“My hair? What’s wrong wi’ my hair?” Jamie demanded, putting a hand up to check. Grown nearly to shoulder-length, he had as usual laced it back with a leather thong to keep it out of his face.
Wasting no time on chat, his sister pushed him down onto the stool, yanked the thong loose and began to brush him vigorously with the tortoiseshell brushes.
“What’s wrong wi’ your hair?” she asked rhetorically. “Weel, now. There’s cockleburs in it, for one thing.” She plucked a small brown object delicately from his head and dropped it on the dresser. “And bits of oak leaf. Where were ye yesterday—rootling under the trees like a hog? And more tangles than a skein of washed yarn—”
“Ouch!”
“Be still, roy.” Frowning with concentration, she picked up a comb and teased out the tangles, leaving a smooth, shining mass of auburn, copper, cinnamon, and gold, all gleaming together in the morning sun from the window. Jenny spread it in her hands, shaking her head over it.
“I canna think why the good Lord should waste hair like that on a man,” she remarked. “Like a red-deer’s pelt, in places.”
“It is wonderful isn’t it?” I agreed. “Look, where the sun’s bleached it on top, he’s got those lovely blond streaks.” The object of our admiration glowered up at us.
“If ye both dinna stop it, I shall shave my head.” He stretched out a threatening hand toward the dresser, where his razor rested. His sister, deft in spite of the enormous bulge of pregnancy, reached out and smacked his wrist with the hairbrush. He yelped, then yelped again as she yanked the hair back into a fistful.
“Keep still,” she ordered. She began to separate the hair into three thick strands. “I’ll make ye a proper cockernonny,” she declared with satisfaction. “I’ll no have ye goin’ down to your tenants looking like a savage.”
Jamie muttered something rebellious under his breath, but subsided under his sister’s ministrations. Dexterously tucking in stray bits here and there, she plaited the hair into a thick formal queue, tucking the ends under and binding them securely with thread. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out a blue silk ribbon and triumphantly tied it in a bow.
“There!” she said. “Bonny, no?” She turned to me for confirmation, and I had to admit it. The closely bound hair set off the shape of his head and the bold modeling of his face. Clean and orderly, in snowy linen and grey breeches, he cut a wonderful figure.
“Especially the ribbon,” I said, suppressing an urge to laugh. “The same color as his eyes.”
Jamie glared at his sister.
“No,” he said shortly. “No ribbons. This isna France, nor yet King Geordie’s court! I dinna care if it’s the color of the Virgin’s cloak—no ribbons, Janet!”
“Oh, all right, then, fusspot. There.” She pulled the ribbon loose and stood back.
“Aye, ye’ll do,” she said, with satisfaction. Then she turned her penetrating blue eyes on me.
“Hm,” she said, tapping her foot thoughtfully.
As I had arrived more or less in rags, it had been necessary to make me two new gowns as quickly as possible; one of homespun for daily use, and one of silk for occasions of state such as this. Better at stitching wounds than cloth, I had helped with the cutting and pinning, but been obliged to leave the design and sewing to Jenny and Mrs. Crook.
They had done a beautiful job, and the primrose yellow silk fitted my torso like a glove, with deep folds rolling back over the shoulders and falling behind in panels that flowed into the luxuriant drape of the full skirt. Bowing reluctantly to my absolute refusal to wear corsets, they had instead ingeniously reinforced the upper bodice with whale-bone stays ruthlessly stripped from an old corset.
Jenny’s eyes traveled slowly upward from my feet to my head, where they lingered. With a sigh, she reached for the hairbrush.
“You, too,” she said.
I sat, face burning, avoiding Jamie’s eyes, as she carefully removed small twigs and bits of oak leaf from my curls, depositing them on the dresser next to those seined from her brother’s hair. Eventually my hair was combed out and pinned up, and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small lace cap.
“There,” she said, pinning it firmly to the top of my pile of curls. “Kertch and all. Verra respectable ye look, Claire.”
I assumed this was meant as a compliment, and murmured something in reply.
“Have ye any jewelry, though?” Jenny asked.
I shook my head. “No, I’m afraid not. All I had were the pearls Jamie gave me for our wedding, and those—” Under the circumstances of our departure from Leoch, pearls had been the last thing on my mind.
“Oh!” Jamie exclaimed, suddenly reminded. He dug in the sporran resting on the dresser, and triumphantly pulled out the string of pearls.
“Where on earth did you get those?” I asked in amazement.
“Murtagh brought them, early this morning,” he answered. “He went back to Leoch during the trial and got everything he could carry—thinking that we’d need it if we got away. He looked for us on the road here, but of course we’d gone to … to the hill, first.”
“Is he still here?” I asked.
Jamie stood behind me to fasten the necklace.
“Oh, aye. He’s downstairs eating everything in the kitchen and deviling Mrs. Crook.”
Aside from his songs, I had heard the wiry little man say less than three dozen words throughout the course of our acquaintanceship, and the thought of his “deviling” anyone was incongruous. He must feel remarkably at home at Lallybroch, I thought.
“Who is Murtagh?” I asked. “I mean, is he a relation of yours?”
Jamie and Jenny both looked surprised.
“Oh, aye,” the latter replied. She turned to her brother. “He’s—what, Jamie?—Father’s second cousin’s uncle?”
“Nephew,” he corrected. “Ye dinna remember? Old Leo had the two boys, and then—”
I put my hands over my ears in a marked manner. This seemed to remind Jenny of something, for she clapped her hands together.
“Earbobs!” she exclaimed. “I think I’ve some pearl ones that will just do with that necklace! I’ll fetch them directly.” She vanished with her usual light speed.
“Why does your sister call you Roy?” I asked curiously, watching as he tied his stock before the looking glass. He wore the customary expression of a man doing battle with a mortal enemy, common to all men adjusting their neckwear, but he unclamped his lips to grin at me.
“Och, that. It isna the English name Roy. It’s a pet name in Gaelic; the color of my hair. The word’s ‘ruadh’—means ‘red.’ ” He had to spell the word and say it over several times before I could catch any difference.
“Sounds the same to me, roy,” I said, shaking my head.
Jamie picked up his sporran and began tucking in the loose bits of things that had come out when he pulled out the pearls. Finding a tangled length of fishing line, he upended the bag over the bed, dumping everything in a pile. He began to sort through it, painstakingly winding up the bits of line and string, finding loose fish hooks and firmly re-imbedding them in the piece of cork where they normally rested. I moved over to the bed and inspected the array.
“I’ve never seen so much rubbish in my life,” I observed. “You’re a regular jackdaw, Jamie.”
“It isna rubbish,” he said, stung. “I’ve uses for all these things.”
“Well, the fish lines, and the hooks, yes. And the string for snares. Even, stretching a point, the pistol wadding and the balls—you do carry a pistol now and again. And the little snake Willie gave you, I understand that. But the stones? And a snail shell? And a piece of glass? And …” I bent closer to peer at a dark, furry mass of something.
“What is—it isn’t, is it? Jamie, why on earth are you carrying a dried mole’s foot in your sporran?”
“Against rheumatism, of course.” He snatched the object from under my nose and stuffed it back in the badger skin.
“Oh,
of course,” I agreed, surveying him with interest. His face was mildly flushed with embarrassment. “It must work; you don’t creak anywhere.” I picked a small Bible out of the remaining rubble and thumbed through it, while he stowed away the rest of his valuable equipment.
“Alexander William Roderick MacGregor.” I read aloud the name on the flyleaf. “You said there was a debt owing him, Jamie. What did you mean by that?”
“Oh, that.” He sat down beside me on the bed, took the small book from me and gently flipped the pages.
“I told ye this belonged to a prisoner who’d died at Fort William, no?”
“Yes.”
“I didna know the lad myself; he died a month before I came there. But the doctor who gave it to me told me about him, while he tended my back. I think he needed to tell someone about it, and he couldna speak to anyone in the garrison.” He closed the book, holding it on his knee, and stared out the window at the gay October sunshine.
Alex MacGregor, a lad of eighteen or so, had been arrested for the common offense of cattle-lifting. A fair, quiet lad, he had seemed likely to serve his sentence and be released without incident. A week before his release, though, he had been found hanging in the horseshed.
“There was no doubt he’d done it himself, the doctor said.” Jamie caressed the leather cover of the small book, drawing one large thumb along the binding. “And he did not exactly say what he thought, himself. But he did say that Captain Randall had had a private conversation with the lad a week before.”
I swallowed, suddenly cold despite the sunshine.
“And you think—”
“No.” His voice was soft and certain. “I dinna think. I know, and so did the doctor. And I imagine the sergeant-major knew for certain, and that’s why he died.” He spread his hands flat on his knees, looking down at the long joints of his fingers. Large, strong and capable; the hands of a farmer, the hands of a warrior. He picked up the small Bible and put it into the sporran.
“I’ll tell ye this, mo duinne. One day Jack Randall will die at my hands. And when he is dead, I shall send back that book to the mother of Alex MacGregor, with word that her son is avenged.”
The air of tension was broken by the sudden reappearance of Jenny, now resplendent in blue silk and her own lace kertch, holding a large box of worn red morocco leather.
“Jamie, the Currans are come, and Willie Murray and the Jeffries. You’d best go down and have a second breakfast with them—I’ve put out fresh bannocks and salt herring, and Mrs. Crook’s doing fresh jam cakes.”
“Oh, aye. Claire, come down when you’re ready.” Rising hastily, he paused long enough to gather me up for a brief but thorough kiss, and disappeared. His footsteps clattered down the first flight of stairs, slowing on the second to the more sedate pace suitable to a laird’s entrance, as he neared the ground floor.
Jenny smiled after him, then turned her attention to me. Placing the box on the bed, she threw back the lid, revealing a jumbled array of jewels and baubles. I was surprised to see it; it seemed unlike the neat, orderly Jenny Murray whose iron hand kept the household running smoothly from dawn to dusk.
She stirred a finger through the bright clutter, then as though picking up my thought, looked up and smiled at me.
“I keep thinking I must sort all these things one day. But when I was small, my mother would let me rummage in her box sometimes, and it was like finding magic treasure—I never knew what I’d pick up next. I suppose I think if it were all orderly, the magic would go, somehow. Daft, no?”
“No,” I said, smiling back at her. “No, it isn’t.”
We rummaged slowly through the box, holding the cherished bits and pieces of four generations of women.
“That was my grandmother Fraser’s,” Jenny said, holding up a silver brooch. It was in the shape of a fret-worked crescent moon, a small single diamond shining above the tip like a star.
“And this—” She pulled out a slender gold band, with a ruby surrounded by brilliants. “That’s my wedding ring. Ian spent half a year’s salary on it, though I told him he was foolish to do it.” The fond look on her face suggested that Ian had been anything but foolish. She polished the stone on the bosom of her dress and admired it once more before replacing it in the box.
“I’ll be happy once the babe is born,” she said, patting her bulge with a grimace. “My fingers are so swollen in the mornings I can scarcely do up my laces, let alone wear my rings.”
I caught a strange nonmetallic gleam in the depths of the box, and pointed. “What’s that?”
“Oh, those,” she said, dipping into the box again. “I’ve never worn them; they don’t suit me. But you could wear them—you’re tall and queenly, like my mother was. They were hers, ye ken.”
They were a pair of bracelets. Each made from the curving, almost-circular tusk of a wild boar, polished to a deep ivory glow, the ends capped with silver tappets, etched with flowered tracery.
“Lord, they’re gorgeous! I’ve never seen anything so … so wonderfully barbaric.”
Jenny was amused. “Aye, that they are. Someone gave them to Mother as a wedding gift, but she never would say who. My father used to tease her now and then about her admirer, but she wouldna tell him, either, just smiled like a cat that’s had cream to its supper. Here, try them.”
The ivory was cool and heavy on my arm. I couldn’t resist stroking the deep yellow surface, grained with age.
“Aye, they suit ye,” Jenny declared. “And they go wi’ that yellow gown, as well. Here are the earbobs—put these on, and we’ll go down.”
* * *
Murtagh was seated at the kitchen table, industriously eating ham off the end of his dirk. Passing behind him with a platter, Mrs. Crook dexterously bent and slid three fresh hot bannocks onto his plate, hardly breaking her stride.
Jenny was bustling to and fro, preparing and overseeing. Pausing in her progress, she peered over Murtagh’s shoulder at his rapidly emptying plate.
“Don’t stint yourself, man,” she remarked. “There’s another hog in the pen, after all.”
“Begrudge a kinsman a bite, do ye?” he asked, not interrupting his chewing.
“Me?” Jenny put both hands on her hips. “Heavens, no! After all, ye’ve only had the four helpings so far. Mrs. Crook,” she turned to call to the departing housekeeper, “when you’ve done wi’ the bannocks, fix this starveling man a bowl of parritch to fill in the chinks with. We dinna want him fainting on the doorstep, ye ken.”
When Murtagh saw me standing in the doorway, he promptly choked on a bite of ham.
“Mmmphm,” he said, by way of greeting, after Jenny had pounded him helpfully on the back.
“Nice to see you too,” I replied, sitting down opposite him. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Mmphm?” The question was muffled by half a bannock, spread with honey.
“For fetching my things from the Castle.”
“Mmp.” He dismissed any notion of thanks with a wave that ended in a reach for the butter dish.
“I brought your wee bits of plant and such as well,” he said, with a jerk of the head at the window. “Out in the yard, in my saddlebags.”
“You’ve brought my medicine box? That’s wonderful!” I was delighted. Some of the medicinal plants were rare, and had taken no little trouble to find and prepare properly.
“But how did you manage?” I asked. Once I had recovered from the horror of the witchcraft trial, I often wondered how the occupants of the Castle had taken my sudden arrest and escape. “I hope you didn’t have any difficulty.”
“Och, no.” He took another healthy bite, but waited until it had made its leisurely way down his throat before replying further.
“Mrs. Fitz had them put away, like, packed up in a box already. I went to her at the first, ye ken, for I wasna sure what reception I’d get.”
“Very sensible. I don’t imagine Mrs. Fitz would scream at sight of you,” I agreed. The bannocks were steaming gently in
the cool air, and smelt heavenly. I reached for one, the heavy boar’s-tooth bracelets clinking together on my wrist. I saw Murtagh’s eyes on them and adjusted them so he could see the engraved silver end pieces.
“Aren’t they lovely?” I said. “Jenny said they were her mother’s.”
Murtagh’s eyes dropped to the bowl of parritch that Mrs. Crook had thrust unceremoniously under his nose.
“They suit ye,” he mumbled. Then, returning suddenly to the earlier subject, he said, “No, she wouldna summon help against me. I was well acquent’ wi’ Glenna FitzGibbons, some time ago.”
“Oh, a long-lost love of yours, was she?” I teased, enjoying the incongruous thought of him entwined in amorous embrace with the ample Mrs. Fitz.
Murtagh glanced up coldly from his parritch.
“That she wasna, and I’ll thank ye to keep a civil tongue when ye speak of the lady. Her husband was my mother’s brother. And she was sore grieved for ye, I’ll ha’ ye to know.”
I lowered my eyes, abashed, and reached for the honey to cover my embarrassment. The stone jar had been set in a pot of boiling water to liquefy the contents, and it was comfortingly warm to the touch.
“I’m sorry,” I said, drizzling the sweet golden fluid over the bannock, watching carefully so as not to spill it. “I wondered, you know, what she felt like, when … when I …”
“They didna realize at the first ye were gone,” the little man said matter-of-factly, ignoring my apology. “When ye didna come in to dinner, they thought maybe you’d stayed late in the fields and gone up to your bed without eating; your door was closed. And the next day, when there was all the outcry over the taking of Mistress Duncan, no one thought to look for ye. There was no mention of you, only of her, when the news came, and in all the excitement, no one thought to look for ye.”
I nodded thoughtfully. No one would have missed me, save those seeking medical treatment; I had spent most of my time in Colum’s library while Jamie was away.
“What about Colum?” I asked. I was more than idly curious; had he really planned it, as Geilie thought?
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 68