"Drums of Autumn" LOL Quiz

Answer: sardines

Roger taught Brianna the Minister's Cat game on the car ride to the Celtic festival where he was performing. In "Drums" and later books Roger and Bree use the game to open communication between them when they are feeling emotionally stressed. In this particular instance, Bree was asking Roger if he had been back to Craigh na Dun since her mother, Claire, disappeared through the standing stones the previous year.

Answer: To watch the Apollo 11 moon landing

Roger and Brianna hadn't returned to Boston until well after midnight. Roger had brought her fast asleep up to his hotel room and had spent the night himself honourably upon the floor covered up with her sweater. The next evening Brianna looked disheveled, bleary-eyed and thoroughly happy, prompting Joe's remark to Roger.

While many of Lenny and Brianna's classmates were also present at the Abernathys' house that night ("We got half the doggone MIT College of Engineering here, ... and nobody can fix a doggone television?"), the lunar landing was in July of 1969 and Brianna didn't graduate until 1971 (in fact, she skipped the commencement ceremony so that she would have enough time to get to the standing stones for the feast of Beltane in early May).

Answer: Mr. Lillington

Mr. Lillington (his first name is never given) was holding a dinner party in honour of North Carolina's governor, William Tryon, who was visiting from New Bern. Lloyd Stanhope and Philip Wylie were also guests at Lillington's party.

After a short discussion of the current tax rate (2% - "iniquitous!") Claire changed the subject to newspapers: "After all, speaking of taxes at the Governor's table is rather like talking of rope in the house of the hanged, isn't it?".

Answer: False

When the "Sally Ann" was boarded by pirates on its way from Wilmington to Cross Creek, Claire tried to save her wedding rings by swallowing them. She managed to save one, but the other--the gold wedding ring given to her by Frank Randall--was stolen.

Answer: A pot of boiling pitch exploded

Jocasta Cameron, a blind widow, was still capable of running most things at River Run with the help of an educated slave named Ulysses. She finds herself unequal to the task of dealing with the Navy, however, in part because she had spurned the advances of Lieutenant Wolff following the death of her husband some years before.

The other answers are all events that occur later in "Drums of Autumn".

Answer: Jamie Fraser

Jamie suspected that Jocasta was going to formally declare him as her heir, which he didn't want and would have trouble declining in the presence of his aunt's guests. He asked Claire to watch for his signal and then create a diversion, for example by swooning or "accidentally" sticking her dinner companion with a fork. Before the meal was served Mr. Wylie made a nuisance of himself to Claire, and she asked Ulysses to make sure that he was seated near her for dinner.

Answer: John Quincy Myers

When Myers first met Claire in Wilmington he told her of an unfortunate malady from which he had long been suffering. As the inguinal hernia could only be remedied surgically, and with no anaesthetics to hand, Claire told Myers that he would have to be very drunk before she would be able to operate. Myers showed up in the middle of Jocasta's dinner party--well intoxicated--and Claire performed the surgery in the salon, much to the amusement of the other guests.

Yi Tien Cho (alias Mr. Willoughby) was the Mandarin of Letters who fled from Imperial China when faced with a choice between eunuchism and death. He featured prominently in the previous book, "Voyager", but is only mentioned in "Drums".

Answer: To sell Pollyanne to the Tuscarora

Pollyanne, one of Jocasta's slaves at River Run, had to flee the area when she was suspected of being involved in the murder of Lissa Garver. Myers agreed to take her to the Tuscarora, with the hope that they would adopt her into the tribe (she was not sold). In light of the bad blood between Sergeant Murchison and Jamie, renewed when Jamie presented the sergeant with the corpse of his murdered mistress, Claire noted "that it might be as well for HIM to be temporarily out of Sergeant Murchison's sphere of influence as well."

After a few days' travel into the North Carolina wilderness, Ian, Pollyanne and Myers continued north to the villages of the Tuscarora. Jamie and Claire turned south-east in search of land to claim for the grant offered to Jamie by Governor Tryon.

Answer: To remove a tick

The passage continues: "She reached into the dripping hollow, and with delicate fingers appeared to tickle the parasite. She certainly tickled Jamie, who was very sensitive in that particular region. He turned pink in the face and flinched at her touch, all the muscles in his torso quivering."

Pollyanne told Claire that she was chewing pawpaw seeds, which mustn't be swallowed because they are poisonous. According to the Wikipedia article on the North American pawpaw (not to be confused with the papaya, which is of a different family altogether) the seeds have insecticidal properties, and are sometimes used in specialty shampoos to help rid one of lice.

Answer: skunk

I suppose that when one is camped out in the wilderness, surrounded by bears, catamounts and goodness knows what else, the harbinger of an animal the general size and shape of a house cat would be reassuring.

Earlier in the book Ian and Rollo were more poignantly introduced to this beast, having been sprayed liberally with "eau de skunk" at River Run.