“Do you …” The words died in her throat, drowned by the wagon’s rattle, and she tried again. “Do you think the men there”—she gestured behind them—“would come after us?”
He shook his head and leaned forward, intent on his driving.
“Not likely. The Pattons ken our business is worth more to them than what we carry. But I’d bet money one or another of the young ones will say something about the braw lassie in men’s clothes wi’ a purse of gold at her belt. It’s just luck whether they say it to anyone who might be moved to come and visit us—and we’ll pray they don’t.”
“Yes.” The first rush of shock and anger was passing, and she felt light-headed. Then she remembered something else that felt like a punch in the stomach.
“What?” Her father sounded alarmed; she’d made a noise as though she really had been punched. He was slowing the horses, and she waved her hands and shook her head.
“I’m—it’s just … they know who you are. Mrs. Patton recognized you.”
“Who I am? I told them who I am.” He’d slowed the horses further in order to hear what she had to say, though.
“She knows you’re Red Jamie,” she blurted.
“That?” He looked surprised but not worried. Slightly amused, in fact. “How the devil did she come to ken that? The lass is younger than you; she wasna born the last time someone called me that.”
She told him about Mrs. Patton’s uncles, and the broadsheet.
“Evidently you still look like you might have done the sorts of things that would get your picture on a Wanted poster,” she said, with a feeble attempt at humor.
“Mmphm.”
He’d slowed the horses to a walk, and the respite from the shaking and noise calmed her. She stole a glance at him; he didn’t look angry anymore—not even upset. Just thoughtful, with an expression she thought might be described as rueful.
“Mind,” he said at last, “it’s nay a good thing to have done the sorts of things that earn ye a reputation as a madman that kills without thought or mercy. But looked at from the other side—it’s nay altogether a bad thing to have such a reputation.”
He clicked his tongue to the horses and they slowly moved into a trot and then faster. The sense of urgency seemed to have left him, though. She watched him, sidelong, relieved that he wasn’t worried about being known as Red Jamie—and more relieved that the fact that he was known seemed to have made him less anxious about the gold.
They went on without speaking further, the silence between them easier. But when they stopped to camp, just after moonrise, they ate without fire and she slept lightly and woke often, always seeing him near her, in the black shadow of a tree, his rifle by his right hand and a loaded pistol on his left.
22
Ashes, Ashes …
I FOLLOWED ROGER THROUGH a growth of immense poplar trees, their canopies so high above the trail we walked that it felt as though we had come into a quiet church, its rafters twittering with birds, rather than bats. Very suitable, I thought, given our mission.
My part, though, was more cloak-and-dagger than diplomacy. I reached through the slit in my skirt to check my pocket for the third time: three good-sized, knobbly ginger-roots at the bottom, and on top of them, a few packets of dried herbs that one wouldn’t find locally.
My job—assuming that Roger managed to make the introductions before we were both hurled out on our ears—was to engage Mrs. Cunningham in prolonged conversation. First, with effusive thanks for the Jesuit bark (accompanied with muted apologies for Mandy’s outburst), then by presentation of my reciprocal gifts, one at a time, with detailed explanations of their origin, uses, and preparation.
All of which should give Roger enough time to lure Captain Cunningham outside, proper men naturally not wanting to hear two herbalists exchanging thoughts on how to make a clyster that would clear the most stubborn case of constipation. After that, it would be up to Roger. He was walking in front of me, shoulders squared in resolution.
We’d passed out of the poplars and were climbing again, into a rocky zone of fir and hemlock, richly resinous in the sun.
“It smells like Christmas,” Roger said, smiling over his shoulder as he held back a large branch for me. “I suppose we’ll do a family Christmas, won’t we? For Jem and Mandy, I mean; it’s what they’re used to, and they’re old enough to remember.” Christmas, as a holiday, was purely religious among the Scots—celebrating was done on Hogmanay.
“That would be wonderful,” I said, a little wistful. The Christmases of my childhood—the ones I remembered—had mostly taken place in non-Christian countries, and had featured Christmas crackers from England, Christmas pudding in a tin, and one year, a crèche festooned with camel bells and inhabited by Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and the attendant kings, shepherds, and angels, all constructed from some sort of local seedpods wearing tiny clothes.
Making a proper Christmas for Brianna every year had been wonderful; I’d felt as though the festivity was for me, as well—the joy of doing things I’d read or heard about, but never done or seen. Frank, the only one of us who had truly experienced the traditional British Christmas, was the authority on menus, gift wrapping, carol singing, and other arcane lore. From the decorating of the tree until it came down after New Year’s, the house was full of excited secrets, with an underlying sense of peace. To have that in our new house, with everyone together …
“I tell you what, though,” I said, coming back to myself just in time to duck beneath the overhang of a blue spruce. “Don’t mention Santa Claus while you’re talking to Captain Cunningham.”
“I’ll add that to my list of things to avoid,” he assured me gravely.
“What’s number one on your list?”
“Well, normally, it would be you,” he said frankly. “But in the present circumstances, it’s a tie between the Beardsleys and Jamie’s whisky. I mean, the Cunninghams are bound to find out about both—if they don’t know already—but no reason they should hear it from me.”
“Odds on, they know about the Beardsleys,” I said. “Mrs. Cunningham gave me the Jesuit bark, I mean. Someone had to have told her I needed it—and very likely, what for. And no one could resist telling her about Lizzie and her two husbands, if they did.”
“True.” Roger glanced at me, a smile in the corner of his mouth. “I don’t suppose you happen to know if … I mean …”
“Both of them at once?” I laughed. “God knows, but there are three small children in that house, and at least two of them are still sleeping in their parents’ bed. They must be very sound sleepers,” I added thoughtfully, “but just the constraints of space …”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Roger assured me. “And the weather’s still fine out of doors.”
The trail had widened enough for us to walk side by side for a little. “Anyway, I’m amazed that the old lady made such a gesture, after what she said to Brianna and me about witches, but—”
“Well, she did assure all of us—including me and Mandy—that we were going to Hell.”