Midnight Honor

kettle, setting it in front of him as he slouched into a chair at the table. “I need you with a clear head, John. You can get sotted again later, after I've left.”
    “Ye sound like ma old mam,” he grumbled, but took a grudging sip.
    While he muttered his way through two cups of coffee and a dozen fried eggs, Anne found a linen sheet and tore it into strips. She carefully bathed his wound, then applied a fresh coating of lard and crushed willow ash before wrapping the bandages. By the time he had drained his third cup and finished half a plate of oatcakes, his eyes were more white than red and his skin had lost some of its greenish tinge.
    “All right, lass,” he said. “I've chased the demons out o' ma blood; will ye speak at me the now?”
    She wiped her hands and went to fetch her woolen short-coat from the hook. Tucked into the quilted lining was the bundled sheaf of dispatches she had taken from Duncan Forbes's desk. She had felt no qualms lying to Angus when he'd asked her if she still had them, for if she had admitted they were not two feet away, strapped to her thigh, she was not altogether sure he would not have tossed her robe over her head and taken them.
    When she set the leather-bound packet on the table in front of John MacGillivray, he took a final sip of coffee and wiped his lips on his cuff.
    “What's this, then?”
    “Can you read French?”
    He snatched the papers up with a frown.
“Bien sûr je peux lire français, Mademoiselle Haut Âne
. Latin, too, if ye have need of a few scriptures read to cleanse ye of the sin o' pride.”
    “I only ask,” she explained, wary of his belligerent mood, “because I can barely speak enough words to say good morning and good night. The dowager read these aloud, and we were neither one of us entirely sure if we understood what they mean, but if we're right, and if you interpret them to mean the same thing, then we must get these papers to the prince as fast as ever we can.”
    He studied her a moment longer, his eyes probing hers with a thoroughness that left her as breathless as the kiss had earlier.
    “Fetch the light closer,” he said to Jamie, and reached for the leather-bound packet. A flick of his thumb and forefinger unfastened the ribbon binding the edges of hide, and only when he drew out the folded sheets of paper did he release his visual hold on Anne and look down.
    Jamie slid the lamp closer and turned up the wick without waiting to be asked. Both he and Gillies had taken chairs around the table, the latter craning his neck to see the words, though to him they were nothing more than scratches on a page.
    John read through the documents once, skimming over some of the phrases that were too complex for the initial pass. But when he read it a second time, then a third, he not onlysounded out every syllable, he mouthed each word in soundless disbelief.
    He finished and glanced over at Anne. “Where did ye get this?”
    She told him, and he stared until a blink returned his thoughts to what he held in his hands. “What did ye think it meant when ye read it?”
    Anne moistened her lips, warmed by the excitement she had seen gleaming in his eyes. “I think it means a treaty has been signed between the French and the Dutch, that the Dutch have pledged not to raise arms against the French for a period of no less than two years, during which time the countries will work together to negotiate amicable terms for a permanent peace.”
    John nodded. “Aye, that's how I read it.”
    Jamie lifted an eyebrow. “An' so? The French an' Dutch have made a treaty. What of it?”
    Anne shuffled through the sheaf of documents she had retained—the extra documents she had taken from the Lord President's desk—until she found the one she wanted, then separated it from the rest.
    “These are memoranda listing the approximate number of men in each division of the government's armies. The Duke of Cumberland, for instance, boasts a complement of eight thousand men, all veterans he brought back with him from Flanders. Among them he claims Dutch regiments numbering upward of six thousand men.”
    Jamie scratched his beard. “Aye, an' so?”
    “So,” MacGillivray said, beginning to grin. “Cumberland's forces are the only ones who have seen actual battle; the raw recruits servin' under Wade an' Ligonier an' Hawley have spent most o' their time marchin' on parade grounds an' shootin' melons off o' fence posts. That was why most o' them turned tail an' ran