A Very Highland Holiday

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  James scratched his head, turning to look out into the churchyard as if to see the battlefield beyond. A chill ran over him. “I-I was not aware.”

  “It is true,” Rafe said. “But I spoke to a priest at length here when I arrived. He told me that the British army brought the dead and wounded here and then executed the Jacobite prisoners. If you look into the southeast corner of the churchyard, you will see a mass grave.”

  James was starting to pale, his breathing deepening when he realized what Rafe was telling him. “M-My brother is in a mass grave?” he clarified. “I-Is that what you are saying?”

  Rafe held up a finger, begging patience. “Wait,” he said. “Let me find the priest who knows. I shall return quickly.”

  With that, he wandered off into the dim church, leaving James standing in the entry, feeling as if he’d just been kicked in the gut. He caught movement out of the corners of his eyes, knowing it was Gaira but afraid to look at her.

  Afraid he might break down if he did.

  He hadn’t come this far to discover his brother’s remains were jumbled up with a bunch of strangers.

  “I’d heard the same thing,” Gaira said softly, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “I dinna want tae tell ye. I dunna know it for certain, but word travels. We had heard the English executed prisoners here and buried their dead.”

  “B-But they wouldn’t have buried them with the prisoners.”

  “Nay.”

  “D-Does that mean all of the English are in a mass grave, then?”

  “Perhaps the priests can tell ye the truth.”

  Her voice was soft, lilting. Comforting. Funny how he couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been around him somehow – beside him, in front of him, behind him. The past three days with Gaira had been some of the most unusual and important of his young life. As she stood next to him, he put a big arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.

  He drew strength from her.

  In fact, she had become so much more to him than a woman who had read his letters and it had all started with this journey. Gaira had been an ideal traveling companion – never complaining, keeping up a steady stream of conversation to make the travel pass more pleasantly. The days had been long and the nights has been… interesting.

  Though James had kept his promise and had behaved like a gentleman, by the second night, they were far too comfortable sleeping in the same room with each other. The first night they’d stopped at an inn, which had been full because of a large family traveling south. Their horses crowded the livery and they even had a carriage that had been parked in the yard. James had managed to negotiate a small bed in the servants’ quarters for Gaira, but he ended up sleeping on the bench of the coach because there simply wasn’t any other place.

  Somewhere in the middle of the night, however, Gaira had come outside with a pillow and two blankets she’d stripped off her rented bed and found him. He’d slept upright against the side of the carriage with a pillow between him and the cab wall, while she’d slept on the bench beside him, her head in his lap.

  It wasn’t exactly proper, but it had been warm and there had been a great comfort in the fact that they were in the same spot. James, in particular, felt comforted that she wasn’t out of his sight. It was odd how attached he’d become to her even in the short time he had known her. They’d left at dawn the next morning after breaking their fast, continuing on as far as they could until they were forced to seek shelter because the night had been so cold.

  The second night had been spent on the floor of a farmhouse, in front of the hearth, surrounded by the family’s dogs. James had awoken with his arm wrapped around a snoring hound and Gaira had awoken surrounded by dogs who had slept up against her for warmth. It hadn’t been the most comfortable sleep, but it had made for a great story.

  And now, they were in Inverness.

  “James?” she said softly. “Did ye hear me?”

  She’d began calling him James yesterday. No longer “m’laird” because, frankly, they were beyond that. He didn’t like to hear her address him so formally, so he had asked her to call him James.

  She had complied.

  As he heard her softly uttered words, he was lashed back to the painful world of reality, a world where his brother was dead and now possibly in a common grave. The impact of it cut through him like a knife.

  “I-I heard you,” he said after a moment. “I-I suppose we shall discover the truth, but I pray that my brother did not end up in a grave with other dead. He did not deserve that.”

  Gaira’s left arm was around his waist and he felt her squeeze. “Dunna give up hope.”

  James paused, his thoughts turning from his brother to the tall, pale stranger who seemed so determined to help him.

  “W-What I would like to know is why Rafe came,” he said. “I-I seem to remember him asking me if there was anything he could do to help me find Johnny, but I did not expect him to go out of his way to do it.”

  Gaira held his hand tightly. “’Tis a rare man who would be so kind and helpful,” she said. “He’s a wanderer. I dunna want tae say that he has nothing better tae do, but he doesna seem tae. Perhaps he is looking for a purpose.”

  James turned to look over his shoulder at her. “H-Helping a man he does not know?”

  “Helping a man who needs it.”

  She had a point. James squeezed her shoulders affectionately and returned his focus to the church, watching for Rafe’s return.

  It wasn’t long in coming.

  Rafe emerged from the darkness with a small man at his side. Clad in a rough woolen coat and breeches, his hair cut short against his skull, the man came into the light, his gaze fixed on James. Before James could say a word, the man spoke quietly.

  “Ye have his look,” he said quietly. “Ye have his eyes.”

  James eyed him curiously. “W-Who?”

  “Yer brother,” the man said. Then, he shook himself. “Forgive me. I am Reverend Essich. I… I simply canna believe that ye came, m’laird.”

  James stared at him a moment before taking a deep, steadying breath. “You knew my brother?”

  Reverend Essich nodded. Then, he motioned to James. “Come,” he said. “Quickly.”

  James followed, pulling Gaira with him. Rafe walked alongside as they followed Reverend Essich into a small alcove off the main sanctuary. It was private here, the stone-cold darkness pierced by banks of prayer candles.

  Reverend Essich cleared his throat softly.

  “Eight months ago, those loyal to Stuart were executed by the English out in the churchyard,” he said. “Though their cause has greatly died away, there still may be some who would like to see an Englishman dead because of it. Ye took a risk coming here, m’laird.”

  James nodded. “I-I know,” he said. “B-But I have come looking for my brother. It seems to me that you know of him.”

  Essich nodded. “I do,” he said, glancing at Rafe, who nodded encouragingly. “But when he came here, I dinna know his name. When yer friend told me that ye were looking for a man who had been bayonetted through the neck, I thought it might be him and now that I see ye, I know that ye are his brother because ye look just like him. I never even knew his name.”

  “J-Johnathan,” James said without hesitation. “J-Johnathan de Lohr, Earl of Worcester.”

  Essich smiled faintly, revealing yellowed teeth. “Worcester,” he repeated. “The man was nobility.”

  “He came from a great line of soldiers.”

  The reverend nodded. “No doubt,” he said. “Yer friend says that ye seek the truth about him. I was here on that terrible day when the English were brought here. My fellow brothers and I fought tae save those we could, but in yer brother’s case, it was of no use.”

  James braced himself. “T-Tell me, please,” he said. “T-tell me everything you know.”

  Essich began to wring his hands in a nervous gesture. “I want ye tae know we tried very hard, m’laird.”

  “I-I unde
rstand.”

  Essich sighed faintly, hoping that was the truth. He hoped the man really did understand because he had much to say.

  “The English were brought here by the wagonload,” he said. “There were dead and dying men on the wagons, all piled in together. My fellow parishioners and I separated the dead from the dying as Cumberland’s men took the Jacobite prisoners and executed them in the churchyard. We could hear the muskets firing regularly. Meanwhile, a group of prisoners had been forced tae dig their own mass grave in the corner of the churchyard.”

  It was cold-blooded, but such were the perils of war. It didn’t usually bother James, but with his brother involved, he was feeling quite emotional about the whole situation.

  “G-Go on,” he said.

  Essich continued. “We thought yer brother was dead when he was brought here, but he wasna,” he said, watching James close his eyes tightly. “He dinna die on the field of battle if that’s what ye were told. He was brought here in a pile of men and when we realized he was alive, we quickly took him away and put him in the dormitory with the other wounded.”

  James sighed heavily and hung his head, slumping against the wall behind him. As Gaira and Rafe and Essich looked on with concern, the reverend continued quickly.

  “Yer brother had taken a bayonet through the neck,” he said. “I dunna know how he survived as long as he did, but he was a strong man because he lived for a full night after he was brought here, and during that night, he never awoke. I made him as comfortable as I could, m’laird.”

  James had a lump in his throat as he listened. “H-He never regained consciousness?”

  Essich shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “There were times when I thought he might, but he never did. He wasna alone when he died, if that’s of some comfort tae ye. I was with him. I said a prayer for him.”

  James could feel the tears but he fought them. This was perhaps the best ending he could have hoped for, considering the circumstances. “I-I am grateful,” he said. “W-What… what did you do with him?”

  “We buried the dead on the other side of the church, opposite the churchyard,” Essich said. “Yer brother was buried in his own grave, dressed in the clothing he was wearing, but before we buried him, I removed what possessions he had in the hopes that I could discover who he was.”

  James was losing the battle against the tears. “What did you find?”

  The reverend dug into a pocket of his threadbare coat and pulled forth a meager handful of things. One looked like it was a folded document of some kind, while there were two other items that became evident when Essich opened his hand and extended it to James. The first thing James saw was the Eardley Norton pocket watch that Johnathan always carried, one that had belonged to their father.

  The second thing was the ring.

  Ruby eyes glimmered weakly in the candlelight.

  “G-God,” he gasped, grabbing the ring. “Y-You have it. The ring; you have it!”

  Essich nodded. “The only thing inscribed on it was Fidelis Semper,” he said. “Had there been a name, I might have been able tae find ye, but there wasna. Not on the watch and not even on the letter.”

  James was still reeling over the reclamation of the de Lohr ring. The relief he felt was indescribable, the family heirloom that thankfully wasn’t lost as they’d all feared. Now, he had it, and it was his. He slipped it on his finger as he looked up, seeing that Essich was extending the folded paper to him. Hesitantly, he took it.

  “H-He had a letter on him?” he asked.

  “Aye,” Essich nodded. “From someone named James. I found it in a chest pocket, right against his heart.”

  With the ring on his finger and the watch in one hand, James looked at the letter, feeling the impact of the reverend’s words. It was just as Johnathan’s letter had told him, how he kept a certain letter close to his heart in battle.

  There was one in particular I kept in a pocket next to my heart because it meant a great deal to me.

  Swallowing hard, James opened it up to see which letter it was that meant so much to Johnathan. The first thing he saw was a childish scrawl and he knew that it was a letter written by a very young boy. He recognized his own writing.

  Lifting it into the light, he began to read.

  You are a very mean boy, Johnny.

  I want to cut you with my saber and slash you and kill you. If I sound like a Billy goat, then you look like a horse’s arse and I don’t care if you tell Mummy. You say very mean things to me and I don’t care because I am going to kill you. Someday you will be dead and I will be happy. I will draw a picture of me laughing and when you are in the ground, I hope the worms eat your eyeballs. Then I will dig you up and put more worms on you. When you go to heaven, God will see all of the worms in your eyeballs and when I go to heaven, I will see them also. Wait for me when you get to heaven so I can see the worms. If you do not wait for me, I shall be very angry.

  Your brother who hates you,

  James

  Startled by the petulant message in a letter that Johnathan should keep so close to him, James started to laugh. He laughed so hard that tears streamed down his face, but these were tears of delight. That his brother had kept that querulous, silly letter with him, keeping it close to his heart through the years, meant the world to him. It literally meant everything. It was incredibly representative of their childhood, but it was also representative of the bond they shared throughout the insults and bad feelings and torment. It began to occur to James why Johnathan had kept the letter so close.

  Wait for me when you get to heaven.

  God… so ridiculous, yet so poignant. Johnathan kept a young boy’s plea close to his heart because it spoke of James’ true adoration for the brother he very much loved.

  When he faced battle, that little request had fortified him.

  “What does it say?” Gaira asked timidly. “Will ye tell me?”

  James was still chuckling. “H-Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Y-You can see for yourself.”

  Gaira took it and read through it, giggling as she came to the end. “Did ye really send such nasty things tae yer brother?” she gasped. “Ye were a naughty lad.”

  James nodded, taking it from her and carefully folding it. “I-I was,” he said. “A-And he loved me for it, so I suppose I wasn’t as naughty as I thought. To see that this silly little letter meant something to him… it is a feeling I cannot begin to describe. All I know is that I love it.”

  Gaira smiled at him and he winked at her before returning his attention to the reverend. When he looked at the man, his chuckles started anew.

  “I-I am the James of that letter, as you may have guessed,” he said. “I-I wrote that letter to my brother when I was around six or seven years of age, I believe, and he was nearing twelve. We had quarreled because he told me that I sounded like a goat when I spoke. I’d forgotten that I’d even written him that letter. How surprising to find that it meant so much to him.”

  Essich was smiling, mostly because he was pleased that something in this horrific circumstance had brought James pleasure.

  “The bond between brothers is unique and powerful,” he said. “It would seem that ye and yer brother shared that bond.”

  James’ smile faded. “We did,” he said. “T-The strange thing is that I did not even realize that until I came to find him. I-I always thought we did not understand one another, but I was wrong. So very wrong. The important thing is that I have found my brother and I intend to take him home.”

  Essich nodded. “I’m glad,” he said. “But the ground is frozen now. ’Twill be difficult to dig him up. Can ye wait until the spring when the ground is softer?”

  James looked at Gaira. The idea of spending the next few months in the Highlands, with her, was not a dismal one. In fact, he was rather pleased by it.

  “I-I suppose I’ll have to,” he said. “I’m not leaving without him, so I shall make do until the time comes.”

  “Do ye have a place tae
stay?”

  The corner of James’ mouth twitched as he and Gaira smiled at one another. “I-It is possible,” he said, inferring that she was part of those future plans. “I-I’ll find somewhere to stay and something to occupy my time. Meanwhile, I can have a casket built for my brother so we can transport him south. It will give me time to make the necessary preparations.”

  The man actually seemed a good deal more at peace than he had when he’d first entered the church. He knew where his brother was, he’d been told of his relatively painless passing, and he had recovered items that were precious to him. That was a great relief to Essich, who stepped out from the alcove and motioned to the group.

  “Come with me, then,” he said. “Some warm drink and bread tae celebrate the life of Johnathan de Lohr before we make the necessary preparations.”

  Gaira was first, following the reverend, with James and Rafe bringing up the rear. They passed through the cold, candle-lit church and through a door that was near the nave. Exiting into what used to be the cloister centuries ago, James found himself looking up into the clear night sky.

  “I-I don’t recall ever seeing the stars so bright,” he said. “S-Somehow, the world seems a little brighter tonight.”

  He paused, and Rafe with him, both of them looking up into the sky.

  “Feeling better?” Rafe asked.

  “A-Aye,” James said. Then, he pointed to the sky. “L-Look, there; that star is bigger than the rest.”

  Rafe could see the one he meant. “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly and with great joy,” he said. When James looked at him, he smiled weakly. “That is from the Bible. It is nearing the time of day of Christ’s birth, in fact. It seems to me that you have been given the greatest gift of all this holiday season.”

  James nodded, thinking on his journey to Calvine, to Inverness. “O-Of everything I thought it would be, it was none of those things,” he said. “I-I don’t know what I expected, but this journey has been most unexpected in many ways.”

  Rafe looked over James’ shoulder, seeing Gaira as she stood down from them on the walkway with the reverend. “I’m glad she told you what she knew.”