"Is the bleeding bad?" he asked quietly.
"Bad enough," Quinn replied absently, still feeling about beneath the cloak. "Not spurtin', though. A little bandage will do, with the blessing." He rose up, shaking his head a little, and reached into his coat, coming out with a familiar square black bottle.
"It's as well I brought the tonic, thinkin' Jamie might need it for the pukin'. Sovereign for what ails ye, the maker says, and I'm sure that includes gunshot wounds and cold." He handed the bottle to Grey. The smell was mildly alarming, but Grey hesitated no more than an instant before taking a modest gulp.
He coughed. He coughed until his eyes streamed and his chest heaved, but there was an undeniable sense of warmth stealing through his center.
Quinn, meanwhile, had got down onto the boards in order to rewrap Tom's arm and was now holding the bottle for the young man to drink. Tom swallowed twice, stopped to cough explosively, and, wordless, gestured for Grey to take another turn.
Out of concern for Tom, Grey drank abstemiously, taking only a few more sips, but it was enough to make his head swim pleasantly. He'd stopped shivering, and a feeling of drowsy peace laid its hand upon him. By Grey's feet, Quinn put the final touches on a fresh bandage torn from his shirttail and, patting Grey on the shoulder, clambered back behind him.
In front, Jamie Fraser still bent to his oars but, hearing Quinn's movement, called back, "How are ye, wee Byrd?"
Tom's only answer was a gentle snore; he had fallen asleep in the midst of the bandaging. Quinn leaned forward to answer.
"Well enough for the moment. The ball's still in him, though. He'll need to be brought to a doctor, I'm thinking."
"Ye know one?" Fraser sounded skeptical.
"Aye, and so do you. We'll take him to the monks at Inchcleraun."
Fraser stiffened. He stopped rowing, turned, and gave Quinn a hard look, visible even by starlight.
"It's ten miles at least to Inchcleraun. I canna row that far!"
"Ye'll not need to, you ignorant jackeen. What d'ye think the sail's for?"
Grey tilted back his head. Sure enough, he thought, with a sort of muzzy interest, there was a sail. It was a small sail, but still.
"I was under the impression that the use of a sail required wind," Fraser said, elaborately courteous. "There is none, if ye hadna noticed."
"And wind we shall have, my rosy-bearded friend." Quinn was beginning to sound like his old expansive self. "Come sunrise, the wind comes up off Lough Derg, and 'twill bear us on the very breath of dawn, as the Good Book says."
"How long is it 'til dawn?" Fraser sounded suspicious. Quinn sighed and clicked his tongue reprovingly.
"About four hours, O ye o' little faith. Row just that wee bit longer, will ye, and we'll be into the waters of Lough Ree. We can turn aside out o' the current and find a resting place until daylight."
Fraser made a low Scottish sound in his throat but turned back to his oars, and the slow heave against the Shannon's current resumed. Left to silence and the softly rhythmic slosh of the oars, Grey's head dropped and he gave himself over to dreams.
These were bizarre, as opium dreams so often were, and he half-woke from a vision of himself erotically enmeshed with a naked Quinn, this sufficiently vivid that he scrubbed at his mouth and spat to rid himself of the taste. The taste proved to be not of the Irishman but of the tonic he had drunk; a ginger-tasting belch rose up the back of Grey's nose and he subsided against the side of the boat, feeling unequal to the occasion.
He was enmeshed with Tom, he found. Byrd was lying close against him, breathing stertorously; his face was pressed against Grey's chest, his flushed cheek hot even through Grey's half-dry shirt. All motion had stopped, and they were alone in the boat.
It was still dark, but the cloud cover had thinned, and the faded look of the few visible stars told him that it was no more than an hour 'til dawn. He lay flat on the wet boards, fighting to keep his eyes open--and fighting not to recall any of the details of the recent dream.
So groggy was he that it hadn't occurred to him even to wonder where Fraser and Quinn had gone, until he heard their voices. They were near the boat, on land--well, of course they're on land, he thought vaguely, but his drugged mind furnished him with a surreptitious vision of the two of them sitting on clouds, arguing with each other as they drifted through a midnight sky spangled with the most beautiful stars.
"I said I wouldna do it, and that's flat!" Fraser's voice was low, intense.
"Ye'll turn your back on the men ye fought with, all the blood spilt for the Cause?"
"Aye, I will. And so would you, if ye'd half the sense of a day-old chick."
The words faded, and Grey's vision of Quinn melted into one of a red-eyed banty rooster, crowing in Irish and flapping its wings, darting pecks at Fraser's feet. Fraser seemed to be naked but was somewhat disguised by drifts of vapor from the cloud he was sitting on.
The vision melted slowly into a vaguely erotic twinning of Stephan von Namtzen with Percy Wainwright, which he watched in a pleasant state of ennui, until von Namtzen evolved into Gerald Siverly, the ghastly wound in his head not seeming to hamper his movements.
Loud moaning from Tom woke him, sweating and queasy, to find the little boat gliding under sail along the shore of a flat green island--Inchcleraun.
Feeling mildly disembodied, and with only the crudest notion how to walk, he staggered up the path behind Fraser and Quinn, who were hauling Tom Byrd along as gently as they could, making encouraging noises. The remnants of his dreams mingled with the mist through which they walked, and he remembered the words he had overheard. He wished very much that he knew how that particular conversation had ended.
27
Loyalty and Duty
JAMIE WAS GREETED WITH CONCERNED WELCOME BY THE monks, who took Tom Byrd away at once to Brother Infirmarian. He left Quinn and Grey to be given food and went in to see Father Michael, disturbed in mind.
The abbot looked him over with fascination and offered him a seat and a glass of whiskey, both of which he accepted with deep gratitude.
"You do lead the most interesting life, Jamie dear," he said, having been given a brief explanation of recent events. "So you've come to seek sanctuary, is it? And your friends--these would be the two gentlemen you told me of before, I make no doubt?"
"They would, Father. As for sanctuary ..." He tried for a smile, though weariness weighed down even the muscles of his face. "If ye might see to the poor lad's arm, we'll be off as soon as he's fettled. I wouldna put ye in danger. And I think perhaps the deputy justiciar of Athlone might not respect your sanctuary, should he come to hear about Colonel Grey's presence."
"Do you think the colonel did in fact murder Major Siverly?" the abbot asked with interest.
"I'm sure he did not. I think the miscreant is a man called Edward Twelvetrees, who has--had, I mean--some associations with Siverly."
"What sort of associations?"
Jamie lifted his hand in a vague gesture. His bruised right shoulder burned like fire when he moved it and ached down to the bone when he didn't. His arse wasn't in much better case after hours of rowing on a hard slat.
"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 Cupan?"
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, they're hard-faced buggers to a man, but loyal to the bone, been soldiers for generations. I can't see him committing treason."
"So ye think that he might have discovered what Siverly was into--perhaps as a result of your visit--and killed him to prevent his carrying out the scheme? Whatever scheme it was?"
"Yes. That's the honorable theory. The dishonorable one is that, discovering that Siverly held all this money--presumably on behalf of the conspiracy--he might simply have decided to do away with Siverly and pocket the lot. But the point is ..." He spoke more slowly, choosing his words. "Whichever it was, if it had to do with money, then there may be proof of it in the papers that Siverly had."
Grey's hand had curled into a fist as he spoke, and he struck it lightly on his knee, unconscious of the movement.
"I need to get into the house and get those papers. If there's any proof of Siverly's involvement in a political conspiracy, or Twelvetrees's relations with him, it must lie there."
Jamie had been wondering, during these last conjectures, whether to mention the Duchess of Pardloe's information regarding Twelvetrees and money. Apparently, she hadn't chosen to share it with her husband or her brother-in-law, and he wondered why not.
The answer to that presented itself almost immediately: her wicked old father. Andrew Rennie was undoubtedly the source of her information, and she likely didn't want Pardloe finding out that she still dabbled in intelligence work for the old man. He didn't blame her. At the same time, the situation now seemed more serious than whatever marital strife the revelation might cause, if it got back to the duke.
"I don't suppose you're any more anxious to see him fight another duel than I am." The duchess's words came back to him. Ah, he'd forgotten that. It wasn't only her father she was concerned with; it was what might happen if Pardloe crossed swords--either figuratively or literally--with Edward Twelvetrees.
Aye, well--he might be able to save her confidence, even while sharing the information.
"There's a thing ye ought to know," Jamie said abruptly. "For some time, Twelvetrees has been moving large quantities of money to Ireland. To Ireland," he emphasized. "I didna ken where it was going--nor did the person who told me--but what d'ye think the odds are that it was going to Siverly?"
Grey's face went almost comically blank. Then he pursed his lips and breathed in slowly, thinking.
"Well," he said at last. "That does alter the probabilities. If that's true, and if it means that Twelvetrees was involved in the conspiracy, then it may be a case of plotters falling out--or ..." A second thought brightened his face; clearly he didn't like the notion of Twelvetrees being a traitor, which Jamie thought very interesting. "Or he was misled in what the money was to be used for and, discovering the truth, decided to put Siverly out of commission before he could put anything into action. I suppose your source didn't tell you exactly what this particular conspiracy had in mind to accomplish?" He shot Jamie a sharp look.
"No," Jamie said, with absolute truth. "But I suppose ye're right about the need to see the papers, if ye can. What makes ye think Twelvetrees hasn't already got them?"
Grey took a deep breath and blew it out, shaking his head.
"He might. But it was only yesterday--God, was it only yesterday?--that Siverly was killed. Twelvetrees wasn't staying in the house; the butler told me. The servants will be in a great taking, and Siverly does--did--have a wife, who presumably inherits the place. The constable said he was sealing the house until the coroner could come; I can't see the butler just letting Twelvetrees march in, open the chest, and make off with everything in it.
"Besides," he glanced toward the stone cottage where Tom Byrd lay, "I'd thought that once you got me out, we'd go straight back to Glastuig, and I'd almost certainly be there before Twelvetrees could worm his way in. But things happen, don't they?"
"They do," Jamie agreed, with a certain grimness.
They sat for a moment in silence, each alone with his thoughts. At last Grey stretched and sat up straight.
"The other thing about Siverly's papers," he said, looking Jamie in the eye, "and why I must have them, is that whatever they do or don't say about Twelvetrees, they're very likely to reveal the names of other men involved in the conspiracy. The members of the Wild Hunt, if you will."
This aspect of the matter had not escaped Jamie, but he could hardly contradict Grey's conclusion, no matter how much he hated it. He nodded, wordless. Grey sat for a minute longer, then stood up with an air of decision.
"I'll go and speak to the abbot, thank him, and make provision for Tom to stay until we come back for him. Do you think Mr. Quinn will see us ashore?"
"I expect he will."
"Good." Grey started toward the main building, but then stopped and turned round. "You asked me if I thought it was worth it. I don't know. But it is my duty, regardl
ess."
Jamie sat watching as Grey walked away, and an instant before he reached the door of the building, the Englishman stopped dead, hand already stretched out for the latch.
"He's just thought that he didna ask me whether I'd go with him," Jamie murmured. For with Siverly's death, Jamie's word to Pardloe was kept and his own obligation in the matter technically ended. Any further assistance Grey might need would be asked--or offered--as one man to another.
Grey stood fixed for a long moment, then shook his head as though annoyed by a fly and went inside. Jamie didn't think the gesture meant that Grey had dismissed the issue; only that he had decided to do his business with Father Michael before mentioning it to Jamie.
And what will I tell him?
The questions of Siverly's death or Twelvetrees's possible guilt mattered not a whit to him. The possibility of exposure of the Jacobite conspirators, though ...
"Ye've thought it all out once already," he muttered to himself, impatient. "Why can ye not leave it alone?"
I, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, do swear, and as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgment, I have not, nor shall have, in my possession any gun, sword, pistol, or arm whatsoever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the Highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, family, and property. May I never see my wife and children, father, mother, or relations. May I be killed in battle as a coward and lie without Christian burial in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred; may all this come across me if I break my oath.
The words of the oath they'd made him speak when they spared his life had burned his lips when he spoke them; they burned his heart now. He likely knew none of the Wild Hunt personally--but that didn't make betrayal of those men any the lighter a burden.
But. The memory of a tiny skull with long brown hair lying under a gorse bush came to his mind as vividly as the memory of that foul oath--and weighed heavier. To leave these Irish lunatics to their business--or to keep Grey from stopping them, which amounted to the same thing--was to betray wee Mairi, or Beathag, or Cairistiona, and all those like them.
Well, then, he thought calmly. That is my duty. And I think the price is not too high.