77
A PACKAGE FROM LONDON
THE PACKAGE ARRIVED in August, by the good offices of Jethro Wainwright, one of the few itinerant peddlers with sufficient enterprise to ascend the steep and winding paths that led to the Ridge. Red-faced and wheezing from the climb and the work of unloading his donkey’s pack-frame, Mr. Wainwright handed me the package with a nod, and staggered gratefully off toward the kitchen at my invitation, leaving his donkey to crop grass in the yard.
It was a small parcel, a box of some sort, sewn up carefully in oilskin and tied with twine for good measure. It was heavy. I shook it, but the only sound was a soft clunking, as though whatever lay within was padded. The label read simply “To Mr. James Fraser, Esq., Fraser’s Ridge, the Carolinas.”
“Well, what do you suppose this is?” I asked the donkey. It was a rhetorical question, but the donkey, an amiable creature, looked up from her meal and hee-hawed in reply, stems of fescue hanging from the corner of her
mouth.
The sound set off answering cries of curiosity and welcome from Clarence and the horses, and within seconds, Jamie and Roger appeared from the direction of the barn, Brianna came out of the springhouse, and Mr. Bug rose up from behind the manure pile in his shirtsleeves like a vulture rising from a carcass, all drawn by the noise.
“Thanks,” I said to the donkey, who flicked a modest ear at me and went back to the grass.
“What is it?” Brianna stood on her toes to peer over Jamie’s shoulder as he took the package from me. “It’s not from Lallybroch, is it?”
“No, it’s neither Ian’s hand . . . nor my sister’s,” Jamie replied with no more than a brief hesitation, though I saw him glance twice to make sure. “It’s come a good way, though—by ship?” He held the parcel under my nose inquiringly. I sniffed and nodded.
“Yes; there’s a whiff of tar about it. No documents, though?”
He turned the package over, then shook his head.
“It had a seal, but that’s gone.” Grayish fragments of wax clung to the twine, but the seal that might have provided a clue to the sender had long since succumbed to the vicissitudes of travel and Mr. Wainwright’s pack.
“Ump.” Mr. Bug shook his head, squinting dubiously at the package. “Not a mattock.”
“No, it’s nay a mattock-head,” Jamie agreed, hefting the little parcel appraisingly. “Nor yet a book, let alone a quire of paper. I havena ordered anything else that I can think of. D’ye think it might be seeds, Sassenach? Mr. Stanhope did promise to send ye bits from his friend’s garden, aye?”
“Oh, it might be!” That was an exciting possibility; Mr. Stanhope’s friend Mr. Crossley had an extensive ornamental garden, with a large number of exotic and imported species, and Stanhope had offered to see whether Crossley might be amenable to an exchange; seeds and cuttings of some of the rarer European and Asian herbs from his collection, for bulbs and seeds from what Stanhope described as my “mountain fastness.”
Roger and Brianna exchanged a brief look. Seeds were a good deal less intriguing to them than either paper or books would be. Still, the novelty of any letter or package was sufficient that no one suggested opening it until the full measure of enjoyment should have been extracted from speculation about its contents.
In the event, the package was not opened until after supper, when everyone had had a chance to weigh the parcel, poke and sniff at it, and offer an opinion regarding its contents. Pushing his empty plate aside, Jamie finally took up the parcel with all due ceremony, shook it once more, and then handed it to me.
“That knot’s a job for a surgeon’s hands, Sassenach,” he said with a grin. It was; whoever had tied it was no sailor, but had substituted thoroughness for knowledge. It took me several minutes of picking, but I got the knot undone at last, and rolled the twine up tidily for future use.
Jamie then slit the stitching carefully with the point of his dirk, and drew out a small wooden box, to gasps of astonishment. It was plain in design, but elegant in execution, made of a polished dark wood, equipped with brass hinges and hasp, and with a matching small brass plate set into the lid.
“From the Workshop of Messrs. Halliburton and Halliburton, 14 Portman Square, London.” Brianna read it out, leaning across the table and craning her neck. “Who on earth are Norman and Greene?”
“I havena the slightest idea,” Jamie replied. He lifted the hasp with one finger, and delicately put back the lid. Inside was a small bag of dark red velvet. He pulled this out, opened its drawstring, and slowly drew out a . . . thing.
It was a flat golden disk, about four inches across. Goggling in astonishment, I could see that the rim was slightly raised, like that of a plate, and printed with tiny symbols of some kind. Set into the central part of the disk was an odd pierced-work arrangement, made of some silvery metal. This consisted of a small open dial, rather like a clock-face, but with three arms connecting its outer rim to the center of the bigger, golden disk.
The small silver circle was also adorned with printed arcana, almost too fine to see, and attached to a lyre-shape which itself rested in the belly of a long, flat silver eel, whose back curved snugly round the inner rim of the golden disk. Surmounting the whole was a gold bar, tapered at the ends like a very thick compass needle, and affixed with a pin that passed through the center of the disk and allowed the bar to revolve. Engraved in flowing script down the center of the bar was the name “James Fraser.”
“Why, whatever in the name of Bride will that be?” Mrs. Bug, naturally, recovered first from her surprise.
“It’s a planispheric astrolabe,” Jamie answered, recovered from his surprise, and sounding now almost matter-of-fact.
“Oh, of course,” I murmured. “Naturally!”
He turned the thing over, displaying a flat surface etched with several concentric circles, these in turn subdivided by hundreds of tiny markings and symbols. This side had a revolving bit like the compass-needle thing on the other side, but rectangular in shape, and with the ends bent upward, flattened and notched so that the notches formed a pair of sights.
Bree reached out a finger and touched the gleaming surface reverently.
“My God,” she said. “Is that really gold?”
“It is.” Jamie placed the object gingerly into her outstretched palm. “And what I should like to know is why?”
“Why gold, or why an astrolabe?” I asked.
“Why gold,” he replied, frowning at the thing. “I’d been wanting such an instrument for some time, and couldna find one anywhere between Albany and Charleston. Lord John Grey had promised to have one sent me from London, and I suppose this is it. But why in Christ’s name . . .”
Everyone’s attention was still riveted by the astrolabe itself, but Jamie glanced away, reaching instead for the box it had come in. Sure enough, at the bottom of the box lay a note, crisply folded and sealed with blue wax. The insignia, though, was not Lord John’s customary smiling half-moon-and-stars, but an unfamiliar crest, showing a fish with a ring in its mouth.
Jamie glanced at this, frowning, then broke the seal and opened the note.
Mr. James Fraser, Esq.
at Fraser’s Ridge
Royal Colony of North Carolina
My dear sir,
I have the honor to send the enclosed, with the compliments of my father, Lord John Grey. Upon my departure for London, he gave me instructions to obtain the finest instrument possible, and with knowledge of the high esteem in which he holds your friendship, I have taken pains to do so. I hope it will meet with your approval.
Your obdt. servant,
William Ransome, Lord Ellesmere,
Captain, 9th Regiment
“William Ransome?” Brianna had stood up in order to read over Jamie’s shoulder. She glanced at me, frowning. “He says his father’s Lord John—but isn’t Lord John’s son still a little boy?”
“He’s fifteen.” Jamie’s voice held an odd note, and I saw Roger glance up abruptly from the astrolabe in his hands, green eyes suddenly intent. His gaze shifted to me, with that odd look he had developed of late, of listening to something no one else could hear. I looked away.
“. . . not Grey,” Brianna was saying.
“No.” Jamie was still looking at the note in his hand, and sounded a little abstracted. He shook his head briefly, as though dispelling some thought, and returned to the matter at hand.
“No,” he repeated more firmly, laying down the note. “The lad is John’s stepson—his father was the Earl of Ellesmere; the boy’s the ninth of that title. Ransome is Ellesmere’s family name.”
I kept my eyes fixed sedulously on the table and the empty box, afraid to look up for fear that my transparent face might reveal something—if only the fact that there was something to be revealed.
William Ransome’s father had not, in fact, been the eighth Earl of Ellesmere. His father had been James Fraser, and I could feel the tension in Jamie’s leg where it touched mine beneath the table, though his face now wore an expression of mild exasperation.
“Evidently the lad’s been bought a commission,” he said, folding the letter neatly and tucking it back in the box. “So he’s gone off to London, and purchased the thing there at John’s instruction. But I suppose that to a lad of his background, ‘fine’ must necessarily mean plated wi’ gold!”
He stretched out a hand and Mr. Wainwright, who had been admiring his reflection in the polished golden surface, reluctantly surrendered the astrolabe.
Jamie examined it critically, rotating the inset silver eel with an index finger.
“Aye, well,” he said, almost reluctantly. “It is verra fine, as to the workmanship of the thing.”
“Pretty.” Mr. Bug nodded his approval, reaching for one of the hot stovies his wife was offering round. “Survey?”
“Aye, that’s right.”
“Survey?” Brianna took two of the little potato dumplings and sat down beside Roger, automatically passing him one. “It’s for surveying?”
“Among other things.” Jamie turned the astrolabe over and gently pushed the flat bar, making the notched sights revolve. “This bit—it’s used as a transit. Ye’ll ken what that is?”
Brianna nodded, looking interested.
“Sure. I know how to do different sorts of surveying, but we generally used . . .”
I saw Roger grimace as he swallowed, the roughness of the stovie catching at his throat. I lifted my hand toward the water pitcher, but he caught my eye and shook his head, almost imperceptibly. He swallowed again, more easily this time, and coughed.
“I recall ye said ye could survey.” Jamie regarded his daughter with approval. “That’s why I wanted this”—he hefted the object in his hand—“though I did have something a wee bit less gaudy in mind. Pewter would ha’ been more serviceable. Still, so long as I havena got to pay for it . . .”
“Let me see.” Brianna extended a hand and took the thing, frowning in absorption as she moved the inner dial.
“Do you know how to use an astrolabe?” I asked her dubiously.
“I do,” Jamie said, with a certain degree of smugness. “I was taught, in France.” He stood up, and jerked his chin toward the door.
“Bring it outside, lass. I’ll show ye how to tell the time.”
“. . . AYE, JUST THERE.” Jamie leaned intently over Bree’s shoulder, pointing at a spot on the outer dial. She moved the inner dial carefully to match, looked up at the sun, and twitched the pointer a fraction of an inch.
“Five-thirty!” she exclaimed, flushed with delight.
“Five thirty-five,” Jamie corrected, grinning broadly. “See there?” He pointed at one of the tiny symbols on the rim, which at this distance, appeared to be no more than a flyspeck to me.
“Five thirty-five,” Mrs. Bug said, in tones of awe. “Think of that, Arch! Why—I havena kent the time for sure, since . . . since . . .”
“Edinburgh,” her husband said, nodding.
“Aye, that’s right! My cousin Jane had a case-clock, a lovely thing, ’twould chime like a church bell, and its face wi’ brass numbers, and a pair of wee cherubs flying right across, so—”
“This is the first time I’ve known what time it was, since I left the Sherstons’ house.” Bree was ignoring both Mrs. Bug’s raptures and the instrument in her hands. I saw her meet Roger’s eyes, and smile—and after a moment, his own lopsided smile in return. How long had it been for him?
Everyone was squinting up at the setting sun, waving clouds of gnats from their eyes and discussing when they had last known the time. How very odd, I thought, with some amusement. Why this preoccupation with measuring time? And yet I had it, too.
I tried to think when the last time had been for me. At Jocasta’s wedding? No—on the field near Alamance Creek, just before the battle. Colonel Ashe had had a pocket watch, and—I stopped, remembering. No. It was after the battle. And that was very likely the last time Roger had known what time it was—if he had been sufficiently conscious to hear one of the Army surgeons announce that it was then four o’clock—and to give his considered opinion that Roger would not live to see the hour of five.
“What else can you do with it, Da?”
Bree handed the astrolabe carefully back to Jamie, who took it and at once began polishing away the fingermarks with the tail of his shirt.
“Oh, a great number of things. Ye can find your position, whether on land or at sea, tell the time, find a particular star in the sky . . .”
“Very useful,” I observed. “Though perhaps not quite so convenient as a clock. But I suppose telling time wasn’t your chief intent?”
“No.” He shook his head, stowing the astrolabe tenderly away in its velvet bag. “I must have the land of the two grants properly surveyed—and soon.”
“Why soon?” Bree had been turning to go, but turned back at this, one brow raised.
“Because time grows short.” Jamie looked up at her, the pleasure of his acquisition subsiding into seriousness. He glanced over his shoulder, but there was no one left on the porch save himself and me, Brianna and Roger.
Mr. Wainwright, uninterested in scientific marvels, had gone down to the yard and was lugging his packs into the house, aided by Mr. Bug, and hindered by Mrs. Bug’s running commentary. Everyone on the Ridge would know he was here by tomorrow, and would come to the house to buy, sell, and hear the latest news.
“Ye ken what’s coming, the two of ye.” Jamie glanced from Bree to Roger. “The King may fall, but the land will stay. And if we are to hold this land through it all, we must have it properly surveyed and registered. When there is trouble, when folk must leave their land or maybe have it seized—it’s the devil and all to get back, but it’s maybe possible, forbye—and ye have a proper deed to say what was once yours.”
The sun sparked gold and fire from the curve of his head as he looked up. He nodded toward the dark line of the mountains, silhouetted by a glorious spray of pink and gold cloud, but I could see from the look of distance in his eyes that he saw something far beyond.
“Lallybroch—we saved it by means of a deed of sasine. And Young Simon, Lovat’s son—he fought for his land, after Culloden, and got most of it back at last. But only because he had the papers to prove what had been his. So.”
He put back the lid of the box he had brought out, and laid the velvet bag gently in it. “I will have papers. And whether it is one George or the other who rules in time—this land will be ours. And yours,” he added softly, raising his eyes to Brianna’s. “And your children’s after you.”
I laid my hand on his, where it rested on the box. His skin was warm with work and the heat of the day, and he smelt of clean sweat. The hairs on his forearm shone red and gold in the sun, and I understood very well just then, why it is that men measure time. They wish to fix a moment, in the vain hope that so doing will keep it from departing.