Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (155 page)

I WOKE TO
the whisper of falling snow, and the strange gray snow-light seeping through the shutters. Peeping out, I saw the world of the forest—dark conifers and the sprouts of spring plants alike—robed in a pure and delicate white. It was a spring snow and would be gone in hours—but for the moment, it was beautiful, and I put my hand against the cold windowpane and breathed its freshness, wanting to be part of it.

Jamie was still asleep, and I made no move to wake him; Roger would tend the livestock this morning, assisted by the younger children. I tiptoed out of the room and made my way down to the kitchen, where Silvia and Fanny were sitting at the table, nibbling toast before beginning to make breakfast. Bree was dozing in the corner of the settle, Davy at her breast, making smacking noises as he nursed.

I yawned, blinked, and nodded, but didn’t join them. I’d made beef tea the day before and thought that perhaps a nice hot cuppa would hearten Jamie on his rising.

He’d had a bad night; one of those nights that everyone over the age of forty has now and then, when the body is beset by cramping muscles, aching joints, and sudden jactitations that jerk you from the edge of sleep as though you’ve been tossed off a gallows. And in his case, doubtless the sudden searing of his mostly healed wounds as he twitched and turned.

He was awake when I came upstairs, sitting on the edge of the bed in his shirt, rumpled, stubbled, and apparently still half asleep, his shoulders slumped, hands hanging between his thighs.

I set down the two cups I’d brought and ran a hand gently over his tousled hair.

“How do you feel this morning?” I said.

He groaned and opened his eyes a little more.

“Like someone’s stepped on my cock.”

“Really? Who?” I asked lightly.

He closed his eyes again. “I dinna ken, but it feels like it was someone heavy.”

“Mmm.” I put a hand to his forehead; he was warm, but warm from bed, not feverish. I fetched a cup of beef tea and put it into his hand. He breathed in the steam, then took a sip, but set it aside and stretched himself slowly, groaning.

I eyed him for a moment, then knelt down on the floor in front of him and took hold of the hem of his shirt. “Let me see about that,” I said.

His eyes opened all the way and fixed on me. “Ye do ken what a metaphor is, Sassenach…” he began, making an abortive effort to catch my hands, but my touch, very warm from the teacups, made him exhale and lean back a little.

“Hmm…” I rubbed a little with both hands, slowly. “I
think
your circulation is in order…. Any bruising?”

“Well, not
yet,
” he said, sounding mildly apprehensive. “Sassenach. Would ye—”

I pushed the shirt back and bent down, and he stopped speaking abruptly. I reached farther under, making him spread his thighs by reflex, and saw the small curly hairs rise.

“Would ye let go my balls, Sassenach?” he said, stirring restively. “It’s not that I dinna trust ye, but—”

“I’m checking for any sign of an incipient hernia,” I told him, and ran two fingers well up, probing gently into the deep heat of the flesh between his legs. His thighs were lean and chilly, but…

“Oh, I’ve got an incipience,” he said, squirming a little. “But I’m sure it’s no a hernia.
Now
what the devil are ye doing?”

I’d let go. Turning, I reached over to the small bedside table where I’d left a scatter of things—things turned out of my apron pockets at night and not always retrieved in the mornings. The bluestone Corporal Jackson had sent me was there, and I picked it out of the litter, rubbing it between my hands to warm it. There was a little bottle of sweet oil on the table, too, and I dribbled a bit onto the stone. Jamie was watching this process, still apprehensive.

“If ye mean to stick that up my arse, Sassenach,” he said, “I’d be very much obliged if ye didn’t.”

“You might enjoy it,” I suggested, and took hold of him with one hand, applying the warm, oiled stone in a therapeutic manner with the other.

“Aye, that’s what I’m afraid of.” But he’d relaxed a little, leaning back on his hands. And then relaxed a little more, sighing, his eyes closing again. I went on with the slow massage but reached out with my other hand and picked up one of the cups, taking a mouthful of the still-hot beef tea. It tasted wonderful, soothing and delicious. I swallowed, set down the cup, and put my mouth on him.

His eyes flew open and his hands clenched on the bedclothes.

“Hmmm?” I said.

He said something in Gaelic under his breath, but it wasn’t a word I knew. I laughed, but silently, and knew he felt the vibration; his hand was resting on my back, large and warm.

Something had happened between us, on the battlefield, and while most of it had gone, I could still feel the echoes of his body in a deeper way than I had before. I felt the blood rise in him, pulsing, warming his skin, and the air he breathed, deep and pure in my own lungs.

Suddenly his hands were under my arms, and he lifted me, urgent.

“Inside ye,” he said, his voice husky. “I want to be inside ye.”

I scrambled up in a flurry of skirts, and he lay back on the bed. A brief scuffle and then that sudden, solid, gliding joining that was never a shock and always a shock. Both of us sighed and settled into each other.

I lay on him moments later, feeling his heart beat under me, slow and strong. I breathed in and smelled the deep, bitter tang of him.

“You smell wonderful,” I said. I felt drowsy and deeply happy.

“What?” He lifted his head and turned it, sniffing down the collar of his shirt. “Jesus, I stink like a dead boar.”

“You do,” I said. “Thank God.”

I WAS SMASHING LUMPS
of asafetida resin with a hammer when Jamie stuck his head into my surgery.

“Jesus, Sassenach.” He pinched his nose between two fingers. “What the devil is that? And why are ye pounding it with a hammer?”

“Asafetida,” I said, letting out the breath I’d been holding and taking a step backward. “First you extract the resin from the roots of the
Ferula
plant, which is relatively simple—but the resin is very hard and you can’t grate it, so you have to smash the lumps with a hammer—or stones, if you haven’t a hammer. Um…” It occurred to me that the hammer I had was in fact his, and I reversed it in my hand, offering it to him hilt-first like a surrendered sword. “Do you want it back?”

He took the hammer, inspected it at arm’s length for damage, then shook his head and handed it back.

“It’s all right. Wash it before ye bring it back to me, aye? Is that the stuff they call devil’s dung?”

“Well, yes. But I’m told that the people where it grows use it as a spice. In food, I mean.”

He looked as though he wanted to spit, but refrained. “Who told ye that?”

“John Grey. It probably tastes better when cooked,” I said hurriedly. “Did you come in here for something, or were you just looking for your hammer?”

“Och. Aye, I was sent to ask will ye come be a witness.”

“To what?” I was already rubbing charcoal dust over my hands to kill the stink.

“I’m no altogether sure. Right now, it’s a wee stramash, but it
might
be a wedding, if they’ll quit cryin’ themselves down to each other.”

I didn’t waste time asking for details, but quickly rinsed away the charcoal and dried my hands on my apron as I followed him down the hall to the parlor.

Rachel, Ian, Jenny, and Silvia Hardman were there, along with Prudence, Patience, and Chastity, and so were Bobby Higgins and his sons, Aidan, Orrie, and Rob. The Hardmans and the Higginses were drawn up like opposing armies, Silvia and her daughters on the settee with Bobby facing them from the depths of Jamie’s big chair, Aidan standing by his side and Orrie and Rob sitting—insofar as one can use such a word when describing young males under the age of six—on the carpet at his feet.

Rachel, Jenny, and Ian stood at the end of the settee. Everyone turned to look when we came in, and I sensed at once a tumultuous atmosphere in the room. It wasn’t as though they were quarreling, but clearly there was some tension.

Jamie touched the small of my back and guided me to Bobby’s side of the room, where he himself took up a station behind the big chair.

“We’re fettled,” he announced. “What was it ye were sayin’ as I left, Friend Silvia?”

She gave him a narrow look and drew herself up with dignity.

“I said to Friend Higgins,” she said evenly, “that he should know that I have the name of a whore.”

“So I was told,” Bobby said, diplomatically not saying who told him. He looked at her and touched the faded—but still stark—white brand on his cheek. “I’m a convicted murderer. I think maybe you should be more bothered than me.”

A pink tinge crept into Silvia’s cheeks, but she didn’t look away.

“I didn’t need telling,” she said, “but I thank thee for thy consideration. While as a Friend, I must naturally deplore violence, I understand that thy circumstances were such as to cause thee to believe that thee did no more than thy duty.”

Bobby looked down briefly, but his eyes came back to hers.

“That’s true,” he said quietly, and leaning forward he reached out to cup his hand lightly around Chastity’s soft cheek. “I reckon you were doing yours.”

Her mouth opened, but no words came out, and I saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She managed a jerky little nod, and Patience and Prudence emitted little hums of approval, though they sat bolt upright, hands neatly folded in their laps.

“I’m a soldier no more,” Bobby said. “I’ll willingly swear—if swearing doesn’t displease you, I mean—not to take up arms again, save to hunt for food. And I, um, reckon you don’t mean to…er…return to your former circumstances?”

Silvia glanced at Jamie, her long upper lip drawn down over the lower one.

“No, she doesn’t,” Jamie said firmly. “Never.”

Bobby nodded.

“So,” Bobby said, sitting back and looking at her very straight. “Will thee marry me, Friend?”

She swallowed, eyes very bright, and leaned forward, but Aidan forestalled her reply.

“Please do marry him, Mrs. Hardman,” he said urgently. “He can’t cook anything but porridge and beans with burnt bacon.”

“And thee thinks I can?” she said, the corner of her mouth twitching.

“She’s not a good cook, either,” said Prudence, as one required to be truthful. “But she
can
bake bread.”

“And
we
know how to make stew out of turnips and potatoes and beans and onions and a pork bone,” Patience put in. “We wouldn’t let thee starve.”

Silvia, quite pink in the face by this time, cleared her throat in a monitory sort of way.

“If thee can shoot an animal for the pot, Friend Higgins, I believe I can butcher and roast it,” she said. “You can always cut off the burnt bits.”

“Grand!” said Aidan, delighted. “So it’s a bargain, is it?”

“Well, it might be, if you’ll stop talking,” Bobby said, giving Aidan a look of mild exasperation.

“Daddy?” said Chastity brightly, holding out her arms to Bobby. Silvia went bright red, and everyone laughed. She put a hand over Chastity’s mouth.

“I will,” she said.

J
AMIE REMEMBERED THE FIRST
Quaker wedding he’d attended, vividly. It had been in Philadelphia, in a Methodist church, and the congregation had consisted largely of Friends—the sort who were for liberty—plus a couple of English soldiers in full-dress uniform, though Lord John and the Duke of Pardloe had tactfully left their swords at home. The service had been unique, and he thought the same was likely to be the case today.

The most striking thing about this one was the number of children present. There were two benches at the head of the Meeting House, with the entire Higgins family seated on one, and all of the Hardmans on the other. Bree and Roger sat down front, Brianna with wee Davy in her arms. Fanny, Jem, Amanda, Tòtis, Germain, Joanie, and Félicité (so aptly called Fizzy) were squirming on the bench in front of Claire and himself, presumably on the theory that a soft but menacing clearing of the throat on his part would ensure restraint on theirs. He hummed a bit, low in his chest, to make sure his voice was in good order, and saw Jem and Germain stiffen slightly. Good.

His breastbone still hurt when he took a deep breath, but he
could
take a deep breath, and he thanked God for that.

He’d walked all the way to church. Slowly, and his left knee hurt like the devil, but his heart was light. He was alive, he could walk, Claire was beside him, and death was once more a matter that he needn’t fash himself about.

Bobby Higgins abruptly stood up, and the congregation hushed instantly.

“I thank you all for comin’ here today,” he said, but it came out squeaky and he cleared his throat audibly and repeated it, nodding to the congregation. His face was flushed—he was very shy, and no orator—but he stood steady and held out his hand to Silvia, who was pale but poised. She stood, took his hand, and turned to the congregation herself.

“As Robert says, we thank thee for coming,” she said simply.

“I’ve not done this before,” Bobby said to her. “You’ll maybe need to guide me.”

“It’s not difficult,” Patience Hardman said, encouragingly.

“No,” Prudence agreed. “All thee has to say is that thee marries her.”

“Well, but he has to say he’ll feed her—well, us—doesn’t he?” Prudence put in. “And protect us?”

“He might say that,” Patience agreed dubiously. “But he doesn’t
have
to. ‘I marry thee’ is enough. Isn’t it, Mummy?”

Silvia had her eyes squinched shut and was rapidly turning as red as her husband-to-be.

“Girls,” she murmured.
“Please.”

The ripple of amusement among the congregation died away. Bobby and Silvia looked at each other, away, faces flaming, then back. Aidan McCallum stood up from the bench and walked up beside his stepfather. Aidan was thirteen and nearly as tall as Bobby.

“It’s all right, Da,” he said, and turning round he beckoned to his younger brothers, who scrambled up beside him. He beckoned to the Hardman girls, who looked at one another in question, then came to a silent agreement and stood up, too.

“We’re going to marry you,” Aidan said firmly to the girls. “All of us are marrying all of you. Will you— Oh, sorry, will
thee
all marry us all?”

“We will!” Patience and Prudence said together, beaming. Patience bent down and murmured to Chastity, who turned her cherubic, beaming face on Rob, said loudly, “I mawwy thee!” and, toddling over, clutched him round the middle. “Kith me!” she added, and standing on tiptoe, planted a loud “Mwah!” on his cheek.

It was some time before order was restored.

Jamie’s half-healed sternum hurt amazingly, and he was not the only member of the congregation who had laughed themselves to tears. He found that he couldn’t stop, though. Claire handed him a clean handkerchief and he buried his face in it, remembered grief and present joy and fear and peace all spilling out like cold, pure water.

EVERYONE CAME DOWN
the hill to the New House, where we’d unpacked the baskets the women had brought and laid out the rudiments of the wedding feast before leaving for the Meeting House. Now the kitchen was organized—mostly—chaos, as we rushed to slice fruit and meat and pie and bread, to shake the butter from its molds and ladle bowls of jelly and ketchups and sauces and drizzle honey over the roasted yams and chestnuts.

Jamie, Roger, and Young Ian had brought down three barrels of the two-year-old whisky, and Lizzie and Rachel had made enough beer to drown an army of thirsty moose; I hoped it would be enough.

I caught a glimpse of Mandy by the window, her curls tied up with a blue silk bow, earnestly poking bits of food into Chastity’s mouth like a mother robin feeding her brood, though Chastity was quite old enough to eat with a spoon by herself. I smiled and looked round for the other girls, only to find them under my nose, earnestly shoveling succotash into several large wooden bowls, chattering like magpies.

“You’re so lucky,” Fanny was saying, envy in her voice. “
Three
brothers! I’ve never had so much as one!”

Prudence and Patience were quite beside themselves, pink with excitement under their new starched caps, and both laughed at this.

“We will share them with thee, Frances,” Patience assured her. “Especially Rob.”

“And we will be thy sisters,” Prudence added kindly. “Thee shall not lack for family.”

I saw Fanny’s face change and she looked down to hide it, realizing only then that she had accidentally dropped a spoonful of butter beans and corn onto the table, instead of into the bowl.

“God
damn
it!” she said. Prudence and Patience gasped, and I stepped forward, meaning to make intervention, but Patience blinked, suddenly catching sight of something, and I turned to see what she was looking at.

The Crombies had not come to the wedding, feeling that people marrying each other without benefit of clergy was, if not ungodly, at least slightly immoral. Roger had pointed out to them that a Quaker ceremony was essentially the same thing as handfasting, which as Highlanders they abided. To which Hiram had riposted that handfasting was necessary when there was no minister to be had, in order to prevent outright sin and illegitimate children, but as the Ridge had a minister at present, how was it that Mr. MacKenzie was not personally offended at this refusal of his services?

Rachel had sent Ian up to tell the Crombies that they were more than welcome to come to the wedding feast afterward, even if they didn’t feel they could sanction the meeting at which the marriage occurred, but I’d doubted that any of them would.

And most of them hadn’t. Cyrus, however, was now hovering in the kitchen door, his eyes fixed resolutely on Fanny, despite the rich blush on his cheeks. He was dressed in his best Sunday clothes, with what had to be Hiram’s ancient but well-tended dark-blue plaid over his shoulder, and his hair braided formally over each ear.

“Er…” I took the spoon from Fanny’s hand and nodded toward Cyrus, who had a small package wrapped in a linen napkin in one hand. “Why don’t you take Cyrus to give his congratulations to the happy couple?”

Fanny was as scarlet as Cyrus by this time, but she tidied her cap, brushed down the front of her good white dress with the blue and yellow embroidery, and went to meet him with every evidence of self-possession.

“Ooh,” said Patience, with respect. “Is he Fanny’s…
suitor
?”

“Does Friend Jamie approve of this?” Prudence asked, frowning at them. “Fanny’s too young for such things, is she not?”

“She’s got her courses,” Patience said, with a shrug. “She told me.”

“But he’s so tall. How could they—”

“It’s a little early to be calling Cyrus anything like that, I think,” I said firmly. “They’re friends, that’s all. Here, give me a hand with these trays of fried fish; they’re to go down to the big table under the spruce tree.”

I helped them out to the porch, then stood for a bit, looking over the festivities. Silvia and Bobby sat in chairs beside each other under the big white oak, and I saw Fanny leading Cyrus down through the multitudes to talk to them. It was too early for people to be drunk, but a number of them would be in another hour or two. People were eating at trestle tables and on the grass, on the porch and the steps, and the delectable smells of roast pork and cinnamon cake, laced with whisky fumes, perfumed the air.

My stomach rumbled suddenly, and Jamie, who had come out of the house behind me, laughed.

“Have ye no eaten anything at all yet, Sassenach?”

“Well…no. I was busy.”

“Well, now ye’re not,” he said firmly, and handed me the plate of buttered corn, fresh roast pork, and yams with chestnuts he was holding. “Sit down and eat,
a nighean.
Ye’re run off your feet.”

“Well, but there’s still—” I swallowed a mouthful of saliva. “Well, maybe—”

He took my elbow and led me to my rocking chair, this temporarily empty. I sat, suddenly grateful for the throb of relief that shot up from my ankles to the back of my neck. Jamie put the plate on my lap and thrust a fork into my hand.

“Ye’re no going anywhere, Sassenach, until ye’ve eaten that, so dinna be telling me otherwise. Jem! Bring your grannie some nut bread and some of the peach cobbler—wi’ a good bit o’ cream on it.”

“I—that’s—well…if you
insist
…” I smiled up at him, forked up a bite of honeyed yams, and closed my eyes, giving myself up to ecstasy.

I opened them, hearing a slight change in the rumble and chatter of the crowd.

Had the rest of the Crombies come after all? But no—it was a rider on a gray horse, a single tall man in a tricorne and a dark greatcoat that flapped like wings as he rode, coming up the wagon road and doing so at the gallop.

“If that’s effing Benjamin Cleveland…” I began, getting my feet under me. Jamie stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“No, it’s not.” Something in his voice brought me slowly to my feet. I set my plate down beneath the rocking chair and moved next to Jamie. He was steady enough, but his right hand was folded hard round the head of his stick, the knuckles white.

People were turning to look at the rider, distracted from their conversations. Jamie stood stock-still, his face unreadable.

Then the rider came right to the edge of the porch and reined up and my heart leapt as I saw who it was. William snatched off his hat and bowed from the saddle. He was breathing hard, his dark hair was pasted to his head with sweat, and there were hectic patches of red across his broad cheekbones. He gulped air, his eyes fixed on Jamie.

“Sir,” he said, and swallowed. “I need your help.”