Outlander 03 - Voyager

by Diana Gabaldon

  Feeling somewhat better, he met his gaze in the looking glass, set his wig to rights, and went to eat breakfast before giving his first address to the prisoners.

  “Will you have your supper served in the sitting room, sir, or in here?” MacKay’s head, uncombed as ever, poked into the office.

  “Um?” Grey murmured, absorbed in the papers spread out on the desk. “Oh,” he said, looking up. “In here, if you please.” He waved vaguely at the corner of the huge desk and returned to his work, scarcely looking up when the tray with his food arrived sometime later.

  Quarry had not been joking about the paperwork. The sheer quantity of food alone required endless orders and requisitions—all orders to be submitted in duplicate to London, if he pleased!—let alone the hundreds of other necessities required by the prisoners, the guards, and the men and women from the village who came in by the day to clean the barracks and work in the kitchens. He had done nothing all day but write and sign requisitions. He must find a clerk soon, or die of sheer ennui.

  Two hundred lb. wheat flowr, he wrote, for prisoners’ use. Six hogsheads ale, for use of barracks. His normally elegant handwriting had quickly degenerated into a utilitarian scrawl, his stylish signature become a curt J. Grey.

  He laid down his pen with a sigh and closed his eyes, massaging the ache between his brows. The sun had not bothered to show its face once since his arrival, and working all day in a smoky room by candlelight left his eyes burning like lumps of coal. His books had arrived the day before, but he had not even unpacked them, too exhausted by nightfall to do more than bathe his aching eyes in cold water and go to sleep.

  He heard a small, stealthy sound, and sat up abruptly, his eyes popping open. A large brown rat sat on the corner of his desk, a morsel of plum cake held in its front paws. It didn’t move, but merely looked at him speculatively, whiskers twitching.

  “Well, God damn my eyes!” Grey exclaimed in amazement. “Here, you bugger! That’s my supper!”

  The rat nibbled pensively at the plum cake, bright beady eyes fixed on the Major.

  “Get out of it!” Enraged, Grey snatched up the nearest object and let fly at the rat. The ink bottle exploded on the stone floor in a spray of black, and the startled rat leapt off the desk and fled precipitously, galloping between the legs of the even more startled MacKay, who appeared at the door to see what the noise was.

  “Has the prison got a cat?” Grey demanded, dumping the contents of his supper tray into the waste can by his desk.

  “Aye, sir, there’s cats in the storerooms,” MacKay offered, crawling backward on hands and knees to wipe up the small black footprints the rat had left in its precipitous flight through the ink puddle.

  “Well, fetch one up here, if you please, MacKay,” Grey ordered. “At once.” He grunted at the memory of that obscenely naked tail draped nonchalantly over his plate. He had encountered rats often enough in the field, of course, but there was something about having his own personal supper molested before his eyes that seemed particularly infuriating.

  He strode to the window and stood there, trying to clear his head with fresh air, as MacKay finished his mopping-up. Dusk was drawing down, filling the courtyard with purple shadows. The stones of the cell wing opposite looked even colder and more dreary than usual.

  The turnkeys were coming through the rain from the kitchen wing; a procession of small carts laden with the prisoners’ food; huge pots of steaming oatmeal and baskets of bread, covered with cloths against the rain. At least the poor devils had hot food after their wet day’s work in the stone quarry.

  A thought struck him as he turned from the window.

  “Are there many rats in the cells?” he asked MacKay.

  “Aye, sir, a great many,” the prisoner replied, with a final swipe to the threshold. “I’ll tell the cook to make ye up a fresh tray, shall I, sir?”

  “If you please,” Grey said. “And then if you will, Mr. MacKay, please see that each cell is provided with its own cat.”

  MacKay looked slightly dubious at this. Grey paused in the act of retrieving his scattered papers.

  “Is there something wrong, MacKay?”

  “No, sir,” MacKay replied slowly. “Only the wee brown beasties do keep down the cockchafers. And with respect, sir, I dinna think the men would care to have a cat takin’ all their rats.”

  Grey stared at the man, feeling mildly queasy.

  “The prisoners eat the rats?” he asked, with a vivid memory of sharp yellow teeth nibbling at his plum cake.

  “Only when they’re lucky enough to catch one, sir,” MacKay said. “Perhaps the cats would be a help wi’ that, after all. Will that be all for tonight, sir?”

  9

  THE WANDERER

  Grey’s resolve concerning James Fraser lasted for two weeks. Then the messenger arrived from the village of Ardsmuir, with news that changed everything.

  “Does he still live?” he asked the man sharply. The messenger, one of the inhabitants of Ardsmuir village who worked for the prison, nodded.

  “I saw him mysel’, sir, when they brought him in. He’s at the Lime Tree now, being cared for—but I didna think he looked as though care would be enough, sir, if ye take my meaning.” He raised one brow significantly.

  “I take it,” Grey answered shortly. “Thank you, Mr.—”

  “Allison, sir, Rufus Allison. Your servant, sir.” The man accepted the shilling offered him, bowed with his hat under his arm, and took his leave.

  Grey sat at his desk, staring out at the leaden sky. The sun had scarcely shone for a day since his arrival. He tapped the end of the quill with which he had been writing on the desk, oblivious to the damage he was inflicting on the sharpened tip.

  The mention of gold was enough to prick up any man’s ears, but especially his.

  A man had been found this morning, wandering in the mist on the moor near the village. His clothes were soaked not only with the damp, but with seawater, and he was out of his mind with fever.

  He had talked unceasingly since he was found, babbling for the most part, but his rescuers were unable to make much sense of his ravings. The man appeared to be Scottish, and yet he spoke in an incoherent mixture of French and Gaelic, with here and there the odd word of English thrown in. And one of those words had been “gold.”

  The combination of Scots, gold, and the French tongue, mentioned in this area of the country, could bring only one thought to the mind of anyone who had fought through the last days of the Jacobite rising. The Frenchman’s Gold. The fortune in gold bullion that Louis of France had—according to rumor—sent secretly to the aid of his cousin, Charles Stuart. But sent far too late.

  Some stories said that the French gold had been hidden by the Highland army during the last headlong retreat to the North, before the final disaster at Culloden. Others held that the gold had never reached Charles Stuart, but had been left for safekeeping in a cave near the place where it had come ashore on the northwestern coast.

  Some said that the secret of the hiding place had been lost, its guardian killed at Culloden. Others said that the hiding place was still known, but a close-kept secret, held among the members of a single Highland family. Whatever the truth, the gold had never been found. Not yet.

  French and Gaelic. Grey spoke passable French, the result of several years fighting abroad, but neither he nor any of his officers spoke the barbarous Gaelic, save a few words Sergeant Grissom had learned as a child from a Scottish nursemaid.

  He could not trust a man from the village; not if there was anything to this tale. The Frenchman’s Gold! Beyond its value as treasure—which would belong to the Crown in any case—the gold had a considerable and personal value to John William Grey. The finding of that half-mythical hoard would be his passport out of Ardsmuir—back to London and civilization. The blackest disgrace would be instantly obscured by the dazzle of gold.

  He bit the end of the blunted quill, feeling the cylinder crack between his teeth.

 
Damn. No, it couldn’t be a villager, nor one of his officers. A prisoner, then. Yes, he could use a prisoner without risk, for a prisoner would be unable to make use of the information for his own ends.

  Damn again. All of the prisoners spoke Gaelic, many had some English as well—but only one spoke French besides. He is an educated man, Quarry’s voice echoed in his memory.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” Grey muttered. It couldn’t be helped. Allison had said the wanderer was very ill; there was no time to look for alternatives. He spat out a shred of quill.

  “Brame!” he shouted. The startled corporal poked his head in.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Bring me a prisoner named James Fraser. At once.”

  The Governor stood behind his desk, leaning on it as though the huge slab of oak were in fact the bulwark it looked. His hands were damp on the smooth wood, and the white stock of his uniform felt tight around his neck.

  His heart leapt violently as the door opened. The Scot came in, his irons chinking slightly, and stood before the desk. The candles were all lit, and the office nearly as bright as day, though it was nearly full dark outside.

  He had seen Fraser several times, of course, standing in the courtyard with the other prisoners, red head and shoulders above most of the other men, but never close enough to see his face clearly.

  He looked different. That was both shock and relief; for so long, he had seen a clean-shaven face in memory, dark with threat or alight with mocking laughter. This man was short-bearded, his face calm and wary, and while the deep blue eyes were the same, they gave no sign of recognition. The man stood quietly before the desk, waiting.

  Grey cleared his throat. His heart was still beating too fast, but at least he could speak calmly.

  “Mr. Fraser,” he said. “I thank you for coming.”

  The Scot bent his head courteously, but did not answer that he had had no choice in the matter; his eyes said that.

  “Doubtless you wonder why I have sent for you,” Grey said. He sounded insufferably pompous to his own ears, but was unable to remedy it. “I find that a situation has arisen in which I require your assistance.”

  “What is that, Major?” The voice was the same—deep and precise, marked with a soft Highland burr.

  He took a deep breath, bracing himself on the desk. He would rather have done anything but ask help of this particular man, but there was no bloody choice. Fraser was the only possibility.

  “A man has been found wandering the moor near the coast,” he said carefully. “He appears to be seriously ill, and his speech is deranged. However, certain…matters to which he refers appear to be of…substantial interest to the Crown. I require to talk with him, and discover as much as I can of his identity, and the matters of which he speaks.”

  He paused, but Fraser merely stood there, waiting.

  “Unfortunately,” Grey said, taking another breath, “the man in question has been heard to speak in a mixture of Gaelic and French, with no more than a word or two of English.”

  One of the Scot’s ruddy eyebrows stirred. His face didn’t change in any appreciable way, but it was evident that he had grasped the implications of the situation.

  “I see, Major.” The Scot’s soft voice was full of irony. “And you would like my assistance to interpret for ye what this man might have to say.”

  Grey couldn’t trust himself to speak, but merely jerked his head in a short nod.

  “I fear I must decline, Major.” Fraser spoke respectfully, but with a glint in his eye that was anything but respectful. Grey’s hand curled tight around the brass letter-opener on his blotter.

  “You decline?” he said. He tightened his grasp on the letter-opener in order to keep his voice steady. “Might I inquire why, Mr. Fraser?”

  “I am a prisoner, Major,” the Scot said politely. “Not an interpreter.”

  “Your assistance would be—appreciated,” Grey said, trying to infuse the word with significance without offering outright bribery. “Conversely,” his tone hardened, “a failure to render legitimate assistance—”

  “It is not legitimate for ye either to extort my services or to threaten me, Major.” Fraser’s voice was a good deal harder than Grey’s.

  “I did not threaten you!” The edge of the letter-opener was cutting into his hand; he was forced to loosen his grip.

  “Did ye no? Well, and I’m pleased to hear it.” Fraser turned toward the door. “In that case, Major, I shall bid ye good night.”

  Grey would have given a great deal simply to have let him go. Unfortunately, duty called.

  “Mr. Fraser!” The Scot stopped, a few feet from the door, but didn’t turn.

  Grey took a deep breath, steeling himself to it.

  “If you do what I ask, I will have your irons struck off,” he said.

  Fraser stood quite still. Young and inexperienced Grey might be, but he was not unobservant. Neither was he a poor judge of men. Grey watched the rise of his prisoner’s head, the increased tension of his shoulders, and felt a small relaxation of the anxiety that had gripped him since the news of the wanderer had come.

  “Mr. Fraser?” he said.

  Very slowly, the Scot turned around. His face was quite expressionless.

  “You have a bargain, Major,” he said softly.

  It was well past midnight when they arrived in the village of Ardsmuir. No lights showed in the cottages they passed, and Grey found himself wondering what the inhabitants thought, as the sound of hooves and the jingle of arms passed by their windows late at night, a faint echo of the English troops who had swept through the Highlands ten years before.

  The wanderer had been taken to the Lime Tree, an inn so called because for many years, it had boasted a huge lime tree in the yard; the only tree of any size for thirty miles. There was nothing left now but a broad stump—the tree, like so many other things, had perished in the aftermath of Culloden, burned for firewood by Cumberland’s troops—but the name remained.

  At the door, Grey paused and turned to Fraser.

  “You will recall the terms of our agreement?”

  “I will,” Fraser answered shortly, and brushed past him.

  In return for having the irons removed, Grey had required three things: firstly, that Fraser would not attempt to escape during the journey to or from the village. Secondly, Fraser would undertake to give a full and true account of all that the vagrant should say. And thirdly, Fraser would give his word as a gentleman to speak to no one but Grey of what he learned.

  There was a murmur of Gaelic voices inside; a sound of surprise as the innkeeper saw Fraser, and deference at the sight of the red coat behind him. The goodwife stood on the stair, an oil-dip in her hand making the shadows dance around her.

  Grey laid a hand on the innkeeper’s arm, startled.

  “Who is that?” There was another figure on the stairs, an apparition, clothed all in black.

  “That is the priest,” Fraser said quietly, beside him. “The man will be dying, then.”

  Grey took a deep breath, trying to steady himself for what might come.

  “Then there is little time to waste,” he said firmly, setting a booted foot on the stair. “Let us proceed.”

  The man died just before dawn, Fraser holding one of his hands, the priest the other. As the priest leaned over the bed, mumbling in Gaelic and Latin, making Popish signs over the body, Fraser sat back on his stool, eyes closed, still holding the small, frail hand in his own.

  The big Scot had sat by the man’s side all night, listening, encouraging, comforting. Grey had stood by the door, not wishing to frighten the man by the sight of his uniform, both surprised and oddly touched at Fraser’s gentleness.

  Now Fraser laid the thin weathered hand gently across the still chest, and made the same sign as the priest had, touching forehead, heart, and both shoulders in turn, in the sign of a cross. He opened his eyes, and rose to his feet, his head nearly brushing the low rafters. He nodded briefly to Grey, and preceded him
down the narrow stair.

  “In here.” Grey motioned to the door of the taproom, empty at this hour. A sleepy-eyed barmaid laid the fire for them and brought bread and ale, then went out, leaving them alone.

  He waited for Fraser to refresh himself before asking.

  “Well, Mr. Fraser?”

  The Scot set down his pewter mug and wiped a hand across his mouth. Already bearded, with his long hair neatly plaited, he didn’t look disheveled by the long night watch, but there were dark smudges of tiredness under his eyes.

  “All right,” he said. “It doesna make a great deal of sense, Major,” he added warningly, “but this is all he said.” And he spoke carefully, pausing now and then to recall a word, stopping again to explain some Gaelic reference. Grey sat listening in deepening disappointment; Fraser had been correct—it didn’t make much sense.

  “The white witch?” Grey interrupted. “He spoke of a white witch? And seals?” It scarcely seemed more farfetched than the rest of it, but still he spoke disbelievingly.

  “Aye, he did.”

  “Say it to me again,” Grey commanded. “As best you remember. If you please,” he added.

  He felt oddly comfortable with the man, he realized, with a feeling of surprise. Part of it was sheer fatigue, of course; all his usual reactions and feelings were numbed by the long night and the strain of watching a man die by inches.

  The entire night had seemed unreal to Grey; not least was this odd conclusion, wherein he found himself sitting in the dim dawn light of a country tavern, sharing a pitcher of ale with Red Jamie Fraser.

  Fraser obeyed, speaking slowly, stopping now and then to recall. With the difference of a word here or there, it was identical to the first account—and those parts of it that Grey himself had been able to understand were faithfully translated.

  He shook his head, discouraged. Gibberish. The man’s ravings had been precisely that—ravings. If the man had ever seen any gold—and it did sound as though he had, at one time—there was no telling where or when from this hodgepodge of delusion and feverish delirium.