“A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows” (novella)—Set (mostly) in 1941–43, this is the story of What Really Happened to Roger MacKenzie’s parents. [Originally published in the anthology Songs of Love and Death, eds. George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, 2010.]
“The Space Between” (novella)—Set in 1778, mostly in Paris, this novella deals with Michael Murray (Young Ian’s elder brother), Joan MacKimmie (Marsali’s younger sister), the Comte St. Germain (who is Not Dead After All), Mother Hildegarde, and a few other persons of interest. The space between what? It depends who you’re talking to. [Originally published in 2013 in the anthology The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, ed. John Joseph Adams.]
“Virgins” (novella)—Set in 1740 in France. In which Jamie Fraser (aged nineteen) and his friend Ian Murray (aged twenty) become young mercenaries. [Originally published in 2013 in the anthology Dangerous Women, eds. George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.]
NOW, REMEMBER…
You can read the short novels and novellas by themselves, or in any order you like. I would recommend reading the Big, Enormous Books in order, though.
PART TWO
SYNOPSES
THE FIERY CROSS
I woke to the patter of rain on canvas, with the feel of my first husband’s kiss on my lips.
PART 1: IN MEDIAS RES
t’s October of 1770, and the Frasers of Fraser’s Ridge have come to a great Gathering on Mount Helicon (now known as Grandfather Mountain). In the morning, Claire wakes in a tent beside her husband, Jamie, from a dream of her first husband, Frank. It’s her daughter Brianna’s wedding day, and as Claire admits to herself, what could be more natural than that both her daughter’s fathers should be there?
Brianna’s wedding to Roger MacKenzie is not the only notable occurrence of the day. Claire has barely got her stockings on before a company of Highland soldiers, sent by the governor of the colony, William Tryon, is drawn up by the creek to issue a proclamation from the governor, demanding the surrender of persons known to have taken part in the Hillsborough riots—some of whom are in fact at the Gathering.
Thus begins a Very Long Day, during which all of the events and story lines that will be carried on through the book begin:
1. Brianna and Roger’s relationship. They love each other madly and want nothing more than to be married and together forever. But. Brianna is hesitant about having more children; she doesn’t know for sure who her son Jemmy’s father is—it could be Roger, but she’s terribly afraid that it might be Stephen Bonnet, the pirate who raped her. Roger has claimed Jemmy as his own—but he desperately wants another child, one he knows is his. Orphaned in infancy, he’s been alone in the world for a long time.
Brianna’s hesitation is twofold: She’s a young woman; Jemmy would be self-sufficient in fifteen years; she could at that point try to return to the future, to the twentieth-century world that is hers by right. But not if she has more children, who would anchor her to the past. Also, childbirth is dangerous; one of the women at the Gathering has kindly given her some embroidery silk—with which to adorn her shroud, which by tradition she should begin making the day after the wedding. “That way, I’ll have it woven and embroidered by the time I die in childbirth. And if I’m a fast worker, I’ll have time to make one for you, too—otherwise, your next wife will have to finish it!”
But how can she deny Roger what she knows he wants so badly?
2. Jamie’s relationship with Governor Tryon, which is delicate to begin with. The governor has given Jamie a large grant of land, on condition that he people it with settlers. One of Jamie’s reasons for attending the Gathering is to recruit suitable immigrants from Scotland to come and homestead on his land—he’s looking particularly for ex-Jacobite prisoners, especially men who were imprisoned with him at Ardsmuir after Culloden and who may have survived transportation.
The delicate bit is that Jamie is a Catholic and thus not allowed to own land grants under English law. Governor Tryon knows this but has chosen to look the other way, for the sake of getting the backcountry—always a volatile trouble spot, full of discontented hunters, trappers, and small farmers, all pushing against the Indian Treaty Line and none of them paying taxes regularly—settled and stabilized.
However, the unspoken fact of Jamie’s Catholicism hangs over their dealings, and when Archie Hayes, commander of the company of Highland soldiers, presents Jamie with a letter from Tryon, appointing him colonel of militia and ordering him to collect “so many Men as you Judge suitable to serve in a Regiment of Militia, and make Report to me as soon as possible of the Number of Volunteers that are willing to turn out in the Service of their King and Country, when called upon, and also what Number of effective Men belong to your Regiment who can be ordered out in case of an Emergency, and in case any further Violence should be attempted to be committed by the Insurgents,” Jamie has no good way to refuse. As he tells Claire, “I must. Tryon’s got my ballocks in his hand, and I’m no inclined to see whether he’ll squeeze.”
Tryon’s concern with assembling a militia is the “Insurgents”—the Regulation, a growing movement of disaffected men in the mountainous western part of the state. What the Regulators want to regulate is government, which they see as abusive, non-representative, and generally a big nuisance. The governor, rather naturally, feels otherwise about the matter, but has no regular troops with which to impose his will.
3. Claire’s expanding medical practice and the conflicts engendered thereby. After a successful morning removing nasal polyps, stitching up a mauled dog, and butting heads with one Murray MacLeod, a rival practitioner, Claire is somewhat taken aback when Jamie tells her that he’s promised that she will remove Josiah Beardsley’s tonsils.
Josiah is very young but a capable hunter. Jamie wants to recruit him to the new settlement at Fraser’s Ridge, because of his youth. Men between sixteen and sixty are obliged to serve in the militia when summoned; Josiah is only fourteen and thus could remain behind to help provide the women and children of the Ridge with food and a stock of hides for later trading. Claire is a little dubious about performing a tonsillectomy sans anesthesia or operating facilities but agrees to try, once they’re back home.
Her medical practice has other side benefits. She mends the arm and draws the tooth of a Mr. Goodwin, a solid citizen hurt in the Hillsborough riot, who later is of use to her in obtaining access to the priest, Father Kenneth. For Claire, her relationship with Jamie is drawing her further and further from her life in the modern world and her sense of identity; her ties to medicine and her destiny as a healer are what enable her to make that transition.
4. The brewing unrest in the backcountry. Several of the men who rioted in Hillsborough—tearing down houses, beating men who held public office, and driving the chief justice out of his courthouse and into hiding—are at the Gathering, and we hear their stories of dispossession for unpaid taxes (taxes must be paid in coin—despite the fact that there is virtually no cash money in the colony and most business is done by barter), oppression by the Crown (in the person of Governor Tryon), and death. This ferment will eventually erupt into what’s known as the War of the Regulation, where “Regulators” from the mountain backcountry (taxes and representation being what they want to regulate) clash with the governor and the prosperous merchants and plantation owners of the coast.
The War of the Regulation is the beginning of the breakdown of law in the colony of North Carolina—and will provide fertile soil for the later Revolution.
5. Lizzie Wemyss and her father. Lizzie is the very young bond servant that Brianna brought from Scotland; Jamie has found her father—sold as an indentured servant—and purchased his indenture. He releases Joseph Wemyss from his bond but chooses not to make that fact publicly known, so that Mr. Wemyss will be not required to serve in the militia and can stay at home to help mind the property and people of the Ridge.
Lizzie has become a woman—i.e., had her menarche—at the Gathering and is thus now
a prospect for love and marriage, as witnessed by her shy flirtation with one of the young soldiers.
6. Rosamund Lindsay and Ronnie Sinclair. Ronnie Sinclair is a cooper and one of the ex-Ardsmuir men whom Jamie invites to settle on the Ridge. Fiercely loyal to Jamie, he is constantly on the lookout for a wife and constantly at odds with Rosamund, a Bostonian lady of some two hundred pounds and decided opinions on most things, especially the proper way to cook barbecue.
7. Roger’s relationship with Jamie. This has been strained, ever since Jamie and his nephew Young Ian gave Roger to the Mohawk as a slave (in Drums of Autumn), under the mistaken impression that he had raped Brianna. Roger was rescued and apologies given and accepted—but as a result of the unfortunate affair, Young Ian remained with the Mohawk, to be adopted by the Indians in replacement of a man Roger had killed. Jamie bitterly regrets the loss of his beloved nephew, and while he struggles to accept that it was not Roger’s fault, the awareness lingers.
Beyond that—and the undeniable fact that Roger did take Brianna’s virginity, albeit with her full consent (Jamie being somewhat more protective than the average eighteenth-century father, which is saying something)—Roger is keenly aware that he is a poor substitute for Young Ian, lacking most of the skills that are useful or valued in the eighteenth century. This is brought home to him forcefully when he learns that Jamie has engaged a man to be factor for the Ridge—the man who will take care of affairs there in Jamie’s absence—and it isn’t Roger. Normally, the “son of the house,” whether true son, foster son, or son-in-law, would perform this office, and the fact that Roger has been passed over in this way seems a deliberate insult.
The only thing Roger has that seems useful in this present time is his ability to sing. A natural performer with a beautiful voice, he’s called A Smeòraich (“Singing Thrush”) by the Scots of the Ridge.
Jamie is not slow to exploit this ability of Roger’s, but Roger can’t help feeling that Jamie regards him as a hopeless numpty. Already sensitive about his lack of property and skill, Roger also finds himself in conflict with Jocasta Cameron, Jamie’s aunt, who wants to make Brianna her heir. (Brianna’s having none of it, as she refuses to own slaves—a good proportion of River Run plantation’s wealth.)
8. Jocasta MacKenzie Cameron Cameron Cameron and Duncan Innes. Jamie’s aunt Jocasta is the very rich, thrice-widowed owner of River Run Plantation. Blind and childless, she requires both a man to help with negotiations with the Royal Navy—who are the primary customers for River Run’s valuable tar and timber—and an heir to whom the property can be bequeathed. A marriage has been arranged between Jocasta and Duncan Innes, a one-armed fisherman from Scotland, an ex-Jacobite comrade of Jamie’s. It’s principally a business arrangement, but there seems to be a true affection between Jocasta and Duncan, as well. This still leaves the question of inheritance, though.
Jocasta is the daughter and sister of MacKenzie chieftains and as proud—and as sly—as any of her clan. When Roger goes to call on her, to ask her help in providing for a family in dire poverty, she tells him she proposes to make Brianna’s son, Jemmy, her heir, and then she goads Roger with remarks about fortune hunters, clearly implying that she thinks (or pretends to think) that Roger’s chief motive in marrying Brianna is Jocasta’s property and that Roger’s only interest in Jem is the lad’s prospects.
“Oh, I ken how it is,” she assured him. “It’s only to be understood that a man might not feel just so kindly toward a bairn his wife’s borne to another. But if—”
He stepped forward then and gripped her hard by the shoulder, startling her. She jerked, blinking, and the candle flames flashed from the cairngorm brooch.
“Madam,” he said, speaking very softly into her face. “I do not want your money. My wife does not want it. And my son will not have it. Cram it up your hole, aye?”
He let her go, turned, and strode out of the tent, brushing past Ulysses, who looked after him in puzzlement.
9. Ulysses. Jocasta’s black butler, Ulysses is the true brains of River Run. Were he not black and a slave, he could manage everything—but since he is, Duncan Innes is needed to handle things like contracts with the Royal Navy and the external business of the plantation. Still, Ulysses is devoted to his mistress and has been her right hand for twenty years or more. He knows everything that happens at River Run—and controls almost everything.
10. Conflict between Claire and Jamie, Roger and Brianna, over Stephen Bonnet. Stephen Bonnet is the notorious pirate whose life Jamie saved (in Drums of Autumn) and who promptly repaid this debt by robbing the Frasers and later raping Brianna—thus causing doubt and friction between Bree and Roger, as they don’t know for sure which man fathered little Jemmy.
Brianna reveals to Roger that she told Bonnet—facing imminent execution—that he was Jemmy’s father, she thinking this likely at the time and wishing to give a doomed man some comfort in knowing that he left something of himself behind. Roger is angry—and alarmed—at the news. He feels that he is Jem’s father and is disturbed to think that Bonnet, who escaped the noose, might at some point come to try to claim the child.
When Claire learns that Jamie is spreading the word through the Gathering that he wants to find Bonnet, she’s both alarmed and annoyed, too. What is he doing, asking for the sort of trouble that’s likely to result from finding Bonnet? He has more than enough trouble pending, what with the governor’s appointment of him as a colonel of militia, the needs of the Ridge, and his quest for more settlers. And there’s the question of Roger’s feelings, too: it’s one thing for Jamie to plan coldly to kill Bonnet; Roger is a man of peace, raised by a clergyman, and has never even thought of killing anyone. What will it do to him if Jamie either kills Bonnet himself (thus indicating that he doesn’t think Roger can protect his family) or gets Roger killed in the process of hunting Bonnet?
Jamie is not swayed by Claire’s arguments, stubbornly insisting that he needs to find and exterminate the man who not only raped his daughter and robbed the Frasers but who is also a continuing threat to the welfare of Brianna and little Jem—to say nothing of society as a whole.
Claire is not convinced, but neither can she sway Jamie from his path.
11. Religion. One of the further awkwardnesses between Jamie and Roger is the fact that Roger is a Presbyterian.
“…well, you see, we’re Catholics, and Catholics have priests, but Uncle Roger is a Presbyterian—”
“That’s a heretic,” Jamie put in helpfully.
“It is not a heretic, darling, Grand-père is being funny—or thinks he is. Presbyterians are…”
Regardless, Father Kenneth, a Catholic priest who has come to the Gathering to attend to the spiritual needs of the Catholic Highlanders there, has agreed to marry Roger and Brianna. The good father is not the only clergyman at the Gathering; there are preachers galore, of one persuasion or another, including the Rev. Mr. David Caldwell, a prominent (and real) Presbyterian.
In the midst of the Gathering, Jamie gets word that Father Kenneth has been arrested. Going to discover the difficulty, he finds that the priest has been arrested by David Anstruther, a county sheriff, and is being held in the tent of one Randall Lillywhite, a magistrate from Hillsborough. This is baffling; while it’s true that Catholics are officially discriminated against and that it is technically illegal for a Catholic priest to perform “ceremonials” in the colony, this isn’t a legality that’s often enforced—mostly because there are very few priests in the colony; in fact, Father Kenneth has been imported for the occasion, asked by Jocasta to come and perform both her marriage to Duncan and the marriage of Roger and Brianna.
The matter becomes still more baffling when Mr. Lillywhite refuses to release the priest into Jamie’s custody—an apparently pointless insult to a prominent man. Jamie, however, has a greater concern than his daughter’s or his aunt’s marriage: he wants his grandchildren baptized. With considerable guile and Claire’s help, he persuades the magistrate to allow him to speak priva
tely with the priest, in order to have his confession heard, and then he smuggles in Jemmy, Germain, and Joan, whom the priest hastily baptizes in whisky, the “water of life” being all that’s available.
Brianna and Roger, meanwhile, have spoken privately to the Rev. Mr. Caldwell and are married that evening after all—in a Presbyterian ceremony.
“You had your way over the baptism,” I whispered. He lifted his chin slightly. Brianna glanced in our direction, looking slightly anxious.
“I havena said a word, have I?”
“It’s a perfectly respectable Christian marriage.”
“Did I say it was not?”
“Then look happy, damn you!” I hissed. He exhaled once more, and assumed an expression of benevolence one degree short of outright imbecility.
“Better?” he asked, teeth clenched in a genial smile.
***
Germain was paying no attention to my explanation, but instead had tilted his head back, viewing Jamie with fascination.
“Why Grand-père is making faces?”
“We’re verra happy,” Jamie explained, expression still fixed in a rictus of amiability.
“Oh.” Germain at once stretched his own extraordinarily mobile face into a crude facsimile of the same expression—a jack-o’-lantern grin, teeth clenched and eyes popping. “Like this?”
“Yes, darling,” I said, in a marked tone. “Just like that.”
Marsali looked at us, blinked, and tugged at Fergus’s sleeve. He turned, squinting at us.
“Look happy, Papa!” Germain pointed to his gigantic smile. “See?”
Fergus’s mouth twitched, as he glanced from his offspring to Jamie. His face went blank for a moment, then adjusted itself into an enormous smile of white-toothed insincerity. Marsali kicked him in the ankle. He winced, but the smile didn’t waver.
The Companion to the Fiery Cross, a Breath of Snow and Ashes, an Echo in the Bone, and Written in My Own Heart's Blood Page 2