“Ho there, Missus Fraser!” A distant shout from outside interrupted me and I glanced through the window, down at what was becoming a well-marked trail running from the creek to the house. I blinked, then looked again. I knew that tall, thin, shambling figure …
“John Quincy!” I said, and thrusting the casebook into Fanny’s surprised hands hurried outside to meet him.
“Mr. Myers!” I nearly threw my arms around him but was abruptly checked by the fact that he was carrying a large, battered straw basket in his arms, and was surrounded—well, quite covered, in fact—by a swarm of bees, these buzzing so loudly that I could barely make out what he was saying. He saw this and courteously leaned down toward me, bringing the bees into uncomfortably close proximity.
“Brought ye some bees, Missus!” he shouted over the rumbling thrum of his passengers.
“I see!” I hollered back. “How lovely!” Fuzzy striped bodies were bumping and waggling in a brownish carpet over the threadbare homespun of his coat, and streaks and grains of yellow pollen in his beard, this somewhat longer, grayer, and stragglier than when I had first met him on the streets of Wilmington, twelve years ago.
Bree and Rachel—with Oggy—had heard the noise and come from the kitchen. They were staring at Myers in fascination.
“My daughter!” I shouted, pointing and standing on tiptoe in hopes of reaching his ear—Myers stood a good six foot seven in his stocking feet, and towered even over Brianna. “And Rachel Murray—Young Ian’s wife!”
“Young Ian’s woman?” Myers’s smile, always sweet, if half toothless, widened into a delighted grin. “And his young’un, too, I expect? It’s a pleasure, ma’am, a real pleasure!” He reached out a long arm toward Rachel, who went pale at sight of the heaving mass of bees, but swallowed and edged close enough to take his proffered hand, holding Oggy as far behind her as she could with one hand. I hastily stepped aside and took the baby from her, and she took a long breath.
So did I. The noise was making my skin twitch, memories of the sounds I’d heard amongst the standing stones burrowing toward the surface.
“I’m pleased to meet thee, Friend Myers,” Rachel said, raising her voice. “Ian speaks of thee in the warmest terms!”
“Much obliged to him for his good opinion, Missus.” He shook her hand warmly, then turned to Bree, who anticipated him by reaching for his hand herself, a wary eye on the bees.
“So pleased to meet you, Mr. Myers,” she shouted.
“Oh, no need to be ceremonious, ma’am—John Quincy’ll do fine.”
“John Quincy it is. I’m Brianna Fraser MacKenzie.” She smiled at him, then nodded delicately at his living waistcoat. “Can we offer your bees some … er … hospitality, as well as yourself?”
“Got any beer, have ye?” Myers lowered his basket and I saw that it was a stained and ragged bee skep, upside down, with a chunk of dripping honeycomb inside it. This also was crawling with bees, not surprisingly.
“Well … yes,” I said, exchanging glances with Bree. “Of course. Um … do bring them up to the house site. We’ll get them … settled,” I said, watching the swarm warily. They didn’t seem hostile at all; I saw several of them lighting on Bree’s shoulders and hair. She saw them, too, and tensed a little but didn’t swat at them. One sailed lazily past Oggy’s nose; he followed it in a cross-eyed sort of way and made a grab at it, but luckily only got a handful of my hair.
The children had grouped together on the trail above, goggling, but Jem and Mandy had come down to join their mother. Mandy was clinging to Brianna’s leg, but Jem was pressing close, fascinated by the swarm.
“Do the bees drink beer?” he called up at their proprietor.
“That they do, son, that they do,” Myers replied, beaming down at him out of a cloud of bees. “Bees is the smartest kind of bug they is.”
“So they are,” I said, disentangling Oggy’s chubby fingers and taking a deep breath of the honeyed air. “Jem, go find Grandda, will you?”
IN THE END, I found Jamie myself, spotting him coming down through the trees with four rabbits he’d snared.
“Very timely,” I said, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. He smelled of fresh game and damp fir trees. “We’ve company for dinner, and as it’s John Quincy …”
His face lighted.
“Myers?” he said, handing me the bag of rabbits. “Did ye inquire after his balls?”
“I did not,” I said. “But he told me, anyway. Apparently everything is still where I put it. And functioning well, he assures me. He’s brought us a swarm of bees, among other things.”
“Has he? How did he carry them?”
“He wore them,” I said with a shrug.
“Oh, aye,” he said. “What other things did he bring?”
“Letters. He says one is for you.”
Jamie didn’t break his stride, but I caught the faint hesitation as he turned his head to look at me.
“From whom?”
“I don’t know. He was busy divesting himself of the bees, and Jem couldn’t find you, so I came to look for you.” I nearly added, “Perhaps it’s from Lord John,” because for several years it might have been, and a welcome letter, too, reinforcing the bonds of a long friendship between Jamie and John Grey. Fortunately, I bit my lip in time. While the two of them were on speaking terms—just barely—they were no longer friends. And while I would, if pushed, deny absolutely that it was my fault, it was undeniably on my account.
I kept my eyes on the trail, just in case Jamie might catch a wayward expression on my face and draw uncomfortable conclusions. He wasn’t the only person who could read minds, and I’d been looking at his face. I had a very strong impression that when I had said “letter,” Lord John’s name had leapt to his mind, just as it had to mine.
“I’ll have a bit of a wash at the creek before I come in, Sassenach,” he said, touching my back lightly. “Shall I bring ye some cress for the supper?”
“Please,” I said, and rose on tiptoe to kiss him.
As the house came in sight a moment later, I saw Brianna coming up the slope from the Higgins cabin with several loaves of bread in her arms, and I pushed all thoughts of Jamie and John Grey hastily out of my mind.
“I’ll do that, Mama,” she said, nodding at the bag of rabbits. “Mr. Myers says the sun is coming down and you should go and bless your new bees before they go to sleep.”
“Oh,” I said, uncertainly. I’d kept bees now and then, but the relationship hadn’t been in any way ceremonial. “Did he happen to say what sort of blessing the bees might have in mind?”
“Not to me,” she said cheerfully, taking the bloodstained bag from my hand. “But he probably knows. He says he’ll meet you in the garden.”
THE GARDEN STOOD like a small, spiky brown fortress inside its deer-proof palisades. The fence wasn’t proof against everything, though, and as always, I opened the gate cautiously. Once I had caught three huge raccoons debauching themselves amidst the remains of my infant corn; on another the intruder had been a huge eagle, sitting atop my water barrel, wings spread to catch the morning sun. When I opened the door suddenly, the eagle had uttered a shriek nearly as loud as mine before launching himself past my head like a panicked cannonball. And …