60
TRIAL BY FIRE
They were left alone all day. The fire was dead, and there was no food left. It didn’t matter; neither man could eat, and no fire would have reached Roger’s soul-deep chill.
The Indians came back in late afternoon. Several warriors, escorting an elderly man, dressed in a flowing lace shirt and a woven mantle, his face painted with red and ocher—the sachem, bearing a small clay pot in his hand, filled with black liquid.
Alexandre had put on his clothes; he stood when the sachem approached him, but neither spoke nor moved. The sachem began to sing in a cracked old voice, and as he sang, dipped a rabbit’s foot into the pot and painted the priest’s face in black, from forehead to chin.
The Indians left, and the priest sat down on the ground, his eyes closed. Roger tried to speak to him, to offer him water, or at least the knowledge of company, but Alexandre made no response, sitting as though he had been carved of stone.
In the last of the twilight, he spoke, finally.
“There is not much time,” he said softly. “I asked you once before to pray for me. I did not know then what I would have you pray for—for the preservation of my life, or my soul. Now I know that neither is possible.”
Roger moved to speak, but the priest twitched a hand, stopping him.
“There is only the only thing I can ask for. Pray for me, brother—that I might die well. Pray that I may die in silence.” He looked at Roger for the first time, then, his eyes glinting with moisture. “I would not shame her by crying out.”
It was some time after dark that the drums began. Roger had not heard them in his time in the village. Impossible to say how many there were; the sound seemed to come from everywhere. He felt it in the marrow of his bones and the soles of his feet.
The Mohawks returned. When they came in, the priest stood up at once. He undressed himself, and walked out, naked, without a backward glance.
Roger sat staring at the hide-covered doorway, praying—and listening. He knew what a drum could do; had done it himself—evoked awe and fury with the beating of a stretched hide, calling to the deep and hidden instincts of the listener. Knowing what was happening, though, didn’t make it any less frightening.
* * *
He could not have said how long he sat there listening to the drums, hearing other sounds—voices, footsteps, the noises of a large assembly—trying not to listen for Alexandre’s voice.
Suddenly the drumming stopped. It started again, no more than a few tentative thumps, and then quit altogether. There were shouts, and then a sudden cacophany of yells. Roger started up, and hobbled toward the door. The guard was still there, though; he thrust his head through the flap and gestured menacingly, one hand on his war club.
Roger stopped, but couldn’t return to the fire. He stood in the half-dark, sweat rolling down his ribs, listening to the sounds outside.
It sounded like all the devils in hell had been let loose. What in God’s name was going on out there? A terrific fight, obviously. But who, and why?
After the first salvo of shrieks, the vocal part of it had lessened, but there were still individual high-pitched yelps and ululations from every part of the central clearing. There were thuds, too; moans, and other noises indicative of violent combat. Something struck the wall of the longhouse; the wall shivered and a bark panel cracked down the middle.
Roger glanced at the door flap; no, the guard wasn’t looking. He dashed across to the panel and tore at it with his fingers. No good; the wood fibers shredded away beneath his nails and wouldn’t give him purchase. In desperation, he pressed his eye to the hole he had made, trying to see what was happening outside.
No more than a narrow slice of the central clearing was visible. He could see the longhouse opposite, a strip of churned earth between, and over everything, the flickering light of an enormous fire. Red and yellow shadows fought with black ones, peopling the air with fiery demons.
Some of the demons were real; two dark figures reeled past and out of sight, locked in violent embrace. More figures streaked across his line of sight, running toward the fire.
Then he stiffened, pressing his face against the wood. Among the incomprehensible Mohawk yells, he could have sworn he had heard someone bellowing in Gaelic.
He had.
“Caisteal Dhuni!” somebody shouted nearby, followed by a hair-raising screech. Scots—white men! He had to get to them! Roger smashed his fists on the shattered wood in a frenzy, trying to batter his way through the panel by main force. The Gaelic voice broke loose again.
“Caisteal Dhuni!” No, wait—God, it was another voice! And the first one, answering. “Do mi! Do mi!” To me! To me! And then a fresh wave of Mohawk shrieks rose up and drowned the voices—women, it was women screaming now, their voices even louder than the men’s.
Roger flung himself at the panel, shoulder first; it cracked and splintered further, but would not give way. He tried again, and a third time, with no result. There was nothing in the longhouse that could be used as a weapon, nothing. In desperation he seized the lashings of one of the bed cubicles and tore at it with hands and teeth, ripping until he had loosened part of the frame.
He grabbed the wood, heaved; shook it and heaved again, until with a rending crack it came free in his hands, leaving him panting, holding a six-foot pole with a shattered, sharpened end. He tucked the butt end under his arm and charged the doorway, pointed end aimed like a spear at the hide flap.
He shot out into dark and flame, cold air and smoke, into noise that singed his blood. He saw a figure ahead of him, and charged it. The man danced aside, and raised a war club. Roger couldn’t stop, couldn’t turn, but threw himself flat, and the club smashed down inches from his head.
He rolled to the side and swung his pole wildly. It crashed against the Indian’s head, and the man stumbled and went down, falling over Roger.
Whisky. The man reeked of whisky. Not stopping to wonder, Roger wriggled out from under the squirming body, staggering to his feet, pole still in his hand.
A scream came from behind him and he whirled, stabbing with all his strength as he pivoted on the ball of his foot. The shock of impact shuddered up his arms and through his chest. The man he had struck was clawing at the pole; it jerked and quivered, then was wrenched from his grasp as the man fell over.
He staggered, caught himself, then whirled toward the fire. It was an immense pyre; flames billowing in a wall of pure and ardent scarlet, vivid against the night. Through the bobbing heads of the watchers, he saw the black figure in the heart of the flame, arms spread in a gesture of benediction, lashed to the pole from which he hung. Long hair fluttered up, strands catching fire with a burst of flame, surrounding the head with a halo of gold, like Christ in a missal. Then something crashed down on Roger’s head, and he dropped like a rock.
He didn’t quite lose consciousness. He couldn’t see or move, but he could still hear, dimly. There were voices near him. The yelling was still there, but fainter, almost a background noise, like the roar of the ocean.
He felt himself rise in the air, and the crackle of the flames got louder, it matched the roar in his ears…Christ, they were going to throw him into the fire! His head spun with effort and light blazed behind his shut lids, but his stubborn body wouldn’t move.
The roar diminished, but paradoxically he felt warm air brush his face. He struck the ground, half bounced, and rolled, ending up on his face, his arms flung out. Cool earth was under his fingers.
He breathed. Mechanically, one breath at a time. Very slowly, the spinning sensation began to ebb.
There was noise, a long way away, but he couldn’t hear anything near him but his own loud breathing. Very slowly, he opened one eye. Firelight flickered on poles and bark panels, a dim echo of the brilliance outside. Longhouse. He was inside again.
His breathing was loud and ragged in his ears. He tried to hold his breath, but couldn’t. Then he realized that he was holding his breath; the gasping noise was coming from someone else.
It was behind him. With immense effort, he got his hands under him, and rose onto hands and knees, swaying, eyes squinted against the pain in his head.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered to himself. He rubbed a hand hard over his face and blinked, but the man was still there, six feet away.
Jamie Fraser. He was lying on his side in a huddle of limbs, a crimson plaid tangled round his body. Half his face was obscured with blood, but there wasn’t any mistaking him.
For a moment, Roger just looked at him blankly. For months the greater part of his waking moments had been devoted to imagining a meeting with this man. Now it had happened, and it seemed simply impossible. There was room for no feeling beyond a sort of dull amazement.
He rubbed his face again, harder, forcing aside the fog of fear and adrenaline. What…what was Fraser doing here?
When thought and feeling connected again, his first recognizable feeling was neither fury nor alarm, but an absurd burst of joyful relief.
“She didn’t,” he muttered, and the words sounded queer and hoarse to his ears, after so long without spoken English. “Oh, God, she didn’t do it!”
Jamie Fraser could be here for only one reason—to rescue him. And if that was so, it was because Brianna had made her father come. Whether it was misunderstanding or malevolence that had put him through the hell of the last few months, it had not been hers.
“Didn’t,” he said again. “She didn’t.” He shuddered, both with nausea from the blow and with relief.
He had thought he would be hollow forever, but suddenly there was something there; something small, but very solid. Something he could hold in the cup of his heart. Brianna. He had her back.
There was another set of high-pitched screams from just outside; ululations that went on and on, sticking into his flesh like a thousand pins. He jerked, and shuddered again, all other feelings subsumed in renewed realization.
Dying with the reassurance that Brianna loved him was better than dying without it—but he hadn’t wanted to die in the first place. He remembered what he had seen outside, felt his gorge rise, and choked it down.
With a trembling hand he began the unfamiliar sign of the Cross. “In the name of the Father,” he whispered, and then the words failed him. “Please,” he whispered instead. “Please, don’t let him have been right.”
He crawled shakily to Fraser’s body, hoping that the man was still alive. He was; blood was flowing from a gash on Fraser’s temple, and when he thrust his fingers under the man’s jaw, he could feel the steady bump of a pulse.
There was water in one of the pots under the shattered bed frame; luckily it hadn’t spilled. He dipped the end of the plaid in water and used it to mop Fraser’s face. After a few minutes of this ministration, the man’s eyelids began to flutter.
Fraser coughed, gagged heavily, turned his head to one side, and threw up. Then his eyes shot open, and before Roger could speak or move, Fraser had rolled up onto one knee, his hand on the sgian dhu in his stocking.
Blue eyes glared at him, and Roger raised an arm in instinctive defense. Then Fraser blinked, shook his head, groaned, and sat down heavily on the earthen floor.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. He closed his eyes and groaned again. Then his head snapped up, eyes blue and piercing, but this time with alarm rather than fury.
“Claire!” he exclaimed. “My wife, where is she?”
Roger felt his jaw drop.
“Claire? You brought her here? You brought a woman into this?”
Fraser gave him a glance of extreme dislike, but wasted no words. Palming the knife from his stocking, he glanced at the doorway. The flap was down; no one was visible. The noise outside had died down, though the rumble of voices was still audible. Now and then one stood out, shouting or raised in exhortation.
“There’s a guard,” Roger said.
Fraser glanced at him and rose to his feet, smooth as a panther. Blood was still running down the side of his face, but it didn’t seem to trouble him. Silently, he flattened himself along the wall, glided to the edge of the door flap, and eased the flap aside with the tip of the tiny dagger.
Fraser grimaced at whatever he saw. Letting the flap swing back in place, he returned and sat down, putting the knife away in his stocking.
“A good dozen of them just outside. Is that water?” He put out a hand, and Roger silently scooped a gourdful of water and handed it to him. He drank deeply, splashed water in his face, then poured the rest of it over his head.
Fraser wiped a hand over his battered face, then opened bloodshot eyes and looked at Roger.
“Wakefield, is it?”
“I go by my own name, these days. MacKenzie.”
Fraser gave a brief, humorless snort.
“So I’ve heard.” He had a wide, expressive mouth—like Bree’s. His lips compressed briefly, then relaxed.
“I’ve done wrong to ye, MacKenzie, as ye’ll know. I’ve come to put it right, so far as may be, but it may be as I’ll not have the chance.” He gestured briefly toward the door. “For now, you’ve my apology. For what satisfaction ye may want of me later—I’ll bide your will. But I’d ask ye to let it wait until we’re safe out of this.”
Roger stared at him for a moment. Satisfaction for the last months of torment and uncertainty seemed as farfetched a notion as the thought of safety. He nodded.
“Done,” he said.
They sat in silence for several moments. The fire in the hut was burning low, but the wood to feed it was outside; the guards kept charge of anything that might be used as a weapon.
“What happened?” Roger asked at last. He nodded toward the door. “Out there?”
Fraser took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. For the first time, Roger noticed that he held the elbow of his right arm cradled in his left palm, the arm itself held close to the body.
“I will be damned if I know,” he said.
“They did burn the priest? He’s dead?” There could be no doubt of it after what he’d seen, but still Roger felt compelled to ask.
“He was a priest?” Thick reddish brows rose in surprise, then fell. “Aye, he’s dead. And not only him.” An involuntary shudder went over the Highlander’s big frame.
Fraser hadn’t known what they meant to do when the drums began to sound, and everyone went out to gather by the great fire. There was plenty of talk, but his knowledge of the Mohawk tongue was insufficient to make out what was happening, and his nephew, who spoke the tongue, was nowhere to be found.
The whites had not been invited, but no one made any move to keep them away. And so it was that he and Claire had come to be standing on the edge of the crowd, curious onlookers, when the sachem and the Council came out and the old man began to speak. Another man had spoken, too, very angrily.
“Then they brought the man out, naked as a tadpole, bound him to a stake, and started in upon him.” He paused, eyes shadowed, and glanced at Roger.
“I’ll tell ye, man, I’ve seen French executioners keep a man alive who wished he weren’t. It wasna worse than that—but no a great deal better.” Fraser drank again, thirstily, and lowered the cup.
“I tried to take Claire away— I didna ken but what they meant to attack us next.” The crowd was pressed so tight around them, though, that movement was impossible; there was no choice but to go on watching.
Roger’s mouth felt dry, and he reached for the cup. He didn’t want to ask, but he felt a perverse need to know—whether for Alexandre’s sake or for his own.
“Did he—cry out at all?”
Fraser gave him another glance of surprise, then something like understanding crossed his face.
“No,” he said slowly. “He died verra well—by their lights. Ye will have been knowing the man?”
Roger nodded, wordless. It was difficult to believe Alexandre was gone, even hearing this. And where had he gone? Surely he could not have been right. I will not be forgiven. Surely not. No just God—
Roger shook his head hard, pushing the thought away. It was plain that Fraser had no more than half his mind on his story, horrific as it was. He kept glancing at the door, a look of anxious expectation on his face. Was he expecting rescue?
“How many men did you bring with you?”
The blue eyes flashed, surprised.
“My nephew Ian.”
“That’s all?” Roger tried to keep the stunned disbelief out of his voice, but patently failed.
“Ye were expecting the 78th Hieland regiment?” Fraser asked sarcastically. He got to his feet, swaying slightly, arm pressed to his side. “I brought whisky.”
“Whisky? Did that have anything to do with the fighting?” Remembering the reek of the man who had fallen over him, Roger nodded toward the wall of the longhouse.
“It may have.”
Fraser went to the wall with the cracked panel, and pressed an eye against the opening, staring out at the clearing for some time before returning to the dwindling fire. Things had gone quiet outside.
The big Highlander was looking more than unwell. His face was white and sheened with sweat under the streaks of dried blood. Roger silently poured more water; it was as silently accepted. He knew well enough what was wrong with Fraser, and it wasn’t the effects of injury.
“When you last saw her—”
“When the fighting broke out.” Unable to stay seated, Fraser set down the cup and got to his feet again, prowling the confines of the longhouse like a restless bear. He paused, glancing at Roger.
“Will ye maybe ken a bit what happened there?”
“I could guess.” He acquainted Fraser with the priest’s story, finding some small respite from worry in the telling.
“They wouldn’t have harmed her,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as Fraser. “She’d nothing to do with it.”
Fraser gave a derisory snort.
“Aye, she did.” Without warning, he smashed a fist against the ground, in a muffled thump of fury. “Damn the woman!”
“She’ll be all right,” Roger repeated stubbornly. He couldn’t bear to think otherwise, but he knew what Fraser plainly knew as well—if Claire Fraser was alive, unhurt, and free, nothing could have kept her from her husband’s side. And as for the unknown nephew…
“I heard your nephew—in the fight. I heard him call out to you. He sounded all right.” Even as he offered this bit of information, he knew how feeble it was as reassurance. Fraser nodded, though, head bent on his knees.
“He’s a good lad, Ian,” he murmured. “And he has friends among the Mohawk. God send they will protect him.”
Roger’s curiosity was coming back, as the shock of the evening began to fade.
“Your wife,” he said. “What did she do? How could she possibly have been involved in this?”
Fraser sighed. He scrubbed his good hand over his face and through his hair, rubbing until the loose red locks stood up in knots and snarls.
“I shouldna have said so,” he said. “It wasna her fault in the least. It’s only—she’ll not be killed, but God, if they’ve harmed her…”
“They won’t,” Roger said firmly. “What happened?”
Fraser shrugged and closed his eyes. Head tilted back, he described the scene as though he could still see it, engraved on the inside of his eyelids. Perhaps he could.
“I didna take heed of the girl, in such a crowd. I couldna even say what she looked like. It was only at the last that I saw her.”
Claire had been by his side, white-faced and rigid in the press of shouting, swaying bodies. When the Indians had nearly finished with the priest, they untied him from the stake and fastened his hands instead to a long pole, held above his head, from which to suspend him in the flames.
Fraser glanced at him, wiping the back of a hand across his lips.
“I’ve seen a man’s heart pulled beating from his chest before,” he said. “But I hadna seen it eaten before his eyes.” He spoke almost shyly, as though apologizing for his squeamishness. Shocked, he had looked to Claire. It was then that he had seen the Indian girl standing on Claire’s other side, with a cradleboard in her arms.
With great calmness, the girl had handed the board to Claire, then turned and slipped through the crowd.
“She didna look to left or right, but walked straight into the fire.”
“What?” Roger’s throat closed with shock, the exclamation emerging in a strangled croak.
The flames had embraced the girl in moments. A head taller than the folk near him, Jamie had seen everything clearly.
“Her clothes caught, and then her hair. By the time she reached him, she was burning like a torch.” Still, he had seen the dark silhouette of her arms, raised to embrace the empty body of the priest. Within moments, it was no longer possible to distinguish man or woman; there was only the one figure, black amid the towering flames.
“It was then everything went mad.” Fraser’s wide shoulders slumped a little, and he touched the gash in his temple. “All I ken is one woman set up a howl, and then there was the hell of a screech, and of a sudden, everyone was either fleeing or fighting.”
He had himself tried to do both, shielding Claire and her burden while fighting his way out of the thrashing press of bodies. There were too many of them, though. Unable to escape, he had pushed Claire against the wall of a longhouse, seized a stick of wood with which to defend them, and shouted for Ian, while wielding his makeshift club on anyone reckless enough to come near.
“Then a wee fiend leapt out o’ the smoke, and struck me with his club.” He shrugged, one-shouldered. “I turned to fight him off, and then there were three of them on me.” Something had caught him in the temple, and he had known no more till waking in the longhouse with Roger.
“I havena seen Claire since. Nor Ian.”