“Ian?” called his uncle softly. “Where are ye, lad? What’s amiss?”

He stood up, but a sheet of blinding white came down inside his eyes and he staggered. Uncle Jamie caught him by the arm, and set him down on a stool.

“What is it, lad?” His vision clearing, he could see his uncle in the light from the door, rifle in one hand, his face looking concerned but humorous as he glanced toward the open window. He sniffed deeply. “Not a skunk, I suppose.”

“Aye, well, I suppose it’s one thing or the other,” Ian said, touching his head gingerly. “Either Rollo’s gone after a painter, or he’s treed Auntie’s cat.”

“Oh, aye. He’d fare better wi’ the painter.” His uncle set the rifle down and went to the window. “Shall I close the shutter, or d’ye need the air, lad? You’re that bit peaked.”

“I feel peaked,” Ian admitted. “Aye, leave it, if ye will, Uncle.”

“Shall ye rest, Ian?”

He hesitated. His stomach still lurched uneasily and he felt very much that he would like to lie down again—but the surgery made him uneasy, with its strong smells and the glints here and there of tiny blades and other mysterious and painful things. Uncle Jamie seemed to guess the trouble, for he bent and got a hand under Ian’s elbow.

“Come along, lad. Ye can sleep upstairs in a proper bed, if ye dinna mind Major MacDonald in the other.”

“I dinna mind,” he said, “but I’ll stay here, I think.” He gestured toward the window, not wanting to nod and bother his head again. “Rollo will likely be back soon.”

Uncle Jamie didn’t argue with him, something he was grateful for. Women fussed. Men just got on with it.

His uncle boosted him unceremoniously back into his bed, covered him up, then began rootling about in the dark, in search of the rifle he had put down. Ian began to feel that perhaps he could do with just a wee bit of fuss, after all.

“Could ye get me a cup o’ water, Uncle Jamie?”

“Eh? Oh, aye.”

Auntie Claire had left a jug of water close to hand. There was the comfortable sound of glugging liquid, and then the rim of a pottery cup held to his mouth, his uncle’s hand at his back to keep him upright. He didn’t need it, but didn’t object; the touch was warm and comforting. He hadn’t realized how chilled he was from the night air, and shivered briefly.

“All right, laddie?” Uncle Jamie murmured, his hand tightening on Ian’s shoulder.

“Aye, fine. Uncle Jamie?”

“Mphm?”

“Did Auntie Claire tell ye about—about a war? One coming, I mean. With England.”

There was a moment’s silence, his uncle’s big form gone still against the light from the door.

“She has,” he said, and took away his hand. “Did she tell you?”

“No, Cousin Brianna did.” He lay down on his side, careful of his tender head. “D’ye believe them?”

There was no hesitation this time.

“Aye, I do.” It was said with his uncle’s usual dry matter-of-factness, but something in it prickled the hairs on the back of Ian’s neck.

“Oh. Well, then.”

The goose-down pillow was soft under his cheek, and smelled of lavender. His uncle’s hand touched his head, smoothed the ruffled hair back from his face.

“Dinna fash yourself about it, Ian,” he said softly. “There’s time, yet.”

He picked up the gun and left. From where he lay, Ian could see across the dooryard and above the trees where they dropped from the edge of the Ridge, past the slope of Black Mountain, and on into the black sky beyond, thick with stars.

He heard the back door open, and Mrs. Bug’s voice, rising high above the others.

“They’re no to hame, sir,” she was saying, breathless. “And the hoose is dark, no fire in the hearth. Wherever might they go, this time o’ night?”

He wondered dimly who was gone, but it didn’t seem to matter much. If it was trouble, Uncle Jamie would deal with it. The thought was comforting; he felt like a small boy, safe in bed, hearing his father’s voice outside, talking to a tenant in the cold dark of a Highland dawn.

Warmth spread slowly over him beneath the quilt, and he slept.



THE MOON WAS beginning to rise when they set out, and a good thing, too, Brianna thought. Even with the big, lopsided gold orb sailing up out of a cradle of stars and shedding its borrowed radiance over the sky, the trail beneath their feet was invisible. So were their feet, drowned in the absolute black of the forest at night.

Black, but not quiet. The giant trees rustled overhead, small things squealed and snuffled in the dark, and now and then the silent flutter of a bat passed close enough to startle her, as though part of the night had suddenly come loose and taken wing under her nose.

“The Minister’s Cat is an apprehensive cat?” Roger suggested, as she gasped and clutched at him in the wake of one such leather-winged visitation.

“The Minister’s Cat is an … appreciative cat,” she replied, squeezing his hand. “Thank you.” They’d likely end up sleeping on their cloaks in front of the McGillivrays’ fire, instead of cozily tucked up in their own bed—but at least they’d have Jemmy.

He squeezed back, his hand bigger and stronger than hers, very reassuring in the dark.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I want him, too. It’s a night to have your family all together, safe in one place.”

She made a small sound in her throat, acknowledgment and appreciation, but wanted to keep up the conversation, as much to keep the sense of connection with him as because it would keep the dark at bay.

“The Minister’s Cat was a very eloquent cat,” she said delicately. “At the—the funeral, I mean. For those poor people.”

Roger snorted; she saw the brief curl of his breath, white on the air.

“The Minister’s Cat was a highly embarrassed cat,” he said. “Your father!”

She smiled, since he couldn’t see her.

“You did really well,” she said mildly.

“Mmphm,” he said, with another brief snort. “As for eloquence … if there was any, it was none of mine. All I did was quote bits of some psalm—I couldna even tell ye which it was.”

“It didn’t matter. Why did you pick—what you said, though?” she asked, curious. “I sort of thought you’d say the Lord’s Prayer, or maybe the Twenty-Third Psalm—everybody knows that one.”

“I thought I would, too,” he admitted. “I meant to. But when I came to it …” He hesitated, and she saw in memory those raw, cold mounds, and shivered, smelling soot. He tightened his grasp on her hand, and drew her closer, tucking the hand into the crook of his elbow.

“I don’t know,” he said gruffly. “It just seemed—more suitable, somehow.”

“It was,” she said quietly, but didn’t pursue the subject, choosing instead to steer the conversation into a discussion of her latest engineering project, a hand pump to raise water from the well.

“If I had something to use for pipe, I could get water into the house, easy as anything! I’ve already got most of the wood I need for a nice cistern, if I can get Ronnie to cooper it for me—so we can shower with rainwater, at least. But hollowing out tree limbs”—the method employed for the small amount of piping used for the pump—“it would take me months to manage enough just to get from the well to the house, let alone the stream. And there’s not a chance of getting any rolled copper. Even if we could afford any, which we can’t, bringing it up from Wilmington would be—” She threw her free hand up in frustration at the monumental nature of the undertaking.

He considered that for a bit, the chuff of their shoes on the rocky trail a comforting rhythm.

“Well, the ancient Romans did it with concrete; the recipe’s in Pliny.”

“I know. But it takes a particular kind of sand, which we don’t happen to have. Likewise, quicklime, which we likewise don’t have. And—”

“Aye, but what about clay?” he interrupted. “Did ye see that plate at Hilda’s wedding? The big brown and red one, with the beautiful patterns?”