Seven Stones to Stand or Fall

by Diana Gabaldon

  The girl rose, shook her head reprovingly at Malcolm, and went out, with a hint of flirtation in the sway of her skirts. Grey watched the door close behind her, then turned back to Malcolm, who had plucked an olive out of one dish and was sucking it.

  “Inocencia, my arse,” Grey said bluntly.

  Malcolm’s normal complexion being brick red, he didn’t flush, but neither did he meet Grey’s eye.

  “Quite the usual sort of names they give girls, the Spanish,” he said, discarding the olive pit and picking up a serving spoon. “You find young women called all kinds of things: Assumpción, Immaculata, Concepción…”

  “Conception, indeed.” This was said in a tone cold enough to make Malcolm’s wide shoulders hunch a little, though he still wouldn’t look at Grey.

  “They call this moros y cristianos—that means ‘moors and Christians’—the rice being Christians and the black beans Moors, d’you see?”

  “Speaking of conception—and Quebec,” Grey said, ignoring the food—though it smelled remarkably good, “your son by the Indian woman…”

  Malcolm did glance at him then. He looked back at his plate, finished chewing, swallowed, and nodded, not looking at Grey.

  “Yes. I did make inquiries—once I was mended. They told me the child had died.”

  That struck Grey in the pit of the stomach. He swallowed, tasting bile, and plucked a bit of something out of the dish of pulpo at random.

  “I see. How…regrettable.”

  Malcolm nodded, wordless, and helped himself liberally to the octopus.

  “Was it quite recent, this news?” The shock had gone through him like an ocean breaker. He remembered vividly the day when he had taken the infant—the child’s mother having died of smallpox, he had bought the boy from his grandmother for a blanket, a pound of sugar, two golden guineas, and a small cask of rum—and carried him to the little French mission in Gareon. The boy had been warm and solid in his arms, looking up at him from round, unblinking dark eyes, as though trusting him.

  “Oh. No. No, it was at least two years ago.”

  “Ah.” Grey put the piece of whatever-it-was into his mouth and chewed slowly, the sense of shock fading into an immense relief—and then a growing anger.

  Not a trusting man himself, he had given the priest money for the child’s needs and told him this payment would continue—but only so long as the priest sent Grey a lock of the child’s hair once a year, to prove his continued existence and presumed good health.

  Malcolm Stubbs’s natural hair was sandy and tightly curled as sheep’s wool; when left to its own devices, it exploded from its owner’s head like a ruptured mattress. Consequently, Malcolm usually kept his head polled and wore a wig. He’d evidently been wearing one earlier but had taken it off and set it aside, and the inch of mad growth thus displayed strongly resembled the texture of the two small curls of dark cinnamon-colored hair that Grey had so far received from Canada, each one bound carefully with black thread and accompanied by a brief note of thanks and blessing from Father LeCarré—the latest, just before his departure for Jamaica.

  The urge to bounce Malcolm’s head off the desk and shove him facedown into the pulpo was strong, but Grey mastered it, chewing the bite of octopus—very flavorful, but in texture reminiscent of an artist’s rubber—thoroughly before saying anything. He swallowed.

  “Tell me about this slave revolt of yours, then.”

  MALCOLM DID LOOK at him now, considering. He nodded and reached, grunting, for the limp, bloodstained stocking hanging out of his artificial foot.

  “We’ll go up to the battlements,” he said. “Not many of the servants speak any English—but that doesn’t mean none of them understand it. And they do listen at doors.”

  Grey blinked as they emerged from the gloom of a stone stairwell into a pure and brilliant day, a blinding sky spinning with seagulls overhead. A stiff wind was coming off the water, and Grey removed his hat, tucking it under his arm lest it be carried away.

  “I come up here several times a day,” Malcolm said, raising his voice above the wind and the shrieks of the gulls. He had wisely left his own hat and wig below in his office. “To watch the ships.” He nodded toward the expanse of the huge harbor, where several very large ships were anchored, these surrounded by coveys of smaller vessels, going to and from the shore.

  “They’re beautiful,” Grey said, and they were. “But they’re not doing anything, are they?” All sails were furled, all port lids closed. The ships lay at anchor, rocking slowly in the wind, masts and spars swaying stark and black against the blue of sea and sky.

  “Yes,” Malcolm said dryly. “Particularly beautiful when they’re not doing anything. That’s how I know the declaration of war hasn’t yet been received; if it had, the decks would be black with men, and the sails would be reefed, not furled. And that’s why I come up here morning, noon, and night,” he added.

  “Yes,” Grey said slowly, “but…if in fact de Prado—that’s the commander of the forces here?—if he doesn’t know that war is declared,—why are these ships here already? I mean, plainly they’re men of war, not merchantmen. Even I know that much.”

  Malcolm laughed, though without much humor.

  “Yes, the cannons rather give it away, don’t they? The Spanish have been expecting war to be declared for the last six months. General Hevia brought these ships in last November, and they’ve been lying in wait here ever since.”

  “Ah.”

  Malcolm gave him a raised brow.

  “Ah, indeed. De Prado’s expecting a declaration any day. That’s why I sent Olivia and the children to the country. De Prado’s staff all treat me with exquisite courtesy”—his mouth twitched a little—“but I can see them measuring me for leg-irons and a cell.”

  “Surely not, Malcolm,” Grey said mildly. “You’re a diplomat, not an enemy combatant. Presumably they’d either deport or detain you, but I can’t see it coming to chains.”

  “Yes,” Malcolm agreed, eyes fixed again on the ships, as though he feared they might have begun to move in the last few moments. “But if they find out about the revolt—and I really don’t see how that can be avoided—I rather think that might alter their views on my claim to diplomatic immunity.”

  This was said with a sort of calm detachment that impressed Grey—reluctantly, but still. He glanced round to be sure they were not overheard.

  There were a lot of soldiers up here but none close to them; the gray stone of the rooftop stretched away for a hundred yards in all directions. Grey could hear, faintly, shouts between an officer at the far end of the battlement and someone in the watchtower above. There was a small group of regulars—most of them black, Grey saw—stripped to the waist and sweating despite the wind, repairing a gap in the battlement with baskets of stones—and there were guards. Four guards at each corner of the battlements, stiffly upright, muskets shouldered. The fortress of La Punta was prepared.

  A detachment of twelve men marched past, two by two, under the command of a young corporal shouting the Spanish equivalent of “Hup!” as they wheeled past the stubby watchtower. The corporal saluted smartly; Malcolm bowed and turned again to the vast expanse of the harbor. It was a clear day; John could just make out the great boom chain at the harbor mouth, a thin darkness in the water, like a snake.

  “It was Inocencia who told me,” Malcolm said abruptly, as the soldiers disappeared down a stairway at the far side of the rooftop. He cut his eyes at Grey, who said nothing. Malcolm turned his face back to the harbor and began to talk.

  The revolt was planned among slaves from two of the large sugar plantations near Havana. The original plan, according to Inocencia—whose cousin was a servant at Hacienda Mendez but was having an affair with one of the house slaves, whose brother was one of the ringleaders of the plot—had been to band together and kill the owners of the haciendas, loot the houses, which were very rich, and then escape through the countryside to the Golfo de Xaguas, on the other side of the island.r />
  “Thinking that the soldiers wouldn’t pursue them, being distracted by the imminent arrival of the English on this side, you see.” Malcolm appeared quite unmoved by the putative murder of the plantation owners. “It wasn’t a bad plan, if they chose their moment and waited ’til the English did arrive. There are dozens of small islands in the golfo; they might have hidden there indefinitely.”

  “But you discovered this plan, and rather than mentioning it to the comandante…”

  Malcolm shrugged.

  “Well, we are at war with the Spanish, are we not? Or if we weren’t, it was obvious that we would be at any moment. I met with the two leaders of the revolt and, er, convinced them that there was a better way to achieve their ends.”

  “Alone? I mean—you went to meet these men by yourself?”

  “Of course,” Malcolm said simply. “I wouldn’t have got near them had I come mob-handed. Didn’t have a mob to hand, anyway,” he added, turning to Grey with a self-conscious grin that suddenly took years off his careworn face.

  “I met Inocencia’s cousin at the edge of the Saavedra plantation, and she took me to a big tobacco shed,” he went on, the grin fading. “It was almost nightfall, so darkish inside. Lots of shadows, and I couldn’t tell how many men were there; it felt as though the whole place was moving and whispering, but likely that was just the drying leaves—they’re quite big, did you know? A plant is almost the size of a man. They hang them up, up in the rafters, and they brush against each other with this dry sort of rustle, almost like they’re tittering to themselves…put the wind up me, a bit.”

  Grey tried to imagine that meeting and, surprisingly, could envision it: Malcolm, artificial foot and all, limping alone into a dark shed to convince dangerous men to forgo their own murderous plans in favor of his. In Spanish.

  “You aren’t dead, so they listened to you,” Grey said slowly. “What did you offer them?”

  “Freedom,” Malcolm said simply. “I mean,—the army goes about freeing slaves who enlist—why oughtn’t the navy to be similarly enlightened?”

  “I’m not so sure that a sailor’s life is noticeably better than that of a slave,” Grey said dubiously. “In terms of food, they may be better off as they are.”

  “I don’t mean they’re to enlist, booby,” Malcolm said. “But I’m sure I can persuade either Albemarle or Admiral Pocock that they should be freed in token of regard for their service. If they survive,” he added thoughtfully.

  Grey was beginning to think that Malcolm might actually be a decent diplomat. Still…

  “Since you mention service—what, exactly, are you proposing that these men do?”

  “Well, my first notion was that they might creep along the shoreline after dark and detach and sink the boom chain across the harbor mouth.”

  “A good notion,” Grey said, still dubious, “but—”

  “The batteries. Yes, exactly. I couldn’t very well go down and ask to inspect the batteries, but…” He reached into his coat and withdrew a small brass telescope.

  “Have a look,” he said, passing this to Grey. “Wave it around a bit, so it doesn’t look as though you’re spying out the batteries particularly.”

  Grey took the telescope. His hands were chilled and the brass, warm from Malcolm’s body, gave him an odd frisson.

  He’d seen one of the batteries close to, on the way in; the one on the opposite side of the harbor was similarly equipped: six four-pounders and two mortars.

  “It’s not only that, of course,” Grey said, handing back the telescope. “It’s the—”

  “Timing,” Malcolm finished. “Yes. Even if the men could swim from down shore rather than come through the battery, it would have to be done with the British fleet actually in view, or the Spaniards would have time to raise the chain again.” He shook his head regretfully. “No. What I’m thinking, though—and do say, if you have a better idea—is that we might be able to take El Morro.”

  “What?” Grey glanced across the channel at the towering hulk of Morro Castle. Set on a rocky promontory, it rose considerably higher than La Punta and commanded the entire channel, most of the harbor, and a good bit of the city, as well. “How, exactly?”

  Malcolm bit his lip, not in concern but concentration. He nodded at the castle.

  “I’ve been inside, several times. And I can make an occasion to go again. You’ll go with me—it’s a blessing that you should have come, John,” he added, turning his head to Grey. “It makes things much easier.”

  “Does it, indeed?” Grey murmured. A faint uneasiness began to stir at the base of his spine. A seagull landed on the parapet near his elbow and gave him a beady yellow look, which didn’t help.

  “The governor’s down with fever, at the moment, but he might be better tomorrow. I’ll request a meeting to introduce you. While you’re engaged with de Prado—or his lieutenant, if de Prado’s still indisposed—I’ll make an excuse, slip off, and manage to take note of the floor plan, entrances and exits, all that—” He broke off suddenly. “You did say two weeks?”

  “About that. But there’s no telling, is there? What if Martinique didn’t surrender easily, or there was a typhoon as they left the island? It could be a month or more.” Another thought struck him. “And then there are the volunteers from the American colonies. Lieutenant Rimes says a number of transports are meant to rendezvous with the fleet here.”

  Malcolm scratched his head. The clipped bronze curls rippled in the wind like shorn autumn grass.

  What? John thought, quite shocked at the poetic image his errant brain had presented him with. He didn’t even like Malcolm, let alone…

  “I don’t suppose the transports would come near the harbor until they’d joined the fleet,” Malcolm pointed out. “But two weeks seems decent odds—and that’s long enough to get Olivia and your mother safely off the island.”

  “Oh. Yes,” John said, relieved at this apparent return to sanity. “I had Mother send a note to bring them back to—oh, damn. You did say you’d sent them away on purpose.”

  The seagull made a disapproving noise, defecated on the parapet, and launched itself into the air.

  “I did, yes. I tried to persuade your mother to go with Olivia, but she insisted on staying. Said she’s writing something and wanted to be left in peace for a few days.” Malcolm turned his back on the harbor and stared contemplatively at the stones under his feet.

  “Adelante!” A shout came from behind Grey; he turned at the sound of marching feet and clanking weaponry. Another detachment drilling. They clumped past, eyes fixed forward, but their corporal saluted Malcolm politely, including Grey with a brief nod and a sidelong glance.

  Was it his imagination, or had the man’s eyes lingered on his face?

  “The thing is…” Malcolm said, waiting ’til the soldiers had receded into the distance. “I mean…” He coughed and fell silent.

  Grey waited.

  “I know you don’t like me, John,” Malcolm said abruptly. “Or respect me. I don’t like myself all that much,” he added, looking away. “But—will you help me?”

  “I don’t see that I have a choice,” Grey said, leaving the question of liking alone. “But for what it’s worth,” he added formally, “I do respect you.”

  Malcolm’s broad face lighted at this, but before he could say anything in reply, Grey became suddenly aware of a change around them. The men repairing the wall had leapt to their feet, gesturing and pointing, shouting excitedly.

  Everyone was shouting, rushing toward the battlements overlooking the harbor. Caught in the crush, the two Englishmen pushed their way forward, far enough to see the ship. A small boat, a fast Spanish cutter, coming like the wind itself, its sails white as gull’s wings, hurtling across the blue water toward them.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Grey said. “It’s—is it?”

  “Yes, it is. It must be.” Malcolm grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him out of the crowd of excited Spaniards. “Come. Now!”

  T
HE STAIRWELL WAS blind dark after the dazzle above, and Grey had to drag a hand along the rough stone wall to avoid falling. He did fall, slipping on one of the age-hollowed steps near the bottom, but was luckily saved by clutching Malcolm’s sleeve.

  “This way.” There was more light below, bright flashes from the narrow windows at the ends of long corridors, dim flickering of lanterns on the walls, a strong smell of whale oil. Malcolm led the way down to his office, where he said something in rapid Spanish to the secretary, who rose, looking surprised, and went out. Malcolm closed the door and locked it.

  “Now what?” Grey asked. His heart was beating fast, and he felt a sense of confusion: an alertness like that of impending battle, an absurd urge to flee, the urgent need to do something…but what? The first knuckle on his right hand was bleeding; he’d scraped it when he slipped on the stairs. He put it to his mouth in reflex, tasting silver blood and stone dust.

  Malcolm was breathing harder than the brisk walk merited. He braced himself with both hands on the desk, looking down at the dark wood. Finally he nodded, shook himself like a dog, and straightened up.

  “It’s not as though I haven’t been thinking about it,” he said. “But I hadn’t expected you to be here.”

  “Don’t let me interfere with your plans,” Grey said politely. Malcolm looked at him, startled, then laughed and seemed to settle into himself.

  “Right,” he said. “Well, there’s the two things, aren’t there? The slaves, and Olivia—and your mother, of course,” he added hastily.

  Grey thought he might himself have reversed those two items in order of importance, but, then, he didn’t know just how dangerous the slaves might be. He nodded.

  “Do you really think they’ll arrest you?”

  Malcolm lifted one heavy shoulder and let it fall.

  “Yes, I do—but I don’t know how long it might take them to get round to it. After all, I’m no particular threat, so far as they know.” He went to the small window and peered out. Grey could hear shouting in the courtyard below, someone trying to create order in the midst of a rising gabble of Spanish voices.