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.
Five minutes’ work gave him the name: Elmsworth, Wilkins Corner, Virginia.
“We’ll send William,” he said to Hal, with as much confidence as he could manage. “Don’t worry. He’ll bring her back.”
WILLIAM FELT AS though he’d been struck in the chest by a cannonball. His mouth opened and closed—he could feel it, automatic as the wooden jaws of a marionette—but nothing came out for a moment.
“That’s very terrible,” he managed at last, in a strangled croak. “Sit down, Papa. You’re going to fall.”
His father did look as though someone had cut his strings. Dead white, and his hand trembled when William pushed a glass of brandy into it. He looked round the inside of the little shed William shared with John Cinnamon as though he’d never seen it before, then sat down and drank the brandy.
“Well,” he said, coughed, and cleared his throat. “Well.”
“Not all that well,” William said, peering at him. “How’s Uncle Hal?” His own sense of shock was beginning to subside, though there was still an iron weight in his chest.
“As you might expect,” his father said, and took a deep, wet breath. “Off his head,” he added more clearly, having taken another large swallow. “Wanting to ride off directly and fetch Dottie himself. Not that I blame him.” He took another. “I want to do that, too. But I doubt that Sir Henry would see it that way. War, you know.”
War, indeed. Half the regiment was set to move on Tuesday, to join Clinton’s troops at Charles Town. The weight had shifted lower in his body, and he could breathe now.
“I’ll go, of course,” William said, and in a softer tone, added, “Don’t worry, Papa. I’ll bring her back.”
99
Is. 6:8
“I’M SORRY,” ROGER SAID at last. “I had to …”
“It’s all right,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “You’re back. That’s all that matters.”
“Well, maybe not all that matters,” he said, the ghost of laughter in his voice. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday and I smell like a rubbish fire.”
His stomach growled loudly in agreement and she laughed, letting go of him.
“Come on,” she said, turning back to her horse. “When we get to the house, just say hi to the kids and wash. I’ll go and tell Henrike that we need food—”
“A lot of food.”
“—a lot of food. Go!”
She found both Henrike and Angelina in the kitchen with Cook, buzzing excitedly. They pounced on her at once, wide-eyed and full of questions. Had Mr. MacKenzie seen the battle? Was he wounded? What had he said about the fighting? Had he seen General Prévost there, or Lord John?
She felt as though Angelina had punched her in the stomach. She knew Lord John had been in the battle, with his brother. She just hadn’t thought through what that meant. Of course they had fought. Whether either of the Greys had fired a gun or drawn a sword, they had undoubtedly given orders, helped light the fuse that had blown up and killed American besiegers.
She heard Lord John’s voice in memory, light and reassuring: “We are His Majesty’s army. We know how to do this sort of thing.”
All the blood had left her face and she felt cold and clammy. It hadn’t occurred to her that they would think Roger had been with the British army. But of course they would.
It hadn’t occurred to her that men she knew, liked, admired had killed other men for whom she felt the same, just days ago. She felt the cold, stinking darkness of the tent where Casimir Pulaski lay dead by lanternlight, and her right hand clenched, feeling the aching muscles and the film of sweat between the pencil and her skin as she’d sketched through the night, capturing sorrow, grief, rage, and love as the soldiers came to say farewell.
Pozegnanie.
She managed to ask for food to be sent, for someone to arrange a bath for Roger, and went up to her room, placing each foot carefully on the steps as she climbed the stairs. Roger’s discarded clothes lay on the floor by the window, and the acrid smell of war hung in the air.
Gingerly, she gathered up the remains of Roger’s black suit. It was filthy, coat and breeches mud-spattered from shoulder to knee, and gray sand sifted from the skirts when she shook it. There was a large, rough patch on the breast of the coat where something had dried, nearly the same color as the black broadcloth, but when she dabbed it with a wet rag, the cloth came away red and with a faint, meaty smell of blood.
There was something small and hard in the breast pocket. She hooked a finger inside and pulled out a brownish lump that proved to be a tooth, split, carious, and with half its root missing.
With a small huff of distaste, she set it on the table and returned to the coat—there had been something else in the pocket, a paper of some kind.
It was a small note, folded once and stuck together with the blood that had saturated the coat, but the blood had dried and she was able to separate the folds by delicate prying, flaking away the blood with the blade of her penknife.
She shouldn’t have been surprised; she’d smelled the powder smoke when she’d embraced him. Blood was a good deal more immediate, though. He hadn’t just been near the battle, he’d been in it, and she wasn’t sure whether to be more angry or more scared at the thought.
“What’s wrong with you?” she muttered under her breath. “Why, for God’s sake?”
She’d got the paper halfway open—far enough to see her own name. Very carefully, she broke the last of the dried blood and spread the stained and crumpled paper out on the table.
Dearest Bree,
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be here, but I have the strongest feeling that here is where I should be. It wasn’t quite “Whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?”—but something close, and so was my answer.
Slowly, she sat down on the bed, with its clean, safe counterpane and spotless pillows, and read it again. She sat for a few minutes, breathing slowly, deeply, calming herself.
She was by no means a Bible scholar, but she knew this passage; it turned up at least once a year in the readings at Mass, and the young priest who had taught religion at her school had used it when talking to the eighth-graders about vocations.
It was from Isaiah, the story in which the prophet is awakened from sleep by an angel, who touches a hot coal to his lips to cleanse him, to make him capable of speaking God’s word. She thought she knew what came next, but she rose and went down the quiet hallway to the library, where she knew she’d seen a Bible in the shelves. It was there, a handsome book bound in cool black leather, and she sat down and found what she was looking for with no trouble.
Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 8:
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
She could feel her lips moving, repeating “send me,” but they moved silently and the words rang only in her own ears.
Send me.
She sat down, the open book heavy on her knee. Her hands were sweating, but her fingers were cold, and she fumbled, turning the page.
Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered. Roger had heard that call, and he’d answered it. She swallowed painfully, past the lump in her throat.