Fiona & the Three Wise Highlanders by Jennifer Ashley
Chapter 4
Fiona’s heart pumped faster as Stuart put his hand on Piseag’s bridle to halt her, and whistled softly between his teeth. Gair hurried back to them, and Padruig gathered close.
Fiona tried to stay calm, forcing herself not to beg Stuart to hide, to flee back to the inn. He could blend in with the throng there and escape during the Christmas revelry.
Stuart’s face set in stubborn lines, his blue eyes quiet as he withdrew into himself. Fiona watched him leave the carefree, laughing, impetuous Highlander behind and become the honed and deadly soldier.
They stood in a thick stand of trees, the land sloping sharply upward on their right, downward on the left. At the scrape of boots of the approaching soldiers, Stuart left the track, fading noiselessly into the uphill woods, his dark coat blending with the black rocks and boles of trees among the snow.
Padruig seized Piseag’s bridle, and Una moved restlessly behind Fiona.
The soldiers rounded the bend and stopped in surprise. No officers, Fiona thought with relief. Just infantrymen, possibly heading for their camp or perhaps even Balthazar’s inn, anticipating a warm room and a draught of ale.
No worries that the soldiers would search her bag, Fiona reflected. Stuart still had it on his back and he was gone.
The three Black Watch, in their kilts—the tartan ban did not extend to them—looked more annoyed than worried when they beheld Fiona and party. Fiona’s idea that they were heading to camp or the inn to go off-duty solidified.
The Englishman with them, in the red coat of Something-or-Other Foot, appeared as anxious to push past them as the others, but it was his duty to stop and question any Scots person on the road.
The four formed a barrier across the track, the Englishman slightly to one side, as though ready to let the Black Watch deal with any trouble.
One of the Black Watch soldiers lifted his rifle from his shoulder and aimed it vaguely at them. “No farther. Who are ye, and what’s your business on this road?”
“I don’t call it much of a road.” Gair spat to the side of it. “We’re taking this lady safely to shelter. It’s brutal cold, if ye’d not noticed.”
The man had the sharp blue eyes and fair hair of a Highlander, his accent putting him from the north and east. “What lady, and what shelter?”
“This lady.” Gair jerked his thumb at Fiona. “Whatever shelter we can find. Any houses the way you’ve come?”
“Only burned ones.” The man smiled a little over the barrel of his rifle.
Fiona lost her temper. These were Scotsmen who’d turned on their own people, burning homes of those suspected of hiding Jacobites, throwing entire families out with nowhere to go.
She dragged her scarf from her mouth, letting the cold burn her lips. “I see you there, Iver MacGregor,” she said to another of the Black Watch who hovered behind the man with the rifle. He was thinner than the others, with brown hair under his bonnet, and scraggly whiskers on his face to match. “What would your mother say about that beard? Ye should grow it out or cut it off entirely.”
Padruig remained stoic, but Gair shot Fiona an alarmed look, trying to silence her. The Englishman and the soldier who hadn’t spoken struggled to hide grins.
“Fiona?” Iver bleated. “I mean … Miss Macdonald? What are you doing out here in the weather?”
“Trying to get out of the weather. But you and your friends are blocking my way.”
Iver’s mouth popped open, which was its usual position. Iver MacGregor lived in the next glen from Fiona’s family home, and he and Broc had played together as children. Iver looked perpetually bewildered, had even when he’d come out of his shell enough to dance with Fiona one Hogmanay, before he’d joined the Black Watch.
“We can’t let none pass,” Iver explained as though Fiona hadn’t heard about the Uprising. “Rebels about.”
The Black Watch leader lowered his rifle but didn’t move, seeming happy to let Iver speak for all of them.
Fiona made a show of looking around. “I see no Highlanders here. Only these men I hired to see me through. You know them. Gair Murray and Padruig.”
Iver flushed, and the others shuffled, uncomfortable. Most people in the Highlands had bought smuggled goods from Gair and Padruig. The minute Gair was arrested, he could reveal what he’d sold not only to every soldier whose duty it was to stamp out smuggling, but to their superiors as well, all the way up the chain of command.
Iver stepped closer to the horse, on the side opposite Padruig, and peered up at Fiona. “Ye trust them?”
“I do to lead me true until they receive their pay at the end of the road. I’m only going home. My brother is ill, as you might have heard.”
Iver nodded, brow furrowing. “Aye, he took injury at Falkirk, I recall. Give him me best.”
“I will. Now, shall you let me pass?”
The Black Watch leader roused to life. “Sorry, ma’am. Orders. Everyone on the road is to be searched.”
“Very well.” Fiona nodded to Una, who started to slide down. Padruig caught Una and set her on her feet, but Fiona swung off herself, not waiting for assistance. “Be quick about it. I’d like to be indoors before nightfall.”
Thank heavens for Stuart. She could be serene, knowing the soldiers wouldn’t find the extra clothes and food she carried, would never realize what she intended to do with them.
Gair was less sanguine. “Ye can see I’m not carrying guns or a casket of gold, can’t ye? Will ye rob me of the few coins I have? I’m reduced to escorting a woman across the Highlands for pay. Take pity on me.”
Iver winced. “Sorry, Gair. I’ll make it quick.”
Iver found four knives, two flasks of whisky, and a few English gold sovereigns in Gair’s pockets, but nothing that seemed to alarm anyone. Padruig had one knife and a flask and that was all.
With Iver’s persuasion, they allowed Una and Fiona to turn out their own pockets, showing they carried only dried meat, bread, and cheese for the journey.
The leader clicked Gair’s two gold coins together. “We might have to confiscate this. Could be the spoils of smuggling.”
“Now, hang on—” Gair blustered.
“Give them to him, Gair.” Fiona kept up her air of an inconvenienced highborn lady as she turned back to her horse. “I’ll give you the cost at journey’s end.”
She allowed Padruig to give her a leg-up into the saddle, settling herself and paying no more attention to the men, as Una was lifted on behind her.
The leader grinned, and the coins disappeared. Gair snarled. Padruig stepped to Gair and simply looked at him. Gair subsided.
“Give my best to your mum, Iver,” Fiona said graciously. “Good day, gentlemen.”
Padruig grasped the bridle again, though Fiona held the reins, and led the mare past the soldiers. The Englishman and the two other Black Watch seemed pleased with their chance encounter. Iver saluted Fiona wistfully.
“Take care, Fiona. Perhaps I’ll see ye at your brother’s at Hogmanay?”
“Perhaps.” Fiona nodded down at him, as though it made no difference to her.
She managed to remain composed as Padruig led her on, Gair following, but her mouth was dry, her limbs trembling. She adjusted her scarf over her nose, its warmth welcoming.
Would the soldiers see Stuart? Hear him? Shoot him outright? And where had Stuart gone? He knew these woods and valleys better than most. Would he vanish over the mountains, never to be seen again?
Her heart pounded, and her fingers twitched. She wanted to urge Piseag to run, run, run, so she could find Stuart but knew that would be the height of foolishness.
They rounded the bend. The soldiers did not follow, though Fiona did not risk glancing back to see whether they watched.
Padruig and Gair kept up a steady but not rapid pace, Gair raising his voice in a badly out of tune song. Another mile went by, and another. They saw no more soldiers, and Fiona began to relax.
Fiona also did not see Stuart. They traveled for an hour, the road leaving the hills and striking over a glen toward mountains beyond and the castle where Broc Macdonald had retreated, nursing his injury.
Clouds began to blot the sky. Fiona would have to turn aside soon, as she’d promised, though how she’d fulfill her mission without the bag Stuart had taken she did not know. She could only do her best.
They stopped in the shelter of a tree to water the horse in the nearby stream, Padruig breaking ice with his boot. In a low voice, Fiona explained to the two men what she meant to do. As predicted, Gair argued, but Padruig gruffly agreed and stared Gair to silence. Then they went on.
Fiona saw no sign of Stuart as the clouds gathered, and she realized as the miles went by, that he was truly gone.
* * *
Stuart,who’d been shadowing Fiona and party, pulled his coat close against the growing wind. He knew they were heading for Broc’s castle in the next glen, so he could simply hurry there and wait for them. But leaving Fiona to the mercy of Gair and Padruig, not to mention any Hanoverian soldiers lurking about, did not appeal to him.
Stuart was surprised, then, when Fiona turned off the small road that would take her to her brother’s castle, and wended her way up a path toward a tiny crack between two tall mountains.