“GET AWAY FROM MY WIFE.” William Buccleigh MacKenzie emerged from the shrubbery with a great rustling of leaves and a look of sinister intent upon his face. He was a tall man, close to Roger’s own height, and burly through the shoulders. Further personal details seemed inconsequent, given that he also had a knife. It was still sheathed at his belt, but his hand rested on the hilt in a significant manner.
Roger resisted his original impulse, which had been to say, “It’s not what you think.” It wasn’t, but there weren’t any plausible alternatives to suggest.
“I meant her no disrespect,” he said, instead, straightening up slowly. He felt it would be unwise to make any quick moves. “My apologies.”
“No? And just what the hell d’ye mean by it, then?” MacKenzie put a possessive hand on his wife’s shoulder, glowering at Roger. She flinched; her husband’s fingers were digging into her flesh. Roger would have liked to knock the hand away, but that was likely to cause more trouble than he had already.
“I met your wife—and you—” he added, “on board the Gloriana, a year or two ago. When I recognized her here, I thought to inquire as to the family’s welfare. That’s all.”
“He meant nay harm, William.” Morag touched her husband’s hand, and the painful grip lessened. “It’s right, what he says. Do ye not ken the man? It was him that found me and Jemmy in the hold when we hid there—he brought us food and water.”
“You asked me to care for them,” Roger added pointedly. “During the fight, that night when the sailors threw the sick ones into the sea.”
“Oh, aye?” MacKenzie’s features relaxed a trifle. “It was you, was it? I didna see your face, in the dark.”
“I didn’t see yours, either.” He could see it clearly now, and despite the awkwardness of the present circumstances, couldn’t help studying it with interest.
So this was the son—unacknowledged—of Dougal MacKenzie, erstwhile war chief of the MacKenzies of Leoch. He looked it. His was a rougher, squarer, fairer version of the family face, but looking carefully, Roger could easily spot the broad cheekbones and high forehead that Jamie Fraser had inherited from his mother’s clan. That and the family height; MacKenzie stood over six feet tall, nearly eye to eye with Roger himself.
The man turned slightly at a sound in the brush, and the sun lit those eyes with a flash of bright moss-green. Roger had a sudden urge to shut his own eyes, lest MacKenzie feel the same bolt of recognition.
MacKenzie had other concerns, though. Two men emerged from the bushes, wary-eyed and grimy with long camping. One held a musket; the other was armed with nothing but a rough club cut from a fallen limb.
“Who’s this, then, Buck?” the man with the gun asked, eyeing Roger with some suspicion.
“That’s what I mean to be finding out.” The momentary softening had disappeared, leaving MacKenzie’s face grimly set. He turned his wife away from him and gave her a small push. “Go ye back to the women, Morag. I’ll deal with this fellow.”
“But, William—” Morag glanced from Roger to her husband, face drawn in distress. “He hasna done anything—”
“Oh, ye think it’s nothing, do you, that a man should cheek up to ye in public, like a common radge?” William turned a black look on her, and she blushed suddenly crimson, evidently recalling the kiss, but stumbled on.
“I—no, I mean—that is—he was kind to us, we shouldna be—”
“I said go back!”
She opened her mouth as though to protest, then flinched as William made a sudden move in her direction, fist clenched. Without an instant of conscious decision, Roger swung from the waist, his own fist hitting MacKenzie’s jaw with a crack that jarred his arm to the elbow.
Caught off-balance, William staggered and fell to one knee, shaking his head like a pole-axed ox. Morag’s gasp was drowned by startled exclamations from the other men. Before he could turn to face them, Roger heard a sound behind him—quiet in itself, but loud enough to chill the blood; the small, cold snick of a hammer drawing back.
There was a brief pst! of igniting powder, and then a phfoom! as the gun went off with a roar and a puff of black smoke. Everyone jerked and stumbled with the noise, and Roger found himself struggling in a confused sort of way with one of the other men, both of them coughing and half-deafened. As he shoved his assailant off, he caught sight of Morag, kneeling in the leaves, dabbing at her husband’s face with a bit of wet laundry. William shoved her roughly away, scrambled to his feet, and headed for Roger, his eyes bulging, face blotched red with fury.
Roger spun on his heel, slipping in the leaves, and shook off the grip of the man with the gun, making for the shelter of the bushes. Then he was into the thicket, twigs and small branches splintering around him, raking face and arms as he thrust his way through. A heavy crashing and the huff of breath came just behind him, and a hand fastened on his shoulder with a grip of iron.
He seized the hand and twisted hard, hearing a crack of joint and bone. The hand’s owner yelled and jerked back, and Roger flung himself headlong toward an opening in the scrub.
He hit the ground on one shoulder, half-curled, rolled, broke through a small bush, and tobogganed down a steep clay bank and into the water, where he landed with a splash.
Scrabbling to find a foothold, he plunged and coughed and flapped upright, shaking hair and water from his eyes, only to see William MacKenzie poised at the top of the bank above him. Seeing his enemy thus at a disadvantage, MacKenzie launched himself with a whoop.
Something like a cannonball crashed into Roger’s chest and he fell back into the water in a mighty splash, hearing the distant shrieks of women. He couldn’t breathe and couldn’t see, but grappled with the twisting mess of clothes and limbs and roiling mud, churning the bottom as he strove vainly for footing, lungs bursting for air.
His head broke the surface. His mouth opened and closed like a fish’s, gulping air, and he heard the wheeze of his breath, and MacKenzie’s, too. MacKenzie broke away, floundering, and stood upright a few feet away, wheezing like an engine as water poured from his clothes. Roger bent, chest heaving, hands braced on his thighs and his arms quivering with effort. With a final gulp of air, he straightened, wiping away the wet hair plastered over his face.
“Look,” he began, panting, “I—”
He got no further, for MacKenzie, still breathing heavily himself, was advancing on him through the waist-deep water. The man’s face had an odd, eager look, and the moss-green eyes were very bright.
Belatedly, Roger thought of something else. The man was the son of Dougal MacKenzie. But the son also of Geillis Duncan, witch.
Somewhere beyond the willows, there was a deep booming noise, and flocks of startled birds rose screeching from the trees. The battle had begun.