A Breath of Snow and Ashes

  She’d lost the busk when she fell, but saw it gleaming dully, a foot from her head. With Emmanuel’s back momentarily turned, she whipped her hand up and grabbed it, then lay still, playing possum.

  THEY HAD NEARLY reached the house when sounds from the nearby forest stopped them. Roger froze, then ducked off the path. Jamie and Ian had already melted into the wood. The sounds weren’t coming from the path, though, but from somewhere off to the left—voices, men’s voices, shouting orders, and the shuffling of feet, the clink of chains.

  A thrill of panic shot through him. Were they taking her away? He was already soaked with rain, but felt the bloom of cold sweat over his body, colder than the rain.

  Howard, the man they’d apprehended in the wood, had assured them Brianna was safe in the house, but what would he know? He listened, straining his ears for the sound of a woman’s voice, and heard it, a high, thin scream.

  He jerked toward it, only to find Jamie beside him, gripping his arm.

  “That’s not Brianna,” his father-in-law said urgently. “Ian will go. You and I—for the house!”

  There was no time for argument. The sounds of violence on the beach came faintly—shouts and cries—but Jamie was right, that voice wasn’t Brianna’s. Ian was running toward the beach, making no effort now to be silent.

  An instant’s hesitation, instinct urging him to go after Ian, then Roger was on the path, following Jamie toward the house at the run.

  EMMANUEL BENT OVER HER; she felt his bulk and lunged upward like a striking snake, sharpened busk like a fang. She’d aimed for his head, hoping for eye or throat, but counting at least on his jerking reflexively back, putting him at a disadvantage.

  He jerked, all right, up and away, but was much faster than she’d thought. She struck with all her force, and the sharpened busk drove under his arm with a rubbery shock. He froze for a moment, mouth open in incredulity, looking at the ivory rod that stuck out of his armpit. Then he wrenched it out, and lunged for her with an outraged bellow.

  She was already on her feet, though, and running for the woods. From somewhere ahead, she heard more yelling—and a bloodcurdling scream. Another, and then more, these coming from the front of the house.

  Dazed and terrified, she kept running, her mind only slowly grasping that some of the screams had words.

  “Casteal DHUUUUUUUIN!”

  Da, she thought, in absolute astonishment, then tripped over a branch on the ground and fell arse over teakettle, landing in a disheveled heap.

  She struggled to her feet, thinking absurdly, This can’t be good for the baby, and groping for another weapon.

  Her fingers were trembling, wouldn’t work. She scrabbled the ground, vainly. Then Emmanuel popped up beside her like the Demon King, grabbing her arm with a gloating, “HA!”

  The shock made her sway, her vision going gray at the edges. She could still hear bloodcurdling screams on the distant beach, but no more yelling at the house. Emmanuel was saying something, full of satisfaction and threat, but she wasn’t listening.

  There seemed to be something wrong with his face; it went in and out of focus, and she blinked hard, shaking her head to clear her sight. It wasn’t her eyes, though—it was him. His face melted slowly from bare-toothed menace to a look of faint astonishment. He frowned, lips pursing so she saw the pink lining of his mouth, and blinked two or three times. Then he made a small choked noise, put a hand to his chest, and dropped to his knees, still gripping her arm.

  He fell over, and she landed on top of him. She pulled away—his fingers came away easily, all their strength suddenly gone—and stumbled to her feet, panting and shaking.

  Emmanuel was lying on his back, legs bent under him at what would have been an excruciating angle, had he been alive. She gulped for air, trembling, afraid to believe it. But he was dead; there was no mistaking the look of it.

  Her breath was coming better now, and she began to be conscious of the cuts and bruises on her bare feet. She still felt stunned, unable to decide what to do next.

  The decision was made for her in the next instant, as Stephen Bonnet came dashing toward her through the wood.

  SHE JERKED TO instant alertness, and spun on her heel to flee. She made it no more than six paces before he had an arm about her throat, dragging her off her feet.

  “Hush, now, darlin’,” he said in her ear, sounding breathless. He was hot, and his stubble rasped her cheek. “I mean ye no harm. I’ll leave ye safe on the shore. But ye’re the only thing I’ve got right now will keep your men from killin’ me.”

  He ignored the body of Emmanuel entirely. The heavy forearm left her throat and he grabbed her arm, trying to drag her in the direction away from the beach—evidently, he meant to make for the hidden inlet on the opposite side of the island, where they had landed the day before. “Move, darlin’. Now.”

  “Let go!” She dug her feet in hard, yanking on her trapped arm. “I’m not going anywhere with you. HELP!” she shrieked as loudly as she could. “HELP! ROGER!”

  He looked startled, and raised his free arm to wipe the streaming rain out of his eyes. There was something in his hand; the last of the light gleamed orange on glass. Holy Lord, he’d brought his testicle.

  “Bree! Brianna! Where are you?” Roger’s voice, frantic, and a jolt of adrenaline shot through her at the sound, giving her the strength to jerk her arm from Bonnet’s grasp.

  “Here! Here I am! Roger!” she shouted at the top of her voice.

  Bonnet glanced over his shoulder; the bushes were shaking, two men at least coming through them. He wasted no time, but darted into the forest, bending low to avoid a branch, and was gone.

  In the next instant, Roger crashed out of the brush and seized her, crushing her against him.

  “You’re all right? Has he hurt you?” He’d dropped his knife, and held her by the arms, eyes trying to look everywhere at once—her face, her body, into her eyes. . . .

  “I’m fine,” she said, feeling dizzy. “Roger, I’m—”

  “Where has he gone?” It was her father, soaking wet and grim as death, dirk in his hand.

  “That—” She turned to point, but he was already gone, running wolflike. She saw the marks of Bonnet’s passage now, the scuffed footmarks clear in the muddy sand. Before she could turn round again, Roger was after him.

  “Wait!” she shrieked, but no answer came save the rapidly receding rustle of brush as heavy bodies flung themselves heedlessly through.

  She stood still for a moment, head hanging as she breathed. The rain was pooling in the sockets of Emmanuel’s open eyes; the orange light glowed in them, making them look like the eyes of a Japanese movie monster.

  That random thought passed across her mind, then vanished, leaving her blank and numb. She wasn’t sure what to do at this point. There were no sounds from the beach anymore; the noises of Bonnet’s flight had long since faded.

  The rain was still falling, but the last of the sun shone through the wood, the long rays nearly horizontal, filling the space between the shadows with an odd, shifting light that seemed to waver as she watched, as though the world around her were about to disappear.

  In the midst of it, dreamlike, she saw the women appear, the Fulani twins. They turned the identical faces of fawns to her, huge eyes black with fear, and ran into the wood. She called out to them, but they disappeared. Feeling unutterably tired, she trudged after them.

  She didn’t find them. Nor was there a sign of anyone else. The light began to die, and she turned back, limping, toward the house. She ached everywhere, and began to suffer from the illusion that there was no one left in the world but her. Nothing but the burning light, fading to ashes moment by moment.

  Then she remembered the baby in her womb, and felt better. No matter what, she wasn’t alone. Nonetheless, she gave a wide berth to the place where she thought Emmanuel’s body lay. She had meant to circle back toward the house, but went too far. As she turned to go back, she caught a glimpse of them, standing tog
ether in the shelter of the trees on the other side of a stream.

  The wild horses, tranquil as the trees around them, flanks gleaming bay and chestnut and black with the wet. They raised their heads, scenting her, but didn’t run, only stood regarding her with big, gentle eyes.

  THE RAIN HAD stopped when she reached the house. Ian sat on the stoop, wringing water out of his long hair.

  “You have mud on your face, Ian,” she said, sinking down beside him.

  “Oh, have I?” he said, giving her a half-smile. “How is it, then, coz?”

  “Oh. I’m . . . I think I’m fine. What—?” She gestured at his shirt, stained with watery blood. Something seemed to have hit him in the face; besides the smudges of mud, his nose was puffed, there was a swelling just above his brow, and his clothes were torn, as well as wet.

  He drew a deep, deep breath and sighed, as though he were as tired as she was.

  “I got back the wee black lass,” he said. “Phaedre.”

  That pierced the dreamlike fugue that filled her mind, but only a little.

  “Phaedre,” she said, the name feeling like that of someone she had once known, long ago. “Is she all right? Where—”

  “In there.” Ian nodded back toward the house, and she became aware that what she had thought the sound of the sea was in fact someone weeping, the small sobs of someone who has already wept herself to exhaustion, but cannot stop.

  “Nay, leave her to herself, coz.” Ian’s hand on her arm stopped her from rising. “Ye canna help.”

  “But—”

  He stopped her, reaching into his shirt. From around his neck, he took a battered wooden rosary, and handed it to her.

  “She’ll maybe want this—later. I picked it up from the sand, after the ship . . . left.”

  For the first time since her escape, the nausea was back, a sense of vertigo that threatened to pull her down into blackness.

  “Josh,” she whispered. Ian nodded silently, though it hadn’t been a question.

  “I’m sorry, coz,” he said very softly.

  IT WAS NEARLY DARK when Roger appeared at the edge of the wood. She hadn’t been worrying, only because she was in a state of shock too deep even to think of what was happening. At sight of him, though, she was on her feet and flying toward him, all the fears she had suppressed erupting at last into tears, running down her face like the rain.

  “Da,” she said, choking and sniffling into his wet shirt. “He’s—is he—”

  “He’s all right. Bree—can ye come with me? Are ye strong enough—just for a bit?”

  Gulping and wiping her nose on the soggy arm of her shift, she nodded, and leaning on his arm, limped into the darkness under the trees.

  Bonnet was lying against a tree, head lolling to one side. There was blood on his face, running down onto his shirt. She felt no sense of victory at sight of him, only an infinitely weary distaste.

  Her father was standing silently under the same tree. When he saw her, he stepped forward and folded her wordlessly into his arms. She closed her eyes for one blissful moment, wanting nothing more than to abandon everything, let him pick her up like a child and carry her home. But they had brought her here for a reason; with immense effort, she lifted her head and looked at Bonnet.

  Did they want congratulations? she wondered fuzzily. But then she remembered what Roger had told her, describing her father leading her mother through the scene of butchery, making her look, so that she would know her tormentors were dead.

  “Okay,” she said, swaying a little. “All right, I mean. I—I see. He’s dead.”

  “Well . . . no. Actually, he isn’t.” Roger’s voice held an odd note of strain, and he coughed, with a look that shot daggers at her father.

  “D’ye want him dead, lass?” Her father touched her shoulder, gently. “It is your right.”

  “Do I—” She looked wildly from one to the other of the grave, shadowed faces, then at Bonnet, realizing for the first time that blood was running down his face. Dead men, as her mother had often explained, don’t bleed.

  They had found Bonnet, Jamie said, run him to earth like a fox, and set about him. It had been an ugly fight, close-to, with knives, as their pistols were useless in the wet. Knowing that he fought for his life, Bonnet had struck viciously—there was a red-stained gash in the shoulder of Jamie’s coat, a scratch high on Roger’s throat, where a knife blade had passed within a fraction of slashing his jugular. But Bonnet had fought to escape, and not to kill—retreating into a space between trees where only one could come at him, he had grappled with Jamie, thrown him off, then bolted.

  Roger had given chase, and boiling with adrenaline, had thrown himself at Bonnet bodily, knocking the pirate headfirst into the tree he now lay against.

  “So there he lies,” Jamie said, giving Bonnet a bleak eye. “I had hoped he’d broken his neck, but no such thing, alas.”

  “But he is unconscious,” Roger said, and swallowed.

  She understood, and in her present mood, this particular male quirk of honor seemed reasonable. To kill a man in fair fight—or even an unfair fight—was one thing; to cut his throat while he lay unconscious at your feet was another.

  But she hadn’t understood at all. Her father wiped his dirk on his breeches and handed it to her, hilt first.

  “What . . . me?” She was too shocked even to feel astonishment. The knife was heavy in her hand.

  “If ye wish it,” her father said, with grave courtesy. “If not, Roger Mac or I will do it. But it is your choice, a nighean.”

  Now she understood Roger’s look—they had been arguing about it, before he had come to fetch her. And she understood exactly why her father offered her the choice. Whether it was vengeance or forgiveness, she held the man’s life in her hand. She took a deep breath, the awareness that it would not be vengeance coming over her with something like relief.

  “Brianna,” Roger said softly, touching her arm. “Say the word if ye’ll have him dead; I’ll do it.”

  She nodded, and took a deep breath. She could hear the savage longing in his voice—he did. She could hear the choked sound of his voice in memory, too, when he had told her of killing Boble—when he woke from dreams of it, drenched in sweat.

  She glanced at her father’s face, nearly drowned in shadow. Her mother had said only a little of the violent dreams that haunted him since Culloden—but that little was enough. She could hardly ask her father to do this—to spare Roger what he suffered himself.

  Jamie raised his head, feeling her eyes on him, and met her gaze, straight on. Jamie Fraser had never turned from a fight he saw as his—but this was not his fight, and he knew it. She had a sudden flash of awareness; it wasn’t Roger’s fight, either, though he would take the weight of it from her shoulders, and gladly.

  “If you—if we—if we don’t kill him here and now—” Her chest was tight, and she stopped for breath. “What will we do with him?”

  “Take him to Wilmington,” her father said matter-of-factly. “The Committee of Safety there is strong, and they know him for a pirate; they’ll deal with him by law—or what passes for it now.”

  They’d hang him; he would be just as dead—but his blood wouldn’t be on Roger’s hands, or in his heart.

  The light was gone. Bonnet was no more than a lumpen shape, dark against the sandy ground. He might die of his wounds, she thought, and dimly hoped so—it would save trouble. But if they took him to her mother, Claire would be compelled to try to save him. She never turned from a fight that was hers, either, Brianna thought wryly, and was surprised to feel a small lightening of spirit at the thought.

  “Let him live to be hanged, then,” she said quietly, and touched Roger’s arm. “Not for his sake. For yours and mine. For your baby.”

  For an instant, she was sorry that she’d told him now, in the night-dark wood. She would so much have liked to see his face.

  109

  ALL THE NEWS THAT’S

  FIT TO PRINT

&nbs
p; FROM L’Oignon–Intelligencer, September 25, 1775

  A ROYAL PROCLAMATION—

  A Proclamation was issued in London upon the 23rd of August, in which His Majesty George III proclaims the American Colonies to be “in a State of open and avowed Rebellion.”

  “NOTHING BUT OUR OWN EXERTIONS MAY DEFEAT THE MINISTERIAL SENTENCE OF DEATH OR ABJECT SUBMISSION”—The Continental Congress in Philadelphia has now rejected the Objectionable Proposals put forth by Lord North, intended to promote the Object of Reconciliation. The Delegates to this Congress state unequivocally the Right of the American Colonies to raise Appropriations and to have a say in the Disbursement of Same. The Statement of the Delegates reads in Part: “As the British Ministry has pursued its Ends and prosecuted Hostilities with great Armaments and Cruelty, can the World be deceived into an Opinion that we are Unreasonable, or can it hesitate to believe with us that Nothing but our own Exertions may defeat the Ministerial Sentence of Death or Abject Submission?”

  A FALCON STOOPS BUT IS DEPRIVED OF HER PREY—Upon the 9th of August, HMS Falcon, commanded by Captain John Linzee, gave Chase to two American Schooners, returning from the West Indies to Salem, Massachusetts. One Schooner was captured by Captain Linzee, who then pursued the other into Gloucester Harbor. Troops upon the Shore fired upon the Falcon, which did return this Fire, but was then forced to withdraw, losing both Schooners, two Barges, and Thirty-Five Men.

  A NOTORIOUS PIRATE CONDEM’D—One Stephen Bonnet, known as a Pirate and Infamous Smuggler, was tryed before the Wilmington Committee of Safety, and upon Testimony of his Crimes having been presented by a Number of Persons, was convicted of them and sentenced to Death by Drowning.

  AN ALARM is raised regarding prowling Bands of Negroes, who have despoiled a number of Farms near Wilmington and Brunswick. Unarmed save for Clubs, the Ruffians have stolen Livestock, Food, and four Hogsheads of Rum.

  CONGRESS CONCEIVES A PLAN FOR CURRENCY REDEMPTION—Two Million Spanish Dollars in Bills of Credit now issue forth from the Presses, with One Million Dollars more authorized by Congress, which now announces a Plan for the Redemption of this Currency, viz., that each Colony must assume Responsibility for its Portion of the Debt and must redeem the Same in four Installments, these to be paid upon the last Day of November in the Years 1779, 1780, 1781, and 1782. . . .

  110

  THE SMELL OF LIGHT

  October 2, 1775

  IT WAS NOT THINKABLE TO RETURN Phaedre to River Run, even though she technically remained the property of Duncan Cameron. We had discussed the matter at some length, and finally decided not to tell Jocasta that her slave had been recovered, though we did send brief word with Ian, when he went to collect Jemmy, telling of Brianna’s safe return and regretting the loss of Joshua—omitting a good bit of detail regarding the whole affair.

  “Should we tell them about Neil Forbes?” I’d asked, but Jamie had shaken his head.

  “Forbes willna trouble any member of my family again,” he said definitely. “And to tell my aunt or Duncan about it . . . I think Duncan has sufficient trouble on his hands; he’d feel obliged to take issue wi’ Forbes, and that’s a stramash he doesna need to start just now. As for my aunt . . .” He didn’t complete the statement, but the bleakness of his countenance spoke well enough. The MacKenzies of Leoch were a vengeful lot, and neither he nor I would put it past Jocasta to invite Neil Forbes to dinner and poison him.

  “Always assuming that Mr. Forbes is accepting dinner invitations these days,” I joked uneasily. “Do you know what Ian did with the . . . er . . .”

  “He said he was going to feed it to his dog,” Jamie replied thoughtfully. “But I dinna ken was he serious or not.”

  Phaedre had been a good deal shocked, both by her experiences and by the loss of Josh, and Brianna insisted that we bring her back to the Ridge with us to recover, until we could find a reasonable place for her.

  “We have to get Aunt Jocasta to free her,” Bree had argued.

  “I think that willna be difficult,” Jamie had assured her with a certain grimness. “Not knowing what we know. But wait a bit, until we find a place for the lass—then I’ll see to it.”

  As it was, that particular matter took care of itself with stunning abruptness.

  I opened the door to a knock one afternoon in October, to find three weary horses and a pack mule in the dooryard, and Jocasta, Duncan, and the black butler Ulysses standing on the stoop.

  The sight of them was so utterly incongruous that I merely stood there gaping at them, until Jocasta said acerbically, “Weel, lass, d’ye mean us to stand here until we’re melted away like sugar in a dish o’ tea?”