Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [315]
Fergus sighed. He looked rather tired, and I wondered whether perhaps he had stayed awake to stand watch over Jamie during the night.
“So,” he said, shrugging once more. “We do not know. Such incidents may have been no more than accident—they may not. But taking such occurrences together with what happened at Arbroath—”
“You may have a traitor among the smugglers,” I said.
“Just so, milady.” Fergus scratched his head. “But what is more disturbing to milord is the man whom the Chinaman shot at Madame Jeanne’s.”
“Because you think he was a Customs agent, who’d tracked Jamie from the docks to the brothel? Jamie said he couldn’t be, because he had no warrant.”
“Not proof,” Fergus noted. “But worse, the booklet he had in his pocket.”
“The New Testament?” I saw no particular relevance to that, and said so.
“Oh, but there is, milady—or might be, I should say,” Fergus corrected himself. “You see, the booklet was one that milord himself had printed.”
“I see,” I said slowly, “or at least I’m beginning to.”
Fergus nodded gravely. “To have the Customs trace brandy from the points of delivery to the brothel would be bad, of course, but not fatal—another hiding place could be found; in fact, milord has arrangements with the owners of two taverns that…but that is of no matter.” He waved it away. “But to have the agents of the Crown connect the notorious smuggler Jamie Roy with the respectable Mr. Malcolm of Carfax Close…” He spread his hands wide. “You see?”
I did. Were the Customs to get too close to his smuggling operations, Jamie could merely disperse his assistants, cease frequenting his smugglers’ haunts, and disappear for a time, retreating into his guise as a printer until it seemed safe to resume his illegal activities. But to have his two identities both detected and merged was not only to deprive him of both his sources of income, but to arouse such suspicion as might lead to discovery of his real name, his seditious activities, and thence to Lallybroch and his history as rebel and convicted traitor. They would have evidence to hang him a dozen times—and once was enough.
“I certainly do see. So Jamie wasn’t only worried about Laoghaire and Hobart MacKenzie, when he told Ian he thought it would be as well for us to skip to France for a bit.”
Paradoxically, I felt somewhat relieved by Fergus’s revelations. At least I hadn’t been single-handedly responsible for Jamie’s exile. My reappearance might have precipitated the crisis with Laoghaire, but I had had nothing to do with any of this.
“Exactly, milady. And still, we do not know for certain that one of the men has betrayed us—or whether, even if there should be a traitor among them, he should wish to kill milord.”
“That’s a point.” It was, but not a large one. If one of the smugglers had undertaken to betray Jamie for money, that was one thing. If it was for some motive of personal vengeance, though, the man might well feel compelled to take matters into his own hands, now that we were—temporarily, at least—out of reach of the King’s Customs.
“If so,” Fergus was continuing, “it will be one of six men—the six milord sent me to collect, to sail with us. These six were present both when the casks fell, and when the shed caught fire; all have been to the brothel.” He paused. “And all of them were present on the road at Arbroath, when we were ambushed, and found the exciseman hanged.”
“Do they all know about the printshop?”
“Oh, no, milady! Milord has always been most careful to let none of the smuggling men know of that—but it is always possible that one of them shall have seen him on the streets in Edinburgh, followed him to Carfax Close, and so learned of A. Malcolm.” He smiled wryly. “Milord is not the most inconspicuous of men, milady.”
“Very true,” I said, matching his tone. “But now all of them know Jamie’s real name—Captain Raines calls him Fraser.”
“Yes,” he said, with a faint, grim smile. “That is why we must discover whether we do indeed sail with a traitor—and who