16th April 1746
Eira Fraser's POV
I blamed Dougal MacKenzie entirely for enticing Jamie to the Jacobite cause. I didn't blame Claire, for she had tried to warn us about what the outcome of Culloden would be.
And as I watched from the window in mine and Jamie's bedroom - the Laird's bedroom - at Lallybroch, I found myself hating my dearly deceased uncle-in-law for sending his nephew and my husband, as well as thousands of other Highlanders to their dooms.
Nobody was going to walk off Culloden moor alive. Jamie had known that.
But I couldn't even bring myself to hate him for his decision to fight that day, because it was who he was. Jamie had provided men for Bonnie Prince Charlie, and he was not going to send his own men to the slaughter if he was not beside them.
I blamed Dougal MacKenzie entirely.
I sighed, blinking the tears away before I turned around and looked at Jenny, who had been watching me. She was holding her and Ian's youngest child in her arms, their daughter, Katherine, who was just a year old.
"He'll be home safe." She promised, "ye ken as well as I that he always comes back."
This was true. How many times in my relationship with James Fraser had he left and then come back, as promised? More than I cared to admit. I had always wanted a husband who would stay within ten miles of our home and me - not one who would go to war, to France, to even further North than Broch Tuarach... but that was not my Jamie.
"How are the children?" I asked, referring to Margaret, Jenny's eldest, and then my two; wee Jamie, named for his father, and Lily Ellen, named for her paternal grandmother.
"They're in the fields with Ian." She told me, going to sit in the armchair by the fire so she could nurse Kitty. "It's wet outside, so I've had Mrs Crook put some tea on for their return."
I had a feeling that Ian would be wanting something a little stronger than tea upon his return; one of the children by themselves was fine, but the three of them together tended to drive anybody crazy.
Wee Jamie was the eldest, born 1st February 1743, and then Margaret, Jenny and Ian's first child, had been born a few months later, in November 1743. On 17th September 1744, I had given birth to mine and Jamie's second child, Lillian Ellen. All three of them were so close that they may well have been siblings rather than cousins.
"Do ye think he's okay?" I asked her, "do ye think it's over yet?"
Neither of us knew the answer to my questions, but that didn't stop me from asking them.
"If anyone can make it home, it's him." What she had said was quite similar to her previous words. They did nothing to comfort either of us, but she said them anyway. In that moment, it was what we both needed - no, wanted - to hear.
Because if Jamie didn't come home...
I couldn't even think about it.
"The size of the Highland army against the British... surely they canna win?"
"They dinna have to win... and as horrible as it sounds, I dinna care about all those other men. I dinna even care about the Bonnie Prince, though I reckon half of Scotland would string me up for it - I just care about my brother."
She was right.
She always was.
There were only two types of people that she loved inexplicably; her brother and her children.
I went to sit in the armchair beside Jenny, "I dinna think I can explain it to wee Jamie and Lily Ellen," I frowned, "i-if..." I tried to hide the tears which quickly began to fall from my eyes, "they're so young, Jenny. Do ye think they'll remember him? Will wee Jamie ask why we call him so when there is no other Jamie around?"
"Ye're asking questions that need no answers," she reached across the divide between our seats and put a hand on my arm to steady me. "Ye're fussing over things that willna happen and canna be helped."
I took a few deep breaths, "aye, I ken, but I canna stop my mind from thinking -"
"Well dinna think so." She snapped, perhaps speaking to me more harshly than she ever had, "if ye think like that then ye're tempting fate. That's the last thing that you, I, and indeed, Jamie need."
I nodded.
She was right.
She always was.
From two floors below us, we heard the slam of the large entrance doors. "That'll be Ian and the bairns." She collected Kitty more securely in her arms and then stood up, "take a few seconds, I'll make ye a cup of tea."
I nodded my head in thanks and watched her go.
I wished, and not for the first time in my life, that I was as strong as my sister-in-law. She was an incredible woman, and I was just... me.
I relaxed against the back of the chair, imagining Jamie on his way home from Culloden moor and back to us. I imagined him smiling, riding a horse bareback and speaking Gaelic to the creature. I imagined the weather was good and the outcome of the battle which Claire had warned us about was different.
I failed on all accounts.
"Oh, Jamie," I said quietly, "come home." I wanted him to hold my hand, and to call me by my pet name again. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair as we made love, I wanted to kiss him. I just wanted him safe. I bowed my head and closed my eyes, praying. I had never done it before, but now seemed as good a time as any to start, "o Lord," I murmured, "I dinna care for the Bonnie Prince, for his father or even for the Highlands. I dinna care if every other man on that moor doesna return to their families, but please Lord let my Jamie return to us." In exchange, I promised to do anything that the Lord required of me for as long as I lived, because I could think of nothing that I had that the Lord would want in return.
The fire in our bedroom was going out, and I almost opened my mouth to tell Jamie to throw another peat brick into the flames to keep it going... but of course, he wasn't beside me. I sighed and got up to put the brick on myself, wrapping a blue shawl around my shoulders to keep me warm. I sighed and went downstairs.
The children were climbing over Ian, as usual, all of them chattering excitedly to him despite the fact that Maggie and Lily Ellen knew a collective sum of about thirty words between them. Wee Jamie was quite good at talking, and seemed to be able to translate most of the babbles from his sister and cousin when others could not. Ian was amazing with them, and he treated them all as if they were his own - just as Jamie did with Maggie and Kitty when he was home.
"Okay, ye wee terrors," I chuckled as I took Margaret from Ian's stump and held her, "leave ye Uncle Ian alone, now." Lily Ellen continued to pull on Ian's hair, ignoring me entirely. Wee Jamie was laying in Ian's lap, settling just long enough to listen to me before he went back to tormenting his uncle.
Lily Ellen was sitting on Ian's shoulders, laughing and tugging on his ponytail, "ah they're a'right, Eira. Dinna trouble yerself -"
Jenny came into the room with a tray of teacups and a teapot, milk and sugar holders. "Tea!" She called out. Maggie wiggled in my arms and I put her down. She joined wee Jamie and Lily Ellen, who were excitedly waiting for Jenny to put the tray down, no longer by Ian but rather by the table.
"Mind ye dinna burn yerselves." I sighed and sat down beside Ian.
"Still no word?" He asked me quietly, leaning a little closer so the children would not hear.
I shook my head, "we willna ken for a few days, yet."
"Dinna fash," he rubbed my arm supportively, "Jamie'll be back round our table afore ye ken it." Jenny poured tea for all of us and the children and we sat down.
"Can I have a bannock, auntie?" wee Jamie asked.
Jenny sighed, "I'm afraid there arna any today, wee one." She paused, "ye ken the harvest was poor last."
We were running low on practically everything - the cooks in the kitchen had even warned us that there was a slight possibility of the food in our storage running out before the next harvest. Claire had told us to plant potatoes, and we were just waiting for those to grow. They would be ready soon, we all hoped.
Wee Jamie frowned, "are there no biscuits?"
She shook her head, "afraid not, wee'un."
My son's frown grew and I sighed, "dinna look like that, mite." I paused, "some people are starving, and ye're sitting here drinking tea in a cosy little castle with yer family." I didn't want to make him feel bad for the things that he did have and others didn't, but I wanted him to realise that he was a lot more fortunate than others and that he should appreciate everything his father and I, Ian and Jenny did for him, his sister and his cousins.
We all drank quietly for a moment before Jenny asked, "Ian did ye fix the fence by auld Mrs Daub's?" She looked sideways at her husband, who looked like he had been caught out stealing one of Mrs Crook's freshly baked bannocks - very guilty, indeed.
Ian shook his head, "I didna have the right tools on me, Milis - and I had the three wee'uns with me. I'll get to it tomorrow, Jenny, I promise." The name which he used for her meant 'sweet one'. Jenny was very sweet in some ways, but to Ian she was always quite forthright and demanding, though never rude nor disrespectful to him. They loved each other dearly, and it was evident for any with a pair of eyes to see.
"I'm happy to come along and keep ye company, if ye'll mind it?" I offered, pulling Lily Ellen into my lap from the floor and moving my teacup so she wasn't scalded. I looped one arm around her middle and held her to me, though not loosely.
Ian replied, bowing his head in thanks as he verbalised them too, "thank ye, but I dinna think she'll let ye free." He shot a look at his wife who was scowling.
"I was thinking we could gather some wild flowers tomorrow for the house, Eira. It should look nice for Jamie's homecoming, should it not?" Jenny suggested, finishing her tea and placing the cup back on the tray before she knotted her hands together in her lap.
"Daddy's home?" Lily Ellen asked, looking up at me excitedly, her young eyes glimmering with the innocence of childhood and hope. I hated to take her hope away from her, but I could think of nothing to do - I couldn't let her keep waiting on Jamie, believing that every person who came through the door might be him. Even if he was alive, he might be weeks before he came back to us - we, afterall, didn't know what condition he was in.
My stomach twisted something awful, what if he was hurt? What if he was alive right now and on his way back, but died on the way from an infection, as Claire had named them?
I frowned, trying to ignore the terrifying voice in the back of my head which always seemed to be asking what if?, "not yet, Lil." I paused, running my fingers through her thick dark hair - typically that of Brian Fraser, who had sometimes been known as Brian Dubh - the black haired one - his hair had been a shade much darker than my own coal black curls. "Hopefully soon, though."
"Will he have missed us, do ye think, mother?" wee Jamie asked from beside Maggie, who was sitting between her own mother's legs, tangled in the fabric of Jenny's skirts.
"Aye, I reckon he will have," I replied, "but I dinna think he'll be home quite so soon - the battlefield is quite far, ye ken, and he'll be walking back, most likely." Jamie had taken his horse which he had ridden since Castle Leoch, Donas, to serve Prince Charles and to be his mount, but I doubted that the horse would return alongside him. No, most likely it was one of Donas' presently young foals in the stable that Jamie would ride when it came of age - until then, he would have to content himself with other horses.
If Jamie comes back.
The nagging voice in the back of my mind was beyond irritating. I wanted to put the entire charade with Prince Tearlach behind me. I never wanted to hear the Bonnie Prince's name again. I certainly would never speak it if I could help it.
He and his ridiculous notion to put a Stuart king on the English throne again would spell the end of the Scottish Highlanders' way of life - Claire had assured us of it, which was why we had fought so hard against it. We had wanted our children to have their heritage and right to live as the people that they were born - but even that was soon to be ripped away from them.
Jenny raised an eyebrow at me, silently questioning why I had changed my tune so quickly.
I had been stuck inside my own thoughts, as I was more increasingly these past few weeks, but I noticed as soon as the expression on her face changed, and I came back to reality.
I couldn't let wee Jamie and Lily Ellen believe that their father was dead until I knew it to be true - they needed their father more than I did. I had lost both of my parents at a young age, though I had been older than they were now, and mourning them had been one of the most difficult things that I had had to do. Ever.
And then I'd lost my surrogate father, Brian Fraser, not long after.
So many people in my life had died, and I couldn't stand to lose anymore. In that moment, I came to the decision to be positive.
I smiled, "daddy'll be home soon, and he'll have lots of stories to tell ye." I paused, "and lots of kisses to give ye."
Lily Ellen cheered, "daddy!" She clapped her chubby hands together and we three adults smiled at her. She was quite adorable. And she loved Jamie like no other person in the world.
Which could cause a problem -
Sometimes I wished that I could shut off my brain entirely. I always had niggling thoughts at the back of it, but they seemed to be getting worse since my husband had gone off to battle.
I just smiled and continued running my fingers through her hair. What else could I do?