Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (70 page)

Jamie smiled at me and clicked the rim of his wooden cup with mine.

“The militia. Other things, too, but it’s mostly that.”

That was a surprise. While Hiram was, like every other fisherman I had known, tough as nails, I’d never known him or any other of the Thurso men to take up arms, beyond occasionally shooting game. As for riding horses…

“See, Captain Cunningham has been preaching about the war again, and he’s makin’ Hiram uneasy in his mind.”

“Has he, indeed?” What with one thing and another, I hadn’t gone to the captain’s Sunday services of late. But I knew he was a Loyalist—and there was that man, Partland, who had tried to bring him rifles. “Do you think he’s planning to raise his own militia?
Here?
” That would be more than awkward.

“I don’t think so,” Jamie said slowly, frowning into his gin. “The captain has his limits, but I think he’s wise enough to ken that he
does
have them. But yon friends of his…Granger and Partland. If they had it in mind to raise a unit of Loyalist militia—and they do—he’d likely support them. Tell his congregation about it, I mean, and urge the suitable men to turn out.”

It was odd, I thought, that while whisky warmed the body, gin seemed to cool it. Or perhaps it was the talk of militias that was giving me a chilly feeling on the back of the neck.

“But surely Hiram’s not going to listen to Captain Cunningham, is he? I mean, the captain isn’t strictly speaking a Papist, but from Hiram’s point of view, Methodists likely aren’t that much better.”

“True.” Jamie licked the corner of his mouth. “And I doubt he’s gone to many of Cunningham’s sermons himself. But a few of the Thurso folk do, of course.”

“For entertainment?” I smiled. While both Roger and the captain had small but devoted congregations, there were not a few of the Ridge inhabitants who would come to listen to anyone willing to get up and talk, and who sat through all of the Sunday services, including Rachel’s meetings, later comparing critical opinions of each preacher’s remarks.

“Aye, mostly. The captain’s no so good as a Punch-and-Judy show—or even as good as Roger Mac—but he’s something to listen to and talk about. And Hiram’s cousins have been talking. He doesna like it.”

“And so…he wants his half brother to court Fanny?” I shook my head. Even with a solid half ounce of rhubarb gin under my belt, I didn’t see the connection.

“Well, it’s no really about Frances, ken.” He picked up the gin bottle and smelled it thoughtfully. “Rhubarb, ye say. If I drink more of this, will it give me the shits?”

“I don’t know. Try it and see,” I advised him, holding out my own cup for more. “What
is
it about, then, and why is Fanny involved?”

“Well, it’s a tie—no a formal one, of course—but a link betwixt Hiram and me. He sees well enough where things are going, and it will be easier, when the time comes, for him to go with me, and bring some of his men along, if there’s a…friendly feeling between the families, aye?”

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.” I took a minute to contemplate that. “You can’t really be considering marrying Fanny off to the Crombies! It may be war, but it isn’t the War of the bloody Roses, with dynastic marriages right and left. I mean, I’d hate to see you end up in a butt of malmsey with a red-hot poker up your arse, like the Duke of Clarence.”

That made him laugh, and the knot forming under the gin in my stomach relaxed a little.

“Not yet, Sassenach. No, and I willna let Cyrus trouble Fanny—or even talk to her formally, if she mislikes the notion. But if the lassie doesna mind him visiting—and he is a sweet-tempered lad—then…aye, it might help Hiram when I need to ask him to ride with me and bring his men.”

I tried to envision Hiram Crombie riding into battle at Jamie’s side—and surprisingly, found it not all that far-fetched. Bar the riding part…the Thurso people did of course have the occasional mule or nag for transport, but on the whole, they were deeply suspicious of horses and preferred to walk. I supposed they could be infantry…

“But I dinna mean Frances to be made uneasy,” he said. “I’ll talk to her—and you should, too, like women, ken?”

“Like women, forsooth,” I murmured. But he was right. Fanny knew much, much more of the risks of being a woman than the average twelve-year-old did, and while I doubted that Cyrus would be any sort of threat to her, I must reassure her that this proposition was entirely hers to decline.

“All right,” I said, still a bit reluctant. “Do you know anything about Cyrus, other than his being tall?”

“Hiram spoke well of the lad. Paid him what I think was a verra high compliment.”

“What’s that?”

Jamie tossed off the rest of his gin, belched slightly, and set down his cup.

“He says Cyrus thinks like a fish.”

RATHER TO MY
surprise, Fanny didn’t seem averse to Cyrus visiting more formally, when I carefully broached the subject with her.

“He doesn’t really speak any English, though,” she said thoughtfully. “A lot of the people up at that end of the cove don’t, Germain told me.”

Germain was right; many of the fisher-folk spoke only Gaelic; it was one reason why they remained as a tight-knit group, somewhat separate from the other residents of the Ridge.

“I’m learning the
Gàidhlig,
” she assured me, pronouncing it correctly. “And I suppose I’d learn more from Cyrus.”

“Why?” I asked, rather astonished. “I mean—what makes you want to learn Gaelic?”

She flushed a little but didn’t look away or down. That strong sense of self-possession was one of the things that occasionally made Fanny a little unnerving.

“I heard them singing,” she said. “In the church, with Roger Mac. Some of the Wilsons and Mr. Greig and his brother came down to listen to him preach—I think you were gone that day, so you wouldn’t have heard them—but after the sermon, Roger Mac asked Mr. Greig if he knew…” She shook her head. “I can’t even say the name, but it was a song in Gaelic, and they sang it, all of them, and they were beating their hands on the benches like drums and—the whole church…it was…” She looked at me, helpless to explain, but I could see the light in her face. “Alive.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry I missed that.”

“If Cyrus comes to visit me, maybe some of his family will come down and sing again,” she said. “Besides,” she added, a slight shadow crossing her face, “with Germain and Jemmy gone, Cyrus will be somebody to talk to, whether he understands me or not.”

HER MENTION OF
Germain made me slightly wary, and I went to find Jamie, who was repairing the barn wall where Clarence, in a fit of pique, had kicked it and broken one of the boards.

“Do you think maybe you should talk to Hiram before Cyrus comes?” I said. “I mean, naturally, we don’t want to tell anyone about…where Fanny came from. But if Cyrus were to—er—make any, um, inappropriate moves toward her…she might—feel obliged to respond?”

He’d sat back on his heels to listen to me, and at this, he laughed and stood up, shaking his head.

“Nay bother, Sassenach,” he said. “He’ll not lay a finger on the lass, or Hiram will break his neck, and Hiram will ha’ told him so.”

“Well, that’s reassuring. Do you think perhaps you should drop a word in his ear yourself? As Fanny’s
loco parentis,
I mean?”

“Locum,”
he said, “and no. I’ll just bid him welcome and terrify him wi’ my presence. He won’t dare breathe on her, Sassenach.”

“All right,” I said, still a little dubious. “I
think
she believed us—believed
you
—when we told her we didn’t expect her to become a whore, but…she spent half her life in a brothel, Jamie. Even if she wasn’t…participating, her sister
was,
and Fanny surely knew everything that was going on. That sort of experience leaves a mark.”

He paused, head bent, looking down at the ground, where a small pile of fresh mule apples marked Clarence’s mood.

“Ye healed me of something a good deal worse, Sassenach,” he said, and touched my hand gently. He’d touched me with his right hand, the maimed one.

“I didn’t,” I protested. “You did that yourself—you had to. All I did was…er…”

“Drug me wi’ opium and fornicate me back to life? Aye, that.”

“It wasn’t fornication,” I said, rather primly—though my hand turned, my fingers lacing tight with his. “We were married.”

“Aye, it was,” he said, and his mouth tightened, as well as his grip. “It wasna only you I was swiving, and ye ken that as well as I do.”

If I did, it wasn’t anything I was ever going to admit, let alone discuss, and I let it lie.

“But I grant ye, neither of us could do the like for Frances. Maybe Cyrus can—by not touchin’ her.” He kissed my hand, let it go, and bent to pick up his hammer.

OF COURSE I
had seen Cyrus Crombie before, at church, but beyond a second glance at his height hadn’t really taken notice of him. Jamie had arranged for him to come to the house later in the week with a couple of cousins, to help with the framing for the third story—and be formally presented to Fanny.

And so it was that two days later, I climbed to the precarious top of the house, where the third floor was slowly taking shape amid the creaking and flapping of rope, wood, and canvas.

“I’m amazed that you aren’t seasick,” I said, finding Jamie in the act of measuring along one edge of the lofty platform that would someday be an attic, making chalk marks that were probably less random than they looked.

“I likely would be, if I thought about it,” he said absently. “What brings ye up here, Sassenach? It’s early for dinner.”

“True. I did bring you food, though.” I dug in my pocket and brought out a bread roll stuffed with cheese and pickle. “You need to eat more. I can see all your ribs,” I added disapprovingly.

I could, too; he’d taken off his shirt to work, and the shadows of his ribs showed clearly in his back, beneath the faded network of his scars.

He merely grinned at me, but rose and took the roll, taking a large bite of it in the same movement.

“Taing,”
he said, swallowing, and nodded to the air behind me. “There he is.”

I turned to look. Sure enough, Cyrus Crombie was coming down the path behind the house. Tall Tree, forsooth. He had an explosion of light-brown curls that hung to his shoulders, and an apprehensive expression.

“Aren’t some more of the Crombies meant to come, too?” I asked.

“Aye, they will. I imagine he’s come a wee bit early, in order to have a word in—well, not quite private, but without Hiram breathin’ down his neck—with Fanny. Brave of him,” he added with approval.

“Should I go down? To chaperone?” I asked, watching the boy. He’d paused by the well and was taking a roll of cloth from the bag at his belt.

“Nay, Sassenach. I told my sister what was a-do; she’ll keep an eye on them without scarin’ the shit out of Cyrus.”

“You think
I
would?”

He laughed and popped the last bite of roll into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. I caught a waft of piccalilli and cheese, and my own stomach gurgled in anticipation.

“I do. D’ye not ken that all the fisher-folk still think ye’re next door to a witch, if not a
bean-sithe
outright? Even Hiram makes the horns behind your back when he comes near ye.”