Chapter 10

The village of Gilmuir was, in comparison to the rest of Alec's patrol area, well fed and prosperous. It startled him to realize how much the Highlanders had suffered this last year. It was one thing to see the gaunt figures of the men in Inverness, another to see the dirt-streaked face of a young child too weak to cry.

They rode north from Gilmuir into an area that had not been linked by General Wade's roads. No doubt Wade would have thought the area uninhabitable, stark as it was. A purple haze, only occasionally lit by streaks of sunlight across the valleys, shadowed the hills. A lake they passed appeared almost like blue crystal, tranquilly reflecting the forests and high, snow-dusted mountain peaks encircling it.

What clachans remained were tucked into protected areas between the hills, in glens that were gray with slag or brown with mud. The huts of one small hamlet cowered on their foundations like abused animals, their inhabitants equally silent and wary.

A woman stood in the doorway, clutching the hand of a child with a skeletally thin face. The mother wore a guarded expression as she watched the column of soldiers pass, but it was the look in the boy's eyes Alec would forever remember. As if he had witnessed too much for his tender years and silently waited for the next misfortune.

That look, he realized as the day progressed, was common among the people he saw. They were survivors even as they held on to their humanity with an almost desperate grip. The shadow of what they had once been was there in the proud tilt of a chin, thinned lips, and eyes that glittered with hate.

Another realization came to him as they passed slowly through the territory that had been given him to oversee. There was nothing left of the Highlands to defeat or subdue. If there was resistance, it was in the thoughts of men like Hamish who lived in another time, or in the glances of the women who pulled their children close to their skirts and whispered of the English devils.

He had yet to meet a hale and hearty man who might have fought against him.

"A long way from the comforts of England, sir," Sedgewick said, looking around him with disdain. "I'd never thought that anyone could live in this manner until I was posted here."

"Did you never think to feed them?" Alec asked, turning in his saddle. Fort William was more barnyard than fortress. A few cattle would never have been missed, but would have made a difference in the lives of these people.

"Why should we, Colonel?" Sedgewick asked, surprised. "The fewer barbaric Scots, the better."

"I believe that wholesale genocide is not the aim here, Major," he said impatiently. The truth, however, was just the opposite. Do your duty, Colonel. In his mind, Cumberland's voice echoed. Subdue them by any means. Kill the beggars if you have to, Colonel. Make them know that England rules them with an iron fist. Starve them, burn their homes, teach them a lesson.

Sedgewick evidently didn't care that the Highlanders he might have saved were mostly women and children, along with a few old men. He did not see them as individuals, but only as a race of people who had dared to rebel against the might of the Empire and therefore should be punished.

Sedgewick and the Duke of Cumberland thought alike in that regard.

It was almost noon by the time they reached the farthest point of the quadrant, but there was no sign of Hamish. None of the people they met confessed to knowing him or his whereabouts. But then, Alec had doubted from the beginning that they would betray the old fool. He had expected Hamish, however, to be piping on the highest hill in plain sight, in cheerful disregard for the English laws and the danger such action might bring to Leitis.

"We'll stop for the noon meal on the other side of this settlement," he said to Harrison, knowing his adjutant would send the information down the line.

This place was little more than a few mud huts gathered together in the vee of a mountain valley. Grass grew on the roofs of the houses, once a grazing place for sheep. But there were no animals in sight now.

An old woman stood leaning heavily on a whittled cane, unmoving as they approached. Her white hair was neatly braided, her dress tidy, the worn shawl she wore bearing the look of having been lovingly woven. She was painfully thin, her hands gnarled like the root of an old tree, her features drawn and pale. However, there was no fear on her face, only a simple acceptance of their presence.

He slowed his horse and dismounted. Behind him the column of soldiers halted. Walking down the path to where she stood, he bent and spoke to her.

"How can I help you, Mother?" he asked softly in Gaelic. He'd had time since returning to Scotland to refresh his memory of the language. In Inverness the ability to understand the prisoners' conversation had proven disturbing rather than helpful, but this was the first time Gaelic had passed his lips since he was a child.

She didn't look surprised at his knowledge of the language. Her eyes, a soft green and surprisingly young in her lined face, studied his, as if she could see beyond his appearance to the man beneath. Slowly, her gaze moved from his shoulders to his boots, but there was no disdain in her glance. Yet the absence of expression was as telling as anger would have been.

"I need nothing, English," she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

He had the thought, errant and unwelcome, that she was a ghost of this place, left behind to speak for all of them.

"Where are the others?"

"I have a few neighbors, English, but they are hiding from you. Fear makes them cautious."

"But you're not afraid?"

"I'm too old to be afraid," she said, and unexpectedly smiled. The expression made her face younger, hinted at the beauty she had been in her youth and might have been in her old age had near-starvation not made her haggard.

"Have you any food?" he asked.

"I have dirt, English," she said, her smile never fading. "A hill full of that."

He dismissed the unwelcome thought that it might have come to that in the past year and motioned to Harrison. His adjutant dismounted and stepped forward.

"Bring my provisions," Alec said. The loss of one meal would not harm him, but it might well mean the difference between life and death for this woman.

"Is that wise, sir?" Harrison asked, glancing over his shoulder at Sedgewick. He sat impassively waiting, his attention fixed on Alec.

Alec pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and wished his headache away. Harrison was right. Any act of charity would be construed as aiding the enemy. Information he suspected Sedgewick would not hesitate to use against him.

"I'll not take your food, English," the old woman interjected. She shook her head as if to accentuate her denial, then turned slowly and began to walk toward her cottage. She was so weak that she had to stop a number of times, leaning heavily on her cane. He approached her, held out his arm, and when she would not take it, took hers. A quick sideways frown from her only increased his irritation.

"You would die rather than take my food?" he asked.

"You have taken everything else from me, English. I'll cherish my pride."

"You cannot live on pride," he said.

"Nor can you live without it," she said simply, silencing him.

He walked with her, stood in the doorway of her cottage. He'd expected her to shut the door in his face, but she had no energy left for that. Instead she sat on a chair beside the door, gripping the cane tightly with white fingers and leaning her forehead against the backs of her hands.

The cottage was little more than a mud crofter's hut, round, with a chimney hole cut in the roof. In the center of the earthen floor a small pit had been dug for a fire, both a source of warmth and a place to prepare meals. Now, however, it was cold, the ashes swept clean.

Against one wall were a small table and the mate to the chair in which she sat. On the opposite wall, cut into the stone of the hill, was a bed of sorts, piled high with animal skins. But the most surprising article of furniture in the hut was a loom.

He entered the cottage, ducking his head beneath the lintel. His fingers trailed along the wood of the frame.

"Do you weave?" he asked.

"I used to," she said, her voice whispery thin in this silent place. "Before my hands grew too pained. My daughter took it up."

He glanced at her. "Where is she?"

"Close enough," she answered, her gaze intent on him. "Beneath the cairn stones."

"I'm sorry," he said simply.

She smiled slightly. "I cannot blame you for that death, English. It was a hard birth, and neither she nor the child survived it."

"Would you sell me your loom?" he suddenly asked.

"What would I do with your coin, English?" she asked, amused.

"Then trade," he suggested. "Your loom for food."

She studied him again silently. "Why would you want such a thing?"

"To right a wrong," he said, offering her a truth.

She finally nodded, and he went to the door, motioned for Harrison. The trade was concluded when two men loaded the loom into a rough cart purchased from another villager.

Before they left, Harrison brought not only Alec's provisions, but also his own, piling the food on the old woman's table.

She glanced up at Alec, her smile gone.

"It's a path you'll take. Not an easy one," she said enigmatically, "but one that your heart makes for you."

"A fortune?" he asked kindly.

"A truth," she said, smiling once more. She touched his arm in parting, a gesture that felt, strangely, almost like a benediction.