Outlander (Outlander, #1)

PART FOUR

A Whiff of Brimstone

24

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS

The hubbub occasioned by our sudden arrival and the announcement of our marriage was overshadowed almost at once by an event of greater importance.

We were sitting at supper in the great Hall the next day, accepting the toasts and good wishes being offered in our honor.

“Buidheachas, mo caraid.” Jamie bowed gracefully to the latest toaster, and sat down amid the increasingly sporadic applause. The wooden bench shook under his weight, and he closed his eyes briefly.

“Getting a bit much for you?” I whispered. He had borne the brunt of the toasting, matching each cup drained on our behalf, while I had so far escaped with no more than token sips, accompanied by bright smiles at the incomprehensible Gaelic toasts.

He opened his eyes and looked down at me, smiling himself.

“Am I drunk, do ye mean? Nay, I could drink this stuff all night.”

“You practically have,” I said, peering at the array of empty wine bottles and stone ale-jars lined up on the board in front of us. “It’s getting rather late.” The candles on Colum’s table burned low in their holders, and the guttered wax glowed gold, the light marking the MacKenzie brothers with odd patches of shadow and glinting flesh as they leaned together, talking in low voices. They could have joined the company of carved gnomic heads that edged the huge fireplace, and I wondered how many of those caricatured figures had in fact been drawn from the patronizing features of earlier MacKenzie lairds—perhaps by a carver with a sense of humor…or a strong family connection.

Jamie stretched slightly in his seat, grimacing in mild discomfort.

“On the other hand,” he said, “my bladder’s going to burst in another moment or two. I’ll be back shortly.” He put his hands on the bench and hopped nimbly up and over it, disappearing through the lower archway.

I turned my attention to my other side, where Geillis Duncan sat, demurely sipping at a silver cup of ale. Her husband, Arthur, sat at the next table with Colum, as befitted the procurator fiscal of the district, but Geilie had insisted on sitting next to me, saying that she had no wish to be wearied by hearing man-talk all through supper.

Arthur’s deepset eyes were half-closed, blue-pouched and sunk with wine and fatigue. He leaned heavily on his forearms, face slack, ignoring the conversation of the MacKenzies next to him. While the light threw the sharp-cut features of the laird and his brother into a high relief, it merely made Arthur Duncan look fat and ill.

“Your husband isn’t looking very well,” I observed. “Has his stomach trouble got worse?” The symptoms were rather puzzling; not like ulcer, I thought, nor cancer—not with that much flesh still on his bones—perhaps just chronic gastritis, as Geilie insisted.

She cast the briefest of glances at her spouse before turning back to me with a shrug.

“Oh, he’s well enough,” she said. “No worse, at any rate. But what about your husband?”

“Er, what about him?” I replied cautiously.

She dug me familiarly in the ribs with a rather sharp elbow, and I realized that there were a fair number of bottles at her end of the table as well.

“Well, what d’ye think? Does he look as nice out of his sark as he does in it?”

“Um…” I groped for an answer, as she craned her neck toward the entryway.

“And you claiming you didna care a bit for him! Cleverboots. Half the girls in the castle would like to tear your hair out by the roots—I’d be careful what I ate, if I were you.”

“What I eat?” I looked down in bafflement at the wooden platter before me, empty but for a smear of grease and a forlorn boiled onion.

“Poison,” she hissed dramatically in my ear, along with a considerable wafting of brandy fumes.

“Nonsense,” I said, rather coldly, drawing away from her. “No one would want to poison me simply because I…well, because…” I was floundering a bit, and it occurred to me that I might have had a few sips more than I had realized.

“Now, really, Geilie. This marriage…I didn’t plan it, you know. I didn’t want it!” No lie there. “It was merely a…sort of…necessary business arrangement,” I said, hoping the candlelight hid my blushes.

“Ha,” she said cynically. “I ken the look of a lass that’s been well bedded.” She glanced toward the archway where Jamie had disappeared. “And damned if I think those are midge bites on the laddie’s neck, either.” She raised one silver brow at me. “If it was a business arrangement, I’d say ye got your money’s worth.”

She leaned close again.

“Is it true?” she whispered. “About the thumbs?”

“Thumbs? Geilie, what in God’s name are you babbling about?”

She looked down her small, straight nose at me, frowning in concentration. The beautiful grey eyes were slightly unfocused, and I hoped she wouldn’t fall over.

“Surely ye know that? Everyone knows! A man’s thumbs tell ye the size of his cock. Great toes, too, of course,” she added judiciously, “but those are harder to judge, usually, what wi’ the shoon and all. Yon wee fox-cub,” she nodded toward the archway, where Jamie had just reappeared, “he could cup a good-sized marrow in those hands of his. Or a good-sized arse, hm?” she added, nudging me once more.

“Geillis Duncan, will…you…shut…up!” I hissed, face flaming. “Someone will hear you!”

“Oh, no one who—” she began, but stopped, staring. Jamie had passed right by our table, as though he didn’t see us. His face was pale, and his lips set firmly, as though bent on some unpleasant duty.

“Whatever ails him?” Geilie asked. “He looks like Arthur after he’s eaten raw turnips.”

“I don’t know.” I pushed back the bench, hesitating. He was heading for Colum’s table. Should I follow him? Plainly something had happened.

Geilie, peering back down the room, suddenly tugged at my sleeve, pointing in the direction from which Jamie had appeared.

A man stood just within the archway, hesitating even as I was. His clothes were stained with mud and dust; a traveler of some sort. A messenger. And whatever the message, he had passed it on to Jamie, who was even now bending to whisper it in Colum’s ear.

No, not Colum. Dougal. The red head bent low between the two dark ones, the broad handsome features of the three faces taking on an unearthly similarity in the light of the dying candles. And as I watched, I realized that the similarity was due not so much to the inheritance of bone and sinew that they shared, but to the expression of shocked grief that they now held in common.

Geilie’s hand was digging into the flesh of my forearm.

“Bad news,” she said, unnecessarily.

“Twenty-four years,” I said softly. “It seems a long time to be married.”

“Aye, it does,” Jamie agreed. A warm wind stirred the branches of the tree above us, lifting the hair from my shoulders to tickle my face. “Longer than I’ve been alive.”

I glanced at him leaning on the paddock fence, all lanky grace and strong bones. I tended to forget how young he really was; he seemed so self-assured and capable.

“Still,” he said, flicking a straw into the churned mud of the paddock, “I doubt Dougal spent more than three years of that with her. He was generally here, ye ken, at the Castle—or here and there about the lands, doing Colum’s business for him.”

Dougal’s wife, Maura, had died at their estate of Beannachd. A sudden fever. Dougal himself had left at dawn, in company with Ned Gowan and the messenger who had brought the news the night before, to arrange the funeral and dispose of his wife’s property.

“Not a close marriage, then?” I asked curiously.

Jamie shrugged.

“As close as most, I should reckon. She had the children and the running of the house to keep her busy; I doubt she missed him greatly, though she seemed glad enough to see him when he came home.”

“That’s right, you lived with them for a time, didn’t you?” I was quiet, thinking. I wondered whether this was Jamie’s idea of marriage; separate lives, joining only infrequently for the breeding of children. Yet, from the little he had said, his own parents’ marriage had been a close and loving one.

With that uncanny trick of reading my thoughts, he said, “It was different wi’ my own folk, ye ken. Dougal’s was an arranged marriage, like Colum’s and a matter more of lands and business than the wanting of each other. But my parents—well, they wed for love, against the wishes of both families, and so we were…not cut off, exactly; but more by ourselves at Lallybroch. My parents didna go often to visit relatives or do business outside, and so I think they turned more to each other than husband and wife usually do.”

He laid a hand low on my back and urged me closer to him. He bent his head and brushed his lips across the top of my ear.

“It was an arrangement between us,” he said softly. “Still, I would hope…perhaps one day—” He broke off awkwardly, with a crooked smile and a gesture of dismissal.

Not wanting to encourage him in that direction, I smiled back as neutrally as I could, and turned toward the paddock. I could feel him there beside me, not quite touching, big hands gripping the top rail of the fence. I gripped the rail myself, to keep from taking his hand. I wanted more than anything to turn to him, offer him comfort, assure him with body and words that what lay between us was more than a business arrangement. It was the truth of it that stopped me.

What it is between us, he had said. When I lie with you, when you touch me. No, it wasn’t usual at all. It wasn’t a simple infatuation, either, as I had first thought. Nothing could be less simple.

The fact remained that I was bound, by vows and loyalty and law, to another man. And by love as well.

I could not, could not tell Jamie what I felt for him. To do that and then to leave, as I must, would be the height of cruelty. Neither could I lie to him.

“Claire.” He had turned to me, was looking down at me; I could feel it. I didn’t speak, but raised my face to him as he bent to kiss me. I couldn’t lie to him that way either, and didn’t. After all, I thought dimly, I had promised him honesty.

We were interrupted by a loud “Ahem!” from behind the paddock fence. Jamie, startled, whirled toward the sound, instinctively thrusting me behind him. Then he stopped and grinned, seeing Old Alec MacMahon standing there in his filthy trews, viewing us sardonically with his one bright blue eye.

The old man held a wicked-looking pair of gelding shears, which he raised in ironic salute.

“I was goin’ to use these on Mahomet,” he remarked. “Perhaps they could be put to better use here, eh?” He snicked the thick blades invitingly. “It’d keep your mind on your work, and off your cock, laddie.”

“Don’t even jest about it, man,” said Jamie, grinning. “Wanting me, were ye?”

Alec waggled an eyebrow like a woolly caterpillar.

“No, what gives ye to think that? I thought I’d like to try gelding a blooded two-year-old all by mysel’, for the joy of it.” He wheezed briefly at his own wit, then waved the shears toward the Castle.

“Off wi’ ye, lassie. Ye can have him back at supper—for what good he’ll be to ye by then.”

Apparently not trusting the nature of this last remark, Jamie reached out a long arm and neatly snagged the shears.

“I’ll feel safer if I’ve got these,” he said, cocking an eyebrow at Old Alec. “Go along, Sassenach. When I’ve finished doing all of Alec’s work for him, I’ll come and find ye.”

He leaned down to kiss my cheek, and whispered in my ear, “The stables. When the sun’s mid-sky.”

The stables of Castle Leoch were better built than many of the cottages I had seen on our journey with Dougal. Stone floored and stone walled, the only openings were the narrow windows at one end, the door at the other, and the narrow slits under the thick thatched roof, intended for the convenience of the owls who kept down the mice in the hay. They let in plenty of air, though, and enough light that the stables were pleasantly dim rather than gloomy.

Up in the hayloft, just under the roof, the light was even better, striping the piled hay with yellow bars and lighting the drifting dust motes like showers of gold dust. The air came in through the chinks in warm drafts, scented with stock and sweet william and garlic from the gardens outside, and the pleasant animal smell of the horses wafted up from below.

Jamie stirred under my hand and sat up, the movement bringing his head from the shadow into a blaze of sunlight like the lighting of a candle.

“What is it?” I asked sleepily, turning my head in the direction he was looking.

“Wee Hamish,” he said softly, peering over the edge of the loft into the stable below. “Wants his pony, I expect.”

I rolled awkwardly onto my stomach beside him, dragging the folds of my shift over me for modesty’s sake; a silly thought, as no one below could see more than the top of my head.

Colum’s son Hamish was walking slowly down the aisle of the stable between the stalls. He seemed to hesitate near some stalls, though he ignored the curious heads of chestnut and sorrel poking out to inspect him. Clearly he was looking for something, and it wasn’t his fat brown pony, placidly munching straw in its stall near the stable door.

“Holy God, he’s going for Donas!” Jamie seized his kilt and wrapped it hurriedly about himself before swinging down from the edge of the loft. Not bothering with the ladder, he hung by his hands and then dropped to the floor. He landed lightly on the straw-scattered stones, but with enough of a thud to make Hamish whirl around with a startled gasp.

The small freckled face relaxed somewhat as he realized who it was, but the blue eyes stayed wary.

“Needing a bit of help, coz?” Jamie inquired pleasantly. He moved toward the stalls and leaned against one of the uprights, managing to insert himself between Hamish and the stall the boy had been heading for.

Hamish hesitated, but then drew himself up, small chin thrust out.

“I’m going to ride Donas,” he said, in a tone that tried for determination, but fell somewhat short.

Donas—his name meant “demon,” and was in no way meant as flattery—was in a horsebox to himself at the far end of the stable, safely separated by an empty stall from the nearest neighboring horses. A huge, evil-tempered sorrel stallion, he was ridable by no one, and only Old Alec and Jamie dared go near him. There was an irritable squeal from the shadows of his stall, and an enormous copper head shot suddenly out, huge yellow teeth clacking together as the horse made a vain attempt to bite the bare shoulder so temptingly displayed.

Jamie stayed motionless, knowing that the stallion couldn’t reach him. Hamish jumped back with a squeak, clearly scared speechless by the sudden appearance of that monstrous shimmering head, with its rolling, bloodshot eyes and flaring nostrils.

“I dinna think so,” observed Jamie mildly. He reached down and took his small cousin by the shoulder, steering him away from the horse, who kicked his stall in protest. Hamish shuddered in concert with the boards of the stall as the lethal hooves crashed against the wood.

Jamie turned the boy around to face him and stood looking down at him, hands on his kilted hips.

“Now then,” he said firmly. “What’s this all about? Why are ye wanting aught to do wi’ Donas?”

Hamish’s jaw was set stubbornly, but Jamie’s face was both encouraging and adamant. He punched the boy gently on the shoulder, getting a tiny smile response.

“Come on, duine,” Jamie said, softly. “Ye know I wilna tell anyone. Have ye done something foolish?”

A faint flush came up on the boy’s fair skin.

“No. At least…no. Well, maybe a bit foolish.”

After a bit more encouragement, the story came out, reluctantly at first, then in a tumbling flood of confession.

He had been out on his pony, riding with some of the other boys the day before. Several of the older lads had started competing, to see who could jump his horse over a higher obstacle. Jealously admiring them, Hamish’s better judgment was finally overcome by bravado, and he had tried to force his fat little pony over a stone fence. Lacking both ability and interest, the pony had come to a dead stop at the fence, tossing young Hamish over his head, over the fence, and ignominiously into a nettle patch on the other side. Stung both by nettles and by the hoots of his comrades, Hamish was determined to come out today on “a proper horse,” as he put it.

“They wouldna laugh if I came out on Donas,” he said, envisioning the scene with grim relish.

“No, they wouldna laugh,” Jamie agreed. “They’d be too busy picking up the pieces.”

He eyed his cousin, shaking his head slowly. “I’ll tell ye, lad. It takes courage and sense to make a good rider. You’ve the courage, but the sense is a wee bit lacking, yet.” He put a consoling arm round Hamish’s shoulders, drawing him down toward the end of the stable.

“Come along, man. Help me fork the hay, and we’ll get ye acquainted wi’ Cobhar. You’re right; ye should have a better horse if you’re ready, but it isna necessary to kill yourself to prove it.”

Glancing up into the loft as he passed, he raised his eyebrows and shrugged helplessly. I smiled and waved down at him, telling him to go ahead, it was all right. I watched them as Jamie took an apple from the basket of windfalls kept near the door. Fetching a pitchfork from the corner, he led Hamish back to one of the center stalls.

“Here, coz,” he said, pausing. He whistled softly through his teeth and a wide-browed bay horse put its head out, blowing through its nostrils. The dark eyes were large and kind, and the ears had a slight forward cock that gave the horse an expression of friendly alertness.

“Now then, Cobhar, ciamar a tha thu?” Jamie patted the sleek neck firmly, and scratched the cocked ears.

“Come on up,” he said, motioning to his small cousin. “That’s it, next to me. Near enough he can smell ye. Horses like to smell ye.”

”I know.” Hamish’s high voice was scornful. He barely reached the horse’s nose, but reached up and patted. He stood his ground as the big head came down and sniffed interestedly around his ear, whuffling in his hair.

“Give me an apple,” he said to Jamie, who obliged. The soft velvet lips plucked the fruit delicately out of Hamish’s palm, and flicked it back between the huge molars, where it vanished with a juicy crunch. Jamie watched approvingly.

“Aye. You’ll get on fine. Go on and make friends, then, while I finish feeding the others, then ye can take him out to ride.”

“By myself?” Hamish asked eagerly. Cobhar, whose name meant “Foam,” was good-tempered, but a sound, spirited 14-hand gelding, nonetheless, and a far cry from the brown pony.

“Twice round the paddock wi’ me watchin’ ye, and if ye dinna fall off or jerk his mouth, ye can take him by yourself. No jumping him ‘til I say, though.” The long back bent, gleaming in the warm dusk of the stable, as Jamie caught up a forkful of hay from the pile in one corner and carried it to one of the stalls.

He straightened and smiled at his cousin. “Gi’ me one of those, will ye?” He leaned the fork against a stall and bit into the proffered fruit. The two stood companionably eating, leaning side by side against the stable wall. When he finished, Jamie handed the core to a nuzzling sorrel and fetched his fork again. Hamish followed him down the aisle, chewing slowly.

“I’ve heard my father was a good rider,” Hamish offered tentatively, after a moment’s silence. “Before—before he couldn’t anymore.”

Jamie shot a swift glance at his cousin, but finished pitching hay into the sorrel’s stall before speaking. When he did, he answered the thought, rather than the words.

“I never saw him ride, but I’ll tell ye, lad, I hope never to need as much courage as Colum has.”

I saw Hamish’s gaze rest curiously on Jamie’s scarred back, but he said nothing. After a second apple, his thoughts appeared to have shifted to another topic.

“Rupert said ye had to get married,” he remarked, through a mouthful of apple.

“I wanted to get married,” Jamie said firmly, replacing the pitchfork against the wall.

“Oh. Well…good,” Hamish said uncertainly, as though disconcerted by this novel idea. “I only wondered…do ye mind?”

“Mind what?” Seeing that this conversation might take a while, Jamie sat down on a bale of hay.

Hamish’s feet did not quite reach the floor, or he might have shuffled them. Instead, he drummed his heels lightly against the firm-packed hay.

“Do ye mind being married,” he said, staring at his cousin. “Getting into bed every night with a lady, I mean.”

“No,” said Jamie. “No, in fact, it’s verra pleasant.”

Hamish looked doubtful.

“I dinna think I should like it much. But then all the girls I know are skinny as sticks, and they smell o’ barely water. The lady Claire—your lady, I mean,” he added hastily, as though wishing to avoid confusion, “she’s, er, she looks as though she’d be nicer to sleep with. Soft, I mean.”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, that’s true. Smells all right, too,” he offered. Even in the dim light, I could see a small muscle twitching near the corner of his mouth, and knew he didn’t dare look up in the direction of the loft.

There was a long pause.

“How d’ye know?” Hamish said.

“Know what?”

“Which is the right lady to get married to,” the boy said impatiently.

“Oh.” Jamie rocked back and settled himself against the stone wall, hands behind his head.

“I asked my own Da that, once,” he said. “He said ye just ken. And if ye dinna ken, then she’s no the right lassie.”

“Mmmphm.” This seemed a less than satisfactory explanation, to judge from the expression on the small freckle-spattered face. Hamish sat back, consciously aping Jamie’s posture. His stockinged feet stuck out over the edge of the hay bale. Small as he was, his sturdy frame gave promise of someday matching his cousin’s. The set of the square shoulders, and the tilt of the solid, graceful skull were nearly identical.

“Where’s your shoon, then?” Jamie asked accusingly. “You’ll no ha’ left them in the pasture again? Your mother will box your ears for ye if ye’ve lost them.”

Hamish shrugged this off as a threat of no consequence. Clearly there was something of more importance on his mind.

“John—” he started, wrinkling his sandy brows in thought, “John says—”

“John the stable-lad, John the cook-boy, or John Cameron?” Jamie asked.

“The stable-lad.” Hamish waved a hand, pushing away the distraction. “He said, er, about getting married…”

“Mmm?” Jamie made an encouraging noise, keeping his face tactfully turned away. Rolling his eyes upward, his glance met mine, as I peered over the edge. I grinned down at him, causing him to bite his lip to keep from grinning back.

Hamish drew a deep breath, and let it out in a rush, propelling his words like a burst of birdshot. “He-said-ye-must-serve-a-lass-like-a-stallion-does-a-mare-and-I-didna-believe-him-but-is-it-true?”

I bit my finger hard to keep from laughing out loud. Not so fortunately placed, Jamie dug his fingers into the fleshy part of his leg, turning as red in the face as Hamish. They looked like two tomatoes, set side by side on a hay bale for judging at a county vegetable show.

“Er, aye…weel, in a way…” he said, sounding strangled. Then he got a grip on himself.

“Yes,” he said firmly, “yes, ye do.”

Hamish cast a half-horrified glance into the nearby stall, where the bay gelding was relaxing, a foot or so of reproductive equipment protruding from its sheath. He glanced doubtfully down into his lap then, and I stuffed a handful of fabric into my mouth as far as it would go.

“There’s some difference, ye ken,” Jamie went on. The rich color was beginning to fade from his face, though there was still an ominous quiver around his mouth. “For one thing, it’s…more gentle.”

“Ye dinna bite them on the neck, then?” Hamish had the serious, intent expression of one taking careful notes. “To make them keep still?”

“Er…no. Not customarily, anyway.” Exercising his not inconsiderable willpower, Jamie faced up manfully to the responsibilities of enlightenment.

“There’s another difference, as well,” he said, carefully not looking upward. “Ye may do it face to face, instead of from the back. As the lady prefers.”

“The lady?” Hamish seemed dubious about this. “I think I’d rather do it from the back. I dinna think I’d like to have anyone lookin’ at me while I did something like that. Is it hard,” he inquired, “is it hard to keep from laughing?”

I was still thinking about Jamie and Hamish when I came to bed that night. I turned down the thick quilts, smiling to myself. There was a cool draft from the window, and I looked forward to crawling under the quilts and nestling against Jamie’s warmth. Impervious to cold, he seemed to carry a small furnace within himself, and his skin was always warm; sometimes almost hot, as though he burned more fiercely in answer to my own cool touch.

I was still a stranger and an outlander, but no longer a guest at the Castle. While the married women seemed somewhat friendlier, now that I was one of them, the younger girls seemed strongly to resent the fact that I had removed an eligible young bachelor from circulation. In fact, noting the number of cold glances and behind-the-hand remarks, I rather wondered just how many of the Castle maidens had found their way into a secluded alcove with Jamie MacTavish during his short residency.

MacTavish no longer, of course. Most of the Castle inhabitants had always known who he was, and whether I was an English spy or not, I now knew of necessity as well. So he became Fraser publicly, and so did I. It was as Mistress Fraser that I was welcomed into the room above the kitchens where the married women did their sewing and rocked their babies, exchanging bits of mother-lore and eyeing my own waistline with frank appraisal.

Because of my earlier difficulties in conceiving, I had not considered the possibility of pregnancy when I agreed to marry Jamie, and I waited in some apprehension until my monthly occurred on time. My feelings this time were entirely of relief, with none of the sadness that usually accompanied it. My life was more than complicated enough at the moment, without introducing a baby into it. I thought that Jamie perhaps felt a small twinge of regret, though he also professed himself relieved. Fatherhood was a luxury that a man in his position could ill afford.

The door opened and he came in, still rubbing his head with a linen towel, water droplets from his wet hair darkening his shirt.

“Where have you been?” I asked in astonishment. Luxurious as Leoch might be in contrast to the residences of village and croft, it didn’t boast any bathing facilities beyond a copper tub that Colum used to soak his aching legs, and a slightly larger one used by such ladies as thought the labor involved in filling it worth the privacy. All other washing was done either in bits, using basin and ewer, or outside, either in the loch or in a small, stone-floored chamber off the garden, where the young women were accustomed to stand naked and let their friends throw buckets of water over them.

“In the loch,” he answered, hanging the damp towel neatly over the windowsill. “Someone,” he said grimly, “left the stall door ajar, and the stable door as well, and Cobhar had a wee swim in the twilight.”

“Oh, so that’s why you weren’t at supper. But horses don’t like to swim, do they?” I asked.

He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair to dry it.

“No, they don’t. But they’re just like folk, ye ken; all different. And Cobhar is fond of the young water plants. He was down nibbling by the water’s edge when a pack of dogs from the village came along and chased him into the loch. I had to run them off and then go in after him. Wait ‘til I get my hands on wee Hamish,” he said, with grim intent. “I’ll teach him to leave gates ajar.”

“Are you going to tell Colum about it?” I asked, feeling a qualm of sympathy for the culprit.

Jamie shook his head, groping in his sporran. He drew out a roll and a chunk of cheese, apparently filched from the kitchens on his way up to the chamber.

“No,” he said. “Colum’s fair strict wi’ the lad. If he heard he’d been so careless, he’d not let him ride for a month—not that he could, after the thrashing he’d get. Lord, I’m starving.” He bit ferociously into the roll, scattering crumbs.

“Don’t get into bed with that,” I said, sliding under the quilts myself. “What are you planning to do to Hamish, then?”

He swallowed the remainder of the roll and smiled at me. “Dinna worry. I’m going to row him out on the loch just before supper tomorrow and toss him in. By the time he makes it to shore and dries off, supper will be over.” He finished the cheese in three bites and unashamedly licked his fingers. “Let him go to bed wet and hungry and see how he likes it,” he concluded darkly.

He peered hopefully in the drawer of the desk where I sometimes kept apples or other small bits of food. There was nothing there tonight, though, and he shut the drawer with a sigh.

“I suppose I’ll live ‘til breakfast,” he said philosophically. He stripped rapidly and crawled in next to me, shivering. Though his extremities were chilled from his swim in the icy loch, his body was still blissfully warm.

“Mm, you’re nice to croodle wi’,” he murmured, doing what I assumed was croodling. “You smell different; been digging plants today?”

“No,” I said, surprised. “I thought it was you—the smell, I mean.” It was a tangy, herbal smell, not unpleasant, but unfamiliar.

”I smell like fish,” he observed, sniffing the back of his hand. “And wet horse. No,” he leaned closer, inhaling. “No, it isna you, either. But it’s close by.”

He slid out of bed and turned back the quilts, searching. We found it under my pillow.

“What on earth…?” I picked it up, and promptly dropped it. “Ouch! It has thorns!”

“It was a small bundle of plants, plucked up roughly by the roots, and bound together with a bit of black thread. The plants were wilted, but a pungent smell still rose from the drooping leaves. There was one flower in the bouquet, a crushed primrose, whose thorny stem had pricked my thumb.

I sucked the offended digit, turning the bundle over more cautiously with my other hand. Jamie stood still, staring down at it for a moment. Then he suddenly picked it up, and crossing to the open window, flung it out into the light. Returning to the bed, he energetically brushed the crumbs of earth from the plants’ roots into the palm of his hand and threw them out after the bundle. He closed the window with a slam and came back, dusting his palms.

“It’s gone,” he said, unnecessarily. He climbed back into bed. “Come back to bed, Sassenach.”

“What was it?” I asked, climbing in beside him.

“A joke, reckon,” he said. “A nasty one, but only a joke.” He raised himself on one elbow and blew out the candle. “Come here, mo duinne,” he said. “I’m cold.”

Despite the unsettling ill-wish, I slept well, secure in the dual protection of a bolted door and Jamie’s arms. Toward dawn, I dreamed of grassy meadows filled with butterflies. Yellow, brown, white, and orange, they swirled around me like autumn leaves, lighting on my head and shoulders, sliding down my body like rain, the tiny feet tickling on my skin and the velvet wings beating like faint echoes of my own heart.

I floated gently to the surface of reality, and found that the butterfly feet against my stomach were the flaming tendrils of Jamie’s soft red thatch, and the butterfly trapped between my thighs was his tongue.

“Mmm,” I said, sometime later. “Well, that’s all very well for me, but what about you?”

“About three-quarters of a minute, if you keep on in that fashion,” he said, putting my hand away with a grin. “But I’d rather take my time over it—I’m a slow and canny man by nature, d’ye see. Might I ask the favor of your company for this evening, Mistress?”

“You might,” I said. I put my arms behind my head, and fixed him with a half-lidded look of challenge. “If you mean to tell me that you’re so decrepit you can’t manage more than once in a day anymore.”

He regarded me narrowly from his seat on the edge of the bed. There was a sudden flash of white as he lunged, and I found myself pressed deep into the featherbed.

“Aye, well,” he said into the tangles of my hair, “you’ll no say I didna warn ye.”

Two and a half minutes later, he groaned and opened his eyes. He scrubbed his face and head vigorously with both hands, making the shorter ends stick up like quills. Then, with a muffled Gaelic oath, he slid reluctantly out from under the blankets and began to dress, shivering in the chilly morning air.

“I don’t suppose,” I asked hopefully, “that you could tell Alec you’re sick, and come back to bed?”

He laughed and bent to kiss me before groping under the bed for his stockings. “Would that I could, Sassenach. I doubt much short of pox, plague, or grievous bodily harm would answer as an excuse, though. If I weren’t bleeding, old Alec would be up here in a trice, dragging me off my deathbed to help wi’ the worming.”

I eyed his graceful long calves as he pulled a stocking up neatly and folded the top. ” ‘Grievous bodily harm,’ eh? I might manage something along those lines,” I said darkly.

He grunted as he reached across for the other stocking. “Well, watch where ye toss your elf-darts, Sassenach.” He tried a lewd wink, but wound up squinting at me instead. “Aim too high, and I’ll be no good to you, either.”

I arched one eyebrow and snuggled back under the quilts. “Not to worry. Nothing above the knee, I promise.”

He patted one of my rounder bulges and left for the stables, singing rather loudly the air from “Up Among the Heather.” The refrain floated back from the stairwell:

“Sittin’ wi’ a wee girl, holdin’ on my knee—

When a bumblebee stung me, weel above the kneeeee—

Up among the heather, at the head o’ Bendikee!”

He was right, I decided; he didn’t have any ear for music.

I relapsed temporarily into a state of satisfied somnolence, but roused myself shortly to go down for breakfast. Most of the castle inhabitants had eaten and gone to their work already; those still in the hall greeted me pleasantly enough. There were no sidelong looks, no expressions of veiled hostility, of someone wondering how well their nasty little trick had worked. But I watched the faces, nonetheless.

The morning was spent alone in the garden and fields with my basket and digging stick. I was running short of some of the most popular herbs. Generally the village people went to Geillis Duncan for help, but there had been several patients from the village turning up of late in my dispensary, and the traffic in nostrums had been heavy. Maybe her husband’s illness was keeping her too busy to care for her regular customers.

I spent the latter part of the afternoon in my dispensary. There were few patients to be seen; only a case of persistent eczema, a dislocated thumb, and a kitchen boy who had spilled a pot of hot soup down one leg. Having dispensed ointment of yawroot and blue flag and reset and bound the thumb, I settled down to the task of pounding some very aptly named stoneroot in one of the late Beaton’s smaller mortars.

It was tedious work, but well suited to this sort of lazy afternoon. The weather was fair, and I could see blue shadows lengthening under the elms to the west when I stood on my table to peer out.

Inside, the glass bottles gleamed in orderly ranks, neat stacks of bandages and compresses in the cupboards next to them. The apothecary’s cabinet had been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and now held stores of dried leaves, roots, and fungi, neatly packed in cotton-gauze bags. I took a deep breath of the sharp, spicy odors of my sanctum and let it out in a sigh of contentment.

Then I stopped pounding and set the pestle down. I was contented, I realized with a shock. Despite the myriad uncertainties of life here, despite the unpleasantness of the ill-wish, despite the small, constant ache of missing Frank, I was in fact not unhappy. Quite the contrary.

I felt immediately ashamed and disloyal. How could I bring myself to be happy, when Frank must be demented with worry? Assuming that time was in fact continuing without me—and I couldn’t see why it wouldn’t—I must have gone missing for upwards of four months. I imagined him searching the Scottish countryside, calling the police, waiting for some sign, some word of me. By now, he must nearly have given up hope and be waiting, instead, for word that my body had been found.

I set down the mortar and paced up and down the length of my narrow room, rubbing my hands on my apron in a spasm of guilty sorrow and regret. I should have got away sooner. I should have tried harder to return. But I had, I reminded myself. I had tried repeatedly. And look what had happened.

Yes, look. I was married to a Scottish outlaw, the both of us hunted by a sadistic captain of dragoons, and living with a lot of barbarians, who would as soon kill Jamie as look at him, if they thought him a threat to their precious clan succession. And the worst of it all was that I was happy.

I sat down, staring helplessly at the array of jars and bottles. I had been living day to day since our return to Leoch, deliberately suppressing the memories of my earlier life. Deep down, I knew that I must soon make some kind of decision, but I had delayed, putting off the necessity from day to day and hour to hour, burying my uncertainties in the pleasures of Jamie’s company—and his arms.

There was a sudden bumping and cursing out in the corridor, and I rose hastily and went to the door, just in time to see Jamie himself stumble in, supported by the bowed form of Old Alec McMahon on one side, and the earnest but spindly efforts of one of the stable lads on the other. He sank onto my stool, left foot outstretched, and grimaced unpleasantly at it. The grimace seemed to be more of annoyance than pain, so I knelt to examine the offending appendage with relatively little concern.

“Mild strain,” I said, after a cursory inspection. “What did you do?”

“Fell off,” Jamie said succinctly.

“Off the fence?” I asked, teasing. He glowered.

“No. Off Donas.”

“You were riding that thing?” I asked incredulously. “In that case, you’re lucky to get off with a strained ankle.” I fetched a length of bandage and began to wrap the joint.

“Weel, it wasna sae bad as a’ that,” said Old Alec judiciously. “In fact, lad, ye were doin’ quiet weel wi’ him for a bit.”

“I know I was,” snapped Jamie, gritting his teeth as I pulled the bandage tight. “A bee stung him.”

The bushy brows lifted. “Oh, that was it? Beast acted like he’d been struck wi’ an elf-dart,” he confided to me. “Went straight up in the air on all fours, and came down again, then went stark, staring mad—all over the pen like a bumblebee in a jar. Yon wee laddie stuck on too,” he said, nodding at Jamie, who invented a new unpleasant expression in response, “until the big yellow fiend went ower the fence.”

“Over the fence? Where is he now?” I asked, standing up and dusting my hands.

“Halfway back to hell, I expect,” said Jamie, putting his foot down and trying his weight gingerly on it. “And welcome to stay there.” Wincing, he sat back.

“I doubt the de’ils got much use for a half-broke stallion,” observed Alec. “Bein’ able to turn himself into a horse when needed.”

“Perhaps that’s who Donas really is,” I suggested, amused.

“I wouldna doubt it,” said Jamie, still smarting, but beginning to recover his usual good humor. “The de’il’s customarily a black stallion, though, is he no?”

“Oh, aye,” said Alec. “A great black stallion, that travels as fast as the thought between a man and a maid.”

He grinned genially at Jamie and rose to go.

“And speakin’ of that,” he said, with a wink at me, “I’ll no expect ye in the stables tomorrow. Keep to your bed, laddie, and, er…rest.”

“Why is it,” I demanded, looking after the crusty old horsemaster, “that everyone seems to assume we’ve no more on our minds than to get into bed with each other?”

Jamie tried his weight on the foot again, bracing himself on the counter.

“For one thing, we’ve been married less than a month,” he observed. “For another—” He looked up and grinned, shaking his head. “I’ve told ye before, Sassenach. Everything ye think shows on your face.”

“Bloody hell,” I said.

Aside from a quick trip to the dispensary to check for emergencies, I spent the next morning ministering to the rather demanding needs of my solitary patient.

“You are supposed to be resting,” I said reprovingly, at one point.

“I am. Well, my ankle is resting, at least. See?”

A long, unstockinged shin thrust up into the air, and a bony, slender foot waggled back and forth. It stopped abruptly in mid-waggle with a muffled “ouch” from its owner. He lowered it and tenderly massaged the still-puffy ankle.

“That’ll teach you,” I said, swinging my own legs out from under the blankets. “Come along now. You’ve been frowsting in bed quite long enough. You need fresh air.”

He sat up, hair falling over his face.

“I thought ye said it was rest I needed.”

“You can rest in the fresh air. Get up. I’m making up the bed.”

Amid complaints about my general unfeelingness and lack of consideration for a gravely injured man, he got dressed and sat long enough for me to bind up the weak ankle before his natural exuberance asserted itself.

“It’s a bit saft out,” he said, with a glance through the casement, where the mild drizzle had just decided to buckle down to it and become a major downpour. “Let’s go up to the roof.”

“The roof? Oh, to be sure. I couldn’t think of a better prescription for a strained ankle than climbing six flights of stairs.”

“Five. Besides, I’ve a stick.” He produced the stick in question, an aged hawthorn club, from behind the door with a triumphant flourish.

“Wherever did you get that?” I inquired, examining it. At closer range, it was even more battered, a three-foot length of chipped hardwood, age-hardened as a diamond.

“Alec lent it me. He uses it on the mules; raps them twixt the eyes wi’ it to make them pay attention.”

“Sounds very effective,” I said, eyeing the scuffed wood. “I must try it sometime. On you.”

We emerged at last in a small sheltered spot, just under the overhang of the slate roof. A low parapet guarded the edge of this small lookout.

“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Despite the gusty rain, the view from the roof was magnificent; we could see the broad silver sweep of the loch and the towering crags beyond, thrusting into the solid grey of the sky like ridged black fists.

Jamie leaned on the parapet, taking the weight from his injured foot.

“Aye, it is. I used to come up here sometimes, when I was at the Castle before.”

He pointed across the loch, dimpling under the beat of the rain.

“D’ye see the notch there, between those two craigs?”

“In the mountains? Yes.”

“That’s the way to Lallybroch. When I’d feel lonely for my home, sometimes I’d come up here and look that way. I’d imagine flying like a corbie across that pass, and the look of the hills and the fields, falling down the other side of the mountain, and the manor house at the end of the valley.”

I touched him gently on the arm.

“Do you want to go back, Jamie?”

He turned his head and smiled down at me.

“Well, I’ve been thinking of it. I don’t know if I want to, precisely, but I think we must. I canna say what we’ll find there, Sassenach. But…aye. I’m wed now. You’re lady of Broch Tuarach. Outlaw or no, I need to go back, even if just long enough to set things straight.”

I felt a thrill, compounded of relief and apprehension, at the thought of leaving Leoch and its assorted intrigues.

“When will we go?”

He frowned, drumming his fingers on the parapet. The stone was dark and slick with rain.

“Well, I think we must wait for the Duke to come. It’s possible that he might see his way to doing Colum a favor by taking up my case. If he cannot get me cleared, he might be able to arrange a pardon. There’d be a good deal less danger in going back to Lallybroch, then, ye see.”

“Well, yes, but…” He glanced sharply at me as I hesitated.

“What is it, Sassenach?”

I took a deep breath. “Jamie…if I tell you something will you promise not to ask me how I know?”

He took me by both arms, looking down into my face. The rain misted his hair and small droplets ran down the sides of his face. He smiled at me.

“I told you that I wouldna ask for anything that ye dinna wish to tell me. Yes, I promise.”

“Let’s sit down. You shouldn’t be standing on that foot so long.”

We made our way to the wall where the overhanging slates of the roof sheltered a small dry patch of pavement, and settled ourselves comfortably, backs against the wall.

“All right, Sassenach. What is it?” Jamie asked.

“The Duke of Sandringham,” I said. I bit my lip. “Jamie, don’t trust him. I don’t know everything about him myself, but I do know—there’s something about him. Something wrong.”

“You know about that?” He looked surprised.

Now it was my turn to stare.

“You mean you know about him already? Have you met him?” I was relieved. Perhaps the mysterious links between Sandringham and the Jacobite cause were much better known than Frank and the vicar had thought.

“Oh, aye. He was here, visiting, when I was sixteen. When I…left.”

“Why did you leave?” I was curious, remembering suddenly what Geillis Duncan had said when first I’d met her in the wood. The odd rumor that Jamie was the real father of Colum’s son Hamish. I knew myself that he wasn’t, couldn’t have been—but I was quite possibly the only person in the Castle who did know. A suspicion of that sort could easily have led to Dougal’s earlier attempt on Jamie’s life—if in fact that’s what the attack at Carryarick had been.

“It wasn’t because of…the lady Letitia, was it?” I asked with some hesitation.

“Letitia?” His startled astonishment was plain, and something inside me that I hadn’t known was clenched suddenly relaxed. I hadn’t really thought there was anything to Geilie’s supposition, but still….

“What on earth makes ye mention Letitia?” Jamie asked curiously. “I lived at the Castle for a year, and had speech of her maybe once that I remember, when she called me to her chamber and gave me the raw side of her tongue for leading a game of shinty through her rose garden.”

I told him what Geilie had said, and he laughed, breath misting in the cool, rainy air.

“God,” he said, “as though I’d have the nerve!”

“You don’t think Colum suspected any such thing, do you?” I asked.

He shook his head decidedly.

“No, I don’t, Sassenach. If he had any inkling of such a thing, I wouldna have lived to be seventeen, let alone achieve the ripe old age of three-and-twenty.”

This more or less confirmed my own impression of Colum, but I was relieved, nonetheless. Jamie’s expression had grown thoughtful, blue eyes suddenly remote.

“Come to think on it, though, I don’t know that Colum does know why I left the Castle so sudden, then. And if Geillis Duncan is goin’ about the place spreading such rumors—that woman’s a troublemaker, Sassenach; a gossip and a scold, if not the witch folk say she is—well, I’d best see that he finds out, then.”

He glanced up at the sheet of water pouring from the eaves.

“Perhaps we’d best go down, Sassenach. It’s getting a wee bit damp out.”

We took a different way down, crossing the roof to an outer stairway that led down to the kitchen gardens, where I wanted to pull a bit of borage, if the downpour would let me. We sheltered under the wall of the Castle, one of the jutting window ledges diverting the rain above.

“What do ye do wi’ borage, Sassenach?” Jamie asked with interest, looking out at the straggly vines and plants, beaten to the earth by the rain.

“When it’s green, nothing. First you dry it, and then—”

I was interrupted by a terrific noise of barking and shouting, coming from outside the garden wall. I raced through the downpour toward the wall, followed more slowly by Jamie, limping.

Father Bain, the village priest, was running up the path, puddles exploding under his feet, pursued by a yelping pack of dogs. Hampered by his voluminous soutane, the priest tripped and fell, water and mud flying in spatters all around him. In a moment, the dogs were upon him, growling and snapping.

A blur of plaid vaulted over the wall next to me, and Jamie was among them, laying about with his stick and shouting in Gaelic, adding his voice to the general racket. If the shouts and curses had little effect, the stick had more. There were sharp yelps as the club struck hairy flesh, and gradually the pack retreated, finally turning and galloping off in the direction of the village.

Jamie wiped the hair out of his eyes, panting.

“Bad as wolves,” he said. “I’d told Colum about that pack already; they’re the ones that chased Cobhar into the loch two days ago. Best he has them shot before they kill someone.” He looked down at me as I knelt next to the fallen priest, inspecting. The rain dripped from the ends of my hair, and I could feel my shawl growing sodden.

“They haven’t yet,” I said. “Bar a few toothmarks, he’s basically all right.”

Father Bain’s soutane was ripped down one side, showing an expanse of hairless white thigh with an ugly gash and several puncture marks beginning to ooze blood. The priest, pasty-white with shock, was struggling to his feet; plainly he wasn’t too badly injured.

“If you’ll come to the surgery with me, Father, I’ll cleanse those cuts for you,” I offered, suppressing a smile at the spectacle the fat little priest presented, soutane flapping and argyle socks revealed.

At the best of times, Father Bain’s face resembled a clenched fist. This similarity was made more pronounced at the moment by the red mottling that streaked his jowls and emphasized the vertical creases between cheeks and mouth. He glared at me as though I had suggested that he commit some public indecency.

Apparently I had, for his next words were “What, a man o’ God to expose his pairsonal parts to the handling of a wumman? Weel, I’ll tell ye, madam, I’ve no notion what sorts of immorality are practiced in the circles you’re accustomed to move in, but I’ll have ye to ken that such’ll no be tolerated here—not sae long as I’ve the cure of the souls in this parish!” With that, he turned and stumped off, limping rather badly and trying unsuccessfully to hold up the torn side of his robe.

“Suit yourself,” I called after him. “If you don’t let me cleanse it, it will fester!”

The priest did not respond, but hunched his round shoulders and hitched his way up the garden stair a step at a time, like a penguin hopping up an ice floe.

“That man doesn’t care overmuch for women, does he?” I remarked to Jamie.

“Considering his occupation, I imagine that’s as well,” he replied. “Let’s go and eat.”

After lunch, I sent my patient back to bed to rest—alone, this time, in spite of his protestations—and went down to the surgery. The heavy rain seemed to have made business slack; people tended to stay safely inside, rather than running over their feet with ploughshares or falling off roofs.

I passed the time pleasantly enough, bringing the records in Davie Beaton’s book up to date. Just as I finished, though, a visitor darkened my door.

He literally darkened it, his bulk filling it from side to side. Squinting in the semidarkness, I made out the form of Alec MacMahon, swathed in an extraordinary get-up of coats, shawls, and odd bits of horse-blanket.

He advanced with a slowness that reminded me of Colum’s first visit to the surgery with me, and gave me a clue to his problem.

“Rheumatism, is it?” I asked with sympathy, as he subsided stiffly into my single chair with a stifled groan.

“Aye. The damp settles in my bones,” he said. “Aught to be done about it?” He laid his huge, gnarled hands on the table, letting the fingers relax. The hands opened slowly, like a night-blooming flower, to show the callused palms within. I picked up one of the knotted appendages and turned it gently to and fro, stretching the fingers and massaging the horny palm. The seamed old face above the hand contorted for a moment as I did it, but then relaxed as the first twinges passed.

“Like wood,” I said. “A good slug of whisky and a deep massage is the best I can recommend. Tansy tea will do only so much.”

He laughed, shawls slipping off his shoulder.

“Whisky, eh? I had my doubts, lassie, but I see ye’ve the makings of a fine physician.”

I reached into the back of my medicine cupboard and pulled out the anonymous brown bottle that held my supply from the Leoch distillery. I plunked it on the table before him, with a horn cup.

“Drink up,” I said, “then get stripped off as far as you think decent and lie on the table. I’ll make up the fire so it will be warm enough.”

The blue eye surveyed the bottle with appreciation, and a crooked hand reached slowly for the neck.

“Best have a nip yourself, lassie,” he advised. “It’ll be a big job.”

He groaned, with a cross between pain and contentment, as I leaned hard on his left shoulder to loosen it, then lifted from underneath and rotated the whole quarter of his body.

“My wife used to iron my back for me,” he remarked, “for the lumbago. But this is even better. Ye’ve a good strong pair of hands, lassie. Make a good stable-lad, ye would.”

“I’ll assume that’s a compliment,” I said dryly, pouring more of the heated oil-and-tallow mixture into my palm and spreading it over the broad white expanse of his back. There was a sharp line of demarcation between the weathered, mottled brown skin of his arms, where the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt stopped, and the milk-white skin of his shoulders and back.

“Well, you were a fine, fair laddie at one time,” I remarked. “The skin of your back’s as white as mine.”

A deep chuckle shook the flesh under my hands.

“Never know now, would ye? Aye, Ellen MacKenzie once saw me wi’ my sark off, birthin’ a foal, and told me it looked like the good Lord had put the wrong head to my body—should have had a bag of milk-pudding on my shoulders, instead of a face from the altar-piece.”

I gathered he was referring to the rood screen in the chapel, which featured a number of extremely unattractive demons, engaged in torturing sinners.

“Ellen MacKenzie sounds as though she were rather free with her opinions,” I observed. I was more than slightly curious about Jamie’s mother. From the small things he said now and then, I had some picture of his father Brian, but he had never mentioned his mother, and I knew nothing about her, other than that she had died young, in childbed.

“Oh, she had a tongue on her, did Ellen, and a mind of her own to go wi’ it.” Untying the garters of his trews, I tucked them up out of the way and began operations on the muscular calves of his legs. “But enough sweetness with it that no one minded much, other than her brothers. And she wasna one to pay much heed to Colum or Dougal.”

“Mm. So I heard. Eloped, didn’t she?” I dug my thumbs into the tendons behind his knee, and he let out a sound that would have been a squeak in anyone less dignified.

“Oh, aye. Ellen was the eldest o’ the six MacKenzie bairns—a year or two older than Colum, and the apple of auld Jacob’s eye. That’s why she’d gone so long unwed; wouldna ha’ aught to do wi’ John Cameron or Malcolm Grant, or any of the others she might have gone to, and her father wouldna force her against her will.”

When old Jacob died, though, Colum had less patience with his sister’s foibles. Struggling desperately to consolidate his shaky hold on the clan, he had sought an alliance with Munro to the north, or Grant to the south. Both clans had young chieftains, who would make useful brothers-in-law. Young Jocasta, only fifteen, had obligingly accepted the suit of John Cameron, and gone north. Ellen, on the verge of spinsterhood at twenty-two, had been a good deal less cooperative.

“I take it Malcolm Grant’s suit was rather firmly rejected, judging from his behavior two weeks ago,” I observed.

Old Alec laughed, the laugh turning to a satisfied groan as I pressed deeper.

“Aye. I never heard exactly what she said to him, but I expect it stung. It was at the big Gathering, ye ken, that they met. Out in the rose garden they went, in the evening, and everyone waiting to see would she tak’ him or no. And it grew dark, and they still waiting. And darker still, and the lanterns all lit, and the singing begun, and no sign yet of Ellen or Malcolm Grant.”

“Goodness. It must have been quite a conversation.” I poured another dollop of the liniment between his shoulder blades, and he grunted with the warm pleasure of it.

“So it seemed. But time went on, and they didna come back, and Colum began to fear as Grant had eloped wi’ her; taken her by force, ye see. And it seemed as that must be the way of it, for they found the rose garden empty. And when he sent down to the stables for me, sure enough—I told him Grant’s men had come for the horses, and the whole boiling of ‘em gone awa’ without a word of farewell.”

Furious, eighteen-year-old Dougal had mounted his horse at once and set out on the track of Malcolm Grant, not waiting either for company nor for conference with Colum.

“When Colum heard as Dougal had gone after Grant, he sent me and some others helter-skelter after him, Colum being well acquent wi’ Dougal’s temper and not wishing to have his new brother-in-law slain in the road before the banns were called. For he reckoned as how Malcolm Grant, not being able to talk Ellen into wedding him, must ha’ taken her away in order to have his way wi’ her and force her into marriage that way.”

Alec paused meditatively. “All Dougal could see was the insult, of course. But I dinna think Colum was that upset about it, to tell the truth, insult or no. It would ha’ solved his problem—and Grant would likely have had to take Ellen wi’out her dower and pay reparation to Colum as well.”

Alec snorted cynically. “Colum is no the man to let an opportunity pass by him. He’s quick, and he’s ruthless, is Colum.” The single ice-blue eye swiveled back to regard me over one humped shoulder. “Ye’d be wise to bear that in mind, lassie.”

“I’m not likely to forget it,” I assured him, with some grimness. I remembered Jamie’s story of his punishment at Colum’s order, and wondered how much of that had been in revenge for his mother’s rebellion.

Still, Colum had had no chance to seize the opportunity of marrying his sister to the laird of clan Grant. Toward dawn, Dougal had found Malcolm Grant camped along the main road with his followers, asleep under a gorse bush, wrapped in his plaid.

And when Alec and the others had come pelting along the road sometime later, they had been stopped in their tracks by the sight of Dougal MacKenzie and Malcolm Grant, both stripped to the waist and scarred with the marks of battle, swaying and staggering up and down the roadway, still exchanging random blows whenever they got within reach of each other. Grant’s retainers were perched along the roadway like a row of owls, heads turning one way and then the other, as the waning fight meandered up and down in the dripping dawn.

“They were both of them puffing like blown horses, and the steam rising off their bodies in the chill. Grant’s nose was swelled to twice its size, and Dougal could scarce see out o’ either eye, and both wi’ their blood dripping down and dried ower their breasts.”

Upon the appearance of Colum’s men, Grant’s tacksmen had all sprung to their feet, hands upon their swords, and the meeting would likely have resulted in serious bloodshed, had some sharp-eyed lad among the MacKenzies not noted the rather important fact that Ellen MacKenzie was nowhere to be seen among the Grants.

“Weel, after they’d poured water on Malcolm Grant and brought him to his senses, he managed to tell them what Dougal wouldna pause to hear—that Ellen had spent but a quarter-hour wi’ him in the rose garden. He wouldna say what had passed between them, but whatever it was, he’d been so offended as to wish to take his leave at once, without showing his face in the Hall. And he’d left her there, and seen her no more, nor did he wish ever to hear the name of Ellen MacKenzie spoken in his presence again. And wi’ that, he mounted his horse—a bit unsteady, still—and rode awa’. And been no friend since, to anyone of the clan MacKenzie.”

I listened, fascinated. “And where was Ellen all this time?”

Old Alec laughed, with the sound of a stable door hinge creaking.

“Ower the hills and far away. But they didna find it out for some time yet. We turned about and pelted home again, to find Ellen still missing and Colum standing white-faced in the courtyard, leanin’ on Angus Mhor.”

There followed more confusion still, for with all the guests, the rooms of the Castle were full, as were all the lofts and cubbyholes, the kitchens and closets. It seemed hopeless to tell which of all the folk in the Castle might also be missing, but Colum called all of the servants, and went doggedly down the lists of the invited, asking who had been seen the evening before, and where, and when. And finally he found a kitchen-maid who recalled seeing a man in a back passage, just before the supper was served.

She had noticed him only because he was so handsome; tall and sturdy, she said, with hair like a black silkie’s and eyes like a cat. She had watched him down the passage, admiring him, and seen him meet someone at the outer door—a woman dressed in black from head to toe, and shrouded in a hooded cloak.

“What’s a silkie?” I asked.

Alec’s eye slanted toward me, crinkling at the corners.

“Ye call them seals in English. For quite a bit after that, even after they knew the truth of it, folk in the village would tell the tale to each other that Ellen MacKenzie was taken to the sea, to live among the seals. Did ye know that the silkies put aside their skins when they come ashore, and walk like men? And if ye find a silkie’s skin and hide it, he—or she—” he added, fairly, “canna go into the sea again, but must stay with ye on the land. It’s thought good to take a seal-wife that way, for they’re very good cooks, and most devoted mothers.

“Still,” he said judiciously, “Colum wasna inclined to believe his sister’d gone off wi’ a seal, and said so. So he called the guests down, one by one, and asked them all who knew a man of that description. And at long last, they worked it out that his name was Brian, but no one knew his clan or his surname; he’d been at the Games, but there they only called him Brian Dhu.”

So there the matter seemed to rest for a time, for the searchers had no idea in which direction to look. Still, even the best of hunters must stop at a cottage now and then, to ask for a handful of salt or a pannikin of milk. And eventually word of the pair reached Leoch, for Ellen MacKenzie was a maid of no ordinary appearance.

“Hair like fire,” Alec said dreamily, enjoying the warmth of the oil on his back. “And eyes like Colum’s—grey, and fringed wi’ black lashes—verra pretty, but the kind would go through ye like a bolt. A tall woman; even taller than you. And sae fair it would hurt the eyes to see her.

“I heard tell later as they’d met at the Gathering, taken one look and decided on the spot as there could be none other for either one o’ them. So they laid their plans and they stole awa’, under the noses of Colum MacKenzie and three hundred guests.”

He laughed suddenly, remembering. “Dougal finally found them, living in a crofter’s cottage on the edge of the Fraser lands. They’d decided the only way to manage was to hide until Ellen was wi’ child, and big enough that there’d be no question whose it was. Then Colum would have to give his blessing to the marriage, like it or no—and he didn’t.”

Alec grinned. “Whiles ye were on the road, did ye chance to see a scar Dougal carries, running down his breast?”

I had; a thin white line that crossed his heart and ran from shoulder to ribs.

“Did Brian do that?” I asked.

“No, Ellen,” he replied, grinning at my expression. “To stop him cutting Brian’s throat, which he was about to do. I wouldna mention it to Dougal, if I were you.”

“No, I don’t suppose I will.”

Luckily, the plan had worked, and Ellen was five months gone with child by the time that Dougal found them.

“There was the great to-do about it all, and a lot of verra nasty letters exchanged between Leoch and Beauly, but they settled it in the end, and Ellen and Brian took up house at Lallybroch the week before the child was born. They were married in the dooryard,” he added, as an afterthought, “so he could carry her over the threshold for the first time as a wife. He said after as he nearly ruptured himself, lifting her.”

“You talk as though you knew them well,” I said. Finishing my ministrations, I wiped the slippery ointment off my hands with a towel.

“Oh, a bit,” Alec said, drowsy with warmth. The lid drooped over his single eye, and the lines of his old face had relaxed from the expression of mild discomfort that normally made him look so fierce.

“I kent Ellen weel, of course. Then Brian I met years later, when he brought the lad to stay—we got on. A good man wi’ a horse.” His voice trailed off, and the lid fell shut.

I drew a blanket up over the old man’s prostrate form, and tiptoed away, leaving him dreaming by the fire.

Leaving Alec asleep, I had gone up to our chamber, only to find Jamie in the same condition. There are a limited number of activities suitable for indoor amusement on a dark, rainy day, and assuming that I didn’t wish either to rouse Jamie or to join him in oblivion, that seemed to leave reading or needlework. Given the worse-than-mediocre state of my abilities in the latter direction, I had decided to borrow a book from Colum’s library.

In accordance with the peculiar architectural principles governing the construction of Leoch—based on a general abhorrence of straight lines—the stair leading to Colum’s suite had two right-angle bends in it, each marked by a small landing. An attendant usually stood on the second landing, ready to run errands or lend assistance to the laird, but he wasn’t at his station today. I could hear the rumble of voices from above; perhaps the attendant was with Colum. I paused outside the door, uncertain whether to interrupt.

“I’ve always known ye to be a fool, Dougal, but I didna think ye quite such an idiot.” Accustomed to the company of tutors since youth, and unused to venturing out as his brother did among fighting men and common people, Colum’s voice normally lacked the broad Scots that marked Dougal’s speech. The cultured accent had slipped a bit now, though, and the two voices were nearly indistinguishable, both thickened by anger. “I might have expected such behavior from ye when ye were in your twenties, but for God’s sake, man, you’re five-and-forty!”

“Well, it isna a matter you’d know owermuch about, now, is it?” Dougal’s voice held an ugly sneer.

“No.” Colum’s response came in a cutting tone. “And while I’ve seldom found cause to thank the Lord, perhaps he’s done better by me than I’ve thought. I’ve heard it said often enough that a man’s brain stops workin’ when his cock’s standin’, and now I think maybe I believe it.” There was a loud scrape as chairlegs were pushed back across the stone flooring. “If the brothers MacKenzie have but one cock and one brain between the two of them, then I’m glad of my half of the bargain!”

I decided that a third participant in this particular conversation would be decidedly unwelcome, and stepped softly back from the door, turning to go down the stair.

The sound of rustling skirts from the first landing made me stop in my tracks. I didn’t wish to be discovered eavesdropping outside the laird’s study, and turned back toward the door. The landing here was wide, and a tapestry covered one wall almost from floor to ceiling. My feet would show, but it couldn’t be helped.

Lurking like a rat behind the arras, I heard the steps from below slow as they approached the door, and stop at the far side of the landing, as the unseen visitor realized, as I had, the private nature of the brothers’ conversation.

“No,” Colum was saying, calmer now. “No, of course not. The woman’s a witch, or next thing to it.”

“Aye, but—” Dougal’s response was cut short by his brother’s impatient tones.

“I’ve said I’ll attend to it, man. Don’t worry yourself over it, little brother; I’ll see she’s done rightly by.” A note of grudging affection had crept into Colum’s voice.

“I’ll tell ye, man. I’ve written the Duke as he may have leave to hunt the lands above Erlick—he’s keen to have a shot at the stags there. I mean to send Jamie along wi’ him; may be as he still has some feeling for the lad—”

Dougal interrupted with something in Gaelic, evidently a coarse, remark, for Colum laughed and said, “Nay, I reckon Jamie’s big enough to have a care for himself. But if the Duke’s a mind to intercede for him with His Royal Majesty, it’s the lad’s best chance for a pardon. If ye will, I’ll tell His Grace you’ll go as well. You can aid Jamie as ye may, and you’ll be out of the way while I settle matters here.”

There was a muffled thump from the far side of the landing, and I risked peeping out. It was the girl Laoghaire, pale as the plastered wall behind her. She was holding a tray with a decanter; a pewter cup had fallen from the tray to the carpeted floor, making the sound I had heard.

“What’s that?” Colum’s voice, suddenly sharp, spoke from inside the study. Laoghaire dropped the tray on the table next to the door, almost upsetting the decanter in her haste, and turning, fled precipitately.

I could hear Dougal’s footsteps approaching the door, and knew I would never make it down the stairs without discovery. I barely had time to wriggle out of my hiding place and pick up the fallen cup, before the door opened.

“Oh, it’s you.” Dougal sounded mildly surprised. “Is that the stuff Mrs. Fitz sent for Colum’s raw throat?”

“Yes,” I said glibly. “She says she hopes he’ll be better presently.”

“I’ll do.” Moving more slowly, Colum came into view in the open door. He smiled at me. “Thank Mrs. Fitz for me. And my thanks to you, my dear, for bringing it. Will ye sit a moment while I drink it?”

The conversation I had overheard had effectually made me forget my original purpose, but I now remembered my intention of borrowing a book. Dougal excused himself, and I followed Colum slowly into his library, where he offered me the run of his shelves.

Colum’s color was still high, the quarrel with his brother still fresh in his mind, but he answered my questions about the books with a good approximation of his usual poise. Only the brightness of his eyes and a certain tenseness of posture betrayed his thoughts.

I found one or two herbals that looked interesting and put them aside while I browsed a novel.

Colum crossed to the birds’ cage, no doubt intending to soothe himself as per his usual custom by watching the beautiful little self-absorbed creatures hop about amongst the branches, each a world unto itself.

The sound of shouts from outside attracted my attention. From this high point, the fields behind the castle were visible, all the way to the loch. A small group of horsemen was sweeping around the end of the loch, shouting with exhilaration, as the rain pelted them on.

As they drew nearer, I could see that they weren’t men after all, but boys, mostly teenagers, but with a younger lad here and there on a pony, pressing hard to stay up with the older youths. I wondered if Hamish was with them, and quickly found the telltale spot of bright hair, gleaming wildly from Cobhar’s back in the middle of the pack.

The gang came charging toward the castle, headed for one of the innumerable stone walls that separated one field from another. One, two, three, four, the older boys on their mounts popped over the wall with the careless ease born of experience.

It was doubtless my imagination that made the bay seem to hang back a moment, for Cobhar followed the other horses with apparent eagerness. He charged the fence, set himself, braced and leaped.

He seemed to do it just as the others had, and yet something happened. Perhaps a hesitation by his rider, a too-hard pulling on the reins, or a not-quite-firm seat. For the front hooves struck the wall just a few inches too low, and horse, rider and all, somersaulted over the wall in the most spectacular parabola of doom I had ever seen.

“Oh!”

Drawn by my exclamation, Colum turned his head to the window in time to see Cobhar land heavily on his side, the small figure of Hamish pinned beneath. Crippled as he was, Colum moved with speed. He was by my side, leaning out of the window, before the horse had even begun to struggle to his feet.

The wind and rain beat in, soaking the velvet of Colum’s coat. Peering anxiously over his shoulder, I saw a cluster of lads, pushing and shoving each other in their eagerness to help. It seemed a long time before the crowd parted, and we saw the small, sturdy figure stumble out of the press, clutching his stomach. He shook his head to the many offers of help, and staggered purposefully to the wall, where he leaned over and vomited profusely. Then he slid down the wall and sat in the wet grass, legs sprawled, face upturned to the rain. When I saw him stick out his tongue to catch the falling drops, I laid a hand on Colum’s shoulder.

“He’s all right,” I said. “Only had the wind knocked out of him.”

Colum closed his eyes and let his breath out, body sagging suddenly with the release of tension. I watched him with sympathy.

“You care for him as though he were your own, don’t you?” I asked.

The grey eyes blazed suddenly into mine with the most extraordinary expression of alarm. For an instant, there was no sound in the study but the ticking of the glass clock on the shelf. Then a drop of water rolled down Colum’s nose, to hang glimmering from the tip. I reached involuntarily to blot it with my handkerchief, and the tension in his face broke.

“Yes,” he said simply.

In the end I told Jamie only about Colum’s plan to send him hunting with the Duke. I was convinced by now that his feelings for Laoghaire were only those of a chivalrous friendship, but I didn’t know what he might do if he knew that his uncle had seduced the girl and got her with child. Apparently Colum didn’t mean to procure the services of Geilie Duncan in the emergency; I wondered if the girl would be wed to Dougal, or if Colum would find her another husband before the child began to show. In any case, if Jamie and Dougal were going to be shut up together in a hunting lodge for days on end, I thought it might be as well if the shade of Laoghaire were not one of the party.

“Hm,” he said thoughtfully. “Worth a try. Ye get verra friendly wi’ each other, hunting all day and coming back to drink whisky by the fire.” He finished fastening my gown up the back and bent to kiss my shoulder briefly.

“I’d be sorry to leave ye, Sassenach, but it might be best.”

“Don’t mind for me,” I said. I hadn’t realized before that his departure would necessarily leave me alone at the Castle, and the thought made me more than slightly nervous. Still, I was resolved to manage, if it might help him.

“Are you ready for supper?” I asked. His hand lingered on my waist, and I turned toward him.

“Mmm,” he said a moment later. “I’d be willing to go hungry.”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” I said. “You’ll just have to wait.”

I glanced down the dinnertable and across the room. By now I knew most of the faces, some intimately. And a motley crew they were, I reflected. Frank would have been fascinated by the gathering—so many different facial types.

Thinking about Frank was rather like touching a sore tooth; my inclination was to shy away. But the time was coming when I would be able to delay no longer, and I forced my mind back, carefully drawing him in my mind, tracing the long, smooth arcs of his brows with my thoughts as I had once traced them with my fingers. No matter that my fingers tingled suddenly with the memory of rougher, thicker brows, and the deep blue of the eyes beneath them.

I hastily turned toward the nearest face, as an antidote to such disturbing thoughts. It happened to be Murtagh’s. Well, at least he looked like neither of the men who haunted my thoughts.

Short, slightly built but sinewy as a gibbon, with long arms that reinforced the simian resemblance, he had a low brow and narrow jaw that for some reason made me think of cave dwellers and pictures of Early Man shown in some of Frank’s texts. Not a Neanderthal, though. A Pict. That was it. There was something very durable about the small clansman that reminded me of the weathered, patterned stones, ancient even now, that stood their implacable guard over crossroads and burial grounds.

Amused at the idea, I looked over the other diners with an eye to spotting ethnic types. That man near the hearth, for example, John Cameron, his name was, was a Norman if I’d ever seen one—not that I had—high cheekbones and a high, narrow brow, long upper lip, and the dark skin of a Gaul.

The odd fair Saxon here and there…ah, Laoghaire, the perfect exemplar. Pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and just the tiniest bit plump…I repressed the uncharitable observation. She carefully avoided looking at either me or Jamie, chattering animatedly with her friends at one of the lower tables.

I looked in the opposite direction, toward the next table, where Dougal MacKenzie sat, apart from Colum for once. A bloody Viking, that one. With his impressive height and those broad, flat cheekbones, I could easily imagine him in command of a dragon ship, deepsunk eyes gleaming with avarice and lust as he peered through the fog at some rocky coastal village.

A large hand, wrist lightly haired with copper, reached past me to take a small loaf of oat-bread from the tray. Another Norseman, Jamie. He reminded me of Mrs. Baird’s legends of the race of giants who once walked Scotland and laid their long bones in the earth of the north.

The conversation was general, as it usually was, small groups buzzing between mouthfuls. But my ears suddenly caught a familiar name, spoken at a nearby table. Sandringham. I thought the voice was Murtagh’s, and turned around to see. He was seated next to Ned Gowan, munching industriously.

“Sandringham? Ah, old Willie the arse-bandit,” said Ned, meditatively.

“What?!” said one of the younger men-at-arms, choking on his ale.

“Our revered duke has something of a taste for boys, or so I understand,” Ned explained.

“Mmm,” agreed Rupert, his mouth full. Swallowing, he added, “Had a wee bit of a taste for young Jamie here, last time he visited these parts, if I remember rightly. That were when, Dougal? Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine?”

“Thirty-seven,” Dougal answered from the next table. He narrowed his eyes at his nephew. “Ye were rather a pretty lad at sixteen, Jamie.”

Jamie nodded, chewing. “Aye. Fast, too.”

When the laughter had died down, Dougal began to tease Jamie.

“I didna ken ye were a favorite, Jamie, lad. There’s several about the Duke as ha’ traded a sore arse for lands and offices.”

“Ye’ll notice I havena got either one,” responded Jamie with a grin, to further roars of laughter.

“What? Never even got close?” said Rupert, chewing noisily.

“A good bit closer than I would have liked, truth be known.”

“Ah, but how close would ye ha’ liked it, hey, lad?” The shout came from further down the table, from a tall, brown-bearded man I didn’t recognize, and was greeted with more laughter and ribald remarks. Jamie smiled tranquilly and reached for another loaf, undisturbed by the teasing.

“Is that why ye left the Castle so sudden and went back to your father?” asked Rupert.

“Aye.”

“Why, ye should ha’ told me ye were having trouble that way, Jamie, lad,” said Dougal, with mock concern. Jamie made a low Scottish noise in his throat.

“And if I’d told ye about it, you old rogue, ye would have slipped a bit of poppy juice in my ale some evening, and left me in His Grace’s bed as a wee gift.”

The table roared, and Jamie dodged as Dougal hurled an onion at him.

Rupert squinted across at Jamie. “Seems to me, lad, I saw ye, soon before ye left, goin’ into the Duke’s chambers near nightfall. Ye’re sure ye’re not holdin’ back on us?” Jamie grabbed another onion and threw it at him. It missed and rolled away into the rushes.

“Nay,” Jamie said, laughing, “I’m a maiden still—that way, at least. But if ye must know all about it before you can sleep, Rupert, I’ll tell ye, and welcome.”

Amid shouts of “Tell! Tell!” he deliberately poured a mug of ale and sat back in the classic storyteller’s posture. I could see Colum at the head table, head cocked forward to hear, as attentive as the ostlers and fighting-men at our table.

“Well,” he began, “it’s true enough what Ned says; His Grace had something of an eye for me, though being the innocent I was at sixteen—” Here he was interrupted by a number of cynical remarks, and raised his voice to go on. “Bein’, as I say, innocent of such carryings on, I’d no idea what he meant, though it seemed a bit strange to me, the way His Grace was always wanting to pat me like a wee dog and was so interested in what I might ha’ in my sporran.” (“Or under it!” shouted a drunken voice.)

“I thought it stranger still,” he went on, “when he found me washing myself at the river and wanted to wash my back for me. When he finished my back and went on wi’ the rest, I began to get a wee bit nervous, and when he put his hand under my kilts, I began to get the general idea. I may have been an innocent, but no a complete fool, ye ken.

“I got out of that particular situation by diving into the water, kilts and all, and swimming across to the other side; His Grace being not of a mind to risk his costly clothes in the mud and water. Anyway, after that I was verra wary of being alone with him. He caught me once or twice in the garden or the courtyard, but there was room to get away, wi’ no more harm than him kissing my ear. The only other bad time was when he came on me alone in the stables.”

“In my stables?” Old Alec looked aghast. He half-rose to his feet and called across the room to the head table. “Colum, ye’ll see that man stays oot o’ my sheds! I’ll not have him frightening my horses, duke or no! Or troubling the boys, neither!” he added, as an obvious afterthought.

Jamie went on with his story, unperturbed by the interruption. Dougal’s two teenaged daughters were listening raptly, mouths slightly agape.

“I was in a horsebox, ye ken, and there wasna room to maneuver much. I was bendin’ over [more ribald remarks]—bendin’ over the manger, I say, muckin’ up husks from the bottom, when I hear a sound behind me, and before I can straighten up, my kilts are tossed up round my waist, and there’s something hard pressed against my arse.”

He waved a hand to still the tumult before going on. “Weel, I didna care much for the thought of being buggered in a horsebox, but I didna see much way out at that point, either. I was just gritting my teeth and hoping it wouldn’t hurt too much, when the horse—it was that big black gelding, Ned, the one ye got at Brocklebury—you know, the one Colum sold to Breadalbin—anyway, the horse took an objection to the noise His Grace was making. Now, most horses like ye to talk to them, and so did that one, but he had a peculiar aversion to verra high voices; I couldna take him in the yard when there were small bairns about, because he’d get nervous at their squeaks, and start pawing and stamping.

“His Grace, ye might recall, has a rather high-pitched voice, and it was a bit higher than usual on this occasion, him bein’ a trifle excited. Weel, as I say, the horse didna care for it—nor did I, I must say—and he starts stamping, and snorting, and swings his body round and squashes His Grace flat against the side of the box. As soon as the Duke let go of me, I jumped into the manger and eased away round the other side of the horse, leavin’ His Grace to get out as best he might.”

Jamie paused for breath and a sip of ale. He had the attention of the whole room by this time, faces turned toward him, gleaming in the light of the torcheres. Here and there might have been discerned a frown at these revelations concerning a most puissant noble of the English Crown, but the overriding reaction was an untrammeled delight in the scandal. I gathered that the Duke was not a particularly popular personage at Castle Leoch.

“Havin’ been so close, as ye might say, His Grace made up his mind as he’d have me, come what might. So next day he tells The MacKenzie that his body servant’s fallen ill, and can he borrow me to help him wash and dress.” Colum covered his face in mock dismay, to the amusement of the crowd. Jamie nodded to Rupert.

“That’s why ye saw me go to His Grace’s room in the evening. Under orders, ye might say.”

“You could have told me, Jamie. I’d not have made you go,” Colum called, with a look of reproach.

Jamie shrugged and grinned. “I was prevented by my natural modesty, Uncle. Besides, I knew ye were trying to deal with the man; I thought it might impair your negotiations a bit if you were forced to tell His Grace to keep his hands off your nephew’s bum.”

“Very thoughtful of you, Jamie,” said Colum dryly. “So you sacrificed yourself for my interests, did you?”

Jamie raised his mug in a mock-toast. “Your interests are always foremost in my mind, Uncle,” he said, and I thought that in spite of the teasing tone, there was a sharp undercurrent of truth to this, one that Colum perceived as well as I.

He drained the mug and set it down. “But, no,” he said, wiping his mouth, “in this case, I didna feel that family duty required quite that much of me. I went to the Duke’s rooms, because you told me to, but that was all.”

“And ye came out again wi’ yer arse-hole unstretched?” Rupert sounded skeptical.

Jamie grinned. “Aye, I did. Ye see, directly I heard about it, I went to Mrs. Fitz, and told her I was in desperate need of a dose of syrup of figs. When she gave it to me, I saw where she put the bottle, and I came back quiet a bit later, and drank the whole lot.”

The room rocked with laughter, including Mrs. Fitz, who turned so red in the face I thought she might have a seizure. She rose ceremoniously from her place, waddled round the table and cuffed Jamie good-naturedly on the ear.

“So that’s what became of my good physick, ye young wretch!” Hands on her hips, she wagged her head, making the green ear-bobbles wink like dragonflies. “The best lot I ever made too!”

“Oh, it was most effective,” he assured her, laughing up at the massive dame.

“I should think so! When I think what that much physick must have done to your innards, lad, I hope it was worth it to ye. Ye canna have been much good to yourself for days after.”

He shook his head, still laughing.

“I wasn’t, but then, I wasna much good for what His Grace had in mind, either. He did not seem to mind at all when I begged leave to remove myself from his presence. But I knew I couldna do it twice, so as soon as the cramps eased up, I got a horse from the stables and lit out. It took a long time to get home, since I had to stop every ten minutes or so, but I made it by supper next day.”

Dougal beckoned for a new jug of ale, which he passed down the board hand-to-hand to Jamie.

“Aye, your father sent word he thought perhaps you’d learned enough of castle life for the present,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I thought there was a tone to his letter I did not quite understand at the time.”

“Weel, I hope ye’ve laid up a new batch of fig syrup, Mrs. Fitz,” Rupert interrupted, poking her familiarly in the ribs. “His Grace is like to be here in a day or two. Or are ye counting on your new wife to guard ye this time, Jamie?” He leered at me. “From all accounts, ye may need to guard her. I hear the Duke’s servant does not share His Grace’s preferences, though he’s every bit as active.”

Jamie pushed back the bench and rose from the table, handing me out. He put an arm around my shoulders and smiled back at Rupert.

“Well, then, I suppose the two of us will just have to fight it out back-to-back.”

Rupert’s eyes flew open in horrified dismay.

“Back to back!?” he exclaimed. “I knew we’d forgot to tell ye something before your wedding, lad! No wonder you’ve not got her with child yet!”

Jamie’s hand tightened on my shoulder, turning me toward the archway, and we made our escape, pelted by a hail of laughter and bawdy advice.

In the dark hall outside, Jamie leaned against the stones, doubled over. Unable to stand, I sank to the ground at his feet and giggled helplessly.

“You didn’t tell him, did you?” Jamie gasped at last.

I shook my head. “No, of course not.” Still wheezing, I groped for his hand, and he hauled me upright. I collapsed against his chest.

“Let me see if I’ve got it right, now.” He cupped my face between his hands and pressed his forehead to mine, face so close that his eyes blurred into one large blue orb and his breath was warm on my chin.

“Face to face. Is that it?” The fizz of laughter was dying down in my blood, replaced by something else just as potent. I touched my tongue against his lips, while my hands busied themselves lower down.

“Faces are not the essential parts. But you’re learning.”

Next day, I was in my surgery, listening patiently to an elderly lady from the village, some relation to the soup cook, who was rather garrulously detailing her daughter-in-law’s bout with the morbid sore throat which theoretically had something to do with her current complaint of quinsy, though I couldn’t at the moment see the connection. A shadow fell across the doorway, interrupting the old lady’s catalog of symptoms.

I looked up, startled, to see Jamie rush in, followed by Old Alec, both men looking worried and excited. Jamie unceremoniously removed the makeshift tongue depressor I was holding and pulled me to my feet, clasping both hands between his own.

“What—” I began, but was interrupted by Alec, peering over Jamie’s shoulder at my hands, which Jamie was displaying to him.

“Aye, that’s verra weel, but the arms, man? Has she the arm for it?”

“Look.” Jamie grasped one of my hands and stretched my arm out straight, measuring it along one of his.

“Weel,” said Alec, examining it doubtfully, “could do. Aye, it could.”

“Would you care to tell me what you think you’re doing?” I inquired, but before I could finish, I was being hustled down the stairs between the two men, leaving my aged patient to gape after us in perplexity.

A few moment later, I was dubiously eyeing the large, shiny, brown hindquarters of a horse, located some six inches from my face. The problem had been made clear on the way to the stables, Jamie explaining and Old Alec chiming in with remarks, imprecations, and interjections.

Losgann, customarily a good foaler, and a prize member of Colum’s stable, was having trouble. This much I could see for myself; the mare lay on her side and periodically the shining flanks heaved and the enormous body seemed to shiver. Down on hands and knees at the rear of the horse, I could see the lips of the vagina gape slightly with each contraction, but nothing further happened; no sight of tiny hoof or delicate wet nose appeared at the opening. The foal, a late one, was evidently presenting side-on or backward. Alec thought side-on, Jamie thought backward, and they paused to argue about it for a moment, until I impatiently called the meeting to order to ask what they expected me to do about it, in either case.

Jamie looked at me as though I were a bit simple. “Turn the foal, of course,” he said patiently. “Bring the forelegs round so it can get out.”

“Oh, is that all?” I looked at the horse. Losgann, whose elegant name actually meant “Frog,” was delicately boned for a horse, but bloody big for all that.

“Er, reach inside, you mean?” I glanced covertly at my hand. It probably would fit—the opening was big enough—but what then?

Both men’s hands were clearly too big for the job. And Roderick, the stable lad who was usually pressed into service in such delicate situations, was, of course, immobilized with a splint and sling of my devising on his right arm—he had broken his arm two days before. Willie, the other stable lad, had gone to fetch Roderick, nonetheless, to give advice and moral encouragement. At this juncture, he arrived, clad in nothing but a pair of ragged breeches, thin chest glimmering whitely in the dim stable.

“It’s hard work,” he said dubiously, apprised of the situation and the suggestion that I substitute for him. “Tricky, ye ken. There’s a knack to it, but it takes a bit of strength as well.”

“Nay worry,” said Jamie confidently. “Claire’s stronger by far than you, ye poor weed. If you’ll but tell her what to feel for and what to do, she’ll have it round in no time.”

I appreciated the vote of confidence, but was in no way so sanguine myself. Telling myself firmly that this was no worse than assisting at abdominal surgery, I retired to a stall to change my gown for breeches and a rough smock of sacking, and lathered my hand and arm up to the shoulder with greasy tallow soap.

“Well, over the top,” I muttered under my breath, and slid my hand inside.

There was very little room to maneuver, and at first I couldn’t tell what I was feeling. I closed my eyes to concentrate better, though, and groped cautiously. There were smooth expanses, and bumpy bits. The smooth parts would be body and the bumps legs or head. It was legs I wanted—forelegs, to be specific. Gradually I became accustomed to the feel of things, and the necessity for keeping quite still when a contraction came on; the amazingly powerful muscles of the uterus clamped down on my hand and arm like a vise, grinding my own bones very painfully until the constriction eased, and I could resume my groping.

At last, my fumbling fingers encountered something I was sure of.

“I’ve got my fingers in its nose!” I cried triumphantly. “I’ve found the head!”

“Good lass, good! Dinna let go!” Alec crouched anxiously alongside, patting the mare reassuringly as another contraction set in. I gritted my teeth and leaned my forehead against the shining rump as my wrist was crushed by the force. It eased, though, and I kept my grip. Feeling cautiously upward, I found the curve of eyesocket and brow, and the small ridge of the folded ear. Waiting through one more contraction, I followed the curve of the neck down to the shoulder.

“It’s got its head turned back on its shoulder,” I reported. “The head’s pointing the right way, at least.”

“Good.” Jamie, at the horse’s head, ran his hand soothingly down the sweating chestnut neck. “Likely the legs will be folded under the chest. See can you get a hand on one knee.”

So it went on, feeling, fumbling, up to my shoulder in the warm darkness of the horse, feeling the awful force of the birth pangs and their grateful easing, struggling blindly to reach my goal. I felt rather as though I were giving birth myself, and bloody hard work it was, too.

At last I had my hand on a hoof; I could feel the rounded surface, and the sharp edge of the yet-unused curve. Following the anxious, often contradictory instructions of my guides as best I could, I alternately pulled and pushed, easing the unwieldy mass of the foal around, bringing one foot forward, pushing another back, sweating and groaning along with the mare.

And then suddenly everything worked. A contraction eased, and all at once, everything slid smoothly into place. I waited, not moving, for the next contraction. It came, and a small wet nose popped suddenly out, pushing my hand out with it. The tiny nostrils flared briefly, as though interested in this new sensation, then the nose vanished.

“Next one will do it!” Alec was almost dancing in ecstasy, his arthritic form capering up and down in the hay. “Come on, Losgann. Come on, my sweet wee froggie!”

As though in answer, there was a convulsive grunt from the mare. Her hindquarters flexed sharply and the foal slid smoothly onto the clean hay in a slither of knobbly legs and big ears.

I sat back on the hay, grinning idiotically. I was covered with soap and slime and blood, exhausted and aching, and smelt strongly of the less pleasant aspects of horse. I was euphoric.

I sat watching as Willy and the one-handed Roderick tended the new arrival, wiping him down with wisps of straw. And cheered with the rest when Losgann turned and licked him, butting him gently and nosing him to stand at last on his huge, wobbly feet.

“A damn good job, lassie! Damn good!” Alec was exuberant, pumping my unslimed hand in congratulation. Suddenly realizing that I was swaying on my perch, and much less than presentable, he turned and barked at one of the lads to bring some water. Then he circled behind me and set his horny old hands on my shoulders. With an amazingly deft and gentle touch, he pressed and stroked, easing the strain in my shoulders, relaxing the knots in my neck.

“There, lassie,” he said at last. “Hard work, no?” He smiled down at me, then beamed adoringly at the new colt.

“Bonny laddie,” he crooned. “Who’s a sweet lad, then?”

Jamie helped me to clean up and change. My fingers were too stiff to manage the buttons of my bodice, and I knew my entire arm would be blue with bruising by morning, but I felt thoroughly peaceful and contented.

The rain seemed to have lasted forever, so that when a day finally dawned bright and fair, I squinted in the daylight like a newly emerged mole.

“Your skin is so fine I can see the blood moving beneath it,” Jamie said, tracing the path of a sunbeam across my bare stomach. “I could follow the veins from your hand to your heart.” He drew his finger gently up my wrist to the bend of the elbow, up the inner side of my upper arm, and across the slope below my collarbone.

“That’s the subclavian vein,” I remarked, looking down my nose at the path of his tracking finger.

“Is it? Oh, aye, because it’s below your clavicle. Tell me some more.” The finger moved slowly downward. “I like to hear the Latin names for things; I never dreamed it would be so pleasant to make love to a physician.”

“That,” I said primly, “is an areola, and you know it, because I told you last week.”

“So ye did,” he murmured. “And there’s another one, fancy that.” The bright head dipped to let his tongue replace the finger, then traveled lower.

“Umbilicus,” I said with a short gasp.

“Um,” he said, muffled lips stretching in a smile against my transparent skin. “And what’s this, then?”

“You tell me,” I said, clutching his head. But he was incapable of speech.

Later I lounged in my surgery chair, basking dreamily in memories of awaking in a bed of sunbeams, sheets tumbled in blinding shoals of white like the sands of a beach. One hand rested on my breast, and I toyed idly with the nipple, enjoying the feel of it rising against my palm beneath the thin calico of my bodice.

“Enjoying yourself?”

The sarcastic voice from the door brought me upright so quickly that I bumped my head on a shelf.

“Oh,” I said, rather grumpily. “Geilie. Who else? What are you doing here?”

She glided into the surgery, moving as though on wheels. I knew she had feet; I’d seen them. What I couldn’t figure out was where she put them when she walked.

“I came to bring Mrs. Fitz some saffron from Spain; she was wanting it against the Duke’s coming.”

“More spices?” I said, beginning to recover my good humor. “If the man eats half the things she’s fixing for him, they’ll need to roll him home.”

“They could do that now. He’s a wee round ball of a fellow, I’ve heard.” Dismissing the Duke and his physique, she asked whether I’d like to join her for an expedition to the nearby foothills.

“I’m needing a bit of moss,” she explained. She waved her long, boneless hands gracefully to and fro. “Makes a wonderful lotion for the hands, boiled in milk with a bit of sheep’s wool.”

I cast a look up at my slit window, where the dust motes were going mad in the golden light. A faint scent of ripe fruit and fresh-cut hay floated on the breeze.

“Why not?”

Waiting as I gathered my baskets and bottles together, Geilie strolled about my surgery, picking things up and putting them down at random. She stopped at a small table and picked up the object that lay there, frowning.

“What’s this?”

I stopped what I was doing, and came to stand beside her. She was holding a small bundle of dried plants, tied with three twisted threads; black, white, and red.

“Jamie says it’s an ill-wish.”

“He’s right. Where did ye come to get it?”

I told her about the finding of the small bundle in my bed.

“I went and found it under the window next day, where Jamie threw it. I meant to bring it round to your house and ask if you knew anything about it, but I forgot.”

She stood tapping a fingernail thoughtfully against her front teeth, shaking her head.

“No, I canna say that I do. But there might be a way of finding out who left it for ye.”

“Really?”

“Aye. Come to my house in the morning tomorrow, and I’ll tell ye then.”

Refusing to say more, she whirled about in a swirl of green cloak, leaving me to follow as I would.

She led me well up into the foothills, galloping when there was road enough to do so, walking when there wasn’t. An hour’s ride from the village, she stopped near a small brook, overhung by willows.

We forded the brook and wandered up into the foothills, gathering such late summer plants as still lingered, together with the ripening berries of early autumn and the thick yellow shelf fungus that sprouted from the trunks of trees in the small shady glens.

Geilie’s figure disappeared into the bracken above me, as I paused to scrape a bit of aspen bark into my basket. The globules of dried sap on the papery bark looked like frozen drops of blood, the deep crimson refulgent with trapped sunlight.

A sound startled me out of my reverie, and I looked up the hill, in the direction it seemed to come from.

I heard the sound again; a high-pitched, mewling cry. It seemed to come from above, from a rocky notch near the crest of the hill. I set my basket down and began to climb.

“Geilie!” I shouted. “Come up here! Someone’s left a baby!”

The sound of scrabbling and muttered imprecations preceded her up the hill, as she fought her way through the entangling bushes on the slope. Her fair face was flushed and cross and she had twigs in her hair.

“What in God’s name—” she began, and then darted forward. “Christ’s blood! Put it down!” She hastily snatched the baby from my arms, then laid it back where I had found it, in a small depression in the rock. The smooth, bowlshaped hollow was less than a yard across. At one side of the hollow was a shallow wooden bowl, half-full of fresh milk, and at the baby’s feet was a small bouquet of wildflowers, tied with a bit of red twine.

“But it’s sick!” I protested, stooping toward the child again. “Who would leave a sick child up here by itself?”

The baby was plainly very ill; the small pinched face was greenish, with dark hollows under the eyes, and the little fists waved weakly under the blanket. The child had hung slack in my arms when I picked it up; I wondered that it had had the strength to cry.

“Its parents,” Geilie said briefly, restraining me with a hand on my arm. “Leave it. Let’s get out of here.”

“Its parents?” I said indignantly. “But—”

“It’s a changeling,” she said impatiently. “Leave it and come. Now!”

Dragging me with her, she dodged back into the undergrowth. Protesting, I followed her down the slope until we arrived, breathless and red faced, at the bottom, where I forced her to stop.

“What is this?” I demanded. “We can’t just abandon a sick child, out in the open like that. And what do you mean, it’s a changeling?”

“A changeling,” she said impatiently. “Surely you know what a changeling is? When the fairies steal a human child away, they leave one of their own in its place. You know it’s a changeling because it cries and fusses all the time and doesn’t thrive or grow.”

“Of course I know what it is,” I said. “But you don’t believe that nonsense, do you?”

She shot me a sudden strange look, full of wary suspicion. Then the lines of her face relaxed into their normal expression of half-amused cynicism.

“No, I don’t,” she admitted. “But the folk here do.” She glanced nervously up the slope, but no further sound came from the rocky notch. “The family will be somewhere near about. Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, I allowed her to tow me away in the direction of the village.

“Why did they put it up there?” I asked, sitting on a rock to remove my stockings before wading across a small stream. “Do they hope the Wee Folk will come and cure it?” I was still bothered about the child; it seemed desperately ill. I didn’t know what was wrong with it, but perhaps I could help.

Maybe I could leave Geilie in the village, then come back for the child. It would have to be soon, though; I glanced up at the eastern sky, where soft grey rain clouds were swiftly darkening into purple dusk. A pink glow still showed to the west, but there could be no more than half an hour’s light left.

Geilie looped the twisted withy handle of her basket over her neck, picked up her skirt and stepped into the stream, shivering at the cold water.

“No,” she said. “Or rather, yes. That’s one of the fairies’ hills, and it’s dangerous to sleep there. If ye leave a changeling out overnight in such a place, the Folk will come and take it back, and leave the human child they’ve stolen in its place.”

“But they won’t, because it isn’t a changeling,” I said, sucking in my breath at the touch of the melted snow water. “It’s only a sick child. It might very well not survive a night in the open!”

“It won’t,” she said briefly. “It will be dead by morning. And I hope to God no one saw us near it.”

I stopped abruptly in the midst of putting on my shoes.

“Dead! Geilie, I’m going back for it. I can’t leave it there.” I turned and started back across the stream.

She caught me from behind and pushed me flat on my face into the shallow water. Floundering and gasping, I managed to rise to my knees, sloshing water in all directions. Geilie stood calf-deep in the stream, skirts soaked, glaring down at me.

“You bloody pig-headed English ass!” she shouted at me. “There’s nothing ye can do! Do ye hear me? Nothing! That child’s as good as dead! I’ll not stand here and let ye risk your own life and mine for some crack-brained notion of yours!” Snorting and grumbling under her breath, she reached down and got me under the arms with both hands, lugging me to my feet.

“Claire,” she said urgently, shaking me by the arms. “Listen to me. If ye go near that child and it dies—and it will, believe me, I’ve seen them like that—then the family will blame you for it. Do ye no see the danger of it? Don’t ye know what they say about you in the village?”

I stood shivering in the cold breeze of sunset, torn between her obvious panic for my safety, and the thought of a helpless child, slowly dying alone in the dark, with wildflowers at its feet.

“No,” I said, shaking the wet hair out of my face. “Geilie, no, I can’t. I’ll be careful, I promise, but I have to go.” I pulled myself out of her grasp and turned toward the far bank, stumbling and splashing in the uncertain shadows of the streambed.

There was a muffled cry of exasperation from behind me, then a frenzied sploshing in the opposite direction. Well, at least she wouldn’t hamper me further.

It was growing dark fast, and I pushed through the bushes and weeds as quickly as I could. I wasn’t sure that I could find the right hill if it grew dark before I reached it; there were several nearby, all about the same height. And fairies or not, the thought of wandering about alone out here in the dark was not one I cared for. The question of how I was going to make it back to the Castle with a sick baby was something I would deal with when the time came.

I found the hill, finally, by spotting the stand of young larches I remembered at the base. It was nearly full dark by this time, a moonless night, and I stumbled and fell frequently. The larches stood huddled together, talking quietly in the evening breeze with clicks and creaks and rustling sighs.

Bloody place is haunted, I thought, listening to the leafy conversation overhead as I threaded my way through the slender trunks. I wouldn’t be surprised to meet a ghost behind the next tree.

I was surprised, though. Actually, I was scared out of my wits when the shadowy figure slid out and grabbed me. I let out a piercing shriek and struck at it.

“Jesus Christ,” I said, “what are you doing here?” I crumpled for a moment against Jamie’s chest, relieved to see him, in spite of the fright he had given me.

He took me by the arm and turned to lead me out of the wood.

“Came for you,” he said, low voiced. “I was coming to meet you because night was comin’ on; I met Geillis Duncan near St. John’s brook and she told me where you were.”

“But the baby—” I began, turning back toward the hill.

“The child’s dead,” he said briefly, tugging me back. “I went up there first, to see.”

I followed him then without demur, distressed over the child’s death, but relieved that I would not, after all, have to face the climb to the fairies’ crest or the long journey back alone. Oppressed by the dark and the whispering trees, I didn’t speak until we had crossed the brook again. Still damp from the previous immersion, I didn’t bother removing my stockings, but sloshed across regardless. Jamie, still dry, stayed that way by leaping from the bank to a central boulder that stood above the current, then vaulted to my bank like a broad-jumper.

“Have ye any idea how dangerous it is to be out alone at night like that, Sassenach?” he inquired. He didn’t seem angry, just curious.

“No…I mean yes. I’m sorry if I worried you. But I couldn’t leave a child out there, I just couldn’t.”

“Aye, I know.” He hugged me briefly. “You’ve a kind heart, Sassenach. But you’ve no idea what you’re dealing with, here.”

“Fairies, hm?” I was tired, and disturbed over the incident, but covered it with flippancy. “I’m not afraid of superstitions.” A thought struck me. “Do you believe in fairies, and changelings, and all that?”

He hesitated for a moment before answering.

“No. No, I dinna believe in such things, though damned if I’d care to sleep all night on a fairies’ hill, for a’ that. But I’m an educated man, Sassenach. I had a German tutor at Dougal’s house, a good one, who taught me Latin and Greek and such, and later when I went to France at eighteen—well, I studied history and philosophy and I saw that there was a good deal more to the world than the glens and the moors, and the waterhorses in the lochs. But these people…” He waved an arm, taking in the darkness behind us.

“They’ve ne’er been more than a day’s walk from the place they were born, except for a great thing like a clan Gathering, and that might happen twice in a lifetime. They live among the glens and the lochs, and they hear no more of the world than what Father Bain tells them in kirk of a Sunday. That and the old stories.”

He held aside an alder branch and I stooped under it. We were on the deer trail Geilie and I had followed earlier, and I was heartened by this fresh evidence that he could find his way, even in the dark. Away from the fairies’ hill, he spoke in his normal voice, only pausing occasionally to brush away some tangling growth from his path.

“Those tales are naught but entertainment in Gwyllyn’s hands, when ye sit in the Hall drinking Rhenish wine.” He preceded me down the path, and his voice floated back to me, soft and emphatic in the cool night air.

“Out here, though, and even in the village—nay, that’s something else. Folk live by them. I suppose there’s some truth behind some of them.”

I thought of the amber eyes of the waterhorse, and wondered which others were true.

“And others…well,” his voice grew softer, and I had to strain to hear him. “For the parents of that child, maybe it will ease them a bit to believe it is the changeling who died, and think of their own child, healthy and well, living forever with the fairies.”

We reached the horses then, and within half an hour the lights of Castle Leoch shone through the darkness to welcome us. I had never thought I would consider that bleak edifice an outpost of advanced civilization, but just now the lights seemed those of a beacon of enlightenment.

It was not until we drew closer that I realized the impression of light was due to the string of lanterns blazing along the parapet of the bridge.

“Something’s happened,” I said, turning to Jamie. And seeing him for the first time in the light, I realized that he was not wearing his usual worn shirt and grubby kilt. His snowy linen shone in the lantern light, and his best—his only—velvet coat lay across his saddle.

“Aye,” he nodded. “That’s why I came to get you. The Duke’s come at last.”

The Duke was something of a surprise. I don’t know quite what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t the bluff, hearty, red-faced sportsman I met in Leoch’s hall. He had a pleasantly blunt, weatherbeaten face, with light blue eyes that always squinted slightly, as though looking into the sun after the flight of a pheasant.

I wondered for a moment whether that earlier bit of theatrics regarding the Duke might have been overstated. Looking around the hall, though, I noticed that every boy under eighteen wore a slightly wary expression, keeping his eyes fixed on the Duke as he laughed and talked animatedly with Colum and Dougal. Not merely theatrics, then; they had been warned.

When I was presented to the Duke, I had some difficulty in keeping a straight face. He was a big man, fit and solid, the sort you so often see booming out their opinions in pubs, bearing down the opposition by dint of loudness and repetition. I had been warned, of course, by Jamie’s story, but the physical impression was so overwhelming that when the Duke bowed low over my hand and said, “But how charming to find a countrywoman in this remote spot, Mistress,” in a voice like an overwrought mouse, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from disgracing myself in public.

Worn out from travel, the Duke and his party retired early to bed. The next night, though, there was music and conversation after dinner, and Jamie and I joined Colum, Dougal, and the Duke. Sandringham grew expansive over Colum’s Rhenish wine, and talked volubly, expounding equally upon the horrors of travel in the Highlands and the beauties of the countryside. We listened politely, and I tried not to catch Jamie’s eye as the Duke squeaked out the story of his travails.

“Broke an axle-tree outside of Stirling, and we were becalmed three days—in the pouring rain, mind you—before my footman could find a blacksmith to come and repair the blasted thing. And not half a day later, we bounced into the most tremendous pothole I’ve ever seen and broke the damn thing again! And then one horse threw a shoe, and we had to unload the coach and walk beside it—in the mud—leading the lame nag. And then…” As the tale went on, from misfortune to misfortune, I felt an increasing urge to giggle, and attempted to drown it with more wine—possibly an error in judgment.

“But the game, MacKenzie, the game!” the Duke exclaimed at one point, rolling his eyes in ecstasy. “I could scarce believe it. No wonder you set such a table.” He gently patted his large, solid stomach. “I swear I’d give my eyeteeth for a try at a stag like the one we saw two days ago; splendid beast, simply splendid. Leapt out of the brush right in front of the coach, m’dear,” he confided to me. “Startled the horses so we near as a toucher went off the road again!”

Colum raised the bell-shaped decanter, with an inquiring cock of one dark brow. As he poured to the proffered glasses, he said, “Well, perhaps we might arrange a hunt for ye, your Grace. My nephew’s a bonny huntsman.” He glanced sharply from under his brows at Jamie; there was a scarcely perceptible nod in response.

Colum sat back, replacing the decanter, and said casually, “Aye, that’ll do well, then. Perhaps early next week. It’s too early for pheasant, but the stag hunting will be fine.” He turned to Dougal, lounging in a padded chair to one side. “My brother might go along; if you have it in mind to travel northwards, he can show ye the lands we were discussing earlier.”

“Capital, capital!” The Duke was delighted. He patted Jamie on the leg; I saw the muscles tighten, but Jamie didn’t move. He smiled tranquilly, and the Duke let his hand linger just a moment too long. Then His Grace caught my eye on him, and smiled jovially at me, his expression saying “Worth a try, eh?” Despite myself, I smiled back. Much to my surprise, I quite liked the man.

In the excitement of the Duke’s arrival, I had forgotten Geilie’s offer to help me discover the sender of the ill-wish. And after the unpleasant scene with the changeling child on the fairies’ hill, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to try anything she might suggest.

Still, curiosity overcame suspicion, and when Colum asked Jamie to ride down and escort the Duncans to the castle for the Duke’s banquet two days later, I went with him.

Thus it was that Thursday found me and Jamie in the Duncans’ parlor, being entertained with a sort of awkward friendliness by the fiscal, while his wife finished her dressing upstairs. Largely recovered from the effects of his last gastric attack, Arthur still did not look terribly healthy. Like many fat men who lose too much weight abruptly, the weight had gone from his face, rather than his stomach. His paunch still swelled the green silk of his waistcoat, while the skin of his face drooped in flabby folds.

“Perhaps I could slip upstairs and help Geilie with her hair or something,” I suggested. “I’ve brought her a new ribbon.” Foreseeing the possible need of an excuse for talking to Geilie alone, I had brought a small package with me. Producing it as an excuse, I was through the door and up the stairs before Arthur could protest.

She was ready for me.

“Come on,” she said, “we’ll go up to my private room for this. We’ll have to hurry, but it won’t take too long.”

I followed Geilie up the narrow, twisting stair. The steps were irregular heights; some of the risers were so high I had to lift my skirts to avoid tripping on the way up. I concluded that seventeenth-century carpenters either had faulty methods of measuring or rich senses of humor.

Geilie’s private sanctum was at the top of the house, in one of the remote attics above the servants’ quarters. It was guarded by a locked door, opened by a truly formidable key which Geilie produced from her apron pocket; it must have been at least six inches long, with a broad fretwork head ornamented with a vine-and-flower pattern. The key must have weighed nearly a pound; held by the barrel, it would have made a good weapon. Both lock and hinges were well oiled, and the thick door swung inward silently.

The attic room was small, cramped by the gabled dormers that cut across the front of the house. Shelves lined every inch of wall space, holding jars, bottles, flasks, vials, and beakers. Bunches of drying herbs, carefully tied with threads of different colors, hung neatly in rows from the rafters overhead, brushing my hair with a fragrant dust as we passed beneath.

This was nothing like the clean, businesslike order of the herb room downstairs, though. It was crowded, almost cluttered, and dark in spite of the dormer windows.

One shelf held books, mostly old and crumbling, the spines unmarked. I ran a curious finger over the row of leather bindings. Most were calf, but there were two or three bound in something different; something soft, but unpleasantly oily to the touch. And one that to all appearances was bound in fish skin. I pulled a volume out and opened it gingerly. It was handwritten in a mixture of archaic French, and even more obsolete Latin, but I could make out the title. L’Grimoire d’le Comte St. Germain.

I closed the book and set it back on the shelf, feeling a slight shock. A grimoire. A handbook of magic. I could feel Geilie’s gaze boring into my back, and turned to meet a mixture of mischief and wary speculation. What would I do, now that I knew?

“So it isn’t a rumor, then, is it?” I said, smiling. “You really are a witch.” I wondered just how far it went, and whether she believed it herself, or whether these were merely the trappings of an elaborate make-believe that she used to alleviate the boredom of marriage to Arthur. I also wondered just what sort of magic she practiced—or thought she practiced.

“Oh, white,” she said, grinning. “Definitely white magic.”

I thought ruefully that Jamie must be right about my face—everyone seemed to be able to tell what I was thinking.

“Well, that’s good,” I said. “I’m really not much of a one for dancing round bonfires at midnight and riding brooms, let alone kissing the Devil’s arse.”

Geilie tossed back her hair and laughed delightedly.

“Ye don’t kiss anyone’s much, that I can see,” she said. “Nor do I. Though if I had a sweet fiery devil like yours in my bed, I’ll not say I might not come to it in time.”

“That reminds me—” I began, but she had already turned away, and was about her preparations, murmuring to herself.

Checking first to see that the door was securely locked behind us, Geilie crossed to the gabled window and rummaged in a chest built into the window seat. She pulled out a large, shallow pan and a tall white candle stuck in a pottery holder. A further foray produced a worn quilt, which she spread on the floor as protection against dust and splinters.

“What exactly is it you’re planning to do, Geilie?” I asked, examining the preparations suspiciously. Offhand, I couldn’t see much sinister intent in a pan, a candle, and a quilt, but then I was a novice magician, to say the least.

“Summoning,” she said, tugging the corners of the quilt around so that the sides lay straight with the boards of the floor.

“Summoning whom?” I asked. Or what.

She stood and brushed her hair back. Baby-fine and slippery, it was coming down from its fastenings. Muttering, she yanked the pins from her hair and let it fall down in a straight, shiny curtain, the color of heavy cream.

“Oh, ghosts, spirits, visions. Anything ye might have need of,” she said. “It starts the same in any case, but the herbs and the words are different for each thing. What we want now is a vision—to see who it is who’s ill-wished ye. Then we can turn the ill-wish back upon them.”

“Er, well…” I really had no wish to be vindictive, but I was curious—both to see what summoning was like, and to know who had left me the ill-wish.

Setting the pan in the middle of the quilt, she poured water into it from a jug, explaining, “You can use any vessel big enough to make a good reflection, though the grimoire says to use a silver bassin. Even a pond or a puddle of water outside will do for some kinds of summoning, though it must be secluded. Ye need peace and quiet to do this.”

She passed rapidly from window to window, drawing the heavy black curtains until virtually all the light in the room was extinguished. I could barely see Geilie’s slender form flitting through the gloom, until she lit the candle. The wavering flame lit her face as she carried it back to the quilt, throwing wedge-shaped shadows under the bold nose and chiseled jaw.

She set the candle next to the pan of water, on the side away from me. She filled the pan very carefully, so full that the water bulged slightly above the rim, kept from spilling by its surface tension. Leaning over, I could see that the surface of the water provided an excellent reflection, far better than that obtainable in any of the Castle’s looking glasses. As though mind reading again, Geilie explained that in addition to its use in summoning spirits, the reflecting pan was an excellent accessory for dressing the hair.

“Don’t bump into it, or you’ll get soaked,” she advised, frowning in concentration as she lit the candle. Something about the practical tone of the remark, so prosaic in the midst of these supernatural preparations, reminded me of someone. Looking up at the slender, pallid figure, stooping elegantly over the tinderbox, I couldn’t think at first of whom she reminded me. But of course. While no one could be less like that dowdy figure athwart the teapot in Reverend Wakefield’s study, the tone of voice had been that of Mrs. Graham, exactly.

Perhaps it was an attitude they shared, a pragmatism that regarded the occult as merely a collection of phenomena like the weather. Something to be approached with cautious respect, of course—much as one would take care in using a sharp kitchen knife—but certainly nothing to avoid or fear.

Or it might have been the smell of lavender water. Geilie’s loose, flowing gowns smelled always of the essences she distilled: marigold, chamomile, bay leaf, spikenard, mint, marjoram. Today, though, it was lavender that drifted from the folds of the white dress. The same scent that permeated Mrs. Graham’s practical blue cotton and wafted from the corrugations of her bony chest.

If Geilie’s chest was likewise underlaid by such skeletal supports, there was no hint of it visible, in spite of her robe’s low neckline. It was the first time I had seen Geilie Duncan en deshabille; customarily she wore the severe and voluminous gowns, buttoned high at the neck, that were suitable to the wife of a fiscal. The swelling opulence now revealed was a surprise, a creamy abundance almost the same shade as the dress she wore, and gave me some idea why a man like Arthur Duncan might have married a penniless girl of no family. My eye went involuntarily to the line of neatly labeled jars along the wall, looking for saltpeter.

Geilie selected three of the jars from the shelf, pouring a small quantity from each into the bowl of a tiny metal brazier. She lit the layer of charcoal underneath from the candle flame, and blew on the dawning flame to encourage it. A fragrant smoke began to rise as the spark took hold.

The air in the attic was so still that the greyish smoke rose straight up without diffusing, forming a column that echoed the shape of the tall white candle. Geilie sat between the two columns like a priestess in her temple, legs folded gracefully under her.

“Well then, that will do nicely, I think.” Briskly dusting crumbs of rosemary from her fingers, Geilie surveyed the scene with satisfaction. The black drapes, with their mystic symbols, shut out all intrusive beams of sunlight, and left the candle as the only source of direct illumination. The flame was reflected and diffused through the pan of still water, which seemed to glow as though it, too, were a source rather than a reflection of light.

“What now?” I inquired.

The large grey eyes glowed like the water, alight with anticipation. She waved her hands across the surface of the water, then folded them between her legs.

“Just sit quiet for a moment,” she said. “Listen to your heartbeat. Do you hear it? Breathe easy, slow and deep.” In spite of the liveliness of her expression, her voice was calm and slow, a distinct contrast to her usual sprightly conversation.

I obediently did as she instructed, feeling my heart slow as my breathing steadied to an even rhythm. I recognized the scent of rosemary in the smoke, but I wasn’t sure of the other two herbs; foxglove, perhaps, or cinquefoil? I had thought the purple flowers were those of nightshade, but surely that couldn’t be. Whatever they were, the slowness of my breathing did not seem to be attributable only to the power of Geilie’s suggestion. I felt as though a weight were pressing against my breastbone, slowing my breathing without my having to will it.

Geilie herself sat perfectly still, watching me with unblinking eyes. She nodded, once, and I looked down obediently into the still surface of the water.

She began to talk, in an even, conversational way that reminded me again of Mrs. Graham, calling down the sun in the circle of stones.

The words were not English, and yet not quite not English, either. It was a strange tongue, but one I felt that I should know, as though the words were spoken just below the level of my hearing.

I felt my hands begin to go numb, and wanted to move them from their folded position in my lap, but they wouldn’t move. Her even voice went on, soft and persuading. Now I knew that I understood what was being said, but still could not summon the words to the surface of my mind.

I realized dimly that I was either being hypnotized, or under the influence of some drug, and my mind took some last foothold on the edge of conscious thought, resisting the pull of the sweet-scented smoke. I could see my reflection in the water, pupils shrunk to pinpoints, eyes wide as a sun-blind owl’s. The word “opium” drifted through my fading thoughts.

“Who are you?” I couldn’t tell which of us had asked the question, but I felt my own throat move as I answered, “Claire.”

“Who sent you here?”

“I came.”

“Why did you come?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Why can’t you tell?”

“Because no one will believe me.”

The voice in my head grew still more soothing, friendly, beguiling.

“I will believe you. Believe me. Who are you?”

“Claire.”

A sudden loud noise broke the spell. Geilie started and her knee bumped the bassin, startling the reflection back into the water.

“Geillis? My dear?” A voice called through the door, tentative yet commanding. “We must be going, my dear. The horses are ready, and you’re not yet gowned.”

Muttering something rude under her breath, Geilie rose and flung open the window, so that the fresh air rushed into my face, making me blink and dispelling some of the fog in my head.

She stood looking down at me speculatively, then stooped to help me up.

“Come along, then,” she said. “Come over a bit queer, have you? Sometimes it takes folk that way. You’d best lie down on my bed while I dress.”

I lay flat on the coverlet in her bedroom below, eyes closed, listening to the small rustling noises Geilie made in her privy closet, wondering what the hell that had been all about. Nothing to do with the ill-wish or its sender, clearly. Only with my identity. With sharpness returning gradually to my wits, it occurred to me to wonder whether Geilie perhaps was a spy for Colum. Placed as she was, she heard the business and the secrets of the whole district. And who, other than Colum, would be so interested in my origins?

What would have happened, I wondered, had Arthur not interrupted the summoning? Would I have heard, somewhere in the scented fog, the standard hypnotist’s injunction, “When you wake, you will remember nothing”? But I did remember, and I wondered.

In the event, however, there was no chance to ask Geilie about it. The bedroom door flew open, and Arthur Duncan came in. Crossing to the door of the privy closet, he knocked once, hastily, and went in.

There was a small startled scream from within, and then dead silence.

Arthur Duncan reappeared in the door, eyes wide and staring-blind, face so white that I thought perhaps he was suffering an attack of some sort. I leaped to my feet and hurried toward him as he leaned heavily against the door jamb.

Before I reached him, though, he pushed himself away from the door and went out of the room, staggering slightly, pushing past me as though he didn’t see me.

I knocked on the door myself.

“Geilie! Are you all right?”

There was a moment’s silence, then a perfectly composed voice said, “Aye, of course. I’ll be out in a moment.”

When we at length descended the stairs, we found Arthur, apparently somewhat recovered, sipping brandy with Jamie. He seemed a bit abstracted, as though he were thinking of something, but greeted his wife with a mild compliment on her appearance, before sending the groom for the horses.

The banquet was just beginning as we arrived, and the fiscal and his wife were shown to their places of honor at the head table. Jamie and I, somewhat lower in status, took our places at a table with Rupert and Ned Gowan.

Mrs. Fitz had excelled herself, and beamed in gratification at the compliments heaped upon the food, the drink, and other preparations.

It was in fact delicious. I had never tasted roast pheasant stuffed with honeyed chestnuts, and was helping myself to a third slice, when Ned Gowan, watching in some amusement at my appetite, asked whether I had yet tried the suckling pig.

My reply was interrupted by a stir at the far end of the Hall. Colum had risen from his table, and was headed toward me, accompanied by Old Alec MacMahon.

“I see there is no end to your talents, Mistress Fraser,” Colum remarked, bowing slightly. A broad smile marked the arresting features.

“From dressing wounds and healing the sick to delivering foals. We shall be calling upon you to raise the dead before long, I suppose.” There was a general chuckle at this, though I noticed one or two men glancing nervously in the direction of Father Bain, in attendance this evening, who was methodically stuffing himself with roast mutton in the corner.

“In any case,” Colum continued, reaching into his coat pocket, “you must allow me to present you with a small token of my gratitude.” He handed me a small wooden box, lid carved with the MacKenzie badge. I hadn’t realized just how valuable a horse Losgann was, and mentally thanked whatever benign spirits presided over such events that nothing had gone wrong.

“Nonsense,” I said, trying to give it back. “I didn’t do anything out of the way. It was only luck that I have small hands.”

“Nevertheless.” Colum was firm. “If you prefer, consider it a small wedding gift, but I wish you to have it.”

At a nod from Jamie, I reluctantly accepted the box and opened it. It contained a beautiful rosary of jet, each bead intricately carved, and the crucifix inlaid with silver.

“It’s lovely,” I said sincerely. And it was, though I had no notion what I might do with it. Though nominally a Catholic, I had been raised by Uncle Lamb, the completest of agnostics, and had only the vaguest idea of the significance of a rosary. Nonetheless, I thanked Colum warmly, and gave the rosary to Jamie to keep for me in his sporran.

I curtsied to Colum, gratified to find that I was mastering the art of doing so without falling on my face. He opened his mouth to take a gracious leave, but was interrupted by a sudden crash that came from behind me. Turning, I could see nothing but backs and heads, as people leapt from their benches to gather round whatever had caused the uproar. Colum made his way with some difficulty around the table, clearing aside the crowd with an impatient wave of the hand. As people stepped respectfully out of his way, I could see the rotund form of Arthur Duncan on the floor, limbs flailing convulsively, batting away the helpful hands of would-be assistants. His wife pushed her way through the muttering throng, dropped to the floor beside him, and made a vain attempt to cradle his head in her lap. The stricken man dug his heels into the floor and arched his back, making gargling, choking noises.

Glancing up, Geilie’s green eyes anxiously scanned the crowd as though looking for someone. Assuming that I was the one she was looking for, I took the path of least resistance, dodging under the table and crawling across on hands and knees.

Reaching Geilie’s side, I grabbed her husband’s face between my hands and tried to pry his jaws open. I thought, from the sounds he was making, that he had perhaps choked on a piece of meat, which might still be lodged in his windpipe.

His jaws were clamped and rigid, though, lips blue and flecked with a foamy spittle that didn’t seem consistent with choking. Choking he surely was, though; the plump chest heaved vainly, fighting for breath.

“Quickly, turn him on his side,” I said. Several hands reached out at once to help, and the heavy body was deftly turned, broad black-serge back toward me. I drove the heel of my hand hard between the shoulderblades, smacking him repeatedly with a dull thumping noise. The massive back quivered slightly with the blows, but there was no answering jerk as of an obstruction suddenly released.

I gripped a meaty shoulder and pulled him onto his back once more. Geilie bent close over the staring face, calling his name, massaging his mottled throat. The eyes were rolled back now, and the drumming heels began to slacken their beat. The hands, clawed in agony, suddenly flung wide, smacking an anxiously crouching onlooker in the face.

The sputtering noises abruptly ceased, and the stout body went limp, lying inert as a sack of barley on the stone flags. I felt frantically for a pulse in one slack wrist, noticing with half an eye that Geilie was doing the same, pulling up the round, shaven chin and pressing her fingertips hard into the flesh under the angle of the jaw in search of the carotid artery.

Both searches were futile. Arthur Duncan’s heart, already taxed by the necessity of pumping blood through that massive frame for so many years, had given up the struggle.

I tried all the resuscitative techniques at my disposal, useless though I knew them now to be: arm-flapping, chest-massage, even mouth-to-mouth breathing, distasteful as that was, but with the expected result. Arthur Duncan was dead as a doornail.

I straightened wearily and stood back, as Father Bain, with a nasty glare at me, dropped to his knees by the fiscal’s side and began hastily to administer the final rites. My back and arms ached, and my face felt oddly numb. The hubbub around me seemed strangely remote, as though a curtain separated me from the crowded hall. I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand across my tingling lips, trying to erase the taste of death.

Despite the death of the fiscal, and the subsequent formalities of obsequies and burial, the Duke’s stag hunt was delayed by no more than a week.

The realization of Jamie’s imminent departure was deeply depressing; I suddenly realized just how much I looked forward to seeing him at dinner after the day’s work, how my heart would leap when I saw him unexpectedly at odd moments during the day, and how much I depended on his company and his solid, reassuring presence amid the complexities of life in the castle. And, to be perfectly honest, how much I liked the smooth, warm strength of him in my bed each night, and waking to his tousled, smiling kisses in the mornings. The prospect of his absence was bleak.

He held me closely, my head snuggled under his chin.

“I’ll miss you, Jamie,” I said softly.

He hugged me tighter, and gave a rueful chuckle.

“So will I, Sassenach. I hadna expected it, to tell the truth—but it will hurt me to leave ye.” He stroked my back gently, fingers tracing the bumps of the vertebrae.

“Jamie…you’ll be careful?”

I could feel the deep rumble of amusement in his chest as he answered.

“Of the Duke or the horse?” He was, much to my apprehension, intending to ride Donas on the stag hunt. I had visions of the huge sorrel beast plunging over a cliff out of sheer wrong-headedness, or trampling Jamie under those lethal hooves.

“Both,” I said dryly. “If the horse throws you and you break a leg, you’ll be at the Duke’s mercy.”

“True. Dougal will be there, though.”

I snorted. “He’ll break the other leg.”

He laughed and bent his head to kiss me.

“I’ll be careful, mo duinne. Will ye give me the same promise?”

“Yes,” I said, meaning it. “Do you mean whoever left the ill-wish?”

The momentary amusement was gone now.

“Perhaps. I dinna think you’re in any danger, or I wouldna leave ye. But still…oh, and stay away from Geillis Duncan.”

“What? Why?” I drew back a little to look up at him. It was a dark night and his face was invisible, but his tone was altogether serious.

“The woman’s known as a witch, and the stories about her—well, they’ve got a deal worse since her husband died. I dinna want ye anywhere near her, Sassenach.”

“Do you honestly think she’s a witch?” I demanded. His strong hands cupped my bottom and scooped me in close to him. I put my arms around him, enjoying the feel of his smooth, solid torso.

“No,” he said finally. “But it isna what I think that could be a danger to ye. Will ye promise?”

“All right.” In truth, I had little reluctance to give the promise; since the incidents of the changeling and the summoning, I had not felt much desire to visit Geilie. I put my mouth on Jamie’s nipple, flicking it lightly with my tongue. He made a small sound deep in his throat and pulled me nearer.

“Open your legs,” he whispered. “I mean to be sure you’ll remember me while I’m gone.”

Sometime later, I woke feeling cold. Groping sleepily for the quilt, I couldn’t find it. Suddenly it came up over me of its own accord. Surprised, I raised up on one elbow to look.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “I didna mean to wake ye, lass.”

“What are you doing? Why are you awake?” I squinted over my shoulder at him. It was still dark, but my eyes were so accustomed that I could see the faintly sheepish expression on his face. He was wide awake, sitting on a stool by the side of the bed, his plaid flung around him for warmth.

“It’s only…well, I dreamed you were lost, and I couldna find ye. It woke me, and…I wanted to look at ye, is all. To fix ye in my mind, to remember while I’m gone. I turned back the quilt; I’m sorry you were chilled.”

“It’s all right.” The night was cold, and very quiet, as though we were the only two souls in the world. “Come into bed. You must be chilled too.”

He slid in next to me and curled himself against my back. His hands stroked me from neck to shoulder, waist to hip, tracing the lines of my back, the curves of my body.

“Mo duinne,” he said softly. “But now I should say mo airgeadach. My silver one. Your hair is silver-gilt and your skin is white velvet. Calman geal. White dove.”

I pressed my hips back against him, inviting, and settled against him with a sigh as his solid hardness filled me. He held me against his chest and moved with me, slowly, deeply. I gasped a little and he slackened his hold.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didna mean to hurt ye. But I do want to be in you, to stay in you, so deep. I want to leave the feel of me deep inside ye with my seed. I want to hold ye so and stay wi’ you ‘til dawn, and leave you sleeping and go, with the shapes of you warm in my hands.”

I pressed firmly back against him.

“You won’t hurt me.”

After Jamie’s departure, I moped about the castle. I saw patients in the surgery, I occupied myself as much as I could in the gardens, and I tried to distract myself by browsing in Colum’s library, but still time hung heavy on my hands.

I had been alone nearly two weeks, when I met the girl Laoghaire in the corridor outside the kitchens. I had watched her covertly now and then, since the day when I had seen her on the landing outside Colum’s study. She seemed blooming enough, but there was an air of tenseness about her that was easily discernible. She seemed distracted and moody—and little wonder, poor girl, I thought kindly.

Today, though, she looked somewhat excited.

“Mrs. Fraser!” she said. “I’ve a message for you.” The widow Duncan, she said, had sent word that she was ill, and requested me to come and tend her.

I hesitated, remembering Jamie’s injunctions, but the twin forces of compassion and boredom were sufficient to set me on the road to the village within the hour, my medicine box strapped behind me on the horse’s saddle.

The Duncans’ house when I arrived had an air of neglected abandon, a sense of disorder that extended through the house itself. There was no answer to my knock, and when I pushed the door open, I found the entry hall and parlor scattered with books and dirty glasses, mats askew and dust thick on the furniture. My calls produced no maidservant, and the kitchen proved to be as empty and disordered as the rest of the house.

Increasingly anxious, I went upstairs. The bedroom in front also was vacant, but I heard a faint shuffling noise from the stillroom across the landing.

Pushing open the door, I saw Geilie, sitting in a comfortable chair, feet propped on the counter. She had been drinking; there was a glass and decanter on the counter, and the room smelled strongly of brandy.

She was startled to see me, but struggled to her feet, smiling. Her eyes were slightly out of focus, I thought, but she certainly seemed well enough.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Aren’t you ill?”

She goggled at me in amazement. “Ill? Me? No. The servants have all left, and there’s no food in the house, but there’s plenty of brandy. Will ye have a drop?” She turned back toward the decanter. I grabbed her sleeve.

“You didn’t send for me?”

“No.” She stared at me, wide-eyed.

“Then why—” My question was interrupted by a noise from outside. A far-off, rumbling, muttering sort of noise. I had heard it before, from this room, and my palms had grown sweaty then at the thought of confronting the mob that made it.

I wiped my hands on the skirts of my dress. The rumbling was nearer, and there was neither need nor time for questions.