He sang a line from the song, his voice low and cracked, “Sighing and moaning, on every green loaning, the Flowers of the Forest are all withered away.” James inhaled deeply, letting the title’s meaning hang, punctuated by the shrill cry of the bagpipes. “They say up to ten thousand men died that day. Every hearth in all Scotland felt the devastation, both Highland and Low. King James had been a good man, aye? A noble man, fair and kind.”
“That’s not always enough.” Fear made Magda’s voice waver. It was impossible not to think of her own James, her own good man.
“Aye, but he was braw too,” James said, mistaking her meaning. “He was struck by one arrow and five swords that day, and yet he stood to slay five with his pike. And when that was shattered in his hand, King James took up his sword and slew five more.”
She suddenly felthissword, its hilt cold and hard leaning into her hip, both a reminder of battles he’d fought and a portent of what might come.
“It will begin soon now,” he said. James took her hand in his and traced the lines of her palm. “Once the fight begins, we’ll be on the move. Magda”—he looked in her eyes—“I think it best you return to Montrose—”
“No.” She pulled her hand away and sat up to face him. “I will not leave you. I can’t leave you.” They’d finally reunited, and the prospect of parting again terrified her. She feared for his safety, and for hers apart from him. But mostly she feared the hazy destiny that loomed possible on the horizon. The outcome so nonchalantly described to her, by Walter, at the Met, what felt like a lifetime ago.
“Och, hen, don’t fret so.” Stroking her hair from her eyes, he cupped her chin and kissed her cheeks.
“But you don’t understand, James. Something bad happens. Iknowsomething is going to happen.”
He stilled. “What do you know?”
“I’m not sure when it will happen, just that you get captured. I just don’t know, James.” Magda’s voice grew louder, and she spoke with uncharacteristic intensity. “It could be today or it could be in twenty years, but Walter said you . . .” Her voice hitched. “You get captured and hanged.”
He was quiet for a moment. “And so it may be.” James gave her a quiet smile. “But you’re here now, so I don’t suppose you’ll let that happen, worked into a lather as you are.”
“Don’t joke about it,” she snapped.
“Nay, hen, I’ll not joke.” He took her hand back into his and sat in silence.
“You can’t just leave me,” she said abruptly. “What if I was sent back for a reason? Maybe even to save you?”
He studied her face, and she could tell by the light in his eyes that the prospect of Magda saving him both touched and amused him. But it didn’t matter, she thought, so long as he didn’t abandon her in the middle of seventeenth-century Scotland. To worry over his fate from afar, waiting powerless to hear the possibly dire outcome, wouldn’t be much different than returning home and reading about him in the history books.
“Whatever morbid destiny history once augured was altered when you came to me. I feel it, aye?” He laced his fingers in hers and squeezed hard. “’Tis you, Magda. You’ve changed it all.”
James thumbed tears from her face that she hadn’t realized were there. “Come now, don’t be so melancholy,” he told her. “The first battle comes soon. I’ll keep you close at Blair Castle, and bring you with me when we march on. I can’t know my future, but somehow that is what feels right. Travel with my wife, just like our Irish friends, aye?”
“Yeah, about that wife thing.”
“Och, I know it wasn’t done proper. I’d have us joined before all and sundry, with you in a grand gown and the pipes crying our joy to the skies.” Frustration knitted his brow as he looked into the distance. “I want a proper wedding for you, Magda.”
He looked to her, and she thought she saw an unfamiliar flicker of vulnerability in his eyes.
“If you’ll have me?”
She nodded silently, smiling through the tears that still dampened her face.
James kissed her gently. “It seems I’ve won myself a marquise after all. Magdalen Graham, Marquise of Montrose. And when these troubles are over, we’ll have a true wedding, and it shall be the finest in all Scotland.”
Sighing deeply, he folded his square of cloth and returned it to his sporran. “But first you’d best accustom yourself to those oatcakes, hen. My plan is to harry the Covenanters, up and down and through the Highlands. I’ll not be contented until I see snow on those passes.” He nodded to the Grampian range in the distance. “The Highlanders will welcome a march through the sleet. The Lowland gentry, though, in their heavy cloaks and cobbled shoes, will not.”
He gave a resigned shrug. “So, my love, as for the dried oats, I fear you’ve not seen the last of them.”
She gave him a brave smile, trying to force out all other thoughts. But Walter’s words came to hum at the edges of her mind, faint, like the pipes’ ghostly echo.
Captured. Imprisoned. Hanged.
“But my men grow impatient. You forget, they fight for money, and each day that passes is more coin squandered.” Leslie took a healthy swig of ale. “If they dispersed now, it would take me months to gather a like force.”
Campbell sucked the venison from his teeth, and stared flatly at the general. “’Tis my coin, Leslie, and my decision.”
“But we’ve word that the Royalists stir north of Perth. Graham even now trains an army of men.”
