Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(4)
Eddie turned. “It didn’t make her more alive, Jessica. It kept her alive. In the old history, Anne Cathrine died on August 20, 1633. But for some reason, when we arrived here in 1631, our actions sent out waves of change that radiated into her life as well. Who knows? Maybe a ship carrying plague didn’t make it to Copenhagen, or she missed a dance where she was exposed to typhus, or any one of another million possible rendezvous with death that she was prevented from making. All I know is that she’s here now, and very alive. But back up-time, where she was part of what we called ‘history,’ she was dead ten days after her fifteenth birthday.”
Jessica’s mouth was slightly open. She seemed to be searching for something to say. And was failing.
Eddie nodded. “Thanks again, Jessica,” he said. “Say hello to your folks for me.” He swung around the door jamb, tugging the door closed behind him.
Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia
Colonel Hugh Albert O’Donnell, the expatriate Earl of Tyrconnell, slugged back the contents of the small, clear shot glass. The liquid he gulped down burned from the top of his gullet to the bottom of his gut and filled his head with fumes that, he still suspected, might be poisonous. But at least this time he wasn’t going to—
The burn flared at the back of his throat and he coughed. And choked and sputtered. He looked up at his hosts—Grantville’s two Mike McCarthys, one Senior and one Junior—who looked on sympathetically. The older man also seemed to be suppressing either a grimace or a grin. Hugh put the shot glass aside politely.
“Can’t stomach moonshine, eh?” There was a little friendly chiding in Don McCarthy the Elder’s tone.
“Alas, and it pains an Irishman to say it, I cannot. It is not as similar to poteen as you conjectured. And it has not ‘grown on me’ as you Americans say—not the least bit, these past six nights. My apologies.”
“Ah, that’s all right,” said Mike the Younger, who disappeared into the kitchen and promptly returned with a perfectly cast squat bottle, half-filled with liquid of a very promising amber color. “Want to try some bourbon?”
Hugh struggled to understand. “Is it a drink of that line, of that family?”
“‘Of that line—?’ Oh, you mean the Bourbons of France? No, no: this is American whiskey—uisce beatha—made in some of the Southern States. Interested?”
At the words “whiskey” and its Gaelic root-word, uisce beatha, Hugh felt his interest and even his spirits brighten. He sat a little straighter. “I am very interested, Michael.”
Smiles and new drinks all around. But the small glasses were poured out very carefully this time, as though the “bourbon” was precious nectar—and then Hugh realized that indeed it must be. The label, the bottle, the screw-on cap: all bore the stamp of machine-manufactured precision. This was a whiskey from almost four hundred years in the future. It would be a long wait indeed before any more was available. Hugh resolved to savor every drop. He raised his glass. “Slainte.”
“Slainte,” replied Michael McCarthy, Sr. with a quick, wide smile.
Michael the Younger mumbled something that sounded more like “shlondy.” He obviously saw the grin that Hugh tried to suppress. “Maybe you can teach me how to say it later?” Mike Jr. wondered sheepishly.
Marveling at the taste of the bourbon, Hugh nodded. “If my payment is more bourbon, you may consider yourself furnished with a permanent tutor in the finer points of Gaelic.” Hugh felt his smile slip a little. “Well, as permanent as a tutor may be when he must leave on the morrow.”
“Hugh,” began Mike Jr., “I’ll say it again: Dad and I would be happy—very happy—if you’d reconsider and stay a few more days.”
O’Donnell waved his hand. “Forgive me for having struck a melancholy note. Let us not ruin this fine drink with dark thoughts. Besides,”—he hoped his light tone would change the mood—“the name of this whiskey reminds me that I need to practice my French pronunciation. Which, up until now, has usually been employed in the exchange of pleasantries over the tops of contested revetments and abatis.”
The answering smiles were polite, not amused. Michael Sr. rolled the small glass of bourbon slowly between his palms. “Why are you brushing up on your French?”
Hugh sighed. “A man must eat, Don McCarthy.”
“I’d have thought that would hardly be a worry for you.”
Hugh shrugged. “While I was in the employ of the king of Spain, you would have been quite right. But I am no longer the colonel of a regiment, nor a knight-captain of the Order of Alcantara, nor may I even remain a servant of my own godmother, Infanta Isabella of the Lowlands, since she remains a vassal of Philip IV of Spain. I am, as you would say, ‘unemployed.’”