Susanna Kearsley - The Winter Sea

To his left there lay a boy who had been dead before he fell and was released from fear and suffering, but on the ground to Moray’s right a soldier in the colors of the Royal Irish regiment was trying now without success to roll upon his side, his grey face sweating with the effort.

Moray told him, low, ‘Keep still.’

The words burned fire within his chest, but somehow he found strength to roll his head to meet the stranger’s wide, uncomprehending eyes.

‘Keep still,’ he said again. ‘Ye’ll bleed to death, and no one will be coming yet awhile.’

He saw the man’s eyes calm, and gain their sense again. A man his own age, and a soldier like himself, for all that they were enemies. It was a trick of fate, thought Moray looking at their uniforms, that they had faced each other on opposing sides—his own brigade was Irish also, though it served the French king and King James, and not Queen Anne.

The stranger lay his head back with a sigh. ‘’Twas useless trying, anyway. I’ve no more feeling in my legs. Are they yet there?’

Impassive, Moray angled his own gaze towards the blood-soaked ground beneath the other’s boots, and answered, ‘Aye.’

The man’s eyes closed a moment, either from the pain or in relief, and then he opened them again as if determined not to drift. ‘You are a Scotsman, like myself. Why do you fight for France?’

There was a pause. Moray was not inclined to talk, but he himself could feel the deadly lure of drowsiness, and knew the conversation would help keep him conscious. Help him stay alive. He said, ‘I fight for James.’

‘For James.’

‘Aye.’

‘I have never met a Jacobite. I thought you all had horns.’ The smile was faint, as though it hurt him, and he coughed. ‘Where do you come from then, in Scotland?’

‘Perthshire.’

‘I am come from Ulster now, but I was born in Scotland, near Kirkcudbright in the Western Shires.’

A breeze had swept by Moray like the memory of a touch. He said, ‘My wife is of the Western Shires.’ He had not spoken yet to any person of his marriage, but from the glimpse he’d had of this man’s wounds he knew that little harm could come of speaking now.

The other soldier in surprise asked, ‘Is she Presbyterian?’

And Moray was not certain how Sophia would herself have met that question, she who claimed to have no faith yet prayed when no one else was watching, so he simply said, ‘She is my wife.’

‘I have no wife.’ The other man was drifting once again. He shook himself and said, ‘My brother did. He was a cooper in Kirkcudbright, and he has a widow and a son who live there still, though he himself did die before the summer. He was all the kin that I had left. If I die here, there will be none to mourn me.’

‘There will be your nephew.’

‘I have never met my nephew, nor his mother.’ And the smile this time was sad enough that Moray felt a stirring of compassion for the man, enough to make him keep the other talking in the hope that it might somehow ease his suffering, if nothing more.

And so the two had lain there through the afternoon and on into the evening, holding death at bay by telling tales to one another of their boyhood days, and of their lives as soldiers, and though Moray had more often listened than he’d talked, he still had done his part. But in the end, as he’d already known, it was no use.

By nightfall there was no one left but him to face the darkness, and the screams that marked the killing and the plunder of the wounded by the soldiers yet alive. He lay as dead and felt the cold creep through him as he fought a battle with delirium. At times he thought he must be truly dead, and then he’d draw a deeper breath so that the pain would tell him otherwise. And once he closed his eyes and for that moment he was back again at Slains, beside Sophia, lying warm against her body in the bed. It was so real he felt her breathing, and he tried to hold her closer but the darkness pulled him back again, and shivering he woke.

Someone was coming.

He could hear the stealthy movement of their legs against the underbrush, and instantly he closed his eyes and made his breaths as shallow as he could. The steps went past him. Stopped. Returned.

And then somebody kneeled and placed a hand against his throat.

A voice called out, ‘This man is yet alive!’

A voice he recognized, and with it came a light so bright that Moray knew he must be dead. His eyes came open cautiously. The woods were still in darkness, but a torch was being held nearby, and by its light he clearly saw the man who bent above him, dark eyes clouded with concern.

The young king’s face was pale and weary, and his own arm had been bandaged, but the pain that showed upon his features was not for himself. He leaned in closer.

‘Colonel Moray, can you hear me?’

It was just a dream, thought Moray, so he answered, ‘Aye, Your Majesty.’

And smiling went to sleep.

He was aware of being carried, and a softer brightness and the taste of something bitter, and of gentle hands that cleaned his wounds and not-so-gentle hands that bound them, while he floated with the pain.

He woke to voices.

Or at least, he thought he woke, though when he heard the voices he was not so certain, for the first belonged to Colonel Graeme, who should not have been there. ‘Aye, I’ll see to it, Your Majesty.’

And the king, who could not possibly have been there, said, ‘My mother will not soon forgive me if he were to die.’

‘He will not die. He’s half a Graeme, and we’re not such easy men to kill.’ A pause, and then, ‘Your arm does bleed.’

‘The devil take my arm!’ There was a sound of movement, and when next the young king spoke his voice was changed, as though he’d turned away. ‘Have not you seen the field? The woods? What is my arm compared to that? Compared to what this man has suffered for my family?’

Very quietly the colonel said, ‘He’d suffer it again, and more, Your Majesty.’

‘I will not have it. Not from him, nor anyone. No crown is worth what I have witnessed here at Malplaquet. What is a crown?’ His words were harsh. ‘A bit of metal set with stone, and by what right should I command a man to give his life that I may wear it?’

‘By the right God gave ye when he made ye king.’ The colonel said that calmly, stating fact. ‘There’s not a true Scot standing would not do whatever ye did ask, and for no other reason than ye are our king, and we do love ye for it. And ’tis not ourselves alone. I have been told your health was drunk afore the battle in the English camps as well, and they did take pride in your conduct on the battlefield the same as we did. Ye did lead the charge a dozen times upon that field, and I can promise ye, Your Majesty, there’s none among your men would say ye had not earned the right to wear that crown.’

There was silence for a moment. Then more movement, as though both men had come closer to the bed.

The king remarked, ‘If he does live, he will not fight again.’

‘He’ll find another way to serve ye.’

Moray heard no more than that, for he was sliding back into the darkness. When he surfaced next the pain within his chest was agony. He had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out.

‘There, lad,’ said Colonel Graeme, close beside him. Moray felt a cup pressed to his lips. He drank. The brandy burned, but helped to take his focus from the effort of his breathing. He lay back again, and looked around the room. He did not know where they had taken him—it looked to be a private house or cottage, plainly furnished, with bare walls and floors and curtains of white lace that let the daylight through to touch the wooden chair where Colonel Graeme had been sitting with his feet propped on the bed—the dent still showed upon the blankets. Moray’s gaze, disoriented, fell upon the red coat that was hanging from that chair, and he inhaled enough air to speak. ‘Not mine.’