Rebellion - MacGregors 6 Part 23

She knew he was right, knew it was necessary, and tried to live with it.

"You march to London?"

"G.o.d willing."

With a nod, she stepped back, but she kept his hand in hers. "The fight is mine, as well as yours, doubly so now that I am your wife. I would go with you, if you would let me."

"No. Do you think I see my wife as a camp follower?" The look, the very familiar look, in her eyes warned him to change tactics. "Your family needs you, Serena."

What of my needs? The words sprang to her tongue and were bitten back. She would do him no good by following him into battle. She looked at her hand and cursed the fact that it was too weak to wield a sword, to protect him as he would protect her.

"You're right. I know. I will wait for you."

"I take you with me. Here." He brought their joined hands to his heart.

"There is something I would ask of you. If things go wrong-" She shook her head, but a look from him stopped her urgent protest. "There is a chest in my chamber, and a strongbox. In the box is gold and enough jewels to buy your safety and that of your family. In the chest is something more precious that I would have you keep."

"What is it?"

He traced a fingertip along her cheekbone, remembering. "You will know when you see it." "I won't forget, but there will be no need. You will come back." She smiled. "Remember, you have promised to show me Ashburn Manor."

"I remember."

Lifting her hands, she began to undo the tiny b.u.t.tons at her bodice.

"What are you doing?"

Smiling still, she let the dress open. "What I am not doing is going for a walk with my sister." She undid the satin sash at her waist. "Is it improper to seduce one's husband at this hour?"

"Probably." He grinned as she tugged the coat from his shoulders. "But we shall keep it our secret."

They made love on the elegantly skirted bed, under the high canopy, with the sun coming strong through the windows. The proper morning dress lay discarded in billows of violet. She knelt beside him, slender, with the light playing over her skin as she drew the pins from her hair.

Heavily, in a glory of flame-tipped gold, it fell over her naked shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Brigham reached for it, wrapped it once, twice, around his wrists as if to imprison himself, then drew her slowly down to him.

Their bodies fit.

They both remembered the loch, and another sundrenched morning filled with love and pa.s.sions. The memory of it, and thoughts of the cloudy, uncertain future brought them gently together. Selflessly they gave to each other, beautifully they received.

With a sigh, he slipped into her. With a murmur, their lips met and clung. Together they showed one another a new level of pleasure, one that could be reached only through the purity and the pa.s.sions of unconditional love. It was the first of November when the march finally began. Many, Brigham among them, had urged the Prince to begin the campaign earlier, moving on the advantage they had gained by taking Edinburgh.

Instead, Charles had continued to hope for active support from France.

Money had indeed come, and supplies, but no men. Charles put his own strength at eight thousand, with three hundred horses. He knew that he must make one decisive stroke, bringing victory or defeat in a short time. As before, he decided the best strategy was a bold one.

Charles had a high opinion of his troops, as did the English. A few months before, the young Prince's ambitions and his ragtag troops of rugged Highlanders had been laughed at. Then he had swept down on Edinburgh. His early victories, and the flair with which he had brought defeat to the English had the uneasy government recalling more and more troops from Flanders, sending them to Field Marshal Wade in Newcastle.

Still, as the Stuart army marched into Lancaster under the leaders.h.i.+p of Lord George Murray, they met with little resistance. But the celebration there might have been was offset by the disappointing number of English Jacobites who had rallied.

Near a hot fire on a cold night, Brigham sat with Whites-mouth, who had ridden from Manchester to join the cause. Men warmed themselves with whiskey and wrapped themselves in plaids against the keening wind.

"We should have attacked Wade's forces." Whites-mouth tipped his flask. "Now they've called the elector's fat son c.u.mberland in haste, and he's advancing through the Midlands. How many are we, Brig? Four, five thousand?"

"At best." Brigham accepted the flask but only stared into the fire. "The Prince is pushed two ways by Murray and O'Sullivan. Each decision comes only after agonizing debate. If you want the truth, Johnny, we lost our momentum in Edinburgh. We may never get it back." "But you stay?"

"He has my oath."

They sat another moment in silence, listening to the wind crying over the hills. "You know that some of the Scots are drifting off, going quietly back to their glens and hills."

"I know it."

Only that day, Ian and other chiefs had spoken together. They meant to hold their men. Brigham wondered if they, or anyone, fully understood that the brilliant victories of their outnumbered and ill-equipped army had been won because the men hadn't simply been ordered to fight, but had fought with their hearts. Once the heart was lost, so would be the cause.

With a shake of his head, he s.h.i.+fted his thoughts to practical matters.

"We reach Derby tomorrow. If we hit London quickly, thoroughly, we could still see the king on the throne." He sipped then, as someone began to play a mournful tune on the pipes. "We've yet to be beaten. From what news you bring, there is panic in the city and the elector prepares to leave for Hanover."

"There may he stay," Whitesmouth mumbled. "My G.o.d, it's cold."

"In the north the wind has an edge as sharp and as sweet as a blade."

"If luck is with us, you'll be back to your wife and her Highlands by the new year."

Brigham drank again, but in his heart he knew it would take more than luck.

In Derby, with London only 130 miles away, Charles held his council of war. Snow fell fitfully outside as the men rounded the table. A gloom was in the room, both from the leaden light and on the faces of men. There was a good fire, but over its crackle and hiss the sound of the icy wind could still be heard.

"Gentlemen." Charles spread his fine hands in front of him. "I seek advice from you who have pledged to my father. It is boldness we need, and unity."

His dark eyes scanned the room, lighting briefly on each man. Murray was there, and the man whom Murray considered a thorn in his side, O'Sullivan. Brigham watched, holding his silence, as the Prince continued to speak.

"We know that three government troops threaten to converge on us, and morale among the men is suffering. A thrust, rapier-sharp, at the capital-now, while we still remember our victories-is surely our move."

"Your Highness." Murray waited, then was given permission to speak.

"The advice I must offer is caution. We are poorly equipped and greatly outnumbered. If we withdraw to the Highlands, take the winter to plan a new campaign that would launch in spring, we might rally those men we have already lost and draw fresh supplies from France."

"Such counsel is the counsel of despair," Charles said.

"I can see nothing but ruin and destruction coming to us if we should retreat."

"Withdraw," Murray corrected, and was joined by the a.s.sent of other advisers. "Our rebellion is young, but it must not be impulsive."

Charles listened, shutting his eyes a moment as one after another of the men who stood with him echoed Murray's sentiments. Prudence, patience, caution. Only O'Sullivan preached attack, using flattery and reckless promises in his attempt to sway the Prince. All at once, Charles sprang up from his chair, scattering the maps and doc.u.ments spread out in front of him. "What say you?" he demanded of Brigham.

Brigham knew that, militarily, Murray's advice was sound. But he remembered his own thoughts as he had sat with Whitesmouth by the fire. If they withdrew now, the heart of the rebellion would be lost. For once, perhaps for the only time, his thoughts marched in step with O'Sullivan's.

"With respect, Your Highness, if the choice was mine I would march to London at daybreak and seize the moment."

"The heart says to fight, Your Highness," one of the advisers put in, closely echoing Brigham's thoughts. "But in war, one must heed the head, as well. If we ride to London as we are, our losses could be immeasurable."

"Or our triumph great," Charles interrupted pa.s.sionately. "Are we women who cover our heads at the first sign of snow or who think of only warming our tired feet by the fire? Withdraw, retreat." He swung back toward Murray, eyes furious. "It is one and the same. I wonder if you have a mind to betray me."

"I have only a mind to see you and our cause succeed," Murray said quietly. "You are a prince, sue. I am but a soldier and must speak as one who knows his troops and the way of war."

The argument continued, but long before it was finished, Brigham saw how it would be. The Prince, never strong of purpose when faced with dissension among his advisers, was being forced to heed Murray's words of caution. On December 6, the decision to retreat was taken.

The road back to Scotland was long, and the men dispirited. It was as Brigham had feared. When a halt was called to the exuberant, aggressive advance that had given the clans such power since the previous summer, the heart went out of the rebellion. Men might still talk of another invasion in the following year, but all believed in their secret hearts that they would never march south again.

They fell back behind the Scottish border and took Glasgow, though the city was openly hostile. The men, frustrated and disillusioned, might have taken that Christmas day to loot and sack, had not Cameron of Lochiel's cool head and compa.s.sion dissuaded them.

Stirling surrendered just as reinforcements, men, stores and ammunition arrived from France. It started to seem as if the right decision had been made, but if Charles now believed Lord George had been correct, he never spoke of it.

The Prince's numbers were again on the increase as more clans came to him, pledging heart and sword and men. But there were MacKenzies and MacLeods, MacKays and Munroes who followed the elector's colors.

They fought again, south of Stirling, in the purple winter's dusk, Scot fighting Scot, as well as English. Again they tasted victory, but with it came grief, as Ian MacGregor fell to an enemy blade.

He lingered through the night. Men who ride in battle need not be told when wounds are mortal. Brigham knew it as he sat beside the old man with the night wind flapping at the tent.

He thought of Serena and how she had laughed when the big bear of a MacGregor had swung her around and around in her night robe. He thought of riding with Ian through the winter wind and of sharing a bottle of port near a great fire. Now, approaching death seemed to have stolen both size and strength so that he was only an old, fragile man.

Still, his hair glowed rich and red in the pale glow of the lamp.

"Your mother..." Ian began, reaching for Coll's hand.

"I'll care for her." They were men who loved each other too well to pretend there would be a tomorrow. "Aye." Ian's breath hissed in and out, like wind through an empty husk of wheat. "The bairn-my only regret is I won't see the bairn."

"He shall carry your name," Coll vowed. "He shall know the man who was his grandsire."

There was a faint smile on Ian's mouth, though his lips were the color of ashes. "Brigham."

"I'm here, sir."

Because his vision was fading, Ian concentrated on the voice. "Don't tame my wildcat. She would die from it. You and Coll will tend to little Gwen and Malcolm. Keep them safe."

"My word on it."

"My sword-" Ian struggled for another breath. "My sword to Malcolm.

Coll, you have your own."

"He shall have it." Coll bent over Ian's hand. "Papa."

"We were right to fight. It will not be for naught." He opened his eyes for the last time. "Royal is our race, lad." He managed a final fierce grin.

"We are MacGregors despite them."

There were men dispatched to bear the body back to Glenroe, but Coll refused to go with them. "He would have me stay with the Prince," Coll told Brigham as they stood out in the bitter sleet. "That he died here, with our backs turned to London."

"It's not finished, Coll."

Coll turned his head. There was grief in his eyes, and also a bright anger.

"No, by G.o.d, it's not." The men of the clans grew dispirited, as it seemed ever clearer that the invasion of England was fast petering out into a holding action.

Desertions had become frequent, and the decision was made to consolidate forces in the north of Scotland. But the leaders continue to bicker, even after the rebels forded the icy waters of the Forth and marched north up the Great Glen. For seven weeks that winter, Charles made his base in Inverness. Inactivity again took its toll, dwindling the numbers of the so recently replenished troops. There were short, sporadic, often bitter little battles during those weeks. The Jacobites were again victorious in the taking of Fort Augustus, that hated English stronghold at the heart of the Highlands, but the men longed for a decisive victory and for home. Meanwhile, c.u.mberland ma.s.sed his forces. It seemed the winter would never end.

It was snowing when Serena stood by her father's grave. He had come back to them nearly a month before, and all Glenroe had wept. Her own tears fell freely as she longed for him, for the thunderous sound of his voice, for the crus.h.i.+ng strength of his arms and the laughter in his eyes.

She wanted to cry out. Serena much preferred fury to tears, but the anger had drained out of her. There was only a sorrow, a deep, abiding grief that stirred in her heart even as the child she now carried stirred in her womb.

It was the helplessness, she thought, that made a body weak and the heart brittle. No amount of work or temper or love could bring her father back or take the dull pain out of her mother's eyes. Men fought, and women grieved.

She closed her eyes and let the snow fall stinging to her cheeks. There must be more, she thought, more than waiting and mourning. She had already lost one man she loved. How would she go on if she lost another?

The rebellion, she thought with the first flash of fire she had felt in weeks. The d.a.m.ned rebellion was... was right, she realized, pus.h.i.+ng the heels of her hands over her face to dry them. It was right and it was just.

If people believed strongly, they should be willing to fight, and to die.

Her father had said so, and had stood unwaveringly by his words. How could she do less?

"I miss you so," she murmured. "And I'm afraid. There's the child now, you see. Your grandchild." She smoothed a hand over the slight slope of her belly. "There was nothing I could do to save you, just as there's nothing I can do to protect Brigham or Coll. I wish-Oh Papa, I'm with child and part of me still wishes I could be a man so I could pick up a sword for you." She searched in her pockets until her fingers closed over the handkerchief Brigham had given her so many months before. She laid it on her cheek, using it as a talisman to bring him clearly to mind.

"Is he safe? He doesn't even know we made a child between us. I would go to him." She felt the baby quicken. "But I can't. I can't protect and fight for him, but I can protect and fight for the child."

"Rena?"

She turned to see Malcolm standing a little way off. Snow fell in sheets between them, but she could see the quiver of his lips and the sheen of tears in his eyes. Wordlessly she opened her arms to him.

While he wept, she held him, finding comfort somehow in comforting another. He had been so brave, she remembered, standing so straight, holding their mother's arm while the priest had said the last words over their father's grave. He'd been a man then. Now he was a little boy.

"I hate the English." His voice was m.u.f.fled against her shawl.

"I know. Mother would say hate is not Christian, but sometimes I think there is a time for hate, just as there is a time for love. And there is a time, my love, to let go of it."

"He was a fierce warrior." "Aye." She was able to smile now as she drew him back to study his tear-streaked face. "Do you not think, Malcolm, that a fierce warrior might prefer to die fighting for what he believes?"

"They had retreated," Malcolm said bitterly, and Serena saw a glimpse of Coll in his eyes.

"Aye." The letter she had received from Brigham had explained the maneuver, his dissatisfaction with it and the growing dissent in the ranks. "I don't understand the strategy of generals, Malcolm, but I do know that whether the Prince is victor or vanquished, nothing will ever be the same."

"I want to go to Inverness and join."

"Malcolm-"

"I have Father's sword," he interrupted, pa.s.sion darkening his eyes. "I can use it. I will use it to avenge him and support the Prince. I am not a child."

She looked at him then. The little boy who had run weeping into her arms was a man again. He stood as high as her shoulder, his jaw firm, his hand clenched on the hilt of his dagger. He could go, Serena realized with a flutter of fear.