Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (82 page)

Unfolded, it had eight lines of writing, done carefully with a good quill, so each character stood clear.

“We couldn’t make out what the devil it was,” Jones said, squinting at the paper as though that might help in comprehension. “But I was a-showin’ of it to the colonel in the tavern this morning, and we was studyin’ on it and gettin’ nowhere. But Mr. Appleyard happened to be there—he’s an educated gentleman—and he said as how he thought it might be Hebrew, though he’d forgot so much since he learnt it, he couldn’t make out what it said.”

Jamie could make it out fine, though knowing what it said made little difference.

“It
is
Hebrew,” he said slowly, reading the lines. “It’s part of a Psalm…or maybe a hymn of some kind.”

This clearly rang no bells for Constable Jones, who frowned sternly at the paper as though desiring it to speak.

“What’s that last word, then? Might it be the name of who wrote it? It looks like it’s in English.”

“Aye, it is, but it’s nobody’s name.” The word, printed with the same care as the graceful Hebrew characters, was “Ambidextrous.” He left it to Colonel Locke to enlighten Constable Jones as to what that might be and handed back the paper, wiping his fingers on the skirt of his coat.

“Have a wee keek in his breeks,” Jamie suggested, and with a nod he took firm leave of Constable Jones, Salisbury, Francis Locke, the Rowan County Regiment of Militias—and the dead man.

Only three ounces of pins, ten loaves of sugar, and a mort of gunpowder stood between him and home.

Fraser’s Ridge

I WAS LISTENING WITH
half an ear to the singing in the kitchen as I pounded and ground sage, comfrey, and goldenseal into an oily dust in the surgery. It was late afternoon, and while the sun fell warm across the floorboards, the shadows held a chill.

Lieutenant Bembridge was teaching Fanny the words to “Green Grow the Rushes, O.” He had a true, clear tenor that made Bluebell yodel when he hit a high note, but I enjoyed it. It reminded me of working in the canteen at Pembroke Hospital, rolling bandages and making up surgical kits with the other student nurses, hearing singing coming in with the yellow fog through the narrow open slit at the top of a window. There was a courtyard down below, and the ambulatory patients would sit there in fine—or even not-so-fine—weather, smoking, talking, and singing to pass the time.

“Two, two, the lily-white boys,

Clothed all in green, O—

One is one and all alone

And evermore shall be so!”

The fog-muffled song was often interrupted by coughing and hoarse curses, but someone could always carry it through to the end.

Elspeth Cunningham had been as good as her word. Lieutenants Bembridge and Esterhazy were eighteen and nineteen, respectively, lusty and in good health, and with Bluebell’s joyous assistance were making so much noise that I didn’t hear either the front door opening or footsteps in the hallway, and was so startled to look up from my mortar and see Jamie in the doorway that I dropped the heavy stone pestle straight down onto my sandaled foot.

“Ouch! Ow! Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” I hopped out from behind the table, and Jamie caught me by one arm.

“Are ye all right, Sassenach?”

“Do I
sound
like I’m all right? I’ve broken a metatarsal.”

“I’ll buy ye a new one next time I go into Salisbury,” he assured me, letting go of my elbow. “Meanwhile, I’ve got everything on the list, except…Why are there Englishmen singing in my kitchen?”

“Oh. Ah. Well…” It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about what his response to two of His Majesty’s naval officers lending a hand to the domestic economy might be, but I’d thought I’d have time to explain before he actually encountered them. I rested my bottom against the edge of the table, lifting my wounded foot off the floor.

“They’re two young lieutenants who used to sail with Captain Cunningham. They were cast ashore or marooned or something—anyway, they lost their ship and it’s so late in the year that they can’t find a ship to join before March or April, so they came to the Ridge to stay with the captain. Elspeth Cunningham lent them to me for chores, in payment for my reducing her dislocated shoulder.”

“Elspeth, is it?” Luckily, he seemed amused rather than annoyed. “Do we feed them?”

“Well, I’ve been giving them lunch and a light supper. But they’ve been going back up to the captain’s cabin in the evening and coming down midmorning. They’ve repaired the stable door,” I offered, in extenuation, “dug over my garden, chopped two cords of wood, carried all the stones you and Roger dug out of the upper field down to the springhouse, and—”

He made a slight gesture indicating that he accepted my decision and now would like to change the subject. Which he did by kissing me and asking what was for supper. He smelled of road dust, ale, and faintly of cinnamon.

“I believe Fanny and Lieutenant Bembridge are making burgoo. It has pork, venison, and squirrel in it—apparently you must have at least three different meats for a proper burgoo—but I have no idea what else is in it. It smells all right, though.”

Jamie’s stomach rumbled.

“Aye, it does,” he said thoughtfully. “And what does Frances make o’ them?”

“I think she’s somewhat smitten,” I said, lowering my voice and glancing toward the hall. “Cyrus came to call yesterday while she was serving the lieutenants lunch, and she asked him to stay, but he just drew himself up to about seven feet, glared at them, said something rude in Gaelic—I don’t think she understood it, but she wouldn’t need to—and left. Fanny went pink in the face—with indignation—and gave them the dried-apple-and-raisin pie she’d meant for Cyrus.”

“Is fheàrr giomach na gun duine,”
Jamie said, with a philosophical shrug. Better a lobster than no husband.

“You don’t actually think that, do you?” I asked, curious.

“In the case of most lassies, yes,” he said. “But I want someone better for Frances, and I dinna think a British sailor will do. Ye say they’re leaving in the spring, though?”

“So I understand. Ooh!” I tenderly massaged the throbbing bruise on my foot. The pestle had struck smack at the base of my big toe, and while the original pain had receded a bit, trying to put my weight on the foot and/or bend it resulted in a sensation like hot barbed wire being pulled between my toes.

“Sit yourself down,
a nighean,
” he said, and pushed the big padded chair that Brianna had dubbed the Kibitzer’s Chair toward me. “I brought a few bottles of good wine from Salisbury; I expect one o’ those would make your foot feel better.”

It did. It made Jamie feel better, too. I could see that he’d come home carrying something, and I felt a small knot below my own heart. He’d tell me when he was ready.

So we sipped our wine—it was red—and felt together the gentle touch of the grape. I told him about Elspeth’s sudden appearance and our conversation after dinner. He told me about seeing Ian and Rachel and Jenny off, relieving his clear sense of sorrow at their parting with Jenny’s remark about her pistol.

“That took Rachel aback, as ye might suppose,” he said, eyes alight with amusement. “But then Young Ian steps in and says, ‘Dinna be fratchetty, Mam. Ye ken if we meet any villains, Rachel will talk them into a stupor afore ye have time to load.’ ”

I laughed, as much because the cloud seemed to be lifting from Jamie’s face as because it was funny.

“I hope Jenny doesn’t feel obliged to shoot what’s-her-name—Ian’s wife—”

“Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa,” Jamie said patiently, and I flipped a hand.

“Emily, then. You don’t suppose she’d try to—to get Ian back?”

“She didna want him when she put him out of her house,” Jamie pointed out. “Why would she now?”

I looked at him over the rim of my second—or possibly third—glass.

“How little you know of women, my love,” I said, shaking my head in mock dismay. “And after all these years.”

He laughed and poured the rest of the bottle into my glass.

“I dinna think I want to ken anything about any woman other than you, Sassenach. After all these years. Why, though?”

“She’s a widow with three small children,” I pointed out. “She put Young Ian out because he couldn’t give her live children, not because he was a bad husband. Now she’s
got
live children, she doesn’t need a husband for that purpose—but there are a lot of other things a husband’s good for. And I rather think Ian might be very good at some of those things.”

He looked at me thoughtfully, then tossed off the rest of his glass.

“Ye talk as though Young Ian had nothing to say about it, Sassenach. Or Rachel.”

“Oh, Rachel will have something to say about it,” I said, though I wasn’t sure
what
she might say. Rachel was neither timid nor inexperienced in the ways of the world, but meeting one’s spouse’s ex-wife might be more complicated than either she or Ian thought.

“Look at what happened when I met Laoghaire again,” I pointed out.

“Aye, she shot me,” he said dryly. “D’ye think Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa is likely to kill Rachel, rather than let her have Ian? Because I think my sister might have something to say about that.”

“She
is
a Mohawk,” I said. “They have rather different standards, I think.”

“They havena got different standards of hospitality,” he assured me. “She wouldna kill a guest. And if she tried, my sister would put a bullet through her head before ye could say…what is it ye could say?”

“Jack Robinson,” I said. “Though I’ve always wondered who he was and why that should be quicker to say than Fogarty Simms or Peter Rabbit. Is there more of that wine?”

“Aye, plenty.” He stood up and went to the door of the surgery, where he paused to listen. The singing in the kitchen had stopped, and there was just the murmur of conversation—interrupted by occasional laughter—and the rattle of plates.

“Will your foot stand the stairs, Sassenach?” he asked, turning to me. “I could maybe carry ye up, if not.”

“Upstairs?” I said, rather surprised. I glanced involuntarily toward the kitchen. “What, now?”

“Not that,” he said, with a brief smile. “Not yet. I meant the third floor.”

THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS
of half a bottle of wine were sufficient to get me up the stairs with Jamie’s supportive elbow, and I emerged into the open space of the third floor with a sense of exhilaration. There was a strong, cold breeze blowing from the east, and it swept away the last remnants of cooking, dog, sweaty young men, and left-too-long laundry from the house below. I spread my arms and my shawl flared out behind me like wings, my skirts pressed flapping round my legs.

“Ye look like you’re meaning to fly away, Sassenach,” Jamie said. “Maybe ye’d best sit down.” He sounded half serious but was smiling when I turned to look at him.

He
had
brought a stool up with him, along with the second bottle of wine. He hadn’t bothered with glasses but drew the cork with his teeth, sniffed the contents appraisingly, and then handed me the bottle.

“I dinna think decanting would improve it much.”

I was in no mood for niceties. The relief of having him home subsumed all minor considerations, and I wouldn’t have minded drinking water. Still, the wine was good, and I held a mouthful for a few moments before swallowing.

“This is wonderful,” I said, gesturing toward the view with the bottle. “I haven’t been up since we saw Bree and Roger off.” The memory of standing up here, watching their wagon disappear slowly into the trees, twisted my heart a little, but the Ridge spread out around us now in all its glory—and it was glorious, with flaming patches and sparks of autumn beginning to burn amongst the rippling cool dark greens and blues of spruce and fir and pine and sky. Here and there I could make out the white threads of chimney smoke, though the tossing trees hid the cabins themselves.

“Aye, it is,” Jamie said, though most of his attention was—naturally—focused on the timbers of the framing around us. The walls were skeletal but undeniably walls, and the rooftree and trusses creaked overhead. It was a remarkable feeling: to be inside a house and still outside, the solid floorboards under our feet marked with water stains from earlier rains and drifts of dry leaves caught in the corners of the framing timbers.

Jamie shook two or three of the uprights, grunting in satisfaction when they didn’t move.

“Well, those are no going anywhere,” he said.

“You built them,” I pointed out. “Surely you didn’t think they’d come loose?”

He made a noise indicating extreme skepticism, though I couldn’t tell whether he was skeptical of his own skills, the perversity of weather, or of the trustworthiness of building materials in general. Probably all three.

“I’ll maybe have time to get the roof on before snow flies,” he said, squinting up.

“And walls?”

“Ach. With a couple of men, I can do the outer walls in a day. Maybe two,” he amended, as a fresh blast of wind roared through the framing, whipping strands of hair out of the scarf I’d wrapped round it. “I can take my time with the plastering, over the winter.”

“It’s not as peaceful as the second floor when it was open,” I said. “But somewhat more exciting.”

“I dinna want the top of my house to be exciting,” he said, but he smiled and came to stand behind me, hands on my shoulders to keep me from blowing away.

“I don’t suppose we’ll really need it to be finished before spring,” I said, when the wind dropped enough to make speech possible. “None of our wanderers will be back before…” I trailed off, because in fact, there was no telling when—or if—everyone would come home. The war had already begun to move south, and the calming chill of approaching winter would be only a short delay of what was coming.