The Chieftain (17 page)

When the sun rose at last they kept as far as possible to the trees and fields close to the road, alert for approaching traffic. At the sound of distant wheels they would lie behind the nearest hedge, or deep in the frozen undergrowth, until the danger had passed. It made their progress uncomfortably slow.

They reached the mountains late in the day as it began to grow dark. The lower slopes here were thickly wooded, cut with deep ravines down which burns roared their way towards the shining waters of the many lochs, silver in the fitful moonlight. It began to snow, thin light flakes that did not settle except where the frost was at its hardest. The peaks were still white with the remnants of the last snowfall.

Once or twice Isobel hesitated, unsure of the path, and then after a moment’s consideration plodded doggedly on. Slowly the tiny winding track became invisible, swallowed up in the trees and the night. Far above, stars twinkled frostily, lost now and then behind the thin cloud that brought the snow. Many times they stumbled on some hidden root or stone.

At last they came to a great moss-grown wall of rock, discernible only by a faint moonlight and their exploring hands. They could not see where the path went, but Isobel put out a hesitant foot and heard a scatter of earth and pebbles far below, where a distant rush of water told them of a fast running stream deep in the glen.

‘That settles it,’ Janet asserted. ‘I’m not risking my neck any further. We stop right here and rest and we don’t go on until we can see the path.’

With considerable reluctance Isobel had to agree. Even her longing to reach Ardshee was not proof now against her weakness. Besides, if they were to injure themselves or lose their way it could only lengthen their journey in the end. So they sank down against the rock, huddled together for warmth, and managed to sleep for some hours.

At dawn they ate some of the food they carried with them and set out again. The dim grey light revealed that the path skirted the rock at a treacherous angle above a precipitous drop to the rushing waters below. Just as well, said Janet with a shudder, that they had not tried to take that way in the dark.

As the daylight grew, Isobel was forced to acknowledge that one of her fears of last night was fully justified. She no longer had any idea where they were. The endless intersecting lines of mountain and glen seemed to bear no relation to the marks on her map, and there was not even any sun in the grey sky to reassure them that they were not going in completely the wrong direction. They had no alternative but to ask for help from the first house they came upon.

They found that it was the best course they could have taken. Isobel summoned up her neglected knowledge of Gaelic, and in return they found that their journey became at once easy, comfortable, even safe. Their plight, as two women wandering lost and unprotected in the mountains, aroused all the warmth of sympathy and hospitality of the Highland people to whom a guest was sacred. They were urged to share the simple food, rest on heather beds within the dark interiors of the little houses, accept the guidance of host or hostess on the next stage of their journey. And all this without questioning or sign of suspicion.

Some days later they came at last to the ferry at Ballachulish, on the grey waters of Loch Leven, and the final stage of their journey. They were the only passengers on the boat that morning, and the ferryman maintained a sombre silence until they had reached the further shore. Then he asked casually in English if they had far to go. At Isobel’s reply he shook his head.

‘Ardshee, now,’ he repeated gloomily. ‘Would he be out following the Prince?’

It took Isobel a moment to realise that he was referring to Hector and not to his home; and then an unaccountable shiver ran down her spine.

‘He is indeed,’ she confirmed, and knew that she did not want to hear what the man had to say next.

‘Then it will be a sad day for him too,’ continued the ferryman.

Isobel suppressed a longing to turn and walk as quickly as she could from this place. The mountains seemed suddenly oppressive, their stark shapes towering over the travellers, the water they had crossed at once dark and deep and sinister. She pulled the plaid about her in a vain attempt to keep out the chill that was creeping through her.

‘Why do you say that?’ she asked quietly, almost with reluctance.

‘You have not heard, then?’ She sensed his grim satisfaction at being first with the news. ‘It would be two days ago now - a terrible day for those that were with the Prince, and an evil place, on Drummossie Moor where they met their fate. That is near Inverness, you see, and the Duke of Cumberland met them there. The Prince has fled, and his army is gone and the King of England is triumphant. There will be widows and orphans in all the Highlands now—’

Isobel stood motionless, numb fingers clenched tight on the folds of the plaid, eyes wide and dark and haunted in her white face. And then she turned to her maid with a new and desperate urgency in her voice.

‘Janet, we must go on quickly. We’ve no time to waste. We must get to Ardshee as soon as ever we can, if we have to walk through the night.’

As they set out again, Janet said sensibly: ‘I don’t see why the news means we have to rush like this. I’m sure I don’t want your husband to have been killed in battle, if that’s what you fear, but I can’t see that it helps if we hurry. In any case, why not go to Inverness and seek him there?’
 

‘Because if he is alive, even if he is hurt, he will go to Ardshee. Can’t you see that? And if the battle took place two days ago he may be there now, and in need of me.’

‘I should have thought it was the last place he’d go to, as a defeated rebel,’ objected Janet. ‘If they’re after him it’s the one place they’re sure to come seeking him.’

Isobel shook her head fiercely. ‘No, Janet, they’d never find him at Ardshee. It’s too wild and lonely a place for an army to march to. He’ll be safe there—But I must be there when he comes home…’ Her voice trailed off to a whisper, and Janet scarcely heard the final desolate words: ‘…if he comes home.’

They found a second boat to ferry them across Loch Linnhe at the Corran narrows and then walked through the day and most of the following night over the wild mountains and glens of the peninsular of which Ardshee was a part. They found their way by the sun and the stars, for the paths and tracks were few and ill-defined. ‘We must go south west,’ Isobel pointed out, although she felt sure that the force of her love was stronger than any compass, guiding her towards home and the man she loved.

Just after midnight Isobel halted at last and ordered a rest.

‘We must be fresh for our arrival,’ she insisted. Janet was too weary to quarrel with that argument, and they sank down to sleep where they were.

At dawn they woke and ate their fill from the food their last host had packed for them. There was still barley bread and cheese enough for another meal, but Isobel knew they would not be needing that. Even so she resisted the temptation to feed it to the birds, just in case anything went wrong.

But the horror of yesterday had left her now, fading in the quiet spring morning. She was nearly home, back where she belonged, and Hector would be there, and all would be well. She washed carefully in a nearby burn, and combed her hair, and arranged the plaid in its most flattering folds, joining in Janet’s laughter at her efforts.

‘I must look my best for my husband,’ she explained gently, her eyes bright, and Janet shook her head and said nothing, suddenly grown serious.

It was late in the morning when they came to the shieling ground, silent and deserted in the sunlight. Before long, Isobel reflected, as they passed the empty huts and climbed the hill beyond, the women and children would drive their poor cattle up here again to graze and grow fat, and singing and laughter would echo around the sheltered hollow. The rebellion was over, however unhappy its end for Hector and his people, and life could return to its interrupted order, hard, poor, and yet rich in love and loyalty and tradition. And Hector would find he had a wife proud to bear his name and happy to share in his task of caring for his people. Perhaps, thought Isobel, there would soon be children, many children—

‘The sea - look! And a ship, a ship in the bay!’

It was Janet’s cry that broke into her happy dreams and brought Isobel instantly back to the present. A ship! Her heart gave a great leap and she gazed where Janet pointed, at the sea wide and blue below the far mountains, and a ship gently at rest at the mouth of the bay, near the castle on its point. Hector was home!

And then she stood still.

The ship lying at anchor in the water was a splendid sight, proud and magnificent, with sails furled and sunlight gleaming on polished brass and weathered timber and the sinister lines of her guns. She bore no resemblance at all to the primitive little vessel that had carried Hector from Ardshee on that summer morning nearly a year ago. Disappointment brought a prickle of tears to Isobel’s eyes, hastily brushed away.

‘I think it’s a naval ship,’ Janet pointed out. ‘They’ll be busy keeping a watch on the coast, I suppose. Perhaps they want to prevent the Young Pretender from making his escape.’

They walked on towards the point where, Isobel knew, the ground fell away and they would see the castle and the bay and the settlement clearly below them. The trees on the slopes edging the bay would be misted with green and loud with birdsong, the grass laced with violets and primroses. Soon the singing of the women at their work would reach them, clear and sweet on the breeze from the sea. Eager to be with them all again, Isobel broke into a run.

She had just topped the little rise when a flock of birds flew suddenly up from the bay, clamorous with agitation, shattering the quiet of the morning. And almost at once the air was seared with a long and terrible scream of unbearable agony.

Chapter Fourteen

Janet clutched her arm. ‘Mercy on us, what was that?’

‘I don’t know,’ whispered Isobel between white lips.

The agitated lowing of cattle reached their ears, and the crying of children. And then the sharp rattle of musket fire echoed around the cliffs.

Cold with fear, Isobel took the few paces forward that brought the bay into view.

‘Soldiers!’ exclaimed Janet in a low voice.

Small red figures ran like ants among the clustered roofs of the settlement below - in and out of the houses, flinging cooking pots and furniture onto a great heap a short distance away; circling the frightened cattle, herding them together on the ploughed strips of the clan’s fields; backwards and forwards in pursuit of wildly flapping chickens and leaping goats. And at one side the women and children stood, huddled together, ringed with red sentinels.

Alone by the door of one of the houses lay the still form of a man, face down with his plaid about him, and the red of his blood bright on the grass. Even as they watched a group of soldiers dragged a second man from another house, put him roughly against a wall, and shot him. Blood reddened the white of his hair as he slid to the ground.

Isobel sank down on the grass, sickened and appalled, and met Janet’s gaze full of equal horror and disbelief.

‘What can we do?’ mouthed the maid, as white as her mistress. ‘What’s happening?’

‘The old men... They’re shooting the old men who were left behind...’ Isobel spoke as if even now she could not quite convince herself that what she had seen was real.

A third burst of musket fire rattled over the bay, and then there was a tiny, horrible pause, while the birds settled again and even the cattle were quiet. Isobel could not bring herself to look.

A scream more terrible than the first shattered the brief silence, and then was repeated, again and again and again.

On hands and knees the two watchers crept forward to where they could see. And wished at once that they had not.

It was only too clear what the soldiers were doing now, dragging the women from where they were herded like their own cattle, flinging them down on the defiled turf by their houses, raping them one after the other, while the children cried in terror and the screams rose higher and higher into the clear air.

‘Mairi—!’ murmured Isobel in agony. ‘Oh, dear God, what can we do?’

But she knew there was no answer, and the obscene work went on below, unhindered. A child ran out from the little group towards his mother, and they saw a watching soldier strike out at him with his musket, and he fell, lying still on the grass. His mother struggled to her feet and threw herself screaming over the small body, only to be dragged aside and raped again. Isobel began to cry, with slow hard sobs that could bring no relief. She had never felt so utterly helpless as she did now.

‘Your man’s not there then?’ Janet asked dully. It was more of a statement than a question.

‘I think,’ said Isobel with sudden complete conviction, ‘that I would wish him dead, rather than that he should know of this.’

Yet she knew that she did not wish it for herself. She had spoken instinctively, from her love for Hector and her knowledge of what Ardshee and its people meant to him. It was that part of her now that hoped he lay quietly on the bleak moor where his cause had met its end, past grieving for the suffering women below.

In their horrified absorption in what they saw, it had not occurred to the two watchers that there could be any danger for themselves. It was not until a gleeful shout from behind broke into their concentration that they knew that three soldiers, wandering further afield in search of other plunder, had found them.