Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (94 page)

Philadelphia

IAN FOUND THE HOUSE
where Uncle Jamie had told him, at the end of a ragged dirt lane off the main road from Philadelphia. Uncle Jamie had said it was a poor household, and it looked it. It also looked deserted. A few early snowflakes were falling in a desultory sort of way, but there was no chimney smoke. The yard was overgrown, the roof sagged, half its shingles split or curled, and the door looked as though whoever lived there was in the habit of entering the house by kicking it in.

He swung down from his horse but paused for a moment, considering. His uncle’s instructions were clear enough, but from the things Uncle Jamie
hadn’t
said, it was also clear that Mrs. Hardman might have occasional male visitors of a possibly dangerous disposition, and Ian wasn’t wanting to walk into anything unexpected.

He tied the gelding loosely to a small elm sapling that leaned drunkenly over the lane and walked quietly into the brush beyond it. He meant to come up to the house from the rear and listen for sounds of occupation, but as he rounded the corner of the house, he heard the faint sound of a baby’s cry. It wasn’t coming from the house but from a dilapidated shed nearby.

No sooner had he turned in that direction than the cry ceased abruptly, cut off in mid-wail. He kent enough about babes by now to be sure that the only thing that would shut an unhappy child up so abruptly was something stuffed in its mouth, whether that was a breast, a sugar-tit, or someone’s thumb. And he didn’t think this Mrs. Hardman would be feeding her wean in the shed.

If someone had stopped the baby crying, they’d likely already seen him. He’d taken the precaution of loading and priming his pistol at the end of the lane, and now drew it.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

The words were not shouted but hissed, somewhere around the level of his knees. He glanced down, startled, and beheld a young girl, crouched under a bush, a ragged shawl around her shoulders for warmth.

“Ah…I suppose ye’d be Miss Hardman?” he asked, putting his pistol back in his belt. “Or one of them?”

“I am Patience Hardman.” She hunched warily, but met his eyes straight on. “Who is thee?”

He’d got the right place, then. He squatted companionably in front of her.

“My name is Ian Murray, lass. My uncle Jamie is a friend o’ your mother’s—if your mam’s name is Silvia, that is?”

She was still looking at him, but her face had frozen in an expression of dislike when he mentioned Uncle Jamie.

“Go away,” she said. “And tell thy uncle to stop coming here.”

He looked her over carefully, but she seemed to be in her right mind. Homely as a board fence, but sensible enough.

“I think we may be talkin’ of different men, lassie. My uncle is Jamie Fraser, of Fraser’s Ridge in North Carolina. He stayed with your family for a day or two sometime past—” He counted backward in his head and found an approximation. “It would ha’ been maybe two weeks before the battle at Monmouth; will ye have heard o’ that one?”

Evidently she had, for she scrambled out of the bush in such a hurry as to snag both limp brown hair and ratty shawl and emerged covered with dead leaves.

“Jamie Fraser? A very large Scottish man with red hair and a bad back?”

“That’s the one,” Ian said, and smiled at her. “Will your mam be at home, maybe? My uncle’s sent me to see to her welfare.”

She stood as though turned to stone, but her eyes darted toward the house behind him and then toward the shed, with something between excitement and dread.

“Who is thee talking to, Patience?” said another little girl’s voice, and what must, from her resemblance to Patience, be Prudence Hardman poked a capped head out of the shed, squinting nearsightedly. “Chastity has eaten
all
the apples and she will
not
be quiet.”

Chastity wouldn’t; there was another high-pitched scream from the shed and Prudence’s head vanished abruptly.

Not a babe, then; if Uncle Jamie had met Chastity on his visit, she might be nearly two by now.

“Is your mother in the house, then?” Ian asked, deciding that he could wait to meet Chastity.

“She is, Friend,” Patience said, and swallowed. “But she is—is occupied.”

“I’ll wait, then.”

“No! Just—I mean—thee must go away. Come back—
please
come back—but go now.”

“Aye?” He eyed the house curiously. He thought he heard vague sounds within, but the breeze rustling in the surrounding trees made it hard to tell what was going on.
Not that I couldna guess, wi’ the lassies out here shiverin’ in the shed…

But if Silvia Hardman was entertaining a caller, it might be best to wait until the man had left. Still, it troubled him to go away and leave the wee girls in such a state. Perhaps he could feed them, at least—

While he havered, though, Chastity took things into her own hands, screaming like a catamount and apparently kicking Prudence in the shins, for Prudence shrieked, too.

“Ow! Chastity! Thee bit me!”

Patience jerked, then ran for the shed, calling, “Be quiet, be quiet!” in an urgent voice, glancing frantically over her shoulder.

The door of the house was jerked open, slamming back against the wall within, and a large man wearing nothing but unfastened breeches came out, a leather belt in his hand and fury on his face.

“Goddamn you chits! You come out here! I’m gonna give you all what-for and I mean it!”

“Mr. Fredericks! Please, please—come back! The girls didn’t mean to—”

Without a second’s hesitation, Mr. Fredericks turned and slapped the woman behind him across the face with his belt.

Behind Ian, Patience let out a scream of pure rage and lunged for the porch. Ian caught her with an arm around her waist and put her behind him.

“Go to your sisters,” he said, and shoved her toward the shed. “Now!”

“Who the devil are you?” Fredericks had come off the porch and was advancing on Ian, sandy hair ruffled like a lion’s mane and a look on his broad red face that made his intentions clear.

Ian drew his pistol and pointed it at the man.

“Leave,” he said. “Now.”

Fredericks snapped the belt so fast that Ian scarcely saw it; only felt the blow that knocked the gun from his hand. He didn’t bother trying to pick it up, but grabbed the end of the belt as it rose for another blow and jerked Fredericks toward him, butting him in the face as he stumbled. Ian missed the nose, though, and Fredericks’s jawbone slammed into his forehead, making his eyes water.

He tripped Fredericks, but the man had his arms round Ian’s body and they both went down, landing with a thud among the dead leaves. Ian grabbed a handful and smashed them into the man’s face, grinding them into his eyes, and got his own leg up in time to avoid being kneed in the balls.

There was a lot of screaming going on. Ian got hold of Fredericks’s ear and did his best to twist it off while kicking and squirming. He heaved and rolled and got on top then, and got his hands round Fredericks’s throat, but it was a fat throat, slippery with sweat, and he couldn’t get a good grasp, not with the man hammering his ribs with a fist like a rock.
Enough of this foolishness,
said the Mohawk part of him, and he took his hand off Fredericks’s throat, grabbed a sturdy stick from the litter on the ground, and drove it straight into the man’s eye.

Fredericks threw his arms wide, went stiff, gasped once or twice, and died.

Ian moved off the man’s body, slowly, his own body pulsing with his heartbeat. His finger hurt—he’d jammed it—and his hand was slimy. He wiped it on his breeches, recalling too late that they were his good pair.

The screaming had stopped abruptly. He sat still, breathing. The snowflakes were coming down faster now, and melted as they touched his skin, tiny cold kisses on his face.

His eyes were closed, but he dimly perceived footsteps, and opened them to see the woman crouching beside him.

There was a wide red welt across her face; her upper lip was split and a trickle of blood had stained her chin. Her eyes were bloodshot and horrified, but she wasn’t screaming, thank Christ.

“Who—” she said, and stopped, putting her wrist to her wounded mouth. She looked down at the dead man on the ground, shook her head as though unable to believe it, and looked at Ian.

“Thee should not have done this,” she said, low-voiced and urgent.

“Did ye have a better suggestion?” Ian asked, getting some of his breath back.

“He would have left,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder as though expecting his nemesis to appear. “When he—when he had finished.”

“He’s finished,” Ian assured her, and moving slowly, got up onto his knees. “Ye’ll be Mrs. Hardman, then.”

“I am Silvia Hardman.” She couldn’t keep her eyes off the dead man.

“He’s Friend Jamie’s nephew, Mummy,” said a small, clear voice behind him. All three girls had clustered behind their mother, all of them looking shocked. Even the little one was round-eyed and silent, her thumb in her mouth.

“Jamie,” Silvia Hardman said, and shook her head. The dazed expression was fading from her face, and she dabbed at her swelling lip with a fold of the tattered wrapper she wore. “Jamie…
Fraser
?”

“Aye,” Ian said, and got to his feet. He was battered and stiff, but it wasn’t hurting much yet. “He sent me to see to your welfare.”

She looked incredulously at him, then at Fredericks, back at him—and began to laugh. It wasn’t regular laughing; it was a high, thin, hysterical sound, and she put a hand over her mouth to stop it.

“I suppose I’d best get rid of this—” He toed Fredericks’s body in the thigh. “Will anyone come looking for him?”

“They might.” Silvia was getting her own breath back. “This is Charles Fredericks. He’s a judge. Justice Fredericks, of the City Court of Philadelphia.”

IAN REGARDED THE
dead Justice for a moment, then glanced at Mrs. Hardman. Bar that moment of unhinged laughter, she hadn’t been hysterical, and while she was paler than the grubby shift she wore, she was composed. Not merely composed, he noted with interest; she was grimly intent, her gaze focused on the body.

“Will thee help me to hide him?” she asked, looking up.

He nodded.

“Will someone come looking for him? Come here, I mean?” The house was isolated, a mile at least from any other dwelling, and a good five miles outside the city.

“I don’t know,” she said frankly, meeting his eyes. “He’s been coming once or twice a week for the last two months, and he’s—he
was,
” she corrected, with a slight tone of relief in her voice, “a blabbermouth. Once he’d got his—what he came for—he’d drink and he’d talk. Mostly about himself, but now and then he’d mention men he knew, and what he thought of them. Not much, as a rule.”

“So ye think he might have…boasted about coming here?”

She uttered a short, startled laugh.

“Here? No. He might have talked about the Quaker widow he was swiving, though. Some…people…know about me.” Dull red splotches came up on her face and neck—and looking at them, Ian saw the darker marks of bruises on her neck.

“Mummy?” The girls were all shivering. “Can we go inside now, Mummy? It’s awful cold.”

Mrs. Hardman shook herself and, straightening, stepped in front of the dead man, at least partially blocking the girls’ view of his body.

“Yes. Go in the house, girls. Build up the fire. There’s—some food in a valise. Go ahead and eat; feed Chastity. I’ll be in…presently.” She swallowed visibly; Ian couldn’t tell whether it was from sudden nausea or simple hunger at mention of food; the shadow of her bones showed in her chest.

The little girls sidled past the body, Patience with her hands over Chastity’s eyes, and disappeared into the house, though Prudence lingered at the door until her mother made a shooing gesture, at which she also vanished.

“I think we canna just bury him,” Ian said. “If anyone should come here looking for him, a fresh grave wouldna be that hard to find. Can ye get him dressed, d’ye think?”

Her eyes went round, and she glanced at the body, then back at Ian. Her mouth opened, then closed.