HOT AFTER THE CLIMB, we sat down in the shade of a giant hemlock, to admire our future view. And, with the silence broken concerning the dire possibility of the future, found we could discuss it.
“It’s not so much the idea of us dying,” I said. “Or not entirely. It’s that ‘no surviving children’ that gives me the whim-whams.”
“Well, I take your point, Sassenach. Though I’m no in favor of us dying, either, and I mean to see we don’t,” he assured me. “Think, though. It might not mean they’re dead. They might only . . . go.”
I took a deep breath, trying to accept that supposition without panic.
“Go. Go back, you mean. Roger and Bree—and Jemmy, I suppose. We’re assuming he can—can travel through the stones.”
He nodded soberly, arms clasped about his knees.
“After what he did to that opal? Aye, I think we must assume he can.” I nodded, recalling what he’d done to the opal: held it, complaining of it growing hot in his hand—until it exploded, shattering into hundreds of needle-sharp fragments. Yes, I thought we must assume he could time-travel, too. But what if Brianna had another child? It was plain to me that she and Roger wanted another—or at least that Roger did, and she was willing.
The thought of losing them was acutely painful, but I supposed the possibility had to be faced.
“Which leaves a choice, I suppose,” I said, trying to be brave and objective. “If we’re dead, they’d go, because without us, they’ve no real reason to be here. But if we’re not dead—will they go anyway? Will we send them away, I mean? Because of the war. It won’t be safe.”
“No,” he said softly. His head was bent, stray auburn hairs lifting from his crown, from the cowlicks he had bequeathed both to Bree and to Jemmy.
“I dinna ken,” he said at last, and lifted his head, looking out into the distance of land and sky. “No one does, Sassenach. We must just meet what comes as we can.”
He turned and laid his hand over mine, with a smile that had as much of pain in it as joy.
“We’ve ghosts enough between us, Sassenach. If the evils of the past canna hinder us—neither then shall any fears of the future. We must just put things behind us and get on. Aye?”
I laid a light hand on his chest, not in invitation, but only because I wanted the feel of him. His skin was cool from sweating, but he had helped dig the grave; the heat of his labor glowed in the muscle beneath.
“You were one of my ghosts,” I said. “For a long time. And for a long time, I tried to put you behind me.”
“Did ye, then?” His own hand came to rest lightly on my back, moving unconsciously. I knew that touch—the need of touching only to reassure oneself that the other was actually there, present in flesh.
“I thought I couldn’t live, looking back—couldn’t bear it.” My throat was thick with the memory of it.
“I know,” he said softly, his hand rising to touch my hair. “But ye had the bairn—ye had a husband. It wasna right to turn your back on them.”
“It wasn’t right to turn my back on you.” I blinked, but tears were leaking from the corners of my eyes. He drew my head close, put out his tongue, and delicately licked my face, which surprised me so much that I laughed in the midst of a sob, and nearly choked.
“I do love thee, as meat loves salt,” he quoted, and laughed, too, very softly. “Dinna weep, Sassenach. Ye’re here; so am I. There’s naught that matters, aside from that.”
I leaned my forehead against his cheek, and put my arms around him. My hands rested flat on the planes of his back, and I stroked him from the blade of his shoulder to the tapering small of his back, lightly, always lightly, tracing the whole of him, the shape of him, and not the scars that reamed his skin.
He held me close, and sighed deeply.
“D’ye ken we’ve been wed this time nearly twice as long as the last?”
I drew back and frowned dubiously at him, accepting the distraction.
“Were we not married in between?”
That took him by surprise; he frowned, too, and ran a finger slowly down the sunburnt bridge of his nose in thought.
“Well, there’s a question for a priest, to be sure,” he said. “I should think we were—but if so, are we not both bigamists?”
“Were, not are,” I corrected, feeling slightly uneasy. “But we weren’t, really. Father Anselme said so.”
“Anselme?”
“Father Anselme—a Franciscan priest at the Abbey of St. Anne. But perhaps you wouldn’t recall him; you were very ill at the time.”
“Oh, I recall him,” he said. “He would come and sit wi’ me at night, when I couldna sleep.” He smiled, a little lopsided; that time wasn’t something he wished to remember. “He liked ye a great deal, Sassenach.”
“Oh? And what about you?” I asked, wanting to distract him from the memory of St. Anne. “Didn’t you like me?”
“Oh, I liked ye fine then,” he assured me. “I maybe like ye even more now, though.”
“Oh, do you, indeed.” I sat up a little straighter, preening. “What’s different?”
He tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowing a bit in appraisal.
“Well, ye fart less in your sleep,” he began judiciously, then ducked, laughing, as a pinecone whizzed past his left ear. I seized a chunk of wood, but before I could bat him over the head with it, he lunged and caught me by the arms. He shoved me flat in the grass and collapsed on top of me, pinning me effortlessly.
“Get off, you oaf! I do not fart in my sleep!”
“Now, how would ye ken that, Sassenach? Ye sleep so sound, ye wouldna wake, even to the sound of your own snoring.”
“Oh, you want to talk about snoring, do you? You—”
“Ye’re proud as Lucifer,” he said, interrupting. He was still smiling, but the words were more serious. “And ye’re brave. Ye were always bolder than was safe; now ye’re fierce as a wee badger.”
“So I’m arrogant and ferocious. This does not sound like much of a catalog of womanly virtues,” I said, puffing a bit as I strained to wriggle out from under him.
“Well, ye’re kind, too,” he said, considering. “Verra kind. Though ye are inclined to do it on your own terms. Not that that’s bad, mind,” he added, neatly recapturing the arm I had extricated. He pinned my wrist over my head.
“Womanly,” he murmured, brows knotted in concentration. “Womanly virtues . . .” His free hand crept between us and fastened on my breast.
“Besides that!”
“You’re verra clean,” he said approvingly. He let go my wrist and ruffled a hand through my hair—which was indeed clean, smelling of sunflower and marigolds.
“I’ve never seen any woman wash herself sae much as you do—save Brianna, perhaps.
“Ye’re no much of a cook,” he went on, squinting thoughtfully. “Though ye’ve never poisoned anyone, save on purpose. And I will say ye sew a neat seam—though ye like it much better if it’s through someone’s flesh.”
“Thanks so much!”
“Tell me some more virtues,” he suggested. “Perhaps I’ve missed one.”
“Hmph! Gentleness, patience . . .” I floundered.
“Gentle? Christ.” He shook his head. “Ye’re the most ruthless, bloodthirsty—”
I darted my head upward, and nearly succeeded in biting him in the throat. He jerked back, laughing.
“No, ye’re no verra patient, either.”
I gave up struggling for the moment and collapsed flat on my back, tousled hair spread out on the grass.
“So what is my most endearing trait?” I demanded.
“Ye think I’m funny,” he said, grinning.
“I . . . do . . . not . . .” I grunted, struggling madly. He merely lay on top of me, tranquilly oblivious to my pokings and thumpings, until I exhausted myself and lay gasping underneath him.
“And,” he said thoughtfully, “ye like it verra much when I take ye to bed. No?”
“Er . . .” I wanted to contradict him, but honesty forbade. Besides, he bloody well knew I did.
“You are squashing me,” I said with dignity. “Kindly get off.”
“No?” he repeated, not moving.
“Yes! All right! Yes! Will you bloody get off?!”
He didn’t get off, but bent his head and kissed me. I was close-lipped, determined not to give in, but he was determined, too, and if one came right down to it . . . the skin of his face was warm, the plush of his beard stubble softly scratchy, and his wide sweet mouth . . . My legs were open in abandon and he was solid between them, bare chest smelling of musk and sweat and sawdust caught in the wiry auburn hair. . . . I was still hot with struggling, but the grass was damp and cool around us. . . . Well, all right; another minute, and he could have me right there, if he cared to.
He felt me yield, and sighed, letting his own body slacken; he no longer held me prisoner, but simply held me. He lifted his head then, and cupped my face with one hand.
“D’ye want to know what it is, really?” he asked, and I could see from the dark blue of his eyes that he meant it. I nodded, mute.
“Above all creatures on this earth,” he whispered, “you are faithful.”
I thought of saying something about St. Bernard dogs, but there was such tenderness in his face that I said nothing, instead merely staring up at him, blinking against the green light that filtered through the needles overhead.
“Well,” I said at last, with a deep sigh of my own, “so are you. Quite a good thing, really. Isn’t it?”