I shook my head, and bit one corner of my lip in doubt.

“The slaves at River Run do say her name like that—Faydree. And I certainly don’t know anyone else by that name.”

Jamie had questioned Ronnie Sinclair—casually, to give no occasion for alarm or gossip—but the cooper knew no more than he had told me: the note had been handed to him by a tinker, with the simple direction that it was “for the healer.”

I leaned over the table, lifting a candle high to look at the note once more. The “F” of the signature had been made with a hesitant, repeated stroke—more than one try before the writer had committed herself to signing it. The more evidence, I thought, of its origin. I didn’t know whether it was against the law in North Carolina to teach a slave to read or write, but it was certainly discouraged. While there were marked exceptions—slaves educated to their owners’ ends, like Ulysses himself—it was on the whole a dangerous skill, and one a slave would go some way to conceal.

“She wouldn’t have risked sending word like this, unless it was a serious matter,” Roger said. He stood behind Bree, one hand on her shoulder, looking down at the note she held flattened on the table. “But what?”

“Have you heard from your aunt lately?” I asked Jamie, but I knew the answer before he shook his head. Any word from River Run that reached the Ridge would have been a matter of public knowledge within hours.

We had not gone to the Gathering at Mt. Helicon this year; there was too much to do on the Ridge and Jamie wished to avoid the heated politics involved. Still, Jocasta and Duncan had meant to be there. Anything wrong would surely have been a matter of general gossip, which would have reached us long since.

“So it is not only serious, but a private matter to the slave, too,” Jamie said. “Otherwise, my aunt would have written, or Duncan sent word.” His two stiff fingers tapped once, softly, against his thigh.

We stood around the table, staring at the note as though it were a small white slab of dynamite. The scent of boiling sausages filled the cold air, warm and comforting.

“Why you?” Roger asked, looking up at me. “Do you think it might be a medical matter? If she were ill, say—or pregnant?”

“Not illness,” I said. “Too urgent.” It was a week’s ride to River Run at least—in good weather, and barring accident. Heaven knew how long it had taken the note to make its way up to Fraser’s Ridge.

“But if she was pregnant? Maybe.” Brianna pursed her lips, still frowning at the paper. “I think she thinks of Mama as a friend. She’d tell you before she’d tell Aunt Jocasta, I think.”

I nodded, but reluctantly. Friendship was too strong a word; people situated as Phaedre and I could not be friends. Liking was constrained by too many things—suspicion, mistrust, the vast chasm of difference that slavery imposed.

And yet there was a certain feeling of sympathy between us, that much was true. I had worked with her, side by side, planting herbs and harvesting them, making simples for the stillroom, explaining their uses. We had buried a dead girl together and plotted to protect a runaway slave accused of her murder. She had a certain talent with the sick, did Phaedre, and some knowledge of herbs. Any minor matter, she could deal with herself. But something like an unexpected pregnancy …

“What does she think I could do, though, I wonder?” I was thinking out loud, and my fingertips felt cold in contemplation. An unexpected child born to a slave would be of no concern to an owner—to the contrary, it would be welcomed as additional property; but I had heard stories of slave women who killed a child at birth, rather than have the babe brought up in slavery. Phaedre was a house slave, though, well-treated, and Jocasta did not separate slave families, I knew that. If it were that, Phaedre’s situation was surely not so dire—and yet, who was I to judge?

I blew out a cloud of smoky breath, uncertain.

“I just can’t see why—I mean, she couldn’t possibly expect that I’d help her to get rid of a child. And for anything else … why me? There are midwives and healers much closer. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“What if—” Brianna said, and stopped. She pursed her lips in speculation, looking from me to Jamie and back. “What if,” she said carefully, “she was pregnant, but the father was … someone it shouldn’t be?”

A wary but humorous speculation sprang up in Jamie’s eyes, increasing the resemblance between him and Brianna.

“Who, lass?” he said. “Farquard Campbell?”

I laughed out loud at the thought, and Brianna snorted with mirth, white wisps of breath floating round her head. The notion of the very upright—and quite elderly—Farquard Campbell seducing a house slave was …

“Well, no,” Brianna said. “Though he does have all those children. But I just thought suddenly—what if it was Duncan?”

Jamie cleared his throat, and avoided catching my eye. I bit my lip, feeling my face start to go red. Duncan had confessed his chronic impotence to Jamie before Duncan’s wedding to Jocasta—but Brianna didn’t know.

“Oh, I shouldna think it likely,” Jamie said, sounding a trifle choked. He coughed, and fanned smoke from the brazier away from his face. “What gives ye that notion, lass?”

“Nothing about Duncan,” she assured him. “But Aunt Jocasta is—well, old. And you know what men can be like.”

“No, what?” asked Roger blandly, making me cough with the effort to suppress a laugh.

Jamie eyed her with a certain amount of cynicism.

“A good deal better than you do, a nighean. And while I wouldna wager much on some men, I think I should feel safe in laying odds that Duncan Innes isna the man to be breaking his marriage vows with his wife’s black slave.”

I made a small noise, and Roger lifted one eyebrow at me.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I said, sounding strangled. “Just—fine.” I put a corner of the shawl over my no-doubt purple face and coughed ostentatiously. “It’s … smoky in here, isn’t it?”

“Maybe so,” Brianna conceded, addressing Jamie. “It might not be that at all. It’s just that Phaedre sent the note to ‘the healer,’ probably because she didn’t want to use Mama’s name, in case anybody saw the note before it got here. I just thought, maybe it wasn’t really Mama she wants—maybe it’s you.”

That sobered both Jamie and me, and we glanced at each other. It was a definite possibility, and one that hadn’t occurred to either of us.

“She couldn’t send a note direct to you without rousing all kinds of curiosity,” Bree went on, frowning at the note. “But she could say ‘the healer’ without putting a name on it. And she’d know that if Mama came, you’d probably come with her, at this time of year. Or if you didn’t, Mama could send for you openly.”

“It’s a thought,” Jamie said slowly. “But why in God’s name might she want me?”

“Only one way to find out,” said Roger, practical. He looked at Jamie. “Most of the outside work is done; the crops and the hay are in, the slaughtering’s finished. We can manage here, if you want to go.”

Jamie stood still for a moment, frowning in thought, then crossed to the window and raised the sash. A cold wind blew into the room, and Bree pinned the fluttering note to the table to keep it from taking wing. The coals in the small brazier smoked and flamed higher, and the bunches of dried herbs rustled uneasily overhead.

Jamie thrust his head out the window and breathed in deeply, eyes closed like one savoring the bouquet of fine wine.

“Cold and clear,” he announced, drawing in his head and closing the window. “Clear weather for three days, at least. We could be off the mountain by that time, and we ride briskly.” He smiled at me; the tip of his nose was red with the cold. “In the meantime, d’ye think those sausages are ready yet?”

72



BETRAYALS