Written in My Own Heart's Blood, Page 6

  he could go on and gathered up the reins again.

  All that could wait. But he needed to see Claire before he did anything else. Just now he had no idea what he would say—or do—when he saw her, but he needed to see her, with the same sort of need that a man might feel who’d been cast away at sea, marooned without food or water for weeks on end.

  JOHN GREY’S BLOOD was thrumming in his ears so loudly that he barely heard the discussion among his captors, who—having taken the elementary precautions of searching him and tying his hands together in front of him—had gathered into a knot a few yards away and were heatedly hissing at one another like geese in a barnyard, casting occasional hostile glares in his direction.

  He didn’t care. He couldn’t see out of his left eye and he was by now quite certain that his liver was ruptured, but he didn’t care about that, either. He’d told Jamie Fraser the truth—the whole bloody truth—and felt the same fierce constellation of feelings that attends victory in battle: the bone-deep relief of being alive, the giddy surge of emotion that carries you on a wave much like drunkenness, then ebbs and leaves you staggering light-headed on the beach—and an absolute inability to count the cost ’til later.

  His knees experienced much the same post-battle sensations and gave way. He sat down unceremoniously in the leaves and closed his good eye.

  After a short interval in which he was aware of nothing much beyond the gradual slowing of his heart, the thrumming noise in his ears began to abate, and he noticed that someone was calling his name.

  “Lord Grey!” the voice said again, louder, and close enough that he felt a warmly fetid gust of tobacco-laden breath on his face.

  “My name is not Lord Grey,” he said, rather crossly, opening his eye. “I told you.”

  “You said you were Lord John Grey,” his interlocutor said, frowning through a mat of grizzled facial hair. It was the large man in the filthy hunting shirt who had first discovered him with Fraser.

  “I am. If you bloody have to talk to me, call me ‘my lord,’ or just ‘sir,’ if you like. What do you want?”

  The man reared back a little, looking indignant.

  “Well, since you ask … sir, first off, we want to know if this elder brother of yours is Major General Charles Grey.”

  “No.”

  “No?” The man’s unkempt eyebrows drew together. “Do you know Major General Charles Grey? Is he kin to you?”

  “Yes, he is. He’s …” Grey tried to calculate the precise degree, but gave it up and flapped a hand. “Cousin of some sort.”

  There was a satisfied rumble from the faces now peering down at him. The man called Woodbine squatted down next to him, a square of folded paper in his hand.

  “Lord John,” he said, more or less politely. “You said that you don’t hold an active commission in His Majesty’s army at present?”

  “That’s correct.” Grey fought back a sudden unexpected urge to yawn. The excitement in his blood had died away now and he wanted to lie down.

  “Then would you care to explain these documents, my lord? We found them in your breeches.” He unfolded the papers carefully and held them under Grey’s nose.

  John peered at them with his working eye. The note on top was from General Clinton’s adjutant: a brief request for Grey to attend upon the general at his earliest convenience. Yes, he’d seen that, though he’d barely glanced at it before the cataclysmic arrival of Jamie Fraser, risen from the dead, had driven it from his mind. Despite what had occurred in the meantime, he couldn’t help smiling. Alive. The bloody man was alive!

  Then Woodbine took the note away, revealing the paper beneath: the document that had come attached to Clinton’s note. It was a small piece of paper, bearing a red wax seal and instantly identifiable; it was an officer’s warrant, his proof of commission, to be carried on his person at all times. Grey blinked at it in simple disbelief, the spidery clerk’s writing wavering before his eyes. But written at the bottom, below the King’s signature, was another, this one executed in a bold, black, all-too-recognizable scrawl.

  “Hal!” he exclaimed. “You bastard!”

  “TOLD YOU HE was a soldier,” the small man with the cracked spectacles said, eyeing Grey from under the edge of his knitted KILL! hat with an avidity that Grey found very objectionable. “Not just a soldier, neither; he’s a spy! Why, we could hang him out o’ hand, this very minute!”

  There was an outburst of noticeable enthusiasm for this course of action, quelled with some difficulty by Corporal Woodbine, who stood up and shouted louder than the proponents of immediate execution, until those espousing it reluctantly fell back, muttering. Grey sat clutching the commission crumpled in his bound hands, heart hammering.

  They bloody could hang him. Howe had done just that to a Continental captain named Hale, not two years before, when Hale was caught gathering intelligence while dressed as a civilian, and the Rebels would like nothing better than a chance to retaliate. William had been present, both at Hale’s arrest and his execution, and had given Grey a brief account of the matter, shocking in its starkness.

  William. Jesus, William! Caught up in the immediacy of the situation, Grey had had barely a thought to spare for his son. He and Fraser had absquatulated onto the roof and down a drainpipe, leaving William, clearly reeling with the shock of revelation, alone in the upstairs hallway.

  No. No, not alone. Claire had been there, and the thought of her steadied him a bit. She would have been able to talk to Willie, calm him, explain … well, possibly not explain, and possibly not calm, either—but at least if Grey was hanged in the next few minutes, William wouldn’t be left to face things entirely alone.

  “We’re taking him back to camp,” Woodbine was saying doggedly, not for the first time. “What good would it do to hang him here?”

  “One less redcoat? Seems like a good thing to me!” riposted the burly thug in the hunting shirt.

  “Now, Gershon, I’m not saying as how we shouldn’t hang him. I said, not here and now.” Woodbine, musket held in both hands, looked slowly round the circle of men, fixing each one with his gaze. “Not here, not now,” he repeated. Grey admired Woodbine’s force of character and narrowly kept himself from nodding agreement.

  “We’re taking him back to camp. You all heard what he said; Major General Charles Grey’s kin to him. Might be as Colonel Smith will want to hang him in camp—or might even be as he’ll want to send this man to General Wayne. Remember Paoli!”

  “Remember Paoli!” Ragged cries echoed the call, and Grey rubbed at his swollen eye with his sleeve—tears were leaking from it and irritating his face. Paoli? What the devil was Paoli? And what had it to do with whether, when, or how he should be hanged? He decided not to ask at just this moment and, when they hauled him to his feet, went along with them without complaint.

  HOMO EST OBLIGAMUS AEROBE (“MAN IS AN OBLIGATE AEROBE”)—HIPPOCRATES

  THE DUKE’S FACE WAS dangerously flushed when Number Thirty-Nine ceremoniously opened the sedan chair’s door, and not, I thought, from the heat.

  “You wanted to see your brother, did you not?” I inquired, before he could gather enough breath to say any of the things on his mind. I gestured toward the house. “This is his house.” The fact that John was not presently in the house could wait.

  He gave me a marked look, but he was still short of breath and wisely saved it, irritably waving off Number Forty’s helping hand as he struggled out of the sedan chair. He did pay the chairmen—rather fortunate, as I hadn’t any more money with me—and, wheezing, bowed and offered me his arm. I took it, not wanting him to fall on his face in the front garden. Germain, who had kept up with the chair without noticeable effort, followed at a tactful distance.

  Mrs. Figg was standing in the front doorway, watching our approach with interest. The broken door was now lying on a pair of trestles next to a camellia bush, having been removed from its hinges, and was presumably awaiting some sort of professional attention.

  “
May I present Mrs. Mortimer Figg, Your Grace?” I said politely, with a nod in her direction. “Mrs. Figg is his lordship’s cook and housekeeper. Mrs. Figg, this is His Grace, the Duke of Pardloe. Lord John’s brother.”

  I saw her lips form the words “Merde on toast,” but fortunately without sound. She moved nimbly down the steps despite her bulk and took Hal by the other arm, shoring him up, as he was beginning to turn blue again.

  “Purse your lips and blow,” I said shortly. “Now!” He made an ugly choking noise but did start blowing, though making evil grimaces in my direction.

  “What in the name of the everlasting Holy Ghost did you do to him?” Mrs. Figg asked me accusingly. “Sounds like he’s about to die.”

  “Saved his life, to start with,” I snapped. “Ups-a-daisy, Your Grace!” and between us we hoicked him up the steps. “Then I saved him from being stoned and beaten by a mob—with Germain’s invaluable help,” I added, glancing back at Germain, who grinned hugely. I was also in the act of abducting him, but I thought we needn’t go into that.

  “And I’m about to save his life again, I think,” I said, pausing on the porch to pant for a moment myself. “Have we a bedroom we can put him in? William’s, perhaps?”

  “Will—” the duke began, but then started to cough spasmodically, going a nasty shade of puce. “Wh—wh—”

  “Oh, I was forgetting,” I said. “Of course, William’s your nephew, isn’t he? He’s not here just now.” I looked narrowly at Mrs. Figg, who snorted briefly but said nothing. “Blow, Your Grace.”

  Inside, I saw that some progress had been made toward restoring order. The debris had been swept into a neat pile by the open doorway, and Jenny Murray was sitting on an ottoman beside it, picking unbroken crystals from the fallen chandelier out of the rubbish and dropping them into a bowl. She lifted an eyebrow at me but rose unhurriedly to her feet, putting the bowl aside.

  “What d’ye need, Claire?” she said.

  “Boiling water,” I said, grunting slightly as we maneuvered Pardloe—he was lean and fine-boned, like John, but a solid man, nonetheless—into a wing chair. “Mrs. Figg? Cups, several cups, and, Jenny, my medicine chest. Don’t lose your rhythm, Your Grace—blow … two … three … four—don’t gasp. Sip the air—you’ll get enough, I promise.” Hal’s face was twitching, shining with sweat, and while he still had control over himself, I could see panic creasing the lines around his eyes as his airways closed.

  I fought down a similar sense of panic; it wouldn’t serve either of us. The fact was that he could die. He was having a severe asthmatic attack, and even with access to epinephrine injections and the facilities of a major hospital, people did die in such circumstances, whether of a heart attack brought on by stress and lack of oxygen or from simple suffocation.

  His hands were clenched on his knees, the moleskin breeches crumpled and dark with sweat, and the cords of his neck stood out with strain. With some difficulty, I pried one of his hands loose and grasped it strongly in mine; I had to distract him from the panic darkening his mind, if he was to have any chance at all.

  “Look at me,” I said, leaning close and looking straight into his eyes. “It’s going to be all right. Do you hear me? Nod if you can hear me.”

  He managed a short nod. He was blowing, but too fast; no more than a wisp of air touched my cheek. I squeezed his hand.

  “Slower,” I said, my voice as calm as I could make it. “Breathe with me, now. Purse your lips … blow …” I tapped out a regular count of four on his knee with my free hand, as slow as I dared. He ran out of air between two and three but kept his lips pursed, straining.

  “Slow!” I said sharply as his mouth opened, gasping, starving for air. “Let it come by itself; one … two … blow!” I could hear Jenny hurrying down the stairs with my medicine chest. Mrs. Figg had departed like a great rushing wind in the direction of the cookhouse, where she kept a cauldron boiling—yes, here she came, three teacups looped over the fingers of one hand, a can of hot water wrapped in a towel clutched to her bosom with the other.

  “… three … four—joint fir, Jenny—one … two … blow out, two … three … four—a good handful in each cup—two, yes, that’s it … blow …” Still holding his gaze, willing him to blow—it was all that was keeping his airways open. If he lost his rhythm, he’d lose what little air pressure he had, the airways would collapse, and then—I shoved the thought aside, squeezing his hand as hard as I could, and gave disjoint directions between chanting the rhythm. Joint fir … what the bloody hell else did I have?

  Not much, was the answer. Bowman’s root, jimsonweed—much too dangerously toxic, and not fast enough. “Spikenard, Jenny,” I said abruptly. “The root—grind it.” I pointed at the second cup, then the third. “… two … three … four …” A large handful of crumbled joint fir (aptly named; it looked like a pile of miniature sticks) had been placed in each cup and was already steeping. I’d give him the first as soon as it had cooled enough to drink, but it took a good half hour of steeping to get a truly effective concentration. “More cups, please, Mrs. Figg—in, one … two … that’s good …”

  The hand in mine was slick with sweat, but he was gripping me with all the strength he had; I could feel my bones grind, and twisted my hand a bit to ease them. He saw and released the pressure a little. I leaned in, cradling his hand in both of mine—not incidentally taking the opportunity to get my fingers on his pulse.

  “You aren’t going to die,” I said to him, quietly but as forcefully as I could. “I won’t let you.” The flicker of something much too faint to be a smile passed behind those winter-sharp blue eyes, but he hadn’t enough breath even to think of speaking. His lips were still blue and his face paper-white, in spite of the temperature.

  The first cup of joint-fir tea helped briefly, the heat and moisture doing as much as the herb; joint fir did contain epinephrine and was the only really good treatment for asthma I had available—but there wasn’t enough of the active principle in a cup of the stuff after only ten minutes’ brewing. Even the momentary sense of relief steadied him, though. His hand turned, fingers linking with mine, and he squeezed back.

  A fighter. I knew one when I saw one and smiled involuntarily.

  “Start three more cups, please, Jenny?” If he drank them slowly—and he couldn’t do more than sip briefly between gasps—and continuously, we should have got a decent amount of stimulant into him by the end of the sixth, most-concentrated cup. “And, Mrs. Figg, if you would boil three handfuls of the joint fir and half that of spikenard in a pint of coffee for a quarter hour, then let it steep?” If he wasn’t going to die, I wanted a concentrated tincture of Ephedra easily on hand; this obviously wasn’t his first attack, and—if it wasn’t his last—there’d be another sometime. And quite possibly sometime soon.

  The back of my mind had been ticking through diagnostic possibilities, and now that I was fairly sure he was going to survive the moment, I could spare time to think about them consciously.

  Sweat was pouring down the fine-cut bones of his face; I’d got his coat, waistcoat, and leather stock off first thing, and his shirtfront was pasted to his chest, his breeches black-wet in the creases of his groin. No wonder, though, between the heat of the day, his exertions, and the hot tea. The blue tinge was fading from his lips, and there was no sign of edema in face or hands … no distention of the blood vessels in his neck, in spite of his effort.

  I could hear the crackling rales in his lungs easily without a stethoscope, but he showed no thoracic enlargement; his torso was as trim as John’s, a bit narrower through the chest. Probably not a chronic obstructive pulmonary condition, then … and I didn’t think he had congestive heart failure. His color when I met him had been good, and his pulse was presently thumping against my fingers very steadily, fast, but no flutters, no arrhythmia …

  I became aware of Germain hovering by my elbow, staring interestedly at the duke, who was now sufficiently himself as to lift an eyebrow in the boy’s direct
ion, though still unable to speak.

  “Mmm?” I said, before resuming my now-automatic counting of breaths.

  “I’m only thinking, Grand-mère, as how himself there”—Germain nodded at Pardloe—“might be missed. Had I maybe best carry a message to someone, so as they aren’t sending out soldiers after him? The chairmen will talk, will they not?”

  “Ah.” That was a thought, all right. General Clinton, for one, certainly knew that Pardloe was in my company when last seen. I had no idea with whom Pardloe might be traveling or whether he was in command of his regiment. If he was, people would be looking for him right now; an officer couldn’t be gone from his place for long without someone noticing.

  And Germain—an observant lad, if ever there was one—was right about the chairmen. Their numbers meant they were registered with the central chairmen’s agency in Philadelphia; it would be the work of a moment for the general’s staff to locate numbers Thirty-Nine and Forty and find out where they’d delivered the Duke of Pardloe.

  Jenny, who had been tending the array of teacups, stepped in now with the next and knelt by Pardloe, nodding to me that she would see to his breathing while I talked to Germain.

  “He told the chairmen to bring me to the King’s Arms,” I said to Germain, taking him out onto the porch, where we could confer unheard. “And I met him at General Clinton’s office in the—”

  “I ken where it is, Grand-mère.”

  “I daresay you do. Have you something in mind?”

  “Well, I’m thinkin’—” He glanced into the house, then back at me, eyes narrowed in thought. “How long d’ye mean to keep him prisoner, Grand-mère?”

  So my motives hadn’t escaped Germain. I wasn’t surprised; he undoubtedly had heard all about the day’s excitements from Mrs. Figg—and, knowing as he did who Jamie was, had probably deduced even more. I wondered if he’d seen William. If so, he likely knew everything. If he didn’t, though, there was no need to reveal that little complication until it was necessary.

  “Until your grandfather comes back,” I said. “Or possibly Lord John,” I added as an afterthought. I hoped with all my being that Jamie would come back shortly. But it might be that he would find it necessary to stay outside the city and send John in to bring me news. “The minute I let the duke go, he’ll be turning the city upside down in search of his brother. Always assuming for the sake of argument that he doesn’t drop dead in the process.” And the very last thing I wanted was to instigate a dragnet in which Jamie might be snared.

  Germain rubbed his chin thoughtfully—a peculiar gesture in a child too young for whiskers, but his father to the life, and I smiled.

  “That’s maybe not too long,” he said. “Grand-père will come back directly; he was wild to see ye last night.” He grinned at me, then looked through the open doorway, pursing his lips.

  “As to himself, ye canna hide where he is,” he said. “But if ye were to send a note to the general, and maybe another to the King’s Arms, saying as how His Grace was staying with Lord John, they wouldna start searching for him right away. And even if someone was to come here later and inquire, I suppose ye might give him a wee dram that would keep him quiet so ye could tell them he was gone. Or maybe lock him in a closet? Tied up wi’ a gag if it should be he’s got his voice back by then,” he added. Germain was a very logical, thorough-minded sort of person; he got it from Marsali.

  “Excellent thought,” I said, forbearing to comment on the relative merits of the options for keeping Pardloe incommunicado. “Let me do that now.”

  Pausing for a quick look at Pardloe, who was doing better though still wheezing strongly, I whipped upstairs and flipped open John’s writing desk. It was the work of a moment to mix the ink powder and write the notes. I hesitated briefly over the signature but then caught sight of John’s signet on the dressing table; he hadn’t had time to put it on.

  The thought gave me a slight pang; in the overwhelming joy of seeing Jamie alive, and then the shock of William’s advent, Jamie’s taking John hostage, and the violence of William’s exit—dear Lord, where was William now?—I had pushed John to the back of my mind.

  Still, I told myself, he was quite safe. Jamie wouldn’t let any harm come to him, and directly he came back into Philadelphia—the chiming of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece interrupted me, and I glanced at it: four o’clock.

  “Time flies when you’re having fun,” I murmured to myself, and, scribbling a reasonable facsimile of John’s signature, I lit the candle from the embers in the hearth, dripped wax on the folded notes, and stamped them with the smiling half-moon ring. Maybe John would be back before the notes were even delivered. And Jamie, surely, would be with me as soon as darkness made it safe.

  A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF MEN

  JAMIE WASN’T ALONE on the road. He’d been dimly aware of horses passing by, heard the distant talk of men on foot, but now that he’d come out of his red haze, he was startled to see how many there were. He saw what was plainly a militia company—not marching, but on the move as a body, knots and clumps of men, solitary riders—and a few wagons coming from the city, piled with goods, women and children afoot beside them.

  He’d seen a few folk leaving Philadelphia when he’d come in the day before—God, was it only yesterday?—and thought to ask Fergus about it, but in the excitement of arrival and the later complications had quite forgotten.

  His sense of disturbance increased and he kicked up his horse to a faster pace. It was no more than ten miles to the city; he’d be there long before nightfall.

  Maybe just as well if it’s dark, he thought grimly. Easier to have things out with Claire alone and undisturbed—and whether the having-out led to beating or bed, he wanted no interference.

  The thought was like the striking of one of Brianna’s matches. Just the word “bed” and he was aflame with fresh rage.

  “Ifrinn!” he said aloud, and slammed his fist against the pommel. All the trouble to calm himself, and all to waste in an instant! God damn it—damn him, damn her, John Grey—damn everything!

  “Mr. Fraser!”

  He jerked as though shot in the back, and the horse slowed at once, snorting.

  “Mr. Fraser!” came the loud, wheezy voice again, and Daniel Morgan came trotting up alongside on a small, sturdy bay, grinning all over his big scarred face. “Knew that was you, knew it! Ain’t no other rascal that size with that color hair, and if there is one, I don’t want to meet him.”

  “Colonel Morgan,” he said, noting auld Dan’s unaccustomed uniform with the fresh insignia on the collar. “On your way to a wedding?” He did his best to smile, though the turmoil inside him was like the whirlpools off the rocks of Stroma.

  “What? Oh, that,” said Dan, trying to look sideways down his own neck. “Pshaw. Washington’s a damned stickler for ‘proper dress.’ The Continental army got more generals than they got private soldiers, these days. An officer lives