Jamie was completely able to hide what he was thinking, but he wasn’t bothering to do so at the moment. If he let Esterhazy go, who might he see, and what might he tell them? It was obvious that Jamie was in no condition to defend himself or his house, let alone police the Ridge. What if the lieutenant went out and came back with a small mob? Left altogether and went to join Ferguson, with intent to lead him back here?
I was sure nothing of the sort was in the boy’s mind; he hadn’t any thought but his friend at the moment. But that didn’t mean he mightn’t think of other things, once away from the house.
“You may,” Jamie said, as formal as the lieutenant. “Mrs. Fraser will go with you.”
114
In Which the Earth Moves
“YE HAVE TO, SASSENACH.”
Those words wouldn’t leave my ear; they remained stubbornly trapped inside, a tiny, high-pitched echo that buzzed against my eardrum.
That’s what Jamie had said, when Oliver Esterhazy had left the room to go and take leave of his chief—or rather, of Elspeth—in the surgery.
“There’s nobody else,” Jamie said reasonably, making a slight gesture toward the empty corners of the bedroom. “I canna send Bobby or the Lindsays, because I need them here. Besides,” he added, leaning back on his pillow with a grimace as the movement pulled on his stitches, “if nothing’s happened to Mr. Bembridge, he’d be here now. Since he isn’t, it’s odds-on he’s hurt or dead. You’d be the best one to deal with him once he’s found, aye?”
I couldn’t argue with that, as a logical statement, but I argued anyway.
“I’m not going to leave you here alone. You’re in no shape to fight back, if anyone—”
“That’s why I need the Lindsays here,” he said patiently. “They’re guardin’ the door. Doors,” he corrected. “Kenny and Murdo are on the stoop and Evan’s round the back.”
“And where’s Bobby?”
“Gone to fetch a few more men and to spread the word that the captain is …” He hesitated.
“Hors de combat?” I suggested.
“In no condition to be moved,” he said firmly. “I dinna want anyone thinkin’ they ought to come storm the house and try to get him back.”
I stared at him. He was slightly whiter than the sheet covering him, his eyes were shadowed and sunken with exhaustion, and his hand trembled where it lay on the coverlet.
“And just when did you make all these arrangements?” I demanded.
“When ye went to the privy. Go, Sassenach,” he said. “Ye have to.”
I went, perturbed in mind. It went against my grain to leave wounded men, even if they were all stable at the moment and unlikely to take a sudden turn for the worse. And Elspeth, Fanny, and Agnes were completely capable of handling any minor medical emergency that might arise, I told myself.
“… so I’m going out with Lieutenant Esterhazy to look for his friend,” I said to Elspeth, taking down my field kit from the hook where I kept it. She didn’t look much better than Jamie, but nodded, her eyes fixed on her son. He was beginning to twitch and moan.
“I’ll manage things here,” she said quietly, and glanced up at me, suddenly. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bagged with fatigue, but alert. “Be careful.”
I stopped, looking at her, and a faint pink rose in her cheeks.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “But things seem … very unsettled. To me.”
“Do you mean Nicodemus Partland?” I said bluntly. “And the men he’s meant to be bringing from Ninety-Six?”
The pink in her cheeks vanished like a frost-bitten flower.
“Hmph,” I said, and left.
Oliver was waiting for me on the porch, and at once offered to take the pack with the field kit.
“No, I’ll keep that. You take this one.” I handed him another pack, this one with water, honey-water, some food, a folded blanket, a jar of leeches, and a few other things that might come in handy. “All right, then—where shall we start?”
He looked off the porch, bewildered.
“I don’t know.” Nobody had slept last night, and neither had he. While a nice, cheerful young man, he was in fact not the brightest person I’d ever met. Now, between worry and exhaustion, he didn’t seem to have more than a few brain cells still working. I took a deep breath of morning air, summoning patience.
“Well, where did you see him last?” I asked.