The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (266 page)

One, in particular, though Miss Cowden did not know his name. But a fine man he must have been, for Miss Margaret stole away from her home to meet him, and told him all the bits of information that she gleaned from listening to her father and his friends, and from her brother’s letters home.

But then had come Falkirk; a victory, but a costly one, followed by retreat. Rumor had attended the flight of the Prince’s army to the north, and not a soul doubted but that their flight led to destruction. Miss Margaret, desperate at the rumors, left her home at dead of night in the cold March spring, and went to find the man she loved.

Now here the account had been uncertain—whether it was that she had found the man and he had spurned her, or that she had not found him in time, and been forced to turn back from Culloden Moor—but in any case, turn back she did, and the day after the battle, she had fallen into the hands of a band of English soldiers.

“Dreadful, what they did to her,” Miss Cowden said, lowering her voice as though the figure in the chair could hear. “Dreadful!” The English soldiers, blind with the lust of the hunt and the kill, pursuing the fugitives of Culloden, had not stopped to ask her name or the sympathies of her family. They had known by her speech that she was a Scot, and that knowledge had been enough.

They had left her for dead in a ditch half full of freezing water, and only the fortuitous presence of a family of tinkers, hiding in the nearby brambles for fear of the soldiers, had saved her.

“I canna help but think it a pity they did save her, un-Christian thing it is to say,” Miss Cowden whispered. “If not, the puir lamb might ha’ slippit her earthly bonds and gone happy to God. But as it is—” She gestured clumsily at the silent figure, and drank down the last drops of her cordial.

Margaret had lived, but did not speak. Somewhat recovered, but silent, she traveled with the tinkers, moving south with them to avoid the pillaging of the Highlands that took place in the wake of Culloden. And then one day, sitting in the yard of a pothouse, holding the tin to collect coppers as the tinkers busked and sang, she had been found by her brother, who had stopped with his Campbell regiment to refresh themselves on the way back to their quarters at Edinburgh.

“She kent him, and him her, and the shock o’ their meeting gave her back her voice, but not her mind, puir thing. He took her home, o’ course, but she was always as though she was in the past—sometime before she met the Hielan’ man. Her father was dead then, from the influenza, and Tilly Lawson said as the shock o’ seeing her like that kilt her mother, but could be as that were the influenza, too, for there was a great deal of it about that year.”

The whole affair had left Archibald Campbell deeply embittered against both Highland Scots and the English army, and he had resigned his commission. With his parents dead, he found himself middling well-to-do, but the sole support of his damaged sister.

“He couldna marry,” Miss Cowden explained, “for what woman would have him, and she”—with a nod toward the fire—“was thrown into the bargain?”

In his difficulties, he had turned to God, and become a minister. Unable to leave his sister, or to bear the confinement of the family house at Burntisland with her, he had purchased a coach, hired a woman to look after Margaret, and begun to make brief journeys into the surrounding countryside to preach, often taking her with him.

In his preaching he had found success, and this year had been asked by the Society of Presbyterian Missionaries if he would undertake his longest journey yet, to the West Indies, there to organize churches and appoint elders on the colonies of Barbados and Jamaica. Prayer had given him his answer, and he had sold the family property in Burntisland and moved his sister to Edinburgh while he made preparations for the journey.

I glanced once more at the figure by the fire. The heated air from the hearth stirred the skirts about her feet, but beyond that small movement, she might have been a statue.

“Well,” I said with a sigh, “there’s not a great deal I can do for her, I’m afraid. But I’ll give you some prescriptions—receipts, I mean—to have made up at the apothecary’s before you go.”

If they didn’t help, they couldn’t hurt, I reflected, as I copied down the short lists of ingredients. Chamomile, hops, rue, tansy, and verbena, with a strong pinch of peppermint, for a soothing tonic. Tea of rose hips, to help correct the slight nutritional deficiency I had noted—spongy, bleeding gums, and a pale, bloated look about the face.

“Once you reach the Indies,” I said, handing Miss Cowden the paper, “you must see that she eats a great deal of fruit—oranges, grapefruit, and lemons, particularly. You should do the same,” I added, causing a look of profound suspicion to flit across the maid’s wide face. I doubted she ate any vegetable matter beyond the occasional onion or potato, save her daily parritch.

The Reverend Campbell had not returned, and I saw no real reason to wait for him. Bidding Miss Campbell adieu, I pulled open the door of the bedroom, to find Young Ian standing on the other side of it.

“Oh!” he said, startled. “I was just comin’ to find ye, Auntie. It’s nearly half-past three, and Uncle Jamie said—”

“Jamie?” The voice came from behind me, from the chair beside the fire.

Miss Cowden and I whirled to find Miss Campbell sitting bolt upright, eyes still wide but focused now. They were focused on the doorway, and as Young Ian stepped inside, Miss Campbell began to scream.

Rather unsettled by the encounter with Miss Campbell, Young Ian and I made our way thankfully back to the refuge of the brothel, where we were greeted matter-of-factly by Bruno and taken to the rear parlor. There we found Jamie and Fergus deep in conversation.

“True, we do not trust Sir Percival,” Fergus was saying, “but in this case, what point is there to his telling you of an ambush, save that such an ambush is in fact to occur?”

“Damned if I ken why,” Jamie said frankly, leaning back and stretching in his chair. “And that being so, we do, as ye say, conclude that there’s meant to be an ambush by the excisemen. Two days, he said. That would be Mullen’s Cove.” Then, catching sight of me and Ian, he half-rose, motioning us to take seats.

“Will it be the rocks below Balcarres, then?” Fergus asked.

Jamie frowned in thought, the two stiff fingers of his right hand drumming slowly on the tabletop.

“No,” he said at last. “Let it be Arbroath; the wee cove under the abbey there. Just to be sure, aye?”

“All right.” Fergus pushed back the half-empty plate of oatcakes from which he had been refreshing himself, and rose. “I shall spread the word, milord. Arbroath, in four days.” With a nod to me, he swirled his cloak about his shoulders and went out.

“Is it the smuggling, Uncle?” Young Ian asked eagerly. “Is there a French lugger coming?” He picked up an oatcake and bit into it, scattering crumbs over the table.

Jamie’s eyes were still abstracted, thinking, but they cleared as he glanced sharply at his nephew. “Aye, it is. And
you
, Young Ian, are having nothing to do with it.”

“But I could help!” the boy protested. “You’ll need someone to hold the mules, at least!”

“After all your Da said to you and me yesterday, wee Ian?” Jamie raised his brows. “Christ, ye’ve a short memory, lad!”

Ian looked mildly abashed at this, and took another oatcake to cover his confusion. Seeing him momentarily silent, I took the opportunity to ask my own questions.

“You’re going to Arbroath to meet a French ship that’s bringing in smuggled liquor?” I asked. “You don’t think that’s dangerous, after Sir Percival’s warning?”

Jamie glanced at me with one brow still raised, but answered patiently enough.

“No; Sir Percival was warning me that the rendezvous in two days’ time is known. That was to take place at Mullen’s Cove. I’ve an arrangement wi’ Jared and his captains, though. If a rendezvous canna be kept for some reason, the lugger will stand offshore and come in again the next night—but to a different place. And there’s a third fallback as well, should the second meeting not come off.”

“But if Sir Percival knows the first rendezvous, won’t he know the others, too?” I persisted.

Jamie shook his head and poured out a cup of wine. He quirked a brow at me to ask whether I wanted any, and upon my shaking my head, sipped it himself.

“No,” he said. “The rendezvous points are arranged in sets of three, between me and Jared, sent by sealed letter inside a packet addressed to Jeanne, here. Once I’ve read the letter, I burn it. The men who’ll help meet the lugger will all know the first point, of course—I suppose one o’ them will have let something slip,” he added, frowning into his cup. “But no one—not even Fergus—kens the other two points unless we need to make use of one. And when we do, all the men ken well enough to guard their tongues.”

“But then it’s bound to be safe, Uncle!” Young Ian burst out. “Please let me come! I’ll keep well back out o’ the way,” he promised.

Jamie gave his nephew a slightly jaundiced look.

“Aye, ye will,” he said. “You’ll come wi’ me to Arbroath, but you and your auntie will stay at the inn on the road above the abbey until we’ve finished. I’ve got to take the laddie home to Lallybroch, Claire,” he explained, turning to me. “And mend things as best I can with his parents.” The elder Ian had left Halliday’s that morning before Jamie and Young Ian arrived, leaving no message, but presumably bound for home. “Ye willna mind the journey? I wouldna ask it, and you just over your travel from Inverness”—his eyes met mine with a small, conspiratorial smile—“but I must take him back as soon as may be.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I assured him. “It will be good to see Jenny and the rest of your family again.”

“But Uncle—” Young Ian blurted. “What about—”

“Be still!” Jamie snapped. “That will be all from you, laddie. Not another word, aye?”

Young Ian looked wounded, but took another oatcake and inserted it into his mouth in a marked manner, signifying his intention to remain completely silent.

Jamie relaxed then, and smiled at me.

“Well, and how was your visit to the madwoman?”

“Very interesting,” I said. “Jamie, do you know any people named Campbell?”

“Not above three or four hundred of them,” he said, a smile twitching his long mouth. “Had ye a particular Campbell in mind?”

“A couple of them.” I told him the story of Archibald Campbell and his sister, Margaret, as related to me by Nellie Cowden.

He shook his head at the tale, and sighed. For the first time, he looked truly older, his face tightened and lined by memory.

“It’s no the worst tale I’ve heard, of the things that happened after Culloden,” he said. “But I dinna think—wait.” He stopped, and looked at me, eyes narrowed in thought. “Margaret Campbell. Margaret. Would she be a bonny wee lass—perhaps the size o’ the second Mary? And wi’ soft brown hair like a wren’s feather, and a verra sweet face?”

“She probably was, twenty years ago,” I said, thinking of that still, plump figure sitting by the fire. “Why, do you know her after all?”

“Aye, I think I do.” His brow was furrowed in thought, and he looked down at the table, drawing a random line through the spilled crumbs. “Aye, if I’m right, she was Ewan Cameron’s sweetheart. You’ll mind Ewan?”

“Of course.” Ewan had been a tall, handsome joker of a man, who had worked with Jamie at Holyrood, gathering bits of intelligence that filtered through from England. “What’s become of Ewan? Or should I not ask?” I said, seeing the shadow come over Jamie’s face.

“The English shot him,” he said quietly. “Two days after Culloden.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and smiled tiredly at me.

“Well, then, may God bless the Reverend Archie Campbell. I’d heard of him, a time or two, during the Rising. He was a bold soldier, folk said, and a brave one—and I suppose he’ll need to be now, poor man.” He sat a moment longer, then stood up with decision.

“Aye, well, there’s a great deal to be done before we leave Edinburgh. Ian, you’ll find the list of the printshop customers upstairs on the table; fetch it down to me and I’ll mark off for ye the ones with orders outstanding. Ye must go to see each one and offer back their money. Unless they choose to wait until I’ve found new premises and laid in new stock—that might take as much as two months, though, tell them.”

He patted his coat, where something made a small jingling sound.

“Luckily the assurance money will pay back the customers, and have a bit left over. Speaking of which”—he turned and smiled at me—“your job, Sassenach, is to find a dressmaker who will manage ye a decent gown in two days’ time. For I expect Daphne would like her dress back, and I canna take ye home to Lallybroch naked.”

30

RENDEZVOUS

The chief entertainment of the ride north to Arbroath was watching the conflict of wills between Jamie and Young Ian. I knew from long experience that stubbornness was one of the major components of a Fraser’s character. Ian seemed not unduly handicapped in that respect, though only half a Fraser; either the Murrays were no slouches with regard to stubbornness, or the Fraser genes were strong ones.

Having had the opportunity to observe Brianna at close range for many years, I had my own opinion about that, but kept quiet, merely enjoying the spectacle of Jamie having for once met his match. By the time we passed Balfour, he was wearing a distinctly hunted look.

This contest between immovable object and irresistible force continued until early evening of the fourth day, when we reached Arbroath to find that the inn where Jamie had intended to leave Ian and myself no longer existed. No more than a tumbled-down stone wall and one or two charred roof-beams remained to mark the spot; otherwise, the road was deserted for miles in either direction.

Jamie looked at the heap of stones in silence for some time. It was reasonably obvious that he could not just leave us in the middle of a desolate, muddy road. Ian, wise enough not to press the advantage, kept also silent, though his skinny frame fairly vibrated with eagerness.

“All right, then,” Jamie said at last, resigned. “Ye’ll come. But only so far as the cliff’s edge, Ian—d’ye hear? You’ll take care of your auntie.”

“I hear, Uncle Jamie,” Young Ian replied, with deceptive meekness. I caught Jamie’s wry glance, though, and understood that if Ian was to take care of auntie, auntie was also to take care of Ian. I hid a smile, nodding obediently.

The rest of the men were timely, arriving at the rendezvous point on the cliffside just after dark. A couple of the men seemed vaguely familiar, but most were just muffled shapes; it was two days past the dark of the moon, but the tiny sliver rising over the horizon made conditions here little more illuminating than those obtaining in the brothel’s cellars. No introductions were made, the men greeting Jamie with unintelligible mutters and grunts.

There was one unmistakable figure, though. A large mule-drawn wagon appeared, rattling its way down the road, driven by Fergus and a diminutive object that could only be Mr. Willoughby, whom I had not seen since he had shot the mysterious man on the stairs of the brothel.

“He hasn’t a pistol with him tonight, I hope,” I murmured to Jamie.

“Who?” he said, squinting into the gathering gloom. “Oh, the Chinee? No, none of them have.” Before I could ask why not, he had gone forward, to help back the wagon around, ready to make a getaway toward Edinburgh, so soon as the contraband should be loaded. Young Ian pressed his way forward, and I, mindful of my job as custodian, followed him.

Mr. Willoughby stood on tiptoe to reach into the back of the wagon, emerging with an odd-looking lantern, fitted with a pierced metal top and sliding metal sides.

“Is that a dark lantern?” I asked, fascinated.

“Aye, it is,” said Young Ian, importantly. “Ye keep the slides shut until we see the signal out at sea.” He reached for the lantern. “Here, give it me; I’ll take it—I ken the signal.”

Mr. Willoughby merely shook his head, pulling the lantern out of Young Ian’s grasp. “Too tall, too young,” he said. “Tsei-mi say so,” he added, as though that settled the matter once and for all.

“What?” Young Ian was indignant. “What d’ye mean too tall and too young, ye wee—”

“He means,” said a level voice behind us, “that whoever’s holding the lantern is a bonny target, should we have visitors. Mr. Willoughby kindly takes the risk of it, because he’s the smallest man among us. You’re tall enough to see against the sky, wee Ian, and young enough to have nay sense yet. Stay out o’ the way, aye?”

Jamie gave his nephew a light cuff over the ear, and passed by to kneel on the rocks by Mr. Willoughby. He said something low-voiced in Chinese, and there was the ghost of a laugh from the Chinaman. Mr. Willoughby opened the side of the lantern, holding it conveniently to Jamie’s cupped hands. A sharp click, repeated twice, and I caught the flicker of sparks struck from a flint.

It was a wild piece of coast—not surprising, most of Scotland’s coast was wild and rocky—and I wondered how and where the French ship would anchor. There was no natural bay, only a curving of the coastline behind a jutting cliff that sheltered this spot from observation from the road.

Dark as it was, I could see the white lines of the surf purling in across the small half-moon beach. No smooth tourist beach this—small pockets of sand lay ruffled and churned between heaps of seaweed and pebbles and juts of rock. Not an easy footing for men carrying casks, but convenient to the crevices in the surrounding rocks, where the casks could be hidden.

Another black figure loomed up suddenly beside me.

“Everyone’s settled, sir,” it said softly. “Up in the rocks.”

“Good, Joey.” A sudden flare lit Jamie’s profile, intent on the newly caught wick. He held his breath as the flame steadied and grew, taking up oil from the lantern’s reservoir, then let it out with a sigh as he gently closed the metal slide.

“Fine, then,” he said, standing up. He glanced up at the cliff to the south, observing the stars over it, and said, “Nearly nine o’clock. They’ll be in soon. Mind ye, Joey—no one’s to move ’til I call out, aye?”

“Aye, sir.” The casual tone of the answer made it apparent that this was a customary exchange, and Joey was plainly surprised when Jamie gripped his arm.

“Be sure of it,” Jamie said. “Tell them all again—no one moves ’til I give the word.”

“Aye, sir,” Joey said again, but this time with more respect. He faded back into the night, making no sound on the rocks.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, pitching my voice barely loud enough to be heard over the breakers. Though the beach and cliffs were evidently deserted, the dark setting and the secretive conduct of my companions compelled caution.

Jamie shook his head briefly; he’d been right about Young Ian, I thought—his own dark silhouette was clear against the paler black of the sky behind him.

“I dinna ken.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Tell me, Sassenach—d’ye smell anything?”

Surprised, I obligingly took a deep sniff, held it for a moment, and let it out. I smelled any number of things, including rotted seaweed, the thick smell of burning oil from the dark lantern, and the pungent body odor of Young Ian, standing close beside me, sweating with a mix of excitement and fear.

“Nothing odd, I don’t think,” I said. “Do you?”

The silhouette’s shoulders rose and dropped in a shrug. “Not now. A moment ago, I could ha’ sworn I smelt gunpowder.”

“I dinna smell anything,” Young Ian said. His voice broke from excitement, and he hastily cleared his throat, embarrassed. “Willie MacLeod and Alec Hays searched the rocks. They didna find any sign of excisemen.”

“Aye, well.” Jamie’s voice sounded uneasy. He turned to Young Ian, grasping him by the shoulder.

“Ian, you’re to take charge of your auntie, now. The two of ye get back of the gorse bushes there. Keep well away from the wagon. If anything should happen—”

The beginnings of Young Ian’s protest were cut off, apparently by a tightening of Jamie’s hand, for the boy jerked back with a small grunt, rubbing his shoulder.

“
If
anything should happen,” Jamie continued, with emphasis, “you’re to take your auntie and go straight home to Lallybroch. Dinna linger.”

“But—” I said.

“Uncle!” Young Ian said.

“Do it,” said Jamie, in tones of steel, and turned aside, the discussion concluded.

Young Ian was grim on the trip up the cliff trail, but did as he was told, dutifully escorting me some distance past the gorse bushes and finding a small promontory where we might see out some way over the water.

“We can see from here,” he whispered unnecessarily.

We could indeed. The rocks fell away in a shallow bowl beneath us, a broken cup filled with darkness, the light of the water spilling from the broken edge where the sea hissed in. Once I caught a tiny movement, as a metal buckle caught the faint light, but for the most part, the ten men below were completely invisible.

I squinted, trying to pick out the location of Mr. Willoughby with his lantern, but saw no sign of light, and concluded that he must be standing behind the lantern, shielding it from sight from the cliff.

Young Ian stiffened suddenly next to me.

“Someone’s coming!” he whispered. “Quick, get behind me!” Stepping courageously out in front of me, he plunged a hand under his shirt, into the band of his breeches, and withdrew a pistol; dark as it was, I could see the faint gleam of starlight along the barrel.

He braced himself, peering into the dark, slightly hunched over the gun with both hands clamped on the weapon.

“Don’t shoot, for God’s sake!” I hissed in his ear. I didn’t dare grab his arm for fear of setting off the pistol, but was terrified lest he make any noise that might attract attention to the men below.

“I’d be obliged if ye’d heed your auntie, Ian,” came Jamie’s soft, ironic tones from the blackness below the cliff edge. “I’d as soon not have ye blow my head off, aye?”

Ian lowered the pistol, shoulders slumping with what might have been a sigh either of relief or disappointment. The gorse bushes quivered, and then Jamie was before us, brushing gorse prickles from the sleeve of his coat.

“Did no one tell ye not to come armed?” Jamie’s voice was mild, with no more than a note of academic interest. “It’s a hanging offense to draw a weapon against an officer of the King’s Customs,” he explained, turning to me. “None o’ the men are armed, even wi’ so much as a fish knife, in case they’re taken.”

“Aye, well, Fergus said they wouldna hang me, because my beard’s not grown yet,” Ian said awkwardly. “I’d only be transported, he said.”

There was a soft hiss as Jamie drew in his breath through his teeth in exasperation.

“Oh, aye, and I’m sure your mother will be verra pleased to hear ye’ve been shipped off to the Colonies, even if Fergus was right!” He put out his hand. “Give me that, fool.

“Where did ye get it, anyway?” he asked, turning the pistol over in his hand. “Already primed, too. I knew I smelt gunpowder. Lucky ye didna blow your cock off, carrying it in your breeches.”

Before Young Ian could answer, I interrupted, pointing out to sea.

“Look!”

The French ship was little more than a blot on the face of the sea, but its sails shone pale in the glimmer of starlight. A two-masted ketch, it glided slowly past the cliff and stood off, silent as one of the scattered clouds behind it.

Jamie was not watching the ship, but looking downward, toward a point where the rock face broke in a tumble of boulders, just above the sand. Looking where he was looking, I could just make out a tiny prickle of light. Mr. Willoughby, with the lantern.

There was a brief flash of light that glistened across the wet rocks and was gone. Young Ian’s hand was tense on my arm. We waited, breaths held, to the count of thirty. Ian’s hand squeezed my arm, just as another flash lit the foam on the sand.

“What was that?” I said.

“What?” Jamie wasn’t looking at me, but out at the ship.

“On the shore; when the light flashed, I thought I saw something half-buried in the sand. It looked like—”

The third flash came, and a moment later, an answering light shone from the ship—a blue lantern, an eerie dot that hung from the mast, doubling itself in reflection in the dark water below.

I forgot the glimpse of what appeared to be a rumpled heap of clothing, carelessly buried in the sand, in the excitement of watching the ship. Some movement was evident now, and a faint splash reached our ears as something was thrown over the side.

“The tide’s coming in,” Jamie muttered in my ear. “The ankers float; the current will carry them ashore in a few minutes.”

That solved the problem of the ship’s anchorage—it didn’t need one. But how then was the payment made? I was about to ask when there was a sudden shout, and all hell broke loose below.

Jamie thrust his way at once through the gorse bushes, followed in short order by me and Young Ian. Little could be seen distinctly, but there was a considerable turmoil taking place on the sandy beach. Dark shapes were stumbling and rolling over the sand, to the accompaniment of shouting. I caught the words “Halt, in the King’s name!” and my blood froze.

“Excisemen!” Young Ian had caught it, too.

Jamie said something crude in Gaelic, then threw back his head and shouted himself, his voice carrying easily across the beach below.

“Éirich ’illean!”
he bellowed.
“Suas am bearrach is teich!”

Then he turned to Young Ian and me. “Go!” he said.

The noise suddenly increased as the clatter of falling rocks joined the shouting. Suddenly a dark figure shot out of the gorse by my feet and made off through the dark at high speed. Another followed, a few feet away.

A high-pitched scream came from the dark below, high enough to be heard over the other noises.

“That’s Willoughby!” Young Ian exclaimed. “They’ve got him!”

Ignoring Jamie’s order to go, we both crowded forward to peer through the screen of gorse. The dark-lantern had fallen atilt and the slide had come open, shooting a beam of light like a spotlight over the beach, where the shallow graves in which the Customs men had buried themselves gaped in the sand. Black figures swayed and struggled and shouted through the wet heaps of seaweed. A dim glow of light around the lantern was sufficient to show two figures clasped together, the smaller kicking wildly as it was lifted off its feet.

“I’ll get him!” Young Ian sprang forward, only to be pulled up with a jerk as Jamie caught him by the collar.

“Do as you’re told and see my wife safe!”

Gasping for breath, Young Ian turned to me, but I wasn’t going anywhere, and set my feet firmly in the dirt, resisting his tug on my arm.

Ignoring us both, Jamie turned and ran along the clifftop, stopping several yards away. I could see him clearly in silhouette against the sky, as he dropped to one knee and readied the pistol, bracing it on his forearm to sight downward.