Or if not precisely a friend, at least someone he didn’t mean to run through or hack out of the saddle. I heard a familiar voice, raised in greeting, and peered out from under Gideon’s chin to see Governor Tryon riding across the small meadow, accompanied by two aides.
Tryon sat his horse decently, if without great style, and was dressed as usual for campaigning, in a serviceable blue uniform coat and doeskin breeches, a yellow officer’s cockade in his hat, and with one of the cavalry cutlasses called a hanger at his side—not for show; the hilt showed nicks and the scabbard was worn.
Tryon pulled up his horse and nodded, touching his hat to Jamie, who did likewise. Seeing me lurking in Gideon’s shadow, the Governor politely removed his cocked hat altogether, bowing from the saddle.
“Mrs. Fraser, your servant.” He glanced at the pails I held, then turned in his saddle, beckoning to one of the aides. “Mr. Vickers. Kindly help Mrs. Fraser, if you will.”
I surrendered the pails gratefully to Mr. Vickers, a pink-cheeked young man of eighteen or so, but instead of going with him, I simply directed him where to take them. Tryon raised one eyebrow at me, but I returned his expression of mild displeasure with a bland smile, and stood my ground. I wasn’t going anywhere.
He was wise enough to recognize that, and make no issue of my presence. Dismissing me instead from his cognizance, he nodded again to Jamie.
“Your troops are in order, Colonel Fraser?” He glanced pointedly around. The only troops visible at the moment were Kenny, who had his nose buried in his cup, and Murdo Lindsay and Geordie Chisholm, who were engaged in a vicious game of mumblety-peg in the shadows of the copse.
“Aye, sir.”
The Governor raised both brows in patent skepticism.
“Call them, sir. I will inspect their readiness.”
Jamie paused for a moment, gathering up his reins. He squinted against the rising sun, evaluating the Governor’s mount. “A nice gelding ye have there, sir. Is he steady?”
“Of course.” The Governor frowned. “Why?”
Jamie threw back his head and gave a ululating Highland cry, of the sort meant to be heard over several acres of mountainside. The Governor’s horse jerked at the reins, eyes rolling back. Militiamen poured out of the thicket, shrieking like banshees, and a black cloud of crows exploded from the trees above them like a puff of cannon smoke, raucous in flight. The horse reared, decanting Tryon in an undignified heap on the grass, and bolted for the trees on the far side of the meadow.
I took several steps backward, out of the way.
The Governor sat up, purple-faced and gasping for breath, to find himself in the center of a ring of grinning militiamen, all pointing their weapons at him. The Governor glared into the barrel of the rifle poking into his face and batted it away with one hand, making small choking noises, like an angry squirrel. Jamie cleared his throat in a meaningful manner, and the men faded quietly back into the copse.
I thought that on the whole, it would be a mistake either to offer the Governor a hand to arise, or to let him get a look at my face. I tactfully turned my back and wandered a few steps away, affecting to have discovered an absorbing new plant springing from the ground near my feet.
Mr. Vickers reappeared from the wood, looking startled, a pail of water in each hand.
“What has happened?” He started toward the Governor, but I put a hand on his sleeve to detain him. Best if Mr. Tryon had a moment to recover both his breath and his dignity.
“Nothing important,” I said, recovering my pails before he could spill them. “Er … how many militia troops are assembled here, do you know?”
“One thousand and sixty-eight, mum,” he said, looking thoroughly bewildered. “That is not accounting for General Waddell’s troops, of course. But what—”
“And you have cannon?”
“Oh, yes, several, mum. We have two detachments with artillery. Two six-pounders, ten swivel-guns, and two eight-pound mortars.” Vickers stood a little straighter, important with the thought of so much potential destruction.
“There are two thousand men across the creek, sir—but the most of them barely armed. Many carry no more than a knife.” Jamie’s voice came from behind me, drawing Vickers’s attention away. I turned round, to find that Jamie had dismounted, and was standing face to face with the Governor, holding the latter’s hat. He slapped it casually against his thigh and offered it back to its owner, who accepted it with as much grace as might be managed under the circumstances.
“I have been told as much, Mr. Fraser,” he said dryly, “though I am pleased to hear that your intelligence corroborates my own. Mr. Vickers, will you be so kind as to go and fetch my horse?” The purple hue had faded from Tryon’s face, and while his manner still held a certain constraint, he seemed not to be holding a grudge. Tryon had both a sense of fairness, and—more importantly at present—a sense of humor, both of which seemed to have survived the recent demonstration of military readiness.
Jamie nodded.
“I suppose that your agents have also told you that the Regulators have no leader, as such?”
“On the contrary, Mr. Fraser. I am under the impression that Hermon Husband is and has been for some considerable time one of the chief agitators of this movement. James Hunter, too, is a name that I have often seen appended to letters of complaint and the endless petitions that reach me in New Bern. And there are others—Hamilton, Gillespie …”
Jamie made an impatient gesture, brushing a hovering cloud of gnats from his face.
“In some circumstances, sir, I should be willing to dispute with ye whether the pen is mightier than the sword—but not on the edge of a battlefield, and that is where we stand. A boldness in writing pamphlets does not fit a man to lead troops—and Husband is a Quaker gentleman.”
“I have heard as much,” Tryon agreed. He gestured toward the distant creek, one brow raised in challenge. “And yet he is here.”
“He is here,” Jamie agreed. He paused for a moment, gauging the governor’s mood before proceeding. The Governor was tightly wound; there was no missing the tautness in his figure, or the brightness of his eyes. Still, battle was not yet imminent and the tension was well-leashed. He could still listen.
“I have fed the man at my own hearth, sir,” Jamie said carefully. “I have eaten at his. He makes no secret either of his views or his character. If he has come here today, I am certain that he has done so in torment of mind.” Jamie drew a deep breath. He was on dicey ground here.
“I have sent a man across the creek, sir, to find Husband, and beg him to meet with me. It may be that I can persuade him to use his considerable influence to cause these men—these citizens”—he gestured briefly toward the creek and the invisible myrmidons beyond—“to abandon this disastrous course of action, which cannot but end in tragedy.” He met Tryon’s eyes straight on.
“May I ask you, sir—may I beg of you—if Husband will come, will you not speak with him yourself?”
Tryon stood silent, oblivious of the dusty tricorne he turned around and around in his hands. The echoes of the recent commotion had faded; a vireo sang from the branches of the elm above us.
“They are citizens of this colony,” he said at last, with a nod in the direction of the creek. “I should regret that harm should come to them. Their grievances are not without merit; I have acknowledged as much—publicly!—and taken steps toward redress.” He glanced toward Jamie, as though to see whether this statement was accepted. Jamie stood silent, waiting.
Tryon took a deep breath, and slapped the hat against his leg.
“Yet I am Governor of this colony. I cannot see the peace disturbed, the law flouted, riot and bloodshed run rampant and unpunished!” He glanced bleakly at me. “I will not.”
He turned his attention back to Jamie.
“I think he will not come, sir. Their course is set”—he nodded once more toward the trees that edged Alamance Creek—“and so is mine. Still …” He hesitated for a moment, the
n made up his mind, and shook his head.
“No. If he does come, then by all means reason with him, and if he will agree to send his men home peaceably—at that point, bring him to me and we shall arrange terms. But I cannot wait upon the possibility.”
Mr. Vickers had retrieved the Governor’s mount. The boy stood a little way apart, holding both horses by their reins, and I saw him nod slightly at this, as though affirming the Governor’s words. His own hat shaded him from the sun, yet his face was flushed, and his eyes bright; he was eager for the fight.
Tryon was not; yet he was ready. Neither was Jamie—but he was ready, too. He held the Governor’s gaze for a moment, and then nodded, accepting inevitability.
“How long?” he asked quietly.
Tryon glanced upward at the sun, which stood a little short of mid-morning. Roger had been gone for nearly two hours; how long might it take him to find Hermon Husband and return?
“The companies are in battle order,” Tryon said. He glanced at the copse, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Then he returned a dark gaze to Jamie’s face. “Not long. Stand ready, Mr. Fraser.”
He turned away, and clapping his hat on his head, seized the reins of his horse and swung into the saddle. He rode away without looking back, followed by his aides.
Jamie watched him go, expressionless.
I moved beside him, touching his hand. I didn’t need to say that I hoped Roger would hurry.
62
“STRAGLERS AND SUSPECTED PERSONS”
Item #12 - No Officer or Soldier to go beyond the Limits of the Camp which is within the distance of the Grand Guard.
Item #63 - Commanding Officers of Corps are to examine all Straglers and suspected Persons, and those who cannot give a good account of themselves to be confined and Report thereof made to Head Quarters.
“Camp Duties and Regulations”: Orders Given Out by His Excellency Governor Tryon to the Provincials of North Carolina.
Roger touched the pocket of his breeches, where he had tucked away his pewter militia badge. An inch-and-a-half-wide button of metal, pierced round the edges, stamped with a crude “FC” for “Fraser’s Company” and meant to be sewn onto coat or hat, such badges—and the cloth cockades—were the sole items of uniform for most of the Governor’s foot-troops, and the only means of distinguishing a member of the militia from one of the Regulators.
“And exactly how d’ye know whom to shoot?” he had inquired ironically, when Jamie had handed him the badge at supper, two days before. “If you get close enough to see the badge before ye fire, won’t the other bugger get you first?”
Jamie had given him a glance of equal irony, but courteously forbore any observations on Roger’s marksmanship and the likelihood—or otherwise—of his doing any damage with his musket.
“I wouldna wait to see, myself,” he said. “If anyone runs toward ye with a gun, fire, and hope for the best.”
A few men seated around the fire nearby sniggered at this, but Jamie ignored them. He reached for a stick and pulled three roasting yams out of the coals, so they lay side by side, black and steaming in the cool evening air. He kicked one gently, sending it rolling back into the ashes.
“That’s us,” he explained. He kicked the next yam. “That’s Colonel Leech’s company, and that”—he booted the third, which rolled erratically after its fellows—“is Colonel Ashe’s. D’ye see?” He cocked an eyebrow at Roger.
“Each company will go forward in its own path, so ye’re no likely to see any other militia, at least to begin with. Anyone coming toward us is most probably the enemy.” Then his long mouth curled up a bit, as he gestured toward the men all round them, busy with their suppers.
“Ye ken every man here well enough? Well, dinna shoot any of them, and ye’ll be fine, aye?”
Roger smiled ruefully to himself as he made his way carefully down a slope covered with tiny yellow-flowered plants. It was sound advice; he was much less concerned with the possibility of being shot than with the fear of accidentally harming someone himself—including the not-inconsiderable worry of blowing off a few of his own fingers.
Privately, he was resolved not to fire at anyone, regardless either of circumstance or of the possibility of his hitting them. He’d heard enough of the Regulators’ stories—Abel MacLennan, Hermon Husband. Even allowing for the natural hyperbole of Husband’s style, his pamphlets burned with a sense of injustice that was inescapable. How could Roger look to kill a man or maim him, only for protesting against abuses and corruption so blatant that they must offend any just-minded person?
A trained historian, he’d seen enough of present circumstances to understand just how widespread the problems were, how they’d come about—and he understood well enough the difficulties of correcting them. He sympathized with Tryon’s position—to a point—but his sympathy stopped a good way short of rendering him a willing soldier in the cause of upholding the Crown’s authority—still less, the cause of preserving William Tryon’s reputation and personal fortune.
He stopped for a moment, hearing voices, and stepped softly behind the trunk of a large poplar.
Three men came in sight a moment later, talking casually amongst themselves. All three had guns and bullet-boxes, but the impression they gave was of three friends on their way to hunt rabbits, rather than grim troopers on the eve of battle.
In fact, this appeared to be exactly what they were—foragers. One had a cluster of furry bodies slung from his belt, and another carried a muslin bag stained with something that might have been fresh blood. As Roger watched from the shelter of the poplar, one man stopped, hand out to check his comrades, who both stiffened like hounds, noses pointing toward a clump of trees some sixty yards distant.
Even knowing something was there, it took a moment before Roger spotted the small deer, standing still against a grove of saplings, a veil of dappled light through the spring leaves overhead masking it almost perfectly from view.
The first man swung his gun stealthily down from his shoulder, reaching for rod and cartridge, but one of the others stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Hold there, Abram,” said the second man, speaking softly but clearly. “You don’t want to be firing so close to the crick. You heard what the Colonel said—Regulators are drawn right up to the bank near that point.” He nodded toward the heavy growth of alder and willow that marked the edge of the invisible creek, no more than a hundred yards distant. “You don’t want to be provokin’ them, not just now.”
Abram nodded reluctantly, and put up his gun again.
“Aye, I suppose. Will it be today, do you think?”
Roger glanced back at the sapling grove, but the deer had vanished, silent as smoke.
“Can’t see how it won’t be.” The third man pulled a yellow kerchief from his sleeve and wiped his face; the weather was warm and the air muggy. “Tryon’s had his guns in place since dawn; he’s not the man to let anybody get a jump on him. He might wait for Waddell’s men—but he may think he’s no need of them.”
Abram snorted with mild contempt.
“To crush those rabble? Seen them, have you? A poorer set of soldiers you’d not see in a month of Sundays.”
The man with the kerchief smiled cynically.
“Well, that’s as may be, Abie. Seen some of the backcountry militia, have you? Speakin’ of rabble. And speakin’ of the Regulators, there’s a lot of ’em, rabble or not. Two to one, Cap’n Neale says.”
Abram grunted, casting a last reluctant glance toward the wood and the creek beyond.
“Rabble,” he repeated, more confidently, and turned away. “Come along, then, let’s have a look upslope.”
The foragers were on the same side as himself; they wore no cockades, but he saw the militia badges on breast and hat, glinting silver in the morning sun. Still, Roger remained in the shadows until the men had vanished, talking casually amongst themselves. He was reasonably sure that Jamie had sent him on this mission with no authority beyond his o
wn; best if he were not asked to explain himself.
The attitude amongst most of the militia toward the Regulation was at best scornful. At worst—at the upper levels of command—it was coldly vindictive.
“Crush them once and for all,” Caswell had said, over a cup of coffee by the fire the night before. A plantation owner from the eastern part of the colony, Richard Caswell had no sympathy with the Regulators’ grievances.
Roger patted his pocket again, considering. No, best leave it. He could produce the badge if he were challenged, and he didn’t think anyone would shoot him in the back without at least a shout of warning. Still, he felt oddly exposed as he walked through the lush grass of the river-meadow, and sighed with involuntary relief, as the languishing branches of the creek-side willows enfolded him in cool shadow.
He had, with Jamie’s approval, left his musket behind, and come unarmed, save for the knife at his belt that was a normal accoutrement for any man. His only other item of equipment was a large white kerchief, presently folded up inside his coat.
“If ye should be threatened—anywhere—wave it and cry ‘Truce,’ ” Jamie had instructed him. “Then tell them to fetch me, and dinna say more until I come. If no one prevents you, bring me Husband under its protection.”
The vision of himself leading Hermon Husband back across the creek, holding the flapping kerchief on a stick above his head like a guide leading tourists through an airport, made him want to hoot with laughter. Jamie hadn’t laughed, though, or even smiled, and so he had accepted the cloth solemnly, tucking it away with care. He peered through the screen of drooping leaves, but the creek ran past sparkling in the new day’s sun, silent save for the rush of water past stones and clay. No one was in sight, and the noise of the water drowned any sound that might have come from beyond the trees on the other side. While the militia might not shoot him in the back, he wasn’t so sanguine about the possibilities of Regulators shooting him from the front, if they saw him crossing from the Government side.
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 531