DARE THE WILD WIND (17 page)

Brenna saw no sign of Fenella.  Then, as she crossed the dooryard, Fenella stepped out from behind a scorched wall into the light.  "Oh, my lady, I'd despaired you'd come."

Brenna was relieved to see her. It would be safer for both of them not to make the journey alone. 

"You mustn't use my title, Fenella."  She glanced down at her rumpled and
none  too  fragrant attire and gave a shaky, rueful laugh.  "And in the circumstances, ceremony hardly seems in order."

Fenella made an effort to smile back, her face drawn with anxiety.  She slung a haversack over her arm as they set out away from the croft.

"I brought bannocks and bit of cheese.  And herbs and clean strips of linen for bandages."

Until they were well away from Lochmarnoch, it would be far too dangerous to follow the
Inverness road.  Brenna's habit of riding out beyond Dalmoral land had made her a familiar figure in the neighboring countryside.  It would be a hard, wearying walk to the first village they could safely approach.  But Brenna's knowledge of the back trails through the mountains stood them in good stead now.  Climbing the rocky path they took would be slower than the highroad, but their route would cut the distance by nearly half.   They wouldn't reach the village before nightfall.  Even before the sun set, the overhanging forest darkened their way.  The thought of Cam and Iain lying on the battlefield made Brenna push on up the steep track.  But at last night cloaked them completely, and they were forced to stop for the night.

Brenna slept only in snatches.  Muffled in their plaids against the cold and damp, neither of them wanted to speak their thoughts aloud.  Brenna had heard tales of wounded men lying on a battle
field for days.  And, to their shame, Brenna knew even their own Highlanders had refused to bury the English dead after Prestonpans.

They rose with the first faint light that seeped across the sky.  Eating a ration of Fenella's bannocks and hard cheese, they quickly moved on again.  By full daylight, they reached the high spine of the mountain, and started down the other side.  Finally the trail broke out of the wood.  The village was only a huddle of thatched roofs and a blacksmith's shop.  Smoke billowed up from the bellows at the forge, and as they drew closer, Brenna could see the farrier at work, hammering glowing
  hot iron into a shoe for a horse. 

The blacksmith looked up from his work as they approached.  Brenna had skinned her hair tightly back from her face, and knotted it at the nape of her neck, careful no telltale tendril escaped from her frayed plaid.  Now she wrapped the tartan half across her face.

"Would you have a horse to sell?" she asked when he grudg
ingly straightened at her greeting.

"A horse?" he echoed in an impatient tone.  "What would two wee lassies be wanting with a horse?"

"We must get to
Culloden Moor," Fenella burst out.

He straightened and idled his bellows, really looking at them now.  "You're a patch late.  The fighting's done."

"We've only just had word," Fenella rushed on in desperation.  "Our men are there.  We have to go to them."

Her voice shook with threatening tears, and Brenna saw a flicker of unwilling sympathy in the smith's face. 

"'T’isn't easy for women to see, a place where men lay dead and maimed."

"The more reason to go," Brenna broke in.  "Our men haven't come away with the others.  If they lay helpless on the moor, no Englishman will bind their wounds."

The bitter contempt in her words had an effect on the farr
ier.  But he spoke cautiously. 

"You be in Loyalist country, lass.  And you wear the Dalmoral plaid."

"Our men are MacCavans," Brenna said, risking the truth.
  "We'd be wed to them by now if our Laird didn't forbid us."

He considered what she said.  Marriage between friendly clans was common, encouraged by chieftains who sought to avoid the inbreeding that begot misshapen offspring and babes fated to die within days of their birth.  And no man or woman could marry without permission of the chief, rarely given until a clansman had a house and a farm or other means of providing for a family. 

"I can't sell you the horse I'm shoeing," he said.  "He belongs to the peddler having a bite at my wife's table.  The fool rode him in with a stone in his shoe.  He'll be fair lame, even when I get him properly shod."

"Surely you have another horse," Brenna insisted.

"I might have.  If
you have the coin to pay."  

Before they made their way down to the village, Brenna had extracted a chased gold bracelet from the pouch at her waist. 

"I have better," she said.  Tiny chips of sapphire and ruby flashed in the sun.  She saw his eyes widen.

"Where did such as you come by a bauble like this?"

Brenna met his gaze directly and managed a defensive lift of her tartan
  swathed chin.  "The Laird can be a generous man."   

The farrier's look changed.  "And none too quick to marry off a wench with accommodating ways," he guessed with a new and measuring smile.  "With eyes like those and such a fine bonny figure, I canna' blame him."

"We've no time to tarry," Brenna cut him off.  "Do you have another horse to trade?" 

She withdrew her hand and closed her fingers around the bracelet.  Reluctant respect
dawned in his meaty heat  flushed face.

"I have but one," he nodded.  "Beside the shed."

Brenna's spirits sank.  It was a draft horse, swaybacked and spavined, and white around the muzzle.  But the stalls in the smithy's dim barn were empt
y.  There were no other horses.

"Done," she said, chafing to be gone.  "Tack the horse up, and we'll be on our way."     

The blacksmith held back.  "Did your Laird gi' you more t'
bargain with?"

"Horse and gear together aren't worth the price of the bracelet."  Brenna caught at Fenella's arm.  "Come away.  We'll walk if we must." 

Despite Fenella's alarm, Brenna pulled her back toward the village street.  "You'll be lucky to find anyone daft enough to take the poor beast off your hands."

The blacksmith laid down his hammer with a clang.  "The trinket it is, though I'm soft in the head for saying it."  Brenna turned.  "Mind I ha' no saddle for ald Canmore.  But he'll carry you right enough.  He's done as much for my own bairns."

"Then be quick," Brenna said, "before I change my mind."

He held out a hand for the gem
studded circlet of gold.

"When you bring the horse," Brenna countered.

The huge farrier could easily overpower them both, but slowly a smile spread over his wide face at Brenna's unyielding brass.

"I see why you can twist a chief about your finger," he said.  "I pity any Lobsterback you meet."

"How could you haggle with him so?" Fenella asked when they were mounted double on the broad back of the Clydesdale and away.  "Think how long it would have taken us to go on afoot."

"If I hadn't bartered, he might have suspected I carried more in the way of valuables than the bracelet."  Brenna flicked her heels lightly against the gentle horse's broad sides.  To her surprise, the great creature responded by breaking into a ponderous but will
ing trot.  "We have to take care not to tempt anyone to rob us."

Or worse.  They couldn't dwell on what might happen to them if they met with British soldiers.  They would have to try to avoid them, and rely on the Dalmoral plaid and Malcolm's loyalty to the Crown to defend them, though Brenna cherished very little faith either could.  English troops cared little for the allegiance of any Scotswoman they cornered alone. 

They rode in the direction of
Inverness and the Great Glen, passing heather and bracken and crossing springy turf that speeded old Canmore's deliberate pace.  Then, painstakingly, they skirted granite rock and bog.  Pausing briefly by a clear  running stream, they drank from their cupped hands and ate the rest of Fenella's oat cakes and cheese.

Beyond the back trails Brenna knew, their haste and the danger of losing their way forced them to return to the
Inverness Road.  At the first sound of hoofbeats, they took cover behind a tumble of boulders jutting up along the wheel worn, muddy track.  Brenna held the Clydesdale's muzzle, scarcely drawing breath until the troop of scarlet clad riders galloped past in a jangle of bridles and swords.  Counting themselves lucky there had been shelter to take, they returned to the road. 

They encountered few Scots, and those they met told ugly tales.  British soldiers were marauding across the countryside, torching the houses and crofts of Loyalist and Rebel alike, and abusing their wives and daughters.  The Duke of Cumberland had turned his back to let his troops rampage at will.  His evil reputation hadn't been exaggerated.  She had been right to be afraid of him.  And all the
Highlands had cause to fear him now.

Warned by frightened Frasers and Mackintosh clansmen taking flight, Brenna guided the Clydesdale away from the highroad to trace a broken path near the main track.  It slowed them, and Brenna's anxiety swelled at every small obstacle and delay.  She felt Fenella's tension in the rigid arms that clung behind her on their horse, but the other girl made no protest.  Neither of them could help
Cam or Iain if they failed to reach them.

The battle had been fought on the moor beyond Culloden House.  In sight of Nairn, they veered away from the coast, toward the great plateau above
Moray Firth.  It cut precious time from their journey, but the sun already sank in the sky.  Night would fall long before Brenna could push their aging mount to Culloden Moor. 

Canmore plodded now.  As dusk thickened to darkness around them, Brenna reined the tired animal into the rear yard of a coaching inn on the highroad.

"You don't mean to stop here for the night?" Fenella said in dismay when Brenna slid off their horse. 

"Poor Canmore can't take us any farther unless he's fed and given some rest.  And we can't ride blindly on in the dark."

After a moment's hesitation, the fair
  haired girl swung her leg over the Clydesdale's broad back.  Shutting her eyes for a second at the drop, she hopped to the ground with an awkward thump.

"They're so close."  She took a stiff step that betrayed the soreness of her legs from their ride.  "I won't stay here with Iain out there somewhere on the moor."

Brenna knew Culloden House and the battlefield were farther than Fenella thought.  "No more than I will.  Keep well out of sight while I go inside."

Leaving Fenella to lean in mute exhaustion on a low stone wall behind the buttery, Brenna led Canmore around to the stableyard and ordered a measure of grain and water for him.

"See he's fed quickly," she told the groom.  "I'll pay once you've done."

Window by window, a lit taper touched candlewicks to glowing life in the inn, and loud laughter rang from the tavern.  Slurred, noisy voices told Brenna English soldiers sat at the tables inside. 

Brenna took the path to the kitchens.  In the scullery, she found a slack
jawed, dull eyed girl of perhaps twenty indifferently plucking feathers from a partridge, and a cook spitting a hare for roasting on the hearth.  The older woman turned with a frown, but her scowl dissolved at the anxiety she saw in Brenna's face. 

"Another one, is it?  If it's a bite and shelter you've come for, we can spare a bowl of porridge and a place by the fire."

Brenna shook her head, aware how bedraggled she must look.  "I need coin, and a lantern."

"Coin?  Bless me, lass.  These English pigs refuse to pay, and they're drinking our cellar dry.  Me and m'
husband won't have two shillings to rub together once they've gone."

"I haven't come for charity," Brenna said quickly.  She slipped the soft leather pouch from her plaid.  "Call your husband to the kitchen, and tell him I have something to trade."

The innkeeper's wife straightened, and set the skewered rabbit on the rough wooden table next to the dry sink.

"No need," she said, matter
of fact.  She wiped her bloody hands on her apron.  "What is it you've brought to barter with?"

Brenna pulled her
mother's emerald pendant from the pouch.  It sparked green fire as it caught the light from the hearth, and the older woman's expression sobered. 

"Lass, can ye part with this?" she asked.

"I must," Brenna said simply.  Then her fear overruled caution.  "What word have you had from
Culloden Moor?  Is it true the English have left the wounded to lay on the battlefield?"

The graying woman made a sympathetic sound.  "Child, I don't know.  I've only heard they cut our lads down like wheat."

Brenna controlled a shudder at the words. 

The cook's expression changed.  "I lost m' father and brother in the 'Fifteen."  A look of long buried pain crossed her face.  "I'll deal as fair with ye as I can."

She pulled a small strongbox from a cupboard.  "There's no trusting menfolk with money," she said with a wry, gap
toothed counterfeit of a grin.  "We'll try and strike a bargain."