The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  His questioner stared at the golden disk, eyes bulging. The men by the door pushed and shoved each other, trying to get close enough to see.

  One reached out and snatched the astrolabe, dragging it off over his head. He made no attempt to keep it, but sat back, taking advantage of their preocation with the gaudy thing to gather his feet slowly under him. He strained CUP

  to keep his eyes open, against the nearly irresistible urge to squeeze them shut; ,,cyen the soft daylight from the door was painful.

  One of the men glanced at him, and said something sharp. Two of them moved at once between him and the door, bloodshot eyes fixed on him like alled out something, a name, he basilisks. The man holding the astrolabe c

  1thought, and there was a movement at the door, someone pushing through the I

  Vbodies there.

  agged The woman who came in looked much like the others; dressed in a r

  shift,damp with rain, with a square of cloth tied round her head, hiding her

  11hair. One major difference, though; the thin arms and legs protruding from the -1hift were the weathered, freckled brown of a white person. She stared at Roger, keeping her eyes fixed on him as she moved into the center of the hut. Only the weight of the astrolabe in her hand pulled her gaze away from him.

  orward. He moved close to the A tall, rawboned man with one eye shoved f

  woman, poked a finger at the astrolabe and said something that sounded like a estion. She shook her head slowly, tracing the markings round the edge of qu

  the disk with puzzled fascination. Then she turned it over.

  he saw the engraved letters, and a her shoulders stiffen when s

  Roger saw

  flicker of hope sprang up in his chest; she knew it. She recognized the name. *ght reen gambling that they might know what a surveyor was, ml

  He had be -p

  alize that the word implied that there were people awaiting his results eople wh From their point of o would come looking for him, if he did not return.

  view, there could be no gain in killing him, if others would come searching. But if the woman knew the name "James Fraser' . - -

  The woman shot Roger a sudden, hard look, quite at odds with her earlier hesitation. She approached him, slowly, but without apparent fear.

  "You are not Jameth Frather," she said, and he jerked, startled at the sound of her voice, clear but lisping. He blinked and squinted, then rose slowly to his feet, shading his eyes to see her against the glare of light from the door.

  She might have been any age between twenty and sixty, though the light er temples was unmarked with gray. Her face was brown hair that showed at h

  fined, but with struggle and hunger, he thought, not age. He smiled at her, de liberately, and her mouth drew back in reflex, a hesitant grimace, but nonetheoff at an less enough for him to catch a glimpse of her front teeth, broken

  angle. Squinting, he made out the thin slash of a scar through one eyebrow. She was much thinner than Claire's description of her, but that was hardly surprising.

  "I am not ... James Fraser," he agreed hoarsely, and had to stop to .cough. He cleared his throat, hawking up more soot and slime. He spat, turning politely aside, then turned back to her. "But you are ... Fanny Beardsley ... aren't you?" th, but the took of shock that crossed He hadn't been sure, in spite of the tee

  724 Diana Gabaldon

  her face at his words was solid confirmation. The men knew that name, too. The one-eyed man took a quick step forward and seized the woman by the shoulder; the others moved menacingly closer.

  "James Fraser is ... myAife's father," he said, as quickly as he could, before they could lay hands on him. "Do you want to know-about the child?"

  The look of suspicion faded from her face. She didn't move, but a loo

  k of such hunger rose in her eyes that he had to steel himself not to step back from it.

  "Fahnee?" The tall man still had a hand on her shoulder. He drew closer to her, his one eye flicking back and forth in suspicion, from the woman to Roger. She said something, almost under her breath, and put up her hand, to cover

  the man's where it rested on her shoulder. His face went suddenly blank, as though wiped with a slate eraser. She turned to him, looking up into his face, talking in a low tone, quick and urgent.

  The atmosphere in the hut had changed. It was still charged, but an air of confusion now mingledaith the general mood of menace. There was thunder overhead, much louder than the sound of the rain, but no one took note of it. The men near the door looked at each other, then, frowning, at the couple arguing in whispers. Lightning flashed, silent, framing the people in the door with darkness. There were murmuring voices outside, sounds of puzzlement. Another boom of thunder.

  Roger stood motionless, gathering his strength. His legs felt like rubber, and while breathing was still a joy, each breath burned and tickled in his lungs. Hee wouldn't go fast or far, if he had to run.

  The argument stopped abruptly. The tall man turned and made a sharp gesture toward the door, saying something that made the other men grunt with surprise and disapproval. Still, they went, slowly, and with much muttered grumbling. One short fellow with his hair in knots glared back at Roger, bared his teeth, and drew the edge of a hand across his throat with a hiss. With a small shock, Roger saw that the man's teeth were jagged, filed to points.

  The ramshackle door had barely closed behind them when the woman clutched his sleeve.

  "Tell me," she said.

  "Not so ... fast." He coughed again, wiping spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand. His throat was seared; the words felt like cinders, forced burning from his chest. "You get ... me ... out of here. Then ... I'll tell you. All I know."

  "Tell me!"

  Her fingers dug hard into his arm. Her eyes were bloodshot from the smoke, and the brown irises glowed like coals. He shook his head, coughing. The tall man brushed the woman aside, grabbing Roger by a handful of

  shirt. Something gleamed dully, too close to Roger's eye to see clearly, and amid the stench of burning, he caught the reek of rotting teeth.

  "You tell her, mon, or I rip you guts!"

  Roger brought a forearm up between them, and with an effort, shoved the man back, stumbling.

  "No," he said doggedly. "You get ... me out. Then I tell."

  The Fiery Cross 725

  The man hesitated, crouched, the knife blade wavering in a small arc of uncertainty. His one eye flicked to the woman.

  "You sure he know?"

  The woman had not taken her eyes off Roger's face. She nodded slowly, not 'looking away.

  "He knows."

  "It was ... a girl." Roger looked at her steadily, fighting the urge to blink. "you,ll know ... that much ... yourself."

  "Does she live?" "Get me ... out."

  nor a large one, but her urgency seemed to fill the She was not a tall woman, her sides. She glared at

  ,but. She fairly quivered with it, hands clenched into fists

  at Roger for a long minute more, than whirled on her heel, saying something "violent to the man in the odd African tongue.

  of her words struck him He tried to argue, but it was fruitless; the stream

  like water from a fire hose. He flung up his hands in frustrated surrender, then reached out and snatched the rag from the woman's head. He undid the knots ,wth quick, long fingers, and whipped it into the shape of a blindfold, mutter, I

  ing under his breath.

  , The last thing Roger saw before the man fastened the cloth round his eyes was Fanny Beardsley, hair in a number of small greasy plaits round her shoulbers. Her broken teeth were bared, Aers, her eyes still on him, burning like em

  and he thought she would bite him, if she could.

  THEY DIDN'T GET OUT without some argument; a chorus of angry voices surrounded them for some way, and hands plucked at his clothes and limbs. But the one-eyed man still had the knife. Roger heard a shout, a scuffling of feet and bodies close by, and a sharp cry
. The voices dropped, and the hands no longer snatched at him.

  They walked on, his hand on Fanny Beardsley's shoulder for guidance. He thought it was a small settlement; at least, it took very little time before he felt the trees close around him. Leaves brushed his face, and the resin smell of sap

  smoky air. It was still raining fairly hard, but the was heightened by the hot, ound was lumpy, layers of leaf-mold smell of smoke was everywhere. The gr

  ocks, studded with stumps and fallen branches. punctuated by upthrusting r sional remarks, but soon fell silent. His The man and woman exchanged occa seams of his breeches chafing as he clothes grew wet and clung to him, the

  walked. The blindfold was too tight to allow him to see anything, but light leaked under the edge, and from that, he could judge the changing time of day. ut; when they He thought it was just past mid-afternoon when they left the h

  stopped at last, the light had faded almost completely. of light comHe blinked when the blindfold was taken off, the sudden flood already pensating for its dimness. it was late twilight. They stood in a hollow,

  halfway filled with darkness. Looking up, he saw the sky above the mountains blazing with orange and crimson, the smoky haze lit up as though the world

  726 Diana Gabaldon

  itself were still burning. Overhead, the clouds had broken; a slice of pure blue sky shone through, soft, and bright with twilight stars.

  Fanny Beardsley faced him, looking smaller beneath the canopy of a towering chestnut tree, but every bit as intent as she had in the hut.

  He had had plenty of time to think about it. Ought he to tell her where the child was, or should he claim not to know? If she knew, would she make an attempt to reclaim the little girl? And if so, what might be the fallout-for the child, the escaped slaves-or even for Jamie and Claire Fraser?

  Neither of them had said anything about the events that had transpired at the Beardsley farmhouse, beyond the simple fact that Beardsley had died of an apoplexy. Roger was sufficiently familiar with them both, though, to draw silent deductions from Claire's troubled face and Jamie's impassive one. He didn't know what had happened, but Fanny Beardsley did-and it might well be something the Frasers would prefer remain undiscovered. If Mrs. Beardsley reappeared in Brownsville, seeking to reclaim her daughter, questions would certainly be asked-and perhaps it was to no one's benefit that they be answered.

  The blazing sky washed her face with fire, though, and faced with the hunger in those burning eyes, he could speak nothing but the truth.

  "Your daughter ... is well," he began firmly, and she made a small strangled noise, deep in her throat. By the time he had finished telling what he knew, the tears were running down her face, making tracks in the soot and dust that covered her, but her eyes stayed wide, fixed on him as though to blink would be to miss some vital word.

  The man hung back a little, wary, keeping watch. His attention was mostly on the woman, but he stole occasional glances at Roger as he Spoke, and at the end, stood beside the woman, his one eye bright as hers.

  "She have cle money?" he asked. He had the lilt of the Indies in his speech, and a skin like dark honey. He would have been handsome, save for whatever accident had deprived him of his eye, leaving a pocket of livid flesh beneath a twisted, drooping lid.

  "Yes, she's ... inherited ... all of Aaron ... Beardsley's property," Roger assured him, breath rasping in his throat from so much talking. "Mr. Fraser saw ... to it." He and Jamie had both gone to the hearing of the Orphan's Court, for Jamie to bear witness to the girl's identity. Richard Brown and his wife had been given the guardianship of the child-and her property. They had named the little girl-from what depths of sentiment or outrage, he had no idea-"Alicia."

  "No matta she black?" He saw the slave's one eye flick sideways toward Fanny Beardsley, then slide away. Mrs. Beardsley heard the note of uncertainty in the man's voice, and turned on him like a viper striking.

  "She is yourss! she said. "She could not be histh, could not!"

  "Yah, you say so," he replied, his face cast down in sullenness. "Dey give money to black girl?"

  She stamped her foot, noiseless on the ground, and slapped at him. He straightened up and turned his face aside, but made no other attempt to escape her fury.

  "Do you think I would have left her, ever left her, if she had been white, if

  The Fiery Cross 727

  she could posthibly have been white?" she shouted. She punched at him, pummelling his arms and chest with blows. "It wath your fault I had to leave her, yourss! You and that damned black hide, God damn you-"

  it was Roger who seized her flailing wrists and held them tight against her straining, letting her shriek herself to hoarseness before she collapsed at last in tears.

  The slave, who had watched all this with an expression between shame and Anger, lifted his hands a little toward her. It was the slightest of movements, but onough; she turned at once from Roger and flung herself into her lover's arms, sobbing against his chest. He wrapped his arms awkwardly around her and held her close, rocking back and forth on his bare heels. He looked sheepish, but no longer angry.

  Roger cleared his throat, grimacing at the soreness. The slave looked up at him, and nodded.

  A' "You go, man," he said softly. Then, before Roger could turn to go, he said, !.Wait ... true, man, de child fix good?"

  It Roger nodded, feeling unutterably tired. Whatever adrenaline or sense of self-preservation had been keeping him going was all used up. The blazing sky had gone to ashes, and everything in the hollow was fading, blurring into dark.

  4 "She's all ... right. They'll take ... good care of her." He groped, wanting to offer something else. "She's ... pretty," he said at last. His voice was nearly gone, no more than a whisper. "A pretty ... girl."

  The man's face shifted, caught between embarrassment, dismay, and pleasure.

  "Oh," he said. "Dat be from de mama, sure." He patted Fanny Beardsley's back, very gently. She had stopped sobbing, but stood with her face pressed against his chest, still and silent. It was nearly fiill dark; in the deep dusk, all color was leached away; her skin seemed the same color as his.

  The man wore nothing but a tattered shirt, wet through, so that his dark skin showed in patches through it. He had a rope belt, though, with a rough cloth bag strung on it. He groped one-handed in this, and drew out the astrolabe, which he extended toward Roger.

  "You don't mean ... to keep that?" Roger asked. He felt as though he was standing inside a cloud; everything was beginning to feel far away and hazy, and words reached him as though filtered through cotton wool.

  The ex-slave shook his head.

  "No, man, what I do wid dat? Beside," he added, with a wry lift of the mouth, "maybe no one come look you, man, but de masta what own dat ting-he come look, maybe."

  Roger took the heavy disk, and put the thong over his neck. It took two tries; his arms felt like lead.

  "Nobody ... will come looking," he said. He turned and walked away, with no idea where he was, or where he might be going. After a few steps, he turned and looked back, but the night had already swallowed them.

  The Fiery Cross 729

  BURNT TO BONIES

  E HORSES SETTLED SLIGHTLY, but were still uneasy, pawng, stamping, and jerking at their tethers, as the thunder rumbled hollowly in the distance. Jamie sighed, kissed the top of my head, and

  pushed his way back through the conifers to the tiny clearing where they stood. Well, if ye dinna like it up here," 1 heard him say to them, "why did ye come?" He spoke tolerantly, though, and I heard Gideon whinny briefly in pleasure at seeing him. I Was turning to go and help with the reassuring, when a flicker of movement caught my eye below,

  I leaned out to see it, keeping a tight grip on one of the hemlock's branches for safety, but it had moved. A horse, I thought, but coming from a different direction than that in which the refugees had come. I wove my way down the line of conifers, peeking through the branches, and reached a spot near the end of th
e narrow ledge where I had a clear view of the river valley below.

  Not a horse, quite-it was"It's Clarence!" I shouted.

  "Who?" Jan-lie's voice came back from the far end of the ledge, halfdrowned by the rustle of the branches overhead. The wind was still rising, damp with returning rain.

  cc Clarence! Roger's mule!" Not waiting for a reply, I ducked beneath an overhanging branch and balanced myself precariously on the lip of the ledge, clinging to a rocky outcrop that jutted from the cliff where it met the ledge. There were serried ranks of trees below, marching down the slope, their tops no more than a few inches below the level of my feet, but I didn't want to risk falling down into them,

  It was Clarence, I was sure of it. I was by no means expert enough to recognize any quadruped by its distinctive gait, but Clarence had suffered some form of mange or other skin disease in his youth, and the hair had grown in white over the healed patches, leaving him peculiarly piebald over the rump.

  He was lolloping over the stubbled corn fields, ears pointed forward and obviously happy to be rejoining society. He was also saddled and riderless, and I said a very bad word under my breath when I saw it.

  "He's broken his hobbles and run." Jamie had appeared at my shoulder, peering down at the small figure of the mule. He pointed. "See?" I hadn't noticed, in my alarm, but there was a small rag of cloth tied round one of his forelegs, flapping as he ran.

  c6l suppose that's better,,, I said. My hands had gone sweaty, and I wiped my

  ,palms on the elbows of my sleeves, unable to look away. "I mean-if he was

  11 obbled, then Roger wasn't on him. Roger wasn't thrown, or knocked off and burt.11

  "Ah, no." Jamie seemed concerned, but not alarmed. "He'll have a long back, is all." Still, I saw his gaze shift out, over the narrow river valley, now early filled with smoke. He shook his head slightly, and said something under breath-no doubt a cousin to my own bad word.

  I wonder if this is how the Lord feels," he said aloud, and gave me a wry ance. "Able to see what foolishness men are up to, but carma do a bloody g about it."

  Before I could answer him, lightning flashed, and the thunder cracked on its els with a clap so loud and sudden that I jumped, nearly losing my grip. ie seized my arm to stop me falling, and pulled me back from the edge. The

  liorses were throwing fits again, at the far end of the ledge, and he turned d them, but stopped suddenly, his hand still on my arm.

  "What?" I looked where he was looking, and saw nothing but the wall of the Xfiff, some ten feet away, festooned with small rock plants.

  He let go my arm, and without answering, walked toward the cliff. And, I , taw, toward an old fire-blasted snag that stood near it. Very delicately, he ,reached out and tweaked something from the dead tree's bark. I reached his

  ,side and peered into the palm of his hand, where he cradled several long, coarse hairs. White hairs.

  Rain began to fall again, settling down in a businesslike way to the job of ,soaking everything in sight. A piercing pair of whinnies came from the horses, who didn't like being abandoned one bit.

  I looked at the trunk of the tree; there were white hairs all over it, caught in the cracks of the ragged bark. A bear bas special scratcbing trees, I could hear Josiah saying. He'll come back to one, again and again. I swallowed, hard.

  "Perhaps," Jamie said very thoughtfally, "it's no just the thunder that troubles the horses."

  Perhaps not, but it wasn't helping. Lightning flashed into the trees far down the slope and the thunder sounded with it. Another flash-bang following on its heels, and another, as though an ack-ack gun were going off beneath our feet. The horses were having hysterics, and I felt rather like joining them.

  I had put on my hooded cloak when I left the village, but both hood and hair were matted to my skull, the rain pounding down on my head like a shower of nails. Jamie's hair was plastered to his head as well, and he grimaced through the rain.

  He made a "stay here" gesture, but I shook my head and followed him. The horses were in a complete state, saturated manes dangling over rolling eyes. Judas had succeeded in half-uprooting the small tree I had tied him to, and

  Gideon had his ears laid flat, flexing his lip repeatedly over his big yellow teeth, looking for someone or something to bite.

  Seeing this, Jamie's tips tightened. He glanced back toward the place where we had found the scratching-tree, invisible from our present position, The lightning flashed, the thunder shuddered through the rock, and the horses both screamed and lunged. Jamie shook his head, making the decision, and

  730 Diana Gabaldon