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.
She closed her eyes, hearing William and John Cinnamon negotiate their movements, but letting the low voices wash over her like the wind and rain outside. Images crowded the backs of her eyes, the trampled grass of the shoreline trail, the suspicious faces of the Highlanders at the edge of the city, the ever-changing light on the dead man’s face, her brother jerking his chin in exactly the way her—their—father did … dark streaks of water and white streaks of chicken shit on silvered boards in the lanternlight … light … it seemed a thousand years since she’d watched the morning sun glow pink through Angelina Brumby’s small sweet ear … and Roger … at least Roger was alive, wherever he was right now …
She opened her eyes on darkness, feeling a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t fall asleep before you eat something,” William said, sounding amused. “I promised to see you fed, and I shouldn’t like to break my word.”
“Food?” She shook her head, blinking. A sudden glow rose behind William, and she saw the big Indian set down a clay firepot next to the stubby candle he’d just lit. He tilted the candle over the bottom of the upturned chamber pot, then stuck it into the melted wax, holding it until the wax hardened.
“Sorry, I should have asked if you wanted to piss first,” Cinnamon said, looking at her apologetically. “Only there’s no place else to put the candle.”
“No,” she said, and shook her head to clear it. “That’s all right. Is there anything to drink?” She’d drunk almost nothing during the day and evening and felt dry as a winter husk, in spite of the prevailing damp.
Lieutenant Hanson had managed to find several bottles of beer, some slices of cold roast pork, rimmed with grease, a loaf of dry, dark bread, a pot of strong mustard, and a large lump of crumbling cheese. She’d never eaten anything better in her life.
They didn’t talk; the men ate with the same single-mindedness as she did, and, the last crumb finished, she eased herself down flat on the blanket, wrapped her cloak around her, and fell asleep without a word.
She dreamed, caught in the uneasy chill between sleep and waking. She dreamed of men. Men as shadows, slow with grief. Men at work, their sweat running down bare arms, scarred backs … Men walking in ranks, their uniforms black with wet, splashed with mud, no telling who they were … a tiny boy rooting at her breast with great determination, unaware that he was helpless.
She woke every now and then, briefly, but seldom broke the surface of the dream and fell back slowly into sleep, with the scents of men and chickens lending odd, stumpy wings to a man flying upward into the sun …
She woke slowly to the sensation of wings beating in her chest.
“Shit,” she said, but softly, and pressed her palm hard against her breastbone. As usual, this accomplished nothing, and she lay still, breathing as shallowly as possible, hoping it would stop. She was lying on her side, and her brother’s face was a foot from hers, shadowed but visible as he lay asleep on the other pallet.
The rain had stopped, the wind had dropped, and she could hear water dripping from the eaves of the shed. Moonlight filtered through cracks in the boards, flickering on and off as clouds raced past. And the flutter in her chest eased and her heart bumped two or three times, then resumed its usual rhythm.
She took a cautious breath and sat up slowly, not to wake William, but he was dead asleep, long body sprawled limp with exhaustion.
“There’s water,” said a soft voice to her right. “Do you want some?”
“Please.” Her tongue clicked from dryness and she reached toward the vast shadow that must be John Cinnamon. He was sitting on the upturned chamber pot; he leaned forward and put a small canteen into her hand.
The water was fresh and cool, with a pleasant metallic taste from the tin, and she drank thirstily, just managing to stop without draining the canteen entirely. She handed it back, reluctantly, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Thank you.” He made a small grunt in response, and leaned back; the boards of the shed wall creaked in protest. Now she really did need to piss, she realized. Well, no way round it.
She got clumsily to her feet, and Cinnamon rose too, much more gracefully, and seized her by the arm to stop her falling.
“I—just—I’m going outside for a moment.”
“Oh.” He let go her arm, hesitant, and half-turned toward the upside-down chamber pot as though to right it.
“No, it’s all right. The rain’s stopped.” The door of the shed was stuck, swollen with the wet; he reached past her and freed it with a jolt of his palm. Fresh cold air rushed into the shed, and she heard a rustle as William stirred.
“I’ll go first.” Cinnamon whispered in her ear as he somehow slid past her. “You wait ’til I call.”
“But—” But he was gone, leaving the door slightly ajar. She cast a quick glance at William, but he had sunk back into slumber; she could hear a faint snore from the darkness and smiled at the sound.
As quietly as she could, she pushed the ramshackle door open and stuck her head out. The night spread overhead in a silent rush, bright-edged clouds racing past a bright half-moon.
She could hear the drip of water more clearly out here, falling from the leaves of a big tree that stood by the chicken shed. She could hear a steadier splash of water, too, and smiled again. John Cinnamon had taken the opportunity for discreet relief of his own.
She turned in the other direction and retired under the shadow of the big tree, in spite of the drips, where she accomplished her own business without ceremony.
“I’m just here,” she said, emerging in time to forestall Cinnamon’s calling her. He turned from the shed door sharply, then nodded, seeing her.
He made a slight inquisitive motion toward the shed, but she shook her head.
“Not yet. I need a little air.” She tilted back her head and breathed, grateful for the freshness of the night and for the stars appearing and vanishing overhead, vivid in the patches of black night scoured by the passing clouds.
John Cinnamon kept her company, though he didn’t speak. She could feel his presence, large and reassuring.
“Have you known my—my brother long?” she asked at last.
He lifted a shoulder in equivocation.
“Yes and no,” he said. “We spent a winter together in Quebec, when? Maybe three years ago. I was a guide for him, a scout. Then we met again by accident … three months ago? About that.”
“Where did you meet this time?” she asked, curious. “In Canada?”
“Oh. No. In Virginia.” He turned his head at a sudden cracking noise, but then dismissed it. “A broken branch falling. It was a place called Mount Josiah. Do you know it?”
“I’ve heard of it. What brought you there?”
He made a small humming sound, but nodded, deciding to tell her.
“Lord John Grey. Do you know his lordship?”
“Yes, very well,” she said, smiling at the memory. “Was he in Virginia, then?”
“No,” Cinnamon said thoughtfully, “but your brother was.”
“Oh. Was he looking for Lord John as well?”
“I don’t think so.” He stood silent for a moment, then added, “He was looking for other things. Maybe he’ll tell you; I can’t.”
“I see,” she said, wondering. Shocked—and moved—by meeting William, she hadn’t had time to wonder, let alone ask, what had led him to Savannah, why he had resigned his army commission, what he thought about his two fathers … what he thought about her. Who he was.
Her father had said almost nothing about William, and she hadn’t asked. Time enough, she’d felt. But the time had evidently come.
Still, she didn’t want to pry or discomfit John Cinnamon by asking whether—or what—he knew about Jamie Fraser.