People came to Beardsley’s from a hundred miles—literally—in every direction. Cherokee from the Snowbird villages, Moravians from Salem, the multifarious inhabitants of Brownsville, and—of course—the inhabitants of Fraser’s Ridge.
The trading post had grown amazingly in the eight years since I had last set foot in the place. I saw campsites in the forest nearby, and a sort of free-lance flea market had sprung up alongside the trading post proper—people who brought small things to trade directly with their neighbors.
The manager of the trading post, a lean, pleasant man of middle years named Herman Stoelers, had wisely welcomed this activity, understanding that the more people who came, the greater the variety of what was available, and the more attractive Beardsley’s became overall.
And the wealthier became the owner of Beardsley’s trading post—an eight-year-old mulatto girl named Alicia. I wondered whether anyone besides Jamie and myself knew the secret of her birth, but if anyone did, they had wisely decided to keep it to themselves.
It was a two-day trek to the trading post, particularly as we had only Clarence, Jamie having taken Miranda and the pack mule—a jenny named Annabelle—to Salem. But the weather was good, and Jenny and I could walk, accompanied by Germain and Ian, leaving Clarence to carry Rachel and our trade goods. I’d left Fanny with Amy Higgins. She was still shy of talking in front of people; it would take a good deal of practice before she could speak normally.
Even Jenny, sophisticate as she now was after Brest, Philadelphia, and Savannah, was impressed by the trading post.
“I’ve never seen sae many outlandish-looking people in all my born days,” she said, making no effort not to stare as a pair of Cherokee braves in full regalia rode up to the trading post, followed by several women on foot in a mixture of doeskins and European shifts, skirts, breeches, and jackets, these dragging bundles of hides on a travois or carrying huge cloth bundles full of squash, beans, corn, dried fish, or other salables on their heads or backs.
I came to attention, seeing the knobbly bulges of ginseng root protruding from one lady’s pack.
“Keep an eye on Germain,” I said, shoving him hastily at Jenny, and dived into the throng.
I emerged ten minutes later with a pound of ginseng, having driven a good bargain for a bag of raisins. They were Amy Higgins’s raisins, but I would get her the calico cloth she wanted.
Jenny suddenly raised her head, listening.
“Did ye hear a goat just now?”
“I hear several. Do we want a goat?” But she was already making her way toward a distant shed. Evidently we did want a goat.
I shoved my ginseng into the canvas bag I’d brought and followed hastily.
“WE DON’T NEED that,” a scornful voice said. “Piece o’ worthless trash, that is.”
Ian looked up from the mirror he was inspecting and squinted at a pair of young men on the other side of the store, engaged in haggling with a clerk over a pistol. They seemed somehow familiar to him, but he was sure he’d never met them. Small and wiry, with yellowish hair cropped short to their narrow skulls and darting eyes, they had the air of stoats: alert and deadly.
Then one of them straightened from the counter and, turning his head, caught sight of Ian. The youth stiffened and poked his brother, who looked up, irritated, and in turn caught sight of Ian.
“What the devil . . . ? Cheese and rice!” the second youth said.
Plainly they knew him; they were advancing on him, shoulder to shoulder, eyes gleaming with interest. And seeing them side by side, suddenly he recognized them.
“A Dhia,” he said under his breath, and Rachel glanced up.
“Friends of thine?” she said mildly.
“Ye might say so.” He stepped out in front of his wife, smiling at the . . . well, he wasn’t sure what they were just now, but they weren’t wee lassies any longer.
He’d thought they were boys when he’d met them: a pair of feral Dutch orphans named—they said—Herman and Vermin, and they thought their last name was Kuykendall. In the event, they’d turned out to be in actuality Hermione and Ermintrude. He’d found them a temporary refuge with . . . oh, Christ.
“God, please, no!” he said in Gaelic, causing Rachel to look at him in alarm.
Surely they weren’t still with . . . but they were. He saw the back of a very familiar head—and a still more familiar arse—over by the pickle barrel.
He glanced round quickly, but there was no way out. The Kuykendalls were approaching fast. He took a deep breath, commended his soul to God, and turned to his wife.
“Do ye by chance recall once tellin’ me that ye didna want to hear about every woman I’d bedded?”
“I do,” she said, giving him a deeply quizzical look. “Why?”
“Ah. Well . . .” He breathed deep and got it out just in time. “Ye said ye did want me to tell ye if we should ever meet anyone that I . . . er—”
“Ian Murray?” said Mrs. Sylvie, turning round. She came toward him, a look of pleasure on her rather plain, bespectacled face.
“Her,” Ian said hastily to Rachel, jerking his thumb in Mrs. Sylvie’s direction before turning to the lady.
“Mrs. Sylvie!” he said heartily, seizing her by both hands in case she might try to kiss him, as she had occasionally been wont to do upon their meeting. “I’m that pleased to see ye! And even more pleased to present ye to my . . . er . . . wife.” The word emerged in a slight croak, and he cleared his throat hard. “Rachel. Rachel, this is—”