From Mount Josiah Plantation in the Colony of Virginia,
Lord John Grey to Mr. James Fraser, Esq.,
Fraser’s Ridge, North Carolina,
upon the Sixth of March, Anno Domini 1775
Dear Mr. Fraser—
What in the Name of God are you about? I have known you in the course of our long Acquaintance to be many Things—Intemperate and Stubborn being two of them—but have always known you for a Man of Intelligence and Honor.
Yet despite explicit Warnings, I find your Name upon more than one List of suspected Traitors and Seditionists, associated with illegal Assemblies, and thus subject to Arrest. The Fact that you are still at Liberty, my Friend, reflects nothing more than the Lack of Troops at present available in North Carolina—and that may change rapidly. Josiah Martin has implored London for Help, and it will be forthcoming, I assure you.
Was Gage not more than sufficiently occupied in Boston, and Lord Dunsmore’s Virginia troops still in process of Assembly, the Army would be upon you within a few Months. Do not delude yourself; the King may be misguided in his Actions, but the Government perceives—if belatedly—the Level of Turmoil in the Colonies, and is moving as rapidly as may be to suppress it, before greater Harm can ensue.
Whatever else you may be, you are no Fool, and so I must assume you realize the Consequences of your Actions. But I would be less than a Friend did I not put the Case to you bluntly: you expose your Family to the utmost Danger by your Actions, and you put your own Head in a Noose.
For the Sake of whatever Affection you may yet bear me, and for the Sake of those dear Connexions between your Family and myself—I beg you to renounce these most dangerous Associations while there is still Time.
John
I read the letter through, then looked up at Jamie. He was sitting at his desk, papers strewn in every direction, scattered with the small brown fragments of broken sealing wax. Bobby Higgins had brought a good many letters, newspapers, and packages—Jamie had put off reading Lord John’s letter ’til the last.
“He’s very much afraid for you,” I said, putting the single sheet of paper down on top of the rest.
Jamie nodded.
“For a man of his parts to refer to the King’s actions as possibly ‘misguided’ is verra close to treason, Sassenach,” he observed, though I thought he was joking.
“These lists he mentions—do you know anything about that?”
He shrugged at that, and poked through one of the untidy piles with a forefinger, pulling out a smeared sheet that had obviously been dropped in a puddle at some point.
“Like that, I suppose,” he said, handing it over. It was unsigned, and nearly illegible, a misspelt and vicious denunciation of various Outrages and Debached Persons—here listed—whose speech, action, and appearance was a threat to all who valued peace and prosperity. These, the writer felt, should be shown whats what, presumably by being beaten, skinned alive, rold in bolling Tar and plac’d on a Rail, or in particularly pernicious cases, Hanged outright from there own Rooftrees.
“Where did you pick that up?” I dropped it on the desk, using two fingers.
“In Campbelton. Someone sent it to Farquard, as Justice of the Peace. He gave it to me, because my name is on it.”
“It is?” I squinted at the straggling letters. “Oh, so it is. J. Frayzer. You’re sure it’s you? There are quite a few Frasers, after all, and not a few named John, James, Jacob, or Joseph.”
“Relatively few who could be described as a Red-haired dejenerate Pox-ridden Usuring Son of a Bitch who skulks in Brothels when not drunk and comitting Riot in the Street, I imagine.”
“Oh, I missed that part.”
“It’s in the exposition at the bottom.” He gave the paper a brief, indifferent glance. “I think Buchan the butcher wrote it, myself.”
“Always assuming that ‘usuring’ is a word, I don’t see where he gets that bit; you haven’t any money to lend.”
“I wouldna suppose a basis in truth is strictly required, under the circumstances, Sassenach,” he said very dryly. “And thanks to MacDonald and wee Bobby, there are a good many folk who think I do have money—and if I am not inclined to lend it to them, why then, plainly it’s a matter of my having put my fortune all in the hands of Jews and Whig speculators, as I am intent upon ruining trade for my own profit.”
“What?”
“That was a somewhat more literary effort,” he said, shuffling through the pile and pulling out an elegant parchment sheet, done in a copperplate hand. This one had been sent to a newspaper in Hillsboro, and was signed, A Friend to Justice; and while it didn’t name Jamie, it was clear who the subject of the denunciation was.
“It’s the hair,” I said, looking critically at him. “If you wore a wig, they’d have a much harder time of it.”
He lifted one shoulder in a sardonic shrug. The commonly held view of red hair as an indicator of low character and moral coarseness, if not outright demonic possession, was by no means limited to anonymous ill-wishers. The knowledge of that view—together with personal disinclination—had quite a bit to do with the fact that he never did wear either wig or powder, even in situations where a proper gentleman would.
Without asking, I reached for a stack of the papers and began to leaf through them. He made no move to stop me, but sat quietly watching, listening to the thrum of the rain.
A heavy spring storm was washing down outside, and the air was cold and damp, thick with the green scents of the forest insinuating themselves through the crevices of door and window. I sometimes had the sudden feeling, hearing the wind coming through the trees, that the wilderness outside meant to come in, march through the house, and obliterate it, erasing all trace of us.
The letters were a mixed bag. Some were from the members of the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence, with bits of news, most of it from the north. Continental Association Committees had sprung up in New Hampshire and New Jersey, these bodies now beginning to virtually take over the functions of government, as the royal governors lost their grip on assemblies, courts, and Customs, the remnants of organization falling ever deeper into disarray.
Boston was still occupied by Gage’s troops, and some of the letters continued the appeals for food and supplies to be sent to the succor of her citizens—we had sent two hundredweight of barley during the winter, which one of the Woolams had undertaken to get into the city, along with three wagonloads of other foodstuffs contributed by the inhabitants of the Ridge.
Jamie had picked up his quill, and was writing something, slowly, to accommodate the stiffness of his hand.
Next up was a note from Daniel Putnam, circulated through Massachusetts, noting the rising of militia companies in the countryside, and asking for arms and powder. It was signed by a dozen other men, each one bearing witness to the truth of the situation in his own township.
A Second Continental Congress was proposed, to meet in Philadelphia, the date yet undecided.
Georgia had formed a Provincial Congress, but as the Loyalist letter-writer—plainly assuming Jamie to be like-minded—triumphantly noted, There is no Sense of Grievance toward Great Britain here, as elsewhere; Loyalist Sentiment is so strong that only five Parishes of twelve have sent anyone to this upstart and illegal Congress.
A much-bedraggled copy of the Massachusetts Gazette, dated February 6, containing a letter, circled in ink and titled The Rule of Law and the Rule of Men. It was signed Novanglus—which I took to be a sort of hog-Latin for “new Englishman”—and to be a response to previous letters by a Tory who signed himself Massachusettensis, of all things.
I had no idea who Massachusettensis might be, but I recognized a few phrases from Novanglus’s letter, from long-ago bits of Bree’s schoolwork—John Adams, in good form.
“A government of laws, not of men,” I murmured. “What sort of pen name would you use, if you were going to write this sort of thing?” Glancing up, I caught sight of him, looking sheepish to a degree.
“You’ve b
een doing it already?”
“Well, just the odd bittie letter here or there,” he said defensively. “No pamphlets.”
“Who are you?”
He shrugged, deprecating.
“Scotus Americanus, but only ’til I think of something better. There are a few others using that name, that I ken.”
“Well, that’s something. The King will have a harder time picking you out of the crowd.” Muttering “Massachusettensis” to myself, I picked up the next document.
A note from John Stuart, much affronted by Jamie’s abrupt resignation, noting that the most illegal and prodigal Congress, as they call it of Massachusetts had formally invited the Stockbridge Indians to enlist in the service of the colony, and informing Jamie that should any of the Cherokee follow suit, he, John Stuart, would take the greatest pleasure in personally ensuring that he, Jamie Fraser, was hanged for treason.
“And I don’t suppose John Stuart even knows you have red hair,” I observed, laying it aside. I felt a trifle shaky, in spite of my attempts to joke about it. Seeing it all laid out in black and white solidified the clouds that had been gathering round us, and I felt the first chilling drop of icy rain on my skin, despite the woolen shawl around my shoulders.
There was no hearth in the study; only a small brazier that we used for heat. It was burning now in the corner, and Jamie rose, picked up a stack of letters, and began to feed them to the fire, one by one.
I had a sudden rush of déjà vu, and saw him standing by the hearth in the drawing room of his cousin Jared’s house in Paris, feeding letters to the fire. The stolen letters of Jacobite conspirators, rising in white puffs of smoke, the gathering clouds of a storm long past.
I remembered what Fergus had said, in answer to Jamie’s instructions: “I remember how this game is played.” So did I, and spicules of ice began to form in my blood.
Jamie dropped the last flaming fragment into the brazier, then sanded the page he had been writing, shook the sand off, and handed it to me. He had used one of the sheets of the special paper Bree had made by pressing a digested pulp of rags and plant matter between silk screens. It was thicker than the usual, with a soft, glossy texture, and she had mixed berries and tiny leaves into the pulp, so that here and there a small red stain spread like blood beneath the shadow of a leaf’s silhouette.
From Fraser’s Ridge, in the Colony of North Carolina,
this 16th day of March, Anno Domini 1775,
James Fraser to Lord John Grey, of Mount Josiah Plantation,
in the Colony of Virginia
My dear John—
It is too late.
Our continued Correspondence cannot but prove a Danger to you, but it is with the greatest Regret that I sever this Link between us.
Believe me ever
Your most humble and affectionate Friend,
Jamie
I read it in silence, and handed it back. As he poked about in search of the sealing wax, I noticed a small wrapped parcel on the corner of his desk that had been hidden by the drifts of paper.
“What’s this?” I picked it up; it was amazingly heavy for its size.
“A present from his Lordship, for wee Jemmy.” He lit the beeswax taper from the brazier and held it over the seam of the folded letter. “A set of lead soldiers, Bobby says.”
77
THE EIGHTEENTH OF APRIL
Roger came awake quite suddenly, with no notion what had wakened him. It was full dark, but the air had the still, inward feel of the small hours; the world holding its breath, before dawn comes on a rising wind.
He turned his head on the pillow and saw that Brianna was awake, too; she lay looking upward, and he caught the brief flicker of her eyelids as she blinked.
He moved a hand to touch her, and hers closed over it. An adjuration to silence? He lay very still, listening, but heard nothing. An ember broke in the hearth with a muffled crack and her hand tightened. Jemmy flung himself over in bed with a rustle of quilts, let out a small yelp, and fell silent. The night was undisturbed.
“What is it?” he said, low-voiced.
She didn’t turn to look at him; her eyes were fixed now on the window, a dark gray rectangle, barely visible.
“Yesterday was the eighteenth of April,” she said. “It’s here.” Her voice was calm, but there was something in it that made him move closer, so they lay side by side, touching from shoulder to foot.
Somewhere to the north of them, men were gathering in the cold spring night. Eight hundred British troops, groaning and cursing as they dressed by candlelight. Those who had gone to bed rousing to the beat of the drum passing by the houses and warehouses and churches where they quartered, those who hadn’t, stumbling from dice and drink, the warm hearths of taverns, the warm arms of women, hunting lost boots and seizing weapons, turning out by twos and threes and fours, clanking and mumbling through the streets of frozen mud to the muster point.
“I grew up in Boston,” she said, her voice softly conversational. “Every kid in Boston learned that poem, somewhere along the line. I learned it in fifth grade.”
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear/Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” Roger smiled, envisioning her in the uniform of Saint Finbar’s parochial school, blue overall jumper, white blouse, and knee socks. He’d seen her fifth-grade school photograph once; she looked like a small, fierce, disheveled tiger that some maniac had dressed in doll’s clothes.
“That’s the one. On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five/Hardly a man is now alive/Who remembers that famous day and year.”
“Hardly a man,” Roger echoed softly. Someone—who? A householder, eavesdropping on the British commanders quartered in his house? A barmaid, bringing mugs of pokered hot rum to a couple of sergeants? There was no keeping of secrets, not with eight hundred men on the move. It was all a matter of time. Someone had sent word from the occupied city, word that the British meant to seize the stored arms and powder in Concord, and at the same time, arrest Hancock and Samuel Adams—the founder of the Committee of Safety, the inflammatory speaker, the leaders of this treasonous rebellion—reported to be in Lexington.
Eight hundred men to capture two? Good odds. And a silversmith and his friends, alarmed at the news, had set out into that cold night. Bree continued:
“He said to his friend, ‘If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.’ ”
“They don’t write poems like that anymore,” Roger said. But in spite of his cynicism, he couldn’t bloody help seeing it: the steam of a horse’s breath, white in darkness, and across the black water, the tiny star of a lantern, high above the sleeping town. And then another.
“What happened next?” he said.
“Then he said ‘Good-night!’ and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.”
“Well, that’s not too bad,” he said judiciously. “I like the bit about the Somerset. Rather a painterly description.”
“Shut up.” She kicked him, though without real violence. “It goes on about his friend, who wanders and watches, with eager ears—” Roger snorted, and she kicked him again. “Till in the silence around him he hears/The muster of men at the barrack door/The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet/And the measured t
read of the grenadiers/Marching down to their boats on the shore.”
He had visited her in Boston in the spring. In mid-April, the trees would have no more than a haze of green, their branches still mostly bare against pale skies. The nights were still frigid, but the cold was somehow touched with life, a freshness moving through the icy air.
“Then there’s a boring part about the friend climbing the stairs of the church tower, but I like the next verse.” Her voice, already soft, dropped a little, whispering.
“Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, ‘All is well!’
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.”
“Then there’s a lot of stuff with old Paul killing time waiting for the signal,” she said, abandoning the dramatic whisper for a more normal tone of voice. “But it finally shows up, and then …
“A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.”
“That’s actually pretty good.” His hand curved over her thigh, just above the knee, in case she might kick him again, but she didn’t. “Do you remember the rest?”
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