The Outlandish Companion Page 11

  He remembered the last thing she had said, though, as she pushed him toward the tilting taffrail.

  “She is not dead,” the woman had said. “She go there”—pointing at the rolling seas—“you go, too. Find her!” And then she had bent, got a hand in his crutch and a sturdy shoulder under his rump, and heaved him neatly over the rail and into the churning water.

  Thus informally arriving himself on Hispaniola after a frantic swim, Jamie makes the acquaintance of a group of creole children playing near the shore, who take him to their mother’s taverna, next door to the military garrison in Cap-Haïtien.

  MEANWHILE, CLAIRE HAS been enjoying the hospitality of Father Fogden. The delights of conversation regarding hidden caves, maroons (escaped slaves), blind fish, and dead sheep are interrupted, however, by the priest’s revelation that a ship has run aground during the recent storm, quite nearby. Catching a reference among his imprecations to the “one-handed” man captaining the ship, Claire realizes that the ship in question cannot be the Porpoise—but just might be the Artemis.

  It is indeed the Artemis, captained by Fergus, the original captain having been washed overboard during the shipwreck. Claire’s delight in being reunited with her companions fades considerably upon her realization that Jamie is not with them. Anxiety as to his whereabouts is relieved shortly, though; the repairs to the Artemis are interrupted by a visit from troops sent from the garrison in Cap-Haïtien to inspect—and “salvage”—the wreck, under the command of one Captain Alessandro—a tall soldier with a red beard and a remarkably familiar aspect.

  The bewildered garrison soldiers are overpowered and imprisoned in the hold (to be put ashore once the Artemis is safely afloat), and the bedraggled company reunited once more—save for Young Ian. Seizing the opportunity offered by circumstance, Marsali presses Jamie to keep his promise; they are ashore in the Indies, with a priest to hand—he must keep his word and allow her and Fergus to be married, she says.

  Seeing the young couple’s devotion and determination, Jamie reluctantly assents, and a wedding takes place.

  “I’ve told Marsali she must write to her mother to say she’s wed,” Jamie murmured to me as we watched the preparations on the beach go forward. “But perhaps I shall suggest she doesna say much more about it than that.”

  I saw his point. Laoghaire was not going to be pleased at hearing that her eldest daughter had eloped with a one-handed ex-pickpocket twice her age. Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been performed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced—if not actually defrocked—priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep—all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion—and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempting to copulate with Murphy’s wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire’s view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony.

  Taking command of the Artemis, Jamie resumes the interrupted search for his nephew among the islands of the West Indies, making inquiries of the network of Scottish Freemasons on the islands, and acquiring in the process a profitable cargo of bat guano, much prized among the planters for use as fertilizer.

  With the hold full of this valuable substance, the Artemis presses on toward Jamaica. En route, though, they are rammed at night by a strange ship, and boarded by pirates. Claire and Marsali take refuge in the hold, but are surprised by a marauding pirate. Claire attacks the pirate with a blade from her surgical kit, cutting off one of his toes and allowing Marsali to escape. Fleeing out of the hold and upward into the ship’s shrouds, she is pursued and trapped; waiting with eyes closed for the final slash of the cutlass, she hears a strange sound:

  There was a sort of thump, a sharp grunt, and a strong smell of fish.

  I opened my eyes. The pirate was gone. Ping An was sitting on the crosstrees, three feet away, crest erect with irritation, wings half spread to keep his balance.

  “Gwa!” he said crossly. He turned a beady little yellow eye on me and clacked his bill in warning. Ping An hated noise and commotion. Evidently, he didn’t like Portuguese pirates, either.

  The fight below is over; the pirate ship is moving away. Clinging to the shrouds, Claire can see men on the deck below, beginning to tend the wounded and put things to right. Dizzy and light-headed from her flight, she begins to make her way slowly down.

  She is feeling sick and cold when she hits the deck, but makes her way at once to Jamie, relieved to find him suffering from no more than a small cut on the head—or so she assumes.

  There were stains of dark, drying blood on the front of his shirt, but the sleeve of his shirt was also bloody. In fact, it was nearly soaked, with fresh bright blood.

  “Jamie!” I clutched at his shoulder, my vision going white at the edges. “You aren’t all right—look, you’re bleeding!”

  My hands and feet were numb, and I only half-felt his hands grasp my arms as he rose from the cask in sudden alarm. The last thing I saw, amid flashes of light, was his face, gone white beneath the tan.

  “My God!” said his frightened voice, out of the whirling blackness. “It’s no my blood, Sassenach, it’s yours!”

  Narrowly saved from bleeding to death from a cutlass slash down her arm, Claire is doctored by Jamie and Mr. Willoughby, and uses a bit more of her precious penicillin to cure an incipient fever. Jamie stays close to her at night, waking by her bed from dreams of fire and slaughter; stirrings of the dormant memories buried in his mind since Culloden.

  Claire dozes next day, recovering, to be wakened by Jamie in search of healing lotion for a prisoner rescued from the sea. As the Bruja drew off, he explains, a black man—evidently an escaped slave, from the scars on his back—dived off the pirate ship into the ocean. Having discovered an apparent link between the Bruja and the seals’ treasure—a dead pirate, wearing a rare fourth-century tetradrachm from the hoard—Jamie is now sure that it was the Bruja that took Ian, and is eager to interrogate the prisoner.

  Accompanying him to the orlop, Claire meets a slender man with tribal scars on his face, the scars of slavery on his back— and the larger scar of an obliterated brand on one shoulder. This is Ishmael, one-time cook, and once something more than a cook, from his bearing.

  Ishmael is understandably cautious, fearing that the Frasers might either restore him to his previous owner or enslave him themselves. Still, from what he tells them and from clues obtained from the papers Claire was given with the one-armed slave she bought, Temeraire, it seems that Mrs. Abernathy, of Rose Hall on Jamaica, may hold the next piece of the puzzle that will lead them to Ian.

  Upon arrival at Jamaica, Ishmael claims his reward; rather than the offered gold, though, he chooses something different— Temeraire. The one-armed slave consents to go with him, and the two men are put ashore, disappearing into the uninhabited jungle.

  The Artemis sails around the island to Kingston Harbor, only to discover an unwelcome sight: the Porpoise at anchor.

  “It’s persecution!” Jamie said indignantly. “The filthy boat’s pursuing me. Everywhere I go, there it is again!”

  Claire’s explanation of the man-of-war’s presence—naturally the Porpoise would be in Kingston Harbor, since she is delivering the new Governor of the island—changes Jamie’s attitude significantly, though. Hearing the name of the new Governor, he is first surprised, then pleased; Lord John Grey is a friend of his, he says, and may be of help in locating Ian.

  Claire is mildly surprised that he should choose to approach the Governor first, rather than going directly to Rose Hall, but after all, if they meet resistance in their inquiries, it’s as well to have a friend in high places. Leaving Fergus to discharge the Artemis’s cargo, the Frasers go at once to Jared’s plantation, Blue Mountain House, where the overseer and his wife— Mr. and Mrs. MacIver—make them welcome, and help with their preparations.

  In search of information,
Jamie and Claire attend the new Governor’s reception, with Mr. Willoughby in tow. Claire is pleased to see Lord John Grey again, and assumes that his look of shock in the reception line is due to his sight of Jamie, disguised—in full wig, powdered face, and red-heeled shoes—as M. Alexandre de Provac, French immigrant from Martinique. The Reverend Campbell is unexpectedly present at the reception, too; while disapproving mightily of the occasion, he has come to seek information and help in locating his sister Margaret, who has disappeared.

  Despite this unsettling encounter, things seem to be progressing well; Mr. Willoughby charms the ladies, Claire is introduced and makes the social rounds, and Jamie eventually retires discreetly to the Governor’s office, with Lord John. Following him, Claire is detained by the crowd, and reaches the office a few minutes later—only to find Jamie holding Lord John Grey in fervent embrace.

  The Governor’s shock at learning that I was Jamie’s wife was now at least partially explained; that one glimpse of unguarded, painful yearning had told me exactly how matters stood on his side. Jamie was another question altogether.

  He was the Governor of Ardsmuir Prison he had said, casually. And less casually, on another occasion, D’ye ken what men in prison do?

  I did know, but I would have sworn on Brianna’s head that Jamie didn’t; hadn’t, couldn’t, under any circumstances whatever. At least I would have sworn that before tonight. I closed my eyes, chest heaving, and tried not to think of what I had seen.

  Shocked, and trying to make sense of what she has seen, Claire retreats, unseen, and makes her way back through the crowd. Unwilling to face Jamie immediately, she heads for the ladies retiring rooms. What she finds there, though, is not refuge—but murder.

  Mina Alcott, a local widow with something of a reputation, lies with her throat cut, blood puddling beneath her head. And beyond the body is a line of footprints, leading toward the open window— the small neat prints of a felt-soled foot, outlined in blood.

  The reception dissolves in hue and cry; soldiers are sent in instant pursuit of Mr. Willoughby, the militia is roused, and all the guests are questioned—particularly M. Alexandre de Provac, who appeared to be a close associate of the murderer. Left alone in the Governor’s office after her own questioning, Claire is not particularly pleased to be joined by the Governor himself.

  Lord John had discovered the fan Claire had dropped in the hall; realizing that she had seen the embrace between himself and Jamie, he does not pretend that matters are not as they are—on his side, at least. But in the ensuing discussion, Claire learns what lies on Jamie’s side of the relationship, and exactly why Jamie insisted on coming first to see the Governor.

  It was a portrait, an oval miniature, set in a carved frame of some fine-grained dark wood. I looked at the face, and sat down abruptly, my knees gone to water. I was only dimly aware of Grey’s face, floating above the desk like a cloud on the horizon, as I picked up the miniature to look at it more closely.

  He might have been Bree’s brother, was my first thought. The second, coming with the force of a blow to the solar plexus, was “My God in heaven, he is Bree’s brother!”

  The edgy conversation that follows leaves Claire with various bits of unwelcome information: the fact that Jamie has an illegitimate son, about whom he has not told her, the fact that he shares an intimate history with John Grey—and the fact that she feels an altogether unwilling sympathy with Grey. Both John and Claire love Jamie; both have, in a way, given him a child—and each of them is slightly jealous of the other.

  Both jealousy and shock fade, though, when Jamie emerges from a long night of questioning and takes Claire home to Blue Mountain House. Drawn close together by fatigue and the shocking events of the night, they talk intimately, and Jamie confesses to Claire the fact of Willie’s existence, showing her a miniature of the boy; the twin of the one John Grey had shown her.

  “I was afraid to tell ye,” he said, low-voiced. “For fear ye would think that perhaps I’d gone about spawning a dozen bastards… for fear ye’d think that I wouldna care for Brianna so much, if ye kent I had another child. But I do care, Claire—a great deal more than I can tell ye.” He lifted his head and looked directly at me.

  “Will ye forgive me?

  “Geneva—Willie’s mother—she wanted my body,” he said softly, watching the gecko’s pulsating sides. “Laoghaire needed my name, and the work of my hands to keep her and her bairns.” He turned his head then, dark blue eyes fixed on mine. “John— well,” he lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I couldna give him what he wanted—and he is friend enough not to ask it.

  “But how shall I tell ye all these things,” he said, the lines of his mouth twisting. “And then say to you—it is only you I have ever loved? How should you believe me?”

  The question hung in the air between us, shimmering like the reflection from the water below.

  “I’ll believe you, if you say it.”

  I pressed my own wrist against his, pulse to pulse, heartbeat to heartbeat.

  “Blood of my blood,” I whispered.

  “Bone of my bone.” His whisper was deep and husky. He knelt quite suddenly before me, and put his folded hands in mine; the gesture a Highlander makes when swearing loyalty to his chieftain.

  “I give ye my spirit,” he said, head bent over our hands.

  “’Til our life shall be done,” I said softly “But it isn’t done yet, Jamie, is it?”

  Then he rose and took the shift from me, and I lay back on the narrow bed naked, pulled him down to me through the soft yellow light, and took him home, and home, and home again, and we were neither one of us alone.

  United again, Jamie and Claire pursue the search for Ian to Rose Hall. Arriving at the remote plantation, they are admitted and sit down to wait for Mrs. Abernathy, the owner. Her appearance, though, comes as more than a surprise, for “Mrs. Abernathy” is no stranger.

  I took a deep breath, and got my voice back.

  “I trust you won’t take this the wrong way,” I said, sinking slowly back onto the wicker sofa, “but why aren’t you dead?”

  She laughed, the silver in her voice as clear as a young girl’s.

  “Think I should have been, do you? Well, you’re no the first—and I daresay you’ll no be the last to think so, either.”

  Geillis Duncan—as the mistress of Rose Hall was once known—explains her escape from burning, in the aftermath of the witch trial at Cranesmuir, twenty-odd years before. Reprieved from execution until after the birth of her child, Geillis blackmailed the child’s father, Dougal MacKenzie, by threatening to kill the child, and forced him to help her escape. The body of an elderly woman who had died of natural causes was substituted for her own presumably strangled body, and sent to heaven in a pillar of fire. Geillis herself had escaped to France, and come by various paths to her present estate. And what, she asks with avid curiosity, of Claire?

  The two women, once friends, are wary of each other, but consumed by curiosity. Alone of all the world, they think, they have the gift of travel through the stones. Geilie remarks that she has met “one other” like them, but is still insistent on learning all she can of Claire’s experiences—the more so when she finds the photographs of Brianna in Jamie’s coat pocket and realizes the truth; that Claire has traveled through the stones not once, but three times! How was it done?

  In return to Claire’s vague answers, Geilie reveals the results of her own research; she has concluded that travel through the stones can be controlled—to some degree, at least—by use of gem-stones, and to this end, has collected many large and flawless jewels. Her casual reference to using “blood” as a means of protection passes with no more than a slight shudder; Claire knows about the murder of Geillis’s first husband, Greg Edgars— and the second, Arthur Duncan.

  Claire’s heart beats faster at sight of the box Geilie produces, showing off the gems; it is the box that Jamie found on the seals’ island—sure proof of a connection between Geillis Duncan and
the pirates of the Bruja; proof, she thinks, that despite Geilie’s denials, Young Ian must be hidden somewhere on the estate.

  Geilie firmly denies all knowledge of the boy, though, and hurries them away, claiming that an important visitor is expected. Leaving, the Frasers see the visitor: the Reverend Archibald Campbell. They also realize, once away from Rose Hall, that Geilie has stolen one of Brianna’s pictures. Why? A person like Geillis Duncan can have no good intentions, Jamie thinks; at the same time, he is too intent on finding his nephew to spend much time in worry. Convinced from his investigations that Young Ian is concealed in a cellar beneath the sugar refinery on the estate, Jamie lays his plans for rescue.

  A few days later, the Frasers and several of Jamie’s Scottish smugglers sail quietly up the Yallahs River toward Rose Hall, in a small ship provided by Lord John Grey.

  Arriving at night, they mean to steal ashore, attack the refinery by surprise, and retrieve Young Ian—liberating any of the other Scottish captives in the process.

  Jamie leaves Claire near the boat, armed with a pistol and with strict instructions to stay put and wait for them. However, within minutes of his departure, Claire sees a tall, thin shadow in the window of Rose Hall; it can’t possibly be Geilie, but may very well be Young Ian. The men are already too far away to catch; she will have to go and see herself. Creeping up onto the veranda, Claire finds the front door standing open, and noises of someone in the study. She goes quietly in, hoping to find Young Ian, but instead discovers that the owner of the shadow is the Reverend Campbell. Geillis herself is nowhere to be found; the Reverend complains that she has disappeared, leaving him alone.