The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [508]
He was sitting in a ramshackle hut of some sort. There were several people in the hut, and more peering in at the door. Most of them were black, all were in rags, and none of the faces looked even faintly friendly.
The woman who had given him water looked scared. He tried a smile at her, and coughed again. She looked up at him under the ragged cloth tied round her brows, and he saw that the whites of her eyes were scarlet, the lids red-rimmed and swollen. His must look the same, from the feel of them. The air was still thick with smoke, and he could hear the distant cracks and pops of heat-split cane, the dying rumble of the fire. Somewhere nearby, a bird called once in alarm, then fell abruptly silent.
There was a conversation going on near the door, conducted in sibilant whispers. The men who were talking—no, arguing—glanced at him now and then, their faces masks of fear and distrust. It had begun to rain outside; he couldn’t smell it, but cool air struck his face, and he heard the patter of drops on the roof, on the trees outside.
He drained the rest of the water, then offered the woman back the cup. She shrank back, as though he might be contaminated. He set the cup on the ground, nodding to her, and swiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist. The hair on his arm was singed; it crumbled to dust at a touch.
He strained to pick out words, but heard nothing but gabble. The men weren’t speaking English, nor yet French or Gaelic. He had heard some of the fresh blackbirds brought up from Charleston for sale in the Wilmington market, talking among themselves in just that sort of husky, secretive murmur. Some African tongue—or more than one.
His skin was blistered, hot and painful in several places, and the air in the hut was so thickly warm that sweat ran down his face with the water from his eyes, but a chill touched the base of his spine at the realization. He was not on a plantation—there were none, so far into the mountains. Such isolated homesteads as there were up here would be too poor to have slaves, let alone such a number. Some of the Indians kept slaves—but not black ones.
Only one answer possible, one confirmed by their behavior. They were maroons, then, his captors—his saviors? Escaped slaves, living here in secrecy.
Their freedom—and perhaps their lives—depended on that secrecy. And here he sat, a living threat to it. His insides gelled as he realized just how tenuous his position was. Had they saved him from the fire? If so, they must now be regretting it, judging from the looks of the men by the door.
One of the arguants broke away from the group, came and squatted down before him, pushing the woman out of the way. Narrow black eyes darted over him, from face to chest, then back. “Who you?”
He didn’t think the pugnacious questioner wanted his name. Rather, he wanted to know Roger’s purpose. Possibilities flickered through Roger’s mind—what would be most likely to keep him alive?
Not “hunter”—if they thought him English and alone, they’d kill him for sure. Could he pretend to be French? A Frenchman wouldn’t seem so dangerous to them. Perhaps.
He blinked hard to clear his vision, and was opening his mouth to say, “Je suis Francais—un voyageur,” when he felt a sharp pain in the center of his chest that made him suck breath.
The metal of the astrolabe had seared him in the fire, and quick blisters had risen and burst beneath it, gluing the thing to him with their sticky fluid. As he moved now, the weight of it had torn free, ripping the ragged shreds of skin away, and leaving a throbbing raw patch in the center of his chest.
He dipped two fingers into the neck of his shirt, and carefully pulled up the leather thong.
“Sur . . . vey . . . or,” he croaked, forcing the syllables past the knot of soot and scar in his throat.
“Hau!”
His questioner stared at the golden disk, eyes bulging. The men by the door pushed and shoved each other, trying to get close enough to see.
One reached out and snatched the astrolabe, dragging it off over his head. He made no