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who seemed at a loss as to what to do with it.
    “Aye, m’lady,” answered Simon, bowing awkwardly in the direction of the soft, white flesh extended toward his lips. “’Tis settled, to be sure.”

    The narrow path paralleled the River Farrar, which separated Erchless from Struy Forest. Rising on a gentle slope to the right of Simon and Thomas was Culligran Wood, and behind it, the forbidding peaks of Cam Ban and Corry Deanie. The mountains were still capped in winter snow, although the riverbanks were inundated with icy water from the heavy spring thaw.
    “To your left, laddie, as far as the eye can behold, was your land… Fraser of Struy territory,” Simon said quietly, pulling on his horse’s reins while gesturing to the south.
    Thomas gazed pensively toward the thickly forested ridge that eventually tapered off into stark, steep, treeless mountains on the other side of the valley. Their summits, too, were blanketed in snow. Despite its being May, there was a biting wind, made even colder by dark, rain-filled clouds hovering overhead. A forlorn feeling permeated the entire region, intensified by the sight of the pinched, hungry faces Thomas and Simon had encountered when they rode through the village of Struy earlier in the day. Thomas had had his first glimpse of the fine manor house, just down the road, that his parents had called home before the Rebellion of ’45. Now it stood on a weed-strewn hill, windowless and bereft of any sign of life. The garden and orchards were likewise overrun as the result of years of neglect.
    The past year and a half had been filled with many such desolate sights. Thomas had been given an extensive tour of the Highlands by his godfather, who pointed out scene after scene of ruined cottages and manor houses, burnt to the ground by the Duke of Cumberland’s men following the Crown’s triumph at the Battle of Culloden. Since that day, for these eighteen years, the kilt was forbidden unless worn in a Kings regiment, the pipes were banned as a “weapon of war,” and no Highlander could carry arms, not even a dirk, by order of the Crown.
    But, for a year now, Simon had been secretly drilling his godson in the manly arts of firearms at sessions held high in the hills, far from prying eyes that might report such illegal activities to Crown authorities. He sent Thomas with his most trusted men high on the moors for several months to master the skill of sheepherding. Out of earshot, Thomas was allowed to practice with a genuine set of bagpipes whose sheepskin airbag was clothed in the outlawed bark brown Fraser hunting tartan. The young man, who had grown nine inches in eighteen months, reveled in being allowed to participate in such forbidden activities at the behest of his elders, and he often thought how much Jane Maxwell would enjoy being part of such clandestine occupations.
    His meandering recollections of his time spent in the Highlands were interrupted when Simon pointed toward yet another barren peak dusted with a thick mantel of snow.
    “We’re not far from the cave that sheltered the Bonnie Prince before his final rendezvous at Loch nan Uamh with L’Heureux , which took him back to France,” his godfather added solemnly.
    “And where did my parents live after my father was released from prison?” Thomas asked carefully, his glance still fixed on the brooding forest stretching in a dark green line across Strathglass.
    “That’s what I’ve come here to show you,” Simon said gruffly, digging his boot into the scrawny sides of his Highland pony that had suffered deprivation along with his rider.
    The exhausted horses soon forded the stream and skirted Culligran Falls. For another half hour, their mounts stumbled over rocks and around boulders until the two riders crossed a spongy moor that brought them to a one-room crofter’s cottage, which lacked even a thatched roof and stood out starkly against the landscape. Simon dismounted and gestured for Thomas to do the