Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (77 page)

“Mmphm.” She looked at him with sympathy. “Aye. And I expect he gave them back to ye in Philadelphia, did he?”

“He did,” Jamie said, a bit terse, and a wry amusement touched Jenny’s face.

“Tell ye one thing,
a bràthair
—he’s no going to forget you.”

“Aye, maybe not,” he said, feeling an unexpected comfort in the thought. “Well, then…” He let the beads run through his fingers, taking hold of the crucifix. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty…”

They said the Creed together, then the Our Father, and the three Hail Marys, and the Glory Be.

“Joyful or Glorious?” he asked, fingers on the first bead of the decades. He didn’t want to do the Sorrowful Mysteries, the ones about suffering and crucifixion, and he didn’t think she did, either. A yaffle called from the maples, and he wondered briefly if it was one they’d already seen, or a third.
Three for a wedding, four for a death…

“Joyful,” she said at once. “The Annunciation.” Then she paused, and nodded at him to take the first turn. He didn’t have to think.

“For Murtagh,” he said quietly, and his fingers tightened on the bead. “And Mam and Da. Hail Mary, full o’ grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” Jenny finished the prayer and they said the rest of the decade in their usual way, back and forth, the rhythm of their voices soft as the rustle of grass.

They reached the second decade, the Visitation, and he nodded at Jenny—her turn.

“For Ian Òg,” she said softly, eyes on her beads. “And Ian Mòr. Hail Mary…”

The third decade was William’s. Jenny glanced at him when he said so, but only nodded and bent her head.

He didn’t try to avoid thinking of William, but he didn’t deliberately call the lad to mind, either; there was nothing he could do to help, until or unless William asked for it, and it would do neither of them good to worry about what the lad was doing, or what might be happening to him.

But…he’d said “William,” and for the space of an Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and a Glory Be, William must perforce be in his mind.

Guide him,
he thought, between the words of the prayer.
Give him good judgment. Help him to be a good man. Show him his way…and Holy Mother…keep him safe, for your own Son’s sake…
“World without end, Amen,” he said, reaching the final bead.

“For all those to hame in Scotland,” Jenny said without hesitation, then paused and looked up at him. “Laoghaire, too, d’ye think?”

“Aye, her, too,” he said, smiling despite himself. “So long as ye put in that poor bastard she’s married to, as well.”

For the last decade, they paused for a moment, eyeing each other.

“Well, the last was for the folk in Scotland,” he said. “Let’s do this one for the folk elsewhere—Michael and wee Joan and Jared, in France?”

Jenny’s face grew momentarily soft—she’d not seen Michael since Ian’s funeral, and the poor lad had been shattered, his young wife suddenly dead, a child gone with her—and then his father. Jenny’s mouth trembled for an instant, but her voice was clear and the sun lay soft on the white of her cap as she bent her head. “Our Father, who art in heaven…”

There was silence when they finished—the sort of silence a wood gives you, made of wind and the sounds of drying grass and of trees shedding leaves in a yellow rain. The goat’s bell clanked on the far side of the meadow, and a bird he didn’t know chattered to itself in the maple grove. The buck deer was gone; he’d heard it leave sometime while he was praying for William, and he’d wished his son good fortune in the hunt.

Jenny drew breath as though to speak, and he lifted a hand; there was something in his mind and he’d best say it now.

“What ye said about Lallybroch,” he began, a little awkwardly. “Dinna be worrit about it. If ye should die before me, I’ll see to it that ye get home safe, to lie wi’ Ian.”

She nodded thoughtfully, but her lips were pursed a little, as she held them when thinking.

“Aye, I ken ye would, Jamie. Ye dinna need to go to great lengths about it, though.”

“I don’t?”

She blew air out through her lips, then set them firmly.

“Well, see, I dinna ken where I might be, come the time. If it’s here, then o’ course—”

“Where the devil else might ye be?” he demanded, with the dawning realization that she couldn’t have come up here to tell him about Murtagh, because she hadn’t known he needed telling. So—

“I’m going wi’ Ian and Rachel to find his Mohawk wife,” she said, as casually as she might have said she was off to pull turnips.

Before he could find a single word, she held up the rosary in front of his face. “I’m leavin’ this with you, ken—it’s for Mandy, just in case I dinna come back. Ye ken well enough what sorts of things can happen when ye’re traveling,” she added, with a small moue of disapproval.

“Traveling,” he said. “
Traveling?
Ye mean to—to—” The thought of his sister, small, elderly, and stubborn as an alligator sunk in the mud, marching north through two armies, in dead of winter, beset by brigands, wild animals, and half a dozen other things he could think of if he’d time for it…

“I do.” She gave him a look, indicating that she didn’t mean to bandy words for long. “Where Young Ian goes, Rachel says she’s goin’, too, and that means so does the wee yin. Ye dinna think I mean to leave my youngest grandchild to the mercies of bears and wild Indians, do ye? That’s a rhetorical question,” she added, with a pleased air of having put a stop to him. “That means I dinna expect ye to answer it.”

“Ye wouldna ken a rhetorical question from a hole in the ground if I hadna told ye what one was!”

“Well, then, ye should recognize one when it bites ye on the nose,” she said, sticking her own lang neb up in the air.

“I’ll go and talk to Rachel,” he said, eyeing her. “Surely she’s better sense than to—”

“Ye think I didn’t? Or Young Ian?” Jenny shook her head, half admiringly. “It would be easier to move yon wee mountain there”—she nodded at the bulk of Roan Mountain, looming dark green in the distance—“than to get that Quaker lass to change her mind, once it’s made up.”

“But the bairn—!”

“Aye, aye,” she said, a little irritably. “Ye think I didna mention that? And she did squinch her eyes a bit. But then she said to me, reasonable as Sunday, would
I
let my husband go alone seven hundred miles to rescue his first wife, and her wi’ three pitiable bairns—one of whom might just possibly be Ian’s?—and that’s the first
I
heard of it, too,” she added, seeing his face. “I see her point.”

“Jesus.”

“Aye.” She stretched herself, groaning a little, and shook her skirts, which were thick with foxtails by now. Jamie could feel the prick of them through his stockings, dozens of tiny needles. The thought of Jenny’s going was a dirk right through his heart. It hurt to breathe.

He knew she could tell; she didn’t look at him but coiled up the pearl rosary neatly and, taking his hand, dropped it into his palm.

“Keep it for me,” she said, matter-of-factly, “and if I dinna come back, give it to Mandy, when she’s old enough.”

“Jenny…” he said softly.

“See, when ye come to reckon your life,” she said briskly, stooping to pick up the goat’s rope, “ye see that it’s the bairns are most important. They carry your blood and they carry whatever else ye gave them, on into the time ahead.” Her voice was perfectly steady, but she cleared her throat with a tiny
hem
before going on.

“Mandy’s the farthest out, aye?” she said. “As far as I can reach. The youngest girl of Mam’s blood. Let her take it on, then.”

He swallowed, hard.

“I will,” he said, and closed his hand over the beads, warm from his sister’s touch, warm with her prayers. “I swear, sister.”

“Well, I ken that, clot-heid,” she said, smiling up at him. “Come and help me catch these goats.”

JAMIE HANDED IAN A
small, heavy purse.

“I can manage, Uncle,” he said, trying to hand it back. “We’ve horses, and I’ve got enough coin to feed us, I think.”

“
You’d
be happy enough to sleep in the woods along the way, and Rachel’s young and strong, and doubtless she’d do it for love of ye. But if ye think ye can make your mother travel seven hundred miles, sleeping by the side of the road and eating what ye can catch along the way…think again, aye?”

“Mmphm.” Ian acknowledged the reason in this, though he weighed the purse reluctantly in the palm of his hand.

“Besides,” his uncle added, and glanced over his shoulder. “There’s a favor I’d ask of ye.”

“Of course, Uncle Jamie.” Auntie Claire was out in the side yard, helping with the laundry; he saw his uncle’s eye rest on her, with a mingled look of affection and wariness that piqued Ian’s interest. “What is it?”

“Rachel says ye mean to stop in Philadelphia for a few days on your way, so that she can visit some of her Quaker Friends and go to a proper meeting.”

“Aye. So…?”

“Well. About five miles outside the city, along the main road, there’s a small lane—it’s called Mulberry; I’ve drawn ye a map, but ye can ask your way, too. There’s a wee falling-down sort of house at the end of the lane; that belongs to a woman named Silvia Hardman.”

“A woman?” Ian glanced involuntarily at Auntie Claire, too. She was laughing at something Jem had once said to her, her face flushed from the heat of the fire and her mad hair escaping from the scarf she had bound round her head.

“Aye,” his uncle said tersely, turning slightly so his back was to the launderers. “A Quaker lady, a widow wi’ three small girls. She did me a great service, before Monmouth, and since ye’ll be passing by, I’d like ye to see what her condition is, and no matter
what
it is, oblige her to take this.” He fished in his sporran and came out with another, smaller, purse.

Ian accepted it without question, putting it away in his own pouch. Uncle Jamie was frowning slightly, hesitant.

“Anything else, Uncle?”

“If—I mean—I dinna ken whether…”

“Whatever it is,
a bràthair-mhàthair,
ye ken I’ll do it, aye?” He smiled at Uncle Jamie, who relaxed and smiled back.

“I do, Ian, and I’m grateful. The thing is—Friend Silvia is a virtuous woman, but her husband was killed, maybe by the British army, maybe by Loyalists, maybe by Indians. He left her badly off, she’s no kin, and…there aren’t so many ways for a woman alone to provide for three wee girls.”

“She’s a hoor, then?” Ian had lowered his own voice, keeping an eye on the steam rising from the laundry kettle. Wee Orrie Higgins was minding Oggy and apparently trying to teach him to play patty-cake, though the bairn couldn’t manage more than waving his chubby arms and crowing.

“No!” Uncle Jamie’s face darkened. “I mean—she sometimes…”

“I understand,” Ian said hastily, suddenly wondering at the nature of the service Mrs. Hardman might have rendered his uncle.

“Not
me,
for God’s sake!”

“I didna think it was, Uncle!”

“Aye, ye did,” Uncle Jamie said dryly. “But beyond rubbing horseradish liniment into my backside and poulticing my back, the woman never laid a hand on me—or I on her, all right?”

Ian grinned at his uncle and raised both hands, indicating a complete acceptance of this story.

“Mmphm. So, as I said, I want ye to see what her condition is. It may be that she’s found a man to marry her—and if she has, you be damned careful about giving her the money so he doesna see; even if he’s a good man, he might assume things that aren’t true—” And here he gave Ian a hard look. “But if she’s entertaining men that come to her house, you find that out and make sure that none of them are threatening her or seem a danger to her or her wee lassies.”

“And if they are…?”

“Take care of it.”

I FOUND IAN
in the springhouse, sniffing cheeses.

“Take that one,” I suggested, pointing at a cheesecloth-wrapped shape at the end of the top shelf. “It’s at least six months old, so it’ll be hard enough to travel with. Oh, but you might want some of the softer cheese for Oggy, mightn’t you?”

There were at least a dozen tin tubs of soft goat’s cheese, some flavored with garlic and chives—one adventurous experiment with minced dried tomatoes that I had severe doubts about—but four unflavored, for use in feeding people with digestive upset and for mixing in medicines that I couldn’t get anyone to swallow otherwise.

“Rachel thinks he might be teething,” Ian assured me. “By the time we reach New York, he’ll be gnawing raw meat off the bone.”

I laughed, but felt a sharp pang at the realization that he was right; by the time we saw Oggy again, he would likely be walking, perhaps talking, and fully equipped to eat anything that took his fancy.

“He might even have a proper name by that time,” I said, and Ian smiled, shaking his head.

“Ye never ken when a person’s right name will come—but it always does.” He glanced down to one side, by reflex. To where Rollo would have been.

“Wolf’s Brother?” I said. That was the name the Mohawk had given him when he became one of them. I was quite aware—and I thought Rachel and Jenny both knew it even better—that he had by no means
stopped
being a Mohawk, even though he’d come back to live with us again. He hadn’t stopped looking down at his side for Rollo, either.

“Aye,” he said, a little gruffly, but then he gave me a half smile and the Scottish lad showed through the tattoos. “Maybe another wolf will come find me, sometime.”

“I hope so,” I said, meaning it. “Ian—I wanted to ask you a favor.”

One eyebrow went up.

“Name it, Auntie.”

“Well…Jamie said that you plan to stop in Philadelphia. I wondered…” I felt myself blushing, much to my annoyance. His other eyebrow rose.

“Whatever it is, Auntie, I’ll do it,” he said, one side of his mouth curling. “I promise.”

“Well…I, um, want you to go to a brothel.”

The eyebrows came down and he stared hard at me, obviously thinking he hadn’t heard aright.

“A brothel,” I repeated, somewhat louder. “In Elfreth’s Alley.”

He stood motionless for a moment, then turned and put the cheese back on the shelf, and glanced down at the clear brown water of the creek rushing past our feet.

“This might take a bit of time to explain, aye? Let’s go out into the sun.”