The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  the baby back at her breast.

  "Does Roger know? I mean, is he in on this-this-bloody vendetta?" I shook my head.

  "I don't think so. I mean, I'm sure not. He would have told you-wouldn't he?"

  Her expression eased a little, though a shadow of doubt still darkened her eyes.

  "I'd hate to think he'd keep something like that from me. On the other hand," she added, voice sharpening a little in accusation, "you did."

  I felt the sting of it, and pressed my lips tight together.

  "You said that you didn't want to think of Stephen Bonnet," I said, looking away from the turbulence of feeling in her face. "Naturally not. I-we-didn't want you to have to." With a certain feeling of inevitability, I realized that I was being drawn into the vortex of Jamie's intentions, through no consent of my own.

  "Now, look," I said briskly, sitting up straight and giving Brianna a sharp look. "I don't think it's a good idea to look for Bonnet, and I've done all I could to discourage Jamie from doing it. In fact," I added ruefully, with a nod toward Lord john's letter, "I thought I had discouraged him. But apparently not."

  A look of determination was hardening Brianna's mouth, and she settled herself more solidly in the chair.

  "I'll bloody discourage him," she said.

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  1 gave her a look, considering. If anyone had the necessary stubbornness and force of character to sway Jamie from his chosen path, it would be his daughter. That was, however, a very large "if

  "You can try," I said, a little dubiously.

  "Don't I have the right?" Her initial shock had vanished, and her features were back under control, her expression cold and hard. "Isn't it for me to say whether I want ... what I want?"

  "Yes," I agreed, a twinge of uneasiness rippling down my back. Fathers were inclined to think they had rights, too. So were husbands. But perhaps that was better left unsaid.

  A momentary silence fell between us, broken only by Jernmy's noises, and the calling of crows outside. Almost by impulse, I asked the question that had risen to the surface of my mind.

  "Brianna. What do you want? Do you want Stephen Bonnet dead?"

  She glanced at me, then away, looking out the window while she patted Jemmy's back. She didn't blink. Finally, her eyes closed briefly, then opened to meet mine.

  "I can't," she said, low-voiced. "I'm afraid if I ever let that thought in my mind ... I'd never be able to think about anything else, I'd want it so much. And I will be damned if I'll let ... him ... ruin my life that way."

  Jemmy gave a resounding belch, and spit up a little milk. Bree had an old linen towel across her shoulder, and deftly wiped his chin with it. Calmer now, he had lost his look of vexed incomprehension, and was concentrating intently on something over his mother's shoulder. Following the direction of his clear blue gaze, I saw the shadow of a spiderweb, high up in the corner of the window. A gust of wind shook the window frame, and a tiny spot moved in the center of the web, very slightly.

  "Yeah," Brianna said, very softly. "I do want him dead. But I want Da and Roger alive, more."

  THE DREAMTIME

  GER HAD GONE to sing for Joel MacLeod's nephew's wedding, arranged at the Gathering, and come home with a new prize, which R'e was anxious to commit to paper before it should escape.

  He left his muddy boots in the kitchen, accepted a cup of tea and a raisin tart from Mrs. Bug, and went directly to the study. Jamie was there, writing letters; he glanced up with an absent murmur of acknowledgment, but then returned to his composition, a slight frown between his heavy brows as he formed the letters, hand cramped and awkward on the quill.

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  There was a small, three-shelf bookcase in Jamie's study, which held the entire library of Fraser's Ridge. The serious works occu ied the top shelf. a volume of Latin poetry, Caesar's Commentaries, the pMeditations of Marcus Aurelius, a few other classic works, Dr. Brickell's Natural History of North Carolina, lent by the Governor and never returned, and a schoolbook on mathematics, much abused, with Ian Murray the Younger written on the flyleaf in a staggering hand.

  The middle shelf was given over to more light-minded reading: a small selection of romances, slightly ragged with much reading, featuring Robinson Crusoe; Tom Jones, in a set of seven small, leather-covered volumes; Roderick Random, in four volumes; and Sir Henry Richardson's monstrous Pamela, done in two gigantic octavo bindings-the first of these decorated with multiple bookmarks, ranging from a ragged dried maple leaf to a folded penwiper, these indicating the points which various readers had reached before giving up, either temporarily or permanently. A copy of Don Quixote in Spanish, ratty, but much less worn, since only Jamie could read it.

  The bottom shelf held a copy of Dr. Sam. Johnson's Dictionary, Jamie's ledgers and account books, several of Brianna's sketchbooks, and the slender buckram-bound journal in which Roger recorded the words of unfamiliar songs and poems acquired at ceilidhs and hearthsides.

  He took a stool on the other side of the table Jamie used as a desk, and cut a new quill for the job, taking care with it; he wanted these records to be readable. He didn't know precisely what use the collection might be put to, but he had been ingrained with the scholar's instinctive value for the written word. Perhaps this was only for his own pleasure and use-but he liked the feeling that he might be leaving something to posterity as well, and took pains both to write clearly and to document the circumstances under which he had acquired each song.

  The study was peacefill, with no more than Jamie's occasional sigh as he stopped to rub the kinks from his cramped hand. After a while, Mr. Bug came to the door, and after a brief colloquy, Jamie put away his quill and went out with the factor. Roger nodded vaguely as they bade him farewell, mind occupied with the effort of recall and recording.

  When he finished, a quarter of an hour later, his mind was pleasantly empty, and he sat back, stretching the ache from his shoulders. He waited a few moments for the ink to be thoroughly dry before he put the book away, and while waiting, went to pull out one of Brianna's sketchbooks from the bottom shelf

  She wouldn't mind if he looked; she had told him he was welcome to look at them. At the same time, she showed him only the occasional drawing, those she was pleased with, or had done especially for him.

  He turned over the pages of the notebook, feeling the sense of curiosity and respect that attends the prying into mystery, searching for small glimpses of the workings of her mind.

  There were lots of portrait sketches of the baby in this one, a study in circles. He paused at one small sketch, caught by memory. It was a sketch of Jemmy sleeping, back turned, his small sturdy body curled up in a comma. Adso the cat was curled up beside him, in precisely similar fashion, his chin perched on Jemmy's fat little foot, eyes slits of comatose bliss. He remembered that one.

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  She drew Jemmy often-nearly every day, in fact-but seldom fullface. "Babies don't really have faces," she had told him, frowning critically at her offspring, who was industriously gnawing on the leather strap of Jamie's powder horn.

  "Oh, aye? And what's that on the front of his head, then?" He had lain flat on the floor with the baby and the cat, grinning up at her, which made it easier for her to look down her nose at him.

  "I mean, strictly speaking. Naturally they have faces, but they all look alike." "It's a wise father that kens his own child, eh?" he joked, regretting it instantly, as he saw the shadow cloud her eyes. It passed, quick as a summer cloud, but it had been there, nonetheless.

  "Well, not from an artist's point of view." She drew the blade of her penknife at an angle across the tip of the charcoal stick, sharpening the point. "They don't have any bones-that you can see, I mean. And it's the bones that you use to show the shape of a face; without bones, there isn't much there."

  Bones or not, she had a remarkable knack for capturing the nuances of expression. He smiled at one sketch; Jemmy's face wore the aloof and unmistakable express
ion of one concentrating hard on the production of a truly terrible diaper,

  Beyond the pictures of Jemmy, there were several pages of what looked like engineering diagrams. Finding these of no great interest, he bent and replaced the book, then drew out another.

  He realized at once that it was not a sketchbook. The pages were dense with Brianna's tidy, angular writing. He flipped curiously through the pages; it wasn't really a diary, but appeared to be a sort of record of her dreams.

  Last night I dreamed that I shaved my legs. Roger smiled at the inconsequence, but a vision of Brianna's shins, long-boned and glimmering, kept him reading.

  I was using Daddy's razor and his shaving cream, and I was thinking that hed complain when be found out, but I wasn't worried. ne shaving cream came in a white can with red letters, and it said Old Spice on the label. I don't know if there ever was shaving cream like that, but that's what Daddy always smelled of, Old Spice aftersbave and cigarette smoke. He didn't smoke, but the people be worked with did, and his jackets always smelled like the air in the living room after a party.

  Roger breathed in, half-conscious of the remembered scents of fresh baking and tea, furniture polish and ammonia. No cigarettes at the decorous gatherings held in the manse's parlor-and yet his father's jackets too had smelled of smoke.

  Once Gayle told me that she'd gone out with Chris and hadn't bad time to shave her legs, and she spent the whole evening trying to keep him from putting his band on her knee, for fear he'd feel the stubble. Afterward, I never shaved my legs without thinking of that, andPd run myfingers up my thigh, to see whether I couldJeel anything there, or if it was okay to stop shaving at my kneecaps.

  The Fiery Cross 397

  The hair on Brianna's thighs was so fine it could not be felt; and only seen when she rose up naked over him, with the sun behind her gilding her body, gleaming through that delicate nimbus of secrecy. The thought that no one would ever see it but himself gave him a small glow of satisfaction, like a miser counting each hair of gold and copper, enjoying his secret fortune undisturbed by any fear of theft.

  He turned the page, feeling unspeakably guilty at this intrusion, yet drawn irresistibly by the urge to penetrate the intimacy of her dreams, to know the images that filled her sleeping mind.

  The entries were undated, but each entry began with the same words: Last night, I dreamed.

  Last night I dreamed that it was raining. Hardly surprising, since it was raining, andbas been for two days. R%en I went out to the privy this mornI.ng, I bad to jump over a huge puddle by the door, and sank up to the ankles in the soft spot by the blackberries.

  We went to bed last night with the rain pounding on the roof. It was so nice to curl up with Roger and be warm in our bed, after a wet, chilly day. Raindrops fill down the chimney and hissed in the fire. We told each other storiesfrom our youths-maybc that's where the dream came ftom, thinking about the past.

  nere wasn't much to the dream, just that I was looking out a window in Boston, watching the carsgo past, throwing up big sheets of waterfrom their wheels, and hearing the swoosb and rush of their tires on the wet streets. I woke up still hearing that sound; it was so clear in my mind that I actually went to the window and peeked out, half expecting to see a busy street, full of cars rushing tbrugb the rain. it was a shock to see spruce trees and chestnuts and wild grass and creepers, and bear nothing but the soft patter of raindrops bouncing and trembling on the burdock leaves.

  Everything was so vivid agreen, so lush and overgrown, that it seemed like a jungle, or an alien planet-a place Fd never been, with nothing I recognized, though in fact I see it every day.

  All day, Fve beard the secret rush of tires in the rain, somewhere behind me.

  Feeling guilty, but fascinated, Roger turned the page.

  Last night I dreamed of driving my car it was my own blue Mustang, and I was drivingfast down a winding road, through the mountains-these mountains. I never have driven through these mountains, though I have been through the mountain woodlands in upstate New York. It was definitely here, though; I knew it was the Ridge.

  . It was so real. I can still feel my hair snapping in the wind, the wheel in my bands, the vibration of the motor and the rumble of tires on the paveble. It can't happen ment. But that scnsation-as well as the cat-is impossi

  now, anywhere but in my bead. And yet there it is, embedded in the cells of my memory, as real as the privy outside, waiting to be called back to life at the flick of a synapse.

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  That's another oddness. Nobody knows what a synapse is, except me and Mama and Roger. What a strangefeeling; as though we three share all kinds of secrets.

  Anyway, thatparticular bit-the driving-is traceable to a known memory. But what about the dreams, equally vivid, equally real, of things I do not know of my waking self. Arc some dreams the memories of things that haven't happened yet?

  Last night I dreamed that I made love with Roger.

  He had been about to close the book, feeling a sense of guilt at his intrusion. The guilt was still there-in spades-but totally insufficient to overcome his curiosity. He glanced at the door, but the house was quiet; women were moving about in the kitchen, but no one was near the study.

  Last night I dreamed that I made love with Roger.

  It was great; for once I wasn't thinking, wasn 't watching from the outside, like I always do. In fact, I wasn't even aware of myscIffor a long time. There was just this ... very wild, exciting stuff, and I was part of it and Roger was part of it, but there wasn't any him or me, just us.

  Thcfunny thing is that it was Roger, but I didn't think of him like that. Not by his name--not that name. It was like be bad another name, a secret, real one-but I knew what it was.

  (Fve always thought everybody has that kind of name, the kind that isn't a word. I know who I am-and whoever it is, her name isn't "Brianna.' It's me, that's all. 'Me" worksfine as a substitute for what I mean-but bow do you write down someone else's secret name?)

  I knew Roger's real name, though, and that seemed to be why it was working. And it really was working, too; I didn't think about it or worry about it, and I only thought toward the very end, Hey, it's happening!

  And then it did happen and everything dissolved and sbook and throbbed-

  Here she had blacked out the rest of the line, with a small, cross note in the margin, that said,

  Well, none of the books Fve ever read could describe it, either!

  Despite his shocked fascination, Roger laughed aloud, then choked it off, glancing round hastily to see that he was still alone. There were noises in the kitchen, but no sound of footsteps in the hall, and his eyes went back to the page like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

  I bad my eyes closed--in the dream, that island I was lying there with little electric shocks stillgoing off, and I opened my eyes and it was Stephen Bonnet inside me.

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  It was such a shock it woke me up. I felt like Id been screaming--my throat was all raw-but I couldn't have been, because Roger and the baby were sound asleep. I was hot all over, so hot I was sweating, but I was cold, too, and my heart was pounding. It took a long time before things settled down enoughfor me togo back to sleep; all the birds were carrying on.

  That's what finally let me go back to sleep, in fact-tbe birds. Da-and Daddy, too, come to think of it-told me that the jays and crowsgive alarm calls, but songbirds stop singing when someone comes near, so when you're in a forest, you listen for that. With so much racket in the trees by the house, I knew it was safe-nobody was there.

  There was a small blank space at the foot of the page. He turned it, feeling his palms sweat and his heartbeat heavy in his ears. The writing resumed at the top of the page. Before, the writing had been fluid, almost hasty, the letters flattened as they raced across the page. Here, they were formed with more care, rounded and upright, as though the first shock of the experience were spent, and she had returned, with a stubborn caution, to think fur
ther about it.

  I tried toforget it, but that didn't work. It kept coming back and coming back into my mind, so Ifinally went out by myscr to work in the herb shed. Mama keeps jemmy when I'm there because be gets in things, so I knew I could be alone. So I sat down in the middle of all the banging bunches and closed my eyes and tried to remember every single thing about it, and think to myself about the different parts, "That's okay,' or "That's just a dream." Because Stephen Bonnet scared me, and Iftlt sick when I thought of the end-but I really wanted to remember bow. How itfelt, and bow I did it, so maybe I can do it again, with Roger.

  But I keep having thisftcling that I can't, unless I can remember Roger's secret name.

  There the entry stopped. The dreams continued on the next page, but Roger didn't read further. He closed the book very carefully and slid it back behind the others on the shelf He rose to his feet and stood looking out the window for some time, unconsciously rubbing his sweating palms over the seams of his breeches.

  PART FIVE

  'Tis Better to Marry Than Burn

  IN CUPID'$ GROVE

  0 YE TH I N K they'll share a bed? "

  Jamie didn't raise his voice, but he'd made no effort to lower it, either. Luckily, we were standing at the far end of the terrace, too far D

  away for the bridal couple to hear. A number of heads turned in our direction, though.

  Ninian Bell Hamilton was openly staring at us. I smiled brightly and fluttered my closed fan at the elderly Scotsman in greeting, meanwhile giving Jamie a swift nudge in the ribs.

  "A nice, respectable sort of thing for a nephew to be wondering about his aunt," I said under my breath.

  Jamie shifted out of elbow range and lifted an eyebrow at me.

  "What's respectable to do with it? They'll be married. And well above the age of consent, both o' them," he added, with a grin at Ninian, who went bright pink with smothered mirth. I didn't know how old Duncan Innes was, but my best guess put him in his mid-fifties. Jamie's aunt Jocasta had to be at least a decade older.

  I could just see Jocasta over the heads of the intervening crowd, graciously accepting the greetings of friends and neighbors at the far end of the terrace. A tall woman gowned in russet wool, she was flanked by huge stone vases holding sprays of dried goldenrod, and her black butter Ulysses stood at her shoulder, dignified in wig and green livery. With an elegant white lace cap crowning her bold MacKenzie bones, she was undeniably the queen of River Run Plantation. I stood on tiptoe, searching for her consort.

  Duncan was slightly shorter than Jocasta, but he should still have been visible. I'd seen him earlier in the morning, dressed in an absolute blaze of Highland finery, in which he looked dashing, if terribly self-conscious. I craned my neck, putting a hand on Jamie's arm to keep my balance. He grabbed my elbow to steady me.

  "What are ye looking for, Sassenach?" "Duncan. Shouldn't he be with your aunt?"

  No one could tell by looking that Jocasta was blind-that she stood between the big vases to keep her bearings, or that Ulysses was there to whisper in her ear the nanies of approaching guests. I saw her left hand drift outward from her side, touch empty air, and drift back. Her face didn't change, though; she smiled and nodded, saying something to Judge Henderson.

  "Run away before the wedding night?" suggested Ninian, lifting his chin and both eyebrows in an effort to see over the crowd without standing on his

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  toes. "I'd maybe feel a bit nervous at the prospect myself Your aunt's a handsome woman, Fraser, but she could freeze the ballocks off the King o' Japan, and she wanted to."

  Jamie's mouth twitched.

  "Duncan's maybe caught short," he said. "Whatever the reason. He's been to the necessary house four times this morning. )5

  My own brows went up at this. Duncan suffered from chronic constipation; in fact, I had brought a packet of senna leaves and coffee-plant roots for him, in spite of Jamie's rude remarks about what constituted a suitable wedding present. Duncan must be more nervous than I'd thought,

  "Well, it's no going to be any great surprise to my aunt, and her wi' three husbands before him," Jamie said, in reply to a murmured remark of Hamilton's. "It'll be the first time Duncan's been married, though. That's a shock to any man. I remember my own wedding night, aye?" He grinned at me, and I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. I remembered it, too-vividly.

  "Don't you think it's rather warm out here?" I flicked my fan into an arc of ivory lace, and fluttered it over my cheeks.

  Really?" he said, still grinning at me. "I hadna taken notice of it." "Duncan has," Ninian put in. His wrinkled lips pursed closed, holding in the laughter. "Sweating like a steamed pudding when I saw him last."

  It was in fact a little chilly out, in spite of the cast-iron tubs full of hot embers that sent the sweet smell of applewood smoke wisping up from the corners of the stone terrace. Spring had sprung, and the lawns were fresh and green, as were the trees along the river, but the morning air still held a sharp nip of winter's bite. It was still winter in the mountains, and we had encountered snow as far south as Greensboro on our journey toward River Run, though daffodils and crocuses poked bravely through it.

  It was a clear, bright March day now, though, and house, terrace, lawn, and garden were thronged with wedding guests, glowing in their finery like an unseasonable flight of butterflies. Jocasta's wedding was clearly going to be the social event of the year, so far as Cape Fear society was concerned; there must be nearly two hundred people here, from places as far distant as Halifax and Edenton.

  Ninian said something to Jamie in low-voiced Gaelic, with a sidelong glance