This suggestion is enough to make Lord John squint-eyed with suspicion, but when Percy casually mentions that he is looking for one James Fraser, and in the next breath mentions William, Lord John has had more than enough. He warns Percy roughly to keep his distance from William, then turns on his heel and leaves, hoping that Jamie Fraser and his daughter are both well on their way out of town.
Lest we forget the red-haired young woman with William’s eyes…
This is, of course, Brianna Randall Fraser MacKenzie, daughter of Jamie Fraser and Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser. She and her husband, Roger MacKenzie, together with their two children, Jem (for Jeremiah) and Mandy (Amanda), have returned through the stones to their proper future. We meet them in 1980 in the Scottish Highlands, where they have settled at Jamie’s ancestral home, Lallybroch. Superficially, things seem to be going well: Jem is enrolled at the village school, where his exercise of some eighteenth-century skills—e.g., prowess at snaring and skinning rats—has gained him a certain amount of notoriety, and Mandy has recovered very well from the surgery needed to repair her heart and has developed a disturbing ability to take things apart. Brianna is contemplating a return to her engineering profession, and Roger…is not quite sure.
In the past, he was certain of his vocation as a minister but was never ordained. Now he could be—but is it still what he wants, what he feels is right? Things that he’s seen and learned and thought, regarding his travels through time, have given him Doubts, and thinking how best to protect his children from the dangers of time travel has magnified them.
Still, for the moment, life is good for the MacKenzies at Lallybroch, and their focus of attention is on the box of letters left for them, in which Claire and Jamie recount their adventures after the MacKenzies’ departure through the stones.
These adventures begin in late December of 1776, where we find Claire writing to her daughter late at night, with her husband sleeping curled against her knee, Jamie’s nephew Ian out patrolling the frozen woods, and a dying stranger on the floor at her feet.
The stranger is an elderly woman, sick unto death, left with Claire by her grandsons, on their way to enlist in the militia. Ian and Jamie are taking turns in the woods at night, keeping watch over the ruins of the Big House, recently destroyed by fire. Someone has been creeping around at night, and that same someone has been trying to kill the White Sow, of whom Claire thinks: The local Presbyterians would not have seen eye-to-eye with the Cherokee on any other spiritual matter you might name, but they were in decided agreement on the sow’s demonic character. Jamie and Ian suspect that the intruder is Arch Bug, who, while working as Jamie’s factor, stole ten thousand pounds of Jacobite gold from Jamie’s aunt Jocasta and spirited it away from her home at River Run. Jamie dismissed Arch and his wife, Murdina, but suspects that the gold is still somewhere on Fraser’s Ridge.
The door opens and Ian and his dog, Rollo, appear, bidding Jamie come with them—something is up.
Something is: a black figure with a sack is prowling through the blackened timbers of the burnt Big House, and Jamie realizes that the gold was hidden under the foundations of the house, left under the guard of the White Sow, who makes her den there. Jamie hails the black figure, meaning to apprehend Arch Bug, but the figure turns and fires at him, wounding him slightly. Ian, defending his uncle, shoots the figure with his bow and arrow—realizing too late that the figure has fired the pistol with its right hand; Arch Bug can’t hold a pistol in his right hand, having lost the first two fingers years before in Scotland.
Sure enough, the black figure proves to be not Arch but Murdina Bug, pierced through the throat with Ian’s arrow. Claire ends the night holding a wake with Jamie over two bodies laid out on her porch (the stranger having died unnoticed in the midst of the excitement) and wondering what the morning will bring.
The morning brings two funerals—and further drama, as Arch Bug appears to attend his wife’s burial and confront her killer. Ian, racked with guilt, offers his own life as payment for the killing of Mrs. Bug, but old Arch refuses.
“When you’ve something worth taking, boy—you’ll see me again,” he said quietly, then turned upon his heel and walked into the trees.
Jamie had already intended to leave the mountains as soon as spring and snowmelt made it possible, to find a ship that would carry the Frasers to Scotland, where he plans to reclaim the printing press he left there years before and bring it back to help wage war with words, rather than with sword and gun. He has two additional reasons for departure: years before, he had promised his sister that he would bring back her youngest son, Ian. Now looks like a really good time to keep that promise and get Young Ian out of Arch Bug’s range. But beyond patriotic determination and family obligation, Jamie has a second reason—one that he doesn’t discuss even with Claire. He’s seen William and knows the boy is a lieutenant in the British army. Jamie suffers from recurrent nightmares, and the worst of these is the vision of himself facing his unacknowledged son across the barrel of a gun.
Leaving Fraser’s Ridge—perhaps forever—involves some preparation, and one of these preparations involves the Spaniard’s Cave. This is a secret cave, deep in the woods, where Jamie and Young Ian have stashed the Jacobite gold for safekeeping. Jamie takes Claire to the cave so that she will know its location, should she ever come back without him, and there extracts a small amount of the gold to finance their expedition to Scotland.
Much needs to be done to ready the people of the Ridge, too. Claire delivers Lizzie’s new baby—a dangerous transverse lie—and Jamie hands over responsibility for the tenants’ physical welfare to Bobby Higgins and Hiram Crombie. But the most important part of leaving is, as always, finding a way to say goodbye.
I followed the calling of the jays uphill, away from the clearing. There was a pair nesting near the White Spring; I’d seen them building the nest only two days before. It wasn’t far from the house site at all, though that particular spring always had the air of being remote from everything. It lay in the center of a small grove of white ash and hemlock, and was shielded on the east by a jagged outcropping of lichen-covered rock. All water has a sense of life about it, and a mountain spring carries a particular sense of quiet joy, rising pure from the heart of the earth. The White Spring, so called for the big pale boulder that stood guardian over its pool, had something more—a sense of inviolate peace.
The closer I came to it, the surer I was that that was where I’d find Jamie.
“There’s something there that listens,” he’d told Brianna once, quite casually. “Ye see such pools in the Highlands; they’re called saints’ pools—folk say the saint lives by the pool and listens to their prayers.”
“And what saint lives by the White Spring?” she’d asked, cynical. “Saint Killian?”
“Why him?”
“Patron saint of gout, rheumatism, and whitewashers.”
He’d laughed at that, shaking his head. “Whatever it is that lives in such water is older than the notion of saints,” he assured her. “But it listens.”
I walked softly, approaching the spring. The jays had fallen silent now. He was there, sitting on a rock by the water, wearing only his shirt. I saw why the jays had gone about their business—he was still as the white boulder itself, his eyes closed, hands turned upward on his knees, loosely cupped, inviting grace.
I stopped at once when I saw him. I had seen him pray here once before—when he’d asked Dougal MacKenzie for help in battle. I didn’t know who he was talking to just now, but it wasn’t a conversation I wished to intrude upon. I ought to leave, I supposed—but aside from the fear that I might disturb him by an inadvertent noise, I didn’t want to go. Most of the spring lay in shadow, but fingers of light came down through the trees, stroking him. The air was thick with pollen, and the light was filled with motes of gold. It struck answering glints from the crown of his head, the smooth high arch of his foot, the blade of his nose, the bones of his face. He might have grown there, part
of earth and stone and water, might have been himself the spirit of the spring.
I didn’t feel unwelcome. The peace of the place reached out to touch me gently, slow my heart. Was that what he sought here, I wondered? Was he drawing the peace of the mountain into himself, to remember, to sustain him during the months—the years, perhaps—of coming exile?
I would remember.
The light began to go, brightness falling from the air. He stirred, finally, lifting his head a little.
“Let me be enough,” he said quietly. I started at the sound of his voice, but he hadn’t been speaking to me.
He opened his eyes and rose then, quiet as he’d sat, and came past the stream, long feet bare and silent on the layers of damp leaves. As he came past the outcropping of rock, he saw me and smiled, reaching out to take the plaid I held out to him, wordless. He said nothing, but took my cold hand in his large warm one and we turned toward home, walking together in the mountain’s peace.
Claire too takes her own leave of the place she’s lived in and loved for so long:
I looked last at the spot where I had planted salad greens; that’s where she had died. In memory, I’d always seen the spreading blood, imagined it still there, a permanent stain soaked dark into the earth among the churned wreckage of uprooted lettuces and wilting leaves. But it was gone; nothing marked the spot save a fairy ring of mushrooms, tiny white heads poking out of the wild grass.
“I will arise and go now,” I said softly, “and go to Innisfree, and a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, and live alone in the bee-loud glade.” I paused for a moment, and as I turned away, added in a whisper, “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow.”
I made my way briskly down the path then; no need to apostrophize the ruins of the house, nor yet the white sow. I’d remember them without effort. As for the corncrib and hen coop—if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.
I could see the little gathering of horses, mules, and people moving in the slow chaos of imminent departure in front of the cabin. I wasn’t quite ready yet for goodbyes, though, and stepped into the wood to pull myself together.
The grass was long beside the trail, soft and feathery against the hem of my weighted skirts. Something heavier than grass brushed them, and I looked down to see Adso. I’d been looking for him most of yesterday; typical of him to show up at the last minute.
“So there you are,” I said, accusing. He looked at me with his huge calm eyes of celadon green, and licked a paw. On impulse, I scooped him up and held him against me, feeling the rumble of his purr and the soft, thick fur of his silvery belly.
He’d be all right; I knew that. The woods were his private game preserve, and Amy Higgins liked him and had promised me to see him right for milk and a warm spot by the fire in bad weather. I knew that.
“Go on, then,” I said, and set him on the ground. He stood for a moment, tail waving slowly, head raised in search of food or interesting smells, then stepped into the grass and vanished.
I bent, very slowly, arms crossed, and shook, weeping silently, violently.
I cried until my throat hurt and I couldn’t breathe, then sat in the grass, curled into myself like a dried leaf, tears that I couldn’t stop dropping on my knees like the first fat drops of a coming storm. Oh, God. It was only the beginning.
I rubbed my hands hard over my eyes, smearing the wetness, trying to scrub away grief. A soft cloth touched my face, and I looked up, sniffing, to find Jamie kneeling in front of me, handkerchief in hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, very softly.
“It’s not—don’t worry, I’m…He’s only a cat,” I said, and a small fresh grief tightened like a band round my chest.
“Aye, I know.” He moved beside me and put an arm round my shoulders, pulling my head to his chest, while he gently wiped my face. “But ye couldna weep for the bairns. Or the house. Or your wee garden. Or the poor dead lass and her bairn. But if ye weep for your cheetie, ye know ye can stop.”
“How do you know that?” My voice was thick, but the band round my chest was not quite so tight.
He made a small, rueful sound. “Because I canna weep for those things, either, Sassenach. And I havena got a cat.”
BACK AT LALLYBROCH of the twentieth century, Roger rejoices with his wife at the message of survival in Claire’s letter. But he can’t help noticing the postscript to that letter, written in Jamie’s hand:
I see I am to have the last Word—a rare Treat to a Man living in a House that contains (at last count) eight Women….
I wished to tell you of the Disposition of the Property which was once held in trust by the Camerons for an Italian Gentleman. I think it unwise to carry this with us, and have therefore removed it to a Place of Safety. Jem knows the Place. If you should at some Time have need of this Property, tell him the Spaniard guards it. If so, be sure to have it blessed by a Priest; there is Blood upon it.
The past, though, is not the only element of disquiet at Lallybroch. Brianna is growing impatient—chafing at domesticity and troubled over Roger’s indecision regarding his own career. Something else is going on, as well: Jem says he has met a Nuckelavee, out near the ancient broch behind the house. A Nuckelavee is one of the nastier forms of Scottish supernatural phenomena and nothing you’d want to meet, even in daylight. Roger doesn’t think Jem’s met one, but he goes to look and discovers that someone has certainly been living in the broch; there are small signs of occupancy. He buys a padlock and keeps a close eye on the broch, but there is no further sign of an intruder.
For her part, Brianna gets a job, as a safety inspector for the Highlands and Islands Development Board.
IN AUGUST OF 1776, Lieutenant William Ransom has successfully completed his first intelligencing assignment and made it to Staten Island, where he joins General Howe’s staff—just in time to take ship next morning for the invasion of Long Island. William thirsts for battle and distinction but, like many another young soldier before him, finds the business not quite as he imagined it.
Pursuing the fleeing Americans through Jamaica Pass, the British are temporarily halted by heavy fog. William is summoned to headquarters but becomes lost in the fog and is captured by a pair of elderly, gun-toting ladies, who more or less politely detain him, obliging him to sit on a rock, ignominiously witnessing the evacuation of the entire American army, who are headed for New York.
Released from captivity, he is forced to return to General Howe’s headquarters, bearing the news that Washington’s army has escaped.
“Heard of a lady called Cassandra?” one of the older officers asks him. “Some sort of Greek, I think. Not very popular.”
IN NEW BERN, Claire puts out her shingle at the printshop owned by Jamie’s foster son and step-daughter, Fergus and Marsali. Jamie sets about the not-inconsequential problem of finding a ship. There’s a British blockade of the southern colonies, and what few private ships are licensed by the Crown are not often willing to carry passengers. On the other hand, gold is a great persuader.
Jamie finds a man who knows a man who will take them—for a price—aboard his fishing ketch and thus outside the harbor, there to rendezvous with a privateer who will take them to Europe. Reluctant to entrust their welfare to a total stranger, Jamie insists upon meeting at least the first man in this chain—and in the process encounters a mention of the mysterious Mr. Beauchamp (aka Percy Wainwright).
From what Jamie can deduce, Percy is in search of one Fergus Fraser—who may be the missing heir to a great French family. Jamie scarcely knows what to do with this information, but asks Fergus if he wishes to meet with Monsieur Beauchamp.
“For a long time,” he said at last, “when I was small, I pretended to myself that I was the bastard of some great man. All orphans do this, I think,” he added dispassionately. “It makes life easier to bear, to pretend that it will not always be as it is, that someone will come and restore you to your right
ful place in the world.”
He shrugged.
“Then I grew older, and knew this was not true. No one would come to rescue me. But then—” He turned his head and gave Jamie a smile of surpassing sweetness.
“Then I grew older still, and discovered that, after all, it was true. I am the son of a great man.”
The hook touched Jamie’s hand, hard and capable.
“I wish for nothing more.”
Underemployed following the battle of New York, and exiled to a customs checkpoint on remote Long Island as the result of a run-in with a fellow officer, William is chafing—and thus receptive to the advances of Captain Richardson, who reappears with an inviting prospect: a journey to Canada, acting as interpreter and aide to one Captain Denys Randall-Isaacs. William is cautious but lured by the thought of escape and adventure. Before he can depart for Canada, though, he accidentally makes the acquaintance of Captain Robert Rogers—leader of an elite if eccentric militia group. Rogers is on the track of an American spy reported to be on Long Island, and hearing that William has actually seen Captain Nathan Hale, who came through his checkpoint, he invites William to accompany his men to apprehend the spy.
Hale is captured without incident that night and promptly taken to General Howe in New York, who condemns him out of hand. Hale is hanged the next day, and as William watches the execution, he begins to take the risks of intelligence work a little more seriously.
Even so, he decides to accept Richardson’s proposal.
Monsieur Beauchamp goes away, unsatisfied. Jamie is—reluctantly—satisfied as to the bona fides of the privateer, and so the Frasers, Young Ian, and the dog Rollo eventually find themselves aboard the Tranquil Teal, captained by a morose specimen named Captain Roberts and carrying cargo for delivery to the northern colonies before the ship turns toward Europe. Claire is intrigued to find that several of the boxes are addressed to Benedict Arnold, in care of his sister.
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 19
