The Fiery Cross (21 page)

“Campbell, aye? Bent like a fishhook, and a cast in one eye?”

“Aye, that’s him.” Jamie gave a nod of approbation, relaxing his grip. “He’s too crabbit to fight himself, but he’ll see his nephews come, and spread the word amongst the settlements near High Point. So, Duncan, Angus . . . oh, aye, Joanie Findlay.”

“Joanie?”

Fraser grinned.

“Aye, auld Joan, they call her. Her camp’s near my aunt, her and her brother, Iain Mhor.”

Roger nodded, dubious.

“Aye. It’s her I speak to, though, is it?”

“Ye’ll have to,” Fraser said. “Iain Mhor’s got nay speech. She’s two more brothers who have, though, and two sons old enough to fight. She’ll see they come.”

Jamie cast an eye upward; the day had warmed slightly and it wasn’t raining so much as misting—a mizzle, they’d call it in Scotland. The clouds had thinned enough to show the disk of the sun, a pale blurry wafer still high in the sky, but sinking lower. Another two hours of good light, maybe.

“That’ll do,” he decided, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Come back to the fire when ye’ve done wi’ auld Joan, and we’ll have a bit of supper before your wedding, aye?” He gave Roger an up-cocked brow and a slight smile, then turned away. Before Roger could move off, he turned back.

“Say straight off as you’re Captain MacKenzie,” he advised. “They’ll mind ye better.” He turned again and strode off in search of the more recalcitrant prospects on his list.

MacLeod’s fire burned like a smudge pot in the mist. Roger turned toward it, repeating the names under his breath like a mantra. “Duncan MacLeod, Rabbie Cochrane, Angus Og Campbell, Joanie Findlay . . . Duncan MacLeod, Rabbie Cochrane . . .” No bother; three times and he’d have it cold, no matter whether it was the words of a new song to be learned, facts in a textbook, or directions to the psychology of potential militia recruits.

He could see the sense of finding as many of the backcountry Scots as possible now, before they scattered away to their farms and cabins. And he was heartened by the fact that the men Fraser had approached so far had accepted the militia summons with no more than a mild glower and throat-clearings of resignation.

Captain MacKenzie. He felt a small sense of embarrassed pride at the title Fraser had casually bestowed on him. “Instant Soldier,” he muttered derisively to himself, straightening the shoulders of his sodden coat. “Just add water.”

At the same time, he’d admit to a faint tingle of excitement. It might amount to no more than playing soldiers, now, indeed—but the thought of marching with a militia regiment, muskets shouldered and the smell of gunpowder on their hands . . .

It was less than four years from now, he thought, and militiamen would stand on the green at Lexington. Men who were no more soldiers to start with than these men he spoke to in the rain—no more than him. Awareness shivered over his skin, settled in his belly with an odd weight of significance.

It was coming. Christ, it was really coming.

MACLEOD WAS NO TROUBLE, but it took longer than he’d thought to find Angus Og Campbell, up to his arse in sheep, and irascible at the distraction. “Captain MacKenzie” had had little effect on the old bastard; the invocation of “Colonel Fraser”—spoken with a degree of menace—had had more. Angus Og had chewed his long upper lip with moody concentration, nodded reluctantly, and gone back to his bargaining with a gruff, “Aye, I’ll send word.”

The mizzle had stopped and the clouds were beginning to break up by the time he climbed back up the slope to Joan Findlay’s camp.

“Auld Joan,” to his surprise, was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, with sharp hazel eyes that regarded him with interest under the folds of her damp arisaid.

“So it’s come to that, has it?” she said, in answer to his brief explanation of his presence. “I did wonder, when I heard what the soldier-laddie had to say this morning.”

She tapped her lip thoughtfully with the handle of her wooden pudding-spoon.

“I’ve an aunt who lives in Hillsborough, ken. She’s a room in the King’s House, straight across the street from Edmund Fanning’s house—or where it used to be.” She gave a short laugh, though it held no real humor.

“She wrote to me. The mob came a-boilin’ down the street, wavin’ pitchforks like a flock o’ demons, she said. They cut Fanning’s house from its sills, and dragged the whole of it down wi’ ropes, right before her eyes. So now we’re meant to send our men to pull Fanning’s chestnuts from the fire, are we?”

Roger was cautious; he’d heard a good deal of talk about Edmund Fanning, who was less than popular.

“I couldna say as to that, Mrs. Findlay,” he said. “But the Governor—”

Joan Findlay snorted expressively.

“Governor,” she said, and spat into the fire. “Pah. The Governor’s friends, more like. But there—poor men mun bleed for the rich man’s gold, and always will, eh?”

She turned to two small girls who had materialized behind her, silent as small shawled ghosts.

“Annie, fetch your brothers. Wee Joanie, you stir the pot. Mind ye scrape the bottom well so it doesna burn.” Handing the spoon to the smallest girl, she turned away, beckoning Roger to follow.

It was a poor camp, with no more than a woolen blanket stretched between two bushes to provide a shelter of sorts. Joan Findlay squatted down before the cavelike recess so provided, and Roger followed, bending down to peer over her shoulder.

“
A bhràthair
, here’s Captain MacKenzie,” she said, reaching out a hand to the man that lay on a pallet of dry grass under the blanket’s shelter. Roger felt a sudden shock at the man’s appearance, but suppressed it.

A spastic, they would have called him in the Scotland of Roger’s own time; what did they call such a condition now? Perhaps nothing in particular; Fraser had said only,
He has nay speech.

No, nor proper movement, either. His limbs were bony and wasted, his body twisted into impossible angles. A tattered quilt had been laid over him, but his jerking movements had pulled it awry, so that the cloth was bunched, wrenched hard between his legs, and his upper body was left exposed, the worn shirt also rumpled and pulled half off by his struggles. The pale skin over shoulder and ribs gleamed cold and blue-toned in the shadows.

Joan Findlay cupped a hand about the man’s cheek and turned his head so that he could look at Roger.

“This will be my brother Iain, Mr. MacKenzie,” she said, her voice firm, daring him to react.

The face too was distorted, the mouth pulled askew and drooling, but a pair of beautiful—and intelligent—hazel eyes looked back at Roger from the ruin. He took firm grip of his feelings and his own features, and reached out, taking the man’s clawed hand in his own. It felt terrible, the bones sharp and fragile under skin so cold it might have been a corpse’s.

“Iain Mhor,” he said softly. “I have heard your name. Jamie Fraser sends ye his regards.”

The eyelids lowered in a graceful sweep of acknowledgment, and came up again, regarding Roger with calm brightness.

“The Captain’s come to call for militiamen,” Joan said from behind Roger’s shoulder. “The Governor’s sent orders, aye? Seems he’s had enough o’ riot and disorder, so he says; he’ll put it down by force.” Her voice held a strong tone of irony.

Iain Mhor’s eyes shifted to his sister’s face. His mouth moved, struggling for shape, and his narrow chest strained with effort. A few croaking syllables emerged, thick with spittle, and he fell back, breathing hard, eyes intent on Roger.

“Will there be bounty money paid, he says, Captain?” Joan translated.

Roger hesitated. Jamie had addressed that question, but there was no definite answer. He could feel the subdued eagerness, though, both in the woman behind him and the man who lay before him. The Findlays were grinding poor; that much was plain from the little girls’ ragged frocks and bare feet, from the threadbare clothes and bedding that gave Iain Mhor scant shelter from the cold. But honesty compelled him to answer.

“I don’t know. There is none advertised as yet—but there may be.” The payment of bounty money depended on the response to the Governor’s call; if a simple order produced insufficient troops, the Governor might see fit to provide further inducement for militiamen to answer the summons.

An expression of disappointment flickered in Iain Mhor’s eyes, replaced almost at once by resignation. Any income would have been welcome, but it was not really expected.

“Well, then.” Joan’s voice held the same resignation. Roger felt her draw back and turn aside, but he was still held by the long-lashed hazel eyes. They met his, unflinching and curious. Roger hesitated, unsure whether to simply take his leave. He wanted to offer help—but God, what help was there?

He stretched out a hand toward the gaping shirt, the rumpled quilt. Little enough, but something.

“May I?”

The hazel eyes closed for a moment, opened in acquiescence, and he set about the chore of putting things straight. Iain Mhor’s body was emaciated, but surprisingly heavy, and awkward to lift from such an angle.

Still, it took no more than a few moments, and the man lay decently covered, and warmer at least. Roger met the hazel eyes again, smiled, nodded awkwardly, and backed away from the grass-lined nest, wordless as Iain Mhor himself.

Joan Findlay’s two sons had come; they stood by their mother, sturdy lads of sixteen and seventeen, regarding Roger with cautious curiosity.

“This will be Hugh,” she said, reaching up to put a hand on one shoulder, then the other, “and Iain Og.”

Roger inclined his head courteously.

“Your servant, gentlemen.”

The boys exchanged glances with each other, then looked at their feet, smothering grins.

“So,
Captain
MacKenzie.” Joan Findlay’s voice came down hard on the word. “If I lend ye my sons, will ye promise me, then, to send them safe home?”

The woman’s hazel eyes were as bright and intelligent as her brother’s—and as unflinching. He braced himself not to look away.

“So far as it lies in my power, ma’am—I will see them safe.”

The edge of her mouth lifted slightly; she knew quite well what was in his power and what was not. She nodded, though, and her hands dropped to her sides.

“They’ll come.”

He took his leave then, and walked away, the weight of her trust heavy on his shoulders.

T
HE LAST OF MY PATIENTS seen to, I stood on my toes and stretched luxuriously, feeling a pleasant glow of accomplishment. For all the conditions that I couldn’t really treat, all the illnesses I couldn’t cure . . . still, I had done what I could, and had done it well.

I closed the lid of my medical chest and picked it up in my arms; Murray had graciously volunteered to bring back the rest of my impedimenta—in return for a bag of dried senna leaves and my spare pill-rolling tile. Murray himself was still attending his last patient, frowning as he prodded the abdomen of a little old lady in bonnet and shawl. I waved in farewell at him, and he gave me an abstracted nod, turning to pick up his fleam. At least he did remember to dip it into the boiling water; I saw his lips move as he spoke Brianna’s charm under his breath.

My feet were numb from standing on the cold ground, and my back and shoulders ached, but I wasn’t really tired. There were people who would sleep tonight, their pain relieved. Others who would heal well now, wounds dressed cleanly and limbs set straight. A few whom I could truthfully say I had saved from the possibility of serious infection or even death.

And I had given yet another version of my own Sermon on the Mount, preaching the gospel of nutrition and hygiene to the assembled multitudes.

“Blessed are those who eat greens, for they shall keep their teeth,” I murmured to a red-cedar tree. I paused to pull off a few of the fragrant berries, and crushed one with my thumbnail, enjoying the sharp, clean scent.

“Blessed are those who wash their hands after wiping their arses,” I added, pointing a monitory finger at a blue jay who had settled on a nearby branch. “For they shall not sicken.”

The camp was in sight now, and with it, the delightful prospect of a cup of hot tea.

“Blessed are those who boil water,” I said to the jay, seeing a plume of steam rising from the small kettle hung over our fire. “For they shall be called saviors of mankind.”

“Mrs. Fraser, mum?” A small voice piped up beside me, breaking my reverie, and I looked down to see Eglantine Bacon, aged seven, and her younger sister, Pansy, a pair of round-faced, towheaded little girls, liberally sprinkled with freckles.

“Oh, hallo, dear. And how are you?” I asked, smiling down at them. Quite well, from the looks of them; illness in a child is generally visible at a glance, and both the small Bacons were obviously blooming.

“Very well, mum, thank ye kindly.” Eglantine gave a short bob, then reached over and pushed on Pansy’s head to make her curtsy, too. The courtesies observed—the Bacons were townspeople, from Edenton, and the girls had been raised to have nice manners—Eglantine reached into her pocket and handed me a large wad of fabric.