He looked out over the terrace in satisfaction, toward the meadow that lay beyond Jocasta Cameron Innes’s stables. They were all bedded down in a temporary camp there: twenty-two families, with seventy-six individual souls, four mules, two ponies, fourteen dogs, three pigs, and God only knew how many chickens, kittens, and pet birds, bundled into wicker cages for carrying. He had all the names on a list—animals excluded—dog-eared and crumpled in his pocket. He had several other lists there, as well, scribbled over, crossed out, and amended to the point of illegibility. He felt like a walking Book of Deuteronomy. He also felt like a very large drink.

This was luckily forthcoming; Duncan Innes, Jocasta’s husband, had returned from his own day’s labor and was sitting on the terrace, in company with a cut-glass decanter, from which the rays of the sinking sun struck a mellow amber glow.

“How is it, then, a charaid?” Duncan greeted him genially, gesturing toward one of the basketwork chairs. “Ye’ll take a dram, perhaps?”

“I will, and thanks.”

He sank gratefully into the chair, which creaked amiably beneath his weight. He accepted the glass Duncan handed him, and tossed it back with a brief “Slàinte.”

The whisky burned through the strictures that bound his throat, making him cough, but seeming suddenly to open things, so that the constant faint sense of choking began to leave him. He sipped, grateful.

“Ready to go, are they?” Duncan nodded toward the meadow, where the smoke of campfires hung in a low golden haze.

“Ready as they’ll ever be. Poor things,” Roger added with some sympathy.

Duncan raised one shaggy brow.

“Fish out of water,” Roger amplified, holding out his glass to accept the proffered refill. “The women are terrified, and so are the men, but they hide it better. Ye’d think I was taking them all to be slaves on a sugar plantation.”

Duncan nodded. “Or sell them to Rome to clean the Pope’s shoon,” he said wryly. “I misdoubt most of them had ever smelt a Catholic before embarking. And from the wrinkled noses, they dinna care so much for the scent now, I think. Do they so much as tak’ a dram now and then, d’ye ken?”

“Only medicinally, and only if in actual danger of death, I think.” Roger took a slow, ambrosial swallow and closed his eyes, feeling the whisky warm his throat and curl in his chest like a purring cat. “Meet Hiram yet, did you? Hiram Crombie, the head man of this lot.”

“The wee sour-drap wi’ the stick up his arse? Aye, I met him.” Duncan grinned, his drooping mustache lifting at the end. “He’ll be at supper with us. Best have another.”

“I will, thanks,” said Roger, extending his glass. “Though they’re none of them much for hedonistic pleasure, so far as I can tell. Ye’d think they were all still Covenanters to the bone. The Frozen Chosen, aye?”

Duncan laughed immoderately at that.

“Well, it’s no like it was in my grandsire’s day,” he said, recovering and reaching across for the decanter. “And thank the Lord for that.” He rolled his eyes, grimacing.

“Your grandsire was a Covenanter, then?”

“God, yes.” Shaking his head, Duncan poured a goodly measure, first for Roger, then himself. “A fierce auld bastard, he was. Not that he’d no cause, mind. His sister was stakit to droon, ken?”

“Was—Christ.” He bit his tongue in penance, but was too interested to pay it much mind. “Ye mean—executed by drowning?”

Duncan nodded, eyes on his glass, then took a good gulp and held it for a moment in his mouth before swallowing.

“Margaret,” he said. “Her name was Margaret. Eighteen she was, at the time. Her father and her brother—my grandfather, aye?—they’d fled, after the battle at Dunbar; hid in the hills. The troops came a-hunting them, but she wouldna say where they’d gone—and she had a Bible by her. They tried to make her recant then, but she wouldna do that, either—the women on that side o’ the family, ye might as well talk to a stone,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s no moving them. But they dragged her doon to the shore, her and an auld Covenanter woman from the village, stripped them, and tied them both to stakes at the tide line. Waited there, the crowd o’ them, for the water to come in.”

He took another swallow, not waiting for the taste of it.

“The auld woman went under first; they’d tied her closer to the water—I suppose thinking Margaret would give in, if she saw the auld woman die.” He grunted, shaking his head. “But nay, not a bit of it. The tide rose, and the waves came up ower her. She choked, and she coughed, and her hair loose, hanging over her face, plastered doon like kelp, when the water went out.

“My mither saw it,” he explained, lifting his glass. “She was but seven at the time, but she never forgot. After the first wave, she said, there was the space of three breaths, and the wave came ower Margaret again. And then out … three breaths … and in again once more. And ye couldna see anything then but the swirl of her hair, floating on the tide.”

He raised his glass an inch higher, and Roger lifted his own in involuntary toast. “Jesus,” he said, and it was no blasphemy.

The whisky burned his throat as it went down and he breathed deep, giving thanks to God for the gift of air. Three breaths. It was the single malt of Islay, and the iodine taste of sea and kelp was strong and smoky in his lungs.

“May God give her peace,” he said, his voice rasping.

Duncan nodded, and reached again for the decanter.

“I would suppose she earned it,” he said. “Though they”—he pointed with his chin toward the meadow—“they’d say ’twas none of her doing at all; God chose her for salvation and chose the English to be damned; nay more to be said on the matter.”

The light was fading and the campfires began to glow in the dimness of the meadow beyond the stables. The smoke of them reached Roger’s nose, the scent warm and homelike, but nonetheless adding to the burn in his throat.

“I’ve no found sae much worth dyin’ for, myself,” Duncan said reflectively, then gave one of his quick, rare smiles. “But my grandsire, he’d say it only meant I was chosen to be damned. ‘By the decree of God, for His everlasting glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death.’ He’d say that, whenever anyone spoke of Margaret.”

Roger nodded, recognizing the statement from the Westminster Confession. When was that—1646? 1647? A generation—or two—before Duncan’s grandfather.

“I expect it was easier for him to think her death was God’s will, and nothing to do with him,” Roger said, not without sympathy. “Ye’ll not believe it yourself, then? Predestination, I mean.”

He asked with true curiosity. The Presbyterians of his own time did still espouse predestination as a doctrine—but, a bit more flexible in attitude, tended to soft-pedal the notion of predestined damnation, and not to think too much on the idea that every detail of life was so predestined. Himself? God knew.

Duncan lifted his shoulders, the right rising higher and making him seem momentarily twisted. “God knows,” he said, and laughed. He shook his head, and drained his glass again.

“Nay, I think I don’t. But I wouldna say as much before Hiram Crombie—nor yet yon Christie.” Duncan lifted his chin toward the meadow, where he could see two dark figures, walking side by side toward the house. Arch Bug’s tall, stooped frame was easy to recognize, as was Tom Christie’s shorter, blocky build. He looked pugnacious even in silhouette, Roger thought, making short, sharp gestures as he walked, clearly arguing something with Arch.

“There’d be wicked fights ower it sometimes, in Ardsmuir,” Duncan said, watching the progress of the two figures. “The Catholics took it amiss, to be told they were damned. And Christie and his wee band took the greatest pleasure in telling them so.” His shoulders shook a little in suppressed laughter, and Roger wondered just how much whisky Duncan had had before he came out to the terrace. He’d never seen the older man so jovial.