The Scottish Prisoner (37 page)

Fraser nodded. “Aye, it does. It also implies that there are people he doesna ken personally, but who might be expected to recognize that poem—and to seek out others o’ the same ilk, using the poem as a signal. In other words—”

“A conspiracy,” Grey said, with a feeling between dread and excitement settling in his stomach.

Fraser gave a small grunt of assent and, handing back the half-empty flask, eased himself down, grimacing.

“What sort of conspiracy do you think it is, Mr. Fraser?” Grey asked, watching him closely. The Scot’s mouth tightened for a moment, but he’d plainly already done his thinking on the matter, for he answered without hesitation.

“Politics. There’s a wee reference in the poem to a white rose. That canna mean anything but Jacobites.” He spoke in a tone of absolute conviction.

“Ah.” Grey paused, then, striving for casualness, said, “I don’t believe you mentioned the white rose in your original translation.”

Fraser blew his nose with a vicious honk. “No,” he said calmly, sniffing, “nor after I showed it to Captain Lally. Neither did he.”

“And yet you tell me now,” Grey observed.

Fraser gave him a sideways look, put out a hand for the flask, and drank more brandy, as though considering his answer, though Grey was reasonably sure he’d considered it extensively already.

“Now it’s real,” he said finally, putting down the flask. He shifted a little, grimacing. “Ye wouldna ken, but in the time before the Rising in Scotland, and to nay little extent after, there were dozens—nay, hundreds—of tiny conspiracies. Plots, suggestions o’ plots, hints of plots—any man who could hold a pen writing coded letters, talking of money, praising his own connections, and blackening the names of others—and nearly all of it nothing but wind.”

He wiped his eyes, sneezed, and wiped his nose.

“Jesus, I may never eat onions again.”

“Does it help? With the pain, I mean.”

Fraser looked surprised, as though it had never occurred to him to wonder.

“Aye, it does; it warms the sore parts.” His mouth twitched. “That, or maybe it’s the brandy.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. I saw hundreds of things like that, in Paris. For a time, it was my business to look for such things. That’s where I made the acquaintance of your sister-in-law.”

Jamie spoke casually, but Grey saw the Scot’s sidelong look and manfully concealed his own surprise.

“Yes, Hal said her father was a … dealer in documents.”

“That’s a verra tactful way to put it.” He sniffed and looked up, one eyebrow raised. “I’m surprised that she didna tell ye about the white rose herself,” he said. “She must ha’ seen it.” And then his gaze sharpened. “Oh,” he said, with a half smile. “Of course, she did. I should have kent that.”

“You should,” Grey agreed dryly. “But you said, ‘Now it’s real.’ Why? Only because Siverly is involved in some way?”

Jamie nodded and shifted himself, looking for a more comfortable way to lie. He settled for resting his forehead on his crossed forearms.

“Because Siverly’s rich,” he said, his voice a little muffled. “Whether he stole his money or made it, we ken he’s got it, do we not?”

“We do,” Grey said, a little grimly. “Or at least he had it at one point. For all I know, he’s spent it on all on whores and horses. Or that monstrous great house.”

Fraser made a motion of the head that might have been agreement.

“Either way, he has something to lose,” he said. “And there’s the minor consideration that he tried, verra seriously, to kill me.” He raised his head from the pillow, squinting at Grey. “He’ll try again, aye?” he observed, though without much concern. “Ye havena got much more than tomorrow morning before he turns up here.”

“I mean to call upon Major Siverly in the morning,” Grey assured him. “But you have not completely answered my question, Mr. Fraser. You said, ‘Now it’s real,’ and I understand that. But should not the possibility of a substantial conspiracy, well funded and decently managed, increase your loyalty to the Stuart cause?”

Fraser laid his head on his arms, but turned his face toward Grey and studied him for some time, eyes narrowed.

“I shall never fight in that cause again,” he said at last, softly, and Grey thought he spoke with a sense of true regret. “Not from cowardice, but from the sure knowledge of its futility. Major Siverly’s nay friend to me. And should there be men I know involved in this … I will do them nay service to let it go further.”

He turned his face away again and lay quiet.

Grey picked up the flask and shook it. There was very little left in it, but he drank this, slowly, watching the play of fire through the tangled strands of the peat bricks in the hearth.

Was Fraser telling the truth? He thought so. If so—was his assessment of that one phrase in the poem sufficient as to conjure
up a complete Jacobite conspiracy? But that wasn’t the only evidence, he reminded himself. Minnie had said the same—and, above all, Siverly’s attempt on Fraser’s life argued that the poem itself was dangerous in some way. How else if not, as Fraser said, a signal of recognition? But a signal to whom?

He fell to thinking of how his meeting with Siverly might go, knowing what he now did. Ought he, too, present a copy of the same poem, to see what response it drew? He had made a point of seeking out Siverly after the Battle of Quebec, to thank him for his service in saving Grey from being brained by a tomahawk. Siverly had modestly dismissed the matter—but it would plainly be foremost in his mind at sight of Grey.

Grey grimaced. Yes, he owed Siverly a debt of honor. But if Siverly had done half what Carruthers claimed, he had forfeited his right to such consideration.

The room was warm. He loosened his neckcloth, which made him think of his dress uniform, its leather stock and silver gorget. Tom had packed it with great care, preserving it from loss and damage on the journey, for the sole purpose of being worn to arrest Gerald Siverly, if necessary.

Had the time come for that? He thought not yet. He’d take with him not only the poem but a few selected sheets from Carruthers’s packet and, depending upon Siverly’s reception of him, would decide whether—and which—to show him. Showing the poem would link him immediately with Jamie Fraser, and thus perhaps threaten Siverly. If he could persuade Siverly to go back to England voluntarily, that was by far the best result. But if not … He brooded for a bit, but he was sick of thinking of Siverly, and his mind wandered. The scent of onions had subsided to a pleasant odor that conjured thoughts of supper. It was very late. Perhaps he should go down; he could have the girl bring something up for Fraser.…

Once more he saw the woman’s hands, gentle on Fraser’s face and body, and the big Scot turning at once to her touch, a stranger’s touch. Only because she was a woman. If he himself had ventured to touch the man …

But I have
. If not directly. The open neck of the shirt had slipped back, and the faint glimmer of the scars showed once more.

Jamie’s head turned, and his eyes opened, as though he had felt the pressure of Grey’s gaze. He didn’t speak but lay quiet, meeting John’s eyes. Grey was conscious all at once of the silence; the pub’s customers had all gone home, the landlord and his family retired for the night.

“I’m sorry,” he said, very softly.

“Ego te absolvo,”
Fraser murmured, and shut his eyes.

Glastuig

THE BAY GELDING WAS LAME IN THE RIGHT FORE, AND JOHN
Grey had declined to ride the unfortunate Bedelia, on grounds that she would be instantly recognized, thus establishing a link between himself and Jamie Fraser and causing Major Siverly to smell a rat. He therefore walked the two miles from Beckett’s inn to Siverly’s estate, Glastuig, reciting Latin poetry as a means of keeping his thoughts off the impending meeting.

He’d done what planning was possible. Once the strategy and tactics of a battle were decided, you put it out of your mind until you came to the field and saw what was what. Trying to fight a battle in your head was pointless and did nothing but fret the nerves and exhaust the energies.

He’d had a hearty breakfast of black pudding and buttered eggs with toasted soda bread, washed down with Mr. Beckett’s very good beer. Thus internally fortified, and dressed in a country gentleman’s good wool suit—complete with gaiters to save his lisle stockings from the mud—and with several documents carefully stowed in separate pockets, he was armed and ready.

It was a very beautiful morning, and a small group of pigs were enjoying it to the maximum, snorting and rooting under a tumbled stone wall. Aside from these, the landscape seemed entirely empty, until after a mile or so a woman in a shawl came past him in the lane, leading an ass with a small boy sitting on it. He lifted his hat politely to the woman and wished her good morning. All of them stared at him, the woman and the boy turning round in order to keep staring after they’d passed him. Possibly strangers were not common in the neighborhood, he thought.

This conclusion was borne out when he rapped his walking stick on the door of Siverly’s manor, and a weedy-looking young butler with astonishingly vivid ginger hair and a large quantity of freckles blinked at him as though he’d sprung out from behind a mushroom.

“I’ve come to call upon Major Siverly,” Grey said politely. “My name is Grey.”

“Is it?” said the butler uncertainly. “You’re an Englishman, I daresay?”

“Yes, it is,” Grey assured him. “And, yes, I am. Is your master at home?”

“Well, he is, then, but—” The man glanced over his shoulder at a closed door on the far side of a spacious foyer. “Oh!” A thought seemed to strike him, and he looked back at Grey with the air of one who has successfully put two and two together to make four.

“You’ll be after being a friend of the other Englishman, sure!”

“The … other Englishman?”

“Why, the one what rode over this morning from Brampton Court!” the butler exclaimed happily. “He’s in the library with the master, and them talking away sixteen to the dozen. They’ll be expecting you, then, won’t they?”

“Oh, to be sure,” Grey said cordially, wondering what the devil he was about to walk in to but walking after the butler, nonetheless.

The butler pulled open the beautifully carved door to the library and bowed with an extravagant gesture, ushering Grey in.

He was looking for Siverly and therefore saw him at once, the major looking up with surprise from what looked like a pair of account books.

“Major Siverly—” he began, infusing his voice with warmth. But then he caught sight of the major’s companion, seated across the desk from Siverly, and the words stuck in his throat.

“What on earth—Bulstrode, what the devil are you at?” Siverly barked at the butler, who blinked, bewildered. “Haven’t I told you not to bring visitors in unannounced?”

“I—I thought—” The hapless butler was stuttering, glancing wildly back and forth between Grey and Edward Twelvetrees, who was staring at Lord John with a look somewhere between astonishment and outrage.

“Oh, go away, you clot,” Siverly said irritably, getting up and shooing the butler off. “Colonel Grey! What a pleasant surprise. You must forgive the … er … unorthodox welcome.” He smiled, though with considerable reservation in his eyes. “Allow me to make you acquainted with Captain—”

“We’ve met.” Twelvetrees’s words were as clipped as bits of wire. He stood up slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Grey as he
closed the ledger in front of him. Not before Grey had time to see that it contained a listing of what looked like fairly large sums.

And speaking of sums—there was an ironbound chest sitting on the desk, its lid open, more than half filled with a quantity of small wash-leather bags, each tied round with string. Under the bay window, the lid of a blanket chest stood open. A depression in the blankets showed where the ironbound chest had rested. Siverly’s eyes darted toward this, and his hand twitched, but he stayed it, evidently not wanting to draw attention to the chest by closing it.

“What are you doing here?” Twelvetrees asked coldly.

Grey took a deep breath. Nothing for it but charge straight in.

“I came to pay a call on Major Siverly,” he said mildly. “And you?”

Twelvetrees’s mouth pursed a little. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood, eh?”

“No, I came particularly to speak with the major about a matter of some importance. But of course I have no wish to intrude,” Grey said, with a brief bow to Siverly. “Perhaps I might come again at some more convenient occasion?”

Siverly was looking back and forth between Grey and Twelvetrees, plainly trying to fathom what was going on.

“No, no, do stay,” he said. “I must confess—a matter of importance, you said?” His face was not particularly mobile, but he wasn’t a good cardplayer, and wariness and calculation flickered over his slab-sided features.

“A private matter,” Grey said, smiling pleasantly at Twelvetrees, who was surveying him through narrowed eyes. “As I say, a more convenient—”