56

TAR AND FEATHERS

In the event, I let Jamie go alone to the gaol to make arrangements for seeing Donner. He had assured me that this would be simpler without my presence, and I had several errands in Cross Creek. Besides the usual salt, sugar, pins, and other household goods needing replenishment, I urgently needed more cinchona bark for Lizzie. The gallberry ointment worked to treat malarial attacks, but was not nearly so effective as Jesuit bark in preventing them.

The British trade restrictions were having their effect, though. There was, of course, no tea to be found—I had expected that; there had been none for nearly a year—but neither was there any sugar, save at an exorbitant price, and steel pins were not to be found at all.

Salt, I could get. With a pound of this in my basket, I made my way up from the docks. The day was hot and humid; away from the slight breeze off the river, the air was motionless and thick as treacle. The salt had solidified in its burlap bags, and the merchant had had to chip off lumps of it with a chisel.

I wondered how Ian and Fergus were coming with their researches; I had a scheme in mind regarding the brothel and its inhabitants, but first, we had to find it.

I hadn’t mentioned the idea to Jamie. If anything came of it, that would be time enough. A side street offered shade, in the form of a number of large elms that had been planted so as to overhang the street. I stepped into the welcome shadow of one of these, and found myself at the edge of the fashionable district—about ten houses, all told—of Cross Creek. From where I stood, I could see Dr. Fentiman’s fairly modest abode, distinguished by a small hanging shingle decorated with a caduceus. The doctor was not in when I called, but his servant, a neat, plain young woman with badly crossed eyes, admitted me and showed me to the consulting room.

This was a surprisingly cool and pleasant room, with large windows and a worn canvas cloth on the floor, painted in blue and yellow chequers, and furnished with a desk, two comfortable chairs, and a chaise longue on which patients might recline for examination. He had a microscope standing on the desk, through which I peered with interest. It was a fine one, though not quite so good as my own, I thought with some complacency.

I was possessed of a strong curiosity about the rest of his equipment, and was debating with myself as to whether it would be an abuse of the doctor’s hospitality to snoop through his cupboards, when the doctor himself arrived, borne on the wings of brandywine.

He was humming a little tune to himself, and carrying his hat under one arm, his battered medical case in the crook of the other. Seeing me, he dropped these carelessly on the floor and hastened to grasp me by the hand, beaming. He bowed over my hand and pressed moistly fervent lips to my knuckles.

“Mrs. Fraser! My dear lady, I am so pleased to see you! You are in no physical distress, I trust?”

I was in some danger of being overwhelmed by the fumes of alcohol on his breath, but kept as cordial a countenance as possible, unobtrusively wiping my hand upon my gown, whilst assuring him that I was entirely well, as were all the members of my immediate family.

“Oh, splendid, splendid,” he said, plumping down quite suddenly upon a stool and giving me an enormous grin, revealing tobacco-stained molars. His oversize wig had slid round sideways, causing him to peer out from under it like a dormouse under a tea cozy, but he seemed not to have noticed. “Splendid, splendid, splendid.”

I took his rather vague wave as invitation and sat down, as well. I had brought a small present in order to sweeten the good doctor, and now removed this from my basket—though in all truth, I rather thought he was so well-marinated as to require little more attention before I broached the subject of my errand.

He was, however, thrilled with my gift—a gouged-out eyeball, which Young Ian had thoughtfully picked up for me following a fight in Yanceyville, hastily preserved in spirits of wine. Having heard something of Doctor Fentiman’s tastes, I thought he might appreciate it. He did, and went on saying, “Splendid!” at some length.

Eventually trailing off, he blinked, held the jar up to the light, and turned it round, viewing it with great admiration.

“Splendid,” he said once more. “It will have a most particularly honorable place in my collection, I do assure you, Mrs. Fraser!”

“You have a collection?” I said, affecting great interest. I’d heard about his collection.

“Oh, yes, oh, yes! Would you care to see it?”

There was no possibility of refusal; he was already up and staggering toward a door at the back of his study. This proved to lead into a large closet, the shelves of which held thirty or forty glass containers, filled with alcoholic spirits—and a number of objects which could indeed be described as “interesting.”

These ranged from the merely grotesque to the truly startling. One by one, he brought out a big toe sporting a wart the size and color of an edible mushroom, a preserved tongue which had been split—apparently during the owner’s lifetime, as the two halves were quite healed—a cat with six legs, a grossly malformed brain (“Removed from a hanged murderer,” as he proudly informed me. “I shouldn’t wonder,” I murmured in reply, thinking of Donner and wondering what his brain might look like), and several infants, presumably stillborn, and exhibiting assorted atrocious deformities.

“Now, this,” he said, lifting down a large glass cylinder in trembling hands, “is quite the prize of my collection. There is a most distinguished physician in Germany, a Herr Doktor Blumenbach, who has a world-renowned collection of skulls, and he has been pursuing me—nay, absolutely pestering me, I assure you!—in an effort to persuade me to part with it.”

“This” was the defleshed skulls and spinal column of a double-headed infant. It was, in fact, fascinating. It was also something that would cause any woman of childbearing age to swear off sex immediately.

Grisly as the doctor’s collection was, though, it offered me an excellent opportunity for approaching my true errand.

“That is truly amazing,” I said, leaning forward as though to examine the empty orbits of the floating skulls. They were separate and complete, I saw; it was the spinal cord that had divided, so that the skulls hung side by side in the fluid, ghostly white and leaning toward each other so that the rounded heads touched gently, as though sharing some secret, only separating when a movement of the jar caused them momentarily to float apart. “I wonder what causes such a phenomenon?”

“Oh, doubtless some dreadful shock to the mother,” Doctor Fentiman assured me. “Women in an expectant condition are fearfully vulnerable to any sort of excitement or distress, you know. They must be kept quite sequestered and confined, well away from any injurious influences.”

“I daresay,” I murmured. “But you know, some malformations—that one, for instance?—I believe are the result of syphilis in the mother.”

It was; I recognized the typical malformed jaw, the narrow skull, and the caved-in appearance of the nose. This child had been preserved with flesh intact, and lay curled placidly in its bottle. By the size and lack of hair, it had likely been premature; I hoped for its own sake that it had not been born alive.

“Shiphi—syphilis,” the doctor repeated, swaying a little. “Oh, yes. Yes, yes. I got that particular little creature from a, um …” It occurred to him belatedly that syphilis was perhaps not a topic suitable to discuss with a lady. Murderer’s brains and two-headed children, yes, but not venereal disease. There was a jar in the closet that I was reasonably sure contained the scrotum of a Negro male who had suffered from elephantiasis; I noticed he hadn’t shown me that one.

“From a prostitute?” I inquired sympathetically. “Yes, I suppose such misfortunes must be common among such women.”

To my annoyance, he slithered away from the desired topic.

“No, no. In fact—” He darted a look over his shoulder, as though fearing to be overheard, then leaned near me and whispered hoarsely, “I received that specimen from a colleague in London, some years ago. It is reputed to be the child of a foreign nobleman!”

“Oh, dear,” I said, taken aback. “How … interesting.”

At this rather inconvenient point, the servant came in with tea—or rather, with a revolting concoction of roasted acorns and chamomile, stewed in water—and the conversation turned ineluctably toward social trivia. I was afraid that the tea might sober him up before I could inveigle him back in the right direction, but luckily the tea tray also included a decanter of fine claret, which I dispensed liberally.

I had a fresh try at drawing him back into medical subjects, by leaning over to admire the jars left out on his desk. The one nearest me contained the hand of a person who had had such an advanced case of Dupuytren’s contracture as to render the appendage little more than a knot of constricted fingers. I wished Tom Christie could see it. He had avoided me since his surgery, but so far as I knew, his hand was still functional.

“Isn’t it remarkable, the variety of conditions that the human body displays?” I said.

He shook his head. He had discovered the state of his wig and turned it round; his wizened countenance beneath it looked like that of a solemn chimpanzee—bar the flush of broken capillaries that lit his nose like a beacon.

“Remarkable,” he echoed. “And yet, what is quite as remarkable is the resilience a body may show in the face of quite terrible injury.”

That was true, but it wasn’t at all the line I wished to work upon.

“Yes, quite. But—”

“I am very sorry not to be able to show you one specimen—it would have been a notable addition to my collection, I assure you! But alas, the gentleman insisted upon taking it with him.”

“He—what?” Well, after all, I had in my time presented various children with their appendixes or tonsils in a bottle, following surgery. I supposed it wasn’t entirely unreasonable for someone to wish to retain an amputated limb.

“Yes, most astonishing.” He took a meditative sip of claret. “A testicle, it was—I trust you will pardon my mentioning it,” he added belatedly. He hesitated for an instant, but in the end, simply couldn’t resist describing the occurrence. “The gentleman had suffered a wound to the scrotum, a most unfortunate accident.”

“Most,” I said, feeling a sudden tingle at the base of my spine. Was this Jocasta’s mysterious visitor? I had been keeping off the claret, in the interests of a clear head, but now poured a tot, feeling it needed. “Did he say how this unfortunate incident transpired?”

“Oh, yes. A hunting accident, he said. But they all say that, don’t they?” He twinkled at me, the end of his nose bright red. “I expect it was a duello. The work of a jealous rival, perhaps!”

“Perhaps.” A duello? I thought. But most duels of the time were fought with pistols, not swords. It really was good claret, and I felt a little steadier. “You—er—removed the testicle?” He must have, if he had been contemplating adding it to his ghastly collection.

“Yes,” he said, and was not too far gone to give a small sympathetic shudder at the memory. “The gun-shot had been seriously neglected; he said it had occurred some days previous. I was obliged to remove the injured testicle, but fortunately preserved the other.”

“I’m sure he was pleased about that.” Gun-shot? Surely not, I was thinking. It can’t be … and yet … “Did this happen quite recently?”

“Mmm, no.” He tilted back in his chair, eyes crossing slightly with the effort of recall. “It was in the spring, two years ago—May? Perhaps May.”

“Was the gentleman named Bonnet, by chance?” I was surprised that my voice sounded quite casual. “I believe I had heard that a Stephen Bonnet was involved in some such … accident.”

“Well, you know, he would not give his name. Often patients will not, if the injury is one that might cause public embarrassment. I do not insist in such cases.”

“But you do remember him.” I found that I was sitting on the edge of my chair, claret cup clenched in my fist. With a little effort, I set it down.

“Mm-hmm.” Damn, he was getting sleepy; I could see his lids begin to droop. “A tall gentleman, well-dressed. He had a … a most beautiful horse.…”

“A bit more tea, Doctor Fentiman?” I urged a fresh cup upon him, willing him to stay awake. “Do tell me more about it. The surgery must have been quite delicate?”

In fact, men never like to hear that the removal of testicles is a simple matter, but it is. Though I would admit that the fact of the patient’s being conscious during the whole procedure had likely added to the difficulty.

Fentiman regained a bit of his animation, telling me about it.

“… and the ball had gone straight through the testicle; it had left the most perfect hole.… You could look quite through it, I assure you.” Plainly he regretted the loss of this interesting specimen, and it was with some difficulty that I got him to tell me what had become of the gentleman to whom it belonged.

“Well, that was odd. It was the horse, you see …” he said vaguely. “Lovely animal … long hair, like a woman’s, so unusual …”

A Friesian horse. The doctor had recalled that the planter Phillip Wylie was fond of such horses, and had said as much to his patient, suggesting that as the man had no money—and would not be capable of riding comfortably for some time, in any case—he might think of selling his animal to Wylie. The man had agreed to this, and had requested the doctor to make inquiry of Wylie, who was in town for the Court Sessions.

Doctor Fentiman had obligingly gone out to do so, leaving his patient cozily tucked up on the chaise with a draught of tincture of laudanum.

Phillip Wylie had professed himself most interested in the horse (“Yes, I’ll wager he was,” I said, but the doctor didn’t notice), and had hastened round to see it. The horse was present, but the patient was not, having absconded on foot in the doctor’s absence—taking with him half a dozen silver spoons, an enameled snuffbox, the bottle of laudanum, and six shillings, which happened to be all the money the doctor had in the house.

“I cannot imagine how he managed it,” Fentiman said, eyes quite round at the thought. “In such condition!” To his credit, he appeared more distressed at the notion of his patient’s condition than his own loss. He was a terrible drunkard, Fentiman, I thought; I’d never seen him completely sober—but not a bad doctor.

“Still,” he added philosophically, “all’s well as ends well, is it not, my dear lady?”

By which he meant that Phillip Wylie had purchased the horse from him for a price sufficient to more than compensate for his losses, and leave him with a tidy profit.

“Quite,” I said, wondering just how Jamie would take this news. He had won the stallion—for it must of course be Lucas—from Phillip Wylie in the course of an acrimonious card game at River Run, only to have the horse stolen by Stephen Bonnet a few hours later.

On the whole, I expected that Jamie would be pleased that the stallion was back in good hands, even if they weren’t his. As for the news about Bonnet … “A bad penny always turns up,” had been his cynical opinion, expressed when Bonnet’s body had failed to be discovered after Brianna had shot him.

Fentiman was openly yawning by now. He blinked, eyes watering, patted about his person in search of a handkerchief, then bent to rummage in his case, which he had dropped on the floor near his chair.

I had pulled out my own handkerchief and leaned across to hand it to him, when I saw them in the open case.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing. I could see what they were, of course; what I wanted to know was where he’d got them. They were syringes, two of them, lovely little syringes, made of brass. Each one was composed of two bits: a plunger with curled handles, and a cylindrical barrel, drawn out at the narrowed end into a very long, blunt-tipped needle.

“I—why—that is … ah …” He was terribly taken aback, and stammered like a schoolboy caught sneaking cigarettes behind the toilets. Then something occurred to him, and he relaxed.

“Ears,” he declared, in ringing tones. “For cleansing ears. Yes, that is what they are, indubitably. Ear clysters!”

“Oh, are they really?” I picked one up; he tried to stop me, but his reflexes were delayed, and he succeeded only in grabbing at the ruffle of my sleeve.

“How ingenious,” I said, working the plunger. It was a little stiff, but not bad at all—particularly not when the alternative was a makeshift hypodermic composed of a leather tube with a rattlesnake’s fang attached. Of course a blunt tip wouldn’t do, but it would be a simple matter to cut it to a sharp angle. “Where did you get them? I should like very much to order one myself.”

He stared at me in abject horror, jaw agape.

“I—er—I really do not think …” he protested feebly. Just then, in a perfect miracle of bad timing, his housemaid appeared in the doorway.

“Mr. Brennan’s come; it’s his wife’s time,” she said briefly.

“Oh!” Doctor Fentiman leapt to his feet, slammed shut his case, and snatched it up.

“My apologies, dear Mrs. Fraser … must go … matter of great urgency—so pleasant to have seen you!” He rushed out, case clutched to his bosom, stepping on his hat in his haste.

The maid picked up the crushed chapeau with an air of resignation, and punched it indifferently back into shape.

“Will you be wanting to leave now, ma’am?” she inquired, with an intonation making it clear that I ought to be leaving, whether I wanted to or not.

“I will,” I said, rising. “But tell me”—I held out the brass syringe on the palm of my hand—“do you know what this is, and where Doctor Fentiman got it?”

It was difficult to tell in which direction she was looking, but she bent her head as though to examine it, with no more interest than had it been a two-day old smelt offered her for sale in the market.

“Oh, that. Aye, ma’am, it’s a penis syringe. I b’lieve he had it sent him from Philadelphia.”

“A, um, penis syringe. I see,” I said, blinking a little.

“Yes, ma’am. It’s for treating of the drip, or the clap. The doctor does a deal of business for the men what goes to Mrs. Silvie’s.”

I took a deep breath.

“Mrs. Silvie’s. Ah. And would you know where Mrs. Silvie’s … establishment is?”

“Behind Silas Jameson’s ordinary,” she replied, giving me for the first time a faintly curious look, as though wondering what sort of blockhead didn’t know that. “Will you be needing anything else, ma’am?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “That will do nicely, thank you!” I made to hand her back the penis syringe, but then was struck by impulse. The doctor had two, after all.

“Give you a shilling for it,” I said, meeting the eye that seemed most likely to be pointed in my direction.

“Done,” she said promptly. She paused for a moment, then added, “If you’re going to use it on your man, best be sure he’s dead drunk first.”

My primary mission was thus accomplished, but now I had a new possibility to explore, before mounting an assault on Mrs. Silvie’s house of ill-repute.

I had planned to visit a glassmaker and attempt to explain by means of drawings how to make the barrel and plunger for a hypodermic syringe, leaving up to Bree the problem of making a hollow needle and attaching it. Unfortunately, while the single glassblower operating in Cross Creek was capable of producing any manner of everyday bottles, jugs, and cups, a glance at his stock had made it obvious that my requirements were well beyond his capabilities.

But now I needn’t worry about that! While metal syringes lacked some desirable qualities of glass, they also had an undeniable advantage, insofar as they wouldn’t break—and while a disposable needle was nice, I could simply sterilize the entire item after each use.

Doctor Fentiman’s syringes had very thick, blunt-tipped needle ends. It would be necessary to heat them, and draw the tips out much further in order to narrow them. But any idiot with a forge could do that, I thought. Then to cut the brass tip at an angle and file the point smooth enough to puncture skin cleanly … child’s play, I thought blithely, and narrowly refrained from skipping down the sandy walk. Now, all I required was a good stock of cinchona bark.

My hopes of obtaining the bark were dashed, though, as soon as I turned into the main street and glimpsed Mr. Bogues’s apothecary’s shop. The door stood open, letting in flies, and the usually immaculate stoop was marred with such a multitude of muddy footprints as to suggest that some hostile army had descended upon the shop.

The impression of sacking and looting was furthered by the scene inside; most of the shelves were empty, scattered with remnants of dried leaf and broken pottery. The Bogueses’ ten-year-old daughter, Miranda, stood mournful watch over a small collection of jars and bottles and an empty tortoiseshell.

“Miranda!” I said. “Whatever has happened?”

She brightened at sight of me, small pink mouth momentarily reversing its downward droop.

“Mrs. Fraser! D’you want some horehound? We’ve nearly a pound of that left—and it’s cheap, only three farthings the ounce.”

“I’ll have an ounce,” I said, though in fact I had plenty growing in my own garden. “Where are your parents?”

The mouth went down again, and the lower lip quivered.

“Mama’s in the back, packing. And Papa’s gone to sell Jack to Mr. Raintree.”

Jack was the apothecary’s wagon horse, and Miranda’s particular pet. I bit the inside of my lip.

“Mr. Raintree’s a very kind man,” I said, striving for what comfort there might be. “And he has a nice pasture for his horses, and a warm stable; I think Jack might be happy there. He’ll have friends.”

She nodded, mouth pinched tight, but two fat tears escaped to roll down her cheeks.

With a quick glance behind me, to assure that no one was coming in, I stepped round the counter, sat down on an upturned keg, and drew her onto my lap, where she melted at once, clinging to me and crying, though making an obvious effort not to be heard in the living quarters behind the shop.

I patted her and made small soothing noises, feeling an unease beyond mere sympathy for the girl. Clearly the Bogueses were selling up. Why?

So infrequently as I came down the mountain, I had no idea what Ralston Bogues’s politics might be these days. Not being Scottish, he hadn’t come to the barbecue in Flora MacDonald’s honor. The shop had always been prosperous, though, and the family decently off, judging by the children’s clothes—Miranda and her two little brothers always had shoes. The Bogueses had lived here all of Miranda’s life, at least, and likely longer. For them to be leaving in this manner meant that something serious had happened—or was about to.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked Miranda, who was now sitting on my knee, sniffing and wiping her face on my apron. “Perhaps Mr. Raintree can write to you, to tell you how Jack is faring.”

She looked a little more hopeful at that.

“Can he send a letter to England, do you think? It’s a terrible long way.”

England? It was serious.

“Oh, I should think so,” I said, tucking wisps of hair back under her cap. “Mr. Fraser writes a letter every night, to his sister in Scotland—and that’s much further away even than England!”

“Oh. Well.” Looking happier, she scrambled off my lap and smoothed down her dress. “Can I write to Jack, do you think?”

“I’m sure Mr. Raintree will read the letter to him if you do,” I assured her. “Can you write well, then?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” she said earnestly. “Papa says I read and write better than he ever did when he was my age. And in Latin. He taught me to read all the names of the simples, so I could fetch him what he wanted—see that one?” She pointed with some pride to a large china apothecary’s jar, elegantly decorated with blue and gold scrolls. “Electuary Limonensis. And that one is Ipecacuanha!”

I admired her prowess, thinking that at least I now knew her father’s politics. The Bogueses must be Loyalists, if they were returning to England. I would be sorry to see them go, but knowing what I knew of the immediate future, I was glad that they would be safe. At least Ralston would likely have got a decent price for his shop; a short time hence, Loyalists would have their property confiscated, and be lucky to escape arrest—or worse.

“Randy? Have you seen Georgie’s shoe? I’ve found one under the chest, but—oh, Mrs. Fraser! Your pardon, ma’am, I didn’t know anyone was here.” Melanie Bogues’s sharp glance took in my position behind the counter, her daughter’s pink-rimmed eyes, and the damp spots on my apron, but she said nothing, merely patting Miranda’s shoulder as she passed.

“Miranda tells me you’re leaving for England,” I said, rising and moving unobtrusively out from behind the counter. “We’ll be sorry to see you go.”

“That’s kind of you, Mrs. Fraser.” She smiled unhappily. “We’re sorry to go, as well. And I’m not looking forward to the voyage, I can tell you!” She spoke with the heartfelt emotion of someone who had made such a voyage before and would strongly prefer to be boiled alive before doing it again.

I sympathized very much, having done it myself. Doing it with three children, two of them boys under five … the imagination boggled.

I wanted to ask her what had caused them to make such a drastic decision, but couldn’t think how to broach the matter in front of Miranda. Something had happened; that was clear. Melanie was jumpy as a rabbit, and somewhat more harried than even packing up a household containing three children might account for. She kept darting glances over her shoulder, as though fearing something sneaking up on her.

“Is Mr. Bogues—” I began, but was interrupted by a shadow falling across the stoop. Melanie started, hand to her chest, and I whirled round to see who had come.

The doorway was filled by a short, stocky woman, dressed in a very odd combination of garments. For an instant, I thought she was an Indian, for she wore no cap, and her dark hair was braided—but then she came into the shop, and I saw that she was white. Or rather, pink; her heavy face was flushed with sunburn and the tip of her pug nose was bright red.

“Which one of you is Claire Fraser?” she demanded, looking from me to Melanie Bogues.

“I am,” I said, repressing an instinctive urge to take a step backward. Her manner wasn’t threatening, but she radiated such an air of physical power that I found her rather intimidating. “Who are you?” I spoke from astonishment, rather than rudeness, and she did not seem offended.

“Jezebel Hatfield Morton,” she said, squinting intently at me. “Some geezer at the docks tellt me that you was headin’ here.” In marked contrast to Melanie Bogue’s soft English accent, she had the rough speech I associated with people who had been in the backcountry for three or four generations, speaking to no one in the meantime save raccoons, possums, and one another.

“Er … yes,” I said, seeing no point in denying it. “Did you need help of some kind?”

She didn’t look it; had she been any healthier, she would have burst the seams of the man’s shirt she was wearing. Melanie and Miranda were staring at her, wide-eyed. Whatever danger Melanie had been afraid of, it wasn’t Miss Morton.

“Not to say help,” she said, moving further into the shop. She tilted her head to one side, examining me with what looked like fascination. “I was thinkin’ you might know where’bouts that skunk Isaiah Morton be, though.”

My mouth dropped open, and I shut it quickly. Not Miss Morton, then—Mrs. Morton. The first Mrs. Isaiah Morton, that is. Isaiah Morton had fought with Jamie’s militia company in the War of the Regulation, and he had mentioned his first wife—breaking out in a cold sweat as he did so.

“I … ah … believe he’s working somewhere upcountry,” I said. “Guilford? Or was it Paleyville?”

Actually, it was Hillsboro, but that scarcely mattered, since at the moment, he wasn’t in Hillsboro. He was, in fact, in Cross Creek, come to take delivery of a shipment of barrels for his employer, a brewster. I’d seen him at the cooper’s shop barely an hour earlier, in company with the second Mrs. Morton and their infant daughter. Jezebel Hatfield Morton did not look like the sort of person to be civilized about such things.

She made a low noise in her throat, indicative of disgust.

“He’s a dang slippery little weasel. But I’ll kotch up to him yet, don’t you trouble none about that.” She spoke with a casual assurance that boded ill for Isaiah.

I thought silence was the wiser course, but couldn’t stop myself asking, “Why do you want him?” Isaiah possessed a certain uncouth amiability, but viewed objectively, he scarcely seemed the sort to inflame one woman, let alone two.

“Want him?” She looked amused at the thought, and rubbed a solid fist under her reddened nose. “I don’t want him. But ain’t no man runs out on me for some whey-faced trollop. Once I kotch up to him, I mean to stave his head in and nail his fly-bit hide to my door.”

Spoken by another person, this statement might have passed for rhetoric. As spoken by the lady in question, it was an unequivocal declaration of intent. Miranda’s eyes were round as a frog’s, and her mother’s nearly so.

Jezebel H. Morton squinted at me, and scratched thoughtfully beneath one massive breast, leaving the fabric of her shirt pasted damply to her flesh.

“I heerd tell as how you saved the little toad-sucker’s life at Alamance. That true?”

“Er … yes.” I eyed her warily, watching for any offensive movement. She was blocking the door; if she made for me, I would dive across the counter and dash through the door into the Bogueses’ living quarters.

She was wearing a large pig-sticker of a knife, unsheathed. This was thrust through a knotted wampum belt that was doing double duty, holding up a kilted mass of what I thought might originally have been red flannel petticoats, hacked off at the knee. Her very solid legs were bare, as were her feet. She had a pistol and powder horn slung from the belt, as well, but made no move to reach for any of her weapons, thank God.

“Too bad,” she said dispassionately. “But then, if he’d died, I’d not have the fun of killin’ him, so I s’pose it’s as well. Don’t worry me none; if’n I don’t find him, one of my brothers will.”

Business apparently disposed of for the moment, she relaxed a bit, and looked around, noticing for the first time the empty shelves.

“What-all’s goin’ on here?” she demanded, looking interested.

“We’re selling up,” Melanie murmured, attempting to shove Miranda safely behind her. “Going to England.”

“That so?” Jezebel looked mildly interested. “What happened? They kill your man? Or tar and feather him?”

Melanie went white.

“No,” she whispered. Her throat moved as she swallowed, and her frightened gaze went toward the door. So that was the threat. I felt suddenly cold, in spite of the sweltering heat.

“Oh? Well, if you care whether they do, maybe you best move on down to Center Street,” she suggested helpfully. “They’re fixin’ to make roast chicken out of somebody, sure as God made little green apples. You can smell hot tar all over town, and they’s a boiling of folks comin’ forth from the taverns.”

Melanie and Miranda uttered twin shrieks, and ran for the door, shoving past the unflappable Jezebel. I was moving rapidly in the same direction, and narrowly avoided a collision, as Ralston Bogues stepped through the door, just in time to catch his hysterical wife.

“Randy, you go mind your brothers,” he said calmly. “Be still, Mellie, it’s all right.”

“Tar,” she panted, clutching him. “She said—she said—”

“Not me,” he said, and I saw that his hair dripped and his face shone pale through its sweat. “They’re not after me. Not yet. It’s the printer.”

Gently, he disengaged his wife’s hands from his arm, and stepped round the counter, casting a brief glance of curiosity at Jezebel.

“Take the children, go to Ferguson’s,” he said, and pulled a fowling piece from its hiding place beneath the counter. “I’ll come so soon as I may.” He reached into a drawer for the powder horn and cartridge box.

“Ralston!” Melanie spoke in a whisper, glancing after Miranda’s retreating back, but the entreaty was no less urgent for its lack of volume. “Where are you going?”

One side of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t reply.

“Go to Ferguson’s,” he repeated, eyes fixed on the cartridge in his hand.

“No! No, don’t go! Come with us, come with me!” She seized his arm, frantic.

He shook her off, and went doggedly about the business of loading the gun.

“Go, Mellie.”

“I will not!” Urgent, she turned to me. “Mrs. Fraser, tell him! Please, tell him it’s a waste—a terrible waste! He mustn’t go.”

I opened my mouth, unsure what to say to either of them, but had no chance to decide.

“I don’t imagine Mistress Fraser will think it a waste, Mellie,” Ralston Bogues said, eyes still on his hands. He slung the strap of the cartridge box over his shoulder and cocked the gun. “Her husband is holding them off right now—by himself.”

He looked up at me then, nodded once, and was gone.

Jezebel was right: you could smell tar all over town. This was by no means unusual in the summertime, especially near the warehouse docks, but the hot thick reek now took on an atmosphere of threat, burning in my nostrils. Tar—and fear—aside, I was gasping from the effort to keep up with Ralston Bogues, who was not precisely running, but was moving as fast as it was possible to go without breaking into a lope.

Jezebel had been right about the people boiling out of taverns, too; the corner of Center Street was choked with an excited crowd. Mostly men, I saw, though there were a few women of the coarser type among them, fishwives and bond servants.

The apothecary hesitated when he saw them. A few faces turned toward him; one or two plucked at their neighbors’ sleeves, pointing—and with not very friendly expressions on their faces.

“Get away, Bogues!” one man yelled. “It’s not your business—not yet!”

Another stooped, picked up a stone, and hurled it. It clacked harmlessly on the wooden walk, a few feet short of Bogues, but it drew more attention. Bits of the crowd were beginning to turn, surging slowly in our direction.

“Papa!” said a small, breathless voice behind me. I turned to see Miranda, cap lost and pigtails unraveling down her back, her face the color of beetroot from running.

There wasn’t time to think about it. I picked her up and swung her off her feet, toward her father. Taken off guard, he dropped the gun and caught her under the arms.

A man lunged forward, reaching for the gun, but I swooped down and got it first. I backed away from him, clutching it to my chest, daring him with my eyes.

I didn’t know him, but he knew me; his eyes flicked over me, hesitating, then he glanced back over his shoulder. I could hear Jamie’s voice, and a lot of others, all trying to shout each other down. The breath was still whistling in my chest; I couldn’t make out any words. The tone of it was argument, though; confrontation, not bloodshed. The man wavered, glanced at me, away—then turned and shoved his way back into the gathering crowd.

Bogues had had the sense to keep hold of his daughter, who had her arms wrapped tightly round his neck, face buried in his shirt. He darted his eyes at me, and made a small gesture, as though to take back the gun. I shook my head and held it tighter. The stock was warm and slick in my hands.

“Take Miranda home,” I said. “I’ll—do something.”

It was loaded and primed. One shot. The best I could do with that was to create a momentary distraction—but that might help.

I pushed my way through the crowd, the gun pointed carefully down not to spill the powder, half-hidden in my skirts. The smell of tar was suddenly much stronger. A cauldron of the stuff lay overturned in front of the printer’s shop, a black sticky puddle smoking and reeking in the sun.

Glowing embers and blackened chunks of charcoal were scattered across the street, under everyone’s feet; a solid citizen whom I recognized as Mr. Townsend was kicking the bejesus out of a hastily built fire, thwarting the attempts of a couple of young men to rebuild it.

I looked for Jamie and found him precisely where Ralston Bogues had said he was—in front of the door to the printer’s shop, clutching a tar-smeared broom and with the light of battle in his eye.

“That your man?” Jezebel Morton had caught up, and was peering interestedly over my shoulder. “Big ’un, ain’t he?”

Tar was spattered all over the front of the shop—and Jamie. A large glob was stuck in his hair, and I could see the flesh of his arm reddened where a long string of hot tar had struck. Despite this, he was grinning. Two more tar-daubed brooms lay on the ground nearby, one broken—almost certainly over someone’s head. At least for the moment, he was having fun.

I didn’t at once see the printer, Fogarty Simms. Then a frightened face showed briefly at the window, but ducked out of sight as a rock flung from the crowd crashed into the window frame, cracking the glass.

“Come out, Simms, you slinkin’ coward!” bellowed a man nearby. “Or shall we smoke you out?”

“Smoke him! Smoke him!” Enthusiastic shouts came from the crowd, and a young man near me bent, scrabbling after a burning brand scattered from the fire. I stamped viciously on his hand as he grasped it.

“Jesus God!” He let go and fell to his knees, clutching his hand between his thighs, open-mouthed and gasping with pain. “Oh, oh, Jesus!”

I edged away, shouldering my way through the press. Could I get near enough to give Jamie the gun? Or would that make matters worse?

“Get away from the door, Fraser! We’ve no quarrel with you!”

I recognized that cultivated voice; it was Neil Forbes, the lawyer. He wasn’t dressed in his usual natty suiting, though; he wore rough homespun. So it wasn’t an impromptu attack—he’d come prepared for dirty work.

“Hey! You speak for yourself, Forbes! I’ve a quarrel with him!” That was a burly man in a butcher’s apron, red-faced and indignant, sporting a swollen and empurpled eye. “Look what he did to me!” He waved a meaty hand at the eye, then at the front of his clothing, where a tar-clotted broom had quite evidently caught him square in the chest. He shook a massive fist at Jamie. “You’ll pay for this, Fraser!”

“Aye, but I’ll pay ye in the same coin, Buchan!” Jamie feinted, broom held like a lance. Buchan yelped and skittered backward, face comically alarmed, and the crowd burst into laughter.

“Come back, man! Ye want to play savage, ye’ll need a bit more paint!” Buchan had turned to flee, but was blocked by the crowd. Jamie lunged with the broom, smudging him neatly on the seat of his breeches. Buchan leaped in panic at the jab, causing more laughter and hoots of derision as he shoved and stumbled out of range.

“The rest of ye want to play savage, too, do ye?” Jamie shouted. He swiped his broom through the steaming puddle and swung it hard in a wide arc before him. Droplets of hot tar flew through the air, and men yelled and pushed to get out of the way, stepping on each other and knocking each other down.

I was shoved to one side and fetched up hard against a barrel standing in the street. I would have fallen, save for Jezebel, who caught me by the arm and hauled me up, with no apparent effort.

“Yon feller’s right rumbustious,” she said with approval, eyes fixed on Jamie. “I could admire me a man like that!”

“Yes,” I said, nursing a bruised elbow. “So could I. Sometimes.”

Such sentiments appeared not to be universal.

“Give him up, Fraser, or wear feathers with him! Frigging Tories!”

The shout came from behind me, and I turned to see that the speaker had come prepared; he clutched a feather pillow in one hand, the end of it already ripped open, so that down feathers flew in spurts with each gesture.

“Tar and feather ’em all!”

I turned again at the shout from above, and looked up in time to see a young man fling wide the shutters in the upper story of the house on the other side of the street. He was trying to stuff a feather bed through the window but was being substantially impeded in this endeavor by the housewife whose property it was. This lady had leaped on his back and was beating him about the head with a spurtle, uttering shrieks of condemnation.

A young man near me started clucking like a chicken, flapping his elbows—to the intense amusement of his friends, who all began to do it, too, drowning out any attempts at reason—not that there was much of that.

A chant started up at the far side of the street.

“Tory, Tory, Tory!”

The tenor of the situation was changing, and not for the better. I half-lifted the fowling piece, unsure what to do, but knowing that I must do something. Another moment, and they’d rush him.

“Give me the gun, Auntie,” said a soft voice at my shoulder, and I whirled round to find Young Ian there, breathing hard. I gave it to him without the slightest hesitation.

“Reste d’retour!” Jamie shouted in French. “Oui, le tout! Stay back, all of you!” He might have been shouting at the crowd, but he was looking at Ian.

What the devil did he—then I caught sight of Fergus, elbowing viciously to keep his place near the front of the crowd. Young Ian, who had been about to raise the gun, hesitated, holding it close.

“He’s right, stay back!” I said urgently. “Don’t fire, not yet.” I saw now that a hasty shot might do more harm than good. Look at Bobby Higgins and the Boston Massacre. I didn’t want any massacres taking place in Cross Creek—particularly not with Jamie at the center of them.

“I won’t—but I’m no going to let them take him, either,” Ian muttered. “If they go for him—” He broke off, but his jaw was set, and I could smell the sharp scent of his sweat, even above the reek of tar.

A momentary distraction had intervened, thank God. Yells from above made half the crowd turn to see what was happening.

Another man—evidently the householder—had popped up in the window above, jerking the first man back and punching him. Then the struggling pair disappeared from view, and within a few seconds, the sounds of altercation ceased and the woman’s shrieks died away, leaving the feather bed hanging in limp anticlimax, half in and half out of the window.

The chant of “Tory Tory Tory!” had died out during the fascination with the conflict overhead, but was now starting up again, punctuated by bellows for the printer to come out and give himself up.

“Come out, Simms!” Forbes bellowed. I saw that he had equipped himself with a fresh broom, and was edging closer to the print shop’s door. Jamie saw him, too, and I saw his mouth twist with derision.

Silas Jameson, the proprietor of a local ordinary, was behind Forbes, crouched like a wrestler, his broad face wreathed in a vicious grin.

“Come out, Simms!” he echoed. “What kind of man takes shelter beneath a Scotsman’s skirts, eh?”

Jameson’s voice was loud enough that everyone heard that, and most laughed—including Jamie.

“A wise one!” Jamie shouted back, and shook the end of his plaid at Jameson. “This tartan’s sheltered many a poor lad in its time!”

“And many a lassie, too, I’ll wager!” shouted some ribald soul in the crowd.

“What, d’ye think I’ve your wife under my plaid?” Jamie was breathing hard, shirt and hair pasted to him with sweat, but still grinning as he seized the hem of his kilt. “Ye want to come and have a look for her, then?”

“Is there room under there for me, too?” called one of the fishwives promptly.

Laughter rolled through the crowd. Fickle as any mob, their mood was changing back from threat to entertainment. I took a deep, trembling breath, feeling sweat roll down between my breasts. He was managing them, but he was walking a razor’s edge.

If he’d made up his mind to protect Simms—and he had—then no power on earth would make him give the printer up. If the mob wanted Simms—and they did—they’d have to go through Jamie. And they would, I thought, any minute.

“Come out, Simms!” yelled a voice from the Scottish Lowlands. “Ye canny be hidin’ up Fraser’s backside all day!”

“Better a printer up my arse than a lawyer!” Jamie shouted back, waving his broom at Forbes in illustration. “They’re smaller, aye?”

That made them roar; Forbes was a beefily substantial sort, while Fogarty Simms was a pinched starveling of a man. Forbes went very red in the face, and I saw sly looks being cast in his direction. Forbes was in his forties, never married, and there was talk …

“I wouldna have a lawyer up my backside at all,” Jamie was shouting happily, poking at Forbes with his broom. “He’d steal your shite and charge ye for a clyster!”

Forbes’s mouth opened, and his face went purple. He backed up a step, and seemed to be shouting back, but no one could hear his response, drowned as it was by the roar of laughter from the crowd.

“And then he’d sell it back to ye for night soil!” Jamie bellowed, the instant he could be heard. Neatly reversing his broom, he jabbed Forbes in the belly with the handle.

The crowd whooped in glee, and Forbes, no kind of a fighter, lost his head and charged Jamie, his own broom held like a shovel. Jamie, who had quite obviously been waiting for some such injudicious move, stepped aside like a dancer, tripped Forbes, and smacked him across the shoulders with the tar-smeared broom, sending him sprawling into the cooling tar puddle, to the raucous delight of the whole street.

“Here, Auntie, hold this!” The fowling piece was thrust suddenly back into my hands.

“What?” Completely taken aback, I whirled round to see Ian moving fast behind the crowd, beckoning to Fergus. In seconds, unnoticed by the crowd—whose attention was riveted on the fallen Forbes—they had reached the house where the feather bed hung from the window.

Ian stooped and cupped his hands; as though they had rehearsed it for years, Fergus stepped into this improvised stirrup and launched himself upward, swiping at the feather bed with his hook. It caught; he dangled for a moment, grabbing frantically with his sound hand at the hook, to keep it from coming off.

Ian sprang upward and seized Fergus round the waist, yanking downward. Then the fabric of the bed gave way under their combined weight, Fergus and Ian tumbled to the ground, and a perfect cascade of goose feathers poured out on top of them, only to be caught at once by the thick, damp air and whirled up into a delirious snowstorm that filled the street and plastered the surprised mob with clumps of sticky down.

The air seemed filled with feathers; they were everywhere, tickling eyes and nose and throat, sticking to hair and clothes and lashes. I wiped a bit of down from a watering eye and stepped hastily back, away from the half-blind people staggering near me, yelling and bumping into one another.

I had been watching Fergus and Ian, but when the featherstorm struck, I—unlike everyone else in the street—looked back at the print shop, in time to see Jamie reach through the door, seize Fogarty Simms by the arm, and snatch him out of the shop like a winkle on a pin.

Jamie gave Simms a shove that sent him staggering, then whirled back to snatch up his broom and cover the printer’s escape. Ralston Bogues, who had been lurking in the shadow of a tree, popped out, a club in his hand, and ran after Simms to protect him, glancing back and brandishing the club to discourage pursuers.

This action had not gone totally unnoticed; though most of the men were distracted, batting and clawing at the bewildering cloud of feathers that surrounded them, a few had seen what was going on, and raised a halloo, yelping like hounds as they tried to push through the crowd in pursuit of the fleeing printer.

If ever there was a moment … I’d shoot above their heads and they’d duck, giving Simms time to get away. I raised the gun with decision, reaching for the trigger.

The fowling piece was snatched from my grasp so deftly that I didn’t realize for an instant that it was gone, but stood staring in disbelief at my empty hands. Then a bellow came from behind me, loud enough to stun everyone nearby into silence.

“Isaiah Morton! You gonna die, boy!”

The fowling piece went off by my ear with a deafening bwoom! and a cloud of soot that blinded me. Choking and coughing, I scrubbed at my face with my apron, recovering sight in time to see the short, pudgy figure of Isaiah Morton a block away, running as fast as his legs would carry him. Jezebel Hatfield Morton was after him in an instant, ruthlessly flattening anyone in her way. She leapt nimbly over a besmeared and befeathered Forbes, who was still on his hands and knees, looking dazed, then pushed through the remnants of the mob and hared down the street, short flannel petticoats flying, moving at a surprising rate of speed for someone of her build. Morton careened round a corner and disappeared, implacable Fury close on his tail.

I felt a trifle dazed myself. My ears were still ringing, but I looked up at a touch on my arm.

Jamie was squinting down at me, one eye closed, as though unsure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. He was saying something I couldn’t make out, but the gestures he was making toward my face—coupled with a telltale twitching of the corner of his mouth—made his probable meaning quite clear.

“Ha,” I said coldly, my own voice sounding tinny and far off. I swiped at my face again with the apron. “You should talk!”

He looked like a piebald snowman, with black splotches of tar on his shirt, and clumps of white goose down clinging to his brows, his hair, and the stubble of his beard. He said something else, but I couldn’t hear him clearly. I shook my head and twisted a finger in my ear, indicating temporary deafness.

He smiled, took me by the shoulders, and leaned his head forward until his forehead met mine with a small thunk! I could feel him trembling slightly, but wasn’t sure whether it was laughter or exhaustion. Then he straightened up, kissed my forehead, and took me by the arm.

Neil Forbes sat in the middle of the street, legs splayed and careful hair disheveled. He was black with tar from the shoulder to the knee on one side. He’d lost a shoe, and helpful parties were trying to pick the feathers off him. Jamie led me in a wide circle round him, nodding pleasantly as we passed.

Forbes looked up, glowering, and said something muffled, heavy face twisting in dislike. On the whole, I thought it was just as well I couldn’t hear him.

Ian and Fergus had gone off with the majority of the rioters, no doubt to commit mayhem elsewhere. Jamie and I retired to the Sycamore, an inn on River Street, to seek refreshment and make repairs. Jamie’s hilarity gradually subsided as I picked tar and feathers off him, but was significantly quenched by hearing an account of my visit to Dr. Fentiman.

“Ye do what with it?” Jamie had flinched slightly during my recounting of the tale of Stephen Bonnet’s testicle. When I reached a description of the penis syringes, he crossed his legs involuntarily.

“Well, you work the needlelike bit down in, of course, and then flush a solution of something like mercuric chloride through the urethra, I suppose.”

“Through the, er …”

“Do you want me to show you?” I inquired. “I left my basket at the Bogueses’, but I can get it, and—”

“No.” He leaned forward and planted his elbows firmly on his knees. “D’ye suppose it burns much?”

“I can’t think it’s at all pleasant.”

He shuddered briefly.

“No, I shouldna think so.”

“I don’t think it’s really effective, either,” I added thoughtfully. “Pity to go through something like that, and not be cured. Don’t you think?”

He was watching me with the apprehensive air of a man who has just realized that the suspicious-looking parcel sitting next to him is ticking.

“What—” he began, and I hurried to finish.

“So you won’t mind going round to Mrs. Sylvie’s and making the arrangements for me to treat the girls, will you?”

“Who is Mrs. Sylvie?” he asked suspiciously.

“The owner of the local brothel,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Dr. Fentiman’s maid told me about her. Now, I realize that there might be more than one brothel in town, but I think that Mrs. Sylvie must certainly know the competition, if there is any, so she can tell you—”

Jamie drew a hand down over his face, pulling down his lower eyelids so that the bloodshot appearance of his eyes was particularly emphasized.

“A brothel,” he repeated. “Ye want me to go to a brothel.”

“Well, I’ll go with you if you like, of course,” I said. “Though I think you might manage better alone. I’d do it myself,” I added, with some asperity, “but I think they might not pay any attention to me.”

He closed one eye, regarding me through the other, which looked as though it had been sandpapered.

“Oh, I rather think they would,” he said. “So this is what ye had in mind when ye insisted on coming to town with me, is it?” He sounded a trifle bitter.

“Well … yes,” I admitted. “Though I really did need cinchona bark. Besides,” I added logically, “if I hadn’t come, you wouldn’t have found out about Bonnet. Or Lucas, for that matter.”

He said something in Gaelic, which I interpreted roughly as an indication that he could have lived quite happily in ignorance of either party.

“Besides, you’re quite accustomed to brothels,” I pointed out. “You had a room in one, in Edinburgh!”

“Aye, I did,” he agreed. “But I wasna marrit, then—or rather I was, but I—aye, well, I mean it quite suited me, at the time, to have folk think that I—” He broke off and looked at me pleadingly. “Sassenach, d’ye honestly want everyone in Cross Creek to think that I—”

“Well, they won’t think that if I go with you, will they?”

“Oh, God.”

At this point, he dropped his head into his hands and massaged his scalp vigorously, presumably under the impression that this would help him figure out some means of thwarting me.

“Where is your sense of compassion for your fellow man?” I demanded. “You wouldn’t want some hapless fellow to be facing a session with Dr. Fentiman’s syringe, just because you—”

“As long as I’m no required to face it myself,” he assured me, raising his head, “my fellow man is welcome to the wages of sin, and serve him just right, too.”

“Well, I’m rather inclined to agree,” I admitted. “But it isn’t only them. It’s the women. Not just the whores; what about all the wives—and the children—of the men who get infected? You can’t let all of them die of the pox, if they can be saved, surely?”

He had by this time assumed the aspect of a hunted animal, and this line of reasoning did not improve it.

“But—the penicillin doesna always work,” he pointed out. “What if it doesna work on the whores?”

“It’s a possibility,” I admitted. “But between trying something that might not work—and not trying at all …” Seeing him still looking squiggle-eyed, I dropped the appeal to reason and resorted to my best weapon.

“What about Young Ian?”

“What about him?” he replied warily, but I could see that my words had caused an instant vision to spring up in his mind. Ian was not a stranger to brothels—thanks to Jamie, inadvertent and involuntary as the introduction had been.

“He’s a good lad, Ian,” he said, stoutly. “He wouldna …”

“He might,” I said. “And you know it.”

I had no idea of the shape of Young Ian’s private life—if he had one. But he was twenty-one, unattached, and so far as I could see, a completely healthy young male of the species. Hence …

I could see Jamie coming reluctantly to the same conclusions. He had been a virgin when I married him, at the age of twenty-three. Young Ian, owing to factors beyond everyone’s control, had been introduced to the ways of the flesh at a substantially earlier age. And that particular innocence could not be regained.

“Mmphm,” he said.

He picked up the towel, rubbed his hair ferociously with it, then flung it aside, and gathered back the thick, damp tail, reaching for a thong to bind it.

“If it were done when ’tis done, ’twere well it were done quickly,” I said, watching with approval. “I think I’d best come, too, though. Let me fetch my box.”

He made no response to this, merely setting grimly about the task of making himself presentable. Luckily he hadn’t been wearing his coat or waistcoat during the contretemps in the street, so was able to cover the worst of the damage to his shirt.

“Sassenach,” he said, and I turned to find him regarding me with a bloodshot glint.

“Yes?”

“Ye’ll pay for this.”

Mrs. Sylvie’s establishment was a perfectly ordinary-looking two-storied house, small and rather shabby. Its shingles were curling up at the ends, giving it a slight air of disheveled surprise, like a woman taken unawares with her hair just out of rollers.

Jamie made disapproving Scottish noises in his throat at sight of the sagging stoop and overgrown yard, but I assumed that this was merely his way of covering discomfiture.

I was not quite sure what I had been expecting Mrs. Sylvie to be—the only madam of my acquaintance having been a rather elegant French émigré in Edinburgh—but the proprietor of Cross Creek’s most popular bawdy house was a woman of about twenty-five, with a face as plain as piecrust, and extremely prominent ears.

In fact, I had momentarily assumed her to be the maid, and only Jamie’s greeting her politely as “Mrs. Sylvie” informed me that the madam herself had answered the door. I gave Jamie a sideways look, wondering just how he came to be acquainted with her, but then looked again and realized that he had noted the good quality of her gown and the large brooch upon her bosom.

She looked from him to me, and frowned.

“May we come in?” I said, and did so, not waiting for an answer.

“I’m Mrs. Fraser, and this is my husband,” I said, gesturing toward Jamie, who was looking pink around the ears already.

“Oh?” Mrs. Sylvie said warily. “Well, it’ll be a pound extra, if it’s the two of you.”

“I beg your—oh!” Hot blood flooded my face as I belatedly grasped her meaning. Jamie had got it instantly, and was the color of beetroot.

“It’s quite all right,” she assured me. “Not the usual, to be sure, but Dottie wouldn’t mind a bit, she being summat partial to women, you see.”

Jamie made a low growling noise, indicating that this was my idea and it was up to me to be carrying it out.

“I’m afraid we didn’t make ourselves clear,” I said, as charmingly as possible. “We … er … we merely wish to interview your—” I stopped, groping for an appropriate word. Not “employees,” surely.

“Girls,” Jamie put in tersely.

“Um, yes. Girls.”

“Oh, you do.” Her small bright eyes darted back and forth between us. “Methody, are you? Or Bright Light Baptists? Well, that’ll be two pound, then. For the nuisance.”

Jamie laughed.

“Cheap at the price,” he observed. “Or is that per girl?”

Mrs. Sylvie’s mouth twitched a little.

“Oh, per girl, to be sure.”

“Two pound per soul? Aye, well, who would put a price on salvation?” He was openly teasing now, and she—having plainly made out that we were neither potential clients nor door-to-door missionaries—was amused, but taking care not to seem so.

“I would,” she replied dryly. “A whore knows the price of everything but the value of nothing—or so I’ve been told.”

Jamie nodded at this.

“Aye. What’s the price of one of your girls’ lives, then, Mrs. Sylvie?”

The look of amusement vanished from her eyes, leaving them just as bright, but fiercely wary.

“Do you threaten me, sir?” She drew herself up tall, and put her hand on a bell that stood on the table near the door. “I have protection, sir, I assure you. You would be well-advised to leave at once.”

“If I wished to damage ye, woman, I should scarcely bring my wife along to watch,” Jamie said mildly. “I’m no so much a pervert as all that.”

Her hand, tight on the bell’s handle, relaxed a bit.

“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Mind,” she said, pointing a finger at him, “I don’t deal in such things—never think it—but I’ve seen them.”

“So have I,” said Jamie, the teasing tone gone from his voice. “Tell me, have ye maybe heard of a Scotsman called Mac Dubh?”

Her face changed at that; clearly she had. I was bewildered, but had the sense to keep quiet.

“I have,” she said. Her gaze had sharpened. “That was you, was it?”

He bowed gravely.

Mrs. Sylvie’s mouth pursed briefly, then she seemed to notice me again.

“Did he tell you?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” I said, giving him an eye. He sedulously avoided my glance.

Mrs. Sylvie uttered a short laugh.

“One of my girls went with a man to the Toad”—naming a low sort of dive near the river, called the Toad and Spoon—“and he dealt badly with her. Then dragged her out to the taproom and offered her to the men there. She said she knew she was dead—you know it is possible to be raped to death?” This last was addressed to me, in a tone that mingled aloofness with challenge.

“I do,” I said, very shortly. A brief qualm ran through me and my palms began to sweat.

“A big Scotchman was there, though, and he took issue with the proposal, apparently. It was him alone, though, against a mob—”

“Your specialty,” I said to Jamie, under my breath, and he coughed.

“—but he suggested that they deal cards for the girl. Played a game of brag, and won.”

“Really?” I said politely. Cheating at cards was another of his specialties, but one I tried to discourage his using, convinced that it would get him killed one day. No wonder he hadn’t told me about this particular adventure.

“So he picked up Alice, wrapped her in his plaid, and brought her home—left her at the door.”

She looked at Jamie with grudging admiration.

“So. Have you come to claim a debt, then? You have my thanks, for what they may be worth.”

“A great deal, madam,” he said quietly. “But no. We’ve come to try to save your girls from worse than drunken raparees.”

Her thin brows arched high in question.

“From the pox,” I said baldly. Her mouth fell open.

For all her relative youth, Mrs. Sylvie was a hard customer, and no easy sell. While fear of the pox was a constant factor in the life of a whore, talk of spirochetes cut no ice with her, and my proposition that I inject her staff—there were only three girls, it appeared—with penicillin met with a firm refusal.

Jamie allowed the wrangling to go on until it became clear we had reached a stone wall. Then he came in on a different tack.

“My wife isna proposing such a course only from the goodness of her heart, ken?” he said. By now, we had been invited to sit, in a neat little parlor adorned with gingham curtains, and he leaned forward gingerly, so as not to strain the joints of the delicate chair he was sitting on.

“The son of a friend came to my wife, saying he’d contracted the syphilis from a whore in Hillsboro. She saw the sore; there is no question but that the lad is poxed. He panicked, though, before she was able to treat him, and ran. We have been looking for him ever since—and heard just yesterday that he had been seen here, in your establishment.”

Mrs. Sylvie lost control of her face for an instant. It was back in a moment, but there was no mistaking the look of horror.

“Who?” she said hoarsely. “A Scotch lad? What did he look like?”

Jamie exchanged a brief, quizzical glance with me, and described Manfred McGillivray. By the time he had finished, the young madam’s face was white as a sheet.

“I had him,” she said. “Twice. Oh, Jesus.” She took a couple of deep breaths, though, and rallied.

“He was clean, though! I made him show me—I always do.”

I explained that while the chancre healed, the disease remained in the blood, only to emerge later. After all, had she not known of whores who contracted syphilis, without any exhibition of a previous sore?

“Yes, of course—but they can’t have taken proper care,” she said, jaw set stubbornly. “I always do, and my girls, too. I insist upon it.”

I could see denial setting in. Rather than admit she might be harboring a deadly infection, she would insist it was not possible, and within moments would have talked herself into believing it and would throw us out.

Jamie could see it, too.

“Mrs. Sylvie,” he said, interrupting her flow of justifications. She looked at him, blinking.

“Have ye a deck of cards in the house?”

“What? I—yes, of course.”

“Bring them, then,” he said with a smile. “Gleek, loo, or brag, your choice.”

She gave him a long, hard look, her mouth pressed tight. Then it relaxed a little.

“Honest cards?” she asked, and a small gleam showed in her eye. “And for what stakes?”

“Honest cards,” he assured her. “If I win, my wife injects the lot of ye.”

“And if you lose?”

“A cask of my best whisky.”

She hesitated a moment longer, eyeing him narrowly, estimating the odds. There was still a blob of tar in his hair, and feathers on his coat, but his eyes were deep blue and guileless. She sighed, and put out a hand.

“Done,” she said.

“Did you cheat?” I asked, grasping his arm to keep from stumbling. It was well after dark by now, and the streets of Cross Creek were not lighted, save by starlight.

“Didna have to,” he said, and yawned hugely. “She may be a good whore, but she’s no hand at cards. She should have chosen loo; that’s mostly luck, while brag takes skill. Easier to cheat at loo, though,” he added, blinking.

“What, exactly, constitutes a good whore?” I asked curiously. I had never considered the question of qualifications anent that profession, but supposed there must be some, beyond possession of the requisite anatomy and a willingness to make it available.

He laughed at that, but scratched his head, considering.

“Well, it helps if she has a genuine liking for men, but doesna take them verra serious. And if she likes to go to bed, that’s as well, too. Ouch.” I had stepped on a rock, and tightening my grip on his arm, had got him on the patch of skin burned by tar earlier in the day.

“Oh, sorry. Is it bad? I have a bit of balm I can put on it, when we get to the inn.”

“Och, no. Just blisters; it will bide.” He rubbed his arm gingerly, but shrugged off the discomfort, and taking me by the elbow, led me round the corner, toward the main street. We had decided earlier that since we might be late, we would stay at McLanahan’s King’s Inn, rather than make the long drive back to River Run.

The smell of hot tar still permeated this end of town, and the evening breeze swirled feathers into small drifts at the side of the road; now and then, a down feather floated past my ear like a slow-moving moth.

“I wonder, are they still picking the feathers off Neil Forbes?” Jamie said, a grin in his voice.

“Maybe his wife will just put a bolster cover on him and use him as a pillow,” I suggested. “No, wait, he hasn’t got a wife. They’ll have to—”

“Call him a rooster, and put him out in the yard to serve the hens,” Jamie suggested, giggling. “He’s a fine cock-a-doodle, if no much in the way of a cock.”

He wasn’t drunk—we had drunk weak coffee with Mrs. Sylvie, after the injections—but he was desperately tired; we both were, and suddenly in the state of exhaustion where the lamest joke seems immensely funny, and we staggered, bumping together and laughing at worse and worse jokes until our eyes teared.

“What’s that?” Jamie said suddenly, drawing a deep, startled breath through his nose. “What’s burning?”

Something substantial; there was a glow in the sky, visible over the roofs of the nearby houses, and the sharp scent of burning wood suddenly overlaid the thicker smell of hot tar. Jamie ran toward the corner of the street, with me hot on his heels.

It was Mr. Simms’s print shop; well ablaze. Evidently his political enemies, balked of their prey, had decided to vent their animosity on his premises.

A knot of men was milling in the street, much as they had earlier in the day. Again, there were calls of “Tory!” and a few were brandishing torches. More men were running down the street toward the scene of the fire, shouting. I caught a bellow of “Goddamn Whigs!” and then the two groups collided in a flurry of shoving and punching.

Jamie grabbed my arm and propelled me back the way we had come, out of sight around the corner. My heart was pounding, and I was short of breath; we ducked under a tree and stood panting.

“Well,” I said, after a short silence, filled with the shouts of the riot, “I suppose Fergus will have to find a different occupation. There’s an apothecary’s shop going cheap, I know.”

Jamie made a small sound, not quite a laugh.

“He’d do better to go into partnership wi’ Mrs. Sylvie,” he said. “There’s a business not subject to politics. Come on, Sassenach—we’ll go the long way round.”

When at length we reached the inn, we found Young Ian fidgeting on the porch, watching out for us.

“Where in the name of Bride have you been?” he demanded severely, in a manner that made me think suddenly of his mother. “We’ve been combin’ the town for ye, Uncle Jamie, and Fergus sure ye’d been caught up in the collieshangie yonder and maimed or killed.” He nodded toward the print shop; the blaze was beginning to die, though there was still enough light from it to see his face, set in a disapproving frown.

“We’ve been doing good deeds,” Jamie assured him piously. “Visiting the sick, as Christ commands us.”

“Oh, aye?” Ian responded, with considerable cynicism. “He said ye should visit those in prison, too. Too bad ye didna start wi’ that.”

“What? Why?”

“Yon bugger Donner’s escaped, that’s for why,” Ian informed him, seeming to take a grim pleasure in imparting bad news. “During the fight this afternoon. The gaoler came to join in the fun, and left the door on the latch; the bugger just walked out and awa’.”

Jamie inhaled deeply, then let his breath out slowly, coughing slightly from the smoke.

“Aye, well,” he said. “So we’re down by one print shop and one thief—but four whores to the good. D’ye think that a fair exchange, Sassenach?”

“Whores?” Ian exclaimed, startled. “What whores?”

“Mrs. Sylvie’s,” I said, peering at him. He looked shifty, though perhaps it was only the light. “Ian! You didn’t!”

“Well, of course he did, Sassenach,” Jamie said, resigned. “Look at him.” A guilty expression was spreading over Ian’s features like an oil slick on water, easy to make out, even by the flickering, ruddy light of the dying fire.

“I found out about Manfred,” Ian offered hastily. “He went downriver, meaning to find a ship in Wilmington.”

“Yes, we found that out, too,” I said a little testily. “Who was it? Mrs. Sylvie or one of the girls?”

His large Adam’s apple bobbed nervously.

“Mrs. Sylvie,” he said in a low voice.

“Right,” I said. “Fortunately, I have some penicillin left—and a nice, dull syringe. Inside with you, Ian, you abandoned wretch, and down with your breeks.”

Mrs. McLanahan, emerging onto the porch to inquire whether we would like a bit of late supper, overheard this and gave me a startled look, but I was well past caring.

Sometime later, we lay at last in the haven of a clean bed, safe from the upheavals and turmoils of the day. I had pried the window open, and the faintest of breezes disturbed the heaviness of the thick, hot air. Several soft gray flecks drifted in, feathers or bits of ash, spiraling like snowflakes toward the floor.

Jamie’s arm lay across me, and I could make out the soft, glaucous shapes of the blisters that covered most of his forearm. The air was harsh with burning, but the smell of tar lay like an abiding threat beneath. The men who had burned Simms’s shop—and come so close to burning Simms, and likely Jamie, as well—were rebels in the making, men who would be called patriots.

“I can hear ye thinking, Sassenach,” he said. He sounded peaceful, on the verge of sleep. “What is it?”

“I was thinking of tar and feathers,” I said softly, and very gently touched his arm. “Jamie—it’s time.”

“I know,” he answered just as softly.

Some men went by in the street outside, singing drunkenly, with torches; the flickering light flowed across the ceiling and was gone. I could feel Jamie watch it go, listening to the raucous voices as they faded down the street, but he said nothing, and after a bit, the big body that cradled me began to relax, sinking once again toward sleep.

“What are you thinking?” I whispered, not sure whether he could still hear me. He could.

“I was thinking that ye’d make a really good whore, Sassenach, were ye at all promiscuous,” he replied drowsily.

“What?” I said, quite startled.

“But I’m glad ye’re not,” he added, and began to snore.