The man’s voice was hoarse, as if he had not used it in a long time. “I am Clan Graham,” he explained, “and you are Clan McCallum. An age ago I danced with McCallum lasses. I was no weakling but it was difficult to keep up with them,” he said with a wheezing laugh.
Duncan lowered himself onto a stool and set the candle on the upturned crate by the man’s bed. On the crate were several bleeding cups beside small bottles with familiar labels. Laudanum, the tincture of opium used for severe pain. Powder of Algaroth, used as an emetic. Peruvian bark, for fevers.
“Strong children those two,” the stranger said, nodding toward Ishmael and Hannah. “Bodes well for America, wouldn’t you say?” With visible effort he swung his legs out of the bed and sat up, bringing his face out of the shadows.
The man’s hands trembled. His deep, intelligent eyes looked out from a worn, wrinkled face.
“May I?” Duncan asked Graham, reaching for his withered wrist. “I studied for some years at the medical college in Edinburgh.”
The old Scot did not resist when Duncan gently took his arm. His pulse was weak and irregular. “The great college! I entertained many of its professors at my Edinburgh home. Buchanan, Oglesby, even McPhee, before he had that bother over the corpses in his classroom.”
Duncan could not hide his pleasure at hearing the names of learned men he too had known and admired. They spoke for several minutes of mutual acquaintances before Graham reached behind his pillow and produced a heavy bottle. He uncorked it with a conspiratorial grin. “The best medicine of all,” he said, pouring some of its golden liquid into two of the bleeding cups and handing one to Duncan. Graham lifted his cup and closed his eyes as he sniffed. “The water of life, lad.”
It had been too long since Duncan had tasted good Highland whiskey, and as he let the first sip linger on his tongue, memories of other old Scots and their whiskey washed over him.
“McPhee would love to have me on his table when I breathe my last,” Graham said in a surprisingly congenial tone. “He would debate with his class for hours over whether it was my lungs, my liver, or the growth in my belly that killed me. I prefer to think of it as just the harvest of a long life well lived.” Graham said nothing when Duncan pressed his fingertips through the thin linen of his shirt, just stood up like a compliant patient. The tight lump beside the man’s stomach was prominent. He had a tumor.
“Alice McCallum,” Graham recalled with a whimsical glint as Duncan probed. “The lass had the deepest blue eyes I ever saw. A man could wander for days in those eyes. I was in love with her one summer,” he confessed, holding up his arms as if embracing a dance partner. Suddenly he noticed Hannah and Ishmael standing by the barrels. With surprising grace he glided to the maiden and bowed before her. Hannah laughed, tucked her splinted arm against her body, and took Graham’s proffered hand as he began humming a waltz.
As Duncan watched the aged Scot and the Iroquois maiden dance, he recalled how Graham had introduced himself. Clan Graham. It was the address for a clan chief. The Grahams had been one of the most powerful clans in the northern Highlands, and before the uprising their clan chief would have been a great laird, ruling like a king. After the uprising there were huge bounties placed on the heads of the rebel lords.
Ishmael took up the humming, and soon Graham and the young Mohawk girl began laughing so hard they had to stop. The glee on the old man’s countenance twisted into a grimace of pain. As he clutched his belly, Duncan helped him back to his cot and poured him another inch of whiskey.
“I remember meeting a company of McCallum men,” Graham said when he recovered. The more he drank, the more pronounced was the Scottish burr in his voice. “At the kyle along Skye it was, and the fools were swimming shaggy cows across the channel from the island to the drovers’ camp near Lochlash. Long before you were born, lad.”
Duncan grinned again. “Those were my people, Lord Graham. My uncles used to boast of the days when they swam so many cows they could walk across the channel on their backs.”
Graham’s laugh ended in a violent shiver, and he pointed to the monk’s robe draped over the nearest barrel. As Duncan helped him into it, the good-natured old man lowered his head and made the sign of the cross, murmuring the prayer in French. “Call me Father Andre, lad. My days as Laird Andrew Graham are long ago memories.”
“I understand why the girl is here, Father,” Duncan said. “But you are not hiding in the vault because you escaped from the half-king.” He was beginning to suspect he was looking at the real reason he had been brought to Montreal.
Graham studied him silently. There was wisdom in his eyes, but also cunning. “The Highland way of life was just that, a way of life. Are we so shallow as to think it had to be lost because our lands were lost?” The old laird grew very sober. “I’ve seen mountains to the west, by the inland seas, that are covered with heather and pines just like home. There are four thousand brave Highland men converging on this very city. That fool Amherst doesn’t realize he has assembled the biggest gathering of Scottish fighters since the uprising in ’46.”
He leaned closer to Duncan. When he spoke again there was new strength in his voice. “With the western tribes, the French Indians, and the Iroquois at their side, they will be unstoppable. Neither king will have the stomach to stop them when they choose to establish a new Scottish nation around the inland seas.”
Duncan stared at the man, stunned. His heart raced as he lowered his whiskey. He had been so blind. They had all been so blind. Somehow the half-king had connected to the secret Jacobite network. Regis had found an old Highland laird whom he would present at the final hour to rally the Scots. The Revelator didn’t simply mean for the Highlanders to refuse to fight for the British, he intended that they would take up their own flag and fight against the British alongside the half-king. The French would be assured of their long-sought victory. He looked back at the cot under the stairs, where Hannah had drawn the Jacobite symbol. For the glory of Rome, all those in Rome, Brother Xavier had said. But Duncan did not ask the question that leapt to his tongue. “I had understood those to be tribal lands,” he said instead.
“And the half-king will treat all tribes as equals. We will be their protectors, their way to counter the threat of other Europeans. Surely you want Highlanders to find their true place. You are one of us.”
“Of course,” Duncan quickly replied, then he weighed Graham’s words. “But it is dangerous to make assumptions about the tribes.”
“I make no assumptions. I have smoked the pipe with every major chief in the West.”
Duncan studied the old Scot, considering his words. The half-king was not acting out of vengeance against colonists. Vengeance was a cover. He was acting out a carefully planned strategy, a grand and historic vision.
“The McCallum clan can start anew,” Graham said. Though his eyes were sunken, they were sparkling now. “Build a croft by the water. Perhaps tame some bison to be your shaggy cows.”
“The half-king roasts men alive.”
Graham winced, as if the remark jabbed him personally. “He can be impetuous, yes,” he said, and then continued to describe his vision. “We will organize companies of men to build barns and cabins. We will want a shipyard. The McCallums once built boats, I recall. Or a school, if that’s what you want. That’s it, lad! You’ll have the first medical school for the tribes! We will build you a-” Graham’s words choked away as he doubled up with pain. With a shuddering groan he clutched his belly, then suddenly Brother Xavier and Tatamy stepped out of the shadows. Xavier motioned Duncan away, as Tatamy placed a slat of wood between Graham’s clenched teeth. Through his agony the old Scot nodded his thanks to the Christian Mohawk, and Duncan realized they must be old friends. He backed away, staring in confusion. With his last words the old Scot had sounded as though the rebellion was his, not the half-king’s.