“Ye dinna mean to do it here, surely?” People came in and out all day, in need of the doctor’s attention, and wouldn’t be likely to stop, only because meeting was being held.
“Friend Jamie says he will provide us a refuge,” Denny assured him. “We’ll go as soon as—who has thee there, Dorothea?”
Dottie was stowing supplies but had paused to talk with a young girl who had climbed up to kneel on the wagon’s seat and was addressing Dorothea earnestly.
“It’s a woman in childbed, Denny,” she called. “Three campfires over!”
“Urgent?” Denny at once began unstrapping the pack he had just done up.
“This child says so.” Dottie straightened up and tucked her straggling fair hair back under her cap. “It’s her mother’s fourth; no trouble with the first three, but given the conditions . . .” She sidled past the baggage to the lowered tailboard, and Ian gave her a hand to hop down.
“She really wanted Mrs. Fraser,” Dottie said to Denny, sotto voce. “But she’ll settle for you.” She dimpled. “Is thee flattered?”
“I see my reputation spreads like pomade on a silken pillow,” he replied tranquilly. “And thy use of plain speech inflames me. Thee had best come with me. Will thee watch the wagon, Ian?”
The two of them made off through the maze of wagons, horses, and stray pigs—some enterprising farmer had driven a dozen lean hogs into camp, seeking to sell them to the quartermaster, but the pigs had taken fright at the inadvertent explosion of a musket nearby and run off among the crowd, causing mass confusion. Rollo had run one down and broken its neck; Ian had bled and eviscerated the carcass and—after giving Rollo the heart and lights—stashed it under damp canvas, hidden beneath Denzell’s wagon. Should he meet the distraught swineherd, he’d pay him for the beast, but he wasn’t letting it out of his sight. He stole a quick glance under the skirting board, but the canvas-covered lump was still there.
Rollo moved a little and made an odd sound, not quite a whine, that shifted Ian’s attention at once to the dog.
“How is it, a choin?” he asked. Rollo at once licked his hand and panted in a genial fashion, but Ian slid off the wagon tongue and knelt in the leaves, feeling his way over the big, shaggy body, just in case. Palpating, Auntie Claire called it, a word that always made Ian smile.
He found a little tenderness where the dog had been shot the autumn before, in the meat of the shoulder just above the foreleg, but that was always there. And a spot on his spine, a few inches forward of the beast’s tail, that made him splay his legs and groan when it was pressed. Maybe Rollo had strained himself taking down the hog.
“None sae young as ye used to be, are ye, a choin?” he asked, scratching Rollo’s whitened jaw.
“None of us are, a mac mo pheathar,” said his uncle Jamie, coming out of the gloaming and sitting down on the stump Dottie had been using to mount the wagon. He was wearing full uniform and looked hot. Ian passed over his canteen and Jamie took it with a nod of thanks, wiping his sleeve across his face.
“Aye, day after tomorrow,” he said, in answer to Ian’s raised brow. “First light, if not before. Wee Gilbert’s got command of a thousand men and permission to go after the rear guard.”
“You—I mean us”—Ian corrected himself—“with him?”
Jamie nodded and drank deep. Ian thought he looked a bit tense, but, after all, he was in command of three hundred men—if all of them were going with La Fayette . . .
“I think they’re sending me with him in hopes that my ancient wisdom will balance the Seigneur de La Fayette’s youthful enthusiasm,” Jamie said, lowering the canteen with a sigh. “And it’s maybe better than staying back wi’ Lee.” He grimaced. “Boiling Water thinks it beneath his dignity to marshal no but a thousand men and declined the command.”
Ian made a noise indicating amusement at this and faith in his uncle’s sagacity. It might be fun, harrying the British rear. He felt a tingle of anticipation at thought of putting on his war paint.
“Where’s Denzell gone?” Jamie asked, glancing at the wagon.
“Attending a childbirth over yon,” Ian said, lifting his chin in the direction Denzell and Dottie had taken. “He says ye’re hosting a Quaker meeting tonight.”
Jamie lifted a thick brow glistening with droplets of sweat.
“Well, I wasna planning to join in, but I said they might use my tent and welcome. Why, are ye going yourself?”
“Thought I might,” Ian said. “I was invited, after all.”
“Were ye?” Jamie looked interested. “D’ye think they mean to convert ye?”
“I dinna think that’s how Quakers work,” Ian said, a little ruefully. “And good luck to them if they do. I think the power o’ prayer must have limits.”
That made his uncle snort with amusement, but Jamie shook his head. “Never think it, laddie,” he advised. “If wee Rachel sets her mind to it, she’ll have your sword beaten into a plowshare before ye can say Peter Piper picked a peck o’ pickled peppers. Well, twice,” he added. “Or maybe three times.”
Ian made a dissentient noise through his nose. “Aye, and if I were to try bein’ a Friend, who would there be to protect the lot of ’em? Rachel and her brother and Dottie, I mean. Ye ken that, don’t ye? That they can only be what they are because you and I are what we are?”
Jamie leaned back a little, purse-lipped, then gave him the ghost of a wry smile.