Written in My Own Heart's Blood (123 page)

Caught up in the memory, I’d missed what William was saying and shook my head, trying to focus.

“I’ve been searching for him for the last three months,” he said, putting down his cup and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “He’s an elusive scoundrel. And I don’t know that he’s in Savannah at all, for that matter. But the last hint I had of him was in Charleston, and he left there three weeks ago, heading south.

“Now, for all I know, the fellow’s bound for Florida or has already taken ship for England. On the other hand . . . Amaranthus is here, or at least I believe so. Richardson seems to take an inordinate interest in the Grey family and its connections, so perhaps . . . Do you know Denys Randall yourself, by the way?”

He was looking at me intently over his cup, and I realized, with a faint sense of amusement mingled with outrage, that he had thrown the name at me suddenly in hopes of surprising any guilty knowledge I might have.

Why, you little scallywag
, I thought, amusement getting the upper hand.
You need a bit more practice before you can pull off that sort of thing, my lad
.

I did in fact know something about Denys Randall that William almost certainly didn’t know—and that Denys Randall himself might not know—but it wasn’t information that would shed any light on the whereabouts and motives of Ezekiel Richardson.

“I’ve never met him,” I said, quite truthfully, and held up my cup toward the serving maid for more cider. “I used to know his mother, Mary Hawkins; we met in Paris. A lovely, sweet girl, but I’ve had no contact with her for the last . . . thirty . . . no, thirty-four years. I assume from what you tell me that she married a Mr. Isaacs—you said he was a Jewish merchant?”

“Yes. So Randall said—and I can’t see why he’d lie about it.”

“Nor can I. But what you do know—you think,” I corrected, “is that while Denys Randall and Ezekiel Richardson have heretofore appeared to be working together, now they aren’t?”

William shrugged, impatient.

“So far as I know. I haven’t seen Randall since he warned me about Richardson, but I haven’t seen Richardson, either.”

I could sense his rising desire to be up and off; he was drumming his fingers softly on the tabletop, and the table itself shuddered slightly when his leg bumped it.

“Where are you staying, William?” I asked impulsively, before he could go. “In—in case I do see Richardson. Or hear anything of Amaranthus, for that matter. I am a doctor; a lot of people come to see me, and everyone talks to a doctor.”

He hesitated, but then gave another shrug, this one infinitesimal. “I’ve taken a room at Hendry’s, on River Street.”

He stood, tossed some money on the table, and extended a hand to help me up.

“We’re staying at Landrum’s, one square over from the City Market,” I said on impulse, rising. “If you should—want to call. Or need help. Just in case, I mean.”

His face had gone carefully blank, though his eyes were burning like match flames. I felt a chill, knowing from experience the sort of thing that was likely going on behind such a façade.

“I doubt it, Mrs. Fraser,” he said politely. And, kissing my hand in brief farewell, he left.

GIGGING FROGS

December 22, 1778

J
AMIE TOOK A FIRM
grip of the back of Germain’s shirt and beckoned with his free hand to Ian, who held the torch.

“Look out over the water first, aye?” Jamie whispered, lifting his chin at the black glitter of the submerged marsh. It was broken by clumps of waist-high cordgrass and smaller ones of needlerush, bright green in the torchlight. This was a deep spot, though, with two or three of what the natives of Savannah called “hammocks,” though plainly they meant “hummock”—wee islands, with trees like wax myrtle and yaupon holly bushes, though these, too, were of a spiky nature, like everything else in a marsh save the frogs and fish.

Some of the spikier inhabitants of the marsh, though, were mobile and nothing you wanted to meet unexpectedly. Germain peered obediently into the darkness, his gigging spear held tight and high, poised for movement. Jamie could feel him tremble, partly from the chill but mostly, he thought, from excitement.

A sudden movement broke the surface of the water, and Germain lunged forward, plunging his gig into the water with a high-pitched yell.

Fergus and Jamie let out much deeper cries, each grabbing Germain by an arm and hauling him backward over the mud, as the irate cottonmouth he’d nearly speared turned on him, lashing, yawning mouth flaring white.

But the snake luckily had business elsewhere and swam off with a peeved sinuosity. Ian, safely out of range, was laughing.

“Think it’s funny, do ye?” said Germain, scowling in order to pretend he wasn’t shaking.

“Aye, I do,” his uncle assured him. “Be even funnier if ye were eaten by an alligator, though. See there?” He lifted the torch and pointed; ten feet away, there was a ripple in the water, between them and the nearest hammock. Germain frowned uncertainly at it, then turned his head to his grandfather.

“That’s an alligator? How d’ye ken that?”

“It is,” Jamie said. His own heart was pounding from the sight of the cottonmouth. Snakes unnerved him, but he wasn’t scairt of alligators. Cautious, yes. Scairt, no. “See how the ripples come back from the island there?”

“Aye.” Germain squinted across the water. “So?”

“Those ripples are coming toward us side on. The one Ian’s pointing at? It’s coming at a right angle—right toward us.”

It was, though slowly.

“Are alligators good to eat?” Fergus asked, watching it thoughtfully. “A good deal more meat on one than on a frog,
n’est-ce pas
?”

“They are, and there is, aye.” Ian shifted his weight a little, gauging the distance. “We canna kill one of those wi’ spears, though. I should have brought my bow.”

“Should we . . . move?” Germain asked doubtfully.

“Nay, see how big it is first,” Ian said, fingering the long knife at his belt. He was wearing a breechclout, and his bare legs were long and steady as a heron’s, standing mid-calf in the muddy water.

The four of them watched with great concentration as the ripple came on, paused, came on a little more, slowly.

“Are they stunned by light, Ian?” Jamie asked, low-voiced. Frogs were; they had maybe two dozen bullfrogs in their sack, surprised in the water and killed before they kent what hit them.

“I dinna think so,” Ian whispered back. “I’ve not hunted one before, though.”

There was a sudden gleam in the water, a scatter of ripples, and the glow of two small burning orbs, a demon’s eyes.

“A Dhia!”
Jamie said, making a convulsive sign against evil. Fergus pulled Germain back farther, making a clumsy sign of the cross with his hook. Even Ian seemed taken back a bit; his hand fell from his knife and he stepped back toward the mud, not taking his eyes off the thing.

“It’s a wee one, I think,” he said, reaching safety. “See, its eyes are nay bigger than my thumbnail.”

“Does that matter, if it’s possessed?” Fergus asked, suspicious. “Even if we were to kill it, we might be poisoned.”

“Oh, I dinna think so,” Jamie said. He could see it now as it hung motionless in the water, stubby clawed feet halfway drawn up. It was perhaps two feet long—the toothy jaw maybe six inches. It could give you a nasty bite, nay more. But it wasn’t close enough to reach.

“Ken what a wolf’s eyes look like in the dark? Or a possum’s?” He’d taken Fergus hunting, of course, when he was young, but seldom at night—and such things as you’d hunt at night in the Highlands were usually running from you, not looking at you.

Ian nodded, not taking his eyes off the small reptile.

“Aye, that’s true. Wolves’ eyes are usually green or yellow, but I’ve seen them red like that sometimes, by torchlight.”

“I would suppose that a wolf could be possessed by an evil spirit as easily as an alligator could,” Fergus said, a little testily. It was clear, though, that he wasn’t afraid of the thing, either, now that he’d got a good look; they were all beginning to relax.

“He thinks we’re stealing his frogs,” Germain said, giggling. He was still holding the spear, and even as he spoke, he spotted something and slammed the three-tined sapling into the water with a whoop.

“I got it, I got it!” he shouted, and splashed into the water, heedless of the alligator. He bent to see that his prey was firmly transfixed, let out another small whoop, and pulled up his spear, displaying a catfish of no mean size, belly showing white in its frantic flapping, blood running in trickles from the holes made by the tines.

“More meat on that than on yon wee lizard there, aye?” Ian took the spear, pulled the fish off, and bashed its head with the hilt of his knife to kill it.

Everyone looked, but the alligator had departed, alarmed by the kerfuffle.

“Aye, that’s us fettled, I think.” Jamie picked up both bags—one half full of bullfrogs, and the other still squirming slightly from the inclusion of a number of shrimp and crayfish netted from the shallows. He held open the one with the frogs for Ian to toss the fish inside, saying a verse from the Hunting Blessing, for Germain:
“Thou shalt not eat fallen fish nor fallen flesh/ Nor one bird that thy hand shall not bring down/Be thou thankful for the one/ Though nine should be swimming.”

Germain was not paying attention, though; he was standing quite still, fair hair lifting in the breeze, his head turned.

“Look,
Grand-père
,” he said, voice urgent. “Look!”

They all looked and saw the ships, far out beyond the marsh but coming in, heading for the small headland to the south. Seven, eight, nine . . . a dozen at least, with red lanterns at their masts, blue ones at the stern. Jamie felt the hair rise on his body and his blood go cold.

“British men-of-war,” Fergus said, his voice empty with shock.

“They are,” Jamie said. “We’d best get home.”

IT WAS ALMOST
dawn before I felt Jamie slide into bed behind me, bringing chilled skin and the smell of brine, cold mud, and marsh plants with him. Also . . .

“What’s that smell?” I asked drowsily, kissing the arm he’d put round me.

“Frogs, I expect. God, ye’re warm, Sassenach.” He cuddled closer, pressing his body into mine, and I felt him pull loose the bow of the ribbon that gathered the neck of my shift.

“Good hunting, then?” I obligingly wiggled my bottom into the hollow of his thighs and he sighed in appreciation, his breath warm on my ear, and slipped a cold hand inside my shift. “Ooh.”

“Aye. Germain caught a fine big catfish, and we brought back a sack of crawfish and shrimps—the wee gray ones.”

“Mmm. We’ll have a good supper, then.” His temperature was quickly equalizing with mine, and I was drifting pleasantly back down toward sleep—though quite willing to be roused for the right reasons.

“We saw a wee alligator. And a snake—a water moccasin.”

“You didn’t catch those, I hope.” I knew that snakes and alligators were technically edible, but I didn’t think we were quite hungry enough to make the challenges of cooking one worthwhile.

“No. Oh—and a dozen British ships full of soldiers turned up, too.”

“That’s ni—
What?
” I flipped over in his arms, ending face-to-face.

“British soldiers,” he repeated gently. “Dinna fash, Sassenach. I expect it will be all right. Fergus and I already hid the press, and we havena got any silver to bury. That’s one thing to be said for poverty,” he added reflectively, stroking my bottom. “Ye dinna need to fear bein’ plundered.”

“That—what the bloody hell are they doing
here
?” I rolled over and sat straight up in bed, pulling my shift up round my shoulders.

“Well, ye did say Pardloe told ye they meant to cut off the southern colonies, aye? I imagine they decided to start here.”

“Why here? Why not . . . Charleston? Or Norfolk?”

“Well, I couldna say, not being privy to the British councils of war,” he said mildly. “But if I was to guess, I’d say it’s maybe that there are a good many troops already in Florida, and they’ll be marching up to join this new lot. The Loyalists are thick as fleas on a dog all along the coast of the Carolinas; if the army’s secured Florida and Georgia, they’d be well placed to advance northward, picking up local support.”

“You have it all figured out, I see.” I pressed my back against the wall—there was no headboard—and finished retying the ribbon of my shift. I didn’t feel equal to meeting an invasion with my bosom uncovered.

“No,” he admitted. “But there are only two things to do, Sassenach: stay or flee. It’s the dead of winter in the mountains; we canna get through the passes ’til March, and I’d rather not be stravaiging about the countryside with three bairns, two pregnant women, and nay money. And I doubt they’ll burn the city, not if they mean it to be a base for invading the rest of the South.” He reached up and ran a soothing hand down my shoulder and arm. “It’s not as though ye’ve not lived in an occupied city before.”

“Hmm,” I said dubiously, but he did have a point. There
were
some advantages to the situation, the chief one being that if an army already held a city, they wouldn’t be attacking it: no fighting in the streets. But, then . . . they didn’t hold it yet.

“Dinna fash yourself, lass,” he said softly, and twined a finger in my ribbon. “Did I not tell ye when we wed, ye’d have the protection of my body?”

“You did,” I admitted, and laid a hand over his. It was big, strong, and capable.

“Then come lie wi’ me,
mo nighean donn
, and let me prove it,” he said, and pulled the ribbon loose.

FROG LEGS OF
that size really did look quite like chicken drumsticks. And tasted very like, too, dredged in flour and egg with a little salt and pepper and fried.

“Why is it that the meat of strange animals is so often described as tasting like chicken?” Rachel asked, neatly snaring another leg out from under her husband’s reaching hand. “I’ve heard people say that of everything from catamount to alligator.”

“Because it does,” Ian answered, raising a brow at her and stabbing his fork into a platter of catfish chunks, similarly coated and fried.

“Well, if you want to be technical about it,” I began, to a chorus of mingled
groans and laughter. Before I could launch into an explanation of the biochemistry of muscle fiber, though, there was a rap on the door. We had been making so much noise over supper that I hadn’t heard footsteps on the stair and was taken by surprise.