Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (146 page)

Fraser’s Ridge

September 4, 1780

I WAS HAVING THE
delightful sort of dream where you realize that you’re asleep and are enjoying it extremely. I was warm, bonelessly relaxed, and my mind was an exquisite blank. I was just beginning to sink down through this cloudy layer of bliss to the deeper realms of unconsciousness when a violent movement of the mattress under me jerked me into instant alertness.

By reflex, I rolled onto my side and reached for Jamie. I hadn’t achieved the stage of conscious thought yet, but my synapses had already drawn their own conclusions. He was still in bed, so we weren’t under attack and the house wasn’t afire. I heard nothing but his rapid breathing; the children were all right and no one had broken in. Ergo…it was his own dream that had awakened him.

This thought penetrated into the conscious part of my mind just as my hand touched his shoulder. He drew back, but not with the violent recoil he usually showed if I touched him too suddenly after a bad dream. He was awake, then; he knew it was me.
Thank God for that,
I thought, and drew a deep breath of my own.

“Jamie?” I said softly. My eyes were dark-adapted already; I could see him, half curled beside me, tense, facing me.

“Dinna touch me, Sassenach,” he said, just as softly. “Not yet. Let it pass.” He’d gone to bed in a nightshirt; the room was still chilly. But he was naked now. When had he taken it off? And why?

He didn’t move, but his body seemed to flow, the faint glow of the smoored fire shifting on his skin as he relaxed, hair by hair, his breathing slowing.

I relaxed a little, too, in response, though I still watched him warily. It wasn’t a Wentworth dream—he wasn’t sweating; I could almost literally smell fear and blood on him when he woke from those. They came rarely—but were terrible when they did come.

Battlefield? Perhaps; I hoped so. Some of those were worse than others, but he usually came back from a dream of battle fairly quickly and would let me cradle him in my arms and gentle him back toward sleep. I longed to do it now. An ember cracked on the hearth behind me, and the tiny spurt of sparks lit his face for an instant, surprising me. He looked…peaceful, his eyes dark-wide and fixed on something he could still see.

“What is it?” I whispered, after a few moments. “What do you see, Jamie?”

He shook his head slowly, eyes still fixed. Very slowly, though, the focus came back into them, and he saw me. He sighed once, deeply, and his shoulders went loose. He reached for me and I all but lunged into his arms, holding him tight.

“It’s all right, Sassenach,” he said into my hair. “I’m not…It’s all right.”

His voice sounded odd, almost puzzled. But he meant it; he was all right. He rubbed my back gently between the shoulder blades and I gingerly relaxed a little. He was very warm, despite the chill, and the clinical part of my mind checked him quickly—no shivering, no flinching…his breathing was quite normal and so was his heart rate, easily perceptible against my breast.

“Do you…
can
you tell me about it?” I said, drawing back after a bit. Sometimes he could, and it seemed to help. More often, he couldn’t, and would just shake until the dream let go its grip on his mind and let him turn away.

“I don’t know,” he said, the note of surprise still in his voice. “I mean—it was Culloden, but…it was different.”

“How?” I asked warily. I knew from what he’d told me that he remembered only bits and pieces of the battle, single vivid images. I’d never encouraged him to try to remember more, but I
had
noticed that such dreams came more frequently, the closer we came to any looming conflict. “Did you
see
Murtagh?”

“Aye, I did.” The tone of surprise in his voice deepened, and his hand stilled on my back. “He was with me, by me. But I could see his face; it shone like the sun.”

This description of his late godfather was more than peculiar; Murtagh had been one of the more dour specimens of Scottish manhood ever produced in the Highlands.

“He was…happy?” I ventured doubtfully. I couldn’t imagine anyone who’d set foot on Culloden moor that day had cracked so much as a smile—likely not even the Duke of Cumberland.

“Oh, more than happy, Sassenach—filled wi’ joy.” He let go of me then, and glanced down into my face. “We all were.”

“All of you—who else was there?” My concern for him had mostly subsided now, replaced by curiosity.

“I dinna ken, quite…there was Alex Kincaid, and Ronnie…”

“Ronnie MacNab?” I blurted, astonished.

“Aye,” he said, scarcely noticing my interruption. His brows were drawn inward in concentration, and there was still something of an odd radiance about his own face. “My father was there, too, and my grandsire—” He laughed aloud at that, surprised afresh. “I canna imagine why
he’d
be there—but there he was, plain as day, standing by the field, glowering at the goings-on, but lit up like a turnip on Samhain, nonetheless.”

I didn’t want to point out to him that everyone he’d mentioned so far was dead. Many of them hadn’t even been on the field that day—Alex Kincaid had died at Prestonpans, and Ronnie MacNab…I glanced involuntarily at the fire, glowing on the new black slate of the hearthstone. But Jamie was still looking into the depths of his dream.

“Ken, when ye fight, mostly it’s just hard work. Ye get tired. Your sword’s so heavy ye think ye canna lift it one more time—but ye do, of course.” He stretched, flexing his left arm and turning it, watching the play of light over the sun-bleached hairs and deep-cut muscle. “It’s hot—or it’s freezing—and either way, ye just want to go and be somewhere else. Ye’re scairt or ye’re too busy to be scairt until it’s over, and then ye shake because of what ye’ve just been doing…” He shook his head hard at this, dislodging the thoughts.

“Not this time. Once in a long while, something comes over ye—the red thing, is what I’ve always called it.” He glanced at me, almost shyly. “I had it—well, I was far beyond that—when I charged the field at Culloden. This time, though—” He ran a hand slowly through his hair. “In the dream…it was different. I wasna afraid at all, nor tired—do ye ever sweat in your dreams, Sassenach?”

“If you mean literally, yes. If you mean am I conscious of sweating in the dream…no, I don’t think so.”

He nodded, as though this confirmed something.

“Aye. I dinna think one smells things in a dream, either, unless it’s maybe smoke because the house took fire around ye whilst ye slept. But I felt things, just now, dreamin’. The rasp o’ the moor plants on my legs, gorse stuck to the edge of my kilt, and the feel o’ grass on my cheek when I fell. And I felt cold from the water I was lyin’ in, and felt my heart grow chill in my chest, and the beating grow slower…I kent I was bleeding, but nothing hurt—and I wasna afraid, either.”

“Did you take your clothes off in your dream?” I asked, touching his bare chest. He looked down at my finger, blank-faced. Then let his breath out explosively.

“God. I’d forgot that part. It was him—Jack Randall. He came out o’ nowhere, walking through the fight, stark naked.”

“What?”

“Well, dinna ask me, Sassenach, I dinna ken why. He just…was.” His hand floated back to his chest, gingerly touching the small hollow in his breastbone. “And I dinna ken why I was, either. I just…was.”

Fraser’s Ridge

September 16, 1780

“ONE WOULD THINK YOU’D
done this before,” I remarked, smiling up between Brianna’s knees.

“If one thinks I’m ever doing this
again
…” she panted, but broke off, her sweating face contorting like a gargoyle’s.
“NRRRRGH.”

“Wonderful, darling,” I said, my fingers on the rounded, hairy object showing briefly between her legs. I felt it for only a second before it disappeared again, an instant’s throbbing pulse, but that was enough; there was no sense of distress, only of bewilderment and an intense curiosity.

“Jesus, it looks like a coconut,” Roger blurted from his spot kneeling on the floor behind me.

“ARRRGHHHH! NGGGGHHH! I’m going to
kill
you! You—effing—” Brianna stopped, panted like a dog, then drove her blood-streaked legs hard into the straw-covered floor, half-rose from the birthing chair, and the baby shot out and fell heavily into my hands.

“Oh, my God,” said Roger.

“Don’t faint back there,” I said, busy swabbing the little boy’s nose and mouth. “Fanny? If he falls over, drag him out of the way.”

“I won’t faint,” he said, his voice trembling. “Oh, Bree. Oh. Oh, Bree!” I could feel him scuffling the straw as he rose to go to her, but my attention was split between Brianna and the baby—a good bit of blood, a small perineal tear, but no apparent hemorrhage—pink, wriggling, face screwed up in the exact gargoyle’s expression his mother had had a moment before, heart thumping like a tiny trip-hammer and…I was already smiling, but my smile widened as he jerked away from my bit of gauze and started yelling like an angry buzz saw.

“Apgar nine or ten,” I said happily. “Well done, darling—both of you!”

“Where’s his Apgar?” Fanny said, frowning at the baby. “Is that what you call his—”

“Oh. No, it’s a list you run through with a new baby, to evaluate their state. ‘Apgar’ stands for Activity, Pulse, Grimace—he’s certainly got that—Appearance—see how pink he is? A baby that’s had a difficult time might have bluish fingers and toes, or be blue all over—that would be very bad.” I had a quick vision of Amanda’s birth—and of the last blue baby I’d held—and gooseflesh rippled over my arms. I closed my eyes with a quick prayer for little Abigail Cloudtree and for the healthy grandson in my arms.

“What’s the ‘R’ for?” Roger asked, curious. I glanced up; he was cradling Bree’s head, gently wiping back the strands of sweat-soaked hair pasted to her face, but his eyes were glued to the baby.

“Respiration,” I said, raising my voice slightly to be heard over the baby’s rhythmic—and loud—cries. “If they’re yelling, they’re breathing. Come down here and cut his cord for him, Daddy. Fanny, come down here, too; the placenta will be along any minute.”

“Where’s Da?” Brianna said, lifting her head.

“Just here, lass.”

Jamie, who had been lurking in the doorway, tucked his rosary into his pocket and came in to Bree, bending down to kiss her forehead and murmur something to her in Gaelic that made her tired-but-smiling face blossom.

The room reeked of blood and shit and the peculiarly fecund, swampish smell of birthwaters.

“Here, sweetheart.” I rose, knees stiff from an hour of kneeling on the hard floor, and put the naked baby into her arms. “Be careful, he’s still a little slippery.” He had the faintly waxy look of a newborn, still coated with the protective vernix that had sheltered him in the waters he’d just traversed. It took a moment for my back to unkink sufficiently for me to stand fully upright, and I stretched my arms up, groaning.

“I’m not seeing it yet,” Fanny said. She was still kneeling, peering intently between Brianna’s splayed legs.

“See if he’ll suckle, will you, darling?” I said to Bree. “That will help your uterus contract.”

“That’s
just
what I need,” she muttered, but nothing touched the beatific smile that flickered on and off through the exhaustion that veiled her face. She tugged down the neck of her sweat- and bloodstained shift and carefully guided Junior’s squalling face to her breast. Everyone watched, riveted, as he rubbed his face to and fro on the breast, still squawking. Bree squinted down her nose, trying to move her nipple with one hand while holding the baby with the other. The nipples each showed a tiny drop of clear liquid.

“See?” I said to Fanny, nodding at them. “That’s colostrum. It comes before the real milk. It’s full of antibodies and useful things like that.” She turned her head to me, squiggle-eyed. “It means the baby will be protected from any illness—well, most illnesses—that his mother has had,” I explained.

The baby squirmed, and Bree nearly dropped him.

“Whoa!” said nearly everyone. She scowled at Roger, who was closest.

“I
have
him,” she said. Junior threw his head back and then flung it forward, found the nipple, and latched on with a sigh of exasperation that said, “Well, at last!” so eloquently that everybody laughed and the room relaxed.

A light tap on the doorjamb announced the advent of Patience and Prudence Hardman, their faces alight with curiosity.

“We heard the baby cry,” Prudence said. “What is it, pray?”

“And is thee well, Friend Bree?” Patience asked, smiling tentatively at Brianna, whose hair was beginning to dry and fluff, and who looked like a lion that had gone three rounds with a rhinoceros and wasn’t yet sure who’d won. She was still smiling, though, and stroked the baby’s head, looking down at him.

“He’s a little boy,” she said, her voice rough from screaming, but soft.

“Ooh!” Patience and Prudence said together, then looked at each other and laughed. Patience recovered, though, and asked whether Bree would like something to eat.

“Mummy’s made some soda bread with jam, in case thee should be famished, and there’s sweet milk aplenty,” Prudence added. “What is thy son’s name?”

“I’m starving,” Bree said. “As for…urgh.” She broke off, her eyes closing in a grimace. “Mmph.”

“There it is!” Fanny exclaimed. “It’s coming, I see— Oh!” She was on her hands and knees, peering intently, and jerked upright as the placenta slithered out and landed with a healthy
plop!
on the straw-strewn floorboards. Roger and Jamie looked hastily away, but the two young Quakers nodded in solemn approval.

“That looks just like Mummy’s, when she gave birth to Chastity,” Prudence said. “We made a tea of it.”

The placenta, dark with its writhing network of blood vessels and trailing the ropy remains of the umbilical cord, added its own meaty aroma to the pungent sweat and the smell of trampled fresh straw.

“I think perhaps we’ll bury it in the garden,” I said hastily, seeing the look on Bree’s face. “It’s very good for the soil. As to names—have you thought of any?”

“Lots,” she said, and looked down, nestling the baby closer. “But we thought we’d wait until we met him—or her—to decide for sure.”

“We thought perhaps Jamie?” Roger said, raising an eyebrow at the present holder of that name, who shook his head.

“Nay, ye dinna want to have a Jemmy
and
a Jamie,” he objected. “They’ll never ken who’s bein’ called. And Jem’s already named after your own da, Roger Mac—but maybe the Reverend?”

Roger smiled.

“It’s a kind thought, but the Reverend’s name was Reginald, and I don’t think…and
you’re
already named for Jamie’s father,” he said to Bree. “Claire? What was your father’s name?”

“Henry,” I said absently, glancing at the miniature buttocks. A diaper would be needed momentarily…“He doesn’t really look like a Henry, does he? Or a Harry?” The blood flow had slackened after delivery of the placenta, but it was still coming. “Sweetheart, I need you to move to the bed so I can knead your belly.”

Roger and Jamie got Bree up, baby attached, and safely removed to the bed, where I’d spread a canvas sheet. The discussion of names—with everyone, including Fanny and the Hardmans, adding suggestions, and Bree declaring emphatically that she wasn’t having little Anonymous going without a name for months, like Oggy-
cum
-Hunter—went on for some time, while I kneaded Bree’s large, increasingly flaccid belly—pausing momentarily to check her normally beating heart—and then, feeling the uterus stir sluggishly into action, stitched the small perineal tear and gently washed her legs clean.

“Aye, well, there’s David, I suppose,” Jamie was saying. “That was my da’s second name. And it’s the name of a King, forbye. Well, two, really—the Scottish one and the Hebrew one—a great warrior, though given to fornication.”

A moment’s silence, and a small hum of thoughtful consideration.

“David,” Bree said, beginning to be drowsy. The baby had gone to sleep, the distended nipple pulling slowly from his mouth as his head lolled. “Wee Davy. That’s not bad.” She yawned and looked up at Jamie, who was looking at the little boy with such tenderness that it struck me in the heart and tears came to my eye. “Could we give him William for his second name, Da? I’d like that.”

Jamie cleared his throat and nodded.

“Aye,” he said, his voice husky. “If ye like. Roger Mac?”

“Yes,” Roger said. “And Ian, maybe?”

“Oh, yes,” Bree said. “Oh, God, is that food?” I’d vaguely heard footsteps on the stairs, and now Silvia, holding a tray with bread and jam, fried potatoes, a bowl of stew, and a pitcher of milk, edged carefully into the room.

“I see all is well with thee, sister,” she said softly to Bree, and set down the tray. “And the little one, praise God.”

“Here, Roger,” Bree said, struggling to sit upright with the baby in her arms. “Take him.”

Roger did, and stepped back a little, so we could finish tidying Bree and propping her up to eat. I glanced over to see Roger, his face soft, look up from the freshly wrapped baby and see Jamie, who was shyly looking over his shoulder at his new grandson.

“Here, Grandda,” Roger said, and carefully laid wee David William Ian Fraser MacKenzie in his grandfather’s arms, the little boy’s head cupped in Jamie’s big hand, held gently as a soap bubble.

Fanny, straightening up beside me with an armful of soiled and reeking linens, turned from this beatific scene and looked at me seriously.

“I am
never
getting married,” she said.