“They made you walk there? From Inverness?”
“I wasna in any great hurry, Sassenach.”
I took a deep breath, trying to stem the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“I see. Well … but surely—wouldn’t m-murder”—I could just about say it without stammering, but not quite, yet—“be a matter for a jury trial?”
“It might, and certainly I shall insist upon it—if things go so far. Mr. Brown seems to think they may; he’s telling everyone in the taproom the story, making us out to be monsters of depravity. Which I must say is no great feat,” he added ruefully, “considering the circumstances.”
I pressed my lips tight together, to avoid giving a hasty answer. I knew he knew that I had had no choice—he knew that I knew he had had nothing to do with Malva in the first place—but I could not help but feel a sense of blame in both directions, for this desperate muddle in which we found ourselves. Both for what had happened afterward, and for Malva’s death itself—though God knew I would give anything to have her alive again.
He was right about Brown, I realized. Cold and wet, I’d paid little attention to the noises from the taproom below, but I could hear Brown’s voice, echoing up the chimney, and from the random words that came through, it was apparent that he was doing exactly what Jamie said—blackening our characters, making it out that he and his Committee of Safety had undertaken the ignoble but necessary job of apprehending us and committing us to justice. And, just incidentally, carefully prejudicing any potential jury members by making sure the story spread abroad in all its scandalous detail.
“Is there anything to be done?” I asked, having listened to as much of this nonsense as I could stomach.
He nodded, and pulled a clean shirt from his saddlebag.
“Go down for supper, and look as little like depraved murderers as possible, a nighean.”
“Right,” I said, and with a sigh, withdrew the ribbon-trimmed cap I had packed.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had lived long enough to have a fairly cynical view of human nature—and lived long enough in this time to know how directly public opinion expressed itself. And yet I was still shocked, when the first stone hit me in the thigh.
We were some distance south of Hillsboro. The weather continued wet, the roads muddy, and the travel difficult. I think Richard Brown would have been pleased to relinquish us to the sheriff of Rowan county—if such a person had been available. The office, he was informed, was currently unfilled, the last occupant having decamped hurriedly overnight and no one yet found willing to replace him.
A matter of politics, I gathered, the recent sheriff having leaned toward independency, whilst the majority of persons in the county were still strongly Loyalist. I didn’t learn the specifics of the incident that had triggered the recent sheriff’s hasty departure, but the taverns and inns near Hillsboro were buzzing like hornets’ nests in the wake of it.
The Circuit Court had ceased to meet some months before, Brown was informed, the justices who attended it feeling it too dangerous to appear in the present unsettled state of things. The sole justice of the peace he was able to discover felt similarly, and declined point-blank to take custody of us, informing Brown that it was more than his life was worth, to be involved in anything even faintly controversial at the moment.
“But it’s nothing to do with politics!” Brown had shouted at him, frustrated. “It’s murder, for God’s sake—black murder!”
“Anything and everything’s political these days, sir,” the JP, one Harvey Mickelgrass, informed him sadly, shaking his head. “I should not venture to address even a case of drunk and disorderly, for fear of having my house pulled down around my ears and my wife left widowed. The sheriff attempted to sell his office, but could find no one willing to purchase it. No, sir—you will have to go elsewhere.”
Brown would by no means take us to Cross Creek or Campbelton, where Jocasta Cameron’s influence was strong, and where the local justice was her good friend, Farquard Campbell. And so we headed south, toward Wilmington.
Brown’s men were disedified; they had expected a simple lynching and house-burning, perhaps the odd bit of looting—not this long-drawn-out and tedious plodding from place to place. Their spirits were further lowered when Ezra, who had been clinging to his horse in a dogged daze of fever, fell suddenly into the road and was picked up dead.
I didn’t ask to examine the body—and wouldn’t have been given leave in any case—but I rather thought from the lolling looks of him that he had simply lost consciousness, tumbled off, and broken his neck.
Not a few of the others cast looks of open fear toward me in the wake of this occurrence, though, and their sense of enthusiasm for the venture diminished visibly.
Richard Brown was not deterred; he would, I was sure, have shot us without mercy long since, had it not been for Tom Christie, silent and gray as the morning fog on the roads. He said little, and that little confined to necessities. I should have thought him moving mechanically, in the numb haze of grief—had I not turned one evening as we camped by the road, to see his eyes fixed upon me, with a look of such naked anguish in them that I glanced hastily away, only to see Jamie, sitting beside me, watching Tom Christie with a very thoughtful expression.
For the most part, though, he kept his face impassive—what could be seen of it, under the shade of his leather slouch hat. And Richard Brown, prevented by Christie’s presence from doing us active harm, took every opportunity to spread his version of the tale of Malva’s murder—perhaps as much to harrow Tom Christie in the hearing of it, over and over again, as for its effect on our reputations.
At any rate, I should not have been surprised when they stoned us, in a small, nameless hamlet south of Hillsboro—but I was. A young boy had seen us on the road, stared as we rode by—then vanished like a fox, scampering down a bank with the news. And ten minutes later, we rode around a bend in the road and into a fusillade of stones and shrieks.
One struck my mare on the shoulder and she shied violently. I kept my seat narrowly, but was off-balance; another hit me in the thigh, and another high in the chest, knocking the breath from me, and when one more bounced painfully off my head, I lost my grip on the reins, and as the horse, panicked, curvetted and spun, I flew off, landing on the ground with a bone-shaking thud.
I should have been terrified; in fact, I was furious. The stone that had hit me in the head had glanced off—thanks to the thickness of my hair and the cap I wore—but with the infuriating sting of a slap or a pinch, rather than true impact. I was on my feet by reflex, staggering, but caught sight of a jeering boy on the bank above me, hooting and dancing in triumph. I lunged, caught him by the foot and jerked.
He yelped, slipped, and fell on top of me. We crashed to the ground together, and rolled in a tangle of skirts and cloak. I was older, heavier, and completely berserk. All the fear, misery, and uncertainty of the last weeks came to an instant boil, and I punched his sneering face, twice, as hard as I could. I felt something crack in my hand, and pain shot up my arm.
He bellowed, and wriggled to escape—he was smaller than I was, but strong with panic. I struggled to keep a grip on him, got him by the hair—he struck out at me, flailing, and knocked off my cap, getting one hand in my hair and yanking hard.
The pain reignited my fury and I jammed a knee into him, anywhere I could, again, and once more, blindly seeking his soft parts. His mouth opened in a soundless “O” and his eyes bulged; his fingers relaxed and let go of my hair, and I reared up over him and slapped him as hard as I possibly could.
A big rock struck my shoulder with a numbing blow and I was knocked sideways by the impact. I tried to hit him again, but couldn’t lift my arm. Panting and sobbing, he writhed free of my cloak and scrambled away on hands and knees, nose bleeding. I whirled on my knees to look after him, and looked straight into the eyes of a young man, his face intent and blazing with excitement, rock at the ready.
It hit me in t
he cheekbone and I swayed, my vision gone blurry. Then something very large hit me from behind, and I found myself flat on my face, pressed into the ground, the weight of a body on top of mine. It was Jamie; I could tell by the breathless “Holy Mother.” His body jerked as the stones hit him; I could hear the horrifying thud of them into his flesh.
There was a lot of shouting going on. I heard Tom Christie’s hoarse voice, then the firing of a single shot. More yelling, but of a different character. One or two soft thumps, stones striking earth nearby, a last grunt from Jamie as one slammed into him.
We lay pressed flat for a few moments, and I became aware of the uncomfortably spiky plant squashed under my cheek, the scent of its leaves harsh and bitter in my nose.
Then Jamie sat up, slowly, drawing in his breath with a catch, and I rose in turn on a shaky arm, nearly falling. My cheek was puffed and my hand and shoulder throbbed, but I had no attention to spare for that.
“Are you all right?” Jamie had got halfway to his feet, then sat down again, suddenly. He was pale, and a trickle of blood ran down the side of his face from a cut in his scalp, but he nodded, a hand pressed to his side.
“Aye, fine,” he said, but with a breathlessness that told me he likely had cracked ribs. “Ye’re all right, Sassenach?”
“Fine.” I managed to get to my feet, trembling. Brown’s men were scattered, some chasing the horses who had fled in the melee, others cursing, gathering up scattered bits of belongings from the road. Tom Christie was vomiting into the bushes by the road. Richard Brown stood under a tree, watching, his face white. He glanced at me sharply, then away.
We stopped at no more taverns on the way.
89
A MOONLICHT FLICHT
“When ye go to hit someone, Sassenach, ye want to do it in the soft parts. Faces have too many bones. And then there’s the teeth to be thinkin’ of.”
Jamie spread her fingers, gently pressing the scraped, swollen knuckles, and air hissed between her own teeth.
“Thanks so much for the advice. And you’ve broken your hand how many times, hitting people?”
He wanted to laugh; the vision of her pounding that wee boy in a fury of berserk rage, hair flying in the wind and a look of blood in her eye, was one he would treasure. He didn’t, though.
“Your hand’s not broken, a nighean.” He curled her fingers, cupping her loose fist with both of his.
“How would you know?” she snapped. “I’m the doctor here.”
He stopped trying to hide his smile.
“If it were broken,” he said, “ye’d be white and puking, not red-faced and crankit.”
“Crankit, my arse!” She pulled her hand free, glaring at him as she nursed it against her bosom. She was in fact only slightly flushed, and most attractive, with her hair curling out in a wild mass round her head. One of Brown’s men had picked up her fallen cap after the attack, timidly offering it to her. Enraged, she had snatched it from him and stuffed it violently into a saddlebag.
“Are ye hungry, lass?”
“Yes,” she admitted grudgingly, as aware as he was that folk with broken bones generally had little appetite immediately, though they ate amazingly, once the pain had backed a bit.
He rummaged in the saddlebag, blessing Mrs. Bug as he came out with a handful of dried apricots and a large wrapped wedge of goat’s cheese. Brown’s men were cooking something over their fire, but he and Claire had not touched any food but their own, not since the first night.
How much longer might this farce go on? he wondered, breaking off a bit of cheese and handing it to his wife. They had food for perhaps a week, with care. Long enough, maybe, to reach the coast, and the weather held good. And what then?
It had been plain to him from the first that Brown had no plan, and was attempting to deal with a situation that had been out of his control since the first moment. Brown had ambition, greed, and a respectable sense of revenge, but almost no capacity of forethought, that much was clear.
Now, here he was, saddled with the two of them, forced to travel on and on, the unwelcome responsibility dragging like a worn-out shoe tied to a dog’s tail. And Brown the hindered dog, snarling and turning in circles, snapping at the thing that hampered him, and biting his own tail in consequence. Half his men had been wounded by the flung stones. Jamie thoughtfully touched a large, painful bruise on the point of his elbow.
He himself had had no choice; now Brown hadn’t, either. His men were growing restive; they had crops to tend, and hadn’t bargained for what they must see now as a fool’s errand.
It would be a simple matter to escape by himself. But then what? He could not leave Claire in Brown’s hands, and even were he able to get her safe away, they could not return to the Ridge with matters as they were; to do so would be to find themselves straight back in the pot.
He sighed, then caught his breath and let it out gingerly. He didn’t think his ribs were cracked, but they hurt.
“Ye’ve a bit of ointment, I expect?” he said, nodding at the bag that held her bits of medicine.
“Yes, of course.” She swallowed her bite of cheese, reaching for the bag. “I’ll put some on that cut on your head.”
He let her do that, but then insisted upon anointing her hand in turn. She objected, insisting that she was perfectly fine, needed no such thing, they should save the ointment in case of future need—and yet she let him take her hand and smooth the sweet-smelling cream into her knuckles, the small fine bones of her hand hard under his fingers.
She so hated being helpless in any way—but the armor of righteous fury was wearing off, and while she kept a fierce face for Brown and the rest, he knew she was afraid. Not without reason, either.
Brown was uneasy, unable to settle. He moved to and fro, talking aimlessly with one man or another, needlessly checking the hobbled horses, pouring a cup of chicory coffee and holding it undrunk until it grew cold, then flinging it into the weeds. And all the time, his restless gaze returned to them.
Brown was hasty, impetuous, and half-baked. He was not entirely stupid, Jamie thought. And clearly he had realized that his strategy of spreading gossip and scandal concerning his prisoners in order to endanger them had severe defects, so long as he was himself obliged to continue in close proximity to said prisoners.
Their simple meal finished, Jamie lay down, carefully, and Claire curled herself into him spoonwise, wanting comfort.
Fighting was an exhausting business, and so was fear; she was asleep in moments. Jamie felt the pull of sleep, but would not yield to it yet. He occupied himself instead in reciting some of the poems Brianna had told him—he quite liked the one about the silversmith in Boston, riding to spread the alarm to Lexington, which he considered a handsome piece.
The company was beginning to settle for the night. Brown was still a-fidget, sitting staring darkly at the ground, then leaping to his feet to stride up and down. By contrast, Christie had barely stirred, though he made no move to go to bed. He sat on a rock, his supper barely touched.
A flicker of movement near Christie’s boot; a wee small mouse, making feints toward the neglected plate that sat on the ground, filled with bounty.
It had occurred to Jamie a couple of days before, in the vague way that one recognizes a fact unconsciously known for some time, that Tom Christie was in love with his wife.
Poor bugger, he thought. Surely Christie did not believe that Claire had had aught to do with the death of his daughter; if so, he would not be here. Did he think that Jamie, though …?
He lay in the shelter of the darkness, watching the fire play across Christie’s haggard features, his eyes half-hooded, giving no hint of his thoughts. There were men who could be read like books; Tom Christie wasn’t one of them. But if ever he had seen a man being eaten alive before his eyes …
Was it the fate of his daughter, alone—or also the desperate need of a woman? He’d seen that need before, that gnawing at the soul, and knew it personally. Or did Christie think that Claire
had killed wee Malva, or been in some way involved? There would be a quandary for an honorable man.
The need of a woman … the thought brought him back to the moment, and the awareness that the sounds he had been listening for in the wood behind him were now there. He had known for the past two days that they were followed, but last night they had camped in an open meadow, with no cover at all.
Moving slowly, but with no attempt at furtiveness, he rose, covered Claire with his cloak, and stepped into the wood, like one called by nature.
The moon was pale and hunchbacked and there was little light beneath the trees. He closed his eyes to damp the fire shadow and opened them again to the dark world, that place of shapes that lacked dimension and air that held spirits.
It was no spirit that stepped out from behind the blur of a pine tree, though.
“Blessed Michael defend us,” he said softly.
“The blessed host of angels and archangels be with ye, Uncle,” said Ian, in the same soft tone. “Though I am thinking that a few thrones and dominations wouldna come amiss, either.”
“Well, I wouldna argue, if Divine Intervention chose to take a hand,” Jamie said, heartened most amazingly by his nephew’s presence. “I’m sure I’ve no notion how else we shall escape this foolish coil.”
Ian grunted at that; Jamie saw his nephew’s head turn, checking the faint glow of the camp. Without discussion, they moved further into the wood.
“I canna be gone for long, without they come after me,” he said. “First, then—is all well wi’ the Ridge?”
Ian lifted a shoulder.
“There’s talk,” he said, the tone of his voice indicating that “talk” covered everything from auld wives’ gossip to the sort of insult that must be settled by violence. “No one killed yet, though. What shall I do, Uncle Jamie?”
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