course, but there was something about having his own personal supper molested before his eyes that seemed particularly infuriating.
He strode to the window and stood there, trying to clear his head with fresh air, as MacKay finished his mopping-up. Dusk was drawing down, filling the courtyard with purple shadows. The stones of the cell wing opposite looked even colder and more dreary than usual.
The turnkeys were coming through the rain from the kitchen wing; a procession of small carts laden with the prisoners’ food; huge pots of steaming oatmeal and baskets of bread, covered with cloths against the rain. At least the poor devils had hot food after their wet day’s work in the stone quarry.
A thought struck him as he turned from the window.
“Are there many rats in the cells?” he asked MacKay.
“Aye, sir, a great many,” the prisoner replied, with a final swipe to the threshold. “I’ll tell the cook to make ye up a fresh tray, shall I, sir?”
“If you please,” Grey said. “And then if you will, Mr. MacKay, please see that each cell is provided with its own cat.”
MacKay looked slightly dubious at this. Grey paused in the act of retrieving his scattered papers.
“Is there something wrong, MacKay?”
“No, sir,” MacKay replied slowly. “Only the wee brown beasties do keep down the cockchafers. And with respect, sir, I dinna think the men would care to have a cat takin’ all their rats.”
Grey stared at the man, feeling mildly queasy.
“The prisoners eat the rats?” he asked, with a vivid memory of sharp yellow teeth nibbling at his plum cake.
“Only when they’re lucky enough to catch one, sir,” MacKay said. “Perhaps the cats would be a help wi’ that, after all. Will that be all for tonight, sir?”
9
THE WANDERER
Grey’s resolve concerning James Fraser lasted for two weeks. Then the messenger arrived from the village of Ardsmuir, with news that changed everything.
“Does he still live?” he asked the man sharply. The messenger, one of the inhabitants of Ardsmuir village who worked for the prison, nodded.
“I saw him mysel’, sir, when they brought him in. He’s at the Lime Tree now, being cared for—but I didna think he looked as though care would be enough, sir, if ye take my meaning.” He raised one brow significantly.
“I take it,” Grey answered shortly. “Thank you, Mr.—”
“Allison, sir, Rufus Allison. Your servant, sir.” The man accepted the shilling offered him, bowed with his hat under his arm, and took his leave.
Grey sat at his desk, staring out at the leaden sky. The sun had scarcely shone for a day since his arrival. He tapped the end of the quill with which he had been writing on the desk, oblivious to the damage he was inflicting on the sharpened tip.
The mention of gold was enough to prick up any man’s ears, but especially his.
A man had been found this morning, wandering in the mist on the moor near the village. His clothes were soaked not only with the damp, but with seawater, and he was out of his mind with fever.
He had talked unceasingly since he was found, babbling for the most part, but his rescuers were unable to make much sense of his ravings. The man appeared to be Scottish, and yet he spoke in an incoherent mixture of French and Gaelic, with here and there the odd word of English thrown in. And one of those words had been “gold.”
The combination of Scots, gold, and the French tongue, mentioned in this area of the country, could bring only one thought to the mind of anyone who had fought through the last days of the Jacobite rising. The Frenchman’s Gold. The fortune in gold bullion that Louis of France had—according to rumor—sent secretly to the aid of his cousin, Charles Stuart. But sent far too late.
Some stories said that the French gold had been hidden by the Highland army during the last headlong retreat to the North, before the final disaster at Culloden. Others held that the gold had never reached Charles Stuart, but had been left for safekeeping in a cave near the place where it had come ashore on the northwestern coast.
Some said that the secret of the hiding place had been lost, its guardian killed at Culloden. Others said that the hiding place was still known, but a close-kept secret, held among the members of a single Highland family. Whatever the truth, the gold had never been found. Not yet.
French and Gaelic. Grey spoke passable French, the result of several years fighting abroad, but neither he nor any of his officers spoke the barbarous Gaelic, save a few words Sergeant Grissom had learned as a child from a Scottish nursemaid.
He could not trust a man from the village; not if there was anything to this tale. The Frenchman’s Gold! Beyond its value as treasure—which would belong to the Crown in any case—the gold had a considerable and personal value to John William Grey. The finding of that half-mythical hoard would be his passport out of Ardsmuir—back to London and civilization. The blackest disgrace would be instantly obscured by the dazzle of gold.
He bit the end of the blunted quill, feeling the cylinder crack between his teeth.
Damn. No, it couldn’t be a villager, nor one of his officers. A prisoner, then. Yes, he could use a prisoner without risk, for a prisoner would be unable to make use of the information for his own ends.
Damn again. All of the prisoners spoke Gaelic, many had some English as well—but only one spoke French besides.
