The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [56]
Arriving before his only kinswoman penniless and ragged with travel is galling to Jamie’s pride, but they now have little choice. As it is, Jocasta’s welcome is more than warm—and their raggedness passes unremarked, for Jocasta Cameron is blind.
The Widow Cameron greets her long-lost nephew with joy, making him welcome to her house and lands. While some part of her generosity is undoubtedly due to family feeling, Claire quickly realizes that Jocasta is also the last of the MacKenzies of Leoch—a family “charming as the larks in the field—but sly as foxes with it,“ as Jamie once remarked of his kin.
Jocasta’s ulterior motives are slowly revealed. Widowed and blind, she must depend on the help of two men to run her large and thriving plantation: Ulysses, the black butler who serves as her eyes and runs her household, and Byrnes, the white overseer who acts as her hands, running the slaves, who do the profitable work of timbering and producing the valuable stores of turpentine, tar, pitch, and spars that River Run sells to the Royal Navy. Ulysses is a devoted and able servant; Byrnes is a violent, drunken sot, whose ineptitude has jeopardized the lucrative Naval contracts on which River Run depends.
A terrible incident at the sawmill demonstrates Byrnes’s unfitness; an altercation with one of the slaves ends with the slave attempting to remove Byrnes’s head with a timber knife. Succeeding only in depriving the overseer of an ear, the slave is automatically condemned to death under the Colony’s law of bloodshed; any slave who sheds the blood of a white person must die, regardless of circumstance.
Farquard Campbell, another plantation owner, has come in haste, to tell Jocasta what has happened, and to summon Jamie. As Jocasta’s nearest male relative, neither Jocasta, Campbell—nor Jamie himself— questions his responsibility to go and deal with the situation. Claire, though, has considerable reservations about the whole affair.
“Execution? Do you mean to say you intend to execute a man without even knowing what he’s done?” In my agitation, I had knocked Jocasta’s basket of yarn over. Little balls of colored wool ran everywhere, bouncing on the carpet.
“I do know what’s he done, Mrs. Fraser!” Campbell lifted his chin, his color high, but with an obvious effort, swallowed his impatience.
“Your pardon, ma’am. I know you are newly come here; you will find some of our ways difficult and even barbarous, but—”
“Too right I find them barbarous! What kind of law is it that condemns a man—”
“A slave—”
“A man! Condemns him without a trial, without even an investigation? What sort of law is that?”
“A bad one, madame!” he snapped. “But it is still the law, and I am charged with its fulfillment. Mr. Fraser, are you ready?” He clapped the hat on his head and turned to Jamie.
Arriving at the sawmill, the Frasers find they are too late, a lynching has already taken place. Jamie goes at once to deal with Byrnes and his assistants; Claire’s attention is for the gruesomely injured slave.
Hastily assessing the situation, she realizes that while the man is terribly injured, there is a faint possibility that she might save his life—at least temporarily.
No one was paying any attention to the true object of the discussion. Only seconds had passed—but I had only seconds more to act. I placed a hand on Jamie’s arm, pulling his attention away from the debate.
“If I save him, will they let him live?” I asked him, under my breath.
His eyes flicked from one to another of the men behind me, weighing the possibilities.
“No,” he said softly. His eyes met mine, dark with understanding. His shoulders straightened slightly, and he laid the pistol across his thighs. I could not help him make his choice; he could not help with mine— but he would defend me, whichever choice