A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [549]
“Hmmmm.” The Governor pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed thoughtfully at the plump flesh beneath his chin. “Can you write a fair hand?”
I supposed it would be a poor forger who couldn’t, but contented myself with saying, “Yes.” Fortunately, it was true; in my own time, I had scribbled ball-point prescriptions with the best of them, but now I had trained myself to write clearly with a quill, so that my medical records and case notes should be legible, for the benefit of whoever should read them after me. Once again, I felt a sharp pang at the thought of Malva—but there was no time to think of her.
Still eyeing me speculatively, the Governor nodded toward a straight-backed chair and a smaller desk at the side of the room.
“Sit.” He rose, scrabbled among the papers on his desk, and deposited one in front of me. “Let me see you make a fair copy of that, if you please.”
It was a brief letter to the Royal Council, outlining the Governor’s concerns regarding recent threats to that body, and postponing the next scheduled meeting of the council. I chose a quill from the cut-glass holder on the desk, found a silver penknife by it, trimmed the quill to my liking, uncorked the inkwell, and set about the business, deeply aware of the scrutiny of the two men.
I didn’t know how long my imposture might hold up—Mrs. Governor could blow the gaff at any time—but for the nonce, I thought I probably had a better chance of escape as an accused forger than as an accused murderer.
The Governor took my finished copy, surveyed it, and laid it on the desk with a small grunt of satisfaction.
“Good enough,” he said. “Make eight further copies of that, and then you can go on with these.” Turning back to his own desk, he shuffled together a large sheaf of correspondence, which he deposited in front of me.
The two men—I had no notion of Webb’s office, but he was obviously the Governor’s close friend—returned to a discussion of current business, ignoring me completely.
I went about my assigned task mechanically, finding the scratch of the quill, the ritual of sanding, blotting, shaking, soothing. Copying occupied a very small part of my mind; the rest was free to worry about Jamie, and to think how best to engineer an escape.
I could—and doubtless should—make an excuse after a bit to go and see how Mrs. Martin did. If I could make shift to do so unaccompanied, I would have a few moments of unobserved freedom, during which to make a surreptitious dash for the nearest exit. So far, though, every door I’d seen had been guarded. The Governor’s Palace had a very well-stocked simples closet, alas; it would be hard to invent a need for anything from an apothecary—and even then, unlikely that they’d let me go alone to fetch it.
Waiting for nightfall seemed the best notion; at least if I did get out of the palace, I would have several hours before my absence was noted. If they locked me in again, though . . .
I scratched away assiduously, turning over various unsatisfactory plans, and trying very hard not to envision Jamie’s body turning slowly in the wind, hanging from a tree in some lonely hollow. Christie had given me his word; I clung to that, having nothing else to cling to.
Webb and the Governor murmured together, but their talk was of things I had no notion of, and for the most part, it washed over me like the sound of the sea, meaningless and soothing. After some time, though, Webb came over to instruct me in the sealing and direction of those letters to be sent. I thought of asking why he didn’t lend a hand himself in this clerical emergency, but then saw his hands—both badly twisted with arthritis.
“You write a very fair hand, Mrs. Fraser,” he unbent enough to say, at one point, and gave me a brief, wintry smile. “It is unfortunate that you should have been the forger, rather than the murderess.”
“Why?” I asked, rather