Outlander 03 - Voyager

by Diana Gabaldon

  So he had started back across the moor, to join the Highland dead.

  “He was sitting against a tussock near the middle of the field—Murtagh. He’d been struck a dozen times at least, and there was a dreadful wound in his head—I knew he was dead.”

  He hadn’t been, though; when Jamie had fallen to his knees beside his godfather and taken the small body in his arms, Murtagh’s eyes had opened. “He saw me. And he smiled.” And then the older man’s hand had touched his cheek briefly. “Dinna be afraid, a bhalaich,” Murtagh had said, using the endearment for a small, beloved boy. “It doesna hurt a bit to die.”

  I stood quietly for a long time, holding Jamie’s hand. Then he sighed, and his other hand closed very, very gently about my wounded arm.

  “Too many folk have died, Sassenach, because they knew me—or suffered for the knowing. I would give my own body to save ye a moment’s pain—and yet I could wish to close my hand just now, that I might hear ye cry out and know for sure that I havena killed you, too.”

  I leaned forward, pressing a kiss on the skin of his chest. He slept naked in the heat.

  “You haven’t killed me. You didn’t kill Murtagh. And we’ll find Ian. Take me back to bed, Jamie.”

  Sometime later, as I drowsed on the edge of sleep, he spoke from the floor beside my bed.

  “Ye know, I seldom wanted to go home to Laoghaire,” he said contemplatively. “And yet, at least when I did, I’d find her where I’d left her.”

  I turned my head to the side, where his soft breathing came from the darkened floor. “Oh? And is that the kind of wife you want? The sort who stays put?”

  He made a small sound between a chuckle and a cough, but didn’t answer, and after a few moments, the sound of his breathing changed to a soft, rhythmic snore.

  55

  ISHMAEL

  I slept restlessly, and woke up late and feverish, with a throbbing headache just behind my eyes. I felt ill enough not to protest when Marsali insisted on bathing my forehead, but relaxed gratefully, eyes closed, enjoying the cool touch of the vinegar-soaked cloth on my pounding temples.

  It was so soothing, in fact, that I drifted off to sleep again after she left. I was dreaming uneasily of dark mine shafts and the chalk of charred bones, when I was suddenly roused by a crash that brought me bolt upright and sent a shaft of pure white pain ripping through my head.

  “What?” I exclaimed, clutching my head in both hands, as though this might prevent it falling off. “What is it?” The window had been covered to keep the light from disturbing me, and it took a moment for my stunned vision to adapt to the dimness.

  On the opposite side of the cabin, a large figure was mimicking me, clutching its own head in apparent agony. Then it spoke, releasing a volley of very bad language, in a mixture of Chinese, French, and Gaelic.

  “Damn!” it said, the exclamations tapering off into milder English. “Goddamn it to hell!” Jamie staggered to the window, still rubbing the head he had smashed on the edge of my cupboard. He shoved aside the covering and pushed the window open, bringing a welcome draft of fresh air in along with a dazzle of light.

  “What in the name of bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, with considerable asperity. The light jabbed my tender eyeballs like needles, and the movement involved in clutching my head had done the stitches in my arm no good at all.

  “I was looking for your medicine box,” he replied, wincing as he felt the crown of his head. “Damn, I’ve caved in my skull. Look at that!” He thrust two fingers, slightly smeared with blood, under my nose. I dropped the vinegar-soaked cloth over the fingers and collapsed back on my pillow.

  “Why do you need the medicine box, and why didn’t you ask me in the first place, instead of bumping around like a bee in a bottle?” I said irritably.

  “I didna want to wake ye from your sleep,” he said, sheepishly enough that I laughed, despite the various throbbings going on in my anatomy.

  “That’s all right; I wasn’t enjoying it,” I assured him. “Why do you need the box? Is someone hurt?”

  “Aye. I am,” he said, dabbing gingerly at the top of his head with the cloth and scowling at the result. “Ye dinna want to look at my head?”

  The answer to this was “Not especially,” but I obligingly motioned to him to bend over, presenting the top of his head for inspection. There was a reasonably impressive lump under the thick hair, with a small cut from the edge of the shelf, but the damage seemed a bit short of concussion.

  “It’s not fractured,” I assured him. “You have the thickest skull I’ve ever seen.” Moved by an instinct as old as motherhood, I leaned forward and kissed the bump gently. He lifted his head, eyes wide with surprise.

  “That’s supposed to make it feel better,” I explained. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “Oh. Well, then.” He bent down and gently kissed the bandage on my wounded arm.

  “Better?” he inquired, straightening up.

  “Lots.”

  He laughed, and reaching for the decanter, poured out a tot of whisky, which he handed to me.

  “I wanted that stuff ye use to wash out scrapes and such,” he explained, pouring another for himself.

  “Hawthorn lotion. I haven’t got any ready-made, because it doesn’t keep,” I said, pushing myself upright. “If it’s urgent, though, I can brew some; it doesn’t take long.” The thought of getting up and walking to the galley was daunting, but perhaps I’d feel better once I was moving.

  “Not urgent,” he assured me. “It’s only there’s a prisoner in the hold who’s a bit bashed about.”

  I lowered my cup, blinking at him.

  “A prisoner? Where did we get a prisoner?”

  “From the pirate ship.” He frowned at his whisky. “Though I dinna think he’s a pirate.”

  “What is he?”

  He tossed off the whisky neatly, in one gulp, and shook his head.

  “Damned if I know. From the scars on his back, likely a runaway slave, but in that case, I canna think why he did what he did.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Dived off the Bruja into the sea. MacGregor saw him go, and then after the Bruja made sail, he saw the man bobbing about in the waves and threw him a rope.”

  “Well, that is funny; why should he do that?” I asked. I was becoming interested, and the throbbing in my head seemed to be lessening as I sipped my whisky.

  Jamie ran his fingers through his hair, and stopped, wincing.

  “I dinna ken, Sassenach,” he said, gingerly smoothing the hair on his crown flat. “It wouldna be likely for a crew like ours to try to board the pirate—any merchant would just fight them off; there’s no reason to try to take them. But if he didna mean to escape from us—perhaps he meant to escape from them, aye?”

  The last golden drops of the whisky ran down my throat. It was Jared’s special blend, the next-to-last bottle, and thoroughly justified the name he had given it—Ceò Gheasacach. “Magic Mist.” Feeling somewhat restored, I pushed myself upright.

  “If he’s hurt, perhaps I should take a look at him,” I suggested, swinging my feet out of the berth.

  Given Jamie’s behavior of the day before, I fully expected him to press me flat and call for Marsali to come and sit on my chest. Instead, he looked at me thoughtfully, and nodded.

  “Aye, well. If ye’re sure ye can stand, Sassenach?”

  I wasn’t all that sure, but gave it a try. The room tilted when I stood up, and black and yellow spots danced before my eyes, but I stayed upright, clinging to Jamie’s arm. After a moment, a small amount of blood reluctantly consented to reenter my head, and the spots went away, showing Jamie’s face looking anxiously down at me.

  “All right,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Carry on.”

  The prisoner was below in what the crew called the orlop, a lower-deck space full of miscellaneous cargo. There was a small timbered area, walled off at the bow of the ship, that sometimes housed drunk o
r unruly seamen, and here he had been secured.

  It was dark and airless down in the bowels of the ship, and I felt myself becoming dizzy again as I made my way slowly along the companionway behind Jamie and the glow of his lantern.

  When he unlocked the door, at first I saw nothing at all in the makeshift brig. Then, as Jamie stooped to enter with his lantern, the shine of the man’s eyes betrayed his presence. “Black as the ace of spades” was the first thought that popped into my slightly addled mind, as the edges of face and form took shape against the darkness of the timbers.

  No wonder Jamie had thought him a runaway slave. The man looked African, not island-born. Besides the deep red-black of his skin, his demeanor wasn’t that of a man raised as a slave. He was sitting on a cask, hands bound behind his back and feet tied together, but I saw his head rise and his shoulders straighten as Jamie ducked under the lintel of the tiny space. He was very thin, but very muscular, clad in nothing but a ragged pair of trousers. The lines of his body were clear; he was tensed for attack or defense, but not submission.

  Jamie saw it, too, and motioned me to stay well back against the wall. He placed the lantern on a cask, and squatted down before the captive, at eye-level.

  “Amiki,” he said, spreading out his empty hands, palm up. “Amiki. Bene-bene.” Friend. Is good. It was taki-taki, the all-purpose pidgin polyglot that the traders from Barbados to Trinidad spoke in the ports.

  The man stared impassively at Jamie for a moment, eyes still as tide pools. Then one eyebrow flicked up and he extended his bound feet before him.

  “Bene-bene, amiki?” he said, with an ironic intonation that couldn’t be missed, whatever the language. Is good, friend?

  Jamie snorted briefly, amused, and rubbed a finger under his nose.

  “It’s a point,” he said in English.

  “Does he speak English, or French?” I moved a little closer. The captive’s eyes rested on me for a moment, then passed away, indifferent.

  “If he does, he’ll no admit it. Picard and Fergus tried talking to him last night. He willna say a word, just stares at them. What he just said is the first he’s spoken since he came aboard. ÀHabla Español?” he said suddenly to the prisoner. There was no response. The man didn’t even look at Jamie; just went on staring impassively at the square of open doorway behind me.

  “Er, sprechen sie Deutsche?” I said tentatively. He didn’t answer, which was just as well, as the question had exhausted my own supply of German. “Nicht Hollander, either, I don’t suppose.”

  Jamie shot me a sardonic look. “I canna tell much about him, Sassenach, but I’m fairly sure he’s no a Dutchman.”

  “They have slaves on Eleuthera, don’t they? That’s a Dutch island,” I said irritably. “Or St. Croix—that’s Danish, isn’t it?” Slowly as my mind was working this morning, it hadn’t escaped me that the captive was our only clue to the pirates’ whereabouts—and the only frail link to Ian. “Do you know enough taki-taki to ask him about Ian?”

  Jamie shook his head, eyes intent on the prisoner. “No. Besides what I said to him already, I ken how to say ‘not good,’ ‘how much?’ ‘give it to me,’ and ‘drop that, ye bastard,’ none of which seems a great deal to the point at present.”

  Stymied for the moment, we stared at the prisoner, who stared impassively back.

  “To hell with it,” Jamie said suddenly. He drew the dirk from his belt, went behind the cask, and sawed through the thongs around the prisoner’s wrists.

  He cut the ankle bindings as well, then sat back on his heels, the knife laid across his thigh.

  “Friend,” he said firmly in taki-taki. “Is good?”

  The prisoner didn’t say anything, but after a moment, he nodded slightly, his expression warily quizzical.

  “There’s a chamber pot in the corner,” Jamie said in English, rising and sheathing his dirk. “Use it, and then my wife will tend your wounds.”

  A very faint flicker of amusement crossed the man’s face. He nodded once more, this time in acceptance of defeat. He rose slowly from the cask and turned, stiff hands fumbling at his trousers. I looked askance at Jamie.

  “It’s one of the worst things about being bound that way,” he explained matter-of-factly. “Ye canna take a piss by yourself.”

  “I see,” I said, not wanting to think about how he knew that.

  “That, and the pain in your shoulders,” he said. “Be careful touching him, Sassenach.” The note of warning in his voice was clear, and I nodded. It wasn’t the man’s shoulders he was concerned about.

  I still felt light-headed, and the stuffiness of the surroundings had made my headache throb again, but I was less battered than the prisoner, who had indeed been “bashed about” at some stage of the proceedings.

  Bashed though he was, his injuries seemed largely superficial. A swollen knot rose on the man’s forehead, and a deep scrape had left a crusted reddish patch on one shoulder. He was undoubtedly bruised in a number of places, but given the remarkably deep shade of his skin and the darkness of the surroundings, I couldn’t tell where.

  There were deep bands of rawness on ankles and wrists, where he had pulled against the thongs. I hadn’t made any of the hawthorn lotion, but I had brought the jar of gentian salve. I eased myself down on the deck next to him, but he took no more notice of me than of the deck beneath his feet, even when I began to spread the cool blue cream on his wounds.

  What was more interesting than the fresh injuries, though, were the healed ones. At close range, I could see the faint white lines of three parallel slashes, running across the slope of each cheekbone, and a series of three short vertical lines on the high, narrow forehead, just between his brows. Tribal scars. African-born for sure, then; such scars were made during manhood rituals, or so Murphy had told me.

  His flesh was warm and smooth under my fingers, slicked with sweat. I felt warm, too; sweaty and unwell. The deck rose gently beneath me, and I put my hand on his back to keep my balance. The thin, tough lines of healed whipstrokes webbed his shoulders, like the furrows of tiny worms beneath his skin. The feel of them was unexpected; so much like the feel of the marks on Jamie’s own back. I swallowed, feeling queasy, but went on with my doctoring.

  The man ignored me completely, even when I touched spots I knew must be painful. His eyes were fixed on Jamie, who was watching the prisoner with equal intentness.

  The problem was plain. The man was almost certainly a runaway slave. He hadn’t wanted to speak to us, for fear that his speech would give away his owner’s island, and that we would then find out his original owner and return him to captivity.

  Now we knew that he spoke—or at least understood—English, it was bound to increase his wariness. Even if we assured him that it was not our intention either to return him to an owner or to enslave him ourselves, he was unlikely to trust us. I couldn’t say that I blamed him, under the circumstances.

  On the other hand, this man was our best—and possibly the only—chance of finding out what had happened to Ian Murray aboard the Bruja.

  When at length I had bandaged the man’s wrists and ankles, Jamie gave me a hand to rise, then spoke to the prisoner.

  “You’ll be hungry, I expect,” he said. “Come along to the cabin, and we’ll eat.” Not waiting for a response, he took my good arm and turned to the door. There was silence behind us as we moved into the corridor, but when I looked back, the slave was there, following a few feet behind.

  Jamie led us to my cabin, disregarding the curious glances of the sailors we passed, only stopping by Fergus long enough to order food to be sent from the galley.

  “Back to bed with ye, Sassenach,” he said firmly, when we reached the cabin. I didn’t argue. My arm hurt, my head hurt, and I could feel little waves of heat flickering behind my eyes. It looked as though I would have to break down and use a little of the precious penicillin on myself, after all. There was still a chance that my body could throw off the infection, but I couldn’t afford to wait too
long.

  Jamie had poured out a glass of whisky for me, and another for our guest. Still wary, the man accepted it, and took a sip, eyes widening in surprise. I supposed Scotch whisky must be a novelty to him.

  Jamie took a glass for himself and sat down, motioning the slave to the other seat, across the small table.

  “My name is Fraser,” he said. “I am captain here. My wife,” he added, with a nod toward my berth.

  The prisoner hesitated, but then set down his glass with an air of decision.

  “They be callin’ me Ishmael,” he said, in a voice like honey poured over coal. “I ain’t no pirate. I be a cook.”

  “Murphy’s going to like that,” I remarked, but Jamie ignored me. There was a faint line between the ruddy brows, as he felt his way into the conversation.

  “A ship’s cook?” he asked, taking care to make his voice sound casual. Only the tap of his two stiff fingers against his thigh betrayed him—and that, only to me.

  “No, mon, I don’t got nothin’ to do with that ship!” Ishmael was vehement. “They taken me off the shore, say they kill me, I don’ go long by them, be easy. I ain’t no pirate!” he repeated, and it dawned on me belatedly that of course he wouldn’t wish to be taken for a pirate—whether he was one or not. Piracy was punishable by hanging, and he could have no way of knowing that we were as eager as he to stay clear of the Royal Navy.

  “Aye, I see.” Jamie hit the right balance, between soothing and skeptical. He leaned back slightly in the big wheel-backed chair. “And how did the Bruja come to take ye prisoner, then? Not where,” he added quickly, as a look of alarm flitted across the prisoner’s face.

  “Ye needna tell me where ye came from; that’s of no concern to me. Only I should care to know how ye came to fall into their hands, and how long ye’ve been with them. Since, as ye say, ye werena one of them.” The hint was broad enough to spread butter on. We didn’t mean to return him to his owner; however, if he didn’t oblige with information, we might just turn him over to the Crown as a pirate.