Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

“Well, now, more or less,” Grey said. He got up and quietly closed the door. The racket from the patio diminished appreciably.

“General Stanley turned up on my doorstep in Jamaica a week ago, with the news that the British Navy was on its way to take Martinique and then—if all goes as planned—Cuba. He rather thought it would be a good idea for you and Olivia to leave before they get here.”

“I quite agree with him.” His mother closed her eyes and rubbed her hands hard over her face, then shook her head violently, as though dislodging bats, and opened her eyes again. “Where is he?” she asked, with some semblance of calm.

“Jamaica. He’d, um, managed to borrow a naval cutter while the navy was preparing to take Martinique and came ahead as fast as he could, in hopes of warning you in time.”

“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, “very good of him. But why is he in Jamaica and not here?”

“Gout.” And quite possibly a few other infirmities, but no point in worrying her. She looked sharply at him but didn’t ask further.

“Poor George,” she said, and bit her lip. “Well, then. Olivia and the children are in the country, staying with a Se?ora Valdez.”

“How far in the country?” Grey was making hasty calculations. Three women, two children, three men…four, with Malcolm. Ah, Malcolm…“Is Malcolm with them?”

“Oh, no. I’m not sure where he is,” she added dubiously. “He travels a good deal, and with Olivia gone, he often stays in Havana;—he has an office in La Punta—that’s the fortress on the west side of the harbor. But he does sleep here now and then.”

“Oh, does he?” Grey tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but his mother glanced at him sharply. He looked away. If she didn’t know about Malcolm’s proclivities, he wasn’t going to tell her.

“I need to talk to him as quickly as possible,” he said. “Meanwhile, we must fetch Olivia and the children back here, but without giving the impression that there’s any sort of emergency. If you’ll write a note that will accomplish that, I’ll have Rodrigo and Azeel carry it—they can help Olivia to pack up and help mind the children on the way.”

“Yes, of course.”

There was a small secretaire, rustic in design, crouched in the shadows. He hadn’t noticed it until his mother opened it and swiftly produced paper, quill, and inkwell. She uncorked the latter, found it dry, said something under her breath in Greek that sounded like a curse but probably wasn’t, and, crossing the room quickly, removed a bunch of yellow flowers from a pottery vase and poured some of the water from it into the empty well.

She shook ink powder into the well and was stirring the mixture briskly with a bedraggled quill when something occurred belatedly to Grey.

“What did you mean, Mother, when you said, ‘It’s come to that already’? Because you didn’t know about the invasion, did you?”

She glanced up at him sharply, ceasing to stir. Then she took a deep breath, like one marshaling her mental forces, visibly made a decision, and put down the quill and ink.

“No,” she said, turning to him. “George had told me such a thing was being quietly discussed—but I left England with Olivia in September. War with Spain hadn’t yet been declared, though anyone could have seen that it was coming. No,” she repeated, and looked at him intently. “I meant the slave revolt.”

John stared at his mother for the space of thirty seconds or so, then slowly sank onto a wooden pew that ran along the side of the room. He closed his eyes briefly, shook his head, and opened them.

“Is there anything to drink in this establishment, Mother?”



FED, WASHED, AND fortified with Spanish brandy, Grey left Tom to see to the unpacking and made his way on foot back through the city to the harbor, where the fortress of La Punta—smaller than El Morro (what was a morro? he wondered), but still impressive—guarded the western shore.

A few people glanced at him but with no more interest than he might attract in London, and upon reaching La Punta, he was surprised at the ease with which he was not only admitted but escorted promptly to the oficina del Se?or Stubbs. Granted, the Spaniards had their own notions of military readiness, but this seemed quite lax for an island at war.

The soldier accompanying him rapped on a door, said something in Spanish, and, with a brief nod, left him.

Footsteps, and the door opened.

Malcolm Stubbs looked twenty years older than he had last time Grey had seen him. He was still broad-shouldered and thick-bodied, but he seemed to have softened and fallen in on himself, like a slightly decayed melon.

“Grey!” he said, his tired face brightening. “Wherever did you spring from?”

“Zeus’s forehead, no doubt,” Grey said. “Where have you come from, for that matter?” The skirts of Stubbs’s coat were thick with red dust, and he smelled strongly of horse.

“Oh…here and there.” Malcolm beat the dust perfunctorily from his coat and subsided into his chair with a groan. “Oh, God. Stick your head out and call for a servant, will you? I need a drink and some food before I perish.”

Well, he did know the Spanish word for “beer”…Sticking his head out into the corridor as advised, he spotted two servant girls loitering by the window at the far end, evidently talking to someone in the courtyard below, their conversation accompanied by a good deal of giggling.

Interrupting this colloquy with a brief “Hoy!” he said, “Cerveza?” in a tone of polite inquiry, following this with scooping motions toward his mouth.

“Sí, se?or!” one of the girls said, with a hasty bob, adding something else in a questioning voice.

“Certainly,” he said cordially. “Er…I mean, sí! Um…gracias,” he added, wondering what he had just agreed to. Both girls curtsied and vanished in a swirl of skirts, though, presumably to fetch something edible.

“What is pulpo?” he asked, returning to the office and sitting down opposite Malcolm.

“Octopus,” Malcolm replied, emerging from the folds of a linen towel with which he’d been wiping dirt from his face. “Why?”

“Just wondered. Putting aside the usual inquiries about your health—are you all right, by the way?” he interrupted himself, looking down at what used to be Malcolm’s right foot. The boot encircled a sort of cup or stirrup, made of stiff leather with wooden reinforcements on the sides. Both wood and leather were deeply stained from long use, but there was fresh bright blood on the stocking above.