Midnight Honor

impassively as the major slumped to the floor. He reached over at the last and pulled his dirk out of the sodden red tunic, but Worsham's eyes were already glazing, losing their focus. The body continued to shudder a few moments more, but it was over.
    Angus staggered back, the realization of what he had just done striking him like a blow to the chest. He backed up until he felt the edge of the cot against his knees, then sat down hard, the knife red and dripping in his hand.
    He looked at it, looked at the major, and was grateful he had not had anything to eat all day. Even so, his stomach heaved upward and seemed to lodge at the base of his throat, remaining there until several deep gulps forced it down again.
    Puking would accomplish nothing. He had just killed an officer in the king's army. Not just any officer, either, but the protégé of William, Duke of Cumberland.
    “Aye,” he whispered disgustedly. “I shall avoid Damocles like the plague, my love.”
    Jesus God, what was he to do now? If the body was discovered …
    If the body was discovered, and if the Jacobite army succeeded in its surprise ambush of the camp, it would simply be assumed that Worsham had died in the clash! No one else knew what had happened tonight; their voices had not been raised; no one knew there had been a confrontation.
    Except for Hugh MacDugal, the tracker who had followed him to the Stuart camp. But would he have said anything to anyone else? Or would Worsham have insisted on keeping it between the two of them until he had incontrovertible proof and could drag Angus in chains in front of his peers?
    Proof.
    Worsham was a meticulous note-taker despite his difficulty with the written word. His notes were marked in his own strange code, but if he had kept a record of Angus's movements tonight, and if someone was able to decipher his scratches, it could prove incriminating.
    Angus pushed himself off the cot and forced himself to roll Worsham over onto his back. The eyes were fixed and staring, the centers dilated so that it looked as if two holes had been bored into his skull. Quickly, Angus opened the top three buttons on the bloody tunic and searched the inside pockets. He found nothing there, but when he lifted the flap of the leather belt pouch, he discovered several documents and a small notebook filled with scratched notations. Flicking briefly through the latter, he was able to read enough to know his suspicions were confirmed. Anne's name was there, as was his.
    He opened one of the folded documents, dismayed to see his hands were shaking so badly he could scarcely hold itsteady. It was an official copy of the company's battle orders, and he almost refolded it and returned it to the pouch, except that when he looked again, he saw it was dated that day, April 15, and signed by Lord George Murray.
    It was a copy of the Jacobite battle orders, only there again, something was not quite right. He had seen this same document in the tent at Culloden just a few hours ago; it had been lying on the table with the maps. Angus had read it casually enough, for he had seen a dozen such battle orders over the past few months of military service. Most were worded almost identically—so identically the company commander rarely had to consult the page before reciting the contents aloud.
    Angus read the document a second time, then a third before the hairs on his neck started standing on end.
    It is His Royal Highness's positive orders that every person attach himself to some corps of the army, and remain with that corps night and day, until the battle and pursuit be finally over, and to give no quarter to the Elector's troops on any account whatsoever. This regards the Foot as well as the Horse. The order of battle is to be given to every general officer…
    He did not have to read any further. These were not the orders he had seen on Lord George's table, nor did he believe, when he held the document up to the lamp and turned the wick higher, that it had been signed by his wife's cousin. It was a damned good forgery, but Lord George Murray was left-handed and wrote with a distinct slant—a slant that increased drastically for his signature.
    There were several other folded papers in the pouch and Angus found what he was looking for in the third attempt. It was a copy of the original orders as he had seen them, noticeably absent the unconscionable phrase: …
and to give no quarter to the Elector's troops on any account whatsoever
.
    The