Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [384]
“Dougal MacKenzie?” Jamie’s brows rose quizzically. “Aye, I suppose it would do no harm, but…”
“Do no harm? Man, did ye no hear? The MacKenzie’s Prince Charles’s fair-haired boy the noo.” Simon lounged back in his seat, looking mockingly at his half-nephew.
“What for?” I asked. “What on earth has he done?” Dougal had brought two hundred and fifty men-at-arms to fight for the Stuart cause, but there were a number of chieftains who had made greater contributions.
“Ten thousand pounds,” Simon said, savoring the words as he rolled them around on his tongue. “Ten thousand pounds in fine sterling, Dougal MacKenzie’s brought to lay at the feet of his sovereign. And it willna come amiss, either,” he said matter-of-factly, dropping his lounging pose. “Cameron was just telling me that Charles had gone through the last of the Spanish money, and damn little coming in from the English supporters he’d counted on. Dougal’s ten thousand will keep the army in weapons and food for a few more weeks, at least, and with luck, by then he’ll ha’ got more from France.” At last, realizing that his reckless cousin was providing him with an excellent distraction for the English, Louis was reluctantly agreeing to cough up a bit of money. It was a long time coming, though.
I stared at Jamie, his face reflecting my own bewilderment. Where on earth would Dougal MacKenzie have gotten ten thousand pounds? Suddenly I remembered where I had heard that sum mentioned once before—in the thieves’ hole at Cranesmuir, where I had spent three endless days and nights, awaiting trial on charges of witchcraft.
“Geillis Duncan!” I exclaimed. I felt cold at the memory of that conversation, carried out in the pitch-blackness of a miry pit, my companion no more than a voice in the dark. The drawing-room fire was warm, but I pulled my cloak tighter around me.
“I diverted near on to ten thousand pounds,” Geillis had said, boasting of the thefts accomplished by judicious forgery of her late husband’s name. Arthur Duncan, whom she had killed by poison, had been the procurator fiscal for the district. “Ten thousand pounds for the Jacobite cause. When it comes to rebellion, I shall know that I helped.”
“She stole it,” I said, feeling a tremor run up my arms at the thought of Geillis Duncan, convicted of witchcraft, gone to a fiery death beneath the branches of a rowan tree. Geillis Duncan, who had escaped death just long enough to give birth to the child she bore to her lover—Dougal MacKenzie. “She stole it and she gave it to Dougal; or he took it from her, no telling which, now.” Agitated, I stood up and paced back and forth before the fire.
“That bastard!” I said. “That’s what he was doing in Paris two years ago!”
“What?” Jamie was frowning at me, Simon staring openmouthed.
“Visiting Charles Stuart. He came to see whether Charles were really planning a rebellion. Maybe he promised the money then, maybe that’s what encouraged Charles to risk coming to Scotland—the promise of Geillis Duncan’s money. But Dougal couldn’t give Charles the money openly while Colum was alive—Colum would have asked questions; he was much too honest a man to have used stolen money, no matter who stole it in the first place.”
“I see.” Jamie nodded, eyes hooded in thought. “But now Colum is dead,” he said quietly. “And Dougal MacKenzie is the Prince’s favorite.”
“Which is all to the good for you, as I’ve been saying,” Simon put in, impatient with talk of people he didn’t know and matters he only half-understood. “Go find him; likely he’ll be in the World’s End at this time o’ day.”
“Do you think he’ll speak to the Prince for you?” I asked Jamie, worried. Dougal had been Jamie’s foster father for a time, but the relationship had assuredly had its ups and downs. Dougal might not want to risk his newfound popularity with the Prince by speaking out for a bunch of cowards and deserters.
The Young Fox might lack his father’s years, but he had a good bit of his sire’s acumen. The heavy black brows quirked upward.
“MacKenzie still wants