The Outlandish Companion

by Diana Gabaldon

  Naturally, one of the benefits of fiction is that it is a simple matter to remove the temporal linkage; the author merely devises a plausible causality, and declares it to be true. The only drawback to this particular fictional assumption is that if one uses it, it’s so obtrusive as to require the device to become the central premise and conflict of the story. Fine, but limiting.

  If one assumes instead—on the basis of the natural phenomenon/nonsimultaneousness argument—that it is not possible for pluralities to exist, then a different set of intriguing situations and logical evolutions occur. What happens if one tries to exist simultaneously in more than one temporal location? How might one avoid the possibility?

  The Gabaldon Theory postulates that it is not possible for plural identities of the same character to exist simultaneously. Therefore, a character can exist only once, whatever the time period in which that character finds himself. On the assumption of nonsimultaneousness, if a character tries to exist in a time in which he or she already exist(s/ed), the result should be disaster or displacement or both.

  Ergo, when Roger first enters the stone circle on Craigh na Dun and passes through the cleft stone while thinking of his father, he inadvertently travels through his own lifeline—that is, he (involuntarily) tries to exist twice in the same time. Since he can’t possibly do that, the result is something like what happens if two atoms try to exist in the same space—an immediate explosion of force that drives them apart.4

  Had Roger not been wearing gemstones (which presumably absorbed or deflected the force), he would undoubtedly have been killed. Lucky for him (and the story), though, he was.

  THE MOEBIUS TWIST OF FATE

  What I call a fictional “Moebius twist” effect is a situation in which a character by the action of free choice achieves a result that preserves a personal historical reality, which would not be preserved without the character’s intervention. Examples of this are (in Drums of Autumn) a young man who risks his life to save a baby for humanitarian motives—this child being (unknown to him) his own ancestor; or (in Jack Finney’s Time and Again), a time-traveler who takes a conscious but trifling step that prevents the conception of a man who will later discover time travel, thus removing a personal risk. This sort of situation of course smacks of predestination—but as I said, we do like to feel sometimes that someone is in charge.5

  1In answer to the assorted pleas I get for Jamie Fraser to find some way of traveling forward, because some people think it would be so neat to see him be amazed at microwave ovens and video games… sorry, not on your tintype. He’s a man of his time, and I have more respect for his dignity than to try to circumvent the ways of nature for the sake of a lame joke.

  2As my husband once observed, “In your books, you can only be sure somebody’s really dead if you see them clutch their throat and go ’Gak!’ right in front of you.”

  3 We can only speculate as to the nature of these; however, she did, when talking to Claire about gemstones, refer to them as bhasmas and nagina stones, which are terms from Ayurvedic texts. All ancient cultures have mysterious sites—and all involve stone.

  4In very simplified terms, this is what happens in a nuclear explosion.

  5In this case, it’s the author.

  PART EIGHT

  THE VIEW FROM LALLYBROCH

  ————

  OBJECTS OF VERTUE,

  OBJECTS OF USE

  LALLYBROCH

  ig chap,” said Frank, frowning in recollection. “And a Scot, in complete Highland rig-out, complete to sporran and the most beautiful running-stag brooch on his plaid. I wanted to ask where he’d got it from, but he was off before I could.”

  I went to the bureau and poured another drink. “Well, not so unusual an appearance for these parts, surely? I’ve seen men dressed like that in the village now and then.”

  “Nooo…” Frank sounded doubtful. “No, it wasn’t his dress that was odd. But when he pushed past me, I could swear he was close enough that I should have felt him brush my sleeve—but I didn’t. And I was intrigued enough to turn round and watch him as he walked away. He walked down the Gereside Road, but when he’d almost reached the corner, he… disappeared. That’s when I began to feel a bit cold down the backbone.”

  “Perhaps your attention was distracted for a second, and he just stepped aside into the shadows,” I suggested. “There are a lot of trees down near that corner.”

  “I could swear I didn’t take my eyes off him for a moment,” muttered Frank. He looked up suddenly. “I know! I remember now why I thought he was so odd, though I didn’t realize it at the time.”

  “What?” I was getting a bit tired of the ghost, and wanted to go on to more interesting matters, such as bed.

  “The wind was cutting up like billy-o, but his drapes—his kilts and plaid, you know—they didn’t move at all, except to the stir of his walking.”

  We stared at each other. “Well,” I said finally, “that is a bit spooky.”

  —Outlander, chapter 1, “A New Beginning”

  “Why, it’s a henge!” I said, delighted. “A miniature henge!”

  … There were no signs of burial in the miniature henge atop the hill. By “miniature,” I mean only that the circle of standing stones was smaller than Stonehenge; each stone was still twice my own height, and massive in proportion…

  Some of the standing stones were brindled, striped with dim colors. Others were speckled with flakes of mica that caught the morning sun with a cheerful shimmer. All of them were remarkably different from the clumps of native stone that thrust out of the bracken all around. Whoever built the stone circles, and for whatever purpose, thought it important enough to have quarried, shaped, and transported special stone blocks for the erection of their testimonial. Shaped—how? Transported—how, and from what unimaginable distance?

  —Outlander, chapter 2, “Standing Stones”

  She couldn’t go back to sleep after hanging up; restless, she swung her feet out of bed and padded out to the kitchen of the small apartment for a glass of milk. It was only after several minutes of staring blankly into the recesses of the refrigerator that she realized she wasn’t seeing ranks of ketchup bottles and half-used cans. She was seeing standing stones, black against a pale dawn sky.

  —Drums of Autumn, chapter 3, “The Minister’s Cat”

  On Midsummer’s Eve in Scotland, the sun hangs in the sky with the moon. Summer solstice, the feast of Litha, Alban Eilir. Nearly midnight, and the light was dim and milky white, but light nonetheless.

  He could feel the stones long before he saw them. Claire and Geillis had both been right, he thought; the date mattered. They had been eerie on his earlier visits, but silent. Now he could hear them; not with his ears but with his skin—a low buzzing hum like the drone of bagpipes.

  —Drums of Autumn, chapter 33, “Midsummer’s Eve”

  Our guide shrugged and spat into the water.

  “Weel, the loch’s queer, and no mistake. There’s stories, to be sure, of something old and evil that once lived in the depths. Sacrifices were made to it—kine, and sometimes even wee bairns, flung into the water in withy baskets.” He spat again. “And some say the loch’s bottomless—got a hole in the center deeper than anything else in Scotland. On the other hand”—the guide’s crinkled eyes crinkled a bit more—” ’twas a family here from Lancashire a few years ago, cam rushin to the police station in Invermoriston, screamin as they’d seen the monster come out o’ the water and hide in the bracken. Said ’twas a terrible creature, covered wi’ red hair and fearsome horns, and chewin’ something, wi’ the blood all dripping from its mouth.” He held up a hand, stemming my horrified exclamation.

  “The constable they sent to see cam back and said, weel, bar the drippin’ blood, ’twas a verra accurate description”—he paused for effect—”of a nice Highland cow, chewin’ her cud in the bracken!”

  —Outlander, chapter 2, “Standing Stones”

  I had seen the cattle disappear, on
e shaggy beast at a time, down the ditch that led to the hidden postern door, under the expert driving of Rupert and his men. But would they be able to force the cattle through that door, singly or not? And if so, what would they do once inside; half-wild cattle, trapped suddenly in a stone corridor lit with glaring torchlight? Well, perhaps it would work. The corridor itself would be not unlike their stone-floored barn, including torches and the scent of humans. If they got so far, the plan might succeed.

  … Jamie winced as the spirit stung his torn mouth, but drained the beaker before laying his head down again. His eyes slanted up at me, slightly filmed with pain and whisky, but alight with amusement nonetheless. “Cows?” he asked. “Was it really cows, or was I dreaming?”

  —Outlander, chapter 36, “MacRannoch”

  I had begun “building” a picture of Castle Leoch in the same fashion as Lallybroch; by giving the illustrators both a general description of the castle, and a number of photographs and drawings of buildings of the proper period, noting the elements of each that were “right” for the vision of the castle that I had in my head. The preliminary drawing looked like that on the left—Castle Leoch, gradually taking solid shape out of the fog of my imagination.

  Before we got further with the picture, though, I happened to go to a Highland Games in California. As I was signing books, a couple of people came up to me, holding a scrapbook, and introduced themselves to me: Steven McKenzie and his daughter, Anne, of the local Clan MacKenzie Society. They invited me to become an honorary member of clan MacKenzie, and upon my pleased acceptance,1 presented me with a T-shirt decorated with the clan badge, and showed me the photographs in their scrapbook—taken at the most recent Gathering of clan MacKenzie, in Scotland. Among the scenes of Highland beauty and massed MacKenzies, were several photographs of the clan seat—Castle Leod.

  “You’re kidding!” I said, seeing this. “You mean there is a place called Leod?”

  They were surprised at this, having assumed that I not only knew about Castle Leod, but had seen it, since the description in Outlander matched the reality so well.

  “Well, I have seen it,” I said. “But not in a photograph.”

  Since the reality had so abruptly popped up in front of me, though, it seemed unnecessary to go on constructing the imaginary version, and so I asked the McKenzies’ permission—graciously granted—to use their photographs of the Real Thing.

  —D.G.

  The rest of the journey passed uneventfully, if you consider it uneventful to ride fifteen miles on horseback through rough country at night, frequently without benefit of roads, in company with kilted men armed to the teeth, and sharing a horse with a wounded man. At least we were not set upon by highwaymen, we encountered no wild beasts, and it didn’t rain. By the standards I was becoming used to, it was quite dull.…

  Not surprisingly, it was misting heavily, but there was enough light to show a stone bridge, arching over a small stream that ran past the front of the castle, down to a dully gleaming loch a quarter mile away.

  The castle itself was blunt and solid. No fanciful turrets or toothed battlements. This was more like an enormous fortified house, with thick stone walls and high, slitted windows. A number of chimney pots smoked over the slick tiles of the roof, adding to the general impression of greyness.

  The gated entrance of the castle was wide enough to accommodate two wagons side by side. I say this without fear of contradiction, because it was doing exactly that as we crossed the bridge. One ox-drawn wagon was loaded with barrels, the other with hay. Our little cavalcade huddled on the bridge, waiting impatiently for the wagons to complete their laborious entry.

  I risked a question as the horses picked their way over the slippery stones of the wet courtyard. I hadn’t spoken to my escort since hastily re-dressing his shoulder by the roadside. He had been silent, too, aside from an occasional grunt of discomfort when a misstep by the horse jolted him.

  “Where are we?” I croaked, my voice hoarse from cold and disuse.

  “The keep of Leoch,” he answered shortly.

  Castle Leoch. Well, at least now I knew where I was. When I had known it, Castle Leoch was a picturesque ruin, some thirty miles north of Bargrennan. It was considerably more picturesque now, what with the pigs rooting under the walls of the keep and the pervasive smell of raw sewage. I was beginning to accept the impossible idea that I was, most likely, somewhere in the eighteenth century.

  —Outlander, chapter 4, “I Come to the Castle”

  But Jamie was not quite finished, it seemed. Ignoring Dougal’s fuming, he drew a short string of white beads from his sporran. He stepped forward and fastened the necklace around my neck. Looking down, I could see it was a string of small baroque pearls, those irregularly shaped productions of freshwater mussels, interspersed with tiny pierced-work gold roundels. Smaller pearls dangled from the gold beads.

  “They’re only Scotch pearls,” he said, apologetically, “but they look bonny on you.” His fingers lingered a moment on my neck.

  “Those were your mother’s pearls!” said Dougal, glowering at the necklace.

  “Aye,” said Jamie calmly, “and now they’re my wife’s. Shall we go?”

  —Outlander, chapter 14, “A Marriage Takes Place”

  Brianna put a stop to the outcry simply by standing up. She was as tall as any of the men, and towered over the women. Laoghaire took one quick step back. Every face in the room was turned to her, marked with hostility, sympathy, or merely curiosity.

  With a coolness that she didn’t feel, Brianna reached for the inner pocket of her coat, the secret pocket she had sewed into the seam only a week before. It seemed like a century.

  “My mother’s name is Claire,” she said, and dropped the necklace on the table.

  There was utter silence in the room, save for the soft hissing of the peat fire, burning low on the hearth. The pearl necklace lay gleaming, the spring sun from the window picking out the gold pierced-work roundels like sparks.

  It was Jenny who spoke first. Moving like a sleepwalker, she reached out a slender finger and touched one of the pearls. Freshwater pearls, the kind called baroque because of their singular, irregular, unmistakable shapes.

  “Oh, my,” Jenny said softly.

  —Drums of Autumn, chapter 34, “Lallybroch”

  “And what did you want to buy so much?” I asked suspiciously.

  He sighed and hesitated for a moment, then tossed the small package lightly into my lap. “A wedding ring, Sassenach,” he said. “I got it from Ewen the armorer; he makes such things in his own time.”

  “Oh,” I said in a small voice.

  “Go ahead,” he said, a moment later. “Open it. It’s yours.”

  The outlines of the little package blurred under my fingers. I blinked and sniffed, but made no move to open it. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Well, so ye should be, Sassenach,” he said, but his voice was no longer angry. Reaching, he took the package from my lap and tore away the wrapping, revealing a wide silver band, decorated in the Highland interlace style, a small and delicate Jacobean thistle bloom carved in the center of each link.

  So much I saw, and then my eyes blurred again.

  I found a handkerchief thrust into my hand, and did my best to stanch the flow with it. “It’s… beautiful,” I said, clearing my throat and dabbling at my eyes.

  “Will ye wear it, Claire?” His voice was gentle now, and his use of my name, mostly reserved for occasions of formality or tenderness, nearly made me break down again.…

  I couldn’t speak, but held out my right hand to him, fingers trembling. The ring slipped cool and bright over my knuckle and rested snug at the base of my finger—a good fit.

  -—Outlander, chapter 23, “Return to Leoch”

  “There are words in it,” she said wonderingly. “I never realized that he’d… Oh, dear God.” Her voice broke, and the ring slipped from her fingers, rattling on the table with a tiny metal chime.…

  Roge
r stood for a minute, feeling unbearably awkward and out of place. With a terrible feeling that he was violating a privacy that ran deeper than anything he had ever known, but not knowing what else to do, he lifted the tiny metal circle to the light and read the words inside.

  “Da mi basia mille…” But it was Claire’s voice that spoke the words, not his.

  —Dragonfly in Amber, chapter 47, “Loose Ends”

  “Good as new.” Jamie finished polishing the silver ring on his shirttail and held it up, admiring it in the glow of the lantern.

  “That is somewhat better than can be said of me,” I replied coldly. I lay in a crumpled heap on the deck, which in spite of the placid current, seemed still to be heaving very slightly under me. “You are a grade-A, double-dyed, sadistic fucking bastard, Jamie Fraser!”

  —Drums of Autumn, chapter 9, “Two-thirds of a Ghost”

  “It was a long time ago,” I said softly.

  “And a long time,” he said. “I am a jealous man, but not a vengeful one. I would take you from him, my Sassenach—but I wouldna take him from you.”

  He paused a moment, the fire glinting softly from the ring in his hand. “It was your life, no?”

  And he asked again, “Do you want it back?”

  I held up my hand in answer and he slid the gold ring on my finger, the metal warm from his body.

  From F. to C. with love. Always.

  —Drums of Autumn, chapter 71, “Circle’s Close”

  I’ve had any number of inquiries regarding Claire’s wedding ring, some simply curious as to whether a real ring of this description exists, some with a more practical application—that is, persons wanting to have a facsimile of it made for their own wedding!