Midnight Honor

frustrated.
    “I was just trying to stay warm and dry,” she said with a faint smile. “If that would be considered important.”
    “I vow both sensations have become completely foreign to me, so yes. I would regard both as being crucial. Come in, my dear, come in.” Lord George waved her closer to the small brazier that was glowing near the center of the tent. “Warm yourself. I'm afraid there isn't even a dry crust to offer, but lest we be accused of having forsaken our manners altogether,” he addressed one of the other men, “have we something the Lady Anne might sit on?”
    Since no one else was sitting and they were surely twice as tired as she, Anne shook her head. “I'm fine, really, I—” She lifted her hand in a staying gesture as the Highlander standing with MacKail turned and she saw his face.
    “Ahh.” Lord George followed her startled gaze. “Yes, I suppose that was cruel of us not to warn you beforehand, but even a whisper these days seems to spread like a roar. Angus … come and let your wife pinch you so she knows you are real.”
    Angus Moy hesitated as long as it took him to give his bonnet a twist in his hands, then came forward into the brighter light. Since Anne had seen him last, the circles around his eyes had deepened, his face was shadowed with stubble, and the rags he wore would have been better suited to a beggar.
    “You look well, Colonel,” he murmured.
    “You look dreadful, Captain. Have they no barbers in the king's army?”
    That caused an eyebrow or two to lift in surprise, since thelast thing she was expected to notice was the unkempt shagginess of his hair. Another man's wife might have remarked first upon the long, ragged cut that ran from just below his left ear and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. The wound was no more than an hour or two old, still leaking fresh blood where it was chafed by the wool of his plaid.
    “Perhaps you would like that seat now?” Lord George asked.
    She still had her knees, but experience told her that her husband's presence in camp did not bode well. “Thank you. Yes.”
    “You have undoubtedly been apprised of the reason Cumberland kept his army at home today?”
    “Someone mentioned it was the duke's birthday?”
    “Indeed. He gifted his army with a day of warming their toes by their fires, toasting their valiant general's health with half a pint of brandy apiece. Would that I could even remember the taste of fine French brandy, never mind think to spill it down the throat of a common batman. Ah, well. Envy does not win us battles, does it? The way I see it, gentlemen—and Colonel—is that we should thank whatever God we pray to that the battle did not happen today. More men arrived late this afternoon, and Keppoch sends word he is but a few hours away. What is more, the duke may inadvertently have given us the opportunity we need to turn this fiasco into a victory. See here,” he said, leaning over the map again. A long, slender finger touched on the black marking that denoted their present position, then followed a smudge of charcoaled lines to where a second mark identified Nairn.
    “I have been told that this is in reality a long wynde that follows the river well to the south of Drummossie and comes out surprisingly close to Cumberland's camp.”
    He looked up for confirmation and Anne realized it was one of the maps she had drawn of the area. “Yes, my lord. But it is low ground, doubtless flooded with the spring thaw.”
    “But passable?”
    “Not easily.”
    The general smiled. “Have we done one thing easy thus far? It is my intention to set a proposition before the prince. Iam going to press that we attempt a flanking move of our own, leading the army out by two columns, dispatching one here”—his finger tapped the area east of Nairn—“and one here to the west, thereby taking the English camp between us in a pincer that would allow Cumberland nowhere to retreat but into the sea. If the action is conducted in stealth and surprise, we might just be able to catch them nursing their hangovers and yawning over their morning fires.”
    “A night march along a boggy riverbank?” Lochiel said, frowning. “Christ, but, ma men have gone without sleep for two days as it is.”
    Lord George straightened. “The choice, as I see it, is to draw on our reserves or be prepared to line up on that damned moor again in the morning. The only possible advantage we can hope to gain at this point is surprise,