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 likely would be, if I thought about it,” he said absently. “What brings ye up here, Sassenach? It’s early for dinner.”
“True. I did bring you food, though.” I dug in my pocket and brought out a bread roll stuffed with cheese and pickle. “You need to eat more. I can see all your ribs,” I added disapprovingly.
I could, too; he’d taken off his shirt to work, and the shadows of his ribs showed clearly in his back, beneath the faded network of his scars.
He merely grinned at me, but rose and took the roll, taking a large bite of it in the same movement.
“Taing,” he said, swallowing, and nodded to the air behind me. “There he is.”
I turned to look. Sure enough, Cyrus Crombie was coming down the path behind the house. Tall Tree, forsooth. He had an explosion of light-brown curls that hung to his shoulders, and an apprehensive expression.
“Aren’t some more of the Crombies meant to come, too?” I asked.
“Aye, they will. I imagine he’s come a wee bit early, in order to have a word in—well, not quite private, but without Hiram breathin’ down his neck—with Fanny. Brave of him,” he added with approval.
“Should I go down? To chaperone?” I asked, watching the boy. He’d paused by the well and was taking a roll of cloth from the bag at his belt.
“Nay, Sassenach. I told my sister what was a-do; she’ll keep an eye on them without scarin’ the shit out of Cyrus.”
“You think I would?”
He laughed and popped the last bite of roll into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. I caught a waft of piccalilli and cheese, and my own stomach gurgled in anticipation.
“I do. D’ye not ken that all the fisher-folk still think ye’re next door to a witch, if not a bean-sithe outright? Even Hiram makes the horns behind your back when he comes near ye.”
I wasn’t at all sure how I felt about that. It was true that I had inadvertently raised Hiram’s mother-in-law from the dead at her funeral; though she’d died more permanently a few minutes later, she’d had time to denounce Hiram for not paying for a sufficiently lavish funeral—but I’d thought the effect might have worn off by now.
“Who was it who tried to build a tower to heaven and came to a bad end?” I asked, dismissing the matter of my public image for the moment and peering over the edge of the platform.
“The men of Babel,” he said, rummaging in his pocket for a scrap of paper and a pencil. “I dinna think they were expecting company, though. Just showin’ off for the sake of it. That sort of thing always gets ye in trouble.”
“If we have enough company to justify this”—I waved at the long expanse of rough flooring—“we’ll already be in trouble.”
He paused and looked at me. He was thin and worn, his skin reddened and burnt across forearms and shoulders, wisps of ruddy hair flying in the wind, and his eyes very blue.
“Aye,” he said mildly. “We will be.”
The gurgling in my stomach changed its tune slightly. The third floor was meant to be attics—in part, for storage, or to provide rooms for a housekeeper, should I ever find one again—but also to provide a place of refuge for tenants who might need it. In case …
Jamie’s attention had shifted, though, and he was craning his neck to look over the edge. He beckoned to me, and I crossed to him. Below, Cyrus Crombie had opened the roll of fabric and had laid out his tools—mallet, chisel, and knife—on the rim of the well. He’d drawn up the bucket and now dipped his fingers into the water and sprinkled it on the tools. I could see that he was saying something, but he wasn’t speaking loudly, and I couldn’t hear above the whine of the wind.
“He’s blessing his tools?” I asked, looking at Jamie, who nodded.
“Aye, of course.” He seemed pleased. “Presbyterians may be heretics, Sassenach, but they still believe in God. I’d best go down now, and bid him welcome.”
54
Moonrise
I WAS STARTLED FROM a solid sleep by Jamie exploding out of bed beside me. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, but as usual, it left me sitting bolt upright amid the quilts, dry-mouthed and completely dazed, heart hammering like a drill press.
He was already down the stairs; I heard the thump of his bare feet on the last few treads—and above that sound, frenzied pounding on the front door.
I shook my head violently and flung off the covers. Him or me? was the first coherent thought that formed out of the fog drifting through my brain. Night alarms like this might be news of violence or misadventure, and sometimes of a nature that required all hands, like a house fire or someone having unexpectedly met with a hunting panther at a spring. More often, though …
I heard Jamie’s voice, and the panic left me. It was low, questioning, with a cadence that meant he was soothing someone. Someone else was talking, in high-pitched agitation, but it wasn’t the sound of disaster.
Me, then. Childbirth or accident? My mind had suddenly resurfaced and was working clearly, even while my body fumbled to and fro, trying to recall what I had done with my grubby stockings. Probably birth, in the middle of the night … But the uneasy thought of fire still lurked on the edge of my thoughts.
There was an obituary with my name on it, and Jamie’s, claiming that we had perished in a fire that consumed our house. The house had burned, and we hadn’t, but any hint of fire raised the hairs on my scalp.
I had a clear picture in my mind of my emergency kit and was grateful that I’d thought to refurbish it just before supper. It was sitting ready on the corner of my surgery table. My mind was less clear about other things; I’d put my stays on backward. I yanked them off, flung them on the bed, and went to splash water on my face, thinking a lot of things I couldn’t say out loud, as I could hear Fanny’s feet now scampering across the landing.
I reached the bottom of the stairs belatedly, to find Fanny with Jamie, who was talking with a young girl not much more than Fanny’s age, standing barefoot, distraught, and wearing nothing more than a threadbare shift. I didn’t recognize her.
“Ach, here’s Herself now,” Jamie said, glancing over his shoulder. He had a hand on the girl’s shoulder, as though to keep her from flying away. She looked as if she might: thin as a broomstraw, with baby-fine blond hair tangled by the wind, and eyes looking anxiously in every direction for possible help.
“This is Agnes Cloudtree, Claire,” he said, nodding toward the girl. “Frances, will ye find a shawl or something to lend the lass, so she doesna freeze?”
“I don’t n-need—” the girl began, but her arms were wrapped around herself and she was shivering so hard that her words shook.
“Her mother’s with child,” Jamie interrupted her, looking at me. “And may be having a bit of trouble with the birth.”
“We c-can’t p-pay—”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said, and, nodding to Jamie, took her in my arms. She was small and bony and very cold, like a half-feathered nestling fallen from a tree.
“It will be all right,” I said softly to her, and smoothed down her hair. “We’ll go to your mother at once. Where do you live?”
She gulped and wouldn’t look up, but was so cold she clung to me for warmth.
“I don’t know. I m-mean—I don’t know how to say. Just—if you can come with me, I can take you back?” She wasn’t Scottish.
I looked at Jamie for information—I’d not heard of the Cloudtrees; they must be recent settlers—but he shook his head, one brow raised. He didn’t know them, either.