“All?” She looked out across the Great Glen. She could not bring herself to ask the other question that burned itself into her heart. Rosie made a choking sound, and Martha slid her arm around her, drawing her trembling body close against her side.
“Aye, my lady. All. Every last one.”
The three of them were silent for a long time, each of them thinking of the brave men who had set off that morning only to be led to their deaths. Martha couldn’t get her own thoughts to move beyond a series of images of Fraser that persisted in playing through her imagination. Strangely, she had no difficulty now in seeing his face in her mind. Every memory was imprinted there in detail. The frown she’d seen when they first met, the smile that lit his hazel eye with golden lights, the way he could ignite her to helpless, quivering passion with a single look. How could he be dead? How can I keep this torment inside me and not cry out his name in anguish?
“What of the prince?” Martha asked at last.
“He fought bravely, my lady. ’Twas not his wish to leave the field, but when it could be seen how it was going to end, his generals insisted. He escaped the battle, but there is a price now on his head. We must hope he can get away safe to the continent. Whatever his failings this day, he is the last hope, after all, for the true bloodline of the Stuarts. ’Tis said that Butcher Cumberland now plans a campaign of subjugation that will completely eradicate the highland threat. A very dark time is to come for the clans, my lady. Highlanders are to be forbidden to carry swords, knives, or any weapon or instrument of war under pain of death. The tartan is to be banned, as is the language of the Gael and the bagpipes.”
“He may not find it so easy,” Martha said. “There are places such as this—” her gesture encompassed the glen and loch before them, “—that are too strategically important for the king to ignore. Subjugation by force will not be the way to ensure compliance from men such as those of the Lachlan clan.” I sound like a true highlander, she thought. That is what Fraser has made of me. A fierce pride swept through her, making her lift her chin a little higher. And we have made more than that together.
“Jack…” It was as if realisation had finally dawned on Rosie. She slid from Martha’s grasp and onto the stone floor in a dead faint.
It was almost a relief for Martha to have to tend to her cousin. It meant she did not have time to dwell on anything else. There would be time enough to look at her hands and remember them tracing the muscles of his chest, or touch her own lips and recall the feel of his upon them. There would be long, lonely years of renewed spinsterhood in which to plant thistles in the garden of the old dower house, and now and then, when the mood took her, to sing an old Scots ballad in her off-key voice. And there would be nights without number in which to lie alone and dream of the hard length of his body next to hers as the wild beating of his heart slowed gradually back to normality after loving her.
Martha gave orders for Rosie to be carried to her bedchamber. Then, drawing a breath that calmed the tremor in her limbs, she looked out across the glen once more. It would soon be night. Once darkness fell, it would be too late. There was one final thing she could do for Fraser. She turned back to face Rab.
“You said that Cumberland gave the Jacobites no quarter. That may be so, but he may not have been quite as clever as he thought. Take a party of our lads, the ones who were too young to join the battle, out to Drumossie, Rab, and check every body on that foul field for signs of life, no matter how small. If they are breathing, bring them back here to me to be nursed. If we can save just one brave highlander, we will have gained a victory over the king this day.”
Chapter Seventeen
The stench of the bog and of death was overwhelming. Dead men and horses, and discarded and broken weapons lay strewn around him. The weight of the bodies pinning Fraser to the ground was too great to shift, and it was tempting to simply close his eyes and let death take him. The fog of memory cleared, and he remembered bellowing at his men to break ranks and charge, for the love of God and Scotland! He had swung his claymore left and right, just as he had practised on the ramparts of Castle Lachlan only days before. Blood had filled his vision, stinging his eyes and burning his nostrils. Sweat had soaked his skin. He had roared and howled while lunging and thrusting at the oncoming redcoats. He had been closing the distance, moving ever closer to the hated figure of the Duke of Cumberland when, on the periphery of his vision, Lord Jack, clad in the Lachlan tartan of his clansmen, fell beneath the outstretched sword of a red-coated dragoon.
The memory was enough to bring Fraser to his feet again. Clutching his side where the redcoat’s sword had pierced deep into his own flesh, he thrust aside the dead Jacobite who lay on top of him and staggered over the uneven ground. Blood ran in rivulets down his forehead, and he had no energy left with which to wipe it away. He used his sword as a crutch, leaning heavily on it while trying to breathe through lungs that burned with every indrawn breath. His vision was fading then clearing as though he walked through a low highland mist. The big, strong body that had always served him so well was failing now. Weak and shaking from a combination of loss of blood and grief, he stumbled to his knees at the point where he had seen Lord Jack fall. His friend was not there. Dark spots crowded Fraser’s vision once more, and the hateful, noxious ground of Drumossie Muir rose up to meet him.
Rough hands grabbed him, turning him face up and refusing to allow him the welcome release of unconsciousness. He tried to cry out at them to leave him be, but no sound left his lips. A shout went up, and a group of youths clustered around him. He felt himself being hoisted unceremoniously up and then carried on some sort of makeshift stretcher. It was too much trouble to tell them to stop jolting him, so he closed his eyes and let peace envelop him.
Dark images of battle came back to Fraser through a disjointed fog. Tantalising rays of brightness briefly encroached, dispelling the horror of his thoughts. He tried to reach for the light, grasping on to the shining beams. Some instinct told him there was that within the light that he needed. The face of a young woman intruded into his memories of the battle, soothing him and causing the terror to recede. Her hair fell in shining curls about her shoulders. Fraser tried to smile at her. For some reason he needed to tell her he liked her hair that way, but he couldn’t remember why it should matter so much. Concern shone in the luminous depths of her light-blue eyes as she studied his face. This vision—the one that was preventing him from sinking back into the embrace of the darkness—had porcelain-pale skin with a dusting of freckles. She pushed her spectacles further up her upturned nose, and he tried to lift his hand to tell her to stop doing that, but the movement was too much effort. Even in his dream, the delicate, soothing scent of flowers hung about her. He could not hear the words she spoke, but her calm voice unaccountably reassured him. She wanted him to do something, but he was not sure what it was. He knew only that he must wake from his nightmare of violence, pain and fear so that he could find out.
“Praise be to God, my lady.” Cora’s lips trembled as she studied the battered and bloodstained body on the bed. She had finally been induced to stop weeping and lamenting so that she could help Martha to clean the wounded man. Martha, in contrast to the emotion of those around her, felt oddly serene and detached from the scene. When they had carried him over the threshold, when she had seen that it was really him, a curious sort of calm had descended upon her. At first, she assumed he was dead. That they were bringing him home for a chieftain’s burial. There were no signs of life, and there did not seem to be any part of his body that wasn’t a beaten and bloodied pulp.