Read Chapter 6: Under the White Flag

The dawn mist clung to the glen like a shroud as Callum walked the last quarter mile with his hands empty and his father's knife hidden against his spine. A white cloth, torn from his own shirt and tied to a broken branch, bobbed above his head. It felt like a lie made visible.

He had left the laird's sealed message hidden in the courier's tree before first light, tucked beneath the same stone where he had left his warning days ago. One rebellion served before breakfast. Now he would serve the other before noon.

Two figures emerged from the treeline ahead, muskets levelled. Callum kept his pace steady, the mud sucking at his boots. He had hunted enough men to know that a steady gait was the only language these folk trusted.

"MacRae," one of them said. A man he did not know, bearded and wiry, with the hollow look of a man who had not eaten well in weeks. "Eilidh said you might come. Said you might be a liar, too."

"Then she's got good instincts," Callum replied. "I am a liar. I'm also the only man standing between your courier and a rope."

The two rebels exchanged a glance. The wiry one spat. "Search him."

Callum spread his arms. He had left the knife behind—a decision that had cost him sleep but might buy him trust. They found nothing but the white flag and the letter from Thorne, which Callum had allowed them to take. It was the only honest thing he carried.

They marched him through the camp, if it could be called that. A scattering of lean-tos and cold firepits tucked into a fold of the hills. Fewer than forty souls, by Callum's count. Women moved among the men, carrying water and binding wounds. One of them, an old woman with eyes like flint, watched him pass and made the sign against evil.

Eilidh waited at the centre of the camp, standing before a low tent stitched from salvaged canvas. Her hair was bound back today, and there was a fresh cut along her jaw that had not been there when they met on the moor.

"You came," she said. Not a question.

"Your friend with the musket made it clear I had a choice."

"You could have sent word. You could have run."

"Where would I run to?" Callum let the bitterness sit in his voice. It was not hard to find. "Thorne has my brother. MacLeod has my oath. You have my warning. I'm the most obligated man in Scotland."

A flicker of something crossed Eilidh's face—not quite sympathy, but close enough. "You left the warning in the tree. The Grey Fox knows Duncan is alive."

"Then he knows more than I do. Thorne won't let me see him. Keeps saying the boy is well, but—"

"Thorne is a liar. That's not news."

"No." Callum met her eyes. "The news is that Thorne has MacLeod in irons. And MacLeod told me something that changes everything."

Eilidh went still. The camp noise around them seemed to dim. "What did he tell you?"

"That the Grey Fox is his grandson."

For a long moment, Eilidh did not move. Then she laughed, a short bitter sound. "The old man finally said it out loud. He's been carrying that secret like a stone in his gut for a year."

"You knew."

"Everyone in the inner circle knew. It's why MacLeod was never touched when the British took the other lairds. Thorne thought an old man with no heirs and no stomach for war was harmless." She shook her head. "He's the Grey Fox's grandfather. There's no man more dangerous to Thorne than the one he thinks is already broken."

"Thorne doesn't know," Callum said. "But he wants me to prove I'm loyal by delivering that letter." He gestured to the folded paper in Eilidh's hand. "It's an offer of amnesty for the Grey Fox. Surrender, and he walks free. His men are to be pardoned."

Eilidh's mouth twisted. "And Duncan?"

"Thorne didn't mention Duncan. The letter is about the Grey Fox only."

"Then it's a trap." She said it flatly, without passion. "Thorne doesn't offer amnesty. He offers ropes with cleaner knots. The moment the Grey Fox shows himself, he's a dead man."

"I know that." Callum had known it before he left the village. He had read the letter three times, hunting for a mercy that was not there. "But if I deliver it and he refuses, Thorne has his answer. He'll tighten the noose on MacLeod. On Duncan."

Eilidh studied him. In the grey light, her eyes were the colour of the loch before a storm. "You ask me to trust you."

"I ask you to use me." Callum pressed his advantage. "I'm the only man who walks freely in both camps. Thorne sends me out to hunt you. You know where I am, what I do. Duncan's letters gave you everything you needed to stay ahead of the patrols."

"Until Thorne realised you were slow on purpose," Eilidh said. "Ivor watches you now. And Ivor has a good nose for lies."

"Then give me something true to carry." Callum stepped closer. "You have a British officer. A prisoner. I know the supply lines, the outposts. If you want to trade him for something—supplies, a prisoner exchange, information—I can carry the offer. Thorne would have to listen if it comes with a captured redcoat."

Eilidh was silent for a long moment. Then she turned and lifted the tent flap. "Rab wants to see you."

The man inside was not what Callum had expected. The Grey Fox's second-in-command, according to Duncan's letters, was a shadow who moved through the rebel network like smoke. Callum had pictured a young firebrand, all fury and gunpowder.

Rab was fifty if he was a day, grey-streaked and lean, with the scarred hands of a man who had worked the land and the sea and maybe worse. He sat on a stump inside the tent, a musket across his knees, and watched Callum enter with the patient stillness of a man who had learned not to waste words.

"So you're the tracker," Rab said. His voice was sand and gravel. "The one who's supposed to be hunting us."

"That's the lie I tell Thorne."

"And the truth you tell us? What is it?"

Callum had rehearsed this answer on the walk down. It still tasted like ash in his mouth. "My brother is in a British cell. The laird is in irons. I'm doing what I can to keep them alive."

"While you serve the men who put them there."

"While I serve the men who can free them." Callum held Rab's gaze. "You don't have to like it. You just have to use it."

Rab laughed, a dry sound like wind through dead leaves. "You've got balls, tracker. I'll give you that." He looked at Eilidh. "You trust him?"

"I trust that Duncan vouched for him. And Duncan's never been wrong about a man."

"Duncan's never been wrong about anyone," Rab agreed. He turned back to Callum. "We do have an officer. Captain Morris. Bad leg, worse temper. Thorne's been sending patrols out looking for him for a week."

"The supply cache at Glen Corrie," Callum said. The name came to him from Thorne's maps, from talk he had overheard in the garrison. "Morris was escorting a supply convoy. It went missing after the ambush at the pass."

"You never saw that," Rab said sharply.

"I don't need to see it. I need to know where it is." Callum leaned forward. "You've got the officer. You've got the supplies. What you don't have is a way to use them. Give me the cache. I'll tell Thorne I found it, that I captured one of your men who gave it up. Thorne sends a retrieval party. You spring the trap, take their new supplies, and hand Morris back with a message."

"And what do you get?" Rab's eyes were flint.

"Thorne's trust. A chance to see my brother." Callum's voice cracked on the last word, and he let it. "I can't free Duncan while I'm a man Thorne suspects. But if I bring him a victory—if I hand him your cache—he'll relax his grip. And I'll have room to move."

Rab was silent so long that Callum thought he had overplayed his hand. The older man stared at the tent wall, his thumb tracing the lock of his musket in a slow, rhythmic motion.

"You'd lead British soldiers into an ambush," Rab said at last. "Soldiers who trust you. You'd feed them to us."

"Yes."

"That's the kind of betrayal that gets a man killed slow."

"I know." Callum's mouth was dry. "But it's the only way I can think of to get my brother out of that cell without starting a war I can't win."

Rab looked at Eilidh. She gave a single, small nod. He turned back to Callum, and a slow, dangerous smile spread across his weathered face.

"Here's your truth, tracker. We don't need your trap, because there's nothing in Glen Corrie to find. The cache is already empty. We moved everything three days ago." He paused, letting the words land. "But Thorne doesn't know that. And if you tell him you found the cache, and you tell him it's still guarded by a handful of my best men, he'll send a party to collect it. We'll hit them on the road back. Not an ambush in the glen—a strike in open country, where they'll have nowhere to run."

Callum's mind raced. The plan was cleaner than his, and crueller. A moving target, no pickets to sound the alarm. "You want me to send Thorne's men into a trap I don't control."

"I want you to send Thorne's men into a trap that makes you look loyal and leaves every redcoat dead." Rab's eyes were cold. "That clears the road for you. And when the survivors drag back word of your find, Thorne will trust you with anything. Including your brother."

Callum understood then, fully and finally, that every step he took for one side was a knife in the back of the other. And still, he could not see another road.

"Give me the location," he said. "The one you want me to report."

Eilidh moved to a small table, dipped a quill, and wrote three lines on a scrap of paper. She handed it to Callum without meeting his eyes.

"Tell Thorne you found the cache at the old shieling above Loch Lagan," she said. "We'll make sure he finds traces of a camp there. Enough to convince him."

Callum folded the paper and tucked it into his boot. He had come under a white flag. He would leave having handed the rebellion a regiment of British dead.

"You'll let me see Duncan," he said. It was not a question.

"When it's done," Rab agreed. "When the trap is sprung and Thorne is celebrating his victory, you'll have your brother."

Callum turned to leave. Eilidh stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"One more thing, tracker." Her voice was low. "The Grey Fox wanted you to know. He knows what you're sacrificing. And when this is over—when Duncan is free—you'll have a place with us. No more lies. No more white flags."

Callum pulled his arm free. "We'll see who's alive to take the offer."

He walked out of the camp the same way he had come, white flag raised, heart a stone in his chest. He had given the rebels his plan. He had given Thorne a lie that would kill a dozen men. And somewhere in the rain-soaked distance, Duncan sat in a cell, waiting for a brother who was learning to trade lives like currency.