I hope to convince Dottie that she need not accompany me. She’s most determined, but I can see that she pines for her Quaker Physician. And if our Quest should be greatly prolonged . . . I will not allow her to be placed in Danger, I assure you.
Your most affectionate Brother,
John
General Sir Henry Clinton, Commander in Chief for North
America, to Colonel His Grace Duke of Pardloe, 46th Foot
Sir,
You are hereby ordered and directed to assemble and re-fit your Troops in whatever manner you deem necessary, and then to make Junction with Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, to march upon the City of Savannah in the colony of Georgia, and take possession of it in His Majesty’s name.
H. Clinton
HAROLD, DUKE OF Pardloe, felt his chest tightening and rang for his orderly.
“Coffee, please,” he said to the man. “Brewed very strong, and quickly. And bring the brandy while you’re at it.”
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTERS Q, E, AND D
IT WAS, OF COURSE, unthinkable that we should sell Clarence.
“Do you think he weighs as much as a printing press?” I asked, looking at him dubiously. His tiny stable next to the shop had survived the fire, and while he wrinkled his nose and sneezed when the wind raised a whiff of ash from the charred remains of the printshop, he didn’t seem much affected.
“Substantially more, I think.” Jamie scratched his forehead and ran a hand up the length of one long ear. “D’ye think mules suffer from seasickness?”
“Can they vomit?” I tried to recall whether I’d ever seen a horse or mule regurgitate—as opposed to dropping slobbery mouthfuls of whatever they were eating—but couldn’t call an instance to mind.
“I couldna say if they can,” Jamie said, picking up a stiff brush and beating clouds of dust from Clarence’s broad gray back, “but they don’t, no.”
“Then how would you know if a mule was seasick?” Jamie himself got violently seasick, and I did wonder how he was going to manage if we did go by ship; the acupuncture needles I used to quell his nausea had perished in the fire—with so much else.
Jamie gave me a jaundiced look over Clarence’s back.
“Can ye no tell if I’m seasick, even when I’m not puking?”
“Well, yes,” I said mildly, “but you aren’t covered with hair, and you can talk. You turn green and pour with sweat and lie about, groaning and begging to be shot.”
“Aye. Well, bar the turning green, a mule can tell ye verra well if he’s feeling peely-wally. And he can certainly make ye want to shoot him.”
He ran a hand down Clarence’s leg to pick up the mule’s left front hoof. Clarence picked it up and set it down again very solidly, exactly where Jamie’s own foot had been an instant before. His ears twitched.
“On the other hand,” Jamie said to him, “I could make ye walk all the way to Savannah, pullin’ a cart behind ye. Think about that, aye?” He came out of the stall and closed the gate, shaking it to be sure it was securely latched.
“Mr. Fraser!” A shout from the end of the alley drew his attention. It was Jonas Phillips, presumably on his way home to a midday dinner from the assembly room, where the Continental Congress was still locked in struggle. Jamie waved back and, with a nod to me, walked down the alley. While I waited for him, I turned my attention to the jumble of items occupying the other half of the stable.
What little room there was besides Clarence’s stall was filled with the things the neighbors had managed to salvage from the remains of the print-shop. All of it had the sour reek of ash about it, but a few of the items might be salvaged or sold, I supposed.
Mrs. Bell’s letter had caused a certain reevaluation of our immediate prospects. Fergus’s press had definitely perished in the flames; the derelict carcass was still there, the metal parts twisted in a way suggesting uncomfortably that the thing had died in agony. Fergus hadn’t wept; after Henri-Christian, I didn’t think anything could ever make him weep again. But he did avert his eyes whenever he came near the ruins.
On the one hand, the loss of the press was terrible—but, on the other, it did save us the problem of hauling it to . . .
Well, that was another problem. Where were we going?
Jamie had assured me that we were going home—back to the Ridge. But it was late September, and even if we found the money to pay the passage for so many people—and Clarence—and were fortunate enough not to be sunk or captured by an English cutter . . . we would part company with Fergus and Marsali in Wilmington, then go up the Cape Fear River into the North Carolina backcountry, leaving Marsali, Fergus, and the children to go on alone to Savannah. I knew that Jamie didn’t want to do that. In all honesty, neither did I.
The little family was surviving, but there was no doubt that Henri-Christian’s death and the fire had left them all badly wounded. Especially Germain.
You could see it in his face, even in the way he walked, no longer jaunty and bright-eyed, eager for adventure. He walked with his shoulders hunched, as though expecting a blow to come out of nowhere. And while sometimes he would forget for a few moments and revert to his normal swagger and talk, you could see it when the blow of memory did come out of nowhere to send him reeling.
Ian and Rachel had taken it upon themselves to be sure that he didn’t slink away by himself; one or the other was always calling on him to come and help carry the marketing or go out to the forest to look for the proper wood for an ax handle or a new bow. That helped.
If Fergus went to Savannah to retrieve Bonnie, Jamie’s original press, Marsali would be hampered and preoccupied by advancing pregnancy and the difficulties both of travel with a family and then of establishing a new home, Fergus needing to devote himself to setting up the new business and dealing with whatever the local politics might be. Germain could so easily slip through the cracks in his family and be lost.