The Fiery Cross (178 page)

He scanned the page, lips silently forming words.

“He doesna ken. He prowled about the place until the butler popped out of his wee hole, thinking him a marauder of some sort, and threatened him wi’ a bottle of whisky.”

“A formidable weapon, that,” I observed, smiling at the thought of a nightcapped Ulysses, brandishing his implement of destruction. “How do you say ‘bottle of whisky’ in Latin?”

Jamie gave the page a glance.

“
He
says
‘aqua vitae,’
which is doubtless as close as he could manage. It must have been whisky, though; he says the butler gave him a dram to cure the shock.”

“So he never found Cameron?”

“Aye, he did, after he left Ulysses. Tucked up in his wee white bed, snoring. Next morning, he asked, but Cameron didna recall getting up in the night.” He flipped the page over with one finger and glanced at me. “Would the laudanum keep him from remembering?”

“It could do,” I said, frowning. “Easily. But it’s simply incredible that anyone with that much laudanum in him could have been up marching round in the first place . . . unless . . .” I cocked a brow at him, recalling Jocasta’s remarks during our discussion at River Run. “Any chance your Uncle Hector was an opium-eater or the like? Someone who took a great deal of laudanum by habit would have a tolerance for it, and might not be really affected by Rawlings’ dose.”

Never one to be shocked by any intimation of depravity among his relatives, Jamie considered the suggestion, but finally shook his head.

“If so, I’ve heard naught of it. But then,” he added logically, “there’s no reason anyone would tell me so.”

That was true enough. If Hector Cameron had had the means to indulge in imported narcotics—and he certainly had, River Run being one of the most prosperous plantations in the area—then it would have been no one’s business save his own. Still, I did think someone might have mentioned it.

Jamie’s mind was running on other lines.

“Why would a man leave his house in dead of night to piss, Sassenach?” he asked. “I
know
Hector Cameron had a chamber pot; I’ve used it myself. It had his name and the Cameron badge painted on the bottom.”

“Excellent question.” I stared down at the page of cryptic scratchings. “If Hector Cameron was having great pain or difficulty—passing a kidney stone, for example—I suppose he might have gone out, to avoid waking the house.”

“I havena heard my uncle was an opium-eater, but I havena heard he was ower-mindful of his wife or servants’ convenience, either,” Jamie observed, rather cynically. “From all accounts, Hector Cameron was a bit of a bastard.”

I laughed.

“No doubt that’s why your aunt finds Duncan so congenial.”

Adso wandered in, the remains of the dragonfly in his mouth, and sat down at my feet so I could admire his prize.

“Fine,” I told him, with a cursory pat. “Don’t spoil your appetite, though; there are a lot of cockroaches in the pantry that I want you to deal with.”

“Ecce homo,”
Jamie murmured thoughtfully, tapping a finger on the casebook. “A French homo, do you think?”

“A what?” I stared at him.

“Does it not occur to ye, Sassenach, that perhaps it wasna Cameron that the doctor followed outside?”

“Not ’til this minute, no.” I leaned forward and peered at the page. “Why ought it to be anyone else, though, let alone a Frenchman?”

Jamie pointed to the edge of the page, where there were a few small drawings; doodles, I’d thought. The one under his finger was a fleur-de-lis.

“
Ecce homo
,” he said again, tapping it. “The doctor wasna easy in his mind about the man he followed—that’s why he didna call him by name. If Cameron were drugged, then it was someone else who left the house that night—yet he doesna speak of anyone else who was present.”

“But he might not mention it, unless he’d examined whoever it was,” I argued. “He does put in personal notes, but most of this is strictly his case histories; his observations of his patients and the treatments he was administering. But still . . .” I frowned at the page. “A fleur-de-lis scribbled in the margin doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all, let alone that there was a Frenchman there.” Save Fergus, Frenchmen were not at all common in North Carolina. There were some French settlements south of Savannah, I knew—but that was hundreds of miles away.

The fleur-de-lis
could
be nothing more than a random doodle—and yet, Rawlings hadn’t made such scribbles anywhere else in his book that I recalled. When he added drawings, they were careful and to the point, intended as a reminder to himself, or as a guide to any physician who should come after him.

Above the fleur-de-lis was a figure that looked rather like a triangle with a small circle at the apex and a curved base; below it was a sequence of letters.
Au et Aq.

“A . . . u,” I said slowly, looking at that. “Aurum.”

“Gold?” Jamie glanced up at me, surprised. I nodded.

“It’s the scientific abbreviation for gold, yes. ‘Aurum et aqua.’ Gold and water—I suppose he means
goldwasser
, bits of gold flake suspended in an aqueous solution. It’s a remedy for arthritis—oddly enough, it often works, though no one knows why.”

“Expensive,” Jamie observed. “Though I suppose Cameron could afford it—perhaps he saved an ounce or two of his gold bars, eh?”

“He did say Cameron suffered from arthritis.” I frowned at the page and its cryptic marginalia. “Maybe he meant to advise the use of
goldwasser
for the condition. But I don’t know about the fleur-de-lis or that other thing—” I pointed at it. “It’s not the symbol for any medical treatment
I
know of.”

To my surprise, Jamie laughed.

“I shouldna think so, Sassenach. It’s a Freemason’s compass.”

“It is?” I blinked at it, then glanced at Jamie. “Was Cameron a Mason?”

He shrugged, running a hand through his hair. Jamie never spoke of his own association with the Freemasons. He had been “made,” as the saying went, in Ardsmuir, and beyond any secrecy imposed by membership in the society, he seldom spoke of anything that had happened between those dank stone walls.

“Rawlings must have been one as well,” he said, clearly reluctant to talk about Freemasonry, but unable to keep from making logical connections. “Else he’d not have kent what that is.” One long finger tapped the sign of the compass.

I didn’t know quite what to say next, but was saved from indecision by Adso, who spit out a pair of amber wings, and sprang up onto the desk in search of more hors d’oeuvres. Jamie made a grab for the inkwell with one hand, and seized his new quill protectively in the other. Deprived of prey, Adso strolled to the edge of the desk and sat on the stack of Jamie’s letters, tail waving gently as he pretended to admire the view.

Jamie’s eyes narrowed at this insolence.

“Take your furry wee arse off of my correspondence, beast,” he said, poking at Adso with the sharp end of his quill. Adso’s big green eyes widened as they fixed on the tip of the moving feather, and his shoulder blades tensed in anticipation. Jamie twiddled the quill tantalizingly, and Adso made an abortive swipe at it with one paw.

I seized the cat hastily before mayhem could ensue, lifting him off the papers with a surprised and indignant
mirp!
of protest.

“No, that’s
his
toy,” I said to the cat, and gave Jamie a reproving look. “Come along now; there are cockroaches to attend to.”

I reached for the casebook with my free hand, but to my surprise, Jamie stopped me.

“Let me keep it a bit longer, Sassenach,” he said. “There’s something verra odd about the notion of a French Freemason wandering River Run by night. I should like to see what else Dr. Rawlings might have to say when he’s speaking Latin.”

“All right.” I hoisted Adso, who had begun to purr loudly in anticipation of cockroaches, to my shoulder, and glanced out the window. The sun had set to a burning glow beyond the chestnut trees, and I could hear the noise of women and children in the kitchen; Mrs. Bug was starting to lay the supper, helped by Brianna and Marsali.

“Dinner soon,” I said, and bent to kiss the top of Jamie’s head, where the last of the light touched his crown with fire. He smiled and touched his fingers to his lips and then to me, but he had already gone back to a perusal of the close-written pages by the time I reached the door. The single sheet with its three black words lay at the edge of the desk, forgotten—for the moment.

I
CAUGHT A FLASH OF BROWN outside the door, and Adso shot off the counter as though someone had shouted “Fish!” The next best thing, evidently; it was Lizzie, on her way back from the dairy shed, a bowl of clotted cream in one hand, a butter dish in the other, and a large jug of milk pressed to her bosom, precariously held in place by her crossed wrists. Adso was twining round her ankles like a furry rope, in obvious hopes of tripping her up and making her drop the booty.

“Think again, cat,” I told him, reaching to rescue the milk jug.

“Oh, thank ye, ma’am.” Lizzie relaxed, easing her shoulders with a little sigh. “It’s only as I didna want to be making two trips.” She sniffed and tried to wipe her nose with a forearm, imperiling the butter.

I snatched a handkerchief from my pocket and applied it, repressing the maternal impulse to say, “Now, blow.”

“Thank ye, ma’am,” she repeated, bobbing.

“Are you quite well, Lizzie?” Without waiting for an answer, I took her by the arm and towed her into my surgery, where the large windows gave me light enough to see by.

“I’m well enough, ma’am. Truly, I’m fine!” she protested, clutching the cream and butter to her as though for protection.

She was pale—but Lizzie was always pale, looking as though she had not a corpuscle to spare. There was an odd pallid look to her skin, though, that gave me an uneasy feeling. It had been nearly a year since her last attack of malarial fever, and she did seem generally well, but . . .

“Come here,” I said, drawing her toward a pair of high stools. “Have a seat, just for a moment.”

Clearly unwilling, but not daring to protest, she sat down, balancing the dishes on her knees. I took them from her and—after a glance at Adso’s unblinkingly predatory green gaze—put them in the cupboard for safekeeping.

Pulse normal—normal for Lizzie, that is; she tended always to be a trifle fast and shallow. Breathing . . . all right, no catch or wheezing. The lymph glands under the jaw were palpable, but that was not unusual; the malaria had left them permanently enlarged, like the curve of a quail’s egg under the tender skin. Those in the neck were enlarged now, too, though—and those I generally could
not
feel.

I thumbed an eyelid up, peering closely at the pale gray orb that looked anxiously back. Superficially fine, though slightly bloodshot. Again, though—there was something not quite . . . right . . . about her eyes, though I couldn’t put my finger on what that something might be. Could there possibly be a tinge of yellow to the white? I frowned, turning her head to the side with a hand under her unresisting chin.

“Hullo, there. Everything all right?” Roger paused in the doorway, a very large, very dead bird held nonchalantly in one hand.

“A turkey!” I exclaimed, summoning a warm note of admiration. I liked turkeys, all right, but Jamie and Bree had killed five of the enormous birds the week before, introducing a certain note of monotony into dinner of late. Three of the things were hanging in the smoking shed at the moment. On the other hand, wild turkeys were wily and difficult to kill, and so far as I knew, Roger had never managed to bag one before.

“Did you shoot it yourself?” I asked, coming dutifully to admire the thing. He held it by the feet, and the big cupped wings flapped halfway open, the breast-feathers catching sunlight in iridescent patterns of blackish green.

“No.” Roger’s face was flushed, from sun, excitement or both, a warm hue spreading under the tanned skin. “I ran it down,” he said proudly. “Hit it in the wing with a stone, then chased it and broke its neck.”

“Wonderful,” I said, with somewhat more genuine enthusiasm. We wouldn’t have to pick buckshot out of the flesh while cleaning it, or risk breaking a tooth in the eating.

“It’s a lovely bird, Mr. Mac.” Lizzie had slid off her stool and come to admire it, too. “Such a fat one as it is! Will I take it and clean it for ye, then?”

“What? Oh, thanks, Lizzie, no—I’ll, um, take care of it.” The color rose a little higher under his skin, and I suppressed a smile. He meant he wanted to show off his catch to Brianna, in all its glory. He shifted the bird to his left hand, and held out the right to me, wrapped in a bloodstained cloth.

“I had a bit of an accident, wrestling the bird. Do you think perhaps . . . ?”

I unwrapped the cloth, pursing my lips at what lay underneath. The turkey, fighting for its life, had ripped three jagged gashes across the back of his hand with its claws. The blood had mostly clotted, but fresh drops welled up from the deepest puncture, rolling down his finger to drip on the floor.