Part 16 (1/2)

A thin wedge of light spilled out from under the door of French's room. I knocked softly and he opened the door immediately, drawing me safely inside and conning the hall to see if anyone was about. He was dressed for the outdoors, in topcoat and m.u.f.fler. I congratulated myself on my intelligence in foreseeing just this possibility.

”Vincent was here,” he whispered, pulling on his gloves. ”Archie Skene and one of the other grooms slipped out of the stables an hour ago. Vincent followed them long enough to be sure he could stay on their trail, then raced back here to tell me. We're to join him in the stables.”

”What's happening?”

”A meeting of sorts, in the woods. Vincent will tell us more. Now hurry.” He shoved his hat firmly on his head. ”We must get there as soon as possible.”

Vincent was hopping silently in place, blowing on his hands, when we found him at the rear of the stables.

”There you are, guv,” he said. ”I scouted out the territory whilst you and India were puttin' on your duds. Archie and the other fellow met up with some blokes out there in them trees. They got a fire goin', and there's people comin' from all over to join 'em. I saw four or five slip out o' the castle, too.”

”Maybe they're off to have a drink together, away from the house,” I said, thinking of my warm bed and not relis.h.i.+ng at all the prospect of a stroll through the snow.

”They may be 'avin' some whisky, but hit ain't a social affair,” said Vincent. ”You'll see when we get there. We'll 'ave to be quiet as cats to get up close enough to 'ear wot's goin' on. Follow me.” He slipped away into the dark, and French and I fell in behind him.

The night was moonless, with a cold wind blowing off the icy peaks of the Cairngorms, scouring the snow on the ground and rustling the boughs of the spruce trees overhead with a devilish whine. It was not, in my opinion, a fit night for a party, unless it was being held indoors in front of a raging fire. I gathered my coat about me and pulled my scarf tighter. Vincent had struck out on a straight line due north from the stables, away from the trail the others had taken. We walked briskly for several minutes, covering rocky ground patched here and there with a light skiff of snow. We reached the tree line behind the castle, where the ground began to ascend, and the walking became more difficult. We inched up a rocky slope, brus.h.i.+ng aside snow-laden branches and scrambling over and around granite outcroppings, some as large as a house. The cold air made it difficult to breathe, my ribs hurt like the devil, and I was winded in no time. We struggled on like that for a bit, with Vincent pausing now and then to correct our course, and me sobbing for breath at the rear of the column. You'd think an urchin from the streets of London would be lost within sight of the castle, but Vincent had the instincts of a p.a.w.nee scout and the night vision of an owl (how else do you think a boy his age managed to survive in the Big Smoke?), and we trekked on unerringly, until ahead of us a tiny light gleamed in the darkness, and Vincent crouched low and crept forward slowly for a distance of twenty feet or so (it felt like a mile, waddling forward in the that thigh-burning posture), then halted abruptly, dropping to his haunches behind a waist-high cairn of rock, which afforded us an excellent vantage point of the scene below. French and I knelt, and peered over the edge of the cairn.

”There they are,” Vincent whispered.

We had topped the crest of a ridge and were looking down into a shallow clearing, littered with huge boulders. Someone had lit a bonfire fit for Vulcan, with sparks leaping high into the air and giving off a great light that illuminated the two dozen figures gathered around the flames. The crowd contained mostly men, but there were six or eight women among them, easily marked by their skirts and bonnets. In the weird, flickering light the faces of the watchers were white and waxen, but for the few whose faces were shadowed, their eyes ringed with black. I shook my head, wondering if I'd accidently imbibed some of the laudanum I'd intended for the marchioness and was having a nightmare, having spent too much time chasing a.s.sa.s.sins and too little sleeping. But the mystery solved itself when I looked closer; the figures round the fire wore masks of varying shapes and sizes. I scrutinized them closely, and after a few minutes I was able to nudge French and Vincent and point out Skene, whose bushy eyebrows rested on top of a black mask like a dead mink draped over a curtain. I scanned the crowd, looking for the figures of Red Hector or Vicker or Robbie Munro, but I could not be sure if any of them were among the group.

There was no discussion among the congregation at the fire. They stood silently, facing the flaring light, seemingly oblivious to the biting wind. Vincent put his hand on my arm and nodded his head toward the encircling woods. A dark figure glided out of the trees and joined the merry band around the fire, then another came and yet another. It was eerie, sheltering there among the rocks with the wind gusting around us and those faceless forms gathered in the circle below us. Clearly, all that Bible reading had inflamed my imagination: the crowd below me looked like they were putting on a tableau of the ninth circle of h.e.l.l, where traitors to their liege lords stood frozen in ice, as close to Old Harry as a sinner could get. Poetic and picturesque, you might say, if you hadn't been freezing to death in the theatre seats and wondering what the devil was going to happen, as I was. I pushed the unpleasant images of Lucifer and his cronies from my mind by reminding myself that it was just old Archie Skene and his pals down there, no doubt enjoying a bit of playacting, but otherwise harmless. If their idea of entertainment was to wade through the snow on a bitter night and stand in a circle staring holes through each other, well, it's not my place to judge. I've known stranger ideas of a good time.

Vincent clamped his fingers around my wrist, and French sat up straight. The crowd round the fire had stirred, turning expectantly toward a mighty spruce that towered overhead. Two human forms had appeared at the edge of the woods. There was a murmur from the masked audience, a throaty hum of affirmation and adoration that rose above the noise of the wind. The figures stepped forward out of the shadow of the tree. They might just as well have stepped out of a painting by Ronald Robert Mclan. Both wore tartan trousers (wisely, I thought, given what the wind might do to a kilt on a night like this), dark masks that covered their faces, flowing capes and soft Scotch bonnets.

One figure, the slighter of the two, sat down upon a boulder at the edge of the clearing, while the second, a brawny chap with the shoulders of Hercules, strode forward into the light. He flung his cape over one of those giant shoulders, revealing a brace of pistols in his belt. He raised a hand for silence, though he needn't have bothered as a hush had descended over the onlookers at his approach.

”Friends,” said the tartan-clad behemoth, in a brogue so thick you could have stood a sword in it. ”We have gathered tonight to affirm our bonds of loyalty and trust. The time draws near when the head of the Sa.s.senach serpent will be severed from its body, and the rightful heir of King Duncan will reign once more in Scotland.”

This drew an appreciative chorus from the crowd.

”Wot the devil is a Sa.s.senach?” whispered Vincent.

”From the Gaelic word 'sasunnach,' meaning 'Saxon.' It's used now as a slur against the English.”

Trust French to take time to deliver a lesson in linguistics while treason was being plotted in the clearing below.

”Through many long years and through many generations, we have endured the English boot upon our neck. We have suffered and sacrificed for the English crown, sending our finest sons and brothers to die on dusty battlefields in far-off lands, to protect the rights of English merchants to rape and pillage these foreign territories. And why must we do this? Because there is no future for the sons of Scotland in their own land.”

The congregation was beginning to get worked up. At the speaker's words, an angry buzz ran through the crowd.

”There are no prospects here for young men, and so they are reduced to taking the Queen's s.h.i.+lling and boarding s.h.i.+ps for Bombay and Mombasa, for Singapore and Cape Town. Our young women chap their hands doing laundry for the English overlords, and our old women pine for the youth who lie buried in the soil of India and Africa. Those who remain behind till the hard ground, dig the coal from the earth or fish the cold waters to earn a pittance. Our children starve and our women wither, while the English grow fat and rich from our toil.”

I found that a bit rough, as I was personally acquainted with quite a few Englishmen and Englishwomen who might have thought a Scottish peasant with a patch of corn and an outdoor privy had a d.a.m.ned good life. I stole a glance at Vincent to see how he was taking the news that the Scots had been supporting his lavish lifestyle, but he didn't seem overly concerned.

The figure below us raised a hand again, but this time 'twas clenched in a fist.

”It is time that we reclaimed our birthright, as an independent nation of free men and women. It is time to cleave the Union between England and Scotland, and if blood must be spilled to affect such a separation, then so be it!”

There was a huzzah from the crowd. If this was the Marischal, I could understand the English government's trepidation about the man; he had the silver tongue of a gifted orator. There were raised fists among the crowd now and a few cries of ”Kill the b.l.o.o.d.y English” and ”Off with the Queen's head.”

”The Sons of Arbroath have pledged to rid Scotland of the plague of English pests. We wait only for the proper time to strike, when the royal imposter is beguiled into complacency and our act of fealty to our nation will shock the world. Victoria, for I cannot call her Queen, will not leave Scotland alive!”

This evoked a roar from the gathering, and I squirmed uncomfortably. If we were discovered now, the mob below probably wouldn't hesitate to tear us limb from limb, once they heard our English accents. Of course, they would likely go first for French, who was everything a posh English gentleman should be. That might leave time for me to rocket away through the woods while the Scots were occupied with striking their first blow for freedom against the hated English aristocracy. I was sussing out escape routes when French nudged me.

The seated figure had risen and now stood immobile with the cloak billowing about in the wind and the firelight playing across the masked features. It was a romantic scene, I'll tell you, with the sparks from the fire flying up into the treetops and the smoke rising like incense, and the silent figure standing there as silent and inscrutable as an Oriental G.o.d.

The t.i.tan who'd been doing all the yammering stretched out a hand to the quiet figure. ”Before you stands the instrument of Victoria's destruction-the Marischal, whose life's work shall be accomplished when Victoria lies dead.”

There was a great shout that shook the boughs of the tree and made my knees turn to jelly.

”You know the Marischal and the Sons of Arbroath are now hunted like stags through the fields and forests of Scotland. You know that we must hide our ident.i.ties, and gather in secret in hidden glens and the caverns of the earth. But soon, very soon, my friends, the Marischal shall remove the mask and step forward as the rightful heir of King Duncan, restoring a Scot to the throne of Scotland and running the English cowards from our kingdom. The Marischal has come to Balmoral to see that our destiny is fulfilled.”

The crowd couldn't get enough of this, and there was a deuce of a perturbation amongst the masked supporters, with enough howling and whooping to make you think you'd stumbled onto some pagan ceremony and the human sacrifice was just minutes away. I hoped that wasn't true, as I didn't stand a chance of outrunning French or Vincent if the mob decided that just any old victim would do. I was preparing my speech about being an innocent bystander, roped into this little jaunt by the unscrupulous English n.o.b at my side, when the Herculean fellow spoke again.

He'd pulled a bottle from under his cloak and was holding it aloft. ”Let us drink to victory and to a free Scotland.”

Like all good Scots, every b.u.g.g.e.r there had brought a cup or a tumbler, it seemed, and now they whipped them out and waited patiently while the big fellow went round the circle, pouring a jot into each vessel and saying a few words to each person, and now and then clapping some bloke on the shoulder in a gesture of manly concord. Lastly, he turned to the Marischal, who had produced a quaich, the shallow Scottish drinking cup, and poured a liberal measure for the boss. Then the Herculean cove filled his own quaich and raised it high in a toast.

”To the Sons of Arbroath,” he cried.

A ragged echo rose up, and then everyone of that a.s.sembly quaffed their thirst.

Again, he raised his quaich to the stars. ”To the Marischal.”

There was a general hue and cry over this, and the Marischal nodded humbly at this recognition of his superior personage.

For the last time, the giant lifted his quaich and shouted, ”To a free Scotland!”

The folk in the firelight went off like a sell-out crowd at the local football derby.

Then they all crowded together with their arms wound round each other, including the big man and the Marischal, and they raised their voices in a ringing chant. ”As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory nor for riches nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom-for that alone which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”

It was stirring stuff, no doubt, and I felt like rising to my feet with a great cheer and hurrying down to the clearing to join these brave men and women in ridding the Scottish s.h.i.+p of English rats, but French put a restraining hand on my arm and gave me a look that made me sink back to my knees. I could tell he'd found it rousing as well, though, for his eyes were bright, and I thought I detected in the firelight a faint flush on his cheeks. Later, he told me that those words came from the Declaration of Arbroath, written over five hundred years before, when the Scots had had a bellyful of the English Edward I crus.h.i.+ng their attempts at rebellion. As I have learned, the Scots have long memories.

The toasts seemed to mark the end of the formal portion of the meeting, for bottles of whisky were dragged from pockets and haversacks, and the crowd settled down for some serious tippling. The next item on the agenda appeared to be getting blind drunk, which would provide us the perfect opportunity to steal away and return to the safety of the castle. French leaned over to Vincent and whispered in his ear, gesturing at the Marischal, and I was sure the lad had just received instructions to tail the slim figure. Sure enough, Vincent half rose, balancing on his toes, ready to follow the scent when the Marischal and the bruiser took their leave. French touched my hand and jerked his head, indicating that we should retire in the direction from whence we'd come-a very good plan, I thought, as the only thing worse than a mob of fanatics intent on spilling English blood was a mob of drunken fanatics intent on spilling English blood.

The two tartan-clad figures had taken their farewells and were moving toward the tree line, French and I were backing slowly away from our hiding place, and Vincent had taken one covert step to follow our quarry, when the most awful thing happened. Usually, you can depend on Vincent to be as silent and stealthy as a Thuggee, but tonight his (and, consequently, our) luck turned. His step dislodged a stone, which bounced down the hill toward the fire, and as it bounced, it collected pebbles and gravel and other stones until there was a veritable torrent of rubble headed toward the nationalists. Worse luck, they were all still sober, and it didn't take long for one of them to spy the avalanche of rock descending toward them and raise a shout that reverberated around the clearing. The Marischal took one look and scampered into the woods like a startled rabbit, while his companion drew his pistols from his belt and ran toward the commotion, signaling to the others to follow him. The crowd let out a l.u.s.ty roar, and a dozen sgian dubhs winked in the firelight.

”Confound it,” said French. ”Run, India.”

I had no need of such instructions; I had already bolted and was running at full speed, spurred on by the image of being carved up like a roasted ox by the screaming horde behind me. A few steps into my flight, it occurred to me that I had no idea where I was in relation to the castle, having spent the trek here following blindly behind French and Vincent. Next time, I would pay more attention. I ran on, stumbling over rocks and colliding now and then with a tree. The nasty things made a habit of looming up out of the darkness at the last minute. I had taken a few thumps and scratched my face on a spruce bow when I pulled up for a moment to catch my breath and get my bearings. I turned, half-expecting French to be at my heels, but he was nowhere to be seen. Where had the b.u.g.g.e.r got to? Without him, I was as likely to end up in Glasgow as at Balmoral.

Away to my right, I heard someone hurtling down the slope, cras.h.i.+ng through the trees and bellowing like an angry bull. French, I thought, but what the devil was he doing? Then I heard the yelps behind him, and cries of ”Over here,” and ”There he goes!” I felt a surge of affection for the bloke then, for it was clear that French was deliberately drawing our pursuers after him, giving me the chance to slip away undetected. It was d.a.m.ned sporting of the man and completely in character. I resolved to be a bit nicer to the cove and thank him properly, if I ever found my way back to the castle and he escaped from the howling mob behind him. I thought it more likely that the former would occur than the latter; I might be lucky enough to stumble upon Balmoral by morning, but French had a habit of taking pratfalls in the snow and being ambushed by villains, as I've recounted in my previous tale of adventure. I wasn't worried about Vincent, as he could hide behind a snowflake and would no doubt be snoring in his bed while I was still trudging through the woods in search of the castle.

It was a b.l.o.o.d.y long night. After the hue and cry had died away (though it still continued in the distance, as the nationalist band pressed on in pursuit of French), I spent a good many hours walking around with my hands held out in front of my face, b.u.mping into tree branches and great boulders, turning my ankles a half-dozen times on the uneven ground, and generally careering about like a s.h.i.+p without a sail. The first rays of the sun had just touched the summits of the Cairngorms when I caught the scent of wood smoke in the air and spied the chimneys of the castle. I must have walked over half of Scotland by then. I was exhausted, hungry, bruised and battered when I staggered into the stable yard and tapped at the window of Vincent's room. The sash flew up instantly and Vincent looked out. He looked a bit worse for the wear as well, with a brutal cut from a tree limb across his cheek and bits of leaves and sticks decorating his hair.