The Scottish Prisoner

by Diana Gabaldon

  The dark streets near the abbey were thronged with the people of London, come out to pay their respects; they would file through all night, and much of the next day, before the vault was sealed again. Within a few minutes, though, Grey had made his way through the press and found himself more or less alone under the night sky, cloudy and cold with autumn's chill, nearly the same purple as the velvet shroud on the old king's coffin.

  He felt both elated and peaceful, almost valedictory: a strange state of mind to experience in the wake of a funeral.

  Part of it was Charlie, of course, and the knowledge that he had not failed his dead friend. Beyond that, though, was the knowledge that it lay within his power to do something equally important for the living one. He could keep James Fraser prisoner.

  Rain began to fall, but it was a light drizzle, no more, and he did not hurry his step on that account. When he reached Argus House, he was fresh and damp, the smoke and stink of the crowd blown away, and in possession of a fine appetite. When he came in, though, his thoughts of supper were delayed by discovery of an equerry, waiting patiently in the foyer.

  Stephan, he thought, seeing the distinctive mauve and green of the outlandish livery of the house of von Erdberg, and his heart jumped. Had something happened to the graf?

  "My lord," said the servant, bowing. He bent and picked up a large, round, lidded basket that had been sitting on the floor and presented it as though it contained something of immense value, though the basket itself was rough and common. "His excellency the graf hopes you will accept this token of his friendship."

  Deeply puzzled, Grey lifted the lid of the basket and, in the light of the candles, found a pair of bright dark eyes staring up at him from the face of a tiny, long-nosed black puppy, curled up on a white linen towel. The little hound had floppy ears and absurdly stumpy, powerful legs, with huge paws and a long, graceful tail whose tip beat in tentative greeting.

  Grey laughed, utterly charmed, and gently picked the puppy up. It was a badger hound, specially bred by Stephan; he called them Dackels, an affectionate diminutive for dachs-hund--"badger hound." It put out a tiny pink tongue and very delicately licked his knuckles.

  "Hallo, there," he said to the puppy. "Hungry? I am. Let's go and find some milk for you, shall we?" He dug in his pocket and offered a coin to the servant but found the man now holding a sealed note, which he put into Grey's hand with another obsequious bow.

  Not wanting to set down the dog, he managed to break the seal with his thumb and open the note. In the light of the nearest sconce, he read Stephan's words, set down in German in a firm black hand.

  Bring him when you come to visit me. We will perhaps hunt together again.

  --S.

  Helwater

  December 21

  It was cold in the loft, and his sleep-mazed mind groped among the icy drafts after the words still ringing in his mind.

  Bonnie lad.

  Wind struck the barn and went booming round the roof. A strong chilly draft with a scent of snow stirred the somnolence, and two or three of the horses shifted below, grunting and whickering. Helwater. The knowledge of the place settled on him, and the fragments of Scotland and Lallybroch cracked and flaked away, fragile as a skin of dried mud.

  Helwater. Straw rustling under him, the ends poking through the rough ticking, prickling through his shirt. Dark air, alive around him.

  Bonnie lad ...

  They'd brought down the Yule log to the house that afternoon, all the household taking part, the women bundled to the eyebrows, the men ruddy, flushed with the labor, staggering, singing, dragging the monstrous log with ropes, its rough skin packed with snow, a great furrow left where it passed, the snow plowed high on either side.

  Willie rode atop the log, screeching with excitement, clinging to the rope. Once back at the house, Isobel had tried to teach him to sing "Good King Wenceslas," but it was beyond him, and he dashed to and fro, into everything, until his grandmother declared that he would drive her to distraction and told Peggy to take him to the stable to help Jamie and Crusoe bring in the fresh-cut branches of pine and fir.

  Thrilled, Willie rode on Jamie's saddlebow to the grove and stood obediently on a stump where Jamie had put him, safe out of the way of the axes while the boughs were cut down. Then he helped to load the greenery, clutching two or three fragrant, mangled twigs to his chest, dutifully chucking these in the general direction of the huge basket, then running back again for more, heedless of where his burden actually landed.

  Jamie turned over, wriggling deeper into the nest of blankets, drowsy, remembering. He'd kept it up, the wean had, back and forth, back and forth, though red in the face and panting, until he dropped the very last branch on the pile. Jamie had looked down to find Willie beaming up at him with pride, laughed, and said on impulse, "Aye, that's a bonnie lad. Come on. Let's go home."

  William had fallen asleep on the ride home, his head heavy as a cannonball in its woolen cap against Jamie's chest. Jamie had dismounted carefully, holding the child in one arm, but Willie had wakened, blinked groggily at Jamie, and said, "WEN-sess-loss," clear as a bell, then fallen promptly back asleep. He'd waked properly by the time he was handed over to Nanny Elspeth, though, and as Jamie walked away, he had heard Willie, as he walked away, telling Nanny, "I a bonnie lad!"

  But those words came out of his dreams from somewhere else, and long ago. Had his own father said that to him once?

  He thought so, and for an instant--just an instant--was with his father and his brother, Willie, excited beyond bearing, holding the first fish he'd ever caught by himself, slimy and flapping, both of them laughing at him, with him in joy. "Bonnie lad!"

  Willie. God, Willie. I'm so glad they gave him your name. He seldom thought of his brother, but every now and then, he could feel Willie with him; sometimes his mother or his father. More often, Claire.

  I wish ye could see him, Sassenach, he thought. He's a bonnie lad. Loud and obnoxious, he added with honesty, but bonnie.

  What would his own parents think of William? They had neither of them lived to see any of their children's children.

  He lay for some time, his throat aching, listening to the dark, hearing the voices of his dead pass by in the wind. His thoughts grew vague and his grief eased, comforted by the knowledge of love, still alive in the world. Sleep came near again.

  He touched the rough crucifix that lay against his chest and whispered to the moving air, "Lord, that she might be safe, she and my children."

  Then turned his cheek to her reaching hand and touched her through the veils of time.

  Author's Notes

  The Wild Hunt

  The concept of the Wild Hunt--a spectral horde seen rushing through the night skies or above the ground, hunting for things unknown--doesn't come from Celtic mythology but from that of Central/Northern/Western Europe. Celtic mythology being the very plastic and inclusive thing that it is (vide the way it historically entwined itself easily with Catholic theology in Scotland and Ireland, where people might say a prayer to St. Bride in one breath, and a charm against piskies in the next)--and the inability of any Celt to pass up a good story--and it's no wonder that you find variations on the Wild Hunt in the Celtic lands as well.

  In some forms of these stories, the horde consists of faeries, in others, the "hunt" consists of the souls of the dead. Either way, it isn't something you want to meet on a dark night--or a moonlit one, either. In the British forms, the best-known "wild hunt" tales are "Tam Lin" and "Thomas the Rhymer" (there are dozens of variations), in which a young man meets the Queen of Faerie and is more or less abducted by her.

  The notion of abduction of humans by the hunt is common to almost all hunt tales, though--and it may be this aspect that caused our Irish Jacobite plotters to adopt this nom de guerre, as they planned to abduct George II. Then again, it might have been a reference to and natural extension from the older name, "Wild Geese," as the Irish Jacobites of the late seventeenth century called themselves. The idea
of the teind--the tithe to hell--is from "Tam Lin," and likely a word that would have resonance to people who lived by a code of honor, to whom betrayal and treason would carry a heavy price.

  The host is riding from Knocknarea

  And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;

  Caoilte tossing his burning hair,

  And Niamh calling Away, come away:

  Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

  The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,

  Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,

  Our breasts are heaving our eyes are agleam,

  Our arms are waving our lips are apart;

  And if any gaze on our rushing band,

  We come between him and the deed of his hand,

  We come between him and the hope of his heart.

  The host is rushing 'twixt night and day,

  And where is there hope or deed as fair?

  Caoilte tossing his burning hair,

  And Niamh calling Away, come away.

  --William Butler Yeats, "The Hosting of the Sidhe"

  [Footnote: An interesting modern variation on the Wild Hunt is the BBC television series Quatermass and the Pit, by Nigel Kneale, broadcast in December/January of 1958/59. In this science fiction serial, the concept of the Wild Hunt is used as a very literal metaphor for the murderous and bestial impulses of humanity (truly creepy in spots, hilarious in others; great acting!).]

  Thomas Lally

  Thomas Arthur, Comte de Lally, Baron Tollendal, is one of the real historical figures who appear in this book, along with George II, George III, and Horace Walpole. Born of an Irish father and a French mother (from whom he inherited his titles), he served with the famous Irish Brigade at Fontenoy and was a French general during the Seven Years War. He did in fact serve as Charles Edward Stuart's aide de camp during the battle of Falkirk, in the '45, and was mixed up in various Jacobite plots, including one hatched in Ireland in the 1760's.

  I have taken one small liberty with Thomas Lally, though. He was captured by the British following the Siege of Pondicherry, in India, and taken to England in 1761, not 1760. Given his real involvement with the Irish Jacobites--and his obvious spiritual kinship with Jamie Fraser as a prisoner of the English--I thought the minor temporal dislocation was worth it.

  An interesting--if grim--footnote to Lally's life is that he was indeed Just Furious about slurs cast on his reputation in France, following the French defeat at Pondicherry, and agitated to be sent back to France to defend himself at a court-martial. After five years of steady badgering, the British did send him back to France--where, in 1766, he was promptly convicted of treason and beheaded.

  Twenty years later, a French court reviewed the evidence and reversed his conviction, which I trust he found satisfying.

  Bog Bodies

  I've always found bog bodies--the corpses of people found preserved in peat bogs--fascinating. The garb and accoutrements of the body found on Inchcleraun (which is a real place, and has a real monastery) are a composite of such items found on or with bog bodies from Europe. My thanks to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History for hosting a special exhibition on bog bodies that provided me with a great deal of useful information, and to the British Museum, whose Lindow Man has always spoken powerfully to me.

  George II, George III, and Horace Walpole

  I love Horace Walpole, as does anyone with an interest in eighteenth-century English society. The fourth son of Robert Walpole, who was England's first prime minister (though he himself never used the title), Horace was not politically active, nor was he socially important, physically attractive, or otherwise very noticeable. He was, however, intelligent, observant, witty, sarcastic, and apparently never suffered from writer's cramp. His letters provide one of the most detailed and intimate views of English society during the mid-eighteenth century, and I'm indebted to one of these missives for Lord John's experience of King George II's state funeral.

  Below is the text of Walpole's account of the funeral; you may find it interesting to compare this with the fictionalized view in Chapter 43. The temptation, when presented with such eloquent historical largesse, is to use it all, but that's a temptation that should, by and large, be resisted. The point of fiction is to tell a particular story, and too much embroidery can't but detract, no matter how fascinating.

  In this instance, the point of showing you the king's funeral was primarily that it provided Lord John with his moment of enlightenment regarding Jamie's motive for remaining at Helwater. Secondarily, it shows a historical turning point that a) anchors the reader in time, b) metaphorically underlines the conclusion of the Grey brothers' quest, c) marks a turning point in Lord John's relationship with Jamie Fraser, and d) opens the door to a new phase of both personal and public history--for George III (who was the grandson, not the son, of George II) is, of course, the king from whom the American colonies revolted, and we see in the later books of the Outlander series just how that affects the lives of Lord John, Jamie Fraser, and William.

  To George Montagu, Esq.

  Arlington-street, November 13, 1760.

  ... Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other night; I had never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag of quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The prince's chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver on high stands, had a very good effect. The ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber. The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,--all this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole abbey so illuminated, that one saw it to greater advantage than by day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest chiara scuro. There wanted nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could not complain of its not being catholic enough. I had been in dread of being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the heralds were not very accurate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to keep me in countenance. When we came to the chapel of Henry the seventh, all solemnity and decorum ceased; no order was observed, people sat or stood where they could or would; the yeomen of the guard were crying out for help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin; the bishop read sadly, and blundered in the prayers; the fine chapter, Man that is born of a woman, was chaunted, not read; and the anthem, besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well for a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the duke of Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances. He had a dark brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a train of five yards. Attending the funeral of a father could not be pleasant: his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours; his face bloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke, which has affected too one of his eyes, and placed over the mouth of the vault, into which, in all probability, he must himself so soon descend; think how unpleasant a situation! He bore it all with a firm and unaffected countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself back in a stall, the archbishop hovering over him with a smelling-bottle; but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the duke of Newcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the m
arble. It was very theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay, attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the bed-chamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the king's order.

  I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very trifle. The king of Prussia has totally defeated marshal Daun. This, which would have been prodigious news a month ago, is nothing today; it only takes its turn among the questions, "Who is to be groom of the bed-chamber? what is sir T. Robinson to have?" I have been to Leicester-fields today; the crowd was immoderate; I don't believe it will continue so. Good night.

  Yours ever.

  Remarks on Some Eighteenth-Century Words and Foreign Phrases

  "making love"--This term, like some other period phrases, exists in modern speech, but has changed its meaning. It was not a synonym for "engaging in sexual relations," but was strictly a male activity and meant any sort of amorous wooing behavior, including the writing or reading of romantic poetry to a young woman, giving her flowers, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, or going so far as kissing, cupping (breasts, we assume), toying (pretty open-ended), etc.--but certainly not including sexual intercourse.

  "gagging" (e.g., "What had the gagging wee bitch been saying?")--This is a Scots word (not Gaelic), meaning "hoaxing," from which we might deduce an etymology that led to the present-day "gag," meaning a joke of some sort.

  "imbranglement"--period colloquialism; an onomatopoetic word that means just what it sounds like: complicated and involuntary entanglement, whether physical, legal, or emotional.

  whisky vs. whiskey--Scotch whisky is spelled without an "e" and Irish whiskey is spelled with an "e." Consequently, I've observed this geographical peculiarity, depending on the location where the substance is produced and/or being ingested.