Pursuit of Princes (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 5)

by Julia Brannan

  She knew that good people could do bad things. And whilst she agreed with upholding the law she was nevertheless willing to bend it for those misguided people who happened to be her friends, as she had just now. But Edwin was an innocent in many ways and took comfort from seeing things in black and white. Good, evil. Legal, illegal. The discovery of Anthony and Beth’s treachery had shaken him to the core, as did the fact that he could not, no matter how hard he tried, find it in his heart to hate them. Caroline forced herself back to the question he had asked.

  “Some highwaymen behave like gentlemen, are polite to their victims. And remember, most of the people who attend executions are poor and powerless, and they see highwaymen as people like them who are fighting back and who are, however temporarily, winning a victory over those in power. If the criminal then stands on the gallows, defiant, and makes a good speech, he will be the hero of the day.”

  “So you are saying that public executions glorify crime and lawlessness rather than acting as a deterrent?”

  “Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yes, I suppose they can. Some criminals redress the balance between the powerful and the powerless, at least for a while, and win the hearts of the crowd.”

  Edwin thought for a moment.

  “I need to go to another execution,” he said. “Maybe more than one. I want to see for myself what a normal hanging is like.”

  Caroline stared at him, shocked.

  “Edwin, you’re grey. I thought you were going to faint at one point today. Why would you want to put yourself through that again? Leave it to those who enjoy such things.”

  “No, you mistake me. As far as the government is concerned, executions act as deterrents. Look what will come of you if you break the law, look how horrifying it is to die by hanging, in public. But you’re telling me that the criminals are glamorised by the mob, who see it as a great entertainment rather than a terrifying lesson. I need to see this for myself.”

  “Why? Isn’t it enough to see one?”

  “No, it isn’t. Because if I am going to campaign for a change in the law regarding public executions, then I need to know if I am right in believing that many criminals are encouraged in their crime by the knowledge that if they’re caught they will have their moment of fame, and that the crowd learns nothing from witnessing their end.”

  “You think that we should not execute criminals and traitors?” Caroline said.

  “No. I think we should execute them, but quickly and privately.”

  “You are upset, Edwin. This has shocked you terribly. I knew it would. But people need to know the consequences of treason. Will they learn that without seeing the end they could come to?”

  “Do you think that Anthony and Beth didn’t know the consequences they would face if they were caught? But did it stop them?”

  Caroline sighed.

  “No, it didn’t. Because in their minds, it was worth the risk of dying in such a manner to see the Stuarts restored to the throne.”

  “Exactly. In which case making such executions public is pointless, because it acts as no deterrent at all to those who are determined to pursue such a path.”

  “I agree. It will not stop those who are determined, or desperate. But for those who are thinking about it, seeing what they might come to if they continue might stop them embarking on a life of crime in the first place. We live in a brutal world, Edwin, and sometimes brutal means are needed as a deterrent.”

  “You are right. I need to think about this. You told me once that I was gentle and caring, and fight with words, not fists.”

  “I remember. When I threatened to shoot Richard. Part of me still wishes I had.”

  He smiled.

  “Today I’ve realised that there’s a whole world out there that I know almost nothing about. And I should know about it. I am lucky enough to be in a position where I can influence policy decisions. But I need to see the consequences of those decisions, and I cannot do that by hiding away from them. There is something deeply wrong about what I witnessed today, but I’m not sure what it is, or how it can be changed. I need to find out.”

  “Then you must. But not now, while you’re so upset. And not for the next few days, either. Because you are coming to Summer Hill with me and Freddie, to see what I’ve been doing there. I need you to see the consequences of my decisions, and to influence my future ones. And then when you’re calmer and relaxed, you can think about changing the rest of the world. And I will support you in that, if I can.”

  He put his arm around her.

  “What would I do without you, Caro?” he said.

  “The same as I would do without you, Edwin,” his wife replied. “Fall apart. So let us enjoy the time we have together.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Scotland, August 1746

  It was a glorious summer day when Alex finally returned to Loch Lomond, some four weeks after the personas of the plain-speaking Yorkshireman Tobias Grundy, the ugly old bastard George Armstrong, and the deaf idiot John had been buried, along with the all-too-real corpses of forty soldiers of His Majesty’s Army. Their weapons and most of their clothes, with the exception of the instantly recognisable and therefore incriminating scarlet coats, had been redistributed amongst those Highlanders in need of clothing and in want of arms to continue the fight, and the cattle were now being slowly and very discreetly delivered to those in need of food. All things considered it had been a great victory and an excellent start to the war of attrition that Alex intended to wage on the redcoats, along with those men who wished to fight with him.

  Normally when a chieftain returned to his clan after an absence, particularly one with the potential for news gathering this one had, he would expect to be loudly and joyously welcomed by his clansfolk. However Alex had neither wanted nor expected such a welcome, and so was not disappointed by the profound silence that greeted his return to the settlement.

  Of course the silence was not really profound; birds sang in the trees, bees buzzed in the heather and clover, and the waters of the loch lapped gently against the shore. But there was no human sound at all, and no sign that humans had inhabited the area for some considerable time.

  Angus had excelled himself, if this was indeed his idea. Alex had told the MacGregors to abandon their houses, but they had done far more than that. The heather thatch and roof timbers were gone and the stones of the houses collapsed, as if they had fallen in over time. Some of them had been removed completely, as though pillaged by another clan for building materials. All the clansfolk’s belongings were gone. Graeme’s garden had been obliterated. Even the cowpats, a sure sign of recent occupation to an observant soldier, had disappeared. The only thing they had not been able to do was replicate the encroachment of nature; there were no weeds growing up through the floors, no ivy creeping over the abandoned houses. But all in all, the village gave a good impression of having been abandoned some time ago.

  Alex smiled to himself and began to make his way up the mountain to the place where he knew they would all be waiting to hear his news. It had been a very tiring few weeks, first emotionally and then physically, and he couldn’t wait to get home and relax for a day or two.

  The emotional part had been the worst. Taking Robert MacDonald’s body back to his chief had been not only very upsetting, but potentially dangerous too. Alex knew that the Glencoe chief had wanted no part of the raid and had only agreed to let them use his valley as a hiding place because of some favour he owed Ealasaid. Alex had prayed that MacIain would accept Allan’s word as to the circumstances of the killing.

  If he had not, then a blood feud would have been declared between the clans, because Alex could not, would not have accepted the alternative, which would have been to sacrifice Robert’s killer in atonement. He had already lost his wife and one brother; he would not lose another, no matter what the price he had to pay.

  But in the end the MacDonald chief had accepted Allan’s story, and that it was better to lose one reckless clans
man than risk the wrath of the British Army coming down on them.

  “Ye ken well, I wanted no part of this raid,” he had said sadly, “but once I agreed to it, I wouldna go back on my word, and in truth I’m glad I changed my mind, for surrendering as I did pained my soul and this has gone some way to appeasing that. But when some of the men came to me and asked to join you in the venture, I tellt them then that if they did they must accept you as their chief for the duration of the raid, or face the consequences. And they agreed, all of them, including this wee loon.” He looked sadly down at the shrouded figure of his clansman, and then at Angus, who was standing, pale and anxious, in the corner of the room. “I’ll no’ have bad blood between us over it. Ye did right, laddie, but I’m sorry ye had to.”

  “Will ye let me be the one to tell Ealasaid?” Alex asked. “As her kinsman by marriage and the one who proposed the raid, I feel it should be myself who breaks the bad news to her.”

  MacIain looked up then, and to Alex’s surprise the chief’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Christ, ye dinna ken. Of course, how could ye?”

  “Dinna ken what?” Alex asked.

  “She’s dead. She died three days ago. She just went to bed and didna wake up. I’m sorry, man,” he added, alarmed by the sudden pallor of Alex’s face as he heard the unexpected news. “Sit down.”

  Alex sank down into a chair, and rubbed his hands over his face as he fought to control the surge of grief that threatened to overwhelm him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a few moments. “I shouldna be so shocked. I mean, she was a great age, but –”

  “But ye thought she’d live for ever,” MacIain finished sadly. “Aye, we all did. She’ll be sorely missed. But it was the way she’d have wanted to go, peacefully and surrounded by her family. Well, being the woman she was, maybe she’d have preferred to die in battle, given the choice, but in a manner of speaking she did. She fought a fierce battle of words wi’ me to get me to agree to your plan. It’s a fitting tribute to her.”

  It had indeed been a fitting tribute to her. And a fitting start to the revenge for the death of her equally feisty granddaughter, who had died in battle, killing the soldier who had killed Maggie. Angus, Alex and Iain had all made some headway into fulfilling their blood oath to Maggie.

  At Glencoe he had left Angus to make his way home, and had continued north alone to try to find out if Lochiel was dead, and how things stood with Prince Charles. And now, three weeks later he had a lot of news and couldn’t wait to tell the others. And to rest his leg, which had taken some punishment in the last weeks and was aching dully but constantly now. But it had healed very well, and no doubt the sporadic aching in the bone would eventually stop too. Hopefully.

  Halfway up the mountain was a large saucer-shaped hollow, which could not be seen from the loch side. The cave where the MacGregors should all have been hidden was in the side of the mountain on the opposite side of the hollow, the entrance concealed by carefully draped foliage. Alex expected to see some of his clansfolk out in the hollow, it being such a fine day, or at least to have spied a couple of the sentries, who would surely have been watching out for him. But there was nothing; no sign of any life at all.

  Deeply concerned now, he unslung his targe from his back and drew his sword. Before pulling back the foliage he listened, hard. Apart from the sound of a nearby waterfall, which trickled down the side of the mountain and provided a useful source of water for people hiding out here, there were only the bees, and a buzzard circling and calling overhead. Very carefully, standing to the side of the entrance so as not to be an easy target, he pulled the foliage to one side and peeped in. Darkness. He knew that the cave started with about six feet of narrow passage and then turned to the right before opening up into a huge cavern. He listened again. Nothing. He breathed in, and summoned all his courage to face whatever might be waiting for him at the end of the passage. A troop of redcoats? No, soldiers would never be able to stay completely silent. The mangled bodies of his whole clan? Very slowly and silently he edged along the passage, and then peeped round the corner into the cavern.

  Virtually the whole of the MacGregor clan were sitting there and started grinning at him as his face appeared. Angus was standing a few feet away, and made an elaborate bow as his brother came into view. Alex closed his eyes momentarily and let out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

  “What the hell kind of welcome is this?” he said, not knowing whether to be angry or impressed by the utter silence greeting him.

  “Look behind you,” Angus said.

  Alex looked behind him. Standing there in the passage he’d entered less than thirty seconds before were Dougal, Alasdair and Kenneth, who was bent almost double in the low passage.

  He jumped with shock and let out a girlish shriek that set the others laughing, thereby breaking the silence.

  “I think we can say that all our work has been worthwhile,” Angus said. A great cheer rose from the clan. “Welcome home, brother. We’ve a meal ready for ye and a fine bottle of claret, courtesy of the redcoat captain.”

  Alex leaned back against the wall of the cavern, his heart banging in his chest. How the hell had they managed to hide on the hill so close to the entrance without him seeing them?

  “Where the hell did ye come from?” he asked the three grinning men, who now moved past him into the cavern, Kenneth straightening up with obvious relief.

  “Do you want to eat first, or shall I show you?” Angus asked.

  “Show me,” Alex said, curiosity dispelling all other emotions.

  Angus led him back out of the cave into the sunlight.

  “Ye see over here,” he said, pointing to the waterfall. “By the side of it there’s a wee cave, hidden like this, by ivy and such.”

  “Aye, I ken that,” Alex replied. “But it’s barely deep enough for a bairn to hide in.”

  “It was barely deep enough for a bairn to hide in. Now it’s deep enough for three men, four if one of them’s no’ Kenneth.”

  Angus led Alex over and pushed aside the foliage. Behind it was a freshly hollowed-out space, completely invisible once the foliage was back in place.

  “In the past we’ve only ever needed this place for emergencies, for a few days at best. But while we were making the village look as though we’d no’ been there for years, I was thinking that, wi’ things as they are, we might need to be up here for a long time, and maybe even need tae defend it too. So when we’d moved everything and everyone up here, Dougal and I investigated to see if there were any other caves we could use. There isna, but when we looked closely at this one we realised that the stones and earth could be moved, if ye’d a useful giant to hand. And as we’ve a useful giant to hand, the stones were moved over to the other side of the mountain. Did ye see Lachlan?” Angus asked suddenly.

  “No,” Alex said, looking round. “Where is he?”

  Angus grinned.

  “And Jamie? And wee Simon?”

  “No.”

  “Aye. Well, we kent it’d work for the redcoats, but we figured that if you didna see them, then it’d work for any other clans that come looking for us too, or if they ever find out who Sir Anthony is and come in force. If we’re prepared, we could hold out a good while here. I ken your leg’s paining ye a wee bit, but this is worth it. Come.”

  In spite of his best efforts, Alex was now limping a little. But he had walked twenty miles today, and thirty the day before.

  Grinning hugely, Angus led his brother over the saucer and down the hill a short way, where he stopped, and bending, lifted a mat of heather up from the ground. Underneath it in a small hollowed-out space was Lachlan, smiling up at his chief.

  “Come on out, laddie, ye’ve done well. He didna see ye.”

  Lachlan stood up, and Alex looked at him.

  “When did ye ken I was coming?” he asked.

  “Jamie tellt me,” Lachlan said. “He’s away down the hill a ways. I stayed here till ye’d p
assed, and then ran around the side of the mountain so ye wouldna see me, and tellt the others. And then I came back here, because Angus said he wanted to show ye what we’ve been doing while ye were away.”

  Alex looked at his brother with awe.

  “I can retire as chief now then, and away tae my bed and die,” he said. “Ye did a fine job wi’ the village too.”

  “Ah, now, I canna claim the credit for that. That was Iain’s idea. He said that when he was playing the deaf laddie, he stared around a lot like an idiot, and he noticed the way the villages looked when they’d been pillaged by the redcoats, and it gave him the idea to make it look like we’d already been burnt out. It was Graeme who said he’d seen abandoned villages in Cumberland and Northumberland, and why did we no’ try to do that instead, for then the redcoats might think we’d been gone a while and just move on. And we can only do the hollowed spaces here for the wee ones to watch out because they can be in the same place every day while we’re here. We chose places where they can see a good way, but no’ be discovered unless they’re actually stepped on.”

  “Ye’ve done well, better than I could have imagined,” Alex said. He pulled his brother into a rough, but affectionate embrace. “Christ, I’ve missed ye. Ye canna imagine how I felt when I went to the cave and thought ye’d all gone, or been killed.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry, Alex. I didna think of that. I just kent that if ye didna see or hear anything, then no one would.”

  “No, ye were right to. It means we’ve a safe place, and God knows, from what I’ve heard, we might need it.”

  “What have ye heard?”

  “Let’s away back, and I’ll tell ye all at the same time,” Alex said.

  They climbed back up to the cave together, Lachlan springing ahead of them, full of joy at not having been seen by his chief, who had passed only feet away from him.

  “Did ye tell Morag about Robert?” Alex asked, as they toiled up the mountain.