Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

Not that it mattered, if Olivia and her daughter were too ill to travel. A moment ago, his mind had been as exhausted as his body, empty of thought. Now he felt as though his head were filled with ants, all rushing in different directions, each with tremendous determination.

He could find a wagon. But how sick were they? He couldn’t load desperately ill people into a wagon, drive them ten, twenty, thirty miles over rocky trails, and then decant them into a boat, which might take how long to reach a safe haven….—What about food and water? The peón—that’s what someone had called him, he had no idea what it meant—with whom he’d arranged to rent a small boat had promised water;—he could buy food, but—Jesus, how many people could he get aboard? Could he leave Rodrigo and Azeel, to be rescued later? No, he’d need them to talk with the boatman, and to help, if half his passengers were prostrate and heaving, needing to be tended. What if more of the party fell ill on the way? What if the boatman succumbed to fever? What if his mother caught the fever and died at sea?

He could all too easily envision himself making landfall on some godforsaken shore of the southern colonies with a boatload of his dead or dying family and servants…

“No!” he said aloud, clenching his fists. “No, that’s bloody not going to happen.”

“What’s not going to happen?” Tom inquired, backing into the room with a small wheeled table, festooned with edibles. “There’s a lot of beer, me lord. You could bathe in it, should the fancy take you.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He closed his eyes briefly and took several deep breaths. “Thank you, Tom.”

Plainly, he couldn’t do anything tonight, and no matter what he did in the morning, he’d do it better if he had food and rest.

Hungry as he’d been half an hour before, his appetite seemed now to have deserted him. He sat down, though, and forced himself to eat. There were small patties of some kind of blood sausage, made with onions and rice, a hard cheese, the light, thin-crusted Cuban bread—he thought he’d heard someone call it a flauta, could that be right? Pickled vegetables of some kind. Beer. More beer.

Tom was hovering nearby, quiet but watchful.

“Go to bed, Tom. I’ll be fine.”

“That’s good, me lord.” Tom didn’t bother trying to look as though he believed Grey; there was a deep crease between his valet’s brows. “Is Captain Stubbs all right, me lord?”

Grey took a deep breath and another mouthful of beer.

“He was quite well when we parted this afternoon. As for tomorrow…” He hadn’t meant to tell Tom anything until tomorrow; no point in destroying his sleep and peace of mind. But from the look on his young valet’s face, it was much too late for any such kindly procrastinations.

“Sit down,” Grey said. “Or, rather, get another cup and then sit down.”

By the time he had finished explaining matters to Tom, nothing remained of his meal save crumbs.

“And Captain Stubbs means to make these slaves come into Havana and…do what?” Tom looked both horrified and curious.

“That, fortunately, is Captain Stubbs’s concern. Did my mother say anything about the state of Olivia and her daughter? How ill they might actually be?”

Tom shook his head.

“No, me lord. But from the look on her face—Her Grace’s face, I mean—the news must’ve been pretty bad. I’m sorry to say. She even left her story behind.” Tom’s face was grave in the flickering shadows. He’d lighted half a dozen thick candles, and despite muslin covering the windows, clouds of tiny insects had filtered into the room like dust, their minuscule shadows frantic on the dim white walls.

The sight made Grey itch. He’d been ignoring insects all day and sported more than a dozen mosquito bites on neck and arms. A high, mocking zeeeee! sang past his ear, and he slapped at it in futile reflex. The gesture made Tom brighten.

“Oh!” he said. “Wait a bit, me lord, I’ve got summat for you.”

He returned almost at once with a stoppered vial of blue glass, looking pleased with himself.

“Try that, me lord,” he said, handing it to his employer. Grey pulled the stopper, and a delicious, rich scent floated out.

“Coconut oil,” Tom said proudly. “The cook uses it, and she gave me some. I mixed the mint into it, for good measure, but she says the mosquitoes don’t like the oil. Flies do,” he added judiciously, “but most of them don’t bite.”

“Thank you, Tom.” Grey had shucked his coat to eat; he rolled up his shirtsleeves and anointed himself, rubbing it into every inch of exposed skin. Something occurred to him.

“What did you mean, Tom? About my mother leaving her story behind—a book of some sort?”

“Well, I don’t know as whether it might be a book,” Tom said dubiously. “It’s not one yet, but the servants say she writes some of it every day, so sooner or later…”

“She’s writing a book?”

“So Dolores said, me lord. It’s in there.” He turned and lifted his chin toward the secretaire that Grey had seen his mother use—Christ, had it been only this morning?

Consumed by curiosity, Grey got up and opened the secretaire. Sure enough, there was a small stack of written pages, neatly bound with blue tape. The page on top was a title page—evidently she did mean it to be a book. It said, simply, My Life.

“A memoir?”

Tom shrugged.

“Dunno, me lord. None of the servants can read English, so they don’t know.”

Grey was torn between amusement, curiosity, and a certain unease. To the best of his knowledge, his mother had led a rather adventurous life—and he was well aware that his knowledge of that life was limited, by unspoken mutual consent. There were a lot of things he didn’t want her to know about his own life; he could respect her secrets. Though, if she was writing them down…

He touched the manuscript lightly, then closed the lid of the secretaire. Food, beer, and the living, candlelit silence of the Casa Hechevarria had quieted both his body and his mind. He could think of a thousand possibilities, but in fact, there was only one thing he could do: ride to the Valdez plantation as fast as he could and assess the situation when he got there.

Two weeks—about—before the British fleet arrived. Two weeks minus one. God willing, that would be enough time for him to sort things out.

“What did you say, Tom?”

Tom was piling up the empty dishes on the table but stopped to answer him.

“I said, that word you said—huevón?”

“Oh. Yes, I heard it from a young lady I met on the road from Cojimar. Do you know what it means?”

“Well, I know what Juanito says it means,” Tom replied, striving for accuracy. “He says it means a chap what’s lazy because his balls are too big to stir himself.” Tom gave Grey a sidelong glance. “A lady said that to you, me lord?”