Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone
- Автор: Гэблдон Диана
- Серия: Outlander #9
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Delacorte Press
- ISBN: 978-1-473-51900-8
- Жанр: Исторические приключения
Электронная книга - «Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone». Краткое содержание книги:
The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . .
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep. Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and an impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family. Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father’s identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son’s behalf, and his own. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser’s Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before.
I left Fanny to deal with the game pie, and followed the men into the parlor with a tray holding a bottle of the JFS whisky, a small pitcher of water, and five of our best glasses, these being the heavy-bottomed small glasses known as shot glasses, as they made a sound strongly resembling a pistol shot when slammed on the table following a toast. I hoped there would still be five of them after this little social gathering.
“Captain,” I said, smiling pleasantly as I set the tray down. “How nice to see you.”
He glared at me but was too well bred to say what he was patently thinking. I wasn’t sure whether my presence would make things better or worse, but Jamie cut his eyes briefly sideways, indicating that said presence wouldn’t be required, so I curtsied to the assembled and walked down the hall to the kitchen, where I took my shoes off and crept back quietly in my stocking feet, much to Fanny’s amusement.
“I imagine my nephew told ye the circumstances in which we encountered your—acquaintances this afternoon?” Jamie was saying, in a pleasant tone of voice. There was a splashing sound and the clink of glasses.
“Circumstances,” Cunningham repeated sharply. “Lieutenant Summers is—was—a close friend of my late son. We have remained in correspondence since Simon’s death, and I hold Felix in the same regard as I would were he my son as well. I take considerable exception to your treatment of him and his servant, sir!”
“A dram wi’ ye, sir? Slàinte mhath!”
From my vantage spot, flattened against the wall, I couldn’t see Jamie, but I could see the captain, who looked startled at this reply to his statement.
“What?” he said sharply, and looked down into his whisky glass as though it might be poisoned. “What did you say, sir?”
“Slàinte mhath,” Jamie repeated mildly. “It means, ‘to your health.’”
“Oh.” The captain looked at Summers, who by this point resembled a pig who has just been struck on the head with a maul. “Er … yes. To—your health, Mr. Fraser.”
“Colonel Fraser,” Ian put in helpfully. “Slàinte mhath!”
The captain threw back his dram, swallowed, and turned purple.
“Perhaps a bit o’ water, Captain.” I saw Jamie’s arm stretch out, pitcher in hand. “It’s said to open the flavor of the whisky. Ian?”
Ian took the pitcher and deftly mixed a fresh drink—half water, this time—for the captain, who took it, eyes watering.
“I repeat … sir …” he said hoarsely. “I take exception …”
“Well, so do I, sir,” Jamie said, in the same amiable tone. “And I think any self-respecting man would do the same, at discovering a martial enterprise taking place under his nose, upon his land, without warning or notice. D’ye not agree?”
“I do not pretend to understand what you mean by ‘a martial enterprise,’ Colonel.” Cunningham had got hold of himself and sat up straight as a poker. “Lieutenant Summers has had the kindness to bring me some supplies I had requested from friends in the navy. They—”
“I did wonder, ken, why a Lowlander, and especially one who’s a naval captain, should choose Fraser’s Ridge to settle,” Jamie said, interrupting him. “And why ye should have wanted land so far up the Ridge, for that matter. But of course, your place is nay more than ten miles from the Cherokee villages, isn’t it?”
“I—I’m sure I don’t know,” the captain said. “But this has nothing to do—”
“I was an Indian agent for some time, ken,” Jamie went on, in the same mild tone. “Under Superintendent Johnson. I spent considerable time wi’ the Cherokee, and they ken me for an honest man.”
“I was not impugning your honesty, Colonel Fraser.” Cunningham sounded rather testy, though it was obvious that this was news to him. “I do take issue with your—”
“Ye’ll ken, I suppose, that the British government has been in cahoots wi’ various Indians in the conduct of this war, encouraging them to attack settlements suspected of rebellious persuasions. Providing them wi’ guns and powder on occasion.”
“No, sir.” The captain’s tone had changed, his belligerence slightly tinged now with wariness. “I was not aware of that.”
Jamie and Ian both made polite Scottish noises indicating skepticism.
“Ye’ll admit that ye do ken I am a rebel, Captain?”
“You are fairly open about it, sir!” Cunningham snapped. He sat upright, fists clenched on his knees.
“I am,” Jamie agreed. “Ye make no secret of your own loyalties—”
“Loyalty to King and country requires neither secrecy nor defense, Colonel!”
“Aye? Well, I suppose that depends on whether that loyalty results in actions that might be considered injurious to me and mine, Captain. My cause or my family.”
“We didn’t mean—” Lieutenant Summers was beginning to be alarmed. Stirred from his lethargy by the rising tone of the conversation, he made an attempt to sit up straight, his round face earnest. “We wasn’t meaning to bring Indians down upon you, sir, so help me God!”
“Mr. Summers.” The captain lifted a hand, and the lieutenant went red and subsided.
“Colonel. I repeat that I make no secret of my loyalties. I preach them in public each Sunday, before God and man.”
“I’ve heard ye,” Jamie said dryly. “And ye’ll notice, I suppose, that I’ve made nay move to hinder ye doing so. I take no issue with your opinions; speak as ye find and let the devil listen.”
I blinked. He was angry, and was beginning to let it show.
“Talk all ye like, Captain. But I’ll not countenance any action that threatens the Ridge.”
Lieutenant Summers made a small, involuntary movement, and Captain Cunningham made a short, sharp movement that silenced him.
“You have my word, Colonel,” he said between his teeth.
There was a long moment of silence, and then I heard Jamie take a deep breath, this succeeded by the pouring of whisky.
“Then let us drink to the understanding between us, Captain,” he said calmly, and I heard the brief shifting and scrape of glass on wood as they all picked up their drams.
“To peace,” Jamie said. He emptied his glass and slammed it on the table with a bang that startled Mr. Voules out of his stupor.
“What the hell was that?” He sat up, staring blearily to and fro. “They shootin’ at us with our own guns?”
The brief silence was broken by Jamie.
“Guns?” he said mildly. “Did ye notice any guns, Ian, when ye packed up the captain’s gear?”
“No, Uncle,” Ian said, in exactly the same tone. “No guns.”
DESPITE ITS FARCICAL aspects, the incident with the captain’s guns was truly alarming. Preaching loyalty to the King in church of a Sunday was one thing; preparing—evidently—for an armed conflict under Jamie’s nose was another.
“Can you evict him?” I asked tentatively. The children had all gone to bed after supper, and Jamie, I, Brianna, and Roger were holding a minor council of war over dishes of corn pudding.
“I could,” Jamie said, frowning at the cream jug. “But I’ve been turnin’ it over in my mind, and I think it’s maybe better to let him stay, where he’ll be under my eye, than have him up to mischief where he’s not.”
“What do ye think he was—or is—planning to do?” Roger asked. “I mean—it’s at least possible that he wanted arms for protection; his place is very near the Cherokee Line.”
“Twenty muskets is maybe that wee bit excessive for keepin’ stray Indians out of his house,” Jamie replied. “If he’s bought guns, he had a plan to use them. For what, though? Does he have it in mind to try to assassinate me and burn out my tenants? What would be the point of that?”