Prince Across the Water (7 page)

“Aye,” John the Miller said. “Ye dinna see the Campbells here.”

The MacDonalds all laughed, a rolling sound like distant thunder.

“Ye dinna see the bloody Campbells anywhere,” someone called.

Granda patted my hand. “Not all the clans have declared for the prince yet, lad. But they will. They will. Even the bloody Campbells. Victory brings all rabbits out of their holes.”

Just then we heard a rumbling noise and, turning, saw that some barrels were being rolled out from the chapel, where the prince evidently kept his stores.

“French brandy!” somebody called, and the two words passed through our company with surprising speed.

“There's nobility and
nobility
!” declared Jock, leaping to his feet. “But drink is the noblest gift of all.”

The rest of us soon followed and we lined up in front of the barrels with our drinking cups held up, and a dram was poured out for every man.

When we returned to our campsite, Uncle Dougal raised his cup high. “To the Prince Across the Water!”

First all the MacDonalds, and then the rest of the men picked up the toast.

“To the Prince Across the Water!”

The sound of a thousand men or more rolled through the night air like a spring torrent down the hillside. It echoed in my bones.

Da allowed me a few sips. “Nae more, laddie. Yer too young for the whole cup.”
And too weak
, his eyes said.

The brandy burned my throat like hot pitch, even more than the laird's whiskey had, and I coughed and coughed until Granda clapped me on the back. I was immediately light-headed and Da looked at me, shaking his head.

“Better to keep warm this way than in any byre,” said the smith. “Do ye no agree, laddie?”

I hadn't breath to answer him and simply nodded. It was true. Once I'd gotten the few sips of brandy down, they left a warm glow in my belly.

All too soon the men lined up for refills.

“None for ye, Duncan,” Da said. “I'll take nae chance of bringing on one of yer fits here in the prince's sight.”

“Och, get the lad a cupful. I'll drink it down for him,” said Granda, but Da looked right through him.

So
, I thought,
I'm right about what I read in his eyes
. But it did not cast me down because what I really felt was that the prince's presence was keeping me hale and hearty.

Da went off with some of the other men to test their skill with the dirk, each taking turns flinging their daggers at a target set on a tree trunk. They laughed at each
thunk
against the bole of the tree. But Granda and I were excluded from their company.

I didn't mind. It was enough for me to be just sitting on the grass beside Granda, watching and listening as the night went dark around us.

Nearby, a small wiry man with thinning sandy hair played on a pennywhistle. The tunes he played may have been of his own making, for I knew none of them. But they were sharp and bright and made me tap my toes.

By his side, the twins from our village were engaged in a noisy game of dice, with a circle of men around them calling out bets. The sums they mentioned were so large, I suddenly realized that no one was taking them seriously.

Two other men—MacDonalds from the badges on their bonnets but from a different glen than ours—sat on a tussock close by, cleaning their swords. As they ran their whetstones along the blades, they talked of their wives and children.

The casual laughter of the knife throwers, the man playing his own tunes, the dicers, the small talk of men cleaning their swords, all made me feel—strangely—at home. There was a kind of trust here between the men. Clan next to clan, linked by our love for the Stuart and our goal to put his father back upon the throne.

I noticed then that the prince had begun strolling among the men, moving with an easy air.

Can I do it? Can I speak to him? Can I touch his hand?
I wondered. Then I shook my head. Surely that would be a breaking of the trust. But if he just came close enough …

“Granda,” I said, pointing to the prince, “he seems like a shepherd walking through his flock at the end of the day.”

“Aye,” Granda replied, “and counting heads to make sure none of them has strayed.” Then he nodded at a tall, handsome man walking by the prince's side. “That's Lochiel, leader of the Camerons. See, he wears the prince's favor, that gold brooch at his neck. I heard the prince has given all the clan leaders such a token, with a bit of his own hair curled in it. Even the Keppoch has one, decorated with a figure of a lion.”

“Lochiel's speaking at the same time as the prince …” I said. “Is he translating for him?”

“Likely he is. Our bonnie boy disna speak the Gaelic, but he'll learn when he has time.”

I was sure of it. On the road with his men, his Highlanders, the prince would learn. I stared hard at him, willing him to come closer, wishing that I had one of the charms Ma used to summon the cows in for milking. But then he turned and headed the other way, waving vaguely in my direction.

I leaped up. “MacDonald!” I cried. “MacDonald!” Around me the dicers and the knife throwers and the others quit what they were doing and called out as well. The prince waved again, hesitated a moment, even smiled, but then moved on.

For a moment, disappointment washed over me and I almost drowned in it. But I realized suddenly that it mattered little if the prince actually
touched
me. I was already close enough to him for any of his magic to work. And indeed, I had never felt so well, so
whole
, in all my life.

“I could stay here forever,” I told Granda. “Here with the prince, with the men.”

He looked at me sharply, then closed his eyes as if suddenly weary.

“Granda, are ye all right?”

He opened his eyes and for the first time I was aware how faded they were, like the grey of weathered stone. “Aye, lad, I know the feeling. It comes before any battle, when the men are all around ye, with the singing and the drinking and the small games. When ye sit shoulder to shoulder at the campfire and talk of the things ye know—home and hearth and the working of the earth. That's when the important things sit on yer shoulders and hold ye close. Family, clan, tradition. Ye must hold faith with all three. It's bad luck to break with any of them.”

“Yes. Yes,” I said. I understood what he meant. I really did.

He shivered a bit as if with the cold, though it was a warm night and not a bit of wind. “It's a feeling of companionship, of being a tight weave with the other men.”

I nodded without speaking.

“But soon enough there's the cries on the field and yer friends lying dead at yer feet. And the blood.” He trembled all over. “The blood.”

I was stunned. This didn't sound like Granda. “But, what about the glory? The honor?”

He looked up at me, and once more his voice changed. “Och, aye, the glory and honor. That's what it's about, of course. That's what it's
really
about.” But his voice seemed empty, deflated.

Still, I kept at him. “Can we go with the clan? At least till the first battle? Just a few days, Granda. Da will listen if you put it that way. Not all the way to London, but a few more days.” I was begging now, like a bairn at bedtime.

“Do ye care so little for yer own home glen?” Granda asked.

“Och, ye know …” I lowered my head. “There's nothing much at home but hard work, rainy springs, and cold winters.”

Granda laughed, his head back, as if I had made a real joke. “Yer describing the whole of Scotland, lad.” He took a long breath. “But ye should consider …” He stopped, as if trying to think what to say next. Then his face lit up. “Did I ever tell ye the story of the giants of Loch Shiel?”

“Nae; never,” I answered, puzzled.
Why should he be telling me a story now?

“Well,” he said, “give the fire a wee poke and I'll begin.”

I took a stick and stirred up our campfire till sparks flew up like bright birds into the dark. Granda's stories were always entertaining, but I wanted him to give me an answer, not a tale.

“Granda, about my going along with the men …”

“Sit still!” he said, as if I were a fidgeting child.

Everyone else was settling down around us. The dicers and knife throwers had quit, wrapping themselves in their plaids and lying down by their fires. The men sharpening their weapons were done and the swords put away. Only the man with the pennywhistle still played on. Its thin, bright sound accompanied Granda's story all the way to the end.

“When we came marching up this glen,” Granda said, “ye surely saw there were farms, pastures, crops, and sheep.”

I nodded.

“Well, it wasna always so. Once the land about this loch was filled with rocks so big, three grown men could scarcely shift one, working all together. It was a hard life for the people who lived here, as hard as the stones.”

I settled into the story as comfortably as into a snug blanket. Granda's tales did that, sucked a person right out of whatever else he was doing, whatever else he wanted to know. Wrapped around him completely.

Granda went on. “Then one day the people of the village asked the old storyteller who lived on the hillside if they wouldna be better off going to live somewhere else.”

“That's the right idea,” I chimed in, thinking of our poor farm.

“Well, the storyteller told him there was nae trouble so bad it couldna be mended. ‘Just give me a week,' he said, which they did. So, that very day he went to one of the neighboring mountains where two quarreling giants lived. Those giants squabbled all the time about which of them was the strongest.”

“It sounds like the MacDonalds and the Campbells.”

Granda grinned. “Very much like. Well, the old storyteller—sly as a fox, he was—told the giants that it was time to settle their quarrel once and for all. He invited them down to the loch, where each was told to pick up one of the great rocks and throw it as far as he could. The one who threw farthest would be the stronger.”

“Is it a trick?” I asked eagerly, for I knew Granda loved tales of trickery.

“Wheesht! Let me get on with it.”

I shut my mouth.

“Well, each of the giants picked up the biggest rock he could find and hurled it so far, it disappeared behind the hills. ‘My stone went the furthest,' said one giant. ‘Nae, mine did,' claimed the other. They turned to the old man to settle the matter. He rubbed his chin, saying, ‘It looks to me like ye each threw the same. Ye'll have to try again.'”

Granda paused for a swallow of brandy then continued. “At the old man's urging, they threw again, and again he told them the same. ‘I canna choose a winner.' Well, they hurled rock after rock over the hills until they were both so tired, they crawled back to their caves to sleep a hundred years. But by this time, of course, the whole of the land around Loch Shiel had been cleared. The people hurried to plow the rich ground and forever after they were blessed with large harvests.”

I laughed and laughed at the old man's cleverness. “We need those giants in our own glen,” I said. “There's enough rocks there for a hundred giants to throw about.”

“That's the point, lad. There's enough work at home for a hundred
men
there,” Granda said. “And ye, my lad, are one of them. Yer da and ma are right about that. Yer needed at home. As yer da is needed here.” At that his story was over and he wrapped himself in his plaid, lay down, and promptly went to sleep.

10 PRINCE'S TOUCH

All around me, as the last light faded from the sky, the rest of the men curled up on the ground and began to snore. I seemed to be the only one of the Glen Roy MacDonalds who found it hard to sleep, probably because I had drunk only a few sips of the brandy.

Bedding down amid the heather was nothing new to me. I had done it many times before when we'd gone off to hunt hares and grouse for the pot. But no matter how much I shifted about, I couldn't find a comfortable spot. Besides, my mind was a-boil with thoughts about the prince and his promise, about the coming war, and about Granda's tale of the giants and the fact that even
he
now thought I was needed at home.

Or maybe Granda is just afraid to travel home by himself
. I remembered the strange look on his face and how hard the last day had been, how much he had limped along. Maybe I wasn't so much needed at home as needed by his side.

At last, I realized that I was never going to fall asleep with my mind galloping like a runaway horse, so I got up and picked my way around the sleeping men. The snores arising from that hillside were monumental. Giants could hardly have made as much noise.

I decided that if I could get to the top of the hill and back, a brisk enough walk, I might tire myself out enough to sleep. So off I went at a good clip, a light wind burnishing my cheeks.

The hill was rocky—no giants had helped here—but the air was so fresh and clear, I drew in great draughts at each step. Above me the sky was a black bowl studded with stars that were reflected in the dark waters of the loch below.

I was nearing the hilltop and thinking once again about Granda's tale when I saw a figure silhouetted against the starry sky. He was sitting on the ground and hunched over, with his back to me.

Putting a hand to my mouth, I rubbed my knuckles across my lips. The man who sat there was Prince Charlie himself, alone and looking out over the darkened waters of the loch. His shoulders were slumped and he was rubbing his palms on the knees of his plaid britches. Even without seeing his face, I felt he was troubled.

Troubled? With all that glorious future ahead of him?

And then suddenly I thought I understood. The prince held the fate of these men, of a whole nation, in his hands. He had promised us a happier day, but he didn't look happy himself.