“Look ye in the mirror, lad,” he said, a half-grudging smile lingering on his face. “If it’s your mother’s face ye see, it’s your father looking back at ye through those damned Fraser cat-eyes.” He stretched and shifted his position, easing his bones on the lichened stone bench. His lips were pressed tight, by habit, against any exclamation of discomfort, and I could see what had made those deep creases between nose and mouth.

“To answer ye, though,” he went on, once more comfortably settled, “I didn’t like the man overmuch – nor he me – but I knew him at once for a man of honor.” He paused, then said, very softly, “I know you for the same, Jamie MacKenzie Fraser.”

Jamie didn’t change expression, but there was a faint quiver to his eyelids; only one as familiar with him as I was – or as observant as Colum was – would have noticed.

Colum let out his breath in a long sigh.

“So, lad, that’s why I wished to talk with you. I must decide, ye see, whether the MacKenzies of Leoch go for King James or King Geordie.” He smiled sourly. “It’s a case, I think, of the devil ye know, or the devil ye don’t, but it’s a choice I must make.”

“Dougal-” Jamie began, but his uncle cut him off with a sharp motion of his hand.

“Aye, I know what Dougal thinks – I’ve had little rest from it, these two years past,” he said impatiently. “But I am the MacKenzie of Leoch, and it’s mine to decide. Dougal will abide by what I say. I’d know what you’d advise me to do – for the sake of the clan whose blood runs in your veins.”

Jamie glanced up, eyes dark blue and impervious, hooded against the afternoon sun that shone in his face.

“I am here, and my men with me,” he said. “Surely my choice is plain?”

Colum shifted himself again, head cocked attentively to his nephew, as though to catch any nuances of voice or expression that might give him a clue.

“Is it?” he asked. “Men give their allegiance for any number of reasons, lad, and few of them have much to do with the reasons they speak aloud. I’ve talked with Lochiel, and Clanranald, and Angus and Alex MacDonald of Scotus. D’ye think they’re here only because they feel James Stuart their rightful king? Now I would talk with you – and hear the truth, for the sake of your father’s honor.”

Seeing Jamie hesitate, Colum went on, still watching his nephew keenly.

“I don’t ask for myself; if you’ve eyes, ye can see that the matter isn’t one that will trouble me long. But for Hamish – the lad is your cousin, remember. If there’s to be a clan for him to lead, once he’s of age – then I must choose rightly, now.”

He stopped speaking and sat still, the usual caution now relaxed from his features, the gray eyes open and listening.

Jamie sat as still as Colum, frozen like the marble angel on the tomb behind him. I knew the dilemma that preoccupied him, though no trace of it showed on the stern, chiseled face. It was the same one we had faced before, choosing to come with the men from Lallybroch. Charles’s Rising was balanced on a knife edge; the allegiance of a large clan such as the MacKenzies of Leoch might encourage others to join the brash Young Pretender, and lead to his success. But if it ended in failure nonetheless, the MacKenzies of Leoch could well end with it.

At last Jamie turned his head deliberately, and looked at me, blue eyes holding my own. You have some say in this, his look said. What shall I do?

I could feel Colum’s eyes upon me, too, and felt rather than saw the questioning lift of the thick, dark brows above them. But what I saw in my mind’s eye was young Hamish, a redheaded ten-year-old who looked enough like Jamie to be his son, rather than his cousin. And what life might be for him, and the rest of his clan, if the MacKenzies of Leoch fell with Charles at Culloden. The men of Lallybroch had Jamie to save them from final slaughter, if it came to that. The men of Leoch would not. And yet the choice could not be mine. I shrugged and bowed my head. Jamie took a deep breath, and made up his mind.

“Go home to Leoch, Uncle,” he said. “And keep your men there.”

Colum sat motionless for a long minute, looking straight at me. Finally, his mouth curled upward, but the expression was not quite a smile.

“I nearly stopped Ned Gowan, when he went to keep you from burning,” he said to me. “I suppose I’m glad I didn’t.”

“Thanks,” I said, my tone matching his.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with a calloused hand, as though it ached under the weight of leadership.

“Well, then. I shall see His Highness in the morning, and tell him my decision.” The hand descended, lying inert on the stone bench, halfway between him and his nephew. “I thank ye, Jamie, for your advice.” He hesitated, then added, “And may God go with you.”

Jamie leaned forward and laid his hand over Colum’s. He smiled his mother’s wide, sweet smile and said, “And with you, too, mo caraidh.”

The Royal Mile was busy, thronged with people taking advantage of the brief hours of warmth. We walked in silence through the crowd, my hand tucked deep into the crook of Jamie’s elbow. Finally he shook his head, muttering something to himself in Gaelic.

“You did right,” I said to him, answering the thought rather than the words. “I would have done the same. Whatever happens, at least the MacKenzies will be safe.”

“Aye, perhaps.” He nodded to a greeting from a passing officer, jostling through the crowd that surrounded the World’s End. “But what of the rest – the MacDonalds and MacGillivrays, and the others that have come? Will they be destroyed now, where maybe they wouldn’t, had I had the nerve to tell Colum to join them?” He shook his head, face clouded. “There’s no knowing, is there, Sassenach?”

“No,” I said softly, squeezing his arm. “Never enough. Or maybe too much. But we can’t do nothing on that account, surely?”

He gave me a half-smile back, and pressed my hand against his side.

“No, Sassenach. I dinna suppose we can. And it’s done now, and naught can change it, so it’s no good worrying. The MacKenzies will stay out of it.”

The sentry at the gate of Holyrood was a MacDonald, one of Glengarry’s men. He recognized Jamie and nodded us into the courtyard, barely looking up from his louse-searching. The warm weather made the vermin active, and as they left their cozy nests in crotch and armpit, often they could be surprised while crossing the perilous terrain of shirt or tartan and removed from the body of their host.

Jamie said something to him in Gaelic, smiling. The man laughed, picked something from his shirt, and flicked it at Jamie, who pretended to catch it, eyed the imaginary beastie critically, then, with a wink at me, popped it into his mouth.

“Er, how is your son’s head, Lord Kilmarnock?” I inquired politely as we stepped out together onto the floor of Holyrood’s Great Gallery. I didn’t care greatly, but I thought as the topic couldn’t be avoided altogether, it was perhaps better to air it in a place where hostility was unlikely to be openly exhibited.

The Gallery met that criterion, I thought. The long, high-ceiled room with its two vast fireplaces and towering windows had been the scene of frequent balls and parties since Charles’s triumphant entry into Edinburgh in September. Now, crowded with the luminaries of Edinburgh’s upper class, all anxious to do honor to their Prince – once it appeared that he might actually win – the room positively glittered. Don Francisco, the guest of honor, stood at the far end of the room with Charles, dressed in the depressing Spanish style, with baggy dark pantaloons, shapeless coat, and even a small ruff, which seemed to provoke considerable suppressed amusement among the younger and more fashionable element.

“Oh, well enough, Mistress Fraser,” replied Kilmarnock imperturbably. “A dunt on the skull will not discommode a lad of that age for long; though his pride may take a bit more mending,” he added, with a sudden humorous twist to his long mouth.