“Ah.” He tossed it back at me, and I dodged. “Ye told me yourself, Sassenach, that Roger Mac said to ye yesterday that he meant to come back to the ministering. So,” he went on patiently, seeing no hint of enlightenment on my face, “what would ye do first, if that was your aim?”
I scooped a large glob of pale-yellow bear grease from its pot into the mortar, part of my mind debating whether to add a decoction of willow bark, while the rest considered Jamie’s question.
“Ah,” I said in turn, and pointed my pestle at him. “I’d go round to all the people who’d been part of my congregation, so to speak, and let them know that Mack the Knife is back in town.”
He gave me a concerned look, but then shook his head, dislodging whatever image I’d just given him.
“Ye would,” he said. “And maybe introduce yourself to the folk who’ve come to the Ridge since ye left.”
“And within a couple of days, everyone on the Ridge—and probably half the brethren’s choir in Salem—would know about it.”
He nodded amiably. “Aye. And they’d all ken that ye need Jesuit bark, and ye’d likely get it within the month.”
“Are ye in need of Jesuit bark, Grand-mère?” Germain had emerged from the woods behind me, a pail of water in one hand, a bundle of faggots clutched to his chest with the other, and what appeared to be a dead snake hanging round his neck.
“Yes,” I said. “Is that a—” But he’d forgotten me, his attention riveted on his grandfather’s macerated leg.
“Formidable!” he said, dropping the wood. “Can I see, Grand-père?”
Jamie made a gracious “feel free” gesture toward his leg, and Germain bent to look, eyes round.
“Mandy said that a bear bit your leg off,” he said, advancing a tentative forefinger toward the line of stitches. “But I didn’t believe her. Does it hurt?” he asked, glancing at Jamie’s face.
“Och, nay bother,” Jamie said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. “I’ve a privy to dig later. What kind is your wee snake, then?”
Germain obligingly removed the limp serpent and handed it to Jamie, who plainly hadn’t expected the gesture, but gingerly accepted it. I smiled and looked down into my mortar. Jamie was afraid of snakes but manfully disguised the fact, holding it up by the tail. It was a big corn snake, nearly three feet of orange and yellow scales, vivid as a streak of lightning.
“Did you kill it, Germain?” I frowned at the snake, pausing in my mashing. I’d explained repeatedly to all the children that they ought not to kill any non-venomous snake, as they helpfully ate mice and rats, but most adults on the Ridge considered that the only good snake was a dead one, and it was an uphill battle.
“Oh, no, Grannie,” he assured me. “It was in your garden and Fanny went for it with a hoe, but I stopped her. But then your wee cheetie sleeked through the fence and jumped on it and broke its …” He frowned at the snake. “I dinna ken whether it was its back or its neck because how could ye tell, but it’s dead all right. I thought I’d skin it for Fanny,” he explained, glancing back over his shoulder toward the garden. “To make her a belt, maybe.”
“What a lovely idea,” I said, wondering whether Fanny would think so.
“Do ye think I might be able to buy a buckle for it from the tinker?” Germain asked Jamie, taking back his snake and redraping it round his neck. “The belt, I mean. I’ve got twopence and some wee purple stones to trade.”
“What tinker?” I stopped mashing and stared at him.
“Jo Beardsley told me he’d met a tinker in Salem two days ago, and he reckoned the man would be here sometime this week,” Germain explained. “He said the tinker’s got a sackload o’ simples, so I thought if ye needed anything, Grannie …”
I cast a quick, greedy glance at my medicine chest, depleted by a planting season rife with ax and hoe injuries, animal and insect bites, an outbreak of food poisoning, and a strange plague of respiratory illness among the MacNeills, accompanied by low fever, coughing, and bluish spots on the trunk.
“Hmmm …” I patted my pockets, wondering what I had to trade, come to think of it …
“There are two bottles left of the elderberry wine,” Jamie said, standing up straight. “Ye can use those, Sassenach. And I’ve got a good deerskin, and half of a wee barrel of turpentine.”
“No, I want to keep the turpentine,” I said, adding absently, “Hookworms, you know.”
Jamie and Germain exchanged a cynical glance.
“Hookworms,” Jamie said, and Germain shook his head.
Before I could enlighten them about hookworms, though, a shout came from the direction of the creek, and Duncan Leslie and his two sons appeared, one of the sons with a large ham tucked under one arm.
Jamie stood up to greet them, and they all nodded politely to me but didn’t seem to expect me to stop what I was doing in order to chat.
“I shot a good-sized pig last week,” Duncan said, motioning the son with the ham forward. “There was a bit to spare, and we thought ye might use it, what with your family come, and all.”
“I’m much obliged, Duncan,” Jamie said. “If ye dinna mind eating under the sky, come and share it with us … tomorrow?” he asked, turning to me. I shook my head.
“Day after tomorrow,” I said. “I have to go up to Beardsleys’ tomorrow and I won’t be back in time to make much more than sandwiches.” If Amy had made bread and had some to spare, I added silently to myself.
“Aye, aye,” Duncan said, nodding. “My wife will be happy to see ye, Missus. So, Jamie,” he added, tilting his head toward the foundation, “I see ye’ve got a fine big house laid out—twa chimneys, eh? Where’s the kitchen to be, then?”
Jamie rose smoothly to his feet, gave me a brief “See?” look over his shoulder, and led the Leslies off to tour the foundation, limping only slightly.
Germain laid the snake on my table and, saying, “Look after it for me, will ye, Grannie?” hurried to join the men.
BRIANNA PAUSED AT the top of the trail and blotted sweat from her face and neck. The cabin before them was tidy and neat—very neat. There were whitewashed stones lining the path that led to the door, and the paned-glass windows—glass—were so polished that she could see herself and Roger in them, tiny cut-up blobs of color amid the green flicker of the reflected forest.
“Who whitewashes rocks?” she said, instinctively lowering her voice, as though the cabin might hear her.
“Well, it can’t be someone with a lot of time on their hands,” he said, half under his breath. “So it’s either a frustrated landscape designer or someone with a neurotic need to control their environment.”
“I suppose there’s no reason why you wouldn’t find control freaks in any time,” she said, shaking dust and leaf fragments off her skirt. “Look at the people who designed Elizabethan mazes, I mean. What was it Amy said about these people? Cunningham, is that the name?”
“Yes. ‘They’re Methodists. Blue Light,’” Roger quoted, “‘be careful of thon people, Preacher.’” And with that, he straightened his shoulders and set foot on the path that led between the whitewashed stones.