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He reopened his eyes. “Your hand . . .” Ewen gave it to him, and saw a little smile in the moonlight. “Have you been . . . burying any more cannon? . . . I always liked you,” said his enemy clearly, and Ewen’s fingers clasped Keith’s so tightly as if brute, mortal force would prevent death from taking Keith Windham from him. His other hand pressed the handkerchief as close to the wound as he could, praying against his better judgement that the red rivulets running between his fingers might yet be staunched by the drenched cloth.
“Keith, Keith—” he heard himself repeat over and over, so many things which he should have liked to say instead dying on the tip of his tongue, where they were replaced by the one, the only thought Ewen was presently capable of forming.
Friendship, in his boyhood years and beyond, had always been natural to Ewen, as natural as the wind on the moors and the waters of Loch na h-Iolaire. He had never known a foe among his own people, not even a boy who met him with less than kindness or fond regard. But he was no boy anymore, and Windham not a distant relation or friend of the cause with whom by tradition some measure of friendship was established through something shared, be it blood or an idea, before the first meeting; Windham, poor Windham had been a stranger to him, an enemy stranger at that. And unlovable—! He had never known a man so easy to refuse a kindness extended to him and repay it so pitifully as Keith— that trick of his taking the philibeg— Keith.
The boat was being readied, he knew, did not need to hear it from the two pleading Camerons come up to his side and calling for him to leave Windham, and come with them to safety, before it was too late: but he would not budge, not while there was yet life in Keith Windham’s body.
The pleading look in the two young men’s eyes could not stir him, or prompt him to follow them who entreated him to leave while such would still be possible, his ear deaf to their insistent professions that they would “never leave without you, Mac ’ic Ailein—“ but what was life to him now, that something so dear to him had been snatched from him in this cruel fashion, and at the hand of his own foster-brother at that.
It was the same the party by the boat sent next to disturb and coax him from where he sat, Windham, whose shallow breath grew ever fainter, in his arms, but Ewen knew he could not bear to listen to his pleas, ere before Lachlan could speak: “Ewen, my brother, forgive me—forgive me!”
Ewen turned on him a terrible face. “Never! You have killed my friend!”
“Never? Then as well have my life, too!” cried Lachlan. The reddened dirk which a year ago he had been moved to fling into the loch spun glinting through the moonlight and splashed into the sea, and its owner, turning, ran headlong towards the road and the oncoming patrol.
Ewen turned to Windham again, whom he believed to be no longer be conscious, and kissed his forehead, weeping freely now. Tonight, he had lost two men to the same dirk who had been dearer to him than his own life: Lachlan, the companion of his youth, his brother in all but blood, and Keith Windham— Keith.
Although presently, he could not bear to be reminded of the many joys he had shared with Lachlan, for too painful was his deceit, the murder he was guilty of, there was also a pang in his heart, much like the breaking of a string on a harp, when he thought of the death that awaited him, the cruelty of his end— he shook his head. He must think of Windham now, and make him as comfortable as he could be in his last moments. Expecting to hear them shoot Lachlan dead any minute now, he prepared himself in his mind for the ugly sound, and the ugly certainty it would bring of his death. Perhaps he was as much at fault as Lachlan; he should have been stricter with him, last summer over the business with the heron. Perhaps Lachlan would not have—
A loud, gruesome, inhuman cry echoed through the night, and inhuman it was: a heron, Ewen thought to himself and knew not whether to weep or laugh, for fate clearly enjoyed to make a fool of him. Windham made the decision for him. A rasping succession of short breaths that in a healthy man would have risen to a laugh told him that his friend was not quite gone from him yet. “Ardroy,” his laboured voice said, and a pair of uncommon fine hazel eyes peered at him from below leaden eyelids, “your bird…”
“Our bird,” Ewen corrected him. The heron had brought him Windham, and the heron would take Windham away from him. There was a terrible beauty to it, in Ewen’s eyes: Old Angus’s prophecy had come to fulfil itself.
From the road, a commotion was audible, then some cries and shots. Lachlan. The heron. But of what consequence were they now?
Windham, having exerted himself, had fallen into unconsciousness again. It cannot be long now. Not long until— Ewen’s tears fell silently as he sat among the tall, dry grass and sand, his hand still encircling Windham’s which had not yet grown limp and inanimate, though weak the grip with which he held on to Ewen, and to life, was.
Ewen was resigned to his fate, his discovery; Alison would understand, Archie, Aunt Margaret— they all would know he had died honourably, and find some comfort in that, he hoped. Three would lie dead on the sand tonight; the murderous Lachlan, Major Keith Windham of the Royals, his dear friend, and he, for he had no doubt what the patrol would do if they would find him, which they would any moment now.
But the patrol never came.
Resigned to his fate, Ewen sat in the cold night wind and soon total darkness, too, as clouds, sailing on the wind like the French privateer on the ocean, obscured the moon. For the second time in his life, Ewen was not allowed to sleep. This time however, he was not forced to remain awake because a scoundrel willed it, but because he had to, to protect Windham, and comfort him. Only barely, he felt his wounded leg and the cold. When he was half-certain no one would come presently, he unpinned his philibeg and drew it over Windham and himself. He must not be cold, not suffer more than he already did. He barely remarked on the lack of new blood between his fingers; surely Windham must not have any more to give. It could not be long now.
The night was darkest just before the dawn, and it was then Ewen could no longer keep awake, though long and bravely he had fought the oncoming sleep.
“Mac ’ic Ailein! Mac ’ic Ailein—! Brother!”
The insistently whispering voice belonged to a dead man, causing Ewen to think that he must be dreaming, or have joined him wherever it is that mortals cannot go. But Lachlan was plain within his sight when he opened his eyes, very much alive and wearing an expression of deep concern upon his treacherous features.
“Lachlan,” Ewen, not knowing whether Windham in his lap was dead, whispered, so as not to wake him, “Lachlan, you—”
Lachlan did not speak when he reached for Windham’s arm, and felt his pulse. “He lives.” And after a short pause added: “can you carry him?” Ewen shook his head, not knowing how far his legs would carry him, but it must be attempted, for Windham’s sake. Without speaking, Lachlan unpinned his plaid and spread it on the sand before first lifting Windham’s upper half onto it, then the lower. Weary and devoid, devoid of any resistance, Ewen did as Lachlan said, lifting the head, while Lachlan took the feet. Once, they had carried him like that, Lachlan and Neil, before they had rested at the sheiling, where Windham had saved him. Silently, they trudged on, often halting to give Ewen some respite, but the brighter the sky grew, the more Lachlan reminded him to make haste. They stopped at last at a small bay, where an old boat lay upturned beside the ruins of a cottage overlooking it from a small cliff, no higher than Ewen stood tall; a recently burnt cottage, by the looks of it. The boat being far away from the house, had not been touched by the fire, and its stone ruins at least provided some measure of shelter from the wind.
“They won’t look for us here,” Lachlan observed, and it was plain to Ewen why; no one would look for any living soul here, in the plundered ruin, for the English troops had already been here some time ago.
For a while, they sat in silence, Windham, unconscious, but breathing shallowly, once more in Ewen’s lap. Lachlan had a flask of brandy about him and offered it to Ewen unasked, who set it to Keith’s lips. Even the brandy could not restore a livelier colour to Windham’s face, and he could not do anything but trickle some drops down his throat, but it felt very good to be doing something, to help, in vain though it well would prove.
“The boat. Tonight, I will row us out into the bay, and the French privateer will find us.”
Lachlan’s tone was too hopeful for Ewen, whose wariness of his foster-brother had not abated; “and how would you know that?” he thus asked, doubtfully.
“They will not sail without you, I am sure of it. They must be out at sea in the day, and come in again under cover of darkness— and we will be out there as well, and they will find us—”
His brother’s plan sounded too good to be of any weight or use; entirely too fantastical— but what else could they do? Devoid of any willpower of his own to continue on beyond the imminent death of Windham, a part of him was happy Lachlan had taken charge.
Dawn turned into day, with more clement weather, luckily, and the strong winds abated somewhat. Perhaps the warming sun falling through where once had been a roof would please Windham, make him more comfortable. He had been awake but once, but proven delirious— “the heron,” he had murmured when Lachlan had spoken with Ewen “the heron, Ardroy—.”
Windham’s words reminded Ewen of the many questions he should have asked much earlier. “How come, Lachlan, that you are here? I thought you—”
“I know what I wanted to do,” Lachlan began, “but it did not come to that. When I was almost in view, there was the heron, and the English, taking his call for a cry, scattered and searched left and right until one of them proposed that it might just have been an animal, and not a person. I saw it, Ewen, I saw the heron, almost as clear as if it was day. And then I ran, and hid here, before coming back to find you when it was lighter, and I had a chance of succeeding.”
“You saw a heron,” Ewen corrected him.”
“No,” Lachlan protested, I am sure it was the heron of home, it must have been!” Ewen’s patience was worn thin, but not wishing another dispute, but said testily: “but you killed him, Lachlan. You admitted to it.”
Quietly, the same shook his head. “I did not. Though I tried to— but you wouldn’t have believed me if I had said so.”
Astonished, for her felt Lachlan spoke the truth, having known him since he had been rocked in a cradle, Ewen replied: “And you are certain of it?”
“I am certain, as certain as I am of being here with you: I rowed out to the island and shot at him after you had forbidden it, but missed. The bird flew off, and I stayed where I was hidden until it settled again among the reeds, but as I was about to load my piece again, I dropped my powder horn into the water. So I stalked it, and threw myself over the beast, but could not get hold of its beak, with which it stabbed me.” Here, Lachlan rolled up his sleeve, to reveal a curious scar; not as clean as if made with a knife, and clearly old enough not to have been made but a few hours ago to win back Ewen’s favour with a false tale. “I let go of it then, and I suppose I gave it such a fright that it flew off, and never returned.”
Unthinking, Ewen stroked Windham’s arm. “If it is true what you said,” he said slowly, “and the heron lives, then—” he did not dare to dwell on it. That was entirely too much hope to entertain.
“It pains me what I have done. I thought— I thought I was protecting you,” his brother confessed, tears in his eyes.
“I did not ask for your protection,” Ewen observed, “and you disobeyed me.”
“I know you can never love me again, and brought that over myself.”
Lachlan did not receive a reply. One day, Ewen thought, one day, he would have time to make up his mind on his foster brother, but it had not arrived yet. Other things were more important in this moment, and so he ordered Lachlan to go and look for some water, for Windham must have something to drink. It took him a while to return with a broken bowl in his hands that was filled with water. Keith, headstrong Major Windham, however sealed his lips and would not drink. “Keith,” Ewen managed to say with a suitable amount of strictness and determination, “drink. It will do you good.”
“Ardroy?” a pair of distant, glassy eyes opened a crack wide. “Ardroy… Stay with me.”
Ewen’s heart felt as if it too had been pierced by Lachlan’s dirk. “Of course I shall stay with you,” he addressed Windham, his voice trembling, “but you must stay with me also, do you hear?”
Once more, Windham’s lips parted, and he spoke, albeit very softly, for he had already exerted himself: “I am very tired. Sleep… I must sleep. Your hand.”
Ewen did as he was bidden, and delivered his hand into Windham’s, who dragged it across his wounded breast, causing the two silver lines crossing Ewen’s palm and fingers to rest over his heart. There was yet a steady, though faint, rise and fall to be detected, that, though not calming, reassured Ewen somewhat as he held his friend close to his breast and rocked him softly, as he had always imagined he would a sleepy Alison after a night of caresses, or (as a result thereof), his first child. Presently, his world was reduced to Windham, and the prayers he made in silence for him, that he may survive the renewed strain of their nightly endeavour.
As dusk approached, Lachlan and Ewen bundled him up once more, to carry him between them to the boat, which Lachlan insisted on rowing, to spare Ewen, who only then, when he sat with momentarily no purpose save to await their arrival, remarked of his own weariness and state of near total exhaustion.
They reached the spot from where the boat had set out for the ship the previous night and, to their surprise, the faint glitter in the distance betrayed the presence of a ship. A ship with most of its lights put out so as not to attract the gaze of an enemy too easily in the dark, but she was a ship. Let her be the French Privateer, Ewen prayed, his lips moving in silence. But a moment later, his fears that they might have entered a trap were assuaged when splashing feet approached them, and dragged the boat closer to shore. “Mac ’ic Ailein!” a familiar Cameron voice strained not to exclaim too loudly, though with evident joy, “we would never have sailed without you.”
The young men come from the ship to search for Ewen once more under cover of darkness were somewhat apprehensive of the man in the red coat wrapped in Lachlan’s plaid but obliged their chief when he bade them carry him into their somewhat larger, and better manned, boat.
“We are safe now, Windham,” he murmured as they were rowed over to the privateer, “safe—!”
Ewen did not recall much more of the night, nor of the following day; Doctor Cameron’s face was the first sight that greeted him when he woke in a cot in the evening of the next day. “Archie,” he said happily, though still quite fatigued and surprised at the familiar face, “you—? How good to see you here— what of Windham?”
“You cannot imagine by what means we had to persuade the captain to cruise for the day and return for you in the night,” his relation gently admonished him, “and all for your Englishman.”
Ewen looked Doctor Cameron in the eyes, anxiously ignoring the red stains on the coarse apron he had donned to shield his clothes from the same. “You will like to hear that your labours were not in vain, for the moment at least; I have mended his wound, and presently, he sleeps; the next days shall tell whether he will thrive.”
From his tone, Ewen could tell his cousin did not understand what he saw in Windham; but he didn’t need to. “Thank you, Archie,” he said simply, before allowing himself to lie back again: his health, diminished by his imprisonment and his wounded leg, was worse than he would like to make himself think, and his body in need of rest. “Where is Windham?”
Archie pointed, and Ewen’s heart jolted as he turned his head, and found Windham, his face pale as the sheets surrounding him and his bare chest bandaged in the cot right beside his own. “Keith,” he could not help but say, “my friend, we are safe at last.”
At that, Windham stirred under a little groan, and silently, without a word, reached out for Ewen who, their quarters being quite confined, was very close. He took Keith’s hand, and vowed to never let go of it for the duration of their voyage, swift as it was due to uncommon favourable winds, that caused them to fly over the water, almost as if the privateer had been lent the silent, grey wings of a heron.