The Fiery Cross, Page 31

  "No, indeed." She shook her head, neat white in its kerch. "I didna ken a thing about it. I heard my auld lad up and stirring before dawn, but I thought it was only him out to the privy, he not liking to trouble me with the noise

  216 Diana Gabaldon

  01 the pot. He didna come back, though, and by the time I waked myself, they'd all gone off Ah! None of that, now!"

  Catching a movement from the comer of her eye, she dotted a six-year-old MacLeod smartly on the head with her sausage, causing him to snatch his fingers back from the jam jar.

  "Perhaps they've gone hunting," Mrs. Aberfeldy suggested timidly, spooning porridge into the little girl she held on her knee. Barely nineteen, she seldom said much, shy of the older women.

  "Better they be hunting homesteads, and timber for houses," Mrs. MacLeod said, hoisting a baby onto her shoulder and patting its back. She pushed a strand of graying hair out of her face and gave me a wry smile. "It's nay reflection upon your hospitality, Mrs. Fraser, but I'd as soon not spend the winter under your feet. Geordie! Leave your sister's plaits alone, or ye'll wish ye had!"

  Not at my best so early in the day, I smiled and murmured something politely incomprehensible. I would as soon not have five or ten extra people in my house for the winter, either, but I wasn't sure it could be avoided.

  The Governor's letter had been quite specific; all able-bodied men in the backcountry were to be mustered as militia troops and to report to Salisbury by mid-December. That left very little time for house-budding. Still, I hoped Jamie had some plan for relieving the congestion; Adso the kitten had taken up semipermanent residence in a cupboard in my surgery, and the scene in the kitchen was quickly assuming its usual daily resemblance to one of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.

  At least the kitchen had lost its early morning chill with so many bodies crowded into it, and was now comfortably warm and noisy. What with the mob scene, though, it was several moments before I noticed that there were four young mothers present, rather than three.

  "Where did you come from?" I asked, startled at sight of my daughter, huddled frowsily under a rug in a corner of the settle.

  Bree blinked sleepily and shifted Jernmy, who was nursing with singleminded concentration, oblivious of the crowd.

  "The Muellers showed up in the middle of the night and pounded on our door," she said, yawning. "Eight of them. They didn't speak much English, but I think they said Da sent for them."

  "Really?" I reached for a slice of raisin cake, narrowly beating a young Chisholm to it. "Are they still there?"

  "Uh-huh. Thanks, Mama." She stretched out a hand for the bit of cake I offered her. "Yes. Da came and hauled Roger out of bed while it was still dark, but he didn't seem to think he needed the Muellers yet. When Roger left, a big old Mueller got up off the floor, said, 'Bitte, Maedle,' and lay down next to me." A delicate pink flushed her cheeks. "So I thought maybe I'd get up and come up here."

  "Oh," I said, suppressing a smile. "That would be Gerhard." Eminently practical, the old farmer would see no reason why he should lay his old bones on a hard plank floor, if there was bed space available.

  "I suppose so," she said indistinctly, through a mouthful of cake. "I guess he's harmless, but even so . . ."

  "Well, he'd be no danger to you," I agreed. Gerhard Mueller was the patri-

  The Fiery Cross 217

  arch of a large German family who lived between the Ridge and the Moravian settlement at Salem. He was somewhere in his late seventies, but by no means harmless.

  I chewed slowly, remembering how Jamie had described to me the scalps nailed to the door of Gerhard's barn. Women's scalps, long hair dark and silken, ends liffing in the wind. Like live things, he'd said, his face troubled at the memory, like birds, pinned to the wood. And the white one Gerhard had brought to me, wrapped in linen and flecked with blood. No, not harmless. I swallowed, the cake feeling dry in my throat.

  "Harmless or not, they'll be hungry," said Mrs. Chisholm practically. She bent and gathered up a corn-dolly, a soggy diaper, and a squirming toddler, contriving somehow to leave a hand free for her coffee. "Best we clear this lot awa, before the Germans smell food and come hammering at the door."

  "Is there anything left to feed them?" I said, uneasily trying to remember how many hams were left in the smokeshed. After two weeks of hospitality, our stores were dwindling at an alarming rate.

  "Of course there is," Mrs. Bug said briskly, slicing sausage and flipping the slices onto the sizzling griddle. "Let me just ha' done with this lot, and ye can send them along for their breakfasts. You, a muirninn-" She tapped a girl of eight or so on the head with her spatula. "Run ye doon the root cellar and fetch me up an apronful of potatoes. Germans like potatoes."

  By the time I had finished my porridge and begun to collect up bowls to wash, Mrs. Bug, broom in hand, was sweeping children and debris out of the back door with ruthless efficiency, while issuing a stream of orders to Lizzie and Mrs. AberfeldyRuth, that was her name-who seemed to have been dragooned as assistant cooks.

  "Shall I help . . ." I began, rather feebly, but Mrs. Bug shook her head and made small shooing motions with the broom.

  "Dinna think of it, Mrs. Fraser!" she said. "You'll have enough to do, I'm sure, and-here now, ye'll no be comin' intae my nice, clean kitchen wi' those mucky boots! Out, out and wipe them off before ye think of setting foot in here! "

  Gerhard Mueller, followed by his sons and nephews, stood in the doorway, nonplussed. Mrs. Bug, undeterred either by the fact that he towered over her by more than a foot, or that he spoke no English, screwed up her face and poked fiercely at his boots,%vith her broom.

  I waved welcomingly to the Muellers, then seized the chance of escape, and fled.

  SEEKING TO AVOID the crowd in the house, I washed at the well outside, then went to the sheds and occupied myself in taking inventory. The situation was not as bad as I'd feared; we had enough, with careful management, to last out the winter, though I could see that Mrs. Bug's lavish hand might have to be constrained a bit.

  Besides six hams in the smokeshed, there were four sides of bacon and half another, plus a rack of dried venison and half of a relatively recent carcass.

  218 Diana Gabaldon

  Looking up, I could see the low roof beams, black with soot and thick with clusters of smoked, dried fish, split and bound stiffly in bunches, like the petals of large ugly flowers. There were ten casks of salt fish, as well, and four of salt pork. A stone crock of lard, a smaller one of the fine leaf lard, another of headcheese ... I had my doubts about that.

  I had made it according to the instructions of one of the Mueller women, as translated by Jamie, but I had never seen headcheese myself, and was not quite sure it was meant to look like that. I lifted the lid and sniffed cautiously, but it smelled all right; mildly spiced with garlic and peppercorn, and no scent at all of putrefaction. Perhaps we wouldn't die of ptomaine poisoning, though I had it in mind to invite Gerhard Mueller to try it first.

  "How can ye bide the auld fiend in your house?" Marsali had demanded, when Gerhard and one of his sons had ridden up to the Ridge a few months earlier. She had heard the story of the Indian women from Fergus, and viewed the Germans with horrified revulsion.

  "And what would ye have me do?" Jamie had demanded in return, spoon lifted halfway from his bowl. "Kill the Muellers-all of them, for if I did for Gerhard, I'd have to do for the lot-and nail their hair to my barn?" His mouth quirked slightly. "I should think it would put the cow off her milk. It would put me off the milkin', to be sure."

  Marsali's brow puckered, but she wasn't one to be joked out of an argument.

  "Not that, maybe," she said. "But ye let them into your house, and treat them as friends!" She glanced from Jamie to me, frowning. "The women he killed-they were your friends, no?"

  I exchanged a look with Jamie, and gave a slight shrug. He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, as he slowly stirred his soup. Then he laid down the spoon and looked at her.
<
br />   "It was a fearfill thing that Gerhard did," he said simply. "But it was a matter of vengeance to him; thinking as he did, he couldna have done otherwise. Would it make matters better for me to take vengeance on him?"

  ccNon "' Fergus said positively. He laid a hand on Marsali's arm, putting a Stop to whatever she might have said next. He grinned up at her. "Of course, Frenchmen do not believe in vengeance. 51

  "Well, perhaps some Frenchmen," I murmured, thinking of the Comte St. Germain.

  Marsali wasn't to be put off so easily, though.

  "Hmph," she said. "NVhat ye mean is, they weren't yours, isn't it?" Seeing Jamie's brow flick up in startlement, she pressed the point. "The women who were murdered. But if it were your family? If it had been me and Lizzie and Brianna, say?"

  "That," said Jamie evenly, "is my point. It was Gerhard's family." He pushed back from the table and stood up, leaving half his soup unfinished. "Are ye done, Fergus?"

  Fergus cocked a sleek brow at him, picked up his bowl, and drank it down, Adam's apple bobbing in his long brown throat.

  aOui, "he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He stood and patted Marsali on the head, then plucked a strand of her straw-pale hair free of her kerch. "Do

  The Fiery Cross 2-19

  not worry yourself, cbiri-cven though I do not believe in vengeance, if anyone should hunt your hair, I promise I will make a tobacco pouch of his scrotum. And your papa will tie up his stockings with the malefactor's entrails, surely."

  Marsati gave a small pfft! of irritated amusement and slapped at his hand, and no more was said about Gerhard Mueller.

  I fifted the heavy crock of headcheese and set it down by the door of the smokeshed, so as not to forget it when I went back to the house. I wondered whether Gerhard's son Frederick had come with him-likely so; the boy was less than twenty, not an age willing to be left out of anything that promised excitement. It was Frederick's young wife Petronella and her baby who had died-of measles, though Gerhard had thought the infection a deliberate curse put on his family by the Tuscarora.

  Had Frederick found a new wife yet? I wondered. Very likely. Though if not ... there were two teenaged girls among the new tenants. Perhaps Jamie's plans involved finding them fast husbands? And then there was Lizzie ...

  The corncrib was more than three-quarters full, though there were worrying quantities of mouse droppings on the ground outside. Adso was growing rapidly, but perhaps not fast enough; he was just about the size of an average rat. Flour-that was a little low, only eight sacks. There might be more at the mill, though; I must ask Jamie.

  Sacks of rice and dried beans, bushels of hickory nuts, butternuts, and black walnuts. Heaps of dried squash, burlap bag of oatmeal and cornmeal, and gallon upon gallon of apple cider and cider vinegar. A crock of salted butter, another of fresh, and a basket of spherical goat cheeses, for which I had traded a bushel of blackberries and another of wild currants. The rest of the berries had been careffilly dried, along with the wild grapes, or made up into jam or preserve, and were presently hidden in the pantry, safe-I hoped-from childish depredations.

  The honey. I stopped, pursing my tips. I had nearly twenty gallons of purified honey, and four large stone jars of honeycomb, gleaned from my hives and waiting to be rendered and made into beeswax candles. It was all kept in the walled cave that served as stable, in order to keep safe from bears. It wasn't safe from the children who had been deputed to feed the cows and pigs in the stable, though. I hadn't seen any telltale sticky fingers or faces yet, but it might be as well to take some preventative steps.

  Between meat, grain, and the small dairy, it looked as though no one would starve this winter. My concern now was the lesser but still important threat of vitamin deficiency. I glanced at the chestnut grove, its branches now completely bare. It would be a good four months before we saw much of fresh greenery, though I did have plenty of turnips and cabbage still in the ground.

  The root cellar was reassuringly well-stocked, heady with the earthy smell of potatoes, the tang of onions and garlic, and the wholesome, bland scent of turnips. Two large barrels of apples stood at the back-with the prints of several sets of childish feet leading up to them, I saw.

  I glanced tip. Enormous clusters of wild scuppernong grapes had been hung from the rafters, drying slowly into raisins. They were still there, but the lower, more reachable bunches had been reduced to sprays of bare stems. Perhaps I needn't worry about outbreaks of scurvy, then.

  220 Diana Gabaldon

  1 wandered back toward the house, trying to calculate how many provisions should be sent with Jamie and his militia, how much left for the consumption of the wives and children. Impossible to say; that would depend in part on how many men he raised, and on what they might bring with them. He was appointed Colonel, though; the responsibility of feeding the men of his regiment would be primarily his, with reimbursement-if it ever came-to be paid later by appropriation of the Assembly.

  Not for the first time, I wished heartily that I knew more. How long might the Assembly be a functional body?

  Brianna was out by the well, walking round and round it with a meditative look farrowing her brows.

  "Pipe," she said, without preliminaries. "Do people make metal piping now? The Romans did, but-"

  "I've seen it in Paris and Edinburgh, being used to carry rain off roofs," I offered. "So it exists. I'm not sure I've seen any in the Colonies, though. If there is any, it will be terribly expensive." Beyond the simplest of things, like horseshoes, all ironmongery had to be imported from Britain, as did all other metal goods like copper, brass, and lead.

  "Hmm. At least they'll know what it is." She narrowed her eyes, calculating the slope of land between well and house, then shook her head and sighed. "I can make a pump, I think. Getting water into the house is something else." She yawned suddenly, and blinked, eyes watering slightly in the sunlight. "God, I'm so tired, I can't think. Jemmy squawked all night and just when he finally conked out, the Muellers showed up-I don't think I slept at all."

  "I recall the feeling," I said, with sympathy-and grinned. "Was I a very cranky baby?" Brianna asked, grinning back.

  "Very," I assured her, turning toward the house. "And where is yours?" "He's with-"

  Brianna stopped dead, clutching my arm.

  "What-" she said. "What in the name of God is tbat?"

  I turned to look, and felt a spasm of shock, deep in the pit of my stomach. "It's quite evident wbat it is," I said, walking slowly toward it. "The question is-why? "

  It was a cross. Rather a big cross, made of dried pine boughs, stripped of their twigs and bound together with rope. It was planted firmly at the edge of the dooryard, near the big blue spruce that guarded the house.

  It stood some seven feet in height, the branches slender, but solid. It was not bulky or obtrusive-and yet its quiet presence seemed to dominate the dooryard, much as a tabernacle dominates a church. At the same time, the effect of the thing seemed neither reverent nor protective. In fact, it was bloody sinister.

  "Are we having a revival meeting?" Brianna's mouth twitched, trying to make a joke of it. The cross made her as uneasy as it did me.

  "Not that I've heard of " I walked slowly round it, looking up and down. Jamie had made it-I could tell that by the quality of the workmanship. The branches had been chosen for straightness and symmetry, carefully trimmed, the ends tapered. The cross piece had been neatly notched to fit the upright, the rope binding crisscrossed with a sailor's neatness.

  The Fiery Cross 221

  "Maybe Da's starting his own religion." Brianna lifted a brow; she recognized the workmanship, too.

  Mrs. Bug appeared suddenly round the corner of the house, a bowl of chicken feed in her hands. She stopped dead at sight of us, her mouth opening immediately. I braced myself instinctively for the onslaught, and heard Brianna. snicker under her breath. as a shame,

  110ch, there ye are, ma'am! I was just sayin' to Lizzie as how it w

  a mortal shame it is
, that those spawn should be riotin' upstairs and doon, and their nasty leavings scattered all about the hoose, and even in Herself's own stillroom, and she said to me, did Lizzie, she said-"

  "In my surgery? What? Where? What have they done?" Forgetting the cross, I was already hastening toward the house, Mrs. Bug hard on my heels, still talking. "I did catch twa o' them wee de'ils a-playin' at bowls in there with your nice

  blue bottles and an apple, and be sure I boxed their ears sae hard for it I'm sure they're ringin' still, the wicked creeturs, and them a-leavin' bits of good food to rot and go bad, and-"

  "My bread!" I had reached the front hall, and now flung open the door of the surgery to find everything within spick-and-span-including the counter top where I had laid out my most recent penicillin experiments. It now lay completely bare, its oaken surface scoured to rawness. d her lips "Nasty it was," Mrs. Bug said from the hall behind me. She presse

  together with prim virtue. "Nasty! Covered wi' mold, just covered, all blue, and-"

  I took a deep breath, hands clenched at my sides to avoid throttling her. I shut the surgery door, blotting out the sight of the empty counter, and turned to the tiny ScotswOman.

  "Mrs. Bug," I said, keeping my voice level with great effort, "you know how much I appreciate your help, but I did ask you not to-"

  The front door swung open and crashed into the wall beside me. "Ye wretched auld besom! How dare ye to lay hands on my weans!"

  I swung round to find myself nose-to-nose with Mrs. Chisholm, face flushed with fury and armed with a broom, two red-faced toddlers clinging to her skirts, their cheeks smeared with recent tears. She ignored me completely, her attention focused on Mrs. Bug, who stood in the hallway on my other side, bristling like a diminutive hedgehog.

  "You and your precious weans!" Mrs. Bug cried indignantly. "Why, if Ye cared a stitch for them, ye'd be raisin' them proper and teachin' them right from wrong, not leavin' them to carouse about the hoose like Barbary apes, strewin' wreck and ruin from attic to doorstep, and layin' their sticky fingers on anything as isna nailed to the floor!"

  "Now, Mrs. Bug, really, I'm sure they didn't mean-" My attempt at peacemaking was drowned out by steam-whistle shrieks from all three Chisholms, Mrs. Chisholm's being by far the loudest. uld netter"NATho areyou, to be callin' my bairns thieves, ye maundering a,,

  cap!" The aggrieved mother waved the broom menacingly, moving from side to side as she tried to 'get at Mrs. Bug. I moved with her, hopping back and forth in an effort to stay between the two combatants.

  222 Diana Gabaldon

  "Mrs. Chisholm," I said, raising a placating hand. "Margaret. Really, I'm sure that-"

  "Who am I?" Mrs. Bug seemed to expand visibly, like rising dough. C17ho am I? Why, I'm a God-fearin' woman and a Christian soul! Who are you to be speakin' to your elders and betters in such a way, you and your evil tribe a-traipsin' the hills in rags and tatters, wi'out sae much as a pot to piss in?"

  "Mrs. Bug!" I exclaimed, whirling round to her. "You mustn't-"

  Mrs. Chisholm didn't bother trying to find a rejoinder to this, but instead lunged forward, broom at the ready. I flung my arms out to prevent her shoving past me; finding herself foiled in her attempt to swat Mrs. Bug, she instead began poking at her over my shoulder, jabbing wildly with the broom as she tried to skewer the older woman.

  Mrs. Bug, obviously feeling herself safe behind the barricade of my person, was hopping up and down like a Ping-Pong ball, her small round face bright red with triumph and fiiry.

  "Beggars!" she shouted, at the top of her lungs. "Tinkers! Gypsies!"

  "Mrs - Chisholm! Mrs. Bug!" I pleaded, but neither paid the least attention. "Kittock! Mislearnitpilsb!" bellowed Mrs. Chisholm, jabbing madly with her broom. The children shrieked and yowled, and Mrs. Chisholm-who was a rather buxom woman-trod heavily on my toe.

  This came under the heading of more than enough, and I rounded on Mrs. Chisholm with fire in my eye. She shrank back, dropping the broom.

  "Ha! Ye pert trull! You and-"

  Mrs. Bug's shrill cries behind me were suddenly silenced, and I whirled round again to see Brianna, who had evidently run round the house and come in through the kitchen, holding the diminutive Mrs. Bug well off the floor, one arm round her middle, the other hand firmly pressed across her mouth. Mrs. Bug's tiny feet kicked wildly, her eyes bulging above the muffling hand. Bree rolled her eyes at me, and retreated through the kitchen door, carrying her captive.

  I turned round to deal with Mrs. Chisholm, only to see the flick of her homespun gray skirt, disappearing hastily round the comer of the doorstep, a child's wail receding like a distant siren. The broom lay at my feet. I picked it up, went into the surgery, and shut the door behind me.

  I closed my eyes, hands braced on the empty counter. I felt a sudden, irrational urge to hit something-and did. I slammed my fist on the counter, pounded it again and again with the meaty side of my hand, but it was built so solidly that my blows made scarcely any sound, and I stopped, panting.

  What on earth was the matter with me? Annoying as Mrs. Bug's interference was, it was not critical. Neither was Mrs. Chisholm's maternal pugnacity-she and her little fiends would be gone from the house sooner or later. Sooner, I hoped.