Slowly, he turned round, to see that he had been captured by a pair of old women, short and squat as trolls. One of them, the one with the gun, was smoking a pipe; it was her tobacco he’d smelled. Seeing the shock and disgust on his features, she lifted one corner of a seamed mouth while keeping a firm grip on the pipestem with the stumps of brown-stained teeth.
“ ’andsome is as ’andsome does,” she observed, looking him up and down. “Still, no need to waste shot.”
“Madam,” he said, collecting himself and trying for charm. “I believe you mistake me. I am a soldier of the King, and—”
Both of them burst into laughter, creaking like a pair of rusty hinges.
“Wouldn’t never’ve guessed,” the pipe-smoker said, grinning round the stem of her pipe. “Thought ’ee was a jakesman, sure!”
“Hush up, sonny,” her sister interrupted his further attempt to speak. “We bain’t going to harm ’ee, so long as ’ee stands still and keeps mum.” She eyed him, taking in the damage.
“Been in the wars, have ’ee?” she said, not without sympathy. Not waiting for an answer, she pushed him down onto a rock, this liberally crusted with mussels and dripping weed, from which he deduced his closeness to the shore.
He didn’t speak. Not for fear of the old women, but because there was nothing to say.
He sat, listening to the sounds of the exodus. No idea how many men might be involved, as he had no notion how long it had been going on. Nothing useful was said; there were only the breathless half-heard exchanges of men working, the mutter of waiting, here and there the sort of muffled laughter born of nervousness.
The fog was lifting off the water. He could see them now—not more than a hundred yards away, a tiny fleet of rowboats, dories, here and there a fishing ketch, moving slowly to and fro across water smooth as glass—and a steadily dwindling crowd of men on shore, keeping their hands on their guns, glancing continually over their shoulders, alert for pursuit.
Little did they know, he reflected bitterly.
At the moment, he had no concern for his own future; the humiliation of being an impotent witness as the entire American army escaped under his nose—and the further thought of being obliged to return and recount this occurrence to General Howe—was so galling that he didn’t care whether the old women had it in mind to cook and eat him.
Focused as he was on the scene on the beach, it didn’t occur to him at once that if he could now see the Americans, he was himself visible to them. In fact, so intent were the Continentals and militiamen on their retreat that none of them did notice him, until one man turned away from the retreat, seeming to search the upper reaches of the shore for something.
The man stiffened, then, with a brief glance back at his oblivious companions, came purposefully up across the shingle, eyes fixed on William.
“What’s this, Mother?” he asked. He was dressed in the uniform of a Continental officer, built short and wide, much like the two women, but a good deal bigger, and while his face was outwardly calm, there were calculations going on behind his bloodshot eyes.
“Been fishing,” said the pipe-smoker. “Caught this wee redfish, but we think we’ll throw ’im back.”
“Aye? Maybe not just yet.”
William had stiffened with the man’s appearance, and stared up at him, keeping his own face as grim as possible.
The man glanced up at the shredding fog behind William.
“More like you at home, are there, boy?”
William sat silent. The man sighed, drew back his fist, and hit William in the stomach. He doubled up, fell off the rock, and lay retching on the sand. The man grasped him by the collar and hauled him up, as though he weighed nothing.
“Answer me, lad. I haven’t much time, and ’ee don’t want me to be hasty in my asking.” He spoke mildly, but touched the knife at his belt.
William wiped his mouth, as well as he could, on his shoulder and faced the man, eyes burning. All right, he thought, and felt a certain calmness descend on him. If this is where I die, at least I’ll die for something. The thought was almost a relief.
The pipe-smoker’s sister put paid to the dramatics, though, poking his interrogator in the ribs with her musket.
“If there was more, sister and I’d’a heard ’em long since,” she said, mildly disgusted. “They ain’t quiet, sojers.”
“True, that,” the pipe-smoker agreed, and paused to remove her pipe long enough to spit. “This ’un’s only lost, ’ee can see as much. ’Ee can see he won’t talk to ’ee, either.” She grinned familiarly at William, displaying one remaining yellow dogtooth. “Rather die than speak, eh, lad?”
William inclined his head a stiff inch, and the women giggled. No other word for it: they giggled at him.
“Get on with ’ee," the aunt told the man, waving a hand at the beach behind him. “They’ll leave without ’ee.”
The man didn’t look at her—didn’t take his eyes off William’s. After a moment, though, he nodded briefly and turned on his heel.
William felt one of the women behind him; something sharp touched his wrist, and the twine they’d bound him with parted. He wanted to rub his wrists, but didn’t.
“Go, boy,” the pipe-smoker said, almost gently. “Before someun else sees ’ee and gets ideas.”
He left.
At the top of the beach, he paused and looked back. The old women had vanished, but the man was sitting in the stern of a rowboat, drawing rapidly away from the shore, now nearly empty. The man was staring at him.
William turned away. The sun was finally visible, a pale orange circle burning through the haze. It was coming down the sky now, early afternoon. He turned inland and struck southwest, but felt eyes on his back for a long time after the shore had fallen out of sight behind him.
His stomach was sore, and the only thought in his mind was what Captain Ramsay had said to him. Heard of a lady called Cassandra?
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Lallybroch
Inverness-shire, Scotland
September 1980
NOT ALL OF the letters were dated, but some were. Bree sorted gingerly through the half-dozen on top, and with a sense of being poised at the top of a roller coaster, chose one with 2 March, A.D. 1777 written across the flap.
“I think this one’s next.” She had trouble taking a full breath. “It’s—thin. Short.”
It was, no more than a page and a half, but the reason for its brevity was clear; her father had written the whole of it. His awkward, determined writing wrung her heart.
“We are never letting a teacher try to make Jemmy write with his right hand,” she said fiercely to Roger. “Never!”
“Right,” he said, surprised and a little amused at her outburst. “Or left, if you prefer.”
2 March, Anno Domini 1777
Fraser’s Ridge, colony of North Carolina
My dearest daughter—
We prepare now to remove to Scotland. Not forever, or even for long. My Life—our Lives—lie here in America. And in all Honesty, I should greatly prefer to be stung to Death by Hornets than set foot on board another Ship; I try not to dwell upon the Prospect. But there are two chief Concerns which compel me to this Decision.
Had I not the Gift of Knowledge that you and your Mother and Roger Mac have brought me, I would likely think—as the great Majority of People in the Colony do think—that the Continental Congress will not last six Months, and Washington’s Army less than that. I have spoken myself with a man from Cross Creek, who was discharged (honourably) from the Continental army on account of a festering Wound in the Arm—your Mother has of course dealt with this; he screamed a great Deal and I was pressed into service to sit upon him—who tells me that Washington has no more than a few thousand regular Soldiers, all very poor in Equipment, Clothes, and Arms, and all owed Money, which they are unlikely to receive. Most of his men are Militia, enlisted on short Contracts of two or three Months, and already melting away, needing to return Home for the Planting.
But I do know. At the same Time, I cannot be sure how the Things that I know will come about. Am I meant to be in some Way Part of this? Should I hold back, will that somehow damage or prevent the Success of our Desires? I often wish I could discuss these Questions with your Husband, though Presbyterian that he is, I think he would find them even more unsettling than I do. And in the end, it does not matter. I am what God has made me, and must deal with the Times in which He has placed me.
While I have not yet lost the Faculties of Sight or Hearing, nor even Control of my Bowels, I am not a young Man. I have a Sword, and a Rifle, and can use them both—but I also have a printing Press, and can use that to much greater Effect; it does not escape me that one can wield Sword or Musket only upon one Enemy at a time, while Words may be employed upon any Number.
Your Mother—doubtless contemplating the Prospect of my being seasick for several Weeks in her immediate Vicinity—suggests that I might enter Business with Fergus, making use of L’Oignon’s Press, rather than travel to Scotland to retrieve my own.
I considered this, but I cannot in Conscience expose Fergus and his Family to Danger by making use of their Press for such Purposes as I intend. Theirs is one of only a few Presses in operation between Charleston and Norfolk; even were I to do my Printing with the utmost Secrecy, Suspicion would focus upon them in short order—New Bern is a Hotbed of Loyalist Sentiment, and the Origins of my pamphleteering would become known almost immediately.
Beyond Consideration for Fergus and his Family, I think there may be some Benefit in visiting Edinburgh in order to retrieve my own Press. I had a varied Acquaintance there; some may have escaped Prison or the Noose.
The second—and most important—Consideration that compels me to Scotland, though, is your Cousin Ian. Years ago, I swore to his Mother—upon the Memory of our own Mother—that I would bring him Home to her, and this I mean to do, though the Man I bring back to Lallybroch is not the Lad who left there. God alone knows what they will make of each other, Ian and Lallybroch—and God has a most peculiar Sense of Humor. But if he is to go back at all, it must be now.
The Snow is melting; Water drips from the Eaves all Day, and Icicles reach from the Roof of the Cabin nearly to the Ground by Morning. Within a few Weeks, the Roads will be clear enough for Travel. It seems strange to ask that you pray for the Safety of a Voyage which will have been long completed by the Time you learn of it—-for good or ill—but I ask it, nonetheless. Tell Roger Mac that I think God takes no account of Time. And kiss the Children for me.
Your most affectionate Father,
JF
Roger sat back a little, eyebrows raised, and glanced at her.
“The French Connection, you think?”
“The what?” She frowned over his shoulder, saw where his finger marked the text. “Where he’s talking about his friends in Edinburgh?”
“Aye. Were not a good many of his Edinburgh acquaintances smugglers?”
“That’s what Mama said.”
“Hence the remark about nooses. And where were they smuggling things from, mostly?”