Outlander aka Cross Stitch

by Diana Gabaldon

  Wiping my sweaty hands on my skirt, I dredged the dirk from its hidden pocket. It was now my only weapon; I had neither time nor stomach enough to retrieve my sock-knife. Perhaps that was as well, I thought, rubbing my fingers on my bodice; there had been surprisingly little blood, and I shrank from the thought of the gush that would follow if I pulled the knife free.

  Dagger now safely in hand, I peered cautiously out into the corridor. The prisoners I had inadvertently released had gone to the left. I had no idea what they were set on doing, but they would likely occupy the English while they were doing it. With no reason to pick one direction over another for my search, it made sense to move away from whatever commotion they caused.

  The light from the high slit windows fell aslant behind me; this was the west side of the castle, then. I must keep my bearings as I moved, since Rupert would be waiting for me near the south gate.

  Stairs. I forced my numbed mind to think, trying to reason my way to the spot I was looking for. If you wanted to torture someone, presumably you wanted both privacy and soundproofing. Both considerations pointed to an isolated dungeon as the most likely spot. And the dungeons in castles such as this were customarily underground, where tons of earth muffled any cries, and darkness hid all cruelty from the eyes of those responsible.

  The wall rounded into a curve at the end of the corridor; I had reached one of the four corner towers – and the towers had stairs.

  The spiral stair opened around another curve, the wedge-shaped steps plunging down in dizzying flights that deceived the eye and twisted the ankles. The plunge from the relative light of the corridor into the gloom of the stairwell made it even harder to judge the distance from one stair to the next, and I slipped several times, barking my knuckles and skinning my palms on the stone walls as I caught myself.

  The stairway yielded one benefit. From a narrow window let in to save the stairwell from total darkness, I could see the main courtyard. At least I could now orient myself. A small group of soldiers was drawn up in neat red lines for inspection, but not, apparently, to witness the summary punishment of a Scottish rebel. There was a gibbet in the courtyard, black and foreboding, but unoccupied. The sight of it was like a blow in the stomach. Tomorrow morning. I clattered down the stairs, heedless of scraped elbows and stubbed toes.

  Hitting the bottom in a swish of skirts, I stopped to listen. Dead silence all around, but at least this part of the castle was in use; there were torches in the wall sconces, dyeing the granite blocks in pools of flickering red, each pool ebbing into darkness at its edges before the pool of the next torch leached into light again. Smoke from the torches hung in grey swirls along the vaulted roof of the corridor.

  There was only one way to go from this point. I went, dagger still gripped at the ready. It was eerie to be pacing softly down this corridor. I had seen similar dungeons before, as a day-tripper, visiting historic castles with Frank. But then the massive granite blocks had been stripped of their menace by the glare of fluorescent tubes hung from the arches of the cavernous ceiling. I remembered recoiling from the small, dank chambers, even in those days, when they had been in disuse for over a century. Seeing the remnants of old and horrible ways, the thick doors and the rusting manacles on the wall, I had been able, I thought, to imagine the torments of those imprisoned in these forbidding cells. I would have laughed now at my naivete. There were some things, as Dougal said, that the imagination was simply not equal to.

  I tiptoed past bolted doors three inches thick; thick enough to smother any sound from inside. Bending close to the floor, I checked for a strip of light at the base of each door. Prisoners might be left to rot in darkness, but Randall would need to see what he was doing. The floor here was gummy with ancient dirt, covered with a thick layer of loose dust. Apparently this part of the prison was not in current use. But the torches showed that someone was down here.

  The fourth door in the corridor showed the light I was looking for. I listened, kneeling on the floor with my ear pressed against the crack, but heard nothing more than the thin crackle of a fire.

  The door was unlocked. I pushed it open a small crack and peered cautiously within. Jamie was there, sitting on the floor against one wall, curled into himself with his head between his knees. He was alone.

  The room was small, but well lit, with a rather homely looking brazier in which burned a cheery fire. For a dungeon, it was remarkably cozy; the stone flags were halfway clean, and a small camp bed leaned against one wall. The room was further furnished with two chairs and a table, on which sat a number of objects, including a large pewter flask and horn cups. It was an astonishing sight, after my visions of dripping walls and scuttling rats. It occurred to me that perhaps the garrison officers had furnished this snuggery as a refuge in which to entertain such female companionship as they could induce to visit them within the prison; clearly it had the advantage of privacy over the barracks.

  “Jamie!” I called softly. He didn’t raise his head or answer me, and I felt a thrill of fear. Pausing only long enough to shut the door behind me, I crossed rapidly to him and touched his shoulder.

  “Jamie!”

  He looked up then; his face was dead-white, unshaven and sheened with a cold sweat that had soaked his hair and shirt. The room stank of fear and vomit.

  “Claire!” he said, speaking hoarsely through lips cracked with dryness. “How did you – ye must get out of here at once. He’ll be back soon.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” I was assessing the situation as rapidly as I could, hoping that concentration on the job at hand would ease the choking sensation and help melt the large ball of ice in the pit of my stomach.

  He was chained by the ankle to a bolt in the wall, but otherwise unfettered. A coil of rope among the rubble of objects on the table had plainly been used, though; there were raw marks on his wrists and elbows.

  I was puzzled by his condition. He was clearly dazed and every line of his body was eloquent with pain, but I could see no obvious damage. There was no blood and no wound visible. I dropped to my knees and began methodically to try the keys of my ring on the manacle around his ankle.

  “What has he done to you?” I asked, keeping my voice low for fear of Randall’s return.

  Jamie swayed where he sat, eyes closed, the sweat beading in hundreds of tiny pearls on his skin. Plainly he was near to fainting, but opened his eyes for a moment at my voice. Moving with exquisite care, he used his left hand to lift the object he had been cradling in his lap. It was his right hand, almost unrecognizable as a human appendage. Grotesquely swollen, it was now a bloated bag, blotched with red and purple, the fingers dangling at crazy angles. A white shard of bone poked through the torn skin of the middle finger, and a trickle of blood stained the knuckles, puffed into shapeless dimples.

  The human hand is a delicate marvel of engineering, an intricate system of joints and pulleys, served and controlled by a network of millions of tiny nerves, exquisitely sensitive to touch. A single broken finger is enough to sink a strong man to his knees with nauseated pain.

  “Payment,” Jamie said, “for his nose – with interest.” I stared at the sight for a moment, then said in a voice that I didn’t recognize as mine, “I’m going to kill him for this.”

  Jamie’s mouth twitched slightly as a flicker of humor forced its way through the mask of pain and dizziness. “I’ll hold your cloak, Sassenach,” he whispered. His eyes closed again and he sagged against the wall, too far gone to protest my presence further.

  I went back to work on the lock, glad to see that my hands were no longer shaking. The fear was gone, replaced by a glorious rage.

  I had gone through the complete ring of keys twice, and still found none that would turn the lock. My hands were growing sweaty and the keys slid through my fingers like minnows as I began to try the most likely ones again. My muttered cursing roused Jamie from his stupor, and he leaned down slowly to look at what I was doing.

  “Ye needn’t find a key will turn it
,” he said, bracing a shoulder on the wall to keep upright. “If one will fit to the length of the barrel, you can spring the lock wi’ a good bash on the head of it.”

  “You’ve seen this kind of lock before?” I wanted to keep him awake and talking; he was going to have to walk if we were to leave here.

  “I’ve been in one. When they brought me here, they chained me in a big cell with a lot of others. A lad named Reilly was chained next to me; a Leinsterman – said he’d been in most of the jails in Ireland and decided to try Scotland for a change o’ scenery.” Jamie was struggling to talk; he realized as well as I that he must rouse himself. He managed a feeble smile. “He told me a good bit about locks and such, and showed me how we could break the ones we were wearing, if we’d had a spare bit of straight metal, which we didn’t.”

  “Tell me, then.” The effort of talking was making him sweat freely, but he seemed more alert. Concentrating on the problem of the lock seemed to help.

  Following his directions, I found a suitable key and thrust it in as far as it would go. According to Reilly, a solid blow straight in on the end of the key would force the other end hard against the tumblers and spring them loose. I looked around for a suitable instrument for bashing.

  “Use the mallet on the table, Sassenach,” said Jamie. Caught by a grim note in his voice, I glanced from his face to the table, where a medium-sized wooden mallet lay, the handle wrapped with tarred twine.

  “Is that what-” I began, aghast.

  “Aye. Brace the manacle against the wall, lass, before ye hit it.”

  Grasping the handle gingerly, I picked up the mallet. It was awkward to get the iron manacle correctly positioned so that one side was braced by the wall, as this required that Jamie cross the manacled leg under the other and press his knee to the wall on the far side.

  My first two blows were too weak and timorous. Gathering determination about me like a cloak, I smashed the rounded end of the key as hard as I could. The mallet slipped off the key and caught Jamie a glancing but hard blow on the ankle. Recoiling, he lost his precarious balance and fell, instinctively reaching out his right hand to save himself. He let out an unearthly moan as his right arm crumpled beneath him and his shoulder hit the floor.

  “Oh, damn,” I said wearily. Jamie had fainted, not that I could blame him. Taking advantage of his momentary immobility, I turned his ankle so that the manacle was well braced, and banged doggedly on the embedded key, with little apparent effect. I was thinking grim thoughts about Irish locksmiths, when the door beside me swung suddenly open.

  Randall’s face, like Frank’s, seldom showed what he was thinking, presenting instead a bland and impenetrable facade. At the moment, though, the Captain’s customary poise had deserted him, and he stood in the doorway with his jaw agape, looking not unlike the man who accompanied him. A very large man in a stained and ragged uniform, this assistant had the sloping brow, flat nose, and loose prominent lips characteristic of some types of mental retardation. His expression did not change as he peered over Randall’s shoulder, showing no particular interest either in me or the unconscious man on the floor.

  Recovering, Randall walked into the room and reached down to prod the manacle around Jamie’s ankle. “Been damaging the Crown’s property, I see, my girl. That’s an offense punishable by law, you know. To say nothing of attempting to aid a dangerous prisoner in escaping.” His pale grey eyes held a spark of amusement. “We’ll have to arrange something suitable for you. In the meantime…” He jerked me to my feet and pulled my arms behind me, twisting his stock around my wrists.

  Struggle was plainly fruitless, but I stamped on his toes as hard as I could, purely to vent some of my own frustration.

  “Ouch!” He turned me and gave me a hard shove, so that my legs hit the bed and I fell, half-lying on the rough blankets. Randall surveyed me with grim satisfaction, rubbing the scuffed toe of his boot with a linen handkerchief. I glared back at him, and he gave a short laugh.

  “You’re no coward, I’ll give you that. In fact, you’re a fit match for him,” he nodded at Jamie, who was beginning to stir a bit, “and I can’t give you a better compliment than that.” He tenderly fingered his throat, where a darkening bruise showed in the open neck of his shirt. “He tried to kill me, one-handed, when I untied him. And damned near managed it too. Pity I didn’t realize he was left-handed.”

  “How unreasonable of him,” I said.

  “Quite,” said Randall, with a nod. “I don’t suppose you’d be so impolite, do you? Still, on the off-chance…” He turned to the large servant, who was simply standing in the doorframe, shoulders sloped, waiting for orders.

  “Marley,” said Randall, “come here and search this woman for weapons.” He watched with some amusement as the man groped clumsily about my person, eventually coming upon and extracting my dirk.

  “You don’t care for Marley?” asked the Captain, watching me try to avoid the thick fingers that prodded me all too intimately. “Rather a pity; I’m sure he’s quite taken with you.”

  “Poor Marley hasn’t much luck with women,” the Captain went on, a malicious gleam in his eye. “Have you, Marley? Even the whores won’t have him.” He fixed me with a designing sort of look, smiling wolfishly. “Too big, they say.” He raised one eyebrow. “Which is quite a judgment, coming from a whore, is it not?” He raised the other brow, making his meaning quite clear.

  Marley, who had begun to pant rather heavily during the search, stopped and wiped a thread of saliva from the side of his mouth. I moved as far away as I could manage, disgusted.

  Randall, watching me, said, “I imagine Marley would like to entertain you privately in his quarters, once we’ve finished our conversation. Of course, he might decide later on to share his good fortune with his friends, but that’s up to him.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to watch?” I asked sarcastically.

  Randall laughed, truly amused.

  “I may have what are called ‘unnatural tastes’ myself, as I imagine you know by this time. But give me credit for some aesthetic principles.” He glanced at the immense orderly, slouched in his filthy clothes, paunch straining over his belt. The loose, blubbery lips chewed and mumbled constantly, as though seeking some fragment of food, and the short, thick fingers worked nervously against the crotch of the stained breeches. Randall shuddered delicately.

  “No,” he said. “You’re a very lovely woman, shrewish tongue notwithstanding. To see you with Marley – no, I don’t believe I want to watch that. Appearance aside, Marley’s personal habits leave quite a lot to be desired.”

  “So do yours,” I said.

  “That’s as may be. At any rate, they’ll not concern you much longer.” He paused, looking down at me. “I would still like to know who you are, you know. A Jacobite, plainly, but whose? Marischal’s? Seaforth’s? Lovat’s, most likely, since you’re with the Frasers.” Randall nudged Jamie gently with a polished boot-toe, but he still lay inert. I could see his chest rising and falling regularly; perhaps he had merely slipped from unconsciousness into sleep. The smudges under his eyes gave evidence that he had had little rest of late.

  “I’ve even heard from some that you’re a witch,” the Captain went on. His tone was light, but he watched me closely, as though I might suddenly turn myself into an owl and flap away. “There was some kind of trouble at Cranesmuir, wasn’t there? A death of some kind? But no doubt that’s all superstitious nonsense.”

  Randall eyed me speculatively. “I might be persuaded to make a bargain with you,” he said abruptly. He leaned back, half-sitting on the table, inviting me.

  I laughed bitterly. “I can’t say I’m in either a position or a mood to bargain at the moment. What can you offer me?”

  Randall glanced at Marley. The idiot’s eyes were fixed on me, and he was mumbling under his breath.

  “A choice, at least. Tell me – and convince me – who you are and who sent you to Scotland. What you’re doing and what information you’ve sent
to whom. Tell me that, and I’ll take you to Sir Fletcher, instead of giving you to Marley.”

  I kept my eyes firmly away from Marley. I had seen the rotting stumps of teeth embedded in pustulant gums, and the thought of him kissing me, let alone – I choked the thought off. Randall was right; I wasn’t a coward. But neither was I a fool.

  “You can’t take me to Sir Fletcher,” I said, “and I know it as well as you do. Take me to him and risk my telling him about this?” My nod took in the snug little room, the cozy fire, the bed I sat on, and Jamie lying at my feet. “Whatever his own shortcomings, I don’t imagine Sir Fletcher would stand, officially, for his officers torturing prisoners. Even the English army must have some standards.”

  Randall raised both eyebrows. “Torture? Oh, that.” He waved negligently at Jamie’s hand. “An accident. He fell in his cell and was trampled by the other prisoners. It’s rather crowded in those cells, you know.” He smiled derisively.

  I was silent. While Sir Fletcher might or might not believe the damage to Jamie’s hand was an accident, he was most unlikely to believe anything I said, once I was unmasked as an English spy.

  Randall was watching me, eyes alert for any signs of weakening. “Well? The choice is yours.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes, tired of looking at him. The choice wasn’t mine, but I could hardly tell him why not.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said wearily. “I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Think it over for a moment.” He stood up, and stepped carefully over Jamie’s unconscious form, taking a key from his pocket. “I may need Marley’s help for a bit, but then I’ll send him back to his quarters – and you with him, if you don’t mean to cooperate.” He stooped, unlocked the manacle, and heaved the inert body up with an impressive display of strength for one so slightly built. The muscles of his forearms ridged the cloth of his snowy shirt as he carried Jamie, head lolling, to a stool in the corner. He nodded at the bucket standing nearby.