Diana Gabaldon
New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon is a winner of the Quill Award and of the RITA Award given by the Romance Writers of America. She’s the author of the hugely popular Outlander series of time-travel romances, international bestsellers that include Cross Stitch, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, and An Echo in the Bone. Her historical series about the strange adventures of Lord John include the novels Lord John and the Private Matter; Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade; a chapbook novella, Lord John and the Hell-Fire Club; and a collection of Lord John stories, Lord John and the Hand of Devils. Her most recent novels are two new Lord John books, The Scottish Prisoner and Red Ant’s Head, and a novel omnibus, A Trail of Fire. She’s also written a contemporary mystery, White Knight. A guidebook to and appreciation of her work is The Outlandish Companion.
In the fast-paced story that follows, the young Jamie Fraser, one day to be one of the protagonists of the Outlander books, is forced out of his Scottish home and set to wandering in the world, with many new experiences waiting ahead of him, some pleasant, some decidedly not—and some dangerous and dark.
VIRGINS
OCTOBER, 1740
NEAR BORDEAUX, FRANCE
Ian Murray knew from the moment he saw his best friend’s face that something terrible had happened. The fact that he was seeing Jamie Fraser’s face at all was evidence enough of that, never mind the look of the man.
Jamie was standing by the armorer’s wagon, his arms full of the bits and pieces Armand had just given him, white as milk and swaying back and forth like a reed on Loch Awe. Ian reached him in three paces and took him by the arm before he could fall over.
“Ian.” Jamie looked so relieved at seeing him that Ian thought he might break into tears. “God, Ian.”
Ian seized Jamie in embrace, and felt him stiffen and draw in his breath at the same instant he felt the bandages beneath Jamie’s shirt.
“Jesus!” he began, startled, but then coughed and said, “Jesus, man, it’s good to see ye.” He patted Jamie’s back gently and let go. “Ye’ll need a bit to eat, aye? Come on, then.”
Plainly they couldn’t talk now, but he gave Jamie a quick private nod, took half the equipment from him, and then led him to the fire, to be introduced to the others.
Jamie’d picked a good time of day to turn up, Ian thought. Everyone was tired, but happy to sit down, looking forward to their supper and the daily ration of whatever was going in the way of drink. Ready for the possibilities a new fish offered for entertainment, but without the energy to include the more physical sorts of entertainment.
“That’s Big Georges over there,” Ian said, dropping Jamie’s gear and gesturing toward the far side of the fire. “Next to him, the wee fellow wi’ the warts is Juanito; doesna speak much French and nay English at all.”
“Do any of them speak English?” Jamie likewise dropped his gear, and sat heavily on his bedroll, tucking his kilt absently down between his knees. His eyes flicked round the circle, and he nodded, half-smiling in a shy sort of way.
“I do.” The captain leaned past the man next to him, extending a hand to Jamie. “I’m le capitaine—Richard D’Eglise. You’ll call me Captain. You look big enough to be useful—your friend says your name is Fraser?”
“Jamie Fraser, aye.” Ian was pleased to see that Jamie knew to meet the Captain’s eye square, and had summoned the strength to return the hand-shake with due force.
“Know what to do with a sword?”
“I do. And a bow, forbye.” Jamie glanced at the unstrung bow by his feet, and the short-handled ax beside it. “Havena had much to do wi’ an ax before, save chopping wood.”
“That’s good,” one of the other men put in, in French. “That’s what you’ll use it for.” Several of the others laughed, indicating that they at least understood English, whether they chose to speak it or not.
“Did I join a troop of soldiers, then, or charcoal-burners?” Jamie asked, raising one brow. He said that in French—very good French, with a faint Parisian accent—and a number of eyes widened. Ian bent his head to hide a smile, in spite of his anxiety. The wean might be about to fall face-first into the fire, but nobody—save maybe Ian—was going to know it, if it killed him.
Ian did know it, though, and kept a covert eye on Jamie, pushing bread into his hand so the others wouldn’t see it shake, sitting close enough to catch him if he should in fact pass out. The light was fading into gray now, and the clouds hung low and soft, pink-bellied. Going to rain, likely, by the morning. He saw Jamie close his eyes just for an instant, saw his throat move as he swallowed, and felt the trembling of Jamie’s thigh near his own.
What the devil’s happened? he thought in anguish. Why are ye here?
It wasn’t until everyone had settled for the night that Ian got an answer.
“I’ll lay out your gear,” he whispered to Jamie, rising. “You stay by the fire that wee bit longer—rest a bit, aye?” The firelight cast a ruddy glow on Jamie’s face, but he thought his friend was likely still white as a sheet; he hadn’t eaten much.
Coming back, he saw the dark spots on the back of Jamie’s shirt, blotches where fresh blood had seeped through the bandages. The sight filled him with fury as well as fear. He’d seen such things; the wean had been flogged. Badly, and recently. Who? How?
“Come on, then,” he said roughly, and, bending, got an arm under Jamie’s and got him to his feet and away from the fire and the other men. He was alarmed to feel the clamminess of Jamie’s hand and hear his shallow breath.
“What?” he demanded, the moment they were out of earshot. “What happened?”
Jamie sat down abruptly.
“I thought one joined a band of mercenaries because they didna ask ye questions.”
Ian gave him the snort this statement deserved, and was relieved to hear a breath of laughter in return.
“Eejit,” he said. “D’ye need a dram? I’ve got a bottle in my sack.”
“Wouldna come amiss,” Jamie murmured. They were camped at the edge of a wee village, and D’Eglise had arranged for the use of a byre or two, but it wasn’t cold out, and most of the men had chosen to sleep by the fire or in the field. Ian had put their gear down a little distance away, and with the possibility of rain in mind, under the shelter of a plane tree that stood at the side of a field.
Ian uncorked the bottle of whisky—it wasn’t good, but it was whisky—and held it under his friend’s nose. When Jamie reached for it, though, he pulled it away.
“Not a sip do ye get until ye tell me,” he said. “And ye tell me now, a charaid.”
Jamie sat hunched, a pale blur on the ground, silent. When the words came at last, they were spoken so softly that Ian thought for an instant he hadn’t really heard them.
“My faither’s dead.”
He tried to believe he hadn’t heard, but his heart had; it froze in his chest.
“Oh, Jesus,” he whispered. “Oh, God, Jamie.” He was on his knees then, holding Jamie’s head fierce against his shoulder, trying not to touch his hurt back. His thoughts were in confusion, but one thing was clear to him—Brian Fraser’s death hadn’t been a natural one. If it had, Jamie would be at Lallybroch. Not here, and not in this state.
“Who?” he said hoarsely, relaxing his grip a little. “Who killed him?”
More silence, then Jamie gulped air with a sound like fabric being ripped.
“I did,” he said, and began to cry, shaking with silent, tearing sobs.
It took some time to winkle the details out of Jamie—and no wonder, Ian thought. He wouldn’t want to talk about such things, either, or to remember them. The English dragoons who’d come to Lallybroch to loot and plunder, who’d taken Jamie away with them when he’d fought them. And what they’d done to him then, at Fort William.
“A hundred lashes?” he said in disbelief and horror. “For protecting your home?”
“Only sixty, the first time.” Jamie wiped his nose on his sleeve. “For escaping.”
“The first ti—Jesus, God, man! What … how …”
“Would ye let go my arm, Ian? I’ve got enough bruises, I dinna need any more.” Jamie gave a small, shaky laugh, and Ian hastily let go, but wasn’t about to let himself be distracted.
“Why?” he said, low and angry. Jamie wiped his nose again, sniffing, but his voice was steadier.
“It was my fault,” he said. “It—what I said before. About my …” He had to stop and swallow, but went on, hurrying to get the words out before they could bite him in a tender place. “I spoke chough to the commander. At the garrison, ken. He—well, it’s nay matter. It was what I said to him made him flog me again, and Da—he—he’d come. To Fort William, to try to get me released, but he couldn’t, and he—he was there, when they … did it.”
Ian could tell from the thicker sound of his voice that Jamie was weeping again but trying not to, and he put a hand on the wean’s knee and gripped it, not too hard, just so as Jamie would ken he was there, listening.
Jamie took a deep, deep breath and got the rest out.
“It was … hard. I didna call out, or let them see I was scairt, but I couldna keep my feet. Halfway through it, I fell into the post, just—just hangin’ from the ropes, ken, wi’ the blood … runnin’ down my legs. They thought for a bit that I’d died—and Da must ha’ thought so, too. They told me he put his hand to his head just then, and made a wee noise and then … he fell down. An apoplexy, they said.”
“Mary, Mother o’ God, have mercy on us,” Ian said. “He—died right there?”
“I dinna ken was he dead when they picked him up or if he lived a bit after that.” Jamie’s voice was desolate. “I didna ken a thing about it; no one told me until days later, when Uncle Dougal got me away.” He coughed, and wiped the sleeve across his face again. “Ian … would ye let go my knee?”
“No,” Ian said softly, though he did indeed take his hand away. Only so he could gather Jamie gently into his arms, though. “No. I willna let go, Jamie. Bide. Just … bide.”
Jamie woke dry-mouthed, thickheaded, and with his eyes half swollen shut by midgie bites. It was also raining, a fine, wet mist coming down through the leaves above him. For all that, he felt better than he had in the last two weeks, though he didn’t at once recall why that was—or where he was.
“Here.” A piece of half-charred bread rubbed with garlic was shoved under his nose. He sat up and grabbed it.
Ian. The sight of his friend gave him an anchor, and the food in his belly another. He chewed slower now, looking about. Men were rising, stumbling off for a piss, making low rumbling noises, rubbing their heads and yawning.
“Where are we?” he asked. Ian gave him a look.
“How the devil did ye find us if ye dinna ken where ye are?”
“Murtagh brought me,” he muttered. The bread turned to glue in his mouth as memory came back; he couldn’t swallow, and spat out the half-chewed bit. Now he remembered it all, and wished he didn’t. “He found the band, but then left; said it would look better if I came in on my own.”
His godfather had said, in fact, “The Murray lad will take care of ye now. Stay wi’ him, mind—dinna come back to Scotland. Dinna come back, d’ye hear me?” He’d heard. Didn’t mean he meant to listen.
“Oh, aye. I wondered how ye’d managed to walk this far.” Ian cast a worried look at the far side of the camp, where a pair of sturdy horses was being brought to the traces of a canvas-covered wagon. “Can ye walk, d’ye think?”
“Of course. I’m fine.” Jamie spoke crossly, and Ian gave him the look again, even more slit-eyed than the last.
“Aye, right,” he said, in tones of rank disbelief. “Well. We’re maybe twenty miles from Bordeaux; that’s where we’re going. We’re takin’ the wagon yon to a Jewish moneylender there.”
“Is it full of money, then?” Jamie glanced at the heavy wagon, interested.
“No,” Ian said. “There’s a wee chest, verra heavy so it’s maybe gold, and there are a few bags that clink and might be silver, but most of it’s rugs.”
“Rugs?” He looked at Ian in amazement. “What sort of rugs?”
Ian shrugged.
“Couldna say. Juanito says they’re Turkey rugs and verra valuable, but I dinna ken that he knows. He’s Jewish, too,” Ian added, as an afterthought. “Jews are—” He made an equivocal gesture, palm flattened. “But they dinna really hunt them in France, or exile them anymore, and the Captain says they dinna even arrest them, so long as they keep quiet.”
“And go on lending money to men in the government,” Jamie said cynically. Ian looked at him, surprised, and Jamie gave him the I went to the Université in Paris and ken more than you do smart-arse look, fairly sure that Ian wouldn’t thump him, seeing he was hurt.
Ian looked tempted, but had learned enough merely to give Jamie back the I’m older than you and ye ken well ye havena sense enough to come in out of the rain, so dinna be trying it on look instead. Jamie laughed, feeling better.
“Aye, right,” he said, bending forward. “Is my shirt verra bloody?”
Ian nodded, buckling his sword belt. Jamie sighed and picked up the leather jerkin the armorer had given him. It would rub, but he wasn’t wanting to attract attention.
He managed. The troop kept up a decent pace, but it wasn’t anything to trouble a Highlander accustomed to hill-walking and running down the odd deer. True, he grew a bit light-headed now and then, and sometimes his heart raced and waves of heat ran over him—but he didn’t stagger any more than a few of the men who’d drunk too much for breakfast.
He barely noticed the countryside, but was conscious of Ian striding along beside him, and took pains now and then to glance at his friend and nod, in order to relieve Ian’s worried expression. The two of them were close to the wagon, mostly because he didn’t want to draw attention by lagging at the back of the troop, but also because he and Ian were taller than the rest by a head or more, with a stride that eclipsed the others, and he felt a small bit of pride in that. It didn’t occur to him that possibly the others didn’t want to be near the wagon.
The first inkling of trouble was a shout from the driver. Jamie had been trudging along, eyes half-closed, concentrating on putting one foot ahead of the other, but a bellow of alarm and a sudden loud bang! jerked him to attention. A horseman charged out of the trees near the road, slewed to a halt and fired his second pistol at the driver.
“What—” Jamie reached for the sword at his belt, half-fuddled but starting forward; the horses were neighing and flinging themselves against the traces, the driver cursing and on his feet, hauling on the reins. Several of the mercenaries ran toward the horseman, who drew his own sword and rode through them, slashing recklessly from side to side. Ian seized Jamie’s arm, though, and jerked him round.
“Not there! The back!” He followed Ian at a run, and sure enough, there was the Captain on his horse at the back of the troop, in the middle of a melee, a dozen strangers laying about with clubs and blades, all shouting.
“Caisteal DHOON!” Ian bellowed, and swung his sword over his head and flat down on the head of an attacker. It hit the man a glancing blow, but he staggered and fell to his knees, where Big Georges seized him by the hair and kneed him viciously in the face.
“Caisteal DHOON!” Jamie shouted as loud as he could, and Ian turned his head for an instant, a big grin flashing.
It was a bit like a cattle raid, but lasting longer. Not a matter of hit hard and get away; he’d never been a defender before and found it heavy going. Still, the attackers were outnumbered, and began to give way, some glancing over their shoulders, plainly thinking of running back into the wood.
They began to do just that, and Jamie stood panting, dripping sweat, his sword a hundredweight in his hand. He straightened, though, and caught the flash of movement from the corner of his eye.
“Dhooon!” he shouted, and broke into a lumbering, gasping run. Another group of men had appeared near the wagon and were pulling the driver’s body quietly down from its seat, while one of their number grabbed at the lunging horses’ bridles, pulling their heads down. Two more had got the canvas loose and were dragging out a long rolled cylinder, one of the rugs, he supposed.
He reached them in time to grab another man trying to mount the wagon, yanking him clumsily back onto the road. The man twisted, falling, and came to his feet like a cat, knife in hand. The blade flashed, bounced off the leather of his jerkin and cut upward, an inch from his face. Jamie squirmed back, off balance, narrowly keeping his feet, and two more of the bastards charged him.
“On your right, man!” Ian’s voice came sudden at his shoulder, and without a moment’s hesitation he turned to take care of the man to his left, hearing Ian’s grunt of effort as he laid about himself.
Then something changed; he couldn’t tell what, but the fight was suddenly over. The attackers melted away, leaving one or two of their number lying in the road.
The driver wasn’t dead; Jamie saw him roll half over, an arm across his face. Then he himself was sitting in the dust, black spots dancing before his eyes. Ian bent over him, panting, hands braced on his knees. Sweat dripped from his chin, making dark spots in the dust that mingled with the buzzing spots that darkened Jamie’s vision.
“All … right?” Ian asked.
He opened his mouth to say yes, but the roaring in his ears drowned it out, and the spots merged suddenly into a solid sheet of black.
He woke to find a priest kneeling over him, intoning the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. Not stopping, the priest took up a little bottle and poured oil into the palm of one hand, then dipped his thumb into the puddle and made a swift sign of the Cross on Jamie’s forehead.
“I’m no dead, aye?” Jamie said, then repeated this information in French. The priest leaned closer, squinting nearsightedly.
“Dying?” he asked.
“Not that, either.” The priest made a small disgusted sound, but went ahead and made crosses on the palms of Jamie’s hands, his eyelids and his lips.
“Ego te absolvo,” he said, making a final quick sign of the Cross over Jamie’s supine form. “Just in case you’ve killed anyone.” Then he rose swiftly to his feet and disappeared behind the wagon in a flurry of dark robes.
“All right, are ye?” Ian reached down a hand and hauled him into a sitting position.
“Aye, more or less. Who was that?” He nodded in the direction of the recent priest.
“Père Renault. This is a verra well-equipped outfit,” Ian said, boosting him to his feet. “We’ve got our own priest, to shrive us before battle and give us extreme unction after.”
“I noticed. A bit overeager, is he no?”
“He’s blind as a bat,” Ian said, glancing over his shoulder to be sure the priest wasn’t close enough to hear. “Likely thinks better safe than sorry, aye?”
“D’ye have a surgeon, too?” Jamie asked, glancing at the two attackers who had fallen. The bodies had been pulled to the side of the road; one was clearly dead, but the other was beginning to stir and moan.
“Ah,” Ian said thoughtfully. “That would be the priest, as well.”
“So if I’m wounded in battle, I’d best try to die of it, is that what ye’re sayin’?”
“I am. Come on, let’s find some water.”
They found a rock-lined irrigation ditch running between two fields, a little way off the road. Ian pulled Jamie into the shade of a tree and, rummaging in his rucksack, found a spare shirt, which he shoved into his friend’s hands.
“Put it on,” he said, low voiced. “Ye can wash yours out; they’ll think the blood on it’s from the fightin’.” Jamie looked surprised but grateful and, with a nod, skimmed out of the leather jerkin and peeled the sweaty, stained shirt gingerly off his back. Ian grimaced; the bandages were filthy and coming loose, save where they stuck to Jamie’s skin, crusted black with old blood and dried pus.
“Shall I pull them off?” he muttered in Jamie’s ear. “I’ll do it fast.”
Jamie arched his back in refusal, shaking his head.
“Nay, it’ll bleed more if ye do.” There wasn’t time to argue; several more of the men were coming. Jamie ducked hurriedly into the clean shirt and knelt to splash water on his face.
“Hey, Scotsman!” Alexandre called to Jamie. “What’s that you two were shouting at each other?” He put his hands to his mouth and hooted, “Goooooon!” in a deep, echoing voice that made the others laugh.
“Have ye never heard a war cry before?” Jamie asked, shaking his head at such ignorance. “Ye shout it in battle, to call your kin and your clan to your side.”
“Does it mean anything?” Petit Phillipe asked, interested.
“Aye, more or less,” Ian said. “Castle Dhuni’s the dwelling place of the chieftain of the Frasers of Lovat. Caisteal Dhuin is what ye call it in the Gàidhlig—that’s our own tongue.”
“And that’s our clan,” Jamie clarified. “Clan Fraser, but there’s more than one branch, and each one will have its own war cry, and its own motto.” He pulled his shirt out of the cold water and wrang it out; the bloodstains were still visible, but faint brown marks now, Ian saw with approval. Then he saw Jamie’s mouth opening to say more.
Don’t say it! he thought, but as usual, Jamie wasn’t reading his mind, and Ian closed his eyes in resignation, knowing what was coming.
“Our clan motto’s in French, though,” Jamie said, with a small air of pride. “Je suis prest.”
It meant “I am ready,” and was, as Ian had foreseen, greeted with gales of laughter, and a number of crude speculations as to just what the young Scots might be ready for. The men were in good humor from the fight, and it went on for a bit. Ian shrugged and smiled, but he could see Jamie’s ears turning red.
“Where’s the rest of your queue, Georges?” Petit Phillipe demanded, seeing Big Georges shaking off after a piss. “Someone trim it for you?”
“Your wife bit it off,” Georges replied, in a tranquil tone indicating that this was common badinage. “Mouth like a sucking pig, that one. And a cramouille like a—”
This resulted in a further scatter of abuse, but it was clear from the sidelong glances that it was mostly performance for the benefit of the two Scots. Ian ignored it. Jamie had gone squiggle-eyed; Ian wasn’t sure his friend had ever heard the word cramouille before, but he likely figured what it meant.
Before he could get them in more trouble, though, the conversation by the stream was stopped dead by a strangled scream beyond the scrim of trees that hid them from the roadside.
“The prisoner,” Alexandre murmured, after a moment.
Ian knelt by Jamie, water dripping from his cupped hands. He knew what was happening; it curdled his wame. He let the water fall and wiped his hands on his thighs.
“The Captain,” he said softly to Jamie. “He’ll … need to know who they were. Where they came from.”
“Aye.” Jamie’s lips pressed tight at the sound of muted voices, the sudden meaty smack of flesh and a loud grunt. “I know.” He splashed water fiercely onto his face.
The jokes had stopped. There was little conversation now, though Alexandre and Josef-from-Alsace began a random argument, speaking loudly, trying to drown out the noises from the road. Most of the men finished their washing and drinking in silence and sat hunched in the shade, shoulders pulled in.
“Père Renault!” The Captain’s voice rose, calling for the priest. Père Renault had been performing his own ablutions a discreet distance from the men, but rose at this summons, wiping his face on the hem of his robe. He crossed himself and headed for the road but, on the way, paused by Ian and motioned toward his drinking cup.
“May I borrow this from you, my son? Only for a moment.”
“Aye, of course, Father,” Ian said, baffled. The priest nodded, bent to scoop up a cup of water, and went on his way. Jamie looked after him, then at Ian, brows raised.
“They saw he’s a Jew,” Juanito said nearby, very quietly. “They want to baptize him first.” He knelt by the water, fists curled tight against his thighs.
Hot as the air was, Ian felt a spear of ice run right through his chest. He stood up fast, and made as though to follow the priest, but Big Georges snaked out a hand and caught him by the shoulder.
“Leave it,” he said. He spoke quietly, too, but his fingers dug hard into Ian’s flesh. He didn’t pull away, but stayed standing, holding Georges’s eyes. He felt Jamie make a brief, convulsive movement, but said, “No!” under his breath, and Jamie stopped.
They could hear French cursing from the road, mingled with Père Renault’s voice. “In nomine Patris, et Filii …” Then struggling, spluttering and shouting, the prisoner, the Captain and Mathieu, and even the priest all using such language as made Jamie blink. Ian might have laughed, if not for the sense of dread that froze every man by the water.
“No!” shouted the prisoner, his voice rising above the others, anger lost in terror. “No, please! I told you all I—” There was a small sound, a hollow noise like a melon being kicked in, and the voice stopped.
“Thrifty, our Captain,” Big Georges said, under his breath. “Why waste a bullet?” He took his hand off Ian’s shoulder, shook his head, and knelt down to wash his hands.
There was a ghastly silence under the trees. From the road, they could hear low voices—the Captain and big Mathieu speaking to each other and, over that, Père Renault repeating “In nomine Patris, et Filii …” but in a very different tone. Ian saw the hairs on Jamie’s arms rise and he rubbed the palms of his hands against his kilt, maybe feeling a slick from the chrism oil still there.
Jamie plainly couldn’t stand to listen, and turned to Big Georges at random.
“Queue?” he said with a raised brow. “That what ye call it in these parts, is it?”
Big Georges managed a crooked smile.
“And what do you call it? In your tongue?”
“Bot,” Ian said, shrugging. There were other words, but he wasn’t about to try one like clipeachd on them.
“Mostly just cock,” Jamie said, shrugging, too.
“Or ‘penis,’ if ye want to be all English about it,” Ian chimed in.
Several of the men were listening now, willing to join in any sort of conversation to get away from the echo of the last scream, still hanging in the air like fog.
“Ha,” Jamie said. “Penis isna even an English word, ye wee ignoramus. It’s Latin. And even in Latin, it doesna mean a man’s closest companion—it means ‘tail.’”
Ian gave him a long, slow look.
“Tail, is it? So ye canna even tell the difference between your cock and your arse, and ye’re preachin’ to me about Latin?”
The men roared. Jamie’s face flamed up instantly, and Ian laughed and gave him a good nudge with his shoulder. Jamie snorted, but elbowed Ian back, and laughed, too, reluctantly.
“Aye, all right, then.” He looked abashed; he didn’t usually throw his education in Ian’s face. Ian didn’t hold it against him; he’d floundered for a bit, too, his first days with the company, and that was the sort of thing you did, trying to get your feet under you by making a point of what you were good at. But if Jamie tried rubbing Mathieu’s or Big Georges’s face in his Latin and Greek, he’d be proving himself with his fists, and fast, too. Right this minute, he didn’t look as though he could fight a rabbit and win.
The renewed murmur of conversation, subdued as it was, dried up at once with the appearance of Mathieu through the trees. Mathieu was a big man, though broad rather than tall, with a face like a mad boar and a character to match. Nobody called him “Pig-face” to his face.
“You, cheese-rind—go bury that turd,” he said to Jamie, adding with a narrowing of red-rimmed eyes, “Far back in the wood. And go before I put a boot in your arse. Move!”
Jamie got up—slowly—eyes fixed on Mathieu with a look Ian didn’t care for. He came up quick beside Jamie and gripped him by the arm.
“I’ll help,” he said. “Come on.”
“Why do they want this one buried?” Jamie muttered to Ian. “Giving him a Christian burial?” He drove one of the trenching spades Armand had lent them into the soft leaf mold with a violence that would have told Ian just how churned up his friend was, if he hadn’t known already.
“Ye kent it’s no a verra civilized life, a charaid,” Ian said. He didn’t feel any better about it himself, after all, and spoke sharp. “Not like the Université.”
The blood flamed up Jamie’s neck like tinder taking fire, and Ian held out a palm in hopes of quelling him. He didn’t want a fight, and Jamie couldn’t stand one.
“We’re burying him because D’Eglise thinks his friends might come back to look for him, and it’s better they don’t see what was done to him, aye? Ye can see by looking that the other fellow was just killed fightin’. Business is one thing; revenge is another.”
Jamie’s jaw worked for a bit, but gradually the hot flush faded and his clench on the shovel loosened.
“Aye,” he muttered, and resumed digging. The sweat was running down his neck in minutes, and he was breathing hard. Ian nudged him out of the way with an elbow and finished the digging. Silent, they took the dead man by the oxters and ankles and dragged him into the shallow pit.
“D’ye think D’Eglise found out anything?” Jamie asked as they scattered matted chunks of old leaves over the raw earth.
“I hope so,” Ian replied, eyes on his work. “I wouldna like to think they did that for nothing.”
He straightened up and they stood awkwardly for a moment, not quite looking at each other. It seemed wrong to leave a grave, even that of a stranger and a Jew, without a word of prayer. But it seemed worse to say a Christian prayer over the man—more insult than blessing, in the circumstances.
At last Jamie grimaced and bending, dug about under the leaves, coming out with two small stones. He gave one to Ian, and one after the other, they squatted and placed the stones together atop the grave. It wasn’t much of a cairn, but it was something.
It wasn’t the Captain’s way to make explanations, or to give more than brief, explicit orders to his men. He had come back into camp at evening, his face dark and his lips pressed tight. But three other men had heard the interrogation of the Jewish stranger, and by the usual metaphysical processes that happen around campfires, everyone in the troop knew by the next morning what he had said.
“Ephraim bar-Sefer,” Ian said to Jamie, who had come back late to the fire after going off quietly to wash his shirt out again. “That was his name.” Ian was a bit worrit about the wean. His wounds weren’t healing as they should, and the way he’d passed out … He’d a fever now; Ian could feel the heat coming off his skin, but he shivered now and then, though the night wasn’t bitter.
“Is it better to know that?” Jamie asked bleakly.
“We can pray for him by name,” Ian pointed out. “That’s better, is it not?”
Jamie wrinkled up his brow, but after a moment nodded.
“Aye, it is. What else did he say, then?”
Ian rolled his eyes. Ephraim bar-Sefer had confessed that the band of attackers were professional thieves, mostly Jews, who—
“Jews?” Jamie interrupted. “Jewish bandits?” For some reason, the thought struck him as funny, but Ian didn’t laugh.
“Why not?” he asked briefly, and went on without waiting for an answer. The men gained advance knowledge of valuable shipments and made a practice of lying in wait, to ambush and rob.
“It’s mostly other Jews they rob, so there’s nay much danger of being pursued by the French army or a local judge.”
“Oh. And the advance knowledge—that’s easier come by, too, I suppose, if the folk they rob are Jews. Jews live close by each other in groups,” he explained, seeing the look of surprise on Ian’s face. “They all read and write, though, and they write letters all the time; there’s a good bit of information passed to and fro between the groups. Wouldna be that hard to learn who the moneylenders and merchants are and intercept their correspondence, would it?”
“Maybe not,” Ian said, giving Jamie a look of respect. “Bar-Sefer said they got notice from someone—he didna ken who it was, himself—who kent a great deal about valuables comin’ and goin’. The person who knew wasna one of their group, though; it was someone outside, who got a percentage o’ the proceeds.”
That, however, was the total of the information bar-Sefer had divulged. He wouldn’t give up the names of any of his associates—D’Eglise didn’t care so much about that—and had died stubbornly insisting that he knew nothing of future robberies planned.
“D’ye think it might ha’ been one of ours?” Jamie asked, low voiced.
“One of—oh, our Jews, ye mean?” Ian frowned at the thought. There were three Spanish Jews in D’Eglise’s band: Juanito, Big Georges, and Raoul, but all three were good men, and fairly popular with their fellows. “I doubt it. All three o’ them fought like fiends. When I noticed,” he added fairly.
“What I want to know is how the thieves got away wi’ that rug,” Jamie said reflectively. “Must have weighed, what, ten stone?”
“At least that,” Ian assured him, flexing his shoulders at the memory. “I helped load the wretched things. I supposed they must have had a wagon somewhere nearby, for their booty. Why?”
“Well, but … rugs? Who steals rugs? Even valuable ones. And if they kent ahead of time that we were comin’, presumably they kent what we carried.”
“Ye’re forgettin’ the gold and silver,” Ian reminded him. “It was in the front of the wagon, under the rugs. They had to pull the rugs out to get at it.”