Locke gave him the same kind of nod, with the same look of reservation. Locke knew perfectly well that Jamie wouldn’t admit his true state of readiness until he’d made up his mind about Locke and his regiment.

“How many men have you?”

“Forty-seven, at present,” Jamie replied equably. “I think we will have more, once the harvest is in.”

They were sitting in the City Tavern, with a pitcher of ale and a platter of small fried fishes. Tasty fare after three days of journeycake and boiled eggs, though the fish were equipped with an inconvenient number of small bones.

“Might I ask, sir—are ye maybe familiar with a man called Partland? Or Adam Granger?”

Locke’s heavy gray brows cocked upward.

“Nicodemus Partland? Aye, heard of him. From Virginia. Loyalist gadfly. Troublemaker,” he added offhandedly.

“He is that. But perhaps a bit more than a gadfly.” Jamie gave Locke a brief account of Partland’s appearance on his land—his connection with Captain Cunningham—and then of the rifles that Claire and Young Ian had confiscated. Jamie didn’t embellish that encounter, but he knew how to tell a story, and Locke was laughing at the end of it.

“Do ye manage the mounting of your men in the same fashion, Mr. Fraser?”

“No, sir. I make fine liquor and trade for horses where I find them.”

Locke blinked, drawing conclusions. Jamie had told Locke where Fraser’s Ridge was.

“Indians?”

Jamie inclined his head an inch.

“A few years back, I was an Indian agent for the Crown in the Southern Department—under Mr. Atkins and then Colonel Johnson. I still have friends among the Cherokee.”

The look of amusement came back into Locke’s weathered face.

“I take it ye don’t number Colonel Johnson among your friends just at present.”

“A friendship requires two parties of like mind, does it not?” When Jamie had resigned his commission, Johnson had threatened to have him hanged as a traitor—and meant it. Jamie chose another fish and bit into it carefully, disentangling small bones with his tongue and laying them neatly on the sheet of greasy, food-spattered newsprint that covered the table in lieu of a cloth. Claire wasn’t with him to deal with things if he choked.

The newspaper was The Impartial Intelligencer, and made him think of Fergus and Marsali. He made an instinctive move to cross himself at the thought of them and Germain, but stilled his hand before it lifted. Locke might well be a Protestant; no need to alienate someone he might need as an ally.