About the Book
Not long after he inherited the Highland estate of Kynachan, young David Stewart was shown, in a dream, the image of his future wife. When, at a ball in Perth, he saw the beautiful Jean Mercer – the woman of his dream – he proposed at once, determined that she should become his Lady of Kynachan.
The marriage was passionate and happy, and Jean learned to love the life of the Scottish Highlands. But when Prince Charles landed in 1745 and summoned his men to follow him, David Stewart, a devoted Jacobite, went to fight for the Cause, perishing on the field of Culloden with all the men of Kynachan save one.
As the British government ruthlessly set out to destroy the Highland way of life, the Lady of Kynachan summoned all her courage, her wit and strength, to build a new life for herself, her children, and the people of Kynachan.
CONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
Author’s Note
Maps: Kynachan
Highland Perthshire
Part I
JEAN’S TALE
1. In the Valley of the Shadow
2. The Heir’s Progress
3. A Farewell
4. Spectre
5. A Proposal
6. The Marriage Game
7. The Ball
8. Tamhasg
9. Courting
10. To Castle Menzies
11. Journey’s End
12. Under Craig Kynachan
13. Kynachan
14. The Wedding
15. In the Bothy
Part II
THE RISING
16. Halcyon Days
17. The Black Bull
18. Interrupted Harvest
19. The Menzies Makes Ready
20. The Muster
21. The Chief Betrayed
22. Divided Duty
23. Drill
24. An Army Passes
25. Alang Wi’ Royal Charlie
26. Edinburgh
27. A Thief Taken
28. Struan’s Trophy
29. Soldier’s Return
30. Waiting
31. Meg Enters the Fray
32. By Stirling
33. The Battle of Falkirk
34. Back to the Highlands
35. Interlude
36. Invaders from the Snow
37. Entertaining the Enemy
38. Occupation
39. The Atholl Raid
40. A Funeral and a Siege
41. Drummossie Moor
Part III
THE AFTERMATH
42. Naught but Whispers
43. Fugitives
44. In Shackles
45. Bissett Advises
46. On the Hill
47. The Raiders
48. A Visit From Kinnaird
49. A Proposition
50. A Woman’s Weapon
51. Bohally Takes the Plunge
52. A Visit to Perth
53. Horse Thieves
54. The Road to Blair
55. Strike
56. Counterstrike
Envoy
About the Author
Copyright
The Lady of Kynachan
A Novel of the ’45
To Carolle
Author’s Note
With minor exceptions, the characters in this novel were real. They, and the events in which they took part, are based on history, the contemporary letters and papers of the Stewarts of Kynachan, or tales collected in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Foreword
The lands of Kynachan lie in Highland Perthshire, at the geographic heart of the mainland of Scotland. The northern boundary of the estate, which was triangular in shape, stretched three miles along the river Tummel, some dozen miles east of its source in Loch Rannoch. The west boundary marched south, up the burn of Shian, and across the long high ridge of Craig Kynachan to the rocky peak of the isolated quartzite mountain, Schiehallion – in Gaelic, Sith-hallion, or seat of the Caledonian fairies. From there the line went down the south side of the glen, squeezed between Craig Kynachan and the rising mountain, and ran back to the Tummel.
The old estate of Kynachan lies high in the hills but is open to the sun. Today the property’s bottom lands have been drowned by the dammed waters of Loch Tummel; the scattering of houses across the estate’s rough and whiskery expanse are holiday homes, save for a single farmstead whose inhabitants make a subsidized living from sheep. On the site of the old mansion of Kynachan stands a nineteenth-century farmhouse that looks across the tranquil waters of the loch towards the house of Bohally. Now much of the landscape is moorland and forestry plantations, interspersed with a few pasture fields – the home of red deer, meadow pipits, grouse, black game, and mountain hares.
Should one climb the rocky slope across the heather and peat bog of Craig Kynachan to the bluff at the east end of the ridge, one can see nestling in hollows among the conifers ruins of some of the old farm settlements, each a cluster of tiny cottages – testimony that this high land once carried a considerable human population. In the time of this story, three hundred people lived on the produce of the estate. After the Rising of 1745, led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the society of which the folk of Kynachan were a part was for ever broken.
* * *
The geography of the Highlands has always created enormous communication problems. In the past, people farming those glens whose soil could support a crop formed close ties of kinship within what they called their country, where they lived in semi-isolation. To defend themselves against cattle raiders from other glens, they banded together under an elected – later hereditary chief and often established federations with adjacent clans. The Scottish king, using this structure to further his own power, gave charters of land to the most powerful chiefs, which implied that their authority stemmed from him, and he exploited the natural rivalry between them to ensure that none of these subjects became over-mighty.
In such a culture, which has been described as Europe’s last tribal society, a chief’s status and power depended upon the number of fighting men he could raise. To keep his peace, the king granted vice-regal authority to the magnates and great chiefs within their territories. By the early eighteenth century, when in Edinburgh the modern structure of the law – its advocates, courts, and judges – had already taken shape, in the Highlands a chief could still hang people at his whim.
The Regality of Atholl, the setting of this story, began at Dunkeld, a dozen miles north of Perth, and stretched into the heart of the Highlands. The male line of the old Stewart earls had failed, and a Murray from the Lowlands, the Earl of Tullibardine, had married the Atholl heiress, thereby acquiring her lands. In 1703, the head of the family became the Duke of Atholl. The second tier of power under him – men such as the laird of Kynachan – were the duke’s vassals, who, owing him allegiance, were sworn to attend his courts, uphold his law, and mobilize their armed tenants on his behalf and on his request. But the Stewarts and the Robertsons of Clan Donnachaidh, who made up most of the duke’s vassals, did not regard him as their blood chief and upon occasion, if it suited them and they thought they could escape the consequences, his voice was ignored.
To most other Scots, and virtually to all Englishmen, the Highlands remained a remote, unknown land, peopled by armed savages who wore outlandish clothes and spoke a barbarous tongue. To such outsiders, little good came from the Highlands, save the herds of scrubby cattle that in the autumn swarmed through the mountain passes on their way south to markets at Crieff and Falkirk and onwards to England. Their drovers were the only Highlanders most southerners would ever see.
The Stuart king, James VI of Scotland, inherited the crown of England, in 1603, to become James I of the United Kingdom. The royal line spelled their name Stuart since Mary, James’s mother, had been Queen of France. The French language has no ‘w’. In 1688, the Roman Catholic James II abandoned the throne to the Protestant William of Orange. Despite strong opposition by many Scots and a widespread sense of betrayal, the Scottish Parliament was united with that of England in 1707. Eight years later, after the crown passed to George of Hanover, Jacobites, the partisans of James (Lat. Jacobus), rose in an attempt to restore the deposed Stuart line. John Stewart of Kynachan raised his tenants and was appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the Atholl Brigade, which went on to capture the citadel of Leith, outside Edinburgh. To demand the rebels’ surrender, a government army led by the Duke of Argyll advanced from the capital. From the citadel’s walls, John Stewart gave the response in the name of the rebels that is recorded in The Annals of King George: ‘as to surrendering, they laughed at it; and as to bringing cannon and assaulting them, they were ready for him; that they would neither take nor give any quarter with him; and that if he thought he was able to force them, he might try his hand’.
Argyll withdrew. The rebel army marched on to England to join the southern Jacobites. The Atholl Brigade surrendered after a siege at Preston. On the following day was fought the battle of Sheriffmuir, which was the death-knell of the rebellion. Along with many of the officers, John Stewart was tried in London for treason and had his estate confiscated. For two years, Kynachan reverted to the Duke of Atholl, who had supported the government. But the duke’s need for funds led him to sell back the estate, when once more John Stewart became its laird.
Part I
JEAN’S TALE
1
In the Valley of the Shadow
ON THE RIDGE above the meadows bordering the river Tummel sat a grey, single-storey house surrounded by little sheds and outbuildings. The place was built from the stones and boulders that littered the fields and moors around; its roof was a thick layer of heather thatch. Inside, John Stewart, the Laird of Kynachan, lay on his death-bed.
The room was cool. The walls were mud-plastered, and the floor of crude, rush-strewn flagstones sank into the dusty earth. In the wardrobe-like box-bed, the dying man breathed slowly, his eyes shut. His close-cropped hair, normally covered by a wig, was hidden by a linen night-cap. Beneath a small window, a sleeping deerhound stretched out in a patch of summer sunlight.
At the sound of a footstep the man stirred, and his eyes opened. He smiled to find his wife hovering over him.
‘How do you feel, my dear?’ she said.
‘Peaceful, Janet. The Lord is being good to me.’
The laird was in his sixties; his cheeks were plump and unwrinkled and showed little sign of the consumption that had ravaged his body. His wife’s hand moved to his forehead. Janet studied the small cupid’s mouth that anchored the great keel of his nose to his face. It took all her courage to hide from him the anguish that she felt at the sudden deterioration in his condition, knowing that to show her distress would embarrass him. Although not one to question the ways of the Lord, she found it hard to believe that her husband’s time had come. She prayed their son, David, would return before the end.
‘The tenants and the country folk’re beginning to gather in the yard. Word has gone round the strath that you’re not long for this world.’
‘Is there news of Davie?’ the laird asked.
‘No.’
The dying man gave a sigh.
‘Don’t fret. The Lord will have you, but not just yet,’ his wife said, stroking his cheek. ‘I’ll make sure you live to bid Davie farewell.’
He gave her a small smile and touched her hand. ‘A man couldn’t have asked for a better wife than you.’
Janet gave a deprecating shake of her head. About her shoulders was a pale woollen shawl with red and blue stripes, and a curch, the white linen cap worn by a married woman, covered her grey hair. She was a plump, busy person.
On a table by the bed were a pewter water pitcher, a stoppered bottle of brandy, a wooden snuff mull, a silver quaich, and a small horn beaker.
‘George Cairney’s outside and would like to pay his respects. Do you feel up to it?’
‘Show him in,’ said the laird, his eyes once more closed.
‘And when he’s gone I’ll send Donald in with some broth for you.’
As the woman left the room, the hound’s shaggy head dropped back to the flagstones, raising a puff of dust.
‘It comes to us all, Kynachan.’ The words were in Gaelic. ‘But are you sure your time is near?’
John Stewart looked up. George Cairney, tenant of Pitkerril, high in the shadow of Schiehallion, stood by the bed, twisting a blue bonnet in his horny hands. He was near fifty, and his hair and beard were unkempt. The laird gestured for him to take a chair.
‘Aye, I’m sure,’ the dying man said. ‘The strength is fast ebbing from me. Help yourself to a drop of brandy.’
Cairney poured himself a generous measure and tossed it down his throat. ‘I’m right sorry to see this day, Laird.’
Pulling a chair to the side of the bed, the tenant sat down, easing his dirk away from a spreading belly. His round shield, the target, was slung over the back of his short deerskin jerkin, and his plaid, the twelve-yard swath of homespun wool woven in muted vegetable-dyed tartan, was gathered at the waist by a broad oxhide belt from which the cloth fell in pleats to mid-thigh. Cairney’s hairy legs were bare, and he was shod in crude brogues. On the floor by his side he placed his sword and target.
The tenant cleared his throat. ‘I was wondering if you remember Jamie McDougall. He used to help me look after your beasts on the hill. A bit simple.’
‘Daft Jamie? I remember Daft Jamie. He was the only one of my lads who didn’t come home after the Rising.’
‘That’s right. He died at Preston. Would you take him my best wishes?’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘And would you tell him the wee brown calf he rescued from the burn when it was in spate sired the three best cows on the hill? He’ll be right pleased.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
‘Aye, for sure Jamie’ll be one of the warriors there to greet you on the other side, eager to escort the Laird of Kynachan in heaven.’ Cairney gave his master a reminiscent smile. ‘We would all have followed you into battle against the fairy warriors of Fingal himself. And the rest of the men of this country would have been at our elbows.’
‘Do the bards still tell the tale?’ the dying man asked, a gleam of animation on his face.
‘It will be told so long as there’s a single fire alight in Atholl. Even I find it hard now to sift the truth from the legend.’
‘We made legends, you and I.’
Cairney shifted in his chair. ‘Might there be a drop more brandy, Kynachan?’
The laird nodded towards the bottle. ‘I’d rather you drank with me now than at my funeral.’
The tenant needed no further invitation. He drank and said, ‘It’ll be a grand funeral. Beggars’ll flock in from all over the southern Highlands. No greater man than you has died hereabouts for years. I wouldn’t be surprised if the duke himself didn’t attend.’
John Stewart grimaced. ‘The duke. He’s a man without honour, fawning over the German lairdie in London.’ At this, a fit of coughing overwhelmed him, and the old deerhound raised itself from the floor and came to lay an anxious head on the bed.
Cairney clicked his tongue in reproof, seizing the chance to take a pinch of snuff from the mull on the table. ‘You shouldn’t upset yourself, Kynachan. You can be assured of one thing. Daibhidh Og will never bring shame on his ancestors.’
‘Aye. I thank God for Davie. I only regret I won’t see my grandchildren before I die.’
Cairney chuckled. ‘Where do you think young Willie Gow got those blue eyes? His mother was a pretty lass, and her belly was swelling long before that husband of hers got her before the minister.’
‘I don’t mean his bastards. Every lad sires a bastard or two. I mean heirs.’ The laird glanced towards the door to confirm that they were not overheard. ‘George, I want you to go and see the wise woman.’
‘Granny Dewar?’
‘I must make sure Davie finds a woman worthy to be wife of Kynachan and mother to his sons. I want you to tell Granny Dewar to cast a great spell to make this so.’
A look of uncertainty crossed Cairney’s face. ‘I don’t much like going to see Granny Dewar.’
‘Like! I don’t give a damn whether you like it or not!’ The laird’s voice was raised in anger. ‘I order it. When—’ Once more coughing interrupted him, and he raised his head. This time the linen kerchief that he held to his lips turned crimson with blood.
Cairney looked on with alarm. ‘Are you all right, Laird?’
‘Of course I’m not all right, you fool! But I’ll not be dying until I’ve seen Davie. You go straight from here to Granny Dewar.’
‘I shall do as you command, Kynachan.’
The sick man’s head fell back to the pillow. ‘Now, tell me, are the beasts coping well with the heat?’
‘I’ve never seen them better. Plump and glossy, producing milk faster than the women can turn it into cheese. God willing, the harvest will be good, and folk in this country will have an easy winter – though you won’t be here to see it.’
‘I’ll be in a better world than this.’
‘God willing, Laird, God willing.’
Cairney drank the last of his brandy and rose as Janet came into the room. She was followed by Donald, the household steward, who carried a bowl of broth on a tray.
‘That’s enough, George,’ said Janet, shooing Cairney towards the door. ‘You’ll be tiring him.’
‘Aye,’ said Cairney. ‘I’ll tell his people that Kynachan is submitting right cheerfully to the Lord’s summons. Farewell, Laird, God speed, and mind me to all the folk I knew.’
‘I will. Find a good calf on the hill and give it to Granny – and serve my son as faithfully as you’ve served me.’
‘I shall always be Kynachan’s man.’ Cairney ducked his head beneath the stone lintel.
‘What’s this about Granny Dewar?’ asked Janet, tucking a napkin beneath her husband’s chin.
‘Just a charm for Davie, dear.’
Donald spooned broth to his master’s lips.
‘It must be quite a charm to be worth a calf, Kynachan,’ the steward said. ‘The minister won’t like that. And I’m told he’s coming to see you a bit later.’
‘You keep that canting black monkey away from me,’ the laird grunted.
‘John!’ exclaimed his wife. ‘You can’t face your Maker with a curse against a minister on your lips.’
‘My soul can survive without the attention of one who’s sworn allegiance to King George.’
Donald shook his head. ‘It’s better to be safe, Laird. You—’
‘And you hold your tongue, Donald.’ In sudden anger the laird dashed the spoon away from his lips. ‘Fuss and nothing but fuss! Thank God a man can die but once.’
2
The Heir’s Progress
ALTHOUGH NOT YET six o’clock in the morning, the heir to Kynachan and his gillie were already an hour from Edinburgh on their way home.
The day was fine, and the high road was busy. Carts loaded with grain and coals creaked past them towards the city. Amongst the traffic were occasional Highlanders, driving cattle or leading ponies laden with furs and skins. These mountain men, recognizing their own kind, called out respectful greetings and received David’s jaunty salutes in return. The drovers, owing to the dangers of their profession, carried guns, swords, and pistols under special licence from the military authorities. Other Highlanders had supposedly been disarmed of their traditional weapons after the Rising of 1715, but nowadays the ban was seldom enforced, especially in the case of gentlemen such as David Stewart.
Emerging from a cloud of dust kicked up by the hooves of an oncoming herd of cattle, the two travellers were eyed by a pretty girl who sat on a wall presiding over half a dozen goats. She registered David’s handsome face, the eagle feather in his bonnet, and the richness of his clothes and equipment. Then she flicked the hem of her skirts to display every inch of her shapely bare legs.
The young laird reined his horse and swept off his hat in an appreciative bow. Behind him, his gillie, who led a pack pony bearing their arms and baggage, let out a groan.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Willie Kennedy, ‘have you not had enough for the time being?’
During their week in Edinburgh, the gillie had trailed in his master’s wake while the young laird called on lawyers and men of business. Afterwards, often late into the night, Willie Kennedy found himself seated in a kitchen waiting for David to finish more intimate business with the woman of the house. When the sojourn was particularly prolonged, some serving girl might take pity on the plaid-clothed stranger nodding over his ale in a corner of the room. That very morning, David had rousted his tousled henchman from the shadows where each night the kitchen maid spread her bed.
‘It’s always worth pausing for a sniff of a wayside bloom as fine as this,’ said David, ever willing.
‘This bloom’s too often plucked.’
‘Sixpence, your honour,’ called the girl. ‘Behind yon haystack.’
She spoke the Scots dialect of English rather than Gaelic, the language the two Highlanders had been using. Her head nodded to the nearest of the small heaps of hay in the field behind her. A hundred yards away, a team of rustics was beginning the task of carting the crop towards the farmstead.
‘No,’ she added after further consideration of David and the gillie. ‘You for nothing. A shilling for your man.’
‘Your judgement matches your beauty, my dear,’ said David.
‘A shilling!’ growled Willie Kennedy, indignant.
‘Cheap for a great hairy heathen brute like you,’ said the girl with a toss of her head.
‘Hoy!’ came a shout from a distant figure, who waved a pitchfork in the air.
‘Who’s that?’ asked David.
‘My brother.’
‘Love and brothers don’t mix,’ said Willie Kennedy. ‘Come on, Daibhidh Og. Your balls’ll be the death of you.’
‘No sweeter end, Willie. However,’ – David gave another bow and flicked his reins – ‘perhaps another day, my dear.’
The girl returned a pout.
Their last evening in the city had begun at a tavern in the bowels of a building in Parliament Close, opposite the equestrian statue of Charles II. There, where men of rank and influence of the Jacobite persuasion congregated, Willie had gossiped with the caddies – the corps of Highland messengers and guides, who knew every householder in the city – while in a private room David and his peers toasted the King over the Water and success to the cause.
Layers of undulating tobacco smoke eddied and swirled above the candles and conversation. The table had been strewn with oyster shells and claret bottles, which serving girls had emptied into tankards as quickly as the harassed landlord could bring them. James Hepburn of Keith, a veteran of the ’15, leant across to David.
‘How’s your father? I was sorry to hear his health is failing,’ he said.
‘Aye, I fear he’ll not be travelling to this city again. He asked me to bid you farewell.’
‘Wish him God-speed from me,’ said Keith, ‘and apologize to him that I’ll be unable to make the journey to his funeral.’
The Jacobite laird removed his full-bottomed wig and reversed it to mop the sweat from his brow and shaven head.
‘I trust you’ll be as strong for the cause as your sire,’ continued the speaker, his bloodshot eye fixing on David. The Laird of Keith was known to believe that only one man’s loyalty to the Jacobites was beyond question – his own.
‘Of course.’
‘Your father risked his life and lost his estate. Would you do the same?’
David caught the eye of a friend across the table, and they exchanged rueful smiles.
‘For two and a half centuries my family has fought and sometimes died for the Stuart dynasty. As I value my honour, I would do no less.’
Keith considered the reply, shifting his ample bottom on the bench. It was a reasonable answer, but he knew only one man whose honour was beyond question.
‘Aye, but times are changing. There’s no denying that the country’s become more prosperous since the Rising. For an ambitious young man to succeed he must be Whig nowadays. Are you not an ambitious man, Davie?’
‘I shall be Kynachan, sir. My only further ambition is to be as fine a man as my father.’
Satisfied, Keith drained his glass, nodding appreciatively when David refilled it.
‘Twenty-five years ago,’ the older man said, ‘your father sent Argyll’s army straggling back from Leith with a flea in their ear.’
It was a tale David had heard many times before, when the name of Kynachan had been written into the nation’s history books. But it turned out that the Laird of Keith had a fresh angle on the affair.
‘My wee brother borrowed a cloak and hired it out to the Whig officers at a penny a time.’ The old Jacobite chortled. ‘They needed to cover themselves while they shat their fear into the gutters.’
‘The drum’s nigh,’ came a call from the tavern keeper. It was a warning to those who might want to get home before householders sent showering into the streets the day’s accumulation of their chamber pots from windows up to a dozen storeys above. He stood holding the brown paper he would burn to counter the forthcoming stench.
‘Are you going on to the assembly?’ asked Keith, hurriedly draining his glass. He gave David a wink as subtle as a slamming portcullis. ‘No, you’ll have no need. It’d be a poor lookout for the natural order of the world if Davie Stewart hadn’t found a lassie with a welcoming bed after a week in town. But it’s time you got wed, Davie – especially as your sire’ll soon join his ancestors. Kynachan must have an heir.’
Now, on a ferry across the river Forth, David was considering the old man’s advice. If he were to die without issue and his young sister Clementina were to marry another laird, Kynachan would become a mere adjunct to her husband’s estate.
‘Is it time I got myself a bride, Willie?’ David asked.
The boatman altered course to allow a coal barge right of way, and the ferry’s sails flapped in the light breeze. The horses, tethered inboard, snorted uneasily at the oily slap of the waves on the hull.
‘You should,’ said Willie. ‘It may not be long before you’re laird, and it makes folk unsure of the future if a laird has no heir.’
The boatman butted in. ‘It makes precious little difference to them who their laird is,’ he scoffed.
‘You silly Lowland man,’ replied Willie. ‘What do you know about the people of our country? Daibhidh Og is my foster brother. He was raised amongst us and knows our ways. Soon he will be father to his people.’
‘Lairds are like winters. Some are worse than others but all must be endured,’ said the boatman.
‘Watch your tongue, man,’ said David mildly. ‘You stray dangerously close to insult.’
The boatman paused, considering his passengers, their weapons, and the scowl on Willie Kennedy’s face. Then he pulled a jug of whisky from beneath his bench, took a swig, and passed it across.
‘Perhaps I was hasty. You’re young Kynachan, aren’t you? I’ve carried you across before – and him.’ The man nodded at Willie.
‘Your manners are as bad as your whisky,’ growled the gillie after sampling the jug. ‘Get this tub under way. We don’t want to be sitting here all day.’
‘Would you shackle yourself just for a brat, Willie?’ asked David.
‘No, but it is not I who will be Kynachan.’ Willie re-tried the whisky. ‘Women change when they marry. I have seen it often. Beforehand they are beautiful, gentle, and pliant. Then, after a few years’ work and a bairn or two, they lose their looks and become shrews. I thank God it’s you who must marry and produce an heir. It’s your duty.’
‘Aye,’ said the boatman. ‘Who’d ever be a laird?’
3
A Farewell
THE HEIR TO Kynachan rode into the yard outside the old stone house to find a small crowd of country people sipping whisky in the warm evening as they waited for a chance to say goodbye to their laird.
The guards at Taybridge had passed on to David news of his father’s sudden deterioration, and the young man and his gillie had hurried the last dozen miles home.
David dismounted and stretched his limbs. Willie took the bridle of his horse. The people of the estate rose to their feet and clustered round him, murmuring soft Gaelic greetings.
‘Does Kynachan still live?’ David asked. Not waiting for a reply, he pushed through the throng to the stone doorway that opened into the living room of the house, where he stopped for a moment to beat the dust from his tartan jacket and trews.
Donald hurried to him from the kitchen.
‘Does Kynachan still live?’ repeated David, taking from his belt his brace of steel pistols and omnipresent dirk and placing them into the steward’s waiting hands.
‘Aye, he hangs by a thread.’
‘Tell my mother I have come.’
In the sick-room, the old hound padded over with a wagging tail. For a moment or two David looked down at the death-bed, the weariness on his face melting into sadness. He made an effort to compose himself.
‘Father?’
The dying man awoke. A weak smile flitted across his face as he looked up at his son.
‘I’m glad you’re in time, lad,’ he said. ‘I still have things to tell you before I die.’
‘Wait till you’re a bit stronger.’ David tried to return the smile.
John Stewart grimaced. ‘I will not see the sun set tomorrow. But I am not complaining. The Lord has spared me to die in my bed like an old woman. Something I would never have believed.’
David’s eyes moistened despite his Highland stoicism, which taught a man to submit gracefully to fate and to curb unseemly emotion. His father, Iain Mor Choinneachain – Big John of Kynachan – was as respected and welcome by the firesides of his tenants as he was in the castles of the mightiest in the land. David saw the vibrant spirit shackled inside a failing body and the will confined to the struggle for each breath. Yet his father’s eye remained fearless and alert.
‘All went well in Edinburgh?’
‘Aye, and folk there pass on their regards to you.’
Old Kynachan waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’m past being shriven by the regard of others. Tell me, boy. Is it not time you chose a wife?’
‘I must confess the thought had crossed my mind,’ said David.
‘Good. Kynachan must have an heir. But you need not worry. I have made arrangements for you.’
‘What arrangements?’
‘To make happen what will happen.’
David thought for a moment. ‘I fear that is too subtle for me.’
‘No matter. Your son will inherit Kynachan. Then your future will be secure – and mine.’
David sat down by the bedside.
‘Take care of your mother,’ his father continued. ‘She’s been a good wife to me and a good mother to you and Clemmie.’
‘Of course I will, but you must conserve your strength now.’
The old laird’s eyes held a sardonic gleam. ‘What in God’s name for? I’ll not be climbing Schiehallion again. The Lord has pressing business with me.’ Seeing the distress these words caused, he reached out and touched his son’s hand in a caress. ‘Don’t fret, lad. It’s your turn to be Kynachan. Then it will be your son’s. I want my mortal remains to lie in the churchyard at Foss, beside your wee brothers and sisters. Raise a wall round our graves and let that be the burial ground for future generations of our family. Our dust shall mingle until the Day of Judgement.’
‘It will be done.’
‘And then tear down this hovel. We’ve silver enough for you to build a mansion house fit for the Laird of Kynachan. You’ll have it ready for your bride.’
John Stewart’s head fell back against the pillow, eyes closing. Thinking his father had dozed off, David began to rise, but the thin white hand stretched out, detaining him.
‘Wait, boy. I’m not done with you yet.’ The voice was a whisper, but the grip was strong.
David sat back in his chair. The evening was drawing in, and Donald tiptoed into the room to light the candles. Minutes passed. In the silence, David missed the sounds of everyday life that usually filled the house – the clang of iron pots, the squeal of the roasting spit, snatches of song and laughter. The door to the sick-room had been muffled by a heavy curtain. All he could hear was the lilting murmur of Gaelic from beyond the window, the whimpers of the sleeping hound, and the laboured breathing as his father’s life ebbed away.
‘Talk to me, boy.’
For a few moments, David was silent, marshalling his thoughts.
‘A child I was, maybe eleven. I barely knew you. I was … not afraid of you, because you were my father and I loved you – but I was certainly in awe of you. You came to fetch me from my bed while the house still slept, and we climbed together to the top of Craig Kynachan to watch the sun rise. The strath was blanketed in mist. Only the peak of Schiehallion and the other mountains shared the blue sky with us. It was as if we stood on the roof of the world.’
‘Aye,’ came the dying man’s voice over an exhaling breath.
‘We saw a dove flying low over the mist, like a gull skimming the surface of the sea. You released your falcon, and it climbed into the sun, then fell from the heavens to smash the dove from our sight into the mist. Only a puff of grey feathers was left hanging in the air.’
His father nodded. ‘I remember. It was a fine stoop.’
‘You told me tales that day. The mist cleared, and columns of smoke rose from the glen as women banked the morning fires. You talked of our forefathers, of our people, and of the responsibilities that would fall to me when I became laird. You made me see what it was to be a man, what it was to be Kynachan.’
‘Take your own son on such a morning to the top of Craig Kynachan.’
‘I shall hold his hand, as you did mine, and we shall leap across the peat hags, startling the deer and the muir fowl. I shall tell him tales of his ancestors. How his grandfather made the name of Kynachan ring across Scotland to bring glory to our race. How he tempered strength with gentleness, and how the children of his blood and his people loved him.’
‘Swear to me, son, that you will never betray the cause of the true king.’
‘You need not ask, Father, but I shall swear it.’
‘Aye. You’re a good lad.’ The old laird’s hand fell back on the bed. ‘It is finished. Have your mother come to me.’
Janet was soon by the bedside, tears on her cheeks. Her husband opened his eyes, smiling up at her.
‘Underneath …’
She completed the quotation. ‘The eternal God is thy refuge. Underneath are the everlasting arms.’
And with a peaceful countenance, the Laird of Kynachan closed his eyes, ready for his Maker’s summons.
4
Spectre
THE WEATHER BEING hot, the body was laid in a sealed coffin that was rimmed with scented ointments and placed on trestles in the living room. Beneath the corpse, the grizzled deerhound took up vigil. People filed past to pay their last respects. In black flannel, the widow sat silent in an adjoining room, where she received mourners.
Hundreds came. Janet nodded gravely as they passed and spoke condolences in Gaelic or English that became more emotional as the day wore on and the levels of ale and whisky diminished in the several barrels provided. In mid-afternoon, David led an all-male procession behind a piper to the burial ground a mile across the heather in the shade of the ruined church at Foss. Reading the service, the Episcopalian priest sweated beneath his full-bottomed wig, cocked hat, black coat, and gown.
An hour later, back at the house, women wailed the corranach – a lament and eulogy of the deceased – after which fiddlers struck up a plaintive melody that was accompanied by the deerhound’s dismal howls. By now, with the widow and chief mourners joining hands in a solemn dance, tears streamed down the faces of the normally phlegmatic Highlanders. Later, Janet and fifteen-year-old Clementina led the withdrawal of the womenfolk to another room. There, drinking claret, the talk was of the trials and tribulations of widowhood and whether they were an improvement on those of marriage.
Outdoors, mourners mingled in the meadow, feasting and exchanging news. Passing on condolences to David, a tipsy James Stewart, from Drumnakyle, the largest township on the estate, suddenly frowned.
Their conversation broken, David turned to see what had caught the tenant’s eye. Hobbling through the crowd on the arm of a pretty but sour-faced girl was a startlingly ugly woman. It was Granny Dewar.
‘What does that witch want?’
‘You’re not afraid of old Granny, are you, James?’ David said with a smile. He knew that the giants in the hills, the kelpies that pounced from lochs to snatch unwary maidens, and the fairies that dwelt on Schiehallion held more significance to his people than Sunday sermons and prayers. The minister might save their souls, but a spell from Granny Dewar was of more immediate concern. It could make them sick, blight crops, ensure a son rather than a daughter, or prevent milk turning sour.
‘I’d rather that one kept away from me, Kynachan.’
‘Shame on you! She brought your children into the world.’
James Stewart made a sign to ward off evil. ‘It’s not her midwifery I’m feart of,’ he said, hurrying off.
The old woman scowled after him. ‘Was that Drumnakyle?’
‘It was,’ said David.
‘Huh! His wife’s a better man than he.’ Granny Dewar looked scornfully after the tenant’s retreating back.
‘You’re not being fair, Granny,’ David said.
She squinted up at him. Granny Dewar had known David Stewart from his birth, when he had been given over to the charge of a wet-nurse and grew from babyhood in a cottage not fifty yards from her own. As small boys, David and his foster brother, Willie Kennedy, had often been on the receiving end of her sharp tongue.
‘You’ve turned mealy-mouthed, Davie Stewart.’
‘I’m laird now, Granny.’
‘Aye, that’s right enough, and I’m sorry about your father. He was a just laird. His yoke lay light on the necks of the people.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope they’ll say the same at your own funeral.’
‘So do I.’
‘Then you’ll have to stop your hunting and gaming and gadding about with yon Willie Kennedy and spend more time here with your folk.’
David’s smile became a little fixed. ‘Have you eaten and had some whisky, Granny?’
‘There’s time enough for that. I’ve got something for you.’
The old woman’s head and shoulders, in spite of the warm sun, were covered in a heavy tartan shawl. Fishing beneath, she proffered a looped thong, to which was attached a tiny bundle tightly bound in scarlet thread.
‘It’s from your father,’ she said.
David looked puzzled.
‘It was his last command. Wear it round your neck for a week and keep away from the lassies. It’s to bring you luck and happiness.’
He hefted the bundle in his hands. ‘What’s inside?’
‘I’m not telling you my secrets,’ she said indignantly, wagging a finger at him. ‘Put it on and make sure you leave it on for seven days and nights.’
She watched as David tied the thong round his neck. ‘Mind, no lassies!’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘You’d better, Davie Stewart.’ The old crone parted her lips in a gummy smile. ‘You’d better, else your balls’ll drop off.’
She and her granddaughter disappeared into the crowd.
‘Did I hear that old hag right, Davie?’ asked James Robertson of Blairfetty, who was staring, startled, after the old woman. Blairfetty, another vassal of the Duke of Atholl, had an estate a few miles up Glen Errochty to the north. He had been an officer with John Stewart during the Rising and, like David, was one of the leading Jacobites in Atholl.
‘She spoke in jest. That’s Granny Dewar. She’s given me this charm that I’m to wear for a week.’
‘Your local witch, eh?’ said Blairfetty. He prodded the little bundle doubtfully. ‘If you’ve any sense, you’ll wear an armoured codpiece, too.’
The feasting lasted a week. Each day a couple of hundred people expected to be fed and supplied with drink. The country folk came for a few hours, then departed to tend to their chores, but beggars and lairds stayed throughout. The former slept in barns, filling their bellies with oatmeal and whisky and their heads with songs and tales of the late Iain Mor. The latter discussed crops, prices, and politics. They drank bottles of claret at a long oak table in the living room of the house, sleeping off the effects where they sat. As a man slipped into unconsciousness, Donald would see that a lad checked that the mourner’s cravat was not too tight. Upon awakening, a new bottle would be before him.
Every social and business transaction in the Highlands was sealed with drink, but drunkenness was scarcely known except at weddings and funerals, when – as David well knew – the importance of a dead man was reflected in the lavishness of the celebrations. To this end, the new Laird of Kynachan had spent heavily to provide his father with a fitting departure.
On the fourth day David took a hunting party to stalk roe deer in the wood of Kynachan, a relic of the ancient Caledonian forest now carefully preserved for its timber. And that night, going to bed sober, he had a dream.
He was scrambling over rocks on the summit ridge of Schiehallion. They were slick with the rain that fell from the sagging clouds. Ahead of him, as grey and blurred as the sky, a cloaked and hooded figure seemed to float over the sharp-edged boulders, never extending the distance between them, never allowing him to close it. Then he was in sunshine, part of the multitude of dancing mourners. Seated on top of the knoll by the house, his father vigorously played his viola da gamba. Suddenly David noticed that his partner was the anonymous grey wraith, but, just as he stretched out his arm to pull back the hood, the dream faded.
‘The figure was probably Death,’ his mother told him the following morning. ‘Was it holding a scythe?’
‘No, nothing. And I don’t think it was Death. Granny Dewar’s charm was meant to bring me luck. Father wouldn’t have asked her to show me Death.’
‘I’ll say a prayer tonight to bless any visions you see, but I wouldn’t fret about it. At a time like this we’re bound to have strange dreams. For me at night your father is still alive. It’s as if the days are bad dreams and the nights are real.’
The following night David was restless and he took off the amulet, placing it inside the upturned wig by his bed. The floor of his room – the room in which his father had died – was still cluttered with bedrolls, on which mourners lay head-to-toe like herrings in a barrel, snuffling in alcoholic sleep. He had barely closed his eyes before the figure of Granny Dewar appeared to him. She was naked, her skinny legs bowed, her empty dugs hanging to her waist, and her mouth split in a toothless grin. In one hand she held a bloody dirk, in the other she brandished, like a hunting trophy dripping gore …
David started awake, his chest wet with perspiration. The room was loud with the snores of the sleeping men. He stretched out his hand to the amulet and put it round his neck. After the heat of the day the night air was cool, and he closed the doors of the box-bed, his heart still thumping.
He slept. He was on a pony, climbing a narrow track on a dark winter afternoon. Gritty snow whipped against his face and plaid-wrapped body. On one side rose a sheer cliff; on the other, a bottomless chasm waited to swallow him and his mount. The wind howled, buffeting against him. Rounding a corner, he found that the path was blocked. Before him stood the grey, hooded spectre. The pony snorted its alarm and danced sideways towards the edge of the chasm. Desperately he tried to control it. Eventually the beast settled, but its nostrils remained flared and it rolled its eyes at the still, grey wraith, whose face was hidden by the deep shadow of the hood.
David dismounted and tied the reins to a stunted bush seeded in a crevice in the cliff. Somehow he knew he was dreaming, but he felt the sleet on his cheek, smelt the nervously sweating pony, and was almost deafened by the wind that moaned over the bare rocks. Stretching a fearful hand towards the motionless figure, he muttered a prayer.
Suddenly he could hear the gale roaring away down the chasm, leaving him in complete stillness, broken only by the harsh croak of a raven from somewhere in the crags above and the murmur from a burn far below. Between his fingers as he touched the hood, he felt material finer than silk. He pushed it back. He was looking at the face of a girl, a beautiful girl with wide-spaced, deep blue eyes and thick glossy-black hair. Her hand went to loosen the clasp at the neck of the cloak, and he saw that she wore a gold wedding band. The garment fell away from her shoulders, floating to the ground. She was naked.
A sudden shaft of sunlight turned the fine down on her skin to a golden aura. Her limbs were long and well shaped, and the nipples of her firm breasts were scarlet. She stood motionless, her face expressionless. He was spellbound. Only his eyes could move to feast on her beauty. His gaze was drawn to a small birthmark by her navel. It was shaped like a lion rampant, the crest of the Stewarts of Kynachan.
Then the slim curves of girlhood vanished, and in seconds her belly swelled through the months of pregnancy. She stooped to gather the clean, pink child that emerged from between her thighs, putting it to suckle at her breast. Part of his mind recognized the supernature of what he saw; part recognized that the child was a boy, and David was glad. The baby vanished, and again the girl’s belly swelled. The grace of her movements when she stooped to gather the new child rendered the extraordinary sight beautiful. This time it was a girl, and in turn she was followed by another.
The babes disappeared, and the girl-mother was alone once more, her expression serene, her face and body achingly lovely to him. Desire rose within him, thick and choking, and he reached out to her. Then he was awake, his arms raised to the wooden ceiling of the bed. Head swimming with the dream, he pushed open the doors of the sleeping compartment. Streaming through a small window, the moonlight silhouetted a dim figure holding a lighted candle.
‘Who’s there?’
There came a throaty chuckle.
‘Granny said Kynachan would see the tamhasg of his future wife this night, and he would have need of me. I’m Mary Dewar.’
Bending as if to kiss him, she snatched the amulet from his neck and held it over the candle. The flame leapt up, and the scarlet bundle was consumed. Her hand slipped beneath his nightshirt.
‘Just you lie back, Kynachan.’ Hitching her skirts, she climbed into the bed and straddled him. She drew the door closed behind her.
‘Aye,’ she whispered, ‘Granny said you’d be as hard as the barrel of a pistol.’
5
A Proposal
MUFFLED IN A cloak, a tall, thin figure stalked down the cobbles of a narrow Edinburgh wynd, carefully avoiding the snow-covered lumps of rubbish and ordure that he prodded with a suspicious cane.
In the darkening afternoon, ragged, blue-limbed urchins slid down the sinister ice chutes of the gutters, which in other seasons channelled slimy rivulets. The man frowned and swiped his cane at one of the boys, who nearly knocked him down. He was glad to escape their high keening cries, which echoed off the grey masonry of the tenements, when he turned down a pend that plunged into the bowels of one of the buildings. Twenty yards farther on, he mounted the staircase he sought.
On the fourth floor, fixed to the door in front of him was a risp. He forcibly rubbed up and down the ring attached to the serrated bar, which sent a harsh rasp round the landing. Mercifully the barrel – the dirty luggie – containing that floor’s slops and excrement was frozen, thereby locking in the city’s characteristic stench.
‘It’s yourself, sir.’ Bella, the young housemaid, opened the door and bent her knee in a half-sketched curtsy.
‘Is your mistress in the parlour?’ The caller handed her his cane, cloak, and hat, a dewdrop trembling at the end of his long nose. He was around thirty years old, and his splayed feet made him walk with a duck-like waddle.
‘She’s her sister-in-law with her.’
‘Announce me.’
He adjusted the tight, powdered curls of his wig and in a mirror smoothed the creases from his well-tailored blue broadcloth coat. He smiled at the result. The mirror returned a glint of gold from his embroidered cuffs.
The girl cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him. ‘She’ll’ve heard you at the door. And Miss Jean is waiting for you in the music room.’
‘Announce me to Mrs Mercer just the same.’
With a shrug, Bella knocked on one of the hallway’s three doors and put her head round. ‘It’s yon music master, Mr Stewart.’
‘Jeannie’s expecting him,’ came Mrs Mercer’s reply.
‘I told him, but he wants to see you.’
From inside came an irritated click of Mrs Mercer’s tongue. She had given the man five pound Scots only the other day, bringing nearly up to date the bill for his weekly lessons to her three daughters. It would have to do him until she and her family moved to Perth in the spring.
The music master spoke up over Bella’s shoulder. ‘I have good news, Mrs Mercer.’
‘News?’ came her voice again. ‘Och, I suppose you’d better come in.’
Sitting by the fire with Mrs Mercer was her late husband’s sister Meg, a peach-skinned, voluptuous woman, whose blue velvet gown, supported by hoops as large as fashion would ever permit, billowed out from her chair. Anna Mercer, some dozen years older than Meg, wore widow’s black.
‘Mrs Mercer, Miss Mercer.’ Stewart bowed elaborately to each woman in turn. ‘I trust I find you both in good health despite our inclement weather.’
His courtesies were a little ostentatious, and neither woman looked on him with much favour.
‘Good news, Mr Stewart?’ asked Anna Mercer.
‘I have purchased a Highland property from His Grace of Atholl. I am now Alexander Stewart of Kinnaird.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the younger woman. ‘I heard that. And for twenty thousand merks.’
‘How did you know I paid so much?’