“Aye, it is,” Jamie said, though most of his attention was—naturally—focused on the timbers of the framing around us. The walls were skeletal but undeniably walls, and the rooftree and trusses creaked overhead. It was a remarkable feeling: to be inside a house and still outside, the solid floorboards under our feet marked with water stains from earlier rains and drifts of dry leaves caught in the corners of the framing timbers.
Jamie shook two or three of the uprights, grunting in satisfaction when they didn’t move.
“Well, those are no going anywhere,” he said.
“You built them,” I pointed out. “Surely you didn’t think they’d come loose?”
He made a noise indicating extreme skepticism, though I couldn’t tell whether he was skeptical of his own skills, the perversity of weather, or of the trustworthiness of building materials in general. Probably all three.
“I’ll maybe have time to get the roof on before snow flies,” he said, squinting up.
“And walls?”
“Ach. With a couple of men, I can do the outer walls in a day. Maybe two,” he amended, as a fresh blast of wind roared through the framing, whipping strands of hair out of the scarf I’d wrapped round it. “I can take my time with the plastering, over the winter.”
“It’s not as peaceful as the second floor when it was open,” I said. “But somewhat more exciting.”
“I dinna want the top of my house to be exciting,” he said, but he smiled and came to stand behind me, hands on my shoulders to keep me from blowing away.
“I don’t suppose we’ll really need it to be finished before spring,” I said, when the wind dropped enough to make speech possible. “None of our wanderers will be back before …” I trailed off, because in fact, there was no telling when—or if—everyone would come home. The war had already begun to move south, and the calming chill of approaching winter would be only a short delay of what was coming.
“They’ll be home safe,” Jamie said firmly. “All of them.”
“I hope so,” I said, and leaned back against him, wanting his firmness, of belief as well as body. “Do you think Bree and Roger have got to Charles Town yet?”
“Oh, aye,” he said at once. “It’s a bit more than three hundred miles, but the weather should have been fine for the most part. If they didna lose a wheel or meet a catamount, they’d make it in two weeks or so. I expect we’ll have a letter soon; Brianna will write to say that all is well.”
That was a heartening thought, in spite of the catamounts, but I thought the force of his belief was a little less.
“It will be fine,” I said, reaching back and wrapping a hand round his leg in reassurance. “Marsali and Fergus will be so happy to have Germain back again.”
“But—?” he said, having picked up the unspoken thought that came in the wake of my remark. “Ye think there’s something else that’s maybe amiss wi’ them?”
“I don’t know.” Looking over the vast spaces into which our family had vanished made the separation suddenly frightening. “There are so many things that could happen to them—and us unable to help.” I tried to laugh. “It reminds me of Brianna’s first day at kindergarten. Watching her disappear into the school, clutching her pink lunch box … all alone.”
“Was she afraid?” he asked quietly, gathering my flying hair into a bundle and tying his handkerchief round it.
“Yes,” I said, my throat tight. “She was very brave. But I could see she was afraid.” I leaned down and picked up the bottle of wine. “She’s afraid now,” I blurted.
“Of what, a nighean?” He came round in front of me and squatted down to look me in the face. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s her heart,” I said. And taking a deep breath, I told him about the atrial fibrillation.
“And ye canna fix it?” His brow was furrowed, and he looked over his shoulder, into the endless forest. “Is she like to die on the road?”
“No!” The sudden panic was clear in my voice, and Jamie grabbed my hand, squeezing tight.
“No,” I said, willing myself back into calm. “No, she isn’t. It’s almost never fatal; particularly not in a young person. But it’s—unpredictable.”
“Aye,” he said, after studying my face for a moment. “Like war.” He nodded toward the distant mountains, though his eyes didn’t leave mine. “Ye never ken for sure what will happen—maybe nothing, maybe not for a long time, maybe not here, not now—” His fingers tightened on mine. “But ye ken it’s there, all the time. Ye try to push it away, not think of it until there’s need—but it doesna ever go away.”
I nodded, unable to speak. It lived with both of us; with everyone, these days.
The wind had dropped, but so high up, there was still a cold breeze, breathing through my clothes. The warmth of the wine had faded from my blood, and Jamie’s hand was as chilled as mine—but his eyes were warm and we held on.
“Dinna be afraid, Sassenach,” he said at last. “There’s still the two of us.”
DESPITE THE COLD wind, we didn’t go down again immediately. While it was an exposed and vulnerable location, there was something comforting in the knowledge that if something was coming toward us, we’d see it in time to prepare.
“So what else did you do in Salisbury?” I asked, leaning back against him. “I know you bought cinnamon, because I can smell it. Was there any cinchona?”
“Aye, about half a pound. I took it all, as ye told me. I couldna get more than two loaves of sugar; it’s scarce, wi’ the blockade. But I did get pepper, too, and …” He let go of me to fumble in his sporran and came up with a tiny round brown thing, which he held out to me. “A nutmeg.”
“Oh! I haven’t smelled nutmeg in years!” I took it from him, cold-fingered and careful lest I drop it. I held it under my nose and breathed in. My eyes were closed but I could clearly see Christmas cookies and taste the thick sweetness of eggnog. “How much was it?”
“Ye dinna want to know,” he assured me, grinning. “Worth it, though, for the look on your face, Sassenach.”
“Bring me some rum tonight, and I’ll put the same look on yours,” I said, laughing. I handed back the nutmeg for safekeeping, noticing as he put it back a small, ragged-edged piece of paper sticking out. “What’s that? A secret communiqué from the Salisbury Committee of Safety?”
“It might be, if any of them are Jews.” He handed me the paper, and I blinked at it. I hadn’t seen Hebrew writing any time in the last forty-five years, but I recognized it. What was more peculiar, though, was the fact that it was Jamie’s handwriting.
“What on earth …?”
“I dinna ken,” he said apologetically, and took back the note. “A constable in Salisbury found it—not this, I dinna mean, but the original—on a dead body, and he asked me did I ken aught about it. I told him it was Hebrew, and I read it to him in English, but neither of us could tell what it had to do wi’ anything. I thought it was queer enough, though, that I wrote it out for myself when I got back to my lodgings.”