My Father's Keeper

Chapter 1 – Rumors

She had lived as a princess for more years than she cared to count.

Ten years.

Ten years in the court of Potsdam.

Ten years an orphan.

The irony was that she wasn't truly a princess. She wasn't even royal except through her mother who had been a Princess and Duchess of Prussia. Her father had been a landholder in Scotland, a man of the enemy of Prussia, a man who had died, as a traitor at the Battle of Culloden Moor. He had been an officer for the Scottish Highlanders and had died there she had been told.

The man she knew was not a traitor. In fact, he was a man of principle and he fought for his family and what he believed in above all else. Ellen had loved him so much and she missed him. She still, when she closed her eyes, she could hear his voice speaking in a mix of Scottish English and Gaelic to her as he taught her to read and write.

Ellen, however, was an orphan as far as she knew as well. On their way to Prussia, their boat had been attacked near Gibraltar. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of Cleves and Princess of Prussia had fought, seeing her children safely to a small boat over the side with Wang Lun, the Manchurian bodyguard who had taught Ellen to dance at a young age with a sword. Her mother had taken a blow to the head, as Ellen watched, and she was taken by the pirates. She was likely also dead.

Ellen, her sister Janet, her brother Alexander, and Wang Lun made it to Potsdam, bedraggled, hungry, and lost without their parents.

Alexander was named the Duke of Cleves and was moved after only two years to live with his own household and under the guardianship of his older cousin Wil and his wife Louise. Ellen and Janet remained with the King and Queen as "poor relations". Though they were treated very well, they still often kept to themselves, not speaking to many outside their intimate circle.

Wang Lun had returned to China after his life had been threatened by the King for teaching the girl's how to fight. However, both girls remembered and practiced in secret. Their "dancing master" had been a dear friend and their last connection to who their were.

So they had made a new way.

Ellen was tall with hair like a red deer that shimmered in the sun in hues of red, cinnabar, rust, cinnamon, and auburn. She had slanted blue cat eyes and a large bold nose. She had gotten that from her father along with her height. She stood at nearly six feet tall, taller than any other woman of court by more than head and shoulders and taller than many men as well. Her hands were large, but feminine. Her mother was expressed in the delicate bones of her face as well as in her body. She had lovely hips and full breasts that had gotten the attention of many courtiers, whom she ignored universally.

Janet, or Jen as she liked to be called, was smaller, a lot smaller. She stood barely five feet tall and was more robust about her hips and breasts. She had dark hair, the Fraser nose, and the lilac/gray eyes of her mother. She looked like her namesake, Jenny, her aunt through her father.

The two girls were the best of friends and were nearly inseparable. Their uncle indulged them knowing the trauma they had suffered had brought them closer and he refused to push the point of marriage until either spoke of it. There were many suitors, naturally. They were nieces to a King at his court. They had well learned court intrigue and were able to keep all of the suitors at bay.

Ellen was approaching her eighteenth birthday. She was older than her mother had been when she had married her father. Neither spoke of how they had met, but Ellen had often wondered about the scars that both bore on their backs. Her mother was a princess and flogging a noble was an offense punishable by death in some cases, and yet she had been. Neither parent had spoken of it, but it was clear from her father's back that he had borne the brunt of punishment that perhaps would have killed lesser men.

She sighed. She had kept their journals that had been in a bag Wang Lun had brought. Through salt water stained and falling apart, she treasured them as the only part of her parents she had left. Her father had written in a beautiful flowing way which leaned a different direction from her mother's. She recalled that her father wrote with his left hand and had actually learned to write upside down to prevent dragging his sleeve through the ink. Ellen had always loved to watch him write when she could. He had taught her also since she was also wrong handed as her uncle said, but too late now to "correct" it, he had supposed so he left alone, knowing that her father had been so. He also knew her value at court since, as her father before her, she was a polyglot as well. It was because of this talent of upside down writing, that Ellen had also learned to read upside down, neither talent her sister had learned, but Jen had her father's stubbornness just as Ellen had her mother's serene grace and diplomacy, but occasional brashness.

James Fraser had been the stoic tall Scottish warrior who had been always there as she grew up from her birth in a French war camp to when he had sent them away on the eve of the battle of Culloden. He knew he was to die. His name had been signed to the Jacobite cause and he was now part of it, willing or now. However, he had always been a true Scot wanting freedom. Thus had had joined the fight, despite his personal apprehensions, his family staying with the entourage of the Bonny Prince, though his wife remained with him, much to his occasional displeasure, her healing skills were of value. His children were as safe as they could be.

But then after several victories, the Scottish had become restless, wanting a fight, but the battle ground chosen to stand their ground was a boggy moor near Inverness. Culloden was a place to pass through, not make a stand, however, that was where the British had caught the Highlanders.

He had taken them to a cabin near Inverness, the same one Alex had been born in, bedded their mother well, and slept. Sometime Ellen had heard her parent wake, speaking to each other softly. She had seen them wrap their hands after.

She had slept more.

Morning came and her father had woken them. He said goodbye to each in turn, speaking lowly, even to Alex who didn't understand. Ellen had cried. She loved her father so much and she knew she would never see him again. The date was forever burned into her memory. It was April 15 in the year of our Lord 1746.

He had knelt before Elizabeth asking for her to say a prayer for him in blessing, which was interrupted by an English patrol. Wang Lun had taken her hand and her sister's as carried Alex from the cottage at a run. Ellen had paused on the hill looking back. She had seen her father press her mother against the wall, hard, taking her and then shoving her toward the door. She had seen the English come into the home, but then as her mother made it to her, Jamie escaped out the window and ran the other direction, leading them away from his family who were running up the hill.

There were standing stones at the top of the hill. Ellen had felt her blood run cold at the eerie feeling. Her mother hand then taken her hand as they kilted their skirts up and ran back through the Scottish lines toward Inverness. Murtagh had found them and taken them to the port.

They had boarded a ship and waved goodbye to Murtagh as he turned back to join his laird in the fight that would decide the fate of Scotland. The battle they had lost.

The Jacobites had lost.

Still.

In some odd fashion that she could not explain, Ellen knew her parents yet lived. She rarely spoke of it, but she felt it in her heart that they both lived. James had gone to die, sending his legacy, his wife and children away, unknowing that they would be attacked by Barbary pirates only days later and the last memory Ellen would have of her mother would be her turning, blood covered, to fight a man screaming at her to run.

So she had run, to Wang Lun, to the boat, into the brewing storm, and safety, never to see either parent again.

To this day, Ellen could not explain what she felt, really even articulate it, but it was as she felt. Her parents lived.

Somewhere.

Somehow.

Ellen stood in the garden as she often did, looking over the flowers and herbs. The herbs reminded her of her mother. She sighed. She missed them. She knew her mother had been orphaned when she was but a child also. Did she miss her parents too, she wondered.

Ellen looked up as she head footfalls. She saw it was Wil, a man she called uncle who was really a cousin, son of a brother to her mother, but the age difference made him more uncle than cousin.

"Uncle." She greeted, smiling.

They embraced and he smiled.

"You look well my dear." He greeted.

She nodded. "I am. How is my brother?"

"A weed. He is your height if not more and your father's build."

"I can imagine. Cleves always suited him."

"And yet you are here, not with those of court."

She nodded. "I like the peace."

He nodded. "As your mother did." He took a breath. "Did she ever tell you how I met your father?"

"No? Why?"

"You are more like him than you know. You speak many tongues, you are tall, can fight, and you have a strong sense of honor. And you care about family more than all else." He stepped passed her. "Your father was there when I came to speak to the Laird MacKenzie, your father's uncle. Your mother was more Scot than Prussian by then. And you, were young, brash, and beautiful." He smiled. "I do not think your father much cared for me."

"He said once to my mother that you were her first love."

"First kiss, never her love. We could never be together. She was my aunt." He looked at her and then to the flowers. "I have news."

"What?" She asked.

He took a breath and lifted a paper. "I have friends in Scotland, in Edinburgh, friends who were there when the battles were fought ten years ago. Friends who remained to send me information."

"Spies."

"Well to a degree. More a business arrangement for goods, wine mostly from the Rhein and Moselle valleys."

She nodded. "What news?"

He nodded. "I asked about prisoners of war, of the MacKenzie and Fraser clans."

She nodded. "What about them?"

"Your great-grandfather was executed in the Tower of London as a noble royal to the rebels."

"And? I never liked that mine." She said turning.

"He wasn't the news." He stepped to her. "There was a name that might interest you." He lifted the paper to her.

She read. "Jonathan, Joseph...James MacKenzie Fraser." She looked up and then back. "Of Brock Turac." She made a face. "The English spelled it wrong."

He smiled. "Never mind that, child." He said. "You know what this means..."

She looked at him blankly. "No..."

He smiled tolerantly. "Your father, my schatz, is alive."

There was a moment of hesitation on her face and then she gasped. "Is it true?"

"There is mention of an officer of the Frasers taken to be imprisoned. He apparently escaped capture for a time. This is his name on a manifest for the prison roles."

"But where?" She asked.

He smiled. "That is why you must travel to Scotland."

"Me?"

"This is a rumor of him being alive. Perhaps he was alive and died. Only you can seek out the truth. You and your sister."

She took a breath. "But..."

"It is your choice, but you always said family was worth fighting for."

"Aye." she said looking at him suddenly looking all the world like a Scot. "Jen will stay though. Can you look after her?"

"Of course. I can ask her come to Cleves to live with your brother and I."

She nodded. "He is almost a man. Father would be proud of him."

"Indeed." He took a breath. "Will you go?"

"I have been an orphan for ten years living of my uncle's charity. If I still have a father, I would like to know."

"Prisons are terrible places. I have heard of the Tolbooth." He took a breath. "He may not be the same man, my dear."

"But he would be my father. I could learn about him again. Love him. Start to rebuild our family when he is paroled." She looked up.

He stepped to her. "I will make the arrangements. If he is indeed dead from prison life, than come home."

She nodded. "But Scotland is my home, uncle."

He smiled. "Which is why you must go learn the truth, child."

She looked at him and took a breath.

She nodded and turned away.

A hope. Her father may yet live and here was the proof of her feeling.

A hope she would hold on to.

A hope would keep her.