The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  gemstones, dark against the pale gray-gold of the candle, their vivid hues subclued but still visible in the wax. An emerald, a topaz, and a black diamond. Jamie didn't touch them, but stared at them, thick ruddy brows drawn together in concentration.

  Selling a gemstone in colonial North Carolina would not be easy; it would likely require a trip to Charleston or Richmond. It could be done, though, and

  0

  would result in enough money to pay Laoghaire her blood-money, as well as to meet the other mounting expenses. The gremstones had a value, though, that went beyond money-they were the currency of travel through the stones; protection for the life of a traveler.

  670 Diana Gabaldon

  What few things we knew about that perilous journey were based largely on the things that Geillis Duncan had written or had told me; it was her conrom the chaos in that unrention that gems gave a traveler not only protection f

  speakable space between the layers of time, but some ability to navigate, as it were-to choose the time in which one might emerge.

  Moved by impulse, I went back to the shelf, and standing on tiptoe, groped for the hide-wrapped bundle hidden in the shadows there. It was heavy in my hand, and I unwrapped it carefully, laying the oval stone on the desk beside the candle. It was a large opal its fiery heart revealed within a matrix of dull stone by the carving that covered the surface-a spiral; a primitive drawing of the snake that cats its tail.

  The opal was the property of another traveler-the mysterious Indian called Otter-Tooth. An Indian whose skull showed silver fillings in the teeth; an Inthan who seemed at one time to have spoken English. He had called this stone his "ticket back"-so it seemed that Geilie Duncan was not the only one who believed that gemstones had some power in that dreadful place ... between.

  "Five, the witch said," Jamie said thoughtfully. "She said ye needed five stones?"

  "She thought so." It was a warm evening, but the down hairs on my jaw prickled at the thought of Geilie Duncan, of the stones-and of the Indian I had met on a dark hillside, his face painted black for death, just before I had found the opal, and the skull buried with it. Was it his skull we had buried, silI

  vcr fiffings and all?

  "Was it needfiA for the stones to be polished, or cut?"

  "I don't know. I think she said cut ones were better-but I don't know why she thought so-or if she was right." That was always the rub; we knew so little for sure.

  He made a little bmf noise, and rubbed the bridge of his nose slowly with one knuckle.

  "Well, we've these three, and my father's ruby. Those are cut and polished stones, and that makes four. Then that wee bawbee'-he glanced at the opal"and the stone in your amulet, which are not." The point here being that the cut or polished stones would fetch a great deal more in cash than would the rough opal or the raw sapphire in my medicine bag. And yet-could we risk losing a stone that might be needed, that might someday spell the difference between fife and death for Bree or Roger?

  "It's not likely," I said, answering his thought, rather than his words. "Bree will stay, certainly until Jemmy's grown; perhaps for good," After all, how could one abandon a child, the possibility of grandchildren? And yet, I had done it. I rubbed a finger absently over the smooth metal of my gold ring.

  "Aye. But the lad?" He looked up at me, one eyebrow raised, the candlelight dear in his eyes, blue as sapphires cut and polished.

  "He wouldn't," I said. "He wouldn't leave Bree and Jemmy." I spoke stoutly, but there was a thread of doubt in my heart, and it was reflected in my voice.

  "Not yet," Jamie said quietly.

  I took a deep breath, but did not reply. I knew very well what he meant. Wrapped in silence, Roger seemed to withdraw further day by day.

  The Fiery Cross 671

  His fingers had healed; I had suggested to Brianna that perhaps he would dded, doubtfully. I didn't know whether fuld solace in his bodhran. She had no

  ,,she had mentioned it to him or not-

  I abin, silent as its owner. but the bodhran hung on the wall of their c He did still s nd was unfailingly attentive to Brimile and play with JemmY, a

  anna-but the shadow in his eyes never lessened, and when he was not required r some chore, he would disappear for hours, sometimes all day, to walk the mountains, returning after dark, exhausted, dirt-stained-and silent.

  He hasna slept with her, has h0 Since it happene&" I sighed, brushing a strand of hair off my forehead.

  'A few times. I asked. My guess would be that it hasn't happened lately, though."

  Bree was doing her best to keep him close, to draw him out of the depths of . as well as to Jamie, that she his gathering depression-but it was clear to me, hadows was losing the battle, and knew it. She too was growing silent, and had s

  in her eyes. nt ... back ... might there be a cure for his voice? There in your "If he we nger over the opalas he spoke, eyes following the spiit)" time?" Jamie ran a fi

  ral. as his finger traced it.

  I sighed again, and sat down, certainly speech "I don't know. There would be help-perhaPs surgery, s ... he therapy. I can't say how much it would help; no one can. The thing i

  Inight recover a good deal of his voice naturally, if he'd only work at it. But he . And of course'll honesty compelled me to add, "he

  - isn't going to do that d he- worked."

  might not get it back, -no matter how har s of medical hell), the fact Jamie nodded, silent, Regardless of the possibilitie failed, there was nothing was that if the marriage between Roger and Brianna. to go back then ... whatever to keep him here - Whether he would choose

  Jamie satup in his chair, and blew the candle out. s yet behis voice firm - "We've a few week

  "Not, 'yet," he said in the darkness) else we might contrive. For fore I must send money to Scotland; I'll see what

  now, we'll keep the stones."

  Last night I dreamed that I was making bread. Or at least I was trying to make bread. I'd be mixing dough and suddenly realize that I didn't have anyflour. Then Fd Put the bread in pans and put it in the oven and realize that it badnt risen, and take it back out. I'd knead it and knead it and

  in a bowl under a cloth, lookingfor a warm then I'd be carrying it around the yeast dies, and Iwas place to put it, because you bare to keep it warm or old wind gettingfrantic because I couldn'tfind a warm place; there was a c

  blowing and the bowl was heavy and slippery and I thought I wasgoing to drop it; my hands andfect werefreezing andgoing numb.

  Ybcn I woke up and I really was cold. Roger had pulled all the covers off and there was a terrible draft blowing in and rolled himself up it' them, yanked on the blankets, but I couldn't under the door I nudged him and make a lot of noise and wake JemMY upget them loose and I didn't want to

  672 Diana Gabaidon

  Finally, Igot up andgot my cloak off the peg and went back to sleep under that.

  Rogergot up before me this morning and went out; I don -Y think be noticed that he'd left me in the cold.

  A PACKAGE FROM LONDON

  HE PACKAGE ARRIVED in August, by the good offices of Jethro Wainwright, one of the few itinerant peddlers with sufficient enterprise T,

  to ascend the steep and 'Arinding paths that led to the Ridge. Red-faced and wheezing from the climb and the work of unloading his donkey's packframe, Mr. Wainwright handed me the package with a nod, and staggered gratefiffly Off toward the kitchen at my invitation, leaving his donkey to crop grass in the yard.

  It was a small parcel, a box of some sort, sewn up carefully in oilskin and tied with twine for good measure. It was heavy I shook it, but the only sound was a soft clunking, as though whatever lay within was padded. The label read simply "To Mr. James Fraser, Esq.5 Fraser)s Ridge, the Carolinas."

  "Well, what do you suppose this is?" I asked the donkey. It was a rhetorical question, but the donkey, an amiable creature, looked up from her meal and hee-hawed in reply, stems of fescue hanging from the corner of her mouth.

  Th
e sound set Off answering cries Of curiosity and welcome from Clarence and the horses, and within seconds, Jamie and Roger appeared from the direction of the barn, Brianna came out of the springhouse, and Mr. Bug rose up from behind the manure pile in his shirtsleeves like a vulture rising from a carcass, all drawn by the noise.

  "Thanks," I said to the donkey, who flicked a modest ear at me and went back to the grass.

  "What is it?" Brianna stood on her toes to peer over Jamie's shoulder as he took the package from me. "It's not from Lallybroch, is it? 17

  "No, it's neither Ian's hand ... nor my sister's, 5' Jamie replied with no more than a brief hesitation, though I saw him glance twice to make sure. "It's come a good way, though-by ship?" He held the Parcel under my nose inquiringly. I sniffed and nodded.

  "Yes; there's a whiff of tar about it. No documents, though?" He turned the package over, then shook his head.

  "It had a seal, but that's gone." Grayish fragments of wax clung to the twine, but the seal that might have provided a clue to the sender had long since succumbed to the vicissitudes of travel and Mr. Wainwright's pack.

  TIbe Fiery Cross 673

  ,ump." Mr. Bug shook his head, squinting dubiously at the package. "Not a matto&" ais"No, it's nay a mattock-head," Jamie agreed, hefting the little parcel appr

  ingly. "Nor yet a book, let alone a quire of paper. I havena. ordered anything else that I can think of. D'ye think it might be seeds, Sassenach? Mr. Stanhope .did promise to send ye bits from his ffiend's garden, aye?"

  Oh, it might be!" That was an exciting possibility; Mr. Stanhope's friend T&. Crossley had an extensive ornamental garden, with a large number of exjotic and imported species, and Stanhope had offered to see whether Crossley might be amenable to an exchange; seeds and cuttings of some of the rarer European and Asian herbs from his collection, for bulbs and seeds from what Stanhope described as my "mountain fastness."

  Roger and Brianna exchanged a brief took. Seeds were a good deal less intriguing to them than either paper or books would be. Still, the novelty of any letter or package was sufficient that no one suggested opening it until the full

  ,_irneasure of enjoyment should have been extracted from speculation about its !11,contents.

  In the event, the package was not opened until after supper, when everyone had had a chance to weigh the parcel, poke and sniff at it, and offer an opinion regarding its contents. Pushing his empty plate aside, Jamie finally took up the parcel with all due ceremony, shook it once more, and then handed it to me.

  That knot's a job for a surgeon's hands, Sassenach," he said with a grin. It was; whoever had tied it was no sailor, but had substituted thoroughness for knowledge. It took me several minutes of picking, but I got the knot undone at last, and rolled the twine up tidily for future use.

  Jamie then slit the stitching carefully with the point of his dirk, and drew out a small wooden box, to gasps of astonishment. It was plain in design, but elegant in execution, made of a polished dark wood, equipped with brass hinges and hasp, and with a matching small brass plate set into the lid.

  "From the Workshop of Messrs. Halliburton and Halliburton, 14 Portman Square, London." Brianna read it out, leaning across the table and craning her neck. "Who on earth are Norman and Greene?"

  "I havena the slightest idea," Jamie replied. He lifted the hasp with one finger, and delicately put back the lid. Inside was a small bag of dark red velvet. He pulled this out, opened its drawstring, and slowly drew out a ... thing.

  It was a flat golden disk, about four inches across. Goggling in astonishment, I could see that the rim was slightly raised, like that of a plate, and printed with tiny symbols of some kind. Set into the central part of the disk was an odd pierced-work arrangement, made of some silvery metal. This consisted of a small open dial, rather like a clock-face, but with three arms connecting its outer rim to the center of the bigger, golden disk.

  The small silver circle was also adorned with printed arcana, almost too fine to see, and attached to a lyre-shape which itself rested in the belly of a long, flat silver eel, whose back curved snugly round the inner rim of the golden disk. Surmounting the whole was a gold bar, tapered at the ends Eke a very thick compass needle, and affixed with a pin that passed through the center of the disk and allowed the bar to revolve. Engraved in flowing script down the center of the bar was the name "James Fraser."

  674 Diana Gabaldon

  "Why, whatever in the name of Bride will that be?" Mrs. Bug, naturally, recovered first from her surprise.

  recovered from his surpri e, "It's a planispheric astrolabe," Jamie answered,

  s

  and sounding now almost matter-of-fact.

  "Oh, of course," I murmured. "Naturally!"

  displaying a flat surface etched with several conHe turned the thing over,

  centric circles, these in turn subdivided by hundreds of tiny markings and sym bols. This side had a revolving bit like the compass-needle thing on the other side, but rectangular in shape, and with the ends bent upward, flattened and notched so that the notches formed a pair of sights,

  Bree reached out a finger and touched the gleaming surface reverently. "My God," she said. "Is that reallygold?"

  "It is." Jamie placed the object gingerly into her outstretched palm

  what I should like to know is why?" And "Why gold, or why an astrolabe? " I asked.

  "Why gold," he replied, frowning at the thing. "I'd been wanting such an instrument for some time, and couldna find one anywhere between Albany and Charleston. Lord John Grey had promised to have one sent me from London, and I suppose this is it. But why in Christ's name . . ."

  Everyone's attention was still riveted by the astrolabe itself, but Jamie glanced away, reaching instead for the box it had come in. Sure enough, at the bottom of the box lay a note, crisply folded and scaled with blue wax. The insignia, though, was not Lord John's customary smiling half-moon- and-stars, but an unfamiliar crest, showing a fish with a ring in its mouth.

  Jamie glanced at this, frowning, then broke the seal and opened the note.

  Mr. James Fraser, Esq.

  at Frasers Ridge

  Royal Colony of North Carolina

  My dear sir,

  I have the honor to send the enclosed, with die compliments o

  f myfatber, LordJohn Grey. Upon my departurefor London, begave me instructions to obtain thefinest instrument possible, and with knowledge of the high esteem in which be holds yourftiendship, I have taken pains to do so. I hope it will meet with your approval.

  Your obdt. servant,

  William Ransome, Lord Ellesmere, Captain, 9tb Regiment

  "William Ransome?" Brianna had stood up in order to read over Jamie's shoulder. She glanced at me, frowning. "He says his father's Lord John-but isn't Lord John's son still a little boy?"

  "He's fifteen." Jamie's voice held an odd note, and I saw Roger glance up abruptly from the astrolabe in his hands, green eyes suddenly intent, His gaze

  The Fiery Cross 675

  $)lifted to me, with that odd took he had developed of late, of listening to Oomething no one- else could hear. I looked away.

  '. " . . . not Grey," Brianna was saying. I

  1 note in his hand, and sounded a little "No. Jamie was still looking at the

  stracted. He shook his head briefly, as though dispelling some thought, and to the matter at hand.

  turned ore firmly, laying down the note. "The lad is John's cpeated m

  "No," he ri re- the boy's the ninth of that title. gepson-his father was the Earl of Ellesme

  -1kansome is Ellesmere's family name. 1 the

  I kept my eyes fixed sedulously on _able and the empty box, afraid to took up for fear that my transparent face might ,veal something-if only the ,art that there was something to be revealed.

  William Ransome's father had not, in fact, been the eighth Earl of Ellesmere. His father had been James Fraser, and I could feel the tension in Jamie's leg )le though his face now wore an expresPwhere
it touched mine beneath the tat

  of mild exasperation.

  66Evidently the lad's been bought a commission," he said, folding the letter

  1,neatly and tucking it back in the, box. -so he's gone off to London, and putshased the thing there at John's instruction. But I suppose that to a lad of his background, 'fine' must necessarily mean plated wi' gold!"

  I He stretched out a hand and Mr. Wainwright, who had been admiring rface, reluctantly surrendered the astro-;,his reflection in the polished golden su

  labe . itically, rotating the inset silver eel with an index fingerJamie examined it cr ntly. "It is verra fine, as to the workman"Aye, well," he said, almost relucta

  ship of the thing."

  -pretty." Mr. Bug nodded his approval, reaching for one of the hot stovies llsurvey"

  his wife was offering round. "Aye, that's right."

  two of the little potato dumplings and sat down be"Survey?" Brianna took

  side Roger, automatically passing him one. "It's for surveying- gently pushed trolabe over and

  -Among other things." Jamie turned the as

  e notched sights revolve. "This bit-it's used as a transit. the flat bar, making th

  Ye'll ken what that is?"

  Brianna nodded, looking interested. g, but we generally -Sure. I know how to do different sorts of surveYin

  used - - ."

  I saw Boger grimace as he swallowed, the roughness of the stovie catching at his throat. I lifted my hand toward the water pitcher, but he -caught my eye and shook his head, almost imperceptibly. He swallowed again, more easily this time, and coughed. Jamie regarded his daughter with approval. "I recall ye said ye could survey-

  'That's why I wanted this"-he hefted the object in his hand--though I did dy in mind. Pewter would ha' been more have something a wee bit less gau , for it - - ."

  serviceable. Still, so long as I havena got to Pay ok the thing, frowning in ab-

  441,et me see." Brianna extended a hand and to

  sorption as she moved the inner dial.

  676 Diana Gabaldon

  "Do you know how to use an astrolabe?" I asked her dubiously. "I do," Jamie said, with a certain degree of smugness.

  "I was taught, in France." He stood up, and jerked his chin toward the door.

  "Bring it outside, lass. I'll show ye how to tell the time."

  AYE, JUST THERE." Jamie leaned intently over Bree's shoulder, pointing at a spot on the outer dial. She moved the inner dial carefully to match, looked up at the sun, and twitched the pointer a fraction of an inch.

  "Five-thirty!" she exclaimed, flushed with delight.

  "Five thirty-five," Jamie corrected, grinning broadly. "See there?" He pointed at one of the tiny symbols on the rim, which at this distance, appeared to be no more than a flyspeck to me.

  "Five thirty-five," Mrs. Bug said, in tones of awe. "Think of that, Arch! Whyl havena kent the time for sure, since ... since. .

  "Edinburgh," her husband said, nodding.

  "Aye, that's right! My cousin Jane had a case-clock, a lovely thing, 'twould chime like a church bell, and its face wi' brass numbers, and a pair of wee cherubs flying right across, so----"

  "This is the first time I've known what time it was, since I left the Sherstons' house." Bree was ignoring both Mrs. Bug's raptures and the instrument in her hands. I saw her meet Roger's eyes, and smile-and after a moment, his own lopsided smile in return. How long had it been for him?