The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [129]
“I dinna ken exactly. Money, certainly—and maybe politics.” He saw the abbot’s white brows rise, green eyes grow more intent. Jamie smiled wearily.
“The man I brought with me—Tobias Quinn. It’s him I told ye of, when I made my confession before.”
“I remember,” murmured the abbot. “But I could not, of course, make use of that information, given as it was under the seal.”
Jamie’s smile grew a little more genuine.
“Aye, Father. I ken that. So now I tell ye outside that seal that Toby Quinn has it in his heart to take up the destiny I laid aside. Will ye maybe speak to him about it? Pray with him?”
“I will indeed, mo mhic,” Father Michael said, his face alight with wary interest. “And you say he knows about the Cupán?”
An unexpected shudder ran over Jamie from his crown to the base of his spine.
“He does,” he said, a little tersely. “I leave that between you and him, Father. I should be pleased never to see or hear of it again.”
The abbot considered him for a moment, then raised a hand.
“Go in peace, then, mo mhic,” he said quietly. “And may God and Mary and Padraic go with you.”
JAMIE WAS SITTING on a stone bench by the monastery’s graveyard when Grey came to find him. Grey looked exhausted, white-faced and disheveled, with an unfocused look in his eyes that Jamie recognized as the aftereffects of Quinn’s tonic.
“Give ye dreams, did it?” he asked, not without sympathy.
Grey nodded and sat down beside him.
“I don’t want to tell you about them, and you don’t want to know,” he said. “Believe me.”
Jamie thought both statements were likely true, and asked instead, “How’s our wee Byrd, then?”
Grey looked a little better at this and went so far as to smile wanly.
“Brother Infirmarian’s got the ball out. He says the wound is in the muscle, the bone’s not broken, the boy has a little small fever but, with the blessing, all will be well in a day or two. When last seen, Tom was sitting up in bed eating porridge with milk and honey.”
Jamie’s wame gurgled loudly at thought of food. There were things to be discussed first, though.
“D’ye think it was worth it?” he asked, one brow raised.
“What?” Grey slumped a little, rubbing the itching bristle on his chin with the palm of his hand.
“Tom Byrd. He’ll likely do fine, but ye ken well enough he might have been killed—and yourself, too. Or taken.”
“And you and Quinn. Yes. We all might.” He sat for a moment, watching a fuzzy green worm of some kind inching along the edge of the bench. “You mean you think I was a fool to ask you to get me out of Athlone.”
“If I thought that, I wouldna have done it,” Jamie said bluntly. “But I like to know why I’m riskin’ my life when I do it.”
“Fair enough.” Grey put down a finger, trying to entice the worm to climb on it, but the creature, having prodded blindly at his fingertip, decided that it offered no edible prospects and, with a sudden jerk, dropped from the bench, dangling briefly from a silken tether before swinging out on the wind and dropping away altogether into the grass.
“Edward Twelvetrees,” he said. “I’m morally sure he killed Siverly.”
“Why?”
“Why might he have done it, or why do I think he did?” Without waiting for Jamie’s reply, Grey proceeded to answer both questions.
“Cui bono, to begin with,” he said. “I think that there is or was some financial arrangement between the two men. I told you about the papers they were looking at when I went there the first time? I am no bookkeeper, but even I recognize pounds, shillings, and pence written down on a piece of paper. They were looking over accounts of some sort. And that very interesting chest was probably not filled with gooseberries.
“Now, Siverly had money—we know that—and was obviously involved in what looks very like a Jacobite conspiracy of some kind. It’s possible that Twelvetrees was not involved in that—I can’t say.” He rubbed his face again, beginning to look more lively. “I have difficulty believing that he is, really; his family is … well,