The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [28]
He had carried a Brown Bess of his own all across Portugal and Spain, and into France. She had done as much as—more than, perhaps—any other woman to make him who he was. Taught him, certainly, more memorable lessons than the few teachers he had known in his brief schooling.
What sound it was that interrupted his hazy reverie, and how much time had passed, Quire could not say. But there was something; some dissonant shard of the outside world that jarred in his ear and was gone before he was wakeful enough to take hold of it.
He jerked upright in his chair, scraping its feet on the flagstone floor. The fire was still crackling, though it had sunk a little lower in the hearth; Munro still snored, though it was a feeble, whistling kind of snore now. But the son, perched upon the ledge of the dark window, was the embodiment of tension, staring out into the night. The soft Bible in his hands was forgotten, on the verge of slipping from his grasp.
“What is it?” Quire asked.
“I don’t know,” the youth said uneasily. “Something.”
And then it came again: a scrape of metal on stone, so faint as to be barely distinguishable from nervous imagination. But distinguishable—and real—it was. Quire surged to his feet.
“Get away from the window,” he snapped. “You’ll not be able to see anything anyway. Snuff that candle.”
As Munro the younger did as he was told, Quire kicked his father’s outstretched foot. Even that was only enough to bring the man haltingly and blearily back to wakefulness.
“What’s happening?” he asked, rubbing at his eye.
“That’s what we’re going to find out. Do either of you know how to load that gun?”
“What?”
Father directed a fearsome enquiring glare towards son, who shrank beneath its force and said, apologetically: “There’s someone out there.”
“Is there?” The doubt was evident in Munro’s voice, but so was a fragment of alarm. “It’ll be nothing. No need for the gun.”
“And if it’s not nothing?” Quire demanded. “There’s many kinds of resurrectionists, Munro. Not all of them are students, not all of them are gentle. Arm yourself. It might put some handy fear into them, if nothing else.”
It was evident at once that the man had not handled a gun in a long time, if ever. He fumbled even as he was digging a cartridge out from a pouch. He held the musket too low, and it swayed and rocked in his grasp. He was afraid of the gun, Quire knew, for he had seen it in others before. Afraid of the gun and of what it signified.
Quire took it out of Munro’s hands and, for the first time in many years, found himself loading a Brown Bess. Tearing at the paper cartridge with his teeth, catching the smell of the powder and thinking it a touch stale. Spit out the scraps, prime the pan. Stand the gun on its heel and pour the rest of the powder down the barrel. Turn the cartridge, feeling the weight of the ball in his hand; press it into the barrel with a fingertip. Tight enough. Slip the ramrod out from its seat under the barrel, punch down with it, pack ball and paper wadding and powder down firm. Replace the ramrod.
Quire looked up. Both Munros were regarding him with unease.
“There’s a man who knows his way about a musket,” the elder said quietly. Sadly.
But Quire knew he had been slow and imprecise. At his best, at Waterloo, he had been amongst the fastest in the company. Four shots in a minute. Not any more. Not nearly. It was not a skill he wished to rediscover, any more than was the killing of men. He offered the gun to Munro, who regarded it with distaste.
“I’ll take it,” said the man’s son.
Quire heard a hint of enthusiasm in the proposal that he did not entirely trust, but the older Munro nodded.
“He’s used one before, true enough.” But he fixed his son with a beady glare as Quire handed the weapon over. “Don’t you go firing that thing off, though, lad. Just for show.”
“Where’s the body?” Quire asked. “The fresh burial?”
“Far side of the kirk,” Munro told him. “The loch side.”
They went out into the graveyard, a still and strange place on a night such as this, with an icy tang to the air,