Bone Rattler by Eliot Pattison

Author:Eliot Pattison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Perseus
Published: 2010-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

The next morning before dawn, after a night of restless, uneven sleep, Duncan discovered a note pinned to his door, folded and fastened with a wax seal. The children will be here six weeks, it said. I require a plan of instruction. Geography. Mathematics. Classical history. Much of philosophy and, of course, the biblical lessons. Aristotle. Aquinas. None of the atheist Hume, nor of the traitorous Swift. Prepare for us to review tomorrow at tea. R. Under the note was a dog-eared volume of Plato’s Republic, in which Ramsey’s cherished philosopher described the perfect state as one run by an educated elite, supported by professional functionaries.

Duncan crumbled the paper in his hand, squeezed it into a ball, and hurled it into the cold fireplace.

He had provided for Ramsey a carefully worded version of the deaths of Evering and Old Jacob, which the great lord could exaggerate to gain leverage over the army. But Duncan was no closer to understanding what had happened to the two dead men, only more certain that the threat continued, that Ramsey was capable of turning it into a nightmare for all of them, and that even if he had been able to stop Lister’s hanging, Duncan could never serve such a man as Ramsey for seven years. He gazed out the window toward the forge, Lister’s empty cage. He had freed the old Scot, as his grandfather would have done. And now Lister had given him a way for them both to be free. Carolina. The frail hope that had entered Lister’s voice when he had mentioned the place made Duncan’s heart ache. Lister was right. They had to flee. If ever there was to be a new clan, they had to run, and elude Hawkins and the hounds.

His gaze drifted back to the crumpled note. Why would Ramsey say the children were staying for six weeks? Crispin had said they would stay through summer, twelve weeks at least. He leafed through the Plato, fighting the emotion that boiled under his skin. The Ramsey shackles could not have felt more real if there had been iron around his feet. He slammed the book shut, gazed emptily into the cold fireplace, then rose and left the building, walking away from the town, toward the open fields. He sat on a stump for several minutes, watching frolicking lambs, then absently strolled along the animal pens, pausing to gaze at the young pigs as he chewed again on Frasier’s words. The English mean for all of us to die. In freeing Lister he may have begun to act like a clan chief, but the Company of Scots still faced some unknown doom if he could not resolve its mysteries.

“Men say ye be like a doctor or such.” The words came like a frigid blade along his spine. He looked up into a gaunt scarecrow face over soiled buckskins.

Duncan did not move as Hawkins stepped to his side, in front of the pigs. Strangely, he held a young rabbit, small enough to fit in his palm.

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