“It’s all right.” It was still an effort to speak, and I felt heavy and disoriented, but things were coming clearer. I tried to smile, but felt nothing more than a twitch.
“At least … we know … it still works.”
“Oh, God. Aye, it works.” He cast a glance of fearful loathing at the stone.
He left me long enough to wet a kerchief in a puddle of rainwater that stood in one of the stony depressions. He wet my face, still muttering reassurances and apologies. At last I felt well enough to sit up.
“You didn’t believe me after all, did you?” Groggy as I was, I felt somehow vindicated. “It’s true, though.”
“Aye, it’s true.” He sat next to me, staring at the stone for several minutes. I rubbed the wet cloth over my face, feeling still faint and dizzy. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, walked to the rock and slapped his hand against it.
Nothing whatsoever happened, and after a minute his shoulders slumped and he came back to me.
“Maybe it’s only women it works on,” I said fuzzily. “It’s always women in the legends. Or maybe it’s only me.”
“Well, it isna me,” he said. “Better make sure, though.”
“Jamie! Be careful!” I shouted, to no avail. He marched to the stone, slapped it again, threw himself against it, walked through the split and back again, but it remained no more than a solid stone monolith. As for myself, I shuddered at the thought of even approaching that door to madness once again.
And yet. Yet when I had begun to pass into the realm of chaos this time, I had been thinking of Frank. And I had felt him, I was sure of it. Somewhere in the void had been a tiny pinprick of light, and he was in it. I knew. I knew also that there had been another point of light, one that sat still beside me, staring at the stone, cheeks gleaming with sweat in spite of the chill of the day.
At last he turned to me and grasped both my hands. He raised them to his lips and kissed each one formally.
“My lady,” he said softly. “My … Claire. It’s no use in waiting. I must part wi’ ye now.”
My lips were too stiff to speak, but the expression on my face must have been as easily readable as usual.
“Claire,” he said urgently, “it’s your own time on the other side of … that thing. You’ve a home there, a place. The things that you’re used to. And … and Frank.”
“Yes,” I said, “there’s Frank.”
Jamie caught me by the shoulders, pulling me to my feet and shaking me gently in supplication.
“There’s nothing for ye on this side, lass! Nothing save violence and danger. Go!” He pushed me slightly, turning me toward the stone circle. I turned back to him, catching his hands.
“Is there really nothing for me here, Jamie?” I held his eyes, not letting him turn away from me.
He pulled himself gently from my grasp without answering and stood back, suddenly a figure from another time, seen in relief upon a background of hazy hills, the life in his face a trick of the shadowing rock, as if flattened beneath layers of paint, an artist’s reminiscence of forgotten places and passions turned to dust.
I looked into his eyes, filled with pain and yearning, and he was flesh again, real and immediate, lover, husband, man.
The anguish I felt must have been reflected in my face, for he hesitated, then turned to the east and pointed down the slope. “Do ye see behind the small clump of oak down there? About halfway.”
I saw the clump, and saw what he was pointing at, the half-ruined crofter’s cottage, abandoned on the haunted hill.
“I shall go down to the house, and I shall stay there ’til the evening. To make sure—to be sure that you’re safe.” He looked at me, but made no move to touch me. He closed his eyes, as though he could no longer bear to look at me.
“Goodbye,” he said, and turned to go.
I watched him, numb, and then remembered. There was something that I had to tell him. I called after him.
“Jamie!”
He stopped and stood motionless for a moment, fighting to control his face. It was white and strained and his lips were bloodless when he turned back to me.
“Aye?”
“There’s something … I mean, I have to tell you something before … before I go.”
He closed his eyes briefly, and I thought he swayed, but it might have been only the wind tugging at his kilts.
“There’s no need,” he said. “No. Do ye go, lass. Ye shouldna tarry. Go.” He made to turn away, but I clutched him by the sleeve.
“Jamie, listen to me! You must!” He shook his head helplessly, lifting a hand as though to push me away.
“Claire … no. I can’t.” The wind was bringing the moisture to his eyes.
“It’s the Rising,” I said urgently, shaking his arm. “Jamie, listen. Prince Charlie—his army. Colum is right! Do you hear me, Jamie? Colum is right, not Dougal.”
“Eh? What d’ye mean, lass?” I had his attention now. He rubbed his sleeve across his face and the eyes that looked down at me were sharp and clear. The wind sang in my ears.
“Prince Charlie. There will be a Rising, Dougal’s right about that, but it won’t succeed. Charlie’s army will do well for a bit, but it will end in slaughter. At Culloden, that’s where it will end. The—the clans …” In my mind’s eye I saw the clanstones, the grey boulders that would lie scattered on the field, each stone bearing the single clan name of the butchered men who lay under it. I took a breath and gripped his hand to steady myself. It was cold as a corpse’s. I shuddered and closed my eyes to concentrate on what I was saying.
“The Highlanders—all the clans that follow Charlie—will be wiped out. Hundreds and hundreds of the clansmen will die at Culloden; those that are left will be hunted and killed. The clans will be crushed … and they’ll not rise again. Not in your time—not even in mine.”
I opened my eyes to find him staring at me, expressionless.
“Jamie, stay out of it!” I begged him. “Keep your people out of it if you can, but for the Lord’s sake … Jamie, if you—” I broke off. I had been going to say “Jamie, if you love me.” But I couldn’t. I was going to lose him forever, and if I could not speak of love to him before, I could not do it now.
“Don’t go to France,” I said, softly. “Go to America, or to Spain, to Italy. But for the sake of the people who love you, Jamie, don’t set foot on Culloden Field.”
He went on staring at me. I wondered if he had heard.
“Jamie? Did you hear me? Do you understand?”
After a moment, he nodded numbly.
“Aye,” he said quietly, so quietly I could hardly hear him, beneath the whining of the wind. “Aye, I hear.” He dropped my hand.
“Go wi’ God …mo duinne.”
He stepped off the ledge and made his way down the steep incline, bracing his feet against tufts of grass, catching at branches to keep his balance, not looking back. I watched him until he disappeared into the oak clump, walking slowly, like a man wounded, who knows he must keep moving, but feels his life ebbing slowly away through the fingers he has clenched over the wound.
My knees were trembling. Slowly, I lowered myself to the granite shelf and sat cross-legged, watching the swallows about their business. Below, I could just see the roof of the cottage that now held my past. At my back loomed the cleft stone. And my future.
I sat without moving through the afternoon. I tried to force all emotion from my mind and use reason. Jamie certainly had logic on his side when he argued that I should go back: home, safety, Frank; even the small amenities of life that I sorely missed from time to time, like hot baths and indoor plumbing, to say nothing of larger considerations such as proper medical care and convenient travel.
And yet, while I would certainly admit the inconveniences and outright dangers of this place, I would have also to admit that I had enjoyed many aspects of it. If travel was inconvenient, there were no enormous stretches of concrete blanketing the countryside, nor any noisy, stinking autos—contriv
ances with their own dangers, I reminded myself. Life was much simpler, and so were the people. Not less intelligent, but much more direct—with a few sterling exceptions like Colum ban Campbell MacKenzie, I thought grimly.
Because of Uncle Lamb’s work, I had lived in a great many places, many even cruder and more lacking in amenities than this one. I adapted quite easily to rough conditions, and did not really miss “civilization” when away from it, though I adapted just as easily to the presence of niceties like electric cookers and hot-water geysers. I shivered in the cold wind, hugging myself as I stared at the rock.
Rationality did not appear to be helping much. I turned to emotion, and began, shrinking from the task, to reconstruct the details of my married lives—first with Frank, then with Jamie. The only result of this was to leave me shattered and weeping, the tears forming icy trails on my face.
Well, if not reason nor emotion, what of duty? I had given Frank a wedding vow, and had meant it with all my heart. I had given Jamie the same, meaning to betray it as soon as possible. And which of them would I betray now? I continued to sit, as the sun sank lower in the sky and the swallows disappeared to their nests.
As the evening star began to glow among the black pines’ branches, I concluded that in this situation reason was of little use. I would have to rely on something else; just what, I wasn’t sure. I turned toward the split rock and took a step, then another, and another. Pausing, I faced around and tried it in the other direction. A step, then another, and another, and before I even knew that I had decided, I was halfway down the slope, scrabbling wildly at grass clumps, slipping and falling through the patches of granite scree.
When I reached the cottage, breathless with fear lest he had left already, I was reassured to see Donas hobbled and grazing nearby. The horse raised his head and eyed me unpleasantly. Walking softly, I pushed the door open.
He was in the front room, asleep on a narrow oak settle. He slept on his back, as he usually did, hands crossed on his stomach, mouth slightly open. The last rays of daylight from the window behind me limned his face like a metal mask; the silver tracks of dried tears glinted on golden skin, and the copper stubble of his beard gleamed dully.
I stood watching him for a moment, filled with an unutterable tenderness. Moving as quietly as I could, I lay down beside him on the narrow settle and nestled close. He turned to me in sleep as he so often did, gathering me spoon-fashion against his chest and resting his cheek against my hair. Half-conscious, he reached to smooth my hair away from his nose; I felt the sudden jerk as he came awake to realize that I was there, and then we overbalanced and crashed together onto the floor, Jamie on top of me.
I didn’t have the slightest doubt that he was solid flesh. I pushed a knee into his abdomen, grunting.
“Get off! I can’t breathe!”
Instead, he aggravated my breathless condition by kissing me thoroughly. I ignored the lack of oxygen temporarily in order to concentrate on more important things.
We held each other for a long time without speaking. At last he murmured “Why?”—his mouth muffled in my hair.
I kissed his cheek, damp and salty. I could feel his heart beating against my ribs, and wanted nothing more than to stay there forever, not moving, not making love, just breathing the same air.
“I had to,” I said. I laughed, a little shakily. “You don’t know how close it was. The hot baths nearly won.” And I wept then, and shook a little, because the choice was so freshly made, and because my joy for the man I held in my arms was mingled with a tearing grief for the man I would never see again.
Jamie held me tightly, pressing me down with his weight, as though to protect me, to save me from being swept away by the roaring pull of the stone circle. At length my tears were spent, and I lay exhausted, head against his comforting chest. It had grown altogether dark by this time, but still he held me, murmuring softly as though I were a child afraid of the night. We clung to each other, unwilling to let go even long enough to start a fire or light a candle.
At length Jamie rose, and picking me up, carried me to the settle, where he sat with me cradled on his lap. The door of the cottage still hung open, and we could see the stars beginning to burn over the valley below.
“Do you know,” I said drowsily, “that it takes thousands and thousands of years for the light of those stars to reach us? In fact, some of the stars we see may be dead by now, but we won’t know it, because we still see the light.”
“Is that so?” he answered, stroking my back. “I didna know that.”
I must have fallen asleep, head on his shoulder, but roused briefly when he laid me gently on the floor, on a makeshift bed of blankets from the horse’s saddleroll. He lay down beside me, and drew me close again.
“Lay your head, lass,” he whispered. “In the morning, I’ll take ye home.”
* * *
We rose just before dawn, and were on the downward trail when the sun rose, eager to leave Craigh na Dun.
“Where are we going, Jamie?” I asked, rejoicing that I could look forward into a future that held him, even as I left behind the last chance of returning to the man who had—who would? once love me.
Jamie reined in the horse, pausing to look over his shoulder for a moment. The forbidding circle of standing stones was invisible from here, but the rocky hillside seemed to rise impassable behind us, bristling with boulders and gorse bushes. From here, the crumbling husk of the cottage looked like one more crag, a bony knuckle jutting from the granite fist of the hill.
“I wish I could have fought him for you,” he said abruptly, looking back at me. His blue eyes were dark and earnest.
I smiled at him, touched.
“It wasn’t your fight, it was mine. But you won it anyway.” I reached out a hand, and he squeezed it.
“Aye, but that’s not what I meant. If I’d fought him man to man and won, ye’d not need to feel any regret over it.” He hesitated. “If ever—”
“There aren’t any more ifs,” I said firmly. “I thought of every one of them yesterday, and here I still am.”
“Thank God,” he said, smiling, “and God help you.” Then he added, “Though I’ll never understand why.”
I put my arms around his waist and held on as the horse slithered down the last steep slope.
“Because,” I said, “I bloody well can’t do without you, Jamie Fraser, and that’s all about it. Now, where are you taking me?”
Jamie twisted in his saddle, to look back up the slope.
“I prayed all the way up that hill yesterday,” he said softly. “Not for you to stay; I didna think that would be right. I prayed I’d be strong enough to send ye away.” He shook his head, still gazing up the hill, a faraway look in his eyes.
“I said ‘Lord, if I’ve never had courage in my life before, let me have it now. Let me be brave enough not to fall on my knees and beg her to stay.’ ” He pulled his eyes away from the cottage and smiled briefly at me.
“Hardest thing I ever did, Sassenach.” He turned in the saddle, and reined the horse’s head toward the east. It was a rare bright morning, and the early sun gilded everything, drawing a thin line of fire along the edge of the reins, the curve of the horse’s neck, and the broad planes of Jamie’s face and shoulders.
He took a deep breath and nodded across the moor, toward a distant pass between two crags.
“So now I suppose I can do the second-hardest thing.” He kicked the horse gently, clicking his tongue. “We’re going home, Sassenach. To Lallybroch.”
PART FIVE
Lallybroch
26
THE LAIRD’S RETURN
At first, we were so happy only to be with each other and away from Leoch than we didn’t talk much. Across the flat of the moor, Donas could carry us both without strain, and I rode with my arms about Jamie’s waist, glorying in the feel of the sun-warmed muscle shifting under my cheek. Whatever problems we might be facing—and I knew there were plenty—we were together. Forever.
And that was enough.
As the first shock of happiness mellowed into the glow of companionship, we began to talk again. About the countryside through which we were passing, at first. Then, cautiously, about me, and where I had come from. He was fascinated by my descriptions of modern life, though I could tell that most of my stories seemed like fairy tales to him. He loved especially the descriptions of automobiles, tanks, and airplanes, and made me describe them over and over, as minutely as I could. By tacit agreement, we avoided any mention of Frank.
As we covered more countryside, the conversation turned back to our present time; Colum, the Castle, then the stag hunt and the Duke.
“He seems a nice chap,” Jamie remarked. As the going became rougher, he had dismounted and walked alongside, which made conversation easier.
“I thought so too,” I answered. “But—”
“Oh, aye, ye canna put too much faith in what a man seems these days,” he agreed. “Still, we got on, he and I. We’d sit together and talk of an evening, found the fire in the hunting lodge. He’s a good bit brighter than he seems, for the one thing; he knows how that voice makes him seem, and I think he uses it to make himself look a bit of a fool, while all the time the mind is there, workin’ behind his eyes.”
“Mmm. That’s what I’m afraid of. Did you … tell him?”
He shrugged. “A bit. He knew my name, of course, from that time before, at the castle.”
I laughed at the memory of his account of that time. “Did you, er, reminisce about old times?”
He grinned, the ends of his hair floating about his face in the autumn breeze.
“Oh, just a bit. He asked me once whether I still suffered from stomach trouble. I kept my face straight and answered that as a rule, no, but I thought perhaps I felt a bit of griping coming on just now. He laughed, and said he hoped it did not discommode my beautiful wife.”
I laughed myself. Right now, what the Duke might or mightn’t do didn’t seem of overwhelming importance. Nevertheless, he might one day be of use.
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