The Blood of Roses Read online

  Cope had only heard of the terrifying swiftness and bloody vehemence of a Highland charge; he had never witnessed one before. Truth be known, he prayed God he would never have to witness it again, for as experienced a field soldier as he was, he had felt a distinct and unpleasant lurching in his belly as he had seen the gouting blood and severed limbs scattered in the wake of the advancing rebels.

  “Sir! Down there!”

  Cope drew sharply on the reins of his horse and turned in the direction of his adjutant’s pointed finger. A large, beautifully mottled gray stallion was thundering across the plain at the head of a small group of armed Highlanders. The rider was hatless, his clothing unidentifiable from that distance as more than a splash of royal blue for a jacket and bright red tartan for a kilt. Behind him, in the midst of cheering, arm-waving riders, was the standard bearer who raised the enormous red and white silk flag to proclaim the Stuart triumph.

  “We’d best make for Edinburgh, sir,” his adjutant urged, “before their cavalry takes it in their heads to pursue.”

  “Do you see any cavalry, Corporal?” Cope asked bitterly. “Do you see any artillery? Any superior weaponry of any kind?”

  The corporal looked back down the field.

  “An academic question, of course,” Cope continued without waiting for an answer. “Because they now have our artillery, our weapons, our ammunition, our stores and supplies … not to mention nearly two thousand of our men.”

  The corporal endured the disdainful recitation with a flush. “Yessir. But their victory today was a fluke. A cruel and undeserved fluke, and surely you shall make them pay twofold for the insult when next you face them.”

  “The next time?” Cope directed his red and angry eyes at the solemn collection of officers who remained nervously by his side. “You delude yourselves, gentlemen, if you think a general who delivers the news of his own defeat will be allowed to repeat his mistakes again. As for this victory being a fluke … those were, I believe, almost the exact words used to describe the debacle at Colt’s Bridge, then again when it was learned that Charles Edward Stuart was making his bed at Holyrood House. The only cruel and undeserved fluke I see before me, sirs, is that I should find myself in command of inept cowards on horseback who turn and break water at the first hint of battle. The only fluke, sirs, is that I probably will not live to see every last one of these brave dragoons bound and staked on posts along the border, there to be first among those who must now address this plague before it spreads into England!”

  “Surely the Pretender would not be lunatic enough to march into England,” Colonel Loudoun protested, blanching at the horrible possibility.

  “And why not, sir?” Cope demanded. “If you were Lord George Murray, and you had won as resounding a victory as they have won themselves this day—what, indeed, would stop you? Are you suggesting good sportsmanship will-prompt Lord George to wait until an experienced English army is recalled from Flanders? Or that the usurper prince will wait until King George opens his eyes and realizes his throne is in true jeopardy?

  “The real lunacy, gentlemen, is in our own arrogance in assuming we are invincible. Take a good look at what our presumptions have cost us. Imagine what the cost could well be in the days and weeks to come, when our enemies discover what a handful of bearded farmers have accomplished using nothing more than swords and scythes. Scythes, gentlemen, against the military might of the strongest nation on earth!”

  Shaken and demoralized, the outrage faded from Cope’s eyes, rendering them a dull, listless brown. His features, normally sharp and animated, seemed to grow aged and haggard even as his shoulders slumped and his hands slackened their grip on the leather reins. His officers, wary of renewed activity on the road behind them, formed a protective circle around the general and urged him toward the coast road and the ships waiting to carry him back to London.

  Alex was aware of pain along his arms. The muscles were stretched and bruised, his wrists burned from the tightness of the twine ropes that cut into his flesh. For a moment he could not remember where he was. He shook his head to clear the fog from his brain and heard, from somewhere in the darkness nearby, harsh grunts and coarse laughter, snuffling noises in the hay, and the damp cruel thud of flesh slapping flesh.

  The pain in his wrists was almost as unbearable as the agony in his temples as he strained to loosen the bonds that were holding him. His ears, his head, his chest pounded and throbbed with the sound of his own heartbeat. He was deafened by it, dying from it, for it was the sound of his life being torn from his chest, thrown onto a bed of hay and raped before his wild, disbelieving eyes.

  He was screaming her name, but Annie was already beyond hearing him. The animals had done their work well, clawing her soft white skin, ravaging the sweet flesh until she was a mass of blood and bruises. Dear God in heaven, the blood! It was on her thighs and staining the hay beneath her. It was on her arms, her belly; each slap of plunging male flesh produced more, produced a thin, agonized wail from between the drawn, battered lips.

  Annie!

  The name grated from Alex’s throat as he strained against the ropes that held him, supported him so that he might watch the fun they were having with his young bride. Three of them: Angus, Malcolm, and Dughall Campbell. Blood enemies since before birth, before memory, but invited to Achnacarry as a gesture of peace and goodwill to celebrate the marriage of their cousin Maura to Donald Cameron, Chief of Clan Cameron. They had kept their hatred concealed behind sly smiles and rage-hot eyes, cleverly biding their time until the youngest and most volatile scion had unwisely ignored all precautions and slipped away from the crowds to be alone with his beloved. They had followed, creeping up on the lovers like jackals and catching them unawares.

  Alex screamed again, maddened by the sight of Malcolm Campbell’s bulbous figure stiffening, twisting tautly through a rush of carnal ecstasy. Annie, responding more to Alex’s torment than her own humiliation, found the strength from somewhere to raise the chunk of serrated stone she had discovered buried in the hay and slam it into Campbell’s sweating temple. She struck again and again, her soft green eyes blazing with pain and loathing. She dragged the edge of the stone down the fleshy jowls and peeled a layer of meat from his cheek and throat, exposing the veins beneath.

  Campbell screamed and flung himself to one side, his hands clapping over the bloodied mash of an eye. He struck the rock out of Annie’s hand and smashed his fist across her face, striking with enough force to snap her head sideways—enough force that she did not move again.

  Alex lunged to his feet, the last few bloody threads of rope parting in a sting of pain that cleared his head of any human thought and reduced him to the same level of blood-lust that fueled the three animals before him. He grabbed the sword—the ancient clai’mór he had boastfully taken out of its hiding place to show Annie—and even though its weight was more than anything his arms had ever wielded before, he grasped the thickly encrusted silver hilt in both hands and swung it high above his head.

  Dughall, crouched by Malcolm’s side, looked up as he heard the faint whisper of steel. The shock of seeing Alexander Cameron on his feet, armed and charging out of the filthy stall, paled beside the horror of seeing the clai’mór streak down and carve deeply into the unguarded back of his brother Angus. The sound of the spine breaking in two and the scream of agony ripping out of his brother’s throat brought Dughall to his feet only seconds before the tremendous power of the clai’mór came at him out of the gloom. He dodged the first cut and, arming himself with only seconds to spare, blocked the second with the shrill clash of steel on steel.

  He was senior to the seventeen-year-old Cameron by eight years; he should have been able to fend the boy off easily. But there was something unholy burning in the depths of the midnight-blue eyes, something ancient and mystic, bloodless and merciless and as cold as death itself. The sour taste of fear turned Dughall’s defiant cries into pleas for help as he was forced to retreat into a corner of the stable, to
duck and brace his sword in both hands to counter the astonishing power of each attacking stroke.

  Malcolm staggered to his feet, but he was too slow in retrieving his sword, too late to forestall the lunging thrust that split his brother open from belly to throat. Alex recovered his stance and swung on the remaining Campbell brother in the same smooth, fluid motion. The light from the lantern flared off the blood-streaked steel like a sheet of flame as he brought it down, angled it sideways over the ratlike face and squared shoulders. Malcolm was able to rear back, to cheat death on a stroke that should have cleaved him cleanly in two, but instead left him a screaming mass of raw, severed muscle and tissue.

  And then there was only Annie filling Alex’s sight and senses. It took only one glance at the pale and broken figure lying a few paces away for all of the rage and fury to drain from Alexander’s arms. Dropping the ancient clai’mór, he stumbled forward, falling on his knees beside the only woman he had ever loved. The only woman he would ever love …

  But, as he gently lifted back the bright curls of hair that clouded her features, it was not Annie MacSorley’s face he saw, but Catherine’s. Annie’s auburn hair faded to silver blonde, her sea-green eyes changed to the color of a Highland dusk. And, after a long, breathless moment, there was a warm stirring in his arms and it was Catherine’s hands, Catherine’s lips that were reaching up for him. He bowed his head desperately, tasting love and sweetness and peace in her loving caress.

  “The nightmare is over,” she whispered. “You can sleep now and never have it again.”

  “Don’t go.” He gasped. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’ll never leave you, Alex. Alex …?”

  “Alex? Alex, can ye hear me, lad?”

  Another voice, too fuzzy and clotted to identify, broke into his dream. “Do you think there is any permanent damage?”

  “Pairmanent? Ach, who’s tae say when it comes tae such things. See here? There’s still bluid in his ears—” The voice paused while gentle fingers wiped at something wet that was trickling down his neck. “It’s common enough tae see bluid if a mon’s had his brains stirred like he has. I wouldna work yersel’s intae a rupture till he wakens, though. He’s the only one who’ll ken if he can hear or na.”

  More fingers, equally gentle, probed through the dark waves of his hair.

  “Damned lucky,” Archibald muttered, nodding at a hovering Struan MacSorley to hold the bloodied hanks of hair away from the wound so that he could reach it with a needle and threaded catgut. “See here? Anither … paugh … an arse hair’s width deeper an’ we’d be plantin’ him under a cairn come the morn’s mornin’.”

  With swift, precise stitches, the gaping slash was closed, given a final inspection, then left to Aluinn’s capable hands to bandage while Dr. Archibald Cameron wiped his bloodied fingers on the front of his tartan and moved to the next man in line.

  “If he starts tae puke, tairn his heid so he disna choke,” came the last bit of sage advice. “He’ll most likely sleep till the morn anyway, but if ye need it, there’s a pint O’ ma private, medicinal uisque that’ll dull his pains. Couple O’ pints, if the pair O’ ye feel ye could use it too.”

  “A … fine … idea …” Alex managed to utter between clenched teeth. With a massive effort, he accomplished a squint, then a slow, steady raising of both eyelids.

  Aluinn’s grinning face loomed instantly into view. “Alex?” Then, glancing over his shoulder, he called to Archibald. “I think he’s coming around.”

  “Bah! I told ye his skull was thick as iron. An’ I warrant he’s only comin’ round on account O’ I mentioned the magic word: uisque. Come tae think on it, I could use a wee drop masel’, if ye’re goin’ that way.”

  Bracing himself against the pain, Alex turned his head an infinitesimal fraction of an inch, regretting the rash action at once as a horde of frenzied demons began crushing his skull with spiked bats. Before he corrected the angle and closed his eyes again, he caught an impression of canvas tarpaulins stretched overhead to cut the glare of sunlight. Rows of bodies were stretched out beneath, sprawled in every conceivable position, wounded in every imaginable manner. Flies had moved in, swarming in black clouds to gorge on blood and leaking eviscera.

  “Alex?”

  He worked at opening his eyes again, no easy task with lead weights anchoring his lashes.

  “In case you were wondering … we won.”

  He hadn’t been wondering. Won what? Oh yes, the battle. The battle. The last chilling images of the past faded and he concentrated on thinking through the waves of pain.

  “Donald?” He rasped. “The prince? The … others?”

  Aluinn grinned again. “The prince is somewhat out of sorts with Lord George, as usual. It seems the general assigned His Highness command of the rear guard to ensure against any spilling of royal blood, but by the time the rear guard made it through the moor and across the field, the battle was over. Donald is fine. A few scratches, but otherwise fine. I’m sure our contingent suffered the heaviest casualties, what with taking on the entire artillery, but I don’t think you’ll see the smile off Donald’s face long enough to hear a lecture on rash theatrics.”

  “I didn’t order anyone to follow me,” Alex muttered thickly, his tongue dragging over his lips. “How many did we lose?”

  MacKail shrugged. “We don’t have an exact count yet, but I’d say … no more than half a hundred dead or wounded. Altogether.”

  “Half a hundred?”

  “Aye, lad,” Struan said, beaming. “As soon as the lobsterbacks saw their precious guns put tae the sword, those who werna on the road already, runnin’ as if auld Clootie was breathin’ fire on their heels, threw down their weepons an’ grated f’ae mercy like wee snivelin’ bairns.”

  “Surrendered,” Aluinn clarified. “Nearly two thousand of the bastards, and too many dead to guess offhand. Archie’s had to send to Edinburgh for all the physicians the city can spare.”

  “Fifteen minutes, lad, an’ it were over. Too fast f’ae them tae take aught but the claythes on their backs. We’ve all their wagons, tents, stores, weepons, powder, even those great hulkin’ bastard guns we thought tae take on wi’ our swords. No’ that I ken what good they’ll dae us, wi’ none O’ these jack-a-napes knowin’ spit about how tae shoot one. A fine morn’s work, nonetheless.”

  “How long … have I been out?”

  “Ye been seein’ angels f’ae the best part O’ the day,” MacSorley said. “If ye can smell at all, those are supper fires ye’re snorkin’. Sun’s got anither hour, nae much more.”

  “What … happened?”

  “You nearly swallowed a few ounces of lead, that’s what happened,” Aluinn said, finishing his job with the relatively clean strip of linen he was using for a bandage. “The officer who had designs on removing your head had his aim thrown off with … an arse hair’s width to spare, to use a familial quote. The shot still managed to tear a healthy chunk out of your scalp and to leave the side of your face looking Moorish. But it could have been worse; you could have lost your ear. As it is Archie wasn’t too sure if you’d be able to hear properly or not.”

  “I can hear,” Alex grumbled. “If someone would just kill whoever is pounding those damned bells.”

  “You’ll probably have a hell of a headache for a few days, too.”

  “I have a hell of a headache now. And I think I’m beginning to hallucinate—”

  Aluinn followed the direction of the glance Alex shot past his shoulder. A figure in scarlet satin breeches, purple waistcoat, and deep maroon frock coat was coming toward them. His tricorn hat was edged in gold braid and plumed with dyed ostrich feathers. The jeweled pin at his throat contained one of the largest emeralds either man had ever seen, nestled artfully in a jabot of rich Spanish lace.

  “Tell me I’ve lost my mind,” Alex whispered, trying to blink, but finding the effort too costly and the nausea too threatening.

  “No indeed,” Aluinn replied glibly. “You’r
e looking at the man who saved it for you.”

  Alex rolled his dark eyes toward MacKail.

  “Honestly. It seems he was standing behind the officer taking aim and was able to deflect the shot just in time. His name is Fanducci. Count Giovanni Alphonso Fanducci, and he is most anxious to meet the great Camshroinaich Dubh.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Immensely.”

  Alex curled his lip in what passed for a scowl and returned his attention to the Italian. Seeing that Alex was conscious, the tricorn was removed with a sweeping flourish and a bow executed with the grace of a courtier.

  “Ahh! Signore Camerone! All is-a well with you, then? I was-a worried perhaps I was-a too late in my efforts.”

  Alex stared. Previously shadowed by the brim of the tricorn, the count’s features did nothing to discourage the impression forming in Alex’s mind. The long nose quivered delicately about the nostrils. A thin and angular chin sported a precisely trimmed and manicured goatee; his wig was dusted blue-gray and flowed over his shoulders in descending rolls of curls.

  “But of course, allow me to introduce-a myself. Count Giovanni Alphonso Fanducci at-a you service. You have-a no idea, signore, how absolutely thrilled I am to finally meet-a the great Dark Camerone. So many stories, signore. So many praises I’m-a hear sung. Such-a the privilege to humble myself before you.”

  Out of the corner of one bloodshot eye, Alex saw Aluinn lower his head to shield a smile. Struan was less subtle. The grin that began at the corners of his mouth stretched sideways until it touched each ear.