And when we reached a hamlet or village large enough to boast an inn or tavern, Dougal would once more do his turn, standing drinks, telling stories, making speeches, and finally, if he judged the prospects good enough, he would force Jamie to his feet to show his scars. And a few more coins would be added to the second bag, the purse bound for France and the court of the Pretender.
I tried to judge such scenes as they developed, and step outside before the climax, public crucifixion never having been much to my taste. While the initial reaction to the sight of Jamie’s back was horrified pity, followed by bursts of invective against the English army and King George, often there was a slight flavor of contempt that even I could pick up. On one occasion I heard one man remark softly to a friend in English, “An awfu’ sight, man, is it no? Christ, I’d die in my blood before I let a whey-faced Sassenach to use me so.”
Angry and miserable to start with, Jamie grew more wretched each day. He would shrug back into his shirt as soon as possible, avoiding questions and commiseration, and seek an excuse to leave the gathering, avoiding everyone until we took horse the following morning.
The breaking point came a few days later, in a small village called Tunnaig. This time, Dougal was still exhorting the crowd, a hand on Jamie’s bare shoulder, when one of the onlookers, a young lout with long, dirty brown hair, made some personal remark to Jamie. I couldn’t tell what was said, but the effect was instantaneous. Jamie wrenched out of Dougal’s grasp and hit the lad in the stomach, knocking him flat.
I was slowly learning to put a few words of Gaelic together, though I could in no way be said to understand the language yet. However, I had noticed that I often could tell what was being said from the attitude of the speaker, whether I understood the words or not.
“Get up and say that again,” looks the same said in any schoolyard, pub, or alley in the world.
So does “Right you are, mate,” and “Get him, lads!”
Jamie disappeared under an avalanche of grimy work clothes as the rents-table went over with a crash beneath the weight of brown-hair and two of his friends. Innocent bystanders pressed back against the walls of the tavern and prepared to enjoy the spectacle. I sidled closer to Ned and Murtagh, eyeing the heaving mass of limbs uneasily. A lonely flash of red hair showed occasionally in the twisting sea of arms and legs.
“Shouldn’t you help him?” I murmured to Murtagh, out of the corner of my mouth. He looked surprised at the idea.
“No, why?”
“He’ll call for help if he needs it,” said Ned Gowan, tranquilly watching from my other side.
“Whatever you say.” I subsided doubtfully.
I wasn’t at all sure Jamie would be able to call for help if he needed it; at the moment he was being throttled by a stout lad in green. My personal opinion was that Dougal would soon be short one prime exhibit, but he didn’t seem concerned. In fact, none of the watchers seemed at all bothered by the mayhem taking place on the floor at our feet. A few bets were being taken, but the overall air was one of quiet enjoyment of the entertainment.
I was glad to notice that Rupert drifted casually across the path of a couple of men who seemed to be contemplating joining the action. As they took a step toward the fray, he bumbled absentmindedly into their way, hand lightly resting on his dirk. They fell back, deciding to leave well enough alone.
The general feeling appeared to be that three to one was reasonable odds. Given that the one was quite large, an accomplished fighter, and obviously in the grip of a berserk fury, that might be true.
The contest seemed to be evening out with the abrupt retirement of the stout party in green, dripping blood as the result of a well-placed elbow to the nose.
It went on for several minutes more, but the conclusion became more and more obvious, as a second fighter fell by the wayside and rolled under a table, moaning and clutching his groin. Jamie and his original antagonist were still hammering each other earnestly in the middle of the floor, but the Jamie-backers amongst the spectators were already collecting their winnings. A forearm across the windpipe, accompanied by a vicious kidney punch, decided brown-hair that discretion was the better part of valor.
I added a mental translation of “That’s enough, I give up,” to my growing Gaelic/English word list.
Jamie rose slowly off the body of his last opponent to the cheers of the crowd. Nodding breathlessly in acknowledgment, he staggered to one of the few benches still standing, and flopped down, streaming sweat and blood, to accept a tankard of ale from the publican. Gulping it down, he set the empty tankard on the bench and leaned forward, gasping for breath, elbows on his knees and the scars on his back defiantly displayed.
For once he was in no hurry to resume his shirt; in spite of the chill in the pub, he remained half-naked, only putting on his shirt to go outside when it was time to seek our lodging for the night. He left to a chorus of respectful good nights, looking more relaxed than he had in days, in spite of the pain from scrapes, cuts, and assorted contusions.
“One scraped shin, one cut eyebrow, one split lip, one bloody nose, six smashed knuckles, one sprained thumb, and two loosened teeth. Plus more contusions than I care to count.” I completed my inventory with a sigh. “How do you feel?” We were alone, in the small shed behind the inn where I had taken him to administer first aid.
“Fine,” he said, grinning. He started to stand up, but froze halfway, grimacing. “Aye, well. Perhaps the ribs hurt a bit.”
“Of course they hurt. You’re black and blue – again. Why do you do such things? What in God’s name do you think you’re made of? Iron?” I demanded irritably.
He grinned ruefully and touched his swollen nose.
“No. I wish I were.”
I sighed again and prodded him gently around the middle.
“I don’t think they’re cracked; it’s only bruises. I’ll strap them, though, in case. Stand up straight, roll up your shirt, and hold your arms out from your sides.” I began to tear strips from an old shawl I’d got from the innkeeper’s wife. Muttering under my breath about sticking plaster and other amenities of civilized life, I improvised a strap dressing, pulling it tight and fastening it with the ring-brooch off his plaid.
“I can’t breathe,” he complained.
“If you breathe, it will hurt. Don’t move. Where did you learn to fight like that? Dougal, again?”
“No.” he winced away from the vinegar I was applying to the cut eyebrow. “My father taught me.”
“Really? What was your father, the local boxing champion?”
“What’s boxing? No, he was a farmer. Bred horses too.” Jamie sucked in his breath as I continued the vinegar application on his barked shin.
“When I was nine or ten, he said he thought I was going to be big as my mother’s folk, so I’d have to learn to fight.” He was breathing more easily now, and held out a hand to let me rub marigold ointment into the knuckles.
“He said, ‘If you’re sizable, half the men ye meet will fear ye, and the other half will want to try ye. Knock one down,’ he said, ‘and the rest will let ye be. But learn to do it fast and clean, or you’ll be fightin’ all your life.’ So he’d take me to the barn and knock me into the straw until I learned to hit back. Ow! That stings.”
“Fingernail gouges are nasty wounds,” I said, swabbing busily at his neck. “Especially if the gouger doesn’t wash regularly. And I doubt that greasy-haired lad bathes once a year. ‘Fast and clean’ isn’t quite how I’d describe what you did tonight, but it was impressive. Your father would be proud of you.”
I spoke with some sarcasm, and was surprised to see a shadow pass across his face.
“My father’s dead,” he said flatly.
“I’m sorry.” I finished the swabbing, then said softly, “But I meant it. He would be proud of you.”
He didn’t answer, but gave me a half-smile in reply. He suddenly seemed very young, and I wondered just how old he was. I was about to ask when a raspy cough from beh
ind announced a visitor to the shed.
It was the stringy little man named Murtagh. He eyed Jamie’s strapped-up ribs with some amusement, and lobbed a small wash leather bag through the air. Jamie put up a large hand and caught it easily, with a small clinking sound.
“And what’s this?” he asked.
Murtagh raised one sketchy brow. “Your share o’ the wagers, what else?”
Jamie shook his head and made to toss the bag back.
“I didna wager anything.”
Murtagh raised a hand to stop him. “You did the work. You’re a verra popular fellow at the moment, at least wi’ those that backed ye.”
“But not with Dougal, I don’t suppose,” I interjected.
Murtagh was one of those men who always looked a bit startled to find that women had voices, but he nodded politely enough.
“Aye, that’s true. Still, I dinna see as that should trouble ye,” he said to Jamie.
“No?” A glance passed between the two men, with a message I didn’t understand. Jamie blew his breath out softly through his teeth, nodding slowly to himself.
“When?” he asked.
“A week. Ten days, perhaps. Near a place called Lag Cruime. You’ll know it?”
Jamie nodded again, looking more content than I had seen him in some time. “I know it.”
I looked from one face to the other, both closed and secretive. So Murtagh had found out something. Something to do with the mysterious “Horrocks” perhaps? I shrugged. Whatever the cause, it appeared that Jamie’s days as an exhibition were over.
“I suppose Dougal can always tap-dance instead,” I said.
“Eh?” The secretive looks changed to looks of startlement.
“Never mind. Sleep well.” I picked up my box of medical supplies and went to find my own rest.
Chapter 12. THE GARRISON COMMANDER
We were drawing nearer to Fort William, and I began to ponder seriously what my plan of action should be, once we had arrived there.
It depended, I thought, upon what the garrison commander was likely to do. If he believed that I was a gentlewoman in distress, he might provide me with temporary escort toward the coast and my putative embarkation for France.
But he might be suspicious of me, turning up in the company of the MacKenzies. Still, I was patently not a Scot myself; surely he would not be inclined to think me a spy of some sort? That was evidently what Colum and Dougal thought – that I was an English spy.
Which made me wonder what I was meant to be spying on? Well, unpatriotic activities, I supposed; of which, collecting money for the support of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the throne, was definitely one.
But in that case, why had Dougal allowed me to see him do it? He could easily enough have sent me outside before that part of the proceedings. Of course, the proceedings had all been held in Gaelic, I argued with myself.
Perhaps that was the point, though. I remembered the odd gleam in his eyes and his question, “I thought ye had no Gaelic?” Perhaps it was a test, to see whether I really was ignorant of the language. For an English spy scarcely would have been sent into the Highlands, unable to speak with more than half the people there.
But no, the conversation I had overheard between Jamie and Dougal would seem to indicate that Dougal was indeed a Jacobite, though Colum apparently was not – yet.
My head was beginning to buzz with all these suppositions, and I was glad to see that we were approaching a fairly large village. Likely that meant a good inn, as well, and a decent supper.
The inn was in fact commodious, by the standards I had grown accustomed to. If the bed was apparently designed for midgets – and flea-bitten ones, at that – at least it was in a chamber to itself. In several of the smaller inns, I had slept on a settle in the common room, surrounded by snoring male forms and the humped shadows of plaid-wrapped shapes.
Customarily I fell asleep immediately, whatever the sleeping conditions, worn out by a day in the saddle and an evening of Dougal’s politicizing. The first evening in an inn, though, I had remained awake for a good half-hour, fascinated by the remarkable variety of noises the male respiratory apparatus could produce. An entire dormitory full of student nurses couldn’t come close.
It occurred to me, listening to the chorus, that men in a hospital ward seldom really snore. Breathe heavily, yes. They gasp, groan occasionally, and sometimes sob or cry out in sleep. But there was no comparison to this healthy racket. Perhaps it was that sick or injured men could not sleep deeply enough to relax into that sort of din.
If my observations were sound, then my companions were plainly in the most robust health. They certainly looked it, limbs casually asprawl, faces slack and glowing in the firelight. The complete abandon of their sleep on hard boards was the satisfying of an appetite as hearty as the one they had brought to dinner. Obscurely comforted by the cacophony, I had pulled my traveling cloak around my shoulders and went to sleep myself.
By comparison, I found myself now rather lonely here in the solitary splendor of my tiny, smelly attic. Despite having removed the bedclothes and beaten the mattress to discourage unwelcome co-habitants, I had some difficulty in sleeping, so silent and dark did the chamber seem after I had blown out the candle.
There were a few faint echoes from the common room two floors below, and a brief flurry of noise and movement, but this served only to emphasize my own isolation. It was the first time I had been left so completely alone since my arrival at the castle, and I was not at all sure I liked it.
I was hovering uneasily on the verge of sleep, when my ears picked up an ominous creaking of floorboards in the hall outside. The step was slow and halting, as though the intruder hesitated in his path, picking the soundest-appearing of the boards for each next step. I sat bolt upright, groping for the candle and flint box by the bed.
My hand, blindly searching, struck the flint box and knocked it to the floor with a soft thump. I froze, and the steps outside did likewise.
There was a soft scratching at the door, as of someone groping for the latch. I knew the door was unbolted; though it was fitted with brackets for a bolt, I had searched unavailingly for the bolt itself before retiring. I grabbed the candlestick, yanked the stub of the candle out, and slid out of bed as quietly as I could, clutching the heavy pottery.
The door squeaked slightly on its hinges as it gave. The room’s only window was tightly shuttered against both elements and light; nonetheless I could just make out the dim outline of the door as it opened. The outline grew, then to my surprise, it shrank and disappeared as the door shut again. Everything was quiet once more.
I stayed pressed against the wall for what seemed like ages, holding my breath and trying to hear through the noise of my pounding heart. At last I inched toward the door, edging carefully around the room next to the wall, thinking the floorboards must surely be more solid here. I eased my foot down at each step, gradually trusting my weight to it, then pausing and groping with bare toes for the seam between two boards, before setting the other foot as solidly as I could judge.
Once the door was reached, I paused, ear pressed to the thin panels, hands braced on the frame, on guard against a sudden bursting inward. I thought perhaps I heard slight sounds, but wasn’t sure. Was it only the sounds of the activity down below, or was it the stifled breathing of someone on the other side of the panel?
The constant flow of adrenaline was making me slightly sick. Tiring at last of this nonsense, I took a firm grip of my candlestick, yanked open the door, and rushed into the hallway.
I say “rushed”; in actuality, I took two steps, trod heavily on something soft, and fell headlong into the passageway, skinning my knuckles and banging my head quite painfully on something solid.
I sat up, clutching my brow with both hands, completely uncaring that I might be assassinated at any moment.
The person I had stepped on was swearing in a rather breathless manner. Through the haze of pain, I was dimly aware that he
(I assumed from the size and the smell of sweat that my visitor was male) had risen and was groping for the fastening of the shutters in the wall above us.
A sudden inrush of fresh air made me wince and shut my eyes. When I opened them, there was enough light from the night sky for me to see the intruder.
“What are you doing here?” I asked accusingly.
At the same time Jamie asked, in a similarly accusatory tone, “How much do ye weigh, Sassenach?”
Still a bit addled, I actually replied “Nine stone,” before thinking to ask “Why?”
“Ye nearly crushed my liver,” he answered, gingerly prodding the affected area. “Not to mention scaring living hell out of me.” He reached a hand down and hauled me to my feet. “Are ye all right?”
“No, I bumped my head.” Rubbing the spot, I looked dazedly around the bare hallway. “What did I bang it on?” I demanded ungrammatically.
“My head,” he said, rather grumpily, I thought.
“Serves you right,” I said nastily. “What were you doing, sneaking about outside my door?”
He gave me a testy look.
“I wasna ‘sneaking about,’ for God’s sake. I was sleeping – or trying to.” He rubbed what appeared to be a knot forming on his temple.
“Sleeping? Here?” I looked up and down the cold, bare, filthy hallway with exaggerated amazement. “You do pick the oddest places; first stables, now this.”
“It may interest ye to know that there’s a small party of English dragoons stopped in to the taproom below,” he informed me coldly. “They’re a bit gone in drink, and disporting themselves a bit reckless with two women from the town. Since there’s but the two lasses, and five men, some of the soldiers seemed a bit inclined to venture upward in search of… ah, partners. I didna think you’d care overmuch for such attentions.” He flipped his plaid back over his shoulder and turned in the direction of the stairway. “If I was mistaken in that impression, then I apologize. I’d no intention of disturbin’ your rest. Good e’en to ye.”
“Wait a minute.” He stopped, but did not turn back, forcing me to walk around him. He looked down at me, polite but distant.
Outlander aka Cross Stitch Page 24
