A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [412]
“Give it to MacDonald,” I said, rubbing my palm against the side of my skirt. “I hear him outside, talking to Arch; he’ll be wanting to be off.”
MACDONALD HAD COME pelting up to the Ridge in the midst of a rainstorm the day before, weathered face nearly purple with cold, exertion, and excitement, to inform us that he had found a printing establishment for sale in New Bern.
“The owner has already left—somewhat involuntarily,” he told us, dripping and steaming by the fire. “His friends seek to sell the premises and equipment promptly, before they might be seized or destroyed, and thus provide him with funds to reestablish himself in England.”
By “somewhat involuntarily,” it turned out, he meant that the print shop’s owner was a Loyalist, who had been kidnapped off the street by the local Committee of Safety and shoved willy-nilly onto a ship departing for England. This form of impromptu deportation was becoming popular, and while it was more humane than tar and feathers, it did mean that the printer would arrive penniless in England, and owing money for his passage, to boot.
“I happened to meet wi’ some of his friends in a tavern, tearin’ their hair over his sad fate and drinking to his welfare—whereupon I told them that I might be able to put them in the way of an advantage,” the Major said, swelling with satisfaction. “They were all ears, when I said that ye might—just might, mind—have ready cash.”
“What makes ye think I do, Donald?” Jamie asked, one eyebrow cocked.
MacDonald looked surprised, then knowing. He winked and laid a finger beside his nose.
“I hear the odd bit, here and there. Word has it that ye’ve got a wee cache of gems—or so I hear, from a merchant in Edenton whose bank dealt wi’ one.”
Jamie and I exchanged looks.
“Bobby,” I said, and he nodded in resignation.
“Well, as for me, mum’s the word,” MacDonald said, observing this. “Ye can rely upon my discretion, to be sure. And I doubt the matter’s widely known. But then—a poor man doesna go about buying muskets by the dozen, now, does he?”
“Oh, he might,” Jamie said, resigned. “Ye’d be surprised, Donald. But as it is . . . I imagine a bargain might be struck. What are the printer’s friends asking—and will they offer insurance, in case of fire?”
MACDONALD HAD BEEN empowered to negotiate on behalf of the printer’s friends—they being anxious to get the problematical real estate sold before some patriotic soul came and burned it down—and so the bargain was concluded on the spot. MacDonald was sent hurtling back down the mountain to change the emerald into money, conclude payment on the printer’s shop, leaving the residue of the money with Fergus for ongoing expenses—and let it be known as quickly as possible in New Bern that the premises were shortly to be under new management.
“And if anyone asks about the politics of the new owner . . .” Jamie said. To which MacDonald merely nodded wisely, and laid his finger alongside his red-veined nose once more.
I was reasonably sure that Fergus had no personal politics to speak of; beyond his family, his sole allegiance was to Jamie. Once the bargain was made, though, and the frenzy of packing begun—Marsali and Fergus would have to leave at once, to have any chance of making it to New Bern before winter set in in earnest—Jamie had had a serious talk with Fergus.
“Now, it’ll no be like it was in Edinburgh. There’s no but one other printer in the town, and from what MacDonald says, he’s an elderly gentleman, and sae much afraid o’ the committee and the Governor both, he willna print a thing but books of sermons and handbills advertising horseraces.”
“Très bon,” said Fergus, looking even happier, if such a thing was possible. He’d been going about lit up like a Chinese lantern since hearing the news. “We will have all of the newspaper and broadsheet business, to say nothing of the printing of scandalous