A Breath of Snow and Ashes

  felt a sudden deep, calm happiness. I had no notion what might happen—and all the horror and anger connected with Malva’s death still lurked at the back of my mind, a great dark shape under very thin ice. But he was there. Near enough now to see his face, as he looked back over his shoulder toward the ship.

  I lifted a hand to wave; his eyes were already fixed on me. He didn’t stop rowing, but turned round and came on. I stood clinging to the rail, waiting.

  The rowboat passed out of sight for a moment, under the lee of the Cruizer, and I heard the watch hail him, the deep half-audible answer, and felt something that had been knotted inside me for a long time let go at the sound of his voice.

  I stood rooted, though, not able to move. Then there were footsteps on deck, and a murmur of voices—someone going to fetch the Governor—and I turned blindly, into Jamie’s arms.

  “Knew you’d come,” I whispered into the linen of his shirt. He reeked of fire: smoke and pinesap and scorched cloth, and the bitter tang of turpentine. Reeked of stale sweat and horses, the weariness of a man who has not slept, who has labored all night, the faint yeasty smell of long hunger.

  He held me close, ribs and breath and warmth and muscle, then put me away from him a little and looked down into my face. He had been smiling since I saw him. It lit his eyes, and without a word, he pulled the cap off my head and threw it over the rail. He ran his hands through my hair, fluffing it out into abandon, then cupped my head in his hands and kissed me, fingers digging into my scalp. He had a three-day beard, which rasped my skin like sandpaper, and his mouth was home and safety.

  Somewhere behind him, one of the Marines coughed, and said loudly, “You wished to see the Governor, I believe, sir?”

  He let go, slowly, and turned.

  “I do indeed,” he said, and put out a hand to me. “Sassenach?”

  I took it, and followed the Marine, heading for the companionway. I glanced back over the rail, to see my cap bobbing in the swell, puffed with air and tranquil as a jellyfish.

  The momentary illusion of peace vanished directly, though, once we were below.

  The Governor had been up most of the night, as well, and didn’t look much better than Jamie, though he was not, of course, besmeared with soot. He was, however, unshaven, bloodshot, and in no mood to be trifled with.

  “Mr. Fraser,” he said with a short nod. “You are James Fraser, I collect? And you dwell in the mountain backcountry?”

  “I am the Fraser, of Fraser’s Ridge,” Jamie said courteously. “And I have come for my wife.”

  “Oh, have you.” The Governor gave him a sour look and sat down, gesturing indifferently at a stool. “I regret to inform you, sir, that your wife is a prisoner of the Crown. Though perhaps you were aware of this?”

  Jamie ignored this bit of sarcasm and took the proffered seat.

  “In fact, she is not,” he said. “It is true, is it not, that you have declared martial law upon the colony of North Carolina?”

  “It is,” Martin said shortly. This was rather a sore point, since while he had declared martial law, he was in no position actually to enforce it, but was obliged to float impotently offshore, fuming, until and unless England chose to send him reinforcements.

  “Then in fact, all customary legal usage is suspended,” Jamie pointed out. “You alone have control over the custody and disposition of any prisoners—and my wife has in fact been in your custody for some little time. Ye therefore have also the power to release her.”

  “Hm,” said the Governor. Plainly he hadn’t thought of that, and wasn’t sure of its ramifications. At the same time, the notion that he was in control of anything at all at the moment was likely soothing to his inflamed spirits.

  “She has not been committed for trial, and in fact, there has been no evidence whatever adduced against her,” Jamie said firmly.

  I found myself uttering a silent prayer of thanks that I had told MacDonald the gory details after his visit with the Governor—it might not be what a modern court called evidence, but being found with a knife in my hand and two warm, bloody corpses was very damned circumstantial.

  “She is accused, but there is no merit to the charge. Surely, having had her acquaintance for even so short a time as you have, ye will have drawn your own conclusions as to her character?” Not waiting for an answer to this, he pressed on.

  “When accusation was made, we did not resist the attempt to bring my wife—or myself, for I also have been accused in the matter—to trial. What better indication is there that we should hold such conviction of her innocence as to wish for a speedy trial to establish it?”

  The Governor had narrowed his eyes, and appeared to be thinking intently.

  “Your arguments are not entirely lacking in virtue, sir,” he said at last, with formal courtesy. “However, I understand that the crime of which your wife stands accused was a most heinous one. For me to release her must necessarily cause public outcry—and I have had rather enough of public unrest,” he added, with a bleak look at the scorched cuffs of Jamie’s coat.

  Jamie took a deep breath and had another go.

  “I quite understand Your Excellency’s reservations,” he said. “Perhaps some . . . surety might be offered, which would overcome them?”

  Martin sat bolt upright in his chair, receding jaw thrust out.

  “What do you suggest, sir? Have you the impertinence, the—the—unspeakable bloody face to try to bribe me?” He slapped both hands down on the desk and glared from Jamie to me and back. “God damn it, I should hang the two of you, out of hand!”

  “Very nice, Mr. Ohnat,” I muttered to Jamie under my breath. “At least we’re already married.”

  “Oh, ah,” he replied, giving me a brief glance of incomprehension before returning his attention to the Governor, who was muttering “Swing them from the bloody yardarm . . . the infernal cheek of it, the creatures!”

  “I had no such intent, sir.” Jamie kept his voice level, his eyes direct. “What I offer is a bond, against my wife’s appearance in court to answer the charge against her. When she does so appear, it would be returned to me.”

  Before the Governor could respond to this, he reached into his pocket and withdrew something small and dark, which he set on the desk. The black diamond.

  The sight of it stopped Martin in mid-sentence. He blinked, once, his long-nosed face going almost comically blank. He rubbed a finger slowly across his upper lip, considering.

  Having seen a great deal of the Governor’s private correspondence and accounts by now, I was well aware that he had few private means, and was obliged to live far beyond his modest income in order to maintain the appearances necessary for a Royal Governor.

  The Governor in turn was well aware that in the current state of unrest, there was little chance of my being brought to trial in any sort of timely manner. It could be months—and possibly years—before the court system was restored to anything like routine function. And for however long it took, he would have the diamond. He couldn’t in honor simply sell the thing—but could most assuredly borrow a substantial sum against it, in the reasonable expectation that he might redeem it later.

  I saw his eyes flicker toward the sooty marks on Jamie’s coat, narrowing in speculation. There was also a good possibility of Jamie’s being killed or arrested for treason—and I saw the impulse to do just that pop momentarily into his mind—which would leave the diamond perhaps in legal limbo, but certainly in Martin’s possession. I had to force myself to keep on breathing.

  But he wasn’t stupid, Martin—nor was he venal. With a small sigh, he pushed the stone back toward Jamie.

  “No, sir,” he said, though his voice had now lost its earlier outrage. “I will not accept this as bond for your wife. But the notion of surety . . .” His gaze went to the stack of papers on his desk, and returned to Jamie.

  “I will make you a proposition, sir,” he said abruptly. “I have an action in train, an operation by which I hope to raise a considera
ble body of the Scottish Highlanders, who will march from the backcountry to the coast, there to meet with troops sent from England, and in the process, to subdue the countryside on behalf of the King.”

  He paused for breath, eyeing Jamie closely to assess the effect of his speech. I was standing close behind Jamie, and couldn’t see his face, but didn’t need to. Bree, joking, called it his “brag face”; no one looking at him would ever know whether he held four aces, a full house, or a pair of threes. I was betting on the pair of threes, myself—but Martin didn’t know him nearly as well as I did.

  “General Hugh MacDonald and a Colonel Donald McLeod came into the colony some time ago, and have been traversing the countryside, rallying support—which they have gained in gratifying numbers, I am pleased to say.” His fingers drummed briefly on the letters, then stopped abruptly as he leaned forward.

  “What I propose, then, sir, is this: you will return to the backcountry, and gather such men as you can. You will then report to General MacDonald and commit your troops to his campaign. When I receive word from MacDonald that you have arrived—with, let us say, two hundred men—then, sir, I will release your wife to you.”

  My pulse was beating fast, and so was Major’s; I could see it throbbing in his neck. Definitely a pair of threes. Obviously, MacDonald hadn’t had time to tell the Governor—or hadn’t known—just how widespread and acrimonious the response had been to Malva Christie’s death. There were still men on the Ridge who would follow Jamie, I was sure—but many more who would not, or who would, but only if he repudiated me.

  I was trying to think logically about the situation, as a means of distracting myself from the crushing disappointment of realizing that the Governor was not going to let me go. Jamie must go without me, leave me here. For an overwhelming instant, I thought I could not bear it; I would run mad, scream and leap across the desk to claw Josiah Martin’s eyes out.

  He glanced up, caught a glimpse of my face, and started back, half-rising from his chair.

  Jamie put back a hand and gripped my forearm, hard.

  “Be still, a nighean,” he said softly.

  I had been holding my breath without realizing it. Now I let it out in a gasp, and made myself breathe slowly.

  Just as slowly, the Governor—a wary gaze still fixed on me—lowered himself back into his seat. Clearly, the accusation against me had just become a lot more likely, in his mind. Fine, I thought fiercely, to keep from crying. See how easily you sleep, with me never more than a few feet away from you.

  Jamie drew a long, deep breath, and his shoulders squared beneath his tattered coat.

  “You will give me leave, sir, to consider your proposal,” he said formally, and letting go of my arm, rose to his feet.

  “Do not despair, mo chridhe,” he said to me in Gaelic. “I will see you when the morning comes.”

  He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, then, with the barest of nods to the Governor, strode out, without looking back.

  There was an instant’s silence in the cabin, and I heard his feet going away, climbing the ladder of the companionway. I didn’t pause to consider, but reached down into my stays and withdrew the small knife I had taken from the surgeon’s kit.

  I jabbed it down with all my strength, so that it stuck in the wood of the desk and stood there, quivering before the Governor’s astonished eyes.

  “You fucking bastard,” I said evenly, and left.

  97

  FOR THE SAKE OF

  ONE WHO IS

  I WAS WAITING AT THE RAIL again before dawn the next day. The smell of ashes was strong and acrid on the wind, but the smoke had gone. An early-morning haze still shrouded the shore, though, and I felt a small thrill of déjà vu, mingled with hope, as I saw the small boat come out of the mist, pulling slowly toward the ship.

  As it grew closer, though, my hands tightened on the rail. It wasn’t Jamie. For a few moments, I tried to convince myself that it was, that he had merely changed his coat—but with each stroke of the oars, it became more certain. I closed my eyes, stinging with tears, all the while telling myself that it was absurd to be so upset; it meant nothing.

  Jamie would be here; he’d said so. The fact that someone else was coming early to the ship had nothing to do with him or me.

  It did, though. Opening my eyes and wiping them on my wrist, I looked again at the rowboat, and felt a start of disbelief. It couldn’t be. It was, though. He looked up at the watch’s hail, and saw me at the rail. Our eyes met for an instant, then he bowed his head, reaching to the oars. Tom Christie.

  The Governor was not amused at being roused from his bed at dawn for the third day running; I could hear him below, ordering one of the Marines to tell the fellow, whoever he was, to wait to a more reasonable hour—this followed by a peremptory slam of the cabin door.

  I was not amused, either, and in no mood to wait. The Marine at the head of the companionway refused to allow me below, though. Heart pounding, then, I turned and made my way to the stern, where they had put Christie to wait the Governor’s pleasure.

  The Marine there hesitated, but after all, there were no orders to prevent me speaking with visitors; he let me pass.

  “Mr. Christie.” He was standing at the rail, staring back at the coast, but turned at my words.

  “Mrs. Fraser.” He was very pale; his grizzled beard stood out nearly black. He had trimmed it, though, and his hair, as well. While he still looked like a lightning-blasted tree, there was life in his eyes once more when he looked at me.

  “My husband—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “He is well. He awaits you on the shore; you will see him presently.”

  “Oh?” The boil of fear and fury inside me reduced itself slightly, as though someone had turned down the flame, but a sense of impatience was still steaming. “Well, what in bloody hell is going on, will you tell me that?”

  He looked at me for a long moment in silence, then licked his lips briefly, and turned to look over the rail at the smooth gray swell. He glanced back at me and drew a deep breath, obviously bracing himself for something.

  “I have come to confess to the murder of my daughter.”

  I simply stared at him, unable to make sense of his words. Then I assembled them into a sentence, read it from the tablet of my mind, and finally grasped it.

  “No, you haven’t,” I said.

  The faintest shadow of a smile seemed to stir in his beard, though it vanished almost before I had seen it.

  “You remain contrary, I see,” he said dryly.

  “Never mind what I remain,” I said, rather rudely. “Are you insane? Or is this Jamie’s latest plan? Because if so—”

  He stopped me with a hand on my wrist; I started at the touch, not expecting it.

  “It is the truth,” he said very softly. “And I will swear to it by the Holy Scriptures.”

  I stood looking at him, not moving. He looked back, directly, and I realized suddenly how seldom he had ever met my eyes; all through our acquaintance, he had glanced away, avoided my gaze, as though he sought to escape any real acknowledgment of me, even when obliged to speak to me.

  Now that was gone, and the look in his eyes was nothing I had ever seen before. The lines of pain and suffering cut deep around them, and the lids were heavy with sorrow—but the eyes themselves were deep and calm as the sea beneath us. That sense he had carried through our nightmare journey south, that atmosphere of mute horror, numb pain, had left him, replaced by resolve and something else—something that burned, far down in his depths.

  “Why?” I said at last, and he let go his grip on my wrist, stepping back a pace.

  “D’ye remember once”—from the reminiscent tone of his voice, it might have been decades before—“ye asked me, did I think ye a witch?”

  “I remember,” I replied guardedly. “You said—” Now I remembered that conversation, all right, and something small and icy fluttered at the base of my spine. “You said that you believed in witches, al
l right—but you didn’t think I was one.”

  He nodded, dark gray eyes fixed on me. I wondered whether he was about to revise that opinion, but apparently not.

  “I believe in witches,” he said with complete matter-of-fact seriousness. “For I’ve kent them. The girl was one, as was her mother before her.” The icy flutter grew stronger.

  “The girl,” I said. “You mean your daughter? Malva?”

  He shook his head a little, and his eyes took on a darker hue. “No daughter of mine,” he said.

  “Not—not yours? But—her eyes. She had your eyes.” I heard myself say it, and could have bitten my tongue. He only smiled, though, grimly.

  “And my brother’s.” He turned to the rail, put his hands on it, and looked across the stretch of sea, toward land. “Edgar was his name. When the Rising came, and I declared for the Stuarts, he would have none of it, saying ’twas folly. He begged me not to go.” He shook his head slowly, seeing something in memory, that I knew was not the wooded shore.

  “I thought—well, it doesna matter what I thought, but I went. And asked him, would he mind my wife, and the wee lad.” He drew a deep breath, let it slowly out. “And he did.”

  “I see,” I said very quietly. He turned his head sharply at the tone of my voice, gray eyes piercing.

  “It was not his fault! Mona was a witch—an enchantress.” His lips compressed at the expression on my face. “Ye don’t believe me, I see. It is the truth; more than once, I caught her at it—working her charms, observing times—I came once to the roof o’ the house at midnight, searching for her. I saw her there, stark naked and staring at the stars, standing in the center of a pentacle she’d drawn wi’ the blood of a strangled dove, and her hair flying loose, mad in the wind.”

  “Her hair,” I said, looking for some thread to grasp in this, and suddenly realizing. “She had hair like mine, didn’t she?”

  He nodded, looking away, and I saw his throat move as he swallowed.

  “She was . . . what she was,” he said softly. “I tried to save her—by prayer, by love. I could not.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked, keeping my voice as low as his. With the wind as it was, there was little chance of our being overheard here, but this was not the sort of thing I thought anyone should hear.

  He sighed, and swallowed again.

  “She was hangit,” he said, sounding almost matter-of-fact about it. “For the murder of my brother.”

  This, it seemed, had happened while Tom was imprisoned at Ardsmuir; she had sent him word, before her execution, telling him of Malva’s birth, and that she was confiding care of the children to Edgar’s wife.

  “I suppose she thought that funny,” he said, sounding abstracted. “She’d the oddest sense of humor, Mona had.”

  I felt cold, beyond the chill of the early-morning breeze, and hugged my elbows.

  “But you got them back—Allan and Malva.”

  He nodded; he had been transported, but had the good fortune to have his indenture bought by a kind and wealthy man, who had given him the money for the children’s passage to the Colonies. But then both his employer and the wife he had taken here had died in an epidemic of the yellow fever, and casting about for some new opportunity, he had heard of Jamie Fraser’s settling in North Carolina and that he would help those men he had known in Ardsmuir to land of their own.

  “I would to God I had cut my own throat before I came,” he said, turning back abruptly to me. “Believe me in that.”

  He seemed entirely sincere. I didn’t know what to say in response, but he seemed to require none, and went on.

  “The girl . . . she was nay more than five years old when I first saw her, but already she had it—the same slyness, the charm—the same darkness of soul.”

  He had tried to the best of his ability to save Malva, as well—to beat the wickedness out of her, to constrain the streak of wildness, above all, to keep her from working her wiles upon men.

  “Her mither had that, too.” His lips tightened at the thought. “Any man. It was the curse of Lilith that they had, the both of them.”

  I felt a hollowness in the pit of my stomach, as he came back now to the matter of Malva.

  “But she was with child . . .” I said.

  His face paled further, but his voice was firm.

  “Aye, she was. I do not think it wrong to prevent yet another witch from entering the world.”

  Seeing my face, he went on before I could interrupt.

  “Ye ken she tried to kill ye? You and me, both.”

  “What do you mean? Tried to kill me, how?”

  “When ye told her about the invisible things, the—the germs. She took great interest in that. She told me, when I caught her wi’ the bones.”

  “What bones?” I asked, a sliver of ice running down my back.

  “The bones she took from Ephraim’s grave, to work her charms upon your husband. She didna use them all, and I found them in her workbasket later. I beat her, badly, and she told me then.”

  Accustomed to wander alone in the woods in search of food plants and herbs, she had been doing so during the height of the dysentery epidemic. And in her