Kenny had pounded on our door long before daylight, summoning us from warm beds. We had come in haste, even knowing that we were far too late to offer aid. Some of the tenants from the homesteads on Frasers Ridge had come, too; Kennys brother Evan stood with Fergus and Ronnie Sinclair in a small knot under the trees, talking together in low-voiced Gaelic.
Dye ken what did for them, Sassenach? Jamie squatted beside me, face troubled. The ones under the trees, that is. He nodded at the corpse in front of me. I ken what killed this puir woman.
The womans long skirt stirred in the wind, lifting to show long, slender feet shod in leather clogs. A pair of long hands to match lay still at her sides. She had been tallthough not so tall as Brianna, I thought, and looked automatically for my daughters bright hair, bobbing among the branches on the far side of the clearing.
I had turned the womans apron up to cover her head and upper body. Her hands were red, rough-knuckled with work, and with callused palms, but from the firmness of her thighs and the slenderness of her body, I thought she was no more than thirtylikely much younger. No one could say whether she had been pretty.
I shook my head at his remark.
I dont think she died of the burning, I said. See, her legs and feet arent touched. She must have fallen into the hearth. Her hair caught fire, and it spread to the shoulders of her gown. She must have lain near enough to the wall or the chimney hood for the flames to touch; that caught, and then the whole bloody place went up.
Jamie nodded slowly, eyes on the dead woman.
Aye, that makes sense. But what was it killed them, Sassenach? The others are singed a bit, though none are burned like this. But they must have been dead before the cabin caught alight, for none o them ran out. Was it a deadly illness, perhaps?
I dont think so. Let me look at the others again.
I walked slowly down the row of still bodies with their cloth-covered faces, stooping over each one to peer again beneath the makeshift shrouds. There were any number of illnesses that could be quickly fatal in these dayswith no antibiotics to hand, and no way of administering fluids save by mouth or rectum, a simple case of diarrhea could kill within twenty-four hours.
I saw such things often enough to recognize them easily; any doctor does, and I had been a doctor for more than twenty years. I saw things now and then in this century that I had never encountered in my ownparticularly horrible parasitical diseases, brought with the slave trade from the tropicsbut it was no parasite that had done for these poor souls, and no illness that I knew, to leave such traces on its victims.
All the bodiesthe burned woman, a much older woman, and three childrenhad been found inside the walls of the flaming house. Kenny had pulled them out, just before the roof fell in, then ridden for help. All dead before the fire started; all dead virtually at the same time, then, for surely the fire had begun to smolder soon after the woman fell dead on her hearth?
The victims had been laid out neatly under the branches of a giant red spruce, while the men began to dig a grave nearby. Brianna stood by the smallest girl, her head bent. I came to kneel by the little body, and she knelt down across from me.
What was it? she asked quietly. Poison?
I glanced up at her in surprise.
I think so. What gave you that idea?
She nodded at the blue-tinged face below us. She had tried to close the eyes, but they bulged beneath the lids, giving the little girl a look of startled horror. The small, blunt features were twisted in a rictus of agony, and there were traces of vomit in the corners of the mouth.
Girl Scout handbook, Brianna said. She glanced at the men, but no one was near enough to hear. Her mouth twitched, and she looked away from the body, holding out her open hand. Never eat any strange mushroom, she quoted. There are many poisonous varieties, and distinguishing one from another is a job for an expert. Roger found these, growing in a ring by that log over there.
Moist, fleshy caps, a pale brown with white warty spots, the open gills and slender stems so pale as to look almost phosphorescent in the spruce shadows. They had a pleasant, earthy look to them that belied their deadliness.
Panther toadstools, I said, half to myself, and picked one gingerly from her palm. Agaricus pantherinusor thats what they will be called, once somebody gets round to naming them properly. Pantherinus, because they kill so swiftlylike a striking cat.
I could see the gooseflesh ripple on Briannas forearm, raising the soft, red-gold hairs. She tilted her hand and spilled the rest of the deadly fungus on the ground.
Who in their right mind would eat toadstools? she asked, wiping her hand on her skirt with a slight shudder.
People who didnt know better. People who were hungry, perhaps, I answered softly. I picked up the little girls hand, and traced the delicate bones of the forearm. The small belly showed signs of bloat, whether from malnutrition or postmortem changes I couldnt tellbut the collarbones were sharp as scythe blades. All of the bodies were thin, though not to the point of emaciation.