Free Prince Across the Water by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris

had a hundred hundred more like him, young and strong and eager …”
    â€œDinna go,” I tried to say. But I still had so little breath, the words came out as a feeble whisper and he did not hear me at all.
    As soon as Lochiel and the prince had disappeared into the darkness, the soldier grabbed my arm and yanked me roughly to my feet. “Be off with ye, laddie,” he commanded. “And dinna let me catch ye sneaking around again or it will go badly for ye.”
    I did not wait to find out what he meant but scrambled down the hillside to find Granda.

11 THE ROAD HOME
    I must have made my way back all right, and fallen dead asleep, because when I woke in the morning, my plaid was still belted about me, and the August sun full in my face. My stomach no longer ached from the guard’s blow, but my head was hammering as if the giants of Loch Lochy had been throwing it about all night long.
    Granda was shaking me. “Get up, laddie. The men are leaving.”
    And, indeed, all around the clans had begun to gather into their marching groups and the low rumbling, wheezing drones of the pipes were just beginning. They made my heart leap and I scrambled to my feet. Adjusting my plaid, I started toward the MacDonalds’ banner.
    Granda’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. “We’re for home, Duncan,” he said. “Remember—we’ve a crop to bring in and mouths to feed.”
    I said a foul word.
    Granda gave me such a look then, I shut my mouth. But inside, my anger roiled. And my sorrow. I shrugged off his hand. “I have to say good-bye to Da.”
    â€œYe just want to beg him to let you stay,” Granda said. “But he willna do it.”
    I knew that. But I couldn’t let him go without trying.
    I found him in a bubble of Glenroy men, and burst through. He was talking about where they were going next, on to Fassefern and Moy, then on down to Edinburgh, which he said was back the way we had come. So, for a little bit, I had hope that Granda and I might go with them. But when Da and I were face-to-face, I didn’t ask. I just held out my hand. He took it in his, and then we looked deep into each other’s eyes, his the color of slate slicked with rain.
    â€œI know ye’ll work hard, Duncan,” he said, “and bring in our crops, what there is of them. Kiss yer ma for me.” Then he turned back to his duty and I to mine.
    Granda and I set out at once, but an army takes longer to get on the move than two humblies. We soon left them far behind, even though Granda’s lame leg slowed us some.
    â€œIt’s a harder journey back,” he warned me, “without the promise of spying the prince.”
    So I spilled it all out, how I’d almost talked to the prince and how he said a hundred hundred more like me would win him back his throne.
    Granda loved that, and said I was a storyteller for sure. But after that, we had little more to say for miles. And Granda had been right. It was harder going home than coming. Now there was nothing new to see, for we’d already been past the rich farms along the loch and seen the spread of the land between the hills, the cows and sheep on the green pastures.
    And I had no hope of the prince to lure me on. No hope that Da would let me go along to the war. We had no pipers playing to stir the heart. It was just one foot after the other and only our small farm at the end.
    Luckily, near nightfall, we fell in with a family of tinkers—a husband, wife, and two wee ones, twins just walking. They were traveling across the country, selling their pots, needles, and trinkets from a horse-drawn cart.
    We greeted them pleasantly, which many folk don’t do, and they shared their food with us. In exchange, for we had neither coin nor scrip to purchase anything, Granda told them some of his tales. Tinkers are great collectors of such stories, which they use to cozen housewives to buy their wares.
    We took