“And where is Mr. Swamp Fox doing this?”

“Somewhere in South Carolina; I didna take notice of the details—I was taken up by the notion, ken?”

“Of a partisan band, you mean?” I’d been uneasy since I pulled my stockings on and had the absurd thought that perhaps I should take them off again. No running away from this particular conversation, though.

The fingers of his right hand moved slowly against his thigh, the soundless drumbeat of his thinking.

“Aye,” he said at last, and closed his fingers into a fist. “It’s what Benjamin Cleveland—ken, the great fat Overmountain bugger who tried to threaten me?—was proposing to me—in a roundabout way, but he was clear enough.” He looked down at me, eyes dark and serious in the dim flicker of the night.

“I shallna fight again wi’ the Continental army,” he said. “I’ve had enough of armies. And I dinna think General Washington would have me back, for that matter.” He smiled at that, a little ruefully.

“From what Judah Bixby told me, you resigned your commission pretty thoroughly. I’m sorry I missed it.” I smiled, too, with no less rue. I’d missed it because at the moment Jamie had resigned his commission, writing his resignation on the back of the messenger who’d come to summon him to duty, I was lying on the ground at his feet, in the process of bleeding to death. In fact, Judah—one of his young lieutenants, who had been present—told me that Jamie had actually written his brief refusal with mud soaked through with my blood.

“Aye,” he said dryly. “I didna hear what Washington thought about it, but at least he didna send to have me arrested and hanged for desertion.”

“I imagine he’s had a few other things on his mind since then.” I hadn’t been in any condition to hear—or care about—the progress of the war for some time after becoming one of the final casualties of the Battle of Monmouth. But it wasn’t possible to avoid for long. We’d lived in Savannah when the British invaded and occupied the city—they were still there, so far as I knew. But news, like water, runs downhill and was inclined to puddle in the coastal cities with newspapers, shipping, and the brand-new postal service. Hauling it up into the mountains was a slow, difficult process.

“Am I to deduce that you’re actually planning to start a partisan band of your very own?” I asked, trying to keep it light.

“Oh,” he said, in a similar tone, “I thought I might. Nay so much for the raiding and killing, mind—it’s been a long time since I rode in a raid,” he added, with a distinct note of nostalgia. “For protection on the Ridge, though. And then … as the war goes on, well … it might happen that a wee gang might be of use here or there.” This last was added in such a casual manner that I sat up straight and gave him a narrow look.