Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander)

“Er yes, sir, General, I only—” The lantern’s beam of light shifted to rest on Rollo, catching him full in the face and turning his eyes to an eerie green flash. The sentry made a strangled noise, and Ian leaned down from his horse, his own face—Mohawk tattoos and all—appearing suddenly in the beam.

“Dinna mind us,” he said genially to the sentry. “We’re friendly, too.”



TO MY SURPRISE, there was actually a good-sized settlement at the Ferry, with several inns and substantial houses perched on the bank of the Delaware.

“I suppose that’s why Washington chose this as the rendezvous point?” I asked Jamie. “Good staging, I mean, and some supply.”

“Aye, there’s that,” he said, though he spoke abstractedly. He’d risen a little in his stirrups, looking over the scene. Every window in every house was lit, but a large American flag, with its circle of stars, flapped above the door of the largest inn. Washington’s headquarters, then.

My chief concern was to get some food into Jamie before he met with General Lee, if the aforementioned indeed had a reputation for arrogance and short temper. I didn’t know what it was about red hair, but many years’ experience with Jamie, Brianna, and Jemmy had taught me that while most people became irritable when hungry, a redheaded person with an empty stomach was a walking time bomb.

I sent Ian and Rollo with Jamie to find the quartermaster, discover what we might have in the way of accommodation, and unload the pack mule, then followed my nose toward the nearest scent of food.

The dug-in camp kitchens would long since have banked their fires, but I’d been in many army camps and knew how they worked; small kettles would be simmering all night, filled with stew and porridge for the morning—the more so as the army was in hot pursuit of General Clinton. Amazing to think that I had met him socially only a few days before—

I’d been so focused on my quest that I hadn’t seen a man come out of the half dark and nearly ran into him. He seized me by the arms and we waltzed a dizzy half-turn before coming to rest.

“Pardon, madame! I am afraid I have stepped upon your foot!” said a young French voice, very concerned, and I looked straight into the very concerned face of a very young man. He was in shirtsleeves and breeches, but I could see that his shirtsleeves sported deep, lace-trimmed cuffs. An officer, then, in spite of his youth.

“Well, yes, you have,” I said mildly, “but don’t worry about it. I’m not damaged.”

“Je suis tellement désolé, je suis un navet!” he exclaimed, striking himself in the forehead. He wore no wig, and I saw that despite his age, his hair was receding at a rapid pace. What was left of it was red and inclined to stand on end—possibly owing to his apparent habit of thrusting his fingers through it, which he was now doing.

“Nonsense,” I said in French, laughing. “You aren’t a turnip at all.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, switching to English. He smiled charmingly at me. “I once stepped on the foot of the Queen of France. She was much less gracious, sa Majesté,” he added ruefully. “She called me a turnip. Still, if it hadn’t happened—I was obliged to leave the court, you know—perhaps I would never have come to America, so we cannot bemoan my clumsiness altogether, n’est-ce pas?”

He was exceedingly cheerful and smelled of wine—not that that was in any way unusual. But given his exceeding Frenchness, his evident wealth, and his tender age, I was beginning to think—


“Have I the, um, honor of addressing—” Bloody hell, what was his actual title? Assuming that he really was—

“Pardon, madame!” he exclaimed, and, seizing my hand, bowed low over it and kissed it. “Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, a votre service!”

I managed to pick “La Fayette” out of this torrent of Gallic syllables and felt the odd little thump of excitement that happened whenever I met someone I knew of from historical accounts—though cold sober realism told me that these people were usually no more remarkable than the people who were cautious or lucky enough not to end up decorating historical accounts with their blood and entrails.

I gathered sufficient composure to inform him that I was Madame General Fraser and that I was sure my husband would shortly be along to pay his respects, directly I had located some supper.

“But you must come and dine with me, madame!” he said, and, having not let go of my hand, was in a position to tuck it cozily into his elbow and tow me off toward a large building that looked like an inn of some sort. An inn was precisely what it was, but an inn that had been commandeered by the Rebel forces and was now General Washington’s headquarters—as I discovered when le marquis led me under a fluttering banner, through the taproom, and into a large back room where a number of officers were sitting at table, presided over by a large man who did not look precisely like the image on a dollar bill, but close enough.

“Mon Général,” the marquis said, bowing to Washington and then gesturing to me. “I have the honor to present to you Madame General Fraser, the personification of grace and loveliness!”

The table rose as one, with a screeching of wooden benches, and the men—in fact, there were only six of them—rose and bowed to me in turn, murmuring, “Your servant,” and “Your most obedient, ma’am.” Washington himself stood up at the head of the table—My God, he’s as tall as Jamie, I thought—and gave me a very graceful bow, hand on his bosom.

“I am honored by your presence, Mrs. Fraser,” he said, in a soft Virginia drawl. “Dare I hope that your husband accompanies you?”

I had a moment’s insane impulse to reply, “No, he sent me to fight instead,” but managed not to say it.

“He does,” I replied instead. “He’s er . . .” I gestured helplessly toward the doorway, where—with remarkably good timing—Jamie himself now appeared, brushing pine needles off his sleeve and saying something to Young Ian, behind him.

“There ye are!” he exclaimed, spotting me. “Someone told me ye’d gone off with a strange Frenchman. What—” He stopped abruptly, having suddenly realized that I wasn’t merely in the company of a strange Frenchman.

The table fell about laughing, and La Fayette rushed up to Jamie and seized his hand, beaming.

“Mon frère d’armes!” He clicked his heels together, doubtless by reflex, and bowed. “I must apologize for having stolen your lovely wife, sir. Allow me, please, to make recompense by inviting you to dinner!”

I’d met Anthony Wayne before, at Ticonderoga, and was pleased to see him again. I was also delighted to see Dan Morgan, who gave me a hearty buss on both cheeks, and I admitted to a certain thrill at having my hand kissed by George Washington, though noticing the halitosis that accompanied his notorious dental problems. I wondered how I might make an opportunity to inspect his teeth, but gave such speculations up immediately with the arrival of a procession of servants with trays of fried fish, roast chicken, buttermilk biscuits with honey, and an amazing selection of ripe cheeses, these having been—he told me—brought by the marquis himself from France.

“Try this one,” he urged me, cutting a slab of an extremely fragrant Roquefort, green-veined and crumbly. Nathanael Greene, who sat on the other side of the marquis, pinched his nose unobtrusively and gave me a small private smile. I smiled back—but in fact I quite liked strong cheese.

I wasn’t the only one. Rollo, who had come in—naturally—with Young Ian and was sitting behind him, across the table from me, lifted his head and poked a long, hairy snout between Ian and General Lee, sniffing interestedly at the cheese.

“Good Christ!” Lee apparently hadn’t noticed the dog before this and flung himself to one side, nearly ending in Jamie’s lap. This action distracted Rollo, who turned to Lee, sniffing him with close attention.

I didn’t blame the dog. Charles Lee was a tall, thin man with a long, thin nose and the most revolting eating habits I’d seen since Jemmy had learned to feed himself with a spoon. He not only talked while he ate and chewed with his mouth open, but was given to wild gestures while holding things in his hand, with the result that the front of his uniform was streaked with egg, soup, jelly, and a number of less identifiable substances.

Despite this, he was an amusing, witty man—and the others seemed to give him a certain deference. I wondered why; unlike some of the gentlemen at the table, Charles Lee never attained renown as a Revolutionary figure. He treated them with a certain well, it wasn’t scorn, certainly—condescension, perhaps?

I was taken up in conversation—mostly with the marquis, who was putting himself out to be charming to me, telling me how much he missed his wife (Good Lord, how old was he? I wondered. He didn’t look more than twenty, if that), who had been responsible for the cheese. No, no, not making it herself, but it came from their estate at Chavaniac, which his wife ran most ably in his absence—but now and then caught a glimpse of Jamie. He took part in the conversation, but I could see his eyes flick round the table, appraising, judging. And they rested most often on General Lee, beside him.

Of course, he knew Wayne and Morgan quite well—and he knew what I’d been able to tell him about Washington and La Fayette. God, I hoped what I thought I knew about them was halfway accurate—but we’d find out soon enough if it wasn’t.

Port wine was brought—evidently the meal was being hosted by the marquis; I had the distinct feeling that the high command of the Continental army didn’t always eat this well. The men had largely avoided talking about the impending battle during the meal, but I could feel the subject looming like an approaching thunderstorm, bright-rimmed black clouds, excitingly shot with flickers of lightning. I began to rearrange my skirts and make gestures of incipient leave-taking, and saw Jamie, seated next to Lee across the table, notice and smile at me.

Lee noticed, too—he’d been gazing in an absent way at my décolletage—and broke off the anecdote he’d been telling Ian, seated on his other side.

“Such a pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am,” he said cordially. “Your husband obliges us extremely by allowing us the delight of your company. I—”

Lee stopped abruptly in mid-sentence—and mid-bite, staring at Rollo, who had unobtrusively moved closer and was now standing no more than a couple of feet from the general. Given the low bench on which Lee was sitting and Rollo’s size, this proximity placed them roughly eye-to-eye.

“Why is that dog looking at me like that?” Lee demanded, swinging round to glare at Ian.

“He’s waitin’ to see what ye drop next, I expect,” Ian said, chewing placidly.

“If I were you, sir,” Jamie put in politely, “I’d drop something quickly.”



IAN, ROLLO, AND I took our leave of the generals and went out into the dark to find our beds, escorted by an orderly with a lantern. Fires burned high all up and down the bank of the Delaware, and many of the boats on the river had lanterns or open fires as well, the lights reflecting in the water like shoals of glimmering fish.

“Do you know anything about the man who ate beside you?” I asked Ian, in my hesitant Gaelic. He laughed—he and Jamie always laughed when I spoke Gaelic—but lifted one shoulder in a negative shrug.

“I do not, but I will find out,” he said. “He is an Englishman, I can tell you that much.”

He used the word “Sassenach,” which gave me a mild shock. It had been a long time since I’d heard a Scot use that word in the way it was meant.

“Yes, he is. Do you think it makes a difference?” Technically, they were all still Englishmen—well, bar La Fayette, von Steuben, Kosciuszko, and similar oddities—but it was true that most of the Continental officers had been born and spent their lives in America. Lee hadn’t. Ian made a derisory Scottish noise, indicating that it did.

“But I hear that he was adopted into the Kahnyen’kehaka, too,” I objected.

Ian was silent for a moment, then took my arm, leaning close to speak in my ear.

“Auntie,” he said softly. “D’ye think I ever stopped bein’ a Scot?”





VESTAL VIRGINS

JAMIE AND I WERE billeted at the home of the Chenowyths, a pleasant—if understandably somewhat anxious—family whose home stood at the end of the single road that ran through Coryell’s Ferry. Mrs. Chenowyth was in her wrapper, but greeted me kindly with a candlestick and took me to a small bedroom at the back of the house—this showing the evidence of hasty evacuation by a number of young Chenowyths, these presumably now sharing their parents’ room, judging from the sounds of mixed heavy breathing.


The single bed was fairly large, though Jamie’s feet would still stick out by a good six inches. There was a washbasin and ewer full of fresh water; I picked this up carefully and drank from it; my throat was dry from too much French wine. I replaced the ewer and sat down on the bed, feeling rather strange.

Possibly it was the wine. Possibly it was the fact that the room had no windows, and Mrs. Chenowyth had thoughtfully closed the door behind her. It was a small room, perhaps ten feet by eight. The air was still and the candle’s flame burned high and steady, pure against the bricks of the wall. Perhaps it was the candle that brought to mind Uncle Lamb and the day he’d told me about vestal virgins, showing me a blue chalcedony carving from the temple of Vesta.

“Should a virgin betray her vows,” he’d said, waggling his eyebrows at me, “she’d be whipped, then sealed up alive in a small underground tomb, equipped with a table and chair, some water, and a single candle. And there she would die, when the air ran out.”

I’d considered that with a sort of morbid relish—I might have been ten—and then asked with interest just how a vestal might betray her vows. Which is how I learned what used to be called “the facts of life,” Uncle Lamb not being one to shirk any fact that wandered across his path, or mine. And while Uncle Lamb had assured me that the cult of Vesta had long since ceased operations, I had at that point resolved not to be a virgin, just in case. On the whole, a good resolution, though sleeping with men did have the most peculiar side effects.