Under the Same Sky Page 6

  The final night of the Gathering was a glorious evening, with dancing, singing, and games that set the group’s strong men in competition. Andrew spent the day with Dougal, and as a result found himself constantly surrounded by women. Neither could be considered to be a boy anymore. Both boys were broad-shouldered and handsome, exuding masculinity and charm. They were young men now, well on their way to becoming warriors like their father. Intelligence sparkled in their eyes, and laughter was easy for them both. Matchmaking was not rare at Gatherings, Andrew discovered, but he avoided those entanglements. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy lassies. He stole a kiss or two over the few days, but he had no wish to become part of anything more permanent.

  “I am only six an’ ten,” he reminded his mother, who broached the subject after another mother came to her, canvassing for her daughter.

  “Ye’ll no’ be six an’ ten forever, my lad. An’ then ye’ll wish ye’d a lass to tend ye. I’ll no’ be here forever.”

  “I’ll be fine. An’ I’ll be young for a while yet. Plenty of time,” he assured her.

  Her brown eyes, so like his, softened and she shook her head, touching his cheek with her calloused fingertips. “No, Andrew. Ye dinna have all the time ye think. Ye grow so fast I barely see my bairn in ye anymore. Ye’re a man. An’ a good man at that.” She pulled him to her and held him as if he were much younger.

  On the final night of the Gathering, Andrew and his mother sat by their fire, watching the harvest moon. It rose from behind the castle and spilled its orange reflection over the southern tip of Loch Ness, giving an eerie sense of daytime to the night. Time for the Scots to return to their farms, to reap what they could before winter.

  A small torch appeared out of the woods twenty feet away from where Andrew sat, and his mother placed her hand on his arm, holding him still. Her face bore a broad smile, and her eyes danced with the firelight.

  “Watch, lad. ’Twill be many a year afore this happens again.”

  “Before what happens?” he asked.

  “Hush, son,” she said. “Watch.”

  One by one, the clan chiefs emerged from cover of the trees, lighting the mountain with their fires. Andrew watched, spellbound, silent as the rest of the observers. The first voice came from a man down the mountain, and it sent chills racing down Andrew’s spine.

  “The MacCallums are here!” called the man, and all eyes shifted to see his profile, lit by the torch he held. A loud cheer roared from below, spirited cries for “MacCallum!”

  “The Gunns are here!” called another, and his clan thundered their approval.

  “The Camerons are here!”

  “The MacLeods are here!”

  The voices of the chiefs boomed across the mountain, answered each time by their clansmen. Andrew’s skin prickled as he waited for his Uncle Iain to appear.

  Then he saw him, standing on the edge of the trees, twenty feet from Andrew’s fire. Iain MacDonnell was a large man. Dressed in his best kilt and bonnet, his sword shining silver under the moon, he was an impressive sight. He stood quietly, waiting for the MacLeods to finish cheering. His torch lit the dark lines of his face and flickered over a silver brooch that fastened his plaid over his shoulder.

  “The MacDonnells are here!”

  The power in his uncle’s voice resonated through Andrew. He had heard the man speak many times, but this was something new. It filled Andrew with pride. He thought he understood what his mother meant. He was a boy no more. The heart of a man beat within his chest.

  Chapter 7

  The Battle Lost and Won

  Three years later, at the age of nineteen, Andrew set out with his brothers on their way to war, along with their father and the rest of the Jacobite army. Prince Charles Stuart was intent on enforcing his claim to the British crown, as the direct heir to the last Stuart king, his grandfather, James II. The MacDonnells were loyal to the cause, as always. Andrew, Dougal, and Ciaran walked with the other younger men—the youngest being no older than twelve—heads held high, trying to contain their eagerness lest it be taken for childish enthusiasm.

  This was real. This was war. This was honour, bravery, and skill. This was where all their childhood practice with wooden swords would be put to use, fighting alongside seasoned warriors, led by their uncle and chief, Iain MacDonnell.

  There was honour, bravery, and skill in battle. But as Andrew discovered, there were also miles and miles of trekking on hard ground. There was waiting, so much waiting, while Iain MacDonnell and the other chiefs discussed strategy.

  Some of their earliest encounters with the English army had been almost comical. The Highlanders fought as they always had, roaring in Gaelic as they plunged down hills toward the waiting troops, swinging thick-bladed swords and axes as they came. These were mountain men, unaccustomed to regular bathing routines, indifferent to shaving or trimming their unruly heads of hair. They wore nothing but their plaids and their weapons, and many of the Highlanders simply discarded the plaids, finding them too cumbersome. As a result, the English were presented with the sight of thousands of hairy, naked beasts converging on them from the trees, screaming foreign curses, the whites of their eyes vivid from across the battlefield. The English, unprepared for this type of confrontation, got into the habit of turning and running from this maniacal tide.

  Without an English army to contest the Scots, there were very few true confrontations until they reached Prestonpans in September 1745. That was Andrew’s first experience with battle. He stood beside Dougal, exhilarated, almost trembling with anticipation. When at last the call for the charge came, the Scots were a seething beehive, waiting only for their release. The English stood their ground, but were no match for the Highlanders.

  Andrew felt his knees churning beneath him, felt his feet hit the ground as he ran with the others, but his mind felt numb. He didn’t know if it was fear, or simply how one felt on a battlefield, but it was as if he watched from somewhere beyond, witnessing the furious wave of tartan as it engulfed the red jackets of the English. Shots rang out and men on both sides fell, their screams jerking Andrew to the present. He focused on the soldiers around him, fighting back to back with Dougal, swinging his sword in one hand, dirk in the other. They were big men, good fighters, and both relied on the other’s strengths.

  Andrew was always one stroke ahead of the oncoming soldiers. Ever since childhood, he had known what was coming just before it did. It was like his dreams. The images were a physical pressure against his skull—not painful, but reassuring. As if he pressed his hand against his brow in concentration. His sword moved: block, block, slash, then a heavy thrust with his dirk and men fell dead at his feet.

  Battles rarely went on for more than a half hour or so, after which time there was an opportunity for both sides to collect their dead and dying. Andrew, strong and energised by the conflict, helped carry the injured from the field to the surgeon’s tent. But beneath the external strength, in a place so deep he could almost ignore it, Andrew’s soul convulsed. He tried to ignore the way his feet slid on the gore. He blocked the fact that the smoky air he breathed stank of burnt flesh and hair. He shut his ears to the agonised cries of men and did what he had to do.

  Ciaran sat at the side of the field, head in his hands. Andrew went to him and they sat in silence together, trying to erase the sights they would never forget.

  After Prestonpans, the Highlanders waited for someone to make a decision as to what to do next. Many became restless and returned home to their families, unwilling to wait for Prince Charles’s Scottish Council in Edinburgh to decide whether or not to invade En-gland. Week after week, Andrew’s father listened to rumours of the debates in the Scottish Council, and reported back to his sons. There was money coming from France, they were told. Thousands of new recruits were ready to join the Jacobite army along the way.

  After six weeks, the Council, by a narrow margin, decided to strike south. They marched despite the fact the money never materialised. Their ammuniti
on stocks fell miserably, as did their spirits. The chiefs argued among themselves, and not only did the new recruits fail to show, but more and more Highlanders left and headed home. Winter was moving in as they entered Derby, three days’ march from London. The capital city was strongly guarded, and two English armies were fast converging on them. It had been the wrong decision.

  The Jacobites had no choice. They turned back.

  Andrew was relieved to be headed home, but was also slightly disappointed. They had been so close—imagine the Highlanders conquering London! But the men were exhausted. They stopped in at small cottages along the way, asking for food, but the people of the land were already going hungry.

  The Jacobites marched north as far and as fast as they could. But on April 17, 1746, they could go no farther. Andrew, his father, and his brothers waited at Culloden Moor, near Inverness, with over thirty-five hundred shivering clansmen. The Highlanders huddled in the miserable bog at the edge of the field, waiting for orders from their chiefs: Camerons, Stewarts of Appin, Frasers, Macintoshes, Maclauchlans, Macleans, Farquharsons, and more—too many to remember. The continuous sleet masked the small white puffs of their breath, pelted their plaids, and reddened their bearded faces. Even wrapped in their heavy wool breacon an fheile, the big men shook, shivering against each other in their need for warmth. They were past the point of exhaustion and dizzy from near-starvation, living on rotted bits of oatcakes and little else.

  Across the frozen field, over eight thousand well-rested English soldiers stood in disciplined rows, five men deep, their crisp uniforms the colour of freshly spilled blood. The yawning mouths of their cannons were gray under cloaks of frost. They vastly overpowered anything the Highlanders had. Unlike the Scots, the English muskets would have fresh, dry powder, and their bayonets would be razor-edged.

  But the Highlanders were men of honour and ferocious loyalty. They had pledged their lives to Prince Charles’s cause. Andrew understood his duty and would follow through. But that didn’t stop him from being afraid.

  Aye, it was cold. But Andrew knew something much colder. He had dreamed of this place. He knew of the slaughter that was to come. He knew most of these men would never leave this miserable field alive.

  Andrew’s father saw the impending defeat. Duncan MacDonnell, his cheeks purple from the cold, lifted his bearded chin in defiance. His glistening eyes held those of Andrew and his two brothers, and for the first time, Andrew saw fear in his father’s expression. He also saw sadness, regret, and love.

  “I’m proud o’ ye, my lads. An’ I’m proud to be here wi’ ye,” Duncan said.

  He slapped them companionably on their backs, and Andrew’s empty stomach dropped. He felt suddenly older, somehow elevated in status. The feeling terrified him.

  A thunderous boom shook the earth as the English cannon began to pound the ragged groups of Highlanders. The air was pierced by an eerie whistling, and a three-pound cannon ball tore through the mist, blasting everything and everyone with grapeshot. From where he crouched, Andrew watched the iron hailstones shred a chestnut pony who had stood a few feet away from him. He witnessed the looks of surprise on two big Highlanders’ faces as one cannon ball tore through them both. A constant pattern of artillery sprayed the Scots, punctuated by thick booms of the cannon, but Duncan held his sons back. The orders were to wait for the command, though they all wondered if they would hear it through the screams of those who hadn’t died in the initial blast. Smoke sent tears coursing down Andrew’s face; his ears rang with explosions and desperate cries.

  “We’ll hear the pipes soon, an’ it’ll be time,” Duncan said, his voice like a growl, somehow audible over the guns and screams. “Go for the English throats like wolves, aye? Like I taught ye. Damn all the sassenachs to hell. Every one o’ them.”

  Duncan put his hand on Andrew’s shoulder and in that moment Andrew saw his father die. He saw how the bullets would catch the big man. How the bayonets would finish him. How his father’s blood would mix with the blood of so many great men.

  “Don’t go, Da,” he wanted to say.

  Duncan turned to speak with the chief, sitting nearby, and Dougal gripped his brothers’ shoulders. Even Dougal looked paler than usual. His mouth, so often drawn wide with laughter, was a tight line beneath his black beard. Andrew saw Ciaran swallow beside him, and Dougal gave Ciaran a shadow of a smile.

  “Try to keep up, will ye?” Dougal teased. “I’ll no’ have time to come back an’ pick ye up, aye?”

  Andrew snorted and lowered himself into a squat, ready to run. Ciaran’s blue eyes, the same colour as Dougal’s, were wide.

  “I’m—” Ciaran said, then stopped. His voice was hoarse, and he swallowed hard again. “I’m no’ ready to die, Dougal.”

  Dougal’s confident grin wavered, then returned, though it never quite reached his eyes. “No, baby brother,” he said, giving Ciaran’s shoulder a gentle shake. “I dinna suppose ye are. Dinna fash. We’ll none of us die today. We’ll be fine, an’ home for spring plantin’ afore long.”

  Andrew looked from Ciaran’s pleading gaze to Dougal’s narrowed eyes, and saw the image of his father again, dead in the mud. Andrew knew the truth. Dougal knew it, too. They would not be fine. They would all die. Their mother would be left alone to tend the fields.

  “Dougal’s right,” Andrew said. “We’ll be fine.” He pulled Ciaran against him, then felt Dougal’s arms wrap around them both, holding tight.

  The stink of the smoke seeped into the mist, darkening the sky. From somewhere in the depths of the forest a lone piper pierced the air with an ancient call to duty, plaintive and powerful, lighting the fire in their blood. The Highlanders drew upon whatever strength remained and got to their feet. The chiefs raised their voices and called their clans, like fierce echoes of the Gathering. The men pounded their chests with their fists, harder and harder, grunting with the impacts, stirring their blood with the strikes. Their feet stomped the frozen earth until it was rock hard.

  Then they followed their chiefs into battle.

  Andrew’s father and Uncle Iain led the MacDonnells, their black hair flying like battle flags as they screeched the clan’s battle cry, “Cragan an Fhithich!”

  “Cragan an Fhithich!” Dougal howled, then flashed Andrew a grin over his plaid-covered shoulder. They tore down the field after their father, shrieking like madmen. Seventeen-year-old Ciaran swallowed his terror and ran with them, leather targe strapped to his forearm for protection, readying a pistol in either hand as he ran. They charged blindly through the smoke and hailstorm of bullets, firing pistols, then tossing the smoking weapons aside or pitching them like rocks at approaching soldiers. It was how Andrew had been taught to fight—how they had all been taught. When a man went into battle, there was no time to reload, or even to holster a weapon after it was fired. Instead, Andrew reached for his sword. Its hilt was like the hand of an old friend, holding Andrew’s grip as he crashed against the lethal wall of red coats.

  The sound of battle was all around, but Andrew heard nothing save his own screams and the pounding of feet—or was that his heartbeat? A sword sliced the air beside him and Andrew lunged for it, striking its lethal edge away from his younger brother.

  “Damn it, Ciaran!” he yelled over the noise. “Kill or be killed!”

  He spun in time to block another blade, struggling to maintain his balance as his feet slid in the muck. He lunged against his attacker and plunged his sword through the bright red jacket. The dying man’s screams were lost to Andrew as another screeching blade struck beside him. Ciaran grunted with effort and Andrew turned, ready to fight, but Ciaran’s face was set with fierce determination. His sword screeched against his attacker’s, he stepped to the side, then, with a roar, sliced his blade across the soldier’s throat.

  Blood sprayed from the man’s neck, spattering Ciaran’s cheek, and he wiped his face clear with his filthy sleeve. It wasn’t the first time Ciaran had killed a man. His blue eyes caught Andrew’s glance an
d the brothers had less than a minute to exchange silent words before the crack of a nearby musket cut the air. Ciaran’s eyes flew open and he staggered backwards, hands pressed to his chest, mouth open in an expression of amazement.

  “No!” Andrew screamed. He spun toward the soldier who had shot Ciaran and was now frantically pouring powder into his weapon. Grief grabbed Andrew’s heart just as he twisted his dirk in the Englishman’s chest.

  Ciaran. Andrew was at his brother’s side in an instant, the dead soldier’s blood still glistening on his hands. Ciaran lay still, blue eyes open, lips relaxed into a soft line. He stared up as if the smoke were no longer there, as if he were seeing again the open skies of his Highland home.

  Andrew had only a moment before the soldiers would overwhelm him. He knelt by Ciaran and took his brother’s face between his blood-smeared palms. How could this be? How could he be holding Ciaran like this, knowing those eyes would never blink again? Why was it so much easier to envision his own death than that of his brother? And what of his other brother? Could Andrew survive if this day took Dougal as well? Dougal! The thought jerked Andrew back to the present and he laid Ciaran’s head on the earth. He leaned in to kiss his brother’s cheek and his thumb lowered Ciaran’s eyelids, shutting out the sky forever.

  “I will see ye soon, Ciaran,” he whispered.

  Andrew rose to his feet, spinning as he did so, just in time to defend himself against two oncoming soldiers.

  “Ciaran!” Andrew screamed, feeling heat roar into his cheeks. “For you!”

  The soldiers were well trained and healthy, but they were no match for a grief-stricken Highlander, no matter how exhausted he might be. When the men lay dead, Andrew strained his eyes through the fog and smoke, seeking Dougal. He saw instead the colour of the battle had changed. Barely defined shapes of men and boys from Andrew’s childhood struggled, ran, and fell, their tartans falling under the sea of red coats and flashing silver.