Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

Inocencia’s lips made a smile, and she bobbed her head in response, but Grey could see that she was trembling with exhaustion, and her brilliant eyes were sunk in her face. Tears quivered on her lashes.

“It will be all right,” he said, taking her hand. “We will succeed—and we will rescue Se?or Stubbs. I promise you.”

She swallowed and nodded, wiping her face on the edge of her filthy apron. Her mouth twitched, as though she meant to say something, but she changed her mind and, pulling her hand free, dropped him a curtsy, turned, and hurried away, lost at once in the crowd of women in the market, all pushing and shouting in an effort to procure food.

“She is afraid,” Azeel said quietly, behind him.

She’s not the only one…He’d felt a coldness at the bone ever since he walked into the tobacco shed, and it hadn’t gone away, though the day was bright and sunny. There was a small flame of excitement at the prospect of action, though, and it was normal for the nerves to be raw—

There was a sharp report from the direction of El Morro, echoed at once by another, and he was suddenly on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, the cannon firing from the walls, and the army waiting, waiting there on the open ground, waiting in the agony of delay…

He shook himself like a dog and felt better.

“It will be all right,” he said again, firmly, and turned in to the Calle Yoenis.



HE COULD TELL at once that something had happened. There was no singing, no chatter from the patio, no one working in the garden. He did hear muted voices, and food was being cooked—but there was no spice in the air. Only the slightly soapy smell of long-boiled beans and scorched eggs.

He walked rapidly through the empty front rooms, and his heart stopped as he heard a baby’s high-pitched squall.

“Olivia?” he called. The muted voices paused, though the baby’s mewling continued.

“John?” His mother stepped out of the sala, peering into the murk of the unlighted corridor. She was disheveled, her hair in a half-unraveled plait, and she had a tiny baby in her arms.

“Mother.” He hurried to her, his heart suddenly feeling as though it had come loose in his chest. She took a step toward him that brought her face into the bar of sunlight from a window, and one look told him.

“Jesus,” he said under his breath, and reached out to embrace her, draw her close, as though he could fix her in space, prevent her talking, put off knowing for one minute more. She was shaking.

“Olivia?” he said quietly into her hair, and felt her nod. The baby had stopped fussing but was moving between them, odd, small, tentative proddings.

“Yes,” his mother said, and drew a long, quivering breath. He let go of her and she stepped back in order to look him in the face. “Yes, and poor little Ch-Charlotte, too.” She bit her lip briefly and straightened herself.

“The yellow fever has two stages,” she said, and lifted the child to her shoulder. It had a head like a small cantaloupe, and Grey was reminded shockingly of its father. “If you survive the first stage—it lasts several days—then sometimes you recover. If not, there’s a lull in the fever—a day or two when the—the person seems to be improving, but then…it comes back.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and he wondered when she had last slept. She looked at once a thousand years old and ageless, like a stone.

“Olivia,” she said, and opened her eyes, patting the child’s tiny back, “recovered, or seemed to. Then she went into labor, and—” She lifted the baby slightly in illustration. “But the next day…it came back. She was dead in—in hours. It took Charlotte a day later…she was…so small. So fragile.”

“I am so sorry,” Grey said softly. He had been fond of his cousin, but his mother had raised Olivia from the age of ten, when his cousin had lost her own parents. A thought came to him.

“Cromwell?” he asked, afraid to hear but needing to know. He’d delivered Olivia’s son, very much by accident, but as a result had always felt close to the boy.

His mother gave him a watery smile.

“He’s fine. The fever never touched him, thank God. Nor this little one.” She cupped a hand behind the infant’s fuzzy skull. “Her name is Seraphina. Olivia had time…to hold her, at least, and give her a name. We christened her at once, in case…”

“Give her to me, Mother,” he said, and took the child from her arms. “You need to go and sit down, and you need something to eat.”

“I’m not—” she began automatically, and he interrupted her.

“I don’t care. Go sit down. I’ll go and blow up the cook.”

She tried to give him a smile, and the twitch of her lips reminded him with a jolt of Inocencia. And everything else. His own mourning would have to wait.



IF YOU HAD TO attack a fortress at night, on foot and lightly armed, doing it with black men was distinctly an advantage, Grey thought. The barely risen moon was a crescent, a thread of light against the dark sky. Cano’s men had removed their shirts and, dressed only in rough canvas breeches, they were no more than shadows, flowing barefoot and silent through the empty marketplace.

Cano himself materialized suddenly behind Grey’s shoulder, announced by a waft of foul breath.

“Ahorita?” he whispered. Now?

Grey shook his head. Malcolm’s wig was wadded up in his pocket and he had assumed instead an infantryman’s cap—a contrivance of steel plates, punctured and laced together, to be worn under a uniform hat—this covered with a black knitted cap. He felt as though his head were melting, but it would turn the blade of a sword—or a machete.

“Inocencia,” he murmured, and Cano grunted in reply and faded back into the night. The girl wasn’t yet late; the church bells had only just rung midnight.

Like any self-respecting fortress, El Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro—the Castle of the Three Magi of the Hump, as Azeel had kindly translated its full name for him—the hump being the big black rock at the opening of the harbor—had only one way in and one way out. It also had steeply sloping walls on all sides, to deter both climbers and cannonballs.

True, there were small penetrations on the water side, used for the disposal of garbage or inconvenient bodies, or for the arrival of provisions or the secret deliverance of a guest or prisoner held incognito. Those were of no use in the present venture, though, as the only possible approach was by boat.

One bell bonged the quarter hour. Two for the half hour. Grey had just pulled his head covering off in order to avoid fainting when there was a stir in the darkness nearby.

“Se?or?” said a soft, low voice by his elbow. “Es listo. Venga!”

“Bueno,” he whispered back. “Se?or Cano?”

“Aquí.” Cano was aquí, so quickly that Grey realized the man must have been standing no more than a few feet away.