Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (37 page)

“As I said, more than half the settlers here are Catholic, and while they'll come to listen to me if there's nothing better on offer, I imagine they might also listen to you. And given my own unorthodox family situation”—he raised a deprecating shoulder—“I think people should be allowed to hear different points of view.”

“Indeed they should,” said a soft, amused voice behind him. “Including the voice of Christ that speaks within their own hearts.”

Cunningham dropped his charcoal again. “Mrs. Murray,” he said, and bowed. “Your servant, mum!”

Looking at Rachel Murray always lightened Roger's heart, and seeing her here, now, made him want to laugh.

“Hallo, Rachel,” he said. “Where's your wee man?”

“With Brianna and Jenny,” she said. “Amanda is trying to make him say ‘poop,' by which I gather she means excrement.”

“Well, she won't get far, trying to make him say ‘excrement.' ”

“Very true.” She smiled at him, then at Cunningham. “Brianna said thee would be here with the captain, arranging matters for the new meetinghouse, so I thought I should join thy discussion.” She was wearing pale-gray calico with a dark-blue fichu, and the combination made her eyes go a deep, mysterious green.

Cunningham, while gallant, looked somewhat confused. Roger wasn't, though he
was
surprised.

“You mean—you want to use the chapel, too? For…um…meeting?”

“Certainly.”

“Wait…do you mean a Quaker meeting?” The captain frowned. “How many Quakers are presently living on the Ridge?”

“Just one, so far as I'm aware,” Rachel said. “Though I suppose I might count Oggy; that's two. But Friends have no notion of a quorum, and no Friend would exclude visitors from an ordinary meeting. Jenny and Ian—my husband and his mother, Captain—will surely join me, and Claire says she and Jamie will come as well. Naturally, thee and Brianna are invited, Roger, and thee, too, Friend Cunningham, with thy mother.”

She gave the captain one of her smiles, and he smiled back by reflex, then coughed, mildly embarrassed. He was quite flushed. Roger thought the man might be on the verge of ecumenical overdose, and stepped in.

“When would you like to have the place, Rachel?”

“On First Day—thee would call it Sunday,” she explained to Cunningham. “We don't use the pagan names. But the time of day doesn't matter. We would not discommode any arrangements you have come to.”

“Pagan?” Cunningham looked aghast. “You think ‘Sunday' is a
pagan
term?”

“Well, of course it is,” she said reasonably. “It means ‘day of the sun,' meaning the ancient Roman festival of that name,
dies solis,
which became Sunnendaeg in English. I grant you,” she said, dimpling slightly at Roger, “it sounds slightly less pagan than ‘Tuesday,' which is called after a Norse god. But still.” She flipped a hand and turned to go. “Let me know what times you both intend to preach, and I will arrange things accordingly. Oh—” she added, over her shoulder. “Naturally we will help with the building.”

The men watched her disappear among the oaks in silence.

Cunningham had picked up another fragment of charcoal and was rubbing it absently between thumb and forefinger. It reminded Roger of going with Brianna once to an Ash Wednesday service at St. Mary's, in Inverness; the priest with a small dish of ashes (Bree had told him they were the ashes of palm fronds left over from the previous year's Palm Sunday) rubbed a thumb through the black and then made a rapid cross on the forehead of each person in the congregation, swiftly murmuring to each, “Remember, Man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.”

Roger had gone up for his turn, and could vividly recall both the strange gritty feel of the ashes, and the odd sense of mingled disquiet and acceptance.

Something like now.

A few days later…

THE FLY FLUTTERED DOWN,
green and yellow as a falling leaf, to land among the rings of the rising hatch. It floated for a second on the surface, maybe two, then vanished in a tiny splash, yanked out of sight by voracious jaws. Roger flicked the end of his rod sharply to set the hook, but there was no need. The trout were hungry this evening, striking at everything, and his fish had taken the hook so deep that bringing it in needed nothing but brute force.

It came up fighting, though, flapping and silver in the last of the light. He could feel its life through the rod, fierce and bright, so much bigger than the fish itself, and his heart rose to meet it.

“Who taught ye to cast, Roger Mac?” His father-in-law took the trout as it came ashore, still flapping, and clubbed it neatly on a stone. “That was as pretty a touch as ever I’ve seen.”

Roger made a modest gesture of dismissal, but flushed a little with pleasure at the compliment; Jamie didn’t say such things lightly.

“My father,” he said.

“Aye?” Jamie looked startled.

Roger hastened to correct himself. “The Reverend, I mean. He was really my great-uncle, though—he adopted me.”

“Still your father,” Jamie said, but smiled. He glanced toward the far side of the pool, where Germain and Jemmy were squabbling over who’d caught the biggest fish. They had a respectable string but hadn’t thought to keep their catches separate, so couldn’t tell who’d caught what.

“Ye dinna think it makes a difference, do ye? That Jem’s mine by blood and Germain by love?”

“You know I don’t.” Roger smiled himself at sight of the two boys. Germain was a little more than a year older than Jem, but slightly built, like both his parents. Jem had the long bones and wide shoulders of his grandfather—
and
his father, Roger thought, straightening his own shoulders. The two boys were much of a height, and the hair of both glowed red at the moment, the ruddy light of the sinking sun setting fire to Germain’s blond mop. “Where’s Fanny, come to think? She’d settle them.”

Frances was twelve, but sometimes seemed much younger—and often startlingly older. She’d been fast friends with Germain when Jem had arrived on the Ridge, and rather standoffish, fearing that Jem would come between her and her only friend. But Jem was an open, sweet-tempered lad, and Germain knew a good deal more about how people worked than did the average eleven-year-old ex-pickpocket, and shortly the three of them were to be seen everywhere together, giggling as they slithered through the shrubbery, intent on some mysterious errand, or turning up at the end of churning, too late to help with the work but just in time for a glass of fresh buttermilk.

“My sister’s showing her how to comb goats.”

“Aye?”

“For the hair. I want it to mix wi’ the plaster for the walls.”

“Oh, aye.”

Roger nodded, threading a stringer through the fish’s dark-red gill slit.

The sun came low through the trees, but the trout were still biting, the water dappling with dozens of bright rings and the frequent splash of a leaping fish. Roger’s fingers tightened for a moment on his rod, tempted—but they had enough for supper and next morning’s breakfast, too. No point in catching more; there were a dozen casks of smoked and salted fish already put away in the cold cellar, and the light was going.

Jamie showed no signs of moving, though. He was sitting on a comfortable stump, bare-legged and clad in nothing but his shirt, his old hunting plaid puddled on the ground behind; it had been a warm day and the balm of it still lingered in the air. He glanced at the boys, who had forgotten their argument and were back at their lines, intent as a pair of kingfishers.

Jamie turned to Roger then, and said, in a quite ordinary tone of voice, “Do Presbyterians have the sacrament of Confession,
mac mo chinnidh
?”

Roger said nothing for a moment, taken aback both by the question and its immediate implications and by Jamie’s addressing him as “son of my house”—a thing he’d done exactly once, at the calling of the clans at Mount Helicon some years before.

The question itself was straightforward, though, and he answered it that way.

“No. Catholics have seven sacraments but Presbyterians only recognize two: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.” He might have left it at that, but the first implication of the question was plain before him.

“D’ye have a thing ye want to tell me, Jamie?” He thought it might be the second time he’d called his father-in-law Jamie to his face. “I can’t give ye absolution—but I can listen.”

He wouldn’t have said that Jamie’s face showed anything in the way of strain. But now it relaxed and the difference was sufficiently visible that his own heart opened to the man, ready for whatever he might say. Or so he thought.

“Aye.” Jamie’s voice was husky and he cleared his throat, ducking his head, a little shy. “Aye, that’ll do fine. D’ye remember the night we took Claire back from the bandits?”

“I’m no likely to forget it,” Roger said, staring at him. He cut his eyes at the boys, but they were still at it, and he looked back at Jamie. “Why?” he asked, wary.

“Were ye there wi’ me, at the last, when I broke Hodgepile’s neck and Ian asked me what to do with the rest? I said, ‘Kill them all.’ ”

“I was there.” He had been. And he didn’t want to go back. Three words and it was all there, just below the surface of memory, still cold in his bones: black night in the forest, a sear of fire across his eyes, chilling wind, and the smell of blood. The drums—a
bodhran
thundering against his arm, two more behind him. Screaming in the dark. The sudden shine of eyes and the stomach-clenching feel of a skull caving in.

“I killed one of them,” Roger said abruptly. “Did you know that?”

Jamie hadn’t looked away and didn’t now; his mouth compressed for a moment, and he nodded.

“I didna see ye do it,” he said. “But it was plain enough in your face, next day.”

“I don’t wonder.” Roger’s throat was tight, and the words came out thick and gruff. He was surprised that Jamie had noticed—had noticed anything at all on that day other than Claire, once the fighting was over. The image of her, kneeling by a creek, setting her own broken nose by her reflection in the water, the blood streaking down over her bruised and naked body, came back to him with the force of a punch in the solar plexus.

“Ye never ken how it will be.” Jamie lifted one shoulder and let it fall; he’d lost the lace that bound his hair, snagged by a tree branch, and the thick red strands stirred in the evening breeze. “A fight like that, I mean. What ye recall and what ye don’t. I remember everything about that night, though—and the day beyond it.”

Roger nodded but didn’t speak. It was true that Presbyterians had no sacrament of Confession—and he rather regretted that they didn’t; it was a useful thing to have in your pocket. Particularly, he supposed, if you led the sort of life Jamie had. But any minister knows the soul’s need to speak and be understood, and that he could give.

“I expect ye do,” he said. “Do ye regret it, then? Telling the men to kill them all, I mean.”

“Not for an instant.” Jamie gave him a brief, fierce glance. “Do ye regret your part of it?”

“I—” Roger stopped abruptly. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t thought about it, but…“I regret that I had to,” he said carefully. “Very much. But I’m sure in my own mind that I did have to.”

Jamie’s breath came out in a sigh. “Ye’ll know Claire was raped, I expect.” It wasn’t a question, but Roger nodded. Claire hadn’t spoken of it, even to Brianna—but she hadn’t had to.

“The man who did it wasna killed, that night. She saw him alive two months past, at Beardsley’s.”

The evening breeze had turned chilly, but that wasn’t what raised the hairs on Roger’s forearms. Jamie was a man of precise speech—and he’d started this conversation with the word “Confession.” Roger took his time about replying.

“I’m thinking that ye’re not asking my opinion of what ye should do about it.”

Jamie sat silent for a moment, dark against the blazing sky.

“No,” he said softly. “I’m not.”

“Grandda! Look!” Jem and Germain were scrambling over the rocks and brush, each with a string of shimmering trout, dripping dark streaks of blood and water down the boys’ breeks, the swaying fish gleaming bronze and silver in the last of the evening light.

Roger turned back from the boys in time to see the flicker of Jamie’s eye as he glanced round at the boys, the sudden light on his face catching a troubled, inward look that vanished in an instant as he smiled and raised a hand to his grandsons, reaching out to admire their catch.

Jesus Christ,
Roger thought. He felt as though an electric wire had run through his chest for an instant, small and sizzling.
He was wondering if they were old enough yet. To know about things like this.

“We decided we got six each,” Jemmy was explaining, proudly holding up his string and turning it so his father and grandfather could appreciate the size and beauty of his catch.

“And these are Fanny’s,” Germain said, lifting a smaller string on which three plump trout dangled. “We decided she’d ha’ caught some, if she was here.”

“That was a kind thought, lads,” Jamie said, smiling. “I’m sure the lassie will appreciate it.”

“Mmphm,” said Germain, though he frowned a little. “Will she still be able to come fishin’ with us,
Grand-père
? Mrs. Wilson said she won’t be able to, once she’s a woman.”

Jemmy made a disgusted noise and elbowed Germain. “Dinna be daft,” he said. “My mam’s a woman and she goes fishin’. She hunts, too, aye?”

Germain nodded but looked unconvinced.

“Aye, she does,” he admitted. “Mr. Crombie doesna like it, though, and neither does Heron.”

“Heron?” Roger said, surprised. Hiram Crombie was under the impression that women should cook, clean, spin, sew, mind children, feed stock, and keep quiet save when praying. But Standing Heron Bradshaw was a Cherokee who’d married one of the Moravian girls from Salem and settled on the other side of the Ridge. “Why? The Cherokee women plant their own crops and I’m sure I’ve seen them catching fish with nets and fish traps by the fields.”

“Heron didna say about catching fish,” Jem explained. “He says women canna hunt, though, because they stink o’ blood, and it drives the game away.”

“Well, that’s true,” Jamie said, to Roger’s surprise. “But only when they’ve got their courses. And even so, if she stays downwind…”

“Would a woman who smells o’ blood not draw bears or painters?” Germain asked. He looked a little worried at the thought.

“Probably not,” Roger said dryly, hoping he was right. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t suggest any such thing to your auntie. She might take it amiss.”

Jamie made a small, amused sound and shooed the boys. “Get on wi’ ye, lads. We’ve a few things yet to talk of. Tell your grannie we’ll be in time for supper, aye?”

They waited, watching ’til the boys were safely out of hearing. The breeze had died away now and the last slow rings on the water spread and flattened, disappearing into the gathering shadows. Tiny flies began to fill the air, survivors of the hatch.

“Ye did it, then?” Roger asked. He was wary of the answer; what if it wasn’t done, and Jamie wished his help in the matter?

But Jamie nodded, his broad shoulders relaxing.

“Claire didna tell me about it, ken. I saw at once that something was troubling her, o’ course…” A thread of rueful amusement tinged his voice; Claire’s glass face was famous. “But when I told her so, she asked me to let it bide, and give her time to think.”

“Did you?”

“No.” The amusement had gone. “I saw it was a serious thing. I asked my sister; she told me. She was wi’ Claire at Beardsley’s, aye? She saw the fellow, too, and wormed it out of Claire what the matter was.

“Claire said to me—when I made it clear I kent what was going on—that it was all right; she was trying to forgive the bastard. And thought she was makin’ progress with it. Mostly.” Jamie’s voice was matter-of-fact, but Roger thought he heard an edge of regret in it.

“Do you…feel that you should have let her deal with it? It
is
a—a process, to forgive. Not a single act, I mean.” He felt remarkably awkward, and coughed to clear his throat.

“I ken that,” Jamie said in a voice dry as sand. “Few men ken it better.”

A hot flush of embarrassment burned its way up Roger’s chest and into his neck. He could feel it take him by the throat, and couldn’t speak at all for a moment.

“Aye,” Jamie said, after a moment. “Aye, it’s a point. But I think it’s maybe easier to forgive a dead man than one who’s walkin’ about under your nose. And come to that, I thought she’d have an easier time forgiving me than him.” He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “And…whether she could bear the thought of the man living near us or not—I couldn’t.”

Roger made a small sound of acknowledgment; there seemed nothing else useful to say.

Jamie didn’t move or speak. He sat with his head slightly turned away, looking out over the water, where a fugitive light glimmered over the breeze-touched surface.