An Echo in the Bone (149 page)

The air filled at once with a pungent, sweet aroma that clung to the back of Grey’s throat and made his head swim slightly. He blinked, shaking his head to dispel the giddiness, and realized that Mrs. Fraser had said something to him.

“I beg your pardon?” He looked up at her, a great white bird with yellow eyes—and a gleaming talon that sprouted suddenly from her hand.

“I said,” she repeated calmly through her mask, “you might want to sit back a little farther. It’s going to be rather messy.”

WILLIAM, RACHEL, and Dorothea sat on the edge of the porch like birds on a fence rail, Rollo sprawled on the brick walk at their feet, enjoying the spring sun.

“It’s bloody quiet up there,” William said, glancing uneasily at the window above, where Henry’s room lay. “D’you think they’ve started yet?” He thought, but didn’t say, that he would have expected to hear Henry making a certain amount of noise if they had, despite Rachel’s description of her brother’s account of the marvels of Mrs. Fraser’s ether. A man lie quietly asleep while someone cut open his belly with a knife? All stuff, he would have said. But Denzell Hunter wasn’t a man who could be easily beguiled—though he supposed Dottie had somehow managed it. He gave his cousin a sideways glance.

“Have you written Uncle Hal yet? About you and Denny, I mean?” He knew she hadn’t—she’d told Lord John, perforce, but persuaded him to let her break the news to her father—but wanted to distract her if he could. She was white to the lips, and her hands had bunched the fabric over her knees into nests of creases. He still hadn’t got used to seeing her in dove and cream instead of her usual brilliant plumage—though he thought in fact that the quiet colors suited her, particularly as Rachel had assured her that she might still wear silk and muslin if she liked, rather than sacking material.

“No,” Dottie said, giving him a look that thanked him for the distraction, even while acknowledging that she knew what he was doing. “Or, yes, but I haven’t sent it yet. If all’s well with Henry, I’ll write at once with the news and add the bit about Denny and me at the bottom, as a postscript. They’ll be so overjoyed about Henry that perhaps they won’t notice—or at least won’t be as upset about it.”

“I rather think they’ll notice,” William said thoughtfully. “Papa did.” Lord John had gone quite dangerously quiet when told and had given Denzell Hunter a look suggesting swords at dawn.

But the fact was that Denny had saved Henry’s life once and was now helping—with luck and Mrs. Fraser—to save it again. And Lord John was, above all, a man of honor. Besides, William thought that his father was actually relieved to finally know what it was that Dottie had been up to. He hadn’t said anything directly to William regarding William’s own role in her adventure—yet. He would.

“May the Lord hold thy brother in his hand,” Rachel said, ignoring William’s remark. “And mine and Mrs. Fraser, as well. But what if all should not go as we wish? Thee will still have to tell thy parents, and they may see news of thy impending marriage as adding insult to injury.”

“You are the most tactless plain-spoken creature,” William told her, rather irritably, seeing Dottie go whiter still at the reminder that Henry might die in the next minutes, hours, or days.

“Henry will be fine. I know it. Denny is a great physician, and Mrs. Fraser… she’s … er…” In all honesty, he wasn’t sure what Mrs. Fraser was, but she scared him a little. “Denny says she knows what she’s doing,” he ended lamely.

“If Henry dies, nothing will matter,” Dottie said softly, looking at the toes of her shoes. “Not to any of us.”

Rachel made a small, sympathetic sound and reached to put her arm round Dottie’s shoulder.

William added his own gruff clearing of the throat and for an instant thought the dog had done the same.

Rollo’s intent, though, was not sympathetic. He had lifted his head suddenly, and the hackles half-rose at his neck, a low growl rumbling through his chest. William glanced automatically in the direction the dog was looking and felt a sudden tightening of his muscles.

“Miss Hunter,” he said casually. “Do you know that man? The one down there, near the end of the street, talking to the butter-and-egg woman?”

Rachel shaded her eyes with her hand, looking where he nodded, but shook her head.

“No. Why? Is he what’s troubling the dog, does thee think?” She prodded Rollo in the side with her toe. “What’s amiss, then, Friend Rollo?”

“I don’t know,” William said honestly. “It might be the cat; one ran across the road just behind the woman. But I’ve seen that man before; I’m sure of it. I saw him by the roadside, somewhere in New Jersey. He asked me if I knew Ian Murray—and where he might be.”

Rachel gave a little gasp at that, making William look sideways at her in surprise.

“What?” he said. “Do you know where Murray is?”

“No,” she said sharply. “I have not seen him since the autumn, at Saratoga, and I have no notion where he is. Does thee know this man’s name?” she added, frowning. The man had disappeared now, walking off down a side street. “For that matter, is thee sure he is the same?”

“No,” William admitted. “But I think so. He had a staff with him, and so did this man. And there’s something about the way he stands—a little stooped. The man I met in New Jersey was very old, and this one walks the same way.” He didn’t mention the missing fingers; no need to remind Dottie of violence and mutilation just this minute, and he couldn’t see the man’s hand at this distance anyway.

Rollo had left off growling and settled himself with a brief grunt, but his yellow eyes were still watchful.

“When do you mean to be married, Dottie?” William asked, wishing to keep her mind occupied.

A strange smell was coming from the window above them; the dog was wrinkling his nose, shaking his head in a confused sort of way, and William didn’t blame him. It was a nasty, sickly kind of thing—but he could distinctly smell blood, as well, and the faint stink of shit. It was a battlefield smell, and it made his insides shift uneasily.

“I want to be married before the fighting starts again in earnest,” his cousin answered seriously, turning to face him, “so that I can go with Denny—and Rachel,” she added, taking her prospective sister-in-law’s hand with a smile.

Rachel returned the smile, but briefly.

“What a strange thing,” she said to both of them, but her hazel eyes were fixed on William, soft and troubled. “In only a little while we shall be enemies again.”

“I have never felt myself your enemy, Miss Hunter,” he replied, just as softly. “And I shall always be your friend.”

A smile touched her lips, but the trouble stayed in her eyes.

“Thee knows what I mean.” Her eyes slid from William to Dottie, on her other side, and it occurred to William with a jolt that his cousin was about to wed a rebel—to become one herself, in fact. That he must in fact soon be directly at war with a part of his own family. The fact that Denny Hunter would not take up arms would not protect him—or Dottie. Or Rachel. All three of them were guilty of treason. Any of them might be killed, captured, imprisoned. What would he do, he thought suddenly, appalled, if he had to see Denny hanged one day? Or even Dottie?

“I know what you mean,” he said quietly. But he took Rachel’s hand, and she gave it him, and the three of them sat in silence, linked, awaiting the verdict of the future.

INK-STAINED WRETCH

I MADE MY WAY TO the printshop, dead tired and in that state of mind in which one feels drunk—euphoric and uncoordinated. I was in truth somewhat physically drunk, too; Lord John had insisted upon plying both Denzell Hunter and myself with his best brandy, seeing how done up we both were in the wake of the surgery. I hadn’t said no.

It was one of the most hair-raising pieces of surgery I’d done in the eighteenth century. I’d done only two other abdominal surgeries: the successful removal of Aidan McCallum’s appendix, under the influence of ether—and the very unsuccessful cesarean I’d performed with a garden knife upon the murdered body of Malva Christie. The thought of that gave me the usual pang of sadness and regret, but it was oddly tempered. What I remembered now, walking home in the cool evening, was the feeling of the life I’d held in my hands—so brief, so fleeting—but
there
, unmistakable and intoxicant, a brief blue flame.

I’d held Henry Grey’s life in my hands two hours before and felt that blaze again. Once more I’d willed all my strength into the burning of that flame—but this time had felt it steady and rise in my palms, like a candle taking hold.

The bullet had entered his intestine but had not encysted. Instead, it remained embedded but mobile, not able to leave the body but moving enough to irritate the lining of the intestine, which was badly ulcerated. After a quick discussion with Denzell Hunter—who was so fascinated with the novelty of examining a person’s working insides while they lay unconscious that he could barely keep his mind on the business at hand, exclaiming in awe at the vivid colors and pulsating throb of live organs—I had decided that the ulceration was too extensive. To excise it would narrow the small intestine dramatically and risk scarring—constricting it further and perhaps obstructing it altogether.

We’d done a modest resection instead, and I felt a twinge of something between laughter and dismay at the recollection of Lord John’s face when I severed the ulcerated segment of intestine and dropped it with a
splat
on the floor at his feet. I hadn’t done it on purpose; I’d simply needed both my hands and Denzell’s to control the bleeding, and we’d lacked a nurse to help.

The boy wasn’t out of the woods, not by a long chalk. I didn’t know whether my penicillin would be effective, or whether he might develop some hideous infection despite it. But he
was
awake, and his vital signs were surprisingly strong—perhaps, I thought, because of Mrs.

Woodcock, who had gripped his hand and stroked his face, urging him to wake with a fierce tenderness that left her feelings for him in no doubt whatever.

I did wonder briefly what the future held for her. Struck by her unusual name, I’d inquired cautiously about her husband and was sure that it was he whose amputated leg I’d tended on the retreat from Ticonderoga. I thought it very likely he was dead; if so, what might happen between Mercy Woodcock and Henry Grey? She was a free woman, not a slave. Marriage wasn’t unthinkable—not even as unthinkable as such a relationship would be in the United States two hundred years in the future: marriages involving black and mulatto women of good family to white men were, if not common in the Indies, not a matter of public scandal, either. Philadelphia was not the Indies, though, and from what Dottie had told me of her father…

I was simply too tired to think about it, and I needn’t—Denny Hunter had volunteered to stay with Henry through the night. I dismissed that particular pair from my mind as I wandered down the street, weaving slightly. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and it was nearly dark; the brandy had sunk directly through the walls of my empty stomach and entered my bloodstream, and I hummed gently to myself as I walked. It was the twilight hour, when things float on the air, when curved cobblestones seem insubstantial and the leaves of trees hang heavy as emeralds, glowing with a green whose fragrance enters the blood.

I should walk faster; there was a curfew. Still, who would arrest me? I was too old for patrolling soldiers to molest me, as they would a young girl, and of the wrong sex to be suspicious. Should I meet a patrol, they wouldn’t do more than abuse me and tell me to go home—which I was doing, in any case.

It struck me quite suddenly that I could move the things Marsali described circumspectly as “Mr.

Smith’s job”: the written letters circulated by the Sons of Liberty that passed between villages, between towns, that whirled through the colonies like leaves driven by a spring storm, were copied and sent on, sometimes printed and distributed within the towns, if a bold printer could be found to do the work.

There was a loose network through which these things moved, but it was always prone to discovery, with people arrested and imprisoned frequently. Germain carried such papers often, and my heart was in my throat when I thought of it. An agile boy was less noticeable than a young man or a tradesman going about his business—but the British were not fools and would certainly stop him if he looked at all suspicious. Whereas I…

Turning the possibilities over in my mind, I reached the shop and went in, to the smell of a savory supper, the greetings of excited children, and something that drove all thought of my potential new career as a spy from my mind: two letters from Jamie.

20 March, A.D. 1778

Lallybroch

My dearest Claire;

Ian is dead. It has been ten days since the Event, and I thought I should now be
able to write calmly. Yet to see those Words written on the Page just now smote
me with the most unexpected Grief; Tears are running down the sides of my Nose,
and I was forced to stop to mop my Face with a Handkerchief before continuing.

It was not an easy Death and I should be relieved that Ian is now at Peace, and
glad for his Translation into Heaven. So I am. But I am also desolate, in a Way
that I have never been before. Only the Thought of being able to confide in you,
my Soul, gives me Comfort.

Young Jamie has the Estate, as he should; Ian’s Will has been read out, and Mr.

Gowan will see it executed. There is not much beyond the Land and Buildings;
only the smallest Bequests to the other Children, these largely of personal Items.

My Sister he has confided to my Care (he having inquired before his Death
whether I was willing. I told him he knew better than to ask. He said he did, but
thought to inquire whether I felt myself also equal to the Task, and laughed like a
Loon. Dear God, I shall miss him).

There were some trifling Debts to be paid; I have discharged them, as we agreed
I should.

Jenny worries me. I know she grieves Ian with all her Heart, but she does not
weep much, but only sits for long Periods, looking at Something that only she
sees. There is a Calmness about her that is almost eerie, as though her Soul has
flown with Ian, leaving only the Shell of her Body behind. Though since I mention
Shells, it occurs to me that perhaps she is like a Chambered Nautilus, like the one
that Lawrence Sterne showed us in the Indies. A large, beautiful Shell, made of
many Chambers, but all empty, save the innermost one, in which the small Animal
hides itself in safety.