* * *
“But how do you know so much about him if you’ve never met him?”
At least I was beginning to understand Jamie’s earlier reluctance to approach his grandfather for help. Reunited with Jamie and his horse, the latter looking rather chastened, and the former irritable to a degree, Murtagh had gazed speculatively at him, and offered to ride ahead to Beaufort with the pack animal, leaving Jamie and me to enjoy lunch at the side of the road.
Over a restorative ale and oatcake, he had at length told me that his grandfather, Lord Lovat, had not approved of his son’s choice of bride, and had not seen fit either to bless the union or to communicate with his son—or his son’s children—anytime since the marriage of Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie, more than thirty years before.
“I’ve heard a good bit about him, one way and another, though.” Jamie replied, chewing a bite of cheese. “He’s the sort of man that makes an impression on folk, ye ken.”
“So I gather.” The elderly Tullibardine, one of the Parisian Jacobites, had regaled me with a number of uncensored opinions regarding the leader of clan Fraser, and I thought that perhaps Brian Fraser had not been desolated at his father’s inattention. I said as much, and Jamie nodded.
“Oh, aye. I canna recall my father having much good to say of the old man, though he wouldna be disrespectful of him. He just didna speak of him often.” He rubbed at the side of his neck, where a red welt from the deerfly bite was beginning to show. The weather was freakishly warm, and he had unfolded his plaid for me to sit on. The deputation to the head of clan Fraser had been thought worth some investment in dignity, and Jamie wore a new kilt, of the buckled military cut, with the plaid a separate strip of cloth. Less enveloping for shelter from the weather than the older, belted plaid, it was a good deal more efficient to put on in a hurry.
“I wondered a bit,” he said thoughtfully, “whether my father was the sort of father he was because of the way old Simon treated him. I didna realize it at the time, of course, but it’s no so common for a man to show his feelings for his sons.”
“You’ve thought about it a lot.” I offered him another flask of ale, and he took it with a smile that lingered on me, more warming than the feeble autumn sun.
“Aye, I did. I was wondering, ye see, what sort of father I’d be to my own bairns, and looking back a bit to see, my own father being the best example I had. Yet I knew, from the bits that he said, or that Murtagh told me, that his own father was nothing like him, so I thought as how he must have made up his mind to do it all differently, once he had the chance.”
I sighed a bit, setting down my bit of cheese.
“Jamie,” I said. “Do you really think we’ll ever—”
“I do,” he said, with certainty, not letting me finish. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I know it, Sassenach, and so do you. You were meant to be a mother, and I surely dinna intend to let anyone else father your children.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said. “Neither do I.”
He laughed and tilted my chin up to kiss my lips. I kissed him back, then reached up to brush away a breadcrumb that clung to the stubble around his mouth.
“Ought you to shave, do you think?” I asked. “In honor of seeing your grandfather for the first time?”
“Oh, I’ve seen him the once before,” he said casually. “And he’s seen me, for that matter. As for what he thinks of my looks now, he can take me as I am, and be damned to him.”
“But Murtagh said you’d never met him!”
“Mphm.” He brushed the rest of the crumbs from his shirtfront, frowning slightly as if deciding how much to tell me. Finally he shrugged and lay back in the shade of a gorse bush, hands clasped behind his head as he stared at the sky.
“Well, we never have met, as ye’d say. Or not exactly. ’Twas like this…”
At the age of seventeen, young Jamie Fraser set sail for France, to finish his education at the University of Paris, and to learn further such things as are not taught in books.
“I sailed from the harbor at Beauly,” he said, nodding over the next hill, where a narrow slice of gray on the far horizon marked the edge of the Moray Firth. “There were other ports I could have gone by—Inverness would have been most like—but my father booked my passage, and from Beauly it was. He rode with me, to see me off into the world, ye might say.”
Brian Fraser had seldom left Lallybroch in the years since his marriage, and took pleasure as they rode in pointing out various spots to his son, where he had hunted or traveled as boy and young man.
“But he grew much quieter as we drew near Beaufort. He hadna spoken of my grandsire on this trip, and I knew better than mention him myself. But I kent he had reason for sending me from Beauly.”
A number of small sparrows edged their way cautiously nearer, popping in and out of the low shrubs, ready to dart back to safety at the slightest hint of danger. Seeing them, Jamie reached for a remnant of bread, and tossed it with considerable accuracy into the middle of the flock, which exploded like shrapnel, all fleeing the sudden intrusion.
“They’ll be back,” he said, motioning toward the scattered birds. He put an arm across his face as though to shield it from the sun, and went on with his story.
“There was a sound of horses along the road from the castle, and when we turned to see, there was a small party coming down, six horsemen with a wagon, and one of them held Lovat’s banner, so I knew my grandfather was with them. I looked quick at my father, to see did he mean to do anything, but he just smiled and squeezed my shoulder quick and said, ‘Let’s go aboard, then, lad.’
“I could feel my grandsire’s eyes on me as I walked down the shore, wi’ my hair and my height fair shriekin’ ‘MacKenzie,’ and I was glad I had my best clothes on and didna look a beggar. I didna look round, but I stood as tall as I could, and was proud that I had half a head’s height above the tallest man there. My father walked by my side, quiet like he was, and he didna look aside, either, but I could feel him there, proud that he’d sired me.”
He smiled at me, lopsided.
“That was the last time I was sure I’d done well by him, Sassenach. I wasna so sure, times after, but I was glad of that one day.”
He locked his arms around his knees, staring ahead as though reliving the scene on the quay.
“We stepped aboard the ship, and met the master, then we stood by the rail, talking a bit about nothing, both of us careful not to look at the men from Beaufort who were loading the bundles, or glance to the shore where the horsemen stood. Then the master gave the order to cast off. I kissed my father, and he jumped over the rail, down to the dock, and walked to his horse. He didna look back until he was mounted, and by then the ship had started out into the harbor.
“I waved, and he waved back, then he turned, leading my horse, and started on the road back to Lallybroch. And the party from Beaufort turned then, too, and started back. I could see my grandsire at the head of the party, sitting straight in his saddle. And they rode, my father and grandfather, twenty yards apart, up the hill and over it, out of my sight, and neither one turned to the other, or acted as though the other one was there at all.”
He turned his head down the road, as though looking for signs of life from the direction of Beaufort.
“I met his eyes,” he said softly. “The once. I waited until Father reached his horse, and then I turned and looked at Lord Lovat, bold as I could. I wanted him to know we’d ask nothing of him, but that I wasna scairt of him.” He smiled at me, one-sided. “I was, though.”
I put a hand over his, stroking the grooves of his knuckles.
“Was he looking back at you?”
He snorted briefly.
“Aye, he was. Reckon he didna take his eyes off me from the time I came down the hill ’til my ship sailed away; I could feel them borin’ into my back like an auger. And when I looked at him, there he was, wi’ his eyes black under his brows, starin’ into mine.”
He fell silent, still looking at the castle, ’til I gently prodded him.
“How did he look, then?”
He pulled his eyes from the dark cloud mass on the far horizon to look down at me, the customary expression of good humor missing from the curve of his mouth, the depths of his eyes.
“Cold as stone, Sassenach,” he replied. “Cold as the stone.”