She did not look human, was the first thing he thought. Her body mottled black with bruises, her face unrecognizable, she looked like something strange and primal, an exotic creature of the forest pool. Beyond appearance, though, it was her attitude that struck him. She was remote, somehow, and still, in the way that a tree is still, even as the air stirs its leaves.
He glanced back, unable not to. She bent over the water, studying her face. Her hair hung wet and tangled down her back, and she skimmed it back with the palm of a hand, holding it out of the way as she surveyed her battered features with dispassionate intentness.
She prodded gently here and there, opening and closing her jaw as her fingertips explored the contours of her face. Testing, he supposed, for loose teeth and broken bones. She closed her eyes and traced the lines of brow and nose, jaw and lip, hand as sure and delicate as a painter’s. Then she seized the end of her nose with determination and pulled hard.
Roger cringed in reflex, as blood and tears poured down her face, but she made no sound. His stomach was already knotted into a small, painful ball; it rose up into his throat, pressing against the rope scar.
She sat back on her heels, breathing deeply, eyes closed, hands cupped over the center of her face.
He became suddenly aware that she was naked, and he was still staring. He jerked away, blood hot in his face, and glanced surreptitiously toward Jamie in hopes that Fraser had not noticed. He hadn’t—he was no longer there.
Roger looked wildly round, but spotted him almost at once. His relief at not being caught staring was superseded at once by a jolt of adrenaline, when he saw what Fraser was doing.
He was standing beside a body on the ground.
Fraser’s gaze flicked briefly round, taking note of his men, and Roger could almost feel the effort with which Jamie suppressed his own feelings. Then Fraser’s bright blue eyes fastened on the man at his feet, and Roger saw him breathe in, very slowly.
Lionel Brown.
Quite without meaning to, Roger had found himself striding across the clearing. He took up his place at Jamie’s right without conscious thought, his attention similarly fixed on the man on the ground.
Brown’s eyes were shut, but he wasn’t asleep. His face was bruised and swollen, as well as patched with fever, but the expression of barely suppressed panic was plain on his battered features. Fully justified, too, so far as Roger could see.
The sole survivor of the night’s work, Brown was still alive only because Arch Bug had stopped young Ian Murray inches away from smashing his skull with a tomahawk. Not from any hesitation about killing an injured man, from cold pragmatism.
“Your uncle will have questions,” Arch had said, narrowed eyes on Brown. “Let this one live long enough to answer them.”
Ian had said nothing, but pulled his arm from Arch Bug’s grasp and turned on his heel, disappearing into the shadows of the forest like smoke.
Jamie’s face was much less expressive than his captive’s, Roger thought. He himself could tell nothing of Fraser’s thoughts from his expression—but scarcely needed to. The man was still as stone, but seemed nonetheless to throb with something slow and inexorable. Merely to stand near him was terrifying.
“How say you, O, friend?” Fraser said at last, turning to Arch, who stood on the far side of the pallet, white-haired and blood-streaked. “Can he be traveling further, or will the journey kill him?”
Bug leaned forward, peering dispassionately at the supine Brown.
“I say he will live. His face is red, not white, and he is awake. You wish to take him with us, or ask your questions now?”
For a brief instant the mask lifted, and Roger, who had been watching Jamie’s face, saw in his eyes precisely what he wished to do. Had Lionel Brown seen it, too, he would have leaped off his pallet and run, broken leg or no. But his eyes stayed stubbornly shut, and as Jamie and old Arch were speaking in Gaelic, Brown remained in ignorance.
Without answering Arch’s question, Jamie knelt and put his hand on Brown’s chest. Roger could see the pulse hammering in Brown’s neck and the man’s breathing, quick and shallow. Still, he kept his lids squeezed tight shut, though the eyeballs rolled to and fro, frantic beneath them.
Jamie stayed motionless for what seemed a long time—and must have been an eternity to Brown. Then he made a small sound that might have been either a contemptuous laugh or a snort of disgust, and rose.
“We take him. See that he lives, then,” he said in English. “For now.”
Brown had continued to play possum through the journey to the Ridge, in spite of the bloodthirsty speculations various of the party had made within his hearing on the way. Roger had helped to unstrap him from the travois at journey’s end. His garments and wrappings were soaked with sweat, the smell of fear a palpable miasma round him.
Claire had made a movement toward the injured man, frowning, but Jamie had stopped her with a hand on her arm. Roger hadn’t heard what he murmured to her, but she nodded and went with him into the Big House. A moment later, Mrs. Bug had appeared, uncharacteristically silent, and taken charge of Lionel Brown.
Murdina Bug was not like Jamie, nor old Arch; her thoughts were plain to see in the bloodless seam of her mouth and the thunderous brow. But Lionel Brown took water from her hand and, open-eyed, watched her as though she were the light of his salvation. She would, Roger thought, have been pleased to kill Brown like one of the cockroaches she ruthlessly exterminated from her kitchen. But Jamie wished him kept alive, so alive he would stay.
For now.
A sound at the door jerked Roger’s attention back to the present. Brianna!
It wasn’t, though, when he opened the door; only the rattle of wind-tossed twigs and acorn caps. He looked down the dark path, hoping to see her, but there was no sign of her yet. Of course, he told himself, Claire would likely need her.
So do I.
He squashed the thought, but stayed at the door, looking out, wind whining in his ears. She’d gone up to the Big House at once, the moment he came to tell her that her mother was safe. He hadn’t said much more, but she had seen something of how matters stood—there was blood on his clothes—and had barely paused to assure herself that none of it was his before rushing out.
He closed the door carefully, looking to see that the draft hadn’t wakened Jemmy. He had an immense urge to pick the boy up, and in spite of long-ingrained parental wariness about disturbing a sleeping child, scooped Jem out of his trundle; he had to.
Jem was heavy in his arms, and groggy. He stirred, lifted his head, and blinked, blue eyes glassy with sleep.
“It’s okay,” Roger whispered, patting his back. “Daddy’s here.”
Jem sighed like a punctured tire and dropped his head on Roger’s shoulder with the force of a spent cannonball. He seemed to inflate again for a moment, but then put his thumb in his mouth and subsided into that peculiarly boneless state common to sleeping children. His flesh seemed to melt comfortably into Roger’s own, his trust so complete that it was not necessary even to maintain the boundaries of his body—Daddy would do that.
Roger closed his eyes against starting tears, and pressed his mouth against the soft warmth of Jemmy’s hair.
The firelight made black and red shadows on the insides of his lids; by looking at them, he could keep the tears at bay. It didn’t matter what he saw there. He had a small collection of grisly moments, vivid from the dawn, but he could look at those unmoved—for now. It was the sleeping trust in his arms that moved him, and the echo of his own whispered words.
Was it even a memory? Perhaps it was no more than a wish—that he had once been roused from sleep, only to sleep again in strong arms, hearing, “Daddy’s here.”
He took deep breaths, slowing to the rhythm of Jem’s breathing, calming himself. It seemed important not to weep, even though there was no one to see or care.
Jamie had looked at him, as they moved from Brown’s pallet, the question clear in his eyes.
�
�Ye dinna think I mind only for myself, I hope?” he had said, low-voiced. His eyes had turned toward the gap in the brush where Claire had gone, half-squinting as though he could not bear to look, but couldn’t keep his eyes away.
“For her,” he said, so low that Roger scarcely heard. “Would she rather … have the doubt, d’ye think? If it came to that.”
Roger took a deep breath of his son’s hair, and hoped to God he’d said the right thing, there among the trees.
“I don’t know,” he’d said. “But for you—if there’s room for doubt—I say, take it.”
If Jamie were disposed to follow that advice, Bree should be home soon.
“I’m fine,” I said firmly. “Perfectly fine.”
Bree narrowed her eyes at me.
“Sure you are,” she said. “You look like you’ve been run over by a locomotive. Two locomotives.”
“Yes,” I said, and touched my split lip gingerly. “Well. Yes. Other than that, though …”
“Are you hungry? Sit down, Mama, I’ll make you some tea, then maybe a little supper.”
I wasn’t hungry, didn’t want tea, and particularly didn’t want to sit down—not after a long day on horseback. Brianna was already taking down the teapot from its shelf above the sideboard, though, and I couldn’t find the proper words to stop her. All of a sudden, I seemed to have no words at all. I turned toward Jamie, helpless.
He somehow divined my feeling, though he couldn’t have read much of anything on my face, given its current state. He stepped forward, though, and took the teapot from her, murmuring something too low for me to catch. She frowned at him, glanced at me, then back, still frowning. Then her face changed a little, and she came toward me, looking searchingly into my face.
“A bath?” she asked quietly. “Shampoo?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, and my shoulders sagged in grateful relief. “Please.”
I did sit down then, after all, and let her sponge my hands and feet, and wash my hair in a basin of warm water drawn from the cauldron in the hearth. She did it quietly, humming under her breath, and I began to relax under the soothing scrub of her long, strong fingers.
I’d slept—from sheer exhaustion—part of the way, leaning on Jamie’s chest. There’s no way of achieving real rest on horseback, though, and I found myself now close to nodding off, noticing only in a dreamy, detached sort of way that the water in the basin had turned a grubby, cloudy red, full of grit and leaf fragments.
I’d changed to a clean shift; the feel of the worn linen on my skin was sheer luxury, cool and smooth.
Bree was humming softly, under her breath. What was it … “Mr. Tambourine Man,” I thought. One of those sweetly silly songs of the sixt—
1968.
I gasped, and Bree’s hands gripped my head, steadying me.
“Mama? Are you all right? Did I touch something—”
“No! No, I’m fine,” I said, looking down into the swirls of dirt and blood. I took a deep breath, heart pounding. “Perfectly fine. Just—began to doze off, that’s all.”
She snorted, but took her hands away and went to fetch a pitcher of water for rinsing, leaving me gripping the edge of the table and trying not to shudder.
You don’t act afraid of men. You oughta act more afraid. That particularly ironic echo came to me clearly, along with the outline of the young man’s head, leonine hair seen silhouetted by the firelight. I couldn’t recall his face clearly—but surely I would have noticed that hair?
Jamie had taken my arm, afterward, and led me out from under my sheltering tree, into the clearing. The fire had been scattered during the fight; there were blackened rocks and patches of singed and flattened grass here and there—among the bodies. He had led me slowly from one to another. At the last, he had paused, and said quietly, “Ye see that they are dead?”
I did, and knew why he had shown me—so I need not fear their return, or their vengeance. But I had not thought to count them. Or to look closely at their faces. Even had I been sure how many there were … another shiver struck me, and Bree wrapped a warm towel around my shoulders, murmuring words I didn’t hear for the questions clamoring in my head.
Was Donner among the dead? Or had he heeded me, when I’d told him that if he were wise, he’d run? He hadn’t struck me as a wise young man.
He had struck me as a coward, though.
Warm water sluiced around my ears, drowning out the sound of Jamie’s and Brianna’s voices overhead; I caught only a word or two, but when I sat back up, with water dripping down my neck, clutching a towel to my hair, Bree was reluctantly moving toward her cloak, hung on the peg by the door.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Mama?” The worried frown was back between her brows, but this time I could muster a few words of reassurance.
“Thank you, darling; that was wonderful,” I said, with complete sincerity. “All I want just now is sleep,” I added with somewhat less.
I was still terribly tired, but now completely wakeful. What I did want was … well, I didn’t know quite what I did want, but a general absence of solicitous company was on the list. Besides, I’d caught a glimpse of Roger earlier, bloodstained, white, and swaying with weariness; I wasn’t the only victim of the recent unpleasantness.
“Go home, lass,” Jamie said softly. He swung the cloak from its peg and over her shoulders, patting her gently. “Feed your man. Take him to bed, and say a prayer for him. I’ll mind your mother, aye?”
Bree’s gaze swung between us, blue and troubled, but I put on what I hoped was a reassuring expression—it hurt to do it, rather—and after a moment’s hesitation, she hugged me tight, kissed my forehead very gently, and left.
Jamie shut the door and stood with his back against it, hands behind him. I was used to the impassive facade he normally used to shield his thoughts when troubled or angry; he wasn’t using it, and the expression on his face troubled me no end.
“You mustn’t worry about me,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. “I’m not traumatized, or anything of that sort.”
“I mustn’t?” he asked guardedly. “Well … perhaps I wouldna, if I kent what ye meant by it.”
“Oh.” I blotted my damp face gingerly, and patted at my neck with the towel. “Well. It means … very much injured—or dreadfully shocked. It’s Greek, I think—the root word, I mean, ‘trauma.’ ”
“Oh, aye? And you’re not … shocked. Ye say.”
His eyes narrowed, as he examined me with the sort of critical attention usually employed when contemplating the purchase of expensive bloodstock.
“I’m fine,” I said, backing away a little. “Just—I’m all right. Only a bit … shaken.”
He took a step toward me, and I backed up abruptly, aware belatedly that I was clutching the towel to my bosom as though it were a shield. I forced myself to lower it, and felt blood prickle unpleasantly in patches over face and neck.
He stood very still, regarding me with that same narrow look. Then his gaze dropped to the floor between us. He stood as though deep in thought, and then his big hands flexed. Once, twice. Very slowly. And I heard—heard clearly—the sound of Arvin Hodgepile’s vertebrae parting one from another.
Jamie’s head jerked up, startled, and I realized that I was standing on the other side of the chair from him, the towel wadded and pressed against my mouth. My elbows moved like rusty hinges, stiff and slow, but I got the towel down. My lips were nearly as stiff, but I spoke, too.
“I am a little shaken, yes,” I said very clearly. “I’ll be all right. Don’t worry. I don’t want you to worry.”
The troubled scrutiny in his eyes wavered suddenly, like the glass of a window struck by a stone, in the split second before it shatters, and he shut his eyes. He swallowed once, and opened them again.
“Claire,” he said very softly, and the smashed and splintered fragments showed clear, sharp and jagged in his eyes. “I have been raped. And ye say I must not worry for ye?”
“Oh, God damn it!” I
flung the towel on the floor, and immediately wished I had it back again. I felt naked, standing in my shift, and hated the crawling of my skin with a sudden passion that made me slap my thigh to kill it.
“Damn, damn, damn it! I don’t want you to have to think of that again. I don’t!” And yet I had known from the first that this would happen.
I took hold of the chairback with both hands and held tight, and tried to force my own gaze into his, wanting so badly to throw myself upon those glittering shards, to shield him from them.
“Look,” I said, steadying my voice. “I don’t want—I don’t want to make you recall things better left forgotten.”
The corner of his mouth actually twitched at that.
“God,” he said, in something like wonder. “Ye think I’d forgot any of it?”
“Maybe not,” I said, surrendering. I looked at him through swimming eyes. “But—oh, Jamie, I so wanted you to forget!”
He put out a hand, very delicately, and touched the tip of his index finger to the tip of mine, where I clutched the chair.
“Dinna mind it,” he said softly, and withdrew the finger. “It’s no matter now. Will ye rest a bit, Sassenach? Or eat, maybe?”
“No. I don’t want … no.” In fact, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to do anything at all. Other than unzip my skin, climb out, and run—and that didn’t seem feasible. I took a few deep breaths, hoping to settle myself and go back to that nice sense of utter exhaustion.
Should I ask him about Donner? But what was there to ask? “Did you happen to kill a man with long, tangled hair?” They’d all looked like that, to some extent. Donner had been—or possibly still was—an Indian, but no one would have noticed that in the dark, in the heat of fighting.
“How—how is Roger?” I asked, for lack of anything better to say. “And Ian? Fergus?”
He looked a little startled, as though he had forgotten their existence.
“Them? The lads are well enough. No one took any hurt in the fight. We had luck.”
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