62
ABANDAWE
“You can take the Governor’s pinnace; that’s small, but it’s seaworthy.” Grey fumbled through the drawer of his desk. “I’ll write an order for the dockers to hand it over to you.”
“Aye, we’ll need the boat—I canna risk the Artemis; as she’s Jared’s—but I think we’d best steal it, John.” Jamie’s brows were drawn together in a frown. “I wouldna have ye be involved wi’ me in any visible way, aye? You’ll be having trouble enough with things, without that.”
Grey smiled unhappily. “Trouble? Yes, you might call it trouble, with four plantation houses burnt, and over two hundred slaves gone—God knows where! But I vastly doubt that anyone will take notice of my social acquaintance, under the circumstances. Between fear of the Maroons and fear of the Chinaman, the whole island is in such a panic that a mere smuggler is the most negligible of trivialities.”
“It’s a great relief to me to be thought trivial,” Jamie said, very dryly. “Still, we’ll steal the boat. And if we’re taken, ye’ve never heard my name or seen my face, aye?”
Grey stared at him, a welter of emotions fighting for mastery of his features, amusement, fear, and anger among them.
“Is that right?” he said at last. “Let you be taken, watch them hang you, and keep quiet about it—for fear of smirching my reputation? For God’s sake, Jamie, what do you take me for?”
Jamie’s mouth twitched slightly.
“For a friend, John,” he said. “And if I’ll take your friendship—and your damned boat!—then you’ll take mine, and keep quiet. Aye?”
The Governor glared at him for a moment, lips pressed tight, but then his shoulders sagged in defeat.
“I will,” he said shortly. “But I should regard it as a great personal favor if you would endeavor not to be captured.”
Jamie rubbed a knuckle across his mouth, hiding a smile.
“I’ll try verra hard, John.”
The Governor sat down, wearily. There were deep circles under his eyes, and his impeccable linen was wilted; obviously he had not changed his clothes from the day before.
“All right. I don’t know where you’re going, and it’s likely better I don’t. But if you can, keep out of the sealanes north of Antigua. I sent a boat this morning, to ask for as many men as the barracks there can supply, marines and sailors both. They’ll be heading this way by the day after tomorrow at the latest, to guard the town and harbor against the escaped Maroons in case of an outright rebellion.”
I caught Jamie’s eye, and raised one brow in question, but he shook his head, almost imperceptibly. We had told the Governor of the uprising on the Yallahs River, and the escape of the slaves—something he had heard about from other sources, anyway. We had not told him what we had seen later that night, lying to under cover of a tiny cove, sails taken down to hide their whiteness.
The river was dark as onyx, but with a fugitive gleam from the broad expanse of water. We had heard them coming, and had time to hide before the ship came down upon us; the beating of drums and a savage exultation of many voices echoing through the river valley as the Bruja sailed past us, carried by the downward current. The bodies of the pirates no doubt lay somewhere upriver, left to rot peacefully among the frangipani and cedar.
The escaped slaves of the Yallahs River had not gone into the mountains of Jamaica, but out to sea, presumably to join Bouassa’s followers on Hispaniola. The townsfolk of Kingston had nothing to fear from the escaped slaves—but it was a good deal better that the Royal Navy should concentrate their attention here than on Hispaniola, where we were bound.
Jamie rose to take our leave, but Grey stopped him.
“Wait. Will you not require a safe place for your—for Mrs. Fraser?” He didn’t look at me, but at Jamie, eyes steady. “I should be honored if you would entrust her to my protection. She could stay here, in the Residence, until you return. No one would trouble her—or even need to know she was here.”
Jamie hesitated, but there was no gentle way to phrase it.
“She must go with me, John,” he said. “There is no choice about it; she must.”
Grey’s glance flickered to me, then away, but not before I had seen the look of jealousy in his eyes. I felt sorry for him, but there was nothing I could say; no way to tell him the truth.
“Yes,” he said, and swallowed noticeably. “I see. Quite.”
Jamie held out a hand to him. He hesitated for a moment, but then took it.
“Good luck, Jamie,” he said, voice a little husky. “God go with you.”
* * *
Fergus had been somewhat more difficult to deal with. He had insisted absolutely on accompanying us, offering argument after argument, and arguing the more vehemently when he found that the Scottish smugglers would sail with us.
“You take them, but you will go without me?” Fergus’s face was alive with indignation.
“I will,” Jamie said firmly. “The smugglers are widowers or bachelors, all, but you’re a marrit man.” He glanced pointedly at Marsali, who stood watching the discussion, her face drawn with anxiety. “I thought she was oweryoung to be wed, and I was wrong; but I know she’s oweryoung to be widowed. You’ll stay.” And he turned aside, the matter settled.
* * *
It was full dark when we set sail in Grey’s pinnace, a thirty-foot, single-decked sloop, leaving two docksmen bound and gagged in the boathouse behind us. It was a small, single-masted ship, bigger than the fishing boat in which we had traveled up the Yallahs River, but barely large enough to qualify for the designation “ship.”
Nonetheless, she seemed seaworthy enough, and we were soon out of Kingston Harbor, heeling over in a brisk evening breeze, on our way toward Hispaniola.
The smugglers handled the sailing among them, leaving Jamie, Lawrence and I to sit on one of the long benches along the rail. We chatted desultorily of this and that, but after a time, fell silent, absorbed in our own thoughts.
Jamie yawned repeatedly, and finally, at my urging, consented to lie down upon the bench, his head resting in my lap. I was myself strung too tightly to want to sleep.
Lawrence too was wakeful, staring upward into the sky, hands folded behind his head.
“There is moisture in the air tonight,” he said, nodding upward toward the silver sliver of the crescent moon. “See the haze about the moon? It may rain before dawn; unusual for this time of year.”
Talk about the weather seemed sufficiently boring to soothe my jangled nerves. I stroked Jamie’s hair, thick and soft under my hand.
“Is that so?” I said. “You and Jamie both seem able to read the weather from the sky. All I know is the old bit about ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at morning, sailor take warning.’ I didn’t notice what color the sky was tonight, did you?”
Lawrence laughed comfortably. “Rather a light purple,” he said. “I cannot say whether it will be red in the morning, but it is surprising how frequently such signs are reliable. But of course there is a scientific principle involved—the refraction of light from the moisture in the air, just as I observed presently of the moon.”
I lifted my chin, enjoying the breeze that lifted the heavy hair that fell on my neck.
“But what about odd phenomena? Supernatural things?” I asked him. “What about things where the rules of science seem not to apply?” I am a scientist, I heard him say in memory, his slight accent seeming only to reinforce his matter-of-factness. I don’t believe in ghosts.
“Such as what, these phenomena?”
“Well—” I groped for a moment, then fell back on Geilie’s own examples. “People who have bleeding stigmata, for example? Astral travel? Visions, supernatural manifestations…odd things, that can’t be explained rationally.”
Lawrence grunted, and settled his bulk more comfortably on the bench beside me.
“Well, I say it is the place of science only to observe,” he said. “To seek cause where it may be found, but to realize that there are many things in the world for which no cause shall be found; not because it does not exist, but because we know too little to find it. It is not the place of science to insist on explanation—but only to observe, in hopes that the explanation will manifest itself.”
“That may be science, but it isn’t human nature,” I objected. “People go on wanting explanations.”
“They do.” He was becoming interested in the discussion; he leaned back, folding his hands across his slight paunch, in a lecturer’s attitude. “It is for this reason that a scientist constructs hypotheses—suggestions for the cause of an observation. But a hypothesis must never be confused with an explanation—with proof.
“I have seen a great many things which might be described as peculiar. Fish-falls, for instance, where a great many fish—all of the same species, mind you, all the same size—fall suddenly from a clear sky, over dry land. There would appear to be no rational cause for this—and yet, is it therefore suitable to attribute the phenomenon to supernatural interference? On the face of it, does it seem more likely that some celestial intelligence should amuse itself by flinging shoals of fish at us from the sky, or that there is some meteorological phenomenon—a waterspout, a tornado, something of the kind?—that while not visible to us, is still in operation? And yet”—his voice became more pensive—“why—and how!—might a natural phenomenon such as a waterspout remove the heads—and only the heads—of all the fish?”
“Have you seen such a thing yourself?” I asked, interested, and he laughed.
“There speaks a scientific mind!” he said, chuckling. “The first thing a scientist asks—how do you know? Who has seen it? Can I see it myself? Yes, I have seen such a thing—three times, in fact, though in one case the precipitation was of frogs, rather than fish.
“Were you near a seashore or a lake?”
“Once near a shore, once near a lake—that was the frogs—but the third time, it took place far inland; some twenty miles from the nearest body of water. And yet the fish were of a kind I have seen only in the deep ocean. In none of the cases did I see any sort of disturbance of the upper air—no clouds, no great wind, none of the fabled spouts of water that rise from the sea into the sky, assuredly. And yet the fish fell; so much is a fact, for I have seen them.”
“And it isn’t a fact if you haven’t seen it?” I asked dryly.
He laughed in delight, and Jamie stirred, murmuring against my thigh. I smoothed his hair, and he relaxed into sleep again.
“It may be so; it may not. But a scientist could not say, could he? What is it the Christian Bible says—‘Blest are they who have not seen, but have believed’?”
“That’s what it says, yes.”
“Some things must be accepted as fact without provable cause.” He laughed again, this time without much humor. “As a scientist who is also a Jew, I have perhaps a different perspective on such phenomena as stigmata—and the idea of resurrection of the dead, which a very great proportion of the civilized world accepts as fact beyond question. And yet, this skeptical view is not one I could even breathe, to anyone save yourself, without grave danger of personal harm.”
“Doubting Thomas was a Jew, after all,” I said, smiling. “To begin with.”
“Yes; and only when he ceased to doubt, did he become a Christian—and a martyr. One could argue that it was surety that killed him, no?” His voice was heavy with irony. “There is a great difference between those phenomena which are accepted on faith, and those which are proved by objective determination, though the cause of both may be equally ‘rational’ once known. And the chief difference is this: that people will treat with disdain such phenomena as are proved by the evidence of the senses, and commonly experienced—while they will defend to the death the reality of a phenomenon which they have neither seen nor experienced.
“Faith is as powerful a force as science,” he concluded, voice soft in the darkness, “—but far more dangerous.”
We sat quietly for a time, looking over the bow of the tiny ship, toward the thin slice of darkness that divided the night, darker than the purple glow of the sky, or the silver-gray sea. The black island of Hispaniola, drawing inexorably closer.
“Where did you see the headless fish?” I asked suddenly, and was not surprised to see the faint inclination of his head toward the bow.
“There,” he said. “I have seen a good many odd things among these islands—but perhaps more there than anywhere else. Some places are like that.”
I didn’t speak for several minutes, pondering what might lie ahead—and hoping that Ishmael had been right in saying that it was Ian whom Geillis had taken with her to Abandawe. A thought occurred to me—one that had been lost or pushed aside during the events of the last twenty-four hours.
“Lawrence—the other Scottish boys. Ishmael told us he saw twelve of them, including Ian. When you were searching the plantation…did you find any trace of the others?”
He drew in his breath sharply, but did not answer at once. I could feel him, turning over words in his mind, trying to decide how to say what the chill in my bones had already told me.
The answer, when it came, was not from Lawrence, but from Jamie.
“We found them,” he said softly, from the darkness. His hand rested on my knee, and squeezed gently. “Dinna ask more, Sassenach—for I willna tell ye.”
I understood. Ishmael had to have been right; it must be Ian with Geilie, for Jamie could bear no other possibility. I laid a hand on his head, and he stirred slightly, turning so that his breath touched my hand.
“Blest are they who have not seen,” I whispered under my breath, “but have believed.”
* * *
We dropped anchor near dawn, in a small, nameless bay on the northern coast of Hispaniola. There was a narrow beach, faced with cliffs, and through a split in the rock, a narrow, sandy trail was visible, leading into the interior of the island.
Jamie carried me the few steps to shore, set me down, and then turned to Innes, who had splashed ashore with one of the parcels of food.
“I thank ye, a charaid,” he said formally. “We shall part here; with the Virgin’s blessing, we will meet here again in four days’ time.”
Innes’s narrow face contracted in surprised disappointment; then resignation settled on his features.
“Aye,” he said. “I’ll mind the boatie then, ’til ye all come back.”
Jamie saw the expression, and shook his head, smiling.
“Not just you, man; did I need a strong arm, it would be yours I should call on first. No, all of ye shall stay, save my wife and the Jew.”
Resignation was replaced by sheer surprise.
“Stay here? All of us? But will ye not have need of us, Mac Dubh?” He squinted anxiously at the cliffs, with their burden of flowering vines. “It looks a fearsome place to venture into, without friends.”
“I shall count it the act of greatest friendship for ye to wait here, as I say, Duncan,” Jamie said, and I realized with a slight shock that I had never known Innes’s given name.
Innes glanced again at the cliffs, his lean face troubled, then bent his head in acquiescence.
“Well, it’s you as shall say, Mac Dubh. But ye ken we are willing—all of us.”
Jamie nodded, his face turned away.
“Aye, I ken that fine, Duncan,” he said softly. Then he turned back, held out an arm, and Innes embraced him, his one arm awkwardly thumping Jamie’s back.
“If a ship should come,” Jamie said, letting go, “then I wish ye to take heed for yourselves. The Royal Navy will be looking for that pinnace, aye? I doubt they shall come here, looking, but if they should—or if anything else at all should threaten ye—then leave. Sail away at once.”
“And leave ye here? Nay, ye can order me to do a great many things, Mac Dubh, and do them I shall—but not that.”
Jamie frowned and shook his head; the rising sun struck sparks from his hair and the stubble of his beard, wreathing his head in fire.
“It will do me and my wife no good to have ye killed, Duncan. Mind what I say. If a ship comes—go.” He turned aside then, and went to take leave of the other Scots.
Innes sighed deeply, his face etched with disapproval, but he made no further protest.
* * *
It was hot and damp in the jungle, and there was little talk among the three of us as we made our way inland. There was nothing to say, after all; Jamie and I could not speak of Brianna before Lawrence, and there were no plans to be made until we reached Abandawe, and saw what was there. I dozed fitfully at night, waking several times to see Jamie, back against a tree near me, eyes fixed sightless on the fire.
At noon of the second day, we reached the place. A steep and rocky hillside of gray limestone rose before us, sprouted over with spiky aloes and a ruffle of coarse grass. And on the crest of the hill, I could see them. Great standing stones, megaliths, in a rough circle about the crown of the hill.
“You didn’t say there was a stone circle,” I said. I felt faint, and not only from the heat and damp.
“Are you quite well, Mrs. Fraser?” Lawrence peered at me in some alarm, his genial face flushed beneath its tan.
“Yes,” I said, but my face must as usual have given me away, for Jamie was there in a moment, taking my arm and steadying me with a hand about my waist.
“For God’s sake, be careful, Sassenach!” he muttered. “Dinna go near those things!”
“We have to know if Geilie’s there, with Ian,” I said. “Come on.” I forced my reluctant feet into motion, and he came with me, still muttering under his breath in Gaelic—I thought it was a prayer.
“They were put up a very long time ago,” Lawrence said, as we came up onto the crest of the hill, within a few feet of the stones. “Not by slaves—by the aboriginal inhabitants of the islands.”
The circle was empty, and innocent-looking. No more than a staggered circle of large stones, set on end, motionless under the sun. Jamie was watching my face anxiously.
“Can ye hear them, Claire?” he said. Lawrence looked startled, but said nothing as I advanced carefully toward the nearest stone.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It isn’t one of the proper days—not a Sun Feast, or a Fire Feast, I mean. It may not be open now; I don’t know.”
Holding tightly to Jamie’s hand, I edged forward, listening. There seemed a faint hum in the air, but it might be no more than the usual sound of the jungle insects. Very gently, I laid the palm of my hand against the nearest stone.
I was dimly conscious of Jamie calling my name. Somewhere, my mind was struggling on a physical level, making the conscious effort to lift and lower my diaphragm, to squeeze and release the chambers of my heart. My ears were filled with a pulsating hum, a vibration too deep for sound, that throbbed in the marrow of my bones. And in some small, still place in the center of the chaos was Geilie Duncan, green eyes smiling into mine.
“Claire!”
I was lying on the ground, Jamie and Lawrence bending over me, faces dark and anxious against the sky. There was dampness on my cheeks, and a trickle of water ran down my neck. I blinked, cautiously moving my extremities, to be sure I still possessed them.
Jamie put down the handkerchief with which he had been bathing my face, and lifted me to a sitting position.
“Are ye all right, Sassenach?”
“Yes,” I said, still mildly confused. “Jamie—she’s here!”
“Who? Mrs. Abernathy?” Lawrence’s heavy eyebrows shot up, and he glanced hastily behind him, as though expecting her to materialize on the spot.
“I heard her—saw her—whatever.” My wits were coming slowly back. “She’s here. Not in the circle; close by.”
“Can ye tell where?” Jamie’s hand was resting on his dirk, as he darted quick glances all around us.
I shook my head, and closed my eyes, trying—reluctantly—to recapture that moment of seeing. There was an impression of darkness, of damp coolness, and the flicker of red torchlight.
“I think she’s in a cave,” I said, amazed. “Is it close by, Lawrence?”
“It is,” he said, watching my face with intense curiosity. “The entrance is not far from here.”
“Take us there.” Jamie was on his feet, lifting me to mine.
“Jamie.” I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Aye?”
“Jamie—she knows I’m here, too.”
That stopped him, all right. He paused, and I saw him swallow. Then his jaw tightened, and he nodded.
“A Mhìcheal bheannaichte, dìon sinn bho dheamhainnean,” he said softly, and turned toward the edge of the hill. Blessed Michael, defend us from demons.
* * *
The blackness was absolute. I brought my hand to my face; felt my palm brush my nose; but saw nothing. It wasn’t an empty blackness, though. The floor of the passage was uneven, with small sharp particles that crunched underfoot, and the walls in some places grew so close together that I wondered how Geilie had ever managed to squeeze through.
Even in the places where the passage grew wider, and the stone walls were too far away for my outstretched hands to brush against, I could feel them. It was like being in a dark room with another person—someone who kept quite silent, but whose presence I could feel, never more than an arm’s length away.
Jamie’s hand was tight on my shoulder, and I could feel his presence behind me, a warm disturbance in the cool void of the cave.
“Are we headed right?” he asked, when I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. “There are passages to the sides; I feel them as we pass. How can ye tell where we’re going?”
“I can hear. Hear them. It. Don’t you hear?” It was a struggle to speak, to form coherent thoughts. The call here was different; not the beehive sound of Craigh na Dun, but a hum like the vibration of the air following the striking of a great bell. I could feel it ringing in the long bones of my arms, echoing through pectoral girdle and spine.
Jamie gripped my arm hard.
“Stay with me!” he said. “Sassenach—don’t let it take ye; stay!”
I reached blindly out and he caught me tight against his chest. The thump of his heart against my temple was louder than the hum.
“Jamie. Jamie, hold on to me.” I had never been more frightened. “Don’t let me go. If it takes me—Jamie, I can’t come back again. It’s worse every time. It will kill me, Jamie!”
His arms tightened round me ’til I felt my ribs crack, and gasped for breath. After a moment, he let go, and putting me gently aside, moved past me into the passage, taking care to keep his hand always on me.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “Put your hand in my belt, and dinna let go for anything.”
Linked together, we moved slowly down, farther into the dark. Lawrence had wanted to come, but Jamie would not let him. We had left him at the mouth of the cave, waiting. If we should not return, he was to go back to the beach, to keep the rendezvous with Innes and the other Scots.
If we should not return…
He must have felt my grip tighten, for he stopped, and drew me alongside him.
“Claire,” he said softly. “I must say something.”
I knew already, and groped for his mouth to stop him, but my hand brushed by his face in the dark. He gripped my wrist, and held tight.
“If it will be a choice between her and one of us—then it must be me. Ye know that, aye?”
I knew that. If Geilie should be there, still, and one of us might be killed in stopping her, it must be Jamie to take the risk. For with Jamie dead, I would be left—and I could follow her through the stone, which he could not.
“I know,” I whispered at last. I knew also what he did not say, and what he knew as well; that should Geilie have gone through already, then I must go as well.
“Then kiss me, Claire,” he whispered. “And know that you are more to me than life, and I have no regret.”
I couldn’t answer, but kissed him, first his hand, its crooked fingers warm and firm, and the brawny wrist of a sword-wielder, and then his mouth, haven and promise and anguish all mingled, and the salt of tears in the taste of him.
Then I let go, and turned toward the left-hand tunnel.
“This way,” I said. Within ten paces, I saw the light.
It was no more than a faint glow on the rocks of the passage, but it was enough to restore the gift of sight. Suddenly, I could see my hands and feet, though dimly. My breath came out in something like a sob, of relief and fear. I felt like a ghost taking shape as I walked toward the light and the soft bell-hum before me.
The light was stronger, now, then dimmed again as Jamie slid in front of me, and his back blocked my view. Then he bent and stepped through a low archway. I followed, and stood up in light.
It was a good-sized chamber, the walls farthest from the torch still cold and black with the slumber of the cave. The wall before us had wakened, though. It flickered and gleamed, particles of embedded mineral reflecting the flames of a pine torch, fixed in a crevice.
“So ye came, did you?” Geillis was on her knees, eyes fixed on a glittering stream of white powder that fell from her folded fist, drawing a line on the dark floor.
I heard a small sound from Jamie, half relief, half horror, as he saw Ian. The boy lay in the middle of the pentacle on his side, hands bound behind him, gagged with a strip of white cloth. Next to him lay an ax. It was made of a shiny dark stone, like obsidian, with a sharp, chipped edge. The handle was covered with gaudy beadwork, in an African pattern of stripes and zigzags.
“Don’t come any closer, fox.” Geilie sat back on her heels, showing her teeth to Jamie in an expression that was not a smile. She held a pistol in one hand; its fellow, charged and cocked, was thrust through the leather belt she wore about her waist.
Eyes fixed on Jamie, she reached into the pouch suspended from the belt and withdrew another handful of diamond dust. I could see beads of sweat standing on her broad white brow; the bell-hum from the time-passage must be reaching her as it reached me. I felt sick, and the sweat ran down my body in trickles under my clothes.
The pattern was almost finished. With the pistol carefully trained, she dribbled out the thin, shining stream until she had completed the pentagram. The stones were already laid inside it—they glinted from the floor in sparks of color, connected by a gleaming line of poured quicksilver.
“There, then.” She sat back on her heels with a sigh of relief, and wiped the thick, creamy hair back with one hand. “Safe. The diamond dust keeps out the noise,” she explained to me. “Nasty, isn’t it?”
She patted Ian, who lay bound and gagged on the ground in front of her, his eyes wide with fear above the white cloth of the gag. “There, there, mo chridhe. Dinna fret, it will be soon over.”
“Take your hand off him, ye wicked bitch!” Jamie took an impulsive step forward, hand on his dirk, then stopped, as she lifted the barrel of the pistol an inch.
“Ye mind me o’ your uncle Dougal, a sionnach,” she said, tilting her head to one side coquettishly. “He was older when I met him than you are now, but you’ve the look of him about ye, aye? Like ye’d take what ye pleased and damn anyone who stands in your way.”
Jamie looked at Ian, curled on the floor, then up at Geilie.
“I’ll take what’s mine,” he said softly.
“But ye can’t, now, can ye?” she said, pleasantly. “One more step, and I kill ye dead. I spare ye now, only because Claire seems fond of ye.” Her eyes shifted to me, standing in the shadows behind Jamie. She nodded to me.
“A life for a life, sweet Claire. Ye tried to save me once, on Craigh na Dun; I saved you from the witch-trial at Cranesmuir. We’re quits now, aye?”
Geilie picked up a small bottle, uncorked it, and poured the contents carefully over Ian’s clothes. The smell of brandy rose up, strong and heady, and the torch flared brighter as the fumes of alcohol reached it. Ian bucked and kicked, making a strained noise of protest, and she kicked him sharply in the ribs.
“Be still!” she said.
“Don’t do it, Geilie,” I said, knowing that words would do no good.
“I have to,” she said calmly. “I’m meant to. I’m sorry I shall have to take the girl, but I’ll leave ye the man.”
“What girl?” Jamie’s fists were clenched tight at his side, knuckles white even in the dim torchlight.
“Brianna? That’s the name, isn’t it?” She shook back her heavy hair, smoothing it out of her face. “The last of Lovat’s line.” She smiled at me. “What luck ye should have come to see me, aye? I’d never ha’ kent it, otherwise. I thought they’d all died out before 1900.”
A thrill of horror shot through me. I could feel the same tremor run through Jamie as his muscles tightened.
It must have shown on his face. Geilie cried out sharply and leapt back. She fired as he lunged at her. His head snapped back, and his body twisted, hands still reaching for her throat. Then he fell, his body limp across the edge of the glittering pentagram. There was a strangled moan from Ian.
I felt rather than heard a sound rise in my throat. I didn’t know what I had said, but Geilie turned her face in my direction, startled.
When Brianna was two, a car had carelessly sideswiped mine, hitting the back door next to where she was sitting. I slowed to a stop, checked briefly to see that she was unhurt, and then bounded out, headed for the other car, which had pulled over a little way ahead.
The other driver was a man in his thirties, quite large, and probably entirely self-assured in his dealings with the world. He looked over his shoulder, saw me coming, and hastily rolled up his window, shrinking back in his seat.
I had no consciousness of rage or any other emotion; I simply knew, with no shadow of doubt, that I could—and would—shatter the window with my hand, and drag the man out through it. He knew it, too.
I thought no further than that, and didn’t have to; the arrival of a police car had recalled me to my normal state of mind, and then I started to shake. But the memory of the look on that man’s face stayed with me.
Fire is a poor illuminator, but it would have taken total darkness to conceal that look on Geilie’s face; the sudden realization of what was coming toward her.
She jerked the other pistol from her belt and swung it to bear on me; I saw the round hole of the muzzle clearly—and didn’t care. The roar of the discharge caromed through the cave, the echoes sending down showers of rocks and dirt, but by then I had seized the ax from the floor.
I noted quite clearly the leather binding, ornamented with a beaded pattern. It was red, with yellow zigzags and black dots. The dots echoed the shiny obsidian of the blade, and the red and yellow picked up the hues of the flaming torch behind her.
I heard a noise behind me, but didn’t turn. Reflections of the fire burned red in the pupils of her eyes. The red thing, Jamie had called it. I gave myself to it, he had said.
I didn’t need to give myself; it had taken me.
There was no fear, no rage, no doubt. Only the stroke of the swinging ax.
The shock of it echoed up my arm, and I let go, my fingers numbed. I stood quite still, not even moving when she staggered toward me.
Blood in firelight is black, not red.
She took one blind step forward and fell, all her muscles gone limp, making no attempt to save herself. The last I saw of her face was her eyes; set wide, beautiful as gemstones, a green water-clear and faceted with the knowledge of death.
Someone was speaking, but the words made no sense. The cleft in the rock buzzed loudly, filling my ears. The torch flickered, flaring sudden yellow in a draft; the beating of the dark angel’s wings, I thought.
The sound came again, behind me.
I turned and saw Jamie. He had risen to his knees, swaying. Blood was pouring from his scalp, dyeing one side of his face red-black. The other side was white as a harlequin’s mask.
Stop the bleeding, said some remnant of instinct in my brain, and I fumbled for a handkerchief. But by then he had crawled to where Ian lay, and was groping at the boy’s bonds, jerking loose the leather straps, drops of his blood pattering on the lad’s shirt. Ian squirmed to his feet, his face ghastly pale, and put out a hand to help his uncle.
Then Jamie’s hand was on my arm. I looked up, numbly offering the cloth. He took it and wiped it roughly over his face, then jerked at my arm, pulling me toward the tunnel mouth. I stumbled and nearly fell, caught myself, and came back to the present.
“Come!” he was saying. “Can ye not hear the wind? There is a storm coming, above.”
Wind? I thought. In a cave? But he was right; the draft had not been my imagination; the faint exhalation from the crack near the entrance had changed to a steady, whining wind, almost a keening that rang in the narrow passage.
I turned to look over my shoulder, but Jamie grasped my arm hard and pushed me forward. My last sight of the cave was a blurred impression of jet and rubies, with a still white shape in the middle of the floor. Then the draft came in with a roar, and the torch went out.
“Jesus!” It was Young Ian’s voice, filled with terror, somewhere close by. “Uncle Jamie!”
“Here.” Jamie’s voice came out of the darkness just in front of me, surprisingly calm, raised to be heard above the noise. “Here, lad. Come here to me, Ian. Dinna be afraid; it’s only the cave breathing.”
It was the wrong thing to say. When he said it, I could feel the cold breath of the rock touch my neck, and the hairs there rose up prickling. The image of the cave as a living thing, breathing all around us, blind and malevolent, struck me cold with horror.
Apparently the notion was as terrifying to Ian as it was to me, for I heard a faint gasp, and then his groping hand struck me and clung for dear life to my arm.
I clutched his hand with one of mine and probed the dark ahead with the other, finding Jamie’s reassuringly large shape almost at once.
“I’ve got Ian,” I said. “For God’s sake, let’s get out of here!”
He gripped my hand in answer, and linked together, we began to make our way back down the winding tunnel, stumbling through the pitch dark and stepping on each other’s heels. And all the time, that ghostly wind whined at our backs.
I could see nothing; no hint of Jamie’s shirt in front of my face, snowy white as I knew it to be, not even a flicker of the movement of my own light-colored skirts, though I heard them swish about my feet as I walked, the sound blending with that of the wind.
The thin rush of air rose and fell in pitch, whispering and wailing. I tried to force my mind away from the memory of what lay behind us, away from the morbid fancy that the wind held sighing voices, whispering secrets just past hearing.
“I can hear her,” Ian said suddenly behind me. His voice rose, cracking with panic. “I can hear her! God, oh God, she’s coming!”
I froze in my tracks, a scream wedged in my throat. The cool observer in my head knew quite well it was not so—only the wind and Ian’s fright—but that made no difference to the spurt of sheer terror that rose from the pit of my stomach and turned my bowels to water. I knew she was coming, too, and screamed out loud.
Then Jamie had me, and Ian too, gripped tight against him, one in each arm, our ears muffled against his chest. He smelled of pine smoke and sweat and brandy, and I nearly sobbed in relief at the closeness of him.
“Hush!” he said fiercely. “Hush, the both of ye! I willna let her touch ye. Never!” He pressed us to him, hard; I felt his heart beating fast beneath my cheek and Ian’s bony shoulder, squeezed against mine, and then the pressure relaxed.
“Come along now,” Jamie said, more quietly. “It’s but wind. Caves blow through their cracks when the weather changes aboveground. I’ve heard it before. There is a storm coming, outside. Come, now.”
* * *
The storm was a brief one. By the time we had stumbled to the surface, blinking against the shock of sunlight, the rain had passed, leaving the world reborn in its wake.
Lawrence was sheltering under a dripping palm near the cave’s entrance. When he saw us, he sprang to his feet, a look of relief relaxing the creases of his face.
“It is all right?” he said, looking from me to a blood-stained Jamie.
Jamie gave him half a smile, nodding.
“It is all right,” he said. He turned and motioned to Ian. “May I present my nephew, Ian Murray? Ian, this is Dr. Stern, who’s been of great assistance to us in looking for ye.”
“I’m much obliged to ye, Doctor,” Ian said, with a bob of his head. He wiped a sleeve across his streaked face, and glanced at Jamie.
“I knew ye’d come, Uncle Jamie,” he said, with a tremulous smile, “but ye left it a bit late, aye?” The smile widened, then broke, and he began to tremble. He blinked hard, fighting back tears.
“I did then, and I’m sorry, Ian. Come here, a bhalaich.” Jamie reached out and took him in a close embrace, patting his back and murmuring to him in Gaelic.
I watched for a moment, before I realized that Lawrence was speaking to me.
“Are you quite well, Mrs. Fraser?” he was asking. Without waiting for an answer, he took my arm.
“I don’t quite know.” I felt completely empty. Exhausted as though by childbirth, but without the exultation of spirit. Nothing seemed quite real; Jamie, Ian, Lawrence, all seemed like toy figures that moved and talked at a distance, making noises that I had to strain to understand.
“I think perhaps we should leave this place,” Lawrence said, with a glance at the cave mouth from which we had just emerged. He looked slightly uneasy. He didn’t ask about Mrs. Abernathy.
“I think you are right.” The picture of the cave we had left was vivid in my mind—but just as unreal as the vivid green jungle and gray stones around us. Not waiting for the men to follow, I turned and walked away.
The feeling of remoteness increased as we walked. I felt like an automaton, built around an iron core, walking by clockwork. I followed Jamie’s broad back through branches and clearings, shadow and sun, not noticing where we were going. Sweat ran down my sides and into my eyes, but I barely stirred to wipe it away. At length, toward sunset, we stopped in a small clearing near a stream, and made our primitive camp.
I had already discovered that Lawrence was a most useful person to have along on a camping trip. He was not only as good at finding or building shelter as was Jamie, but was sufficiently familiar with the flora and fauna of the area to be able to plunge into the jungle and return within half an hour bearing handfuls of edible roots, fungi, and fruit with which to augment the Spartan rations in our packs.
Ian was set to gather firewood while Lawrence foraged, and I sat Jamie down with a pan of water, to tend the damage to his head. I washed away the blood from face and hair, to find to my surprise that the ball had in fact not plowed a furrow through his scalp as I had thought. Instead, it had pierced the skin just above his hairline and—evidently—vanished into his head. There was no sign of an exit wound. Unnerved by this, I prodded his scalp with increasing agitation, until a sudden cry from the patient announced that I had discovered the bullet.
There was a large, tender lump on the back of his head. The pistol ball had traveled under the skin, skimming the curve of his skull, and come to rest just over his occiput.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I exclaimed. I felt it again, unbelieving, but there it was. “You always said your head was solid bone, and I’ll be damned if you weren’t right. She shot you point-blank, and the bloody ball bounced off your skull!”
Jamie, supporting his head in his hands as I examined him, made a sound somewhere between a snort and a groan.
“Aye, well,” he said, his voice somewhat muffled in his hands, “I’ll no say I’m not thick-heided, but if Mistress Abernathy had used a full charge of powder, it wouldna have been nearly thick enough.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Not the wound, no, though it’s sore. I’ve a terrible headache, though.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Hold on a bit; I’m going to take the ball out.”
Not knowing in what condition we might find Ian, I had brought the smallest of my medical boxes, which fortunately contained a bottle of alcohol and a small scalpel. I shaved away a little of Jamie’s abundant mane, just below the swelling, and soused the area with alcohol for disinfection. My fingers were chilled from the alcohol, but his head was warm and comfortingly live to the touch.
“Three deep breaths and hold on tight,” I murmured. “I’m going to cut you, but it will be fast.”
“All right.” The back of his neck looked a little pale, but the pulse was steady. He obligingly drew in his breath deeply, and exhaled, sighing. I held the area of scalp taut between the index and third fingers of my left hand. On the third breath, I said, “Right now,” and drew the blade hard and quick across the scalp. He grunted slightly, but didn’t cry out. I pressed gently with my right thumb against the swelling, slightly harder—and the ball popped out of the incision I had made, falling into my left hand like a grape.
“Got it,” I said, and only then realized that I had been holding my breath. I dropped the little pellet—somewhat flattened by its contact with his skull—into his hand, and smiled, a little shakily. “Souvenir,” I said. I pressed a pad of cloth against the small wound, wound a strip of cloth round his head to hold it, and then quite suddenly, with no warning whatever, began to cry.
I could feel the tears rolling down my face, and my shoulders shaking, but I felt still detached; somehow outside my body. I was conscious mostly of a mild amazement.
“Sassenach? Are ye all right?” Jamie was peering up at me, eyes worried under the rakish bandage.
“Yes,” I said, stuttering from the force of my crying. “I d-don’t k-know why I’m c-crying. I d-don’t know!”
“Come here.” He took my hand and drew me down onto his knee. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, resting his cheek on the top of my head.
“It will be all right,” he whispered. “It’s fine now, mo chridhe, it’s fine.” He rocked me gently, one hand stroking my hair and neck, and murmured small unimportant things in my ear. Just as suddenly as I had been detached, I was back inside my body, warm and shaking, feeling the iron core dissolve in my tears.
Gradually I stopped weeping, and lay still against his chest, hiccuping now and then, feeling nothing but peace and the comfort of his presence.
I was dimly aware that Lawrence and Ian had returned, but paid no attention to them. At one point, I heard Ian say, with more curiosity than alarm, “You’re bleeding all down the back of your neck, Uncle Jamie.”
“Perhaps you’ll fix me a new bandage, then, Ian,” Jamie said. His voice was soft and unconcerned. “I must just hold your auntie now.” And sometime later I went to sleep, still held tight in the circle of his arms.
* * *
I woke up later, curled on a blanket next to Jamie. He was leaning against a tree, one hand resting on my shoulder. He felt me wake, and squeezed gently. It was dark, and I could hear a rhythmic snoring somewhere close at hand. It must be Lawrence, I thought drowsily, for I could hear Young Ian’s voice, on the other side of Jamie.
“No,” he was saying slowly, “it wasna really so bad, on the ship. We were all kept together, so there was company from the other lads, and they fed us decently, and let us out two at a time to walk about the deck. Of course, we were all scairt, for we’d no notion why we’d been taken—and none of the sailors would tell us anything—but we were not mistreated.”
The Bruja had sailed up the Yallahs River, and delivered her human cargo directly to Rose Hall. Here the bewildered boys had been warmly welcomed by Mrs. Abernathy, and promptly popped into a new prison.
The basement beneath the sugar mill had been fitted up comfortably enough, with beds and chamber pots, and aside from the noise of the sugar-making above during the days, it was comfortable enough. Still, none of the boys could think why they were there, though any number of suggestions were made, each more improbable than the last.
“And every now and then, a great black fellow would come down into the place with Mrs. Abernathy. We always begged to know what it was we were there for, and would she not be letting us go, for mercy’s sake? but she only smiled and patted us and said we would see, in good time. Then she would choose a lad, and the black fellow would clamp onto the lad’s arm and take him awa’ wi’ them.” Ian’s voice sounded distressed, and little wonder.
“Did the lads come back again?” Jamie asked. His hand patted me softly, and I reached up and pressed it.
“No—or not usually. And that scairt us all something dreadful.”
Ian’s turn had come eight weeks after his arrival. Three lads had gone and not returned by then, and when Mistress Abernathy’s bright green eyes rested on him, he was not disposed to cooperate.
“I kicked the black fellow, and hit him—I even bit his hand,” Ian said ruefully, “and verra nasty he tasted, too—all over some kind of grease, he was. But it made nay difference; he only clouted me over the head, hard enough to make my ears ring, then picked me up and carried me off in his arms, as though I was no more than a wee bairn.”
Ian had been taken into the kitchen, where he was stripped, bathed, dressed in a clean shirt—but nothing else—and taken to the main house.
“It was just at night,” he said wistfully, “and all the windows lighted. It looked verra much like Lallybroch, when ye come down from the hills just at dark, and Mam’s just lit the lamps—it almost broke my heart to see it, and think of home.”
He had had little opportunity to feel homesick, though. Hercules—or Atlas—had marched him up the stairs into what was obviously Mistress Abernathy’s bedroom. Mrs. Abernathy was waiting for him, dressed in a soft, loose sort of gown with odd-looking figures embroidered round the hem of it in red and silver thread.
She had been cordial and welcoming, and had offered him a drink. It smelled strange, but not nasty, and as he had little choice in the matter, he had drunk it.
There were two comfortable chairs in the room, on either side of a long, low table, and a great bed at one side, swagged and canopied like a king’s. He had sat in one chair, Mrs. Abernathy in the other, and she had asked him questions.
“What sorts of questions?” Jamie asked, prompting as Ian seemed hesitant.
“Well, all about my home, and my family—she asked the names of all my sisters and brothers, and my aunts and uncles”—I jerked a bit. So that was why Geilie had betrayed no surprise at our appearance!—“and all sorts of things, Uncle. Then she—she asked me had I—had I ever lain wi’ a lassie. Just as though she were asking did I have parritch to my breakfast!” Ian sounded shocked at the memory.
“I didna want to answer her, but I couldna seem to help myself. I felt verra warm, like I was fevered, and I couldna seem to move easy. But I answered all her questions, and her just sitting there, pleasant as might be, watching me close wi’ those big green eyes.”
“So ye told her the truth?”
“Aye. Aye, I did.” Ian spoke slowly, reliving the scene. “I said I had, and I told her about—about Edinburgh, and the printshop, and the seaman, and the brothel, and Mary, and—everything.”
For the first time, Geilie had seemed displeased with one of his answers. Her face had grown hard and her eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Ian was seriously afraid. He would have run, then, but for the heaviness in his limbs, and the presence of the giant who stood against the door, unmoving.
“She got up and stamped about a bit, and said I was ruined, then, as I wasna a virgin, and what business did a bittie wee lad like me have, to be goin’ wi’ the lassies and spoiling myself?”
Then she had stopped her ranting, poured a glass of wine and drank it off, and her temper had seemed to cool.
“She laughed then, and looked at me careful, and said as how I might not be such a loss, after all. If I was no good for what she had in mind, perhaps I might have other uses.” Ian’s voice sounded faintly constricted, as though his collar were too tight. Jamie made a soothing interrogatory sound, though, and he took a deep breath, determined to go on.
“Well, she—she took my hand and made me stand up. Then she took off the shirt I was wearing, and she—I swear it’s true, Uncle!—she knelt on the floor in front of me, and took my cock into her mouth!”
Jamie’s hand tightened on my shoulder, but his voice betrayed no more than a mild interest.
“Aye, I believe ye, Ian. She made love to ye, then?”
“Love?” Ian sounded dazed. “No—I mean, I dinna ken. It—she—well, she got my cock to stand up, and then she made me come to the bed and lie down and she did things. But it wasna at all like it was with wee Mary!”
“No, I shouldna suppose it was,” his uncle said dryly.
“God, it felt queer!” I could sense Ian’s shudder from the tone of his voice. “I looked up in the middle, and there was the black man, standing right by the bed, holding a candlestick. She told him to lift it higher, so that she could see better.” He paused, and I heard a small glugging noise as he drank from one of the bottles. He let out a long, quivering breath.
“Uncle. Have ye ever—lain wi’ a woman, when ye didna want to do it?”
Jamie hesitated a moment, his hand tight on my shoulder, but then he said quietly, “Aye, Ian. I have.”
“Oh.” The boy was quiet, and I heard him scratch his head. “D’ye ken how it can be, Uncle? How ye can do it, and not want to a bit, and hate doing it, and—and still it—it feels good?”
Jamie gave a small, dry laugh.
“Well, what it comes to, Ian, is that your cock hasna got a conscience, and you have.” His hand left my shoulder as he turned toward his nephew. “Dinna trouble yourself, Ian,” he said. “Ye couldna help it, and it’s likely that it saved your life for ye. The other lads—the ones who didna come back to the cellar—d’ye ken if they were virgins?”
“Well—a few I know were for sure—for we had a great deal of time to talk, aye? and after a time we kent a lot about one another. Some o’ the lads boasted of havin’ gone wi’ a lassie, but I thought—from what they said about it, ye ken—that they hadna done it, really.” He paused for a moment, as though reluctant to ask what he knew he must.
“Uncle—d’ye ken what happened to them? The rest of the lads with me?”
“No, Ian,” Jamie said, evenly. “I’ve no notion.” He leaned back against the tree, sighing deeply. “D’ye think ye can sleep, wee Ian? If ye can, ye should, for it will be a weary walk to the shore tomorrow.”
“Oh, I can sleep, Uncle,” Ian assured him. “But should I not keep watch? It’s you should be resting, after bein’ shot and all that.” He paused and then added, rather shyly, “I didna say thank ye, Uncle Jamie.”
Jamie laughed, freely this time.
“You’re verra welcome, Ian,” he said, the smile still in his voice. “Lay your head and sleep, laddie. I’ll wake ye if there’s need.”
Ian obligingly curled up and within moments, was breathing heavily. Jamie sighed and leaned back against the tree.
“Do you want to sleep too, Jamie?” I pushed myself up to sit beside him. “I’m awake; I can keep an eye out.”
His eyes were closed, the dying firelight dancing on the lids. He smiled without opening them and groped for my hand.
“No. If ye dinna mind sitting with me for a bit, though, you can watch. The headache’s better if I close my eyes.”
We sat in contented silence for some time, hand in hand. An occasional odd noise or far-off scream from some jungle animal came from the dark, but nothing seemed threatening now.
“Will we go back to Jamaica?” I asked at last. “For Fergus and Marsali?”
Jamie started to shake his head, then stopped, with a stifled groan.
“No,” he said, “I think we shall sail for Eleuthera. That’s Dutch-owned, and neutral. We can send Innes back wi’ John’s boatie, and he can take a message to Fergus to come and join us. I would as soon not set foot on Jamaica again, all things considered.”
“No, I suppose not.” I was quiet for a moment, then said, “I wonder how Mr. Willoughby—Yi Tien Cho, I mean—will manage. I don’t suppose anyone will find him, if he stays in the mountains, but—”
“Oh, he may manage brawly,” Jamie interrupted. “He’s the pelican to fish for him, after all.” One side of his mouth turned up in a smile. “For that matter, if he’s canny, he’ll find a way south, to Martinique. There’s a small colony there of Chinese traders. I’d told him of it; said I’d take him there, once our business on Jamaica was finished.”
“You aren’t angry at him now?” I looked at him curiously, but his face was smooth and peaceful, almost unlined in the firelight.
This time he was careful not to move his head, but lifted one shoulder in a shrug, and grimaced.
“Och, no.” He sighed and settled himself more comfortably. “I dinna suppose he had much thought for what he did, or understood at all what might be the end of it. And it would be foolish to hate a man for not giving ye something he hasna got in the first place.” He opened his eyes then, with a faint smile, and I knew he was thinking of John Grey.
Ian twitched in his sleep, snorted loudly, and rolled over onto his back, arms flung wide. Jamie glanced at his nephew, and the smile grew wider.
“Thank God,” he said. “He goes back to his mother by the first ship headed for Scotland.”
“I don’t know,” I said, smiling. “He might not want to go back to Lallybroch, after all this adventure.”
“I dinna care whether he wants to or not,” Jamie said firmly. “He’s going, if I must pack him up in a crate. Are ye looking for something, Sassenach?” he added, seeing me groping in the dark.
“I’ve got it,” I said, pulling the flat hypodermic case out of my pocket. I flipped it open to check the contents, squinting to see by the waning light. “Oh, good; there’s enough left for one whopping dose.”
Jamie sat up a little straighter.
“I’m not fevered a bit,” he said, eyeing me warily. “And if ye have it in mind to shove that filthy spike into my head, ye can just think again, Sassenach!”
“Not you,” I said. “Ian. Unless you mean to send him home to Jenny riddled with syphilis and other interesting forms of the clap.”
Jamie’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline, and he winced at the resultant sensation.
“Ow. Syphilis? Ye think so?”
“I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. Pronounced dementia is one of the symptoms of the advanced disease—though I must say it would be hard to tell in her case. Still, better safe than sorry, hm?”
Jamie snorted briefly with amusement.
“Well, that may teach Young Ian the price o’ dalliance. I’d best distract Stern while ye take the lad behind a bush for his penance, though; Lawrence is a bonny man for a Jew, but he’s curious. I dinna want ye burnt at the stake in Kingston, after all.”
“I expect that would be awkward for the Governor,” I said dryly. “Much as he might enjoy it, personally.”
“I shouldna think he would, Sassenach.” His dryness matched my own. “Is my coat within reach?”
“Yes.” I found the garment folded on the ground near me, and handed it to him. “Are you cold?”
“No.” He leaned back, the coat laid across his knees. “It’s only that I wanted to feel the bairns all close to me while I sleep.” He smiled at me, folded his hands gently atop the coat and its pictures, and closed his eyes again. “Good night, Sassenach.”