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.
They went on without speaking further, the silence between them easier. But when they stopped to camp, just after moonrise, they ate without fire and she slept lightly and woke often, always seeing him near her, in the black shadow of a tree, his rifle by his right hand and a loaded pistol on his left.
22
Ashes, Ashes …
I FOLLOWED ROGER THROUGH a growth of immense poplar trees, their canopies so high above the trail we walked that it felt as though we had come into a quiet church, its rafters twittering with birds, rather than bats. Very suitable, I thought, given our mission.
My part, though, was more cloak-and-dagger than diplomacy. I reached through the slit in my skirt to check my pocket for the third time: three good-sized, knobbly ginger-roots at the bottom, and on top of them, a few packets of dried herbs that one wouldn’t find locally.
My job—assuming that Roger managed to make the introductions before we were both hurled out on our ears—was to engage Mrs. Cunningham in prolonged conversation. First, with effusive thanks for the Jesuit bark (accompanied with muted apologies for Mandy’s outburst), then by presentation of my reciprocal gifts, one at a time, with detailed explanations of their origin, uses, and preparation.
All of which should give Roger enough time to lure Captain Cunningham outside, proper men naturally not wanting to hear two herbalists exchanging thoughts on how to make a clyster that would clear the most stubborn case of constipation. After that, it would be up to Roger. He was walking in front of me, shoulders squared in resolution.
We’d passed out of the poplars and were climbing again, into a rocky zone of fir and hemlock, richly resinous in the sun.
“It smells like Christmas,” Roger said, smiling over his shoulder as he held back a large branch for me. “I suppose we’ll do a family Christmas, won’t we? For Jem and Mandy, I mean; it’s what they’re used to, and they’re old enough to remember.” Christmas, as a holiday, was purely religious among the Scots—celebrating was done on Hogmanay.
“That would be wonderful,” I said, a little wistful. The Christmases of my childhood—the ones I remembered—had mostly taken place in non-Christian countries, and had featured Christmas crackers from England, Christmas pudding in a tin, and one year, a crèche festooned with camel bells and inhabited by Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and the attendant kings, shepherds, and angels, all constructed from some sort of local seedpods wearing tiny clothes.
Making a proper Christmas for Brianna every year had been wonderful; I’d felt as though the festivity was for me, as well—the joy of doing things I’d read or heard about, but never done or seen. Frank, the only one of us who had truly experienced the traditional British Christmas, was the authority on menus, gift wrapping, carol singing, and other arcane lore. From the decorating of the tree until it came down after New Year’s, the house was full of excited secrets, with an underlying sense of peace. To have that in our new house, with everyone together …
“I tell you what, though,” I said, coming back to myself just in time to duck beneath the overhang of a blue spruce. “Don’t mention Santa Claus while you’re talking to Captain Cunningham.”
“I’ll add that to my list of things to avoid,” he assured me gravely.
“What’s number one on your list?”
“Well, normally, it would be you,” he said frankly. “But in the present circumstances, it’s a tie between the Beardsleys and Jamie’s whisky. I mean, the Cunninghams are bound to find out about both—if they don’t know already—but no reason they should hear it from me.”
“Odds on, they know about the Beardsleys,” I said. “Mrs. Cunningham gave me the Jesuit bark, I mean. Someone had to have told her I needed it—and very likely, what for. And no one could resist telling her about Lizzie and her two husbands, if they did.”
“True.” Roger glanced at me, a smile in the corner of his mouth. “I don’t suppose you happen to know if … I mean …”
“Both of them at once?” I laughed. “God knows, but there are three small children in that house, and at least two of them are still sleeping in their parents’ bed. They must be very sound sleepers,” I added thoughtfully, “but just the constraints of space …”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Roger assured me. “And the weather’s still fine out of doors.”
The trail had widened enough for us to walk side by side for a little. “Anyway, I’m amazed that the old lady made such a gesture, after what she said to Brianna and me about witches, but—”
“Well, she did assure all of us—including me and Mandy—that we were going to Hell.”
That made him laugh.
“Have you seen Mandy imitating Mrs. Cunningham doing that?”
“I can’t wait. How much farther is this place?”
“Almost there. Am I still decent?” he asked, brushing maple leaves off the skirt of his waistcoat.
He’d dressed carefully for the occasion, in good breeches, a clean shirt, and a waistcoat with humble wooden buttons, these hastily substituted by Bree for the bronze ones it normally sported. In addition, Brianna had plaited his hair and Jamie—who had much more experience in such matters—had clubbed it for him, neatly folding up the plait and tying it firmly at the nape with Jamie’s own broad black grosgrain ribbon.
“Go with God, a charaid,” he’d told Roger, grinning. Go with God, forsooth …
“Perfect,” I assured him.
“Onward, then.”
I’d never been as far as the Cunninghams’ cabin. It was a new building, and far toward the southern end of the Ridge. We’d been walking for more than an hour, brushing off the leaves—and with them, gnats, wasps, and spiders—that fell in a gentle green rain from the deciduous trees. The air was very warm, though, and I was beginning to wish that I’d packed some form of liquid refreshment when Roger stopped, just short of a clearing.
Brianna had already told me about the whitewashed stones and the shining glass windows. There was also a large vegetable and herb garden laid out behind the house, but it was evident that Mrs. Cunningham hadn’t yet managed to contrive a fence that would keep deer and rabbits out of it. It gave me distress to see the trampled ground, the broken stems, and the stubby tops of turnips, gnawed and denuded of their greens—but on the bright side, it might make the items in my pocket more desirable.
I took off my hat and hastily tidied my hair, insofar as such a thing was possible after walking four miles on a hot day.
The door opened before I could put my hat back on.
Captain Cunningham started visibly at sight of us. If he’d been expecting anyone, it wasn’t us. My heart sped up a little as I rehearsed my opening lines of gratitude.
“Good afternoon, Captain!” Roger called, smiling. “I’ve brought my mother-in-law, Mrs. Fraser, to call on Mrs. Cunningham.”
The captain’s mouth opened slightly as his gaze shifted to me. He didn’t have a poker face, and I could see him trying to reconcile whatever his mother had been saying about me with my appearance—which was as respectable as I could make it.
“I—she—” he began. Roger had taken my arm and was ushering me quickly up the path, saying something cordial about the weather, but the captain wasn’t attending.
“I mean … good afternoon, mum.” He gave me a jerky bob of the head as I came to a stop and curtsied in front of him.
“I am afraid my mother’s not in,” he said, eyeing me warily. “I’m sorry.”