I couldn’t very well hang about until she finished what she was doing, came out of the water, and dressed. I’d just go back to the cabin, tell the captain I hadn’t been able to find his mother, and leave the ginger and herbs, with my thanks.
I was putting my own dress back in order when I realized that I’d made very visible footmarks in the damp clay where I’d been lurking. Cursing under my breath, I scrabbled under the bushes behind me, raking out handfuls of dead leaves, twigs and pebbles, and scattered these hastily over my telltale traces. I was rubbing a handful of damp leaves between my hands to clean them when I realized that there was a pebble among the leaves.
I tossed it away, but caught a glimpse of vivid color as it flew through the air, and grabbed it up again.
It was a raw emerald, a long rectangular crystal of cloudy green in a matrix of rough rock.
I looked at it for several moments, rubbing my thumb gently over the surface.
“You never know when it might come in handy, do you?” I said, under my breath, and tucked it into my bag.
“HOW MANY PEOPLE could the original building accommodate?” the captain asked, nodding at the fragile black skeleton of the door.
“About thirty, standing. We didn’t have benches to begin with. The Lodge brothers would each bring a stool—and often a bottle—from home, when we had meetings.” He smiled at the memory of Jamie, passing round one of the earliest bottles of his own distilling, eyeing the drinkers closely in case any of them should fall over or die suddenly.
“Oh,” he said. “That reminds me. You should know that Mr. Fraser is a brother. In fact, he’s the Worshipful Master; he established the Lodge here.”
Cunningham dropped his charcoal fragment, truly shocked.
“A Freemason? But surely Catholics are not allowed to take the oaths of freemasonry. The Pope forbids it …” His lip curled slightly at the word.
“Mr. Fraser became a Freemason while in prison in Scotland, following the Jacobite Rising. And as he would tell you himself, ‘The Pope wasna in Ardsmuir Prison and I was.’” Roger had so far always used his Oxford accent when speaking to the captain, but now he let Jamie’s Highland accent stand behind the statement, and was amused to see Cunningham blink, though whether it was the accent or the enormity of Jamie’s actions, he couldn’t tell.
“Perhaps that’s further illustration of the … flexibility … of Mr. Fraser’s principles,” the captain observed dryly. “Has he any he will stand by, pray?”
“I think it’s a wise man who knows how to be flexible in times such as these,” Roger countered, keeping his temper. “If he weren’t capable of walking between two fires, he’d have been ashes long since—and so would the people who depend on him.”
“You being one?” It wasn’t said with hostility, but the edge was there.
“Me being one.” He took a deep breath, sniffing, but the smell of lightning and the reek of fire were long gone; with a little work, the clearing might once more be ready for peace.
Roger went on, “As for whether there are principles Jamie Fraser will stand by, yes, there are, and God help anyone who stands between him and what he thinks he must do. Do you think we should expand the building? There are a lot more families on the Ridge now.”
Cunningham nodded, looking at the back of his hand, where he’d scrawled their paced-out measurements with a bit of charcoal.
“How many, do you know? And are you familiar with their religious dispositions? Mr. Higgins told me that Mr. Fraser does not discourage settlement by anyone, provided that they seem honest and willing to work. Still, it seems that the great preponderance of the tenants are Scottish.” This last was said with a rising inflection, and Roger nodded.
“They are. He began his settlement here with a number of Scots who were with him during the Rising, and with people who are kin to others he knows from the Piedmont; there are a lot of Scots there,” he added. “Most of the original settlers are Catholic—naturally—but there were a few Protestants among them, mostly Presbyterians—the Church of Scotland. A large party emigrated later from Thurso, and they’re all Presbyterians.” Virulently so … “I’ve only recently returned to the Ridge myself, though; I was told that we have some Methodist families as well. Do you mind if I ask, sir—what brought you to settle here?”
Cunningham gave a brief “hmp,” but one indicating pause for summation, rather than hesitance.