“Well,” Greene said again, and exhaled, settling his shoulders. “I must tell you, General, that I no longer consider myself a Friend, though I was indeed raised in that sect.” He shot Jamie a sharp look. “And I must also tell you that the cause of my departure was a mislike of their narrow-minded, superstitious ways. If your nephew means to turn Quaker, sir, I’d recommend you do your best to dissuade him.”
“Och. Well, that’s part of the difficulty, I gather,” Jamie replied equably. “He doesna mean to turn Quaker himself. And I think that a wise decision; he isna suited for it at all.”
Greene relaxed a little at that and went so far as to smile, if wryly.
“I’m glad to hear it. But he has no objection to his wife remaining a Friend?”
“I think he’s better sense than to suggest otherwise.”
That made Greene laugh. “Perhaps he’ll manage marriage well enough, then.”
“Oh, he’ll make a bonny husband for the lass, I’ve nay doubt. It’s the getting them wed that seems a difficulty.”
“Ah. Yes.” Greene glanced round the homestead, wiping his wet face with a wadded handkerchief. “That might in fact be very difficult, if the young woman . . . well. Let me think for a moment. In the meantime . . . the well’s good, but we can’t store powder here; there’s not much roof left, and I’m told this weather often presages thunderstorms.”
“There’s likely a root cellar at the back,” Jamie suggested.
There was. The door had gone and a tangle of spindly, pallid vines had sprouted from a rotted sack of potatoes abandoned in the corner, tendrils crawling in slow desperation toward the light.
“It’ll do,” Greene decided, and made a penciled note in the small book he carried everywhere. “Let’s move on, then.”
They let the horses drink, poured more water over themselves, and rode on, gently steaming. Greene was not a chatterer, and there had been no conversation for a mile or two, when he finally reached a conclusion of his mental processes.
“The principal thing to bear in mind regarding Friends,” he said, without preliminary, “is that they depend very much upon one another’s company and opinion—often to the exclusion of the world outside their meetings.” He shot Jamie a glance. “The young woman—is your nephew known to her meeting?”
“Mmphm,” Jamie said. “As I understand from her brother, they were both put out of their meeting—in a small place in Virginia when he decided to become a surgeon in the Continental army. Or perhaps he was put out, and she merely went with him; I dinna ken whether it makes a difference.”
“Oh, I see.” Greene plucked the wet shirt away from his body in hopes of admitting a little air to his skin, but it was a vain hope. The air lay thick as a woolen blanket on the simmering countryside. “A ‘fighting Quaker,’ as they call it?”
“No, he willna take up arms,” Jamie assured Greene, “but apparently his merely being connected with the army offended his meeting.” Greene snorted in what appeared to be a personal way, and Jamie cleared his throat. “In fact, Denzell Hunter—Dr. Hunter—also is engaged to be married. Though his path may be somewhat smoother, in that his bride has become a Friend herself.”
“Has she a home meeting?” Greene asked sharply. Jamie shook his head.
“No, it appeared to be a . . . private event. The conversion, I mean. I am told that Quakers dinna have either clergy or ritual . . . ?” He left that hanging delicately, and Greene snorted again.
“Nor do they. But I assure you, General, there is nothing truly private in a Friend’s life—certainly no spiritual matter. My own father opposed reading, as being a practice likely to separate one from God, and when as a young man I not only read but began to collect works on military strategy, in which I had an interest, I was brought before an examination committee from our meeting and subjected to such questions as to—well, as I say, I am no longer a member of that sect.”
He blew out his lips and made small rumbling noises for a bit, frowning at the road ahead—though Jamie saw that, even in his preoccupation, Greene was taking note of their surroundings, with an eye to logistics.
He himself had become aware of a certain vibration in the air and wondered if Greene sensed it. Not quite noise, it was a disturbance that he knew well: a large body of men and horses, too far away to see their dust—but there. They’d found the British army. He slowed a little, looking carefully at the trees ahead in case of British scouts—for the British must surely know by now that they were pursued.
Greene’s hearing was less acute, though, or perhaps he was only preoccupied, for he glanced at Jamie in surprise, though he slowed, as well. Jamie raised a hand to stop him speaking and lifted his chin—there was a rider coming toward them, following the road. The sound of hooves was audible, and Jamie’s own mount flung up his head and whickered with interest, nostrils flaring.
Both men had come armed; Greene set a hand on the musket balanced across his saddle. Jamie left his rifle in its sling but checked the priming of the pistols in his saddle holsters. Awkward to fire a long gun from horseback.
The rider was coming slowly, though; Jamie’s hand on the pistol’s grip relaxed, and he shook his head at Greene. They reined up, waiting, and a moment later the rider came in view.
“Ian!”
“Uncle Jamie!” Ian’s face blossomed with relief at sight of him, and no wonder. He was dressed like a Mohawk, in buckskin leggings and calico shirt, with feathers in his hair, and a long, hairy gray carcass lay across his saddlebow, blood dripping slowly from it down the horse’s leg.