“Christ, I don’t know,” Roger said, feeling a stab of guilt at the casual blasphemy. He’d have to revise his habits, and quickly. “A month? Six weeks?”
“At least,” his father-in-law said cheerfully. “They’ll be on foot, mind.”
Roger took a deep breath, contemplating a slow march, en masse, from Cross Creek to the mountains, with Arch Bug on one side of him and Tom Christie on the other, twin pillars of taciturnity. His eyes lingered wistfully on his wife, envisioning six weeks of sleeping by the roadside, alone.
“Yeah, fine,” he said. “I’ll . . . um . . . go speak to Tom and Arch tonight, then.”
“Daddy go?” Catching the gist of the conversation, Jem scrambled off his grandfather’s knee and scampered over to Roger, grabbing him round the leg. “Go with you, Daddy!”
“Oh. Well, I don’t think—” He caught sight of Bree’s face, resigned, and then the green and red jar on the table behind her. “Why not?” he said suddenly, and smiled at Jem. “Great-Auntie Jocasta would love to see you. And Mummy can blow things up to her heart’s content without worrying where you are, aye?”
“She can do what?” Jamie looked startled.
“It doesn’t explode,” Brianna said, picking up the jar of phosphorus and cradling it possessively. “It just burns. Are you sure?” This last was addressed to Roger, and accompanied by a searching look.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, affecting confidence. He glanced at Jemmy, who was chanting “Go! Go! Go!”, meanwhile hopping up and down like a demented popcorn kernel. “At least I’ll have someone to talk to on the way.”
13
SAFE HANDS
IT WAS NEARLY DARK when Jamie came in to find me sitting at the kitchen table, head on my arms. I jerked upright at the sound of his footstep, blinking.
“Are ye all right, Sassenach?” He sat down on the opposite bench, eyeing me. “Ye look as though ye’ve been dragged through a hedge backward.”
“Oh.” I patted vaguely at my hair, which did seem to be sticking out a bit. “Um. Fine. Are you hungry?”
“Of course I am. Have ye eaten, yourself?”
I squinted and rubbed my face, trying to think.
“No,” I decided at last. “I was waiting for you, but I seem to have fallen asleep. There’s stew. Mrs. Bug left it.”
He got up and peered into the small cauldron, then pushed the swinging hook back to bring it over the fire to warm.
“What have ye been doing, Sassenach?” he asked, coming back. “And how’s the wee lass?”
“The wee lass is what I’ve been doing,” I said, suppressing a yawn. “Mostly.” I rose, slowly, feeling my joints protest, and staggered over to the sideboard to cut some bread.
“She couldn’t keep it down,” I said. “The gallberry medicine. Not that I blame her,” I added, cautiously licking my lower lip. After she’d thrown it up the first time, I’d tasted it myself. My tastebuds were still in a state of revolt; I’d never met a more aptly named plant, and being boiled into syrup had merely concentrated the flavor.
Jamie sniffed deeply as I turned.
“Did she vomit on ye?”
“No, that was Bobby Higgins,” I said. “He’s got hookworms.”
He raised his brows.
“Do I want to hear about them whilst I’m eating?”
“Definitely not,” I said, sitting down with the loaf, a knife, and a crock of soft butter. I tore off a piece, buttered it thickly, and gave it to him, then took one for myself. My tastebuds hesitated, but wavered on the edge of forgiving me for the gallberry syrup.
“What have you been doing?” I asked, beginning to wake up enough to take notice. He seemed tired, but more cheerful than he had been when he’d left the house.
“Talking to Roger Mac about Indians and Protestants.” He frowned at the half-eaten chunk of bread in his hand. “Is there something amiss wi’ the bread, Sassenach? It tastes odd.”
I waved a hand apologetically.
“Sorry, that’s me. I washed several times, but I couldn’t get it off completely. Perhaps you’d better do the buttering.” I pushed the loaf toward him with my elbow, gesturing at the crock.
“Couldna get what off?”
“Well, we tried and tried with the syrup, but no good; Lizzie simply couldn’t hold it down, poor thing. But I remembered that quinine can be absorbed through the skin. So I mixed the syrup into some goose grease, and rubbed it all over her. Oh, yes, thanks.” I leaned forward and took a delicate bite of the buttered bit of bread he held out for me. My tastebuds gave in gracefully, and I realized that I hadn’t eaten all day.
“And it worked?” He glanced up at the ceiling. Mr. Wemyss and Lizzie shared the smaller room upstairs, but all was quiet above.
“I think so,” I said, swallowing. “The fever finally broke, at least, and she’s asleep. We’ll keep using it; if the fever doesn’t come back in two days, we’ll know it works.”
“That’s good, then.”
“Well, and then there was Bobby and his hookworms. Fortunately, I have some ipecacuanha and turpentine.”
“Fortunately for the worms, or for Bobby?”
“Well, neither, really,” I said, and yawned. “It will probably work, though.”
He smiled faintly, and uncorked a bottle of beer, passing it automatically under his nose. Finding it all right, he poured some for me.
“Aye, well, it’s a comfort to know I’m leaving things in your capable hands, Sassenach. Ill-smelling,” he added, wrinkling his long nose in my direction, “but capable.”
“Thanks so much.” The beer was better than good; must be one of Mrs. Bug’s batches. We sipped companionably for a bit, both too tired to get up and serve the stew. I watched him beneath my lashes; I always did, when he was about to leave on a journey, storing up small memories of him against his return.
He looked tired, and there were small twin lines between his heavy brows, betokening slight worry. The candlelight glowed on the broad bones of his face, though, and cast his shadow clear on the plastered wall behind him, strong and bold. I watched the shadow raise its spectral beer glass, the light making an amber glow in the shadow glass.
“Sassenach,” he said suddenly, putting down the glass, “how many times, would ye say, have I come close to dying?”
I stared at him for a moment, but then shrugged and began to reckon, mustering my synapses into reluctant activity.
“Well . . . I don’t know what horrible things happened to you before I met you, but after . . . well, you were dreadfully ill at the abbey.” I glanced covertly at him, but he seemed not to be bothered at the thought of Wentworth prison, and what had been done to him there that had caused the illness. “Hmm. And after Culloden—you said you had a terrible fever then, from your wounds, and thought you might die, only Jenny forced you—I mean, nursed you through it.”
“And then Laoghaire shot me,” he said wryly. “And you forced me through it. Likewise, when the snake bit me.” He considered for a moment.
“I had the smallpox when I was a wean, but I think I wasna in danger of dying then; they said it was a light case. So only four times, then.”
“What about the day I first met you?” I objected. “You nearly bled to death.”
“Oh, I did not,” he protested. “That was no but a wee scratch.”
I lifted one brow at him, and leaning over to the hearth, scooped a ladle of aromatic stew into a bowl. It was rich with the juices of rabbit and venison, swimming in a thick gravy spiced with rosemary, garlic, and onion. So far as my tastebuds were concerned, all was forgiven.
“Have it your way,” I said. “But wait—what about your head? When Dougal tried to kill you with an ax. Surely that’s five?”
He frowned, accepting the bowl.
“Aye, I suppose you’re right,” he said, seeming displeased. “Five, then.”
I regarded him gently over my own bowl of stew. He was very large, solid, and beautifully formed. And if he was a bit battered by circumstance, that merely added to his charm.
“You’re a very hard person to kill, I think,” I said. “That’s a great comfort to me.”
He smiled, reluctant, but then reached out and lifted his glass in salute, touching it first to his own lips, then to mine.
“We’ll drink to that, Sassenach, shall we?”
14
PEOPLE OF THE
SNOWBIRD
GUNS,” Bird-who-sings-in-the-morning said. “Tell your King we want guns.”
Jamie suppressed the urge to reply, “Who doesn’t?” for a moment, but then gave in to it, surprising the war chief into a blink of startlement, followed by a grin.
“Who, indeed?” Bird was a short man, shaped like a barrel, and young for his office—but shrewd, his affability no disguise to his intelligence. “They all tell you this, all the village war chiefs, eh? Of course they do. What do you tell them?”
“What I can.” Jamie lifted one shoulder, let it fall. “Trade goods are certain, knives are likely—guns are possible, but I cannot yet promise them.”
They were speaking a slightly unfamiliar dialect of Cherokee, and he hoped he had got right the manner of indicating probability. He did well enough with the usual tongue in casual matters of trade and hunting, but the matters he dealt in here would not be casual. He glanced briefly at Ian, who was listening closely, but evidently what he’d said was all right. Ian visited the villages near the Ridge frequently, and hunted with the young men; he shifted into the tongue of the Tsalagi as easily as he did into his native Gaelic.
“So, well enough.” Bird settled himself more comfortably. The pewter badge Jamie had given him as a present glinted on his breast, firelight flickering over the broadly amiable planes of his face. “Tell your King about the guns—and tell him why we need them, eh?”
“You wish me to tell him that, do you? Do you think he will be willing to send you guns with which to kill his own people?” Jamie asked dryly. The incursion of white settlers across the Treaty Line into the Cherokee lands was a sore point, and he risked something by alluding to it directly, rather than addressing Bird’s other needs for guns: to defend his village from raiders—or to go raiding himself.
Bird shrugged in reply.
“We can kill them without guns, if we want to.” One eyebrow lifted a little, and Bird’s lips pursed, waiting to see what Jamie made of this statement.
He supposed Bird meant to shock him. He merely nodded.
“Of course you can. You are wise enough not to.”
“Not yet.” Bird’s lips relaxed into a charming smile. “You tell the King—not yet.”
“His Majesty will be pleased to hear that you value his friendship so much.”
Bird burst into laughter at that, rocking back and forth, and his brother Still Water, who sat beside him, grinned broadly.
“I like you, Bear-Killer,” he said, recovering. “You’re a funny man.”