she managed to feed her girls.
“Sleep, lass,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”
MORNING AIR AWASH WITH ANGELS
Next day
JAMIE AWOKE TO THE smell of frying meat and sat up straight in bed, forgetting his back.
“Lord have mercy,” said Mrs. Hardman, looking over her shoulder. “I haven’t heard a noise like that since the last time my husband, Gabriel, killed a pig.” She shook her head and returned to her cookery, pouring batter into an oiled cast-iron spider that sat in the coals, smoking and spitting in a baleful sort of way.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am—”
“Silvia is my name, Friend. And thine?” she asked, raising one brow at him.
“Friend Silvia,” he said through clenched teeth. “My name Is Jamie. Jamie Fraser.” He’d raised his knees in the involuntary jerk that brought him upright, and now he wrapped his arms around them and laid his sweating face against the worn quilt that covered them, trying to stretch his recalcitrant back. The effort shot pain down his right leg and caused an instant sharp cramp in his left calf muscle, which made him grunt and pant until it let go.
“I’m pleased to see thee sit up, Friend Jamie,” Silvia Hardman remarked, bringing him a plate filled with sausage, fried onions, and johnnycake. “Your back is some better, I collect?” She smiled at him.
“Somewhat,” he managed, and smiled back as well as he could while trying not to groan. “You—have fresh food, I see.”
“Yes, God be thanked,” she said fervently. “I sent Pru and Patience out to the main road at dawn to watch for wagons coming in to the market in Philadelphia, and they came back with a pound of sausage, two of cornmeal, a sack of oats, and a dozen eggs. Eat up!” She placed the wooden plate on the bed beside him, with a wooden spoon.
Jamie could see Prudence and Patience behind their mother, industriously wiping sausage grease from their empty plates with chunks of johnnycake. Easing himself gingerly around in order to put his back against the wall, he stretched out his legs, picked up the plate, and followed their example.
The food filled him with a surprising sense of well-being, and he put down the empty plate determined upon enterprise.
“I propose to visit your privy, Friend Silvia. But I may need some assistance to rise.”
Once on his feet, he found that he could make shift to stagger a few inches at a time, and Prudence and Patience at once rushed up to seize him by the elbows, in the manner of small flying buttresses.
“Don’t worry,” Prudence advised him, squaring her puny shoulders and looking confidently up at him. “We won’t let thee fall.”
“I’m sure ye won’t,” he said gravely. In fact, the little girls had a wiry strength that belied their fragile appearance, and he found their presence an actual help, as they provided something for him to hold on to for balance when it was necessary to stop—as it was every few feet.
“Tell me about the wagons that go into Philadelphia,” he said at one such stop, as much to make conversation as because he required the information. “Do they come only in the early morning?”
“Mostly,” Patience said. “They go back empty an hour or two before sunset.” She set her feet wider, bracing herself. “It’s all right,” she assured him. “Lean on me. Thee seems summat shaky.”
He squeezed her shoulder gently in thanks and let her take a very little of his weight. Shaky, indeed. It was more than half a mile to the main road; it would take over an hour to totter that far, even with the girls’ assistance, and the likelihood of his back freezing again and stranding him midway was yet too high to risk it. To say nothing of the risk of arriving in Philadelphia completely unable to move. By tomorrow, though . . .
“And did ye see soldiers on the road?” he asked, essaying a ginger step that shot pain from hip to foot. “Ow!”
“We did,” Patience said, taking a tighter grip on his elbow. “Courage, Friend. Thee will prevail. We saw two companies of militia, and one Continental officer on a mule.”
“We saw some British solders, too, though,” Prudence put in, eager not to be overlooked. “They were with a train of carts, going in the other direction.”
“The other—away from Philadelphia?” Jamie asked, his heart jumping. Was the evacuation of the British army already begun? “Could you see what was in the carts?”
Prudence shrugged. “Furniture. Trunks and baskets. There were ladies riding atop