“Mordecai,” she said. “Possibly not as a first name …”
I glanced at the fire, a wavering reddish transparency in the daylight. “Ian, would you build up the fire a bit? I’m going to cook the doves in the ashes, and then … hmmm …” I glanced back down the hill, counting heads as they came up. The Higgins children had peeled off and gone to their own cabin for supper, so that left us with—I counted quickly on my fingers—seven adults, four children—and I had a big pot of lentils with herbs and a hambone that had been bubbling since midday. Bree had skinned and cleaned the squirrels she’d brought back—perhaps I’d best cut them up and add them to the pot. And then—
“We brought thee a small addition to thy supper, Claire.” Rachel nodded toward the basket over her arm. “No, Oggy, thee mustn’t pull thy mother’s hair. I might be startled and drop thee into the fire, and that would be a dreadful shame, wouldn’t it?”
I laughed at this very Quaker threat, but Oggy let go—mostly—the end of his mother’s braid and stuffed his fist into his mouth instead, regarding me with a thoughtful stare.
“Come on,” I said, reaching for him. “You’ve got cousins to meet, young Oglethorpe.”
JAMIE’S LEG DIDN’T hurt a great deal, but it was bruised and tender, and he was happy to sit on the big stump near Claire’s makeshift surgery and let his bones rest as he watched his family, busy with making dinner.
Brianna was dealing with the shattered deer, still wearing the hunting clothes he’d lent her. He watched her sure hand with the knife and the power of her shoulders working, proud of her. Did she take that skill from himself, he wondered—or from her mother? It wasn’t only the hands, nor yet the simple knowledge of how to go about it … it was a toughness of mind, he thought approvingly. The recognition of a job to do and no need to question it.
He glanced at Roger, who was splitting wood, stripped to the waist and sweating. That lad did have questions, and likely always would. Jamie thought he maybe sensed a new determination in him, though; he’d need it.
Claire said he meant to go on with being a minister. That was good; folk needed someone to do for their souls, and Roger plainly needed something worth doing. Claire said he’d told her he’d thought about it and made up his mind.
Brianna, though … what might the shape of her life be here, now? She’d taught a bit in their wee school, when she was here on the Ridge before. He hadn’t thought she really liked the teaching, though; he thought she wouldn’t miss it. She rose to her feet as he watched, and stretched, arms reaching for the sky. Christ, she’s a braw lass …
Maybe she’ll have more children. He was almost afraid to think that. He didn’t want to risk her. And Jem and Mandy needed her. Still and all … The thought was a small green hope in his chest and he smiled, watching the knot of children bringing up firewood, dropping it on the ground, and running off to join the game of whatever they were playing. Hide-and-seek, perhaps … there was wee Frances, coming along with a bundle of sticks and a handful of flowers.
She’d lost her cap and her dark curls had come down on one side, straggling over one shoulder. Her face was pink with the exercise and she was smiling; he was happy to see it.
Something tickled his leg, breaking into his thoughts. There was a green thing that looked like a tiny spade sitting on his upraised knee.
He moved a hand cautiously toward it, but it wasn’t afraid of him and didn’t fly off or retaliate by trying to crawl into his ears or nose as flies did. It let him touch its backside, merely twitching its antennae in mild annoyance, but when he attempted to stroke its back, it sprang off his knee, sudden as a grasshopper, and landed on the edge of Claire’s medicine box, where it seemed to pause to take stock of its circumstances.
“Don’t do it,” he advised the insect, in Gaelic. “You’ll end up as a tonic, or ground to powder.” He couldn’t tell whether it was looking at him, but it seemed to consider, then gave another startling hop and vanished.
Fanny had brought Claire a plant of some kind, and Claire was turning over the leaves, her face bright with interest, explaining what it was good for. Fanny glowed, a tiny smile of pleasure at being useful on her face.
The sight of her warmed his heart. She’d been so frightened when Willie brought her to them—and nay wonder, poor wee lass. There was a colder place in his heart where her sister, Jane, lived.
He said a small prayer for the repose of Jane’s soul—and, after an instant’s hesitation, another for Willie. Whenever he thought of Jane, he saw her in his mind, alone and abandoned in black night, her face stark white, dead by the light of her only candle. Dead by her own hand, and the church said thus damned, but he stubbornly prayed for her soul anyway. They couldn’t stop him.
Dinna fash, a leannan, he thought toward her, tenderly. I’ll see Frances safe for ye, and maybe I’ll see ye in Heaven one day. Dinna be afraid.
He hoped someone would see William safe for him. Dreadful as the memory of that night was, he kept it, recalled it deliberately. William had come to him for help, and he treasured that. The sense of the two of them, pursuing a lost cause through a rainy, dangerous night, standing together in desolation by the light of that candle, too late. It was a dreadful memory, but one he didn’t want to forget.
Mammaidh, he thought, his mother coming suddenly to mind. Look after my bonnie lad, will ye?
7
Dead or Alive
WILLIAM, NINTH EARL OF Ellesmere, Viscount Ashness, Baron Derwent, leaned against an oak tree, taking stock of his resources. At the moment, these consisted of a fairly good horse—a nice dark bay with a white nose who (William had been informed by the horse’s prior owner) went by the name of Bartholomew—along with a canvas sack containing a discouragingly small amount of food and half a bottle of stale beer, a decent knife, and a musket that might, in a pinch, be used to club someone, because attempting to fire it would undoubtedly blow off William’s hand, face, or both.
He did have three pounds, seven shillings, twopence, and a handful of small coins and fragments of metal that might once have been coins—a beneficent side effect of a scraping acquaintance with an American militia unit he’d encountered at a roadside tavern. They had, they said, served with the Continental troops at Monmouth and had been with General Washington six months earlier, at Middlebrook Encampment—the last known place that William’s cousin Benjamin had been seen alive.
Whether Benjamin was still alive was a matter of considerable speculation, but William was determined to proceed on that assumption until and unless he found proof to the contrary.
His encounter with the New Jersey militiamen had yielded no information whatever in that regard, but it had produced a number of men eager to play at cards, who grew wilder in their wagers as the night wore on and the drink ran low.
William hoped he’d find someplace tonight where the money he’d won might buy him supper and a bed; at the moment, it seemed much more likely to get him killed. He’d discovered that dawn was often a time for regrets, and apparently the Americans shared that sentiment today. They’d woken bellicose rather than nauseated, though, and had shortly thereafter accused William of cheating at cards, thus causing him to take his leave abruptly.