“We will not profane this holy occasion with anger nor bitterness. Now—sister.” He squeezed her hand gently. “Compose your soul. God will—”
But Mrs. Wilson was no longer listening. Her withered mouth dropped open in horror.
“The sin-eater!” she cried, looking wildly round. She grabbed the dish from the table next to her, showering salt down the front of her winding-sheet. “Where is the sin-eater?”
Hiram stiffened as though goosed with a red-hot poker, then whirled and fought his way toward the door, the crowd giving way before him. Murmurs of speculation rose in his wake, only to stop abruptly as a piercing wail rose from outside, another rising behind it as the first one fell.
An awed “oooh!” rose from the crowd, and Mrs. Wilson looked gratified, as the bean-treim started in to earn their money in earnest.
Then there was a stirring near the door, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea, leaving a narrow path to the table. Mrs. Wilson sat bolt upright, dead-white and barely breathing. The pulse in her abdomen skittered and jumped under my fingers. Roger and Jamie had hold of her arms, supporting her.
A complete hush had fallen over the room; the only sounds were the howling of the bean-treim—and slow, shuffling footsteps, soft on the ground outside, then suddenly louder on the boards of the floor. The sin-eater had arrived.
He was a tall man, or had been, once. It was impossible to tell his age; either years or illness had eaten away his flesh, so that his wide shoulders bowed and his spine had hunched, a gaunt head poking forward, crowned with a balding straggle of graying strands.
I glanced up at Jamie, eyebrows raised. I had never seen the man before. He shrugged slightly; he didn’t know him, either. As the sin-eater came closer, I saw that his body was crooked; he seemed caved in on one side, ribs perhaps crushed by some accident.
Every eye was fixed on the man, but he met none of them, keeping his gaze focused on the floor. The path to the table was narrow, but the people shrank back as he passed, careful that he should not touch them. Only when he reached the table did he lift his head, and I saw that one eye was missing, evidently clawed away by a bear, judging from the welted mass of scar tissue.
The other one was working; he halted in surprise, seeing Mrs. Wilson, and glanced round, obviously unsure what to do next.
She wiggled one arm free of Roger’s grip and pushed the dish containing the bread and salt toward him.
“Get on, then,” she said, her voice high and a little frightened.
“But you’re not dead.” It was a soft, educated voice, betraying only puzzlement, but the crowd reacted as though it had been the hissing of a serpent, and recoiled further, if such a thing were possible.
“Well, what of it?” Agitation was making Mrs. Wilson tremble even more; I could feel a small constant vibration through the table. “Ye’ve been paid to eat my sins—be after doing it, then!” A thought occurred to her and she jerked upright, squinting at her son-in-law. “Ye did pay him, Hiram?”
Hiram was still flushed from the previous exchanges, but went a sort of puce at this, and clutched his side—clutching at his purse, I thought, rather than his heart.
“Well, I’m no going to pay him before he’s done the job,” he snapped. “What sort of way is that to be carrying on?”
Seeing renewed riot about to break out, Jamie let go his hold on Mrs. Wilson and fumbled hastily in his sporran, emerging with a silver shilling, which he thrust across the table toward the sin-eater—though careful, I saw, not to touch the man.
“Now ye’ve been paid,” he said gruffly, nodding to him. “Best be about your business, sir.”
The man looked slowly round the room, and the intake of breath from the crowd was audible, even over the wails of “WOOOOOOOOOOOEEEE to the house of CROMMMMBIIIEEEEEE” going on outside.
He was standing no more than a foot away from me, close enough that I could smell the sweet-sour odor of him: ancient sweat and dirt in his rags, and something else, some faint aroma that spoke of pustulant sores and unhealed wounds. He turned his head and looked straight at me. It was a soft brown eye, amber in color, and startlingly like my own. Meeting his gaze gave me a queer feeling in the pit of the stomach, as though I looked for a moment into a distorting mirror, and saw that cruelly misshapen face replace my own.
He did not change expression, and yet I felt something nameless pass between us. Then he turned his head away, and reached out a long, weathered, very dirty hand to pick up the piece of bread.
A sort of sigh went through the room as he ate—slowly gumming the bread, for he had few teeth. I could feel Mrs. Wilson’s pulse, much lighter now, and fast, like a hummingbird’s. She hung nearly limp in the men’s grasp, the withered lids of her eyes drooping as she watched.
He wrapped both hands around the cup of wine, as though it were a chalice, and drank it down, eyes closed. He set the empty cup down and looked at Mrs. Wilson, curiously. I supposed he never had met one of his clients alive before, and wondered how long he had fulfilled this strange office.
Mrs. Wilson stared into his eyes, face blank as a child’s. Her abdominal pulse was skipping like a stone, a few light beats, a pause, then a thump that struck my palm like a blow, and back to its erratic jumps.
The sin-eater bowed to her, very slowly. Then he turned round, and scampered for the door, with amazing speed for such an infirm specimen.
Several of the boys and younger men near the door rushed out after him, yelling; one or two seized sticks of wood from the fire basket by the hearth. Others were torn; they glanced toward the open door, where shouts and the thumps of thrown stones mingled with the wailing of the bean-treim—but their eyes were drawn back ineluctably to Mrs. Wilson.
She looked … peaceful, was the only word. It was no surprise whatever to feel the pulse beneath my hand simply stop. Somewhere deeper, in my own depths, I felt the dizzying rush of the hemorrhage begin, a flooding warmth that pulled me into it, made black spots whirl before my eyes, and caused a ringing in my ears. I knew to all intents and purposes she had now died for good. I felt her go. And yet I heard her voice above the racket, very small but calm and clear.
“I forgive ye, Hiram,” she said. “Ye’ve been a good lad.”
My vision had gone dark, but I could still hear and sense things dimly. Something grasped me, pulled me away, and a moment later I came to myself, leaning against Jamie in a corner, his arms supporting me.
“Are ye all right, Sassenach?” he was saying urgently, shaking me a little and patting my cheek.
The black-clad bean-treim had come as far as the door. I could see them outside, standing like twin pillars of darkness, falling snow beginning to whirl round them as the cold wind came inside, small hard dry flakes skittering and bouncing in its wake across the floor. The women’s voices rose and fell, blending with the wind. By the table, Hiram Crombie was trying to fix his mother-in-law’s garnet brooch to her shroud, though his hands shook and his narrow face was wet with tears.
“Yes,” I said faintly, then “yes” a little stronger. “Everything is all right now.”
PART SIX
On the Mountain
40
BIRD-SPRING
March 1774
It was spring, and the long months of desolation melted into running water, with streamlets pouring from every hill and miniature waterfalls leaping from stone to stone to stone.
The air was filled with the racket of birds, a cacophony of melody that replaced the lonely calling of geese passing by far overhead.
Birds go one by one in the winter, a single raven hunched brooding in a barren tree, an owl fluffed against the cold in the high, dark shadows of a barn. Or they go in flocks, a massed thunder of wings to bear them up and away, wheeling through the sky like handsful of pepper grains thrown aloft, calling their way in Vs of mournful courage toward the promise of a distant and problematic survival.
In winter, the raptors draw apart unto themselves; the songbirds flee
away, all the color of the feathered world reduced to the brutal simplification of predator and prey, gray shadows passing overhead, with no more than a small bright drop of blood fallen back to earth here and there to mark the passing of life, leaving a drift of scattered feathers, borne on the wind.
But as spring blooms, the birds grow drunk with love and the bushes riot with their songs. Far, far into the night, darkness mutes but does not silence them, and small melodious conversations break out at all hours, invisible and strangely intimate in the dead of night, as though one overheard the lovemaking of strangers in the room next door.
I moved closer to Jamie, hearing the clear, sweet song of a thrush in the great red spruce that stood behind the house. It was still cold at night, but not with the bitter chill of winter; rather with the sweet fresh cold of thawing earth and springing leaves, a cold that sent the blood tingling and made warm bodies seek one another, nesting.
A rumbling snore echoed across the landing—another harbinger of spring. Major MacDonald, who had arrived mud-caked and wind-bitten the night before, bringing unwelcome news of the outside world.
Jamie stirred briefly at the sound, groaned, farted briefly, and lay still. He’d stayed up late, entertaining the Major—if entertainment was the word for it.
I could hear Lizzie and Mrs. Bug in the kitchen below, talking as they banged pots and slammed doors in hopes of rousing us. Breakfast smells began to rise up the stairs, enticing, the bitter smell of roasting chicory spicing the thick warmth of buttered porridge.
The sound of Jamie’s breathing had changed, and I knew he was awake, though he still lay with his eyes closed. I didn’t know whether this denoted an urge to continue the physical pleasure of sleep—or a marked disinclination to get up and deal with Major MacDonald.
He resolved this doubt at once by rolling over, enveloping me in his arms, and moving his lower body against mine in a manner that made it obvious that, while physical pleasure was what was on his mind, he was quite through sleeping.
He hadn’t reached the point of coherent speech yet, though, and nuzzled my ear, making small interrogatory hums in his throat. Well, the Major was still asleep, and the coffee—such as it was—wouldn’t be ready for a bit. I hummed back, reached to the bedside table for a bit of almond cream, and commenced a slow and pleasurable rummage through the layers of bedclothes and nightshirt to apply it.
Some small while later, snorts and thumps across the hall denoted the resurrection of Major MacDonald, and the delectable scents of frying ham and potatoes with onions had joined the throng of olfactory stimuli. The sweet smell of almond cream was stronger, though.
“Greased lightning,” Jamie said with a drowsy air of satisfaction. He was still in bed, lying on his side to watch me dress.
“What?” I turned from my looking glass to eye him. “Who?”
“Me, I suppose. Or were ye not thunderstruck, there at the end?” He laughed, almost silently, rustling the bedclothes.
“Oh, you’ve been talking to Bree again,” I said tolerantly. I turned back to the glass. “That particular figure of speech is a metaphor for extreme speed, not lubricated brilliance.”
I smiled at him in the glass as I brushed knots out of my hair. He had unplaited it while I was anointing him, and subsequent exertions had caused it to explode. Come to think, it did faintly resemble the effects of electrocution.
“Well, I can be fast, too,” he said judiciously, sitting up and rubbing a hand through his own hair. “But not first thing in the morning. There are worse ways to wake up, aye?”
“Yes, much worse.” Sounds of hawking and spitting came from across the landing, followed by the distinctive sound of someone with very vigorous bladder function employing a chamber pot. “Is he staying long, did he say?”
Jamie shook his head. Rising slowly, he stretched himself like a cat and then came across in his shirt to put his arms around me. I hadn’t yet poked up the fire, and the room was chilly; his body was pleasantly warm.
He rested his chin on top of my head, regarding our stacked reflections in the mirror.
“I’ll have to go,” he said softly. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”
I stiffened a little, brush in hand.
“Where? To the Indians?”
He nodded, eyes on mine.
“MacDonald brought newspapers, wi’ the text of letters from Governor Martin to various people—Tryon in New York, General Gage—asking help. He’s losing his grip upon the colony—insofar as he ever had one—and is seriously thinking of arming the Indians. Though that bit of information hasna made it into the newspapers, and a good thing, too.”
He released me, and reached for the drawer where his clean shirts and stockings stayed.
“That is a good thing,” I said, bundling back my hair and hunting for a ribbon to tie it with. We’d seen few newspapers through the winter, but even so, the level of disagreement between the Governor and the Assembly was clear; he’d resorted to a practice of continuous proroguing, repeatedly dismissing the Assembly in order to prevent them passing legislation at odds with his desires.
I could well imagine what the public response would be to the revelation that he contemplated arming the Cherokee, Catawba, and Creek, and inciting them against his own people.
“I’m guessing that he isn’t actually going to do that,” I said, finding the blue ribbon I was looking for, “because if he had—does, I mean—the Revolution would have got going in North Carolina right now, rather than in Massachusetts or Philadelphia two years from now. But why on earth is he publishing these letters in the newspaper?”
Jamie laughed. He shook his head, pushing back the disheveled hair from his face.
“He’s not. Evidently, the Governor’s mail is being intercepted. He’s no verra pleased about it, MacDonald says.”
“I daresay not.” Mail was notoriously insecure, and always had been. In fact, we had originally acquired Fergus when Jamie hired him as a pickpocket, in order to steal letters in Paris. “How is Fergus doing?” I asked.
Jamie made a small grimace, pulling on his stockings.
“Better, I think. Marsali says he’s staying more to home, which is good. And he’s earning a wee bit, teaching French to Hiram Crombie. But—”
“Hiram? French?”
“Oh, aye.” He grinned at me. “Hiram’s set upon the idea that he must go and preach to the Indians, and he thinks he’ll be best equipped to manage if he’s got some French as well as English. Ian’s teaching him a bit of the Tsalagi, too, but there are so many Indian tongues, he’d never learn them all.”
“Will wonders never cease,” I murmured. “Do you think—”
I was interrupted at this point by Mrs. Bug bellowing up the stairs, “If Certain Persons are wantin’ to let a good breakfast be spoilt, I’m sure they’re welcome!”
Like clockwork, Major MacDonald’s door popped open, and his feet clattered eagerly down the stairs.
“Ready?” I said to Jamie. He seized my hairbrush and tidied himself with a few licks, then came to open the door and bowed, ushering me ceremoniously out.
“What ye said, Sassenach,” he said as he followed me down the stair. “About it starting in two years. It’s already well begun. Ye know that, aye?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, rather grimly. “But I don’t want to think about it on an empty stomach.”
Roger stood up straight, measuring. The edge of the kiln pit he stood in came just under his chin. Six feet would be just about at eye level; only a few more inches, then. That was heartening. Setting the shovel against the dirt wall, he stooped, grabbed a wooden bucket full of earth, and heaved it up over the rim.
“Dirt!” he yelled. There was no response to his shout. He rose on his toes, peering balefully round for his so-called assistants. Jemmy and Germain were meant to be taking it in turn to empty the buckets and pass them back down to him, but had a tendency to vanish abruptly.
“Dirt!” he shouted as loudly as he could. The wee buggers could
n’t have gone far; it took him less than two minutes to fill a bucket.
This call was answered, but not by the boys. A cold shadow fell over him, and he squinted up to see the silhouette of his father-in-law, stooping to grab the handle of the bucket. Jamie strode two paces and flung the dirt onto the slowly mounting heap, then came back, hopping down into the pit to return it.
“A tidy wee hole ye have here,” he said, turning round to survey it. “Ye could barbecue an ox in it.”
“I’ll need one. I’m starving.” Roger wiped a sleeve across his forehead; the spring day was cool and crisp, but he was drenched with sweat.
Jamie had picked up his shovel and was examining the blade with interest.
“I’ve never seen the like. Is it the lass’s work?”
“With a bit of help from Dai Jones, aye.” It had taken roughly thirty seconds’ work with an eighteenth-century shovel to convince Brianna that improvements could be made. It had taken three months to acquire a chunk of iron that could be shaped to her directions by the blacksmith and to persuade Dai Jones—who was Welsh and thus by definition stubborn—into doing it. The normal spade was made of wood, and looked like nothing so much as a roof shingle attached to a pole.
“May I try?” Enchanted, Jamie drove the pointed end of the new spade into the dirt at his feet.
“Be my guest.”
Roger scrambled up out of the deep part of the pit into the shallower end of the kiln. Jamie stood in the part where the fire would go, according to Brianna, with a chimney to be raised over it. Items to be fired would sit in the longer, relatively shallow part of the pit and be covered over. After a week of shoveling, Roger was less inclined to think the distant possibility of plumbing was worth all the labor involved, but Bree wanted it—and like her father, Bree was difficult to resist, though their methods varied.
Jamie shoveled briskly, tossing spadesful of dirt into the bucket, with small exclamations of delight and admiration at the ease and speed with which dirt could be dug. Despite his dim view of the occupation, Roger felt a sense of pride in his wife’s implement.
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