Written in My Own Heart's Blood, Page 35

  their audience with Captain Buncombe almost two weeks before. Randall was seated behind the desk, quill in hand, but looked up with a courteous expression at Roger’s entrance and half rose, with a small bow.

  “Your servant, sir. Mr. MacKenzie, is that right? You’ve come from Lallybroch, I collect.”

  “Your most obedient, sir,” Roger replied, adjusting his accent back to his normal Scots-tinged Oxbridge. “Mr. Brian Fraser was good enough to give me the object that you brought. I wanted both to thank you for your kind assistance—and to ask whether you might be able to tell me where the object was discovered.”

  He knew about the banality of evil; human monsters came in human shapes. Even so, he was surprised. Randall was a handsome man, rather elegant in bearing, with a lively, interested expression, a humorous curve to his mouth, and warm dark eyes.

  Well, he is human. And perhaps he’s not a monster yet.

  “One of my messengers brought it in,” Randall replied, wiping his quill and dropping it into a stoneware jar full of such objects. “My predecessor, Captain Buncombe, had sent dispatches to Fort George and Fort Augustus about your son—I am very sorry for your situation,” he added rather formally. “A patrol from Ruthven Barracks had brought the ornament in. I’m afraid I don’t know where they discovered it, but perhaps the messenger who brought it from Ruthven does. I’ll send for him.”

  Randall went to the door and spoke to the sentry outside. Coming back, he paused to open a cupboard, which revealed a wig stand, a powdering shaker, a pair of hairbrushes, a looking glass, and a small tray with a cut-glass decanter and glasses.

  “Allow me to offer you refreshment, sir.” Randall poured a cautious inch into each glass and offered one to Roger. He picked up his own, his nostrils flaring slightly at the scent of the whisky. “The nectar of the country, I’m given to understand,” he said with a wry smile. “I am told I must develop a taste for it.” He took a wary sip, looking as though he expected imminent death to result.

  “If I might suggest … a bit of water mixed with it is customary,” Roger said, carefully keeping all trace of amusement out of his voice. “Some say it opens the flavor, makes it smoother.”

  “Oh, really?” Randall put down his glass, looking relieved. “That seems sensible. The stuff tastes as though it’s flammable. Sanders!” he shouted toward the door. “Bring some water!”

  There was a slight pause, neither man knowing quite what to say next.

  “The, um, thing,” Randall said. “Might I see it again? It’s quite remarkable. Is it a jewel of some kind? An ornament?”

  “No. It’s a … sort of charm,” Roger said, fishing the dog tags out of his pocket. He felt an ache in his chest at thought of the small personal rituals that the fliers did—a lucky stone in the pocket, a special scarf, the name of a woman painted on the nose of a plane. Charms. Tiny bits of hopeful magic, protection against a vast sky filled with fire and death. “To preserve the soul.” In memory, at least.

  Randall frowned a little, glancing from the dog tags to Roger’s face, then back. He was clearly thinking the same thing Roger was: And if the charm is detached from the person it was meant to protect … But he didn’t say anything, merely touched the green tag gently.

  “J. W. Your son’s name is Jeremiah, I understand?”

  “Yes. Jeremiah’s an old family name. It was my father’s name. I—” He was interrupted by the entrance of Private MacDonald, a very young soldier, dripping wet and slightly blue with cold, who saluted Captain Randall smartly, then gave way to a rattling cough that shook his spindly frame.

  Once recovered, he complied at once with Randall’s order to tell Roger all he knew about the dog tags—but he didn’t know much. One of the soldiers stationed at Ruthven Barracks had won them in a dice game at a local pub. He did recall the name of the pub—the Fatted Grouse; he’d drunk there himself—and he thought the soldier had said he’d won the bawbee from a farmer come back from the market in Perth.

  “Do you recall the name of the soldier who won them?” Roger asked.

  “Oh, aye, sir. ’Twas Sergeant McLehose. And now I think—” A broad grin at the recollection showed crooked teeth. “I mind me of the farmer’s name, too! ’Twas Mr. Anthony Cumberpatch. It did tickle Sergeant McLehose, bein’ foreign and soundin’ like ‘cucumber patch.’ ” He sniggered, and Roger smiled himself. Captain Randall cleared his throat, and the sniggering stopped abruptly, Private MacDonald snapping to a sober attention.

  “Thank you, Mr. MacDonald,” Randall said dryly. “That will be all.”

  Private MacDonald, abashed, saluted and left. There was a moment’s silence, during which Roger became aware of the rain, grown harder now, clattering like gravel on the large casement window. A chilly draft leaked around its frame and touched his face. Glancing at the window, he saw the drill yard below, and the whipping post, a grim crucifix stark and solitary, black in the rain.

  Oh, God.

  Carefully, he folded up the dog tags again and put them away in his pocket. Then met Captain Randall’s dark eyes directly.

  “Did Captain Buncombe tell you, sir, that I am a minister?”

  Randall’s brows rose in brief surprise.

  “No, he didn’t.” Randall was plainly wondering why Roger should mention this, but he was courteous. “My younger brother is a clergyman. Ah … Church of England, of course.” There was the faintest implied question there, and Roger answered it with a smile.

  “I am a minister of the Church of Scotland myself, sir. But if I might … will ye allow me to offer a blessing? For the success of my kinsman and myself—and in thanks for your kind help to us.”

  “I—” Randall blinked, clearly discomfited. “I—suppose so. Er … all right.” He leaned back a little, looking wary, hands on his blotter. He was completely taken aback when Roger leaned forward and grasped both his hands firmly. Randall gave a start, but Roger held tight, eyes on the captain’s.

  “Oh, Lord,” he said, “we ask thy blessing on our works. Guide me and my kinsman in our quest, and guide this man in his new office. May your light and presence be with us and with him, and your judgment and compassion ever on us. I commend him to your care. Amen.”

  His voice cracked on the last word, and he let go Randall’s hands and coughed, looking away as he cleared his throat.

  Randall cleared his throat, too, in embarrassment, but kept his poise.

  “I thank you for your … er … good wishes, Mr. MacKenzie. And I wish you good luck. And good day.”

  “The same to you, Captain,” Roger said, rising. “God be with you.”

  BABY JESUS, TELL ME …

  Boston, November 15, 1980

  DR. JOSEPH ABERNATHY pulled into his driveway, looking forward to a cold beer and a hot supper. The mailbox was full; he pulled out a handful of circulars and envelopes and went inside, tidily sorting them as he went.

  “Bill, bill, occupant, junk, junk, more junk, charity appeal, bill, idiot, bill, invitation … hi, sweetie—” He paused for a fragrant kiss from his wife, followed by a second sniff of her hair. “Oh, man, are we having brats and sauerkraut for dinner?”

  “You are,” his wife told him, neatly snagging her jacket from the hall tree with one hand and squeezing his buttock with the other. “I’m going to a meeting with Marilyn. Be back by nine, if the rain doesn’t make the traffic too bad. Anything good in the mail?”

  “Nah. Have fun!”

  She rolled her eyes at him and left before he could ask if she’d bought Bud. He tossed the half-sorted mail on the kitchen counter and opened the refrigerator to check. A gleaming red-and-white six-pack beckoned cheerily, and the warm air was so tangy with the smells of fried sausage and vinegar that he could taste it without even taking the lid off the pan sitting on the stove.

  “A good woman is prized above rubies,” he said, inhaling blissfully and pulling a can loose from its plastic ring.

  He was halfway through the first plate of food and two-thirds of th
e way into his second beer when he put down the sports section of the Globe and saw the letter on top of the spilled pile of mail. He recognized Bree’s handwriting at once; it was big and round, with a determined rightward slant—but there was something wrong with the letter.

  He picked it up, frowning a little, wondering why it looked strange … and then realized that the stamp was wrong. She wrote at least once a month, sending photos of the kids, telling him about her job, the farm—and the letters all had British stamps, purple and blue heads of Queen Elizabeth. This one had an American stamp.

  He slowly set down the letter as though it might explode and swallowed the rest of the beer in one gulp. Fortified, he set his jaw and picked it up.

  “Tell me you and Rog took the kids to Disneyland, Bree,” he murmured, licking mustard off his knife before using it to slit the envelope. She’d talked about doing that someday. “Baby Jesus, tell me this is a photo of Jem shaking hands with Mickey Mouse.”

  Much to his relief, it was a photo of both children at Disneyland, beaming at the camera from Mickey Mouse’s embrace, and he laughed out loud. Then he saw the tiny key that had fallen out of the envelope—the key to a bank’s safe-deposit box. He set down the photo, went and got another beer, and sat down deliberately to read the brief note enclosed with the photo.

  Dear Uncle Joe,

  I’m taking the kids to see Grandma and Grandpa. I don’t know when we’ll be back; could you please see to things while we’re gone? (Instructions in the box.)

  Thank you for everything, always. I’ll miss you. I love you.

  Bree

  He sat for a long time next to the cold grease congealing on his plate, looking at the bright, happy photo.

  “Jesus, girl,” he said softly. “What’s happened? And what do you mean you’re taking the kids? Where the hell’s Roger?”

  SOMETHING SUITABLE IN WHICH TO GO TO WAR

  June 19, 1778 Philadelphia

  I WOKE COMPLETELY disoriented, to the splat of water dripping into a wooden bucket, the sharp smells of wood pulp and printer’s ink, the softer musk of Jamie’s body and frying bacon, the clank of pewter plates, and the loud braying of a mule. The latter noise brought back memory at once, and I sat up, sheet clutched to my bosom.

  I was naked, and I was in the loft of Fergus’s printshop. When we had left Kingsessing the day before, during a brief pause in the rain, we had found Fergus patiently sheltering in a toolshed near the gates, Clarence the mule and two horses tethered under its eaves.

  “You haven’t been out here all this time!” I’d blurted upon seeing him.

  “Did it take that long?” he inquired, cocking a dark brow at Jamie and giving him the sort of knowing look that Frenchmen appear to be born with.

  “Mmphm,” Jamie replied ambiguously, and took my arm. “I rode Clarence out, Sassenach, but I asked Fergus to come on a wee bit later wi’ a horse for you. The mule canna carry us both, and my back willna stand walking that far.”

  “What’s the matter with your back?” I asked, suspicious.

  “Nothing that a night’s sleep in a good bed willna cure,” he replied, and, stooping so I could put a foot in his hands, tossed me up into the saddle.

  It had been past dark when we made it back to the printshop. I’d sent Germain at once to Jenny at Number 17 with word where I was but had gone to bed with Jamie before he came back. I wondered vaguely who else was at the house on Chestnut Street and what they were doing: was Hal still a captive, or had Young Ian decided to release him? If not, had Hal assassinated Denny Hunter, or had Mrs. Figg shot him?

  Jamie had told me he’d left Ian in charge of the situation—or situations; there seemed to have been a great deal going on the day before. All of it seemed unreal and dreamlike, both the events I’d participated in and the ones Jamie had told me about on the ride back. The only vividly real recollection I had was of our conversation in the garden—and what followed it, in the potting shed. My flesh still felt the echoes.

  Breakfast was plainly preparing below; besides the delectable scent of frying bacon, I could smell toasted yeast bread and fresh honey. My stomach gave a loud gurgle at this, and as though the sound had caused it, the ladder leading up into the loft began to shake. Someone was coming up, moving slowly, and in case it wasn’t Jamie, I seized my shift and pulled it hastily over my head.

  It wasn’t. A pewter tray rose slowly into sight, laid with a plate piled with food, a bowl of porridge, and a pottery mug of something steaming; it couldn’t be tea and didn’t smell like coffee. As the tray levitated, Henri-Christian’s beaming face appeared below it; he was balancing the thing on his head.

  I held my breath until he’d stepped off the ladder, and then, as he removed the tray from his head and presented it to me with a ceremonious little bow, applauded.

  “Merveilleux!” I told him, and he grinned from ear to ear.

  “Félicité wanted to try,” he told me proudly, “but she can’t do it with a full tray yet. She spills.”

  “Well, we can’t have that. Thank you, sweetheart.” I leaned forward to kiss him—his dark wavy hair smelled of woodsmoke and ink—and took the mug. “What’s this?”

  He looked at it dubiously and shrugged. “It’s hot.”

  “So it is.” I cradled the mug in my hands. The loft had been warm the night before, the day’s heat trapped under the roof, but it had rained most of the night, and the chilly damp had come through the holes in the roof—four or five vessels placed under the leaks made a symphony of plinking sounds. “Where’s Grand-père?”

  Henri-Christian’s face at once went bright red, his lips pressed tight together, and he shook his head vigorously.

  “What?” I said, surprised. “Is it a secret?”

  “Don’t you tell her!” Joanie’s shrill voice floated up from the shop below. “Grand-père said not to!”

  “Oh, a surprise, is it?” I asked, smiling. “Well, perhaps you’d best go down and help your mama, then, so you don’t give it away by mistake.”

  He giggled, hands pressed over his mouth, then reached up over his head, gave a convulsive leap, and flipped over backward, landing adroitly on his hands. He walked on them to the ladder, stocky little legs splayed to keep his balance, and for an instant my heart was in my mouth as he reached the edge and I thought he might try to go down the ladder upside down. He flipped over again, though, landing neatly on the top rung, and scampered out of sight like a squirrel, giggling all the way down.

  Smiling, I plumped up the sparse bedding—we had slept on a flattened pallet of worn straw from the stable, which smelled rather strongly of Clarence, and on our half-dried cloaks, covered with a spare sheet and a ragged blanket, though Joanie and Félicité had given us one of their feather pillows, they sharing the other—and sat back against the wall, the tray perched on a keg of ink powder. I was surrounded by stacks of paper, these shielded by oilcloth from the leaks. Some of it was blank reams awaiting the press, some of it pamphlets, circulars, posters, or the guts of unbound books, awaiting delivery to customers or to the bookbinder.

  I could hear Marsali’s voice below, back in the living quarters behind the shop, raised in maternal command. No male voices but Henri-Christian’s, though; Fergus and Germain must have gone out with Clarence the mule to make the morning deliveries of L’Oignon, the satirical newspaper started by Fergus and Marsali in North Carolina.

  Normally, L’Oignon was a weekly paper, but there was a copy on my tray of the special edition for today, with a large cartoon on the first page, showing the British army as a horde of cockroaches, fleeing Philadelphia with tattered flags dragging behind them and trailing ribbon banners filled with speeches of futile threat. A large buckled shoe labeled General Washington was squashing some of the more laggard roaches.

  There was a large glob of opaque yellow-white honey melting slowly in the middle of the porridge; I stirred it in, poured a bit of cream over it, and settled down to enjoy breakfast in bed, along with an article noting the i
mminent entrance into Philadelphia of General Arnold, who was taking office as the military governor of the city, welcoming him and praising his military record and gallant exploits at Saratoga.

  How long? I thought then, setting down the paper with a small shiver. When? I had the feeling that it had been—would be—much later in the war, when circumstance turned Benedict Arnold from patriot to traitor. But I didn’t know.

  It didn’t matter, I told myself firmly. I couldn’t change it. And long before that happened, we would be safely back on the Ridge, rebuilding our house and our lives. Jamie was alive. Everything would be all right.

  The bell over the shop door below rang, and there was an excited gabble as the children stampeded out of the kitchen. The soft rumble of Jamie’s voice floated up over the confusion of shrill greetings, and I caught Marsali’s voice among them, stunned.

  “Da! What have ye done?”

  Alarmed, I scrambled out of my nest and went on hands and knees to the edge of the loft to look down. Jamie stood in the middle of the shop, surrounded by admiring children, his loose hair spangled with raindrops, cloak folded over his arm—dressed in the dark blue and buff of a Continental officer.

  “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” I exclaimed. He looked up and his eyes met mine like those of a guilty puppy.

  “I’m sorry, Sassenach,” he said apologetically. “I had to.”

  HE’D COME UP to the loft and pulled the ladder up behind him, to prevent the children coming up. I was dressing quickly—or trying to—as he told me about Dan Morgan, about Washington and the other Continental generals. About the coming battle.

  “Sassenach, I had to,” he said again, softly. “I’m that sorry.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know you did.” My lips were stiff. “I—you—I’m sorry, too.”

  I was trying to fasten the dozen tiny buttons that closed the bodice of my gown, but my hands shook so badly that I couldn’t even grasp them. I stopped trying and dug my hairbrush out of the bag he’d brought me from the Chestnut Street house.

  He made a small sound in his throat and took it out of my hand. He threw it onto our makeshift couch and put his arms around me, holding me tight with my face buried in his chest. The cloth of his new uniform smelled of fresh indigo, walnut hulls, and fuller’s earth; it felt strange and stiff against my face. I couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Talk to me, a nighean,” he whispered into my tangled hair. “I’m afraid, and I dinna want to feel so verra much alone just now. Speak to me.”

  “Why has it always got to be you?” I blurted into his chest.

  That made him laugh, a little shakily, and I realized that all the trembling wasn’t coming from me.

  “It’s no just me,” he said, and stroked my hair. “There are a thousand other men readying themselves today—more—who dinna want to do it, either.”

  “I know,” I said again. My breathing was a little steadier. “I know.” I turned my face to the side in order to breathe, and all of a sudden began to cry, quite without warning.

  “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I don’t mean—I don’t want t-to make it h-harder for you. I—I—oh, Jamie, when I knew you were alive—I wanted so much to go home. To go home with you.”

  His arms tightened hard round me. He didn’t speak, and I knew it was because he couldn’t.

  “So did I,” he whispered at last. “And we will, a nighean. I promise ye.”

  The sounds from below floated up around us: the sounds of children running back and forth between the shop and the kitchen, Marsali singing to herself in Gaelic as she made fresh ink for the press from varnish and lampblack. The door opened, and cool, rainy air blew in with Fergus and Germain, adding their voices to the cheerful confusion.

  We stood wrapped in each other’s arms, taking comfort from our family below, yearning for the others we might never see again, at once at home and homeless, balanced on a knife edge of danger and uncertainty. But together.

  “You’re not going off to war without me,” I said firmly, straightening up and sniffing. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I wouldna dream of it,” he assured me gravely, went to wipe his nose on his uniform sleeve, thought better of it, and stopped, looking at me helplessly. I laughed—tremulous, but it was a laugh nonetheless—and gave him the handkerchief I’d tucked automatically into my bosom when I fastened my stays. Like Jenny, I always had one.

  “Sit down,” I said, swallowing as I picked up the hairbrush. “I’ll plait your hair for you.”

  He’d washed it this morning; it was clean and damp, the soft red strands cool in my hands and smelling—oddly—of French soap, scented with bergamot. I rather missed the scent of sweat and cabbage that had surrounded me all night.

  “Where did you bathe?” I asked curiously.

  “At the house on Chestnut Street,” he answered, a little tersely. “My sister made me. She said I couldna turn up to be a general smelling like a stale dinner, and there was a tub and hot water to spare.”

  “Did she?” I murmured. “Um … speaking of Chestnut Street … how is His Grace, the Duke of Pardloe?”

  “Gone before dawn, Jenny said,” he said, bending his head to aid in the plaiting. His neck was warm under my fingers. “According to Ian, Denny Hunter said he was well enough to go, provided that he took along a flask of your magic potion. So Mrs. Figg gave him back his breeches—wi’ some reluctance, I understand—and he went.”