“Christ,” he said. “When will they come in, d’ye think?”

“I dinna ken,” Ian said, sounding unsure for the first time. “Is the tide coming in, would ye say, Uncle? Or going out?”

Jamie glanced down at the water rippling under the boathouse, as though it might offer some clue.

“How would I know, for God’s sake? And what difference would it make?” He rubbed a hand hard over his face, trying to think. They’d taken his dirk, of course. He had a sgian dhu, carried in his stocking, but somehow doubted that its three-inch blade would offer much help in the present situation.

“What have ye got by way of weapons, Ian? Ye dinna have your bow with ye, I don’t suppose?”

Ian shook his head regretfully. He had joined Jamie in the door of the boathouse, and the moon showed the hunger in his face as he eyed the ship.

“I’ve two decent knives, a dirk, and a pistol. There’s my rifle, but I left it with the horse.” He jerked his head toward the dark line of the distant wood. “Shall I fetch it? They might see me.”

Jamie thought for a moment, tapping his fingers against the jamb of the door, ’til the pain of the broken one made him stop. The urge to lie in wait for Bonnet and take him was a physical thing; he understood Ian’s hunger, and shared it. But his rational mind was busy reckoning the odds, and would insist upon presenting them, little as the vengefully animal part of him wished to know them.

There was not yet any sign of a boat coming from the ship. Always assuming that the ship out there was indeed Bonnet’s—and that, they didn’t know for sure—it might still be hours before anyone came to fetch him away. And when they did, what odds that Bonnet himself would come? He was the ship’s captain; would he come on such an errand, or send minions?

With a rifle, if Bonnet were in the boat, Jamie would wager any amount that he could shoot the man from ambush. If he were in the boat. If he were recognizable in the dark. And while he could hit him, he might not kill him.

If Bonnet were not in the boat, though … then it would be a matter of waiting ’til the boat came close enough, leaping aboard, and overpowering whoever was aboard—how many would come on such an errand? Two, three, four? They must all be killed or disabled, and then it would be a matter of rowing the damn boat back out to the ship—where all aboard would doubtless have noticed the stramash taking place on shore, and be prepared either to drop a cannonball through the bottom of the boat or to wait for them to haul alongside and then pick them off from the rail with small-arms fire, like sitting ducks.

And if they should somehow succeed in getting aboard without notice—then searching the goddamn ship for Bonnet himself, hunting him down, and killing him, without attracting undue notice from the crew …

This laborious analysis ran through his mind in the time it took to breathe, and was as quickly dismissed. If they were to be captured or killed, Claire would be alone and defenseless. He could not risk it. Still, he thought, trying to comfort himself, he could find Forbes—and would, when the time came.

“Aye, well, then,” he said, and turned away with a sigh. “Have ye but the one horse, Ian?”

“Aye,” Ian said with a matching sigh. “But I ken where we can maybe steal another.”

92



AMANUENSIS

TWO DAYS PASSED. Hot, damp days in the sweltering dark, and I could feel various kinds of mold, fungus, and rot trying to take hold in my crevices—to say nothing of the omnivorous, omnipresent cockroaches, who seemed determined to nibble my eyebrows the moment the light was put out. The leather of my shoes was clammy and limp, my hair hung lank and dirty, and—like Sadie Ferguson—I took to spending most of my time in my shift.

When Mrs. Tolliver appeared and ordered us to come assist with the washing, therefore, we abandoned the latest game of loo—she was winning—and nearly pushed each other over in our haste to oblige.

It was much hotter in the yard, with the laundry fire roaring, and quite as damp as it had been in the cell, with the thick clouds of moisture boiling off the big kettle of clothes and plastering strands of hair to our faces. Our shifts already clung to our bodies, the grubby linen almost transparent with sweat—laundry was heavy work. There were, however, no bugs, and if the sun shone blinding, and fierce enough to redden my nose and arms—well, it shone, and that was something to be grateful for.

I asked Mrs. Tolliver about my erstwhile patient and her child, but she merely pressed her lips tight and shook her head, looking pinched and severe. The sheriff had been absent the night before; there had been no sound of his booming voice in the kitchen. And from the green-gilled looks of Maisie Tolliver herself, I diagnosed a long and solitary night with the gin bottle, followed by a fairly ghastly dawn.

“You’ll feel much better if you sit in the shade and sip … water,” I said. “Lots of water.” Tea or coffee would be better, but these substances were more costly than gold in the colony, and I doubted a sheriff’s wife would have any. “If you have any ipecacuanha … or perhaps some mint …”

“I thank you for your valuable opinion, Mrs. Fraser!” she snapped, though she swayed, rather, and her cheeks were pale and glossy with sweat.

I shrugged, and bent my attention to the task of levering a wad of sopping, steaming clothes from the filthy suds with a five-foot wooden laundry spoon, so worn with use that my sweaty hands slipped on the smooth wood.

We got the lot laboriously washed, rinsed, scaldingly wrung, and hung upon a line to dry, then sank gasping into the thin line of shade afforded by the side of the house, and took turns passing a tin dipper back and forth, gulping lukewarm water from the well bucket. Mrs. Tolliver, disregarding her elevated social position, sat down, too, very suddenly.

I turned to offer her the dipper, only to see her eyes roll back into her head. She didn’t so much fall as dissolve backward, subsiding slowly into a heap of damp, checked gingham.

“Is she dead?” Sadie Ferguson inquired with interest. She glanced to and fro, obviously estimating the chances of making a run for it.

“No. Bad hangover, possibly aggravated by a slight case of sunstroke.” I’d got hold of her pulse, which was light and fast, but quite steady. I was myself debating the wisdom of abandoning Mrs. Tolliver to the dangers of aspirating her own vomit and absconding, even barefoot and in my shift, but was forestalled by male voices coming round the corner of the house.

Two men—one was Tolliver’s constable, whom I’d seen briefly when Brown’s men had delivered me to the gaol. The other was a stranger, very well dressed, with silver coat buttons and a silk waistcoat, rather the worse for sweat stains. This gentleman, a heavyset sort of about forty, frowned at the scene of dissipation before him.

“Are these the prisoners?” he asked in tones of distaste.

“Aye, sir,” the constable said. “Leastwise, the two in their shifts is. ’Tother one’s the sheriff’s wife.”

Silver Buttons’s nostrils pinched in briefly in receipt of this intelligence, then flared.

“Which is the midwife?”

“That would be me,” I said, straightening up and trying for an air of dignity. “I am Mrs. Fraser.”

“Are you,” he said, his tone indicating that I might have said I was Queen Charlotte, for all it mattered to him. He looked me up and down in a disparaging fashion, shook his head, then turned to the sweating constable.

“What is she charged with?”

The constable, a rather dim young man, pursed his lips at this, looking dubiously back and forth between us.

“Ahh … well, one of ’em’s a forger,” he said, “and ’tother’s a murderess. But as to which bein’ which …”

“I’m the murderess,” Sadie said bravely, adding loyally, “She’s a very fine midwife!” I looked at her in surprise, but she shook her head slightly and compressed her lips, adjuring me to keep quiet.