When an eerie mists creeps in and hovers over the grounds of a battlefield, it is said that the wraith begins her walk. She stakes her claim, marking where the bodies will soon fall, remembering the location so that she may return for the soul of the departed warrior. Legend says the wraith was once a woman who held a love for the world and all things in it, or she may have been a treasured goddess - it's hard to say for sure. Whatever tale you choose to tell, she died a tragic death, condemned forever to walk where there will soon be death to come.
The wraith was there on Culloden Moor that frigid, misty morning, waiting to collect the souls of the thousands of innocent deceased.
30 April, 2138
Culloden Moor, Inverness, Scotland
"Eight hundred years ago, our fathers and grandfathers swore an oath… that oath was called the Declaration of Arbroath. 'Fer as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not fer glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but fer freedom - fer that alone, which no honest man - and now woman - gives up but with life itself'." I paused in my speech, which I gave on the eve of the Second Battle of Culloden in 2138, and glanced at the faces before me. Eager soldiers, men and women, some young, some old, but all with the fires of rebellion in their eyes. Those flames held centuries of resentment towards the English, who had tried for centuries to subdue us. From King Edward I's hammering of the Scots in the twelfth century, to the Declaration of Arbroath on the sixth of April, 1320, to the various battles for control of Berwick, to the 1689 Jacobite Uprising at Killiecrankie and Dunkeld, to the Glencoe Massacre in 1692, to the 1715 Jacobite Uprising, to the '45, to the First Battle of Culloden in 1746… to the First Scottish Rebellion in 2098, to now.
"There are well more than a hundred of us now," I continued. "Never will we be brought under English rule. Never will we be subdued by another. Never will the English take us alive. Remember what we fight fer - freedom, the price of which may very well be yer life. And if ye are to die, know that yer death will not have been in vain. Ye will be avenged… and the children of the future will be free, thanks te you."
The woman who commanded her men and her women at Culloden Moor in 2138 was long gone. Captain Catrìona Fowlis had died on Culloden Moor… and perhaps, Catrìona Fraser will, too. She will go down in history nameless, making no mark on the world. She tried and failed to stop needless deaths, and for that, she would pay. She didn't try hard enough. She didn't want it enough. She hesitated too much, too late… and now, innocents will suffer.
Birds of omen dark and foul,
Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
Leave the sick man to his dream -
All night long, he heard you scream.
Haste to cave and ruin'd tower,
Ivy tod, or dingled bower,
There to weep and mop, for hark!
In the mid air sings the lark.
The Highland soldiers will be fired upon with no hesitation and no mercy. Talk of brotherhood will be abandoned - the English never saw us as such. It was empty talk, brotherhood between the two lands. Such differing cultures, such differing wants. One seeks power and control, while the other seeks freedom, begging just for an ounce. The soldiers will fall, and those who are not lucky enough to die in battle will be forced to wait until they are found and killed the following day, the wraithlike mist a warning to their fates.
Hie to moorish gills and rocks,
Prowling wolf and wily fox -
Hie ye fast, nor turn your view,
Though the lamb bleats to the ewe.
Couch your trains, and speed your flight,
Safety parts with parting night;
And on distant echo borne,
Comes the hunter's early horn.
Following Culloden, the people of the land will be purged with no discrimination. Jacobite or not, Catholic or Protestant, man or woman, old or young, there will be no mercy. The Butcher will plow through the highlands bearing his cleaver and he will summon the wraith to every home in the highlands. Best ye hide until darkness comes, for ye may never again see the light.
The moon's wan crescent scarcely gleams,
Ghost-like she fades in morning beams;
Hie hence, each peevish imp and fae
That scarce the pilgrim on his way -
Quench, kelpy! quench in bog and fen,
Thy torch, that cheats benighted men;
Thy dance is o'er, thy reign is done,
For Benyielgo hath seen the sun.
Culloden wasn't the end of the butchering of Scotland. The politicians in England wanted to ensure that the Jacobites had seen the last of Scottish soil. In the years to follow, clans will be dissolved, ancestral land will be seized and divided up. Families will be evicted from their homes and put on ships destined for a world unknown. Being Scottish became a crime - either you were British, or you were nothing.
Wild thoughts, that, sinful, dark, and deep,
O'erpower the passive mind in sleep,
Pass from the slumberer's soul away,
Like night-mists from the brow of the day:
Foul hag, whose blasted visage grim
Smothers the pulse, unnerves the limb,
Spur thy dark palfrey, and begone!
Thou darest not face the godlike sun.
We would not dare to step out of line. The shadow of the lion had been cast over the thistle. Night had come - it was time for our eternal sleep.
JAMIE POV
Archie lay tucked up tight between Jamie and Catrìona, fast asleep. He slept peacefully, visions of sugarplums dancing in his head, as Catrìona liked to say. In dreams, no harm could come to him; he was safe, and warm, tucked up in Jamie's arms. Catrìona was, too, her head resting saintlike on the pillow, dreaming of peace, creating a world where the violence and bloodshed that was about to occur did not exist, soul of an innocent safe and warm in her womb.
Jamie wondered, suddenly, what Archie Fowlis was like. He wondered what Eilidh Fowlis was like. Catrìona always said that they were tough, they were fighters, respected and kind… What would they say to him if they knew where their daughter was? Protect her. Keep her safe, a voice echoed in the hollow of his mind. You know what to do. You know what must be done.
He did. He knew what must be done.
"Sleep now, mo chridhe…" he whispered to her. He should, too - he needed strength for what was to come.