Midnight Honor

barely recall. My head feels a treat and I have stayed abed much later than my normalhour—a fit of sloth that appears to have affected some of my officers as well.”
    “It must be the sleeping draught I put in the supper wine.”
    Hawley looked startled for a moment, but when she tipped her head and laughed, he saw the jest for what it was and nodded. “I prefer to credit my lethargy to my berth, madam. Would I could fit such a comfortable bed in my tent—I should do so upon the instant.” He thought about that statement a moment and looked inquiringly at his aide-decamp, who nodded and scratched another notation on his writing tablet. When he was done, the general dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “That will be all for the time being, Corporal Martin, thank you. Please inform Majors Worsham and Garner that I expect them to be occupying those two chairs”—he pointed to opposite sides of the long table—“in five minutes, or they risk court-martial.”
    The aide snatched up his cap and offered a smart salute, then departed, leaving the general and Lady Kilmarnock to their breakfast. Hawley's plate was heaped high with sliced ham and beef tongue, cheese, and sweetmeats swimming in a robust gravy, none of which had appealed to him thus far, but when he heard the lady order a rasher of bacon and sausage, he signaled to the manservant to fetch two.
    “I admire a female with an appetite,” he said. “None of this picking at bits and slivers.”
    “My husband accuses me of eating like one of the cattle, though if you met him, you would see he has no shy hand at the table himself.”
    “Ah, yes, the cattle. We will have need of your livestock, madam, in the days ahead. There will be prisoners to feed over and above the requirements of my own men.”
    Lady Kilmarnock smiled. “You sound confident of victory, General.”
    “I am confident of the resolve of my men, dear lady. Oh yes, I know their discipline is wanting and their valor has been precarious in the past, to say the least. But”—he waved a fork with a piece of ham impaled on the tines—“a more magnificent sight than the British army standing at the ready in full battle dress is not to be found anywhere. Imagine it. Eight thousand men lined up straight as arrows. A field ofscarlet, with drums beating and flags snapping overhead. It almost brings a tear to the eye, I say it almost brings a tear! What it will do to an ill-trained band of skirted rabble, well, it only remains to be seen.”
    “I have been told,” she said carefully, “that ill-trained rabble can be quite intimidating.”
    “Grown men in petticoats?” The general guffawed, spitting a morsel of cheese across the table. “I should think a strong wind up the backside would render their appearance somewhat more farcical than intimidating. A most despicable enemy, I assure you. Unmannered, unprincipled. Undisciplined in the extreme, with a want of military acumen that simply stupefies the mind. Why, they have left the Pretender's standard flying in plain view these last two days on a small moor to the south and east of Bannockburn, as if that should entice us to panic. Panic? Faugh! I have been tempted to send a man on foot, on foot I say, to retrieve the damned thing for a trophy.”
    Lady Kilmarnock set her jaw but glanced at the door where a butler had suddenly appeared.
    “My apologies for the interruption, my lady. A courier has arrived from the general's field headquarters. A most agitated young man. He insists on seeing the general at once.”
    “Insists, does he?” the general asked, frowning. “Tell him I am engaged and will see him when it is convenient.”
    The butler glanced surreptitiously at Lady Kilmarnock before apologizing to the general again. “I have already told him you were indisposed, sir, but he is most obstinate.”
    “Tell him to wait,” the general said, pronouncing each word as if it were ten syllables long.
    “Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”
    Hawley sucked a shred of ham out of his teeth and glared along the table at Lady Kilmarnock. “You must excuse the lack of manners in my men, dear lady. Most are villains recruited straight out of the brothels, and with little more than a sworn oath of their being Protestant and without rupture, they are entrusted with a musket and sixpence a day. Theycomplain about the climate, they complain about their rations of biscuit and water—” He paused to shovel another forkful of dripping egg into his