Written in My Own Heart's Blood

111 A DISTANT MASSACRE

September 5, 1778

IFOLDED THE CLOTH into a tidy square and used the tongs to dip it in the steaming cauldron, then stood waving it gently to and fro until the compress should cool enough for me to wring it out and use it. Joanie sighed, fidgeting on her stool.

“Don’t rub your eye,” I said automatically, seeing her curled fist steal toward the large pink sty on her right eyelid. “Don’t fret; it won’t take long.”

“Yes, it does take long,” she said crossly. “It takes forever!”

“Dinna be giving your grannie sauce,” Marsali told her, pausing in her stride on the way from kitchen to printshop, a cheese roll for Fergus in her hand. “Hauld your wheesht and be grateful.”

Joanie groaned and writhed, and stuck her tongue out after her departing mother, but whipped it back into her mouth again and looked rather shame-faced when she caught sight of my raised brow.

“I know,” I said, with some sympathy. Holding a warm compress on a sty for ten minutes did feel like forever. Particularly if you’d been doing it six times a day for the last two days. “Maybe you can think of something to pass the time. You could recite me the multiplication tables while I grind valerian root.”

“Oh, Grannie!” she said, exasperated, and I laughed.

“Here you go,” I said, handing her the warm poultice. “Do you know any good songs?”

She exhaled moodily, small nostrils flaring.

“I wish Grandda was here,” she said. “He could tell me a story.” The note of comparative accusation was clear in her voice.

“Spell ‘hordeolum’ for me and I’ll tell you the one about the water horse’s wife,” I suggested. That made her unaffected eye fly open with interest.

“What’s a hordeolum?”

“That’s the scientific name for a sty.”

“Oh.” She seemed unimpressed by this, but her forehead creased a little in concentration, and I could see her lips move as she sounded out the syllables. Both Joanie and Félicité were good spellers; they’d been playing with discarded lead type since they were toddlers and loved stumping each other with new words.

That was a thought; maybe I could get her to spell unusual words for me during the compress treatments. The sty was a big, nasty one; her entire eyelid had been red and swollen in the beginning, the eye no more than a gleaming, resentful slit. Now the sty itself had shrunk to the size of a pea, and at least three-quarters of the eye was visible.

“H,” she said, watching me to see if that was right, and I nodded. “O, R, D . . .” I nodded again, and saw her lips move silently. “Hor-de-o-lum,” I repeated helpfully, and she nodded, more confident. “E, O, L, U, M!”

“Excellent!” I said, beaming at her. “How about . . .” I cast about for another good one, long but strictly phonetic. “Hepatitis?”

“What’s that?”

“Viral infection of the liver. Do you know where your liver is?” I was looking through my medicine chest, but appeared to be out of aloe salve. I should ride over to Bartram’s Garden tomorrow, I thought, weather permitting. I was out of almost everything, in the wake of the battle. The usual small twinge came in my side at thought of it, but I pushed it firmly away. It would fade, and so would the thoughts.

Marsali appeared suddenly in the kitchen door, as Joanie was carefully spelling “acanthocytosis,” and I looked up from my grinding. She was holding a letter in her hand and looked worried.

“Is it the Indian they call Joseph Brant that Young Ian kens?” she asked.

“I expect he knows quite a few of them,” I replied, setting down my pestle. “But I’ve heard him mention Joseph Brant, yes. The man’s Mohawk name starts with a ‘T,’ I think, but that’s as much as I feel sure of. Why?” I felt a slight uneasiness at the name. Ian’s Mohawk wife, Emily, had been living in a settlement in New York founded by Brant; Ian had mentioned it, very briefly, when he’d gone up there to visit her last year.

He hadn’t said what the purpose of his visit was, and neither Jamie nor I had asked, but I assumed it to have had something to do with his fear that he couldn’t sire children, as all his babies with Emily had either been stillborn or miscarried. He’d asked me about the matter, and I’d told him what I could, offering what reassurance I could that he might be able to have children with another woman.

I offered up a quick prayer for Rachel’s chances, then returned abruptly to what Marsali was saying.

“They did what?”

“This gentleman”—she tapped the letter—“says that Brant and his men fell upon a wee place called Andrustown. No but seven families living there.” Her lips pressed tight, and she glanced at Joanie, who was listening with her ears flapping. “They plundered and burnt the place, he says, and massa—er . . . did awa wi’ a number of the folk who lived there.”

“What’s that word, Mam?” Joanie asked brightly. “The one that means ‘did awa’ with?”

“‘Massacred,’” I told her, saving her mother the embarrassment. “It means indiscriminate and brutal slaughter. Here.” I handed her the fresh compress, which she applied without protest, frowning in thought.

“Is that different than just killin’ someone?”

“Well,” I said judiciously, “it depends. You might kill someone by accident, for instance, and that wouldn’t be a massacre, though it would certainly be lamentable. You might kill someone who was trying to kill you, and that would be self-defense.”

“Rachel says ye oughtn’t do that,” Joanie observed, but merely for the sake of thoroughness. “What about if ye’re with an army and have to kill the soldiers on the other side?”

Marsali made a low Scottish noise of disapproval but answered tersely.

“If a man’s gone to the army, then killin’ is his job,” she said. “He does it—mostly—” she added fairly, with a raised brow to me, “to protect his ain family and property. So that’s more like self-defense, aye?”

Joanie glanced from her mother to me, still frowning.

“I ken what ‘bru-tal’ is,” she said. “That’s bein’ mean when ye havena got to. But what’s ‘in-dis-crim-in-ate’?” She sounded it out carefully, as though about to spell it.

“Without choosing,” I said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “It means you do something without taking much notice who you do it to and probably without much reason to do it to that particular person.”

“Did Cousin Ian’s Indian friend have nay reason for burning yon place and killing the folk, then?”

Marsali and I exchanged a glance.

“We dinna ken that,” Marsali said. “But it’s no a good thing, whatever he meant by it. Now, ye’re done. Go along and find Félicité and start in fillin’ up the washtub.” She took the compress from Joanie and shooed her out.

She stood watching until Joanie had gone out through the back door, then turned to me and handed me the letter.

It was from a Mr. Johansen, apparently one of Fergus’s regular correspondents, and the contents were as Marsali had said, though adding a few gruesome details that she hadn’t mentioned in Joanie’s hearing. It was fairly factual, with only the barest of eighteenth-century ornaments, and the more hair-raising—literally, I thought; some of the Andrustown residents had been scalped, by report—for that.

Marsali nodded as I looked up from the letter.

“Aye,” she said. “Fergus wants to publish the account, but I’m nay so sure he ought to. Because of Young Ian, ken?”

“What’s because of Young Ian?” said a Scottish voice from the printshop doorway, and Jenny came through, a marketing basket over one arm. Her eyes went to the letter in my hand, and her sharp dark brows rose.

“Has he told ye much about her?” Marsali asked, having explained the letter. “The Indian lass he wed?”

Jenny shook her head and began taking things out of her basket.

“Nay a word, save for his telling Jamie to say he wouldna forget us.” A shadow crossed her face at the memory, and I wondered for a moment how it must have been for her and Ian, receiving Jamie’s account of the circumstances in which Ian had become a Mohawk. I knew the agony with which he’d written that letter, and doubted that the reading of it had been done with less.

She laid down an apple and beckoned to me for the letter. Having read it through in silence, she looked at me. “D’ye think he’s got feelings for her still?”

“I think he does,” I answered reluctantly. “But nothing like his feelings for Rachel, surely.” I did recall him, though, standing with me in the twilight on the demilune battery at Fort Ticonderoga, when he’d told me about his children—and Emily, his wife.

“He feels guilty about her, does he?” Jenny asked, shrewdly watching my face. I gave her a look, but nodded. She compressed her lips, but then handed the letter back to Marsali.

“Well, we dinna ken whether his wife has anything to do wi’ this Brant or his doings, and it’s no her that’s been massacred. I’d say let Fergus print it, but”—and she glanced at me—“show the letter to Jamie and have him talk to wee Ian about it. He’ll listen.” Her expression lightened a little then, and a slight smile emerged. “He’s got a good wife now, and I think Rachel will keep him to home.”

MAIL WAS DELIVERED to the printshop at all hours of the day—and, not infrequently, the night—and by all manner of messengers. Philadelphia gloried in the best postal system in the colonies, this having been established by Benjamin Franklin only three years before; post riders rode regularly between New York and Philadelphia and over thirty other routes through the colonies.

Given the nature of Fergus’s business and the nature of the times, though, almost as much mail arrived by older routes: passed along by travelers, merchants, Indians, and soldiers, and shoved under the door in the night watches. Or handed to a member of the family in the street. It was exchanges of that sort during the British occupation of the city that had compelled me to marry John Grey in order to avoid arrest for sedition and spying.

John’s own letter, though, arrived sedately in the pouch of a postal rider, properly stamped, and sealed with a blob of yellow wax imprinted with his signet in the shape of a smiling half-moon.

To Mrs. James Fraser, Fraser’s Printshop, Philadelphia

From Lord John Grey, Wilbury House, New York

My dear,

I am with my brother and his regiment in New York, and am like to remain here for some time. That being so, I thought I would mention that the Lease of my house on Chestnut Street will run until the End of the Year, and as the Thought of it being left empty to be vandalized or left to ruin distresses me, I conceived the Notion of offering it to you once again.

Not, I hasten to add (lest your intransigent Husband be reading this), as a Domicile but rather as Premises for a Surgery. Acquainted as I am with your peculiar Habit of attracting Persons suffering from Disease, Deformity, or hideous Injury, and being also well acquainted with the Number of Persons presently inhabiting the younger Mr. Fraser’s printing Establishment, I believe you may find your medical Adventures more easily accommodated in Chestnut Street than between a Printing Press and a towering Stack of sixpenny Bibles bound in buckram.

As I do not expect you to spend your valuable Time in domestic Labor, I have arranged for Mrs. Figg and a Servant of her choice to remain in my employment for so long as you require them, being paid through my Bank. You will greatly oblige me, my dear, by accepting this Proposition, as it will put my mind at ease regarding the Property. And the Thought of you at work, earnestly administering a Clyster to General Arnold, will greatly enliven the Tedium of my present Condition.

Your most obedient Servant,

John

“What are ye smiling at, Mother Claire?” Marsali inquired, observing me with the letter in hand. She smiled, teasing. “Has someone sent ye a billet-doux?”

“Oh, something of the sort,” I said, folding it up. “You wouldn’t know where Jamie is just now, would you?”

She closed one eye to assist thought, keeping the other on Henri-Christian, who was industriously blacking his father’s best boots—and a good deal of himself in the process.

“He said he was going wi’ Young Ian to see a man about a horse,” she said, “and then to the docks.”

“The docks?” I said in surprise. “Did he say why?”

She shook her head. “I could maybe guess, though. That’ll do, Henri! A Dhia, the state of you! Go find one o’ your sisters and tell her to wash your hands for ye, aye?”

Henri looked at his hands, as though astonished to find them completely black.

“Oui, Maman,” he said, and, cheerfully wiping them on his breeches, scampered out into the kitchen, bellowing, “Félicité! Come wash me!” at the top of his lungs.

“Why?” I asked, moving closer and lowering my voice slightly—for obviously she’d got rid of Henri-Christian on the little pitchers–big ears principle.

“He’s been talking wi’ Fergus about going with ye, when ye go back to North Carolina,” she said. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s gone to find out what it might cost to move everything”—she made a sweeping gesture, encompassing everything from printing press to loft—“by ship.”

“Hmm,” I said, as noncommittally as possible, though my heart had leapt—at both the thought of imminent departure for the Ridge and the thought that Fergus and Marsali might come with us. “Do you . . . want to?” I asked cautiously, seeing the line between her brows. She was still a lovely woman, fair and fine-boned, but she was too thin, and the lines of strain sharpened her features.

She shook her head, but in indecision rather than negation.

“I really dinna ken,” she admitted. “It’s a good bit easier now, wi’ the British gone—but they’re no so far away, are they? They could come back, and then what?” She glanced uneasily over her shoulder, though the print-shop was empty for the moment. Fergus had had to leave home and live furtively on the outskirts of the city, during the last months of the British occupation.

I opened my mouth to tell her that I doubted this. Hal Grey had told me, under the influence of ganja, that the new British strategy was to sever the southern colonies from the North and suppress the rebellion there, thus starving the North into submission. But I closed it without speaking. Best not to mention that until I found out whether Jamie had told Fergus.

Why didn’t I bloody know what was going to happen? I asked myself in frustration—and not for the first time. Why hadn’t I thought to brush up on American history when I had the chance?

Well, because I hadn’t expected to end up in America, was the answer. Just went to show, I supposed. Pointless to spend too much time in planning, anyway, given the propensity of life to make sudden left-hand turns without warning.

“It would be wonderful, if you were to come,” I said, as mildly as possible, adding craftily, “so nice to have the children nearby.”

Marsali snorted, giving me a sideways glance.

“Aye,” she said dryly. “Never think I dinna appreciate the value of a grannie. And when ye leave, Grannie Janet will go, too.”

“Do you think so?” I hadn’t thought of that. “But Jenny loves you and your children—Fergus is as much a son to her as any of the boys she bore.”

“Well, that’s maybe true,” she admitted, with a brief smile that showed me the radiant fifteen-year-old who had married Fergus on a Caribbean beach twelve years before. “But Young Ian’s her youngest, ken? And she’s had too little of him. Now he’s wed, she’ll want to be nearby, to help wi’ his bairns when they come. And ye ken Rachel will go where Ian does—and Ian will go where Da does.”

That was a shrewd assessment, I thought, and gave her a brief nod of agreement and respect.

She sighed deeply and, sitting down in her nursing chair, took up the topmost item in the brimming mending basket, the threaded needle still sticking up from the garment where she’d last put it down. I had no desire to abandon the conversation and, pulling out a stool, sat down beside her and plucked one of Germain’s stockings out of the basket. The workbasket, with its housewife, thread balls, and darning egg, was set beside the mending, and I deftly threaded my own needle, feeling pleased that I could still do that without putting on my spectacles.

“What about Fergus?” I asked bluntly. Because plainly Fergus was the crux of the matter, where Marsali was concerned.

“Aye, that’s the rub,” she said frankly. “I’d go, and happy, but ye ken how it was for him when we stayed on the Ridge.”

I did, and grimaced slightly, stretching the heel of the stocking over the darning egg.

“It’s been dangerous in the city, this last year,” she said, and swallowed at the memory. “Couldna tell ye how many times the soldiers came to arrest him; they broke up the shop, more than once, when they couldna find him. And the Loyalists would come and paint slogans on the front wall sometimes. But the danger didna trouble him—so long as it didna threaten me and the bairns.”

“And sometimes even if it does,” I muttered. “And I don’t mean just Fergus. Bloody men.”

Marsali sniffed with amusement.

“Aye. But the thing is—he is a man, no? He’s got to feel he’s worth something. He needs to be able to care for us, and that’s a thing he can do—and do well—here. I canna see how he’d make a decent living in the mountains.”

“True,” I admitted reluctantly. It was a hot day, and stifling in the kitchen, with the cauldron simmering over the hearth. Flies or no flies—and there were an ungodly number of flies in Philadelphia—I got up to open the back door. It wasn’t noticeably cooler outside, though at least the fire under the big washtub hadn’t yet been lit; the girls were still filling it, trudging to and fro from the well with their buckets.

Henri-Christian was nowhere in sight, but had presumably been scrubbed; a filthy black cloth lay crumpled on the doorstep. I stooped to pick it up and saw a folded bit of paper lying on the ground beside the step. It had no direction on it but looked purposeful, so I picked it up and took it back inside.

“Still,” Marsali said, barely waiting for me to sit down. “I’m thinkin’ that even if we canna go to the Ridge, it might be as well if we were to go. There must be places in the South that could use a printer, even if they’re none sae big as Philadelphia.”

“Well, there’s Charleston,” I said doubtfully, “and Savannah. They’re just as hot and ghastly in the summer as Philadelphia is, but the winters are milder, I suppose.”

She shot me a brief look over the shift she was mending, then set it down on her lap, as though having come to a decision.

“It’s no the weather that troubles me,” she said quietly. And, bending, she groped under the pile of shirts and stockings, emerging with a handful of grubby notes and frayed letters. Handling these gingerly, as though they carried some disease, she placed them on my knee.

“Any printer in these days gets such things poked under his door,” she said, watching my face as I read through the first few. “Especially if ye take a stand. We didn’t, for as long as we could, but after a time, ye just canna stand in the middle o’ the road any longer.”

This was said with a simplicity and acceptance that brought tears to my eyes. The more so with the content of the anonymous notes—for they were all unsigned and in a variety of hands, though some were plainly written by the same person—making it quite clear what the price of standing on the Rebel side might be.

“It was worse, maybe,” she said, taking them back and stacking them tidily, “when the British were here. I thought it might stop when they left, but it didn’t.”

“I don’t imagine all the Loyalists left with them,” I said, taking a deep breath in order to control myself. I felt as though I’d been punched in the stomach.

“Only the richer ones,” Marsali said cynically. “The ones who thought they’d be dragged from their homes or beaten and robbed, without the army to protect them. But it doesna mean the poorer ones dinna have the same opinions.”

“Why do you keep these?” I asked, handing them back with two fingers, as though holding them with tongs. “I think I’d throw them into the fire at once.”

“I did, at first,” she said, tucking the handful of nastiness carefully back into the bottom of the basket. “But I found I couldna forget what they’d said, and the words would come back to me at night and stop me sleeping.” She straightened, shrugged, and took up her needle again.

“I told Fergus, and he said the thing to do was to keep them and read them through several times a day, one after the other. Read them tae each other.” A brief, rueful smile touched her mouth. “So we did, after the bairns were asleep—we’d sit by the fire and take turns reading them. And he’d make fun o’ them, criticizing the grammar and the lack o’ poetry, comparing them one to another, and we’d rank them from best to worst . . . and then we’d put them away and go to sleep in each other’s arms.”

Her hand rested gently on the mound of mending, as though it were Fergus’s shoulder, and I smiled.

“Well,” I said, and, clearing my throat, produced the note I’d picked up on the step. “I have no idea whether this is another one for your collection—but I found it on the back step just now.”

She took it with a raised brow and looked it over, turning it to and fro.

“It’s cleaner than most,” she observed. “A decent rag paper, too. It’s maybe just a . . .” Her voice died away as she opened it and began to read. I could see that the writing inside was brief; within seconds, the blood drained from her face.

“Marsali.” I reached toward her, and she thrust the note into my hand and rose swiftly.

Ladybird, ladybird, the note read, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are gone.

“Henri-Christian!” Marsali’s voice was strong and urgent. “Girls! Where’s your wee brother?”

112 DAYLIGHT HAUNTING

I FOUND HENRI-CHRISTIAN in the first place I looked: down the street, playing with the two smallest Phillips girls. The Phillipses had ten children, and even Henri-Christian could blend into their household without causing much notice.

Some parents kept their children from coming anywhere near Henri-Christian—whether from fear that dwarfishness was catching, I supposed, or from the popular superstition that his appearance was the result of his mother having fornicated with the devil. I’d heard that one now and then, though everyone in the neighborhood knew better than to say it anywhere in the hearing of Jamie, Fergus, Ian, or Germain.

The Phillipses were Jewish, though, and apparently felt some kinship with a person whose differences set him apart. Henri-Christian was always welcome at their house. Their maid-of-all-work merely nodded when I asked whether one of the older children would walk home with him later, then went back to her washing; it was laundry day all over Philadelphia, and the humid atmosphere was aggravated by a score of steaming washtubs in the neighborhood, all fuming with the reek of washing soda.

I went back quickly to the printshop to tell Marsali where Henri-Christian was and, having relieved her fears, put on my wide-brimmed hat and announced my intent of going to buy some fish for supper. Marsali and Jenny, armed respectively with a laundry fork and a large paddle for clothes-stirring, gave me marked looks—both of them knew exactly how much I disliked doing laundry—but neither said anything.

I had of course been excused from housework while recuperating and, in all truth, was still not up to the labor of hoicking hot, sodden clothes about. I could have managed hanging out the washing, perhaps, but soothed my conscience on grounds that: 1) fish made an easy supper on laundry day, 2) I needed to walk regularly, in order to regain my strength, and 3) I wanted to talk to Jamie, alone.

The anonymous letter had upset me nearly as much as it had Marsali. It wasn’t like the other threats she had shown me: those were all specifically political, and while some were aimed at Marsali (for she had run the newspaper alone while Fergus was in hiding), they were of the run-of-the-mill “Rebel bitch” variety. I’d heard such epithets—along with “Tory whore!” and their German and Yiddish equivalents—commonly in the rougher parts of Philadelphia.

This was different. It had the whiff of a refined and intelligent malice, and I suddenly felt the presence of Jack Randall at my shoulder, so strongly that I came to an abrupt halt and spun round.

The street was busy, but there was no one behind me. No glimpse of a red coat anywhere, though there were Continental officers here and there, in blue and buff.

“Bugger off, Captain,” I said, under my breath. Not quite far enough under: I got a wide-eyed look from a round little woman selling pretzels from a tray round her neck. She glanced over her shoulder to see to whom I was speaking, then turned back to me with a look of concern.

“You are all right, madam?” she said in a heavy German accent.

“Yes,” I said, embarrassed. “Yes, quite all right. Thank you.”

“Take this,” she said kindly, handing me a pretzel. “I think you are hungry.” And waving away my fumbling attempt at payment, she went off down the street, wide hips rolling, waving a stick of pretzels stacked like quoits and shouting, “Brezeln! Heiße Brezeln!”

Feeling suddenly dizzy, I leaned against the front of a building, closed my eyes, and bit into the pretzel. It was chewy, fresh, and rimed with salt, and I discovered that the woman had been right. I was hungry. Starved, in fact.

The pretzel hit my stomach and then my bloodstream, imparting an instant sense of stability and well-being, and the momentary panic I’d felt evaporated so quickly that I could almost believe it hadn’t happened. Almost.

It hadn’t happened in some time. I swallowed the last bit of pretzel and, after checking my pulse—strong and steady—set off again toward the river.

I walked slowly; it was midday, and any great exertion would leave me drenched with sweat and very likely light-headed again. I ought to have brought my walking stick but had recklessly decided to do without it. I hated feeling infirm.

I hated feeling . . . that, even more. The sudden sense of threat, irrational fear . . . violation. Flashback, the military called it—would call it—in my time. It hadn’t happened to me since Saratoga, though, and I’d almost forgotten about it. Almost.

Completely explainable, of course: I’d been shot, come close to dying, was still physically weak. The last time, I’d been in the dark in the forest near a battlefield, alone, lost, and surrounded by violent men. No wonder it had happened then; the situation was much too close to what it had been when I’d been abducted and assaulted—

“Raped,” I said out loud, firmly, to the extreme startlement of a pair of gentlemen passing by. I paid no attention to them. No point in trying to avoid either the word or the memory. It was over; I was safe.

Before that . . . the first time I’d been overtaken by that sense of threat, it was at River Run, in the course of a party. But a party where the sense of imminent violence was palpable. On that occasion, Jamie had been nearby, thank God. He’d seen that I was spooked—literally, he assumed—and had given me a handful of salt with which to lay the ghost that haunted me.

The Highlands always had a practical answer, whether the difficulty was keeping a fire smoored for the night, having your cow run dry, or being haunted.

I touched the corner of my mouth with my tongue, found a stray salt crystal from the pretzel, and nearly laughed. I looked over my shoulder for the woman who’d given me succor, but she’d vanished.

“Just as an angel should, I suppose,” I murmured. “Thank you.”

There was probably a charm for it in the Gàidhlig, I reflected. There were dozens, probably hundreds. I knew only a few, mostly those concerned with health (they gave my Gaelic-speaking patients reassurance), but picked the one that seemed most suitable to the situation and strode firmly along, my feet solid on the cobbles, chanting:

“I trample on thee, thou seizure,

As tramples whale on brine,

Thou seizure of back, thou seizure of body,

Thou foul wasting of chest.”

And then I saw Jamie, coming up from the docks, laughing at something Fergus was saying, and the world dropped back into place around me.

JAMIE TOOK ONE look at me, took my arm, and steered me into a small coffeehouse around the corner on Locust Street. At this hour of the day, it was all but deserted, and I attracted relatively little attention. Women did drink coffee—when any was to be had—but they mostly drank it at home, in company with friends or at small parties and salons. And while there were grander coffeehouses in London and Edinburgh that women might now and then frequent, the Philadelphia coffeehouses tended to be male preserves of business, gossip, and politics.

“What have ye been doing, Sassenach?” Jamie inquired mildly, taking the tray of coffee cups and almond biscuits from the server. “Ye look—” He squinted at me, evidently searching for a term that would be accurate without causing me to pour scalding coffee on him.

“Somewhat indisposed,” Fergus said, taking up the sugar tongs. “Here, milady.” Without asking, he dropped three large lumps of brown sugar into my cup. “They say that drinking hot beverages will cool you,” he added helpfully.

“Well, it does make you sweat more,” I said, taking up my spoon. “But if the sweat doesn’t evaporate, it certainly won’t make you cooler.” I estimated the ambient humidity at roughly a thousand percent, but tipped a little of my sweetened coffee into the saucer and blew on it nonetheless. “As to what I’ve been doing, I was on my way to buy fish for supper. And what have you gentlemen been doing?”

Sitting down had made me feel a good bit steadier, and being flanked by Jamie and Fergus made the odd sense of threat I’d experienced in the street fade a bit. But thought of the anonymous letter on the step raised the hairs on the back of my neck, despite the heat.

Jamie and Fergus glanced at each other, and Fergus raised one shoulder.

“Reckoning our assets,” Jamie said. “And visiting warehouses and shipping captains.”

“Really?” The thought made my heart lift immediately. These sounded like the first concrete steps toward going home. “Have we got any assets to speak of?” Most of our available cash had gone to pay for horses, uniforms, weapons, food for Jamie’s men, and other war-related expenses. Theoretically, Congress would reimburse these expenses, but given everything General Arnold had told me about Congress, I rather thought we oughtn’t to hold our collective breath in anticipation.

“A bit,” Jamie said, smiling at me. He knew very well what I was thinking. “I’ve found a buyer for the gelding; four pounds.”

“That seems a good price,” I said uncertainly. “But . . . wouldn’t we need the horse, for travel?”

Before he could answer, the door opened and Germain came in, a bundle of broadsheets under one arm and a scowl on his face. The latter disappeared like the morning dew as he spotted us, though, and he came to hug me.

“Grand-mère! What are you doing in here? Maman said you went to buy fish.”

“Oh,” I said, suddenly guilty at thought of the laundry. “Yes. I am—er, I mean, I was just on my way. . . . Would you like a bite, Germain?” I offered him the plate of almond biscuits, and his eyes lighted up.

“One,” said Fergus firmly. Germain rolled his eyes at me but took a single biscuit, lifting it with two fingers in exaggerated delicacy.

“Papa,” he said, consuming the biscuit in two swift bites, “I think perhaps you should go home.”

Both of Fergus’s strongly marked black brows rose.

“Why?”

“Because,” Germain said, licking sugar from the corner of his mouth and eyeing the remaining biscuits, “Grannie Janet told Mr. Sorrel that if he didn’t leave off pestering Maman, she would stab him with the laundry fork. She might do it, too,” he added thoughtfully, dabbing a finger on the plate for crumbs.

Fergus growled. It quite startled me, as I hadn’t heard anything like that from him since he’d been a feral eight-year-old pickpocket in Paris.

“Who’s Mr. Sorrel?” Jamie asked, in a deceptively mild tone of voice.

“A tavern owner who passes by the shop on his way to and from his work and stops to buy a newspaper—and to ogle my wife,” Fergus said tersely. He pushed back his bench, and rose. “Excuse me, milady,” he said, bowing to me.

“Had I best come with ye?” Jamie asked, also pushing back from the table. Fergus shook his head, though, and put on his cocked hat.

“No. The man is a coward. One sight of me, and he will be gone.” His very white teeth showed in a sudden smile. “If your sister has not disposed of him already.”

He went out, leaving the biscuits at the mercy of Germain, who scooped them tidily into his pocket before going to the counter to deposit the new broadsheets, take away the much-read and coffee-spotted ones from yesterday, and collect his money from the proprietress.

“Whilst you were reckoning assets, did Fergus tell you how well he’s doing with the printing business?” I asked, pitching my voice low enough as not to reach Germain.

“He did.” Jamie passed a coffee cup under his nose and grimaced slightly. The beverage was nominally coffee—a few genuine beans had likely been included in the brew—but contained a high proportion of chicory and a few other ingredients. I picked a small fragment of charred acorn out of my saucer and added more sugar.

The printshop was in fact very profitable; the more so now, as Fergus’s chief competitor, a Loyalist, had left town with the departure of the British army.

“There are a good many expenses, though,” Jamie explained. “And some of those have increased since the army left.” Paper and ink were more difficult to obtain, with the army no longer protecting transport in and out of the city. And the increased danger of the public roads meant that fewer orders of printed books were shipped and, when they were, must either be insured or risk loss.

“And then there’s insurance on his premises, which is expensive,” Jamie added. He pinched his nose slightly, then drank his coffee in three large gulps. “Marsali doesna like paying that,” he said, gasping a little, “but Fergus kent what happened to my place in Edinburgh. And he told me a few things that Marsali doesna ken, too.”

“Such as?” I cast a wary eye at Germain, but he was engaged in what was plainly a saucy conversation with a serving girl at the counter. The girl was two or three years older than Germain but clearly amused by him.

“Oh, the odd threat from folk who dinna like something he’s printed or who have their noses put out o’ joint because he willna print something of theirs. Bit of sabotage, sometimes: his broadsheets stolen from coffeehouses and taverns and scattered in the street—though he said that’s got better since Mr. Dunphy left town.”

“Dunphy being the Loyalist printer?”

“Aye. Germain!” he called across the shop. “Have ye other places to visit today? Because if so, ye’d best get to them before your news goes stale.”

That made the few customers laugh, and Germain’s ears went somewhat pink. He gave his grandfather a measured look, but was wise enough not to say anything, and with a few last words to the counter girl, went out, slipping the small cake she’d given him into his pocket with a casual air.

“You don’t suppose he’s been picking pockets, do you?” I asked, observing the skill with which this maneuver was accomplished. Fergus had taught Germain a good many of his own techniques in that regard, not wanting the skills to be lost.

“God knows, but all the better if he leaves Philadelphia. He willna find so much scope for that particular talent in the mountains.” Jamie craned his neck to see out the window, watching Germain go down the street, then sat back, shaking his head.

“The main thing Fergus hasna told Marsali, though, is about yon French popinjay Wainwright.”

“What, the fashionable Percival?” I asked, mildly amused. “Is he still around?”

“Aye, he is. Persistent wee sodomite,” he observed dispassionately. “He wrote out a detailed account of what he claims is the story of Fergus’s parents, wi’ the conclusion that Fergus is the heir to some great estate in France. Fergus says if it had been a romantic novel, it would have been criticized as too implausible and nay publisher would touch it.” He grinned at the thought, but then sobered. “Still. Fergus says he hasna the slightest intent o’ having anything to do with the matter, as even if it were true, he doesna mean to be a pawn for someone else’s interests—and if it’s not true, still less.”

“Hmm.” I had taken to simply eating the sugar lumps by now, rather than mixing them into the problematical coffee, and crunched one between my back teeth. “Why is he keeping that from Marsali, though? She knows about Wainwright’s earlier approaches, doesn’t she?”

Jamie drummed his hand on the table in thought, and I watched in fascination; he had been accustomed for a great while to drumming the two stiff fingers of his right hand when thinking—the middle and ring finger, which had been badly broken, crudely reset, and frequently re-broken, owing to the clumsy way it stuck out. But I had finally amputated the ruined ring finger after he’d had half of it sliced off by a cavalry saber during the first battle of Saratoga. He still drummed his hand, though, as if the finger were still there, though now only the middle finger struck the tabletop.

“She does,” he said slowly. “But Fergus said that there began to be that odd wee bit of . . . something . . . in Wainwright’s importunities. No quite a threat—but just things like an observation that, of course, since Fergus is the heir to the Beauchamp estate—if he is, in fact—then Germain would inherit the title and land after him.”

I frowned.

“I can see that being offered as an inducement—but why is it a threat?”

He gave me a level look over the coffee debris.

“If Germain would inherit this estate—Wainwright’s principals dinna really need Fergus, now, do they?”

“Jesus H. . . . Really?” I said. “You—or, rather, Fergus thinks Wainwright and company might kill him and then use Germain to get hold of this property or whatever it is they have in mind?”

Jamie gave the ghost of a shrug.

“Fergus hasna lived as long as he has without having a sense of when someone means him harm. And if he thinks there’s summat amiss wi’ this Wainwright, I’m inclined to believe him. Besides,” he added fairly, “if it makes him more willing to leave Philadelphia and come south with us, I’m no going to persuade him he’s wrong.”

“Well, there’s that.” I looked dubiously at the dregs of my coffee and decided against it. “Speaking of Germain, though—or, rather, the children in general—that’s actually why I was looking for you.” And, in a few words, I described the ladybird note and its effect on Marsali.

Jamie’s thick auburn brows drew together, and his face took on a look that his enemies would have recognized. I had last seen it in the light of dawn on a North Carolina mountainside, when he had escorted me through woods and meadows, from one cold body to the next, to show me that the men who had hurt me were dead, to reassure me that they could not touch me.

“That was what made me . . . er . . . indisposed in the street,” I said, rather apologetically. “It just seemed so . . . evil. But a sort of delicate evil, if you know what I mean. It—rather gave me a turn.” The dead had their own means of making you remember them, but I felt nothing at the memory of his vengeance beyond a remote sense of relief and an even remoter sense of awe at the supernatural beauty of carnage in such a setting.

“I do know,” he said softly, and tapped his missing finger on the table. “And I should like to see that note.”

“Why?”

“To see whether the handwriting looks like that in Percy Wainwright’s letter, Sassenach,” he said, pushing back from the table and handing me my hat. “Are ye ready?”

113 THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH

I HAD BOUGHT A striped bass nearly as long as my arm, along with a mess of crayfish and a gunnysack of oysters from the estuary, and the kitchen smelled delightfully of fresh bread and fish stew. This was a good thing, as stew can always be stretched, and Ian and Rachel, with Rollo in tow, had drifted into the printshop just before supper, so visibly in the throes of wedded bliss that it made one smile—and occasionally blush—to look at them.

Jenny did smile, and I saw her thin shoulders relax a little, seeing Ian’s radiant face. I gave the stew a quick stir and came over to stand behind her as she sat by the fire, laying my hands on those shoulders and kneading them gently. I knew bloody well what a day’s laundry felt like in the muscles.

She heaved a long, blissful sigh and bent her head to allow me to get my thumbs on her neck.

“D’ye think our wee Quaker lass is wi’ child yet?” she murmured to me. Rachel was across the room, chatting with the younger children and very easy with them—though her eyes kept turning to Ian, who was looking at something Fergus had taken out of a drawer in the sideboard.

“They’ve been married barely a month,” I whispered back, though I looked carefully at Rachel.

“It doesna take that long,” Jenny said. “And plainly the lad kens his job. Look at her.” Her shoulders quivered slightly with a suppressed laugh.

“A fine thing for a mother to be thinking about her son,” I said under my breath, though I could neither keep the amusement out of my own voice nor say she was wrong. Rachel glowed in the magic light of mingled dusk and hearth fire, and her eyes rested on the lines of Ian’s back, even as she admired Félicité’s new rag doll.

“He takes after his father,” Jenny said, and made a little “hmph” in her throat—still amused, but with a faint tinge of . . . longing? My own eyes went to Jamie, who had come to join Fergus and Ian by the sideboard. Still here, thank God. Tall and graceful, the soft light making shadows in the folds of his shirt as he moved, a fugitive gleam from the long straight bridge of his nose, the auburn wave of his hair. Still mine. Thank God.

“Come cut the bread, Joanie!” Marsali called. “Henri-Christian, stop playin’ with that dog and fetch the butter, aye? And, Félicité, put your heid outside and call Germain.” The distant sound of boys’ voices came from the street, shouts punctuated by the occasional thud of a ball against the front wall of the shop. “And tell those wee heathens I said if they break a windowpane, their fathers will hear about it!”

A brief outbreak of domestic chaos ended with all the adults seated on the benches at table and the children in their own huddle by the hearth with their wooden bowls and spoons. Despite the heat of the evening, the fragrant steam of onions, milk, seafood, and fresh bread enveloped the table in a brief enchantment of anticipation.

The men sat down last, their murmured talk stopping well short of the table, and I gave Jamie a brief, questioning look. He touched my shoulder as he sat down beside me, saying, “Aye, later,” under his breath, and nodded at the hearth. Pas devant les enfants, then.

Fergus cleared his throat. A small sound, but the children instantly stopped talking. He smiled at them, and their heads bowed over earnestly clasped hands.

“Bless us, O Lord,” he said in French, “and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord.”

“Amen,” everyone murmured, and talk washed over the room like the tide coming in.

“Are ye bound back to the army soon, Ian?” Marsali asked, tucking a damp lock of blond hair back into her cap.

“Aye,” he replied, “but not Washington’s army. No yet, anyway.”

Jamie leaned across me to raise a brow at him.

“Ye’ve turned your coat, then?” he said. “Or just decided the British pay better?” There was a wry edge to this; he’d not seen a penny of pay and told me frankly that he didn’t expect to. Congress wasn’t swift about paying anyone, and a temporary general who’d resigned his commission was likely at the bottom of their list.

Ian closed his eyes in momentary bliss, chewing an oyster, then swallowed and opened them, wiping a dribble of milk from his chin.

“No,” he said equably, “I’m takin’ Dottie up to New York to see her da and Lord John.”

That stopped all adult conversation dead, though the children continued to chatter by the hearth. I saw Jenny dart her eyes at Rachel, who looked composed, though considerably less blissful than she had before. She’d known about it, though; there was no surprise on her face.

“Why’s that, then?” Jamie asked, in a tone of mild curiosity. “She’s not decided Denzell doesna suit her, I hope? For I doubt he’s taken to beating her.”

That made Rachel laugh—briefly, but out loud, and the company relaxed a bit.

“No,” she said. “I believe Dottie to be pleased in her marriage; I know my brother is.” The smile lingered in her eyes, though her face grew serious as she glanced at Ian, then turned to Jamie.

“Her eldest brother has died. He was a prisoner of war, held in New Jersey. Her brother Henry received news yesterday confirming his death, but Henry cannot bear the strain of so long a journey yet, especially with the roads so dangerous, and Dottie feels she must go to her father.”

Jenny gave her a sharp look, which sharpened a bit further as she turned it on Ian.

“The roads bein’ so dangerous,” she repeated, with a mild tone that matched Jamie’s and fooled no one. Ian grinned at her and took a fresh chunk of bread, which he dunked in his stew.

“Dinna fash, Mam,” he said. “There’s a wee band o’ folk I ken, traveling north. They’re agreeable to going by New York. We’ll be gey safe wi’ them.”

“What sort of folk?” Jenny asked suspiciously. “Quakers?”

“Mohawk,” he said, the grin widening. “Come out wi’ me and Rachel after supper, Mam. They’d be that pleased to meet ye.”

I could honestly say that, in all the time I’d known her, I’d never before seen Jenny Murray gobsmacked. I could feel Jamie vibrating with suppressed hilarity next to me, and had to look down into my bowl for a moment to regain my own composure.

Jenny was made of stern stuff, though. She took a long moment, took a longer breath, pushed Rollo’s nose out of her lap, and then said calmly, “Aye. I’d like that. Pass me the salt, Fergus, aye?”

In spite of the general amusement, I hadn’t forgotten what Rachel had said about Dottie’s brother Benjamin, and I felt a twist of surprisingly acute pain, as though someone had knotted a length of barbed wire round my heart. “Do you ever make bargains with God?” If Hal had offered such a bargain, evidently God had declined it. Oh, God, Hal . . . I’m sorry.

“I’m so sorry to hear about Dottie’s brother,” I said, leaning forward to talk to Rachel. “Do you know what happened?”

She shook her head briefly, and the firelight, now behind her, cast shadow on her face from the curtain of dark hair.

“Henry had had a letter from their brother Adam. He’d had the news from someone on General Clinton’s staff, I think he said. All it said was that whoever had written the letter wished to express their regrets as to the death of Captain Benjamin Grey, a British prisoner of war who had been held at Middlebrook Encampment in New Jersey, and would General Clinton’s office please relay this sad news to the captain’s family. They’d thought it possible that he was dead—but this seems to put the matter beyond all doubt, alas.”

“Middlebrook Encampment is what they call the place in the Watchung Mountains where Washington took his troops after Bound Brook,” Fergus remarked with interest. “But the army left there in June of last year. Why would Captain Grey be there, I wonder?”

“Does an army travel wi’ its captives?” Jamie asked, raising one shoulder in a shrug. “Save if they’re taken when the army’s on the move, I mean.”

Fergus nodded, conceding the point, but seemed still to be pondering something. Marsali stepped in before he could speak, though, gesturing at Ian with her spoon.

“Speakin’ o’ why—why are your friends going north?” she asked. “Hasn’t anything to do wi’ the massacre at Andrustown, has it?”

Jenny turned toward her son, intent. A closed look came over Ian’s face, though he answered calmly enough.

“It does, aye. Where did ye hear o’ that?”

Marsali and Fergus shrugged in unison, making me smile involuntarily, in spite of my distress over Hal’s son.

“The way in which we hear most of the news we print,” Fergus amplified. “A letter from someone who heard of the matter.”

“And what do your friends have in mind to do about the matter?” Jenny asked.

“More to the point,” Jamie said, twisting to address Ian, “what do you have in mind to do about it?”

I was watching Rachel, on the other side of the table, rather than Ian, but I saw a look too faint to be called anxiety cross her brow, relaxing in the next instant when Ian replied flatly, “Nothing.” Perhaps feeling this too blunt, he coughed and took a gulp of beer.

“I dinna ken anyone who was there, and as I havena any intent to turn my coat and fight for the British wi’ Thayendanegea . . . Nay,” he finished, setting down his cup. “I’ll go as far as New York to see Dottie safe and then come back to wherever Washington might be.” He smiled at Rachel, his face shifting abruptly from its usual appealing half-homely expression to a startling attractiveness. “I need my scout’s pay, after all; I’ve a wife to support.”

“Ye must come and stay wi’ us, then,” Marsali said to Rachel. “While Ian’s gone, I mean.”

I hadn’t time to wonder exactly where she planned to put Rachel—Marsali was ingenious and would doubtless find a place—before Rachel shook her head. She wasn’t wearing a cap but wore her straight dark hair loose on her shoulders; I could hear the whisper of it against her dress as she moved.

“I shall go with Ian to fetch Dottie. Rollo and I will stay in camp with my brother until Ian returns. I can be useful there.” Her long fingers curled and flexed in illustration, and she smiled at me. “Thee knows the joy of useful occupation, Claire, I expect.”

Jenny made a nondescript noise in her throat, and Marsali snorted briefly, though without rancor.

“Indeed I do,” I said, my eyes on the slice of bread I was buttering. “And which would you rather find useful occupation in, Rachel—boiling laundry, or lancing the boils on Mr. Pinckney’s arse?”

She laughed, and the arrival of Henri-Christian with an empty bowl in his hands saved her replying. He set it on the table and yawned sleepily, swaying on his feet.

“Aye, it’s late, wee man,” his mother said to him, and, picking him up, cradled him in her arms. “Lay your head, a bhalaich. Papa will take ye up presently.”

More beer was fetched, the little girls collected the empty bowls and put them in the bucket to soak, Germain vanished outside into the gathering dusk for the last few minutes of play with his friends, Rollo curled up to sleep by the fire, and talk became general.

Jamie’s hand rested warmly on my thigh, and I leaned against him, laying my head briefly on his shoulder. He looked down at me and smiled, squeezing my leg. I was looking forward to the Spartan comfort of our pallet in the loft, the cooling freedom of shift and nakedness, and the sharing of whispers in the dark—but for the moment was more than content to be where I was.

Rachel was talking across Marsali to Fergus, Marsali humming quietly to Henri-Christian, whose round dark head lolled on her bosom, his eyes almost closed. I looked carefully at Rachel, but it was much too soon to see any signs of pregnancy, even if—And then I stopped, startled, as my eye caught something else.

I’d seen Marsali through her pregnancy with Henri-Christian. And I was seeing a bloom on her cheeks now that wasn’t from the warmth of the room: a slight fullness of the eyelids, and a subtle softening and rounding of face and body that I might have recognized earlier, had I been looking for it. Did Fergus know, I wondered? And glanced quickly at the head of the table, to see him looking at Marsali and Henri-Christian, his dark eyes soft with love.

Jamie shifted a little beside me, turning to say something to Ian, on my other side. I turned, too, and saw that Ian’s eyes were also fixed on Marsali and Henri-Christian, with a look of wistfulness that smote me to the heart.

I felt his longing, and my own—for Brianna. Roger, and Jem, and Mandy. Safe, I hoped—but not here, and I swallowed a lump in my throat.

“You’d die for them, happily,” Hal had said, in the long night watch when I’d kept him breathing. “Your family. But at the same time you think, Christ, I can’t die! What might happen to them if I weren’t here?” He’d given me a wry and rueful smile. “And you know bloody well that you mostly can’t help them anyway; they’ve got to do it—or not—themselves.”

That was true. But it didn’t stop you caring.

IT WAS HOT and close in the loft, with the comfortable lingering scents of supper crammed in under the rafters, the more argumentative pungencies of ink, paper, buckram, and leather that had built up all day, and the faintly pervasive scent of mule straw underlying everything. I gasped at the impact as I stepped off the ladder and went at once to open the loading door that looked out onto the cobbled alley behind the shop.

A blast of Philadelphia rushed in, fluttering the stacks of paper: smoke from a dozen nearby chimneys, an acrid stink from the manure pile behind the livery stable down the street, and the intoxicatingly resinous scent of leaves and bark and brush and flowers that was William Penn’s legacy. Leave one acre of trees for every five acres cleared, he’d advised in his charter, and if Philadelphia had not quite met that ideal, it was still a particularly verdant city.

“God bless you, William,” I said, beginning to shed my outer clothes as fast as possible. The evening air might be warm and humid, but it was moving, and I couldn’t wait to let it move over my skin.

“That’s a kind thought, Sassenach,” Jamie said, stepping off the ladder into the loft. “Why, though? Is the lad in your mind for some reason?”

“Wh—oh, William,” I said, realizing. “I hadn’t actually meant your son, but naturally . . .” I fumbled to organize an explanation but gave it up, seeing that he wasn’t really attending. “Were you thinking of him?”

“I was, aye,” he admitted, coming to help with my laces. “Being wi’ the weans and the bairns, and all sae comfortable together . . .” His voice died away and he drew me gently to him, bent his head to mine, and let it rest there with a sigh that stirred the hair near my face.

“You wish he could be part of it,” I said softly, reaching up to touch his cheek. “Be part of the family.”

“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride,” he said, and let go, with a wry smile visible in the glow from the kitchen below. “And if turnips were swords, I’d hae one by my side.”

I laughed, but my eye went to the stack of Bibles where he was accustomed to leave his sword. His dirk was there, his pistols, shot bag, and a scatter of oddments from his sporran, but no sword. I squinted to be sure I was seeing a-right, but I was.

“I sold it,” he said matter-of-factly, seeing the direction of my glance. “It’s one good thing to be said of war: ye can get a good price for a decent weapon.”

I wanted to protest, but didn’t. He wore weapons with a lifelong ease, to the point that his knives and guns seemed a part of him, and I didn’t like to see him diminished by the loss of any. But without an army commission, he likely wouldn’t need a sword immediately, and we did certainly need money.

“You can buy another when we reach Wilmington,” I said practically, returning his favor by unbuttoning his breeks. They slid off his lean hips and fell, puddling round his feet. “It would be lovely for William to know the truth about Bree and her family sometime. Will you tell him?”

“In the event that he ever comes within speakin’ distance of me without trying to kill me?” One corner of his mouth curled ruefully. “Aye, maybe. But I maybe wouldn’t tell him all the truth.”

“Well, perhaps not all at once, no,” I agreed. A warm breeze from the window stirred his hair and the tails of his shirt. I fingered the creased linen, warm and damp from his body. “Why don’t you take that off?”

He looked me over carefully; I was standing now in nothing but my shift and stockings. A slow smile spread into his eyes.

“Fair’s fair,” he said. “Take yours off, as well, then.”

CLAIRE WAS LOVELY, standing white and naked as a French statue against the deep twilight from the open window, her curly hair a storm cloud round her shoulders. Jamie wanted to stand and look at her, but he wanted a lot more to have his cock inside her.

There were still voices down in the kitchen, though, and he went and pulled the ladder up. Wouldn’t do to have Germain or one of the girls scamper up to say good night.

There was a hoot of laughter from Ian and Fergus below, probably at sight of the ladder disappearing, and he grinned to himself, laying it aside. They had their own wives, and if they were foolish enough to sit drinking beer instead of enjoying their beds, it was none of his affair.

Claire was already on their pallet when he turned from the edge of the loft, a pale shadow under the gloom of the ink casks. He eased himself in naked beside her, touched her curving hip; she touched his cock. “I want you,” she whispered, and suddenly everything changed.

It was their common magic, but magic nonetheless, the smell of onions and brine on her hands, the taste of butter and beer on her tongue, a tickle of hair on his shoulder, and a sudden rush when she ran a finger down the crack of his arse, which drew him straight up hard between her willing legs.

She made a sound that made him put a hand over her mouth, and he felt her laugh, hot breath against his palm, so he took his hand away and stopped her noises with his mouth, lying full on her for a moment, not moving, trying to wait, not able to wait for the feel of her squirming under him, slick and slippery, rubbing her nipples on his, urging him . . . and then she quivered and made a small noise of surrender that freed him to do as he would, and he did.

JAMIE HEAVED a deep sigh of utter relaxation.

“I have been wanting to do that all day, Sassenach. Moran taing, a nighean.”

“So have—Is that a bat?” It was: a flittering scrap of detached darkness, ricocheting from one side of the loft to the other. I grabbed Jamie’s arm with one hand and pulled a corner of the sheet over my head with the other. It wasn’t that I minded bats, as such; a bat whizzing to and fro three feet over my head in the dark, though . . .

“Dinna fash, Sassenach,” he said, sounding amused. “It’ll go out again directly.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” I said, slapping something ticklish on my neck. “There are probably any number of insects in here for it to hunt.” Clouds of gnats and mosquitoes were inclined to roam in through the open loading window when evening fell, and it was always a Hobson’s choice: keep the window closed and die of suffocation, or open it and be chivvied all night by crawling feet and the irritating sneeeee! of mosquitoes whining in our ears.

“Ye ought to be pleased about the bat, then,” Jamie told me, rolling onto his side and using another bit of sheet to blot a sheen of sweat from his chest. “How many bugs did ye tell me they eat?”

“Well . . . lots,” I said. “Don’t ask me how I remember this, but according to Brianna’s encyclopedia, the average little brown bat can eat up to a thousand mosquitoes in an hour.”

“Well, there ye are, then,” he said. “I dinna think there can be more than two or three hundred mosquitoes in here just now—it shouldna take him more than a quarter hour to deal wi’ those.”

It was a definite point, but I was not quite convinced of the virtues of entertaining a resident bat. I did emerge from my makeshift shelter, though, peering upward. “What if more bats come in?”

“Then they’ll clear the place in five minutes.” He sighed briefly. “D’ye want me to catch him, throw him out, and close the door, Sassenach?”

“No,” I said, envisioning Jamie pirouetting around the loft in the dark, either being bitten by a startled bat if he did succeed in catching it or plunging over the edge of the loft in the effort to do so. “No, that’s all right. Tell me what you didn’t want to say earlier—that will take my mind off it.”

“What I—oh, aye.” He rolled onto his back, hands clasped on his stomach. “It’s only I’ve been talking wi’ Fergus and Ian about coming with us when we leave for the Ridge. Didna want to mention it at table, though. Ian and Fergus should talk it over wi’ Rachel and Marsali by themselves first—and I didna want the bairns to hear. They’d go mad with excitement, and Marsali would run me through the heart wi’ a meat skewer for stirring them up just before bed.”

“She might,” I said, amused. “Oh—speaking of Marsali . . . I rather think she’s pregnant.”

“Is she, now?” He turned his head to me, deeply interested. “Are ye sure?”

“No,” I admitted. “I can’t be sure without asking her nosy questions and examining her. But I think there’s a good chance of it. If so . . . that might affect whether they go with us, mightn’t it?”

The prospect of going home was suddenly real, in a way that it hadn’t been even a moment before. I could almost feel the breath of the mountains on my bare skin, and gooseflesh rippled fleetingly over my ribs at the thought, in spite of the heat.

“Mmm,” Jamie said, though absently. “I suppose it might. D’ye think—if she is wi’ child, might the new one be like Henri-Christian?”

“Probably not,” I said, though professional caution made me add, “I can’t be positive that his type of dwarfism isn’t a hereditary condition, because Fergus doesn’t know anything about his family. But I think Henri-Christian’s is probably a mutation—something that happens just once, a sort of accident.”

Jamie gave a small snort.

“Miracles only happen once, too, Sassenach,” he said. “That’s why all bairns are different.”

“I wouldn’t argue with that,” I said mildly. “But we’ll need to be traveling quite soon, won’t we? Even if Marsali is pregnant, she won’t be more than three or four months along.” A small sense of unease crept into my mind. It was early September; snow might begin to close the mountain passes as early as October, though if it was a warm year . . .

“How long will it take, do you think? To get back to the Ridge?”

“Too long to make it before the snow, Sassenach,” he said gently, running a hand down my back. “Even if I manage the money and find a ship to take us down to North Carolina—and I’d rather do that—”

“You would?” I blurted, astonished. “You? Take a ship? I thought you’d sworn you’d never set foot on one again unless it was the ship taking your coffin back to Scotland.”

“Mmphm. Aye, well. If it was only me, then, aye, I’d rather walk to North Carolina barefoot over hot coals. But it’s not. It’s you, and—”

“Me?” I sat up straight, angry. “What do you mean by that? Ahhh!” I clutched my hair and dived into his lap, for the bat had zoomed within inches of my head; I actually heard its faint squeaking and the leathery flap of wings.

Jamie laughed, but with a faint edge to it. As I sat up again, he ran a hand down my right side and rested two fingers over the fresh scar there.

“I mean that, Sassenach,” he said, and pressed. Very gently, and I kept myself from flinching at the touch—but the scar was still red and tender.

“I’m fine,” I said, as firmly as possible.

“I’ve been shot, Sassenach,” he said, very dryly. “More than once. I ken what it feels like—and how long it takes to get your full strength back. Ye nearly fell over in the street today, and—”

“I hadn’t eaten anything; I was hungry, and—”

“I’m no taking ye overland,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “And it’s not only you—though it’s mostly you,” he added, in a softer tone, smoothing the hair off my face. “But there are the wee bairns, as well, and now Marsali, if she’s wi’ child . . . It’s a hard journey, lass, and dangerous, forbye. Did ye not say the duke told ye the British mean to take the South now?”

“Hmph,” I said, but allowed him to pull me down next to him. “Yes, he did. But I’ve no idea what that might actually mean, in terms of where they are or what they’re doing. The only battles I’d actually heard of, beyond Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, are Saratoga and Yorktown—that’s where it ends, Yorktown,” I added. “Obviously a few things must happen in between, though.”

“Obviously,” he said. “Aye. Well, I’ll buy another sword when we get to North Carolina and I’ve money again.”

He did in fact have considerable assets—in North Carolina. But there was no way of retrieving any of the gold hidden in the Spaniard’s Cave there—even if he had trusted anyone to do so, no one knew where the cave was, save him and Jemmy—and the aging whisky (almost as valuable as the gold, if brought to the coast for sale) was in the same place.

“I suppose the price of a good sword isn’t quite enough for ship’s passage for nine people—no, eleven, if Ian and Rachel come, too—is it?”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “I said to Fergus that he might consider selling his press. He doesna own the premises, ken—but the press is his.” He made a small gesture, encompassing the building around us. “There’s my Bonnie in Wilmington, after all.”

“Your—oh, your press. Of course.” I hid a smile in his biceps. He invariably spoke of . . . well, her . . . with a certain possessive affection. Come to think, I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him talk about me that way. . . .

“Aye. Fergus has his mind set that he’ll go on bein’ a printer, and I think that’s wise. Germain’s not yet big enough to plow—and poor wee Henri-Christian never will be.”

I suppressed my speculations as to just what Germain’s reaction might be if forcibly removed from the environs of a thriving city and plunked down behind a plow. He might remember the Ridge fondly, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be a farmer.

“What about Richard Bell?” Bell was the Loyalist who had been forcibly deported from his North Carolina home and sent, penniless and friendless, to England, ending up eventually in Edinburgh, where he had found employment as a printer—and where Jamie had encountered him and made the bargain whereby Richard would bring Bonnie to North Carolina and look after her in return for his passage home.

“I dinna ken,” Jamie said reflectively. “I wrote to him, to say we were coming to Wilmington and that we must make some arrangement . . . but I’ve had no reply.” This didn’t necessarily mean anything; letters frequently were lost or late. Jamie shrugged a little and shifted, stretching as he resettled himself. “Aye, well; let that bide. We’ll see when we see. How’s our wee friend?”

“Our—oh.” I looked up, scanning the low ceiling, but saw no trace of the bat. I didn’t hear any whining mosquitoes, either. “Well done, bat,” I said appreciatively.

Jamie laughed, low in his throat.

“Remember sittin’ on the stoop and watching the bats come out in the summer evenings on the Ridge?”

“I do,” I said softly, and turned on my side to embrace him lightly, hand on the curly hairs of his chest. I did remember. The Ridge. The cabin Jamie and Ian had built for shelter when we first came there, and the white piglet we’d bought, who had become the fearsome white sow, terror of the entire neighborhood. Our friends, Jamie’s tenants, Lizzie and the Beardsley twins . . . My heart squeezed at some of the memories.

Malva Christie. Poor doomed child. And the Bugs—Jamie’s trusted factor and his wife—who had proven a good deal less than trustworthy. And the Big House, our house, gone up in flames, and our life there with it.

“I’ll need to build the new house first thing,” he said thoughtfully. He laid his own hand on mine and squeezed it. “And I’ll make ye a new garden. Ye can have half the money I got for my sword, to buy seeds.”

114 BELIEF IS A WISE WAGER

September 10, 1778

New York

HAL GAVE A MILD snort. “I don’t like your going alone,” he said.

“I don’t like it, either,” John said matter-of-factly, corking his hip flask. “But the only person who could effectively go with me is you, and you can’t, because of the regiment, so . . . God, I miss Tom Byrd,” he said impulsively.

“Your erstwhile valet?” Hal smiled, despite the worry of the situation. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him? Ten years at least, surely?”

“At least that.” Thought of Tom still gave him a slight pang. Tom had left his employment—with deep regret on both sides—in order to marry, and had become a successful publican in Southwark, his wife having inherited a thriving public house from her father. Grey couldn’t begrudge him his happiness, but he still sorely missed Byrd, with his sharp eyes, quick mind, and anxious care for Grey’s person as well as his clothes.

He glanced down at himself; his current valet managed to keep him decent—a task that he himself admitted to be Sisyphean—but lacked both imagination and conversation.

“You should take Marks, regardless,” Hal said, having evidently followed his train of thought without difficulty. “Someone’s got to keep you in order.” He gave John’s uniform a critical look.

“I can dress myself, you know,” John said mildly. “As for the uniform—” He glanced down and shrugged. “Bit of a brush-off, clean shirt, spare stockings . . . it’s not as though I mean to be calling on General Washington.”

“We can only hope.” Hal’s lips pressed together. He’d already expressed his reservations—if anything so violently explicit could be described in such terms—regarding Grey’s intent to travel as himself, in uniform.

“I’ve had quite enough of being arrested as a spy, thank you,” John replied. “Beyond the risk of being hanged out-of-hand, the Americans’ sense of hospitality . . . though come to think, I’d meant to ask: do you know a Watson Smith? Used to be a captain in the Twenty-second, I think.”

Hal frowned in concentration, but his brow cleared almost immediately.

“I do,” he said. “A very good officer; did well at Crefeld and Zorndorf.” He cocked his head to one side, brows raised. “Why?”

“He’s turned his coat; he’s now a colonel in the Continental army. I was his involuntary guest for a short time. Nice fellow,” Grey added fairly. “Got me drunk on applejack.”

“Doubtless with the intent of extracting intelligence from you?” Hal’s expression made it clear that he doubted there had been much in that line for Smith to extract.

“No,” Grey said thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. We just got drunk together. Nice fellow,” he repeated. “I was going to express the hope that I wouldn’t meet him again—shouldn’t like to have to kill him, I mean—but I suppose it isn’t beyond belief that I might run into him somewhere.” The thought gave him a small, pleasant clench low down in the belly that rather surprised him.

“Anyway,” he added, “I’m going in uniform, even if grubby uniform. It won’t necessarily keep me from arrest, imprisonment, starvation, and torture, but it will save me from being hanged.”

“Torture?” Hal gave him a look.

“I had in mind waking up after the applejack,” John told him. “And the singing. Have you any idea how many verses the Americans have for ‘Yankee Doodle’?”

Hal grunted in response to this and took out a leather folder, from which he extracted a thin sheaf of documents.

“Here are your bona fides,” he said, handing them over. “They may help—assuming firstly that you’re captured or detained, rather than shot on sight, and secondly that your captors take the time to read them.”

Grey didn’t trouble to reply to this, being occupied in thumbing through the documents. A copy of his warrant of commission; a note from Hal as Colonel of the Regiment, detaching Lieutenant Colonel John Grey temporarily from service and desiring him to undertake the task of locating and assisting one Mrs. Benjamin Grey (née Amaranthus Cowden), widow of Captain Benjamin Grey, late of the Thirty-fourth Foot; a “To Whom It May Concern” letter from Clinton, formally recognizing Grey’s mission and requesting that every courtesy and assistance be provided him in consequence thereof; several bills of exchange drawn on Coutts’ bank in New York (“Just in case,” Hal told him. “In case of what?” “In case you get knocked over and relieved of your gold, halfwit.” “Oh.”); and . . . Benedict Arnold’s note, granting the Duke of Pardloe and his brother, Lord John Grey, permission to abide temporarily in Philadelphia for the purpose of searching for the duke’s nephew.

“Really?” Grey said, raising his brows at this last. “Under what circumstances do you think this might be helpful?”

Hal shrugged and straightened his waistcoat. “The fact that you and I are known to General Arnold is worth something. The note doesn’t give his opinion of us, after all.”

Grey gave the note a critical eye, but, in fact, Arnold had refrained from personalities and had not codified his threats regarding rails and tar and feathers.

“All right.” He closed the folder and put it down, laying his hat on it to ensure against walking off without it. “That’s that, then. What’s for supper?”

JOHN GREY WAS enjoying a confused but pleasant dream involving spring rain, his dachshund Roscoe, Colonel Watson Smith, and a great deal of mud, when he gradually became aware that the raindrops on his face were real.

He opened his eyes, blinking, to discover his niece, Dottie, holding his pitcher in one hand and sprinkling water from her fingertips onto his face.

“Good morning, Uncle John,” she said cheerily. “Rise and shine!”

“The last person injudicious enough to say that to me in the morning came to a most unpleasant end,” he said, struggling upright and rubbing the sleeve of his nightshirt across his face.

“Really? What happened to him? Or was it a him?” She dimpled at him and set down the pitcher, wiping her wet fingers on her skirt.

“What an improper question,” he said, eyeing her.

“Well, I am a married woman now, you know,” she said, sitting down with an air of extreme self-possession. “I am allowed to know that men and women occasionally share a bed, even outwith the bonds of matrimony.”

“Outwith? Where did you pick up that barbarous construction? Have you been speaking to Scotchmen?”

“Constantly,” she said. “But what happened to the unfortunate person who tried to roust you from your slumbers?”

“Oh, him.” He rubbed a hand over his head, still surprised at feeling the hair so short, though it had at least grown enough to fall over and lie somewhat flat, rather than sticking straight up like a shaving brush. “He was scalped by red Indians.”

She blinked.

“Well, that will teach him, to be sure,” she murmured.

Grey swung his legs out of bed and gave her a pointed look.

“I don’t care how married you are, Dottie, you are not allowed to help me dress. What the devil are you doing here, anyway?”

“I’m going with you to find B-Ben’s widow,” she said, and all of a sudden her bright façade collapsed like papier-mâché in the rain. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she clamped a hand hard over her mouth to prevent them falling.

“Oh,” Grey said. “Oh, my dear . . .” And pausing only to fling on his banyan—even in emergency, there were limits—he knelt beside her and gathered her into his arms.

“It’s all right,” he said softly to her, rubbing her back. “Ben may not be dead, after all. We think he’s not—your father and I.” We certainly hope he’s not, he thought, but opted for the most positive view of the situation.

“You don’t?” She choked, sniffed, and sat up a bit, looking up at him with drowned-cornflower eyes.

“Certainly not,” he said firmly, and dug in the pocket of his banyan for a handkerchief.

“But why not?” She accepted the proffered linen—somewhat crumpled but not indecently so—and dabbed at her face. “How could he not be?”

Grey sighed, caught between Scylla and Charybdis, as usual when enmeshed in one of Hal’s situations.

“Does your father know you’re here?” he asked, as a delaying tactic.

“Don’t—I mean, no,” she said, clearing her throat and sitting up straighter. “I went to his quarters, but he was out, so I came on here to find you.”

“How is it that you’re sure Ben’s died?” Grey stood up and, tying the belt of his banyan, began looking about for his slippers. He knew that Hal hadn’t yet written to Minnie about Ben—wouldn’t do so unless forced by dreadful certainty—and even if he had, there was no way in which word could have come back to Dottie so soon. And Hal would not have told his daughter the news until he was sure, no more than he would have told his wife.

“Henry told me,” she said. She poured a little water onto the handkerchief and commenced repairs to her complexion. “I went to visit him and Mercy, and he’d just had a letter from Adam, telling him . . . you’re sure he isn’t dead?” she asked anxiously, lowering the handkerchief to gaze at him. “Adam’s letter said he’d heard it from someone on General Clinton’s staff, telling him for sure that Ben had died at a military camp in New Jersey—Middlebrook, I think he said it was called.”

“No, we’re not sure,” he admitted. “But we have reasonable grounds for doubt, and until those have been completely explored, we will proceed on the assumption that he’s not. I do have to find his wife, though,” he added. “And child.”

Dottie’s eyes flew wide.

“A child? Ben has a baby?”

“Well, the woman who claims to be his wife has a son, or so she says—and she did say that Ben is the father of her offspring.” Seeing that there was little alternative, he apprised her of the letter from Amaranthus Cowden that Hal had received in Philadelphia, and its contents.

“Now, as Ben didn’t happen to mention this woman to Hal, one of the duties I’m to carry out for your father is the determination as to whether she’s telling the truth. And if she is, then of course I will bring her back with me, and the family will take care of her and the child.”

“What if she’s not telling the truth?” Dottie’s distress was rapidly being subsumed by a combination of hope and curiosity.

“God knows,” Grey said frankly. “Would you like to go and ask Marks to see about breakfast for us, Dottie? I may be out of bed, but I’m in no way equipped to conduct hypothetical conversations before I’ve had a cup of tea.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” She rose, though slowly, plainly still thinking about the revelations, and went toward the door, but paused on the threshold and looked back at him.

“I am coming with you,” she said firmly. “We can talk about it on the way.”

HAL WALKED IN as the kippers and mixed grill were being laid out. He halted for a split second as he saw Dottie, but then came on, more slowly, eyeing her.

“Good morning, Papa,” she said briskly, rising and coming to kiss his cheek. “Sit down and have a kipper.”

He did sit down, still eyeing her, then switched his gaze to John.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Grey assured his brother. “She arrived—how did you get here, Dottie?”

“On a horse,” she replied patiently, taking a slice of toast.

“And where is your husband?” Hal asked mildly. “Does he know where you are?”

“Denzell is where his duty takes him,” she said, rather tersely. “With the Continental army. Mine takes me here. And of course he knows.”

“And he had no objection to your traveling alone from Pennsylvania to New York, over roads infested by—”

“I wasn’t alone.” She took a delicate bite of her toast, chewed, and swallowed. “Ian and some of his Mohawk friends brought me. The Mohawks were traveling to someplace north of here.”

“Ian—is that by chance Ian Murray?” Grey asked, but then answered himself. “I suppose it must be; how many Mohawks can there be named Ian? I take it that he survived his wound, then; I’m pleased to hear it. How did you come to—”

“Dorothea,” said Hal, in measured tones, staring at Dottie. “Why are you here?”

Dottie returned his stare, her jaw visibly clenched.

“B-because of Ben,” she said, unable to keep her voice entirely steady. “Are you—Papa, are you sure he’s not dead?”

Hal took an audible breath and nodded.

“I’m sure,” he said in his best command voice. But John could see his knuckles whiten as he clutched a teaspoon, and felt the knot in his own stomach tighten in response.

Dottie clearly had her own doubts, judging from her glance at her father, but she obligingly nodded. Being Dottie, of course, she didn’t stop there.

“How?” she said. “How do you know? Adam and Henry both think . . . the worst.”

Hal’s mouth opened a fraction of an inch, but nothing came out.

John thought that Hal ought really to have been prepared for this, but, after all, his brother had been having a difficult time. And, in all justice, it was hard to be prepared for something like Dottie.

“I suppose you’d better tell her,” John said. “If you don’t, she’ll likely write to Minnie.”

Hal shot him a glance full of venom, fully aware that this helpful suggestion had been made with the intent of forcing him to divulge his reasoning to Dottie—but there wasn’t much of a choice, and he did so with as much grace as he could.

“But this Captain Richardson hadn’t done anything to Willie?” Dottie said, frowning a little. “I thought—”

“Not on this occasion,” John said briefly, “but given his earlier behavior over the Dismal Swamp and Quebec, we’re somewhat suspicious.”

“And the man apparently has deserted,” Hal pointed out.

“You don’t know that. He might have been killed by someone and his body concealed,” Dottie pointed out logically.

“He was seen leaving the camp,” John said patiently. “Alone. And given what we know and surmise about him, I think we have grounds to consider the possibility that he might be an American agent.” He was himself fairly well convinced of it, viewing all his experience of Richardson now with the clarity of hindsight. He’d been an intelligencer himself for some years, and every instinct he possessed was presently shouting Stinking fish! with regard to Ezekiel Richardson.

“I blame myself extremely,” he said apologetically to Hal. “I should have been on to him much sooner. But I was . . . distracted at the time.” Distracted. Blown sideways and more than half obliterated by the news of Jamie Fraser’s death. Even the memory of it was enough to close his stomach. He put down the forkful of kipper, untasted.

“All right,” Dottie said slowly. Her own breakfast was congealing on her plate. So was Hal’s. “So you don’t believe Ben is dead, because this Richardson told you he was—and you think Richardson is a wrong ’un. But that’s . . . all?” She looked intently at her father, her young chin trembling slightly, begging reassurance.

Hal closed his eyes for an instant, opened them, and looked at her directly.

“Dorothea,” he said softly. “I have to believe that Ben is alive. Because if he isn’t, then your mother will die of heartbreak—and I will die with her.”

There was a moment of long silence, during which Grey heard the passage of carts in the street and the muffled voices of his valet and a bootblack in the corridor. Dottie made no sound at all, but he felt he could hear, too, the tears that rolled slowly down her cheeks.

115 THE RAVELED SLEEVE OF CARE

September 15, 1778

Philadelphia

I WOKE ABRUPTLY IN the dark, disoriented and alarmed. For a moment, I had no idea where I was or what was happening—only that something was seriously wrong.

I sat up, blinking furiously in an attempt to focus my eyes. Patted round in confusion and found myself naked, legs tangled in a sheet and wisps of straw prickling . . . oh. Loft. Printshop.

Jamie.

That was what was wrong. He lay next to me, but not still. He was on his side, turned away from me, body contorted, knees drawn up, and his arms crossed tight over his chest, head bowed. Shivering violently, though moonlight showed me the gleam of cold sweat on his shoulders. And making the terrible small whimpering noises that betokened the worst of his dreams.

I knew better than to try to wake him suddenly. Not in a small space with a lot of clutter and a steep drop ten feet away.

My own heart was pounding, and I knew his was. I eased myself carefully down beside him, facing his back. I needed to touch him, to bring him slowly to himself—or to enough of himself that he could recover alone. This wasn’t the sort of nightmare eased by talking. Or, sometimes, even by waking.

“God, no,” he said, in a heartbroken whisper. “God, no!”

I mustn’t grab or shake him. I clenched my teeth and ran my hand lightly from the slope of his shoulder down to his elbow, and his skin shivered like a horse ridding itself of flies. That was all right, then. I did it again, paused, and again. He took a deep, horrible gasp, choked with fear . . . but the violent shivering eased a little.

“Jamie,” I whispered, and, with extreme caution, touched his back very lightly. If he was dreaming about Jack Randall, this might—

“No!” he exclaimed, in a loud, fierce voice, and his legs straightened, every muscle in his body tight against his skin. “Damn you to hell!”

I took a deep breath and relaxed, just a bit. Anger was a thousand times better than fear or pain. Anger would leave him, as soon as he woke completely. The other things tended to linger.

“Hush,” I said, a little louder but still softly. Germain often slept by the hearth, not wanting to share a bed with his younger siblings. “Hush, Jamie. I’m here.” And with some trepidation, I put my arm round him, lightly, and laid my cheek against his back. His skin was hot; he smelled pungently of our lovemaking and even more strongly of fear and rage.

He stiffened, caught his breath—but I felt his awareness come back: instantly, the way it did when he woke to some alarm, ready to leap out of bed, reaching for a weapon. I tightened my hold and pressed my body against his. He didn’t move, but I felt the thud of his heart, beating hard and fast.

“Can you hear me?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

After a moment, he drew a deep breath and let it out in a long, quivering sigh.

“Aye,” he whispered, and his hand reached back to grasp my thigh, so tightly that I jerked but managed not to squeal. We rested quietly together for a time, until I felt his heart begin to slow and his skin cool, and then I kissed his back and traced the scars that would never fade from his body, over and over with gentle fingers, until they faded from his mind and he slept in my arms.

THE PIGEONS ON the roof of the boardinghouse made a purling noise, like the sea coming in on a pebbled shore, rolling tiny rounded rocks in the surf. Rachel was making a similar noise, snoring very faintly. Ian found it charming and could have lain watching her and listening to her all night—save that she was lying on his left arm, which had gone numb, and he needed urgently to piss.

As gently as possible, he edged out from under her soft weight, but she was a light sleeper and woke at once, yawning and stretching like a young catamount in the candlelight. She was naked, arms and face the color of just-toasted bread, her body white and her privates under their dark-brown bush a wonderful dusky color that wasn’t either rose or violet or brown, but reminded him of orchids in the forests of Jamaica.

She stretched her arms above her head, and the movement lifted her startlingly white round breasts and made her nipples slowly rise. He began to slowly rise, too, and hastily turned away, before it became impossible to do what he’d meant to.

“Go back to sleep, lass,” he said. “I just—er . . .” He gestured toward the chamber pot under the bed.

She made a pleasant sleepy noise and rolled onto her side, watching him.

“Does thee mind my looking at thee?” she asked, in a soft voice husked by sleep and earlier muffled shrieks.

He glanced at her in astonishment.

“Why would ye want to?” The notion seemed mildly perverse, but in a distinctly arousing fashion. He wanted to turn his back so he could piss, but if she wanted to watch him . . .

“It seems an intimacy of the body,” she said, looking at him through half-closed eyes. “A trusting, perhaps. That thee consider thy body to be mine, as I consider mine to be thine.”

“Do ye?” That idea surprised him, but he didn’t object. At all.

“Thee has seen the most hidden parts of me,” she pointed out, and, spreading her legs, drew her fingers delicately between them in illustration. “And tasted them, as well. What did it taste like?” she asked curiously.

“Fresh-caught trout,” he replied, smiling at her. “Rachel—if ye want to watch me piss, ye can. But ye canna do it if ye talk to me like that while I’m trying, aye?”

“Oh.” She made a small snort of amusement and rolled over, turning her back and her very round bottom to him. “Go ahead, then.”

He sighed, examining his prospects.

“It will take a minute, aye?” Before she could think of anything else outrageous to say to him, he went on, in hopes of distracting her. “Uncle Jamie and Auntie Claire think of leaving Philadelphia soon. To go back to North Carolina, ken? What would ye think of going with them?”

“What?” He heard the rustle of the corn-husk mattress as she turned over quickly. “Where is thee thinking of going, that thee would not take me with thee?”

“Och, I didna mean that, lass,” he assured her, with a quick glance over his shoulder. She was propped on her elbows, looking at him accusingly. “I meant we’d both go. To Fraser’s Ridge—Uncle Jamie’s settlement.”

“Oh.” That surprised her into silence. He could hear her thinking about it, and smiled to himself.

“Thee does not feel an obligation to the Continental army?” she asked after a moment, cautiously. “To the cause of freedom?”

“I dinna think those are necessarily the same thing, lass,” he said, and closed his eyes in relief as everything relaxed at last. He shook himself and put away the pot, giving himself time to form a coherent sentence.

“The Duke of Pardloe told Auntie Claire that after Saratoga the British made a new plan. They mean to try to separate the southern colonies from the northern ones, blockade the South, and try to starve the North into submission.”

“Oh.” She moved to give him room to lie down beside her, then snuggled into him, her free hand cupping his balls. “Then thee means there will not be fighting in the North, so thee will not be needed as a scout here—but thee might, in the South?”

“Aye, or I might find another use for myself.”

“Outside the army, thee means?” She was trying hard to keep hopefulness out of her voice; he could tell from the very sincere way she looked up at him, and he smiled at her, putting his own hand over hers. He was much in favor of bodily intimacy, but would rather not be squeezed like an orange should Rachel be overcome by enthusiasm.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I own some land, ken, on the Ridge. Uncle Jamie gave it to me, some years back. ’Twould be hard work, mind, clearing fields and planting and plowing, but farming is mostly peaceful. Bar things like bears and wild pigs and fire and hailstorms, I mean.”

“Oh, Ian.” Her face had gone soft, and so had her hand, now resting peacefully in his. “I should love to farm with thee.”

“Ye’d miss your brother,” he reminded her. “And Dottie. Maybe Fergus and Marsali and the weans, too—I dinna think they’d come settle on the Ridge, though Uncle Jamie thinks they’d maybe travel south with us but settle near the coast. Fergus would need a decent-sized city, if he’s to make much living as a printer.”

A shadow crossed her face at that, but she shook her head.

“I will miss Denzell and Dottie—but I should in any case, for they will go where the army goes. But I will be very happy if thee does not,” she added softly, and lifted her face to kiss him.

RACHEL WOKE instantly. She hadn’t been soundly asleep, her body still a-hum from lovemaking, and still so attuned to Ian’s that when he gasped and stiffened beside her, she sprang at once into awareness and had her hands on his shoulders, meaning to shake him gently out of his dream.

The next moment, she was on the floor in a tangle of bedding, her husband on top of her and his very large hands vised round her throat. She flopped and wriggled, pushed at him in futile panic—and then, as her breath vanished and brilliant red stars flashed in the darkness of her vision, she got hold of herself and brought her knee up as hard as she could.

It was a lucky blow, though it missed its mark; she hit Ian hard in the thigh, and he woke with a start and let go. She struggled out from under him, gasping and wheezing, and crawled as fast as she could to the corner, where she sat quivering with her arms wrapped round her knees, chest heaving and her heart thumping in her ears.

Ian was breathing heavily through his nose, pausing every so often to grunt or to say something brief—and probably very expressive, if she’d had the wit to understand it—in either Gaelic or Mohawk. After a few minutes, though, he got slowly into a sitting position and leaned back against the bedstead.

“Rachel?” he said warily, after a moment’s silence. He sounded rational, and her tight-clasped arms loosened a little.

“Here,” she said, tentative. “Is thee . . . all right, Ian?”

“Oh, aye,” he said mildly. “Who taught ye to do that to a man?”

“Denny,” she said, beginning to breathe easier. “He said that discouraging a man from committing the sin of rape wasn’t violence.”

There was a moment of silence from the vicinity of the bed.

“Oh,” said Ian. “I might have a wee chat wi’ Denny, one of these days. A philosophical discussion on the meaning of words, like.”

“I’m sure he would enjoy it,” Rachel said. She was still unnerved by what had happened, but crawled over and sat beside Ian on the floor. The sheet was lying in a pale puddle nearby, and she shook it out and draped it over her nakedness. She offered half of it to Ian, but he shook his head and leaned back a little, groaning as he stretched out his leg.

“Um. Would thee like me to . . . rub it?” she asked tentatively.

He made a small huffing noise that she interpreted as amusement. “Not just now, aye?”

They sat together, shoulders barely touching, for a bit. Her mouth was dry, and it took some time to work up enough spit to speak.

“I thought thee was going to kill me,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice from quivering.

“I thought I was, too,” Ian said quietly. He groped for her hand in the dark and held it, hard. “Sorry, lass.”

“Thee was dreaming,” she ventured. “Does—does thee want to tell me about it?”

“God, no,” he said, and sighed. He let go her hand and bent his head, folding his arms atop his knees.

She kept quiet, not knowing what to say, and prayed.

“It was the Abenaki,” he said eventually, his voice muffled. “The one I killed. In the British camp.”

The words were simple and bald, and struck her in the pit of the stomach. She knew; he’d told her when he came back wounded. But to hear it again here, in the dark, with her back scraped from the floor and her throat bruised from his hands . . . She felt as though the deed itself had just happened in front of her, the reverberation of it shocking as a scream in her ear.

She swallowed and, turning to him, put a hand on his shoulder lightly, feeling with her thumb for the fresh, ragged scar where Denzell had cut to remove the arrow.

“Thee strangled the man?” she asked, very quietly.

“No.” He breathed deep and sat up slowly. “I choked him, and I cut his throat, just a wee bit, and then I bashed his head in wi’ a tomahawk.”

He turned to her then and passed a hand lightly over her hair, smoothing it.

“I didna have to,” he said. “Not right that moment, I mean. He didna attack me—though he’d tried to kill me before.”

“Oh,” she said, and tried to swallow, but her mouth had dried afresh. He sighed and bent so that his forehead rested on hers. She felt the warmth of his nearness, the warmth of his breath, smelling of beer and the juniper berries he chewed to clean his teeth. His eyes were open but so shadowed that she couldn’t see into them.

“Is thee afraid of me, Rachel?” he whispered.

“I am,” she whispered back, and closed her hand on his wounded shoulder, lightly but hard enough for him to feel the hurt of it. “And I am afraid for thee, as well. But there are things I fear much more than death—and to be without thee is what I fear most.”

RACHEL REMADE the bed by candlelight and left the candle burning for a bit, saying that she wanted to read, to settle her mind. Ian had nodded, kissed her, and curled up like a dog beside her—the bedstead was too short for him. She glanced at the corner where Rollo slept; he was stretched out straight as a knife, head between his paws.

Ian put a hand on her leg and sank into sleep. She could see him doing it, his face going slack and peaceful, the muscles of his shoulders easing. It was why she’d kept the candle lit, so she might watch him sleep for a little and let the sight of him bring her peace, as well.

She’d put on her shift, feeling obscurely exposed, and though it was hot enough to lie above the sheet, she’d pulled it over her legs, too, wanting to be able to feel Ian when she moved in her sleep. She moved a leg toward him now, slowly, and felt the touch of his knee against her calf. His long lashes cast shadows on his cheeks in the candlelight, just above the looping line of his tattoos.

“Thee is my wolf,” she’d said to him. “And if thee hunts at night, thee will come home.”

“And sleep at thy feet,” he’d replied.

She sighed, but felt better, and opened her Bible, to read a psalm before blowing out the candle, only to discover that she had absently picked up Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded, from the bedside table. She gave a small snort of amusement and, all sense of distress now driven from her mind, closed the book, put out the candle, and snuggled down beside her sleeping wolf.

Sometime much later, in the empty hours before dawn, she opened her eyes. Not asleep, but certainly not awake, she had a sense of perfect consciousness without thought. And a distinct and vivid sense that she was not alone.

Ian was beside her; his breath touched her face, but she felt quite apart from him. It was only when it happened again that she realized what had wakened her: a tiny, sharp pain in her belly. Like the pain that sometimes came when she started her monthly, but smaller, less an ache than a . . . stab. A stab of awareness.

She blinked and put her hands over her stomach. The rafters were just barely visible overhead, shadowed with the distant coming of the light.

The pain had stopped, but the sense of . . . company? Of presence, rather. That hadn’t gone away. It seemed very odd and completely natural—and of course it was, she thought. Natural as the beating of her own heart and the breath in her lungs.

She had a faint impulse to wake Ian, but that passed almost at once. She wanted to keep this for now, be alone with the knowledge—but not alone, she corrected herself, and sank peacefully back to sleep, hands still crossed over her lively womb.

IAN USUALLY WOKE before her, but she always felt him stir and would rise to the edge of wakefulness to enjoy his sleepy warm smell, the small male sounds he made, and the feel of his legs brushing hers as he swung them out of bed and sat up. He’d sit there on the edge for a moment, rubbing his hands through his hair and getting his bearings on the day, and if she cracked her eyes open, she could see his long, lovely back just in front of her, columnar muscles tanned by the sun and sloping gently down to his neat, tight buttocks, white as milk in contrast.

Sometimes he would emit a small, popping fart and look guiltily over his shoulder. She’d shut her eyes instantly and pretend to be still asleep, thinking that she must be completely besotted to find this adorable—but she did.

This morning, though, he sat up, rubbed a hand through his hair, and stiffened. She opened her eyes all the way, instantly alarmed by something in his posture.

“Ian?” she whispered, but he didn’t attend.

“A Dhia,” he said, very softly. “Ah, no, a charaid . . .”

She knew at once. Should have known from the instant she woke. Because Rollo woke when Ian did, stretching and yawning with a groaning creak of jaw muscles and a lazy thump of tail against the wall, before coming to poke a cold nose into his master’s hand.

This morning there was only stillness, and the curled form of what used to be Rollo.

Ian rose and went to him swiftly, knelt on the floor beside the body of his dog, and laid a gentle hand on the big furry head. He didn’t say anything, or weep, but she heard the sound he made when he breathed, as of something tearing in his chest.

She got out of bed and came to Ian, kneeling beside him, arm about his waist, and she was weeping, quite without meaning to.

“Mo chù,” Ian said, running his hand lightly over the soft, thick fur. “Mo chuilean.” There was a catch in his voice when he said, “Beannachd leat, a charaid.” Goodbye, old friend.

Then he sat back on his heels, took a deep breath, and clasped Rachel’s hand very hard. “He waited, I think. Until he kent ye were here for me.” He swallowed audibly, and his voice was steady when he spoke again.

“I’ll need to bury him. I ken a place, but it’s some way. I’ll be back by midafternoon, though.”

“I’ll come with thee.” Her nose was running. She reached for the towel by the ewer and blew her nose on one end.

“Ye needn’t, mo ghràidh,” he said gently, and passed a hand over her hair to smooth it. “It’s a long way.”

She drew breath and stood up.

“Then we’d best get started.” She touched her husband on the shoulder, as lightly as he’d touched Rollo’s fur. “I married him, as well as thee.”

116 A-HUNTING WE WILL GO

September 15, 1778

First Watchung Mountain

THERE WAS A NEAT mound of droppings by the path, dark and glistening as coffee beans and much the same size. William was leading his mare, owing to her stoutness and the steep nature of the trail, so took the opportunity to stop for a moment and let her breathe. This she did, with an explosive snort and a shake of her mane.

He squatted and scooped up a few of the pellets, sniffing. Very fresh, though not warm, and with the faint oaky tang that meant the deer had been browsing on green acorns. Glancing to his left, he saw the broken brush that marked the animal’s passage, and his hand twitched, wanting to wrap itself round his rifle. He could leave the mare tethered . . .

“What about it, owd lass?” he asked the mare, in the accents of the Lake District, where he’d grown up. “Would ’ee carry a carcass, if I shot ’un?”

The mare was maybe fourteen, old enough to be steady; in fact, it would be hard to imagine a steadier mount. She was more like riding a sofa than a horse, with her broad back and sides curved like a hogshead of beer. But he hadn’t thought to ask, when he bought her, whether she was used to hunting. Steadiness of gait and a mild temper didn’t necessarily mean she’d be fine if he heaved a deer across her back, leaking blood. Still . . .

He lifted his face to the breeze. Perfect. It was straight across the mountainside, toward him, and he imagined he could actually smell the—

Something moved in the wood, snapping twigs, and he heard the unmistakable rustling: the sound of a large herbivorous creature, wrenching mouthfuls of leaves off a tree.

Before he could think twice, he’d got to his feet, slipped the rifle from its sheath as silently as he could, and shucked his boots. Soft-footed as a ferret, he slid into the brush . . .

And, five minutes later, grasped the thrashing stubby antlers of a yearling buck with one hand as he slit the deer’s throat with the other, the sound of his shot still echoing off the rocky escarpment above him.

It had happened so fast, it scarcely seemed real, despite the warm-cold feel of the blood soaking into his stockings and the thick smell of it. There was a tick hanging just under the deer’s glazing eye, round as a tiny muscat grape. Would it let go at once, he wondered? Or would there be enough blood left for it to go on feeding for some time?

The deer shuddered violently, shoving its antlers hard into his chest, bunched its legs convulsively as though about to make one final leap, and died.

He held it for a few moments, the shredded velvet still on the antlers like rough suede under his sweating palm, the weight of the coarse-haired shoulders growing heavy on his knee.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and let go. He remembered that it had been Mac the groom who’d told him that you always thanked a creature that gave you its life—and that it had been James Fraser, some years later, who had killed a huge wapiti in front of him and spoken what he said was a “gralloch prayer” in Gaelic before butchering the beast. But with the deer’s blood on his skin and the breeze moving in the wood around him, for once he didn’t push those memories away.

He went to check the mare, who was fortunately close to where he’d left her, having merely moved a few yards in order to crop weeds, and who looked at him with tranquil eyes, yellow wildflowers dangling from the corners of her mouth, as though gunshots and the smell of blood were commonplace in her life. Perhaps they were, he thought, and slapped her shoulder companionably.

Here’s for you, Ben, he thought a few minutes later, slitting the belly skin. His cousin, nearly six years older than himself, had taken him hunting now and then in the forest near Earlingden, with Viscount Almerding, a friend of Ben’s whose preserve it was.

He’d tried not to think of his cousin too much as he’d made his preparations. The greater part of him truly believed that Ben was dead. Gaol fever, according to what Richardson had told his uncle. Not an unusual thing to happen to a prisoner, by any means. And while he was convinced—reluctantly, for it made him burn with shame to have been such a flat as to have been gulled by the man—that Richardson was probably a villain, that didn’t necessarily mean that every word from the man’s mouth was a lie. Granted, he’d found no other trace of Ben in several weeks of searching.

But there was the small part of his heart that wouldn’t give up. And a larger part that would do anything he could to ease the grief of his uncle and father, whatever the truth might prove to be.

“And if you bloody come down to it, what the hell else is there for me to do?” he muttered, reaching into the steaming heat of the body and groping for the heart.

At least he’d be welcome when he walked into Middlebrook Encampment, as they called it. A man bearing fresh meat was always welcome.

A half hour later, he’d gutted the carcass and wrapped his canvas bed sack around it to keep off flies. The horse flared her nostrils and snorted in disgust at the smell, but made no great objection when he wrestled it onto her back.

It was late in the afternoon, but this late in the summer it would stay light for some time. Better, he thought, to make his first approach at suppertime. Chances were good that he’d be invited to sit down with someone, and conversation was much easier over food and drink.

He’d gone up to the rocky summit in order to survey the terrain and had to admit that Washington and his engineers had chosen well. From the top of First Watchung Mountain, which he was standing on, the plains before New Brunswick lay clear below. The Continentals could easily keep a beady eye on the British army from their aerie and swoop down to interfere with their movements—and had.

The armies were gone now, though: both of them. The British to New York, Washington’s troops to . . . well, wherever they might be at the moment. They weren’t here, and that was all to the good. But there were people, still, who lived near the encampment.

Ben had been—was, he corrected himself fiercely—an officer; an infantry captain, like himself. And captured officers were often billeted upon local householders, under parole. That was the place to begin his inquiries.

“Come on, then, lass,” he said to the mare, untying the reins from the sapling he’d wrapped them round. “Let’s go and make ourselves welcome.”

117 INTO THE BRIAR PATCH

September 16, 1778

Philadelphia

WE’D JUST FINISHED supper and I was wiping Henri-Christian’s face with the hem of my apron, when a knock came at the alley door. Jenny, sitting next to me with Félicité on her lap, gave me a quick glance, brows raised. Was this cause for alarm?

I hadn’t time to shrug or shake my head; all conversation had ceased on the instant, the children’s chatter quelled as though someone had dropped a candle snuffer over them. It was first dark and the door was bolted. Fergus and Jamie exchanged looks and, without a word, both of them rose.

Jamie stood to one side, hand on his dirk—I hadn’t realized until this moment that he wore it all the time now, even at table. I heard the shuffle of feet in the alley. There was more than one man out there, and the hair stirred on my nape. Jamie stood relaxed but watchful, weight on his back foot, ready as Fergus lifted the bar.

“Bonsoir,” Fergus said calmly, with an interrogative lift at the end of the phrase. A face hovered pale in the dark, not close enough to recognize.

“Bonsoir, Monsieur Fraser.” I blinked in surprise; I knew the voice, but had never heard Benedict Arnold speak French. But of course he could, I thought, recovering. He’d led more than one campaign in Quebec. It was a soldier’s French he spoke: rough but serviceable.

“Madame Fraser est ici, monsieur?” he said. “Votre mère?”

Fergus glanced reflexively over his shoulder at Jenny, astonished. I coughed and eased Henri-Christian off my lap, smoothing his rumpled hair.

“I rather think the governor means me,” I said. The governor turned aside and murmured something to his aide, who nodded and retired into the shadows.

“Mrs. Fraser,” Arnold said, sounding relieved. Fergus stood aside, and the governor came in, bowing to Marsali and Jenny, nodding to Jamie, before fixing his attention on me. “Yes, I do mean you, ma’am. I beg pardon for my untimely intrusion, sir,” he added, turning to Fergus. “I wasn’t sure where Mrs. Fraser was residing and was obliged to make inquiries.”

I saw Jamie’s mouth tighten briefly at this galling reference to our homelessness, but he bowed courteously.

“And I daresay the matter is urgent, sir, since ye come to make your inquiries in person?”

“It is, rather.” The governor turned to me. “I come to beg a favor of you, ma’am, on behalf of a friend.” He looked a little better than he had the last time I’d seen him; he’d gained a bit of weight and his color was better, but the lines and smudges of strain and fatigue were still plain in his face. The eyes, though, were as alert as ever.

“This would be a sick friend?” I asked, already glancing toward the ladder that led to the loft where we slept—and where the box holding my modest pharmacopeia was kept when I wasn’t holding regular surgery hours.

“A matter of injury, ma’am, rather than illness,” Arnold said, and his mouth tightened involuntarily. “Severe injury.”

“Oh? Well, then, I’d better—”

Jamie stopped me, a hand on my arm and his eyes on Arnold.

“A moment, Sassenach,” he said quietly. “Before I let ye go, I want to know the nature of the injury and the name of the injured man. And I also want to ken why the governor comes to ye under cover of night and hides his intent from his own aide.”

The color rose in Arnold’s cheeks, but he nodded.

“Fair enough, Mr. Fraser. Do you know a man called Shippen?”

Jamie looked blank and shook his head, but Fergus chimed in.

“I do,” he said, looking thoughtfully at Arnold. “He is a wealthy man, and a well-known Loyalist—one of those who chose not to leave the city when the British army withdrew.”

“I know one of the Shippen girls,” I said, with a vague memory of General Howe’s lavish leaving party in May—God, could that possibly be only three months past? “I don’t think I’ve met the father, though. Is he the injured party?”

“No, but he is the friend on whose behalf I ask your help, ma’am.” Arnold drew a deep, unhappy breath. “Mr. Shippen’s young cousin, a man named Tench Bledsoe, was set upon last night by the Sons of Liberty. They tarred and feathered him, ma’am, and left him on the docks in front of Mr. Shippen’s warehouse. He rolled off the dock into the river and by a mercy didn’t drown, but crept up the bank and lay in the muddy shallows until a slave hunting crabs found him and ran for help.”

“Help,” Jamie repeated carefully.

Arnold met his eye and nodded. “Just so, Mr. Fraser,” he said bleakly. “The Shippens live within two streets of Dr. Benjamin Rush, but under the circumstances . . .”

The circumstances being that Benjamin Rush was a very visible and outspoken Rebel, active in the Sons of Liberty, and would certainly be familiar with everyone in Philadelphia who held similar sentiments—very likely including the men who had attacked Tench Bledsoe.

“Sit down, Sassenach,” Jamie said, gesturing to my stool. I didn’t, and he gave me a brief, dark look.

“I dinna mean to stop ye going,” he said, a distinct edge in his voice. “I ken well enough that ye will. I just mean to make sure ye come back. Aye?”

“Er . . . yes,” I said, and coughed. “I’ll just—go and get my things together, then.” I sidled through the clump of staring children to the ladder and went up as quickly as I could, hearing Jamie’s stern inquisition of Governor Arnold begin behind me.

Severe burns—and the attendant difficulties of hardened tar—and very likely fever and infection already started, after a night lying in river mud. This was going to be messy—and possibly worse. There was no telling how badly the young man had been burned; if we were lucky, it might be only splashes of tar that had reached his skin. If we weren’t lucky . . .

I set my jaw and began packing. Linen bandages, a scalpel and small paring knife for debridement . . . leeches? Perhaps; there would certainly be bruising involved—no one submitted meekly to being tarred and feathered. I tied a hasty bandage around the leech jar to keep the lid from coming off in transit. Definitely a jar of honey . . . I held it up to the flicker of light from below: half full, a clouded gold that caught the light through brown glass like candle glow. Fergus kept a tin of turpentine in the shed for cleaning type; I should borrow that, as well.

I didn’t worry overmuch about the political delicacies that had made Arnold come to me so surreptitiously. Jamie would take what precautions were possible, I knew. Philadelphia lay in Rebel hands, but it was by no means a safe place—for anyone.

Not for the first time—or the last, I was sure—I was glad that at least my own path lay clear before me. The door below opened and closed with a thump; the governor was gone.

I LOOKED AT the rather grubby sedan chair, inhaled the scent of several dozen previous users, and took a firmer grip on my cane.

“I can walk,” I said.

“It’s not that far.”

“Ye’re not walking,” Jamie replied equably.

“Surely you don’t intend to stop me?”

“Aye, I do,” he said, still mildly. “I canna stop ye going—and I wouldna try—but I can, by God, make sure ye dinna fall on your face in the street on your way. Get in, Sassenach. Go slow,” he added to the chairmen, as he opened the door of the sedan and gestured to me. “I’m coming, and I dinna want to gallop so soon after supper.”

There being no reasonable alternative, I gathered the remnants of my dignity and got in. And with my basket of supplies settled at my feet and the window slid open as far as it would go—the memories of my last claustrophobic ride in a sedan chair were as vivid as the smell of this one—we set off at a stately jog through the quiet nighttime streets of Philadelphia.

The curfew had been eased of late, owing to protests from tavern owners—and, likely, their patrons—but the overall sense of the city was still edgy, and there were no respectable women on the street, no gangs of rowdy apprentices, or any of the slaves who worked for their masters but lived on their own. I saw one whore, standing by the mouth of an alley; she whistled at Jamie and called out an invitation, but halfheartedly.

“Her pimp’ll be a-hiding . . . in the alley with a cosh . . . lay you three to one,” the chairman behind me remarked, his remarks punctuated by his breathing. “Ain’t as safe . . . as when the army was here.”

“Think not?” His partner grunted, then found breath to reply. “Army was here . . . when that officer got his . . . throat cut in a whorehouse. Reckon’s why that . . . drab’s out here in her shift.” He gulped air and went on. “How you mean . . . to settle the bet, then? Go with her yourself?”

“May be as this gentleman’d do us the service,” the other said with a brief, gasping laugh.

“It may be that he won’t,” I said, sticking my head out the window. “But I’ll go and look, if you like.”

Jamie and the forward man laughed, the other grunted, and we jolted gently round the corner and down the street to where the Shippen house stood, gracious in its own grounds, on a small rise near the edge of town. There was a lighted lantern by the gate, another by the door. I wondered whether that meant we were expected; I hadn’t thought to ask Governor Arnold if he had sent word ahead of us. If he hadn’t, the next few minutes might be interesting.

“Any notion how long we might be, Sassenach?” Jamie inquired, taking out his purse to pay the chairmen.

“If he’s already dead, it won’t take long,” I replied, shaking my skirts into order. “If he’s not, it could well take all night.”

“Aye. Wait a bit, then,” Jamie told the chairmen, who were staring at me, mouths agape. “If I havena come out in ten minutes, ye’re free to go.”

Such was his force of personality, they didn’t observe that they were quite free to go at once if they wanted, and merely nodded meekly as he took my arm and escorted me up the steps.

We were expected; the door swung wide as Jamie’s boots scuffed the scrubbed stone of the stoop, and a young woman peered out, alarm and interest showing in equal measure on her face. Evidently Mr. Bledsoe wasn’t dead, then.

“Mrs. Fraser?” She blinked slightly, looking at me sideways. “Er . . . I mean . . . it is Mrs. Fraser? Governor Arnold said—”

“It is Mrs. Fraser,” Jamie said, a slight edge in his voice. “And I assure ye, young woman, I’m in a position to know.”

“This would be Mr. Fraser,” I informed the young lady, who was looking up at him, clearly bewildered. “I was probably Lady John Grey last time you saw me,” I added, trying for a nonchalant matter-of-factness. “But, yes, I’m Claire Fraser. Er . . . still. I mean—again. I understand that your cousin . . . ?”

“Oh, yes! Please—come this way.” She stepped back, gesturing toward the rear of the house, and I saw that she was accompanied by a servant, a middle-aged black man, who bowed when I met his gaze and then led the way through a long hallway to the back stair and thence upward.

On the way, our hostess introduced herself belatedly as Margaret Shippen and apologized prettily for the absence of her parents. Her father—she said—was called away on business.

I hadn’t been formally introduced to Peggy Shippen before, but I had seen her and knew a bit about her; she’d been one of the organizing lights of the Mischianza, and while her father had prevented her actually attending the ball, all her friends had talked about her at length—and I’d glimpsed her, lavishly dressed, once or twice at other functions I’d attended with John.

Called away on business, was it? I caught Jamie’s eye when she’d said that, and he’d raised one shoulder in the briefest of shrugs. More than likely, Edward Shippen wanted to avoid any public linkage with his nephew’s misfortune—and, so far as possible, keep talk about the incident to a minimum. It wasn’t a safe time or place to make a point of Loyalist leanings in the family.

Miss Shippen led us to a small bedroom on the third floor, where a blackened, man-shaped object lay on the bed. The smell of tar was thick in the air, along with a distinct smell of blood and a sort of constant low moaning noise. This must be Tench Bledsoe—and wherever had he got a name like that? I wondered, gingerly approaching him. So far as I knew, a tench was a rather undistinguished-looking sort of carp.

“Mr. Bledsoe?” I said quietly, setting down my basket on a small table. There was a candlestick on the table, and by the light of the single flame, I could make out his face—or half of it. The other half was obscured by tar, as was a good bit of his head and neck. The clean half was that of a somewhat plain young man with a large, beaky nose, his features contorted in agony, but not at all fish-looking.

“Yes,” he gasped, and pressed his lips tight together, as though even the escape of a single word jeopardized the tenuous grip he had on himself.

“I’m Mrs. Fraser,” I said, and laid a hand on his shoulder. A fine shudder was running through him like current through a wire. “I’ve come to help.”

He heard me and nodded jerkily. They’d given him brandy; I could smell it under the aromatic reek of pine tar, and a half-full decanter stood on the table.

“Have you any laudanum in the house?” I asked, turning to Peggy. It wouldn’t help that much in the long run, but a large dose might get us through the worst of the preliminaries.

She was quite young—no more than eighteen, I thought—but alert and self-possessed, as well as very pretty. She nodded and disappeared, with a murmured word to the servant. Of course, I thought, seeing her skirts whisk out of sight. She couldn’t send him for it. The laudanum would be with the other household simples, in a closet under lock and key.

“What can I do, Sassenach?” Jamie said softly, as though afraid to break the injured man’s concentration on his pain.

“Help me undress him.” Whoever had attacked him hadn’t stripped him; that was lucky. And most of the tar probably hadn’t been boiling hot when it was applied; I smelled burnt hair, but not the sickening stench of cooked flesh. Pine tar wasn’t like the asphalt road tar of later centuries; it was a by-product of turpentine distillation, and might be soft enough to be daubed without needing to be boiled first.

What wasn’t fortunate was his leg, as I saw at once when Jamie peeled back the sheet covering him. That was where the smell of blood had come from; it spread in a soggy smear on the bedclothes, black in the candlelight, but copper and scarlet to the nose.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I said under my breath. Tench’s face was dead white and streaked with sweat and tears, his eyes closed, but he grimaced, hearing that.

Jamie set his jaw and drew his case knife, which was sharp enough to shave the hairs on a man’s arm. Sharp enough to slice through shredded stocking and damp breeches, spreading the stiffened fabric aside to show me the damage.

“Who did that to ye, man?” he asked Tench, gripping him by the wrist as the injured man reached a tentative hand downward, seeking the extent of the damage.

“No one,” Tench whispered, and coughed. “I—I jumped off the dock when he set my head afire, and landed on one foot in the mud. It stuck well in, and when I fell over . . .”

It was a very nasty compound fracture. Both bones of the lower leg had snapped clean through, and the shattered ends were poking through the skin in different directions. I was surprised that he had survived the shock of it, together with the trauma of the attack—to say nothing of a night and part of a day spent lying in the filthy river shallows afterward. The macerated flesh was swollen, raw, red, and ugly, the wounds deeply infected. I breathed in gently, half-expecting the reek of gangrene, but no. Not yet.

“He set your head afire?” Jamie was saying incredulously. He leaned forward, touching the darkened mass on the left side of the young man’s head. “Who?”

“Don’t know.” Tench’s hand floated up, touched Jamie’s, but Tench didn’t try to pull it away. It rested on Jamie’s, as though his touch would tell Tench what he needed to know but couldn’t bear to find out for himself.

“Think he . . . Way he spoke. Maybe England, maybe Ireland. He . . . poured pitch over my head and sprinkled feathers on. Others would have left me then, I think. But all of a sudden, he turned back and seized a torch . . .” He coughed, wincing against the spasm, and ended breathlessly, “ . . . like he . . . hated me.” He sounded astonished.

Jamie was carefully breaking off small chunks of singed hair and matted clumps of mud and tar, revealing the blistered skin underneath.

“It’s none sae bad, man,” he said, encouraging. “Your ear’s still there, no but a wee bit black and crusty round the edges.”

That actually made Tench laugh—no more than a breathy gasp—though this was extinguished abruptly when I touched his leg.

“I’ll need more light,” I said, turning to the servant. “And a lot of bandages.” He nodded, avoiding looking at the man on the bed, and left.

We worked for some minutes, murmuring occasional encouragement to Tench. At one point, Jamie pulled the chamber pot out from under the bed, excused himself with a brief word, and took it into the hall; I heard him retching. He came back a few moments later, pale and smelling of vomit, and resumed the delicate work of uncovering what might remain of Tench’s face.

“Can ye open this eye, man?” he asked, gently touching the left side. I peered up from my station over his leg, to see that the lid was evidently whole but badly blistered and swollen, the lashes singed off.

“No.” Tench’s voice had changed, and I moved abruptly up to his head. He sounded almost sleepy, his voice unconcerned. I laid the back of my hand against his cheek; it was cool and clammy. I said something very bad out loud, and his working eye sprang open, staring up at me.

“Oh, there you are,” I said, much relieved. “I thought you were going into shock.”

“If he hasna been shocked by what’s already happened to him, I shouldna think anything would do it, Sassenach,” Jamie said, but bent closer to look. “I think he’s only worn out from the pain, aye? Sometimes ye canna be bothered to put up with it anymore, but ye’re no ready to die, so ye just drift away for a bit.”

Tench sighed deeply and gave a small, jerky nod.

“If you could . . . stop for a little while?” he whispered. “Please.”

“Aye,” Jamie said softly, and, patting his chest, drew the stained sheet up over him. “Rest a bit, mo charaid.”

I wasn’t at all sure that he wasn’t trying to die, but there was a limit to what I could do to prevent him, if that were the case. And there was a much more serious limit to what I could do if he didn’t die.

On the other hand, I had a vivid understanding of exactly what Jamie meant by “drifting away” and of the symptoms of severe blood loss. There was no telling how much blood Tench had lost, lying in the river. The fracture had by some miracle not ruptured either of the main tibial arteries—if it had, he’d have been dead long since—but it had certainly made hash of a number of smaller vessels.

On the other hand . . . the Delaware was a fairly cold river, even in summer. The chill of the water might well have constricted the smaller blood vessels, as well as slowed his metabolism and even perhaps minimized the damage due to burns, both by extinguishing the fire and by cooling the burnt skin. I’d whipped a pro forma tourniquet bandage round the leg above the knee but hadn’t tightened it; blood loss at the moment was no more than a slow oozing.

And, in fact, the burns were minimal. His shirt had been torn open, but the tar on his chest, hands, and clothes hadn’t been hot enough to blister his skin—and while there was certainly visible damage to one side of his face and head, I didn’t think more than a few square inches of scalp had third-degree burns; the rest was redness and blistering. Painful, of course, but not life-threatening. Whoever had attacked him had likely not meant to kill him—but they stood a good chance of doing so, anyway.

“Pitch-capping, they call it,” Jamie said, low-voiced. We had moved away to the window, but he nodded back toward the bed. “I havena seen it before, but I’ve heard of it.” He shook his head, lips tight, then picked up the ewer and offered it to me. “D’ye want water, Sassenach?”

“No—oh, wait. Yes, I do, thank you.” The window was firmly closed, in accordance with the custom of the times, and the small room was sweltering. I took the pitcher and nodded to the window. “Can you get that open, do you think?”

He turned to wrestle with the window; it was stuck fast in its frame, the wood swollen with humidity and disuse.

“What about the leg?” he said, back turned to me. “Ye’ll have to take it off, no?”

I lowered the pitcher—the water was flat and tasted of earth—and sighed.

“Yes,” I said. I’d been fighting that conclusion almost from the moment I’d seen Tench’s leg, but hearing Jamie’s matter-of-factness made it easier to accept.

“I doubt I could save it in a modern hospital, with blood transfusions and anesthetic—and, God, I wish I had ether right now!” I bit my lip, looking at the bed, and watching closely to see whether Tench’s chest was still rising and falling. A tiny, treacherous part of me rather hoped it wasn’t—but it was.

Feet on the stairs, and both Peggy and the manservant were with us again, armed respectively with a stable lantern and an enormous candelabra, Peggy with a square glass bottle clasped to her chest. Both turned anxious faces toward the bed, then toward me, standing apart by the window. Was he dead?

“No,” I said, shaking my head, and saw the same half-regretful relief flit across their faces that I had just experienced. I wasn’t without sympathy; no matter what their feelings for the injured man, having him on the premises was a danger to the Shippens.

I came forward and explained in a low voice what had to be done, watching Peggy go the color of a bad oyster in the flickering light. She swayed a little, but swallowed hard and drew herself up.

“Here?” she said. “I don’t suppose you could take him to . . . Well, no, I suppose not.” She took a deep breath. “All right. What can we do to help?”

The manservant coughed behind her in a meaningful manner, and she stiffened.

“My father would say the same,” she informed him coldly.

“Just so, miss,” he said, with a deference that wasn’t all that deferential. “But he might like to have the chance to say it himself, don’t you think?”

She shot him an angry glance, but before she could say anything, there was a grinding screech of wood as the window gave way to Jamie’s will, and everyone’s eye jerked to him.

“I dinna mean to interrupt,” he said mildly, turning round. “But I do believe the governor has come to call.”

JAMIE PUSHED PAST Miss Shippen and her servant before either could react. He ran lightly down the back stair and came through the house, startling a kitchen maid. Clearly the governor wasn’t going to be admitted by the kitchen door.

He reached the front door just as a firm knock sounded, and pulled it open.

“Miss Margaret!” Arnold pushed past Jamie as though he wasn’t there—no small feat—and seized Peggy Shippen’s hands in his. “I thought I must come—your cousin? How does he do?”

“He is alive.” Peggy swallowed, her face the color of the beeswax candle she was holding. “Mrs. Fraser is—she says—” She swallowed again, and Jamie swallowed with her, out of sympathy, knowing all too well what she was thinking of. Tench Bledsoe’s shattered leg bones, red and slimy as an ineptly butchered pig’s. The back of his throat was still bitter with the taste of vomit.

“I thank you so much for sending Mrs. Fraser to us, sir—I couldn’t think what on earth we were to do. My father’s in Maryland and my mother with her sister in New Jersey. My brothers . . .” She trailed off, looking distraught.

“No, no, my dear—may I call you so? It is my most fervent concern, to help you—your family, to . . . protect you.” He hadn’t let go her hands, Jamie noted, and she wasn’t pulling them away.

Jamie glanced covertly from Arnold to Peggy Shippen, then turned away a little, drawing back. It wasn’t hard for them to ignore him; they were focused on each other.

That made matters plain—or at least plainer. Arnold wanted the girl, and wanted her so nakedly that Jamie was slightly ashamed for the man. You couldn’t help lust, but surely a man should have enough control to hide it. And no just for the sake of decency, either, he thought, seeing a certain look of cautious calculation come into Peggy’s face. It was, he thought, the look of a fisherman who has just seen a fat trout swim right under the lure.

He cleared his throat in a pointed manner, and both of them jerked as though he’d run a drawing pin into them.

“My wife says it will be necessary to amputate the injured leg,” he said. “Quickly. She requires a few things—instruments and the like.”

“I need both the large saw and the small lunar one, the set of tenaculae—the long things that look like fishing hooks—and quite a lot of sutures . . .”

He was trying to keep the list in his head, though it made him ill to envision most of the items, thinking of the use they were about to be put to. Beneath the sense of revulsion and pity, though, was wariness—the same wariness he saw at the back of Benedict Arnold’s eyes.

“Does she,” Arnold said, not quite a question. His eyes flicked back to Peggy Shippen, who bit her lip in a becoming manner.

“Can ye maybe send your coachman to the printshop?” Jamie asked. “I can go with him and fetch back what’s needed.”

“Yes,” Arnold said slowly, but in an abstracted way, the way he did when he was thinking rapidly. “Or . . . no. Let us rather remove Mr. Bledsoe—and Mrs. Fraser, to be sure—to the printshop in my coach. Mrs. Fraser will have access there to everything she requires, and the assistance and support of her family.”

“What?” Jamie exclaimed, but Peggy Shippen was already hanging on to Arnold’s arm, her face transformed by relief. Jamie seized Arnold by the arm to compel his attention, and the governor’s eyes narrowed.

Jamie’s intent had been to demand rhetorically whether Arnold was mad, but the split second’s delay was enough to change this to a more politic “There’s nay room at the shop for such a venture, sir. We live atop one another, and folk come in and out all day. This willna be a simple matter; the man will need to be nursed for some time.”

Peggy Shippen made a small moan of anxiety, and it dawned upon Jamie that Tench Bledsoe was a hot potato, as much—or more—for Arnold as for the Shippens. The last thing Arnold could want, as military governor of the city, was public scandal and disorder, the remaining Loyalists in Philadelphia threatened and frightened, the Sons of Liberty seen as secret vigilantes, a law unto themselves.

Arnold must very much want the incident kept quiet. At the same time, he wanted to be the noble knight, riding to the aid of the very young and enchanting Miss Shippen by caring for her cousin while removing the potential danger he posed to her household.

By bringing it to mine, Jamie thought, his wariness beginning to turn to anger.

“Sir,” he said formally. “There is no possibility of preventing the matter from being known, should ye bring yon man into my son’s shop. And clearly ye ken the danger of that.”

The truth of this was evident, and Arnold paused, wrinkling his brow. But Jamie had fought with the man and kent him well enough; Jamie saw that, having made up his mind to relieve Miss Peggy’s concern, Arnold meant to do it, come hell or high water.

Evidently Claire was right in what she’d told him about testosterone, and he’d already known that Arnold was a ram, in terms both of balls and hardheadedness.

“Ah, I have it!” Arnold exclaimed triumphantly, and Jamie saw—with grudging admiration—the general emergent. This admiration disappeared with Arnold’s next sentence.

“Lord John Grey,” he said. “We could transport Mr. Bledsoe to his lordship’s house.”

“No!” Jamie said by reflex.

“Yes,” Arnold said, but in self-congratulation rather than contradiction; he was paying no attention. “Yes, the ideal solution! His lordship and his brother are much in my debt,” he explained to Peggy, with a feigned modesty that made Jamie want to hit him. “And as his lordship and Mrs. Fraser—” At this point, he caught sight of Jamie’s face and arrested his speech just in time to prevent exactly such a happenstance. He coughed. “The ideal solution,” he repeated. “Will you go and tell Mrs. Fraser what we intend, sir?”

“We?” Jamie said. “I intend nothing of the—”

“What the bloody hell is going on down here?” Claire’s voice came from the stairway behind him, and he swung round to see her leaning on the banister, a-flicker like a ghost in the light from the tin sconce above her. There was blood smudging her apron, blotches black on the pale cloth.

“Nothing, a nighean,” he said, fixing Arnold with a firm eye. “Only discussing where Mr. Bledsoe should be.”

“I don’t care where he should be,” she snapped, coming down into the foyer, skirts rustling with agitation. “Where he will be is dead, if I can’t take care of his leg quickly.” Then she noticed the glaring going on betwixt him and Arnold and moved up beside Jamie, looking hard at the governor herself.

“General Arnold,” she said, “if you have the slightest concern for Miss Shippen’s cousin’s life, you’ll oblige me by taking my husband promptly to fetch the instruments I need. Hurry!”

Arnold blinked, and Jamie would have smiled had he not been worrit for the lass—she was fierce, but she looked pale, and her fists were clenched in the cloth of her apron. It might have been to keep her from slapping the governor, but he rather thought it was to hide the fact that her hands were trembling—and he realized with a shock that she was afraid.

Not afraid of the circumstance or any future danger—afraid that she couldn’t do what she knew she must.

His heart smote him at the thought. He took Arnold firmly by the upper arm, compelling him toward the stair.

“Aye,” he said abruptly to Claire. “We’ll take the man to Lord John’s house, and whilst ye fettle him for the job there, I’ll fetch what ye need from the shop. The general will help me to move him.”

Arnold’s stiff resistance ceased abruptly as he took Jamie’s meaning.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I—” A long moan from above interrupted him, and Claire’s face tightened.

“There isn’t time,” she said, quite calmly. “Miss Shippen—Peggy. Fetch me the largest knife you have in the kitchen, and do it now. Have your servants bring more hot water and cloth for bandages. A strong sewing needle and black thread.” Her eyes sought Jamie’s, and he let go of the governor at once and went to her.

“Ye’re all right, lass?” he said quietly, taking her elbow.

“I am,” she said, and squeezed his hand briefly. “This is very bad, though. I don’t—I’m sorry, I’ll need you to help hold him.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Dinna be worrit. Only do what ye need to do. I promise I willna vomit on him while ye’re taking off his leg.”

He hadn’t actually meant that to be funny, and was surprised—but pleased—when she laughed. Not much of a laugh, but the tension in her arm relaxed, and her fingers were steady on his.

He could tell the minute they entered the room. He didn’t know what it was had changed, but clearly Claire had heard the beating of the wings of Death from the floor below; he could sense them now. Bledsoe was still conscious, but barely so; a slice of white showed as one eyelid lifted at their entrance.

“We’re here, man,” Jamie whispered, sinking to his knees and grasping Bledsoe’s hand. It was cold to the touch and clammy with sweat. “Dinna fash, we’re here. It’ll be done soon.”

There was a strong smell of laudanum in the air, together with the stink of tar and blood and burnt hair. Claire was on the other side of the bed, holding Bledsoe’s wrist, her eyes flickering from his slack face to the mangled leg.

“Sepsis,” she said, quietly but in a normal voice. “Do you see the red line there?” She gestured at the wounded leg, and Jamie saw it clearly: a streak of an ugly dark-red color that he thought hadn’t been there before—or perhaps it had, and he’d not noticed. The sight of it made the fine hairs ripple on his shoulders, and he shifted uneasily.

“Blood poisoning,” Claire said. “Bacteria—germs—in the blood. It moves very fast, and if it should get into the body proper . . . there’s nothing I can do.”

He looked up sharp, hearing a tiny tremor in her voice.

“But before that, ye might? There’s a chance?” He tried to sound encouraging, though the thought of the alternative made the gooseflesh that much worse.

“Yes. But it isn’t a good one.” She swallowed. “The shock of the amputation may well kill him on the spot. And if it doesn’t, there’s still a great chance of infection.”

He stood up then and came round the bed to her, taking her gently but solidly by the shoulders. Her bones were close to the surface, and he thought her feelings were, too.

“If he’s got a chance, we must give it to him, Sassenach.”

“Yes,” she murmured, and he felt the shiver go all through her, though the air was hot and close. “God help me.”

“He will,” Jamie whispered, folding his arms briefly round her. “So will I.”

I WAS STANDING in the wrong place. The fact that I understood what was happening to me didn’t help at all.

A trained surgeon is also a potential killer, and an important bit of the training lies in accepting the fact. Your intent is entirely benign—or at least you hope so—but you are laying violent hands on someone, and you must be ruthless in order to do it effectively. And sometimes the person under your hands will die, and knowing that . . . you do it anyway.

I had had them bring more candles, though the air in the room was already suffocating. The miasma of humidity and slowly evaporating sweat made the light of the candelabra fill the chamber with a gentle, romantic glow; just the thing for a dinner party filled with wine, flirtations, and dancing.

The wine could wait, and any surgeon dances with death routinely. The problem was that I’d forgotten the steps and was flirting with panic.

I bent to check Tench’s heart rate and respiration. He was breathing shallowly but fast. Lack of oxygen, severe blood loss . . . and I felt my own chest tighten, heaving for air, and stood up, giddy, heart hammering.

“Sassenach.” I turned, hand on the bedpost, to see Jamie watching me, eyebrows drawn together. “Are ye all right?”

“Yes,” I said, but my voice sounded queer even to my own ears. I shook my head hard, trying to clear it. Jamie came close to me and put his hand on mine, where it rested on the bedpost. It was big and steady, and it helped.

“Ye willna help him, lass, if ye faint in the midst of it,” he said, low-voiced.

“I’m not going to faint,” I said, made a bit testy by anxiety. “I just—I—I’m fine.”

His hand fell away, and after a long, searching look into my face, he nodded soberly and stepped back.

I wasn’t going to faint. Or at least I hoped not. But I was trapped there in that close, hot room, smelling blood and tar and the scent of myrrh in the laudanum, feeling Tench’s agony. And I could not do that. I couldn’t, I mustn’t.

Peggy hurried in, a maidservant behind her, several large knives clutched to her bosom.

“Will one of these do?” She laid them in a clinking heap at the foot of the bed, then stood back, gazing anxiously at her cousin’s pale, slack face.

“I’m sure one will.” I stirred the heap gingerly, extracting a couple of possibilities: a carving knife that looked sharp, and a big, heavy knife of the sort used for chopping vegetables. And, with a vivid recollection of what it felt like to sever tendons, I picked up a paring knife with a freshly sharpened, silvered edge.

“Do you butcher your own meat? If you have something like a bone saw . . .”

The servant went as pale as a black man reasonably can, and went out, presumably to acquire one.

“Boiling water?” I asked, brows raised.

“Chrissy is bringing it,” Peggy assured me. She licked her lips, uneasy. “Do you—mmm.” She broke off, narrowly avoiding saying what she so plainly thought: “Do you know what you’re doing?”

I did. That was the trouble. I knew much too much about what I was doing—from both sides.

“Everything will be fine,” I assured her, with a decent appearance of calm and confidence. “I see we have needles and thread. Would you take the biggest needle—a carpet needle, perhaps—and thread it for me, please? And then a couple of smaller ones, just in case.” Just in case I had time and opportunity to actually capture and ligate blood vessels. It was much more likely that the only choice I would have was cautery—a brutal searing of the fresh stump to stanch the bleeding, for Tench didn’t have enough blood left to be able to spare any of it.

I needed to be alone in my head, in a calm, clear place. The place from which I could see everything, sense the body under my hand in all its particularities—but not be that body.

I was about to disjoint Tench Bledsoe’s leg like a chicken’s. Throw away his bones and flesh. Sear the stump. And I felt his fear in the pit of my stomach.

Benedict Arnold had come in with an armload of firewood and a silver table knife in one hand—my cautery iron, if there wasn’t time to stitch. He set them down on the hearth, and the butler began to poke up the fire.

I closed my eyes for an instant, trying not to breathe through my nose, shutting out the candle glow. Denny Hunter had operated on me by candlelight; I remembered watching through a haze of eyelashes, unable to open my eyes more than a crack, as each of the six big candles was lit, the flames rising up pure and hot—and smelling the small iron heating in the brazier beside them.

A hand touched my waist, and, gulping air, I leaned blindly into Jamie.

“What’s wrong, a nighean?” he whispered to me.

“Laudanum,” I said, almost at random. “You don’t—you don’t lose consciousness altogether. It makes the pain go away—not stop, just seem not connected to you—but it’s there. And you . . . you know what’s happening to you.” I swallowed, forcing down bile.

I felt it. The hard probe jabbing its way into my side, startling. The remarkable sense of cold intrusion, mingled with incongruous faint warm echoes of internal movement, the forceful jabs of a child in the womb.

“You know what’s happening,” I repeated, opening my eyes. I found his, looking down at me with gentleness.

“I ken that, aye?” he whispered, and cupped my cheek with his four-fingered hand. “Come and tell me what ye need me to do, mo ghràidh.”

THE MOMENTARY PANIC was subsiding; I forced it aside, knowing that even to think about it was to slide headfirst back into it. I laid a hand on Tench’s injured leg, willing myself to feel it, find the truth of it.

The truth was all too obvious. The lower leg was a complete wreck, mechanically, and so compromised by septicemia that there was no chance of saving it. I was searching desperately for a way to save the knee; having a knee made a tremendous difference in the ability to walk, to manage. But I couldn’t do it.

He was far gone from injury, blood loss, and shock; he was a stubborn man, but I could feel his life flickering in his flesh, dying away in the midst of infection, disruption, and pain. I could not ask his body to withstand the longer, painstaking surgery that would be necessary to amputate below the knee—even if I felt sure that such an amputation would be sufficient to forestall the advancing septicemia, and I didn’t.

“I’m going to take his leg off above the knee,” I said to Jamie. I thought I spoke calmly, but my voice sounded odd. “I need you to hold the leg for me and move it as I tell you. Governor”—I turned to Arnold, who stood with a reassuring arm about Peggy’s Shippen’s waist—“come and hold him down.” Laudanum alone wasn’t going to be enough.

To his credit, Arnold came instantly and laid a hand against Tench’s slack cheek for a moment in reassurance before taking firm hold of his shoulders. His own face was calm, and I remembered the stories I’d heard of his campaigns into Canada: frostbite, injury, starvation . . . No, not a squeamish man, and I felt a small sense of reassurance from the presence of my two helpers.

No, three: Peggy Shippen came up beside me, pale to the lips and with her throat bobbing every few seconds as she swallowed—but jaw set with determination.

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered, and clamped her mouth shut hard as she caught sight of the mangled leg.

“Try not to vomit, but if you must, turn away from the bed,” I said. “Otherwise—stand there and hand me things as I ask.”

There was no further time for thought or preparation. I tightened the tourniquet, grasped the sharpest knife, nodded to my helpers, and began.

A deep incision, fast, around and across the top of the leg, cutting hard down to expose the bone. An army surgeon could lop off a leg in less than two minutes. So could I, but it would be better if I could manage to cut flaps to cover the stump, could seal the major vessels. . . .

“Big needle,” I said to Peggy, holding out my hand. Lacking a tenaculum to seize the large blood vessels that snapped back into the flesh when severed, I had to probe for them with the point of the needle and drag them out, anchor them into the raw, exposed flesh, and then ligate them as fast as I could, whipping thread round them with one of the smaller needles and tying it off. Better than cautery, if there was time . . .

Sweat was running into my eyes; I had to dash it away with my bared forearm; my hands were bloody to the wrist.

“Saw,” I said, and no one moved. Had I spoken aloud? “Saw,” I said, much louder, and Jamie’s head twisted toward the implements on the table. Leaning heavily on Tench’s leg with one hand, he stretched to grab the saw from the table with the other.

Where was Peggy? On the floor. I saw the bloom of her skirt from the corner of my eye and felt vaguely through the floorboards the steps of a servant coming to haul her out of the way.

I groped for another suture, blind, and the jar of brandy in which I’d stowed them tipped, spilling on the sheet and adding its sweet stickiness to the atmosphere. I heard Jamie gag, but he didn’t move; his fingers squeezed the thigh hard above the tourniquet. Tench would have bruises there, I thought idly. If he lived long enough for his capillaries to bleed. . . .

The saw had been made to disjoint hogs. Sturdy, not sharp, and not well kept—half the teeth were bent, and it jumped and skittered in my hand, grating over the bone. I clenched my teeth and pushed, my hand slipping on the handle, greased with blood and sweat.

Jamie made a deep, desperate noise and moved suddenly, taking the saw from my hand and nudging me aside. He gripped Tench’s knee and bore down on the saw, driving it into the bone by main force. Three, four, five dragging strokes, and the bone, three-quarters sawn through, made a cracking noise that jolted me into action.

“Stop,” I said, and he did, white-faced and pouring sweat. “Lift his leg. Carefully.” He did, and I made the cut from below, long, deep strokes of the knife deepening the incision at an angle to make the flap, joining the cut with the upper incision. The sheet was wet and dark with blood—but not too much. Either the tourniquet was holding, or the man had so little blood left to lose . . .

“Saw again,” I said urgently, discarding the knife. “Hold steady! Both pieces.” There was no more than a thin section of bone remaining; the spongy bone of the marrow showed, blood flowering slowly from the cut surface. I put no pressure on the saw; the last thing I wanted was to crack the bone in some awkward way. It wasn’t working, though, and I looked back toward the line of tools, desperate to find something else.

“Rasp,” Jamie said, his voice rough with strain. He nodded toward the table. “There.”

I seized the rasp, a rat-tailed thing, drenched it with brandy, and, turning it sideways, filed through the last bit of bone, which parted gently. With a ragged edge, but intact, not shattered.

“Is he breathing?” I asked. I was having trouble breathing myself, and couldn’t sense the patient’s vital signs—save to notice his heart was beating, because blood was pulsing slightly out of the smaller vessels—but Arnold nodded, his head bowed, intent on Tench’s face.

“He’ll do,” he said, his voice firm and loud, and I knew he was speaking as much to Tench as to me. Now I could feel the stir in the upper leg, a violent reflexive urge to move, and Jamie leaned hard on it. My fingers brushed the discarded lower leg, the flesh horribly flaccid and rubbery, and I snatched them back, wiping them convulsively on my apron.

I swiped the bloody apron then across my face and pushed back loosened bits of hair with the back of my hand. It was shaking; they both were.

What the bloody hell are you shaking now for? I thought irritably. But I was, and it took much longer than it should have to cauterize the last few small bleeders—adding the ghastly smell of roasting flesh to everything else in the room; I thought even General Arnold might throw up—stitch the flaps, bandage the wound, and, at last, loosen the tourniquet.

“All right,” I said, and straightened up. “Now . . .” But if I said anything else, I didn’t hear it. The room revolved slowly round me and dissolved into a flicker of black and white spots, and then everything went black.

118 THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

TENCH LIVED.

“I should have known you would,” I said to him. “If you were determined enough to survive all night in the river, plainly a mere amputation wouldn’t slow you down.”

He hadn’t enough strength to laugh—the journey by litter to Chestnut Street had left him white-faced and gasping—but he did twitch his mouth enough to qualify his expression as a smile.

“Oh . . . I’ll live,” he managed. “Wouldn’t . . . give ’em . . . the satis . . . faction . . . of dying.” Worn out by this, he closed his eyes, chest heaving. I wiped his face gently with my handkerchief, patted his shoulder, and left him to rest.

I had had the litter bearers take him upstairs, to what had been my bedroom, and I closed the door behind me now with a queerly mixed feeling of triumph and depression.

I had spent the morning with Mrs. Figg and the housemaid, Doreen, packing away what remained of Lord John’s furnishings—for many had already been shipped to New York—and rearranging the house to serve as a temporary surgery. Even if we were to leave for North Carolina soon—and the sooner the better—I did have to have someplace to put Tench where he could be looked after in conditions approaching comfort and hygiene. And the patients I had been seeing at the printshop could certainly be taken care of more conveniently here.

At the same time . . . being here again brought back echoes of the numb despair I had lived with all those weeks of believing Jamie dead. I thought the bustle of work and the clean sweep of furnishings would perhaps obviate that distant sense of drowning, but at the moment it was an uneasy swirl around my ankles.

Mental oppression was not the only debilitating condition connected with the new situation. Leaving Number 17 to return to the Shippen house, I had been followed in the street by a gang of young men. Mostly boys, but some big fellows of sixteen or seventeen, big enough to make me uneasy with their glances.

Still more uneasy when they began to draw up close to me, taking a quick step to whisper, “King’s whore!” in my ear before falling back, or to try to tread on the hem of my skirt, sniggering.

I thought I had seen one or two of them in the mob when I’d brought Hal here. Perhaps they’d followed me then and, finding that I was married to Lord John, assumed I was a turncoat, a traitor to the Rebel cause. Or possibly, I thought, stiffening my spine, they were just troublemaking pipsqueaks.

I whirled round to face them, gripping my parasol. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but no physical weapon would have been of use against so many. Even a twelve-year-old boy was likely stronger than I was at the moment.

“What do you want?” I demanded, using the memory of my matron’s voice, whipcrack and steel—or at least I hoped I could still do that.

Some of the little warts blinked and took a step back, but one of the bigger ones took a step toward me, grinning. It took all my control not to recoil.

“I don’t know, hinnie,” he said, looking me up and down with a lazy insolence. “What does a Loyalist lady have that we might want?”

“A swift poke in the eye is all I can offer you,” I informed him crisply, with a meaningful pointing of my parasol. “Apparently I’m walking too slowly and blocking your progress, gentlemen. Do go on ahead of me.” Holding his eye with a menacing stare, I stepped into the street and gestured with my parasol, indicating that they should pass on.

That made some of them giggle, but the big fellow flushed a nasty pink that made his adolescent pimples fluoresce. I stepped back farther into the street, in an imitation of politeness, but actually in hopes of attracting some attention.

I was lucky: a rag-and-bone cart was coming down the road, the horse’s hooves clopping on the cobbles, and I moved still farther, blocking the way. The carter, aroused from semi-somnolence, half-stood, peering out from under his hat.

“What the devil are you idle buggers a-doing in the road? Get your fat arses out my way!” He raised his whip in a menacing fashion, and the boys, who had started to advance on me, quickly retreated.

The carter stood up all the way, took off his hat, and bowed to me.

“Good day, your ladyship; I hopes I sees you well. Can I offer you a ride, mayhap?” He was speaking in jest; I didn’t think he actually knew I had recently been a ladyship. He was certainly surprised when I swept up my skirts and mounted his cart, though.

“Home, James,” I said, furling my parasol, “and don’t spare the horses.”

The recollection made me smile a little, but the smile faded at the thought that the louts who had accosted me certainly lived somewhere nearby. I mightn’t be as lucky a second time. And at that thought, a wave of cold terror washed over me and I felt a band of soreness across my middle, the chafing and bruising from hours spent tied facedown across a horse’s back, being carried helpless to—

“Stop that!” I said sharply to myself. “Stop it at once. I won’t have it.” They were teenaged boys. I wasn’t afraid of . . . But the first man to rape me had been about sixteen; he’d been apologetic about it. I stepped into a narrow alley between two buildings and threw up.

I’d managed to function. I got back to the Shippens’ house and collected my things, then returned to the printshop to eat lunch and pack up the rest of my herbs and medicines; Fergus and Germain would bring them to Chestnut Street on their afternoon delivery round.

No one had molested me on the way back to Chestnut Street. I could have asked Jenny to come with me, but pride prevented me. I would not let simple-minded fear stop me doing what needed to be done.

But how long can you keep doing it? And what’s the point?

“There’s always a point,” I muttered. “It’s someone’s life. That’s a point.”

A life that could be snatched away, thrown away, frittered on a battlefield . . . How many men had died that way? And it didn’t stop, it didn’t get better. . . . This was an early war, for God’s sake. An endless chain of wars lay between my lives: the Revolution here, the Great War at the other end—and constant slaughter in between.

The summer was dying; the air was beginning to have a hint of freshness in the mornings, but in midafternoon it still hung thick and heavy. Too heavy to draw a full breath.

I stood for a moment outside Number 17, feeling unequal to going in and dealing with things. After a moment, I turned down the path that led round the side of the house, out to the tiny garden at the back, and sat down on the bench there, among the roses, feeling most unwell.

I DON’T KNOW how long I had been sitting there, head in my hands, listening to the loud buzzing of bees. But I heard footsteps coming down the path and managed to lift my head.

“Are ye all right, Sassenach?” It was Jamie, the large box of medicines and bandages in his arms. And from the look of alarm on his face, it was reasonably obvious that I didn’t look all right. I couldn’t muster the energy to try to look all right.

“I just—thought I’d sit down,” I said, flapping a hand helplessly.

“I’m glad ye did.” He set down the box on the yellowing grass and came to crouch in front of me, examining my face. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I said, and without warning began to cry. Or, rather, to leak. There was nothing of the sobbing, convulsive, racking nature of weeping; tears were just streaking down my cheeks without my approval.

Jamie nudged me over a little and sat down beside me, wrapping his arms around me. He was wearing his old kilt, and the smell of the dusty wool fabric, worn thin with age, made me utterly dissolve.

He tightened his grip and, sighing, pressed his cheek to my head and said small, tender things in Gaelic. And in a little time, the effort to understand them gave me a tenuous grip on myself. I drew a deep breath and he released me, though he kept an arm around me for support.

“Mo nighean donn,” he said softly, and smoothed hair out of my face. “Have ye got a hankie?”

That made me laugh. Or rather emit a sort of strangled giggle, but still . . .

“Yes. At least, I think so.” I groped in my bosom and withdrew a sturdy square of much-laundered linen, on which I blew my nose several times and then wiped my eyes, trying to think what on earth to offer as an explanation for my disordered state—of mind, as well as body. There wasn’t any good way to begin, so I just began.

“Do you ever—well, no. I know you do.”

“Likely,” he said, smiling a little. “What do I do?”

“See the . . . the void. The abyss.” Speaking the words reopened the rent in my soul, and the cold wind came through. A shudder ran through me, in spite of the warmth of the air and Jamie’s body. “I mean—it’s always there, always yawning at your feet, but most people manage to ignore it, not think about it. I’ve mostly been able to. You have to, to do medicine.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve, having dropped my handkerchief. Jamie pulled a crumpled hankie out of his sleeve and handed it to me.

“Ye dinna mean only death?” he asked. “Because I’ve seen that often enough. It hasna really scairt me since I was ten or so, though.” He glanced down at me and smiled. “And I doubt ye’re afraid of it, either. I’ve seen ye face it down a thousand times and more.”

“Facing something down doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid of it,” I said dryly. “Usually quite the opposite. And I know you know that.”

He made a small sound of agreement in his throat and hugged me gently. I would normally have found this comforting, and the fact that I didn’t merely added to my sense of despair.

“It’s—it’s just . . . nothing. And so much endless nothing . . . It’s as though nothing you do, nothing you are, can possibly matter, it’s all just swallowed up . . .” I closed my eyes, but the darkness behind my eyelids frightened me and I opened them again. “I—” I raised a hand, then let it fall.

“I can’t explain,” I said, defeated. “It wasn’t there—or I wasn’t looking at it—after I was shot. It wasn’t nearly dying that made me look in, see it yawning there. But being so . . . so bloody frail! Being so stinking afraid.” I clenched my fists, seeing the knobby bones of my knuckles, the blue veins that stood out on the backs of my hands and curved down my wrists.

“Not death,” I said at last, sniffing. “Futility. Uselessness. Bloody entropy. Death matters, at least sometimes.”

“I ken that,” Jamie said softly, and took my hands in his; they were big, and battered, scarred and maimed. “It’s why a warrior doesna fear death so much. He has the hope—sometimes the certainty—that his death will matter.”

“What happens to me between now and then doesna matter to anyone.”

Those words swam out of nowhere and struck me in the pit of the stomach, so hard that I could barely breathe. He’d said that to me, from the bottom of despair, in the dungeon of Wentworth Prison, a lifetime ago. He’d bargained for my life then, with what he had—not his life, already forfeit, but his soul.

“It matters to me!” I’d said to him—and, against all odds, had ransomed that soul and brought him back.

And then it had come again, stark and dire necessity, and he’d laid down his life without hesitation for his men and for the child I carried. And that time I had been the one who sacrificed my soul. And it had mattered, for both of us.

It still mattered. And the shell of fear cracked like an egg and everything inside me poured out like blood and water mingled and I sobbed on his chest until there were no more tears and no more breath. I leaned against him, limp as a dishcloth, and watched the crescent moon begin to rise in the east.

“What did you say?” I said, rousing myself after a long while. I felt groggy and disoriented, but at peace.

“I asked, what’s entropy?”

“Oh,” I said, momentarily disconcerted. When had the concept of entropy been invented? Not yet, obviously. “It’s, um . . . a lack of order, a lack of predictability, an inability for a system to do work.”

“A system of what?”

“Well, there you have me,” I admitted, sitting up and wiping my nose. “Just an ideal sort of system, with heat energy. The Second Law of Thermodynamics basically says that in an isolated system—one that’s not getting energy from somewhere outside, I mean—entropy will always increase. I think it’s just a scientific way of saying that everything is going to pot, all of the time.”

He laughed, and despite my shattered state of mind, I did, too.

“Aye, well, far be it from me to argue wi’ the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” he said. “I think it’s likely right. When did ye last eat, Sassenach?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not hungry.” I didn’t want to do anything but sit still beside him.

“D’ye see the sky?” he said, a little later. It was a pure deep violet at the horizon, fading into a blue-black immensity overhead, and the early stars burned like distant lamps.

“Hard to miss,” I said.

“Aye.” He sat with his head tilted back, looking up, and I admired the clean line of his long, straight nose, his soft wide mouth and long throat, as though seeing them for the first time.

“Is it not a void there?” he said quietly, still looking up. “And yet we’re no afraid to look.”

“There are lights,” I said. “It makes a difference.” My voice was hoarse, and I swallowed. “Though I suppose even the stars are burning out, according to the Second Law.”

“Mmphm. Well, I suppose men can make all the laws they like,” he said, “but God made hope. The stars willna burn out.” He turned and, cupping my chin, kissed me gently. “And nor will we.”

The noises of the city were muted now, though even darkness didn’t stifle it entirely. I heard distant voices and the sound of a fiddle: a party, perhaps, from one of the houses down the street. And the bell of St. George’s struck the hour with a small, flat bong! Nine o’clock. And all’s well.

“I’d better go and see to my patient,” I said.

119 “ALAS, POOR YORICK!”

September 17, 1778

Middlebrook Encampment, New Jersey

TWO NIGHTS LATER, William stood at the edge of a dark wood, watching a lopsided rising moon shed its light over Middlebrook Encampment. His heart was thumping in his ears and he was breathing fast, his hands clenched around the handle of the spade he’d just stolen.

He’d been correct in his assessment of his welcome. He’d roughened his accent and, posing as a young immigrant from England interested in joining Washington’s troops, he’d been invited to join the Hamilton family for supper and given a bed for the night. The next day, he’d walked up to Middlebrook Encampment with the eldest Hamilton son, a man about his own age, where he’d been introduced to a Captain Ronson, one of the few officers still there.

One thing had led to another, and, by degrees, he had steered the conversation to the battle at Brandywine Creek and thence to British prisoners of war . . . and eventually he’d been taken to the small burying ground that lay before him now.

He’d been cautious about Ben, mentioning his name only casually among several others—family acquaintances, he’d said, that he’d heard had been at the battle. Some of the men he talked to hadn’t recognized the name at all; two or three said, oh, yes, the English viscount, prisoner, billeted with a family called Tobermory, very civil fellow, shame that he’d died. . . .

And one man, a Lieutenant Corey, had said the same thing but his eyes had flickered slightly when he said it. William was wise enough to abandon the subject at once—but brought up Captain Benjamin Grey with someone else, much later and out of hearing of Corey.

“Is he buried nearby?” he’d asked, with a decent assumption of casual concern. “I know his family. I should like to be able to write to them, tell them I’d visited, you know. . . .”

It had taken some effort; the burying ground was well outside the encampment, up on a little wooded knoll, and while some of the graves were neatly ranked, others had been dug hastily, and many were unmarked. His companion was not busy, though, and of a helpful complexion; he went and unearthed the adjutant’s ledger in which the dead were listed and, with some poking about, eventually led William to a flattened mound with a piece of lath stuck into it, on which GREY had been scratched with a nail.

“Lucky you came before another winter got at it,” his companion had remarked, pulling the lath out and examining it critically. He shook his head, reached into his pocket, and, fetching out a lead pencil, reinforced the name with strong, scrubbing strokes before pushing it back into the earth. “Maybe that will last a bit, in case the family should want to set up a stone.”

“That’s . . . very good of you,” William had said, his throat tight. “I’ll tell his family of your kindness.” But he couldn’t weep for a man he theoretically hadn’t known and so swallowed his emotions and turned away, finding something commonplace to talk about as they made their way downhill.

He had wept in private, later, leaning against the comforting bulk of the mare, whom he’d named Miranda. She wasn’t sprightly, but she was a good horse, and merely whuffed a little and shifted her weight to give him support.

He’d been stubbornly insisting to himself that there must be some mistake. Ben couldn’t be dead. This belief had been sustained by Uncle Hal’s complete refusal to believe the news. And it was plausible; whatever Ezekiel Richardson was up to, he meant no good to the Greys.

But here was Ben’s grave, silent and muddy, speckled with the first yellowing leaves of September. And all around him lay the decaying bodies of other men, some prisoners, some Continental regulars, some militia . . . equal, and equally alone in death.

He’d eaten dinner that night with the Hamiltons again, replying automatically to their conversation but concerned with his own misery—and the thought of the much greater misery to come when he had to return to New York and tell his father and Uncle Hal. . . .

William had taken leave of the Hamiltons next morning, consigning the remains of the deer to them, and was followed down the narrow road by their good wishes and hopes that they would see him again with General Washington, when the troops came back to Middlebrook to winter. He’d made it several miles down the mountain, dragging his spirit behind him, when he stopped to take a piss.

He’d been hunting once with Ben, and they’d stopped like this; Ben had told him a particularly scabrous joke, and he’d laughed so much that he couldn’t piss and Ben had pissed on his shoes, which made them both laugh harder, and . . .

“God damn it,” he said aloud, and, buttoning his flies, stamped back to Miranda and swung up into the saddle. “I’m sorry, owd lass,” he said, reining her head around to face uphill. “We’re going back.”

And here he was, wavering between the conviction that this was madness and the stark fact that there wasn’t anything else he could do besides go back to New York, and he wouldn’t do that until and unless he had no other choice. At least he might be able to salvage a lock of Ben’s hair for Aunt Minnie. . . .

That thought made him want to throw up, but he touched the knife at his waist, took a firmer hold of the spade, and made his way gingerly in among the graves.

The moonlight was bright enough to find footing but not to read most of the markers. He had to kneel and run his thumb over several before feeling the letters G-R-E-Y.

“Right,” he said out loud. His voice sounded small and choked, and he cleared his throat and spat—to the side, not on the grave. “Right,” he said again, more forcefully, and, standing, took up the spade and drove it into the earth.

He’d started close to what he thought should be the head, but dug in from the side—the thought of driving his spade down into Ben’s face made his flesh creep. The dirt was soft, damp with recent rain, but it was heavy work, and despite the coolness of the mountain night, he was soaked with sweat before he’d dug a quarter of an hour. If Ben had died of camp fever, as they said—and come to think, was that sensible? He hadn’t been held in the stockade with the enlisted men. As an officer, he’d been billeted with the Tobermorys. How had he come to catch camp fever? But still, if he had, then others would have died at the same time; it was a badly infectious sort of plague, he knew that much.

But if that were true, then a number of other men would have been buried at the same time, and buried hastily, to prevent contagion from the bodies. (Oh, there was a good thought: he might be opening a grave full of teeming pestilence. . . .) Anyway, if that were the case, the graves would be shallow ones.

This one was. His spade struck something harder than dirt, and he stopped abruptly, muscles quivering. He swallowed and resumed shoveling, more cautiously.

The body had been wrapped in a shroud of coarse burlap. He couldn’t see, but a ginger probing with his fingers told him as much. Squatting, he dug with his hands, unearthing what he hoped was the head. His stomach was clenched tight and he was breathing through his mouth. The stink was less than he’d expected, but still definitely there.

Oh, God. Ben . . . He’d been nursing the hope that the grave was empty.

Patting and probing, he made out the rounded shape and took a deep breath, feeling for the edge of the shroud. Had it been stitched? No, the edge was loose.

He’d thought of bringing a torch but had dismissed the idea, not wanting to risk detection. On the whole, he was glad he hadn’t. He wiped dirt from his hands onto his breeches and peeled the burlap gently back, grimacing as it stuck to the skin beneath. It came loose with a grisly, rasping sound, and he nearly dropped it and ran. But he steeled himself and touched the dead man’s face.

It wasn’t as awful as he’d thought it might be; the body seemed largely still intact. How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot? What had the gravedigger said in reply—nine years? Well, then . . . He’d seen Hamlet with Ben and Adam, in London. . . .

William fought back an insane urge to laugh and felt gently over the dead features. The nose was broad and stubby, not Ben’s sharp beak—but no doubt the process of decay . . . He slid his fingers over the temple, thinking to see if a presentable lock of hair might—and stopped dead, not breathing.

The corpse was missing an ear. Bloody hell, it was missing both ears. He felt again, both sides, unable to believe it. But it was true—and the ears had been missing for some time; even with the nasty slack feel of the decaying flesh, the ridges of scar tissue were distinct. A thief.

William sat back on his heels and tilted up his head, letting out a huge breath. He felt dizzy, and the stars made little pinwheels in his vision.

“Jesus,” he breathed, flooded with relief, gratitude, and creeping horror. “Oh, Jesus, thank you! And, oh, Christ,” he added, looking down at the invisible stranger in Ben’s grave, “now what?”

120 A CRACKLING OF THORNS

September 18, 1778

Philadelphia

IWAS HAVING A pleasantly incoherent dream involving autumn leaves and fireflies. The fireflies were red, rather than green, and were floating down through the trees like live sparks, and where they brushed against the yellow leaves, the edges browned and curled as the leaves caught fire. Smoke curled upward through the trees, lazy against an evening sky, pungent as tobacco, and I was walking underneath, smoking a cigarette with Frank . . .

I woke muzzily, thinking how nice it was to see Frank again, followed abruptly by Dreams don’t smell, do they? along with I don’t smoke, and then—

“Jesus! We’re on fire!” I sat up, panicked and wriggling to get out of the sheets. Smoke was already thick in the loft, drifting layers above my head, and Jamie was coughing, grabbing my arm and dragging me free before I could locate all my limbs.

“Quick,” he said, hoarse as a crow. “Dinna wait to dress, come down!”

I didn’t dress, but did seize my shift and pulled it over my head as I crawled toward the edge of the loft. Jamie had the ladder over the edge as I reached it and was already started down, shouting in a loud, cracked voice.

I could hear the fire. It rattled and crackled, and the ashy smell of burning paper and the stink of singed buckram was thick in the air.

“In the shop,” I gasped, catching up with Jamie in the kitchen. “It’s in the shop. The Bibles are burning—the typefoundry . . .”

“Get the weans.” He ran across the kitchen, shirttails flying, and slammed shut the door that led into the printshop, from which smoke was fuming in clouds. I ran the other way, into the room that served Fergus and Marsali as living and sleeping quarters, with a smaller loft above, where the children and Jenny slept.

That door was shut, thank God. The smoke hadn’t yet reached them. I flung it open, shouting, “Fire! Fire! Get up, get up!” and ran for the ladder to the loft, hearing Fergus swear behind me in French and Marsali’s confused “What? WHAT?”

My hands were sweating and slipped on the smooth wooden rails of the ladder.

“Jenny! Germain!” I bellowed—or tried to. Smoke was drifting here, too, high up under the roof, and I was coughing, my eyes and nose running.

“Jo-hoan!”

There was one small bedstead, two little humps under the bedclothes. I ran to the bed, flinging back the covers. Joan and Félicité were curled together, Félicité’s nightdress rucked up to show her little bottom. I grabbed her by the shoulder, shaking her and trying to speak calmly.

“Girls, girls! You have to get up. Right now. Do you hear me, Joan? Wake up!”

Joan’s eyelids were fluttering, and she was coughing, turning her head to and fro to escape the smoke, eyes stubbornly closed. Félicité normally slept like the dead, and tonight was no exception; her head wobbled like her rag doll’s when I shook her.

“What? What is it?” Jenny was struggling out of the quilts on her pallet in the corner.

“We’re on fire!” I shouted. “Hurry—help me!”

I heard a cracking noise from the kitchen and a scream from Marsali. I didn’t know what had happened, but in desperation I grabbed Félicité bodily out of bed, still shouting at Joan to wake up, for God’s sake!

I felt the vibration of the ladder against the loft and Jamie was there, snatching Joan up out of the bed.

“The lads, where are the lads?” he asked urgently. In the frantic need to wake the girls, I’d forgotten Germain and Henri-Christian. I looked round in an urgent daze; there was a thin mattress on the floor, flattened and dented by bodies, but no sign of the boys.

“Germain! Joan! Henri-Christian!” Marsali’s face popped up over the edge of the loft, pale with fear. “Félicité!” In an instant, she was with me, taking Félicité from me. The little girl was coughing and whining, starting to cry.

“It’s all right, a nighean, it’s all right; you’re safe, aye?” Marsali was patting her back, coughing herself as the smoke thickened. “Where are the boys?”

Jamie had shoved Jenny onto the ladder and was following her down, Joan draped over his shoulder, small pink feet kicking urgently.

“I’ll find them!” I said, pushing Marsali toward the ladder. “Take Félicité down!”

Something in the shop exploded with a loud whoosh—probably a barrel of ink, made with varnish and lampblack. Marsali gasped, clutched Félicité hard, and scuttled for the ladder. I began rootling madly through the bits of furniture and boxes and bags in the loft, calling the boys’ names between fits of coughing.

The smoke was much worse now; I could barely see. I was kicking my way through blankets, a chamber pot—unfortunately full—and other things, but there was no sign of Henri-Christian or Germain. Even if they’d been overcome by the smoke, surely—

“Sassenach!” Jamie was suddenly there by my elbow. “Come down, come down! The fire’s in the wall; the loft will come down any minute!”

“But—”

He didn’t wait for argument, but picked me up bodily and swung me down onto the ladder. I missed my footing and slid the last few feet, knees buckling as I hit the floor. The wall in front of me was alight, plaster shattered and the fire moving, glowing along the edges of the laths. Jamie landed beside me with a thud that shook the floor, seized my arm, and we ran for the kitchen.

I heard a rending crack and then a crash that seemed to happen in slow motion, as the supports to the children’s loft gave way and the timbers came down.

“Germain,” I gasped. “Henri—”

“Not here,” Jamie said, and shook with coughing. “Out, we must get out.” The air in the kitchen was a little clearer, but not by much. It was hot enough to sear the hairs inside my nose. Eyes streaming, we made our way across the room to the back door, now standing open, and more or less fell through into the alleyway behind.

Marsali and Jenny were crouched in the privy yard of the house on the other side of the alley, both girls now awake and clinging to them, shrieking.

“Where’s Fergus?” Jamie shouted, pushing me toward Marsali. She pointed toward the burning building, screaming something that I couldn’t hear over the rumble of the fire. Then there was a second’s respite in the noise, and a long, panicked bray split the night air.

“Clarence!” Jamie spun on his heel and ran for the tiny stable, little more than a shed next to the main building. I ran after him, thinking that perhaps the boys had taken refuge there. My bare feet slid on the cobbles, stubbing my toes, but I scarcely noticed, my heart pounding in my ears with fear, lungs laboring to find fresh air.

“Germain!” I heard the shout, faint above the fire, and turned to see a shadow moving just beyond the open door into the kitchen. Smoke was pouring from the door in a thick white column, glowing from the fire beyond. I took a deep gulp of air and dived into the smoke, flailing my arms in a vain effort to dispel enough to see.

One of my flailing arms struck something solid, though, and Fergus collapsed into me, so far overcome with heat and smoke that he couldn’t stand. I grabbed him under the arms and dragged him toward the door with that sort of strength that comes from the absolute determination not to die.

We fell out into the alley, and there were shouts from what proved to be neighbors rushing to help. Hands gripped me and pulled me away. I could hear Fergus, gasping and sobbing, struggling against the helpful hands, desperately croaking his sons’ names.

Through streaming eyes, I saw the stable roof alight and Jamie leading Clarence out, the torn-off sleeve of his shirt wrapped round the mule’s eyes.

And then I heard a shriek that rose above all the noise, fire, neighbors, Clarence’s bray. Marsali stood up straight, eyes and mouth round with horror, looking up.

The loading door that led to the kitchen loft was open, smoke and sparks fuming out, and in the midst of it was Germain, dragging Henri-Christian by the hand.

He shouted something, but no one could hear above the racket. There was a muffled boom from the loft as another cask went, and the fire blazed up suddenly as the stacks of paper caught, silhouetting the boys in the doorway.

“Jump! Jump!” Jamie was shouting, and everyone else in the alley was shouting it, too, people shoving one another in the effort to get underneath, to help. Germain looked wildly to and fro; Henri-Christian was panicked, struggling to go back into the loft. The rope used to raise and lower loads to a waiting wagon was there, almost within reach. Germain saw it and let go of Henri-Christian for an instant to reach for it, hanging on to the edge of the doorframe.

He got it, and a gasp went through the crowd. His fair hair was standing on end in the wind from the fire, surrounding his head like flames, and for an instant I thought it was on fire.

Henri-Christian, dizzy from the smoke, had fallen against the doorframe and was clinging to it. He was too frightened to move; I could see him shaking his head as Germain pulled at him.

“Throw him, Germain! Throw your brother!” Fergus was shouting as loudly as he could, his voice cracking with the strain, and several other voices joined in. “Throw him!”

I saw Germain’s jaw set hard, and he yanked Henri-Christian loose, picked him up, and clutched him with one arm, wrapping the rope around the other.

“No!” Jamie bellowed, seeing it. “Germain, don’t!” But Germain bent his head over his brother’s, and I thought I saw his lips move, saying, “Hold on tight!” And then he stepped out into the air, both hands clinging to the rope, Henri-Christian’s stocky legs wrapped round his ribs.

It happened instantly and yet so slowly. Henri-Christian’s short legs lost their grip. Germain’s grab failed, for the little boy was already falling, arms outstretched, in a half somersault through the smoky air.

He fell straight through the sea of upraised hands, and the sound as his head struck the cobbles was the sound of the end of the world.

121 WALKING ON COALS

September 19, 1778

Philadelphia

EVEN WHEN THE world ends, things bloody go on happening. You just don’t know what to do about them.

Everything smelled of smoke and burning. The air, my hair, Jamie’s skin, the ill-fitting gown someone had given me . . . Even food tasted of ashes. But, then, it would, wouldn’t it? I reflected. It didn’t matter; I couldn’t eat more than the mouthful or two required for politeness.

No one had slept. The printshop had burned to the ground in the small hours; there was nothing to be done but to beat off flying embers and stamp out sparks in an effort to preserve the nearby houses. By a mercy, it hadn’t been a windy night.

The neighbors had given us shelter, clothes, food, and abundant sympathy. None of it seemed real, and I hoped in a vague sort of way that this state of things would continue, even though I knew it couldn’t.

What did seem real, though, was the small collection of vivid images that had been literally seared on my mind during the night. Henri-Christian’s bare feet, dirty-soled and large in comparison with his legs, sticking out from under his mother’s skirt as she cradled him, rocking to and fro, wrapped in a grief too dense for any sound to escape it. Germain, letting go the rope in a frantic attempt to fly after his brother, dropping like a rock into Fergus’s arms. Fergus clutching Germain so hard against him that it must have bruised them both, his hook gleaming against Germain’s soot-streaked back.

The boys had been sleeping on the roof. There was a small trapdoor in the ceiling of the bedroom loft, which no one had remembered in the panic of the fire.

When Germain began finally to talk, sometime toward dawn, he said they had gone out to be cool and to look at the stars. They had fallen asleep and not waked until the slates they lay on began to feel hot—and by then smoke was rolling up through the cracks of the trapdoor. They’d run across the roof to the other side, where a similar trapdoor let them into the printing loft. Half the loft had fallen away and the rest was on fire, but they’d made it through the smoke and rubble to the loading door.

“Why?” he’d cried, passed from one set of arms to another, ignoring all futile words of would-be comfort. “Why didn’t I hold on to him?! He was too little; he couldn’t hold on.”

Only his mother hadn’t embraced him. She held Henri-Christian and wouldn’t let go until daylight came and sheer exhaustion loosened her grasp. Fergus and Jamie had eased the small, chunky body from her grip and taken him away to be washed and made decent for the long business of being dead. Then Marsali had come to find her eldest son and touched him gently in his deadened sleep, sorrowing.

The Reverend Figg had once more come to our aid, a small neat figure in his black suit and high white stock, offering his church in which to hold the wake.

I was sitting in the church now, in midafternoon, alone, on a bench with my back against a wall, smelling smoke and trembling intermittently with echoes of flame and loss.

Marsali was asleep in a neighbor’s bed. I had tucked her in, her daughters curled up on either side of her, Félicité sucking her thumb, round black eyes watchful as those of her rag doll, fortuitously saved from the flames. So few things had survived. I remembered the constant pang of loss after the Big House had burned, reaching for something and realizing that it wasn’t there.

Jenny, worn to the gray-white color of weathered bone, had gone to lie down at the Figgs’ house, her rosary in her hands, the wooden beads sliding smoothly through her fingers as she walked, her lips moving silently; I doubted that she would stop praying, even in her sleep.

People came and went, bringing things. Tables, extra benches, platters of food. Late-summer flowers, roses and jasmine and early blue asters, and for the first time, tears ran down my cheeks at this scented remembrance of the wedding held here so little time before. I pressed a stranger’s handkerchief to my face, though, not wanting anyone to see and feel that they must try to comfort me.

The bench beside me creaked and gave, and I peeped over the edge of my handkerchief to see Jamie beside me, wearing a worn suit that plainly belonged to a chairman—it had a band round the coat sleeve reading “82”—and with his face washed but the whorls of his ears still grimed with soot. He took my hand and held it tight, and I saw the blisters on his fingers, some fresh, some burst and shredded from the efforts to save what could be saved from the fire.

He looked to the front of the church, toward what couldn’t be saved, then sighed and looked down to our clasped hands.

“All right, lass?” His voice was hoarse, his throat raw and soot-choked as my own.

“Yes,” I said. “Have you had anything to eat?” I already knew he hadn’t slept.

He shook his head and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes, and I felt the relaxation of his body into momentary exhaustion. There were things still to be done, but just for a moment . . . I wanted to dress his hands, but there was nothing to dress them with. I lifted the hand he held and kissed his knuckles.

“What do ye think it’s like when ye die?” he asked suddenly, opening his eyes and looking down at me. His eyes were red as an emery bag.

“I can’t say I’ve really thought about it,” I replied, taken aback. “Why?”

He rubbed two fingers slowly between his brows; I thought from the look of him that his head must ache.

“I only wondered if it’s like this.” He made a brief gesture, encompassing the half-empty room, the well-wishers coming and going in whispers, the mourners sitting, blank-faced and sagging like bags of rubbish, stirring—with a visible effort—only when spoken to. “If ye dinna ken what to do, and ye dinna much want to do anything. Or is it like going to sleep and wakin’ up in a new, fresh place and wanting to go out at once and see what it’s like?”

“According to Father O’Neill, innocents are just in the presence of God immediately. No limbo, no purgatory. Assuming they were properly baptized,” I added. Henri-Christian had indeed been baptized, and as he was not yet seven, the Church held that he lacked sufficient sense of reason to commit sins. Ergo . . .

“I’ve known people in their fifties who had less sense than Henri-Christian,” I said, wiping my nose for the thousandth time. My nostrils were as raw as my eyelids.

“Aye, but they’ve more capacity for causing harm wi’ their foolishness.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “I thought I was dead on Culloden field; did I ever tell ye that?”

“I don’t think you did. Under the circumstances, I suppose it would have been a reasonable assumption, though—were you knocked out?”

He nodded, eyes fixed on the floorboards.

“Aye. If I’d been able to look about, I should have known better, but my eyes were sealed shut wi’ the blood. It was all red and dim, so I supposed I was in purgatory and would just have to wait ’til someone came round to chastise me. After a bit, I supposed boredom was meant to be part of the punishment.” He glanced at the tiny coffin on its bench at the front of the room. Germain sat by it, one hand on its lid. He hadn’t moved at all in the last half hour.

“I’ve never seen Henri-Christian bored,” I said quietly, after a moment. “Not once.”

“No,” Jamie said softly, and took my hand. “I dinna suppose he ever will be.”

Gaelic wakes have their own rhythm. Fergus and Marsali came in quietly an hour or so later and sat together at first, holding hands near the coffin, but as more people came, the men gradually surrounded Fergus, absorbing him, much as a gang of phagocytes surround a microbe, carrying it along with them, and after a time, as happens normally in such situations, half the men were at one side of the room, talking quietly, and the others outside, unable to bear close quarters and exigent emotion but wanting to lend their presence and sympathy.

The women clustered, first near Marsali, hugging and weeping, then gathering in small clumps with their friends, drifting back to the tables to rearrange things or put out more bread or cakes. Josiah Prentice came with his fiddle, but left it in its case for the time being. Tobacco smoke from the pipes of the men outside drifted through the church in soft blue clouds. It tickled uneasily at the back of my nose, too reminiscent of the fire for comfort.

Jamie left me with a brief squeeze of the hand and went to speak to Ian. I saw them both look at Germain; Ian nodded and moved quietly to his nephew, putting both hands on his shoulders. Rachel hovered nearby, dark eyes watchful.

The bench beside me creaked, and Jenny sat down. Wordless, she put her arm about my shoulder, and equally wordless, I bent my head to hers and we wept for a bit—not only for Henri-Christian but for the babies we each had lost, my stillborn Faith, her infant Caitlin. And for Marsali, now joining us in this sorrowful kinship.

The night drew in, beer and ale were poured, some stronger drink was brought out, and the somber mood of the gathering lifted a little. Still, it was the wake of a child and a life cut short; there couldn’t be the sense of shared memory and laughter that there might be for a man who had lived a full life and whose friends had come to share in his death.

Josiah Prentice played his fiddle, but quietly, mixing laments with peaceful tunes and the occasional hymn; there wouldn’t be much singing tonight. I wished suddenly and fiercely that Roger were here. He would perhaps have known what to say, in a situation where there was nothing one could say. And even with his ruined voice, he would have known a song to sing, a prayer to offer.

Father O’Neill from St. George’s Church had come, tactfully overlooking the unorthodox Quaker marriage of a month before, and stood talking near the door with Fergus and a few other men.

“Poor wee child,” Jenny said, her voice roughened by tears but steady now. She was holding my hand, and I hers, and she was looking not at the coffin but at Fergus. “His bairns mean everything to him—and especially our wee man.” Her lips trembled, but she pressed them together and straightened her back.

“D’ye think Marsali’s breedin’?” she said, very softly, looking at Marsali, with Joan and Félicité clinging to her skirts, Joan’s head in her lap. Her mother’s hand rested on her hair, gently smoothing it.

“I do,” I said, as softly.

She nodded, and her hand twitched, half hidden in the folds of her skirt, making the horns against evil.

More people had come. The Congress was meeting in Philadelphia, and several delegates who did business with Fergus had come. Jonas Phillips and Samuel Adams were both there, chatting by the refreshments table. In a different frame of mind, I might have marveled at being in the same room with two signers of the Declaration of Independence, but, after all, they were only men—though I took it kindly that they’d come.

I looked for Germain every few minutes; now he was standing by the tables with Ian, drinking something from a cup. I blinked and looked again.

“Jesus H—I mean, good Lord. Ian’s giving Germain cherry bounce!”

Jenny glanced at Germain’s bright red lips, and a quiver of amusement ran through her.

“Canna think of anything better for the lad just now, can you?”

“Well . . . no.” I stood up, shaking out my skirts. “D’you want some?”

“I do,” she said, and got up with alacrity. “And maybe a wee bite, too. It’ll be a long night; we’ll need a bit to sustain us, aye?”

It felt better to be up and moving. The fog of grief still numbed sensation, and I didn’t look forward to its passing, but at the same time . . . I realized that I was hungry now.

The feeling in the room shifted gradually, from the first impact of shock and sorrow, to comforting support for the family, and now to more-general talk. Which was, I realized uneasily, beginning to focus on speculation as to what—or who—had caused the fire.

In the shock and grief of the event, none of us had spoken of it, but even through that numbing fog, the insidious question had hovered like a bat overhead: Why? How? And . . . who?

If anyone. Fire was a common plague in a time when every household had open hearths, and a printshop, with its type forge and its stock of inflammables, was still more vulnerable to simple accident. An open window, a stray breeze, loose papers blowing . . . a spitting ember from a badly smoored fire catching hold . . .

And yet.

The memory of the anonymous letter floated queasily on the surface of my mind. Your house is on fire and your children are gone . . .

And the young men who had followed me from Chestnut Street, their stealthy plucking and whispered taunts. God, could I have brought their enmity to Fergus’s door?

Jamie had come to stand by me again, steady and solid as a rock, and handed me a fresh cup of cherry bounce. It was like drinking very strong cough syrup, but it was undeniably bracing. Up to the point where you fell down insensible, at least. I saw that Germain had slid slowly down the wall; Rachel knelt next to him and eased him to the ground, then folded her shawl and put it under his head.

The cherry bounce was taking the place of the fog; I thought drunkenness was probably an improvement, on the whole.

“Mrs. Fraser?” A strange voice on my left drew my attention from bemused contemplation of the dark-red depths of my cup. A young man in shabby clothes was standing at my elbow, a small package in his hand.

“She is,” Jamie said, giving the young man a searching look. “Are ye needing a physician? Because—”

“Oh, no, sir,” the young man assured him, obsequious. “I was told to give this into Mrs. Fraser’s hand, that’s all.” He handed it to me and, with a short bow, turned and left.

Puzzled, and slow with fatigue, grief, and cherry bounce, I fumbled with the string, then gave up and handed the package to Jamie, who reached for his knife, failed to find it—for it had, of course, perished in the fire—and, with a flicker of annoyance, simply broke the string. The wrapping fell open to reveal a small leather purse and a note, folded but unsealed.

I blinked and squinted for a moment, then dipped a hand into my pocket. By a miracle, my spectacles had been downstairs, left behind in the kitchen when I took them off while chopping onions, and Jamie had retrieved them in his hurried foray into the burning house. The stylish handwriting sprang into reassuring clarity.

Mrs. Fraser,

I cannot think my Presence would be welcome and I would not intrude on private Grief. I ask nothing, neither Acknowledgment nor Obligation. I do ask that you would allow me to help in the only way that I can and that you will not reveal the Source of this Assistance to the younger Mr. Fraser. I trust your Discretion, as to the Elder.

It was signed simply, P. Wainwright (Beauchamp).

I raised my brows at Jamie and passed him the note. He read it, lips pressed tight together, but glanced at Marsali and the girls, now clustered with Jenny, talking to Mrs. Phillips, all of them crying quietly. Then across the room, to Fergus, flanked by Ian and Rachel. He grimaced very briefly, but his features set in resignation. There was a family to provide for; he couldn’t, for the moment, afford pride.

“Well, it probably wasn’t him, then,” I said, with a sigh, and tucked the little purse into the pocket under my skirt. Numbed as I was, I still felt a vague sense of relief at that. Whatever he might be, might have done, or might intend, I still rather liked the erstwhile Monsieur Beauchamp.

I had no time to consider Percy further, though, for at this point there was a stir among the people near the door, and, looking to see what had caused it, I saw George Sorrel come in.

It was apparent at a glance that the tavern owner had been availing himself of his own wares—possibly as a means of getting up his courage, for he stood swaying slightly, fists clenched at his sides, looking slowly round the room, belligerently meeting the stares that greeted him.

Jamie said something very unsuitable in a house of God under his breath in Gaelic, and started toward the door. Before he could reach it, though, Fergus had turned to see the cause of the stir and had spotted Sorrel.

Fergus was no more sober than Sorrel but was much more upset. He stiffened for an instant, but then pulled himself free of the grasping hands of his supporters and headed for Sorrel without a word, red-eyed as a hunting ferret and just as dangerous.

He hit Sorrel with his fist as the man was opening his mouth. Unsteady as they were, both of them staggered from the impact, and men rushed in to separate them. Jamie reached Sorrel and, grabbing his arm, jerked him out of the scrum.

“I suggest that ye leave, sir,” he said, politely, under the circumstances, and turned the man firmly toward the door.

“Don’t,” Fergus said. He was breathing like a train, sweat pouring down his chalk-white face. “Don’t go. Stay—and tell me why. Why have you come here? How dare you come here?” This last was uttered in a cracked shout that made Sorrel blink and take a step backward. He shook his head doggedly, though, and drew himself up.

“I came to—to offer Mrs. Fraser con-condol—to say I was sorry about her son,” he said sullenly. “And you ain’t a-going to stop me, either, you farting French son of a bitch!”

“You offer my wife nothing,” Fergus said, shaking with fury. “Nothing, do you hear? Who is to say you did not set the fire yourself? To kill me, to seize upon my wife? Salaud!”

I would have bet money that Sorrel didn’t know what a salaud was, but it didn’t matter; he went the color of beetroot and lunged at Fergus. He didn’t reach him, as Jamie managed to grab his collar, but there was a sound of rending cloth and Sorrel jerked to a stop, staggering.

There was a rumble through the room, men and women gathering in a thundercloud of disapproval. I could see Jamie drawing himself up and in, settling himself to haul Sorrel out before someone besides Fergus took a swing at him. A certain shuffling readiness suggested that a number of men had it in mind.

And then Rachel walked between the two men. She was very pale, though a red spot burned in each cheek, and her hands were clenched in the fabric of her skirt.

“Does thee indeed come to offer comfort, friend?” she said to Sorrel, in a voice that shook only a little. “For if that is so, thee ought to offer it to all of those who are met here for the sake of the child. Particularly to his father.”

She turned toward Fergus, reaching to put a careful hand on his sleeve.

“Thee will not see thy wife distressed further, I know,” she said quietly. “Will thee not go to her now? For while she is grateful for the presence of so many kind folk, it is only thee she wants.”

Fergus’s face worked, anguish and fury warring with confusion. Seeing him unable to decide what to do or how to do it, Rachel moved closer and took his arm, tucking her hand into the curve of his elbow, and compelled him to turn and to walk with her, the crowd parting in front of them. I saw the curve of Marsali’s blond head as she raised it slowly, her face changing as she watched Fergus come.

Jamie took a deep breath and released Sorrel.

“Well?” he said quietly. “Stay or go. As ye will.”

Sorrel was still panting a little but had himself in hand now. He nodded jerkily, drew himself up, and straightened his torn coat. Then he walked through the silent crowd, head up, to give his sympathies to the bereaved.

122 HALLOWED GROUND

IN SPITE OF THE neighbors’ generosity, there was very little to pack. Nor was there any reason to linger in Philadelphia. Our life there was ended.

There was—there always is—considerable speculation as to the cause of the fire. But after the outburst at the wake, a sense of flat finality had settled over all of us. The neighbors would continue to talk, but among the family there was an unspoken agreement that it made little difference whether the fire had been pure accident or someone’s ill design. Nothing would bring Henri-Christian back. Nothing else mattered.

Jamie had taken Fergus to make the arrangements for our travel: not because he needed assistance but as a way of keeping Fergus moving, lest he simply sit down by Henri-Christian’s small coffin and never rise again.

Things were both easier and harder for Marsali. She had children to care for, children who needed her badly.

Rachel and I packed what there was to pack, bought food for the journey, and dealt with the final details of leaving. I packed the bits and bobs of my surgery and, with mutual tears and embraces, gave the keys of Number 17 Chestnut Street to Mrs. Figg.

And in the early afternoon of the day following the wake, we borrowed a small cart, hitched up Clarence, and followed Henri-Christian to his grave.

There hadn’t been any discussion as to the burial. After the wake, Ian had simply stood up and said, “I know where he must rest.”

It was a long way, perhaps two hours’ walk outside the city. The heat had broken at last, though, and the air moved gently over us, with the first cool touch of autumn. There was no ceremony to our procession; no Gaelic laments for a life cut short, no professional wailing. Only a small family, walking together for the last time.

We left the road at Ian’s signal. Jamie unhitched Clarence and hobbled him to graze, then he and Fergus lifted the coffin and followed Ian into the whisper of the trees, along a small and hidden path made by the hooves of deer, and so upward to a small clearing in the forest.

There were two large cairns there, knee-high. And a smaller one, at the edge of the clearing, under the branches of a red cedar. A flat stone lay against it, the word ROLLO scratched into it.

Fergus and Jamie set down the little coffin, gently. Joanie and Félicité had stopped crying during the long walk, but seeing it there, so small and forlorn, facing the thought of walking away . . . they began to weep silently, clinging hard to each other, and at the sight of them, grief rose in me like a fountain.

Germain was holding hard to his mother’s hand, mute and jaw-set, tearless. Not seeking support, giving it, though the agony showed clear in his eyes as they rested on his brother’s coffin.

Ian touched Marsali’s arm gently.

“This place is hallowed by my sweat and my tears, cousin,” he said softly. “Let us hallow it also by our blood and let our wee lad rest here safe in his family. If he canna go with us, we will abide with him.”

He took the sgian dubh from his stocking and drew it across his wrist, lightly, then held his arm above Henri-Christian’s coffin, letting a few drops fall on the wood. I could hear the sound of it, like the beginning of rain.

Marsali drew a shattered breath, stood straight, and took the knife from his hand.