I just stood there for a time, letting the silence that is never silent sink into me; the stir and sigh of the nearby forest as the breeze passed through, the distant conversations of birds, small toads calling from the nearby creek. The sense of plants talking to one another.

It was late afternoon, and the sun was coming in low through the deer palings, throwing dappled light through the bean vines onto the twisted straw of the skep, where bees were coming and going with a lazy grace.

I reached out and put a hand on the hive, feeling the lovely deep hum of the workings within. Amy Higgins is gone—is dead. You know her—her dooryard is full of hollyhocks and she’s got—had—jasmine growing by her cowshed and a good patch of dogwood nearby.

I stood quite still, letting the vibration of life come into my hand and touch my heart with the strength of transparent wings.

Her flowers are still growing.

Part Three

THE BEE STING OF ETIQUETTE AND THE SNAKEBITE OF MORAL ORDER

31

Pater Familias

Savannah, Royal Colony of Georgia

WILLIAM HAD BEEN HALF hoping that his inquiries for Lord John Grey would meet either with total ignorance or with the news that his lordship had returned to England. No such luck, though. Major General Prévost’s clerk had been able to direct him at once to a house in St. James Square, and it was with thumping heart and a ball of lead in his stomach that he came down the steps of Prévost’s headquarters to meet Cinnamon, waiting in the street.

His anxiety was dispersed the next instant, though, as Colonel Archibald Campbell, former commander of the Savannah garrison and William’s personal bête noire, came up the walk, two aides beside him. William’s first impulse was to put his hat on, pull it over his face, and scuttle past in hopes of being unrecognized. His pride, already raw, was having none of this, and instead, he marched straight down the walk, head high, and nodded regally to the colonel as he passed.

“Good day to you, sir,” he said. Campbell, who had been saying something to one of the aides, looked up absently, then halted abruptly, stiffening.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he said, broad face darkening like a seared chop.

“My business, sir, is none of your concern,” William said politely, and made to pass.

“Coward,” Campbell said contemptuously behind him. “Coward and whoremonger. Get out of my sight before I have you arrested.”

William’s logical mind was telling him that it was Campbell’s relations with Uncle Hal that lay behind this insult, and he ought not to take it personally. He must walk straight on as though he hadn’t heard.