“I’ll call round,” Fiona said thoughtfully. “And speak of calling—telephone me if ye’re not coming back tonight, aye? Just so as I know ye’re safe.”
Bree nodded, her throat tight, and hugged Fiona, taking one more moment’s strength from her friend.
Fiona saw her down the hall to the front door, pausing at the foot of the stair, and glanced toward the chatter coming from above. Did Bree want to say goodbye to Jem and Mandy? Wordless, Brianna shook her head. Her feelings were too raw; she couldn’t hide them sufficiently and didn’t want to scare the kids. Instead, she pressed her fingers to her lips and blew a kiss up the stairs, then turned to the door.
“That shotgun—” Fiona began behind her, and stopped. Brianna turned and raised an eyebrow.
“They canna get ballistics off buckshot, can they?”
AN GEARASDAN
THEY REACHED Fort William in early afternoon of the second day’s travel.
“How large is the garrison?” Roger asked, eyeing the stone walls of the fort. It was modest, as forts went, with only a few buildings and a drill yard within the surrounding walls.
“Maybe forty men, I’d say,” Brian replied, turning sideways to allow a pair of red-coated guards carrying muskets to pass him in the narrow entry passage. “Fort Augustus is the only garrison north of it, and that’s got maybe a hundred.”
That was surprising—or maybe not. If Roger was right about the date, it would be another three years before there was much talk of Jacobites in the Highlands—let alone enough of it to alarm the English crown into sending troops en masse to keep a lid on the situation.
The fort was open, and any number of civilians appeared to have business with the army, judging from the small crowd near one building. Fraser steered him toward another, smaller one with a tilt of his head, though.
“We’ll see the commander, I think.”
“You know him?” A worm of curiosity tickled his spine. Surely it was too early for—
“I’ve met him the once. Buncombe, he’s called. Seems a decent fellow, for a Sassenach.” Fraser gave his name to a clerk in the outer room, and within a moment they were ushered into the commander’s office.
“Oh . . .” A small, middle-aged man in uniform with tired eyes behind a pair of half spectacles half-rose, half-bowed, and dropped back into his seat as though the effort of recognition had exhausted him. “Broch Tuarach. Your servant, sir.”
Perhaps it had, Roger thought. The man’s face was gaunt and lined, and his breath whistled audibly in his lungs. Claire might have known specifically what was up with Captain Buncombe, but it didn’t take a doctor to know that something was physically amiss.
Still, Buncombe listened civilly to his story, called in the clerk to make a careful note of Cameron’s description and Jem’s, and promised that these would be circulated to the garrison and that any patrols or messengers would be advised to ask after the fugitives.
Brian had thoughtfully brought along a couple of bottles in his saddlebags and now produced one, which he set on the desk with a gurgling thump of enticement.
“We thank ye, sir, for your help. If ye’d allow us to present a small token of appreciation for your kindness . . .”
A small but genuine smile appeared on Captain Buncombe’s worn face.
“I would, sir. But only if you gentlemen will join me . . . ? Ah, yes.” Two worn pewter cups and—after a brief search—a crystal goblet with a chip out of the rim were produced, and the blessed silence of the dram fell upon the tiny office.
After a few moments’ reverence, Buncombe opened his eyes and sighed.
“Amazing, sir. Your own manufacture, is it?”
Brian inclined his head with a modest shake.
“Nay but a few bottles at Hogmanay, just for the family.”
Roger had himself seen the root cellar from which Brian had chosen the bottle, lined from floor to ceiling with small casks and with an atmosphere to it that would have knocked a moose flat had he stayed to breathe it long. But an instant’s thought told him that it was probably wiser not to let a garrison full of soldiers know that you kept any sort of liquor in large quantities on your premises, no matter what terms you were on with their commander. He caught Brian’s eye, and Fraser looked aside with a small “mmphm” and a tranquil smile.
“Amazing,” Buncombe repeated, and tipped another inch into his glass, offering the bottle round. Roger followed Brian’s lead and refused, nursing his own drink while the other two men fell into a sort of conversation he recognized very well. Not friendly but courteous, a trade of information that might be of advantage to one or both—and a careful avoidance of anything that might give the other too much advantage.
He’d seen Jamie do it any number of times, in America. It was headman’s talk, and there were rules to it. Of course . . . Jamie must have seen his da do it any number of times himself; it was bred in his bones.
He thought Jem maybe had it. He had something that made people look at him twice—something beyond the hair, he amended, and smiled to himself.
While Buncombe occasionally directed a question to him, Roger was for the most part able to leave them to it, and he gradually relaxed. The rain had passed, and a beam of sun from the window rested on his shoulders, warming him from without as the whisky warmed him within. He felt for the first time that he might be accomplishing something in his search, rather than merely flailing desperately round the Highlands.
“And they could maybe arrest the fellow,” John Murray had remarked, anent the soldiers and Rob Cameron. A comforting thought, that.