A Breath of Snow and Ashes (124 page)

 Should thousands innocent be led

 Into Despair, and lose their Bread,

  Such folly to redress?

 I’d not be thought t’encourage sin,

  Or be an Advocate of Gin;

  But humbly do conceive,

 This scheme, tho’ drawn with nicest care

  Don’t with Almighty Justice square

   If Scriptures we believe

 When Sodom’s Sin for Vengeance call’d

 Ten righteous had its Doom forestall’d

  And mov’d e’en God to Pity.

 But now Ten bare-fac’d Debauchees

 Some private Epicures displease,

  And ruin half a City.”

“I’d not be thought t’encourage sin/Or be an Advocate of Gin,”
Bree repeated, giggling. “You notice he—or she—doesn’t mention whisky. What’s a Bunter, though? Oops, hold still, baby!”

“A harlot,” Jamie said absently, stropping his razor while still reading over Roger’s shoulder.

“What’s a harlot?” Jemmy asked, his radar naturally picking up the single indelicate word in the conversation. “Is it Richie’s sister?”

Richard Woolam’s sister Charlotte was a most attractive young person; she was also a most devout Quaker. Jamie exchanged glances with Roger, and coughed.

“No, I shouldna think it, lad,” he said. “And for God’s sake, don’t say so, either! Here, are ye ready to be shaved?” Not waiting for an answer, he picked up the shaving brush and lathered Jemmy’s polled head, to the accompaniment of delighted squeals.

“Barber, barber, shave a pig,” Bree said, watching. “How many hairs to make a wig?”

“Lots,” I replied, sweeping up the drifts of fallen hair and throwing them into the fire, hopefully to the destruction of all resident lice. It
was
rather a pity; Jemmy’s hair was beautiful. Still, it would grow again—and the clipping showed off the lovely shape of his head, roundly pleasing as a cantaloupe.

Jamie hummed tunelessly under his breath, drawing the razor over the skin of his grandson’s head with as much delicacy as if he had been shaving a honeybee.

Jemmy turned his head slightly, and I caught my breath, struck by a fleeting memory—Jamie, his hair clipped short against his skull in Paris, readying himself to meet Jack Randall; readying himself to kill—or be killed. Then Jemmy turned again, squirming on his stool, and the vision vanished—to be replaced by something else.

“Whatever is that?” I leaned forward to look, as Jamie drew his razor down with a flourish and flicked away the last dollop of lather into the fire.

“What?” Bree leaned in beside me, and her eyes widened at sight of the small brown blotch. It was about the size of a farthing, quite round, just above the hairline toward the back of his head, behind the left ear.

“What is it?” she asked, frowning. She touched it gently, but Jemmy scarcely noticed; he was squirming even more, wanting to get down.

“I’m fairly sure it’s all right,” I assured her, after a quick inspection. “It looks like what’s called a nevus—it’s something like a flat mole, usually quite harmless.”

“But where did it come from? He wasn’t born with it, I know!” she protested.

“Babies very seldom have any sort of mole,” I explained, untying my dishcloth from round Jemmy’s neck. “All right, yes, you’re done! Go and be good now—we’ll have supper as soon as I can manage. No,” I added, turning back to Bree, “moles usually start to develop around three years of age—though of course people can get more as they grow older.”

Freed from restraint, Jemmy was rubbing his naked head with both hands, looking pleased and chanting, “Char-lotte the Har-lot, Char-lotte the Har-lot,” quietly under his breath.

“You’re sure it’s all right?” Brianna was still frowning, worried. “It isn’t dangerous?”

“Oh, aye, it’s nothing,” Roger assured her, glancing up from the newspaper. “I’ve had one just like that myself, ever since I was a kid. Just . . . here.” His face changed abruptly as he spoke, and his hand rose, very slowly, to rest on the back of his head—just above the hairline, behind the left ear.

He looked at me, and I saw his throat move as he swallowed, the jagged rope scar dark against the sudden paleness of his skin. The down hairs rose silently on my arms.

“Yes,” I said, answering the look, and hoping my voice didn’t shake too noticeably. “That sort of mark is . . . often hereditary.”

Jamie said nothing, but his hand closed on mine, squeezing tight.

Jemmy was on his hands and knees now, trying to coax Adso out from under the settle. His neck was small and fragile, and his shaven head looked unearthly white and shockingly naked, like a mushroom poking out of the earth. Roger’s eyes rested on it for a moment; then he turned to Bree.

“I do believe perhaps I’ve picked up a few lice myself,” he said, his voice just a tiny bit too loud. He reached up, pulled off the thong that bound his thick black hair, and scratched his head vigorously with both hands. Then he picked up the scissors, smiling, and held them out to her. “Like father, like son, I suppose. Give us a hand here, aye?”

PART TEN

Where’s Perry Mason
When You Need Him?

76

DANGEROUS
CORRESPONDENCE

From Mount Josiah Plantation in the Colony of Virginia,
Lord John Grey to Mr. James Fraser, Esq.,
Fraser’s Ridge, North Carolina,
upon the Sixth of March, Anno Domini 1775

Dear Mr. Fraser—

What in the Name of God are you about? I have known you in the course of our long Acquaintance to be many Things—Intemperate and Stubborn being two of them—but have always known you for a Man of Intelligence and Honor.

Yet despite explicit Warnings, I find your Name upon more than one List of suspected Traitors and Seditionists, associated with illegal Assemblies, and thus subject to Arrest. The Fact that you are still at Liberty, my Friend, reflects nothing more than the Lack of Troops at present available in North Carolina—and that may change rapidly. Josiah Martin has implored London for Help, and it will be forthcoming, I assure you.

Was Gage not more than sufficiently occupied in Boston, and Lord Dunsmore’s Virginia troops still in process of Assembly, the Army would be upon you within a few Months. Do not delude yourself; the King may be misguided in his Actions, but the Government perceives—if belatedly—the Level of Turmoil in the Colonies, and is moving as rapidly as may be to suppress it, before greater Harm can ensue.

Whatever else you may be, you are no Fool, and so I must assume you realize the Consequences of your Actions. But I would be less than a Friend did I not put the Case to you bluntly: you expose your Family to the utmost Danger by your Actions, and you put your own Head in a Noose.

For the Sake of whatever Affection you may yet bear me, and for the Sake of those dear Connexions between your Family and myself—I beg you to renounce these most dangerous Associations while there is still Time.

John

I read the letter through, then looked up at Jamie. He was sitting at his desk, papers strewn in every direction, scattered with the small brown fragments of broken sealing wax. Bobby Higgins had brought a good many letters, newspapers, and packages—Jamie had put off reading Lord John’s letter ’til the last.

“He’s very much afraid for you,” I said, putting the single sheet of paper down on top of the rest.

Jamie nodded.

“For a man of his parts to refer to the King’s actions as possibly ‘misguided’ is verra close to treason, Sassenach,” he observed, though I
thought
he was joking.

“These lists he mentions—do you know anything about that?”

He shrugged at that, and poked through one of the untidy piles with a forefinger, pulling out a smeared sheet that had obviously been dropped in a puddle at some point.

“Like that, I suppose,” he said, handing it over. It was unsigned, and nearly illegible, a misspelt and vicious denunciation of various
Outrages and Debached Persons
—here listed—whose speech, action, and appearance was a threat to all who valued peace and prosperity. These, the writer felt, should be
shown whats what,
presumably by being beaten, skinned alive,
rold in bolling Tar and plac’d on a Rail,
or in particularly pernicious cases,
Hanged outright from there own Rooftrees.

“Where did you pick
that
up?” I dropped it on the desk, using two fingers.

“In Campbelton. Someone sent it to Farquard, as Justice of the Peace. He gave it to me, because my name is on it.”

“It is?” I squinted at the straggling letters. “Oh, so it is.
J. Frayzer.
You’re sure it’s you? There are quite a few Frasers, after all, and not a few named John, James, Jacob, or Joseph.”

“Relatively few who could be described as a
Red-haired dejenerate Pox-ridden Usuring Son of a Bitch who skulks in Brothels when not drunk and comitting Riot in the Street,
I imagine.”

“Oh, I missed that part.”

“It’s in the exposition at the bottom.” He gave the paper a brief, indifferent glance. “I think Buchan the butcher wrote it, myself.”

“Always assuming that ‘usuring’ is a word, I don’t see where he gets that bit; you haven’t any money to lend.”

“I wouldna suppose a basis in truth is strictly required, under the circumstances, Sassenach,” he said very dryly. “And thanks to MacDonald and wee Bobby, there are a good many folk who think I
do
have money—and if I am not inclined to lend it to them, why then, plainly it’s a matter of my having put my fortune all in the hands of Jews and Whig speculators, as I am intent upon ruining trade for my own profit.”

“What?”

“That was a somewhat more literary effort,” he said, shuffling through the pile and pulling out an elegant parchment sheet, done in a copperplate hand. This one had been sent to a newspaper in Hillsboro, and was signed,
A Friend to Justice;
and while it didn’t name Jamie, it was clear who the subject of the denunciation was.

“It’s the hair,” I said, looking critically at him. “If you wore a wig, they’d have a much harder time of it.”

He lifted one shoulder in a sardonic shrug. The commonly held view of red hair as an indicator of low character and moral coarseness, if not outright demonic possession, was by no means limited to anonymous ill-wishers. The knowledge of that view—together with personal disinclination—had quite a bit to do with the fact that he never
did
wear either wig or powder, even in situations where a proper gentleman would.

Without asking, I reached for a stack of the papers and began to leaf through them. He made no move to stop me, but sat quietly watching, listening to the thrum of the rain.

A heavy spring storm was washing down outside, and the air was cold and damp, thick with the green scents of the forest insinuating themselves through the crevices of door and window. I sometimes had the sudden feeling, hearing the wind coming through the trees, that the wilderness outside meant to come in, march through the house, and obliterate it, erasing all trace of us.

The letters were a mixed bag. Some were from the members of the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence, with bits of news, most of it from the north. Continental Association Committees had sprung up in New Hampshire and New Jersey, these bodies now beginning to virtually take over the functions of government, as the royal governors lost their grip on assemblies, courts, and Customs, the remnants of organization falling ever deeper into disarray.

Boston was still occupied by Gage’s troops, and some of the letters continued the appeals for food and supplies to be sent to the succor of her citizens—we had sent two hundredweight of barley during the winter, which one of the Woolams had undertaken to get into the city, along with three wagonloads of other foodstuffs contributed by the inhabitants of the Ridge.

Jamie had picked up his quill, and was writing something, slowly, to accommodate the stiffness of his hand.

Next up was a note from Daniel Putnam, circulated through Massachusetts, noting the rising of militia companies in the countryside, and asking for arms and powder. It was signed by a dozen other men, each one bearing witness to the truth of the situation in his own township.

A Second Continental Congress was proposed, to meet in Philadelphia, the date yet undecided.

Georgia had formed a Provincial Congress, but as the Loyalist letter-writer—plainly assuming Jamie to be like-minded—triumphantly noted,
There is no Sense of Grievance toward Great Britain here, as elsewhere; Loyalist Sentiment is so strong that only five Parishes of twelve have sent anyone to this upstart and illegal Congress.

A much-bedraggled copy of the
Massachusetts Gazette,
dated February 6, containing a letter, circled in ink and titled
The Rule of Law and the Rule of Men.
It was signed
Novanglus
—which I took to be a sort of hog-Latin for “new Englishman”—and to be a response to previous letters by a Tory who signed himself
Massachusettensis,
of all things.

I had no idea who Massachusettensis might be, but I recognized a few phrases from Novanglus’s letter, from long-ago bits of Bree’s schoolwork—John Adams, in good form.

“A government of laws, not of men,”
I murmured. “What sort of pen name would you use, if you were going to write this sort of thing?” Glancing up, I caught sight of him, looking sheepish to a degree.

“You’ve been doing it
already
?”

“Well, just the odd bittie letter here or there,” he said defensively. “No pamphlets.”

“Who are you?”

He shrugged, deprecating.

“
Scotus Americanus,
but only ’til I think of something better. There are a few others using that name, that I ken.”

“Well, that’s something. The King will have a harder time picking you out of the crowd.” Muttering “Massachusettensis” to myself, I picked up the next document.

A note from John Stuart, much affronted by Jamie’s abrupt resignation, noting that the
most illegal and prodigal Congress, as they call it
of Massachusetts had formally invited the Stockbridge Indians to enlist in the service of the colony, and informing Jamie that should any of the Cherokee follow suit, he, John Stuart, would take the greatest pleasure in personally ensuring that he, Jamie Fraser, was hanged for treason.

“And I don’t suppose John Stuart even knows you have red hair,” I observed, laying it aside. I felt a trifle shaky, in spite of my attempts to joke about it. Seeing it all laid out in black and white solidified the clouds that had been gathering round us, and I felt the first chilling drop of icy rain on my skin, despite the woolen shawl around my shoulders.

There was no hearth in the study; only a small brazier that we used for heat. It was burning now in the corner, and Jamie rose, picked up a stack of letters, and began to feed them to the fire, one by one.

I had a sudden rush of déjà vu, and saw him standing by the hearth in the drawing room of his cousin Jared’s house in Paris, feeding letters to the fire. The stolen letters of Jacobite conspirators, rising in white puffs of smoke, the gathering clouds of a storm long past.

I remembered what Fergus had said, in answer to Jamie’s instructions:
“I remember how this game is played.”
So did I, and spicules of ice began to form in my blood.

Jamie dropped the last flaming fragment into the brazier, then sanded the page he had been writing, shook the sand off, and handed it to me. He had used one of the sheets of the special paper Bree had made by pressing a digested pulp of rags and plant matter between silk screens. It was thicker than the usual, with a soft, glossy texture, and she had mixed berries and tiny leaves into the pulp, so that here and there a small red stain spread like blood beneath the shadow of a leaf’s silhouette.

From Fraser’s Ridge, in the Colony of North Carolina,

this 16th day of March, Anno Domini 1775,

James Fraser to Lord John Grey, of Mount Josiah Plantation,

in the Colony of Virginia

My dear John—

It is too late.

Our continued Correspondence cannot but prove a Danger to you, but it is with the greatest Regret that I sever this Link between us.

Believe me ever

Your most humble and affectionate Friend,

Jamie

I read it in silence, and handed it back. As he poked about in search of the sealing wax, I noticed a small wrapped parcel on the corner of his desk that had been hidden by the drifts of paper.

“What’s this?” I picked it up; it was amazingly heavy for its size.

“A present from his Lordship, for wee Jemmy.” He lit the beeswax taper from the brazier and held it over the seam of the folded letter. “A set of lead soldiers, Bobby says.”