The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [26]
More glances among the girls. This time it was Hilda who spoke.
“Nein, ma’am. See, it wouldna have been sae bad, had the thief-taker come on us at the camp. But down here—” She widened her eyes, nodding toward the competition field, where a muffled thud and a roar of approval marked some successful effort.
The difficulty, apparently, was Hilda’s fiancé, one Davey Morrison, from Hunter’s Point. Mr. Morrison was a farmer of some substance, and a man of worth, as well as an athlete skilled in the arcana of stone-throwing and caber-tossing. He had family, too—parents, uncles, aunts, cousins—all of the most upright character and—I gathered—rather judgmental attitudes.
Had Manfred been taken by a thief-taker in front of such a crowd, filled with Davey Morrison’s relations, word would have spread at the speed of light, and the scandal would result in the prompt rupture of Hilda’s engagement—a prospect that clearly perturbed Ute McGillivray much more than the notion of cutting the thief-taker’s throat.
“Bad, too, I kill him and someone see,” she said frankly, waving at the thin scrim of trees shielding us from the competition field. “Die Morrisons would not like.”
“I suppose they might not,” I murmured, wondering whether Davey Morrison had any idea what he was getting into. “But you—”
“I vill haf meine lassies well wed,” she said firmly, nodding several times in reinforcement. “I find gut men für Sie, fine big men, mit land, mit money.” She put an arm round Senga’s shoulders and hugged her tight. “Nicht wahr, Liebchen?”
“Ja, Mama,” Senga murmured, and laid her neat capped head affectionately on Mrs. McGillivray’s broad bosom.
Something was happening on the men’s side of things; the thief-taker’s hands had been untied, and he stood rubbing his wrists, no longer scowling, but listening to whatever Jamie was saying with an expression of wariness. He glanced at us, then at Robin McGillivray, who said something to him and nodded emphatically. The thief-taker’s jaw worked, as though he were chewing over an idea.
“So you all came down to watch the competitions this morning and look for suitable prospects? Yes, I see.”
Jamie reached into his sporran and drew out something, which he held under the thief-taker’s nose, as though inviting him to smell it. I couldn’t make out what it was at this distance, but the thief-taker’s face suddenly changed, going from wariness to alarmed disgust.
“Ja, only to look.” Mrs. McGillivray was not watching; she patted Senga and let her go. “Ve go now to Salem, where ist meine Familie. Maybe ve find there a good Mann, too.”
Myers had stepped back from the confrontation now, his shoulders drooping in relaxation. He inserted a finger under the edge of his breechclout, scratched his buttocks comfortably, and glanced around, evidently no longer interested in the proceedings. Seeing me looking in his direction, he ambled back through the sapling grove.
“No need to worry more, ma’am,” he assured Mrs. McGillivray. “I knew Jamie Roy would take care of it, and so he has. Your lad’s safe.”
“Ja?” she said. She looked doubtfully toward the sapling grove, but it was true; the attitudes of all the men had relaxed now, and Jamie was handing the thief-taker back his set of manacles. I saw the way he handled them, with brusque distaste. He had worn irons, at Ardsmuir.
“Gott sei dank,” Mrs. McGillivray said, with an explosive sigh. Her massive form seemed suddenly to diminish as the breath went out of her.
The little man was leaving, making his way away from us, toward the creek. The sound of the swinging irons at his belt reached us in a faint chime of metal, heard between the shouts of the crowd behind us. Jamie and Rob McGillivray stood close together, talking, while Fergus watched the thief-taker’s departure, frowning slightly.
“Exactly what did Jamie tell him?” I asked Myers.
“Oh. Well.” The mountain man gave me a broad, gap-toothed grin. “Jamie Roy told him serious-like that it was surely luck for the thief-taker