Текст книги "Written in My Own Heart's Blood"

Автор книги: Diana Gabaldon

Соавторы: Diana Gabaldon
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Vesicovaginal fistula and rectovaginal fistula. I’d known that from the first moment; I just didn’t know how bad they might be or how far up the vaginal canal they’d occurred. A fistula is a passage between two things that ought never to be joined and is, generally speaking, a bad thing.

It wasn’t a common condition in civilized countries in the twentieth century but more common than one might think. I’d seen it several times in Boston, at a clinic where I gave time once a week to provide medical care to the city’s poor. Young girls, much too young to be considering the opposite sex in any serious way, becoming pregnant before their bodies had ripened enough. Prostitutes, some of them. Others just girls who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like this one.

A full-term baby that couldn’t be forced out through the birth canal, and days of nonproductive labor, the child’s head a battering ram against the tissues of the pelvis, the bladder, the vagina, and the bowel. Until at last the tissues thinned and split, leaving a ragged hole between bladder and vagina, or between vagina and rectum, allowing the body’s waste to drip out unhindered through the vagina.

Not a matter of life or death, but revolting, uncontrollable, and bloody uncomfortable, too. Sophronia’s inner thighs were swollen, a bright, patchy red, the skin macerated by the constant wetness, the irritating fecal slime. Like a permanent diaper rash, I thought, suppressing a deeply visceral urge to find Mr. Bradshaw and make a few fistulas in him with a blunt probe.

I talked to her while I made my examinations, soothingly, and after a little she began to answer me, though still in whispers. She was thirteen. Yes, Mr. Bradshaw had took her to his bed. She hadn’t minded. He said his wife was mean to him, and she was—all the slaves knew it. Mr. Bradshaw had been nice to her, gentle-like, and when she fell pregnant, he’d taken her from the laundry and put her to kitchen work, where she’d have good food and wouldn’t have to break her back with the heavy linens.

“He was sad,” she said softly, looking up at the ceiling while I wiped away the filthy trickle between her legs. “When the baby died. He cried.”

“Did he,” I said, in what I hoped was a neutral voice. I folded a clean towel and pressed it between her legs, throwing the wet one she’d been wearing into my bucket of vinegar and water. “When did the baby die—how long ago, I mean?”

She frowned, the expression barely rippling the pure young skin of her forehead. Could she count? I wondered.

“Be some time before the sausage-makin’,” she said uncertainly.

“In the fall, then?”

“Yessum.”

And it was mid-December now. I poured water over my dirty hand and dribbled a bit of soap into my palm. I really must try to get a nailbrush, I thought.

Mrs. Bradshaw had come back but hadn’t come in; I’d pulled the curtains over the front window, but her shadowed outline was plain on the cloth, the jaunty feathers in her hat stuck up like a silhouette cowlick.

I tapped my foot thoughtfully, then shook myself into order and went to open the door.

“I might be able to help,” I said without preamble, startling the woman.

“How?” She blinked at me, and, taken unawares, her face was open, troubled but without the pinched look she’d worn earlier.

“Come inside,” I said. “It’s cold out here in the wind,” and guided her in, a hand on her back. She was very thin; I could feel the knobs of her spine, even through her coat and stays.

Sophronia was sitting on the table, hands folded in her lap; when her mistress came in, she bent her head, looking at the floor again.

I explained the nature of the difficulty, so well as I could—neither of them had any grasp of internal anatomy at all; it was simply a matter of holes to them. Still, I managed to get the general point across.

“You know that a wound can be stitched, to hold the skin together while it heals?” I said patiently. “Well, this is much the same kind of thing, but made much harder by the wounds being inside and the tissues being very thin and slippery. It would be very difficult to mend—I’m not sure I can do it—but it is at least possible to try.”

It was—just. In the late nineteenth century, a physician named J. Marion Sims had more or less invented the entire practice of gynecological surgery, in order to address exactly this condition. It had taken him years to develop the techniques, and I knew them—had done the procedure more than once. The catch was that you really needed good, solid anesthesia in order to have a chance of success. Laudanum or whisky might answer for cruder, swifter operations, but for painstakingly delicate surgery like this, the patient had to be completely unconscious and immobile. I would have to have ether.

I had no idea how I was going to make ether, living in a small rented house with a number of people whom I really didn’t want to risk blowing to bits. And the thought of what flammable ether could do—had done—made me break out in a cold sweat. But seeing the faint hope rise in both their faces, I made up my mind to do it.

I gave Sophronia a small jar of beeswax ointment for the skin of her thighs and told them to come back in a week; I would know then whether it was possible. I saw them out, and as they went away down the street, Mrs. Bradshaw reached out unconsciously and touched Sophronia’s shoulder in a brief caress of reassurance.

I took a deep breath and resolved that I would find a way. Turning to go inside, I glanced the other way down the street and saw a tall young man whose lean ranginess struck me with a sense of instant recognition. I blinked once, and imagination promptly clothed him in scarlet.

“William!” I called, and, picking up my skirts, ran after him.



HE DIDN’T HEAR me at first, and I had time for doubt—but not much; the set of head and shoulders, that long, decisive stride … He was thinner than Jamie, and his hair was a dark chestnut, not red, but he had his father’s bones. And his eyes: hearing me at last, he turned, and those dark-blue cat eyes widened in surprise.

“Mother Cl—” He cut the word off, his face hardening, but I reached out and took his big hand between my own (rather hoping that I had got all of the slime off).

“William,” I said, panting just a bit, but smiling up at him. “You can call me what you like, but I’m no less—and no more—to you than I ever was.”

His severe look softened a little at that, and he ducked his head awkwardly.

“I think I must call you Mrs. Fraser, mustn’t I?” He detached his hand, though gently. “How do you come to be here?”

“I might ask the same of you—and perhaps with more reason. Where’s your uniform?”

“I’ve resigned my commission,” he said, a little stiffly. “Under the circumstances, there seemed little point to my remaining in the army. And I have business that requires somewhat more independence of movement than I should have as one of Sir Henry’s aides.”

“Will you come and have something hot to drink with me? You can tell me about your business.” I’d rushed out without my cloak, and a chilly breeze was fingering me with more intimacy than I liked.

“I—” He caught himself, frowning, then looked at me thoughtfully and rubbed a finger down the long, straight bridge of his nose, just as Jamie did when making up his mind. And just as Jamie did, he dropped his hand and nodded briefly as though to himself.

“All right,” he said, rather gruffly. “In fact, my business may be of some … importance to you.”

Another five minutes saw us in an ordinary off Ellis Square, drinking hot cider, rich with cinnamon and nutmeg. Savannah wasn’t—thank God—Philadelphia, in terms of nasty winter weather, but the day was cold and windy, and the pewter cup was delightfully warm in my hands.

“What does bring you here, then, Willie? Or should I call you William now?”

“William, please,” he said dryly. “It’s the only name I feel is rightfully mine, for the moment. I should like to preserve what small dignity I have.”

“Mmm,” I said noncommittally. “William it is, then.”

“As for my business …” He sighed briefly and rubbed a knuckle between his brows. He then explained about his cousin Ben, Ben’s wife and child, then Denys Randall, and finally—Captain Ezekiel Richardson. That name made me sit up straight.

He noticed my reaction and nodded, grimacing.

“That’s what I meant when I said my business might have some relevance to you. Pa—Lord John said that it was Richardson’s threatening to arrest you as a spy that caused him to, er, marry you.” He flushed a little.

“It was,” I said, trying not to recall the occasion. In fact, I recalled only snatches of those empty, glaring days when I’d believed Jamie to be dead. One of those snatches, though, was a vivid recollection of standing in the parlor of Number 17, holding a bouquet of white roses, with John beside me and a military chaplain with a book before us—and, standing on John’s other side, grave and handsome, William in his captain’s uniform and shining gorget, looking so like Jamie that I felt for a dizzying instant that Jamie’s ghost had come to watch. Unable to decide whether to faint or to run out of the room shrieking, I’d simply stood frozen, until John had nudged me gently, whispering in my ear, and I’d blurted out, “I do,” and collapsed on the ottoman, flowers spilling from my hands.

Caught up in the memory, I’d missed what William was saying and shook my head, trying to focus.

“I’ve been searching for him for the last three months,” he said, putting down his cup and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “He’s an elusive scoundrel. And I don’t know that he’s in Savannah at all, for that matter. But the last hint I had of him was in Charleston, and he left there three weeks ago, heading south.

“Now, for all I know, the fellow’s bound for Florida or has already taken ship for England. On the other hand … Amaranthus is here, or at least I believe so. Richardson seems to take an inordinate interest in the Grey family and its connections, so perhaps … Do you know Denys Randall yourself, by the way?”

He was looking at me intently over his cup, and I realized, with a faint sense of amusement mingled with outrage, that he had thrown the name at me suddenly in hopes of surprising any guilty knowledge I might have.

Why, you little scallywag, I thought, amusement getting the upper hand. You need a bit more practice before you can pull off that sort of thing, my lad.

I did in fact know something about Denys Randall that William almost certainly didn’t know—and that Denys Randall himself might not know—but it wasn’t information that would shed any light on the whereabouts and motives of Ezekiel Richardson.

“I’ve never met him,” I said, quite truthfully, and held up my cup toward the serving maid for more cider. “I used to know his mother, Mary Hawkins; we met in Paris. A lovely, sweet girl, but I’ve had no contact with her for the last … thirty … no, thirty-four years. I assume from what you tell me that she married a Mr. Isaacs—you said he was a Jewish merchant?”

“Yes. So Randall said—and I can’t see why he’d lie about it.”

“Nor can I. But what you do know—you think,” I corrected, “is that while Denys Randall and Ezekiel Richardson have heretofore appeared to be working together, now they aren’t?”

William shrugged, impatient.

“So far as I know. I haven’t seen Randall since he warned me about Richardson, but I haven’t seen Richardson, either.”

I could sense his rising desire to be up and off; he was drumming his fingers softly on the tabletop, and the table itself shuddered slightly when his leg bumped it.

“Where are you staying, William?” I asked impulsively, before he could go. “In—in case I do see Richardson. Or hear anything of Amaranthus, for that matter. I am a doctor; a lot of people come to see me, and everyone talks to a doctor.”

He hesitated, but then gave another shrug, this one infinitesimal. “I’ve taken a room at Hendry’s, on River Street.”

He stood, tossed some money on the table, and extended a hand to help me up.

“We’re staying at Landrum’s, one square over from the City Market,” I said on impulse, rising. “If you should—want to call. Or need help. Just in case, I mean.”

His face had gone carefully blank, though his eyes were burning like match flames. I felt a chill, knowing from experience the sort of thing that was likely going on behind such a façade.

“I doubt it, Mrs. Fraser,” he said politely. And, kissing my hand in brief farewell, he left.



GIGGING FROGS

December 22, 1778

JAMIE TOOK A FIRM grip of the back of Germain’s shirt and beckoned with his free hand to Ian, who held the torch.

“Look out over the water first, aye?” Jamie whispered, lifting his chin at the black glitter of the submerged marsh. It was broken by clumps of waist-high cordgrass and smaller ones of needlerush, bright green in the torchlight. This was a deep spot, though, with two or three of what the natives of Savannah called “hammocks,” though plainly they meant “hummock”—wee islands, with trees like wax myrtle and yaupon holly bushes, though these, too, were of a spiky nature, like everything else in a marsh save the frogs and fish.

Some of the spikier inhabitants of the marsh, though, were mobile and nothing you wanted to meet unexpectedly. Germain peered obediently into the darkness, his gigging spear held tight and high, poised for movement. Jamie could feel him tremble, partly from the chill but mostly, he thought, from excitement.

A sudden movement broke the surface of the water, and Germain lunged forward, plunging his gig into the water with a high-pitched yell.

Fergus and Jamie let out much deeper cries, each grabbing Germain by an arm and hauling him backward over the mud, as the irate cottonmouth he’d nearly speared turned on him, lashing, yawning mouth flaring white.

But the snake luckily had business elsewhere and swam off with a peeved sinuosity. Ian, safely out of range, was laughing.

“Think it’s funny, do ye?” said Germain, scowling in order to pretend he wasn’t shaking.

“Aye, I do,” his uncle assured him. “Be even funnier if ye were eaten by an alligator, though. See there?” He lifted the torch and pointed; ten feet away, there was a ripple in the water, between them and the nearest hammock. Germain frowned uncertainly at it, then turned his head to his grandfather.

“That’s an alligator? How d’ye ken that?”

“It is,” Jamie said. His own heart was pounding from the sight of the cottonmouth. Snakes unnerved him, but he wasn’t scairt of alligators. Cautious, yes. Scairt, no. “See how the ripples come back from the island there?”

“Aye.” Germain squinted across the water. “So?”

“Those ripples are coming toward us side on. The one Ian’s pointing at? It’s coming at a right angle—right toward us.”

It was, though slowly.

“Are alligators good to eat?” Fergus asked, watching it thoughtfully. “A good deal more meat on one than on a frog, n’est-ce pas?”

“They are, and there is, aye.” Ian shifted his weight a little, gauging the distance. “We canna kill one of those wi’ spears, though. I should have brought my bow.”

“Should we … move?” Germain asked doubtfully.

“Nay, see how big it is first,” Ian said, fingering the long knife at his belt. He was wearing a breechclout, and his bare legs were long and steady as a heron’s, standing mid-calf in the muddy water.

The four of them watched with great concentration as the ripple came on, paused, came on a little more, slowly.

“Are they stunned by light, Ian?” Jamie asked, low-voiced. Frogs were; they had maybe two dozen bullfrogs in their sack, surprised in the water and killed before they kent what hit them.

“I dinna think so,” Ian whispered back. “I’ve not hunted one before, though.”

There was a sudden gleam in the water, a scatter of ripples, and the glow of two small burning orbs, a demon’s eyes.

“A Dhia!” Jamie said, making a convulsive sign against evil. Fergus pulled Germain back farther, making a clumsy sign of the cross with his hook. Even Ian seemed taken back a bit; his hand fell from his knife and he stepped back toward the mud, not taking his eyes off the thing.

“It’s a wee one, I think,” he said, reaching safety. “See, its eyes are nay bigger than my thumbnail.”

“Does that matter, if it’s possessed?” Fergus asked, suspicious. “Even if we were to kill it, we might be poisoned.”

“Oh, I dinna think so,” Jamie said. He could see it now as it hung motionless in the water, stubby clawed feet halfway drawn up. It was perhaps two feet long—the toothy jaw maybe six inches. It could give you a nasty bite, nay more. But it wasn’t close enough to reach.

“Ken what a wolf’s eyes look like in the dark? Or a possum’s?” He’d taken Fergus hunting, of course, when he was young, but seldom at night—and such things as you’d hunt at night in the Highlands were usually running from you, not looking at you.

Ian nodded, not taking his eyes off the small reptile.

“Aye, that’s true. Wolves’ eyes are usually green or yellow, but I’ve seen them red like that sometimes, by torchlight.”

“I would suppose that a wolf could be possessed by an evil spirit as easily as an alligator could,” Fergus said, a little testily. It was clear, though, that he wasn’t afraid of the thing, either, now that he’d got a good look; they were all beginning to relax.

“He thinks we’re stealing his frogs,” Germain said, giggling. He was still holding the spear, and even as he spoke, he spotted something and slammed the three-tined sapling into the water with a whoop.

“I got it, I got it!” he shouted, and splashed into the water, heedless of the alligator. He bent to see that his prey was firmly transfixed, let out another small whoop, and pulled up his spear, displaying a catfish of no mean size, belly showing white in its frantic flapping, blood running in trickles from the holes made by the tines.

“More meat on that than on yon wee lizard there, aye?” Ian took the spear, pulled the fish off, and bashed its head with the hilt of his knife to kill it.

Everyone looked, but the alligator had departed, alarmed by the kerfuffle.

“Aye, that’s us fettled, I think.” Jamie picked up both bags—one half full of bullfrogs, and the other still squirming slightly from the inclusion of a number of shrimp and crayfish netted from the shallows. He held open the one with the frogs for Ian to toss the fish inside, saying a verse from the Hunting Blessing, for Germain: “Thou shalt not eat fallen fish nor fallen flesh/ Nor one bird that thy hand shall not bring down/Be thou thankful for the one/ Though nine should be swimming.”

Germain was not paying attention, though; he was standing quite still, fair hair lifting in the breeze, his head turned.

“Look, Grand-père,” he said, voice urgent. “Look!”

They all looked and saw the ships, far out beyond the marsh but coming in, heading for the small headland to the south. Seven, eight, nine … a dozen at least, with red lanterns at their masts, blue ones at the stern. Jamie felt the hair rise on his body and his blood go cold.

“British men-of-war,” Fergus said, his voice empty with shock.

“They are,” Jamie said. “We’d best get home.”



IT WAS ALMOST dawn before I felt Jamie slide into bed behind me, bringing chilled skin and the smell of brine, cold mud, and marsh plants with him. Also …

“What’s that smell?” I asked drowsily, kissing the arm he’d put round me.

“Frogs, I expect. God, ye’re warm, Sassenach.” He cuddled closer, pressing his body into mine, and I felt him pull loose the bow of the ribbon that gathered the neck of my shift.

“Good hunting, then?” I obligingly wiggled my bottom into the hollow of his thighs and he sighed in appreciation, his breath warm on my ear, and slipped a cold hand inside my shift. “Ooh.”

“Aye. Germain caught a fine big catfish, and we brought back a sack of crawfish and shrimps—the wee gray ones.”

“Mmm. We’ll have a good supper, then.” His temperature was quickly equalizing with mine, and I was drifting pleasantly back down toward sleep—though quite willing to be roused for the right reasons.

“We saw a wee alligator. And a snake—a water moccasin.”

“You didn’t catch those, I hope.” I knew that snakes and alligators were technically edible, but I didn’t think we were quite hungry enough to make the challenges of cooking one worthwhile.

“No. Oh—and a dozen British ships full of soldiers turned up, too.”

“That’s ni—What?” I flipped over in his arms, ending face-to-face.

“British soldiers,” he repeated gently. “Dinna fash, Sassenach. I expect it will be all right. Fergus and I already hid the press, and we havena got any silver to bury. That’s one thing to be said for poverty,” he added reflectively, stroking my bottom. “Ye dinna need to fear bein’ plundered.”

“That—what the bloody hell are they doing here?” I rolled over and sat straight up in bed, pulling my shift up round my shoulders.

“Well, ye did say Pardloe told ye they meant to cut off the southern colonies, aye? I imagine they decided to start here.”

“Why here? Why not … Charleston? Or Norfolk?”

“Well, I couldna say, not being privy to the British councils of war,” he said mildly. “But if I was to guess, I’d say it’s maybe that there are a good many troops already in Florida, and they’ll be marching up to join this new lot. The Loyalists are thick as fleas on a dog all along the coast of the Carolinas; if the army’s secured Florida and Georgia, they’d be well placed to advance northward, picking up local support.”

“You have it all figured out, I see.” I pressed my back against the wall—there was no headboard—and finished retying the ribbon of my shift. I didn’t feel equal to meeting an invasion with my bosom uncovered.

“No,” he admitted. “But there are only two things to do, Sassenach: stay or flee. It’s the dead of winter in the mountains; we canna get through the passes ’til March, and I’d rather not be stravaiging about the countryside with three bairns, two pregnant women, and nay money. And I doubt they’ll burn the city, not if they mean it to be a base for invading the rest of the South.” He reached up and ran a soothing hand down my shoulder and arm. “It’s not as though ye’ve not lived in an occupied city before.”

“Hmm,” I said dubiously, but he did have a point. There were some advantages to the situation, the chief one being that if an army already held a city, they wouldn’t be attacking it: no fighting in the streets. But, then … they didn’t hold it yet.

“Dinna fash yourself, lass,” he said softly, and twined a finger in my ribbon. “Did I not tell ye when we wed, ye’d have the protection of my body?”

“You did,” I admitted, and laid a hand over his. It was big, strong, and capable.

“Then come lie wi’ me, mo nighean donn, and let me prove it,” he said, and pulled the ribbon loose.



FROG LEGS OF that size really did look quite like chicken drumsticks. And tasted very like, too, dredged in flour and egg with a little salt and pepper and fried.

“Why is it that the meat of strange animals is so often described as tasting like chicken?” Rachel asked, neatly snaring another leg out from under her husband’s reaching hand. “I’ve heard people say that of everything from catamount to alligator.”

“Because it does,” Ian answered, raising a brow at her and stabbing his fork into a platter of catfish chunks, similarly coated and fried.

“Well, if you want to be technical about it,” I began, to a chorus of mingled groans and laughter. Before I could launch into an explanation of the biochemistry of muscle fiber, though, there was a rap on the door. We had been making so much noise over supper that I hadn’t heard footsteps on the stair and was taken by surprise.

Germain popped up to open the door and gazed up in surprise at two Continental officers, in full uniform.

There was a general scraping of chairs as the men stood up, and Jamie stepped out from behind the table. He’d been working in the warehouse all day, after hunting in the marshes half the night, and was not only barefoot but wearing a badly stained, grimy shirt and a faded plaid so worn that it was thin in spots. Still, no one would have doubted that he was the master of the house. When he inclined his head and said, “Gentlemen? Be welcome,” both officers took off their hats, bowed, and came in, murmuring, “Your servant, sir.”

“General Fraser,” the senior officer said, the title not quite a question, as he eyed Jamie’s attire. “I am Major General Robert Howe.”

I’d never seen Major General Howe before, but I knew his companion, and my hand tightened on the bread knife. He was wearing a colonel’s uniform now, and his face was as blandly forgettable as ever, but I wasn’t likely to forget Captain Ezekiel Richardson—lately a captain in His Majesty’s army, last seen in Clinton’s headquarters in Philadelphia.

“Your humble servant, sir,” Jamie said, in a tone quite belying the usual compliment. “I am James Fraser but no longer an officer in any army. I have resigned my commission.”

“So I understand, sir.” Howe’s rather bulging eyes scanned the table, flicking past Jenny, Rachel, Marsali, and the little girls before settling on me. He gave a small nod of inward conviction and bowed to me. “Mrs. Fraser? I trust I see you well, ma’am.” Obviously, he’d heard the story behind Jamie’s dramatic resignation.

“You do, thank you,” I said. “Do watch out for the crayfish there, Colonel.” For Richardson was standing just in front of the tin tub in which I’d set the crayfish, covered with water and supplied with a few handfuls of cornmeal, with which they’d purge their nasty little entrails over the next twenty-four hours and become safe to eat.

“Your pardon, ma’am,” he said politely, moving aside. Unlike Howe, he was chiefly concerned with the men; I saw his eyes touch for an instant on Fergus’s hook, dismiss him, then rest on Ian, with an air of satisfaction. What Jamie called a cold grue went down my back. I knew already what they wanted; this was a high-level press gang.

Jamie recognized their purpose, too.

“My wife is well, thanks be to God, General. I expect she would like her husband to remain in that condition, too.”

Well, that was fairly blunt. Howe evidently decided there was no point in further civilities and waded in directly.

“Are you aware, sir, that a number of British troops have disembarked just outside the city and doubtless mean to invade and capture it?”

“I am,” Jamie said patiently. “I watched their ships come in last night. As for capturing the city, I think they’re verra well placed to do just that. And if I were you, General—and I thank the Lord that I’m not—I should be gatherin’ my men this minute and marching out of the city wi’ them. Ken the proverb about livin’ to fight another day, do ye? I recommend it as a strategy.”

“Do I understand you aright, sir?” Richardson put in, his tone edgy. “You decline to join in the defense of your own city?”

“Aye, we do,” Ian put in before Jamie could answer. He eyed the visitors in an unfriendly way, and I saw his right hand drop to his side, reaching for Rollo’s head, then his fingers curl up tight, missing it. “It’s no our city and we’re no disposed to die for it.”

I was sitting next to Rachel and felt her shoulders lose a little of their tension. Across the table, Marsali’s eyes slid sideways, meeting Fergus’s, and I saw a moment of silent marital communication and accord. “If they don’t know who we are, don’t tell them.”

Howe, a rather thickset man, opened and closed his mouth several times before finding words.

“I am appalled, sir,” he managed finally, his face quite red. “Appalled,” he repeated, his second chin quivering with outrage—and, I thought, no little desperation. “That a man known for his bravery in battle, his constancy to the cause of freedom, would cravenly submit to the rule of the bloody tyrant!”

“A choice little short of treason,” Richardson put in, nodding severely. I raised my eyebrows at this and stared at him, but he sedulously avoided my eye.

Jamie stood looking at them for a moment, rubbing a forefinger down the bridge of his nose.

“Mr. Howe,” he said at last, dropping his hand. “How many men have ye in your command?”

“Why … nearly a thousand!”

“How nearly?”

“Six hundred,” Richardson said, at the same moment that Howe exclaimed, “Nine hundred, sir!”

“Aye,” said Jamie, clearly unimpressed. “Those transports carry three thousand men, easily—well armed, with artillery—and they’ve an entire Highland regiment wi’ them, too; I heard their pipes as they came ashore.”

Howe’s color faded noticeably. Still, he had grit; he kept his dignity.

“Whatever the odds, sir,” he said, “it is my duty to fight and to protect the city entrusted to my care.”

“I respect your devotion to your duty, General,” Jamie said, quite seriously. “And may God be with ye. But I won’t.”

“We could physically compel you,” Richardson pointed out.

“Ye could,” Jamie agreed, unruffled. “But to what end? Ye canna make me command men if I refuse to do it, and what good is an unwilling soldier?”

“This is craven cowardice, sir!” Howe said, but it was clear that this was bluster, and poorly acted bluster, at that.

“Dia eadarainn ’s an t-olc,” Jamie said quietly, and nodded toward the door. “God between us an evil,” he said. “Go with God, gentlemen, but leave my house.”



“THEE DID WELL, Jamie,” Rachel said quietly, after the sound of the soldiers’ footsteps had faded from the stairwell. “No Friend could have spoken more wisely.”

He glanced at her, mouth quirking.

“Thank ye, lass,” he said. “But I think ye ken I wasna speaking from the same reasons a Friend might have.”

“Oh, I do,” she said, smiling. “But the effect is the same, and Friends are grateful for whatever they can get. Will thee have the last frog leg?”

A small ripple of laughter ran through the adults, and the children, who had been sitting rigid and white-faced during the soldiers’ visit, relaxed as though they were balloons that someone had let the air out of and began zooming around the room in relief. Fearing for the tub of crayfish, Jenny and Marsali marshaled them into some sort of order and marched them off home to bed, Marsali pausing to kiss Fergus and adjuring him to be careful walking home alone.