The Companion to the Fiery Cross, a Breath of Snow and Ashes, an Echo in the Bone, and Written in My Own Heart's Blood

by Diana Gabaldon

  Under the sycamore, the dog yawned and laid his muzzle on his paws.

  “And sleep at thy feet,” Ian whispered, and gathered her in with his one good arm, blazing bright as day.

  THE END

  WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD

  ach book in the series has a unique structure, tone, and voice (you may possibly have noticed this). This one consists of nine sections, seven of which are set in the American colonies in the eighteenth century and concern the adventures of Claire and Jamie Fraser, their friends and family.

  These include Dr. Denzell Hunter and his sister, Rachel; Lord John Grey, his brother, Harold (Hal), who is the Duke of Pardloe, Dorothea (Dottie), Hal’s daughter, and William, Lord John’s stepson (and Jamie Fraser’s natural son); also Fergus Fraser (Jamie’s adopted son), his wife, Marsali (Jamie’s foster daughter), and their four children: Germain, Joan, Félicité, and Henri-Christian; and also Jenny Murray, Jamie’s sister, and her son, Young Ian Murray.

  The other two sections (Parts Two and Six) are set in Scotland in the 1980s and concern the activities of Brianna and Roger MacKenzie and their two children, Jeremiah (Jemmy) and Amanda (Mandy). Also featuring William Buccleigh MacKenzie, Roger’s great-great-great-great-grandfather.

  (I tell you this for the sake of those readers who write to tell me that they “only want to read about Jamie and Claire!” and who may thus omit Parts Two and Six if they like. They’ll regret it, but it’s their choice.)

  Now, as you may recall, An Echo in the Bone (Book 7) ended with a triple cliff-hanger:

  1. Jamie Fraser, who was thought to have perished at sea with his sister, Jenny, returns unexpectedly to find that his wife, Claire, has married his best friend, Lord John Grey. Jamie is grateful to Lord John for protecting Claire from arrest and prosecution as a Rebel spy. However, when he is obliged to abduct Lord John as a means of getting out of the city, he is somewhat taken aback to have his captive inform him, “I have had carnal knowledge of your wife.” Knowing that John Grey is a) homosexual and b) in love with Jamie himself, all the bemused Mr. Fraser finds to say is, “Oh? Why?”

  Naturally, we would like to hear the reply to this….

  2. William Ransom, Lord John’s stepson, who to this point has believed himself to be the Ninth Earl of Ellesmere, leads a patrol of British soldiers in pursuit of a man suspected of passing seditious materials to a known Rebel printer. They follow the man (Jamie, but they don’t know that yet) to Lord John’s house, where they are delayed at the door but finally force their way in. William rushes upstairs, knowing that his stepfather, Lord John, and stepmother, Claire, are up there—and comes face-to-face with Jamie Fraser.

  The physical resemblance is sufficiently striking that William is brought to a screeching halt. The brief ensuing conversation makes it crystal clear that he is indeed the illegitimate son of this Scottish criminal traitor. Jamie takes Lord John hostage and decamps, whereupon William makes a dramatic—and destructive—exit himself.

  Do we wonder where he’s going and what he’s going to do (to whom) when he gets there? Well, yes…

  3. Meanwhile, back in Scotland in the twentieth century, young Jeremiah (Jemmy) MacKenzie has been abducted by one Rob Cameron, a co-worker of Jem’s mother, Brianna. Cameron has accidentally stumbled on the MacKenzies’ time-traveling secret and, in the course of further nosing around, has also discovered that Jemmy is the only person in the twentieth century to know the whereabouts of a large amount of gold, cached by Jem’s grandfather in the eighteenth century. Rob stashes Jemmy in a tunnel under a hydroelectric dam and successfully decoys Jem’s father, Roger, and Roger’s ancestor, William Buccleigh, into thinking that he’s taken Jem through the stones into the past. Cameron then heads back to Lallybroch, expecting to find Brianna MacKenzie alone with her small daughter and presumably at his mercy.

  Mr. Cameron is sadly deluded—or at least we hope so.

  So…what will William do with the blistering knowledge of his true paternity? What will Jamie do to Lord John—or to Claire? And what will become of little Jemmy, trapped in a long, dark tunnel and headed straight for a temporal vortex that might suck him away, either to times unknown or to a grisly end embedded in solid rock?

  Naturally, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood doesn’t begin with the answers to any of these questions. (What fun would that be?) But we will get there in the end. So follow me like a leopard, if you will, and we will venture into the jungle of the Unknown.

  PART ONE: NEXUS

  Our story begins (or continues, depending how you want to look at it) with Young Ian Murray, alone in the forest outside Philadelphia, occupied in the heartbreaking work of building two cairns—a cairn being a pile of stones erected in memory of the dead—one for his mother, and one for his beloved uncle Jamie, both of whom have (so far as Ian knows) perished when their ship sank on the voyage to America.

  He’s thinking not only of his own loss and grief but of those others left behind. Because, with Jamie dead, who is there to be responsible for the family except Ian himself?

  He crossed himself and bent to dig about in the soft leaf mold. A few more rocks, he thought. In case they might be scattered by some passing animal. Scattered like his thoughts, which roamed restless to and fro among the faces of his family, the folk of the Ridge—God, might he ever go back there? Brianna. Oh, Jesus, Brianna…

  He bit his lip and tasted salt, licked it away and moved on, foraging. She was safe with Roger Mac and the weans. But, Jesus, he could have used her advice—even more, Roger Mac’s.

  Who was left for him to ask, if he needed help in taking care of them all?…

  Ian worked awhile longer and let the thoughts drain away with his sweat and his tears. He finally stopped when the sinking sun touched the tops of his cairns, feeling tired but more at peace. The cairns rose knee-high, side by side, small but solid.

  He stood still for a bit, not thinking anymore, just listening to the fussing of wee birds in the grass and the breathing of the wind among the trees. Then he sighed deeply, squatted, and touched one of the cairns.

  “Tha gaol agam oirbh, a Mhàthair,” he said softly. My love is upon you, Mother. Closed his eyes and laid a scuffed hand on the other heap of stones. The dirt ground into his skin made his fingers feel strange, as though he could maybe reach straight through the earth and touch what he needed.

  He stayed still, breathing, then opened his eyes.

  “Help me wi’ this, Uncle Jamie,” he said. “I dinna think I can manage, alone.”

  Clearly Ian is the son of Jamie’s heart and soul, his natural successor as head of the family. But what of William, Jamie’s son by flesh and blood? He isn’t having an easy time of it, either—though his problems are caused not by Jamie’s death but by the big Scot being inconveniently alive:

  William Ransom, Ninth Earl of Ellesmere, Viscount Ashness, Baron Derwent, shoved his way through the crowds on Market Street, oblivious to the complaints of those rebounding from his impact.

  He didn’t know where he was going, or what he might do when he got there. All he knew was that he’d burst if he stood still.

  His head throbbed like an inflamed boil. Everything throbbed. His hand—he’d probably broken something, but he didn’t care. His heart, pounding and sore inside his chest. His foot, for God’s sake—what, had he kicked something? He lashed out viciously at a loose cobblestone and sent it rocketing through a crowd of geese, who set up a huge cackle and lunged at him, hissing and beating at his shins with their wings.

  Feathers and goose shit flew wide, and the crowd scattered in all directions.

  “Bastard!” shrieked the goose-girl, and struck at him with her crook, catching him a shrewd thump on the ear. “Devil take you, dreckiger Bastard!”

  This sentiment was echoed by a number of other angry voices, and he veered into an alley, pursued by shouts and honks of agitation.

  In the alley, William meets a young woman, a teenaged whore in a silk petticoat and no stays. Whethe
r intrigued by his display of fury, attracted by his personal presence—which is considerable, even when boiling over—or merely in need of custom, Arabella (a nom de guerre, as she later informs William) invites the distraught young man inside her place of employment for a drink.

  One thing leads to another, but not in a good way, and William ends up rushing out of the house minus his uniform coat, spattered with soap, pursued by the house’s bouncer, and with the shrieks of Arabella ringing in his ears.

  Leaving William to his own devices for the nonce, we now enter Chapter 3, aptly entitled “In Which the Women, as Usual, Pick up the Pieces,” and join Claire Randall Fraser, in medias res.

  WILLIAM HAD LEFT the house like a thunderclap, and the place looked as though it had been struck by lightning. I certainly felt like the survivor of a massive electrical storm, hairs and nerve endings all standing up straight on end, waving in agitation.

  Jenny Murray had entered the house on the heels of William’s departure, and while the sight of her was a lesser shock than any of the others so far, it still left me speechless. I goggled at my erstwhile sister-in-law—though, come to think, she still was my sister-in-law…because Jamie was alive. Alive.

  He’d been in my arms not ten minutes before, and the memory of his touch flickered through me like lightning in a bottle. I was dimly aware that I was smiling like a loon, despite massive destruction, horrific scenes, William’s distress—if you could call an explosion like that “distress”—Jamie’s danger, and a faint wonder as to what either Jenny or Mrs. Figg, Lord John’s cook and housekeeper, might be about to say.

  Mrs. Figg was smoothly spherical, gleamingly black, and inclined to glide silently up behind one like a menacing ball bearing.

  “What’s this?” she barked, manifesting herself suddenly behind Jenny.

  “Holy Mother of God!” Jenny whirled, eyes round and hand pressed to her chest. “Who in God’s name are you?”

  “This is Mrs. Figg,” I said, feeling a surreal urge to laugh, despite—or maybe because of—recent events. “Lord John Grey’s cook. And, Mrs. Figg, this is Mrs. Murray. My, um…my…”

  “Your good-sister,” Jenny said firmly. She raised one black eyebrow. “If ye’ll have me still?” Her look was straight and open, and the urge to laugh changed abruptly into an equally strong urge to burst into tears. Of all the unlikely sources of succor I could have imagined…I took a deep breath and put out my hand.

  “I’ll have you.” We hadn’t parted on good terms in Scotland, but I had loved her very much, once, and wasn’t about to pass up any opportunity to mend things.

  Her small firm fingers wove through mine, squeezed hard, and, as simply as that, it was done. No need for apologies or spoken forgiveness. She’d never had to wear the mask that Jamie did. What she thought and felt was there in her eyes, those slanted blue cat eyes she shared with her brother. She knew the truth now of what I was, and she knew I loved—and always had loved—her brother with all my heart and soul—despite the minor complications of my being presently married to someone else.

  The men being conveniently absent for the moment, the women sit down with a cup of tea laced with brandy (I thought it might take something stronger than brandy-laced tea to deal with the effect of recent events on my nerves—laudanum, say, or a large slug of straight Scotch whisky—but the tea undeniably helped, hot and aromatic, settling in a soft trickling warmth amidships), and Claire brings Jenny and Mrs. Figg up to date on recent developments:

  Jenny’s eyes were disturbingly like Jamie’s. She blinked at me once, then twice, and shook her head as though to clear it, accepting what I’d just told her.

  “So Jamie’s gone off wi’ your Lord John, the British army is after them, the tall lad I met on the stoop wi’ steam comin’ out of his ears is Jamie’s son—well, of course he is; a blind man could see that—and the town’s aboil wi’ British soldiers. Is that it, then?”

  This isn’t quite the half of it but will do to be going on with, and Claire does—go on, to the disquiet of Mrs. Figg, Lord John’s devoted housekeeper.

  Mrs. Figg made a deep humming noise of disapproval.

  “And maybe [Mr. Fraser will] make for Valley Forge and turn [Lord John] over to the Rebels instead.”

  “Oh, I shouldna think so,” Jenny said soothingly. “What would they want with him, after all?”

  Mrs. Figg blinked again, taken aback at the notion that anyone might not value his lordship to the same degree that she did, but after a moment’s lip-pursing allowed as this might be so.

  “He wasn’t in his uniform, was he, ma’am?” she asked me, brow furrowed. I shook my head. John didn’t hold an active commission. He was a diplomat, though technically still lieutenant colonel of his brother’s regiment, and therefore wore his uniform for purposes of ceremony or intimidation, but he was officially retired from the army, not a combatant, and in plain clothes he would be taken as citizen rather than soldier—thus of no particular interest to General Washington’s troops at Valley Forge.

  I didn’t think Jamie was headed for Valley Forge in any case. I knew, with absolute certainty, that he would come back. Here. For me.

  The thought bloomed low in my belly and spread upward in a wave of warmth that made me bury my nose in my teacup to hide the resulting flush.

  Alive. I caressed the word, cradling it in the center of my heart. Jamie was alive. Glad as I was to see Jenny—and gladder still to see her extend an olive branch in my direction—I really wanted to go up to my room, close the door, and lean against the wall with my eyes shut tight, reliving the seconds after he’d entered the room, when he’d taken me in his arms and pressed me to the wall, kissing me, the simple, solid, warm fact of his presence so overwhelming that I might have collapsed onto the floor without that wall’s support.

  Alive, I repeated silently to myself. He’s alive.

  Nothing else mattered. Though I did wonder briefly what he’d done with John.

  We would all like to know that—and to find out the reply to Jamie’s cliff-hanging question regarding John’s bedding of his wife: “Oh? Why?” Fortunately, Lord John is still sufficiently healthy as to make that reply, which he does in Chapter Four, entitled “Don’t Ask Questions You Don’t Want to Hear the Answers To”:

  John Grey had been quite resigned to dying. Had expected it from the moment that he’d blurted out, “I have had carnal knowledge of your wife.” The only question in his mind had been whether Fraser would shoot him, stab him, or eviscerate him with his bare hands.

  To have the injured husband regard him calmly and say merely, “Oh? Why?” was not merely unexpected but…infamous. Absolutely infamous.

  “Why?” John Grey repeated, incredulous. “Did you say ‘Why?’ ”

  “I did. And I should appreciate an answer.”

  Now that Grey had both eyes open, he could see that Fraser’s outward calm was not quite so impervious as he’d first supposed. There was a pulse beating in Fraser’s temple, and he’d shifted his weight a little, like a man might do in the vicinity of a tavern brawl: not quite ready to commit violence but readying himself to meet it. Perversely, Grey found this sight steadying.

  “What do you bloody mean, ‘Why’?” he said, suddenly irritated. “And why aren’t you fucking dead?”

  “I often wonder that myself,” Fraser replied politely. “I take it ye thought I was?”

  “Yes, and so did your wife! Do you have the faintest idea what the knowledge of your death did to her?”

  The dark-blue eyes narrowed just a trifle.

  “Are ye implying that the news of my death deranged her to such an extent that she lost her reason and took ye to her bed by force? Because,” he went on, neatly cutting off Grey’s heated reply, “unless I’ve been seriously misled regarding your own nature, it would take substantial force to compel ye to any such action. Or am I wrong?”

  Mr. Fraser has not been misled, but he is wrong, as Lord John wastes no time in pointing out. His subsequent explan
ations of the situation cause Mr. Fraser to slug him in the midriff, paste him in the eye, and abandon him to the mercies of a party of American militiamen who have interrupted this interesting tête-à-tête.

  At this crux of his affairs, Lord John makes the inconvenient discovery that the letter he had so carelessly shoved into his pocket just before Jamie’s abrupt arrival that morning is a warrant of commission with his name (and the royal seal) on it, with a note informing him that he has been recalled to service by the Duke of Pardloe, colonel and commander of his regiment—and, incidentally, John’s elder brother.

  Lord John’s possession of these documents, while he’s dressed in civilian clothes, gives the militiamen the reasonably founded notion that they have caught themselves a British spy, and they are prevented from hanging him on the spot only by their captain’s desire to show off his catch to his commanding officer.

  BACK AT CHESTNUT Street, the women’s tête-à-tête is interrupted by a soldier come in search of Lord John, who is urgently wanted by Sir Henry Clinton, commander of His Majesty’s troops in North America, and not a man to take “no” for an answer. Claire therefore dresses and accompanies the soldier to General Clinton’s office, where she meets a stranger who seems oddly familiar:

  “You’re a relative of Lord John Grey’s,” I blurted, staring at him. He had to be. The man wore his own hair, as John did, though his was dark beneath its powder. The shape of his head—fine-boned and long-skulled—was John’s, and so was the set of his shoulders. His features were much like John’s, too, but his face was deeply weathered and gaunt, marked with harsh lines carved by long duty and the stress of command. I didn’t need the uniform to tell me that he was a lifelong soldier.

  He smiled, and his face was suddenly transformed. Apparently he had John’s charm, too.

  “You’re most perceptive, madam,” he said, and, stepping forward, smoothly took my limp hand away from the general and kissed it briefly in the continental manner before straightening and eyeing me with interest.