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April 14, 1746-Aching Bones


You have been marching for days and food supplies from your home of Airgead Muileann are depleting and spoiling. Your small group of forty or more men are weary and hungry. You even caught Donald MacLean eating grass. Your hope is that you can rally with Charlie soon and he will have food. Your men's once beautiful and bright tartans are now covered in dirt. They haven't had a good wash in days, same with the horses. You are walking along Loch Ness, but you don't have time for baths and the men always sleep where they fall at night. You send out foragers before night fall but all they ever bring back is a handful of onions and edible berries. When you had just left home you found and shot a buck, but that meat didn't last. You are riding Wildfire, named for her reddish-brown coat. Your son rides Rain, a dark grey male. Lord John the Impolite sits astride Ebony, a black horse, and finally is Lord Bergh who is mounted on Buck, a tall light brown male. You occasionally swat away an annoying fly, but they keep coming back.



You know your men are tired, you can see them dragging their feet. If you had more horses you'd mount all your men, but alas, Airgead Muileann is a small and very poor place. You have seven year olds taking complete control of your stable's care. You have eleven year olds swinging axes and felling trees in the nearby forests. With the war preparations and all that, you need all the help you can get. You are on Scotland's side, Charlie's side. You know John doesn't support Charlie's cause. It took a lot of bickering and convincing to get him to go. He had to go, or else be called a coward and a woman. You are still not sure whether he will send his men into battle, though. You don't even have much faith in Charlie. He was born in Italy. John calls him a 'damned Italian'. Charlie even had to ask the chiefs who supported him about the strange Highland dress, meaning the knee socks, kilts, and sporrans.