The Scottish Prisoner: A Novel

by Diana Gabaldon

  They were within pistol shot of the house now. Grey glanced to and fro, and then, feeling self-consciously dramatic, stepped out onto the lawn. It was lit like a stage, and his shadow puddled dark at his feet, the bright moon almost overhead. No dog barked, no voice called out demanding to know his purpose, but still he walked gingerly, footfalls soundless on the untidy lawn.

  The casements were well above eye level. Well above his eye level, at least. With some irritation, he saw that Fraser, who had come silently out behind him, was able by standing on his toes to see into the house. The big Scot shifted to and fro, craning to see—and then froze. He said something out loud, in bloody Gaelic. Grey thought from the tone and the clearly visible expression on his face that it must be a curse.

  “What do you see?” he hissed, plucking impatiently at Fraser’s sleeve. The Scot thumped down on his heels and stared down at him.

  “It’s that wee arse-wipe, Twelvetrees,” he said. “He’s going through Siverly’s papers.”

  Grey barely heard the second part of this; he was already headed for the front door and quite ready to break it down, should it offer him the least resistance.

  It didn’t. It was unlocked, and he heaved it open with such force that it crashed into the wall of the foyer. The sound coincided with a startled yelp from the library, and Grey charged toward the open door through which light was streaming, barely aware of Fraser, at his heels, saying urgently, “I’m no going to break ye out of that bloody castle again, just you remember that!”

  There was a louder yelp as he burst into the library to find Edward Twelvetrees crouched beside the mantelpiece, the poker clutched in both hands and poised like a cricket bat.

  “Put that down, you bloody nit,” Grey said, halting just short of striking range. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  Twelvetrees straightened up, his expression going from alarm to outrage.

  “What the devil are you doing here, you infamous fiend?”

  Fraser laughed, and both Grey and Twelvetrees glared at him.

  “I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” he said mildly, though his broad face still bore a look of amusement. He waved his fingers, in the manner of one urging a small child to go and say hello to an aged relative. “Be going on wi’ your business. Dinna mind me.”

  Jamie looked around, picked up a small wing chair that Grey had knocked over in his precipitous entry, and sat in it, leaning back with an air of pleased expectation.

  Twelvetrees glared back and forth between Grey and Fraser, but an air of uncertainty had entered his expression. He looked like a rat baffled of its cheese rind, and Grey suppressed an urge to laugh, too, despite his anger.

  “I repeat,” he said more mildly, “what are you doing here?”

  Twelvetrees laid down his weapon but didn’t alter his attitude of hostility.

  “And I repeat—what are you doing here? How dare you enter the house of the man you have so foully murdered!?”

  Grey blinked. For the last little while, taken up by the magic of the moonlit night, he had quite forgotten that he was an outlaw.

  “I didn’t murder Major Siverly,” he said. “I should very much like to know who did, though. Was it you?”

  Twelvetrees’s mouth dropped open. “You … cur!” he said, and, seizing the poker up, made to brain Grey with it.

  Grey caught his wrist with both hands and managed to pull him off balance as he lunged, so that Twelvetrees lurched and staggered, but he kept his feet sufficiently as to elbow Grey in the face with his free arm.

  Eyes watering, Grey dodged a reckless swipe with the poker, leapt backward, and caught his bootheel in the edge of a rug. He staggered in his turn, and Twelvetrees, with a triumphant grunt, swung the poker at his midsection.

  It was a glancing blow but knocked the wind out of him briefly, and he doubled over and sat down hard on the floor. Unable to breathe, he rolled to the side, avoiding another blow that clanged off the slates of the hearth, and, seizing Twelvetrees by the ankle, jerked as hard as he could. The other man went over backward with a whoop and the poker flew through the air, crashing into one of the casement windows.

  Twelvetrees appeared to have stunned himself momentarily, having knocked his head against the battered mantelpiece. He lay sprawled on the hearth, his outflung hand dangerously close to the unshielded fire. With a relieving gasp, Grey rediscovered how to breathe, and lay still, doing it. He felt the vibration of a large body through the floorboards and, wiping a sleeve across his streaming face—God damn it, the bastard had bloodied his nose; he hoped it wasn’t broken—saw Fraser reach down delicately and haul Twelvetrees clear of the fire. Then, frowning, Fraser rose swiftly and, grabbing the ash shovel, scraped a smoking mass of papers out of the hearth, scattering them hastily over the floor, seizing chunks that had not yet quite caught fire, and separating them from the baulk of burning pages. He ripped off his coat and flung it over the half-charred papers to smother the sparks.

  Twelvetrees uttered a strangled protest, reaching for the papers, but Fraser hauled him to his feet and deposited him with some force on a settee upholstered in blue- and white-striped silk. He glanced back at Grey, as though inquiring whether he required some similar service.

  Grey shook his head and, wheezing gently, one hand to his bruised ribs, got awkwardly to his feet and hobbled to the wing chair.

  “You could … have helped,” he said to Fraser.

  “Ye managed brawly on your own,” Fraser assured him gravely, and to his mortification, Grey found that this word of praise gratified him exceedingly. He coughed and wiped his nose gingerly on his sleeve, leaving a long streak of blood.

  Twelvetrees groaned and raised his head, looking dazed.

  “I’ll … take that … as a no, … shall I?” Grey managed. “You say you did not kill Major Siverly?”

  “No,” Twelvetrees answered, looking rather blank. Then his wits returned and his eyes focused on Grey with a profound expression of dislike.

  “No,” he repeated, more sharply. “Of course I did not kill Gerald Siverly. What kind of flapdoodle is that?”

  Grey thought briefly of inquiring whether there was more than one sort of flapdoodle and, if so, what the categories might be, but thought better of it and ignored the question as rhetorical. Before he could formulate another question, he noticed that Fraser was calmly engaged in going through the piles of paper on the desk.

  “Put those down!” Twelvetrees barked, staggering to his feet. “Stop that at once!”

  Fraser glanced up at him and raised one thick red brow.

  “How d’ye mean to stop me?”

  Twelvetrees slapped at his waist, as do men who are accustomed to wearing a sword. Then sat down, very slowly, reason returning.

  “You have no right to examine these papers,” he said to Grey, calmly by comparison with his earlier outbursts. “You are a murderer and evidently an escaped outlaw—for I misdoubt that you have been released officially?”

  Grey understood this was intended as sarcasm and didn’t bother replying. “By what right were you examining them, may I ask?”

  “By right of law,” Twelvetrees replied promptly. “I am the executor of Gerald Siverly’s will, charged with the discharge of his debts and the disposition of his property.”

  So put that in your pipe and smoke it, his expression added. Grey was in fact taken aback at this revelation.

  “Gerald Siverly was my friend,” Twelvetrees added, and his lips compressed briefly. “A particular friend.”

  Grey had known that much, from Harry Quarry, but it hadn’t occurred to him that Twelvetrees would be so intimate with Siverly as to have been appointed executor of his estate. Had Siverly no family, bar his wife?

  And if Twelvetrees was so intimate—what did he know concerning Siverly’s actions?

  Whatever it was, he obviously wasn’t about to confide his knowledge to Grey. John got to his feet and, manfully trying not to wheeze in the smoke-filled air, went to the bay window
and threw back the lid of the blanket chest. The ironbound box was gone.

  “What have you done with the money?” he demanded, swinging back to Twelvetrees. The man glared at him with profound dislike.

  “So sorry,” he sneered. “It’s where you’ll never get your thieving hands on it.”

  Jamie was collecting the half-charred bits of paper he had saved from the fire, handling each with ginger care, but looked up at this, glancing from Twelvetrees to Grey.

  “D’ye want me to search the house?”

  Grey’s eyes were on Twelvetrees, and he saw the man’s nostrils flare, his lips compress in disgust—but there was no hint of agitation or fear in his red-rimmed eyes.

  “No,” Jamie said, echoing Grey’s thoughts. “He’s right; he’s carried it away already.”

  “You’re quite good at this business of outlawry,” Grey said dryly.

  “Aye, well. I’ve had practice.” The Scot had a small collection of singed papers in his hand. He carefully pulled one free and handed it to Grey.

  “I think this is the only one that might be of interest, my lord.”

  It was written in a different hand, but Grey recognized the sheet at once. It was the Wild Hunt poem—and he did wonder where the devil the rest of it was; why only this one page?—much singed and smeared with ash.

  “Why—” he began, but then, seeing Fraser jerk his chin upward, turned the paper over. He heard Twelvetrees’s breath hiss in, but paid no attention.

  The Wild Hunt

  Capt. Ronald Dougan

  Wm. Scarry Spender

  Robert Wilson Bishop

  Fordham O’Toole

  Èamonn Ó Chriadha

  Patrick Bannion Laverty

  Grey whistled softly through his teeth. He knew none of the names on the list but had a good idea what it was—an idea reinforced by the look of fury on Twelvetrees’s face. He wouldn’t go back to Hal quite empty-handed.

  If he wasn’t mistaken, what he held in his hand was a list of conspirators, almost certainly Irish Jacobites. Someone—had it been Fraser or himself?—had suggested that the Wild Hunt poem was a recognition signal, and he had wondered at the time, a signal for whom? Here was the answer—or part of one. Men who did not know one another personally would recognize others in their group by the showing of the poem—on its face a bit of half-finished, innocuous verse, but in reality a code, readable by those who held the key.

  Fraser nodded casually toward Twelvetrees. “Is there anything ye want me to beat out of him?”

  Twelvetrees’s eyes sprang wide. Grey wanted to laugh, in spite of everything, but didn’t.

  “The temptation is considerable,” he said. “But I doubt the experiment would prove productive. Just keep him there, if you would, while I have a quick look round.”

  He could tell from Twelvetrees’s dour expression that there was nothing further to be found in the house, but, for form’s sake, he went through the desk and the bookshelves and made a brief foray upstairs with a candlestick, in case Siverly should have kept anything secret in his bedchamber.

  He felt a strong sense of oppression, walking through the empty darkness of the house, and something akin to sadness, standing in the dead man’s chamber. The servants had stripped the bed, rolled up the mattress, and tidily covered the furniture in dust sheets. Only the moving gleam of candlelight from the damask wallpaper gave a hint of life.

  He felt curiously empty, as though he himself might be a ghost, viewing the remnants of his own life without emotion. The heat and excitement of his confrontation with Twelvetrees had quite drained away, leaving a sense of flatness in its wake. There was nothing further he could do here; he could not arrest Twelvetrees or compel answers from him. Whatever might yet be discovered, the end of the matter was that Siverly was dead, and his crimes with him.

  “And his place shall know him no more,” he said softly, and the words fell and vanished among the silent shapes of the sleeping furniture. He turned and left, leaving the door open on darkness.

  SECTION IV

  A Tithe to Hell

  29

  The Wild Hunt

  THEY STRAGGLED INTO LONDON ON THE LATE MAIL COACH, unwashed, unshaven, and smelling strongly of vomit. The channel crossing had again been rough, and even Grey had been sick.

  “If you can hold on to your stomach when all about you are losing theirs …” he muttered, thinking that this would be a good line for a poem. He must remember to tell Harry; perhaps he could think of a decent rhyme. “Boozing lairs” was the only thing that came to his own mind, and the thought of boozing kens, dark cellars full of drunken, sweating, cohabiting humanity, combined with the reek of his companions and the coach’s jolting, made him queasy again.

  The thought of explaining things to Hal made him queasier still, but there was no help for it.

  They reached Argus House near sunset, and Minnie, hearing the noise of their arrival, came hurrying down the stairs to greet them. A quick, appalled glance at them having told her all she wanted to know, she forbade them to speak, rang for footmen and chambermaids, and ordered brandy and baths all round.

  “Hal …?” Grey asked, glancing warily toward the library.

  “He’s in the House, making a speech about tin mining. I’ll send a note to bring him back.” She took a step away, holding her nose with one hand and gesturing him toward the stairs with the other. “Shoo, John.”

  CLEAN AND STILL relatively sober, despite a lavish application of brandy, Grey made his way down to the larger drawing room, where his nose told him tea was being served. He heard the soft rumble of Jamie Fraser’s voice, talking to Minnie, and found them cozily ensconced on the blue settee; they looked up at his entrance with the slightly startled air of conspirators.

  He had no time to wonder about this before Hal arrived, dressed for the House of Lords and flushed from the heat of the day. The duke collapsed into a chair with a groan and pried his red-heeled shoes off, dropping them into Nasonby’s hands with a sigh of relief. The butler bore them off as though they were made of fine china, leaving Hal to examine a hole in his stocking.

  “The press of carriages and wagons was so great, I got out and walked,” he said, as though he’d last seen his brother at breakfast, rather than weeks before. He glanced up at Grey. “I’ve got a blister on my heel the size of a pigeon’s egg, and it looks better than you do. What the devil’s happened?”

  With this introduction, it proved easier than Grey had thought to lay things out. This he did as succinctly as possible, referring to Fraser now and then to provide details.

  Hal’s lips twitched a bit at the part about Siverly’s attack upon Jamie Fraser, but he sobered immediately upon hearing of Grey’s two visits to Siverly’s estate.

  “Good God, John.” Tea had now appeared, and he absently took a slice of fruitcake, which he held uneaten in one hand while stirring sugar into his tea. “So you escaped from Athlone Castle and fled Ireland, suspected of murder. You do realize that the justiciar will recognize you from your description?”

  “I hadn’t time to worry about it,” Grey retorted, “and I don’t plan to start now. We have more important things to think of.”

  Hal leaned forward and set down the fruitcake, very carefully.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  Grey obliged, bringing out the half-charred pages they had retrieved from Twelvetrees’s bonfire. Finally, he deposited the smudged and crumpled sheet of poetry, with the list of names on the back, and explained what he thought these signified.

  Hal picked it up, whistled between his teeth, and said something scabrous in German.

  “Nicely put,” said Grey. His throat was raw from seasickness and talking. He took up his cup of tea and inhaled it thankfully. “I see one man on that list who holds a commission; if any of the others are in the army, it should be possible to locate them fairly easily.”

  Hal put the singed pages carefully on the table.

  “Well. I think it behooves us to proce
ed carefully, but quickly. I’ll put Harry on to these names; he knows everyone and can find out who they are, if they’re in the army, and what their history may be. Plainly most are Irish; I think we ought to have a very cautious look at the Irish Brigades—don’t want to offend them unduly. As for Twelvetrees …” He noticed the fruitcake, picked it up, and took a bite, chewing absently as he thought.

  “He already knows he’s under suspicion of something,” Grey pointed out, “whether he knows what or not. Do we approach him directly or just follow him about London to see who he talks to?”

  Hal’s face lighted in a smile, as he looked his younger brother up and down.

  “You going to black your face and follow him yourself? Or did you have in mind setting Mr. Fraser on him? Neither of you is what I’d call inconspicuous.”

  “No, I thought I’d let you do it,” Grey said. He reached for the brandy decanter and poured some into his teacup. He was so tired that his hand shook, splashing a little into the saucer.

  “I’ll talk to Mr. Beasley,” Hal said thoughtfully. “I believe he knows where those O’Higgins rascals are; they might be of use.”

  “They are Irish,” Grey pointed out. The O’Higgins brother, Rafe and Mick, were soldiers—when it suited them. When it didn’t, they disappeared like will-o’-the-wisps. They did, however, know everyone in the Rookery, that raucous, uncivilized bit of London where the Irish émigrés congregated. And if there was a job to be done involving things that weren’t strictly legal, the O’Higginses were your men.

  “Being Irish doesn’t necessarily imply treasonous proclivities,” Hal said reprovingly. “They were certainly helpful with regard to Bernard Adams.”

  “All right.” Grey leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, feeling fatigue flow through his body like sand through an hourglass. “On your head be it.”