Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [505]
“My God,” he said, in soft delight. “He’s real.”
Her eyes met his in rueful amusement.
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
It was well past dark when they drove up beside the garrison headquarters. It was a small, unprepossessing little building, dwarfed by the loom of the warehouse behind it, and Brianna eyed it askance.
“They have him in there?” Her hands felt cold, in spite of being muffled under her cloak.
“No.” Lord John glanced around, as he got down to tie the horses. A light burned in the window, but the small dirt yard was empty, the narrow street silent and deserted. There were no houses or shops nearby, and the warehousemen had long since gone home to their suppers and their beds.
He reached up both hands to help her down; alighting from a wagon was easier than getting out of a carriage, but still no small task.
“He’s in the cellar below the warehouse,” he told her, his voice pitched low. “I’ve bribed the soldier on duty to admit us.”
“Not us,” she said, her voice pitched as low as his, but no less firm for that. “Me. I’ll see him alone.”
She saw his lips compress tightly for a moment, then relax as he nodded.
“Private Hodgepile assures me he is in chains, or I would not countenance such a suggestion. As it is …” He shrugged, half irritably, and took her arm to guide her over the rutted ground.
“Hodgepile?”
“Private Arvin Hodgepile. Why? Are you acquainted?”
She shook her head, holding her skirts out of the way with her free hand.
“No. I’ve heard the name, but—”
The door of the building opened, spilling light into the yard.
“That’ll be you, will it, my lord?” A soldier looked out warily. Hodgepile was slight and narrow-faced, tight-jointed as a marionette. He jerked, startled, as he saw her.
“Oh! I didn’t realize—”
“You needn’t.” Lord John’s voice was cool. “Show us the way, if you please.”
With an apprehensive glance at Brianna’s looming bulk, the private brought out a lantern, and led them to a small side door into the warehouse.
Hodgepile was short as well as slight, but held himself more erect than usual in compensation. He walks with a ramrod up his arse. Yes, she thought, watching him with interest as he marched ahead of them. It had to be the man Ronnie Sinclair had described to her mother. How many Hodgepiles could there be, after all? Perhaps she could talk to him when she’d finished with—her thoughts stopped abruptly as Hodgepile unlocked the warehouse door.
The April night was cool and fresh, but the air inside was thick with the reek of pitch and turpentine. Brianna felt suffocated. She could almost feel the tiny molecules of resin floating in the air, sticking to her skin. The sudden illusion of being trapped in a block of solidifying amber was so oppressive that she moved suddenly forward, almost dragging Lord John with her.
The warehouse was nearly full, its vast space crowded with bulky shapes. Kegs of pitch bled sticky black in the farthest shadows, while wooden racks near the huge double doors at the front held piles of barrels; brandy and rum, ready to roll down the ramps and out onto the dock, to barges waiting in the river below.
Private Hodgepile’s shadow stretched and shrank by turns as he passed between the towering ranks of casks and boxes, his steps muffled by the thick layer of sawdust on the floor.
“… must be careful of fire …” His high, thin voice floated back to her, and she saw his puppet shadow wave an etiolated hand. “You will be careful where you set the lantern, won’t you? Though there should be no danger, no danger at all down below …”
The warehouse was built out over the river, to facilitate loading, and the front part of the floor was wood; the back half of the building was brick-floored. Brianna heard the echo of their footsteps change as they crossed the boundary. Hodgepile paused by a trapdoor set into the bricks.
“You won’t be long, my lord?”
“No longer than we can help,” Lord John replied