Midnight Honor

those had passed, had run across the moor and joined their Highland clansmen. Worsham had shot one such man just as he was about to hand off Pulteney's regimental colors to a kinsman in the Jacobite ranks.
    The MacKintosh contingent was a fine example of this attrition. Most had deserted on the march from Edinburgh, but of the handful who remained to take the field that day, not one had returned to his regiment. Their chief, Angus Moy, had not been seen since forming up on the field, and Worsham sincerely hoped, for the bastard's own sake, that he was lying among the dead on Falkirk Moor.
    He closed his eyes against the sharpening agony in his arm and reached into the pocket of his waistcoat for the small packet of powder the surgeon had given him to dull the pain. He had only taken a few grains the first time, cautioned that too much would render him so free of pain he would be unconscious. He measured out more this time, holding it on his tongue until he could reach one-handed for a flask of wine confiscated from one of the condemned men. The powder was bitter and it required several swallows to wash away the worst of the taste. What remained was a dry metallic taint that coated the back of his throat, not unlike the taste of blood.
    And, oddly enough, not unlike the aftertaste left by the dinner wine served to them the previous evening at Callendar House.
    He dismissed the thought, attributing it to his own state of near exhaustion. He looked into the swollen face of one of the last men to stop twitching and recognized him as the young corporal who polished his boots each night.
    Now that was a genuine waste, for he had been the only man able to polish the boots to a high gloss.

Chapter Seventeen
    U pward of three hundred Hanoverian prisoners were taken at Falkirk; nearly twice that many lay dead or wounded. On the Jacobite side, there were fewer than eighty casualties all told, but with the weather turning sour and Hawley's army retreating hastily to Edinburgh, it once again became incumbent upon Lord George and the chiefs to convince the prince his force was still vulnerable.
    Lord George had implored Charles Stuart to send his troops after the English, but the prince, taking the advice of O'Sullivan instead, decided that the retaking of Stirling Castle, which had been under siege since the Jacobites had departed Glasgow, would be far more beneficial to morale than chasing after a defeated army. Better, he said from his sickbed, to consolidate their victory at Falkirk by driving the rest of the government troops out of Stirling and Perth, thereby reclaiming control of the Lowlands south of the Grampian mountains.
    Lord George disagreed as violently as he dared, but to no avail. He could only vent his frustration in private, then get reeling drunk at the squandering of such a hard-won opportunity to crush their enemy—one that might not come again without paying a much steeper price. He understood, where the prince and his insufferable Irish advisor did not, that theLowlands had never been receptive to the Stuart cause. They could waste weeks trying to take the impregnable castle at Stirling—weeks that would be better spent in the Highlands, where most of the clans were sympathetic to the prince and it would be possible to strengthen their army, not weaken it.
    Moreover, the vast tracts of mountain ranges cut by lochs and hostile sweeps of frozen moorland would not appeal to the English for a winter campaign; weather and terrain would discourage pursuit until at least the spring, when the Jacobites would have had time to regroup.
    For Anne's part, she was disappointed to say the least, having come this far only to be told they were likely turning around and going back to Invernesshire. At the same time she was elated and vicariously delighted at the thought of marching home with an army of thousands to oust Lord Loudoun and reclaim the capital city for the prince.
    The rest of the clan chiefs, men like Lochiel and the MacDonalds of Keppoch, had their own reasons for wanting to return to the Highlands. In their absence, the English had strengthened their positions at Fort William and Fort Augustus, placing heavy garrisons at either end of the Great Glen, and with the ancestral homes of the Camerons and MacDonalds located in the middle, it was urgent to send relief. News from the remote regions of Lochaber had been sporadic at best, but the effects of such a harsh winter could prove devastating. Many of the