The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [410]
“I am going!” he called. “I beg thee all—go home!” He reined his horse round with sudden decision, and kicked it into a trot. A few men ran after him, but soon stopped. They turned back, looking puzzled and resentful, muttering in small groups and shaking their heads in confusion.
The noise was rising again, as everyone talked at once, arguing, insisting, denying. Roger turned away, walking quietly toward the cover of the maple grove. It seemed wiser to be gone as soon as possible, now that Husband had departed.
A hand seized him by the shoulder, and spun him round.
“Who the hell are you? What did you say to Hermon to make him go?” A grimy fellow in a ragged leather vest confronted him, fists clenched. The man looked angry, ready to take out his frustration on the nearest available object.
“I told him that the Governor doesn’t want anyone to be harmed, if it can be avoided,” Roger said, in what he hoped was a calming tone.
“Do you come from the Governor?” a black-bearded man asked skeptically, eyeing Roger’s grubby homespun. “D’ye come to offer different terms than Caldwell has?”
“No.” Roger had been still under the effects of the meeting with Husband, feeling sheltered from the currents of anger and incipient hysteria that swirled about the cabin, but the peace of it was fading fast. Others were coming to join his interrogators, attracted by the sound of confrontation.
“No,” he said again, louder. “I came to warn Husband—to warn all of you. The Governor wants—”
He was interrupted by a chorus of rude shouts, indicating that what Tryon wanted was a matter of no concern to those present. He glanced around the circle of faces, but saw none that offered any expression of forbearance, let alone friendliness. He shrugged then, and stepped back.
“You’ll suit yourselves, then,” he said, as coolly as possible. “Mr. Husband gave you his best advice—I second it.” He turned to leave, but was gripped by a pair of hands that descended on his shoulders, pulling him forcibly around to face the ring of questioners once more.
“Not so fast, chuck,” said the man in the leather vest. He was still flushed with angry excitement, but his fists were no longer clenched. “You’ve spoke with Tryon, have you?”
“No,” Roger admitted. “I was sent—” He hesitated; ought he to use Jamie Fraser’s name? No, better not; it was as likely to cause trouble as to save it. “I came to ask Hermon Husband to come across the creek and discover for himself how matters stand. He chose instead to accept my account of the situation. You saw what his response was.”
“So you say!” A burly man with ginger sidewhiskers raised his chin pugnaciously. “And why should anyone accept your account of the situation?” He mimicked Roger’s clipped Scots in a burlesque that brought laughter from his comrades.
The calm he had carried from the cabin had not altogether left him; Roger gathered its remnants about him and spoke quietly.
“I cannot compel you to listen, sir. But for those who have ears—hear this.” He looked from one face to another, and reluctantly, one by one, they left off making noise, until he stood as the center of a ring of unwilling attention.
“The Governor’s troops stand ready and well-armed.” His voice sounded odd to his own ears, calm but somehow muffled, as though someone else were speaking, some distance away. “I have not seen the Governor myself, but I have heard his stated purpose: he does not wish to see blood shed, but he is determined to take such actions as he perceives necessary to disperse this assembly. Yet if you will return peaceably to your homes, he is disposed to leniency.”
A moment of silence greeted this, to be broken by a hawking noise. A glob of mucus, streaked brown with tobacco juice, landed with a splat in the mud near Roger’s boot.
“That,” observed the spitter concisely, “for the Governor’s leniency.”
“And that for you, fuckwit!