Prologue #3
Dougald Fraser was one of these desperate fugitives.
A distant cousin and childhood friend, he was the man her father had intended for her to marry when the war had been won.
Now there would be no wedding for a long time, if at all.
If Dougald or any other fugitives, including their Lord Lovat, were caught, they faced imprisonment, deportation to the Colonies, or hanging.
Their bonnie prince was also a hunted man, with a price of thirty thousand pounds on his head.
Madeleine knew in her heart that no Highlander would betray him, even for such an outrageous sum.
Although a proclamation had been issued that anyone caught aiding the royal fugitive faced certain death, tales abounded of those who had risked their lives harboring the prince and his companions during the past four weeks.
All the atrocities had done little to curb the Butcher’s insatiable thirst for blood.
He turned next on the Highland people who had been left at home while their men fought the war.
Operating from his newly regained headquarters at Fort Augustus, south of Loch Ness, he ordered his soldiers to strike out across the countryside and harry the glens.
Madeleine had heard horrible tales from fugitives passing by night through Farraline; tales of cold-blooded killings and the rape of young and old.
Chieftains’ houses were plundered and burned to the ground; Lord Lovat’s beloved Dounie Castle in Beauly was one of the first to be laid waste.
Even the rough, one-room cottages of the peasants were rarely spared the torch.
Madeleine’s gaze swept the scattered wreckage in the room. After the senseless ferocity she had witnessed this morning, it was a miracle that Mhor Manor had not been burned. She could only hope the colonel would keep his word and spare the neighboring villages.
Bitter tears scalded her eyes, and she rose from the chair to pace angrily.
As if this day’s injustice and devastation were not enough, what of the news that had come to Strathherrick only last week?
The estates of chieftains who had participated in the uprising were being confiscated for the Crown, and Lord Lovat’s lands were already forfeited and being administered by a royal commissioner.
It seemed the English were wasting no time in their efforts to subdue the Highlands.
Worst of all, every Highland male was being forced to swear an oath that he would never again wear the belted plaid, tartan or any Highland garment—unless in a king’s regiment—and never possess a weapon, not even a dirk, or play the bagpipes, now considered an instrument of war by the government.
“If I were a man, I’d die before I’d swear that cursed oath,” Madeleine whispered vehemently. “And I’d wear the kilt to my grave!”
She pulled aside a slashed curtain and looked out across the weed-strewn lawn and disheveled garden. The fog had lifted, revealing a pale blue sky streaked with shafts of golden sunlight. The beauty of it did little to soothe her aching heart.
An unsettling thought struck her. Would the English seize Mhor Manor as well?
The estate in Strathherrick had been in her family for over a hundred years, deeded to the Frasers of Farraline by the tenth Lord Lovat, the father of old Simon the Fox, their chief. Though he was the heritable head of Clan Fraser, the land belonged not to him but to her father.
Madeleine sighed heavily. No, the land now belonged to her. She was the mistress of Farraline.
Her attention was suddenly drawn to a mother and three little boys, their heads bent, their clothing dirty and bedraggled, who hurried along a footpath that cut across the estate.
She recognized the woman as Flora Chrystie, the wife of one of her father’s tacksmen who had died at Culloden.
She guessed the young widow, who was seven months gone with child, had been alerted to the soldiers’ approach and was fleeing for the safety of the mountains.
She watched as Flora turned her face, pinched and pale, toward the manor house.
The woman bowed her head slightly in respect, then urged her children onward.
Instead of scampering down the path, the boys clung listlessly to their mother’s skirts, lacking the energy to run.
They suffered, like so many others, because the plundering of their cattle and the destruction of their crops left little food to appease the gnawing hunger in their bellies.
Madeleine’s throat constricted painfully at the pathetic sight, and defiant indignation seized her.
If something wasn’t done soon, her people would starve! Even if their homes were spared, what good were roofs over their heads if they had no food to sustain life?
Her father’s last words came back to her in a rush, reviving her flagging spirit and giving her strength:
Ye’re the mistress of Farraline now, Maddie… Tend to the needs of yer people… They depend upon yer care and good judgment.
Madeleine let the curtain drop, her tears drying on her cheeks. A determined resolve flared brightly within her breast, and a bold plan took shape in her mind.
“Aye, something has to be done, Maddie Fraser, and ye’re the one to do it,” she vowed fiercely.
God help her, somehow she would see that the Frasers of Strathherrick would survive these awful times and live to prosper once again in the Highlands they loved so dearly!