Just in Time for a Highlander Read online

“Not this,” Abby said. “Not now.”

  “I know you do not believe in my herbs,” Undine said a touch hotly, “just as I do not believe in your war. But I have no doubt my herbs have kept you safe.” She loosened the paper and touched a finger to the powder then ran it across Abby’s cheek. “In any case, your clansmen do believe, and they like to see their chief so anointed. Look at them. They watch you now—not Rosston—every last one of them.”

  Undine was right. Abby could feel their eyes upon her. Perhaps the power of the concoction was not in the spirits it evoked, but in the belief. “Thank you,” she said meekly.

  “On the other hand, they may simply be imagining you without your gown.”

  Undine clapped her hands twice, releasing a puff of powder over Abby’s head. Then she placed the paper in Abby’s hand. “The rest is to be used for your strong arm.”

  “My what?”

  “The man you seek.”

  “Good Lord, Undine. This is hardly the time.”

  “Nor is it meant to be used now. Keep it with you. When you’re ready, sprinkle a tiny pinch in front of you. Dissolve another pinch in wine, then drink—only a thimbleful.”

  Abby could feel the odd warmth of the contents. “What’s in it?” She began to open the paper.

  Undine clapped her hand over Abby’s. “Not here! Great skies, not with so many people around. Use it in an enclosed space, when you are undisturbed, with the thought of the strong arm in your head.”

  A dirty floor and an upset stomach were the only things Abby could imagine being the results of such an exercise. Nonetheless, she dutifully refrained from rolling her eyes and slipped the paper into her pocket. She put her foot back in the stirrup and mounted Chastity, whose large brown eyes shone with anticipation.

  Undine said, “Be safe, my friend.”

  Abby nodded, grateful, and clasped her friend’s hand. She might not believe in the power of Undine’s herbs, but she did believe in the power of friendship.

  With a cluck of her tongue, she geed the horse to a trot, and the men fell in line behind her. Together they made their way through the forest, toward the rise from where they could view the Greenlaw Bridge.

  “Pass the word to spread out,” she said in a low voice to the man beside her. “But stay out of sight behind the trees. And let silence reign. So long as the soldiers stay on the road, we will not act. But if they raise their guns or leave the road, we will consider that an act of aggression. No one is to move without an order from me.”

  She knew what to say—had listened in awe to her father’s battle stories a hundred times over—but from her mouth, the words sounded hollow and untrustworthy. How could clansmen used to being led by a man put their faith in her? Aye, she had negotiated a much-needed peace in the borderlands. But her clansmen did not value peace as much as they should, and now she was asking them to follow her, a woman untested by battle, into whatever happened next.

  The men spread out as they’d been told. From her perch on Chastity, she could see the bridge, though the road on the farside, the road on which the soldiers were approaching, disappeared quickly into a vale below, hiding them from view.

  She could feel the uncertainty of the clansmen behind her as clearly as she could the day’s damp heat. A few men shifted. She heard a belch, some whispering. Moisture gathered on her back.

  “Quiet,” she commanded.

  She had three dozen or more clansmen here, if you counted the boys, which she did, and at least as many swords, but they had less than a dozen pistols and even fewer horses. If the English soldiers were out on a harmless but misguided exercise, she would not jeopardize the fragile peace to make an example of them.

  Damn you, Bridgewater. Why did you have to choose this of all days?

  The muffled sounds of boots hitting the hard-packed dirt grew closer, and the faint scent of gunpowder that always hung in the vicinity of the English army stung her nose. By the noise alone, there were more than a couple dozen men—well more. So much for the reports of her scouts.

  Her hands shook. She could almost hear her father’s voice. “When ye confront an armed man, take his measure by his hand, not his eyes. Every man with his finger on a trigger has fear in his eyes or he’s a bloody fool. But the hand of a man actually willing to pull that trigger is as steady as death. ’Tis the hand that tells the tale.”

  The first soldiers marched into view, and a palpable, untamed energy rose from the men behind her. This was the most dangerous time. One man could start a war that a thousand could not undo. The nerves in her skin flashed like tiny pistol blasts.

  The English soldiers marched carefully, their eyes on their sergeant. Had the men miscalculated their location? To be fair, the Kerr lands sat on the border and the soldiers were only two miles north of it, but it would take a pretty piss-poor soldier to overshoot by two miles. Or was this a trick?

  Soldiers continued to crest the hill, their well-shined boots and buckles catching the setting sun. Ten. Twenty. Thirty, she counted.

  Her fingers jangled in the reins, dampness turning to raw sweat where flesh met flesh.

  Forty. Fifty. Sixty. Sixty. Sixty and a few more.

  Sixty soldiers. An entire company. Each with a musket. Clan Kerr had the advantage of position and surprise, but position and surprise do not prevail in the face of sixty muskets. What was this well-armed company attempting? Should she let them continue? Her mind raced through a dozen possibilities.

  A twig snapped.

  The sergeant wheeled in a circle and raised his musket, followed instantly by his men.

  “Stop!” Abby cried and charged from the shadows.

  “I am Kerr of Clan Kerr,” she shouted. She stopped halfway between the soldiers and her men. “You have wandered over the border into our lands.”

  Terror thundered in her veins. Sixty-odd barrels stared her down, the great majority guided by hands as restless as hers, but at least one pair, the sergeant’s, was immovable as stone. Her mouth dried.

  “You have found yourself in the middle of a day of festivities.” She hoped she’d spoken aloud, as the sound seemed to rumble around her head like marbles in a bucket. “My men mean you no harm.”

  She made a forward gesture with her hand, and the front line of her clansmen emerged just far enough to be spied. It was a Clan Kerr feint of long-standing to suggest many more men stood behind them.

  “Attack!” a clansman shouted.

  “No.” Abby turned to her men. “We do not need to fight.” Many clansmen had reached for their weapons, and the hands of her men were steadier than those of the English soldiers. Fearing what the next unexpected noise would bring, she pulled the twist of paper from her pocket and held it in the air.

  The Kerrs gasped as one. They knew from whom the orange paper had come, and everyone on both sides of the border had heard the stories of Undine and her magic. What power they ascribed to this particular mixture of herbs, Abby did not know, but she hoped it was the power to end this confrontation without the firing of weapons.

  She waved the paper again and her men retreated a pace. With her arm still in the air, she turned to the soldiers, and more than a few of them stepped back as well. Undine had earned her reputation.

  “I repeat,” Abby said, “we mean you no harm.”

  She did not order the soldiers off her land. She had learned early in her tenure as chief that men did not take kindly to orders from a woman. Instead, she prayed the sergeant would come to this idea on his own, though she damned the world for forcing her to finesse rather than demand action. Even the most plank-headed man would have an easier time of it.

  Suddenly, something stung her fingers and she heard a loud pop. Someone had shot the paper from her hand.

  For an instant, Undine’s powder sparkled in the air like a tiny shower of Chinese fireworks. Then the world became a maelstrom of poundin
g hooves and musket fire.

  * * *

  Duncan cleared the bench and raced through the park. His heart thrummed like an engine and his feet moved like Mercury’s. He’d narrowed the distance between him and the band of Senecas to little more than thirty feet. Step after furious step, like a man-machine, he closed the distance. The ancient hunger for devastation squeezed his balls. He could feel it like a magnet, lifting him from his shoes and delivering him to his triumph. And if the Senecas made the mistake of running under the pedestrian bridge, they were done for. A company of English soldiers had disappeared under the same bridge a few moments earlier. In this battle the Highlanders and English were allied against the French and Indians, and as much as it pained him as a Scot to be on the side of his countrymen’s ancient enemy, he had to admit there was nothing in his life as a bond trader that equaled the thrill of herding his prey into a wall of waiting redcoats.

  Three

  Duncan’s world exploded into gunfire, smoke, and charging horses—horses?—and the grass turned thicker and taller under his feet, tripping him.

  For an instant, he thought he would fall, but he caught himself and kept running. The Senecas had disappeared, as had the bridge. Only the wall of musket-toting redcoats remained, but they weren’t lying in wait to ambush the Senecas. They were ambushing him.

  “No, no,” he shouted. “I’m with—”

  Something whistled by his head, and a pellet of dirt flew skyward. Blood pounding, he hit the ground and rolled. A terrified scream split his eardrums, and he realized with an embarrassed jolt the scream was his.

  One of the bloody redcoats loaded his gun with a real charge!

  But the balls kept coming and the dirt kept flying. Duncan rolled to a stop near a stump. He was under real fire from real muskets or, worse, someone with an automatic weapon. A shot split the stump, and he nearly shrieked again.

  With heart ready to burst, he jumped to his feet and flew for the trees. He was dimly aware of the clash of swords, the grunts of men, and the stench of powder. This was like no reenactment he had ever seen. Men were screaming. A man was biting the arm of another soldier. Another was kicking a fallen Scot.

  He was nearly to the trees when the sight of a beautiful young woman on a rearing horse brought him to a stop. It looked as if she had lost hold of the reins, and he wondered if he—anyone—should—

  “Don’t move.”

  A redcoat with bushy brows and a head like a jar advanced on him, bayonet ready.

  The hell with that. Duncan ran to the left, hurtling over limbs and roots, and the soldier ran in parallel. He could hear the man’s labored breathing behind him. He saw the clearing ahead and realized if he ran any farther, he’d be in plain sight of the men with real shot. Wheeling in a half circle, he withdrew his pistol and cocked it. The man froze.

  Don’t just stand there, you idiot! Turn and run!

  The man’s eyes flicked left and right. Duncan couldn’t wait. He took three long strides and fired.

  The soldier was so stunned he dropped his weapon. When the smoke cleared, he was slapping his chest, searching for a wound. Duncan took three more strides and brought his fist into the man’s chin. The man spun in a circle and went down.

  The only shot I’ll need. Ha!

  He grabbed the man’s bayonet, which looked eerily new, with oiled joints and polished metal. But the rivets lacked the precise machining of those on the usual reenactor weapons. A shiver went down Duncan’s back.

  He took a deep breath and scanned the battlefield. It wasn’t the triangle of green at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers Pittsburghers called “the Point.” The rivers were gone, the city skyline was gone, and the parkland into which he’d been herding the Senecas was gone. Nothing looked the same. It was as if he’d been lifted bodily from downtown Pittsburgh and placed in the untamed hills of…well, Scotland.

  The skirmish seemed to have slowed a bit. Occasional shots rang out, and a handful of Scots in the distance were aiding what appeared to be a fallen comrade. Another Scot arrived, and the men made an opening for him. Duncan’s stomach rose: the shaft of an arrow was sticking out of the thigh of the man on the ground.

  Duncan considered himself a brave man, but he was losing control over a barely reined-in fear. Where the hell was he?

  A howl of pain made him turn. Just beyond the trees, a soldier in a sweat-stained cap had his knee on the back of a boy and was twisting the boy’s arm to the point of breaking.

  “How’s that, you filthy turd? Lot of good that bow arm will do you when I’m done.”

  Tears streaming down his face, the boy cried, “No, no! Stop! Oh, please!”

  The boy’s scream turned shrill and Duncan charged. He flew into the soldier’s back, and both of them landed hard on the ground.

  Duncan yelled, “Run,” and the boy wrenched himself free. The soldier scrabbled for his knife, and Duncan took the man by the arm. “You think it’s fun to beat up someone half your size? Not so fun when it’s me, is it?”

  The knife flew free. Duncan kneed him in the stones and lurched for the blade. Duncan had grown up on the streets of Edinburgh and knew how to fight. But the redcoat had no scruples either and thrust his boot hard into Duncan’s kidney. Duncan landed in the grass.

  With stars in his eyes, Duncan climbed to his feet. The soldier grabbed the knife, triumphant. Duncan reached for his pistol. Hell, if it worked before…

  “Get up,” Duncan said.

  The soldier eyed him dubiously.

  “Get up and drop the knife. Do it!”

  The soldier lumbered to his feet, still clearly weighing the possibility of using it. It was a good eight inches long, sharpened to a deadly point. If he decided to throw it, the blank in Duncan’s pistol wasn’t going to be much help.

  Duncan raised the pistol and cocked it. “I’m about to put this ball through your heart.”

  “Put it down!”

  A woman’s voice came from behind him. He turned. It was the woman who’d been unseated from her mount. The horse was firmly under her control now, and she held a bow and arrow pointed expertly at the soldier behind him.

  Gunpowder grime streaked her cheeks, and a mass of dark curls fluttered in the breeze.

  “You heard the lady,” Duncan said, giving her a quick nod of gratitude.

  “I’m talking to you, sir.”

  Duncan blinked. The arrow wasn’t pointed at the soldier. It was pointed at him.

  The soldier snickered.

  “But I—”

  “Shut up,” she said. “Drop the pistol.”

  “Let me finish.”

  The twang was like a whip crack. A searing pain ripped across his shoulder and the pistol flipped in the air like he’d been juggling it. “Jesus!”

  The pistol landed with a thud and Duncan clapped his hand over his shoulder to staunch the stream of blood.

  In a flash, she had another arrow nocked. This one was for the soldier.

  “Private,” she said, “I’d like you to tell your sergeant that the Kerrs wish you and your men no harm. We have been blessed today. No one has been killed in the skirmish. Your men stumbled into Kerr lands, and you must not do it again. Do you understand?”

  The soldier spit and fingered his knife. “I don’t take orders from women.”

  The arrow flew through the air with a whistle and carried the soldier’s cap from his head to the oak behind him, where, with a ringing thwap, it burrowed itself in the wood.

  Duncan heard the trickle of water and realized the man was pissing himself. He checked his own thighs. Dry, thank God.

  A third arrow, already nocked, was aimed at the man’s groin.

  “Are you the soldier who can carry this message to your sergeant for me,” she said, “or shall I find another?”

  The man’s eyes bulged. “I’l
l tell him.”

  “You are most kind. Thank you. You may go.”

  The soldier ran, stopping only to look back when he was safely out of arrow range.

  Duncan’s shoulder felt like it had been set on fire, but a reluctant look showed only a straight, clean flesh wound. The woman gazed at him with a mix of curiosity and something close to fear, though she did her best to hide it. He imagined that was pretty close to the look on his face as well.

  She dismounted and walked around him as if she were circling a panther. The bow was at her side, but the arrow remained nocked. He took a step toward her and she jumped back.

  “I mean you no harm,” he said.

  She snorted. “I imagine not—unless you are going to swat me to death with your wooden sword.”

  He flushed. “I had a pistol too, you know.”

  “Spent. I saw you fire it. How are you…feeling?”

  The way she said it made it clear she knew he didn’t belong here. He didn’t know how she knew. Perhaps she’d seen him “appear,” or more likely he looked out of place, but in either case he felt some small sense of relief that he wasn’t facing this bewildering experience alone.

  “A bit odd,” he said with honesty. A twenty and the pen from his sporran had fallen on the ground, and he hurried to scoop them up. “I could have done without the arrow.”

  “I’ll take that as a thank you.”

  “I’m not sure why.”

  “The man was going to kill you. He hit one of my clansmen with the same knife at thirty paces before he cornered you.”

  His beautiful black Montblanc was ruined. The gold clip and nib were gone. “Well, my shoulder hurts like hell.”

  Her face softened. She came closer, and he lowered his shirt so she could look.

  “Your arms don’t look that strong,” she said. “And the way you were carrying on doesn’t give me a lot of hope that you’re a man of ideas.”

  He jerked the linen back over his shoulder. “Thank you very much. Were you aware that that soldier was about to break a boy’s arm?”

  “I was. The soldiers did not come here to attack the Kerrs. My job was to bring the matter to an end as quickly as possible—something I thought I’d accomplished until I found you trying to start things up again with the private. You can’t stay here.”