Roger turned away, to give him some privacy, and looked out across the river, then farther, to the harbor itself and the invisible sea beyond. Oddly enough, the sense of peace with which he’d left the Reverend Selverson’s house was still with him, immanent in the drifting clouds of a mackerel sky, just going pink round the edges, and the quiet lapping of the water against the pilings beneath them.

Immanent, too, in the still figure of Fergus, hook gleaming on his knee and his shadow growing long across the quay. My brother. Thank you for him, Roger thought toward God. Thank you for all the souls you’ve put in my hand. Help me take care of them.

“Well, then.” Fergus sat up straight and reached into his bosom for a large ink-stained handkerchief, with which he wiped his face. “Wilmington, do you think? Or New Bern?”

“I’m not sure.” Roger sat down beside him on the crate and took out his own handkerchief, freshly washed this morning, now grubby with the day’s efforts. “There weren’t a lot of Scots there …” He broke off and cleared his throat. It was harsh with so much talking today, and explaining Frank—let alone his book—was well beyond his powers at the moment. “I think perhaps the British had a go at New Bern—some officer named Craig, he was Scottish—but if so, it’ll be quite late in the war.”

“Scots?” Fergus raised one brow at that, then brushed it away. “C’est bien faite. Perhaps Wilmington, then. Do you know when the British will arrive here?”

Roger shook his head.

“In the spring sometime, May, maybe. I don’t remember exactly when.”

Fergus sucked his lower lip for a moment, then nodded, decision made. He took his hand away from the medal.

“Perhaps Wilmington, then. But not yet.” He stood up and stretched himself, lean body arched toward the sky.

The air was still like treacle, but Roger’s spirit was refreshed.

“Then let’s have a pint of something and you can tell me where the guns are.”

“You’re sitting on them. But by all means, let’s have a drink.”

73

Stand by Me

ROGER’S ARRIVAL AT THE printshop with Fergus, Roger looking slightly dazed but enormously happy, caused so much commotion that it was some time before people could stop asking questions long enough for him to answer some of them.

“Yes,” he said at last, his white neckcloth taken off and carefully hung from one of the drying lines in the printshop, to avoid loss or the possibility of dirty fingerprints. “Yes,” he said again, and accepted a glass of cooking sherry—that being the most festive beverage available at the moment. “It’s official. All three of them agreed. I’ll be formally ordained in a church, and that may need to wait ’til spring—but I’ve been accepted as suitable to be a Minister of the Word and Sacrament.”

“Is that as good as being the Pope?” Joanie asked, staring at her uncle in newfound awe.