Page 80 of Highland Crown
And he’d be waiting.
“By the devil, Cinaed. Look.” Blair was pointing toward Inverness.
An hour ago, the skies over the city had been grey. Now, however, beyond the canal and the River Ness, smoke was rising, thick and black as the fires of hell.
The Maggot was ablaze, and it seemed to Isabella the end of the world was upon them.
Wounded men and women, hacking and coughing, were staggering in faster than she could find space for them to sit, never mind lie down. Thankfully, Mr. Carmichael had joined her earlier in the day, and the surgeon was working relentlessly to treat those in the worst pain.
She’d been expecting saber cuts and broken bones, but burns were by far the most prevalent injury. Gathering together a few of the local women who’d stayed to help, she sent them off to fetch pitchers of water. The best way to help those with burns was to cool what was left of the charred skin and flesh. She saw Carmichael carrying in two buckets of water himself.
“How close is it to us?” she asked him.
“Roofs of buildings bordering the Green are on fire.”
“How did it start?”
A group of coughing children came in, and the surgeon motioned to them to come closer.
“It’s Hudson’s Hussars,” he replied. “They’re burning the town.”
Her heart clawed its way into her throat. Isabella looked at the crowd of people needing help all around her. She didn’t know what they would do if the fire reached this building.
“Where is Cinaed?”
“I’m afraid Hudson saw through his plan,” the surgeon said in a low voice. “The blackguard came here instead of going out to Clachnaharry.”
A young boy standing in the middle of the crowded floor began to cry out hysterically for his mother. Isabella went to the child and lifted him in her arms. Taking another little one by the arm, she hurried them to a corner where a group of bairns huddled around Jean.
Her friend opened her arms, and both boys crawled onto her lap.
A man cried out in pain on the far side of the room. Two young ones coughed dreadfully as they tried to tend to their unconscious mother. Calls for help surrounded her. Isabella moved from one person to the next. A sip of wine. Positioning a bucket of water for three people to share and immerse their burned hands and arms in. Soaking cloths in pitchers of wine, hoping it would be sufficient until more water arrived.
The smell of smoke was getting stronger. She feared the fire had reached them. Isabella rushed to the door and stepped out into the lane. The sky had disappeared, replaced by a billowing charcoal blanket. The roar of flames competed with the shouts and screams of people in pain. The report of a gun pierced the air. Where the lane ended at the river, she saw people filling buckets and moving back toward the blaze.
A horse stamped and neighed behind her, and Isabella spun around. In front of her, mounted atop the wheeling animal, a blue-jacketed officer sat, seemingly oblivious to the chaos.
Hudson had come for her.
Isabella glanced at the door to the malt house where her patients lay.
Unwilling to lead him to them, she ran in the opposite direction, toward Searc’s gate.
Before Cinaed and his men even reached the bridge across the River Ness, he could see the smoke and flames wererising above the crowded buildings and alleys around Maggot Green.
As they spurred their horses through the wild-eyed crowds streaming out of the Maggot, Cinaed worried about Isabella. He’d been able to see the fires had not yet reached the lane between Searc’s house and the malt house where he’d left her, but he feared it might just be a matter of time.
They reached the smoke-filled green and found panic and pandemonium everywhere. A light rain began to fall, adding to the chaos. The streets were choked with abandoned carts loaded with household goods. Some still had terrified goats and cows tethered to them. People were running in every direction. Unattended children wandered in the smoke and rubble. Near the distillery, the entire block was aflame.
It was clear the fires had been started in different parts of the Maggot. Several lines of courageous residents were trying to pass buckets of water hand to hand, but their efforts were being thwarted. Blue-jacketed soldiers on horseback were charging back and forth across the green, swinging their sabers and scattering the lines. At the river, a line of Hussars was forming to clear out those trying to reach the Ness with their buckets.
This was a nightmare come to life. These were his people, and he would not stand aside.
Signaling to his Highlanders, Cinaed drew his sword and they charged.
CHAPTER24
And come he slow, or come he fast,
