Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (66 page)

“All right.” She set down the heavy pitcher with a small sigh of relief. “Now we let it soak for…oh, twenty-four hours should be plenty. That will dissolve the fiber of the drawing paper, which will then bond with the fiber of the patch—while not disturbing the lines of the drawing.” Roger saw her cross her fingers briefly behind her back. She smiled at Fanny.

“So then we press it, dry it, and we’ll essentially have a new sheet of paper—but with your drawing just like it is.”

Fanny had been watching the pouring with the hypnotized gaze of a frozen rabbit watching a fox, but with Brianna’s words, she looked up and let her breath out in a huge “Ohhhhh!”

“Oh,
thank
you! Thank you
so
much!” She pressed her palms against her cheeks, gazing at the drawing as though it had suddenly come to life.

And Roger had the sudden feeling that it
had.
To this point, he’d seen it purely as something Fanny valued, without really noticing the drawing itself. Now he saw it.

Whoever had drawn it had been a talented artist—but the girl on the page had been something special in herself. Beautiful, yes, but with a sense of…what? Vitality, attraction—but she also gave off an air of challenge, he thought. And while the beautiful mouth and sidelong glance offered a seductive half smile, they communicated also determination—and a sense of simmering rage that raised the hairs on Roger’s nape.

He remembered that this girl had killed a man with her own hands, and with premeditation.

To save her little sister from a fate she knew too well.

He wondered briefly whether the man who had drawn her that night at the brothel had then taken her, knowing what he was buying, and perhaps relishing it. He instantly suppressed the visions conjured up by the thought, though there was no suppressing the thought itself.

Fanny was standing next to him, still looking at the last physical remnant of her sister. He put an arm around her shoulders, gently, and thought to the girl whose face glimmered in the water, her memory surviving wreck and dissolution,
Don’t worry. We’ll see that she’s safe, no matter what. I promise you.

From Brianna Fraser MacKenzie (Mrs.)

Fraser’s Ridge, North Carolina

To Lord John Grey, c/o Harold, Duke of Pardloe, Colonel of His Majesty’s Forty-sixth Regiment of Foot, Savannah, Georgia

Dear Lord John—

I received your very gracious offer of a commission to paint the portrait of Mrs. Brumby, and I accept with great pleasure!

Thanks also for your offer of safe-conduct, which I also accept with gratitude for your thoughtfulness, as my husband and children will accompany me. My husband has important business to conduct in Charles Town, so we’ll proceed there first—though briefly!—and then come on to Savannah, reaching you, God willing and the creek don’t rise, as people say hereabouts (I’m told the saying was originally to do with the Creek tribe of Indians, who were rather belligerent, and who could blame them, but given the weather in the mountains, I think water is a much more likely impediment to travel), before the end of September.

That being the case, perhaps it would expedite matters if you were to send whatever we require in the way of a safe-conduct in care of Mr. William Davies of Charlotte, North Carolina. We’ll pass through Charlotte on our way to Charles Town (which, as I’m sure you know, is presently in the hands of the Americans). Mr. Davies is a friend of my father’s and will keep the documents safely for our arrival.

I can’t wait to see you again!

Your Friend, Always—

Brianna

ROGER WAS STRUGGLING TO
fit an iron hoop around the top of a large, potbellied, elderly keg that had been rebuilt, evidently having exploded at some time in the recent past from the internal pressure of decaying penguins, judging by the faint but evil smell that seeped from the stained wood. The weather was cool, but the sun was high and sweat was collecting in his eye sockets and prickling his scalp.

It was nearly lunchtime, but he had no appetite. He was getting dizzy from holding his breath. Nonetheless, he looked up hopefully when he heard footsteps coming down the trail from the springhouse. It wasn’t Bree or Fanny with a welcome sandwich and bottle of ale, though. It was his father-in-law, two large stoneware crocks clasped in his arms.

“They’ll smell ye comin’ a mile away,” Jamie remarked with approval, sniffing. He set down the crocks, from which a strong smell of sauerkraut was rising like some powerful Germanic genie, and glanced at the recalcitrant hoop. He squatted by the barrel, embraced it gingerly, and, turning his face away, squeezed as hard as he could, pressing the aged staves inward enough that the hoop could be hastily pressed down into place.

“Heugh!” he said, gasping as he stood up. “Spoilt fish?”

“At least.” Roger rose to his feet and stretched his back, groaning. “I don’t suppose that’s going to improve the smell much,” he said, nodding at the new keg.

“Well, it will still smell like sauerkraut,” Jamie said, unlidding one of the crocks. “But cabbage will mostly damp other smells, so the fish—or whatever it was—willna be so bad. Besides, Claire says your nose gets used to anything and then ye willna be bothered about it.”

“Oh, does she?” Roger muttered. His mother-in-law was not the one who was going to travel three hundred miles with a wagonload of reeking barrels and three children shouting, “Pee-
yew
!” all the way to the coast.

“Ronnie says the other two barrels were used for salt pork and blood sausage, he thinks. Ye’ll just smell like Sunday dinner in Salem,” his father-in-law said callously. “Is this one ready?”

“Aye.” Roger picked at a splinter in his thumb, watching covertly as Jamie peered into the depths of the barrel. He was rather proud of his work—and work it had been, too: fitting a false second bottom to the barrel, with just enough space for a thin—but rich—layer of gold underneath, and fitting it closely enough that it was unlikely to come loose if someone threw it on the ground.

“Oh, that’s braw!” Still peering inside, Jamie picked the barrel up, weighed it in his hands, and dropped it experimentally. It landed with a solid thud, upright. Jamie looked inside, looked up, and smiled. “Sound as a nut, Roger Mac.”

“Aye, well, Brianna helped me—with the template, I mean. And Tom MacLeod gave her the wood.”

“She didna tell him what for, I hope,” Jamie said, but with no real fear that she might have.

“She said she told him she thought of making a cradle for the Ogilvys.” Young Angus and his wife were expecting their first child, and thus were now the recipients of outgrown baby smocks, spare clouts, dummies, suckling bottles, and any amount of probably unwanted advice.

Jamie nodded in approval, and without further ado poured a pale-green cascade of fragrant sauerkraut into the barrel.

“Ye’ll need to be moving it to and fro, when ye travel,” he said, in answer to Roger’s unspoken thought that Jamie might have waited until the barrel was loaded onto the wagon before adding twenty pounds of fermented cabbage to the weight. “Best to try it whilst ye’re alone, in case anything’s like to come loose, aye?”

Another voluminous splash, and the sauerkraut oscillated gently three inches below the wood scar that showed where the lid would fit.

They stood looking thoughtfully into the aromatic mass, and the same notion occurred to both. He felt Jamie twitch, just as he himself thought that they’d best check to see if the false bottom had come loose under the force of the deluge. Jamie was already reaching for a suitable stick, which he handed Roger.

Roger probed the depths of the barrel, smiling a bit. It always gave him a wee sense of warmth when he suddenly shared an unspoken thought with someone. It happened now and then with Bree, once in a while with Claire—but surprisingly often with Jamie. Perhaps it was just that they’d worked often together, knew each other’s physical ways.

“Right, then. All sound.” Roger threw away the wet stick, picked up the lid and pressed it down into place, banged it tight with a mallet, and they finished the job with a final hoop. Crude, but effective.

Jamie stood back, nodding as he rolled down his shirtsleeves.

“Ken, if there’s the slightest danger, leave the barrels and run for it,” he said. “Ye’ll not have any trouble on the way—bar bandits,” he added as an afterthought. “Lord John’s wee pass should see ye safe through anything else. But when ye get to Charles Town…” He lifted one shoulder, and Roger’s stomach tightened.

Aye, Charles Town. Jamie had written—in a cipher that fascinated Roger—to Fergus, who would have something planned by the time they arrived—but what?

Jamie wasn’t concerned with Charles Town, though.

“See what Fergus has in mind; he’s a daring wee snipe, but he’s a father of five now, so he’s no as reckless as he used to be. But when ye come to Savannah,” he began, but then stopped, frowning. Whatever he was thinking, though, Roger wasn’t divining it.

“There’s a soldier called Francis Marion,” Jamie said abruptly. “A Continental officer. Claire said he’s known in—your time. The Swamp Fox, she said. He’s no called that just now,” he added hastily, “but if ye might have heard of him?”

“I have,” Roger said slowly. “But that name is virtually all I know. Is he in Savannah?”

Jamie nodded, looking easier.

“I had a letter last week, from a man I know. News, aye? And he told about the British garrison in Savannah—I’d asked, since the lass means to go there—and he said that this Marion had mentioned to him that Benjamin Lincoln had it in mind to come down from Charles Town and make a try at taking Savannah. And, ehm…” Jamie’s eyes were firmly fixed on a puddle of sauerkraut juice. Oh, so here was the slippery bit. It came out in a rush.

“Yon Randall said in his book that the Americans would attack Savannah in October—this year,” he added, with a direct look at Roger. “The Americans willna succeed, but Marion will be there.”

“And…you want me to talk to him?” The sweat was drying now, and the wind was cold through his shirt.

“If ye would. The thing is, Marion’s had a great deal of experience wi’ militias.”

“Like you haven’t?” Roger said.

Amusement flickered across Jamie’s face, but he shook his head. “I havena had any experience in lending a militia I’ve gathered and command to the Continental army. Marion’s done that several times, from what the letter says, and I want to ken if he has any sage advice wi’ regard to dealing with…certain officers.”

“Who’s a bastard and who’s not, ye mean? That
would
be a help—but will ye likely have a choice?”

“All officers are bastards,” Jamie said dryly. “They have to be. So am I. Some ye can trust, though, and some ye can’t. From what I hear, Marion might be one to trust.”

“I see.”
And you want a friend in the army before you go to them. A man to help you test the waters before you commit yourself. Or, maybe, to warn you off.

“That’s your choice, isn’t it?” Roger continued. “Whether to commit your—our—militia to fight with the army—or go it alone, like Cleveland and Shelby.”

“They’re not alone,” Jamie corrected. “The Overmountain men have each other to call upon in case of need. But each man keeps his own command. That’s no the way of it in the army.”

Jamie’s hair had come loose on one side; he pulled off the lacing and retied it, squinting his eyes against the wind. There was a late summer storm coming; you could see one approaching for miles, here in the mountains, and the dark clouds were massing fast over Roan Mountain.

“The choice,” Jamie said, still looking at the oncoming weather, “is whether to keep the militia close, to protect the Ridge—so far as that’s possible—or to go out, to seek battle wi’ the British. If we do that, then we can decide how best to go about it.”

Roger contemplated that one for a few moments.

“ ‘To be, or not to be?’ ” he asked. “ ‘Whether ’tis nobler in the mind,’ and all that? Because that’s what you—we—are doing, no? We act or we don’t.” He glanced at Jamie, who was giving a good impression of a coiled spring, and smiled. “Get on wi’ ye; you couldna stay out of a fight if someone paid ye to do it.”

Jamie had the grace to laugh at that, though he looked self-conscious.

“Aye. But there
is
Captain Cunningham. He might get his guns one of these days, and then what?”

“Well, it wouldna be
good,
” Roger admitted. “But he’s not going to attack the Ridge and start burning down his neighbors’ cabins, is he? I mean…he lives here.”

“True.”

“So the Americans are going to what—lay siege to Savannah?”

“So he says. Randall. But they willna succeed.” There was something odd in Jamie’s voice every time he said that name. No wonder if there was, but Roger couldn’t say exactly
what
it was: not doubt, not hate, not—not quite—fear…

“Ye think it’s safe, though, for Bree and the kids to be in Savannah while this is going on?”

Jamie shrugged and picked up his discarded jacket.

“The Americans willna take the town, and Brianna will be under Lord John Grey’s protection inside it.”

“And ye trust him. Lord John, I mean.”

It wasn’t a question and Jamie didn’t answer it, but asked another.

“Do ye trust Randall?”

Roger drew in air between his teeth, but nodded.

“About the battles and so on? Aye, I do. I mean—to him it was history; it happened. And to everyone else in the time he published that book. He couldna very well say,
‘This battle happened on this date,’
when it really happened on
that
date—or didna happen at all. Because there’d be a great many other historians—and publishers, for that matter—who knew that it did. If the book was full of…misinformation, let us say, it would never have got published. I mean—academic publishers check the manuscripts of books they publish.”

They stood a little in silence, watching the storm come in. Roger would find Francis Marion, and, God willing, Fergus would find guns. But Roger found his thoughts sliding away from hard decisions and slippery realities toward his own more imminent personal prospects.

He was wondering whether Bree might possibly be pregnant, and if so, how she might respond to the smell of Sunday dinner in Salem.