“In contrast to one who but talks like a friend.’
Color rose into Cameron’s face. “When I have committed to a mission, I do not shy from its consequences, however uncomfortable they may be. I have stood with my troops in many a battle, beside the British colors.”
“When I lived in Edinburgh, Colonel, I made a point of reading everything I could about the uprising of ’46. Camerons held huge estates in the Highlands. At Culloden, there were Camerons on the western flank, not far from the McCallums. Scores lay dead of English lead and steel at the end of the day. But soon you offered to raise more troops for the king that had killed them.”
The words clearly stung the man. He motioned Duncan inside his tent and stepped to another field table, then poured a glass of sherry and downed it before answering. “It was a time for hard choices. I had friends in Edinburgh who had already taken the king’s colors, who begged me to help my people. Estates that had been held by our clan for centuries were about to be seized, every male about to be put to the butcher’s blade or rope, their women and children subject to unthinkable horrors. Scores of men, hundreds of women and children. If it was in your power to stop that horror, what would you have done, McCallum? Hard bargains had to be struck. It took more than mere begging for mercy to win the reprieve.” Cameron stared at the little glass as he rolled the stem in his fingers. “I drank myself to sleep every night for a year. By then the army had reduced the Highlands to rubble. There was nothing to go back to even if I wanted. But my people were allowed to leave, marched past bonfires into which the army threw their pipes and every article of clothing made of plaid.” He stepped to a narrow, tattered banner that hung from a tent rope and lifted it. “You can read Latin, McCallum?”
The cloth took Duncan’s breath away. He stared at it without speaking, stepping closer to read the words over the image of a pelican feeding its young. “Virescit vulnere virtus,” he recited. “Courage grows strong at a wound.” The pelican was sometimes called the Jesus Bird, for it was thought to prick its own breast to feed its blood to its young. It was a powerful and sacred image, well known in the Highlands.
“When this was first brought to me in secret, I thought it had to be a craven joke. A banner from Rome, the crest of the royal Stewart himself. Impossible, I thought. It was beyond my wildest dreams that the cause of the white cockade could be resurrected. But the banner was real, bearing bloodstains from Culloden. From the moment that spark of hope presented itself, I was duty bound to keep it alive,” he said, a hint of challenge in his voice.
Duncan stared at the solemn Scot. “Who? Who brought the banner?”
“It wasn’t only the banner. There was a letter from Rome, the affirmation that the one true prince is willing to take to sea, vouchsafed by the prince’s own royal ring.” Cameron spoke the words with the religious fervor of the old Jacobites, and as he spoke he touched the white cockade pinned to his lapel, much as one of the elders would touch his amulet. He leaned closer to Duncan. “Did you bring the Iroquois Council?”
“I brought enough of the Council to make a difference,” Duncan stated.
Cameron nodded, as if taking Duncan’s word as an affirmation, then pointed to the large chart on his table. It showed a section of the broad river with recent pencil marks depicting the new British batteries.
“Amherst has no appreciation of our coppery friends,” Cameron said in a conspiratorial tone, “and his plans overly depend on artillery. He is quite right that these batteries will prevent French access to miles of river on either side of Montreal. What he does not expect, what he has not protected against, is two hundred savages rushing each battery from the rear. We will take them so fast they will never be able to spike the guns, without even time for messengers to raise the alarm to Amherst. We will let the transport ships stretch out in front of us before opening fire. With no room to maneuver, they will have no chance.”
The colonel’s words sank in with slow, sickening realization. “That’s five thousand men at least, sir.” Duncan’s voice was almost a whisper.
Cameron’s voice was as cold as ice. “Five for each Highlander slaughtered by British guns at Culloden. The wound we inflict will make them cower in London. They will know they have wakened the Jacobite beast, and they will not venture down this river again, not for many years.”
From behind the curtain panel came a rough, dry coughing. Cameron pulled Duncan’s arm to stop him from investigating. “Here, lad,” he said, rolling up the chart to reveal another underneath. “We’ll not forget your part.”
“My part?”
Cameron quickly stepped to a trunk then extended a small dirk to Duncan. “You should have this,” he said as Duncan accepted the knife. It was the finely worked Highland dirk he had taken from the dead dispatch rider. “You kept the general confused over the theft. You slowed his western advance. You bought us time with the Iroquois League. The half-king reached the Saint Lawrence without any attempt to stop him. We need good men, educated men. Five hundred acres at least.”
“Sir?”
“You’ll always be an outcast among the English.” Cameron gestured to the chart. “Take a look.”
The chart contained a larger view of the entire river valley, stretching for dozens of miles on either side of Montreal. Cameron pointed to large plot penciled in along the vast lake beyond the river. “I will have twenty thousand acres and will build the biggest castle in the New World. You can take five hundred alongside, or one of the large islands if you prefer. Find a maiden. Start your clan anew.” Cameron turned to Duncan, expecting gratitude.
Duncan stared in disbelief. This new life kept presenting itself, as if it was his destiny. It was not a dream in the night, but here and now. He could point to the map, and an estate would be his. “You are betting with hundreds of lives,” he said. “Who brought you the prince’s banner?” he asked again.
The coughing started again. Cameron made no effort this time to stop Duncan as he lifted the hanging canvas that walled off the back of the large tent.
The chamber was bigger than he expected. The tattered carpet that covered its earthen floor showed faded hints of hunting scenes. On a field table sat a bright oil lamp. The robed monk looked up in surprise.
“Brother Xavier.” Duncan nodded to the Jesuit, who rose and solemnly returned his nod. “He was too weak to come by himself,” Xavier explained. “I wanted to be with him when. .” his voice drifted away, and he shrugged, then left the chamber.
The man on the cot was noticeably weaker than when Duncan had left him in Montreal. His eyes had sunken even deeper. His hands seemed but skin and bone.
“Lord Graham,” Duncan offered in greeting, then he quickly stepped to the cot. He realized his question about the source of the banner was answered.
It seemed to cause Graham great effort to raise his hand and move it back and forth as though to correct Duncan. He was about to speak when another spasm of coughing seized him. Duncan sat by the bed and lifted the man’s wrist. His pulse was light as a feather. Every breath was a wheezing struggle. The smell of death was settling around him.
“Cameron’s a good lad, son,” Graham finally said. “He has been battered by his times.”
“Like the rest of us.”
Graham offered a weak smile. “Tribes and clans alike.”
Duncan pulled the blanket back and loosened the black robe over the man’s chest, pausing as his effort exposed a fine linen shirt underneath. Hanging over it was an elegant golden chain, at the end of which was a heavy golden ring set with a seal. A ring had been sent from the prince.
“And royal families in Rome,” Duncan added. “There was never a conspiracy of the western tribes,” he said after a moment.
“Not at first. I decided-” Graham’s words were cut off by a paroxysm of coughing. The linen cloth he held to his mouth came away bloody. “I decided the world was big enough to allow battered peoples a place of their own.”