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"’Tis the fiery cross, lad," he’d told Ja his head toward the stalls "Ye’ll not ha’ seen it before?"
It was auld, he’d said, one of the ways that had been followed for hundreds of years, no one quite knohere it had started, who had done it first or why
"When a Hielan’ chief will call his narled hand through a knotted mane, "he has a cross made, and sets it afire It’s put out at once, ken, wi’ blood or ater--but still it’s called the fiery cross, and it will be carried through the glens and corries, a sign to the athering place, prepared for battle"
"Aye?" Ja exciteht, then? Where do we ride?"
The old rizzled brow had crinkled in amused approval at that "we"
"Ye follohere your chieftain leads ye, lad But tonight, it will be the Grants we go against"
"It was, too," Jaal lit the cross and called the clan He doused the burnin’ i’ sheep’s blood--and two men rode out of the courtyard wi’ the fiery cross, to take it through the mountains Four days later, there were three hundred men in that courtyard, armed ords, pistols, and dirks--and at dawn on the fifth day, we rode to er was still in the baby’s mouth, his eyes distant as he reainst another man," he said "I inning to squirain; I reached across and lifted hih, his clout et Luckily, I had another, tucked into my belt for convenience I laid hie
"And so this cross in our dooryard" I said delicately, eyes on hed, and I could see the shadows ofbehind his eyes
"Aye," he said "Once, I could have called, and the men would come without question--because they were mine Men ofout over the ht he did not see the wooded heights of the Carolina wilderness, though; rather, the scoured mountains and rocky crofts of Lallybroch I laid my free hand on his wrist; the skin was cold, but I could feel the heat of hi
"They came for you--but you came for them, Jamie You caht theht, that the men who had come then to serve at his summons were for the hlands had been untouched by war--but Lallybroch and its people were for the most part still whole--because of Jamie
"Aye, that’s so" He turned to look at htened on ain between his brows He waved a hand toward the mountains around us
"But these men--there is no debt of blood between them and me They are not Frasers; I aht at my call, it will be of their oill"
"Well, that," I said dryly, "and Governor Tryon’s"
He shook his head at that
"Nay, not that Will the Governor ken which rihtly "He kens me--and that will do nicely"
I had to admit the truth of this Tryon would neither know nor care whoht--only that he appeared, with a satisfactory number of men behind him, ready to do the Governor’s dirty work
I pondered that for aJemmy’s bottom dry with the hem of s I had heard at second hand froreat the gap could be betritten history and the reality
Also, we had lived in Boston, and the schoolbooks naturally reflected local history The general iton and Concord and the like was that the militia involved every able-bodiedinto action at the first hint of alarer to perform their civic duty Perhaps they did, perhaps not--but the Carolina backcountry wasn’t Boston, not by a long chalk
"ready to ride and spread the alare and farm"
"What?" Jamie’s brows shot up "Where’s Middlesex?"
"Well, you’d think it was halfway between male and female," I said, "but it’s really just the area round Boston Though of course that’s na bewildered "Aye, if ye say so, Sassenach But--"
"Militia" I lifted Je noises of extre forcibly diapered He kicked ive over, child, do"
Ja him from my lap
"Here, I’ll have him Does he need more whisky?"
"I don’t know, but at least he can’t squawk if your finger’s in histo ht
"Boston’s been settled for es and fares People have been living there for a long ti patiently at each of these startling revelations, trusting that I would eventually come to some point Which I did, only to discover that it was the sa to me
"So when so what he’d been telling hting together to defend their towns and because no hbors But here" I bitmountains all around us