The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  His only response to this was a snort. He paced restlessly to and fro for a bit, his feet rustling in the spilled straw. He hadn't taken his shoes or stockings, and was barefoot, though the cold seemed not to trouble him.

  At last he stopped, heaved a massive sigh, and bent forward, resting a hand on the bench, his head on my shoulder.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered.

  I put my arms round his shoulders and pulled him close, holding him hard until at last he sighed again, and the knotted strain in his shoulders relaxed. I let go, and he stood up, giving me a hand to rise.

  We closed the barn door and walked back to the house in silence, hand in hand.

  "Claire," lie said suddenly, sounding a little shy. "Yes?71

  "I dinna mean to excuse myself-not at all. It's only I was wondering ... do ye ever ... think of Frank? When we . . ." He stopped and cleared his throat. "Does the shadow of the Englishman perhaps cross my face-now and then?"

  And what on earth could I say to that? I couldn't lie, surely, but how could I say the truth, either, in a way he would understand, that wouldn't hurt him?

  I drew a deep breath and let it out, watching the mist of it purl softly away. "I don't want to make love to a ghost," I said at last, firmly. "And I don't think you do, either. But I suppose every now and then a ghost might have other ideas."

  He made a small sound that was mostly a laugh.

  "Aye," he said. "I suppose they might. I wonder if Laoghaire would like the Englishman's bed better than mine?"

  "Serve her right if she did," I said. "But if you like mine, I suggest you come and get back into it. It's bloody cold out here."

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  DEAD WHALIE

  Y LAT E MARCH, the trails down the mountain were passable. NO word had come yet from Milford Lyon, and after some debate on the

  Bmatter, it was decided that Jamie and 1, with Brianna, Roger, and Marsali, would travel to Wilmington, while Fergus took the survey reports to New Bern to be formally filed and registered.

  The girls and I would buy supplies depleted over the winter, such as salt, sugar, coffee, tea, and opium, while Roger and Jamie would make discreet inquiries after Milford Lyon-and Stephen Bonnet. Fergus would come to join us, so soon as the surveying reports were taken care of, making his own inquiries along the coast as chance offered.

  After which, presumably, Jan-tie and Roger, having located Mr. Bonnet, would drop round to his place of business and take turns either shooting him dead or running him through,%vith a sword, bef

  ore riding back into the mountains, congratulating themselves on a job well done. Or so I understood the plan to be. "The best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley." I quoted to Jamie, in the

  midst of one discussion on the matter. He raised one brow and gave me a look. "What sorts of plans have mice got?"

  "Well, there you have me," I admitted. "The principle holds, though; you haven't any idea what may happen."

  "That's true," he agreed. "But whatever does happen, I shall be ready for it." He patted the dirk that lay on the corner of his desk, and went back to making lists of farm supplies.

  The weather warmed markedly as we descended from the mountains, and as we drew nearer to the coast, flocks of scagulls and crows wheeled and swarmed over the fresh-plowed fields, shrieking ecstatically in the bright spring sunshine.

  The trees in the mountains were barely beginning to leaf out, but in Wilmington, flowers were already glowing in the gardens, spikes of yellow columbine and blue larkspur nodding over the tidy fences on Beaufort Street. We found lodgings in a small, clean inn a little way from the quay. It was relatively cheap and reasonably comfortable, if a trifle crowded and dark.

  "Why don't they have more windows?" Brianna grumbled, nursing a stubbed toe after stumbling over Germain in the darkness on the landing. "Somebody's going to burn the place down, lighting candles to see where they're going. Glass can't be that expensive."

  "Window tax," Roger informed her, picking Germain up and dangling him head-down over the bannister, to Germain's intense delight.

  "What? The Crown taxes windows?"

  "It does. Ye'd think people would care more about that than stamps or tea,

  1,but apparently they're used to the window tax."

  "No wonder they're about to have a revolu-0h, good morning, Mrs. Burns! The breakfast smells wonderful."

  The girls, the children, and I spent several days in careful shopping, while Roger and Jamie mixed business with pleasure in assorted taprooms and taverns. Most of their errands were completed, and Jamie produced a small but usefill subsidiary income from card-playing and betting on horses, but all he was able to hear of Stephen Bonnet was that he had not been seen in Wilmington for some months. I was privately relieved to hear this.

  It rained later in the week, hard enough to keep everyone indoors for two days. More than simple rain; it was a substantial storm, with winds high enough to bend the palmetto trees half over and plaster the muddy streets with torn leaves and fallen branches. Marsali sat up late into the night, listening to the wind, alternating between saying the rosary and playing cards with Jamie for distraction.

  "Fergus did say it was a large ship hc would be coming on from New Bern? The Octopus? That sounds good-sized, doesn't it, Da?"

  "Oh, aye. Though I believe the packet boats are verra safe, too. No. dinna discard that, lass-throw away the trey of spades instead."

  "How do ye know I have the trey of spades?" she demanded, frowning susiously at him. "And it's no true about the packet boats. Ye ken that as well as PIC

  I do; we saw the wreckage of one at the bottom of Elm Street, day before yesterday. "

  "I know ye've got the trey of spades because I haven't," Jamie told her, tucking his hand of cards neatly against his chest, "and all the other spades have already turned up on the table. Besides, Fergus might come overland from New Bern; he may not be on a boat at all."

  A gust of wind struck the house, rattling the shutters.

  "Another reason not to have windows," Roger observed, looking over Marsali's shoulder at her hand. "No, he's right, discard the trey of spades." "Here, you do it. I've got to go and see to Joanie." She rose suddenly, and

  thrusting the cards into Roger's hand, rustled off to the small room next door that she shared with her children. I hadn't heard Joanie cry.

  There was a loud thump and scrape overhead, as a detached tree limb sailed across the roof. Everyone looked up. Below the high-pitched keen of the wind, we could hear the hollow rumble of the surf, boiling across the submerged mudflats, pounding on the shore.

  "They that go down to the sea in ships," Roger quoted softly, "that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof."

  "Oh, you're a big help," Brianna said crossly. Already edgy, her temper had not been improved by the enforced seclusion. Jemmy, terrified by all the racket, had been wrapped around her like a poultice for the better part of two days; both of them were hot, damp, and exceedingly cranky.

  Roger appeared not to be put off by her mood. He smiled, and bending

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  down, peeled Jemmy away from her, with some difficulty. He put the little boy on the floor, holding him by the hands.

  "They reel to and fro," he said theatrically, pulling Jem's hands so that he lurched, off-balance.

  end." "And stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit,s Jemmy was giggling, and even Brianna was beginning to smile,

  reluctantly. "Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bri

  ngetb them out Of their distresses-" on bringetb, he swung Jemmy suddenly up in the air, caught him under the arms and whirled him round, making him shriek in delight.

  "He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet-" He pulled Jemmy in close, and kissed him on the head, "-so he bringet
h them unto their desired haven."

  Bree applauded the performance sarcastically, but smiled nonetheless. Jamie had retrieved the cards, shuffling the deck neatly back together. He stopped, looking up. Caught by his sudden stillness, I turned my head to look at him. He glanced at me and smiled.

  "The wind has dropped," he said. "Hear it? Tomorrow, we'll go out."

  THE WEATHER HAD CLEARED by morning, and a fresh breeze came in from the sea, bearing with it a tang of the shore,

  smelling of sea-lavender, pines, and a Strong reek of something maritime rotting in the sun. The quay still exhibited a depressing lack of masts; no large ships lay at anchor, not even a ketch

  acket boat, though the water in Wilmington harbor swarmed With or p

  our-oared boats that flitted across dinghies, rafts, canoes, and pirettas, the little f

  rom their flying oars. the water like dragonflies, droplets sparkling f

  One of these spotted our small party standing disconsolately on the wharf, and darted toward us, its oarsmen calling out to know whether we require trans ort? As P d

  p oger leaned out to shout a polite refusal, the breeze off the harwhich whirled giddily out over the brownish waters bor whipped away his hat,

  and lighted on the foam, spinning like a leaf.

  The craft sculled at once toward the floating hat, and one of the oarsmen speared it deftly, raising it dripping in triumph on the end of his oar. As the piretta drew up beside the quay,

  changed to one of astonishment. though, the boatman's look of jubilation "MacKenzie!" he cried. "Bugger me wi' a silver toothpick if it isn't!"

  "Duff' Duff, me auld lad!" Roger leaned down and grabbed his hat, then reached back to give his erstwhile acquaintance a hand up. Duff, a small, grizzled Scot with a very long nose, sparse jowls, and a fine sprout of graying whiskers that made him look as though he'd been thickly dusted in icing sugar, leaped nimbly up onto the quay and proceeded to clasp Roger in a manly em brace, punctuated by fierce thumpings on the back and ejaculations of amaze ment, all heartily returned by Roger. The rest of us stood politely watching this reunion, while Marsali prevented Germain f

  rom jumping off the quay into the Water.

  "Do you know him?" I asked Brianna, who was dubiously examining her husband's old friend.

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  461 think he might have been on a ship with Roger once," she replied, renewfinding n Jemmy, who was wildly excited by the sight of seagulls,

  'ing her grip o

  these much more entertaining than Mr. Duff.

  at him"' Duff exclaimed, finally standing back and wiping a sleeve "Why, look

  happily under his nose. "A coat like a lairdie's and buttons to match. And the d ye're so slick these days as shit wouldna stick to ye, would it?" hat! Christ, la,

  Roger laughed, and bent to pick up his soggy hat. He slapped it against his thigh to dislodge a strand of bladder-wrack, and handed it absently to Bree, who was still viewing Mr. Duff with a rather narrow eye.

  "My wife," Roger introduced her, and waved a hand at the rest of us. "And I her family. Mr. James Fraser, Mrs. Fraser ... and my wife s good sister, also Mrs. MacKenzie."

  "Your servant, sir-ladies." Duff bowed to Jamie, and put a finger to the disreputable object on his head in brief token of respect. He glanced at Briamia, and a broad grin stretched his lips.

  "Oh, so ye married her. Got her out o' the breeks, I see." He nudged Roger familiarly in the ribs, lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper. "Did ye pay her faither for her, or did he pay you to take her?" He emitted a creaking noise, which I took to be laughter.

  Jamie and Bree gave Mr. Duff identical cold looks down the bridges of their long, straight noses, but before Roger could reply, the other oarsman shouted something incomprehensible from the boat below.

  "Oh, aye, aye, hold your water, man." Mr. Duff waved a quelling hand at his partner. "That's by way of a jest," he explained to me confidentially. "What %kith us bein' sailors, ken. 'Hold your water,' aye? Forbye ye don-It hold water, then ye'll be at the bottom o' the harbor, aye?" He quivered with merriment, making the creaking noise again.

  "Most amusing," I assured him. "Did he say something about a whale?" "Oh, to be sure! Was that not why ye've come down to the shore this morning?"

  Everyone looked blank.

  "No," Marsali said, too bent upon her errand to pay much attention to anything else, including whales. "Germain, come back herel No, Sir, we,ve come to see if there's any word of the Octopus. Ye'll not have heard anything, yourself?" Duff shook his head.

  "No, Missus. But the weather's been that treacherous off the Banks for a rmonth past. . . " He saw Marsali's face go pale, and hastened to add, 46A good many ships Will ha' sheered off, see? Gone to another port, maybe, or lyin' to just off the coast, in hopes of fair skies to make the run in. Ye recall, MacKenzie-we did that ourselves, when we came in wi' the Gloriana."

  "Aye, that's true." Roger nodded, though his eyes grew wary at mention of the Gloriana. He glanced briefly at Brianna, then back at Duff, and lowered his voice slightly. "You've parted company with Captain Bonnet I see."

  A small jolt shot through the soles of my feet, as though the dock had been C

  , too, though in different fashion, He electrified. Jamie and Bree both reacted

  took an immediate step toward Duff, she took one back.

  "Stephen Bonnet?" Jamie said, eyeing Duff with interest. "Ye'll be acquainted with that gentleman, will y0"

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  "I have been, sir," Duff said, and crossed himself Jamie nodded slowly, seeing this.

  "Aye, I see. And will ye ken somewhat about Mr. Bonnet's present whereabouts, perhaps? 'I

  "Och, well, as to that ... 55

  Duff looked up at him speculatively, taking in the details of his clothing and appearance, and obviously wondering exactly how much the answer to that question might be worth. His partner below was growing increasingly restive, though, and shouted impatiently.

  Marsali was restive, too.

  "Where might they go, then? If they've gone to another port? Germain, Stop! Ye'll fall in, next thing!" She bent to retrieve her offspring, who had been hanging over the edge of the wharf, peaceffilly exploring its underside, and hoicked him up onto one hip.

  "Bonnet?" Jamie raised his brows, contriving to look simultaneously encouraging and menacing.

  "They gone see da whale or don't they?"

  yelled the gentleman in the boat, impatient to be off on more profitable ventures.

  Duff seemed somewhat at a loss as to whom to reply to first. His small eyes blinked, shifting to and fro between Jamie, Marsali, and his increasingly vociferous partner below. I stepped in to break the impasse.

  "What's all this about a whale?" Compelled to focus on this straightf

  orward question, Duff looked relieved. "Why, the dead whale, Missus. A big lun, gone aground on the Island. I thought sure as ye'd all come down to see."

  I looked out across the water, and f

  or the first time realized that the boat traffic was not entirely random. While a few large canoes and barges were headed toward the mouth of Cape Fear, most of the smaller craft were plying to and fro, disappearing into the distant haze, or returning from it, bearing small groups of passengers. Linen parasols sprouted like pastel mushrooms from the boats, and there was a sprinkling of what were obviously townspeople On the dock, standing as we were, looking expectantly across the harbor.

  "Two shillin's the boatload," Duff suggested ingratiatingly. "Over and back." Roger, Brianna, and Marsali looked interested. Jamie looked uneasy.

  "In that?" he asked, with a skeptical glance at the piretta, bobbing gently below. Duff5s partner-a gentleman of indeterminate race and language-seemed inclined to take offense at this implied criticism Of his craft, but Duff was reassuring.

  "Oh, it's dead calm today, sit, dead calm. Why, 'twould be like sittin' on a tavern bench. Congenial, aye? Verra suitable to conversation." He blinked,
innocently affable.

  Jamie drew a deep breath in through his nose, and I saw him glance once more at the piretta. Jamie hated boats. On the other hand, he would do far more desperate things than get into a boat in Pursuit of Stephen Bonnet. The only question was whether Mr. Duff actually had information to that end, or was only inveigling passengers. Jamie swallowed hard and braced his shoulders, steeling himself to it.

  Not waiting, Duff reinforced his position by turning craftily to Marsali.

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  "There's a lighthouse an the Island, ma'am. Ye can see a good ways out to sea from the top o' that. See if any ships should be lyin' off "

  Marsali's hand dropped at once to her pocket, fumbling for the strings. I observed Germain solicitously poking a dead mussel over her shoulder toward jemmy's eagerly open mouth, like a mother bird feeding her offsp ng a n ce juicy worm, and tactfully intervened, taking Jemmy into my own arms.

  "No, sweetheart," I said, dropping the mussel off the dock. "You don't want that nasty thing. Wouldn't you like to go see a nice dead whale, instead?" Jamie sighed in resignation, and reached for his sporran. "Ye'd best call for another boat, then, so as we'll not all drown together."

  IT WAS LOVELY out on the water, with the sun covered by a hazy layer of cloud, and a cool breeze that made me take my hat off for the pleasure of feeling the wind in my hair. While not quite flat calm, the rise and fall of the surf was peacefully lulling-to those of us not afflicted by seasickness.

  I glanced at Jamie's back, but his head was bent, shoulders moving in an easy, powerful rhythm as he rowed.

  Resigned to the inevitable, he had taken brisk charge of the situation, summoning a second boat and herding Bree, Marsali, and the boys into it. Thereupon Jamie had unfastened his brooch and announced that he and Roger would row the remaining piretta, in order that Duff might put himself at ease and thus improve his chances of recollecting interesting facts regarding Stephen Bonnet.

  "Less chance of me puking if I've something to do," he muttered to me, stripping off his coat and plaid.

  Roger gave a small snort of amusement, but nodded agreeably and shed his own coat and shirt. With Duff and Peter installed at one end of the craft in a state of high hilarity over the turnabout of being paid to be rowed in their own boat, I was told off to sit in the other end, facing them.

  "Just to keep a bit of an eye on things, Sassenach." Under cover of the wadded clothes, Jamie wrapped my hand around the stock of his pistol, and squeezed gently. He handed me down into the boat, then climbed down gingerly himself, going only slightly pale as the craft swayed and shifted under his weight.

  It was a calm day, fortunately. A faint haze hung over the water, obscuring the dim shape of Smith Island in the distance. Kittiwakes and terns wheeled in gyres far above, and a heavy-bodied gull seemed to hang immobile in the air nearby, riding the wind as we sculled slowly out into the harbor mouth.

  Seated just before me, Roger rowed easily, broad bare shoulders flexing rhythmically, obviously accustomed to the exercise. Jamie, on the seat in front of Roger, handled the oars with a fair amount of grace, but somewhat less assurance. He was no sailor, and never would be. Still, the distraction of rowing did seem to be keeping his mind off his stomach. For the moment.

  "Oh, I could find myself accustomed to this, what d'ye say, Peter?" Duff lifted a long nose into the breeze, half-closing his eyes as he savored the novelty of being rowed.

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  Peter, who appeared to be some exotic blend of Indian and African, grunted in reply, but lounged on the seat beside Duff, equally pleased. He wore nothing but a pair of stained homespun breeches, tied at the waist with a length of tarred rope, and was burned so dark by the sun that he might have been a Negro, save for the spill of long black hair that fell over one shoulder, decorated with bits of shefl and tiny dried starfish tied into it.

  "Stephen Bonnet?51 Jamie inquired pleasantly, drawing strongly on the oars. "Oh, him." Duff looked as though he would have preferred to Put off this subject of discussion indefinitely, but a glance at Jamie's face resigned him to the inevitable.

  "What d'ye want to know, then?" The little man hunched his shoulders warily.