The Fiery Cross (28 page)

“All right,” he said, recovering himself somewhat. “Go and see Farquard, then. If Abel’s there, tell Campbell I’ll stand surety for him. Bring him back with ye.” He made a brief shooing gesture, and Roger—puce with mortification but stiff with dignity—departed at once. Bree followed him, casting a glance of reproof at her father, which merely had the effect of causing him to wheeze some more.

I drowned my own mirth with a gulp of steaming tea, blissfully fragrant. I offered the cup to Jamie, but he waved it away, content with the rest of the ale.

“My aunt,” he observed, lowering the bottle at last, “kens verra well indeed what money will buy and what it will not.”

“And she’s just bought herself—and everyone else in the county—a good opinion of poor Roger, hasn’t she?” I replied, rather dryly.

Jocasta Cameron was a MacKenzie of Leoch; a family Jamie had once described as “charming as the larks in the field—and sly as foxes, with it.” Whether Jocasta had truly had any doubt herself of Roger’s motives in marrying Bree, or merely thought to forestall idle gossip along the Cape Fear, her methods had been undeniably successful. She was probably up in her tent chortling over her cleverness, looking forward to spreading the story of her offer and Roger’s response to it.

“Poor Roger,” Jamie agreed, his mouth still twitching. “Poor but virtuous.” He tipped up the bottle of ale, drained it, and set it down with a brief sigh of satisfaction. “Though come to that,” he added, glancing at me, “she’s bought the lad something of value as well, hasn’t she?”

“My son,”
I quoted softly, nodding. “Do you think he realized it himself before he said it? That he really feels Jemmy is his son?”

Jamie made an indeterminate movement with his shoulders, not quite a shrug.

“I canna say. It’s as well he should have that fixed in his mind, though, before the next bairn comes along—one he kens for sure is his.”

I thought of my conversation that morning with Brianna, but decided it was wiser to say nothing—at least for now. It was, after all, a matter between Roger and Bree. I only nodded, and turned to tidy away the tea things.

I felt a small glow in the pit of my stomach that was only partly the result of the tea. Roger had sworn an oath to take Jemmy as his own, no matter what the little boy’s true paternity might be; he was an honorable man, Roger, and he meant it. But the speech of the heart is louder than the words of any oath spoken by lips alone.

When I had gone back, pregnant, through the stones, Frank had sworn to me that he would keep me as his wife, would treat the coming child as his own—would love me as he had before. All three of those vows his lips and mind had done his best to keep, but his heart, in the end, had sworn only one. From the moment that he took Brianna in his arms, she was his daughter.

But what if there had been another child? I wondered suddenly. It had never been a possibility—but if it had? Slowly, I wiped the teapot dry and wrapped it in a towel, contemplating the vision of that mythical child; the one Frank and I might have had, but never did, and never would. I laid the wrapped teapot in the chest, gently, as though it were a sleeping baby.

When I turned back, Jamie was still standing there, looking at me with a rather odd expression—tender, yet somehow rueful.

“Did I ever think to thank ye, Sassenach?” he said, his voice a little husky.

“For what?” I said, puzzled. He took my hand, and drew me gently toward him. He smelled of ale and damp wool, and very faintly of the brandied sweetness of fruitcake.

“For my bairns,” he said softly. “For the children that ye bore me.”

“Oh,” I said. I leaned slowly forward, and rested my forehead against the solid warmth of his chest. I cupped my hands at the small of his back beneath his coat, and sighed. “It was . . . my pleasure.”

“MR. FRASER, MR. FRASER!” I lifted my head and turned to see a small boy churning down the steep slope behind us, arms waving to keep his balance and face bright red with cold and exertion.

“Oof!” Jamie got his hands up just in time to catch the boy as he hurtled down the last few feet, quite out of control. He boosted the little boy, whom I recognized as Farquard Campbell’s youngest, up in his arms and smiled at him. “Aye, Rabbie, what is it? Does your Da want me to come for Mr. MacLennan?”

Rabbie shook his head, shaggy hair flying like a sheepdog’s coat.

“No, sir,” he panted, gasping for breath. He gulped air and the small throat swelled like a frog’s with the effort to breathe and speak at once. “No, sir. My Da says he’s heard where the priest is and I should show ye the way, sir. Will ye come?”

Jamie’s brows flicked up in momentary surprise. He glanced at me, then smiled at Rabbie, and nodded, bending down to set him on his feet.

“Aye, lad, I will. Lead on, then!”

“Delicate of Farquard,” I said to Jamie under my breath, with a nod at Rabbie, who scampered ahead, looking back over his shoulder now and then, to be sure we were managing to keep up with him. No one would notice a small boy, among the swarms of children on the mountain. Everyone would most assuredly have noticed had Farquard Campbell come himself or sent one of his adult sons.

Jamie huffed a little, the mist of his breath a wisp of steam in the gathering chill.

“Well, it’s no Farquard’s concern, after all, even if he has got a great regard for my aunt. And I expect if he’s sent the lad to tell me, it means he kens the man who’s responsible, and doesna mean to choose up sides wi’ me against him.” He glanced at the setting sun, and gave me a rueful look.

“I did say I should find Father Kenneth by sunset, but still—I dinna think we shall see a wedding tonight, Sassenach.”

Rabbie led us onward and upward, tracing the maze of footpaths and trampled dead grass without hesitation. The sun had finally broken through the clouds; it had sunk deep in the notch of the mountains, but was still high enough to wash the slope with a warm, ruddy light that momentarily belied the chill of the day. People were gathering to their family fires now, hungry for their suppers, and no one spared a glance for us among the bustle.

At last, Rabbie came to a stop, at the foot of a well-marked path that led up and to the right. I had crisscrossed the mountain’s face several times during the week of the Gathering, but had never ventured up this high. Who was in custody of Father Kenneth, I wondered—and what did Jamie propose to do about it?

“Up there,” Rabbie said unnecessarily, pointing to the peak of a large tent, just visible through a screen of longleaf pine.

Jamie made a Scottish noise in the back of his throat at sight of the tent.

“Oh,” he said softly, “so that’s how it is?”

“Is it? Never mind how it is;
whose
is it?” I looked dubiously at the tent, which was a large affair of waxed brown canvas, pale in the gloaming. It obviously belonged to someone fairly wealthy, but wasn’t one I was familiar with myself.

“Mr. Lillywhite, of Hillsborough,” Jamie said, and his brows drew down in thought. He patted Rabbie Campbell on the head, and handed him a penny from his sporran. “Thank ye, laddie. Run away to your Mam now; it’ll be time for your supper.” Rabbie took the coin and vanished without comment, pleased to be finished with his errand.

“Oh, really.” I cocked a wary eye at the tent. That explained a few things, I supposed—though not everything. Mr. Lillywhite was a magistrate from Hillsborough, though I knew nothing else about him, save what he looked like. I had glimpsed him once or twice during the Gathering, a tall, rather drooping man, his figure made distinctive by a bottle-green coat with silver buttons, but had never formally met him.

Magistrates were responsible for appointing sheriffs, which explained the connection with the “nasty fat man” Marsali had described, and why Father Kenneth was incarcerated here—but that left open the question of whether it was the sheriff or Mr. Lillywhite who had wanted the priest removed from circulation in the first place.

Jamie put a hand on my arm, and drew me off the path, into the shelter of a small pine tree.

“Ye dinna ken Mr. Lillywhite, do you, Sassenach?”

“Only by sight. What do you want me to do?”

He smiled at me, a hint of mischief in his eyes, despite his worry for Father Kenneth.

“Game for it, are ye?”

“Unless you’re proposing that I bat Mr. Lillywhite over the head and liberate Father Kenneth by force, I suppose so. That sort of thing is much more your line of country than mine.”

He laughed at that, and gave the tent what appeared to be a wistful look.

“I should like nothing better,” he said, confirming this impression. “It wouldna be difficult in the least,” he went on, eyeing the tan canvas sides of the tent appraisingly as they flexed in the wind. “Look at the size of it; there canna be more than two or three men in there, besides the priest. I could wait until the full dark, and then take a lad or two and—”

“Yes, but what do you want me to do now?” I interrupted, thinking I had best put a stop to what sounded a distinctly criminal train of thought.

“Ah.” He abandoned his machinations—for the moment—and squinted at me, appraising my appearance. I had taken off the bloodstained canvas apron I wore for surgery, had put up my hair neatly with pins, and was reasonably respectable in appearance, if a trifle mud-draggled round the hems.

“Ye dinna have any of your physician’s kit about ye?” he asked, frowning dubiously. “A bottle of swill, a bittie knife?”

“Bottle of swill, indeed. No, I—oh, wait a moment. Yes, there are these; will they do?” Digging about in the pocket tied at my waist, I had come up with the small ivory box in which I kept my gold-tipped acupuncture needles.

Evidently satisfied, Jamie nodded, and pulled out the silver whisky flask from his sporran.

“Aye, they’ll do,” he said, handing me the flask. “Take this too, though, for looks. Go up to the tent, Sassenach, and tell whoever’s guarding the priest that he’s ailing.”

“The guard?”

“The priest,” he said, giving me a look of mild exasperation. “I daresay everyone will ken ye as a healer by now, and know ye on sight. Say that Father Kenneth has an illness that you’ve been treating, and he must have a dose of his medicine at once, lest he sicken and die on them. I dinna suppose they want that—and they’ll not be afraid of you.”

“I shouldn’t imagine they need be,” I agreed, a trifle caustically. “You don’t mean me to stab the sheriff through the heart with my needles, then?”

He grinned at the thought, but shook his head.

“Nay, I only want ye to learn why they’ve taken the priest and what they mean to do with him. If I were to go and demand answers myself, it might put them on guard.”

Meaning that he had not completely abandoned the notion of a later commando raid on Mr. Lillywhite’s stronghold, should the answers prove unsatisfactory. I glanced at the tent and took a deep breath, settling my shawl about my shoulders.

“All right,” I said. “And what are you intending to do while I’m about it?”

“I’m going to go and fetch the bairns,” he said, and with a quick squeeze of my hand for luck, he was off down the trail.

I WAS STILL WONDERING exactly what he meant by
that
cryptic statement—which “bairns”? Why?—as I came within sight of the open tent flap, but all speculation was driven from my mind by the appearance of a gentleman therein who met Marsali’s description of “a nasty, fat man” so exactly that I had no doubt of his identity. He was short and toadlike, with a receding hairline, a belly that strained the buttons of a food-stained linen vest, and small, beady eyes that watched me as though assessing my immediate prospects as a food item.

“Good day to you, ma’am,” he said. He viewed me without enthusiasm, no doubt finding me less than toothsome, but inclined his head with formal respect.

“Good day,” I replied cheerily, dropping him a brief curtsy. Never hurt to be polite—at least not to start with. “You’ll be the sheriff, won’t you? I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of a formal introduction. I’m Mrs. Fraser—Mrs. James Fraser, of Fraser’s Ridge.”

“David Anstruther, Sheriff of Orange County—your servant, ma’am,” he said, bowing again, though with no real evidence of delight. He didn’t show any surprise at hearing Jamie’s name, either. Either he simply wasn’t familiar with it—rather unlikely—or he had been expecting such an ambassage.

That being so, I saw no point in beating round the bush.

“I understand that you’re entertaining Father Donahue,” I said pleasantly. “I’ve come to see him; I’m his physician.”

Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that; his jaw dropped slightly, exposing a severe case of malocclusion, well-advanced gingivitis, and a missing bicuspid. Before he could close it, a tall gentleman in a bottle-green coat stepped out of the tent behind him.

“Mrs. Fraser?” he said, one eyebrow raised. He bowed punctiliously. “You say you wish to speak with the clerical gentleman under arrest?”

“Under arrest?” I affected great surprise at that. “A priest? Why, whatever can he have done?”

The Sheriff and the magistrate exchanged glances. Then the magistrate coughed.

“Perhaps you are unaware, madam, that it is illegal for anyone other than the clergy of the established Church—the Church of England, that is—to undertake his office within the colony of North Carolina?”

I was not unaware of that, though I also knew that the law was seldom put into effect, there being relatively few of any kind of clergy in the colony to start with, and no one bothering to take any official notice of the itinerant preachers—many of them free lances in the most basic sense of the word—who did appear from time to time.

“Gracious!” I said, affecting shocked surprise to the best of my ability. “No, I had no idea. Goodness me! How very strange!” Mr. Lillywhite blinked slightly, which I took as an indication that that would just about do, in terms of my creating an impression of well-bred shock. I cleared my throat, and brought out the silver flask and case of needles.

“Well. I do hope any difficulties will be soon resolved. However, I should very much like to see Father Donahue for a moment. As I said, I am his physician. He has an . . . indisposition”—I slid back the cover of the case, and delicately displayed the needles, letting them imagine something suitably virulent—“that requires regular treatment. Might I see him for a moment, to administer his medicine? I . . . ah . . . should not like to see any mischief result from a lack of care on my part, you know.” I smiled, as charmingly as possible.