Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (126 page)

“Would
you
die, if you knew someone was completely dependent upon you?” she shot back, ignoring me.

He paused for a moment and took a breath before replying evenly.

“Ye havena always got a choice about it, Elspeth.”

Elspeth’s nostrils flared as she inhaled, but she replied calmly.

“Yes,” she said, “you do. Barring being shot through the heart or struck by lightning,” she added, as one obliged to honesty. “But one of the few advantages to being an old woman is that no one shoots them. As for the lightning, I shall leave that to God, but my trust in Him is considerable.

“As to our destination,” she said, turning to me as though Jamie had ceased to exist, “Charles Town. There are navy warships there, and a large number of smaller frigates and army transports. Charles has written to Sir Henry Clinton, asking the favor of transport back to England aboard one of these. Sir Henry has known our family for many years and will certainly grant us the courtesy. Now, as to Agnes—” She switched her focus back to Jamie. “I will admit that my desire to take her with us is not solely for her benefit; plainly, I need her.”

There was a long moment of silence, with that simple declaration hanging in the air.

She did. The two young lieutenants would manage the physical difficulties of travel and provide protection for her and Charles. But she would need help, in caring both for her son’s demanding physical needs and for her own. Granted, she could easily engage a maidservant, but given Agnes’s delicate situation…

No one had mentioned the other aspect of that situation aloud, but Elspeth was more than perceptive enough to have grasped the fact that—everything else quite aside—she was an answer to prayer for Jamie.

I estimated the pregnancy at roughly three months, and it was a matter of weeks, if not days, before Agnes’s situation was known all over the Ridge. And it was, naturally, Jamie’s responsibility as her employer to resolve the situation in some publicly satisfactory manner. Finding the young man responsible and obliging him to marry Agnes would be the usual thing, but under the circumstances…To have your unmarried maidservant growing visibly pregnant in your house—or hastily married off to someone who was patently
not
the father—was to invite speculation that you had had something to do with her condition. And we’d both been there before….I shivered, the echo of Malva’s denunciation,
“It was him!”
ringing in my ears.

“Speaking as Agnes’s…er, other
loco parentis
…” I said. Jamie and Elspeth both smiled, involuntarily, but I ignored them and pushed on. “
I
have a small condition to suggest. I’ll help you to persuade Agnes, because I think it’s really the best way of handling her predicament. But
if
she decides to go with you, I want an assurance that you’ll provide her with an education…”

“Agnes?” Both of them had spoken together, and while Jamie’s intonation indicated doubt and Elspeth’s, amusement, their unanimity did give me a moment’s pause.

“Education to do what, Sassenach?” Jamie asked. “Fanny’s taught her to read, and she can write her name and count to a hundred. What else d’ye think she’d find useful?”

“Well…” It was true that while Agnes was pretty, amiable, kind, and willing, and had a certain shrewd perception born of experience, she wasn’t a natural student. Still, there was no telling what might happen to her, and I wanted her to be…safe.

“She should know enough arithmetic to be able to handle money,” I said, finally. “And she should have a little money to handle. Of her own.”

“Done,” Elspeth said quietly. “My son will settle a modest amount on her, independent of her husband—whoever that turns out to be,” she added, a little bleakly. “And I’ll see to her education myself.”

No one spoke for a moment, and I began to hear the normal sounds of the house, the clumps and squeaks and rattling and barking, and the sound of distant conversation that the tension of our discussion had blocked out.

Footsteps crossed the ceiling over our heads, quick and light, and I caught a murmur and the giggle of young girls, amused. I relaxed a little. Fanny would miss Agnes cruelly, but at least she would have the Hardman girls for company.

“I’ll go and talk to Agnes now,” I said.

J
AMIE KNELT AND SLICED
the stitching of the burlap bag, folded back the top, and breathed deep. Huffed all his air out and breathed deeper, then sniffed thoughtfully. A rich, nourishing smell, nutty and sweet. No scent of mold, at least not at the top. Down at the bottom, though, where the damp settled…

He rose and pushed back one set of the big sliding doors that Bree had built for both sides of the malting shed, so they could open it up in fine weather. And it was a fine day, one fit for birdsong, rambling the woods, and maybe fishing a bit near sunset. A morning fit for small, peaceful jobs like replacing a board in the malting floor that had caught fire and was blackened enough that it might taint the flavor of the roasting grain. Fit for judging the quality of the barley on hand. He’d harvested two hundredweight of grain from his own fields in the autumn, and bought another hundredweight from the trading post, but they’d had time to malt, brew, and distill only half of it, what with an early winter, bad weather, and the disturbance at the Lodge in February. He scratched his chest; the scar was well healed, but he could still feel it pull when he stretched his arms wide.

He dragged the bag near the open doorway for light and dumped it carefully over the floor, kneeling and spreading it with his hands, looking for sprouting, damp, mold, bugs, or any of the other things you might not want in your whisky. And as a last check, chewed a few grains, then spat them out into the grass.

“Tha e math,”
he murmured, and got to his feet. He fetched the square malting shovel down from its pegs and shoveled the fresh grain aside, making room for the next bag.

A warm breeze brushed his cheek as he opened the sliding door. It was a beautiful day. He’d maybe stop by Ian’s and take Lizard to the lake with him tonight.

These pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a sudden flapping and crying out of a flock of doves nearby, disturbed by something coming. Wary, he took hold of the shovel and keeked out—but it was only a man, coming down the path alone. Hiram Crombie. They hadn’t spoken since the stramash at Lodge.

“Hiram,” he said, as the man grew near and lifted his chin in greeting. Crombie’s pinched face lightened a little at Jamie’s use of his Christian name. He nodded slightly and came closer, still with a wary look, in case Jamie had it in mind to bat him over the head with the shovel, Jamie supposed. He stood the shovel in the mound of grain and straightened up, wiping his sleeve across his face.

“I’ve come to say…” Crombie started, but then stopped, unsure.

“Aye?” He kent well enough what Crombie had come to say, but he wasn’t above making him say it out loud. The auld curmudgeon was already stiff as a dried stick, but his arms seemed stuck to his sides. His fists curled, slowly.

“I—we—I regret…what happened. At the Lodge.”

“Aye.”

Silence, broken only by the wittering of birds in the nearby pines, waiting for Jamie to go away so they could flock down and poach the spilled grains. Crombie drew in air through his long, hairy nose; it whistled slightly, but Jamie didn’t laugh.

“I wish ye to ken that it wasna the doing of myself nor my brother or my cousins. We…” He stopped and swallowed, muttering, “…sorry for it,” under his breath.

“Well, I kent that much, Hiram,” Jamie said, stretching his back. The scar across his chest was burning from the shoveling. “Whatever ye think of the King, I dinna suppose ye’d try to kill me on his account.”

Hiram’s shoulders began to lower, but before he could get comfortable, Jamie added, “But I suppose ye kent what Cunningham was about, and ye didna warn me.”

“No.” After a moment, apparently feeling that this wasn’t an adequate explanation, Hiram blew out his breath and shook his head. “No, I didna. But I kent that Duff and McHugh had a whiff of it—I saw them watching Cunningham when he came out of kirk, like twa foxes watchin’ a wolf go past. And they’re your men. I thought they’d warn ye something was up. But Geordie Wilson—my wife’s brother, ken—he’s one of Cunningham’s. I couldna speak to ye without him gettin’ wind of it, and then…”

“Aye,” Jamie said, after a moment’s pause. “No man wants trouble in his family, and it can be helped.”

Hiram’s shoulders slumped in relief. He nodded to himself for a bit, and then spoke again.

“A wee time past, I said I wished to speak wi’ ye about a matter.”

Jamie remembered. In fact, Crombie had approached him on the way to Lodge that night. Which made him feel more kindly toward the man; he couldn’t have had a hand in what was afoot, if he’d wanted a favor from Jamie at that point.

“Ye did. About
a’ Chraobh Ard,
I think ye said?”

“Aye. I wanted to ask if ye’d maybe take him as a member of your militia.”

Well, that was a surprise. He’d been expecting a request that Jamie let Cyrus court Frances officially, and he would have said no to that. But this…

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“He’s sixteen,” Hiram said, shrugging as though this was a complete answer. And it was. A boy that age needed badly to start being a man. And if he hadn’t got a man’s proper work to do…

The other side of the matter was plain, too. Hiram Crombie was anxious that his family should now be seen to stand solidly with Jamie, and Cyrus was his offered hostage.
That’s reassuring,
Jamie thought wryly.
He thinks we might win.

Jamie spat in his palm and offered it.

“Done,” he said. “Send him to me tomorrow, just afore dawn. I’ll have a horse for him.”

SILVIA HAD VOLUNTEERED
to rise early—very early—and make the gallons of brose and porridge to feed the militia. The warm, creamy smell crept up the stairs and eased me into wakefulness like a soft hand on my cheek. I stretched luxuriously in the warm bed and rolled over, enjoying the picture of Jamie, long-legged as a stork and stark naked, bent over the washstand to peer into the looking glass as he shaved by candlelight. Dawn was no more yet than a fading of the stars outside the dark window.

“Getting all spruced up for the gang?” I asked. “Are you doing something formal with them this morning?”

He drew the razor over his pulled-down upper lip, then flicked the foam to the side of the basin.

“Aye, horse drills. It’ll just be the mounted men today. With the Tall Tree, we’ll have twenty-one.” He grinned at me in the mirror, his teeth as white as the shaving soap. “Enough for a decent cattle raid.”

“Can Cyrus ride?” I was surprised at that; the Crombies, Wilsons, MacReadys, and Geohagens were all fisher-folk who had come to us—by God knew what circuitous and difficult means—from Thurso. They were, for the most part, openly afraid of horses, and almost none of them could ride.

Jamie drew the blade up his neck, craned his head to evaluate the results, and shrugged.

“We’ll find out.”

He rinsed the razor, dried it on the worn linen towel, then used the towel to wipe his face.

“If I mean them to take it seriously, Sassenach, they’d best think I do.”

THE SKY WAS
lightening, but it was still dark on the ground and only a few of the men had gathered when Cyrus Crombie came down out of the trees above New House. The men glanced at him in surprise, but when Jamie greeted him, they all nodded and muttered,
“Madainn mhath,”
or grunted in acknowledgment.

“Here, lad,” Jamie said, thrusting a wooden cup of hot brose into the Tall Tree’s hand. “Warm your belly, and come meet Miranda. She belongs to Frances, but the lass says she’s willing to lend ye the mare until we can find ye a horse of your own.”

“Frances? Oh. I-I thank her.” The Tall Tree glowed a bit and glanced shyly at the house, and then at the horse. Miranda was a big mare, stout and broad-backed, and with a gentle, accommodating manner.

Young Ian had come down now, in buckskins and jacket, his hair plaited and hanging down his back, Tòtis following him. He glanced round the group of men, nodding, then kissed Tòtis’s forehead and lifted his chin toward the porch. Then Ian came for his own brose, lifting a brow in the direction of Cyrus.

“
A’ Chraobh Ard
will be joining us,
a bhalaich,
” Jamie said casually. “Will ye show him the way of it, to saddle and bridle Miranda, while I tell the men what we’re about?”

“Aye,” Ian said, swallowing hot barley broth and exhaling a cloud of white steam. “And what
are
we about?”

“Cavalry drills.” That made Ian raise both brows and glance over his shoulder at the group of men, who looked like what they were—farmers. They all owned horses, and could ride from the Ridge to Salem without falling off, but beyond that…

“Simple cavalry drills,” Jamie clarified. “Riding slowly.”

Young Ian looked thoughtfully at Cyrus, standing at eager attention.

“Aye,” he said, and crossed himself.

WHEN I WENT
upstairs to tie up my hair before starting the soap making, I found Silvia and all four of the girls in my bedroom with Frances, Patience, and Prudence more or less hanging over the sill to watch the militia ride out. They barely noticed me, but Silvia stepped back a little, abashed, and began to apologize.

“Don’t worry at all,” I said, and stepped up behind Patience to peer out. “There’s something about a group of men on horses…”

“With rifles and muskets,” she said, rather dryly. “Yes, there is.”

I thought the girls hadn’t quite grasped the fact that the militia group was drilling and training for the express purpose of killing people, but their mother assuredly had and watched the men forming up, with the usual calling out and crude jokes, with a certain grimness that deepened the lines bracketing her mouth. I touched her arm gently and she turned her head, startled.

“I know that you and your daughters would prefer to die, rather than have other people killed so that you don’t…but you know…you’re our guests. Jamie’s a Highlander, and his laws of hospitality forbid him to let anyone kill his guests. So I’ll have to ask you to stretch your principles a bit and let him protect you.”