The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  ye do, and Uncle Jamie and I canna? Ye can't, can ye, Uncle Jamie?" he asked dubiously.

  "No, thank God," his uncle replied.

  "It's genetic, isn't it?" Brianna asked, looking up. "It has to be." Jamie and Ian looked wary at the unfamiliar term.

  "Genetic?" Ian asked. His feathery brows drew together in puzzlement. "Why shouldn't it be?" I said. "Everything else is-blood type, eye color." "But everyone has eyes and blood, Sassenach," Jamie objected. "Whatever

  color his eyes may be, everyone can see. This-" he waved at the small collection of stones.

  I sighed with impatience.

  "Yes, but there are other things that are genetic-everything, if you come right down to it! Look-" I turned to him and stuck out my tongue. Jamie blinked, and Brianna giggled at his expression.

  Disregarding this, I pulled in my tongue and put it out again, this time with the edges rolled up into a cylinder.

  "What about that?" I asked, popping it back in. "Can you do that?" Jamie looked amused.

  "Of course I can." He stuck out a rolled tongue and wiggled it, demonstrating, then pulled it back. "Everyone can do that, surely? Ian?"

  "Oh, aye, of course." Ian obligingly demonstrated. "Anyone can." "I can't," said Brianna. Jamie stared at her, taken aback.

  "What d'ye mean ye can't?"

  "Bleah." She stuck out a flat tongue and waggled it from side to side. "I

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  "Of course ye can." Jamie frowned. "Here, it's simple, lass-anyone can do it!" He stuck out his own tongue again, rolling and unrolling it like a paternal anteater, anxiously encouraging its offspring toward an appetizing mass of insects. He glanced at Roger, brows lifted.

  "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Roger said ruefully. He stuck out his own tongue, flat. "Bleah.'

  "See?" I said triumphantly. "Some people can roll their tonguesi and some simply can't. It can't be learned. You're born with it, or you're not."

  Jamie looked from Bree to Roger and back, frowning, then turned to me. "Allowing for the moment that ye may be right-why can the lass not do it, if you and I both can? Ye did assure me she's my daughter, aye?"

  "She is most assuredly your daughter," I said. "As anyone with eyes in their head could tell you." He glanced at Brianna, taking in her lean height and mass of ruddy hair. She smiled at him, blue eyes creasing into triangles. He smiled back and turned to me, shrugging in good-natured capitulation.

  "Well, I shall take your word for it, Sassenach, as an honorable woman. But the tongue, then?" He rolled his own again, in doubtful fashion, still not quite believing that anyone couldn't do it if they put their mind to it.

  "Well, you do know where babies come from," I began. "The egg and the ... voice. The tips of his ears "I do,"he said, with a noticeable edge to his

  turned slightly pink. thing from the "I mean, it takes something from the mother and some

  father." I could feel my own cheeks pinken slightly, but carried on gamely. "Sometimes the father's influence is more visible than the mother's; sometimes the other way round-but both ... cr ... influences are still there. We call them genes-the things babies get from their two parents that affect the child's appearance and abilities." engaged in trying to bal-

  Jamie glanced at Jemmy, who was humming again, his coppery hair. ance one gemstone on top of another, the sunlight glinting off

  Looking back, he caught Roger's eye, and quickly turned his attention to me. "Aye, so?"

  "Well, genes affect more than simply hair or eye-color. Now," I warmed to my lecture, "each person has two genes for every trait-one from the father, one from the mother. And when the er . . gametes are formed in the ovaries and testes-" assenach," Jamie interrupted, "Perhaps ye should tell me all about it later, S

  with a sidelong glance at Brianna. Evidently he didn't think the word "testes" suitable for his daughter's ears; his own were blazing.

  "It's all right, Da. I know where babies come from," Bree assured him, grinning.

  "Well, then," I said, taking back command of the conversation. "You have a pair of genes for each trait, one gene from your mother and one gene from your father-but when the time comes to pass these on to your own offspring, you can only pass one of the pair. Because the child will get another gene from his other parent, you see?" I raised an eyebrow at Jamie and Roger, who nodded in unison, as though hypnotized.

  "Right. Well, then. Some genes are said to be dominant, and others reces-

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  sive. If a person has a dominant gene, then that's the one that will be expressed-Aill be visible. They may have another gene that's recessive and so you don't see it-but it can still be passed to the offspring."

  My collective audience looked wary.

  "Surely you learned this in school, Roger?" Bree asked, amused.

  "Well, I did," he muttered, "but I think perhaps I wasna paying proper attention at the time, After all, I wasn't expecting it actually to matter." "Right," I said dryly. "Well, then. You and 1, Jamie, evidently each have one

  of the dominant genes that allows us to roll our tongues. But-" 1 continued, raising a finger, "we must also each have a recessive gene, that doesn't allow tongue-rolling. And evidently, each of us gave the recessive gene to Bree. Therefore, she can't roll her tongue. Likewise, Roger must have two copies of the non-rolling recessive gene, since if he had even one of the dominant genes, he could do it-and he can't. Q.E.D." I bowed.

  "Wat's tes-tees?" inquired a small voice. Jermny had abandoned his rocks and was looking up at me in profound interest.

  "Er . . , " I said. I glanced round the room in search of aid.

  "That's Latin for your balls, lad," Roger said gravely, suppressing a grin. Jemmy looked quite interested at that.

  "I gots balls? Were I gots balls?"

  "Er . . . " said Roger, and glanced at Jamie. "Mmphm," said Jamie, and looked at the ceiling.

  "Well, ye do have a kilt on, Uncle Jamie," Ian said, grinning. Jamie gave his nephew a look of gross betrayal, but before he could move, Roger had leaned forward and cupped Jemmy gently between the legs.

  "Just there, a bhalaich," he said.

  Jemmy kneaded his crotch briefly, then looked at Roger, small strawberry brows knitted into a puzzled frown.

  "Nots a ball. 'Sa willy! "

  Jamie sighed deeply and got up. He jerked his head at Roger, then reached down and took Jernmy's hand.

  "Aye, all right. Come outside with me and your Da, we'll show ye."

  Bree's face was the exact shade of her hair, and her shoulders shook briefly. Roger, also suspiciously pink about the cheeks, had opened the door and stood aside for Jamie and Jem to go through.

  I didn't think Jamie paused to think about it; seized by impulse, he turned to Jemmy, rolling up his tongue into a cylinder and sticking it out.

  "Can you do that, a ruadb?" he asked, pulling it back in again.

  Brianna drew in her breath with a sound like a startled duck, and froze. Roger froze, too, his eyes resting on Jemmy as though the little boy were an explosive device, primed to go off like the opal.

  A second too late, Jamie realized, and his cheeks went pale. "Damn," he said, very quietly under his breath.

  Jemmy's eyes grew round with reproach. "Bad, Granda! At'sa bad word. Mama?"

  "Yes," Brianna said, narrowed eyes on Jamie. "We'll have to wash Grandda's mouth out with soap, won't we?"

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  He looked very much as though he had already swallowed a good mouthfill of soap, and lye-soap, at that.

  "Aye," he said, and cleared his throat. The flush had faded entirely from his face. "Aye, that was verra wicked of me, Jeremiah. I must beg pardon o' the ladies." He bowed, very formally, to me and Brianna. "Je suis navr, Madames. Et Monsieur," he added soffly to Roger. Roger nodded very slightly. His eyes were still on Jernmy, but his lids were lowered and his face carefully blank.

  Jemmy's own round face assumed the expression of beatific delight that he wor
e whenever French was spoken near him, and-as Jamie had clearly intended-broke immediately into his own pet contribution to that language of art and chivalry.

  "FrreJacques, Frrejacques.

  Roger looked up at Bree, and something seemed to pass through the air between them. He reached down and took hold of Jern's other hand, momentarily interrupting his song.

  "So, a bhalaicb, can ye do it, then?" "FR _!RE ... do whats?"

  "Look at Grand-da." Roger nodded at Jamie, who took a deep breath and quickly put out his tongue, rolled into a cylinder.

  "Can ye do that?" Roger asked.

  "Chure." Jemmy beamed and put out his tongue. Flat. "Bleah!"

  A collective sigh gusted through the room. Jernmy, oblivious, swung his legs up, his weight suspended momentarily from Roger's and Jamie's hands, then stomped his feet down on the floor again, recalling his original question.

  "Grand-da gots balls?" he asked, pulling on the men's hands and tilting his head far back to look up at Jamie.

  "Aye, lad, I have," Jamie said dryly. "But your Da's are bigger. Come on, then."

  And to the sound of Jemmy's tuneless chanting, the men trundled him outside, hanging like a gibbon between them, his knees drawn up to his chin.

  MAN OF BLOOD

  CRUMBLED DRY SAGE LEAVES in my hands, letting the graygreen flakes fall into the burning coals. The sun hung low in the sky above the chestnut trees, but the small burying-ground lay already in shadow, and the fire was bright -

  The five of us stood in a circle around the chunk of granite with which Jamie had marked the stranger's grave. There were five of us, and so we laid the circle

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  withfive points. By common consent, this was not only for the man Nvith the silver fillings, but for his four unknown companions-and for Daniel Rawlings, whose fresh and final grave lay under a mountain-ash, nearby.

  The smoke rose up from the small iron fire-pot, pale and fragrant. I had brought other herbs as well, but I knew that for the Tuscarora, for the Cherokee, and for the Mohawk, sage was holy, the smoke of it cleansing.

  I rubbed juniper needles between my hands into the fire, and followed them with rue, called herb-of-grace, and rosemary-that's for remembrance, after all. The leaves of the trees nearby rustled gently in the evening breeze, and the

  twilight lit the drifting smoke, turning it from gray to gold as it rose up and up into heaven's vault, where the faint stars waited.

  Jamie lifted his head, touched with fire as bright as the blaze by his feet, and looked toward the west, where the souls of the dead fly away. He spoke softly, in Gaelic, but all of us knew enough by now to follow.

  "Thougoest home this night to thy home of winter, To thy home of autumn, of spring, and of summer; Ybou goest home this night to tby perpetual home, To thine eternal bed, to tbine eternal slumber.

  ne sleep of the seven lights be thine, 0 brother, The sleep of the seven joys be thine, 0 brother,

  The sleep of the seven slumbers be thine, 0 brother,

  On the arm of the Jesus of blessings, the Christ ofgrace.

  7be shade of death lies upon thyface, beloved,

  But theJesus of Grace has His band round about thee; In nearness to the Trinityfare-well to tby pains,

  Christ stands before thee and peace is in His mind."

  Ian stood by him, close, but not touching. The fading light touched his face, fierce upon his scars. He said it first in the Mohawk tongue, but then in English, for the rest of us.

  "Be the bunt successful,

  Be your enemies destroyed before your eyes,

  Be your heart ever joyful in the lodge ofyour brothers. "Ye're

  it

  meant to say

  over and over again, a good many times," he added, ducking his head apologetically. "Wi' the drums, aye? But I thought once would do, for now."

  "That will do fine, Ian," Jamie assured him, and looked then toward Roger. Roger coughed and cleared his throat, then spoke, the husk of his voice as transparent and as penetrating as the smoke.

  'Lord, make me to know mine end, And the measure of my days, what it is; That I'may know bowfirail I am.

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  Behold, Thou has made my days as an band-breadth; And mine age is as nothing before Thee.

  Hear my prayer, 0 Lord, andgive ear unto my cry; Hold not Thy peace at my tears:

  For I am a stranger with Thee,

  And a sojourner, as all myfathers were.

  We stood in silence then, as the darkness came quietly around us. As the last of the light faded and the leaves overhead lost their brilliance, Brianna picked up the pitcher of water, and poured it over the pot of coals. Smoke and steam rose up in a ghostly cloud, and the scent of remembrance drifted through the trees.

  IT WAS NEARLY DARK as we came down the narrow trail back to the house. I could see Brianna in front of me, though, leading the way; the men were a little behind us. The fireflies were out in great profusion, drifting through the trees, and lighting the grass near my feet. One of the little bugs lighted briefly in Brianna's hair and clung there for a moment, blinking.

  A wood at twilight holds a deep hush, that bids the heart be still, the foot step lightly on the earth.

  "Have ye thought, then, a cliamhuinn?" Jamie said, behind me. His voice was low, the tone of it friendly enough-but the formal address made it clear that the question was seriously meant.

  "Of what?" Roger's voice was calm, hushed from the service, the rasp of it barely audible.

  "Of what ye shall do-you and your family. Now that ye ken both that the wee lad can travel-and what it might mean, if ye stay."

  What it might mean to them all. I drew breath, uneasy. War. Battle. Uncertainty, save for the certainty of danger. The danger of illness or accident, for Brianna and Jem. The danger of death in the toils of childbirth, if she was again with child. And for Roger-danger both of body and soul. His head had healed, but I saw the stillness at the back of his eyes, when he thought of Randall Lillywhite.

  "Oh, aye," Roger said, softly, invisible behind me. "I have thought-and am still thinking ... m'atbair-cile."

  I smiled a little, to hear him call Jamie "father-in-law," but the tone of his voice was altogether serious.

  "Shall I tell ye what I think? And you will tell me?" "Aye, do that. There is time still, for thinking."

  "I have been thinking, lately, of Hermon Husband."

  "The Quaker?" Jamie sounded surprised. Husband had left the colony with his family, after the battle of Alamance. I thought I heard that they had gone to Maryland.

  "Aye, him. What d'ye think might have happened, had he not been a Quaker? Had he gone ahead, and led the Regulators to their war?"

  Jamie grunted slightly, thinking.

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  "I dirma ken," he said, though he sounded interested. "Ye mean they might have succeeded, with a proper leader?"

  "Aye. Or maybe not-they'd no weapons, after all-but they would have done better than they did. And if so-"

  We had come within sight of the house, now. Light was glowing in the back windows as the hearth-fire was stoked up for the evening, the candles lit for supper.

  "What's going to happen here-I am thinking, had the Regulation been properly led, perhaps it would have started here and then; not three years from now, in Massachusetts."

  "Aye? And if so, what then?"

  Roger gave a brief snort, the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

  "Who knows? I know what's going on in England now-they are not ready, they've no notion of what they're risking here. If war were to break out suddenly, with little warning-if it bad broken out, at Alamance-it might spread quickly. It might be over before the English had a clue what was happening. It might have saved years of warfare, thousands of lives."

  "Or not," Jamie said dryly, and Roger laughed.

  "Or not," he agreed. "But the point there is this; I think there are times for men of peace-and a time for men of blood, as well."
<
br />   Brianna had reached the house, but turned and waited for the rest of us. She had been listening to the conversation, too.

  Roger stopped beside her, looking up. Bright sparks flew from the chimney in a firework shower, lighting his face by their glow.

  "Ye called me," he said at last, still looking up into the blazing dark. "At the Gathering, at the fire."

  "Seas vi mo Idmb, Roger an toranaiche, macjeremiah mac Choinnicb, " Jamie said quietly. "Aye, I did. Stand by my side, Roger the singer, son of Jeremiah." 'Seas vi mo Idmb, a mbic mo tbaighe. 'Roger said. "Stand by my side-son of my house. Did ye mean that?"

  "Ye know that I did."

  "Then I mean it, too." He reached out and rested his hand on Jamie's shoulder, and I saw the knuckles whiten as he squeezed.

  "I will stand by you. We will stay."

  Beside me, Brianna let out the breath she had been holding, in a sigh like the twilight wind.

  AND YET GO OUT

  TO MEET IT

  little, but there HE BIG CLOCK CANDLE had burned down a

  were still a good many of the black rings that marked the hours. Jamie dropped the stones back into the pool of melted wax around the flame: T

  one, two, three-and blew it out. The fourth stone, the big topaz, was ensconced in a small wooden box, which I had sewn up in oiled cloth. It was bound for Edinburgh, consigned to Mrs. Bug's cousin's husband, who with his banking connections, would manage the sale of the stone, and-with the deduction of a suitable commission for his help-would see the funds transmitted to Ned Gowan.

  The accompanying letter, lying sealed in the box with the stone, charged Ned to determine whether one Laoghaire MacKenzie was living with a man in a state tantamount to marriage-and if so, further charged him to declare the contract between one Laoghairc MacKenzie and one James Fraser to be fulfilled, whereupon the funds from the sale of the stone were to be placed on deposit in a bank, to be used for the dowry of one Joan MacKenzie Fraser, daughter of the aforesaid Laoghaire, when she should marry.

  "You're sure you don't want to ask Ned particularly to tell you who the man is?" I asked.

  He shook his head firmly. fine, as well." "If he chooses to tell me, that's fine. And if he doesna, that's

  He looked up at me with a faint, wry look. Unsatisfied curiosity was to be his penance, evidently. sly talking to Mrs. Bug and Down the hall, I could hear Brianna simultancou

  admonishing Jemmy, then Roger's voice, interrupting, and Jemmy's excited squeal as Roger swept him up into the air.

  "Do you think Roger chose well?" I asked quietly. I was very glad of Roger's decision-and knew that Jamie was, as well. But in spite of the peculiar perspective that Brianna, Roger, and I had on coming events, I knew that Jamie had far better an idea of what was truly coming. And if the stone passage had its