Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (131 page)

“Maybe that’s what keeps the bits of our bodies together, you’re saying?”

“Mm-hm. And—this just occurred to me…” She turned to him, eyes widening. “Maybe you can lose a few bits in transit, but still make it out—just with a little damage. Like an irregular heartbeat.”

Neither of them spoke for a bit, contemplating.

“You
are
hiding that book, right?” he asked. This discussion was disquieting enough; thought of having the same discussion with Jemmy made his stomach turn over.

“Yes,” she assured him. “I was hiding it in the bottom of my sketchbox, but even Mandy knows how to open that now.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t be interested. I mean, it’s not got a title or pictures…”

She shot him a sharp glance.

“Don’t you believe it. Kids snoop. I mean, maybe
you
didn’t, being a goody-good preacher’s lad…” She was laughing at him, but dead serious underneath. “But I went through my parents’ stuff all the time. I mean, I knew what size my mother’s brassieres and panties were.”

“Well, that would have been well worth knowing…No, I did, too,” he admitted. “Not about the Reverend’s underpants—he wore long johns, with buttons, year-round—but I learned a lot of really interesting things I wasn’t supposed to know, mostly about the Reverend’s congregation. He gave me my dad’s letters from the War when I was about thirteen—but I’d read them two or three years before, from his desk.”

“Really?” she said, diverted. “Did you wear long johns with buttons, too?”

“Me and every other young lad in Inverness in the 1940s. You
know
how cold it gets up there in winter—but actually, when I was about thirteen, I found a trunk of my dad’s old RAF uniform stuff that they’d sent home when he—disappeared.” He swallowed, stabbed by the unexpected memory of the last time—and it
was
the last, he was sure—he’d seen his father. “There were a few pairs of underpants amongst the other things; the Reverend told me the fliers called them ‘shreddies,’ God knows why—but they looked like what you’d call boxer shorts. I took to wearing those, in the summers.”

“Shreddies,” she said, tasting the word with pleasure. “I’m not sure whether I’d rather see you in those or in the button-front long johns. Anyway, I’ve been hiding it in Da’s study. Everybody’s afraid to mess around in there—except Mama, and I suppose I ought to show this to her, anyway. When I’ve thought it out a little further.”

“To be honest, I think seeing whatever you’re writing would give your da the absolute whim-whams.”

“Like the whole thing doesn’t anyway.”

And he’s not the only one,
Roger thought. A cool draft of rain-scented air from the window touched his back.

“Ye told me that when a scientist makes a hypothesis, the next thing to do is test it, right?”

“Yes.”

“If ye think of a way to test this one…don’t tell me, aye?”

THE NEXT DAY, ROGER
came down from the malting floor in search of beer for Jamie and Ian, and found Brianna in Jamie’s office, writing.

She looked up at him, frowning, pencil in hand.

“How old is Pig Latin, do you know?”

“No idea. Why?” He looked over her shoulder at the page.

IMETAY RAVELERSTAY ANUALMAY: ONSERVATIONCAY OFWAY ASSMAY N NRG

“Time Traveler’s Manual?”
he asked, looking at her sideways. She was flushed and had a deep line showing between her brows, neither of which detracted from her appeal.

She nodded, still frowning at the page.

“What we were talking about last night—it gave me a thought and I wanted to put it down before I lost it, but—”

“You don’t want to risk anybody stumbling over it and reading it,” he finished for her.

“Yep. But it still needs to be something the kids—or Jemmy, at least—can read, if necessary.”

“So tell me your valuable thought,” he suggested, and sat down, very slowly. He’d been working at the still with Jamie for the last three days, hauling bags of barley, then carrying the cases of rifles—Jamie had got another twenty, through the good offices of Scotchee Cameron—from their hiding place under the malting floor down to the stable-cave and finally unpacking and cleaning said rifles. He ached from neck to knees.

“So you don’t know anything about Pig Latin,” she said, eyeing him skeptically. “Do you remember what I told you about the principle of the conservation of mass?”

He closed his eyes and mimed writing on a blackboard.

“Matter is neither created nor destroyed,” he said, and opened his eyes. “That it?”

“Well done.” She patted his hand, then noticed its state: grimy and curled into a half fist, his fingers stiff from gripping the rough burlap bags. She pulled his hand into her lap, unfolded the fingers, and began to massage them.

“The whole formal thing says,
‘The law of conservation of mass states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as the system’s mass cannot change, so quantity can neither be added nor removed.’ 
”

Roger’s eyes were half closed in a mingling of tiredness and ecstasy.

“God, that feels good.”

“Good. So what I’m thinking is this: time travelers definitely have mass, right? So if they’re moving from one time to another, does that mean the system is momentarily unbalanced in terms of mass? I mean, does 1780 have four hundred twenty-five more pounds of mass in it than it ought to have—and conversely, 1982 has four hundred twenty-five pounds too little?”

“Is that how much we weigh, all together?” Roger opened his eyes. “I’ve often thought the kids each weighed that much, all by themselves.”

“I’m sure they do,” she said, smiling, but unwilling to lose her train of thought. “And of course I’m making the assumption that the dimension of time is part of the definition of ‘system.’ Here, give me the other one.”

“It’s filthy, too.” It was, but she merely pulled a handkerchief from her bosom and wiped the mixture of grease and dirt from his fingers. “Why are your fingers so greasy?”

“If you’re sending something like a rifle across an ocean, you pack it in grease to keep the salt air and water from eroding it. Or guano dust getting into the mechanism.”

“Blessed Michael defend us,” she said, and despite the fact that she obviously meant it, he laughed at her Bostonian Gaelic accent.

“It’s all right,” he assured her, swallowing a yawn. “The rifles are safe. Go on with the conservation of mass; I’m fascinated.”

“Sure you are.” Her long, strong fingers probed and rubbed, pulling his joints and avoiding—for the most part—his blisters. “So—you remember Geillis’s grimoire, right? And the record she kept of bodies that were found in or near stone circles?”

That woke him up.

“I do.”

“Well. If you move a chunk of mass into a different time period, do you maybe have to balance that by removing a different chunk?”

He stared at her, and she looked back, still holding his hand, but no longer massaging it. Her eyes were steady, expectant.

“You’re saying that if someone comes through a—a portal—someone else from that time has to die, to keep the balance right?”

“Not exactly.” She resumed her massage, slower now. “Because even if they die, their mass is still there. I’m sort of thinking that maybe that’s what keeps them from passing through, though; they’re headed for a time that…that doesn’t have room for them, in terms of mass?”

“And…they can’t go through and that kills them?” There seemed something illogical in this, but his brain was in no condition to say what.

“Not that, exactly, either.” Brianna lifted her head, listening, but whatever she’d heard, the sound wasn’t repeated, and she went on, bending her head to peer into his palm. “Man, you have
huge
blisters. I hope they heal up by the ordination—everybody will be shaking your hand afterward. But think about it: most of the bodies in Geillis’s news clippings were unidentified, and mostly wearing odd clothes.”

He stared at her for a moment, then took his hand from hers and flexed it gingerly.

“So you think they came from somewhere—sometime—else, and got through the stones—but then died?”

“Or,” she said delicately, “they came from this time, but they knew where they were going. Or where they
thought
they were going, because plainly they didn’t make it there. So, you know…”

“How did they find out that they maybe
could
go?” he finished for her. He glanced down at her notebook. “Maybe more people read Pig Latin than you think.”

Fraser’s Ridge

June 21, 1780

ROGER WAS SEATED IN
the family privy, not from bodily necessity but from an urgent need for five minutes of solitude. He could, he supposed, have gone into the woods or taken momentary refuge in the root cellar or the springhouse, but the house and all its surroundings were boiling with humanity, and he needed just these few minutes to be by himself. Not—not by any means—alone, but not with people.

Davy Caldwell had arrived last night, with the Reverends Peterson (from Savannah) and Thomas (from Charles Town). The house was as prepared as half a dozen determined women could make it; the church had been cleaned and aired and filled with so many flowers that half of Claire’s bees were zooming in and out of the windows like tiny crop dusters. The scents of barbecued pork, vinegar and mustard slaw, and fried onions drifted through the cracks in the walls, making his stomach twitch in anticipation. He closed his eyes and listened.

To the sounds of the festivities gearing up, the distant rumble of people talking, the fiddles and drums tuning up by Claire’s garden—even the loud nasal drone of a bagpipe in the distance. That was Auld Charlie Wallace, who would pipe the ministers into church—and pipe them out again, their number augmented by one.

He’d been uncertain about the piping, given the Reverend Thomas’s opinions regarding music in church, but Jamie—of all people—had said that he didn’t think the sound of the pipes should really be called music.

“People dance to it,” Bree had said, amused.

“Aye, well, folk will dance to anything, if ye give them enough liquor,” her father replied. “The British government says the pipes are a weapon of war, though, and I’ll no just say they’re wrong. Put it this way, lass—ye ken I dinna hear music, but I hear what the pipes are sayin’ fine.”

Roger smiled, hearing this in memory. Jamie wasn’t wrong, and neither had been the British government.

Fitting,
he thought, and closed his eyes. He was under no illusions that what he was about to do wasn’t one—and an important one—of innumerable steps on the road to a great battle.

Yes,
he thought in reply to a silent question he’d answered before, would answer again, however often it came—and he knew it would.
Yes, I’m scared. And yes, I will.
And in the stillness of his beating heart, all sounds faded into a great, encompassing peace.

JAMIE HAD SEEN
an ordination once, in Paris, in the great cathedral. He had gone with Annalise de Marillac, whose brother Jacques was one of the ordinands, and consequently had had a place with her family, from which he could see everything. He remembered it vividly—though in honesty, his memories of the early parts of the ceremony were mostly of Annalise’s bosom and her perfumed, excited warmth throbbing beside him. He was sure that getting a cockstand in a cathedral must be some sort of sin, but as he’d been too embarrassed to explain it in Confession, he had let it pass under the guise of “impure thoughts.” He cleared his throat, glanced at Claire, and straightened up.

This ceremony was quite different, of course—and yet at the heart of it, it was strikingly the same.

The words were in English, not Latin—but they said similar things.

Grace to you and peace

from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, we come together with thanksgiving as congregation and

Presbytery to praise the Lord who has brought us to this day of the ordination

Of Roger Jeremiah MacKenzie as Minister of this congregation and parish.

Notre Dame de Paris had a mighty organ and many choristers; he remembered how the sound had shaken the air and seemed to quiver in his bones. Here, there was no music but the calls of birds that came through the open windows, no incense save the smell of pine boards and the pleasant tang of soap and sweat among the people. Brianna, on his left, smelled of flour and apples, and Claire on his right carried her usual varying scent of green things and flowers. From the corner of his eye, he caught a wee movement; a bee had landed on her head, just above her ear.

She lifted a hand absently to brush at the ticklish feeling, but he caught the hand and held it for a few seconds, ’til the bee flew away. She glanced at him, surprised, but smiled and looked back at what was going on in front of them.

The elder ministers spoke, one at a time, and they laid their hands on Roger Mac, touching his head, his shoulders, his hands. Just so, the bishop had laid his hands on the young priests, and he felt the same sense of awe, recognizing what was happening. This was the keeping of a Word that had been kept for centuries; the passing on of a solemn trust, that the man to whom it was given would keep it, too—forever.

He felt tears come to his eyes, and bit his lip to hold them back.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In His great mercy by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

He gave us new birth into a living hope.

Lord our God, we praise You for Christ the Lord.

We praise You for the fellowship of the Church;

we praise You for the faith handed down

as one generation to another tells of Your mighty acts;

we praise You for the worship offered throughout the world,

we praise You for the witness and service of the saints through the ages.

Lord our God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we praise You.

Amen.

In Paris, the young men—there had been twenty, he’d counted them—prostrated themselves in their clean white garments, lying facedown on the stone floor, hands raised above their heads, submitting themselves. Surrendering.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

You call us in Your mercy;

You sustain us by Your power.

Through every generation, Your wisdom supplies our need.

You sent Your only Son, Jesus Christ,

to be the apostle and high priest of our faith

and the shepherd of our souls.

By His death and resurrection He has overcome death

and, having ascended into heaven,

has poured out His Spirit,

making some apostles,

some prophets, some evangelists,

some pastors and teachers,

to equip all for the work of ministry

and to build up His body, the Church.

We pray You now to

POUR OUT YOUR HOLY SPIRIT UPON THIS YOUR SERVANT, Roger Jeremiah, WHOM WE NOW, IN YOUR NAME AND IN OBEDIENCE TO YOUR WILL, BY THE LAYING ON OF HANDS, ORDAIN AND APPOINT TO THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY MINISTRY WITHIN THE ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, COMMITTING TO HIM AUTHORITY TO MINISTER YOUR WORD AND SACRAMENTS.

These were Presbyterians and not given to spectacle. Roger Mac drew a deep breath and closed his eyes, and Jamie trembled as he felt the witness of surrender cleave his heart.

Warm drops struck his hands, folded in his lap, but he didn’t care. A murmur of awe and joy rose up from the church, and Roger Mac stood up, his own face wet with tears and shining like the sun.

IT WAS NEARLY
midnight before we reached our bed. I could still hear the celebrations going on in the distance, though by now the random gunfire had ceased and it was just singing—of a very non-religious nature—with a single fiddle dodging in and out among the voices.

I was nearly dead with fatigue and the aftermath of strong emotion; I couldn’t imagine how Brianna, let alone Roger, was still on her feet, but I’d seen them on my way back to the house, wrapped in each other’s arms and kissing in the shadow of a big black walnut. I wondered vaguely whether the profound emotion of ordination normally turned into sexual desire, if the legitimate object of it was at hand…and what young, new Catholic priests might do to express their own elation?

I shed my clothes and pulled a clean night rail over my head, sighing in quiet ecstasy at having nothing but air on my corset-constricted body. My head popped out and I saw Jamie, lying on the bed in his own shirt. His head was cocked toward the window and he looked rather wistful; I wondered whether he’d rather be down there dancing—but I couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t be there, if that was the case.

“What are you thinking?”

He looked up and smiled at me. He’d undone his formal queue and his hair lay over his shoulders, sparking in the candlelight.

“Och…I was just wondering whether I shall ever hear Mass said again.”

“Oh.” I tried to think. “When was the last time? At Jocasta’s wedding?”

“Aye, I think so.”

Catholicism was prohibited in most of the colonies, bar Maryland, which had been founded specifically
as
a Catholic colony. Even there, the Anglican Church was the official Church, and Catholic priests were few and far between in the southern colonies.

“It won’t always be like this,” I said, and began to massage his shoulders, slowly. “Brianna’s told you about the Constitution, hasn’t she? It will guarantee freedom of religion—among other things.”

“She recited the beginning of it to me.” He sighed and bent his head, inviting me to rub the long, tight muscles of his neck. “ ‘
We, the people…’
Brawly written. I hope to meet Mr. Jefferson someday, though I think he might have stolen the odd phrase here and there, and some of his ideas have a familiar ring to them.”

“Montesquieu might have had some minor influence,” I said, amused. “And I believe I’ve heard John Locke spoken of as well.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me, one brow raised.

“Aye, that’s it. I shouldna have thought ye’d read either one, Sassenach.”

“Well, I haven’t,” I admitted. “But I didn’t go to school in America; only medical school, and they don’t teach you history there, bar the history of medicine, where they point out horrible examples of benighted thinking and horrific practices—virtually all of which I’ve actually used now and then, bar blowing tobacco smoke up someone’s bottom. Can’t think how I’ve missed that one…” I coughed. “But Bree learned all about American history in the fifth and sixth grades, and more in high school. She’s the one who told me about Mr. Jefferson’s light-fingered ways with words.

“But then, there’s Benjamin Franklin—I think at least some of his quotes were original. I remember, ‘You have a republic…if you can keep it.’ That’s what he said—will say—at the end of the war. But they—we—
did
keep it. At least for the next two hundred years. Maybe longer.”

“Something like that is worth fighting for, aye,” he said, and squeezed my hand.

I put out the candle and slid into bed beside him, every muscle in my body dissolving in the ecstasy of simply lying down.

Jamie turned onto his side and gathered me against him and we lay comfortably entwined, listening to the sounds of celebration outside. Quieter now, as people began to stagger home or to find a peaceful tree or bush to sleep under, but the music of a single fiddle still sang to the stars.