Drums of Autumn Page 11

  thinkin’ I’d have to wait till I come to the mountains and find me a shaman to take care of it.”

  “Are you ill, Mr. Myers?” I asked. He didn’t look it, but it was hard to tell, what with the beard, the hair, and a thin layer of greasy brown dirt that seemed to cover everything not concealed by his ragged buckskins. The sole exception was his forehead; normally protected from the sun by the black felt hat, it was now exposed to view, a wide flat slab of purest white.

  “Not to say ill, I don’t reckon,” he replied. He suddenly stood up, and began to fumble up the tail of his buckskin shirt. “It ain’t the clap or the French pox, anyhow, ’cause I seen those before.” What I had thought were trousers were in fact long buckskin leggings, surmounted by a breechclout. Still talking, Mr. Myers had hold of the leather thong holding up this latter garment, and was fumbling with the knot.

  “Damnedest thing, though; all of a sudden this great big swelling come up just along behind of my balls. Purely inconvenient, as you may imagine, though it don’t hurt me none to speak of, save on horseback. Might be you could take a peep and tell me what I best do for it, hm?”

  “Ah.…” I said, with a frantic glance at Fergus, who merely shifted his sack of beans and looked amused, blast him.

  “Would I have the pleasure to make the acquaintance of Mr. John Myers?” said a polite Scottish voice over my shoulder.

  Mr. Myers ceased fumbling with his breechclout and glanced up inquiringly.

  “Can’t say whether it’s a pleasure to you or not, sir,” he replied courteously. “But be you lookin’ for Myers, you’ve found him.”

  Jamie stepped up beside me, tactfully inserting his body between me and Mr. Myers’s breechclout. He bowed formally, hat under his arm.

  “James Fraser, your servant, sir. I was told to offer the name of Mr. Hector Cameron by way of introduction.”

  Mr. Myers looked at Jamie’s red hair with interest.

  “Scotch, are you? Be you one of them Highlander fellows?”

  “I am a Scotsman, aye, and a Highlander.”

  “Be you kin to Old Hector Cameron?”

  “He is my uncle by marriage, sir, though I have not met him myself. I was told that he was well known to you, and that you might consent to guide my party to his plantation.”

  The two men were frankly sizing each other up, eyes flicking head to toe as they talked, appraising bearing, dress, and armament. Jamie’s eyes rested approvingly on the long sheath-knife at the woodsman’s belt, while Mr. Myers’s nostrils flared wide with interest.

  “Comme deux chiens,” Fergus remarked softly behind me. Like two dogs. “…aux culs.” Next thing you know, they will be smelling each other’s backside.

  Mr. Myers darted a glance at Fergus, and I saw a quick flash of amusement in the hazel depths before he returned to his assessment of Jamie. Uncultured the woodsman might be, but he plainly had some working knowledge of French.

  Given Mr. Myers’s olfactory inclinations and lack of self-consciousness, I might not have been surprised to see him drop to all fours and perform in the manner Fergus had suggested. As it was, he contented himself with a careful inspection that took in not only Jamie but Ian, Fergus, myself, and Rollo.

  “Nice dawg,” he said casually, holding out a set of massive knuckles to the latter. Rollo, thus invited, instituted his own inspection, sniffing industriously from moccasins to breechclout as the conversation went on.

  “Your uncle, eh? Does he know you’re coming?”

  Jamie shook his head.

  “I canna say. I sent a letter from Georgia, a month ago, but I’ve no way to tell whether he’s had it yet.”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Myers said thoughtfully. His eyes lingered on Jamie’s face, then passed swiftly over the rest of us.

  “I’ve met your wife. This’ll be your son?” He nodded at Ian.

  “My nephew, Ian. My foster son, Fergus.” Jamie made the introductions with a wave of his hand. “And a friend, Duncan Innes, who’ll be along presently.”

  Myers grunted, nodding, and made up his mind.

  “Well, I should reckon I can get you to Cameron’s all right. Wanted to be sure you was kin, but you got the look of the widder Cameron, in the face. The boy some, too.”

  Jamie’s head jerked up sharply.

  “The widow Cameron?”

  A sly smile flitted through the thicket of beard.

  “Old Hector caught the morbid sore throat, up and died late last winter. Don’t figure they get much mail, wherever he is now.”

  Abandoning the Camerons for matters of more immediate personal interest, Myers resumed his interrupted excavations.

  “Big purple thing,” he explained to me, fumbling his loosened thong. “Almost as big as one o’ my balls. You don’t think it might could be as I’ve decided sudden-like to grow an extry, do you?”

  “Well, no,” I said, biting my lip. “I really doubt it.” He moved very slowly, but had almost got the knot in his thong undone; people in the street were beginning to pause, staring.

  “Please don’t trouble yourself,” I said. “I do believe I know what that is—it’s an inguinal hernia.”

  The wide hazel eyes got wider.

  “It is?” He seemed impressed, and not at all displeased by the news.

  “I’d have to look—somewhere indoors, that is,” I added hastily “—to be sure, but it sounds like it. It’s quite easy to repair surgically, but…” I hesitated, looking up at the Colossus. “I really couldn’t—I mean, you’d need to be asleep. Unconscious,” I amplified. “I’d have to cut you, and sew you up again, you see. Perhaps a truss—a brace—might be better, though.”

  Myers scratched slowly at his jaw, meditating.

  “No, I done tried that, ’twon’t do. Cuttin’, though…You folks be staying here in the town for a spell before you head up to Cameron’s?”

  “Not long,” Jamie interrupted firmly. “We shall be sailing upriver to my aunt’s estate, as soon as passage can be arranged.”

  “Oh.” The giant pondered this for a moment, then nodded, beaming.

  “I know the very man for you, sir. I’ll go this minute and fetch Josh Freeman out the Sailor’s Rest. Sun’s still high, he’ll be not too drunk to do business yet.” He swept me a bow, battered hat to his middle. “And then could be your wife might have the kindness to meet me in yonder tavern—it’s a mite more genteel than the Sailor’s—and have a look at this…this…” I saw his lips try to form themselves around “inguinal hernia,” then give up the effort and relax. “This yere obstruction.”

  He clapped the hat back on his head, and with a nod to Jamie, was off.

  Jamie watched the mountain man’s stiff-legged retreat down the street, slowed by cordial greetings to all he passed.

  “What is it about ye, Sassenach, I wonder?” he said conversationally, eyes still fixed on Myers.

  “What is what about me?”

  He turned then, and gave me a narrow eye.

  “What it is that makes every man ye meet want to take off his breeks within five minutes of meetin’ ye.”

  Fergus choked slightly, and Ian went pink. I looked as demure as possible.

  “Well, if you don’t know, my dear,” I said, “no one does. I seem to have found us a boat. And what have you been up to this morning?”

  * * *

  Industrious as always, Jamie had found us a potential gem-buyer. And not only a buyer, but an invitation to dinner with the Governor.

  “Governor Tryon’s in the town just now,” he explained. “Staying at the house of a Mr. Lillington. I talked this morning wi’ a merchant named Mac-Eachern, who put me on to a man named MacLeod, who—”

  “Who introduced you to MacNeil, who took you to drink with MacGregor, who told you all about his nephew Bethune, who’s the second cousin half removed of the boy who cleans the Governor’s boots,” I suggested, familiar by this time with the Byzantine pathways of Scottish business dealings.

  Put two Highla
nd Scots in a room together, and within ten minutes they would know each other’s family histories for the last two hundred years, and have discovered a helpful number of mutual relatives and acquaintances.

  Jamie grinned.

  “It was the Governor’s wife’s secretary,” he corrected, “and his name’s Murray. That’ll be your Da’s cousin Maggie’s eldest boy from Loch Linnhe,” he added, to Ian. “His father emigrated after the Rising.” Ian nodded casually, doubtless docketing the information in his own version of the genetic encyclopedia, stored against the day it would prove useful.

  Edwin Murray, the Governor’s wife’s secretary, had welcomed Jamie warmly as a kinsman—if only by marriage—and had obtained an invitation for us to dine at Lillington’s that night, there ostensibly to acquaint the Governor with matters of trade in the Indies. In reality, we were intending to acquaint ourselves with Baron Penzler—a well-to-do German nobleman who would be dining there as well. The Baron was a man not only of wealth but of taste, with a reputation as a collector of fine objects.

  “Well, it sounds a good idea,” I said dubiously. “But I think you’d better go alone. I can’t be dining with governors looking like this.”

  “Ah, ye look f—” His voice faded as he actually looked at me. His eye roamed slowly over me, taking in my grimy, bedraggled gown, wild hair and ragged bonnet.

  He frowned at me. “No, I want ye there, Sassenach; I may need a distraction.”

  “Speaking of distraction, how many pints did it take you to wangle an invitation to dinner?” I asked, mindful of our dwindling finances. Jamie didn’t blink, but took my arm, turning me toward the row of shops.

  “Six, but he paid half. Come along, Sassenach; dinner’s at seven, and we must find ye something decent to wear.”

  “But we can’t afford—”

  “It’s an investment,” he said firmly. “And besides, Cousin Edwin has advanced me a bit against the sale of a stone.”

  * * *

  The gown was two years out of fashion by the cosmopolitan standards of Jamaica but it was clean, which was the main thing so far as I was concerned.

  “You’re dripping, madame.” The sempstress’s voice was cold. A small, spare woman of middle age, she was the preeminent dressmaker in Wilmington and—I gathered—accustomed to having her fashion dictates obeyed without question. My rejection of a frilled cap in favor of freshly washed hair had been received with bad grace and predictions of pleurisy, and the pins she held in her mouth bristled like porcupine quills at my insistence on replacing the normal heavy corsetry with light boning, scalloped at the top to lift the breasts without pinching them.

  “Sorry.” I tucked up the offending wet lock inside the linen towel that wrapped my head.

  The guest quarters of Mr. Lillington’s great house being fully occupied by the Governor’s party, I had been relegated to Cousin Edwin’s tiny attic over the stable block, and the fitting of my gown was being accomplished to the accompaniment of muffled stampings and chewings from below, punctuated by the monotonous strains of the groom’s whistling as he mucked out the stalls.

  Still, I was not inclined to complain; Mr. Lillington’s stables were a deal cleaner than the inn where Jamie and I had left our companions, and Mrs. Lillington had very graciously seen me provided with a large basin of hot water and a ball of lavender-scented soap—a consideration more important even than the fresh dress. I hoped never to see another peach.

  I rose slightly on my toes, trying to see out of the window in case Jamie should be coming, but desisted at a grunt of protest from the sempstress, who was trying to adjust the hem of my skirt.

  The gown itself was not at all bad; it was of cream silk, half-sleeved and very simple, but with panniers of wine-striped silk over the hips, and a ruching of claret-colored silk piping that ran in two rows from waist to bosom. With the Brussels lace I had purchased sewn around the sleeves, I thought it would do, even if the cloth was not quite of the first quality.

  I had at first been surprised at the price, which was remarkably low, but now observed that the fabric of the dress was coarser than usual, with occasional slubs of thickened thread that caught the light in shimmers. Curious, I rubbed it between my fingers. I was no great judge of silk, but a Chinese acquaintance had spent most of one idle afternoon on board a ship explaining to me the lore of silkworms, and the subtle variation of their output.

  “Where does this silk come from?” I asked. “It isn’t China silk; is it French?”

  The sempstress looked up, her crossness temporarily relieved by interest.

  “No, indeed it’s not. That’s made in South Carolina, that is. There’s a lady, Mrs. Pinckney by name, has gone and put half her land to mulberry trees, and went to raising silkworms on ’em. The cloth’s maybe not quite so fine as the China,” she acknowledged reluctantly, “but ’tisn’t but half the cost, either.”

  She squinted up at me, nodding slowly.

  “It’ll do for fit, and the bit o’ piping’s good; brings out the color in your cheeks. But begging your pardon, madame, you do need something above the neck, not to look too bare. If you won’t have a cap nor a wig, might be you’d have a ribbon?”

  “Oh, ribbon!” I said, remembering. “Yes, what a good idea. Do look in my basket over there, and you’ll find a length that might just do.”

  Between us we managed to get my hair piled up, loosely bound with the length of dark pink ribbon, damp curly tendrils coming down—I couldn’t stop them—around my ears and brow.

  “Not too much mutton dressed as lamb, is it?” I asked, suddenly worried. I smoothed a hand down the front of the bodice, but it fit snugly—and trimly—around my waist.

  “Oh, no, madame,” the sempstress assured me. “Quite appropriate, and I say it myself.” She frowned at me, calculating. “Only it is a bit bare over the bosom, still. You haven’t any jewelry, at all?”

  “Just this.” We turned in surprise as Jamie ducked his head to come in the door; neither of us had heard him coming.

  He had somewhere managed to have a bath and procure a clean shirt and neckcloth; beyond that, someone had combed and plaited his hair into a smooth queue, bound with the new blue silk ribbon. His serviceable coat had not only been brushed, but improved by the application of a set of silver-gilt buttons, each delicately engraved with a small flower in the center.

  “Very nice,” I said, touching one.

  “Rented from the goldsmith,” he said. “But they’ll do. So will this, I think.” He drew out a filthy handkerchief from his pocket, from the folds of which he produced a slender gold chain.

  “He hadna time for any but the simplest mount,” he said, frowning in concentration as he fastened the chain around my neck. “But I think that’s best, don’t you?”

  The ruby hung glinting just above the hollow of my breasts, casting a pale rosy glow against my white skin.

  “I’m glad you picked that one,” I said, touching the stone gently. It was warm from his body. “Goes much better with the dress than the sapphire or the emerald would.” The sempstress’s jaw hung slightly open. She glanced from me to Jamie, her impression of our social position evidently going up by leaps and bounds.

  Jamie had finally taken time to notice the rest of my costume. His eyes traveled slowly over me from head to hem, and a smile spread across his face.

  “Ye make a verra ornamental jewel box, Sassenach,” he said. “A fine distraction, aye?”

  He glanced out the window, where a pale peach color stained a hazy evening sky, then turned to me, bowed and made a leg. “Might I claim the pleasure of your company for dinner, madame?”

  7

  GREAT PROSPECTS FRAUGHT WITH PERIL

  While I was familiar with the eighteenth-century willingness to eat anything that could be physically overpowered and dragged to the table, I did not subscribe to the mania for presenting wild dishes as though they had not in fact undergone the intermediary processes of being killed and cooked before making their appeara
nce at dinner.

  I thus viewed the large sturgeon with which I sat eyeball-to-eyeball with a marked lack of appetite. Complete not only with eyes but with scales, fins, and tail, the three-foot fish rode majestically on waves of roe in aspic, decorated with a vast quantity of tiny spiced crabs, which had been boiled whole and scattered artistically over the platter.

  I took another large sip of wine and turned to my dinner companion, trying to keep my eyes off the bulging glare of the sturgeon by my elbow.

  “…the most impertinent fellow!” Mr. Stanhope was saying, by way of describing a gentleman he had encountered in a post-house whilst on his way to Wilmington from his property near New Bern.

  “Why, in the very midst of our refreshment, he began to speak of his piles, and what torment they caused him with the coach’s continual bouncing. And then damme if the crude fellow did not pull his kerchief out of his pocket, all spotted with blood, to show the company by way of evidence! Quite destroyed my appetite, ma’am, I assure you,” he assured me, forking up a substantial mouthful of chicken fricassee. He chewed it slowly, regarding me with pale, bulging eyes that reminded me uncomfortably of the sturgeon’s.

  Across the table, Phillip Wylie’s long mouth twitched with amusement.

  “Take care your conversation doesn’t incur a similar effect, Stanhope,” he said, with a nod at my untouched plate. “Though a certain crudeness of company is one of the perils of public transport, I do admit.”

  Stanhope sniffed, brushing crumbs from the folds of his neckcloth.

  “Needn’t put on airs, Wylie. It’s not everyone can afford to keep a coachman, ’specially not with all these fresh taxes. New one stuck on every time one turns around, I do declare!” He waved his fork indignantly. “Tobacco, wine, brandy, all very well, but a tax upon newspapers, have you heard the like? Why, my sister’s oldest boy was awarded a degree from Yale University a year past”—he puffed his chest unconsciously, speaking just slightly louder than usual—“and damned if she was not required to pay half a shilling, merely to have his diploma officially stamped!”

  “But that is no longer the case at present,” Cousin Edwin said patiently. “Since the repeal of the Stamp Act—”

  Stanhope plucked one of the tiny crabs from the platter and brandished it at Edwin in accusation.

  “Get rid of one tax, and another pops up in its place directly. Just like mushrooms!” He popped the crab into his mouth and was heard to mumble something indistinctly about taxing the air next, he shouldn’t wonder.

  “You are come but recently from the Indies, I understand, Madame Fraser?” Baron Penzler, on my other side, seized the momentary opportunity to interrupt. “I doubt you will be familiar with such provincial matters—or interested in them,” he added, with a nod of benevolent dismissal at Stanhope.

  “Oh, surely everyone is interested in taxes,” I said, turning slightly sideways so as to display my bosom to best effect. “Or don’t you believe that taxes are what we pay for a civilized society? Though having heard Mr. Stanhope’s story”—I nodded to my other side—“perhaps he would agree that the level of civilization isn’t quite equal to the level of taxation?”

  “Ha ha!” Stanhope choked on his bread, spewing crumbs. “Oh, very good! Not equal to—ha ha, no, certainly not!”

  Phillip Wylie gave me a look of sardonic acknowledgment.

  “You must try not to be so amusing, Mrs. Fraser,” he said. “It may be the death of poor Stanhope.”

  “Er…what is the current rate of taxation, do you think?” I asked, tactfully drawing attention away from Stanhope’s spluttering.

  Wylie pursed his lips, considering. A dandy, he wore the latest in modish wigs, and a small patch in the shape of a star beside his mouth. Under the powder, though, I thought I detected both a good-looking face and a very shrewd brain.

  “Oh, considering all incidentals, I should say it can amount to as much as two per centum of all income, if one was to include the taxes on slaves. Add taxes on lands and crops, and it amounts to a bit more, perhaps.”

  “Two percent!” Stanhope choked, pounding himself on the chest. “Iniquitous! Simply iniquitous!”

  With vivid memories of the last IRS form I had signed, I agreed sympathetically that a two percent tax rate was a positive outrage, wondering to myself just what had become of the fiery spirit of American taxpayers over the intervening two hundred years.

  “But perhaps we should change the subject,” I said, seeing that heads were beginning to turn in our direction from the upper end of the table. “After all, speaking of taxes at the Governor’s table is rather like talking of rope in the house of the hanged, isn’t it?”

  At this, Mr. Stanhope swallowed a crab whole, and choked in good earnest.

  His partner on the other side pounded him helpfully on the back, and the small black boy who had been occupied in swatting flies near the open windows was sent hastily to fetch water. I marked out a sharp, slender knife by the fish