Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

Grey exchanged a quick look with Rodrigo, who nodded very slightly and stood up.

“If you will oblige me, Se?or Sanchez?” Grey bowed, gesturing toward the door. Rodrigo returned the bow, moving very slowly, and walked with equal slowness to the big open door. Grey thought he might be exaggerating the stiffness of his gait, but perhaps he was imagining that.

Had it worked? “Your zombie,” the man had said. Did they believe that he had rescued Rodrigo from the houngan, from death, or did they think that he was himself some sort of English houngan who controlled Rodrigo and had compelled him to make that speech? Because if so…

Rodrigo’s black form merged with the night and disappeared. There was a noticeable relaxation of the atmosphere, as though every man there had released a sigh of relief.

Cano and the bearded man exchanged a long look, and after a moment, Hamid nodded reluctantly.

Cano turned to Grey and said something in Spanish. Azeel, who had gone nearly as stiff as her husband as he walked away, pulled her eyes away from the open door and translated Cano’s question.

“So, then. How shall we do this thing?”

Grey let out a long, long breath.

Simple as the concept was, it took no little time to explain. Some of the slaves had seen a cannon—all of them had heard one fire, though only in the far distance, when the cannons of the two fortresses were fired on holidays or to salute a ship coming in—but almost none of them had any notion of the operation of a gun.

A space on the floor was swept free of tracks and trampled tobacco leaves and another lantern was brought. The men gathered close. Grey drew the outline of a gun in the reddish dirt with a stick, talking slowly and simply as he explained the loading and firing of a cannon, and repeatedly pointed out the touchhole.

“Here is where they put fire. The powder”—he prodded the barrel—“explodes”—a murmur of confusion, explanations from those who had seen this thing—“and BOOM!” Everyone looked stunned for an instant, then broke into laughter. When the repetitions of “BOOM!” had died down, he pointed again at the touchhole.

“Fire,” he said, and waited expectantly.

“Fire!” several voices said happily.

“Exactamente,” he said, and, smiling at them, reached into his pocket. “Look.”

“Miren,” Azeel said, but it was unnecessary. Every eye was fixed on the six-inch metal spike in Grey’s hand. He had a large bag of them in his pack, of different sizes, as he’d had to take whatever he could find from the various ironmongers and ship chandlers of Havana, but from what Inocencia and Azeel had been able to tell him of the guns in Morro Castle, he thought they would suffice.

He squatted above his drawing and mimed pushing the spike into the touchhole. Then he pulled a small hammer from his other pocket and pounded the spike vigorously into the dirt.

“No fire,” he said, looking up.

“Bueno!” said several voices, and there was much murmuring and nudging.

He took a deep breath of the thick, intoxicant air. So far, so good. His heart was thumping audibly in his ears and seemed to be going much faster than usual.

It took much longer to explain the map. Only a few had seen a map or chart before, and it was very difficult for some of them to make the mental connection between lines on a piece of paper and the positions of corridors, doors, rooms, cannon batteries, and powder stores in El Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro. They had all seen the fortress itself, at least: when they were taken from ships onto the dock, on their way to the slave markets in the city.

Sweat was running down Grey’s back under his uniform coat, his body throbbing with the effects of moist heat and mental tension, and he took the coat off, to avoid fainting.

Finally, a consensus of sorts was achieved. Inocencia very bravely said that she would go into the fortress with the men and help to show them where the guns were. This was met with a moment’s silence, and then Hamid nodded at her and raised a brow at Cano, who, after a moment’s hesitation, also nodded, and a murmur of approval rustled through the men.

Nearly done. He resisted the urge to give in to relief, though. The last item on his agenda might spike his personal guns—or get him killed. He rolled up the crude maps that Inocencia had drawn and handed them ceremoniously to Cano. Then he withdrew from his pack another rolled paper—this one blank—a capped inkwell, and a quill.

His head was not so much spinning as it was floating, and he had some difficulty in fixing his eyes on things. He made an effort, though, and spoke firmly to Cano.

“I will write here that you are performing a great service for the King of England and that I say you should receive your freedom for doing this thing. I am a…God, let me get this right…un hombre de gracia, and I will sign my name.” Hombre de gracia was as close as Azeel could come to the notion of “nobleman.”

He waited, watching their faces, while Azeel translated this. Wary, curious, some—the younger ones—with a touch of hope that stabbed at his heart.

“You must then put down your names. If you do not…have letters…you can tell me your name, I will write it, and you can make a mark to say it is yours.”

Instant alarm, much looking to and fro, the shine and flicker of eyes in the dark, agitation, a gabble of voices. He raised a hand and waited patiently. It took several minutes, but at last they calmed enough for him to speak again.

“I will go with you into the castle, too,” he pointed out. “What if I am killed? Then I will not be there to tell the king you should have your freedom. But this will tell him.” He tapped a finger on the blank sheet.

“What if some of you become lost in the city after we leave the castle? If you go later to the chief of the English sailors and say to him that you have done this great thing and now you must be free, how will he believe you?” He tapped again.

“This will speak for you. You will tell the English chief your name, and he will see it on this paper and know what you say is true.”

“…es verdad.” Azeel looked as though she, too, was about to faint from the strain, the heat, and—no doubt—the fear of the situation, but her voice was loud and firm.

Cano and Hamid had drawn together, were engaged in a low-voiced debate. Sweat was dripping from the tail of Grey’s hair; he could feel it hitting the small of his back through his shirt with the regularity of grains of sand—slow grains of sand, he thought wryly, very slow—in an hourglass.