A Breath of Snow and Ashes (92 page)

“Yon feller’s right rumbustious,” she said with approval, eyes fixed on Jamie. “I could admire me a man like that!”

“Yes,” I said, nursing a bruised elbow. “So could I. Sometimes.”

Such sentiments appeared not to be universal.

“Give him up, Fraser, or wear feathers with him! Frigging Tories!”

The shout came from behind me, and I turned to see that the speaker had come prepared; he clutched a feather pillow in one hand, the end of it already ripped open, so that down feathers flew in spurts with each gesture.

“Tar and feather ’em all!”

I turned again at the shout from above, and looked up in time to see a young man fling wide the shutters in the upper story of the house on the other side of the street. He was trying to stuff a feather bed through the window but was being substantially impeded in this endeavor by the housewife whose property it was. This lady had leaped on his back and was beating him about the head with a spurtle, uttering shrieks of condemnation.

A young man near me started clucking like a chicken, flapping his elbows—to the intense amusement of his friends, who all began to do it, too, drowning out any attempts at reason—not that there was much of that.

A chant started up at the far side of the street.

“Tory, Tory, Tory!”

The tenor of the situation was changing, and not for the better. I half-lifted the fowling piece, unsure what to do, but knowing that I must do
something.
Another moment, and they’d rush him.

“Give me the gun, Auntie,” said a soft voice at my shoulder, and I whirled round to find Young Ian there, breathing hard. I gave it to him without the slightest hesitation.

“Reste d’retour!”
Jamie shouted in French. “
Oui, le tout!
Stay back, all of you!” He might have been shouting at the crowd, but he was looking at Ian.

What the devil did he—then I caught sight of Fergus, elbowing viciously to keep his place near the front of the crowd. Young Ian, who had been about to raise the gun, hesitated, holding it close.

“He’s right, stay back!” I said urgently. “Don’t fire, not yet.” I saw now that a hasty shot might do more harm than good. Look at Bobby Higgins and the Boston Massacre. I didn’t want any massacres taking place in Cross Creek—particularly not with Jamie at the center of them.

“I won’t—but I’m no going to let them take him, either,” Ian muttered. “If they go for him—” He broke off, but his jaw was set, and I could smell the sharp scent of his sweat, even above the reek of tar.

A momentary distraction had intervened, thank God. Yells from above made half the crowd turn to see what was happening.

Another man—evidently the householder—had popped up in the window above, jerking the first man back and punching him. Then the struggling pair disappeared from view, and within a few seconds, the sounds of altercation ceased and the woman’s shrieks died away, leaving the feather bed hanging in limp anticlimax, half in and half out of the window.

The chant of “Tory Tory Tory!” had died out during the fascination with the conflict overhead, but was now starting up again, punctuated by bellows for the printer to come out and give himself up.

“Come out, Simms!” Forbes bellowed. I saw that he had equipped himself with a fresh broom, and was edging closer to the print shop’s door. Jamie saw him, too, and I saw his mouth twist with derision.

Silas Jameson, the proprietor of a local ordinary, was behind Forbes, crouched like a wrestler, his broad face wreathed in a vicious grin.

“Come out, Simms!” he echoed. “What kind of man takes shelter beneath a Scotsman’s skirts, eh?”

Jameson’s voice was loud enough that everyone heard that, and most laughed—including Jamie.

“A wise one!” Jamie shouted back, and shook the end of his plaid at Jameson. “This tartan’s sheltered many a poor lad in its time!”

“And many a lassie, too, I’ll wager!” shouted some ribald soul in the crowd.

“What, d’ye think I’ve your wife under my plaid?” Jamie was breathing hard, shirt and hair pasted to him with sweat, but still grinning as he seized the hem of his kilt. “Ye want to come and have a look for her, then?”

“Is there room under there for me, too?” called one of the fishwives promptly.

Laughter rolled through the crowd. Fickle as any mob, their mood was changing back from threat to entertainment. I took a deep, trembling breath, feeling sweat roll down between my breasts. He was managing them, but he was walking a razor’s edge.

If he’d made up his mind to protect Simms—and he had—then no power on earth would make him give the printer up. If the mob wanted Simms—and they did—they’d have to go through Jamie. And they
would,
I thought, any minute.

“Come out, Simms!” yelled a voice from the Scottish Lowlands. “Ye canny be hidin’ up Fraser’s backside all day!”

“Better a printer up my arse than a lawyer!” Jamie shouted back, waving his broom at Forbes in illustration. “They’re smaller, aye?”

That made them roar; Forbes was a beefily substantial sort, while Fogarty Simms was a pinched starveling of a man. Forbes went very red in the face, and I saw sly looks being cast in his direction. Forbes was in his forties, never married, and there was talk . . .

“I wouldna have a lawyer up my backside at all,” Jamie was shouting happily, poking at Forbes with his broom. “He’d steal your shite and charge ye for a clyster!”

Forbes’s mouth opened, and his face went purple. He backed up a step, and seemed to be shouting back, but no one could hear his response, drowned as it was by the roar of laughter from the crowd.

“And then he’d sell it back to ye for night soil!” Jamie bellowed, the instant he could be heard. Neatly reversing his broom, he jabbed Forbes in the belly with the handle.

The crowd whooped in glee, and Forbes, no kind of a fighter, lost his head and charged Jamie, his own broom held like a shovel. Jamie, who had quite obviously been waiting for some such injudicious move, stepped aside like a dancer, tripped Forbes, and smacked him across the shoulders with the tar-smeared broom, sending him sprawling into the cooling tar puddle, to the raucous delight of the whole street.

“Here, Auntie, hold this!” The fowling piece was thrust suddenly back into my hands.

“What?” Completely taken aback, I whirled round to see Ian moving fast behind the crowd, beckoning to Fergus. In seconds, unnoticed by the crowd—whose attention was riveted on the fallen Forbes—they had reached the house where the feather bed hung from the window.

Ian stooped and cupped his hands; as though they had rehearsed it for years, Fergus stepped into this improvised stirrup and launched himself upward, swiping at the feather bed with his hook. It caught; he dangled for a moment, grabbing frantically with his sound hand at the hook, to keep it from coming off.

Ian sprang upward and seized Fergus round the waist, yanking downward. Then the fabric of the bed gave way under their combined weight, Fergus and Ian tumbled to the ground, and a perfect cascade of goose feathers poured out on top of them, only to be caught at once by the thick, damp air and whirled up into a delirious snowstorm that filled the street and plastered the surprised mob with clumps of sticky down.

The air seemed filled with feathers; they were everywhere, tickling eyes and nose and throat, sticking to hair and clothes and lashes. I wiped a bit of down from a watering eye and stepped hastily back, away from the half-blind people staggering near me, yelling and bumping into one another.

I had been watching Fergus and Ian, but when the featherstorm struck, I—unlike everyone else in the street—looked back at the print shop, in time to see Jamie reach through the door, seize Fogarty Simms by the arm, and snatch him out of the shop like a winkle on a pin.

Jamie gave Simms a shove that sent him staggering, then whirled back to snatch up his broom and cover the printer’s escape. Ralston Bogues, who had been lurking in the shadow of a tree, popped out, a club in his hand, and ran after Simms to protect him, glancing back and brandishing the club to discourage pursuers.

This action had not gone totally unnoticed; though most of the men were distracted, batting and clawing at the bewildering cloud of feathers that surrounded them, a few had seen what was going on, and raised a halloo, yelping like hounds as they tried to push through the crowd in pursuit of the fleeing printer.

If ever there was a moment . . . I’d shoot above their heads and they’d duck, giving Simms time to get away. I raised the gun with decision, reaching for the trigger.

The fowling piece was snatched from my grasp so deftly that I didn’t realize for an instant that it was gone, but stood staring in disbelief at my empty hands. Then a bellow came from behind me, loud enough to stun everyone nearby into silence.

“Isaiah Morton! You gonna
die,
boy!”

The fowling piece went off by my ear with a deafening
bwoom!
and a cloud of soot that blinded me. Choking and coughing, I scrubbed at my face with my apron, recovering sight in time to see the short, pudgy figure of Isaiah Morton a block away, running as fast as his legs would carry him. Jezebel Hatfield Morton was after him in an instant, ruthlessly flattening anyone in her way. She leapt nimbly over a besmeared and befeathered Forbes, who was still on his hands and knees, looking dazed, then pushed through the remnants of the mob and hared down the street, short flannel petticoats flying, moving at a surprising rate of speed for someone of her build. Morton careened round a corner and disappeared, implacable Fury close on his tail.

I felt a trifle dazed myself. My ears were still ringing, but I looked up at a touch on my arm.

Jamie was squinting down at me, one eye closed, as though unsure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. He was saying something I couldn’t make out, but the gestures he was making toward my face—coupled with a telltale twitching of the corner of his mouth—made his probable meaning
quite
clear.

“Ha,” I said coldly, my own voice sounding tinny and far off. I swiped at my face again with the apron. “
You
should talk!”

He looked like a piebald snowman, with black splotches of tar on his shirt, and clumps of white goose down clinging to his brows, his hair, and the stubble of his beard. He said something else, but I couldn’t hear him clearly. I shook my head and twisted a finger in my ear, indicating temporary deafness.

He smiled, took me by the shoulders, and leaned his head forward until his forehead met mine with a small
thunk!
I could feel him trembling slightly, but wasn’t sure whether it was laughter or exhaustion. Then he straightened up, kissed my forehead, and took me by the arm.

Neil Forbes sat in the middle of the street, legs splayed and careful hair disheveled. He was black with tar from the shoulder to the knee on one side. He’d lost a shoe, and helpful parties were trying to pick the feathers off him. Jamie led me in a wide circle round him, nodding pleasantly as we passed.

Forbes looked up, glowering, and said something muffled, heavy face twisting in dislike. On the whole, I thought it was just as well I couldn’t hear him.

IAN AND FERGUS HAD gone off with the majority of the rioters, no doubt to commit mayhem elsewhere. Jamie and I retired to the Sycamore, an inn on River Street, to seek refreshment and make repairs. Jamie’s hilarity gradually subsided as I picked tar and feathers off him, but was significantly quenched by hearing an account of my visit to Dr. Fentiman.

“Ye do
what
with it?” Jamie had flinched slightly during my recounting of the tale of Stephen Bonnet’s testicle. When I reached a description of the penis syringes, he crossed his legs involuntarily.

“Well, you work the needlelike bit down in, of course, and then flush a solution of something like mercuric chloride through the urethra, I suppose.”

“Through the, er . . .”

“Do you want me to show you?” I inquired. “I left my basket at the Bogueses’, but I can get it, and—”

“No.” He leaned forward and planted his elbows firmly on his knees. “D’ye suppose it burns much?”

“I can’t think it’s at all pleasant.”

He shuddered briefly.

“No, I shouldna think so.”

“I don’t think it’s really effective, either,” I added thoughtfully. “Pity to go through something like that, and not be cured. Don’t you think?”

He was watching me with the apprehensive air of a man who has just realized that the suspicious-looking parcel sitting next to him is ticking.

“What—” he began, and I hurried to finish.

“So you won’t mind going round to Mrs. Sylvie’s and making the arrangements for me to treat the girls, will you?”

“Who is Mrs. Sylvie?” he asked suspiciously.

“The owner of the local brothel,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Dr. Fentiman’s maid told me about her. Now, I realize that there might be more than one brothel in town, but I think that Mrs. Sylvie must certainly know the competition, if there is any, so she can tell you—”

Jamie drew a hand down over his face, pulling down his lower eyelids so that the bloodshot appearance of his eyes was particularly emphasized.