“Ian,” he said, and paused to gulp for breath.
“Aye?”
“Ye sound like your mother. Stop.” Another gulp of air. “And let go my arm; I can walk.”
Ian gave a snort that sounded even more like Jenny, but did stop, and did let go. Jamie picked up his fallen hat and limped toward the printshop, Ian following in urgent silence through the staring streets.
Claire ends up on the Cruizer, a small ship on which the governor has taken refuge. He writes madly, begging England for help, trying vainly to manage a colony on which he dare not set foot—and Claire copies all his letters, wondering how on earth she is to escape now, but hoping that Jamie will find her.
He does and comes aboard, demanding an interview with the governor. He offers to ransom Claire with his remaining gems, and the governor is tempted but refuses. Jamie is forced to leave, though assuring Claire he will get her out, one way or another.
Escape comes, though, in the person of Thomas Christie, who rows out to the Cruizer in order to present the governor with a signed confession, stating that he, Tom Christie, murdered his daughter, Malva, thus exonerating Claire. In the course of the conversation, he tells Claire that in fact Malva was not his daughter but was the daughter of his wife and his brother and that he was convinced Malva was a witch like her mother.
“I have written down my confession.” He let go, and poked a hand into his pocket, fumbling a little, and pulled out a folded paper, which he clutched in his short, solid fingers.
“I have sworn here that it was I who killed my daughter, for the shame she had brought upon me by her wantonness.” He spoke firmly enough, but I could see the working of his throat above the wilted stock.
“You didn’t,” I said positively. “I know you didn’t.”
He blinked, gazing at me.
“No,” he said, quite matter-of-fact. “But perhaps I should have.
“I have written a copy of this confession,” he said, tucking the document back into his coat, “and have left it with the newspaper in New Bern. They will publish it. The Governor will accept it—how can he not?—and you will go free.”
Those last four words struck me dumb. He was still gripping my right hand; his thumb stroked gently over my knuckles. I wanted to pull away, but forced myself to keep still, compelled by the look in his eyes, clear gray and naked now, without disguise.
“I have yearned always,” he said softly, “for love given and returned; have spent my life in the attempt to give my love to those who were not worthy of it. Allow me this: to give my life for the sake of one who is.”
PART 11: IN THE DAY OF VENGEANCE
Jamie is waiting on the shore for Claire and takes her quickly away to an inn, where she can recover in privacy—and grieve for Tom Christie.
Meanwhile, Brianna is at River Run with Jem, preparing for a new painting commission, while Roger is in Edenton with the Presbytery Session. She becomes suddenly ill at the smell of the pigments she’s grinding and faces the obvious conclusion:
“Congratulations, Roger,” she said out loud, her voice sounding faint and uncertain in the close, damp air. “I think you’re going to be a daddy. Again.”
While Brianna is still coming to grips with her new discovery, Duncan comes to tell her that the gold is gone. All of it.
And in Edenton, Roger has been having a wonderful time in the company of his fellow Presbyterians. On the eve of his ordination, though, Jamie appears abruptly, to tell him that Brianna has been taken—Neil Forbes has arranged to have her kidnapped by Stephen Bonnet.
On board Bonnet’s boat, Brianna decides that she won’t be raped again, no matter what, and prepares to defend herself with a marlinespike. Upon discovering that she’s pregnant, though, Bonnet abruptly withdraws—he has a horror of pregnant women, owing to an unfortunate occurrence some years earlier—and sends a sailor onshore to summon a whore, whom he promptly uses in Brianna’s presence and then goes out, leaving the women together.
Brianna manages to give the whore, Hepzibah, a message for Jamie, giving her Jamie’s ring as persuasion. From things Bonnet has said, Brianna knows he is heading for Ocracoke Island, for a rendezvous of some kind, at the dark of the moon. Hepzibah is uneasy at the thought of crossing Bonnet but says she will try.
The ship sails with the tide.
On shore, Neil Forbes sits in the parlor of the King’s Inn, enjoying a glass of hard cider and the feeling that all’s right with the world. This feeling proves to be temporary, when he lowers his glass to find himself facing Brianna’s cousin—and her husband.
Roger and Ian demand to know where Stephen Bonnet is, but Forbes refuses to answer. He goes on refusing, though growing uneasy at the threatening manner of the two men facing him. His uneasiness increases substantially when a messenger appears with a small package containing his mother’s favorite brooch—Jamie Fraser has waylaid the old lady and has her hostage.
“He would not harm an old woman,” he said, with as much bravado as he could summon.
“Would he not?” Ian’s sketchy brows lifted. “Aye, perhaps not. He might just send her awa’, though—to Canada, maybe? Ye seem to ken him fair weel, Mr. Forbes. What d’ye think?”
The lawyer drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, breathing through his teeth, evidently reviewing what he knew of Jamie Fraser’s character and reputation.
“All right,” he said suddenly. “All right!”
Forbes tells them the name of Bonnet’s ship and when it sailed—two days before, from Edenton.
Roger nodded abruptly. Safe, he said. In Bonnet’s hands. Two days, in Bonnet’s hands. But he had sailed with Bonnet, he thought, trying to steady himself, keep a grip on his rationality. He knew how the man worked. Bonnet was a smuggler; he would not sail for England without a full cargo. He might—might—be going down the coast, picking up small shipments before turning to the open sea and the long voyage for England.
And if not—he might still be caught, with a fast ship.
No time to be lost; people on the docks might know where the Anemone was headed next. He turned and took a step toward the door. Then a red wave washed through him and he whirled back, smashing his fist into Forbes’s face with the full weight of his body behind it.
The lawyer gave a high-pitched scream, and clutched both hands to his nose. All noises in the inn and in the street seemed to stop; the world hung suspended. Roger took a short, deep breath, rubbing his knuckles, and nodded once more.
“Come on,” he said to Ian.
“Oh, aye.”
Roger was halfway to the door when he realized that Ian was not with him. He looked back, and was just in time to see his cousin-by-marriage take Forbes gently by one ear and cut it off.
Jamie, Roger, and Ian have no trouble finding people familiar with Stephen Bonnet and his ship, the Anemone. Finding where it may be is another question, but Claire has encountered an unexpected visitor at the inn where they are staying—the long-lost Manfred McGillivray.
Manfred, it seems, is the lover of a whore named Hepzibah, and having heard her story and recognized Jamie Fraser’s ring…he is able to tell them that Bonnet is heading for a rendezvous on Ocracoke. Jamie promptly hires a fishing boat to take them to their own rendezvous with the pirate.
The Anemone has not yet reached Ocracoke, though, and while Bonnet makes no sexual advances toward Brianna, he insists that she share his bed, as he suffers from nightmares of drowning. Moved by instinct, she comforts him following one of these dreams, assuring him that she will not let him drown.
The rescuers reach Ocracoke and proceed to search the island—Roger and Ian on shore, Jamie and Claire sailing round the island. Fighting his way through mangrove swamps, Roger discovers a primitive site—four stone pillars standing near a small creek—and recognizes the site as the one the Indian Donner had described to Brianna: the time portal he had come through. Roger backs carefully away.
Meanwhile, the fishing captain suggests that instead of try
ing to find the Anemone in one of the many creeks and inlets where it may be hidden, they keep an eye out for whatever ship Bonnet planned to rendezvous with. This strategy works—at the dark of the moon, a slave ship arrives, anchoring silently offshore.
At Stephen Bonnet’s secret lair, Brianna discovers that while Neil Forbes may have meant her simply to be deported to London, Bonnet sees no reason to pass up profit and proposes to sell her to one of his private clients. She has a number of objections to this proposal but is physically overpowered by Bonnet’s servant, a huge black man named Emmanuel, who locks her in an upper room to await the arrival of potential purchasers.
To Brianna’s surprise, the slave who brings her food is Phaedre, Jocasta MacKenzie’s missing body servant, abducted by Ulysses and sold to Bonnet.
A purchaser arrives, and Brianna undergoes a humiliating examination—but one that involves being dressed in fine clothes. When she is returned to her locked room, she has in her possession the pointed ivory busk from her stays.
Could she stab someone with it? Oh, yes, she thought fiercely. And please let it be Emmanuel.
It is Emmanuel. Escaping through the thatch of the roof, Brianna is pursued by Emmanuel but succeeds in stabbing him in the armpit with the busk, piercing a large artery and killing him. Meanwhile, Jamie, Roger, and Ian attack the house and succeed in overpowering and capturing Stephen Bonnet. However, the slave-ship captain escapes with a number of slaves, including Josh, one of the grooms from River Run.
It is unthinkable to return Phaedre to River Run, so the Frasers find her a place to live and work. Going to tell Duncan, Jamie hears that Duncan and Jocasta have decided to remove to Canada. With the bulk of the gold gone, they have just enough to live in modest comfort and feel that Canada will be a good deal safer for Loyalists.
And what of Jocasta’s butler, Ulysses? Gone, apparently—but Jamie goes to wait in the stable and meets Ulysses, stealing in to abstract a horse. Ulysses has been Jocasta’s lover for some twenty years, the man admits, and has done many things on her behalf—but has not stolen the gold.
“Will ye swear on my aunt’s head?” he asked abruptly. Ulysses’s eyes were sharp, shining in the lantern light, but steady.
“Yes,” he said at last, quietly. “I do so swear.”
Jamie was about to dismiss him, when one last thought occurred to him.
“Do you have children?” he asked.
Indecision crossed the chiseled face; surprise and wariness, mingled with something else.
“None I would claim,” he said at last, and Jamie saw what it was—scorn, mixed with shame. His jaw tensed, and his chin rose slightly. “Why do you ask me that?”
Jamie met his gaze for a moment, thinking of Brianna growing heavy with child.
“Because,” he said at last, “it is only the hope of betterment for my children, and theirs, that gives me the courage to do what must be done here.” Ulysses’s face had gone blank; it gleamed black and impassive in the light.
“If you have no stake in the future, you have no reason to suffer for it. Such children as you may have—”
“They are slaves, born of slave women. What can they be, to me?” Ulysses’s hands were clenched, pressed against his thighs.
“Then go,” he said softly, and stood aside, gesturing toward the door with the barrel of his pistol. “Die free, at least.”
THE FRASERS AND MacKenzies return to Fraser’s Ridge, where they wait for the night of January 21, 1776, to see whether the newspaper clipping’s prophecy will be fulfilled. To keep it from being fulfilled, they carefully extinguish all fires and then decamp to Roger and Brianna’s cabin—where Adso the cat, stealing Major MacDonald’s wig, upsets Brianna’s white phosphorus and comes within inches of incinerating the cabin.
IN FEBRUARY, JAMIE receives word from Colonel Ashe that the militias are summoned to Wilmington—and goes, with those men who will follow him, and with Roger, with Ian, and with Claire, as always. They are headed for a place called Moore’s Creek Bridge, where the Rebel militia will meet the Loyalists raised by the Crown—most of them Highlanders, including Flora MacDonald’s husband and Major MacDonald. It will be the last Highland charge ever to take place in the world. But the Rebels have cannon.
Jamie, Caswell, and several of the other commanders were walking up and down the bank, pointing at the bridge and up and down the shore. The creek ran through a stretch of treacherous, swampy ground, with cypress trees stretching up from water and mud. The creek itself deepened as it narrowed, though—a plumb line that some curious soul dropped into the water off the bridge said it was fifteen feet deep at that point—and the bridge was the only feasible place for an army of any size to cross.
Which did a great deal to explain Jamie’s silence over supper. He had helped to throw up a small earthwork on the far side of the creek, and his hands were smeared with dirt—and grease.
“They’ve cannon,” he said quietly, seeing me eye the smudges on his hands. He wiped them absently on his breeks, much the worse for wear. “Two small guns from the town—but cannon, nonetheless.” He looked toward the bridge, and grimaced slightly.
I knew what he was thinking—and why.
Ye were behind the cannon at Culloden, Donald, he had said to the Major. I was in front of them. With a sword in my hand. Swords were the Highlanders’ natural weapons—and for most, likely their only weapons. From all we had heard, General MacDonald had managed to assemble only a small quantity of muskets and powder; most of his troops were armed with broadswords and targes. And they were marching straight into ambush.
“Oh, Christ,” Jamie said, so softly I could barely hear him. “The poor wee fools. The poor gallant wee fools.”
As the shadow of war comes ever closer, Jamie dreams more and more often of Culloden—and wakes with the feeling that his godfather, Murtagh, is near him—though Murtagh died at Culloden. And then the foggy dawn of battle comes.
They burst out of the mist a hundred feet from the bridge, howling, and his heart jumped in his chest. For an instant—an instant only—he felt he ran with them, and the wind of it snapped in his shirt, cold on his body.
But he stood stock-still, Murtagh beside him, looking cynically on. Roger Mac coughed, and Jamie raised the rifle to his shoulder, waiting.
“Fire!” The volley struck them just before they reached the gutted bridge; half a dozen fell in the road, but the others came on. Then the cannon fired from the hill above, one and then the other, and the concussion of their discharge was like a shove against his back.
He had fired with the volley, aiming above their heads. Now swung the rifle down and pulled the ramrod. There was screaming on both sides, the shriek of wounded and the stronger bellowing of battle.
“A righ! A righ!” The King! The King!
McLeod was at the bridge; he’d been hit, there was blood on his coat, but he brandished sword and targe, and ran onto the bridge, stabbing his sword into the wood to anchor himself.
The cannon spoke again, but were aimed too high; most of the Highlanders had crowded down to the banks of the creek—some were in the water, clinging to the bridge supports, inching across. More were on the timbers, slipping, using their swords like McLeod to keep their balance.
“Fire!” and he fired, powder smoke blending with the fog. The cannon had the range, they spoke one-two, and he felt the blast push against him, felt as though the shot had torn through him. Most of those on the bridge were in the water now, more threw themselves flat upon the timbers, trying to wriggle their way across, only to be picked off by the muskets, every man firing at will from the redoubt.
He loaded, and fired.
There he is, said a voice, dispassionate; he had no notion was it his, or Murtagh’s.
McLeod was dead, his body floating in the creek for an instant before the weight of the black water pulled him down. Many men were struggling in that water—the creek was deep here, and mortal cold. Few Highlanders could swim.
He glimpsed All
an MacDonald, Flora’s husband, pale and staring in the crowd on the shore.
Major Donald MacDonald floundered, rising halfway in the water. His wig was gone and his head showed bare and wounded, blood running from his scalp down over his face. His teeth were bared, clenched in agony or ferocity, there was no telling which. Another shot struck him and he fell with a splash—but rose again, slow, slow, and then pitched forward into water too deep to stand, but rose yet again, splashing frantically, spraying blood from his shattered mouth in the effort to breathe.
Let it be you, then, lad, said the dispassionate voice. He raised his rifle and shot MacDonald cleanly through the throat. He fell backward and sank at once.
JAMIE AND ROGER arrive in time to capture the fleeing Bonnet and offer Brianna the opportunity either to kill Bonnet herself or allow them to do it. She demurs, preferring to hand him over to an impersonal justice.
PART 12: TIME WILL NOT BE OURS FOREVER
Brianna and Roger’s baby is born—a daughter that her father calls Amanda, “she who must be loved.” She is loved—but there is something wrong, something that her grandmother Claire reluctantly diagnoses as a birth defect called patent ductus arteriosus: a hole in the heart. A simple matter to correct surgically—in the twentieth century, with anesthesia and modern instruments; impossible in the eighteenth.
And so the decision is made. The MacKenzies must go back. Perhaps not Jem—but certainly Brianna and Amanda. And Roger cannot let them go alone.
More gemstones must be found, for what safety they may offer the travelers. And there are a few last obligations to be met.
ON A CLEAR morning, the pirate Stephen Bonnet is taken out onto the mudflats near Wilmington and tied to a stake, to await the incoming tide. Brianna is ready. She has made her arrangements—but seeing Lord John Grey on the dock, she thinks to ask for his help, in case it’s needed. Going to talk to him, though, she sees the young man he’s conversing with and realizes with a sense of shock that she’s looking at her brother.
The Companion to the Fiery Cross, a Breath of Snow and Ashes, an Echo in the Bone, and Written in My Own Heart's Blood Page 17
