“I told him a little,” Jamie went on. “That I was outlawed, but not guilty of the charge, though I’d have precious little chance of proving it. He seemed sympathetic, but I was cautious about telling him the circumstances—let alone the fact that there’s a price on my head. I hadna yet made up my mind whether to trust him with the rest of it, when … well, when Old Alec came tearing into the camp like the devil himself was on his tail, and Murtagh and I left the same way.”
This reminded me. “Where is Murtagh?” I asked. “He came back with you to Leoch?” I hoped the little clansman hadn’t fallen afoul of either Colum or the villagers of Cranesmuir.
“He started back wi’ me, but the beast he was riding was no match for Donas. Aye, a bonny wee lad ye are, Donas mo buidheag.” He slapped the shimmering sorrel neck, and Donas snorted and ruffled his mane. Jamie glanced up at me and smiled.
“Dinna worry for Murtagh. There’s a canty wee bird can mind for himself.”
“Canty? Murtagh?” I knew the word meant “cheerful,” which seemed incongruous to a degree. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile. Have you?”
“Oh, aye. At least twice.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Twenty-three years. He’s my godfather.”
“Oh. Well, that explains a bit. I didn’t think he’d bother on my account.”
Jamie patted my leg. “Of course he would. He likes you.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Having thus approached the subject of recent events, I took a deep breath and asked something I badly wanted to know.
“Jamie?”
“Aye?”
“Geillis Duncan. Will they … will they really burn her?”
He glanced up at me, frowning slightly, and nodded.
“I expect so. Not ’til after the child is born, though. Is that what troubles ye?”
“One of the things. Jamie, look at this.” I tried to push up the voluminous sleeve, failed, and settled for pulling the neck of the shirt off my shoulder to display my vaccination scar.
“God in heaven,” he said slowly, after I had explained. He looked sharply at me. “So that’s why … is she from your own time then?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. All I can say is that she was likely born sometime after 1920; that’s when public inoculation came in.” I looked over my shoulder, but low-lying clouds hid the crags that now separated us from Leoch. “I don’t suppose I ever will know … now.”
Jamie took Donas’s reins and led him aside, under a small pine grove, on the banks of a small stream. He grasped me around the waist and lifted me down.
“Dinna grieve for her,” he said firmly, holding me. “She’s a wicked woman; a murderer, if not a witch. She did kill her husband, no?”
“Yes,” I said, with a shudder, remembering Arthur Duncan’s glazed eyes.
“I still dinna understand why she should kill him, though,” he said, shaking his head in puzzlement. “He had money, a good position. And I doubt he beat her.”
I looked at him in exasperated amazement.
“And that’s your definition of a good husband?”
“Well … yes,” he said, frowning. “What else might she want?”
“What else?” I was so taken aback, I just looked at him for a moment, then slid down on the grass and started to laugh.
“What’s funny? I thought this was murder.” He smiled, though, and put an arm around me.
“I was just thinking,” I said, still snorting a bit, “if your definition of a good husband is one with money and position who doesn’t beat his wife … what does that make you?”
“Oh,” he said. He grinned. “Well, Sassenach, I never said I was a good husband. Neither did you. ‘Sadist,’ I think ye called me, and a few other things that I wouldna repeat for the sake of decency. But not a good husband.”
“Good. Then I won’t feel obliged to poison you with cyanide.”
“Cyanide?” He looked down curiously at me. “What’s that?”
“The thing that killed Arthur Duncan. It’s a bloody fast, powerful poison. Fairly common in my time, but not here.” I licked my lips meditatively.
“I tasted it on his lips, and just that tiny bit was enough to make my whole face go numb. It acts almost instantly, as you saw. I should have known then—about Geilie, I mean. I imagine she made it from crushed peach pits or cherry stones, though it must have been the devil of a job.”
“Did she tell ye why she did it, then?”
I sighed and rubbed my feet. My shoes had been lost in the struggle at the loch, and I tended to pick up stickers and cockleburs, my feet not being hardened as Jamie’s were.
“That and a good deal more. If there’s anything to eat in your saddlebags, why don’t you fetch it, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
* * *
We entered the valley of Broch Tuarach the next day. As we came down out of the foothills, I spotted a solitary rider, some distance away, heading roughly in our direction. He was the first person I had seen since we had left Cranesmuir.
The man approaching us was stout and prosperous-looking, with a snowy stock showing at the neck of a serviceable grey serge coat, its long tails covering all but an inch or two of his breeches.
We had been traveling for the best part of a week, sleeping out-of-doors, washing in the cold, fresh water of the burns, and living quite well off such rabbits and fish as Jamie could catch, and such edible plants and berries as I could find. Between our efforts, our diet was better than that in the Castle, fresher, and certainly more varied, if a little unpredictable.
But if nutrition was well served by an outdoor life, appearance was another thing, and I took hasty stock of our looks as the gentleman on horseback hesitated, frowning, then changed direction and trotted slowly toward us to investigate.
Jamie, who had insisted on walking most of the way to spare the horse, was a disreputable sight indeed, hose stained to the knees with reddish dust, spare shirt torn by brambles and a week’s growth of beard bristling fiercely from cheek and jaw.
His hair had grown long enough in the last months to reach his shoulders. Usually clubbed into a queue or laced back, it was free now, thick and unruly, with small bits of leaf and stick caught in the disordered coppery locks. Face burned a deep ruddy bronze, boots cracked from walking, dirk and sword thrust through his belt, he looked a wild Highlander indeed.
I was hardly better. Covered modestly enough in the billows of Jamie’s best shirt and the remnants of my shirt, barefoot, and shawled in his plaid, I looked a right ragamuffin. Encouraged by the misty dampness and lacking any restraint in the form of comb or brush, my hair rioted all over my head. It had grown as well during my sojourn at the Castle, and floated in clouds and tangles about my shoulders, drifting into my eyes whenever the wind was behind us, as it was now.
Shoving the wayward locks out of my eyes, I watched the cautious approach of the gentleman in grey. Jamie, seeing him, brought our own horse to a stop and waited for him to draw near enough for speech.
“It’s Jock Graham,” he said to me, “from up the way at Murch Nardagh.”
The man came within a few yards, reined up and sat looking us over carefully. His eyes, pouched with fat, crinkled and rested suspiciously on Jamie, then suddenly sprang wide.
“Lallybroch?” he said unbelievingly.
Jamie nodded benignly. With a completely unfounded air of proprietorial pride, he laid a hand on my thigh and said, “and my lady Lallybroch.”
Jock Graham’s mouth dropped an inch or two, then was hastily drawn up again into an expression of flustered respect.
“Ah … my … lady,” he said, belatedly doffing his hat and bowing in my direction. “You’ll be, er, going home, then?” he asked, trying to keep his fascinated gaze from resting on my leg, bared to the knee by a rent in my shift, and stained with elderberry juice.
“Aye.” Jamie glanced over his shoulder, toward the rift in the
hill he had told me was the entrance to Broch Tuarach. “You’ll have been there lately, Jock?”
Graham pulled his eyes away from me and looked at Jamie. “Och? Oh, aye. Aye, I’ve been there. They’re all well. Be pleased to see ye, I expect. Go well, then, Fraser.” And with a hasty dig into his horse’s ribs, he turned aside and headed up the valley.
We watched him go. Suddenly, a hundred yards away, he paused. Turning in the saddle, he rose in his stirrups and cupped his mouth to shout. The sound, borne by the wind, reached us thin but distinct.
“Welcome home!”
And he disappeared over a rise.
* * *
Broch Tuarach means “the north-facing tower.” From the side of the mountain above, the broch that gave the small estate its name was no more than another mound of rocks, much like those that lay at the foot of the hills we had been traveling through.
We came down through a narrow, rocky gap between two crags, leading the horse between boulders. Then the going was easier, the land sloping more gently down through the fields and scattered cottages, until at last we struck a small winding road that led to the house.
It was larger than I had expected; a handsome three-story manor of harled white stone, windows outlined in the natural grey stone, a high slate roof with multiple chimneys, and several smaller whitewashed buildings clustered about it, like chicks about a hen. The old stone broch, situated on a small rise to the rear of the house, rose sixty feet above the ground, cone-topped like a witch’s hat, girdled with three rows of tiny arrow-slits.
As we drew near, there was a sudden terrible racket from the direction of the outbuildings, and Donas shied and reared. No horseman, I promptly fell off, landing ignominiously in the dusty road. With an eye for the relative importance of things, Jamie leapt for the plunging horse’s bridle, leaving me to fend for myself.
The dogs were almost upon me, baying and growling, by the time I found my feet. To my panicked eyes, there seemed to be at least a dozen of them, all with teeth bared and wicked. There was a shout from Jamie.
“Bran! Luke! Sheas!”
The dogs skidded to a halt within a few feet of me, confused. They milled, growling uncertainly, until he spoke again.
“Sheas, mo maise! Stand, ye wee heathen!” They did, and the largest dog’s tail began gradually to wag, once, and then twice, questioningly.
“Claire. Come take the horse. He’ll not let them close, and it’s me they want. Walk slowly; they’ll no harm ye.” He spoke casually, not to alarm either horse or dogs further. I was not so sanguine, but edged carefully toward him. Donas jerked his head and rolled his eyes as I took the bridle, but I was in no mood to put up with tantrums, and I yanked the rein firmly down and grabbed the headstall.
The thick velvet lips writhed back from his teeth, but I jerked harder. I put my face close to the big glaring golden eye and glared back.
“Don’t try it!” I warned, “or you’ll end up as dogsmeat, and I won’t lift a hand to save you!”
Jamie meanwhile was slowly walking toward the dogs, one hand held out fistlike toward them. What had seemed a large pack was only four dogs: a small brownish rat-terrier, two ruffed and spotted shepherds, and a huge black and tan monster that could have stood in for the Hound of the Baskervilles with no questions asked.
This slavering creature stretched out a neck thicker than my waist and sniffed gently at the proffered knuckles. A tail like a ship’s cable beat back and forth with increasing fervor. Then it flung back its enormous head, baying with joy, and leaped on its master, knocking him flat in the road.
“ ‘In which Odysseus returns from the Trojan War and is recognized by his faithful hound,’ ” I remarked to Donas, who snorted briefly, giving his opinion either of Homer, or of the undignified display of emotion going on in the roadway.
Jamie, laughing, was ruffling the fur and pulling the ears of the dogs, who were all trying to lick his face at once. Finally he beat them back sufficiently to rise, keeping his feet with difficulty against their ecstatic demonstrations.
“Well, someone’s glad to see me, at any rate,” he said, grinning, as he patted the beast’s head. “That’s Luke—” he pointed to the terrier, “and Elphin and Mars. Brothers, they are, and bonny sheep-dogs. And this,” he laid an affectionate hand on the enormous black head, which slobbered in appreciation, “is Bran.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, cautiously extending a knuckle to be sniffed. “What is he?”
“A staghound.” He scratched the pricked ears, quoting
“Thus Fingal chose his hounds:
Eye like sloe, ear like leaf,
Chest like horse, hough like sickle
And the tail joint far from the head.”
“If those are the qualifications, then you’re right,” I said, inspecting Bran. “If his tail joint were any further from his head, you could ride him.”
“I used to, when I was small—not Bran, I don’t mean, but his grandfather, Nairn.”
He gave the hound a final pat and straightened, gazing toward the house. He took the restive Donas’s bridle and turned him downhill.
“In which Odysseus returns to his home, disguised as a beggar,…” he quoted in Greek, having picked up my earlier remark. “And now,” he said, straightening his collar with some grimness, “I suppose it’s time to go and deal with Penelope and her suitors.”
When we reached the double doors, the dogs panting at our heels, Jamie hesitated.
“Should we knock?” I asked, a bit nervous. He looked at me in astonishment.
“It’s my home,” he said, and pushed the door open.
He led me through the house, ignoring the few startled servants we passed, past the entrance hall and through a small gun room, into the drawing room. It boasted a wide hearth with a polished mantel, and bits of silver and glass gleamed here and there, capturing the late-afternoon sun. For a moment, I thought the room was empty. Then I saw a faint movement in one corner near the hearth.
She was smaller than I had expected. With a brother like Jamie, I had imagined her at least my height, or even taller, but the woman by the fire barely reached five feet. Her back was to us as she reached for something on the shelf of the china cabinet, and the ends of her dress sash dipped close to the floor.
Jamie froze when he saw her.
“Jenny,” he said.
The woman turned and I caught an impression of brows black as ink-squills, and blue eyes wide in a white face before she launched herself at her brother.
“Jamie!” Small as she was, she jarred him with the impact of her embrace. His arms went about her shoulders in reflex and they clung for a moment, her face tight against his shirtfront, his hand tender on the nape of her neck. On his face was an expression of such mingled uncertainty and yearning joy that I felt almost an intruder.
Then she pressed herself closer to him, murmuring something in Gaelic, and his expression dissolved in shock. He grasped her by the arms and held her away from him, looking down.
The faces were much alike; the same oddly slanted dark blue eyes and broad cheekbones. The same thin, blade-bridged nose, just a trifle too long. But she was dark where Jamie was fair, with cascades of black curly hair, bound back with green ribbon.
She was beautiful, with clear-drawn features and alabaster skin. She was also clearly in a state of advanced pregnancy.
Jamie had gone white at the lips. “Jenny,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Oh, Jenny. Mo cridh.”
Her attention was distracted just then by the appearance of a small child in the doorway, and she pulled away from her brother without noticing his discomposure. She took the little boy’s hand and led him into the room, murmuring encouragement. He hung back a little, thumb in mouth for comfort, peering up at the strangers from behind his mother’s skirts.
For his mother she plainly was. He had her mop of thick, curly black hair and the square set of her shoulders, though the face was not hers.
“This is
wee Jamie,” she said, looking proudly down at the lad. “And this is your uncle Jamie, mo cridh, the one you’re named for.”
“For me? You named him for me?” Jamie looked like a fighter who has just been punched very hard in the stomach. He backed away from mother and child until he blundered into a chair, and sank into it as though the strength had gone from his legs. He hid his face in his hands.
His sister by this time was aware that something was amiss. She touched him tentatively on the shoulder.
“Jamie? What is it, my dearie? Are ye ill?”
He looked up at her then, and I could see his eyes were full of tears.
“Did ye have to do that, Jenny? Do ye think that I’ve not suffered enough for what happened—for what I let happen—that ye must name Randall’s bastard for me, to be a reproach to me so long as I live?”
Jenny’s face, normally pale, lost all vestiges of color.
“Randall’s bastard?” she said blankly. “John Randall, ye mean? The Redcoat captain?”
“Aye, the Redcoat captain. Who else would I mean, for God’s sake! You’ll remember him, I suppose?” Jamie was recovering enough of his customary poise for sarcasm.
Jenny eyed her brother closely, one arched brow lifted in suspicion.
“Have ye lost your senses, man?” she inquired. “Or have ye taken a drop too much along the way?”
“I should never have come back,” he muttered. He rose then, stumbling slightly and tried to pass without touching her. She stood her ground, however, and gripped him by the arm.
“Correct me, brother, if I’m wrong,” Jenny said slowly, “but I’ve the strong impression you’re saying I’ve played the whore to Captain Randall, and what I’m askin’ myself is what maggots you’ve got in your brain to make ye say so?”
“Maggots, is it?” Jamie turned to her, mouth twisted with bitterness. “I wish it were so; I’d rather I was dead and in my grave than to see my sister brought to such a pass.” He seized her by the shoulders, and shook her slightly, crying out, “Why, Jenny, why? To have ye ruin yourself for me was shame enough to kill me. But this …” He dropped his hands then, with a gesture of despair that took in the protruding belly, swelling accusingly under the light smocking.
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 61
