A Breath of Snow and Ashes (107 page)

PART NINE

The Bones of Time

68

SAVAGES

O
NLY TWO LEFT. The pool of liquid wax glowed with the light of the flaming wick above it, and the jewels slowly came into view, one green, one black, glowing with their own inner fire. Jamie dipped the feather end of a quill gently into the melted wax and scooped the emerald up, raising it into the light.

He dropped the hot stone into the handkerchief I held waiting, and I rubbed it quickly, to get off the wax before it should harden.

“Our reserves are getting rather low,” I said, in uneasy jest. “Let’s hope there aren’t any more expensive emergencies.”

“I shallna touch the black diamond, regardless,” he said definitely, and blew out the wick. “That one is for you.”

I stared at him.

“What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged a little, and reached to take the emerald in its handkerchief from me.

“If I should be killed,” he said very matter-of-factly. “Ye’ll take it and go. Back through the stones.”

“Oh? I don’t know that I would,” I said. I didn’t like talking about any contingency that involved Jamie’s death, but there was no point in ignoring the possibilities. Battle, disease, imprisonment, accident, assassination . . .

“You and Bree were going about forbidding
me
to die,” I said. “I’d do the same thing, if I had the faintest hope of your paying the least attention.”

He smiled at that.

“I always mind your words, Sassenach,” he assured me gravely. “But ye do tell me that man proposes and God disposes, and should He see fit to dispose of
me
—ye’ll go back.”

“Why would I?” I said, nettled—and unsettled. The memories of his sending me back through the stones on the eve of Culloden were not ones I ever wished to recall, and here he was, prying open the door to that tightly sealed chamber of my mind. “I’d stay with Bree and Roger, wouldn’t I? Jem, Marsali and Fergus, Germain and Henri-Christian and the girls—everyone’s here. What is there to go back to, after all?”

He took the stone from its cloth, turning it over between his fingers, and looked thoughtfully at me, as though making up his mind whether to tell me something. Small hairs began to prickle on the back of my neck.

“I dinna ken,” he said at last, shaking his head. “But I’ve seen ye there.”

The prickling ran straight down the back of my neck and down both arms.

“Seen me
where
?”

“There.” He waved a hand in a vague gesture. “I dreamt of ye there. I dinna ken where it was; I only know it was
there
—in your proper time.”

“How do you know that?” I demanded, my flesh creeping briskly. “What was I doing?”

His brow furrowed in the effort of recollection.

“I dinna recall, exactly,” he said slowly. “But I knew it was
then,
by the light.” His brow cleared suddenly. “That’s it. Ye were sitting at a desk, with something in your hand, maybe writing. And there was light all round ye, shining on your face, on your hair. But it wasna candlelight, nor yet firelight or sunlight. And I recall thinking to myself as I saw ye,
Oh, so that’s what electric light is like.”

I stared at him, open-mouthed.

“How can you recognize something in a dream that you’ve never seen in real life?”

He seemed to find that funny.

“I dream of things I’ve not seen all the time, Sassenach—don’t you?”

“Well,” I said uncertainly. “Yes. Sometimes. Monsters, odd plants, I suppose. Peculiar landscapes. And certainly
people
that I don’t know. But surely that’s different? To see something you know about, but haven’t seen?”

“Well, what I saw may not be what electric light
does
look like,” he admitted, “but that’s what I said to myself when I saw it. And I was quite sure that ye were in your own time.

“And after all,” he added logically, “I dream of the past; why would I not dream of the future?”

There was no good answer to a thoroughly Celtic remark of that nature.

“Well,
you
would, I suppose,” I said. I rubbed dubiously at my lower lip. “How old was I, in this dream of yours?”

He looked surprised, then uncertain, and peered closely at my face, as though trying to compare it with some mental vision.

“Well . . . I dinna ken,” he said, sounding for the first time unsure. “I didna think anything about it—I didna notice that ye had white hair, or anything of the sort—it was just . . . you.” He shrugged, baffled, then looked down at the stone in my hand.

“Does it feel warm to your touch, Sassenach?” he asked curiously.

“Of course it does,” I said, rather crossly. “It’s just come out of hot wax, for heaven’s sake.” And yet the emerald
did
seem to pulse gently in my hand, warm as my own blood and beating like a miniature heart. And when I handed it to him, I felt a small, peculiar reluctance—as though it did not want to leave me.

“Give it to MacDonald,” I said, rubbing my palm against the side of my skirt. “I hear him outside, talking to Arch; he’ll be wanting to be off.”

MACDONALD HAD COME pelting up to the Ridge in the midst of a rainstorm the day before, weathered face nearly purple with cold, exertion, and excitement, to inform us that he had found a printing establishment for sale in New Bern.

“The owner has already left—somewhat involuntarily,” he told us, dripping and steaming by the fire. “His friends seek to sell the premises and equipment promptly, before they might be seized or destroyed, and thus provide him with funds to reestablish himself in England.”

By “somewhat involuntarily,” it turned out, he meant that the print shop’s owner was a Loyalist, who had been kidnapped off the street by the local Committee of Safety and shoved willy-nilly onto a ship departing for England. This form of impromptu deportation was becoming popular, and while it was more humane than tar and feathers, it did mean that the printer would arrive penniless in England, and owing money for his passage, to boot.

“I happened to meet wi’ some of his friends in a tavern, tearin’ their hair over his sad fate and drinking to his welfare—whereupon I told them that I might be able to put them in the way of an advantage,” the Major said, swelling with satisfaction. “They were all ears, when I said that ye might—just might, mind—have ready cash.”

“What makes ye think I do, Donald?” Jamie asked, one eyebrow cocked.

MacDonald looked surprised, then knowing. He winked and laid a finger beside his nose.

“I hear the odd bit, here and there. Word has it that ye’ve got a wee cache of gems—or so I hear, from a merchant in Edenton whose bank dealt wi’ one.”

Jamie and I exchanged looks.

“Bobby,” I said, and he nodded in resignation.

“Well, as for me, mum’s the word,” MacDonald said, observing this. “Ye can rely upon my discretion, to be sure. And I doubt the matter’s widely known. But then—a poor man doesna go about buying muskets by the dozen, now, does he?”

“Oh, he might,” Jamie said, resigned. “Ye’d be surprised, Donald. But as it is . . . I imagine a bargain might be struck. What are the printer’s friends asking—and will they offer insurance, in case of fire?”

MACDONALD HAD BEEN empowered to negotiate on behalf of the printer’s friends—they being anxious to get the problematical real estate sold before some patriotic soul came and burned it down—and so the bargain was concluded on the spot. MacDonald was sent hurtling back down the mountain to change the emerald into money, conclude payment on the printer’s shop, leaving the residue of the money with Fergus for ongoing expenses—and let it be known as quickly as possible in New Bern that the premises were shortly to be under new management.

“And if anyone asks about the politics of the new owner . . .” Jamie said. To which MacDonald merely nodded wisely, and laid his finger alongside his red-veined nose once more.

I was reasonably sure that Fergus had no personal politics to speak of; beyond his family, his sole allegiance was to Jamie. Once the bargain was made, though, and the frenzy of packing begun—Marsali and Fergus would have to leave at once, to have any chance of making it to New Bern before winter set in in earnest—Jamie had had a serious talk with Fergus.

“Now, it’ll no be like it was in Edinburgh. There’s no but one other printer in the town, and from what MacDonald says, he’s an elderly gentleman, and sae much afraid o’ the committee and the Governor both, he willna print a thing but books of sermons and handbills advertising horseraces.”

“Très bon,”
said Fergus, looking even happier, if such a thing was possible. He’d been going about lit up like a Chinese lantern since hearing the news. “We will have all of the newspaper and broadsheet business, to say nothing of the printing of scandalous plays and pamphlets—there is nothing like sedition and unrest for the printing business, milord, you know that yourself.”

“I do know that,” Jamie said very dryly. “Which is why I mean to beat the need for care into your thick skull. I dinna wish to hear that ye’ve been hanged for treason, nor yet tarred-and-feathered for no being treasonous enough.”

“Oh, la.” Fergus waved an airy hook. “I know well enough how this game is played, milord.”

Jamie nodded, still looking dubious.

“Aye, ye do. But it’s been some years; ye may be out of practice. And ye’ll not know who’s who in New Bern; ye dinna want to find yourself buying meat from the man ye’ve savaged in the morning’s paper, aye?”

“I’ll mind that, Da.” Marsali sat by the fire, nursing Henri-Christian, and taking close heed. If anything, she looked happier than Fergus, upon whom she looked adoringly. She switched the look of adoration to Jamie, and smiled. “We’ll take good care, I promise.”

Jamie’s frown softened as he looked at her.

“I’ll miss ye, lass,” he said softly. Her look of happiness dimmed, but didn’t go out entirely.

“I’ll miss ye, too, Da. All of us will. And Germain doesna want to leave Jem, o’ course. But . . .” Her eyes drifted back to Fergus, who was making a list of supplies, whistling “Alouette” under his breath, and she hugged Henri-Christian closer, making him kick his legs in protest.

“Aye, I know.” Jamie coughed, to cover his emotion, and wiped a knuckle underneath his nose. “Now then, wee Fergus. Ye’ll have a bit of money over; be sure to bribe the constable and the watch first of all. MacDonald’s given me the names o’ the Royal Council, and the chief Assemblymen—he’ll be of help wi’ the council, as he’s the Governor’s man. Be tactful, aye? But see he’s taken care of; he’s been a great help in the matter.”

Fergus nodded, head bent over his paper.

“Paper, ink, lead, bribes, shammy leather, brushes,” he said, writing busily, and resumed absently singing,
“Alouette, gentil alouette . . .”