Page 71 of Highland Crown
Jean sat on a bench, her token in hand, her eyes closed, her lips moving. Isabella shared her old friend’s worry. At this very moment, Cinaed could be fighting to free John Gordon. She wanted to sit beside her, hold her hand, and tell her that all would be well. But her fears wouldn’t allow her to sit still. She touched the ring on her finger and joined Carmichael at the window.
The crackling energy of a summer storm just to the north hung in the air, and Isabella breathed it in. Many speakers were scheduled for today. She hoped the rain would hold off.
“Those Six Acts passed by Parliament last year make public gatherings of this type illegal,” the surgeon said. “But so far, the local magistrates and the mounted soldiers from Fort George are behaving admirably.”
She knew about the laws. The deaths at Peterloo and Paisley and Glasgow and Edinburgh were fresh in her mind. But she’d also come to respect the power Searc wielded in Inverness. Looking out the window, she recognized some of his men’s faces, intent and serious, mixed with those folks marching to their destinations.
Far ahead, a banner was raised—in itself, an illegal act that could provoke the authorities into responding—but it was quickly pulled down by some of Searc’s men. Isabella imagined them thinking deals had to be made, they were in control, but they were not invincible.
A knock on the door in the other room took Mr. Carmichael away. Isabella thought of Cinaed again. He’d promised to come directly here once John Gordon was freed.
Isabella looked over her shoulder at Jean and hoped her friend could handle whatever condition her nephew was in. She’d tended to many who’d undergone the torture the British called “questioning.” Their injuries were too often horrifying.
Carmichael was coming back into the room with another man at his heels. Isabella turned around as the voices approached. Her gaze fixed on the man accompanying the surgeon, and he saw her as well.
“Mrs. Mackintosh, may I present one of our distinguished speakers, come from far away.” Carmichael turned to the visitor. “Mr. Adams, the head of the Safety Committee of the Association of Operative Weavers in Edinburgh.”
Isabella met the small, wiry man’s grey eyes and recalled all the times that William Adams had sat at her dinner table and huddled with Archibald afterwards. She remembered how, as one of the leaders of the radicalreformers, he knew of all the occasions when she’d cared for those poor souls who’d recently been freed from prison. She thought he understood that she had both discretion and courage.
Isabella had never expected William Adams to be the one who’d put a bounty on her head and call for her death, thinking she had betrayed them or fearing she would.
“Mr. Adams and I have met,” she said coldly.
Fourteen sets of eyes were fixed on the red-coated soldiers and the wagon moving steadily along the coach road. Cinaed raised his hand in the air, waiting for the right moment.
At the front of the procession, an officer rode beside a sergeant who was pointing in the direction of Nairn, some four miles distant. A driver and a soldier armed with a musket sat on the heavy transport wagon. A red canvas bonnet enclosed the wagon bed, and an iron band secured the doors in the rear. John Gordon had to be in there. Behind the wagon, six more soldiers rode along, less interested in the possibility of an ambush than a story one of them was telling.
Cinaed had already told Blair and his men what needed to happen after the attack. Gordon needed to be taken to Dalmigavie Castle. Cinaed hoped tomorrow he could bring Isabella and Jean there as well.
Before leaving Inverness, Cinaed told Searc that he was attacking a British prisoner transfer today. He felt it was in everyone’s best interest to be aware that retribution might follow. Deals had been made, magistrates and a few key British officers had been paid to head off any attack on the protestors. Cinaed feared his actions nowwould jeopardize the older man’s invulnerability, but Searc had shrugged off his concerns.
The procession reached them and Cinaed signaled to attack.
Storming out from the line of trees, the Highlanders thundered across the narrow space separating them from the road. Their battle cries pierced the air, and the officer at the front drew his pistol from the saddle holster. But before he could discharge his weapon, Cinaed fired, knocking him from his horse. In an instant, the riders had the escort surrounded, pistols pointed. The soldiers raised their hands, choosing to surrender with grace rather than fight. Only the guard on the wagon stood and raised his musket, but he immediately laid it down.
The soldiers never knew what hit them. The battle was over as quickly as it started.
While Blair relieved the sergeant of his weapons, Cinaed dismounted beside the officer, who was squirming in pain on the road. The ball had struck the man in the wrist.
“You’ll live,” Cinaed told him, picking up the pistol. “Who has the key to the wagon?”
“Bugger off, Scotch scum,” he said through gritted teeth.
The officer howled when Blair stepped on his hand.
“Not the most gentlemanly of responses,” Cinaed remarked. “Care to try again?”
The man motioned to the sergeant, who pulled the keys from his belt.
As Cinaed reached the back of the wagon, he found the mounted soldiers and the driver sitting in the roadwith two of Blair’s men watching them. The horses were being strung together for the journey into the mountains.
Prepared for any unexpected company, he unlocked the door. He needn’t have been concerned. The guard riding with the prisoners was kneeling with his musket on the wagon bed and his hands in the air.
Two other men were in the wagon, and neither were in very good condition. Cinaed climbed in, quickly released them from their shackles, and handed them out into the Highlanders’ waiting arms.
“Which of you is John Gordon?” he asked when they were both on the ground.
One of the prisoners—the one in worse shape—nodded. His curly brown hair was mottled with blood from gashes in his scalp, his torn shirt was bloodied, and one side of his face was swollen badly. Only one eye was open. His arm had been broken, and a splint had been half-heartedly applied.
