“Did it work?”
Jamie merely grunted in reply, and tore off another small morsel of meat between his teeth.
In spite of his worry, Roger wolfed his share of the meat, and the uneaten part of Jamie’s meal as well. The sky spread black and starry overhead, and a cold wind moved through the trees, chilling hands and face.
He buried the remnants of the snake—all they needed now was for some large carnivore to show up, drawn by the smell of blood—and tended the fire, all the time listening for a shout from the darkness. No sound came but the moaning of wind and cracking of branches; they were alone.
Fraser had pulled off his hunting shirt in spite of the chill, and was sitting with his eyes closed, swaying slightly. Roger squatted next to him and touched his arm. Jesus! The man was blazing hot to the touch.
He opened his eyes, though, and smiled faintly. Roger held up a cup of water; Jamie nodded and took the cup, fumbling. The leg was grotesquely swollen below the knee, nearly twice its normal size. The skin showed irregular dark red blotches, as though some succubus had come to place its hungry mouth upon the flesh, then left unsatisfied.
Roger wondered uneasily whether he might, perhaps, be wrong. He’d been convinced that the past couldn’t be changed; ergo, the time and manner of Fraser’s death was set—some four years in the future. If it weren’t for that certainty, though, he thought, he’d be bloody worried by the look of the man. Just how certain was he, after all?
“Ye could be wrong.” Jamie had put down the cup and was regarding him with a steady blue gaze.
“About what?” he asked, startled to hear his thought spoken aloud. Had he been muttering to himself, not realizing it?
“About the changing. Ye thought it wasna possible to change history, ye said. But what if ye’re wrong?”
Roger bent to poke the fire.
“I’m not wrong,” he said firmly, as much to himself as to Fraser. “Think, man. You and Claire—you tried to stop Charles Stuart—change what he did—and ye couldn’t. It can’t be done.”
“That’s no quite right,” Fraser objected. He leaned back, eyes half-hooded against the fire’s brightness.
“What’s not right?”
“It’s true we failed to keep him from the Rising—but that didna depend only on us and on him; there were a good many other folk had to do wi’ that. The chiefs who followed him, the damn Irishmen who flattered him—even Louis; him and his gold.”
He waved a hand, dismissing it. “But that’s neither here nor there. Ye said Claire and I couldna stop him—and it’s true, we couldna stop the beginning. But we might have stopped the end.”
“Culloden, you mean?” Roger stared into the fire, remembering dimly that long-ago day when Claire had first told him and Brianna the story of the stones—and Jamie Fraser. Yes, she had spoken of a last opportunity—the chance to prevent that final slaughter of the clans …
He glanced up at Fraser.
“By killing Charles Stuart?”
“Aye. If we had done so—but neither she nor I could bring ourselves to it.” His eyes were nearly closed, but he turned his head restlessly, clearly uncomfortable. “I have wondered many times since, if that was decency—or cowardice.”
“Or maybe something else,” Roger said abruptly. “You don’t know. If Claire had tried to poison him, I’m betting something would have happened; the dish would have spilled, a dog would have eaten it, someone else would have died—it wouldn’t have made a difference!”
Fraser’s eyes opened slowly.
“So ye think it’s all destined, do ye? A man has no free choice at all?” He rubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand. “And when ye chose to come back, for Brianna, and then again, for her and the wean—it wasna your choice at all, aye? Ye were meant to do it?”
“I—” Roger stopped, hands clenched on his thighs. The smell of the Gloriana’s bilges seemed suddenly to rise above the scent of burning wood. Then he relaxed, and gave a short laugh. “Hell of a time to get philosophical, isn’t it?”
“Aye, well,” Fraser spoke quite mildly. “It’s only that I may not have another time.” Before Roger could expostulate, he went on. “If there is nay free choice … then there is neither sin nor redemption, aye?”
“Jesus,” Roger muttered, shoving the hair back from his forehead. “Come out with Hawkeye and end up under a tree with bloody Augustine of Hippo!”
Jamie ignored him, intent on his point.
“We chose—Claire and I. We wouldna do murder. We wouldna shed the blood of one man; but does the blood of Culloden then rest on us? We wouldna commit the sin—but does the sin find us, still?”
“Of course not.” Roger rose to his feet, restless, and stood poking the fire. “What happened at Culloden—it wasn’t your fault, how could it be? All the men who took part in that—Murray, Cumberland, all the chiefs … it was not any one man’s doing!”
“So ye think it is all meant? We’re doomed or saved from the moment of birth, and not a thing can change it? And you a minister’s son!” Fraser gave a dry sort of chuckle.
“Yes,” Roger said, feeling at once awkward and unaccountably angry. “I mean no, I don’t think that. It’s only … well, if something’s already happened one way, how can it happen another way?”
“It’s only you that thinks it’s happened,” Fraser pointed out.
“I don’t think it, I know!”
“Mmphm. Aye, because ye’ve come from the other side of it; it’s behind you. So perhaps you couldna change something—but I could, because it’s still ahead of me?”
Roger rubbed a hand hard over his face.
“That makes—” he began, and then stopped. How could he say it made no sense? Sometimes he thought nothing in the world made sense anymore.
“Maybe,” he said wearily. “God knows; I don’t.”
“Aye. Well, I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”
Roger glanced sharply at him, hearing a strange note in his voice.
“What d’ye mean by that?”
“Ye think ye ken that I died three years from now,” Fraser said calmly. “If I die tonight, then you’re wrong, aye? What ye think happened won’t have happened—so the past can be changed, aye?”
“You’re not going to die!” Roger snapped. He glowered at Fraser, daring him to contradict.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Fraser said. “But I think I’ll take a bit o’ the whisky now. Draw the cork for me, aye? My fingers willna grasp it.”
Roger’s own hands were far from steady. Perhaps it was only the heat of Fraser’s fever that made his own skin feel cold as he held the flask for his father-in-law to drink. He doubted that whisky was recommended for snakebite, but it didn’t seem likely to make much difference now.
“Lie down,” he said gruffly, when Jamie had finished. “I’ll fetch a bit more wood.”
He was unable to keep still; there was plenty of wood to hand, yet still he prowled the darkness, keeping just within sight of the blazing fire.
He had had a lot of nights like this; alone under a sweep of sky so vast that it made him dizzy to look up, chilled to the bone, moving to keep warm. The nights when he had wrestled with choice, too restless to lie in a comforting burrow of leaves, too tormented to sleep.
The choice had been clear then, but far from easy to make: Brianna on the one hand, and all that came with her; love and danger, doubt and fear. And on the other, surety. The knowledge of who and what he was—a certainty he had forsaken, for the sake of the woman who was his … and the child who might be.
He had chosen. Dammit, he had chosen! Nothing had forced him, he had made the choice himself. And if it meant remaking himself from the ground up, then he’d bloody well chosen that, too! And he’d chosen to kiss Morag, too. His mouth twisted at the thought; he’d had even less notion of the consequences of that small act.
Some small echo stirred in his mind, a soft voice far back in the shadows of his memory.
“… what I was born does
not matter, only what I will make of myself, only what I will become.”
Who’d written that? he wondered. Montaigne? Locke? One of the bloody Enlightenment lads, them and their notions of destiny and the individual? He’d like to see what they had to say about time traveling! Then he remembered where he’d read it, and the marrow of his spine went cold.
“This is the grimoire of the witch, Geillis. It is a witch’s name, and I take it for my own; what I was born does not matter, only what I will make of myself, only what I will become.”
“Right!” he said aloud, defiant. “Right, and you couldn’t change things either, could you, Grandma?”
A sound came from the forest behind him, and the hair rose on the back of his neck before he recognized it; it wasn’t laughter, as he’d thought at first—only a panther’s distant cry.
She had, though, he thought suddenly. True, she’d not managed to make a king of Charles Stuart—but she’d done a good number of other things. And now he came to think on the matter … She and Claire had both done something guaranteed to change things; they’d borne children, to men of another time. Brianna … William Buccleigh—and when he thought of the effect those two births had had on his own life, let alone anything else …
That had to change things, didn’t it? He sat down slowly on a fallen log, feeling the bark cold and damp under him. Yes, it did. To name one minor effect, his own bloody existence was the result of Geilie Duncan’s taking charge of her destiny. If Geilie hadn’t borne a child to Dougal MacKenzie … of course, she hadn’t chosen to do that.
Did intention make any difference, though? Or was that exactly the point he’d been arguing with Jamie Fraser?
He got up and circled the fire quietly, peering into the shadows. Fraser was lying down, a humped shape in the darkness, very still.
He walked lightly, but his feet crunched on the needles. Fraser didn’t twitch. His eyes were closed. The blotchiness had spread to his face. Roger thought his features had a thick, congested look, lips and eyelids slightly swollen. In the wavering light, it was impossible to tell whether he was still breathing.
Roger knelt and shook him, hard.
“Hey! Are ye still alive?” He’d meant to say it jokingly, but the fear in his voice was apparent to his own ears.
Fraser didn’t move. Then one eye cracked open.
“Aye,” he muttered. “But I’m no enjoying it.”
Roger didn’t leave again. He wiped Jamie’s face with a wet cloth, offered more whisky—which was refused—then sat beside the recumbent form, listening for each rasping breath.
Much against his will, he found himself making plans, proceeding from one unwelcome assumption to the next. What if the worst happened? Against his will, he thought it possible; he had seen several people die who didn’t look nearly as bad as Fraser did just now.
If the worst should happen, and the others not have returned, he would have to bury Jamie. He could neither carry the body nor leave it exposed; not with panthers or other animals nearby.
His eye roamed uneasily over the surroundings. Rocks, trees, brush—everything looked alien, the shapes half-masked by darkness, outlines seeming to waver and change in the flickering glow, the wind moaning past like a prowling beast.
There, maybe; the end of a half-fallen tree loomed jagged in the darkness, leaning at an angle. He could scrape a shallow trench, perhaps, then lever the tree and let it fall to cover the temporary grave …
He pressed his head hard against his knees.
“No!” he whispered. “Please, no!”
The thought of telling Bree, telling Claire, was a physical pain, stabbing him in chest and throat. It wasn’t only them, either—what about Jem? What about Fergus and Marsali, Lizzie and her father, the Bugs, the Lindsays, the other families on the Ridge? They all looked to Fraser for confidence and direction; what would they do without him?
Fraser shifted, and groaned with the movement. Roger laid a hand on his shoulder, and he stilled.
Don’t go, he thought, the unspoken words balled tight in his throat. Stay with us. Stay with me.
He sat for a long time, his hand resting on Fraser’s shoulder. He had the absurd thought that he was somehow holding Fraser, keeping him anchored to the earth. If he held on ’til the sunrise, all would be well; if he lifted his hand, that would be the end.
The fire was burning low now, but he put off from moment to moment the necessity of tending it, unwilling to let go.
“MacKenzie?” It was no more than a murmur, but he bent at once.
“Aye, I’m here. Ye want water? A drop of whisky?” He was reaching for the cup even as he spoke, spilling water in his anxiety. Fraser took two swallows, then waved the cup away with a twitch of his hand.
“I dinna ken yet if ye’re right or you’re wrong,” Fraser said. His voice was soft and hoarse, but distinct. “But if you’re wrong, wee Roger, and I’m dying, there are things I must say to ye. I dinna want to leave it too late.”
“I’m here,” Roger repeated, not knowing what else to say.
Fraser closed his eyes, gathering strength, then brought his hands beneath him and rolled halfway over, ponderous and clumsy. He grimaced, and took a moment to catch his breath.
“Bonnet. I must tell ye what I’ve put in train.”
“Aye?” For the first time, Roger felt something other than simple worry for Fraser’s welfare.
“There is a man named Lyon—Duncan Innes will ken best how to find him. He works on the coast, buying from the smugglers who run the Outer Banks. He sought me out at the wedding, to see would I deal with him, over the whisky.”
The plan in outline was simple enough; Jamie meant to send word—by what route, Roger had no notion—to this Lyon, indicating that he was willing to enter into business, provided that Lyon would bring Stephen Bonnet to a meeting, to prove that he had a man of the necessary reputation and skill to manage the transport up and down the coast.
“Necessary reputation,” Roger echoed under his breath. “Aye, he’s got that.”
Fraser made a sound that might have been a laugh.
“He’ll not agree that easily—he’ll bargain and set terms—but he’ll agree. Tell him ye’ve got enough whisky to make it worth his while—give him a barrel of the two-year-old to try, if ye must. When he sees what folk will pay for it, he’ll be eager enough. The place—” He stopped, frowning, and breathed for a moment before going on.
“I’d thought to make it Wylie’s Landing—but if it’s you, ye should choose a place to your liking. Take the Lindsays with ye to guard your back, if they’ll go. If not, find someone else; dinna go alone. And go ready to kill him at the first shot.”
Roger nodded, swallowing heavily. Jamie’s eyelids were swollen, but he looked up under them, his eyes glinting sharp in the firelight.
“Dinna let him get close enough to take ye with a sword,” he said. “Ye’ve done well—but ye’re not good enough to meet a man like Bonnet.”
“And you are?” Roger couldn’t stop himself from saying. He thought Fraser was smiling, but it was difficult to tell.
“Oh, aye,” he said softly. “If I live.” He coughed then, and lifted a hand, dismissing Bonnet for the moment.
“For the rest … watch Sinclair. He’s a man to be used—he kens everything that passes in the district—but no a man to turn your back on, ever.”
He paused, brow furrowed in thought.
“Ye can trust Duncan Innes and Farquard Campbell,” he said. “And Fergus—Fergus will help ye, if he can. For the rest—” He shifted again and winced. “Go wary of Obadiah Henderson; he’ll try ye. A-many of them will, and ye let them—but dinna let Henderson. Take him at the first chance—ye willna get another.”
Slowly, with frequent pauses to rest, he went down the list of the names of the men on the Ridge, the inhabitants of Cross Creek, the prominent men of the Cape Fear valley. Characters, leanings, secrets, obligations.
Roger fought down panic, struggling to lis
ten carefully, commit it all to memory, wanting to reassure Fraser, tell him to stop, to rest, that none of this was necessary—at the same time knowing it was more than necessary. There was war coming; it didn’t take a time traveler to know it. If the welfare of the Ridge—of Brianna and Jemmy, of Claire—were to be left in Roger’s inexperienced hands, he must take heed of every scrap of information that Fraser could give him.
Fraser’s voice trailed off in hoarseness. Had he lost consciousness? The shoulder under Roger’s hand was slack, inert. He sat quietly, not daring to move.
It wouldn’t be enough, he thought, and a dull fear settled in the pit of his stomach, an aching dread that underlay the sharper pangs of grief. He couldn’t do it. Christ, he couldn’t even shoot a thing the size of a house! And now he was meant to step into Jamie Fraser’s shoes? Keep order with fists and brain, feed a family with gun and knife, tread the tightrope of politics over a lighted powderkeg, tenants and family all balanced on his shoulders? Replace the man they called Himself? Not fucking likely, he thought bleakly.
Fraser’s hand twitched suddenly. The fingers were swollen like sausages, the skin stretched red and shiny. Roger laid his free hand over it, and felt the fingers move, trying to curl around his own.
“Tell Brianna I’m glad of her,” Fraser whispered. “Give my sword to the bairn.”
Roger nodded, unable to speak. Then, realizing that Fraser couldn’t see him, cleared his throat.
“Aye,” he said gruffly. “I’ll tell her.” He waited, but Fraser said no more. The fire had burned very low, but the hand in his burned hot as embers. A gust of wind knifed past, whipping strands of his hair against his cheek, sending up a spray of sudden sparks from the fire.
He waited as long as he thought he dared, the cold night creeping past in lonely minutes. Then leaned close, so Fraser could hear him.
“Claire?” he asked quietly. “Is there anything ye’d have me tell her?”
He thought he’d waited too long; Fraser lay motionless for several minutes. Then the big hand stirred, half-closing swollen fingers; the ghost of a motion, grasping after time that slipped away.
“Tell her … I meant it.”
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