A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [560]
WHEN I ARRIVED IN the surgeon’s cabin, which the Governor had taken for his office, he was dressed, and alone.
“Mrs. Fraser.” He nodded briefly to me, scarcely looking up. “I am obliged. Will you write, please?”
He had been writing himself, already; quills and sand and blotter were scattered about the desk, and the inkwell stood open. I picked out a decent quill and a sheet of paper, and began to write as per his dictation, with a sense of growing curiosity.
The note—dictated between bites of toast—was to a General Hugh MacDonald, and referred to the General’s safe arrival upon the mainland with a Colonel McLeod. Receipt of the General’s report was acknowledged, and request made for continuing information. Mention was also made of the Governor’s request for support—which I knew about—and assurances he had received regarding the arrival of that support, which I didn’t.
“Enclosure, a letter of credit—no, wait.” The Governor darted a look in the direction of the shore—to no particular avail, as the surgeon’s cabin boasted no porthole—and scowled in concentration. Evidently, it had occurred to him that in light of recent events, a letter of credit issued by the Governor’s office was possibly worth less than one of Mrs. Ferguson’s forgeries.
“Enclosure, twenty shillings,” he amended with a sigh. “If you will make the fair copy at once, Mrs. Fraser? These, you may do at your leisure.” He pushed across an untidy stack of notes, done in his own crabbed hand.
He got up then, groaning as he stretched, and went up, no doubt to peer over the railing at the fort again.
I made the copy, sanded it, and set it aside, wondering who on earth this MacDonald was, and what he was doing? Unless Major MacDonald had undergone a change of name and an extraordinary promotion of late, it couldn’t be he. And from the tone of the Governor’s remarks, it appeared that General MacDonald and his friend McLeod were traveling alone—and on some particular mission.
I flipped quickly through the waiting stack of notes, but saw nothing else of interest; just the usual administrative trivia. The Governor had left his writing desk on the table, but it was closed. I debated trying to pick the lock and rummage through his private correspondence, but there were too many people about: seamen, Marines, ship’s boys, visitors—the place was seething.
There was a sense of nervous tension aboard, as well. I’d noticed many times before how a sense of danger communicates itself among people in a confined setting: hospital emergency room, surgical suite, train car, ship; urgency flashes from one person to the next without speech, like the impulse down a neuron’s axon to the dendrites of another. I didn’t know whether anyone beyond the Governor and myself knew about John Ashe’s movements yet—but the Cruizer knew that something was up.
The sense of nervous anticipation was affecting me, too. I was fidgeting, toe tapping absently, fingers moving restlessly up and down the shaft of the quill, unable to concentrate enough to write with it.
I stood up, with no idea what I meant to do; only the fixed notion that I would suffocate with impatience if I stayed below any longer.
On the shelf beside the door to the cabin stood the usual half-tidy clutter of shipboard, jammed behind a rail: a candlestick, extra candles, a tinderbox, a broken pipe, a bottle with a twist of flax stopping it, a bit of wood that someone had tried to carve and made a mess of. And a box.
The Cruizer had no surgeon aboard. And surgeons tended to take their personal implements with them, unless they died. This must be a kit belonging to the ship itself.
I glanced out the door; there were voices nearby, but no one in sight. I hastily flipped open the box, wrinkling my nose at the scent of dried blood and stale tobacco. There wasn’t much there, and what there was was thrown in higgledy-piggledy, rusted, crusted, and of