A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [53]
Jo was an expert hunter, and while Kezzie still hadn’t sufficiently keen hearing to hunt well, his brother had taught him to run traplines. Ian had told me that the Beardsleys’ shack was stacked nearly to the rooftree with the hides of beaver, marten, deer, and ermine. The smell of it always clung to them, a faint miasma of dried blood, musk, and cold hair.
“Aye? Well, that’s generous of ye, Jo, to be sure. But I’ll come, nonetheless.” Jamie glanced at me, acknowledging the fact that he had made his decision—but asking for my approval, nonetheless. I swallowed, tasting bitterness.
“Yes,” I said, and cleared my throat. “If—if you’re going, let me send some things, and tell you what to ask for in trade. You won’t leave until morning, surely?”
The Beardsleys were vibrating with impatience to be gone, but Jamie stood still, looking at me, and I felt him touch me, without words or movement.
“No,” he said softly, “we’ll bide for the night.” He turned then to the Beardsleys. “Go up, will ye, Jo, and ask Bobby Higgins to come down. I’ll need to speak with him.”
“He’s up with Miss Lizzie?” Jo Beardsley looked displeased at this, and his brother’s face echoed his expression of slit-eyed suspicion.
“What’s he a-doin’ in her room, then? Don’t he know she’s betrothed?” Kezzie asked, righteously.
“Her father’s with her, too,” Jamie assured them. “Her reputation’s safe, aye?”
Jo snorted briefly, but the brothers exchanged glances, then left together, slender shoulders set in determination to oust this threat to Lizzie’s virtue.
“So you’ll do it?” I set down the pestle. “Be an Indian agent?”
“I think I must. If I do not—Richard Brown surely will. I think I canna risk that.” He hesitated, then drew close and touched me lightly, fingers on my elbow. “I’ll send the lads back at once with the berries ye need. I may need to stay for a day, maybe two. For the talking, aye?” To tell the Cherokee that he was now an agent for the British Crown, he meant—and to make arrangements for word to be spread that the headmen of the mountain villages should come down later to a council for parley and gifts.
I nodded, feeling a small bubble of fear swell under my breastbone. It was starting. No matter how much one knows that something dreadful is going to happen in the future, one somehow never thinks it will be today.
“Not—don’t stay away too long, will you?” I blurted, not wanting to burden him with my fears, but unable to keep quiet.
“No,” he said softly, and his hand rested for an instant in the small of my back. “Dinna fash yourself; I’ll not tarry.”
The sound of feet descending the stairs echoed in the hall. I supposed Mr. Wemyss had shooed the Beardsleys out, along with Bobby. They didn’t stop, but went off without speaking, casting looks of veiled dislike at Bobby, who seemed quite oblivious to them.
“Yon lad said you wanted to speak to me, zur?” He’d regained some color, I was glad to see, and seemed steady enough on his feet. He glanced uneasily at the table, still spread with the sheet I’d put him on, and then at me, but I merely shook my head. I’d finish dealing with his piles later.
“Aye, Bobby.” Jamie made a brief gesture toward a stool, as though to invite Bobby to sit, but I cleared my throat in a meaningful manner, and he stopped, then leaned against the table, rather than sitting down himself.
“Those two who came—Brown, they’re called. They’ve a settlement some way away. Ye said ye’ve heard of the Committees of Safety, aye? So ye’ll have some notion what they’re about.”
“Aye, zur. Tha Browns, zur—did they want me?” He spoke calmly enough, but I saw him swallow briefly, Adam’s apple bobbing in his slender throat.
Jamie sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. The sun was slanting through the window now, and struck him directly, making his red hair glow with flame—and picking out here and there a flicker of the silver that was beginning to show among the ruddy strands.
“They did. They kent ye were here; heard of ye, doubtless from someone ye met along the way. Ye’ll have told folk where