Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(215)

“Wouldn’t do the bloody navy any good, either,” he muttered, tying his neckcloth by feel.

Done at last, his traveling clothes bundled into the pack, he heaved a sigh of relief and stood still for a minute to gather himself, settle into the uniform.

He’d had no idea mango trees grew to such a size; this was an old grove, the trees each more than a hundred feet in height, the leaves rising and falling gently on the evening breeze, making a sound like the sea overhead. Something slithered heavily in the fallen leaves near him and he froze. But the serpent—if that’s what it was—continued on its way, untroubled by his presence.

Rodrigo, Azeel, and Inocencia were where he had left them, no more than a hundred yards away, but he felt entirely alone. His mind had gone blank, and he welcomed that respite. Windfalls of unripe fruit knocked down by a storm lay all around like pale-green cricket balls in the leaves, but the fruit still on the trees had gone yellow—he’d seen it in the twilight as they came up into the grove—and had begun to blush crimson. Now it was dark, and he only sensed the mangoes when he brushed a lowlying branch and felt the heavy swing of the fruit.

He was walking, not having made up his mind to do so nor remembering the taking of the first step, but walking, propelled into motion by a sense that it was time.

He came down through the grove and found Rodrigo and the girls on their feet, in murmured conversation with a tall, spare young woman—Inocencia’s cousin, Alejandra, who would take them to the tobacco shed.

All of them turned to see him, and Alejandra’s eyes widened, gleaming in the moonlight.

“Hijo,” she said in admiration.

“Thank you, madam,” he said, and bowed to her. “Shall we go?”



HE’D IMAGINED IT vividly, from Malcolm’s account. The bulk of the big tobacco barn, the dark, the whispering of the drying leaves overhead, the sense of waiting men…What Malcolm hadn’t mentioned was the overpowering scent that lay in a cloud over the shed, a thick incense that reached out to grab him by the throat from thirty feet away. It wasn’t unpleasant, by any means, but it was strong enough to make him breathe shallowly for a moment—and he needed all the breath he could get.

Cano. That was the name of the man he must convince. Cano was headman of the slaves of the Mendez plantation. There was a headman from Saavedra, too, named Hamid, but Alejandra said that it was Cano’s opinion that counted most heavily among the slaves

“If he says yes, they all will do it,” she had assured Grey.

There was a great deal more to the barn’s atmosphere than the heavy scent of tobacco. He could smell the reek of constant sweat the instant he stepped inside—and the sharp, dark stink of angry men.

There was a single lantern burning, hung from a nail in one of the uprights supporting the high roof. It made a small pool of light, but the glow of it diffused much farther, showing him the men massed in the shadows. No more than the curve of a skull, a shoulder, the gleam of light on black skin, the whites of staring eyes. Below the lantern stood two men, turned to meet him.

There was no question which was Cano. A tall black man, wearing only short, ragged breeches, though his companion (and most of the men in the shadows, as a sidelong glimpse confirmed) was dressed in both breeches and shirt and wore a spotted bandanna tied around his head.

No question why, either. Gray scars mottled Cano’s back and arms like barnacle scars on an old whale—the marks of whips and knives. The man watched Grey approach and smiled.

Smiled to show that his front teeth were gone, but the canines remained, sharp and stained brown with tobacco.

“Mucho gusto, se?or,” he said. His voice was light and mocking. Grey bowed, very correctly. Alejandra had come in behind him, and she made the introductions in soft, rapid Spanish. She was nervous; her hands were twisted in her apron and Grey could see sweat shining in the hollows under her eyes. Which was her lover? he wondered, this man or Hamid?

“Mucho gusto,” Grey said politely, when she had finished, and bowed to her. “Madam—will you be so good as to tell these gentlemen that I have brought with me two interpreters, so that we can be assured of understanding one another?”

At this cue, Rodrigo came in, Azeel a pace or two behind him. She looked as though she were wading into a pool filled with crocodiles, but Rodrigo’s manner was cool and dignified. He wore his best black suit, with immaculate white linen that shone like a beacon in the grubby brown light of the barn.

There was a palpable ripple of interest—and a just-as-palpable hostility at sight of him. Grey felt it like a jab in the stomach. Christ, was he going to get Rodrigo killed, as well as himself?

And they don’t even know what he is yet, he thought. He’d been told—often enough to believe it—that the fear of zombies was so great that sometimes even the rumor of it was enough that a crowd would fall upon the suspected person and beat them to death.

Well, best get on with it. He wasn’t armed, save for the regimental dirk at his belt. Nothing was going to get them through this but words, so best start talking.

This he did, presenting his compliments (that got the breath of a laugh—encouraging…) and stating that he came as the friend and representative of Malcolm Stubbs, whom they knew. Nods of wary approval. He came (he said) also as the representative of the King of England, who intended to overthrow the Spaniards in Cuba and take the island.