Midnight Honor

were still a threat as a fighting force. But the progress of the dragoons was persistent and lethal. Even hapless civilians who had ventured onto the high ground to watch the battle were summarily cut down and hacked to death along with the fleeing Jacobites.
    Only a handful of the prince's cavalry were still on horses. Either the animals had been shot out from under their riders, or their riders had been shot out of the saddles and the beasts left behind, trembling on the field of carnage. The Bruce'sforelegs and withers were streaked with the blood dripping down from the saddle; he and Anne made a gory sight crossing over the bridge into Inverness, but at that point she truly did not care. She stared back at the faces that peered out from behind parted curtains as she passed. She ignored the only other horse and rider she saw—a well-dressed gentleman apparently going about his business as if half of hell were not erupting five miles down the road. He, in turn, veered to the opposite side of the road and gaped at her aghast. Her arms and the front of her tunic were soaked with John's blood from holding him on the battlefield. She expected her face was streaked as red as her hair—a suspicion that bore fruit when the front doors of Drummuir House opened and the dowager covered her mouth in horror as Anne drew close.
    “God an' all the saints above, it is you,” she cried.
    Anne dragged the cuff of a torn sleeve over her cheek but she only smeared the stains more. “I didn't know where else to take him where he would be safe.”
    If not for the leonine mane of tarnished gold hair, it was not likely the dowager would have known whose body was draped across the saddle. She crossed herself, her expression a mixture of pain and sadness, and touched the hem of Anne's coat.
    “Are
you
all right, child?”
    Anne was not even sure, but she nodded dumbly. “I didn't know where else to take him. The soldiers—” She turned her head slightly as if she could see through the hills and trees to the battlefield. “They were doing such terrible things to the bodies …”
    The dowager clouted one of the servants on the ear. “Dinna just stand there, ye clarty fools! Help get that brave man down.” She waved two of the house servants over. “Be gentle with him! Take him inside where we can clean him proper. Annie, child, come out o' the saddle.”
    “I have to go to Moy Hall,” she said, her voice a ragged whisper. “Angus told me to go there.”
    The dowager clasped a hand to her throat. “He's alive, then? My Angus is alive? Ye saw him?”
    Anne frowned. She was fairly certain it had been Angus she had seen at the last, but there were too many images crowdinginto her mind. Too much blood. Too much pain. Not ten minutes ago she'd seen a child no more than four years old lying by the road, him and his mother both bayonetted.
    “I have to go to Moy Hall,” she repeated. “Angus told me to go there.”
    Lady Drummuir felt a chill as she looked up at her daughter-in-law. Her eyes were huge, the blue completely swallowed by the black centers. She was trembling as if in the grip of a terrible fever, her cheeks so pale the spatters of blood looked like splashes of crimson paint.
    “Aye,” the dowager said gently. “An' ye will go back to Moy, just as soon as ye're able, but for the now, come down off that great beast an' let me help ye. Ye'll take some hot broth an' a bath, an' when ye're a fit sight for yer men to see, then aye, ye can go to Moy Hall. Please come down, Anne.”
    Anne's eyes filled with tears again as she watched the servants carry MacGillivray's body into the house. She felt Lady Drummuir's hand on her wrist, and she looked down through another blinding rush of tears and nodded. She was colder than she had ever been in her life, shaking so hard she could not dismount on her own but had to wait for the servants to lift her down out of the saddle. The dowager did not even give her the option of walking. She ordered the stoutest of the men to carry her into the house and up the stairs, where she threatened to bring down the wrath of all the MacKintosh ancestors if a tub was not filled with steaming water upon the instant.
    Once upstairs, Anne sat numb and unresponsive at the edge of the bed while a maid stripped her of her bloodied clothing. She stared at some cuts on her hands, but could not remember how she came by them. One whole side of a hip was marked with purple-and-black splotches, but there,