A Breath of Snow and Ashes (145 page)

NO ONE WOKE ME in the morning, and the sun was well up when I stirred on my own. Listening to the silence, I had a momentary fear that everyone had decamped in the night, leaving me locked in to starve. I rose hastily, though, and looked out. The red-coated soldiers were still patrolling the grounds, just as usual. I could see small groups of citizens outside the perimeter, mostly strolling past in twos or threes, but sometimes stopping to stare at the palace.

Then I began to hear small thumps and homely noises on the floor below, and felt relieved; I was not entirely abandoned. I was, however, extremely hungry by the time the butler came to let me out.

He brought me to Mrs. Martin’s bedchamber, but to my surprise it was empty. He left me there, and within a few moments, Merilee, one of the kitchen slaves, came in, looking apprehensive at being in this unfamiliar part of the house.

“Whatever is going on?” I asked her. “Where is Mrs. Martin, do you know?”

“Well, I know
that,
” she said, in a dubious tone indicating that it was the only thing she
did
know for certain. “She lef’ just afore dawn this mornin’. That Mr. Webb, he took her away, secret-like, in a wagon with her boxes.”

I nodded, perplexed. It was reasonable that she should have left quietly; I imagined the Governor didn’t want to give any indication that he felt threatened, for fear of provoking exactly the violence he feared.

“But if Mrs. Martin is gone,” I said, “why am I here? Why are
you
here?”

“Oh. Well, I know that, too,” Merilee said, gaining a bit of confidence. “I s’posed to hep you dress, ma’am.”

“But I don’t need any . . .” I began, and then saw the garments laid out on the bed: one of Mrs. Martin’s day gowns, a pretty printed floral cotton, done in the newly popular “polonaise” fashion, complete with voluminous petticoats, silk stockings, and a large straw hat to shade the face.

Evidently, I was meant to impersonate the Governor’s wife. There was no real point in protesting; I could hear the Governor and the butler talking in the hall, and after all—if it got me out of the palace, so much the better.

I was only two or three inches taller than Mrs. Martin, and my lack of a bulge made the gown hang lower. There was no hope of my fitting into any of her shoes, but my own were not completely disreputable, in spite of all my adventures since leaving home. Merilee cleaned them and rubbed them with a bit of grease to make the leather shine; they were at least not so crude as to draw attention immediately.

With the broad-brimmed hat slanting forward to hide my face, and my hair twisted up and firmly pinned under a cap beneath it, I was probably a reasonable approximation, at least to people who did not know Mrs. Martin well. The Governor frowned when he saw me, and walked slowly round me, tugging here and there to adjust the fit, but then nodded, and with a small bow, offered me his arm.

“Your servant, mum,” he said politely. And with me slumping slightly to disguise my height, we went out the front door, to find the Governor’s carriage waiting in the drive.

94

ABSQUATULATION

J
AMIE FRASER observed the quantity and quality of books in the window of the printshop—
F. Fraser, Proprietor
—and allowed himself a momentary sense of pride in Fergus; the establishment, though small, was apparently thriving. Time, however, was pressing, and he pushed through the door without stopping to read the titles.

A small bell over the door rang at his entrance, and Germain popped up behind the counter like an ink-smeared jack-in-the-box, emitting a whoop of joy at sight of his grandfather and his uncle Ian.

“Grandpère, Grandpère!”
he shouted, then dived under the flap in the counter, clutching Jamie about the hips in ecstasy. He’d grown; the top of his head now reached Jamie’s lower ribs. Jamie ruffled the shiny blond hair gently, then detached Germain and told him to fetch his father.

No need; aroused by the shouting, the whole family came boiling out from the living quarters behind the shop, exclaiming, yelling, squealing, and generally carrying on like a pack of wolves, as Ian pointed out to them, Henri-Christian riding on his shoulders in red-faced triumph, clinging to his hair.

“What has happened, milord? Why are you here?” Fergus disengaged Jamie easily from the riot and drew him aside, into the alcove where the more expensive books were kept—and those not suitable for public display.

He could see from the look on Fergus’s face that some news had come down from the mountains; while surprised to see him, Fergus was not astonished, and his pleasure covered a worried mind. He explained the matter as quickly as he could, stumbling now and then over his words from haste and weariness; one of the horses had broken down some forty miles from town, and unable to find another, they had walked for two nights and a day, taking it in turns to ride, the other trotting alongside, clinging to the stirrup leathers.

Fergus listened with attention, wiping his mouth with the handkerchief he had taken from his collar; they had arrived in the middle of dinner.

“The sheriff—that would be Mr. Tolliver,” he said. “I know him. Shall we—”

Jamie made an abrupt gesture, cutting him short.

“We went there to begin with,” he said. They had found the sheriff gone, and no one in the house save a very drunken woman with a face like a discontented bird, collapsed and snoring on the settle with a small Negro baby clutched in her arms.

He had taken the baby and thrust it into Ian’s arms, bidding him grimly to mind it while he sobered the woman enough to talk. He had then dragged her out into the yard and poured buckets of well water over her until she gasped and blinked, then dragged her dripping and stumbling back into the house, where he obliged her to drink water poured over the black, burned dregs of chicory coffee he had found in the pot. She had vomited profusely and disgustingly, but regained some vague sense of language.

“At first, all she could say was that all of the female prisoners were gone—run off or hanged.” He said nothing of the fright that had lanced through his belly at that last. He had shaken the woman thoroughly, though, demanding particulars, and eventually, after further applications of water and vile coffee, got them.

“A man came, the day before yesterday, and took her away. That was all she knew—or all she remembered. I made her tell me what she could of how he looked—it wasna Brown, nor yet Neil Forbes.”

“I see.” Fergus glanced behind him; his family were all gathered round Ian, pestering and caressing him. Marsali, though, was looking toward the alcove, worry on her face, obviously wanting to come and join the conversation, but detained by Joan, who was tugging on her skirt.

“Who would take her, I wonder?”

“Joanie,
a chuisle,
will ye not leave go? Help Félicité for a moment, aye?”

“But, Mama—”

“Not
now.
In a moment, aye?”

“I dinna ken,” Jamie said, the frustration of helplessness welling up like black bile at the back of his throat. A sudden, more horrible thought struck him. “God, d’ye suppose it might have been Stephen Bonnet?”

The woman’s slurred description had not sounded like the pirate—but she had been far from certain in it. Could Forbes have learned of his own escape, and determined simply to reverse the roles in the drama he had conceived—deport Claire forcibly to England, and try to pin the guilt of Malva Christie’s death to Jamie’s coat?

He found it hard to breathe, and had to force air into his chest. If Forbes had given Claire to Bonnet, he would slit the lawyer from wishbone to cock, rip the guts from his belly, and strangle him with them. And the same for the Irishman, once he laid hands upon him.

“Papi, Pa-pee . . .” Joan’s singsong voice penetrated dimly through the red cloud that filled his head.

“What,
chérie
?” Fergus lifted her with the ease of long practice, balancing her fat little bottom on his left arm, to leave his right hand free.

She put her arms round his neck and hissed something into his ear.

“Oh, did you?” he said, plainly abstracted. “
Très bien.
Where did you put it,
chérie
?”

“With the naughty-lady pictures.”

She pointed at the upper shelf, where several volumes lay, leather-bound but discreetly untitled. Glancing in the direction she indicated, Jamie saw a smudged paper sticking out from between two of the books.

Fergus clicked his tongue in displeasure, and smacked her lightly on the bottom with his good hand.

“You know you are not to climb up there!”

Jamie reached over and pulled the paper out. And felt all the blood leave his head, at sight of the familiar writing on it.

“What?” Fergus, alarmed at his appearance, set Joanie down. “Sit, milord! Run,
chérie,
get the smelling bottle.”

Jamie waved a hand, speechless, trying to indicate that he was all right, and succeeded at last in finding his tongue.

“She’s in the Governor’s Palace,” he said. “Christ be thanked, she’s safe.”

Seeing a stool pushed under the shelf, he pulled it out and sat on it, feeling exhaustion pulse through the quivering muscles of thigh and calf, ignoring the confusion of question and explanation, how Joanie had found the note pushed under the door—anonymous submissions to the newspaper often were delivered in this fashion, and the children knew they were to bring such things to their father’s attention. . . .

Fergus read the note, his dark eyes assuming the expression of interested intent that he always had when contemplating the abstraction of something difficult and valuable.

“Well, that is good,” he said. “We will go and fetch her. But I think first you must eat a little, milord.”

He wished to refuse, to say that there was not a moment to be lost, that he could eat nothing in any case; his wame was knotted, hurting him.

But Marsali was already hurrying the girls back to the kitchen, calling out things about hot coffee and bread, and Ian following her, Henri-Christian still wrapped lovingly about his ears, Germain yapping eagerly at his heels. And he knew that should it come to a fight, he had nothing left to fight with. Then the succulent sizzle and scent of eggs frying in butter reached him, and he was up and moving toward the back, like iron drawn by a magnet.

Over their hasty meal, various plans were offered and rejected. At length, he reluctantly accepted Fergus’s suggestion that either Fergus or Ian should go openly to the palace, asking to see Claire, saying that he was a kinsman, wishing to assure himself of her welfare.

“They have no reason to deny her presence, after all,” Fergus said, shrugging. “If we can see her, so much the better; but even if not, we will learn whether she is still there, and perhaps where she is likely to be within the palace.”

Fergus clearly wished to undertake the errand, but yielded when Ian pointed out that Fergus was widely known in New Bern, and it might be suspected that he was merely hunting scandal for the newspaper.

“For I am pained to say, milord,” Fergus said apologetically, “that the matter—the crime—is known here already. There are broadsheets . . . the usual nonsense.
L’Oignon
was obliged to print something regarding the matter, of course, to keep our countenance, but we did so in a most repressive fashion, mentioning only the bald facts of the matter.” His long, mobile mouth compressed briefly, in illustration of the repressive nature of his article, and Jamie smiled faintly.

“Aye, I see,” he said. He pushed back from the table, pleased to feel some strength returned to his limbs, and heartened anew by food, coffee, and the comforting knowledge of Claire’s whereabouts. “Well, then, Ian, comb your hair. Ye dinna want the Governor to think ye a savage.”

JAMIE INSISTED UPON going with Ian, despite the danger of being recognized. His nephew eyed him narrowly.

“Ye’re no going to do anything foolish, Uncle Jamie?”

“When was the last time ye kent me to do anything foolish?”

Ian gave him an old-fashioned look, held up one hand, and began to fold the fingers down, one by one.

“Oh, well, let me reckon, then . . . Simms the printer? Tarring Forbes? Roger Mac told me what ye did in Mecklenberg. And then there was—”

“Ye would have let them kill wee Fogarty?” Jamie inquired. “And if we’re mentioning fools, who was it got his arse pricked for wallowing in mortal sin with—”

“What I mean is,” Ian said severely, “ye’re no going to walk into the Governor’s Palace and try to take her by force, no matter what happens. Ye’ll wait quietly wi’ your hat on until I come back, and then we’ll see, aye?”

Jamie pulled down the brim of his hat, a floppy, weathered felt affair such as a pig farmer might wear, with his hair tucked up beneath it.

“What makes ye think I wouldn’t?” he asked, as much from curiosity as natural contention.

“The look on your face,” Ian replied briefly. “I want her back as much as you do, Uncle Jamie—well,” he amended, with a wry grin, “perhaps not
quite
sae much—but I mean to have her back, nonetheless. You”—he poked his uncle emphatically in the chest—“bide your time.”

And leaving Jamie standing under a heat-stricken elm, he strode purposefully toward the gates of the palace.

Jamie took several deep breaths, trying to maintain a sense of annoyance with Ian as an antidote to the anxiety that wrapped itself round his chest like a snake. As the annoyance had been purely manufactured, it evaporated like steam from a kettle, leaving the anxiety squirming and writhing.

Ian had reached the gate, and was in palaver with the guard who stood there, musket at the ready. Jamie could see the man shaking his head emphatically.

This was nonsense, he thought. The need of her was a physical thing, like the thirst of a sailor becalmed for weeks on the sea. He’d felt that need before, often, often, in their years apart. But why now? She was safe; he knew where she was—was it only the exhaustion of the past weeks and days, or perhaps the weakness of creeping age that made his bones ache, as though she had in fact been torn from his body, as God had made Eve from Adam’s rib?

Ian was arguing, making persuasive gestures toward the guard. The sound of wheels on gravel drew his attention from them; a carriage was coming down the drive, a small open conveyance with two people and a driver, drawn by a team of nice dark bays.

The guard had pushed Ian back with the barrel of his musket, gesturing him to keep away while the guard and his fellow opened the gates. The carriage rattled through without stopping, turned into the street, and came past him.

He had never seen Josiah Martin, but thought the plump, self-important-looking gentleman must surely be the— His eye caught the merest glimpse of the woman, and his heart clenched like a fist. Without an instant’s thought, he was pelting after the carriage, as hard as he could run.

In his prime, he could not have outrun a team of horses. Even so, he came within a few feet of the carriage, would have called, but had no breath, no sight, and then his foot struck a misplaced cobble and he fell headlong.

He lay stunned and breathless, vision dark and his lungs afire, hearing only the receding clatter of hooves and carriage wheels, until a strong hand seized his arm and jerked.