Carting suggested itself, but was rejected precisely because the operations of that business made its practitioners subject to more or less constant scrutiny from the Customs. Likewise, the ownership of a tavern or inn, while superficially desirable because of the large quantities of supplies brought in, was too vulnerable in its legitimate operation to hide an illegitimate one; tax collectors and Customs agents hung about taverns like fleas on a fat dog.
“I thought of printing, when I went to a place to have some notices made up,” he explained. “As I was waiting to put in my order, I saw the wagon come rumbling up, all loaded wi’ boxes of paper and casks of alcohol for the ink powder, and I thought, by God, that’s it! For excisemen would never be troubling a place like that.”
It was only after purchasing the shop in Carfax Close, hiring Geordie to run the press, and actually beginning to fill orders for posters, pamphlets, folios, and books, that the other possibilities of his new business had occurred to him.
“It was a man named Tom Gage,” he explained. He loosed his hand from my grasp, growing eager in the telling, gesturing and rubbing his hands through his hair as he talked, disheveling himself with enthusiasm.
“He brought in small orders for this or that—innocent stuff, all of it—but often, and stayed to talk over it, taking trouble to talk to me as well as to Geordie, though he must have seen I knew less about the business than he did himself.”
He smiled at me wryly.
“I didna ken much about printing, Sassenach, but I do ken men.”
It was obvious that Gage was exploring the sympathies of Alexander Malcolm; hearing the faint sibilance of Jamie’s Highland speech, he had prodded delicately, mentioning this acquaintance and that whose Jacobite sympathies had led them into trouble after the Rising, picking up the threads of mutual acquaintance, skillfully directing the conversation, stalking his prey. Until at last, the amused prey had bluntly told him to bring what he wanted made; no King’s man would hear of it.
“And he trusted you.” It wasn’t a question; the only man who had ever trusted Jamie Fraser in error was Charles Stuart—and in that case, the error was Jamie’s.
“He did.” And so an association was begun, strictly business in the beginning, but deepening into friendship as time went on. Jamie had printed all the materials generated by Gage’s small group of radical political writers—from publicly acknowledged articles to anonymous broadsheets and pamphlets filled with material incriminating enough to get the authors summarily jailed or hanged.
“We’d go to the tavern down the street and talk, after the printing was done. I met a few of Tom’s friends, and finally Tom said I should write a small piece myself. I laughed and told him that with my hand, by the time I’d penned anything that could be read, we’d all be dead—of old age, not hanging.
“I was standing by the press as we were talking, setting the type wi’ my left hand, not even thinking. He just stared at me, and then he started to laugh. He pointed at the tray, and at my hand, and went on laughing, ’til he had to sit down on the floor to stop.”
He stretched out his arms in front of him, flexing his hands and studying them dispassionately. He curled one hand into a fist and bent it slowly up toward his face, making the muscles of his arm ripple and swell under the linen.
“I’m hale enough,” he said. “And with luck, may be so for a good many years yet—but not forever, Sassenach. I ha’ fought wi’ sword and dirk many times, but to every warrior comes the day when his strength will fail him.” He shook his head and stretched out a hand toward his coat, which lay on the floor.
“I took these, that day wi’ Tom Gage, to remind me of it,” he said.
He took my hand and put into it the things he had taken from his pocket. They were cool, and hard to the touch, small heavy oblongs of lead. I didn’t need to feel the incised ends to know what the letters on the type slugs were.
“Q.E.D.,” I said.
“The English took my sword and dirk away,” he said softly. His finger touched the slugs that lay in my palm. “But Tom Gage put a weapon into my hands again, and I think I shall not lay it down.”
We walked arm in arm down the cobbled slope of the Royal Mile at a quarter to five, suffused with a glow engendered by several bowls of well-peppered oyster stew and a bottle of wine, shared at intervals during our “private communications.”
The city glowed all around us, as though sharing our happiness. Edinburgh lay under a haze that would soon thicken to rain again, but for now, the light of the setting sun hung gold and pink and red in the clouds, and shone in the wet patina of the cobbled street, so that the gray stones of the buildings softened and streamed with reflected light, echoing the glow that warmed my cheeks and shone in Jamie’s eyes when he looked at me.
