The Custom of the Army by Diana Gabaldon Read Free Book Online Page B

billet?”
    “Yes, me lord. And if you’ll give over ruining your shirts there, I’ll tell you.” With a censorious look at his master, Tom nudged him deftly aside. “What you a-looking for inthere, anyway?”
    “The miniature of my cousin and her child.” Grey stood back, permitting Tom to bend over the open chest, tenderly patting the abused shirts back into their tidy folds. The chest itself was rather scorched, but the soldiers had succeeded in rescuing it—and Grey’s wardrobe, to Tom’s relief.
    “Here, me lord.” Tom withdrew the packet and handed it gently to Grey. “Give me best to Captain Stubbs. Reckon he’ll be glad to get that. The little ’un’s got quite the look of him, don’t he?”
    It took some time, even with Tom’s direction, to discover Malcolm Stubbs’s billet. The address—insofar as it could be called one—lay in the poorer section of the town, somewhere down a muddy lane that ended abruptly at the river. Grey was surprised at this; Stubbs was a most sociable sort, and a conscientious officer. Why was he not billeted at an inn, or a good private house, near his troops?
    By the time Grey found the lane, he had an uneasy feeling; this grew markedly as he poked his way through the ramshackle sheds and the knots of filthy, polyglot children that broke from their play, brightening at the novel sight. They followed him, hissing unintelligible speculations to one another but staring blankly at him, mouths open, when he asked after Captain Stubbs, pointing at his own uniform by way of illustration, with a questioning wave at their surroundings.
    He had made his way all the way down the lane, and his boots were caked with mud, dung, and a thick plastering of the leaves that drifted lazily from the giant trees, before he discovered someone willing to answer him. This was an ancient Indian sitting peacefully on a rock at the river’s edge, wrapped in a striped British trade blanket, fishing. The man spokea mixture of three or four languages, only two of which Grey understood, but this basis of understanding was adequate.
    “
Un, deux, trois
, in back,” the ancient told him, pointing a thumb up the lane, then jerking this appendage sideways. Something in an aboriginal tongue followed, in which Grey thought he detected a reference to a woman—doubtless the owner of the house where Stubbs was billeted. A concluding reference to
“le bon capitaine”
seemed to reinforce this impression, and, thanking the gentleman in both French and English, Grey retraced his steps to the third house up the lane, still trailing a line of curious urchins like the ragged tail of a kite.
    No one answered his knock, but he went round the house—followed by the children—and discovered a small hut behind it, smoke coming from its gray stone chimney.
    The day was beautiful, with a sky the color of sapphires, and the air was suffused with the ripeness of late summer The door of the hut was ajar, to admit the fresh air, but he did not push it open. Instead, he drew his dagger from his belt and knocked with the hilt—to admiring gasps from his audience at the appearance of the knife. He repressed the urge to turn round and bow to them.
    He heard no footsteps from within, but the door opened suddenly, revealing a young Indian woman, whose face blazed with joy at beholding him.
    He blinked, startled, and in that blink of an eye, the joy disappeared and the young woman clutched at the doorjamb for support, her other hand fisted into her chest.
    “Batinse!?”
she gasped, clearly terrified.
“Qu’est-ce qui s’passe?”
    “Rien,”
he replied, equally startled.
“Ne vous inquietez pas, madame. Est-ce que Capitaine Stubbs habite ici?” Don’t perturb yourself, madame. Does Captain Stubbs live here?
    Her eyes, already huge, rolled back in her head, and he seized her arm, fearing lest she faint at his feet. The largest of the urchins following him rushed forward and pushed the door open, and he put an arm round