Outlander aka Cross Stitch

by Diana Gabaldon

  “Angus or I could show the lady down, sir,” the attendant suggested respectfully.

  “Don’t trouble yourself, John,” Colum said, gesturing the man politely away. “I’ll show Mistress Beauchamp myself.”

  His progress down the stair was slow and obviously painful. Just as obviously, he didn’t wish for help, and I offered none.

  The surgery of the late Beaton proved to be in a remote corner of the castle, tucked out of sight behind the kitchens. It was in close proximity to nothing save the graveyard, in which its late proprietor now rested. In the outer wall of the castle, the narrow, dark room boasted only one of the tiny slit windows, set high in the wall so that a flat plane of sunlight knifed through the air, separating the darkness of the high vaulted ceiling from the deeper gloom of the floor below.

  Peering past Colum into the dim recesses of the room, I made out a tall cabinet, equipped with dozens of tiny drawers, each with a label in curlicue script. Jars, boxes, and vials of all shapes and sizes were neatly stacked on the shelves above a counter where the late Beaton evidently had been in the habit of mixing medicines, judging from the residue of stains and a crusted mortar that rested there.

  Colum went ahead of me into the room. Shimmering motes disturbed by his entry swirled upward into the bar of sunlight like dust raised from the breaking of a tomb. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes grow used to the dimness, then walked forward slowly, looking from side to side. I thought perhaps it was the first time he had ever been in this room.

  Watching his halting progress, as he traversed the narrow room, I said, “You know, massage can help a bit. With the pain, I mean.” I caught a flash from the grey eyes, and wished for a moment that I hadn’t spoken, but the spark disappeared almost at once, replaced by his usual expression of courteous attention.

  “It needs to be done forcefully,” I said, “at the base of the spine, especially.”

  “I know,” he said. “Angus Mhor does it for me, at night.” He paused, fingering one of the vials. “It would seem you do know a bit about healing, then.”

  “A bit.” I was cautious, hoping he didn’t mean to test me by asking what the assorted medicaments were used for. The label on the vial he was holding said PURLES OVIS. Anyone’s guess what that was. Luckily, he put the vial back, and drew a finger gingerly through the dust on a large chest near the wall.

  “Been some time since anyone’s been here,” he said. “I’ll have Mrs. Fitz send some of her wee lassies along to clean up a bit, shall I?”

  I opened a cupboard door and coughed at the resulting cloud of dust. “Perhaps you’d better,” I agreed. There was a book on the lower shelf of the cupboard, a fat volume bound in blue leather. Lifting it, I discovered a smaller book beneath, this one bound cheaply in black cloth, much worn along the edges.

  This second book proved to be Beaton’s daily log book, in which he had tidily recorded the names of his patients, details of their ailments, and the course of treatment prescribed. A methodical man, I thought with approval. One entry read: “2nd February, A.D. 1741. Sarah Graham MacKenzie, injury to thumb by reason of catching the appendage on edge of spinning reel. Application of boiled pennyroyal, followed by poultice of: one part each yarrow, St. John’s-wort, ground slaters, and mouse-ear, mixed in a base of fine clay.” Slaters? Mouse-ear? Some of the herbs on the shelves, no doubt.

  “Did Sarah MacKenzie’s thumb heal well?” I asked Colum, shutting the book.

  “Sarah? Ah,” he said thoughtfully. “No, I believe not.”

  “Really? I wonder what happened,” I said. “Perhaps I could take a look at it later.”

  He shook his head, and I thought I caught a glimpse of grim amusement showing in the lines of his full, curved lips.

  “Why not?” I asked. “Has she left the castle, then?”

  “Ye might say so,” he answered. The amusement was now apparent. “She’s dead.”

  I stared at him as he picked his way across the dusty stone floor toward the doorway.

  “It’s to be hoped you’ll do somewhat better as a healer than the late Davie Beaton, Mrs. Beauchamp,” he said. He turned and paused at the door, regarding me sardonically. The sunbeam held him as though in a spotlight.

  “Ye could hardly do worse,” he said, and vanished into the dark.

  I wandered up and down the narrow little room, looking at everything. Likely most of it was rubbish, but there might be a few useful things to be salvaged. I pulled out one of the tiny drawers in the apothecary’s chest, letting loose a gust of camphor. Well, that was useful, right enough. I pushed the drawer in again, and rubbed my dusty fingers on my skirt. Perhaps I should wait until Mrs. Fitz’s merry maids had had a chance to clean the place before I continued my investigations.

  I peered out into the corridor. Deserted. No noises, either. But I was not naive enough to assume that no one was nearby. Whether by order or by tact, they were fairly subtle about it, but I knew that I was being watched. When I went to the garden, someone went with me. When I climbed the stair to my room, I would see someone casually glance up from the foot to see which way I turned. And as we had ridden in, I hadn’t failed to note the armed guards sheltering under the overhang from the rain. No, I definitely wasn’t going to be allowed simply to walk out of here, let alone be provided with transport and means to leave.

  I sighed. At least I was alone for the moment. And solitude was something I very much wanted, at least for a little.

  I had tried repeatedly to think about everything that had happened to me since I stepped through the standing stone. But things moved so rapidly around this place that I had hardly had a moment to myself when I wasn’t asleep.

  Apparently I had one now, though. I pulled the dusty chest away from the wall and sat down, leaning back against the stones. They were very solid. I reached back and rested my palms against them, thinking about the stone circle, trying to recall every tiny detail of what had happened.

  The screaming stones were the last thing I could truly say I remembered. And even that I had doubts about. The screaming had kept up, all the time. It was possible, I thought, that the noise came not from the stones themselves, but from… whatever… I had stepped into. Were the stones a door of some kind? And into what did they open? There simply were no words for whatever it was. A crack through time, I supposed, because clearly I had been then, and I was now, and the stones were the only connection.

  And the sounds. They had been overwhelming, but looking back from a short distance, I thought they were very similar to the sounds of battle. The field hospital at which I was stationed had been shelled three times. Even knowing that the flimsy walls of our temporary structures would not protect us, still doctors, nurses and orderlies had all dashed inside at the first alarm, huddling together for courage. Courage is in very short supply when there are mortar shells screaming overhead and bombs going off next door. And the kind of terror I had felt then was the closest thing to what I had felt in the stone.

  I now realized that I did recall some things about the actual trip through the stone. Very minor things. I remembered a sensation of physical struggle, as though I were caught in a current of some kind. Yes, I had deliberately fought against it, whatever it was. There were images in the current, too, I thought. Not pictures, exactly, more like incomplete thoughts. Some were terrifying and I had fought away from them as I… well, as I “passed.” Had I fought toward others? I had some consciousness of fighting toward a surface of some kind. Had I actually chosen to come to this particular time because it offered some sort of haven from that whirling maelstrom?

  I shook my head. I could find no answers by thinking about it. Nothing was clear, except the fact that I would have go back to the standing stones.

  “Mistress?” A soft Scottish voice from the doorway made me look up. Two girls, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, hung back shyly in the corridor. They were roughly dressed, with clogs on their feet and homespun scarves covering their hair. The one who had spoken carried a
brush and several folded cloths, while her companion held a steaming pail. Mrs. Fitz’s lasses, here to clean the surgery.

  “We’ll no be disturbin’ ye, mistress?” one asked anxiously.

  “No, no,” I assured them. “I was about to leave anyway.”

  “You’ve missed the noon meal,” the other informed me. “But Mrs. Fitz said to tell ye as there’s food for ye in the kitchens whenever ye like to go there.”

  I glanced out the window at the end of the corridor. The sun was, in fact, a little past the zenith, and I became conscious of increasing hunger pangs. I smiled at the girls.

  “I might just do that. Thank you.”

  I brought lunch to the fields again, fearing that Jamie might get nothing to eat until dinner otherwise. Seated on the grass, watching him eat, I asked him why he had been living in the rough, raiding cattle and thieving over the Border. I had seen enough by now both of the folk that came and went from the nearby village and of the castle dwellers, to be able to tell that Jamie was both higher born and much better educated than most. It seemed likely that he came from a fairly wealthy family, judging from the brief description he had given me of their farm estate. Why was he so far from home?

  “I’m an outlaw,” he said, as though surprised that I didn’t know. “The English have a price of ten pounds sterling on my head. Not quite so much as a highwayman,” he said, deprecatingly, “but a bit more than a pickpocket.”

  “Just for obstruction?” I said, unbelievingly. Ten pounds sterling here was half the yearly income of a small farm; I couldn’t imagine a single escaped prisoner was worth that much to the English government.

  “Och, no. Murder.” I choked on a mouthful of bread-and-pickle. Jamie pounded me helpfully on the back until I could speak again.

  Eyes watering, I asked, “Wh-who did you k-kill?”

  He shrugged. “Well, it’s a bit odd. I didna actually kill the man whose murder I’m outlawed for. Mind ye, I’ve done for a few other redcoats along the way, so I suppose it’s not unjust.”

  He paused and shifted his shoulders, as though rubbing against some invisible wall. I had noticed him do it before, on my first morning in the castle, when I had doctored him and seen the marks on his back.

  “It was at Fort William. I could hardly move for a day or two, after I’d been flogged the second time, and then I had fever from the wounds. Once I could stand again, though, some… friends made shift to get me out of the camp, by means I’d best not go into. Anyhow, there was some ruckus as we left, and an English sergeant-major was shot – by coincidence, it was the man that gave me the first flogging. I’d not ha’ shot him, though; I had nothing personal against him, and I was too weak to do more than hang onto the horse, in any case.” The wide mouth tightened and thinned. “Though had it been Captain Randall, I expect I’d ha’ made the effort.” He eased his shoulders again, stretching the rough linen shirt taut across his back, and shrugged.

  “There it is, though. That’s one reason I do not go far from the castle alone. This far into the Highlands, there’s little chance of running into an English patrol, but they do come over the Border quite often. And then there’s the Watch, though they’ll not come near the castle, either. Colum’s not much need of their services, having his own men to hand.” He smiled, running a hand through his bright cropped hair ’til it stood on end like porcupine quills.

  “I’m no precisely inconspicuous, ye ken. I doubt there’s informers in the castle itself, but there might be a few here and there about the countryside as would be glad enough to earn a few pence by letting the English know where I was, did they know I was a wanted man.” He smiled at me. “Ye’ll have gathered the name’s not MacTavish?”

  “Does the laird know?”

  “That I’m an outlaw? Oh, aye, Colum knows. Most people through this part of the Highlands likely know that; what happened at Fort William caused quite a bit of stir at the time, and news travels fast here. What they won’t know is that Jamie MacTavish is the man that’s wanted; provided nobody that knows me by my own name sees me.” His hair was still sticking up absurdly. I had a sudden impulse to smooth it for him, but resisted.

  “Why do you wear your hair cropped?” I asked suddenly, then blushed. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. I only wondered, since most of the other men I’ve seen here wear it long…”

  He flattened the spiky licks, looking a bit self-conscious.

  “I used to wear mine long as well. It’s short now because the monks had to shave the back of my head and it’s had but a few months to grow again.” He bent forward at the waist, inviting me to inspect the back of his head.

  “See there, across the back?” I could certainly feel it, and see it as well when I spread the thick hair aside; a six-inch weal of freshly healed scar tissue, still pink and slightly raised. I pressed gently along its length. Cleanly healed, and a nice neat job by whoever had stitched it; a wound like that must have gaped and bled considerably.

  “Do you have headaches?” I asked professionally. He sat up, smoothing the hair down over the wound. He nodded.

  “Sometimes, though none so bad as it was. I was blind for a month or so after it happened, and my head ached like fury all the time. The headache started to go away when my sight came back.” He blinked several times, as though testing his vision.

  “Fades a bit sometimes,” he explained, “if I’m verra tired. Things get blurry round the edges.”

  “It’s a wonder it didn’t kill you,” I said. “You must have a good thick skull on you.”

  “That I have. Solid bone, according to my sister.” We both laughed.

  “How did it happen?” I asked. He frowned, and a look of uncertainty came over his face.

  “Weel, there’s just the question,” he answered slowly. “I dinna remember anything about it. I was down near Carryarick Pass with a few lads from Loch Laggan. Last I knew, I was pushing my way uphill through a wee thicket; I remember pricking my hand on a hollybush and thinking the blood drops looked just like the berries. And the next thing I remember is waking in France, in the Abbey of Sainte Anne de Beaupré, with my head throbbing like a drum and someone I couldn’t see giving me something cool to drink.”

  He rubbed the back of his head as though it ached yet.

  “Sometimes I think I remember little bits of things – a lamp over my head, swinging back and forth, a sort of sweet oily taste on my lips, people saying things to me – but I do not know if any of it’s real. I know the monks gave me opium, and I dreamed nearly all the time.” He pressed his fingers flat over closed eyelids.

  “There was one dream I had over and over. Tree roots growing inside my head, big gnarled things, growing and swelling, pushing out through my eyes, thrusting down my throat to choke me. It went on and on, with the roots twisting and curling and getting bigger all the time. Finally they’d get big enough to burst my skull and I’d wake hearing the sound of the bones popping apart.” He grimaced. “Sort of a juicy, cracking noise, like gunshots under water.”

  “Ugh!”

  A shadow fell suddenly over us and a stout boot shot out and nudged Jamie in the ribs.

  “Idle young bastard,” the newcomer said without heat, “stuffin’ yerself while the horses run wild. And when’s that filly goin’ to be broke, hey, lad?”

  “None the sooner for my starving myself, Alec,” Jamie replied. “Meanwhile, have a bit; there’s plenty.” He reached a chunk of cheese up to a hand knotted with arthritis. The fingers, permanently curled in a half-grip, slowly closed on the cheese as their owner sank down on the grass.

  With unexpectedly courtly manners, Jamie introduced the visitor; Alec McMahon MacKenzie, Master of Horse of Castle Leoch.

  A squat figure in leather breeks and rough shirt, the Master of Horse had an air of authority sufficient, I thought, to quell the most recalcitrant stallion. An “eye like Mars, to threaten or command,” the quotation sprang at once to mind. A single eye it was, the other being covered with a black clo
th patch. As if to make up for the loss, his eyebrows sprouted profusely from a central point, sporting long grey hairs like insects’ antennae that waved threateningly from the basic brown tufts.

  After an initial nod of acknowledgment, Old Alec (for so Jamie referred to him, no doubt to distinguish him from the Young Alec who had been my guide) ignored me, dividing his attention instead between the food and the three young horses switching their tails in the meadow below. I rather lost interest during a long discussion involving the parentage of several no doubt distinguished horses not among those present, details of breeding records of the entire stable for several years, and a number of incomprehensible points of equine conformation, dealing with hocks, withers, shoulders, and other items of anatomy. Since the only points I noticed on a horse were nose, tail, and ears, the subtleties were lost on me.

  I leaned back on my elbows and basked in the warming spring sun. There was a curious peace in this day, a sense of things working quietly in their proper courses, nothing minding the upsets and turmoils of human concerns. Perhaps it was the peace that one always finds outdoors, far enough away from buildings and clatter. Maybe it was the result of gardening, that quiet sense of pleasure in touching growing things, the satisfaction of helping them thrive. Perhaps just the relief of finally having found work to do, rather than rattling around the castle feeling out of place, conspicuous as an inkblot on parchment.

  In spite of the fact that I took no part in the horsey conversation, I didn’t feel out of place here at all. Old Alec acted as though I were merely a part of the landscape, and while Jamie cast an occasional glance my way, he, too, gradually ignored me as their conversation segued into the sliding rhythms of Gaelic, sure sign of a Scot’s emotional involvement in his subject matter. Since I gathered no sense from the talk, it was as soothing as listening to bees humming in the heather blossoms. Oddly contented and drowsy, I pushed away all thoughts of Colum’s suspicions, my own predicament, and other disturbing ideas. “Sufficient unto the day,” I thought sleepily, picking up the biblical quotation from some recess of memory.