Диана Гэблдон - A Breath of Snow and Ashes 6

The sheriffs could no longer be trusted to keep order; the scandals that had inspired the Regulator movement had assured that. The difficulty, of course, was that since the committees were self-appointed, there was no more reason to trust them than the sheriffs.

There were other committees, too. The Committees of Correspondence, loose associations of men who wrote letters to and fro, spreading news and rumor between the colonies. And it was out of these various committees that the seeds of rebellion would spring—were germinating even now, somewhere out in the cold spring night.

As I did now and then—and much more often, now—I reckoned up the time remaining. It was nearly April of 1773 And on the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five . . . as Longfellow so quaintly put it . . .

Two years. But war has a long fuse, and a slow match. This one had been lit at Alamance, and the bright, hot lines of the creeping fire in North Carolina were already visible—for those who knew to look.

The lead balls in the shot pouch I held rolled and clicked together; my fingers had tightened on the leather. Jamie saw it and touched my knee, quick and light, in reassurance, then took the pouch and rolled it up, tucking it into the cartridge box.

“Good time,” he repeated, looking at MacDonald. “What d’ye mean by that, Donald?”

“Why, who should lead such a committee other than yourself, Colonel? I had suggested as much to the Governor.” MacDonald tried to look modest, and failed.

“Verra obliging of ye, Major,” Jamie said dryly. He raised an eyebrow at me. The state of the colony’s government must be worse even than he had supposed, for Governor Martin to be not only tolerating the existence of the committees—but clandestinely sanctioning them.

The long-drawn whine of a dog’s yawn reached me faintly from the hall, and I excused myself, to go and check on Ian.

I wondered whether Governor Martin had the slightest idea what he was loosing. I rather thought he did, and was making the best of a bad job, by trying to ensure that some, at least, of the Committees of Safety were run by men who had backed the Crown during the War of the Regulation. The fact remained that he could not control—or even know about—many such committees. But the colony was beginning to seethe and bump like a teakettle on the boil, and Martin had no official troops at his command, only such irregulars as MacDonald—and the militia.

Which was why MacDonald was calling Jamie “Colonel,” of course. The previous governor, William Tryon, had appointed Jamie—quite against his will—colonel of militia for the backcountry above the Yadkin.

“Hmph,” I said to myself. Neither MacDonald nor Martin was a fool. Inviting Jamie to set up a Committee of Safety meant that he would call upon those men who had served under him in the militia—but would commit the government to nothing, in terms of paying or equipping them—and the Governor would be clear of any responsibility for their actions, since a Committee of Safety was not an official body.

The danger to Jamie—and all of us—in accepting such a proposal, though—that was considerable.

It was dark in the hall, with no light but the spill from the kitchen behind me, and the faint glow of the single candle in the surgery. Ian was asleep, but restless, a faint frown of discomfort wrinkling the soft skin between his brows. Rollo raised his head, thick tail swishing to and fro across the floor in greeting.

Ian didn’t respond when I spoke his name, or when I set a hand on his shoulder. I shook him gently, then harder. I could see him struggling, somewhere under the layers of unconsciousness, like a man drifting in the underwater currents, yielding to the beckoning depths, then snagged by an unexpected fishhook, a stab of pain in cold-numbed flesh.

His eyes opened suddenly, dark and lost, and he stared at me in incomprehension.

“Hallo there,” I said softly, relieved to see him wake. “What’s your name?”

I could see that the question made no sense to him at once, and repeated it, patiently. Awareness stirred somewhere in the depths of his dilated pupils.

“Who am I?” he said in Gaelic. He said something else, slurred, in Mohawk, and his eyelids fluttered, closing.

“Wake up, Ian,” I said firmly, resuming the shaking. “Tell me who you are.”

His eyes opened again, and he squinted at me in confusion.

“Try something easier,” I suggested, holding up two fingers. “How many fingers do you see?”

A flicker of awareness sprang up in his eyes.

“Dinna let Arch Bug see ye do that, Auntie,” he said drowsily, the hint of a smile touching his face. “That’s verra rude, ken.”

Well, at least he had recognized me, as well as the “V” sign; that was something. And he must know who he was, if he was calling me Auntie.

“What’s your full name?” I asked again.

“Ian James FitzGibbons Fraser Murray,” he said, rather crossly. “Why d’ye keep asking me my name?”

“FitzGibbons?” I said. “Where on earth did you get that one?”

He groaned and put two fingers against his eyelids, wincing as he pressed gently.

“Uncle Jamie gave it me—blame him,” he said. “It’s for his auld godfather, he said. Murtagh FitzGibbons Fraser, he was called, but my mother didna want me named Murtagh. I think I’m going to puke again,” he added, taking his hand away.

In the event, he heaved and retched a bit over the basin, but didn’t actually vomit, which was a good sign. I eased him back onto his side, white and clammy with sweat, and Rollo stood on his hind legs, front paws braced on the table, to lick his face, which made him giggle between groans and try feebly to push the dog away.

“Theirig dhachaigh, Okwaho,” he said. “Theirig dhachaigh” meant “go home,” in Gaelic, and Okwaho was evidently Rollo’s Mohawk name. Ian seemed to be having some difficulty choosing among the three languages in which he was fluent, but was obviously lucid, in spite of that. After I had made him answer a few more annoyingly pointless questions, I wiped his face with a damp cloth, let him rinse his mouth with well-watered wine, and tucked him in again.

“Auntie?” he said drowsily, as I was turning for the door. “D’ye think I’ll ever see my Mam again?”

I stopped, having no idea how to answer that. In fact, there was no need; he had dropped back into sleep with the suddenness that concussion patients often showed, and was breathing deeply before I could find any words.

6

AMBUSH

IAN WOKE ABRUPTLY, hand closing round his tomahawk. Or what should have been his tomahawk, but was instead a handful of breeches. For an instant, he had no notion at all where he was, and sat up straight, trying to make out shapes in the dark.

Pain shot through his head like heat lightning, making him gasp soundlessly and clutch it. Somewhere in the dark below him, Rollo gave a small, startled wuff ?

Christ. The piercing smells of his aunt’s surgery stabbed the back of his nose, alcohol and burned wick and dried medicine leaves and the foul brews she called penny-syllin. He closed his eyes, put his forehead on his drawn-up knees, and breathed slowly through his mouth.

What had he been dreaming? Some dream of danger, something violent—but no clear image came to him, only the feel of being stalked, something following him through the wood.

He had to piss, badly. Fumbling for the edge of the table he lay on, he eased himself slowly upright, squinting against the flashes of pain in his head.

Mrs. Bug had left him a pot, he remembered her saying so, but the candle had gone out and he’d no mind to crawl round the floor looking for it. Faint light showed him where the door was; she had left it ajar, and a glow spread down the hall from the kitchen hearth. With that as bearing, he made his way to the window, got it open, fumbled free the shutter fastening, and stood in the flood of air from the cool spring night, eyes closed in relief as his bladder eased.