The Strength of a High and Noble Hill (An Outlander Story)

Chapter 53: Snuffing Out the Messenger Bird

Brian groans as he wakes up slowly. The back of his head is pulsing, throbbing in pain. Did something hit his head? He tries to reach to check his head but finds them restricted. Wha–

He has no idea where he is, or how he came to be here, but there are voices, lots of voices, but Brian can't decipher their words. For a moment, he feels as though the voices are inside his head. Brian opens his eyes, his vision blurry. He stares numbly for some minutes as men swarm before him in a sea of colours, swirling blues and reds and yellows, mixed with blobs of green and brown.

Is he sitting on the ground? Brian jerks hard at the rope round his wrists but only succeeds in digging the rough material farther into his flesh. He can feel the burn and a damp feeling that he thinks is oozing blood, but Brian can't be sure as his hands have gone numb but an ache courses through his body. He moves to stand or sit up, only then realising that he is bound.

The others are still talking, though, and now Brian is able to seize on a word here and there and try and decipher what is being said. Several pairs of legs swim into view.

"He's James MacQuiston." Says one voice. "From Hudgin's Ferry."

"You are sure?" A second asks. Brian wonders, dimly, why he's asking this. Sure of what? Brian is sure of nothing, save that he is in a bad way.

"Yessir." Says another, third, voice. "I saw him in Murtagh Fitzgibbons's camp, palavering with him. You ask amongst the prisoners, sir—they'll say so."

"You saw him in the battle?" The second voice asks for confirmation.

James MacQuiston. He'd heard of MacQuiston... what...?

"He killed a man in my company." The first voice says, his voice harsh with anger. "Shot him in cold blood as he lay wounded on the ground."

The first voice, he's heard it before.

Brian's vision clears as the faces swim into view. He gags around the fabric in his mouth, stopping him from speaking.

Two men are standing over him. One is unfamiliar, with dark hair and eyes. He is a soldierly-looking man in his late thirties, dressed in a red uniform. The second face swims into view alongside the first. This one seems familiar, face fringed with thick black beard.

The third, however, looks very familiar. Dirty blond hair, broad-boned, handsome face with deep, striking green eyes. The green eyes looking down on him, dispassionate.

William Buccleigh "Buck" Mackenzie! Green-eyes is Buck! Roger's own great-grandfather – the bastard son of Geillis Duncan and Dougal MacKenzie. His sense of relief at remembering the name is succeeded instantly by shock as he realises that Buck had told them he is MacQuiston. Why—

Brian hears a groan next to him. He turns to see Roger next to him. Face beaten bloody, mouth gagged with cloth and wrists and ankles tied with rope. He blinks blearily at Brian. It clicks then. He remembers.

There had been a fight between Roger and Brian and Buck's group. After having tried and failed to convince Murtagh to abandon this fight, they had come across a group of women washing clothes with one of them being Morag Mackenzie. She was a woman Roger had met and saved aboard the Gloriana on his voyage from Scotland to the colonies and also Roger's ancestor. It was absolutely great to meet Morag and to see Roger be reunited with his four-times great-grandmother. A sweet scene, until it wasn't...

Brian forgets that certain gestures from a 20th century time traveller's point of view are not perfectly innocent from the point of view of 18th century husbands. If he had, he wouldn't have hugged Morag like he did and Roger would have stopped him but Brian had been so excited to meet the woman who is Roger's ancestor that things went wrong. Then they were approached by the enraged Buck.

The rustle that occurred with Buck and his followers led to Brian and Roger being exposed as being on the militia side when their cockades fell from their pocket, a traitor in the men's eyes. They had then knocked Roger and Brian out with the butt of their guns.

As the memories flood his mind and Brian tries to stand but his wrists and ankles are tied. He manages to get to his knees, hunched like an inch-worm, but lifts his head to see Buck, with a faint smile and his eyes on Brian, put his hand in his pouch and draw out a yellow piece of cloth folded to look like a flower. With a small shock, Brian recognised his own militia badge. Oh God.

Brian shivers as he looks at Buck in horror. His clothes feel damp due to Buck and his friends having thrown him and Roger into the river after he and Roger had first woken up, pressing their heads underwater. Recalling how shots were still being fired nearby; not in volleys, but a ragged popcorn rattle. The air reeked with black powder smoke, and every so often, something came whistling through the trees.

Then they'd gagged him with the flag of truce, Roger with another cloth, and stuffed the kerchief so deep into his throat that he was close to choking, and knotting his own stock round his mouth. Brian gags with reaction at the memory, feeling bile rise up the back of his throat.

He remembers not much else after being knocked out once more until he woke up.

"And which one is—" The soldier asks.

Buccleigh points at Brian. "That'll be him, Colonel Chadwick." Then points at Roger. "And he is his accomplice."

"Very well. Take MacQuiston, too, then." The soldier, Colonel Chadwick, says and turns away. "Leave his accomplice. Three will be enough for Governor Tryon for now."

Hands grip Brian's arms and jerk him upright, pulling him so that he stumbles, his weight supported by two men dressed in uniform. He pulls against them, wanting to turn and find Roger and Buck but they yank him round, compelling him to stumble toward a small rise, topped with a huge white oak and surrounded by a sea of men, but they fall back, making way for Brian and his escorts. He sees the horses beneath the tree, the looped nooses hanging above the empty saddles from its branches.

The three chosen ones are quickly prepared for execution and forced to stand on a horse. Brian throws himself to the side, trying to fall off the horse but hands catch him and push him back, one strikes him hard across the face. He shakes his head, eyes watering, and through the blur of tears sees who he thinks is Roger, fighting against the captors to save him. To save Brian.

The sack is placed over his head, the rope placed around his neck, draws tight about his throat, and Brian screams behind the gag. He continues to struggle with a strength beyond what he had ever imagined he possessed, desperate to survive. His highs clench so hard about the horse's body that it jerks under him in protest.

A voice is speaking but Brian hears nothing for the roar of blood in his ears. Then he feels his bottom slide back over the horse's rump. Now without the animal's support, Brian's legs dangle helplessly. He hears a wrenching jerk and then he is spinning, choking, fighting for air. His hands have come loose and he tries to tear at the rope, but it is too late.

He dangles, kicking, and hears a far-off rumble from the crowd. He kicks and bucks, feet pawing empty air, hands clawing at his throat. His chest strains, his back arches, and his sight goes black, small lights flickering in the corners of his eyes. And then the stubborn impulse leaves him and he feels his body stretch and loosen, reaching, reaching for the earth.

"Brian!" Ellen's cry breaks through as he falls into unconsciousness.

——

A/N: Sorry to those who thought Murtagh was going to change his mind. He is never going to do that because it would be too out of character.

For those who don't remember, the name Buck MacKenzie gives when he turns over Brian is, James MacQuiston – (1736–1804), was a native of Pennsylvania. He was a spy on the western frontier of the colonies; he was affiliated with the Regulators, and his two brothers were present at the Battle of Alamance.

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