll do my duty. I’m a loyal clansman after all, as ye brought me up to be. The MacDonalds hold my heart and hand and I know what we owe our laird. But I still have the right to speak my mind to my family. And I tell ye again, the prince has come at the wrong time.”
I was stunned hearing him say anything against the Stuart prince. It brought me immediate shame. That a MacDonald should speak this way, and my own da. My cheeks went flame red while something awful and cold squatted, like a toad, in my gut.
But Da turned from the two of us and signaled the rest of the village men with a raised fist. “MacDonald! MacDonald!” he cried. Then he turned back and said to Granda, “Honor satisfied?”
Granda spit to one side as if to deny it, though he said nothing more.
But the other men had heard nothing of this exchange, and cried back at Da, “MacDonald! MacDonald!” for Da was the leader of our village since he was married to a woman who was the closest in blood to our chieftain, MacDonald of Keppoch. “MacDonald! MacDonald!”
The sound of the shout touched the hills and sent it back to us. I felt the cry like a strong wind off the mountain’s slope.
“And God help us all,” Da muttered. He waited until the men disappeared into their byres and cottages. Then he turned, saying, “Granda, Duncan, Andrew, come. Catriona, ye and the girls stay out here for now.”
We followed him into the cottage. Once inside, Da closed the door behind us. Then he brought over a stool, stood on it, and pulled out a long stone from over the lintel of our door. He handed the stone over to me without a word. It was a heavy grey thing, as big as a child’s coffin, and I nearly dropped it. Setting it on the floor carefully, I straightened up with equal care. Da had reached into the hollow space over the lintel and was drawing out a long bundle.
“Mark this well, Duncan,” he said to me. “And ye, too, Andrew. For ye are my boys who will one day soon be men. Ye must know where we keep the family’s great weapon of war, the one we use only to fight for our king.” He stepped off the stool, then unwrapped the linen, and there lay a great basket-handled sword. He gripped it and held it up, one-handed. In the firelight, the blade glowed silver and red.
I watched in awe. In all my thirteen years I had known nothing of that hiding place, nothing of that sword.
“So now ye know, boys,” Granda said. “Be proud of yer name and be worthy of that sword. I carried it in the ’15 when I fought for our king, and now it’s come out of hiding again to do its work once more.”
“I will, Granda,” I said.
“Me, too,” Andrew
echoed.
Da wrapped the sword back in its linen shroud and set it on the table. Then he picked up the stone, stepped on the stool, and slotted the stone back in its place. “Now ye can open the door to yer ma and the girls. But not a word to them about the hiding place, hear?”
Andrew and I put our hands over our hearts. “We swear,” we said together.
In what seemed like moments but must have been an hour at least, the men of the village all gathered again at the crossroads, this time in a tight circle, two dozen of them, ready to unwrap their own treasures. Granda was already there.
I stood at the door with Ma and Andrew.
“Come,” Da said to me.
“I want to go, too, Da,” Andrew complained, and Ma cuffed him.
Da stopped and looked over his shoulder, saying, “Andrew, yer time will come, but it isna now.”
We started again for the crossroads, but Andrew complained a second time.
Ma called out, “As the auld cock craws, the young cock learns. Watch what ye teach yer sons, Alisdair MacDonald.”
This time Da turned and I turned with him. He spoke in a low voice I barely recognized. “Scotland has waited thirty years for this day, Catriona. We were children then, ye and I, and didna need to know what the kingdom meant for us. But we know now. And well ye ken I have nae choice in the matter. We owe service to the laird.”
“There’s always a choice,” she countered. “We need ye at home. Three bad harvests in a row and the man gone when he’s needed most? How will I manage?”
“Ye’ll manage,” he said curtly, “ye always do.” He gave me a look.
We turned our backs on her and walked on.
When we got to the crossroads, I looked around the circle of men who I had known all my life. My uncle Dougal, big and dark and as bullheaded as Ewan, who stood by him, both on Da’s right hand. The twins Robert and Ronald, who shared a single farm, next to them. Then their father, Andrew, who, it was said, was half their size and twice as hardy. The farrier MacKinnon, who had married into the clan, stood across from us. John the Miller, his son and apprentice Alan, and all the rest, right round to Granda, who stood by my left. Men who had lived around me forever. Men who suddenly seemed bigger and stronger than I could account for.
