Drums of Autumn (133 page)

Cold fog lay like smoke in the hollows all round; a cloud had settled on Mount Helicon like a broody hen on a single egg, and the air was thick with damp. I blinked blearily across a stretch of rough grass, to where a detachment of the 67th Highland regiment was drawn up in full splendor by the creek, drums rumbling and the company piper tootling away, grandly impervious to the rain.

I was very cold, and more than slightly cross. I’d gone to bed in the expectation of waking to hot coffee and a nourishing breakfast, this to be followed by two weddings, three christenings, two tooth extractions, the removal of an infected toenail, and other entertaining forms of wholesome social intercourse requiring whisky.

Instead, I’d been wakened by unsettling dreams, led into amorous dalliance, and then dragged out into a cold drizzle
in medias
bloody
res
, apparently to hear a proclamation of some sort. No coffee yet, either.

It had taken some time for the Highlanders in their camps to rouse themselves and stagger down the hillside, and the piper had gone quite purple in the face before he at last blew the final blast and left off with a discordant wheeze. The echoes were still ringing off the mountainside, as Lieutenant Archibald Hayes stepped out before his men.

Lieutenant Hayes’s nasal Fife accent carried well, and the wind was with him. Still, I was sure the people farther up the mountain could hear very little. Standing as we did at the foot of the slope, though, we were no more than twenty yards from the Lieutenant and I could hear every word, in spite of the chattering of my teeth.

“By his EXCELLENCY, WILLIAM TRYON, Esquire, His Majesty’s Captain-General, Governor, and Commander-in-Chief, in and over the said Province,”
Hayes read, lifting his voice in a bellow to carry above the noises of wind and water, and the premonitory murmurs of the crowd.

The moisture shrouded trees and rocks with dripping mist, the clouds spat intermittent sleet and freezing rain, and erratic winds had lowered the temperature by some thirty degrees. My left shin, sensitive to cold, throbbed at the spot where I had broken the bone two years before. A person given to portents and metaphors might have been tempted to draw comparisons between the nasty weather and the reading of the Governor’s Proclamation, I thought—the prospects were similarly chill and foreboding.

“Whereas,”
Hayes boomed, glowering at the crowd over his paper,
“I have received information that a great Number of outrageous and disorderly Persons did tumultuously assemble themselves together in the Town of Hillsborough, on the 24th and 25th of last Month, during the sitting of the Superior Court of Justice of that District to oppose the Just Measures of Government and in open Violation of the Laws of their Country, audaciously attacking his Majesty’s Associate Justice in the Execution of his Office, and barbarously beating and wounding several Persons in and during the sitting of said Court, and offering other enormous Indignities and Insults to his Majesty’s Government, committing the most violent Outrages on the Persons and properties of the Inhabitants of the said Town, drinking Damnation to their lawful Sovereign King George and Success to the Pretender—”

Hayes paused, gulping air with which to accomplish the next clause. Inflating his chest with an audible whoosh, he read on:

“To the End therefore, that the Persons concerned in the said outrageous Acts may be brought to Justice, I do, by the Advice and Consent of his Majesty’s Council, issue this my Proclamation, hereby requiring and strictly enjoining all his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace in this Government to make diligent Inquiry into the above recited Crimes, and to receive the Deposition of such Person or Persons as shall appear before them to make Information of and concerning the same; which Depositions are to be transmitted to me, in Order to be laid before the General Assembly, at New Bern, on the 30th day of November next, to which time it stands Prorogued for the immediate Dispatch of Public Business.”

A final inhalation; Hayes’s face was nearly as purple as the piper’s by now.

“Given under my Hand, and the Great Seal of the Province, at New Bern, the 18th Day of October, in the 10th Year of his Majesty’s Reign, Anno Domini 1770
.

“Signed, William Tryon,”
Hayes concluded, with a final puff of steamy breath.

“Do you know,” I remarked to Jamie, “I believe that was all one single sentence, bar the closing. Amazing, even for a politician.”

“Hush, Sassenach,” he said, his eyes still fixed on Archie Hayes. There was a subdued rumble from the crowd behind me, of interest and consternation—touched with a certain amount of amusement at the phrases regarding treasonous toasts.

This was a Gathering of Highlanders, many of them exiled to the Colonies in the wake of the Stuart Rising, and had Archie Hayes chosen to take official notice of what was said over the cups of ale and whisky passed round the fires the night before … but then, he had but forty soldiers with him, and whatever his own opinions of King George and that monarch’s possible damnation, he kept them wisely to himself.

Some four hundred Highlanders surrounded Hayes’s small beachhead on the creekbank, summoned by the tattoo of drums. Men and women sheltered among the trees above the clearing, plaids and arisaids pulled tight against the rising wind. They too were keeping their own counsel, judging from the array of stony faces visible under the flutter of scarves and bonnets. Of course, their expressions might derive from cold as much as from natural caution; my own cheeks were stiff, the end of my nose had gone numb, and I hadn’t felt my feet anytime since daybreak.

“Any person wishing to make declaration concerning these most serious matters may entrust such statements safely to my care,” Hayes announced, his round face an official blank. “I will remain in my tent with my clerk for the rest of the day. God save the King!”

He handed the Proclamation to his corporal, bowed to the crowd in dismissal, and turned smartly toward a large canvas tent that had been erected near the trees, regimental banners flapping wildly from a standard next to it.

Shivering, I slid a hand into the slit of Jamie’s cloak and over the crook of his arm, my cold fingers comforted by the warmth of his body. Jamie pressed his elbow briefly to his side in acknowledgment of my frozen grasp, but didn’t look down at me; he was studying Archie Hayes’s retreating back, eyes narrowed against the sting of the wind.

A compact and solid man, of inconsequent height but considerable presence, the Lieutenant moved with great deliberation, as though oblivious of the crowd on the hillside above. He vanished into his tent, leaving the flap invitingly tied up.

Not for the first time, I reluctantly admired Governor Tryon’s political instincts. This Proclamation was clearly being read in towns and villages throughout the colony; he could have relied on a local magistrate or sheriff to carry his message of official fury to this Gathering. Instead, he had taken the trouble to send Hayes.

Archibald Hayes had taken the field at Culloden by his father’s side, at the age of twelve. Wounded in the fight, he had been captured and sent south. Presented with a choice of transportation or joining the army, he had taken the King’s shilling and made the best of it. The fact that he had risen to be an officer in his mid-thirties, in a time when most commissions were bought rather than earned, was sufficient testimony to his abilities.

He was as personable as he was professional; invited to share our food and fire the day before, he had spent half the night talking with Jamie—and the other half moving from fire to fire under the aegis of Jamie’s presence, being introduced to the heads of all the important families present.

And whose notion had that been? I wondered, looking up at Jamie. His long, straight nose was reddened by the cold, his eyes hooded from the wind, but his face gave no inkling of what he was thinking. And that, I thought, was a bloody good indication that he was thinking something rather dangerous. Had he known about this Proclamation?

No English officer, with an English troop, could have brought such news into a Gathering like this, with any hope of cooperation. But Hayes and his Highlanders, stalwart in their tartan … I didn’t miss the fact that Hayes had had his tent erected with its back to a thick grove of pines; anyone who wished to speak to the Lieutenant in secret could approach through the woods, unseen.

“Does Hayes expect someone to pop out of the crowd, rush into his tent, and surrender on the spot?” I murmured to Jamie. I personally knew of at least a dozen men among those present who had taken part in the Hillsborough riots; three of them were standing within arm’s length of us.

Jamie saw the direction of my glance and put his hand over mine, squeezing it in a silent adjuration of discretion. I lowered my brows at him; surely he didn’t think I would give anyone away by inadvertence? He gave me a faint smile and one of those annoying marital looks that said, more plainly than words,
You know how ye are, Sassenach. Anyone who sees your face kens just what ye think
.

I sidled in a little closer, and kicked him discreetly in the ankle. I might have a glass face, but it certainly wouldn’t arouse comment in a crowd like this! He didn’t wince, but the smile spread a little wider. He slid one arm inside my cloak, and drew me closer, his hand on my back.

Hobson, MacLennan, and Fowles stood together just in front of us, talking quietly among themselves. All three came from a tiny settlement called Drunkard’s Creek, some fifteen miles from our own place on Fraser’s Ridge. Hugh Fowles was Joe Hobson’s son-in-law, and very young, no more than twenty. He was doing his best to keep his composure, but his face had gone white and clammy as the Proclamation was read.

I didn’t know what Tryon intended to do to anyone who could be proved to have had a part in the riot, but I could feel the currents of unrest created by the Governor’s Proclamation passing through the crowd like the eddies of water rushing over rocks in the nearby creek.

Several buildings had been destroyed in Hillsborough, and a number of public officials dragged out and assaulted in the street. Gossip had it that one ironically titled justice of the peace had lost an eye to a vicious blow aimed with a horsewhip. No doubt taking this demonstration of civil disobedience to heart, Chief Justice Henderson had escaped out of a window and fled the town, thus effectively preventing the Court from sitting. It was clear that the Governor was
very
annoyed about what had happened in Hillsborough.

Joe Hobson glanced back at Jamie, then away. Lieutenant Hayes’s presence at our fire the previous evening had not gone unremarked.

If Jamie saw the glance, he didn’t return it. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug, tilting his head down to speak to me.

“I shouldna think Hayes expects anyone to give themselves up, no. It may be his duty to ask for information; I thank God it isna mine to answer.” He hadn’t spoken loudly, but loudly enough to reach the ears of Joe Hobson.

Hobson turned his head and gave Jamie a small nod of wry acknowledgment. He touched his son-in-law’s arm, and they turned away, scrambling up the slope toward the scattered campsites above, where their womenfolk were tending the fires and the younger children.

This was the last day of the Gathering; tonight there would be marryings and christenings, the formal blessing of love and its riotous fruits, sprung from the loins of the unchurched multitude during the year before. Then the last songs would be sung, the last stories told, and dancing done amid the leaping flames of many fires—rain or no rain. Come morning, the Scots and their households would all disperse back to their homes, scattered from the settled banks of the Cape Fear River to the wild mountains of the west—carrying news of the Governor’s Proclamation and the doings at Hillsborough.

I wiggled my toes inside my damp shoes and wondered uneasily who among the crowd might think it their duty to answer Hayes’s invitation to confession or incrimination. Not Jamie, no. But others might. There had been a good deal of boasting about the riots in Hillsborough during the week of the Gathering, but not all the listeners were disposed to view the rioters as heroes, by any means.

I could feel as well as hear the mutter of conversation breaking out in the wake of the Proclamation; heads turning, families drawing close together, men moving from group to group, as the content of Hayes’s speech was relayed up the hill, repeated to those who stood too far away to have heard it.

“Shall we go? There’s a lot to do yet before the weddings.”

“Aye?” Jamie glanced down at me. “I thought Jocasta’s slaves were managing the food and drink. I gave Ulysses the barrels of whisky—he’ll be
soghan.”

“Ulysses? Did he bring his wig?” I smiled at the thought. The
soghan
was the man who managed the dispensing of drink and refreshment at a Highland wedding; the term actually meant something like “hearty, jovial fellow.” Ulysses was possibly the most dignified person I had ever seen—even without his livery and powdered horsehair wig.

“If he did, it’s like to be stuck to his head by the evening.” Jamie glanced up at the lowering sky and shook his head. “Happy the bride the sun shines on,” he quoted. “Happy the corpse the rain falls on.”

“That’s what I like about Scots,” I said dryly. “An appropriate proverb for all occasions. Don’t you dare say that in front of Bree.”

“What d’ye take me for, Sassenach?” he demanded, with a half-smile down at me. “I’m her father, no?”

“Definitely yes.” I suppressed the sudden thought of Brianna’s other father, and glanced over my shoulder, to be sure she wasn’t in hearing.

There was no sign of her blazing head among those nearby. Certainly her father’s daughter, she stood six feet tall in her stocking feet; nearly as easy as Jamie himself to pick out of a crowd.

“It’s not the wedding feast I need to deal with, anyway,” I said, turning back to Jamie. “I’ve got to manage breakfast, then do the morning clinic with Murray MacLeod.”