“Maroons, I expect,” Jamie said. He raised a brow at Ishmael. “Or ye will be?”
The priest nodded, one formal bob of the head.
“That be true,” he said. “You hear Bouassa speak? His loa bless us, we go.” He gestured toward the huts and the dark hills behind them. “The drum callin’ them down from the hills, those strong enough to go.”
He turned away, the conversation obviously at an end.
“Wait!” Jamie said. “Tell us where she has gone—Mrs. Abernathy and the boy!”
Ishmael turned back, shoulders mantled in the crocodile’s blood.
“To Abandawe,” he said.
“And where’s that?” Jamie demanded impatiently. I put a hand on his arm.
“I know where it is,” I said, and Ishmael’s eyes widened in astonishment. “At least—I know it’s on Hispaniola. Lawrence told me. That was what Geilie wanted from him—to find out where it was.”
“What is it? A town, a village? Where?” I could feel Jamie’s arm tense under my hand, vibrating with the urgency to be gone.
“It’s a cave,” I said, feeling cold in spite of the balmy air and the nearness of the fire. “An old cave.”
“Abandawe a magic place,” Ishmael put in, deep voice soft, as though he feared to speak of it out loud. He looked at me hard, reassessing. “Clotilda say the Maggot take you to the room upstairs. You maybe be knowin’ what she do there?”
“A little.” My mouth felt dry. I remembered Geilie’s hands, soft and plump and white, laying out the gems in their patterns, talking lightly of blood.
As though he caught the echo of this thought, Ishmael took a sudden step toward me.
“I ask you, woman—you still bleed?”
Jamie jerked under my hand, but I squeezed his arm to be still.
“Yes,” I said. “Why? What has that to do with it?”
The oniseegun was plainly uneasy; he glanced from me back toward the huts. A stir was perceptible in the dark behind him; many bodies were moving to and fro, with a mutter of voices like the whisper of the cane fields. They were getting ready to go.
“A woman bleeds, she kill magic. You bleed, got your woman-power, the magic don’t work for you. It the old women do magic; witch someone, call the loas, make sick, make well.” He gave me a long, appraising look, and shook his head.
“You ain’ gone do the magic, what the Maggot do. That magic kill her, sure, but it kill you, too.” He gestured behind him, toward the empty bench. “You hear Bouassa speak? He say the Maggot die, three days. She taken the boy, he die. You go follow them, mon, you die, too, sure.”
He stared at Jamie, and raised his hands in front of him, wrists crossed as though bound together. “I tell you, amiki,” he said. He let his hands fall, jerking them apart, breaking the invisible bond. He turned abruptly, and vanished into the darkness, where the shuffle of feet was growing louder, punctuated with bumps as heavy objects were shifted.
“Holy Michael defend us,” muttered Jamie. He ran a hand hard through his hair, making fiery wisps stand out in the flickering light. The fire was dying fast, with no one left to tend it.
“D’ye ken this place, Sassenach? Where Geillis has gone wi’ Ian?”
“No, all I know is that it’s somewhere up in the far hills on Hispaniola, and that a stream runs through it.”
“Then we must take Stern,” he said with decision. “Come on; the lads are by the river wi’ the boat.”
I turned to follow him, but paused on the edge of the cane field to look back.
“Jamie! Look!” Behind us lay the embers of the egungun’s fire, and the shadowy ring of slave huts. Farther away, the bulk of Rose Hall made a light patch against the hillside. But farther still, beyond the shoulder of the hill, the sky glowed faintly red.
“That will be Howe’s place, burning,” he said. He sounded oddly calm, without emotion. He pointed to the left, toward the flank of the mountain, where a small orange dot glowed, no more at this distance than a pinprick of light. “And that will be Twelvetrees, I expect.”
The drum-voice whispered through the night, up and down the river. What had Ishmael said? The drum callin’ them down from the hills—those strong enough to go.
A small line of slaves was coming down from the huts, women carrying babies and bundles, cooking pots slung over their shoulders, heads turbaned in white. Next to one young woman, who held her arm with careful respect, walked Margaret Campbell, likewise turbaned.
Jamie saw her, and stepped forward.
“Miss Campbell!” he said sharply. “Margaret!”
Margaret and her attendant stopped; the young woman moved as though to step between her charge and Jamie, but he held up both hands as he came, to show he meant no harm, and she reluctantly stepped back.
“Margaret,” he said. “Margaret, do ye not know me?”
She stared vacantly at him. Very slowly, he touched her, holding her face between his hands.
“Margaret,” he said to her, low-voiced, urgent. “Margaret, hear me! D’ye ken me, Margaret?”
She blinked once, then twice, and the smooth round face melted and thawed into life. It was not like the sudden possession of the loas; this was a slow, tentative coming, of something shy and fearful.
“Aye, I ken ye, Jamie,” she said at last. Her voice was rich and pure, a young girl’s voice. Her lips curled up, and her eyes came alive once more, her face still held in the hollow of his hands.
“It’s been lang since I saw ye, Jamie,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “Will ye have word of Ewan, then? Is he well?”
He stood very still for a minute, his face that careful blank mask that hid strong feeling.
“He is well,” he whispered at last. “Verra well, Margaret. He gave me this, to keep until I saw ye.” He bent his head and kissed her gently.
Several of the women had stopped, standing silently by to watch. At this, they moved and began to murmur, glancing uneasily at each other. When he released Margaret Campbell and stepped back, they closed in around her, protective and wary, nodding him back.
Margaret seemed oblivious; her eyes were still on Jamie’s face, the smile on her lips.
“I thank ye, Jamie!” she called, as her attendant took her arm and began to urge her away. “Tell Ewan I’ll be with him soon!” The little band of white-clothed women moved away, disappearing like ghosts into the darkness by the cane field.
Jamie made an impulsive move in their direction, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Let her go,” I whispered, mindful of what lay on the floor in the salon of the plantation house. “Jamie, let her go. You can’t stop her; she’s better with them.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then nodded.
“Aye, you’re right.” He turned, then stopped suddenly, and I whirled about to see what he had seen. There were lights in Rose Hall now. Torchlight, flickering behind the windows, upstairs and down. As we watched, a surly glow began to swell in the windows of the secret workroom on the second floor.
“It’s past time to go,” Jamie said. He seized my hand and we went quickly, diving into the dark rustle of the canes, fleeing through air suddenly thick with the smell of burning sugar.