48
AWAY IN A MANGER
The tiny stable was in a shallow cave under a rocky overhang, walled in along the front with a stockade of unpeeled cedar logs, sunk two feet deep in packed earth, stout enough to deter the most resolute bear. Light spilled out through the open upper half of the stable door, and ruddy, light-filled smoke shimmered up the face of the cliff above, rippling like bright water over the stone.
“Why a double door?” she had asked. It seemed excessive labor; an unnecessary refinement for such a crude structure.
“Ye must give the beasts a place to look out,” her father had explained, showing her where to smooth the leather strap hinges tight around the curve of the wood. He picked up the hammer to tack down the leather and smiled at her, kneeling over the half-made gate. “Keeps them happy, aye?”
She didn’t know if the animals were happy in the stable, but she was; cool and shadowy, smelling pungently of cut straw and the droppings of grass-fed animals, it was a peaceful refuge during the day, when its inhabitants were out grazing in the meadow. In bad weather or at night, the little stockade was a pocket of coziness; once she had passed near enough after dark to see the soft, misty exhalations of the animals drifting through the gap between wood and rock, as though the earth itself were breathing through pursed lips, warmly asleep in the autumn cold.
It was cold tonight, the stars sharp as needle points in the hard, clear air. It was only five minutes’ walk from the house, but Brianna was shivering under her cloak by the time she reached the stable. The light spilling out came not only from a hanging lantern, she saw, but also from a small makeshift brazier in the corner, providing heat and light for the vigil within.
Her father lay curled up on a bed of straw, his plaid drawn over him, within arm’s reach of the small brindled cow. The heifer lay on her chest, feet tucked to the side, grunting now and then, a look of mild concentration on her broad white face.
His head lifted abruptly at the sound of her step on the gravel, and his hand went by reflex to his belt, under his plaid.
“It’s me,” she said, and saw him relax as she came into the light. He swung his feet to the side and sat up, rubbing a hand over his face as she came in, carefully latching the lower gate behind her.
“Your mother’s not back yet?” She was clearly alone, but he glanced briefly over her shoulder as though hoping to see Claire materialize out of the darkness.
Brianna shook her head. Claire had gone with Lizzie as escort to attend a birth at one of the farms at the far side of the cove; if the child hadn’t arrived before sunset, they would stay the night at the Lachlans’.
“No. She said if she wasn’t back, I was to bring you up some supper, though.” She knelt and began to unpack the small basket she had brought, laying out small loaves of bread stuffed with cheese and tomato-pickle, a dried-apple tart, and two stone bottles—one of hot vegetable broth, the other of cider.
“That’s kind, lassie.” He smiled at her and picked up one of the bottles. “Will ye have eaten yet, yourself?”
“Oh, yes,” she assured him. “Plenty.” She had eaten, but couldn’t resist a quick look of longing at the fresh rolls; the early faint sense of malaise had left her, replaced by an appetite mildly alarming in its intensity.
He saw her glance, and with a smile, drew his dirk and sliced one of the rolls in half, handing her the bigger piece.
They munched companionably for a few moments, sitting side by side on the straw, the silence broken only by soft snuffles and grunts from the stable’s other inhabitants. The far end of the stable was fenced off to provide a pen for the gigantic sow and her new brood of piglets; Brianna could just make them out in the gloom—a row of plump bodies packed in the straw, prophetically sausage-shaped.
The rest of the small space was divided into three rough stalls. One belonged to the red cow, Magdalen, who lay in the straw peacefully chewing her cud, her month-old calf curled in sleep against her massive chest. The second stall was empty, filled with fresh straw, ready for the brindled cow and her tardy calf. The third stall held Ian’s mare, sides glossy and bulging with the weight of an impending foal.
“It looks like a maternity ward in here,” Brianna said, nodding toward Magdalen as she brushed crumbs off her skirt. Jamie smiled and raised a brow, as he always did when she said something he didn’t understand.
“Oh, aye?”
“That’s a special part of a hospital, where they put the new mothers and their babies,” she explained. “Mama would take me to work with her sometimes, and let me go look at the nursery while she did her rounds.”
She had a sudden memory of the smell of the hospital corridor, faintly acrid with the scent of disinfectant and floor polish, the babies lying bundled, plump as piglets in their bassinets, their blankets coded pink and blue. She always spent a long time going up and down the row, trying to pick which one she would take home with her, if she could keep one.
Pink or blue? For the first time, she wondered what the one she would now keep might wear. The thought of “it” as male or female was strangely upsetting, and she pushed the thought away with words.
“They put the babies all behind a glass wall, so you could look at them, but not breathe germs on them,” she said, with a glance at Magdalen, contentedly oblivious to the strings of green saliva that dripped from her placidly moving jaws onto the head of her calf.
“Germs,” he said thoughtfully. “Aye, I’ve heard about the germs. Dangerous wee beasties, are they not?”
“They can be.” She had a vivid memory of her mother checking her box of medical supplies for the visit to Lachlans’, carefully refilling the large glass bottle of distilled alcohol from the barrel in the pantry. And a more distant but equally vivid memory, of her mother explaining the past to Roger Wakefield.
“Childbirth was the most dangerous thing a woman could do,” Claire had said, frowning in memory of the sights she had seen. “Infection, ruptured placenta, abnormal presentation, miscarriage, hemorrhage, puerperal fever—in most places, surviving birth was roughly a fifty-fifty proposition.”
Brianna’s fingers felt cold, in spite of the hissing pine chunks in the brazier, and her ravenous appetite seemed suddenly to have deserted her. She set the rest of her roll down on the straw, swallowing hard, feeling as though a bite of the thick bread had wedged itself in her throat.
Her father’s broad hand touched her knee, warm even through the wool of her skirt.
“Your mother willna let ye come to harm,” he said gruffly. “She’s fought the germs before; I’ve seen her. She didna let them have the better of me, and she willna let them trouble you, either. She’s a verra stubborn person, aye?”
She laughed, and the choking feeling eased.
“She’d say it takes one to know one.”
“I expect she’s right about that.” He rose and walked around the brindled heifer, squatting down and squinting at her tail. He stood up, shaking his head, and came to sit down again. He settled comfortably back and picked up the discarded part of Brianna’s roll.
“Is she doing all right?” Brianna bent and scooped up a twist of straw, holding it invitingly under the heifer’s nose. The cow breathed heavily on her knuckles, but otherwise ignored the attention, the long-lashed brown eyes rolling restlessly to and fro. Now and then the bulging brindled sides rippled, the cow’s thick winter coat rough but shining in the light of the hanging lantern.
Jamie frowned slightly.
“Aye, I think she’ll maybe do all right. It’s her first calf, though, and she’s small for it. She’s no much more than a yearling herself; she shouldna have been bred so early, but…” He shrugged, and took another bite of roll.
Brianna wiped the sticky moisture from her hand with a fold of her skirt. Feeling suddenly restless, she stood up and walked over to the pigpen.
The vast curve of the sow’s belly rose up out of the hay like a swollen balloon, pink flesh visible beneath the soft, sparse white hair. The sow lay in stuporous dignity, breathing slow and deep, ignoring the squirms and squeaks of the hungry brood that scrabbled at her underside. One piglet was nudged too roughly by a fellow and momentarily lost his hold; there was a high-pitched shriek of protest, and a jet of milk spurted from the suddenly released nipple, hissing softly into the hay.
Brianna felt a slight tingle in her own breasts; they seemed suddenly heavier than usual, resting on her folded forearms as she leaned on the fence.
It wasn’t a particularly aesthetic picture of motherhood—not exactly Madonna and Child—but there was something vaguely reassuring about the sow’s nonchalant maternal torpor, nonetheless—a sort of careless confidence, a blind trust in natural processes.
Jamie had another look at the brindled cow, and came to stand beside Brianna by the pigpen.
“That’s a good wee lass,” he said approvingly, with a nod at the sow. As though in reply, the sow released a long, rumbling fart, and shifted a bit, stretching out in the straw with a voluptuous sigh.
“Well, she does look as though she knows what she’s doing,” Brianna agreed, biting her lip.
“That she does. She’s a wicked temper, but she’s an able mother, for-bye. This will be her fourth litter, and not one lost or a runt weaned yet.” He nodded approvingly at the sow, then glanced at the brindled heifer. “I could hope that one does half so well.”
She took a deep breath.
“What if she doesn’t?”
He didn’t answer at once, but stood leaning on the fence, looking down at the gently squirming litter. Then his shoulders rose slightly.
“If she canna bring forth the calf alone, and I canna pull it for her, then I shall have to slaughter her,” he said, matter-of-factly. “If I can save the calf, I can maybe foster it on Magdalen.”
Her insides clenched tight, making lumps and knots of the food she’d eaten. She’d seen the dirk at his belt, of course, but it was so much a part of his normal costume, she hadn’t thought to question its presence in this pastoral setting. The small round presence in her belly lay still and heavy, like a time bomb waiting.
He crouched beside the brindled heifer, and ran a light hand over the bulging flank. Evidently satisfied for the moment, he scratched the cow between the ears, muttering in Gaelic.
How could he murmur endearments to it, she thought, knowing that within hours he might be slicing into its living flesh? It seemed cold-blooded; did a butcher whisper “Sweet lass” to his victims? A small icy doubt dropped into her stomach, to join the other cold weights that lay there, like a collection of ball bearings.
He stood up and stretched himself, groaning as his spine crackled. He shifted his shoulders, settled, blinked, and smiled at her.
“Will I walk ye to the house, lassie? It will be some time before aught happens here.”
She looked up at him, hesitating, but then made up her mind.
“No, I’ll wait with you a little while. If you don’t mind?”
Now, she decided on impulse. She would ask now. She had been waiting for days for the right time, but when could a time possibly be right for something like this? At least they would be alone now, with no chance of disturbance.
“As ye like. I shall be glad of the company.”
Not for long, she thought, as he turned away to rummage in the basket she had brought. She would much have preferred darkness. It would have been a lot easier to ask what she needed to know, on the dark trail to the house. But words wouldn’t be enough; she had to see his face.
Her mouth was dry; she accepted gratefully when he offered her a cup of cider. It was strong and rich, and the slight buzz of alcohol seemed to lighten the weight in her belly a little.
She gave him the cup but didn’t wait for him to drink, afraid the momentary heartening effect of the cider would desert her before she could get the words out.
“Da—”
“Aye, lass?” He was pouring more cider, his eyes fixed on the cloudy golden stream.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Mm?”
She took a deep breath and got it out in a rush.
“Did you kill Jack Randall?”
He froze for a moment, the jug still tilted over the cup. Then he turned the jug carefully upright, and set it down on the floor.
“And where will ye have heard that name?” he asked. He looked at her straight on, his voice as level as his eyes. “From your father, maybe? From Frank Randall?”
“Mother told me about him.”
A muscle twitched near the corner of his mouth, the only outward indication of shock.
“Did she.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway.
“She told me what—what happened. What he d-did to you. At Wentworth.”
Her small spurt of courage was exhausted, but it didn’t matter; she was in too deep to go back now. He simply sat and looked at her, the gourd cup forgotten in his hand. She longed to take it and drain it herself, but didn’t dare.
It occurred to her, much too late, that he might think it a betrayal that Claire had told anyone, let alone her. She rushed ahead, babbling in her nervousness.
“It wasn’t now; it was before—I didn’t know you—she thought I’d never meet you. I mean—I don’t think—I know she didn’t mean to—” He raised one eyebrow at her.
“Be still, aye?”
She was only too glad to stop talking. She couldn’t look at him, but sat staring down at her lap, her fingers pleating the russet cloth of her skirt. The silence lengthened, broken only by the shiftings and muffled squeals of the piglets, and an occasional digestive rumbling from Magdalen.
Why hadn’t she found some other way? she wondered, in an agony of embarrassment. Thou shalt not uncover they father’s nakedness. To invoke Jack Randall’s name was to invoke the images of what he had done—and that was not something she could bear even to think about. She should have asked her mother, let Claire ask him…but no. There hadn’t been any choice, not really. She had to find out from him…
Her racing thoughts were interrupted by his words, calmly spoken.
“Why are ye asking, lass?”
She jerked her head up, to find him watching her over his undrunk cider. He didn’t look upset, and the jelly in her backbone stiffened a little. She clenched her fists on her knees to steady herself, and met his eyes, straight on.
“I need to know whether it will help. I want to kill…him. The man who—” She made a vague gesture at her belly, and swallowed hard. “But if I do, and it doesn’t help—” She couldn’t go on.
He didn’t seem shocked; abstracted, rather. He raised the cup to his mouth and took a sip, slowly.
“Mmphm. And will ye have killed a man before?” He phrased it as a question, but she knew it wasn’t. The muscle quivered near his mouth again—with amusement, she thought, not shock—and she felt a quick spurt of anger.
“You think I can’t, don’t you? I can. You’d better believe me, I can!” Her hands spread out, gripping her knees, broad and capable. She thought she could do it; though her image of how it might happen wavered. In cold blood, shooting seemed the best, perhaps the only certain way. But trying to imagine this, she had realized vividly the truth of the old saying “Shooting’s too good for him.”
It might be too good for Bonnet; it wouldn’t be nearly good enough for her. In the night when she flung off her blankets, unable to bear even this slight weight and its reminder of restraint, she didn’t just want him dead—she wanted to kill him, purely and passionately—kill him with her hands, taking back by the flesh what had been taken from her by that means.
And yet…what good would it be to murder him, if he would still haunt her? There was no way to know—unless her father could tell her.
“Will you tell me?” she blurted. “Did you kill him, finally—and did it help?”
He seemed to be thinking it over, his eyes traveling slowly over her, narrowed in assessment.
“And what would be helped by your doing murder?” he asked. “It willna take the child from your belly—or give ye back your maidenheid.”
“I know that!” She felt her face flush hot, and turned away, irritated both with him and herself. They spoke of rape and murder, and she was embarrassed to have him mention her lost virginity? She forced herself to look back at him.
“Mama said you tried to kill Jack Randall in Paris, in a duel. What did you think you’d get back?”
He rubbed his chin hard, then drew in his breath through his nose and let it out slowly, eyes fixed on the stained rock of the ceiling.
“I meant to take back my manhood,” he said softly. “My honor.”
“You think my honor isn’t worth taking back? Or do you figure it’s the same thing as my maidenheid?” She mocked his accent nastily.
Sharp blue eyes swung back to hers.
“Is it the same thing to you?”
“No, it is not,” she said, through clenched teeth.
“Good,” he said, shortly.
“Then answer me, damn it!” She struck a fist on the straw, finding no satisfaction in the soundless blow. “Did killing him give you back your honor? Did it help? Tell me the truth!”
She stopped, breathing heavily. She glared at him, and he met her eyes with a cold stare. Then he raised the cup abruptly to his mouth, swallowed the cider in one gulp, and set the cup down on the hay beside him.
“The truth? The truth is that I dinna ken whether I killed him or no.”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise.
“You don’t know whether you killed him?”
“I said so.” A slight jerk of the shoulders betrayed his impatience. He stood up abruptly, as if unable to sit any longer.
“He died at Culloden, and I was there. I woke on the moor after the battle, with Randall’s corpse on top of me. I ken that much—and not much more.” He paused as though thinking, then, mind made up, he thrust one knee forward, pulled up his kilt and nodded downward. “Look.”
It was an old scar, but no less impressive for its age. It ran up the inner side of his thigh, nearly a foot in length, its lower end starred and knotted like the head of a mace, the rest of it a cleaner line, though thick and twisted.
“A bayonet, I expect,” he said, looking at it dispassionately. He dropped the kilt, hiding the scar once more.
“I remember the feel of the blade strikin’ bone, and no more. Not what came after—or before.”
He took a deep, audible breath, and for the first time she realized that his apparent calmness was taking a good deal of effort to maintain.
“I thought it a blessing—that I couldna remember,” he said at last. He wasn’t looking at her, but into the shadows at the end of the stable. “There were gallant men who died there; men I loved well. If I didna know their deaths; if I couldna recall them or see them in my mind—then I didna have to think of them as dead. Maybe that was cowardice, maybe not. Perhaps I chose not to remember that day; perhaps I cannot if I would.” He looked down at her, his eyes gone softer, but then turned away, plaid swinging, not waiting for an answer.
“Afterward—aye, well. Vengeance didna seem important, then. There were a thousand dead men on that field, and I thought I should be one of them in hours. Jack Randall…” He made an odd, impatient gesture, brushing aside the thought of Jack Randall as he might a biting deerfly. “He was one of them. I thought I could leave him to God. Then.”
She took a deep breath, trying to keep her feelings under control. Curiosity and sympathy struggled with an overwhelming feeling of frustration.
“You’re…all right, though. I mean—in spite of what he—did to you?”
He gave her a look of exasperation, understanding mingled with half-angry amusement.
“Not many die of it, lass. Not me. And not you.”
“Not yet.” Involuntarily, she put a hand over her belly. She stared up at him. “I guess we’ll see in six months if I die of it.”
That rattled him; she could see it. He blew out his breath and scowled at her.
“Ye’ll do fine,” he said curtly. “Ye’re wider through the hip than yon wee heifer.”
“Like your mother? Everybody says how much I’m like her. I guess she was wide through the hip, too, but it didn’t save her, did it?”
He flinched. Quick and sharp as though she’d slapped him across the face with a stinging nettle. Perversely, seeing it filled her with panic, rather than the satisfaction she’d expected.
She understood then that his promise of protection was in good part illusion. He would kill for her, yes. Or willingly die himself, she had no doubt. He would—if she let him—avenge her honor, destroy her enemies. But he could not defend her from her own child; he was as powerless to save her from that threat as if she had never found him.
“I’ll die,” she said, cold certainty filling her belly like frozen mercury. “I know I will.”
“Ye won’t!” He rounded on her fiercely, and she felt his hands bite into her upper arms. “I will not let you!”
She would have given anything to believe him. Her lips were numb and stiff, rage giving way to a cold despair.
“You can’t help,” she said. “You can’t do anything!”
“Your mother can,” he said, but sounded only half convinced. His grip slackened, and she wrenched herself free.
“No, she can’t—not without a hospital, without drugs and things. If it—if it goes wrong, all she can do is try to save the b-baby.” Despite herself, her gaze flickered to his dirk, blade gleaming cold against the straw where he had left it.
Her knees felt watery, and she sat down suddenly. He snatched up the jug and slopped cider into a cup, pushing it under her nose.
“Drink it,” he said. “Drink up, lass, you’re pale as my sark.” His hand was on the back of her head, urging her. She took a sip, but choked and drew back, waving him off. She drew a sleeve across her wet chin, wiping off the spilled cider.
“You know what’s the worst? You said it wasn’t my fault, but it is.”
“It is not!”
She flapped a hand at him, bidding him be quiet.
“You talked about cowardice; you know what it is. Well, I was a coward. I should have fought, I shouldn’t have let him…but I was scared of him. If I’d been brave enough, this wouldn’t have happened, but I wasn’t, I was scared! And now I’m even more scared,” she said, voice breaking. She took a deep breath to steady herself, bracing her hands on the straw.
“You can’t help, and neither can Mama, and I can’t do anything either. And Roger—” Her voice did crack then, and she bit her lip hard, forcing back tears.
“Brianna—a leannan…” He made a move to comfort her, but she drew back, arms folded tight across her stomach.
“I keep thinking—if I kill him, that’s something I can do. It’s the only thing I can do. If I—if I have to die, at least I’ll take him with me, and if I don’t—then maybe I can forget, if he’s dead.”
“Ye willna forget.” The words were blunt and uncompromising as a blow to the stomach. He was still holding the cup of cider. Now he tilted back his head and drank, quite deliberately.
“It doesna matter, though,” he said, setting down the cup with an air of businesslike finality. “We shall find you a husband, and once the babe’s born, ye willna have much time to fret.”
“What?” She gaped at him. “What do you mean, find me a husband?”
“You’ll need one, aye?” he said, in tones of mild surprise. “The bairn must have a father. And if ye willna tell me the name of the man who’s given ye a swollen belly, so that I might make him do his duty by ye—”
“You think I’d marry the man who did this?” Her voice cracked again, this time with astonishment.
His voice sharpened slightly.
“Well, I’m thinkin’—are ye maybe playin’ wi’ the truth a bit, lass? Perhaps it wasna rape at all; perhaps it was that ye took a mislike to the man, and ran—and made up the story later. Ye were not marked, after all. Hard to think a man could force a lass of your size, if ye were unwilling altogether.”
“You think I’m lying?”
He raised one brow in cynicism. Furious, she swung a hand at him, but he caught her by the wrist.
“Ah, now,” he said, reprovingly. “Ye’re no the first lass to make a slip and try to hide it, but—” He caught the other wrist as she struck at him, and pulled them both up sharply.
“Ye dinna need to make such a fuss,” he said. “Or is it that ye wanted the man and he threw ye over? Is that it?”
She swiveled in his grip, used her weight to swing aside, brought her knee up hard. He turned only slightly, and her knee collided with his thigh, not the vulnerable flesh between his legs she had been aiming for.
The blow must have bruised him, but didn’t lessen his grip on her wrists in the least. She twisted, kicking, cursing her skirts. She hit his shin dead-on at least twice, but he only chuckled, as though finding her struggles funny.
“Is that all ye can do, lassie?” He broke his grip then, but only to shift both her wrists to one hand. The other prodded her playfully in the ribs.
“There was a man
In Muir of Skene,
He had dirks
And I had none;
But I fell on him
With my thumbs,
And wot you how,
I dirkit him,
Dirkit him,
Dirkit him?”