A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [314]
He glanced up at me, surprised.
“Of course I will, Sassenach. What d’ye think I am?”
“I think you’re very kind,” I said, kissing him on the forehead. “If a trifle reckless. And I notice you carefully didn’t tell Lord John why you need thirty muskets.”
He gave a small snort, and swept the grains of sand carefully off the table into the palm of his hand.
“I dinna ken for sure myself, Sassenach.”
“Whatever do you mean by that?” I asked, surprised. “Do you not mean to give them to Bird, after all?”
He didn’t answer at once, but the two stiff fingers of his right hand tapped gently on the tabletop. Then he shrugged, reached to the stack of journals and ledgers, and pulled out a paper, which he handed to me. A letter from John Ashe, who had been a fellow commander of militia during the War of the Regulation.
“The fourth paragraph,” he said, seeing me frown at a recounting of the latest contretemps between the Governor and the Assembly. I obligingly skimmed down the page, to the indicated spot, and felt a small, premonitory shiver.
“A Continental Congress is proposed,” I read, “with delegates to be sent from each colony. The lower house of the Connecticut Assembly has moved already to propose such men, acting through Committees of Correspondence. Some gentlemen with whom you are well-acquainted propose that North Carolina shall do likewise, and will meet to accomplish the matter in mid-August. I could wish that you would join us, friend, for I am convinced that your heart and mind must lie with us in the matter of liberty; surely such a man as yourself is no friend to tyranny.
“Some gentlemen with whom you are well-acquainted,” I repeated, putting down the letter. “Do you know who he means?”
“I could guess.”
“Mid-August, he says. Before the barbecue, do you think, or after?”
“After. One of the others sent me the date of the meeting. It’s to be in Halifax.”
I put down the letter. The afternoon was still and hot, and the thin linen of my shift was damp, as were the palms of my hands.
“One of the others,” I said. He shot me a quick glance, with a half-smile, and picked up the letter.
“In the Committee of Correspondence.”
“Oh, naturally,” I said. “You might have told me.” Naturally, he would have found a means of inveigling himself into the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence—the center of political intrigue, where the seeds of rebellion were being sown—meanwhile holding a commission as Indian agent for the British Crown and ostensibly working to arm the Indians, in order to suppress precisely those seeds of rebellion.
“I am telling ye, Sassenach,” he said. “This is the first time they’ve asked me to meet wi’ them, even in private.”
“I see,” I said softly. “Will you go? Is it—is it time?” Time to make the leap, declare himself openly as a Whig, if not yet a rebel. Time to change his public allegiance, and risk the brand of treason. Again.
He sighed deeply and rubbed a hand through his hair. He’d been thinking; the short hairs of several tiny cowlicks were standing on end.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “It’s two years yet, no? The fourth of July, 1776—that’s what Brianna said.”
“No,” I said. “It’s two years until they declare independence—but, Jamie, the fighting will have started already. That will be much too late.”
He stared at the letters on the desk, and nodded bleakly.
“Aye, it will have to be soon, then.”
“It would be likely safe enough,” I said hesitantly. “What you told me about Henderson buying land in Tennessee: if no one’s stopping him, I can’t see anyone in the government being agitated enough to come up here and try to force us out. And surely not if you were only known to have met with the local Whigs?”
He gave me a small, wry smile.
“It’s no the government I’m worrit by, Sassenach. It’s the folk nearby. It wasna the Governor who hanged the O’Brians and burnt their house, ken? Nor was it Richard Brown, nor Indians. That wasna done for the sake of law nor profit; it was done for hate, and verra likely by someone who knew them.”
That