Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (110 page)

“Dieu seul sait, je ne sais pas,”
William said briefly over his shoulder. God knows, I don’t.

“Will you bloody let go?” he said to his sister.

“In a minute, yes,” Brianna said, fixing him with a dark-blue glare. “Listen to me.”

He rolled his eyes but gave her a short, sharp nod and a glare in return. She sat back in her saddle a bit but didn’t let go.

“Good,” she said. “I walked up and down that shore nearly every day, before the Americans showed up, and my k—my children poked into every cranny in those bluffs. There are only four places that could possibly be called caves, and only one of them is deep enough that somebody Cinnamon’s size could have a hope of hiding in.”

She paused for breath and wiped her free hand under her nose, eyeing him to see if he was paying attention.

“I hear you,” he said testily. “And?”

“And that one isn’t a cave at all. It’s the end of a tunnel.”

The flush of temper left him abruptly.

“Where’s the other end?”

She smiled slightly and let go of the bridle.

“See? You may be reckless, but I knew you weren’t stupid. The other end is in the cellar of a tavern on Broad Street. They call it the Pirates’ House, and so far as I know from the talk in town, there’s a good reason for that. But if I were you—”

He snorted briefly and gathered up his reins. The end of the alley was clear now, emptied of wagon, mourners, and small shrouded bodies.

“You are my sister, madam,” he said, and with no more than an instant’s hesitation, added, “and I’m glad of that. But you’re not my mother. In fact, I’m
not
stupid, and neither is John Cinnamon.” He paused for an instant, then added, “Thank you, though.”

“Good luck,” she said simply, and sat watching as he turned and rode away.

BRIANNA DIDN’T LEAVE
the alley at once. She watched William ride out, back stiff with determination, the boy clinging to his waist. From the looks of it, the child had never sat on a horse before, was terrified, and was damned if he’d admit it. Between him and William, she thought John Cinnamon might have chosen worse, in terms of allies. She quivered with the urge to follow William, not to let him go alone, but he was—damn him!—right. She couldn’t risk something happening to her, not with Jem and Mandy…

She gathered her reins and clicked her tongue; more people were coming through the square, toward the church. Soberly dressed, walking close together. This church had no bell, but one was ringing, tolling, somewhere across the city. More funerals, she thought, and her heart squeezed tight in her chest. Slowly, she rode out among the mourners and turned up Abercorn Street.

How many people can you worry about at once?
she wondered. Jem, Mandy, Roger, Fanny, her parents, now William and John Cinnamon…She was still shaken by the dead children and their mother; this, on top of a night spent in the marshes with Casimir Pulaski, made her feel as though her skin were about to peel off. A sudden memory of her last sight of the general surged into her mind, and a high, completely unhinged giggle escaped her. Just as suddenly, bile rose in her throat and her stomach turned over. “Oh, God.”

She fought down the surge of nausea, but saw that people were staring at her and realized that, in addition to laughing like a loon, she was still clutching her tricorne in one hand, her hair blowing loose, and her legs scratched and mosquito-bitten, bare from knees to absurdly elaborate shoe tops—she’d taken off her wet stockings the night before and forgotten to find them in the morning. Suddenly embarrassed by the sidelong glances and whispers, she straightened up defiantly, shoulders back. A big hand clutched the bare calf of her leg, and she yelped and swatted whoever it was with her hat, making the horse shy violently.

Who it was was Roger, who shied violently, too.

“Christ!”

“Shi— I mean S-word!” she said, grappling her horse back under control. “What did you do that for?”

“I called, but ye didn’t hear me.” He slapped the horse companionably on the withers and reached up a hand to her. He looked tired, and his eyes were creased with worry. “Come down and tell me what the devil’s been happening. Did ye go to the American camp? I shouldn’t have asked ye to— God, ye look like death.”

Her hands were actually shaking, and in fact, she realized, she felt rather like death. When her feet touched the ground, she nearly fell into his arms, hugging him, and began to live again.

LORD JOHN RETURNED FROM
a visit to the local hospital, where the British wounded—along with those Savannah inhabitants injured by flying splinters or house fires—were being treated, to find his brother sitting at his desk in the study, looking as though he’d been struck by lightning.

“Hal?” John said, alarmed. “What’s happened?”

Hal’s mouth opened, but only a small wheezing noise came out. There was an opened letter on the desk, looking as though it had traveled some distance through rain and mud, and possibly been trampled by a horse along the way. Hal pushed this wordlessly toward him, and he picked it up.

Friend Pardloe,

I write in torment of mind and spirit, which is increased by the knowledge that I must oblige thee now to share it. Forgive me.

Dorothea gave birth to a healthy girl, whom we named Minerva Joy. She was born within the precincts of the prison at Stony Point, as I was confined there and I would not trust Dorothea’s welfare to the local midwife, whose competence I doubted.

Mina (as we called her) thrived and bloomed, as did her mother. There was an outbreak of fever within the prison, though, and fearing for their health, I sent them into the town, where they took refuge with a Quaker family. Alas, no more than a week after their departure, I received a note from the husband of this family, with the dreadful news that two members of his own family had fallen ill with a bloody flux, and that my own dear ones showed signs of the same disease.

I sought leave at once to go to treat my family, and was (reluctantly) granted a temporary parole for the purpose. (The prison’s commander, valuing my services to the sick, did not wish me gone for long.)

I was in time to hold my daughter through the final hours of her life. I thank God for that gift, and for the gift that she was to her parents.

Dorothea was desperately ill, but was spared by the mercy of God. She is still alive, but is sorely oppressed in both body and mind—and there was still much sickness in the town. I could not leave her.

I know thy sense of military honor, but Friends do not hold the laws of man to be above those of God. I buried my child, and then broke my parole, taking Dorothea to a place of greater safety, where I might, with the goodness of God, try to heal her.

I dare not write the name of the place where we are, for fear that this missive may be intercepted. I have no notion what penalty I might suffer for having broken my parole if I am captured—nor do I care—but if I am taken or hanged or shot, Dorothea will be alone, and she is in no condition to be left alone.

I know thy love for her and therefore trust that thee will send what help is possible. I have a friend who knows of her whereabouts and has been of the greatest assistance to us. Thy brother, I think, will discern his name and direction.

Denzell Hunter

John dropped the letter as though it were on fire.

“Oh, Jesus. Hal…”

His brother had risen from the desk and was swaying, his face blank with shock and the same grimy, crumpled white as the letter.

John seized his brother, holding him as hard as he could. Hal felt like a tailor’s dummy in his arms, save for a deep shudder that seemed to pass through him in long, rolling waves.

“No,” Hal whispered, and his arms tightened round John’s shoulders with a sudden, convulsive strength.
“No!”

“I know,” John whispered. “I know.” He rubbed his brother’s back, feeling the bony shoulder blades under the red broadcloth, repeating, “I know,” at intervals, as Hal shuddered and gasped for breath.

“Shh,” John said, rocking slowly from foot to foot, taking his brother’s reluctant weight with him. He didn’t expect Hal to shush, of course; it was just the only vaguely soothing thing he could think of to say. The next natural thing would have been to say,
“It’ll be all right,”
but naturally, it never would.

He’d been here before, he thought dimly. Not in a cluttered office; it had been in the
sala
of an old house in Havana, a painted angel with spread wings fading on the plaster wall, who watched with compassion as he held his mother as she wept over the death of his cousin Olivia and her small daughter.

His throat had a lump the size of a golf ball in it, but he couldn’t give way now, any more than he had done in Havana.

Hal was starting to wheeze in earnest; John could hear the gasp of his inhaled breath, the faint whistle as it went out.

“Sit down,” John said, and steered him to a chair. “You’ve got to stop now. Any more and you won’t be able to breathe and I bloody don’t know what to do about that. So you just bloody have to stop,” he added firmly.

Hal sat, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He was still shuddering, but the first shock of grief had passed, and John heard him now blowing out his breath and hauling it in again in a rhythmic, measured way that must be the technique Claire Fraser had taught him for not dying of asthma. John was—not for the first time in their shared acquaintance—grateful to her.

He pulled up another chair and sat down, feeling as though his own insides had been scooped out. For a few seconds, he couldn’t think. About anything. His mind had gone completely blank. He was gazing beyond Hal to a small table, though, and on it was a bottle of something. He got up and fetched the bottle, pulled the cork with his teeth, and took a gulp of the contents, not caring what it was.

It was wine. He swallowed, breathed, then took Hal’s hand and wrapped it round the bottle.

“Dottie’s alive,” he said, and sat down. “Remember, she’s
alive.
”

“Is she?” Hal said, between breaths. “She was—is—ill. Very ill. He said so.”

“Hunter is a physician and a good one,” John said firmly. “He won’t let her die.”

“He let my
granddaughter
die,” Hal said passionately, forgetting to breathe. He coughed and choked, his grasp whitening on the neck of the wine bottle.

“The child was his daughter,” John said, taking it from him. “He didn’t let her die. People do die, and you know it. Stop talking and bloody
breathe,
will you?”

“I know…better…than any…one,” Hal managed, and succumbed to a fit of coughing. A hank of hair had come loose, and strands were sticking to his face. The dark hair was streaked with white; John couldn’t tell how much was powder.

Hal did know, of course. His first child had died at birth, along with its mother. That had been many years ago, but such things never went away altogether.

“Breathe,” John said sharply. “We have to fetch Dottie, don’t we? I can’t find her and then tell her first thing that
you’re
dead.”

Hal made a sound that wasn’t a laugh, but might have been if he’d had more breath. He pursed his lips and blew, though the resulting air was only a thread. Then his chest relaxed; it was no more than a fraction, but it was visible, and John took a deep breath of his own. Hal stretched out a hand toward the letter on the desk, and John fetched it for him.

He picked the ball gingerly apart, smoothing it flat on the table.

“Why didn’t…he fucking…write the bloody…
date
?” Hal demanded, straightening up and wiping a hand roughly down his face. “We’ve no…idea how long…it’s been since it—since it happened. Dottie could be dead by now!”

John forbore to point out that if that were the case, Hal’s knowing the date of Hunter’s letter would make no difference. It wasn’t a moment for logic.

“Well, we need to go and get her anyway, don’t we?”

“Yes, and now!” Hal flung himself round, wheezing loudly and glaring at the things around him, as though daring any of them to get in his way.

Perhaps just a little logic…

“I don’t know what the army would do to Hunter if they catch him,” John said. “But I know damn well what they’d do to
you,
should you just—go. And so do you,” he added needlessly.

Hal had got himself in hand. He glared at the letter, mouth tight and wet eyes burning, then looked up at John. He pursed, blew, and gasped, “Well, what does he mean…
you
can
‘discern’
his friend’s…name? Why you?”

“I don’t know. Let me see that again.” He took the letter, gently, feeling the weight of sorrow it bore. He’d seen enough letters stained with tears—sometimes his own—to know the depth of Hunter’s anguish.

He had a good idea what Hunter meant by
“discern.”
The man had traveled in company with Jamie Fraser, he knew that much—and he knew that Fraser had been a Jacobite spy in Paris, among other things. The word “spy” gave him a disturbing echo of Percy, but he pushed it aside, holding the paper up to the light, in case there should be secret writing in vinegar or milk—sometimes you could see the faint difference in reflection on the paper’s surface, even though the words would come into view only when heated.

It was simpler than that. There were words written on the back of the letter, written lightly with a pencil. It looked like a brief paragraph written in Latin. The words were indeed Latin, but strung together without meaning. Even Hal could have recognized it as a coded message, though he wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

He smiled a little, despite the seriousness of the situation. It was a cipher, with “friend” as the key.

Five minutes’ work gave him the name: Elmsworth, Wilkins Corner, Virginia.

“We’ll send William,” he said to Hal, with as much confidence as he could manage. “Don’t worry. He’ll bring her back.”

WILLIAM FELT AS
though he’d been struck in the chest by a cannonball. His mouth opened and closed—he could feel it, automatic as the wooden jaws of a marionette—but nothing came out for a moment.

“That’s very terrible,” he managed at last, in a strangled croak. “Sit down, Papa. You’re going to fall.”

His father did look as though someone had cut his strings. Dead white, and his hand trembled when William pushed a glass of brandy into it. He looked round the inside of the little shed William shared with John Cinnamon as though he’d never seen it before, then sat down and drank the brandy.

“Well,” he said, coughed, and cleared his throat. “Well.”

“Not all that well,” William said, peering at him. “How’s Uncle Hal?” His own sense of shock was beginning to subside, though there was still an iron weight in his chest.

“As you might expect,” his father said, and took a deep, wet breath. “Off his head,” he added more clearly, having taken another large swallow. “Wanting to ride off directly and fetch Dottie himself. Not that I blame him.” He took another. “I want to do that, too. But I doubt that Sir Henry would see it that way. War, you know.”

War, indeed. Half the regiment was set to move on Tuesday, to join Clinton’s troops at Charles Town. The weight had shifted lower in his body, and he could breathe now.

“I’ll go, of course,” William said, and in a softer tone, added, “Don’t worry, Papa. I’ll bring her back.”