White Rose Rebel by Janet Paisley

possible re-emergence, Meg ushered them into her own cott, closed the door tight then, with barely a pause in her movements, resumed her position on the milking stool and continued her task.
    Inside the dim, smoky one-room interior of the old man’s cott, Anne warmed the broth in a pot over the low peat fire. The old man lay propped up on a bracken pallet, coughing.
    ‘I’ve brought you some hare soup, Tom,’ Anne said. Behind his pallet, two small grubby children crouched, staring at her with wide, mesmerized eyes. Both were girls, though it was hard to tell at that age and in the gloom.
    ‘It’s a princess,’ the bigger child informed the smaller.
    Anne smiled and told them who she was, in the customary style, her own name followed by title and her husband’s, just as she had with James Ray on her previous visit.
    ‘Your chief’s wife,’ she explained as she spooned the steaming soup into a bowl. ‘And perhaps there will be broth enough for three in this pot.’ She knelt down, stirred the broth with the horn spoon, tested the temperature was not too hot, then held the spoon tothe old man’s trembling lips. He swallowed greedily. Nothing much was wrong with his appetite. Behind her, the door of the cott opened. A stocky, fair-headed man came in. She recognized him right away. He was the cottar who first challenged Aeneas’s request that they send their sons to the Black Watch, the same man who’d held the brutish Dùghall while Aeneas took the hand off him.
    ‘Ewan M c Cay, Lady M c Intosh,’ he introduced himself. ‘This is my home and you’re welcome in it. How is my father?’
    ‘Alive,’ Anne said. ‘If you would send the older one,’ she nodded at the children, ‘up to the Hall every third day, Jessie will see to it there is always fresh broth for him.’
    ‘I’ll see she comes,’ Ewan said. ‘Thank you for your kindness.’
    From outside, a horse whinnied. There were shouts of alarm, raised voices and squeals of fear. Ewan turned for the door. Anne planked the bowl into the hands of the bigger child.
    ‘Feed this to your grandfather,’ she said, and followed Ewan out.
    Outside, the sudden brightness blinded her, but then she saw. Around Meg’s cott was a group of the Black Watch. Two of them had a grip of a young boy, Ewan’s oldest son, the volunteer. They dragged him towards the cattle-tethering stake where Meg bled her beast. The milking cow was freed and shooed away while other soldiers held Meg and the boy’s mother, both of them struggling, the mother shrieking her son’s name.
    ‘Calum! Calum! Ewan, they have Calum!’
    Ewan was well ahead of Anne, racing to save his son. The officer on horseback wheeled round, his horse neighing at the cruel jerk of the bit in its mouth.
    ‘Stop that man,’ he shouted, an English voice scything through the Gaelic cries.
    Ewan launched himself through the circle of soldiers but was brought crashing to the ground by a blow to his head from a musket butt. Anne ran through the gap he’d made, leaping over his prostrate body. She reached the terrified lad and threw her arms round him, pushing away the soldiers’ hands that held him.
    ‘What are you doing?’ she shouted. ‘He’s a boy. Leave him be!’
    Calum wrapped his arms round her waist, gripping his own hands together so he could not be easily torn away. She was his chief’s wife. While he was with her, he was safe. No one would dare lay hands on her.
    ‘We ran away,’ he whimpered. ‘They would make us fight the Prince.’
    ‘No, they won’t. Cha dèan iad sin ,’ she soothed him, tightening her arms round his trembling shoulders, resting her chin on his head. ‘Only your chief can say what you will do. He wouldn’t ask that of you.’
    They were surrounded by soldiers, most facing outwards, guns trained on the cottars appearing from their homes. The lieutenant on horseback guided his horse through into the circle. It was James Ray, the Englishman she had thwarted a few weeks