Midnight Honor

morbid.”
    Anne felt the floorboards shift beneath her feet. The room took a sickening turn as well, and the faces of the officers behind the trestle table blurred and became nothing more than flesh-colored blobs over splashes of crimson.
    A saber wound in the belly…?
    For the last three days, each time she closed her eyes, she relived nightmarish reenactments of the battle. In most of them, MacGillivray was lying in her arms, dying, and a soldier came running up behind her. She would leap to her feet and engage his sword, and at some point, she felt the blade strike and punch through living flesh. In her dreams the face had been distorted, but now, even as the faces of the tribunal faded away into the shadows, the face of the soldier came clearly into focus. It was Angus.
    “Dear God,” she whispered.
    “Indeed, it is in God's hands,” Cumberland said. “Or so the surgeons tell me.”
    “May I see him?”
    “Of course you may, my dear.” The smile spread insidiously across his face again. “Just as soon as you tell us what we want to know.”
    She frowned, her thoughts tumbling too fast to follow his words. “Tell you—?”
    “Names, my dear. We want the names of all the chiefs and lairds who wore the white cockade. You say you went on this grand adventure to Falkirk merely to keep company with good men … we want to know who those good men were. Lord Lovat, for instance. We suspect he was an active participant, but we have no proof. We need sworn, signed statements, for it is not so easy to win a guilty verdict against members of the peerage as it is against common cotters. They must be taken to London and tried before the House….” He spread his hands as if soliciting her acknowledgment that it was, indeed, a great hardship.
    “And you expect me to give you these names? To bear witness against these brave men?” Her voice had turned softand low. It trembled around the edge of each word and anyone who knew her would have instinctively stepped back a pace or two. “In exchange you will permit me to visit my husband, who may or may not be dying of a morbid wound?”
    “You have the gist of it, my dear. Cooperate, and all charges against yourself will be set aside as well. We will even release your esteemed mother-in-law, the Lady Drummuir, much to the relief of the guards who have been forced to listen to her incessant pontificating day in and day out.”
    Anne squeezed her fists tighter—tight enough she could feel the tips of her nails cutting into the flesh of her palms. The room, thankfully, had stopped slipping and sliding. The faces of the gallant gentlemen officers were beginning to clear as well, and she looked down the line, impaling each with her contempt, resting at the last on John Campbell, earl of Loudoun.
    “You claimed friendship with my husband, sir. Have you nothing to say against this travesty?”
    Loudoun harrumphed into his hand. “You have the conditions before you, Lady Anne. I suggest you accept them.”
    Anne hardened her stare. He bore the full brunt of her loathing for nearly a full minute before his hand crept up to his collar. He thrust a finger between his skin and the linen neckcloth to ease the pressure, and when that failed, his jowls began to quiver, his chin to sag, and he began to wheeze like an overweight bulldog. In the end, his choking became so severe, the officers on either side helped him to his feet and led him, stumbling, out the rear door, where he could be heard coughing, spluttering, and wailing about “cursed devil eyes” for some time after.
    “Shall we assume you require some time to think about your answer?” Cumberland asked, lazily scraping a speck of dirt out from under a fingernail.
    You cannot show him you care. You cannot show him you care too much, or both you and Angus are lost
.
    “You may assume, sir, that there is not enough time left for either you or me on this earth wherein I would bow to such
uncivil
demands.”
    “Bravely said, my dear, but perhaps a few days in a gaol cell with rats as big as sheepdogs will temper your imprudence somewhat.”
    He nodded to Colonel Cockayne, who came forward with the greatest reluctance. “Escort Colonel Anne to her new quarters, if you please. I would also caution you to search her well before you turn the key; if the dowager could smuggle in a knife large enough to put out the eye of one of the guards, I'm sure this one could do the same. One last chance to reconsider,