Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

AFTER BREAKFAST AND a further brief discussion with Corporal Jackson, Jamie wrote a note and sent Jem up the hill to Captain Cunningham to deliver it. And two hours later, Lieutenants Bembridge and Esterhazy appeared at our door. I didn’t know what either the captain or Mrs. Cunningham had said to them, but neither one was battered, and when seen, they appeared to be working—somewhat uneasily—with each other. Just now, they both appeared rather nonplussed, and announced that they had come to escort our prisoner—er, guest—to the captain’s cabin. The captain had agreed—as the leading Loyalist on Fraser’s Ridge—to offer Corporal Jackson refuge until such time as he could be reunited with his company.

“He can’t walk,” Jamie advised them. “I’ll lend ye a mule.”

“He can’t ride, either,” I said. “You’ll need to make a travois for him.”

While the men went out to do this, I checked the corporal’s condition—feverish, but not a high fever, a certain amount of pain and some redness, but—I sniffed his leg discreetly—no overt infection, and I wrote up a medical note for Elspeth Cunningham, with a description of the injury and notes on care of the plaster cast. I offered him elevenses, which he refused, but he did drink another medicinal posset, involving an egg, cream, sugar, extract of willow bark, black cohosh, and meadowsweet, a good slug of whisky—and enough laudanum to fell a horse.

“You’re sure you want to go?” I asked, watching as he sipped the posset. “We’re happy to take care of you until you’re healed enough to rejoin your company.”

The corporal was heavy-eyed and his face was flushed, but he managed a smile.

“It’s bettah I go, madam. This Cap’n Cunningham, he can send to Cap’n Stevens, he will make provision for me to go to Charlotte.”

I shook my head dubiously. He was doing well enough, but being dragged uphill for two miles behind a mule while suffering from a broken leg wasn’t anything I’d wish on an enemy, let alone an innocent man. Still, it was his choice. I took my amulet bag from round my neck and opened it. The usual scent wafted out as I dipped my finger into it, earthy and unidentifiable but with an odd sense of reassurance.

“Well, let me give you back your High John the Conqueror,” I said, smiling as I plucked it out. “I hope you won’t need it on your journey, but just in case …”

“Oh, no, madam.” He waved a slow hand at me, pushing it away. “Its magic remain with me ’cause you have healed me with it—but it is part of your magic now.”

“Oh. Well … thank you, Mr. Jackson. I’ll take good care of it.” The hard little root was smooth and glossy, and my fingers caressed it briefly as I tucked it back into the amulet and tied the neck. He nodded approvingly, yawned suddenly and shook his head, then upended the posset cup and drained it. He put out his free hand suddenly, his fingers curling in invitation. I took it, automatically putting a finger on his wrist—pulse a little fast, but strong, and while his hand was very warm, it wasn’t alarming …

Then I realized that he was saying something, soft and slurred, but not English.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I bless you,” he said, blinking drowsily. He smiled and his fingers loosened and slid free. A moment later, he was asleep.

When we had seen the travois party safely off, and the girls and Jem had all gone off on their own errands, Jamie and I returned to the kitchen for a second breakfast.

He sat down gingerly, grimacing a little, but shook his head at my inquiring look.

“I’ll do. But I’ll maybe have a dram wi’ my parritch.” I looked at him narrowly.

“Have two,” I suggested, and he didn’t argue.

The big black-iron spider was hot in its bed of glowing charcoal, and I laid down several fresh rashers of bacon and broke the last of the eggs from the root cellar one at a time into a bowl to check that they were good before I dropped them into the sizzling fat. I could feel the house gradually settling back around us as the sense of intrusion and disruption faded. Still, the inside of my nose prickled at the smoke from the frying bacon, and the remembered smell of fire was sharp at the back of my throat.

“What do you think Ulysses will do now?” I asked, setting down the plates. My voice was steady, but my hands weren’t; the spoon twitched in my fingers as I shook salt onto the eggs and sent a spray of white crystals over the table.

Jamie’s eyes were focused on the table, but I thought he hadn’t even seen the scattered salt. He’d heard me, though, and after a moment he sat up straight and nodded, as though to himself.

“Kill me,” he said, with a sigh. “Or try to,” he added, seeing my face. The corner of his mouth curled up. “Dinna fash, Sassenach. I dinna mean to let him.”

“Oh, good,” I said, and he smiled, though it was a wry one. The bench creaked with his weight as he leaned forward and brushed the spilled salt neatly into the palm of his hand. He tossed a pinch of it over his left shoulder and carefully poured the rest back into the saltcellar.

I began to relax enough to feel hungry and picked up my fork.