Mount Helicon The Royal Colony of North Carolina Late October, 1770 15 страница

“Och, well, they’re boys, after all,” Marsali said tolerantly, raising her voice slightly to be heard above the racket. “Everyone kens that boys are full o’ the devil; I suppose it would take more than a bit of holy water to drown it all, even if it was ninety-proof. Germain! Where did ye hear such a filthy song, ye wee ratten?”

I smiled, and next to me, Jamie laughed quietly, listening to the girls’ conversation. We were far enough from the scene of the crime by now not to worry about being heard, among the snatches of song, fiddle music, and laughter that flickered through the trees with the light of the campfires, bright against the growing dark.

The business of the day was largely done, and folk were settling down to the evening meal, before the calling, the singing, and the last round of visits started. The scents of smoke and supper trailed tantalizing fingers through the cold, dark air, and my stomach rumbled gently in answer to their summons. I hoped Lizzie was sufficiently restored as to have begun cooking.

“What’s mo mhaorine?” I asked Jamie. “I haven’t heard that one before.”

“It means ‘my wee potato,’ I think,” he said. “It’s Irish, aye? She learnt it from the priest.”

He sighed, sounding deeply satisfied with the evening’s work so far.

“May Bride bless Father Kenneth for a nimble-fingered man; for a moment, I thought we wouldna manage it. Is that Roger and wee Fergus?”

A couple of dark shadows had come out of the wood to join the girls, and the sound of muffled laughter and murmured voices—punctuated by raucous shrieks from both little boys at sight of their daddies—drifted back to us from the little knot of young families.

“It is. And speaking of that, my little sweet potato,” I said, taking a firm grip of his arm to slow him, “what do you mean by telling Father Kenneth all that about me and the butter churn?”

“Ye dinna mean to say ye minded, Sassenach?” he said, in tones of surprise.

“Of course I minded!” I said. The blood rose warm in my cheeks, though I wasn’t sure whether this was due to the memory of his confession—or to the memory of the original occasion. My innards warmed slightly at that thought as well, and the last remnants of cramp began to subside as my womb clenched and relaxed, eased by the pleasant inward glow. It was scarcely a suitable time or place, but perhaps later in the evening, we might manage sufficient privacy—I pushed the thought hastily aside.

“Privacy quite aside, it wasn’t a sin at all,” I said primly. “We’re married, for goodness’ sake!”

“Well, I did confess to telling lies, Sassenach,” he said. I couldn’t see the smile on his face, but I could hear it well enough in his voice. I supposed he could hear mine, too.

“I had to think of a sin frightful enough to drive Lillywhite away—and I couldna confess to theft or buggery; I may have to do business with the man one day.”

“Oh, so you think he’d be put off by sodomy, but he’d consider your attitude toward women in wet chemises just a minor flaw of character?” His arm was warm under the cloth of his shirt. I touched the underside of his wrist, that vulnerable place where the skin lay bare, and stroked the line of the vein that pulsed there, disappearing under the linen toward his heart.

“Keep your voice down, Sassenach,” he murmured, touching my hand. “Ye dinna want the bairns to hear ye. Besides,” he added, his voice dropping low enough that he was obliged to lean down and whisper in my ear, “it’s not all women. Only the ones with lovely round arses.” He let go my hand and patted my backside familiarly, showing remarkable accuracy in the darkness.

“I wouldna cross the road to see a scrawny woman, if she were stark naked and dripping wet. As for Lillywhite,” he resumed, in a more normal tone of voice, but without removing his hand, which was molding the cloth of my skirt thoughtfully round one buttock, “he may be a Protestant, Sassenach, but he’s still a man.”

“I didn’t realize the two states were incompatible,” Roger’s voice said dryly, coming out of the darkness nearby.

Jamie snatched his hand away as though my bottom were on fire. It wasn’t—quite—but there was no denying that his flint had struck a spark or two among the kindling, damp as it was. It was a long time before bedtime, though.

Pausing just long enough to administer a brief, private squeeze to Jamie’s anatomy that made him gasp sharply, I turned to find Roger clasping a large wriggling object in his arms, its nature obscured by the dark. Not a piglet, I surmised, despite the loud grunting noises it was making, but rather Jemmy, who seemed to be gnawing fiercely on his father’s knuckles. A small pink fist shot out into a random patch of light, clenched in concentration, then disappeared, meeting Roger’s ribs with a solid thump.

Jamie gave a small grunt of amusement himself, but wasn’t discomposed in the slightest by having his opinion of Protestants overheard.

“‘All are gude lasses,’ ” he quoted in broad Scots, “‘but where do the ill wives come frae?’ ”

“Eh?” Roger said, sounding a bit bewildered.

“Protestants are born wi’ pricks,” Jamie explained, “the men, at least—but some let them wither from disuse. A man who spends his time pokin’ his . . . nose into others’ sinfulness has nay time to tend his own.”

I converted a laugh into a more tactful cough.

“And some just become bigger pricks, what with the practice,” Roger said, more dryly still. “Aye, well. I came to thank you . . . for managing about the baptism, I mean.”

I noticed the slight hesitation; he still had not settled on any comfortable name by which to call Jamie to his face. Jamie addressed him impartially as “Wee Roger,” “Roger Mac,” or “MacKenzie”—more rarely, by the Gaelic nickname Ronnie Sinclair had given Roger, a Smeòraich, in honor of his voice. Singing Thrush, it meant.

“It’s me should be thanking you, a charaid. We shouldna have managed there at the last, save for you and Fergus,” Jamie said, laughter warming his own voice.

Roger was clearly visible in outline, tall and lean, with the glow of someone’s fire behind him. One shoulder rose as he shrugged, and he shifted Jemmy to his other arm, wiping residual drool from his hand against the side of his breeches.

“No trouble,” he said, a little gruffly. “Will the—the Father be all right, d’ye think? Brianna said he’d been roughly handled. I hope they’ll not mistreat him, once he’s away.”

Jamie sobered at that. He shrugged a little as he straightened the coat on his shoulders.

“I think he’ll be safe enough, aye—I had a word with the Sheriff.” There was a certain grim emphasis on “word” that made his meaning clear. A substantial bribe might have been more effective, but I was well aware that we had exactly two shillings, threepence, and nine farthings in cash to our names at the moment. Better to save the money and rely on threats, I thought. Evidently Jamie was of the same mind.

“I shall speak to my aunt,” he said, “and have her send a note tonight to Mr. Lillywhite, wi’ her own opinion on the subject. That will be a better safeguard for Father Kenneth than anything I can say myself.”

“I don’t suppose she’ll be at all pleased to hear that her wedding is postponed,” I observed. She wouldn’t be. Daughter of a Highland laird and widow of a very rich planter, Jocasta Cameron was used to having her own way.

“No, she won’t,” Jamie agreed wryly, “though I suppose Duncan may be a bit relieved.”

Roger laughed, not without sympathy, and fell in beside us as we started down the path. He shifted Jemmy, still grunting ferociously, under his arm like a football.

“Aye, he will. Poor Duncan. So the weddings are definitely off, are they?”

I couldn’t see Jamie’s frown, but I felt the movement as he shook his head doubtfully.

“Aye, I’m afraid so. They wouldna give the priest to me, even with my word to hand him over in the morning. We could maybe take him by force, but even so—”

“I doubt that would help,” I interrupted, and told them what I had overheard while waiting outside the tent.

“So I can’t see them standing round and letting Father Kenneth perform marriages,” I finished. “Even if you got him away, they’d be combing the mountain for him, turning out tents and causing riots.”

Sheriff Anstruther wouldn’t be without aid; Jamie and his aunt might be held in good esteem among the Scottish community, but Catholics in general and priests in particular weren’t.

“Instructions?” Jamie repeated, sounding astonished. “You’re sure of it, Sassenach? It was Lillywhite who said he had ‘instructions’?”

“It was,” I said, realizing for the first time how peculiar that was. The Sheriff was plainly taking instructions from Mr. Lillywhite, that being his duty. But who could be giving instructions to the magistrate?

“There’s another magistrate here, and a couple of justices of the peace, but surely . . .” Roger said slowly, shaking his head as he thought. A loud squawk interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced down, the light from a nearby fire shining off the bridge of his nose, outlining a faint smile as he spoke to his offspring. “What? You’re hungry, laddie? Don’t fret yourself, Mummy will be back soon.”

“Where is Mummy?” I said, peering into the shifting mass of shadows ahead. A light wind had risen, and the bare branches of oak and hickory rattled like sabers overhead. Still, Jemmy was more than loud enough for Brianna to hear him. I caught Marsali’s voice faintly up ahead, engaged in what appeared to be amiable conversation with Germain and Fergus regarding supper, but there was no sound of Bree’s lower, huskier Boston-bred tones.

“Why?” Jamie said to Roger, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.

“Why what? Here, Jem, see that? Want it? Aye, of course ye do. Yes, good lad, gnaw on that for a bit.” A spark of light caught something shiny in Roger’s free hand; then the object disappeared, and Jemmy’s cries ceased abruptly, succeeded by loud sucking and slurping noises.

“What is that? It isn’t small enough for him to swallow, is it?” I asked anxiously.

“Ah, no. It’s a watch chain. Not to worry,” Roger assured me, “I’ve a good grip on the end of it. If he swallows it, I can pull it back out.”

“Why would someone not want you to be married?” Jamie said patiently, ignoring the imminent danger to his grandson’s digestive system.

“Me?” Roger sounded surprised. “I shouldn’t think anyone cares whether I’m married or not, save myself—and you, perhaps,” he added, a touch of humor in his voice. “I expect ye’d like the boy to have a name. Speaking of that”—he turned to me, the wind pulling long streamers of his hair loose and turning him into a wild black fiend in silhouette—“what did he end up being named? At the christening, I mean.”

“Jeremiah Alexander Ian Fraser MacKenzie,” I said, hoping I recalled it correctly. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Oh, I didn’t mind so much what he was called,” Roger said, edging gingerly round a large puddle that spread across the path. It had begun to sprinkle again; I could feel small chilly drops on my face, and see the dimpling of the water in the puddle where the firelight shone across it.

“I wanted Jeremiah, but I told Bree the other names were up to her. She couldn’t quite decide between John for John Grey, and—and Ian, for her cousin, but of course they’re the same name in any case.”

Again I noticed the faint hesitation, and I felt Jamie’s arm stiffen slightly under my hand. Jamie’s nephew Ian was a sore point—and fresh in everyone’s mind, thanks to the note we had received from him the day before. That must be what had decided Brianna at last.

“Well, if it isna you and my daughter,” Jamie pursued doggedly, “then who is it? Jocasta and Duncan? Or the folk from Bremerton?”

“You think someone’s out specially to prevent the marriages tonight?” Roger seized the opportunity to talk about something other than Ian Murray. “You don’t think it’s just general dislike of Romish practices, then?”

“It might be, but it’s not. If it were, why wait ’til now to arrest the priest? Wait a bit, Sassenach, I’ll fetch ye over.”

Jamie let go of my hand and stepped round the puddle, then reached back, grabbed me by the waist, and lifted me bodily across in a swish of skirts. The wet leaves slipped and squelched under my boots as he set me down, but I seized his arm for balance, righting myself.

“No,” Jamie continued the conversation, turning back toward Roger. “Lillywhite and Anstruther have no great love of Catholics, I expect, but why stir up a stramash now, when the priest would be gone in the morning, anyway? Do they maybe think he’ll corrupt all the God-fearing folk on the mountain before dawn if they dinna keep him in ward?”

Roger gave a short laugh at that.

“No, I suppose not. Is there anything else the priest was meant to do tonight, beyond performing marriages and baptisms?”

“Perhaps a few confessions,” I said, pinching Jamie’s arm. “Nothing else that I know of.” I squeezed my thighs together, feeling an alarming shift in my intimate arrangements. Damn, one of the pins holding the cloth between my legs had come loose when Jamie lifted me. Had I lost it?

“I don’t suppose they’d be trying to keep him from hearing someone’s confession? Someone in particular, I mean?” Roger sounded doubtful, but Jamie took the idea and turned it round in his hands, considering.

“They’d no objection to his hearing mine. And I shouldna think they’d care if a Catholic was in mortal sin or not, as by their lights, we’re all damned anyway. But if they kent someone desperately needed confession, and they thought there was something to be gained by it . . .”

“That whoever it was might pay for access to the priest?” I asked skeptically. “Really, Jamie, these are Scots. I should imagine that if it were a question of paying out hard money for a priest, your Scottish Catholic murderer or adulterer would just say an Act of Contrition and hope for the best.”

Jamie snorted slightly, and I saw the white mist of his breath purl round his head like candle smoke; it was getting colder.

“I daresay,” he said dryly. “And if Lillywhite had any thought of setting up in the confession business, he’s left it a bit late in the day to make much profit. But what if it wasna a matter of stopping someone’s confession—but rather only of making sure that they overheard it?”

Roger uttered a pleased grunt, evidently thinking this a promising supposition.

“Blackmail? Aye, that’s a thought,” he said, with approval. Blood will out, I thought; Oxford-educated or not, there was little doubt that Roger was a Scot. There was a violent upheavel under his arm, followed by a wail from Jemmy. Roger glanced down.

“Oh, did ye drop your bawbee? Where’s it gone, then?” He hoicked Jemmy up onto his shoulder like a bundle of laundry and squatted down, poking at the ground in search of the watch chain, which Jemmy had evidently hurled into the darkness.

“Blackmail? I think that’s a trifle far-fetched,” I objected, rubbing a hand under my nose, which had begun to drip. “You mean they might suspect that Farquard Campbell, for instance, had committed some dreadful crime, and if they knew about it for sure, they could hold him up about it? Isn’t that awfully devious thinking? If you find a pin down there, Roger, it’s mine.”

“Well, Lillywhite and Anstruther are Englishmen, are they not?” Jamie said, with a delicate sarcasm that made Roger laugh. “Deviousness and double-dealing come naturally to that race, no, Sassenach?”

“Oh, rubbish,” I said tolerantly. “Pot calling the kettle black isn’t in it. Besides, they didn’t try to overhear your confession.”

“I havena got anything to be blackmailed for,” Jamie pointed out, though it was perfectly obvious that he was only arguing for the fun of it.

“Even so,” I began, but was interrupted by Jemmy, who was becoming increasingly restive, flinging himself to and fro with intermittent steam-whistle shrieks. Roger grunted, pinched something gingerly between his fingers, and stood up.

“Found your pin,” he said. “No sign of the chain, though.”

“Someone will find it in the morning,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the increasing racket. “Perhaps you’d better let me take him.” I reached for the baby, and Roger surrendered his burden with a distinct air of relief—explained when I got a whiff of Jemmy’s diaper.

“Not again?” I said. Apparently taking this as a personal reproach, he shut his eyes and started to howl like an air-raid siren.

“Where is Bree?” I asked, trying simultaneously to cradle him reassuringly and to keep him at a sanitary distance. “Ouch!” He seemed to have taken advantage of the darkness to grow a number of extra limbs, all of which were flailing or grabbing.

“Oh, she’s just gone to run a wee errand,” Roger said, with an air of vagueness that made Jamie turn his head sharply. The light caught him in profile, and I saw the thick red brows drawn down in suspicion. Fire gleamed off the long, straight bridge of his nose as he lifted it, questioning. Obviously, he smelled a rat. He turned toward me, one eyebrow lifted. Was I in on it?

“I haven’t any idea,” I assured him. “Here, I’m going across to McAllister’s fire to borrow a clean clout. I’ll see you at our camp in a bit.”

Not waiting for an answer, I took a firm grasp on the baby and shuffled into the bushes, heading for the nearest campsite. Georgiana McAllister had newborn twins—I’d delivered them four days before—and was happy to provide me with both a clean diaper and a private bush behind which to effect my personal repairs. These accomplished, I chatted with her and admired the twins, all the while wondering about the recent revelations. Between Lieutenant Hayes and his proclamation, the machinations of Lillywhite and company, and whatever Bree and Roger were up to, the mountain seemed a perfect hotbed of conspiracy tonight.

I was pleased that we had managed the christening—in fact, I was surprised to find just how gratified I did feel about it—but I had to admit to a pang of distress over Brianna’s canceled wedding. She hadn’t said much about it, but I knew that both she and Roger had been looking forward very much to the blessing of their union. The firelight winked briefly, accusingly, off the gold ring on my left hand, and I mentally threw up my hands in Frank’s direction.

And just what do you expect me to do about it? I demanded silently, while externally agreeing with Georgiana’s opinion on the treatment of pinworms.

“Ma’am?” One of the older McAllister girls, who had volunteered to change Jemmy, interrupted the conversation, dangling a long, slimy object delicately between two fingers. “I found this gaud in the wean’s cloot; is it maybe your man’s?”

“Good grief!” I was shocked by the watch chain’s reappearance, but a moment’s rationality corrected my first alarmed impression that Jemmy had in fact swallowed the thing. It would take several hours for a solid object to make its way through even the most active infant’s digestive tract; evidently he had merely dropped his toy down the front of his gown and it had come to rest in his diaper.

“Gie it here, lass.” Mr. McAllister, catching sight of the watch chain, reached out and took it with a slight grimace. He pulled a large handkerchief from the waist of his breeks and wiped the object carefully, bringing to light the gleam of silver links and a small round fob, bearing some kind of seal.

I noted the fob with some grimness, and made a mental resolve to give Roger a proper bollocking about what he let Jemmy put in his mouth. Thank goodness it hadn’t come off.

“Why, that’s Mr. Caldwell’s wee gaud, surely!” Georgiana leaned forward, peering over the heads of the twins she was nursing.

“Is it?” Her husband squinted at the object, and fumbled in his shirt for his spectacles.

“Aye, I’m sure it is! I saw it when he preached Sunday. The first of my pains was just comin’ on,” she explained, turning to me, “and I had to come away before he’d finished. He saw me turn to go, and must ha’ thought he’d outstayed his welcome, for he pulled the watch from his pocket to have a wee keek, and I saw the glint from that bittie round thing on the chain.”

“That’s called a seal, a nighean,” her husband informed her, having now settled a pair of half-moon spectacles firmly atop his nose, and turning the little metal emblem over between his fingers. “You’re right, though, it’s Mr. Caldwell’s, for see?” A horny finger traced the outline of the figure on the seal: a mace, an open book, a bell, and a tree, standing on top of a fish with a ring in its mouth.

“That’s from the University of Glasgow, that is. Mr. Caldwell’s a scholar,” he told me, blue eyes wide with awe. “Been to learn the preachin’, and a fine job he makes of it.

“You did miss a fine finish, Georgie,” he added, turning to his wife. “He went sae red in the face, talkin’ of the Abomination of Desolation and the wrath at world’s end, that I thought surely he’d have an apoplexy, and then what should we do? For he wouldna have Murray MacLeod to him, Murray bein’ in the way of a heretic to Mr. Caldwell—he’s New Light, Murray”—Mr. McAllister explained in an aside to me—“and Mrs. Fraser here a Papist, as well as bein’ otherwise engaged wi’ you and the bairns.”

He leaned over and patted one of the twins gently on its bonneted head, but it paid no attention, blissfully absorbed in its suckling.

“Hmp. Well, Mr. Caldwell could ha’ burst himself, for all I cared at the time,” his wife said frankly. She hitched up her double armload and settled herself more comfortably. “And for mysel’, I shouldna much mind if the midwife was a red Indian or English—oh, I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Fraser—so long as she kent how to catch a babe and stop the bleedin’.”

I murmured something modest, brushing away Georgiana’s apologies, in favor of finding out more about the watch chain’s origins.

“Mr. Caldwell. He’s a preacher, you say?” A certain suspicion was stirring in the back of my mind.

“Oh, aye, the best I’ve heard,” Mr. McAllister assured me. “And I’ve heard ’em all. Now, Mr. Urmstone, he’s a grand one for the sins, but he’s on in years, and gone a bit hoarse now, so as ye need to be right up front to hear him—and that’s a bit dangerous, ye ken, as it’s the folk in front whose sins he’s likely to start in upon. The New Light fella, though, he’s nay much; no voice to him.”

He dismissed the unfortunate preacher with the scorn of a connoisseur.

“Mr. Woodmason’s all right; a bit stiff in his manner—an Englishman, aye?—but verra faithful about turning up for services, for all he’s well stricken in years. Now, young Mr. Campbell from the Barbecue Church—”

“This wean’s fair starved, ma’am,” the girl holding Jemmy put in. Evidently so; he was red in the face and keening. “Will I give him a bit o’ parritch, maybe?”

I gave a quick glance at the pot over the fire; it was bubbling, so likely well-cooked enough to kill most germs. I pulled out the horn spoon I carried in my pocket, which I could be sure was reasonably clean, and handed it to the girl.

“Thank you so much. Now, this Mr. Caldwell—he wouldn’t by chance be a Presbyterian, would he?”

Mr. McAllister looked surprised, then beamed at my perceptivity.

“Why, so he is, indeed! Ye’ll have heard of him, then, Mrs. Fraser?”

“I think perhaps my son-in-law is acquainted with him,” I said, with a tinge of irony.

Georgiana laughed.

“I should say your grandson kens him, at least.” She nodded at the chain, draped across her husband’s broad palm. “Bairns that size are just like magpies; they’ll seize upon any shiny bawbee they see.”

“So they do,” I said slowly, staring at the silver links and their dangling fob. That put something of a different complexion on the matter. If Jemmy had picked Mr. Caldwell’s pocket, it had obviously been done sometime before Jamie had arranged the impromptu christening.

But Bree and Roger had known about Father Kenneth’s arrest and the possible cancelation of their wedding well before that; there would have been plenty of time for them to make other plans while Jamie and I were dealing with Rosamund, Ronnie, and the other assorted crises. Plenty of time for Roger to go and talk to Mr. Caldwell, the Presbyterian minister—with Jemmy along for the ride.

And as soon as Roger had confirmed the unlikelihood of the priest’s performing any marriages tonight, Brianna had disappeared on a vague “errand.” Well, if Father Kenneth had wanted to interview a Presbyterian groom before marrying him, I supposed Mr. Caldwell might be allowed the same privilege with a prospective Papist bride.

Jemmy was devouring porridge with the single-mindedness of a starving piranha; we couldn’t leave quite yet. That was just as well, I thought; let Brianna break the news to her father that she would have her wedding after all—priest or no priest.

I spread out my skirt to dry the damp hem, and the firelight glowed from both my rings. A strong disposition to laugh bubbled up inside me, at the thought of what Jamie would say when he found out, but I suppressed it, not wanting to explain my amusement to the McAllisters.

“Shall I take that?” I said instead to Mr. McAllister, with a nod toward the watch chain. “I think perhaps I shall be seeing Mr. Caldwell a little later.”