A Breath of Snow and Ashes

“Oh, coffee,” the Governor said, looking up. He seemed vaguely pleased, plainly not recalling that he hadn’t ordered any. “Splendid. Thank you, Mrs. Fraser.”

MacDonald hastily picked up the papers, making room for me to set the tray down on the desk. The Governor had one in his hand; he kept hold of this, and I caught a quick glimpse of it as I bent to place the tray in front of him. It was a list of some sort—names on one side, numbers beside them.

I managed to knock a spoon to the floor, enabling a better look as I stooped for it. H. Bethune, Cook’s Creek, 14. Jno. McManus, Boone, 3. F. Campbell, Campbelton, 24?

I darted a look at MacDonald, who had his eyes fixed on me. I dropped the spoon on the desk, then took a hasty step back, so that I stood directly behind the Governor. I pointed a finger at MacDonald, then in rapid succession clutched my throat, tongue protruding, grabbed my stomach with crossed forearms, then jabbed the finger again at him, then at myself, all the while giving him a monitory stare.

MacDonald viewed this pantomime with subdued fascination, but—with a veiled glance at the Governor, who was stirring his coffee with one hand, frowning at the paper he held in the other—gave me a tiny nod.

“How many can you be quite sure of?” the Governor was saying, as I curtsied and backed out.

“Oh, at least five hundred men, sir, even now,” MacDonald replied confidently. “A great many more to come, as word spreads. Ye should see the enthusiasm with which the General has been received so far! I cannot speak for the Germans, of course, but depend upon it, sir, we shall have all the Highlanders of the backcountry, and not a few of the Scotch–Irish, too.”

“God knows I hope you are right,” the Governor said, sounding hopeful, but still dubious. “Where is the General now?”

I would have liked to hear the answer to that—and a good many other things—but the drum was beating overhead for mess, and thundering feet were already pounding down the decks and companionways. I couldn’t lurk about eavesdropping in plain sight of the mess, so was obliged to go back up top, hoping that MacDonald had indeed got my message.

The captain of the Cruizer was standing by the rail, his first mate beside him, both scanning the shore with their telescopes.

“Is anything happening?” I could see more activity near the fort, people coming and going—but the shore road was still empty.

“Can’t say, ma’am.” Captain Follard shook his head, then lowered the telescope and shut it, reluctantly, as though afraid something might happen if he didn’t keep his eyes fixed on the shore. The first mate didn’t move, still squinting fixedly toward the fort on its bluff.

I remained there by his side, staring silently toward the shore. The tide shifted; I had been on the ship long enough to feel it, a barely perceptible pause, the sea taking breath as the invisible moon yielded its pull.

There is a tide in the affairs of men. . . . Surely Shakespeare had stood upon a deck, at least once, and felt that same faint shift, deep in the flesh. A professor had told me once, in medical school, that the Polynesian seafarers dared their vast journeys through the trackless sea because they had learned to sense the currents of the ocean, the shifts of wind and tide, registering these changes with that most delicate of instruments—their testicles.

It didn’t take a scrotum to feel the currents that were swirling round us now, I reflected, with a sideways glance at the first mate’s securely fastened white breeches. I could feel them in the pit of my stomach, in the damp of my palms, in the tenseness of the muscles at the back of my neck. The mate had lowered his telescope, but still looked toward the shore, almost absently, his hands resting on the rail.

It occurred to me suddenly that if something drastic were to happen on land, the Cruizer would at once lift sail and head out to sea, carrying the Governor to safety—and me farther from Jamie. Where on earth might we end up? Charlestown? Boston? Either was as likely. And no one on that seething shore would have any notion where we had gone.

I’d met displaced persons during the war—my war. Driven or taken from their homes, their families scattered, their cities destroyed, they thronged refugee camps, stood in lines besieging embassies and aid stations, asking, always asking for the names of the vanished, describing the faces of the loved and lost, grasping at any scrap of information that might lead them back to whatever might be left. Or, failing that, preserve for a moment longer what they had once been.

The day was warm, even on the water, and my clothes clung to me with humid damp, but my muscles convulsed and my hands on the rail shook with sudden chill.

I might have seen them all for the last time, not knowing it: Jamie, Bree, Jemmy, Roger, Ian. That’s how it happened: I had not even said goodbye to Frank, had had no faintest inkling when he left that last night that I would never see him alive again. What if—

But no, I thought, steadying myself with a tighter grip on the wooden rail. We would find each other again. We had a place to return to. Home. And if I remained alive—as I most firmly intended to do—I would go back home.

The mate had shut his telescope and left; I hadn’t noticed his departure, absorbed in morbid thoughts, and was quite startled when Major MacDonald hove to alongside me.

“Too bad the Cruizer has nay long-range guns,” he said with a nod at the fort. “’Twould put a crimp in the plans o’ those wee heathen, eh?”

“Whatever those plans might be,” I replied. “And speaking of plans—”

“I’ve a kind of a griping in the wame,” he interrupted blandly. “The Governor suggested that ye might possibly have some sort of medicine to soothe it.”

“Did he indeed?” I said. “Well, come down to the galley; I’ll brew you a cup of something that will set you right, I expect.”



“DID YE KEN, he thought ye were a forger?” MacDonald, hands wrapped around a mug of tea, jerked his head in the direction of the main cabin. The Governor was nowhere in sight, and the cabin’s door closed.

“I did, yes. Does he know better now?” I asked with a sense of resignation.

“Well, aye.” MacDonald looked apologetic. “I supposed he knew already, or I wouldna have said. Though if I hadn’t,” he added, “he would have kent it sooner or later. The story’s spread all the way to Edenton by now, and the broadsheets . . .”

I flapped a hand, dismissing this.

“Have you seen Jamie?”

“I have not.” He glanced at me, curiosity warring with wariness. “I’d heard . . . aye, well, I’ve heard a great many things, and all different. But the meat of the matter is that ye’ve both been arrested, aye? For the murder of Miss Christie.”

I nodded briefly. I wondered whether one day I would grow used to that word. The sound of it was still like a punch in the stomach, short and brutal.

“Need I tell you that there is no truth to it?” I said bluntly.

“Not the slightest need, mum,” he assured me, with a fair assumption of confidence. But I sensed the hesitation in him, and saw the sideways glance, curious and somehow avid. Perhaps one day I’d get used to that, too.

My hands were cold; I wrapped them round my own mug, taking what comfort I could in its heat.

“I need to get word to my husband,” I said. “Do you know where he is?”

MacDonald’s pale blue eyes were fixed on my face, his own showing no more now than courteous attention.

“No, mum. But you do, I assume?”

I gave him a sharp look.

“Don’t be coy,” I advised him shortly. “You know as well as I do what’s going on on shore—probably much better.”

“Coy.” His thin lips pursed in brief amusement. “I dinna believe anyone’s called me that before. Aye, I know. And so?”

“I think that he may be in Wilmington. I tried to send word to John Ashe, and asked him to get Jamie out of the gaol in Wilmington, if possible—if he was there—and to tell him where I was. But I don’t know—” I waved a hand in frustration toward the shore.

He nodded, native caution at odds with his obvious desire to ask me for the gory details of Malva’s death.

“I shall be going back through Wilmington. I’ll make such inquiries as may be possible. If I find Mr. Fraser—shall I tell him anything, beyond your present situation?”

I hesitated, thinking. I had been holding a constant conversation with Jamie, ever since they took him away from me. But none of what I said to him in the wide black nights or the lonely dawns seemed appropriate to confide to MacDonald. And yet . . . I couldn’t forgo the opportunity; God knew when I might have another.

“Tell him that I love him,” I said softly, my eyes on the tabletop. “I always will.”

MacDonald made a small sound that made me look up at him.

“Even though he—” he began, then stopped himself.

“He didn’t kill her,” I said sharply. “And neither did I. I told you so.”

“Of course not,” he said hurriedly. “No one could imagine . . . I only meant . . . but of course, a man’s but a man, and . . . mmphm.” He broke off and looked away, the color high in his face.

“He didn’t do that, either,” I said through my teeth.

There was a marked silence, during which we avoided each other’s gaze.

“Is General MacDonald a kinsman of yours?” I asked abruptly, needing either to change the course of the conversation or to leave.

The Major glanced up, surprised—and relieved.

“Aye, a distant cousin. The Governor’s mentioned him?”

“Yes,” I said. It was the truth, after all; Martin simply hadn’t mentioned the General to me. “You’re, um, assisting him, are you? It sounded as though you’ve been having some success.”

Relieved to have escaped the social awkwardness of dealing with the question as to whether I were a murderess, and Jamie only a philanderer, or he a murderer and I his scorned and deluded dupe, MacDonald was only too eager to take the offered bait.

“Great success, indeed,” he said heartily. “I’ve gathered pledges from many of the most prominent men in the colony; they stand ready to do the Governor’s bidding at the slightest word!”

Jno. McManus, Boone, 3. Prominent men. I happened to know Jonathan McManus, whose gangrenous toes I had removed the winter before. He likely was the most prominent man in Boone, if by that, MacDonald meant that the other twenty inhabitants all knew him for a drunkard and a thief. It was also probably true that he had three men who would go to fight with him if called: his one-legged brother and his two feeble-minded sons. I took a sip of tea to hide my expression. Still, MacDonald had Farquard Campbell on his list; had Farquard really made a formal commitment?

“I gather the General is not presently anywhere near Brunswick, though,” I said, “given the, er, present circumstances?” If he was, the Governor would be much less nervous than he was.

MacDonald shook his head.

“No. But he is not ready to muster his forces yet; he and McLeod do but discover the readiness of the Highlanders to rise. They will not call muster until the ships come.”

“Ships?” I blurted. “What ships?”

He knew he oughtn’t to speak further, but couldn’t resist. I saw it in his eyes; after all, what danger could there be in telling me?

“The Governor has asked for aid from the Crown in subduing the factionalism and unrest that runs rampant in the colony. And has received assurances that it will be forthcoming—should he be able to raise enough support on the ground to reinforce the government troops who will arrive by ship.

“That is the plan, ye see,” he went on, warming to it. “We are notified”—Oh, “we” indeed, I thought—“that my Lord Cornwallis begins to gather troops in Ireland, who will take ship shortly. They should arrive in the early autumn, and join wi’ the General’s militia. Between Cornwallis on the coast and the General comin’ doon frae the hills—” He closed thumb and fingers in a pinching movement. “They’ll crush the Whiggish whoresons like a pack o’ lice!”

“Will they?” I said, endeavoring to sound impressed. Possibly they would; I had no idea, nor did I much care, being in no position to see far beyond the present moment. If I ever got off this frigging boat and out of the shadow of a noose, I’d worry about it.

The sound of the main cabin’s door opening made me look up. The Governor was closing it behind him. Turning, he saw us, and came to inquire as to MacDonald’s presumed indisposition.

“Oh, I am a great deal better,” the Major assured him, hand pressed to the waistcoat of his uniform. He belched in illustration. “Mrs. Fraser is a capital hand at such things. Capital!”

“Oh, good,” Martin said. He seemed a trifle less harassed than he had earlier. “You will be wanting to go back, then.” He signaled to the Marine standing at the foot of the companionway, who knuckled his forehead in acknowledgment and disappeared up the ladder.

“The boat will be ready for you in a few minutes’ time.” With a nod at MacDonald’s half-drunk tea, and a punctilious bow to me, the Governor turned and went into the surgeon’s cabin, where I could see him standing beside the desk, frowning at the heap of crumpled papers.

MacDonald hastily swallowed the rest of his tea, and with a lift of the eyebrows, invited me to accompany him to the upper deck. We were standing on deck, waiting as a local fishing boat made its way out to the Cruizer from shore, when he suddenly laid a hand on my arm.

This startled me; MacDonald was not a casual toucher.

“I will do my utmost to discover your husband’s whereabouts, mum,” he said. “It occurs to me, though—” He hesitated, eyes on my face.

“What?” I said cautiously.

“I said I had heard considerable speculation?” he said delicately. “Regarding . . . erm . . . the unfortunate demise of Miss Christie. Would it not be . . . desirable . . . that I know the truth of the matter, so that I might put any ill-natured rumors firmly to rest, should I encounter them?”

I was torn between anger and laughter. I should have known that curiosity would be too much for him. But he was right; given the rumors I had heard—and I knew they were but a fraction of those circulating—the truth was certainly more desirable. On the other hand, I was entirely sure that the telling of the truth would do nothing to quell the rumors.

And still. The urge to be justified was a strong one; I understood those poor wretches who cried their innocence from the gallows—and I bloody hoped I wasn’t going to be one.

“Fine,” I said crisply. The first mate was back by the rail, keeping an eye on the fort, and within earshot, but I supposed it didn’t matter whether he heard.

“The truth is this: Malva Christie was got with child by someone, but rather than name the real father, insisted that it was my husband. I know this to be false,” I added, fixing him with a gimlet stare. He nodded, mouth a little open.

“A few days later, I went out to tend my garden and found the little—Miss Christie lying in my lettuce patch with her throat freshly cut. I thought . . . there was some chance that I might save her unborn child. . . .” Despite my assumption of bravado, my voice trembled a little. I stopped, clearing my throat. “I couldn’t. The child was born dead.”

Much better not to say how it was born; that weltering image of severed flesh and dirt-smeared blade was not one I wished the Major to have in mind, if it could be prevented. I had told no one—not even Jamie—about the faint flicker of life, that tingle that I still held secret in the palms of my hands. To say that the child had been born alive was to arouse immediate suspicion that I had killed it, and I knew as much. Some would think that anyway; Mrs. Martin plainly had.

MacDonald’s hand was still resting on my arm, his gaze on my face. For once, I blessed the transparency of my countenance; no one watching my face ever doubted what I said.

“I see,” he said quietly, and gently squeezed my arm.

I took a deep breath, and told him the rest—circumstantial details might convince some hearers.

“You know that there were bee gums at the edge of my garden? The murderer kicked two of them over in fleeing; he must have been stung several times—I was, when I came into the garden. Jamie—Jamie had no stings. It wasn’t him.” And under the circumstances, I had not been able to find out which man—or woman? For the first time, it occurred to me that it could have been a woman—had been stung.

At this, he gave a deep “hum!” of interest. He stood for a moment in contemplation, then shook his head, as though waking from a dream, and let go my arm.

“I thank ye, mum, for telling me,” he said formally, and bowed to me. “Be assured, I will speak in your behalf, whenever the occasion shall arise.”

“I appreciate that, Major.” My voice was husky, and I swallowed. I hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to speak of.

The wind stirred around us, and the reefed sails rustled in their ropes overhead. A shout from below announced the presence of the boat that would carry MacDonald back to the shore.

He bowed low over my hand, breath warm on my knuckles. For an instant, my fingers tightened on his; I was surprisingly reluctant to let him go. But let him go I did, and watched him all the way to the shore; a diminishing silhouette against the brightness of the water, back straight with resolution. He didn’t look back.

The mate moved at the rail, sighing, and I glanced at him, then at the fort.

“What are they doing?” I asked. Some of the antlike forms seemed to be dropping lines from the walls to their fellows on the ground; I saw the ropes, fine as spiderwebs from this distance.

“I do believe the fort’s commander is preparing to remove the cannon, madam,” he said, snapping shut his brass telescope with a click. “If you will excuse me, I need to go inform the captain.”





96



GUNPOWDER, TREASON,

AND PLOT

IF THE GOVERNOR’S ATTITUDE toward me was altered by the news that I was not in fact a forger but rather a notorious—if merely accused—murderess, I had no opportunity to find out. He, like the rest of the officers and half the men aboard, rushed to the rail, and the rest of the day passed in a flurry of observation, speculation, and largely fruitless activity.

The lookout at the masthead called down periodic observations—men were leaving the fort, carrying things . . . the fort’s weaponry, it looked like.

“Are they Collet’s men?” the Governor bellowed, shading his eyes to look aloft.

“Can’t say, sir,” came the unhelpful reply from above.

At last, the Cruizer’s two launches were sent ashore, with orders to collect what information they could. They came back several hours later, with the news that Collet had abandoned the fort, in the face of threats, but had taken pains to remove the guns and powder, lest these fall into rebel hands.

No, sir, they had not spoken with Colonel Collet, who was—by rumor—on his way upriver with his militia forces. They had sent two men down the road toward Wilmington; it was true that a large force was gathering in the fields outside the town, under Colonels Robert Howe and John Ashe, but no word of what was planned.

“No word of what’s planned, God’s ballocks!” muttered the Governor, having been ceremoniously informed of this by Captain Follard. “They mean to burn the fort, what else would Ashe be planning, for the love of Jesus?”

His instincts were quite sound; just before sunset, the scent of smoke came across the water, and we could just make out the antlike scurrying of men, piling heaps of flammable debris around the base of the fort. It was a simple, square building, made of logs. And despite the dampness of the humid air, it would burn, eventually.

It took them no little time to get the fire going, though, with neither powder nor oil to hasten its burning; as night fell, we could clearly see flaming torches, streaming in the breeze as they were carried to and fro, passed from hand to hand, dipping to touch off a pile of kindling, coming back a few minutes later, as the kindling went out.

Around nine o’clock, someone found a few barrels of turpentine, and the blaze took a sudden, lethal hold of the fort’s log walls. Sheets of wavering flame rose pure and brilliant, orange and crimson billows against the night-black sky, and we heard scraps of cheering and snatches of ribald song, borne with the smell of smoke and the tang of turpentine on the offshore breeze.

“At least we needn’t worry about the mosquitoes,” I observed, waving a cloud of whitish smoke away from my face.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fraser,” said the Governor. “I had not considered that particular positive aspect of the matter.” He spoke with some bitterness, his fists resting impotently on the rail.

I took the hint, and said no more. For myself, the leaping flames and the column of smoke that rose wavering toward the stars were cause for celebration. Not for any benefit that the burning of Fort Johnston might be to the rebel cause—but because Jamie might be there, by one of the campfires that had sprung up on the shore below the fort.

And if he was . . . he would come tomorrow.



HE DID. I was awake well before dawn—in fact, I had not slept—and standing at the rail. There was little of the usual boat traffic this morning, in the wake of the fort’s burning; the bitter smell of wood ash mingled with the marshy smell of the nearby mud flats, and the water was still and oily-looking. It was a gray day, heavily overcast, and a deep bank of haze hung over the water, hiding the shore.

I kept watching, though, and when a small boat came out of the haze, I knew at once that it was Jamie. He was alone.

I watched the long, smooth reach of his arms and the pull of the oars, and