Lillington stopped abruptly at sight of Jamie, and Roger felt a nervous qualm in the pit of his stomach. Randall Lillington had been a second cousin of the Colonel’s.
Alexander Lillington wasn’t a man to hide his thoughts; it had quite evidently dawned on him that his own men were forty feet away and that Jamie’s men stood between him and them. His eyes darted toward the mist, where Donald McLeod’s bellowing was being answered by increasing roars from the Highlanders with him, then back at Jamie.
“What does he say?” Lillington demanded, rising on his toes and frowning toward the far bank, as though concentration might yield him meaning.
“He says to them that courage will carry the day.” Jamie glanced toward the crest of the rise behind them. Mother Covington’s long black snout was just visible through the mist. “Would that it could,” he added quietly in Gaelic.
Alexander Lillington reached out suddenly and grabbed Jamie’s wrist.
“And you, sir?” he said, suspicion open in eyes and voice. “Are you not a Highlander, as well?”
Lillington’s other hand was on the pistol in his belt. Roger felt the casual talk among the men behind him stop, and glanced back. All Jamie’s men were watching, with expressions of great interest but no particular alarm. Evidently, they felt Jamie could deal with Lillington by himself.
“I ask you, sir—to whom is your loyalty?”
“Where do I stand, sir?” Jamie said with elaborate politeness. “On this side of the creek, or on that?”
A few men grinned at that, but forbore to laugh; the question of loyalty was a raw one still, and no man would risk it unnecessarily.
Lillington’s grip on his wrist relaxed, but did not yet let go, though he acknowledged Jamie’s statement with a nod.
“Well enough. But how are we to know that you do not mean to turn and fall upon us in battle? For you are a Highlander, are you not? And your men?”
“I am a Highlander,” Jamie said bleakly. He glanced once more at the far bank, where occasional glimpses of tartan showed through the mist, and then back. The shouting echoed from the fog. “And I am the sire of Americans.” He pulled his wrist from Lillington’s grasp.
“And I give ye leave, sir,” he continued evenly, lifting his rifle and standing it on its butt, “to stand behind me and thrust your sword through my heart if I fire amiss.”
With that, he turned his back on Lillington and loaded his gun, ramming ball, powder, and patch with great precision.
A voice bellowed from the fog, and a hundred other throats took up the cry in Gaelic. “KING GEORGE AND BROADSWORDS!”
The last Highland charge had begun.
THEY BURST OUT OF the mist a hundred feet from the bridge, howling, and his heart jumped in his chest. For an instant—an instant only—he felt he ran with them, and the wind of it snapped in his shirt, cold on his body.
But he stood stock-still, Murtagh beside him, looking cynically on. Roger Mac coughed, and Jamie raised the rifle to his shoulder, waiting.
“Fire!” The volley struck them just before they reached the gutted bridge; half a dozen fell in the road, but the others came on. Then the cannon fired from the hill above, one and then the other, and the concussion of their discharge was like a shove against his back.
He had fired with the volley, aiming above their heads. Now swung the rifle down and pulled the ramrod. There was screaming on both sides, the shriek of wounded and the stronger bellowing of battle.
“A righ! A righ!” The King! The King!
McLeod was at the bridge; he’d been hit, there was blood on his coat, but he brandished sword and targe, and ran onto the bridge, stabbing his sword into the wood to anchor himself.
The cannon spoke again, but were aimed too high; most of the Highlanders had crowded down to the banks of the creek—some were in the water, clinging to the bridge supports, inching across. More were on the timbers, slipping, using their swords like McLeod to keep their balance.
“Fire!” and he fired, powder smoke blending with the fog. The cannon had the range, they spoke one-two, and he felt the blast push against him, felt as though the shot had torn through him. Most of those on the bridge were in the water now, more threw themselves flat upon the timbers, trying to wriggle their way across, only to be picked off by the muskets, every man firing at will from the redoubt.
He loaded, and fired.
There he is, said a voice, dispassionate; he had no notion was it his, or Murtagh’s.
McLeod was dead, his body floating in the creek for an instant before the weight of the black water pulled him down. Many men were struggling in that water—the creek was deep here, and mortal cold. Few Highlanders could swim.
He glimpsed Allan MacDonald, Flora’s husband, pale and staring in the crowd on the shore.
Major Donald MacDonald floundered, rising halfway in the water. His wig was gone and his head showed bare and wounded, blood running from his scalp down over his face. His teeth were bared, clenched in agony or ferocity, there was no telling which. Another shot struck him and he fell with a splash—but rose again, slow, slow, and then pitched forward into water too deep to stand, but rose yet again, splashing frantically, spraying blood from his shattered mouth in the effort to breathe.
Let it be you, then, lad, said the dispassionate voice. He raised his rifle and shot MacDonald cleanly through the throat. He fell backward and sank at once.
IT WAS OVER in minutes, the fog thick with powder smoke, the black creek choked with the dying and dead.
“King George and broadswords, eh?” said Caswell, bleakly surveying the damage. “Broadswords against cannon. Poor buggers.”
On the other side, all was confusion. Those who had not fallen at the bridge were in flight. Already, men on this side of the creek were carrying the timbers down to repair the bridge. Those who were running wouldn’t get far.
He should go, too, summon his men to help in pursuit. But he stood as though turned to stone, the cold wind singing in his ears.
JACK RANDALL stood still. His sword was in his hand, but he made no effort to raise it. Only stood there, that odd smile on his lips, dark eyes burning in Jamie’s own.
If he had been able to break that gaze . . . but he couldn’t, and so caught the blur of movement behind Randall. Murtagh, running, bounding tussocks like a sheep. And the glint of his godfather’s blade—had he seen that, or only imagined it? No matter; he’d known without doubt from the c**k of Murtagh’s arm, and seen before it happened the murderous strike come upward toward the Captain’s red-clad back.
But Randall spun, warned maybe by some change in his eyes, the sob of Murtagh’s breath—or only by a soldier’s instinct. Too late to avoid the thrust, but soon enough that the dirk missed its fatal aim into the kidney. Randall had grunted with the blow—Christ, he could hear it—and jerked aside staggering, but turning as he fell, grasping Murtagh’s wrist, dragging him down in a shower of spray from the wet gorse they fell through.
They had rolled away into a hollow, locked together, struggling, and he had flung himself through the clinging plants in pursuit, some weapon—what, what had he held?—in his fist.
But the feel of it faded against his skin; he felt the weight of the thing in his hand, but there was no shape of hilt or trigger to remind him, and it was gone again.
Leaving him with that one image: Murtagh. Murtagh, teeth clenched and bared as he struck. Murtagh, running, coming to save him.
HE BECAME SLOWLY aware again of where he was. There was a hand on his arm—Roger Mac, white-faced, but steady.
“I am going to see to them,” Roger Mac said, with a brief nod toward the creek. “You’re all right, yourself?”
“Aye, of course,” he said, though with the feeling he so often had in waking from a dream—as though he were not in fact quite real.
Roger Mac nodded and turned to walk away. Then suddenly turned back, and laying his hand once more on Jamie’s arm, said very quietly, “Ego te absolvo.” Then turned again and went resolutely to tend the dying and bless the dead.
114
AMANDA
FROM L’Oignon–Intelligencer, May 15, 1776
INDEPENDENCE!!
In the Wake of the famous Victory at Moore’s Creek Bridge, the Fourth Provincial Congress of North Carolina has voted to adopt the Halifax Resolves. These Resolutions authorize Delegates to the Continental Congress to concur with the other Delegates of the other Colonies in declaring Independency and forming foreign Alliances, reserving to this Colony the sole and exclusive Right of forming a Constitution and Laws for this Colony, and by Passage of the Halifax Resolves, North Carolina thus becomes the first Colony officially to indorse Independency.
THE FIRST SHIP of a Fleet commanded by Sir Peter Parker has arrived at the Mouth of the Cape Fear River, upon the eighteenth of April. The Fleet consists of nine Ships in total, and is bringing British Troops to pacify and unite the Colony, by the Word of Governor Josiah Martin.
STOLEN: Goods amounting to twenty-six Pounds, ten Shillings and Fourpence in Total, abstracted from the Warehouse of Mr. Neil Forbes on Water Street. Thieves broke a Hole in the Back of the Warehouse during the Night of May twelfth, and carried the Goods away by means of a Wagon. Two Men, one White, one Black, were seen driving a Wagon away with a Team of bay Mules. Any Word pertaining to this atrocious Crime will be generously Rewarded. Apply to W. Jones, in care of the Gull and Oyster on the Market Square.
BORN, to Captain Roger MacKenzie of Fraser’s Ridge and his lady, a girl, on the twenty-first of April. Child and Mother are reported in good Health, the Child’s name given as Amanda Claire Hope MacKenzie.
Roger had never felt so terrified as he did when his newborn daughter was placed in his arms for the first time. Minutes old, skin tender and perfect as an orchid’s, she was so delicate he feared he would leave fingerprints on her—but so alluring that he had to touch her, drawing the back of his knuckle gently, so gently, down the perfect curve of her fat little cheek, stroking the black cobweb silk of her hair with an unbelieving forefinger.
“She looks like you.” Brianna, sweaty, disheveled, deflated—and so beautiful he could scarcely bear to look at her—lay back against the pillows with a grin that came and went like the Cheshire Cat’s—never entirely absent, even though it faded now and then from tiredness.
“Does she?” He studied the tiny face with complete absorption. Not for any sign of himself—only because he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
He had come to know her intimately, through the months of being roused suddenly by pokes and kicks, of watching the liquid heave of Brianna’s belly, of feeling the little one swell and retreat under his hands as he lay behind his wife, cupping her stomach and making jokes.
But he’d known her as Little Otto, the private name they’d used for the unborn child. Otto had had a distinct personality—and for a moment, he felt a ridiculous pang of loss, realizing that Otto was gone. This tiny, exquisite being was someone entirely new.
“Is she Marjorie, do you think?” Bree was lifting her head, peering at the blanket-wrapped bundle. They’d discussed names for months, making lists, arguing, making fun of each other’s choices, choosing ridiculous things like Montgomery or Agatha. At last, tentatively, they’d decided that if it was a boy, the name might be Michael; if a girl, Marjorie, after Roger’s mother.