The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [329]
Lyon laughed, showing teeth that were even enough, but badly stained with tobacco.
“Indeed not, Mr. Fraser. Bar the slight impediment of your familial connections—which can scarcely be held to be your fault, though folk will make assumptions—I have heard none but the most glowing encomiums, both of your character and your accomplishments.”
A Dhia, Jamie thought, blackmail and butter, all in the first sentence. Was it only that North Carolina was a backwater, and not worth the time of a more competent intriguer? He smiled politely, with a murmur of modest dismissal, and waited to see what the blockheid wanted.
Not so much, at least to start. The strength of Fraser’s militia regiment, and the names of the men. That was interesting, he thought. Lyon was not the Governor’s man, then, or he would have such information to hand. Who was behind him, if anyone? Not the Regulation surely; the only one of them with a spare shilling to his name was Ninian Bell Hamilton, and if auld Ninian had wanted to know a thing, he would have come and asked himself. One of the rich planters from the coast, then? Most aristocrats had an interest in the colony that went no further than their pockets.
Which led to the logical conclusion that whoever Lyon’s intended market was thought there’d be something either to gain or to lose from the potential disaffections in the colony. Who might that be?
“Chisholm, McGillivray, Lindsay . . .” Lyon was saying reflectively. “So the majority of your men are Scottish Highlanders. The sons of earlier settlers, are they, or perhaps retired soldiers, like yourself, sir?”
“Oh, I should doubt that a soldier is ever truly retired, sir,” Jamie said, stooping to let one of the stable dogs smell his knuckles. “Once a man has lived under arms, I suspect he is marked for life. In fact I have heard it remarked that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
Lyon laughed immoderately at that, declaring it a fine epigram, was it his own? Without stopping to hear the answer, he went on, clearly paddling into well-charted waters.
“I am pleased to hear such a sentiment expressed, Mr. Fraser. His Majesty has always relied upon the stoutness of the Highlanders, and their abilities as fighting men. Did you or your neighbors perhaps serve with your cousin’s regiment? The Seventy-eighth Frasers acquitted themselves with great distinction during the recent conflict; I daresay the art of warfare runs in the blood, eh?”
That was a bald enough swipe. Young Simon Fraser was not in fact his cousin, but his half-uncle, son of his grandfather. It was as expiation of the old man’s treason and in an effort to retrieve the family fortunes and estates that Young Simon had raised two regiments for the Seven Years’ War—what Brianna persisted in calling the French and Indian Wars, as though Britain had had nothing to do with it.
Lyon was asking now whether Jamie had also sought to establish his credentials as a loyal soldier of the Crown, by taking commission with one of the Highland regiments? He could scarcely believe the flat-footedness of the man.
“Ah, no. I regret that I was unable to serve in such a capacity,” Jamie said. “An indisposition from an earlier campaign, you understand?” The minor indisposition of having been a prisoner of the Crown for several years after the Rising, though he did not mention that. If Lyon didn’t know it already, there was no sense in telling him.
They had reached the paddock by now, and leaned comfortably upon the split-rail fence. The horses had not yet been put away for the night; the big black creatures moved like shadows, their coats glossy in the torchlight.
“What strange horses, are they not?” He interrupted Lyon’s disquisition on the evils of factionalism,