Outlander (Outlander, #1)

25

THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE

The drab-clad shoulders ahead of me parted on darkness. My elbow struck wood with a bone-numbing thump as I was shoved roughly over a threshold of some sort, and I fell headlong into a black stench, alive and wriggling with unseen forms. I shrieked and thrashed, trying to free myself from entanglement with innumerable scrabbling tiny feet and an attack by something larger, that squealed and struck me a hard blow on the thigh.

I succeeded in rolling away, though only a foot or two before I hit an earthen wall that sent a shower of dirt cascading down on my head. I huddled as close to it as I could get, trying to suppress my own gasping breath so that I could hear whatever was trapped in this reeking pit with me. Whatever it was, was large, and breathing hoarsely, but not growling. A pig, perhaps?

“Who’s there?” came a voice from the Stygian black, sounding scared but defiantly loud. “Claire, is it you?”

“Geilie!” I gasped and groped toward her, meeting her hands likewise searching. We clasped each other tightly, rocking slightly back and forth in the gloom.

“Is there anything else in here besides us?” I asked, glancing cautiously around. Even with my eyes now accustomed to the dark, there was precious little to be seen. There were faint streaks of light coming from somewhere above, but the tenebrous shadows were shoulder-high here below; I could barely make out Geilie’s face, level with my own and only a few inches away.

She laughed, a little shakily. “Several mice, I think, and other vermin. And a smell that would knock a ferret over.”

“I noticed the smell. Where in God’s name are we?”

“The thieves’ hole. Stand back!”

There was a grating sound from overhead and a sudden shaft of light. I pressed myself against the wall, barely in time to avoid a shower of mud and filth that cascaded through a small opening in the roof of our prison. A single soft plop followed the deluge. Geilie bent and picked up something from the floor. The opening above remained, and I could see that what she held was a small loaf, stale and smeared with assorted muck. She dusted it gingerly with a fold of her skirt.

“Dinner,” she said. “Hungry, are you?”

The hole above remained open, and empty, save for the occasional missile flung by a passerby. The drizzle came in, and a searching wind. It was cold, damp, and thoroughly miserable. Suitable, I supposed, for the malefactors it was meant to house. Thieves, vagrants, blasphemers, adulterers…and suspected witches.

Geilie and I huddled together for warmth against one wall, not speaking much. There was little to say, and precious little either of us could do for ourselves, beyond possess our souls in patience.

The hole above grew gradually darker as the night came on, until it faded into the black all around.

“How long do you think they mean to keep us here?”

Geilie shifted, stretching her legs so that the small oblong of morning light from above shone on the striped linen of her skirt. Originally a fresh pink and white, it was now considerably the worse for wear.

“Not too long,” she said. “They’ll be waiting for the ecclesiastical examiners. Arthur had letters last month, arranging for it. The second week of October, it was. They should be here any time.”

She rubbed her hands together to warm them, then put them on her knees, in the little square of sunlight.

“Tell me about the examiners,” I said. “What will happen, exactly?”

“I canna say, exactly. I’ve ne’er seen a witch trial, though I’ve heard of them, of course.” She paused a moment, considering. “They’ll not be expecting a witch trial, since they were coming to try some land disputes. So they’ll not have a witch-pricker, at least.”

“A what?”

“Witches canna feel pain,” Geilie explained. “Nor do they bleed when they’re pricked.” The witch-pricker, equipped with a variety of pins, lancets, and other pointed implements, was charged with testing for this condition. I vaguely recalled something of this from Frank’s books, but had thought it a practice common to the seventeenth century, not this one. On the other hand, I thought wryly, Cranesmuir was not exactly a hotbed of civilization.

“In that case, it’s too bad there won’t be one,” I said, though recoiling slightly at the thought of being stabbed repeatedly. “We could pass that test with no difficulty. Or I could,” I added caustically. “I imagine they’d get ice water, not blood, when they tried it on you.”

“I’d not be too sure,” she said reflectively, overlooking the insult. “I’ve heard of witch-prickers with special pins—made to collapse when they’re pressed against the skin, so it looks as though they don’t go in.”

“But why? Why try to prove someone a witch on purpose?”

The sun was on the decline now, but the afternoon light was enough to suffuse our hutch with a dim glow. The elegant oval of Geilie’s face showed only pity for my innocence.

“Ye still dinna understand, do ye?” she said. “They mean to kill us. And it doesna matter much what the charge is, or what the evidence shows. We’ll burn, all the same.”

The night before, I had been too shocked from the mob’s attack and the misery of our surroundings to do more than huddle with Geilie and wait for the dawn. With the light, though, what remained of my spirit was beginning to awake.

“Why, Geilie?” I asked, feeling rather breathless. “Do you know?” The atmosphere in the hole was thick with the stench of rot, filth, and damp soil, and I felt as though the impenetrable earthen walls were about to cave in upon me like the sides of an ill-dug grave.

I felt rather than saw her shrug; the shaft of light from above had moved with the sun, and now struck the wall of our prison, leaving us in cold dark below.

“If it’s much comfort to ye,” she said dryly, “I misdoubt ye were meant to be taken. It’s a matter between me and Colum—you had the ill-luck to be with me when the townsfolk came. Had ye been wi’ Colum, you’d likely have been safe enough, Sassenach or no.”

The term “Sassenach,” spoken in its usual derogatory sense, suddenly struck me with a sense of desperate longing for the man who called me so in affection. I wrapped my arms around my body, hugging myself to contain the lonely panic that threatened to envelop me.

“Why did you come to my house?” Geilie asked curiously.

“I thought you had sent for me. One of the girls at the castle brought me a message—from you, she said.”

“Ah,” she said thoughtfully. “Laoghaire, was it?”

I sat down and rested my back against the earth wall, despite my revulsion for the muddy, stinking surface. Feeling my movement, Geilie shifted closer. Friends or enemies, we were each other’s only source of warmth in the hole; we huddled together perforce.

“How did you know it was Laoghaire?” I asked, shivering.

” ‘Twas her that left the ill-wish in your bed,” Geilie replied. “I told ye at the first there were those minded your taking the red-haired laddie. I suppose she thought if ye were gone, she’d have a chance at him again.”

I was struck dumb at this, and it took a moment to find my voice.

“But she couldn’t!”

Geilie’s laugh was hoarsened by cold and thirst, but still held that edge of silver.

“Anyone seein’ the way the lad looks at ye would know that. But I dinna suppose she’s seen enough o’ the world to ken such things. Let her lie wi’ a man once or twice, and she’ll know, but not now.”

“That’s not what I meant!” I burst out. “It isn’t Jamie she wants; the girl’s with child by Dougal MacKenzie.”

“What?!” She was genuinely shocked for a moment, and her fingers bit into the flesh of my arm. “How d’ye come to think that?”

I told her of seeing Laoghaire on the stair below Colum’s study, and the conclusions I had come to.

Geilie snorted.

“Pah! She heard Colum and Dougal talking about me; that’s what made her blench—she’d think Colum had heard she’d been to me for the ill-wish. He’d have her whipped to bleeding for that; he doesna allow any truck wi’ such arts.”

”You gave her the ill-wish?” I was staggered.

Geilie drew herself sharply away at this.

“I didn’t give it to her, no. I sold it to her.”

I stared, trying to meet her eyes through the gathering darkness.

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course there is.” She spoke impatiently. “It was a matter of business, was all. And I don’t give away my customers’ secrets. Besides, she didna tell me who it was meant for. And you’ll remember that I did try to warn ye.”

“Thanks,” I said with some sarcasm. “But…” my brain was churning, trying to rearrange my ideas in light of this new information. “But if she put the ill-wish in my bed, then it was Jamie she wanted. That would explain her sending me to your house. But what about Dougal?”

Geilie hesitated for a moment, then seemed to come to some decision.

“The girl’s no more wi’ child by Dougal MacKenzie than you are.”

“How can you be so sure?”

She groped for my hand in the darkness. Finding it, she drew it close and placed it squarely on the swelling bulge beneath her gown.

“Because I am,” she said simply.

“Not Laoghaire then,” I said. “You.”

“Me.” She spoke quite simply, without any of her usual affectation. “What was it Colum said—’I’ll see that she’s done rightly by’? Well, I suppose this is his idea of a suitable disposal of the problem.”

I was silent for a long time, mulling things over.

“Geilie,” I said at last, “that stomach trouble of your husband’s…”

She sighed. “White arsenic,” she said. “I thought it would finish him before the child began to show too much, but he hung on longer than I thought possible.”

I remembered the look of mingled horror and realization on Arthur Duncan’s face as he burst out of his wife’s closet on the last day of his life.

“I see,” I said. “He didn’t know you were with child until he saw you half-dressed, the day of the Duke’s banquet. And when he found out…I suppose he had good reason to know it wasn’t his?”

There was a faint laugh from the far corner.

“The saltpeter came dear, but it was worth every farthing.”

I shuddered slightly, hunched against the wall.

“But that’s why you had to risk killing him in public, at the banquet. He would have denounced you as an adulteress—and a poisoner. Or do you think he realized about the arsenic?”

“Oh, Arthur knew,” she said. “He wouldna admit it, to be sure—not even to himself. But he knew. We’d sit across the board from each other at supper, and I’d ask, ‘Will ye have a bit more o’ the cullen skink, my dear?’ or ‘A sup of ale, my own?’ And him watching me, with those eyes like boiled eggs, and he’d say no, he didna feel himself with an appetite just then. And he’d push his plate back, and later I’d hear him in the kitchen, secret-like, gobbling his food standing by the hutch, thinking himself safe, because he ate no food that came from my hand.”

Her voice was light and amused as though she had been recounting some bit of juicy gossip. I shuddered again, drawing away from the thing that shared the darkness with me.

“He didna guess it was in the tonic he took. He’d take no medicine I made; ordered a patent tonic from London—cost the earth too.” Her voice was resentful at the extravagance. “The stuff had arsenic in it to start; he didna notice any difference in the taste when I added a bit more.”

I had always heard that vanity was the besetting weakness of murderers; it seemed this was true, for she went on, ignoring our situation in the pride of recounting her accomplishments.

“It was a bit risky, to kill him before the whole company like that, but I had to manage something quickly.” Not arsenic, either, to kill like that. I remembered the fiscal’s hard blue lips and the numbness of my own where they had touched him. A quick and deadly poison.

And here I had thought that Dougal was confessing to an affair with Laoghaire. But in that case, while Colum might be disapproving, there would have been nothing to prevent Dougal marrying the girl. He was a widower, and free.

But an adulterous affair, with the wife of the fiscal? That was a different kettle of fish for all concerned. I seemed to recall that the penalties for adultery were severe. Colum could hardly smooth over an affair of that magnitude, but I couldn’t see him condemning his brother to public whipping or banishment. And Geilie might well consider murder a reasonable alternative to being burnt on the face with a hot iron and shut up for several years in a prison, pounding hemp for twelve hours a day.

So she had taken her preventive measures, and Colum had taken his. And here was I, caught up in the middle.

“The child, though?” I asked. “Surely…”

There was a grim chuckle in the blackness. “Accidents happen, my friend. To the best of us. And once it happened…” I felt rather than saw her shrug. “I meant to get rid of it, but then I thought it might be a way to make him marry me, once Arthur was dead.”

A horrible suspicion struck me.

“But Dougal’s wife was still alive, then. Geillis, did you—?”

Her dress rustled as she shook her head, and I caught a faint gleam from her hair.

“I meant to,” she said. “But God saved me the trouble. I rather thought that was a sign, you know. And it might all have worked nicely, too, if not for Colum MacKenzie.”

I hugged my elbows against the cold. I was talking now only for distraction.

“Was it Dougal you wanted, or only his position and money?”

“Oh, I had plenty of money,” she said, with a note of satisfaction. “I knew where Arthur kept the key to all his papers and notes, ye ken. And the man wrote a fair hand, I’ll say that for him—’twas simple enough to forge his signature. I’d managed to divert near on to ten thousand pound over the last two years.”

“But what for?” I asked, completely startled.

“For Scotland.”

“What?” For a moment, I thought I had misheard. Then I decided that one of us was possibly a trifle unbalanced. And going on the evidence to hand, it wasn’t me.

“What do you mean, Scotland?” I asked cautiously, drawing away a bit. I wasn’t sure just how unstable she was; perhaps pregnancy had unhinged her mind.

“Ye needna fear; I’m not mad.” The cynical amusement in her voice made me flush, grateful for the darkness.

“Oh, no?” I said, stung. “By your own admission, you’ve committed fraud, theft, and murder. It might be charitable to consider that you’re mad, because if you’re not—”

“Neither mad nor depraved,” she said, decisively. “I’m a patriot.”

The light dawned. I let out the breath I had been holding in expectation of a deranged attack.

“A Jacobite,” I said. “Holy Christ, you’re a bloody Jacobite!”

She was. And that explained quite a bit. Why Dougal, generally the mirror of his brother’s opinions, should have shown such initiative in raising money for the House of Stuart. And why Geillis Duncan, so well equipped to lead any man she wanted to the altar, had chosen two such dissimilar specimens as Arthur Duncan and Dougal MacKenzie. The one for his money and position, the other for his power to influence public opinion.

“Colum would have been better,” she continued. “A pity. His misfortune is my own, as well. It’s him would have been the one I should have had; the only man I’ve seen could be my proper match. Together, we could…well, no help for it. The one man I’d want, and the one man in the world I couldn’t touch with the weapon I had.”

“So you took Dougal, instead.”

“Oh, aye,” she said, deep in her own thoughts. “A strong man, and with some power. A bit of property. The ear of the people. But really, he’s no more than the legs, and the cock”—she laughed briefly—”of Colum MacKenzie. It’s Colum has the strength. Almost as much as I have.”

Her boastful tone annoyed me.

“Colum has a few small things that you haven’t, so far as I can see. Such as a sense of compassion.”

“Ah, yes. ‘Bowels of mercy and compassion,’ is it?” She spoke ironically. “Much good it may do him. Death sits on his shoulder; ye can see it with half an eye. The man may live two years past Hogmanay; not much longer than that.”

“And how much longer will you live?” I asked.

The irony turned inward, but the silver voice stayed steady.

“A bit less than that, I expect. No great matter. I’ve managed a good deal in the time I had; ten thousand pounds diverted to France, and the district roused for Prince Charles. Come the Rising, I shall know I helped. If I live so long.”

She stood nearly under the hole in the roof. My eyes were sufficiently accustomed to the darkness that she showed as a pale shape in the murk, a premature and unlaid ghost. She turned abruptly toward me.

“Whatever happens with the examiners, I have no regrets, Claire.”

“I regret only that I have but one life to give for my country?” I asked ironically.

“That’s nicely put,” she said.

“Isn’t it, just?”

We fell silent as it grew darker. The black of the hole seemed a tangible force, pressing cold and heavy on my chest, clogging my lungs with the scent of death. At last I huddled into as close a ball as I could, put my head on my knees, and gave up the fight, lapsing into an uneasy doze on the edge between cold and panic.

“Do ye love the man, then?” Geilie asked suddenly.

I raised my head from my knees, startled. I had no idea what time it was; one faint star shone overhead, but shed no light into the hole.

“Who, Jamie?”

“Who else?” she said dryly. “It’s his name ye call out in your sleep.”

“I didn’t know I did that.”

“Well, do ye?” The cold encouraged a sort of deadly drowsiness, but Geilie’s prodding voice dragged me a bit further out of my stupor.

I hugged my knees, rocking slightly back and forth. The light from the hole above had faded away to the soft dark of early night. The examiners would arrive within the next day or so. It was getting a bit late for prevarications, either to myself or anyone else. While I still found it difficult to admit that I might be in serious danger of death, I was beginning to understand the instinct that made condemned prisoners seek shriving on the eve of execution.

“Really love him, I mean,” Geilie persisted. “Not just want to bed him; I know you want that, and he does too. They all do. But do you love him?”

Did I love him? Beyond the urges of the flesh? The hole had the dark anonymity of the confessional, and a soul on the verge of death had no time for lies.

“Yes,” I said, and laid my head back on my knees.

It was silent in the hole for some time, and I hovered once more on the verge of sleep, when I heard her speak once more, as though to herself.

“So it’s possible,” she said thoughtfully.

The examiners arrived a day later. From the dankness of the thieves’ hole, we could hear the stir of their arrival; the shouts of the villagers, and the clopping of horses on the stone of the High Street. The bustle grew fainter as the procession passed down the street toward the distant square.

“They’ve come,” said Geilie, listening to the excitement above.

We clasped hands reflexively, enmities buried in fear.

“Well,” I said, with attempted bravado, “I suppose being burned is better than freezing to death.”

In the event, we continued to freeze. It was not until noon of the next day that the door of our prison slid abruptly back, and we were pulled out of the pit to be taken to trial.

No doubt to accommodate the crowd of spectators, the session was held in the square, before the Duncans’ house. I saw Geilie glance up briefly at the diamond-paned windows of her parlor, then turn away, expressionless.

There were two ecclesiastical examiners, seated on padded stools behind a table that had been erected in the square. One judge was abnormally tall and thin, the other short and stout. They reminded me irresistibly of an American comic-paper I had once seen; not knowing their names, I mentally christened the tall one Mutt and the other Jeff.

Most of the village was there. Looking about, I could see a good many of my former patients. But the inhabitants of the Castle were notably absent.

It was John MacRae, locksman of the village of Cranesmuir, who read out the dittay, or indictment, against the persons of one Geillis Duncan and one Claire Fraser, both accused before the Church’s court of the crime of witchcraft.

“Stating in evidence whereof the accused did cause the death of Arthur Duncan, by means of witchcraft,” MacRae read, in a firm, steady voice. “And whereas they did procure the death of the unborn child of Janet Robinson, did cause the boat of Thomas MacKenzie to sink, did bring upon the village of Cranesmuir a wasting sickness of the bowels…”

It went on for some time. Colum had been thorough in his preparations.

After the reading of the dittay, the witnesses were called. Most of them were villagers I didn’t recognize; none of my own patients were among them, a fact for which I was grateful.

While the testimony of many of the witnesses was simply absurd, and other witnesses had plainly been paid for their services, some had a clear ring of truth to their words. Janet Robinson, for example, who was haled before the court by her father, pale and trembling, with a purple bruise on her cheek, to confess that she had conceived a child by a married man, and sought to rid herself of it, through the offices of Geillis Duncan.

“She gave me a draft to drink, and a charm to say three times, at the rising o’ the moon,” the girl mumbled, glancing fearfully from Geillis to her father, unsure which one posed the greatest threat. “She said ‘twould bring my courses on.”

“And did it?” Jeff asked with interest.

“Not at the first, your honor,” the girl answered, bobbing her head nervously. “But I took the draft again, at the waning o’ the moon, and then it started.”

“Started?! The lassie near bled to death!” An elderly lady, plainly the girl’s mother, broke in. ” ‘Twas only because she felt herself to be dyin’ as she told me the truth o’ the matter.” More than willing to add to the gory details, Mrs. Robinson was shut up with some difficulty, in order to make way for the succeeding witnesses.

There seemed to be no one with anything in particular to say about me, aside from the vague accusation that since I had been present at Arthur Duncan’s death, and had laid hands on him before he died, clearly I must have had something to do with it. I began to think that Geilie was right; I had not been Colum’s target. That being so, I thought it possible that I would escape. Or at least I thought so until the hill woman appeared.

When she came forward, a thin, bowed woman with a yellow shawl, I sensed that we were in serious trouble. She was not one of the villagers; no one I had ever seen before. Her feet were bare, stained with the dust of the road she had walked to come here.

“Have ye a charge to make against either o’ the women here?” asked the tall, thin judge.

The woman was afraid; she wouldn’t raise her eyes to look at the judges. She bobbed her head briefly, though, and the crowd quieted its murmur to hear her.

Her voice was low, and Mutt had to ask her to repeat herself.

She and her husband had an ailing child, born healthy but then turned puny and unthrifty. Finally deciding that the child was a fairy changeling, they had placed it in the Fairy’s Seat on the hill of Croich Gorm. Keeping watch so as to recover their own child when the fairies should return it, they had seen the two ladies standing here go to the Fairy’s Seat, pick up the child and speak strange spells over it.

The woman twisted her thin hands together, working them under her apron.

“We watched through the nicht, sirs. And when the dark came, soon after there cam’ a great demon, a huge black shape comin’ through the shadows wi’ no sound, to lean ower the spot where we’d laid the babe.”

There was an awed murmur from the crowd, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stir slightly, even knowing as I did that the “great demon” had been Jamie, gone to see whether the child still lived. I braced myself, knowing what was coming next.

“And when the sun rose, my man and I went to see. And there we found the changeling babe, dead on the hill, and no sign of our own wee bairn.” At this, she broke, and threw her apron over her face to hide her weeping.

As though the mother of the changeling had been a signal of some sort, the crowd parted and the figure of Peter the drover came out. I groaned inwardly when I saw him. I had felt the emotions of the crowd turn against me as the woman spoke; all I needed now was for this man to tell the court about the waterhorse.

Enjoying his moment of celebrity, the drover drew himself up and pointed dramatically at me.

” ‘Tis right ye are to call her witch, my lords! Wi’ my own eyes I saw this woman call up a waterhorse from the waters of the Evil Loch, to do her bidding! A great fearsome creature, sirs, tall as a pine tree, wi’ a neck like a great blue snake, an’ eyes big as apples, wi’ a look in them as would steal the soul from a man.”

The judges appeared impressed with his testimony, and whispered between themselves for several minutes, while Peter glared defiantly at me, with a “that’ll show you!” sort of look.

At length, the fat judge broke from the conference and beckoned imperiously to John MacRae, who stood to one side, alert for trouble.

“Locksman!” he said. He turned and pointed at the drover.

“Tak’ that man away and shut him up in the pillory for public drunkenness. This is a solemn coort o’ law; we’ll no ha’ the time of the examiners wasted by frivolous accusations from a sot who sees waterhorses when he’s taken too much whisky!”

Peter the drover was so astonished that he did not even resist as the locksman strode firmly forward and took him by the arm. Mouth hanging open, he glared back wildly in my direction as he was led away. I couldn’t resist fluttering my fingers in a tiny salute after him.

After this slight break in the tension of the proceedings, though, things got rapidly worse. There was a procession of girls and women to swear that they had bought charms and philtres from Geillis Duncan, for purposes such as causing illness, ridding oneself of an unwanted babe, or casting spells of love upon some man. All, without exception, swore that the charms had worked—an enviable record for a general practitioner, I thought cynically. While no one claimed such results for me, there were several to say—truthfully—that they had seen me often in Mrs. Duncan’s herb room, mixing medicines and grinding herbs.

Still, that might not have been fatal; there were an equal number of people to claim that I had healed them, using nothing more than ordinary medicines, with nothing in the way of spells, charms, or general hocus-pocus. Given the force of public opinion, it took some nerve for these people to step forward to testify in my behalf, and I was grateful.

My feet were aching from standing so long; while the judges sat in relative comfort, no stools were provided for the prisoners. But when the next witness appeared, I entirely forgot my feet.

With an instinct for drama that rivaled Colum’s, Father Bain flung wide the door of the kirk and emerged into the square, limping heavily on an oaken crutch. He advanced slowly to the center of the square, inclined his head to the judges, then turned and surveyed the crowd, until his steely glare had reduced the noise to a low, uneasy muttering. When he spoke, his voice lashed out like the crack of a whip.

“It’s a judgment on ye, ye folk o’ Cranesmuir! ‘Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth with his feet.’ Aye, ye’ve allowed yerselves to be seduced from the paths o’ righteousness! Ye’ve sown the wind, and the whirlwind’s amongst ye now!”

I stared, somewhat taken aback by this unsuspected gift for rhetoric. Or perhaps he was capable of such flights of oratory only under the stimulus of crisis. The florid voice thundered on.

“The pestilence will come upon ye, and ye shall die o’ your sins, unless ye be cleansed! Ye’ve welcomed the whore of Babylon into yer midst”—That was me, I assumed, from the glare he shot at me—”Ye’ve sold your soul to your enemies, ye’ve taken the English viper to your bosom, and now the vengeance o’ the Lord God Almighty is on ye. ‘Deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger that flattereth with her words. For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.’ Repent, people, before it’s too late! Fall to your knees, I say, and pray for forgiveness! Cast out the English whore, and renounce your bargain wi’ the spawn o’ Satan!” He snatched the rosary from his belt and brandished the large wooden crucifix in my direction.

Entertaining as this all was, I could see Mutt becoming rather restive. Professional jealousy, perhaps.

“Er, your Reverence,” the judge said, with a slight bow in Father Bain’s direction, “have ye evidence to bring as to the charge regarding these women?”

“That I have.” The first explosion of oratory spent, the little priest was calm now. He leveled a menacing forefinger in my direction and I had to brace myself to keep from taking a step backward.

“At noonday on a Tuesday, two weeks past, I met this woman in the gardens of Castle Leoch. Using unnatural powers, she called down a pack of hounds upon me, such that I fell before them, and was in mortal peril. Bein’ wounded grievously in the leg, I made to leave her presence. The woman tried to lure me wi’ her sinfulness, to go awa’ in private with her, and when I resisted her wiles, she cast a curse upon me.”

“What bloody nonsense!” I said indignantly. “That’s the most ridiculous exaggeration I’ve ever heard!”

Father Bain’s eye, dark and glittering as with fever, swiveled from the examiners and fixed on me.

“Do ye deny, woman, that ye said these words to me? ‘Come with me now, priest, or your wound shall fester and go putrid’?”

“Well, tone it down a bit, but something to that effect, perhaps,” I admitted.

Jaw clenched in triumph, the priest whipped aside the skirts of his soutane. A bandage stained with dried blood and wet with yellow pus encircled his thigh. The pale flesh of the leg puffed above and below the bandage, with ominous red streaks extending up from the hidden wound.

“Jesus Christ, man!” I said, shocked at the sight. “You’ve got blood poisoning. You need it tended, and right now, or you’ll die!”

There was a deep murmur of shock from the crowd. Even Mutt and Jeff seemed a bit stunned.

Father Bain shook his head slowly.

“You hear?” he demanded. “The temerity of the woman kens nae bounds. She curses me wi’ death, a man of God, before the judgment seat of the kirk itself!”

The excited murmuring of the crowd grew louder. Father Bain spoke again, raising his voice slightly in order to be heard over the noise.

“I leave ye, gentlemen, wi’ the judgment o’ your own senses, and the injunction o’ the Lord—’Ye shallna suffer a witch to live!’ “

Father Bain’s dramatic evidence put a stop to the testimony. Presumably no one was prepared to top that performance. The judges called a short recess and were brought refreshments from the inn. No such amenities were forthcoming for the accused.

I braced myself and pulled experimentally against my bonds. The leather of the straps creaked a bit, but didn’t give an inch. This, I thought cynically, trying to still my panic, was surely where the dashing young hero was meant to ride through the crowd, beating back the cringing townspeople and scooping the fainting heroine up onto his saddle.

But my own dashing young hero was out in the forest somewhere, swilling ale with an aging poofter of noble blood and slaughtering innocent deer. It was rather unlikely, I thought, gritting my teeth, that Jamie would return in time even to gather up my ashes for ceremonial disposal, before I was scattered to the four winds.

Preoccupied with my growing fear, I didn’t at first hear the hoofbeats. It was only as the faint murmurs and head-turnings of the crowd attracted my attention that I noticed the rhythmic clopping, ringing from the stones of the High Street.

The murmurs of surprise grew louder, and the fringes of the crowd began to draw apart to admit the rider, still beyond the range of my sight. Despite my earlier despair, I began to feel a faint flicker of illogical hope. What if Jamie had come back early? Perhaps the Duke’s advances had been too pressing, or the deer too few and far between. Whatever it might be, I strained on tiptoe to see the face of the approaching rider.

The ranks of the crowd parted reluctantly as the horse, a strong bay, poked its long nose between two sets of shoulders. Before the astonished eyes of everyone—including me—the sticklike figure of Ned Gowan spryly dismounted.

Jeff surveyed the spare, neat form before him with some astonishment.

“And you are, sir?” No doubt his tone of reluctant courtesy was a result of the visitor’s silver shoe-buckles and velvet coat—employment with the laird of clan MacKenzie was not without its compensations.

“My name is Edward Gowan, your lordship,” he said precisely. “Solicitor.”

Mutt hunched his shoulders and wriggled a bit; the stool he had been provided had no back, and his lengthy torso was no doubt feeling the strain. I stared hard at him, wishing him a herniated lumbar disk. If I were about to be burnt for having an evil eye, I thought, let it count for something.

“Solicitor?” he rumbled. “What brings you here, then?”

Ned Gowan’s grey peruke inclined itself in the most precise of formal bows.

“I have come to offer my humble services in the support of Mistress Fraser, your lordships,” he said, “a most gracious lady, whom I know of my own witness to be as kind and beneficial in the administration of the healing arts as she is knowledgeable in their application.”

Very nice, I thought approvingly. Get a blow in for our side first thing. Looking across the square, I could see Geilie’s mouth quirk up in a half-admiring, half-derisive smile. While Ned Gowan wouldn’t be everyone’s choice as Prince Charming, I was not inclined to be picky at a time like this. I would take my champions as they came.

With a bow to the judges and another, no less formal, to myself, Mr. Gowan drew himself still straighter than his normal upright posture, braced both thumbs in the waist of his breeks, and prepared with all the romanticism of his aged, gallant heart to do battle, fighting with the law’s chosen weapon of excruciating boredom.

Boring he most certainly was. With the deadly precision of an automated mincing machine, he arranged each charge of the dittay on the slab of his scrutiny and diced it ruthlessly into shreds with the blade of statute and the cleaver of precedent.

It was a noble performance. He talked. And he talked. And he talked some more, seeming occasionally to pause respectfully for instruction from the bench, but in fact only drawing breath for another onslaught of verbiage.

With my life hanging in the balance, and my future entirely dependent on the eloquence of this skinny little man, I should have hung rapt on his every word. Instead, I found myself yawning appallingly, unable to cover my gaping mouth, and shifting from foot to aching foot, wishing fervently that they would burn me at once and end this torture.

The crowd appeared to feel much the same, and as the high excitement of the morning faded into ennui, Mr. Gowan’s small, tidy voice went on and on and on. People began to drift away, suddenly mindful of beasts that needed milking and floors that wanted sweeping, secure in the surety that nothing of any interest could possibly happen while that deadly voice droned on.

When Ned Gowan finally finished his initial defense, evening had set in; and the squatty judge I had named Jeff announced that the court would reconvene in the morning.

After a short, muttering conference amongst Ned Gowan, Jeff, and John MacRae the locksman, I was led off toward the inn between two burly townsmen. Casting a glance over my shoulder, I saw Geilie being moved away in the opposite direction, back straight, refusing to be hurried, or for that matter, to acknowledge her surroundings in any way.

In the dark back room of the inn, my bonds were at last removed, and a candle brought. Then Ned Gowan arrived, bearing a bottle of ale and a plate of meat and bread.

“I’ve but the few minutes with ye, my dear, and that hard-won, so listen closely.” The little man leaned nearer, conspiratorial in the flickering candlelight. His eyes were bright, and save a slight disarrangement of his peruke, he gave no hint of exertion or fatigue.

“Mr. Gowan, I am so glad to see you,” I said sincerely.

“Yes, yes, my dear,” he said, “but there’s no time for that now.” He patted my hand in a kindly but perfunctory fashion.

“I’ve succeeded in getting them to consider your case as separate from that of Mrs. Duncan, and that may be of help. It would appear that there was no original intent to arrest you, but that you were taken because of your association with the w—with Mrs. Duncan.”

“Still,” he continued briskly, “there is some danger to ye, and I’ll not hide it from you. The climate of opinion in the village is none too favorable to ye at present. What possessed ye,” he demanded, with uncharacteristic heatedness, “to touch that child?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but he waved the question aside impatiently.

“Ah, well, it’s of no matter now. What we must do is to play upon the fact of your Englishness—and hence your ignorance, ye ken, not your strangeness—and draw matters out so long as we may. Time is on our side, ye see, for the worst of these trials take place in a climate of hysteria, when the soundness of evidence may be disregarded for the sake of satisfyin’ blood-hunger.”

Blood-hunger. That captured completely the feeling of the emotion I had felt emanating from the faces of the mob. Here and there I saw some traces of doubt or sympathy, but it was a rare soul who would stand against a crowd, and Cranesmuir was rather lacking in characters of that stamp. Or no, I corrected myself. There was one—this dry little Edinburgh lawyer, tough as the old boot he so strongly resembled.

“The longer we go on,” Mr. Gowan continued matter-of-factly, “the less inclined anyone will be to take hasty action. So,” he said, hands on his knees, “your part on the morrow is only to keep silent. I shall do all the talkin’, and pray God it will be to some effect.”

“That seems sound enough,” I said, with a weary attempt at a smile. I glanced at the door to the front of the inn, where voices were being raised. Catching my look, Mr. Gowan nodded.

“Aye, I’ll have to leave ye momentarily. I’ve arranged that you’ll spend the night here.” He glanced around dubiously. A small shed tacked on to the inn, and used mostly for the storage of oddments and spare supplies, it was cold and dark, but an improvement of several-fold over the thieves’ hole.

The door to the shed opened, silhouetting the form of the innkeeper, peering into the dark behind the pale waver of a candle flame. Mr. Gowan rose to go, but I gripped him by the sleeve. There was one thing I needed to know.

“Mr. Gowan—did Colum send you to help me?” He hesitated in his reply, but within the limits of his profession, he was a man of irreproachable honesty.

“No,” he said bluntly. A look almost of embarrassment flitted over his withered features, and he added, “I came for…for myself.” He clapped his hat upon his head and turned to the door, wishing me a brief “Good e’en,” before disappearing into the light and bustle of the inn.

There had been little preparation for my accommodation, but a small jug of wine and a loaf of bread—clean, this time—sat on one of the hogsheads, and there was an old blanket folded on the ground at its foot.

I wrapped myself in the blanket and sat down on one of the smaller casks to dine, musing as I munched the sparse fare.

So Colum had not sent the lawyer. Had he known, even, that Mr. Gowan intended to come? Chances were that Colum had forbidden anyone to come down to the village, for fear of being caught up in the witch-hunt. The waves of fear and hysteria that swept over the village were palpable; I could feel them beating against the walls of my flimsy shelter.

A noisy outburst from the nearby taproom distracted me from my thoughts. Perhaps it was only deathwatch plus one. But on the edge of destruction, even an extra hour was cause for thanks. I rolled myself up in the blanket, pulled it over my head to shut out the noises from the inn, and tried very hard to feel nothing but gratitude.

After an exceedingly restless night, I was roused soon after dawn and marched back out to the square, though the judges didn’t arrive for another hour.

Fine, fat, and full of breakfast, they buckled straight down to work. Jeff turned to John MacRae, who had returned to his station behind the accused.

“We find ourselves unable to determine guilt solely on the basis of the evidence presented.” There was a burst of outrage from the regathered crowd, which had made its own determination, but this was quelled by Mutt, who turned a pair of eyes like gimlets on the young workmen in the front row, quieting their yapping like dogs doused with cold water. Order restored, he turned his angular face back to the locksman.

“Conduct the prisoners to the loch side, if ye please.” There was a pleased sound of expectation at this that roused all my worst suspicions. John MacRae took me by one arm and Geilie by the other, to steer us along, but he had plenty of help. Vicious hands tore at my gown, pinching and pushing as I was yanked along. Some idiot had a drum, and was beating out a ragged tattoo. The crowd was chanting in a rough rhythm to the tuck of the drum, something that I didn’t catch among the random shouts and cries. I didn’t think I wanted to know what they were saying.

The procession flowed down the meadow to the edge of the loch, where a small wooden quay projected into the water. We were pulled out to the end of this, where the two judges had taken up their posts, one at either side of the quay. Jeff turned to the crowd waiting onshore.

“Bring out the cords!” There was a general mutter and expectant looking around from one to another, until someone ran up hastily with a length of thin rope. MacRae took it and approached me rather hesitantly. He stole a glance at the examiners, though, which seemed to harden his resolve.

“Please be so kind as to remove your shoon, Ma’am,” he ordered.

“What the he—, what for?” I demanded, crossing my arms.

He blinked, plainly unprepared for resistance, but one of the judges forestalled his reply.

” ‘Tis the proper procedure for trial by water. The suspected witch shall have the right thumb bound by a cord of hemp to the great toe of the left foot. Likewise, the left thumb shall be bound to the right great toe. And then…” He cast an eloquent glance at the waters of the loch. Two fishermen stood barefooted in the mud of the shore, trews rolled above their knees and tied with twine. Grinning insinuatingly at me, one of them picked up a small stone and heaved it out across the steely surface. It skipped once and sank.

“Upon entering the water,” the short judge chimed in, “a guilty witch will float, as the purity of the water rejects her tainted person. An innocent woman will sink.”

“So I’ve the choice of being condemned as a witch or being found innocent but drowned, have I?” I snapped. “No thank you!” I hugged my elbows harder, trying to still the shiver that seemed to have become a permanent part of my flesh.

The short judge puffed himself up like a threatened toad.

“You’ll nae speak before this court without leave, woman! Do ye dare to refuse lawful examination?”

“Do I dare refuse to be drowned? Too right I do!” Too late I caught sight of Geilie, frantically shaking her head, so that the fair hair swirled around her face.

The judge turned to MacRae.

“Strip her and skelp her,” he said flatly.

Through a daze of disbelief, I heard a collective inhalation, presumably of shocked dismay—in truth, of anticipatory enjoyment. And I realized just what hate really meant. Not theirs. Mine.

They didn’t bother taking me back to the village square. So far as I was now concerned, I had little left to lose, and I didn’t make it easy for them.

Rough hands jerked me forward, yanking at the edges of blouse and bodice.

“Let go of me, you bloody lout!” I yelled, and kicked one manhandler squarely where it would do most good. He crumpled with a groan, but his doubled form was quickly lost in a boiling eruption of shouting, spitting, glaring faces. More hands seized my arms and hustled me stumbling onward, half-lifting me over bodies fallen in the crush, pushing me bodily through gaps too small to walk through.

Someone hit me in the stomach, and I lost my breath. My bodice was virtually in shreds by this time, so it was with no great difficulty that the remainder was stripped off. I had never suffered from excessive modesty, but standing half-naked before the jeers of that crowd of ill-wishers, with the prints of sweaty hands on my bare breasts, filled me with a hatred and humiliation I could not even have imagined.

John MacRae bound my hands before me, looping a woven rope about my wrists, leaving a length of several feet. He had the grace to look ashamed as he did it, but would not raise his eyes to mine, and it was clear I could expect neither help nor lenience from that quarter; he was as much at the mercy of the crowd as I was.

Geilie was there, no doubt similarly treated; I caught a glimpse of her platinum hair, flying in a sudden breeze. My arms stretched high above my head as the rope was thrown over the branch of a large oak and hauled tight. I gritted my teeth and held tight to my fury; it was the only thing I had to combat my fear. There was an air of breathless expectancy, punctuated by the excited murmurs and shouts from the crowd of watchers.

“Give it ‘er, John!” one shouted. “Get on wi’ it!”

John MacRae, sensitive to the theatrical responsibilities of his profession, paused, scourge held level at waist height, and surveyed the crowd. He walked forward and gently adjusted my position, so that I faced the trunk of the tree, almost touching the rough bark. Then he drew back two paces, raised the whip and let it fall.

The shock of it was worse than the pain. In fact, it was only after several blows that I realized the locksman was doing his level best to spare me what he could. Still, one or two blows were hard enough to break the skin; I felt the sharp tingle in the wake of the impact.

I had my eyes shut tight, cheek pressed hard against the wood, trying for all I was worth to be somewhere else. Suddenly, though, I heard something that recalled me at once to the here and now.

“Claire!”

There was a little slack in the rope that bound my wrists; enough to let me make a lunge that brought me clear around, facing the mob. My sudden escape disconcerted the locksman, who brought his lash down on empty air, stumbled forward off-balance, and knocked his head against a limb. This had a very good effect on the mob, who roared insults and started jeering at him.

My hair was in my eyes, stuck to my face with sweat, tears, and the filth of confinement. I shook my head to free it, and managed at least a sidelong glance that confirmed what my ears had heard.

Jamie was shoving his way through the hindering crowd, face like thunder, ruthlessly taking advantage of his size and muscle.

I felt very much like General MacAuliffe at Bastogne, sighting Patton’s Third Army in the offing. In spite of the horrible danger to Geilie, to me, and now to Jamie himself, I had never been so happy to see anyone.

“The witch’s man!” “Her husband, it is!” “Stinkin’ Fraser! Crowner!” and similar epithets began to be heard among the more general abuse aimed at me and Geilie. “Take him too!” “Burn ‘em! Burn ‘em all!” The crowd’s hysteria, temporarily dispersed by the locksman’s accident, was rising to fever pitch once more.

Hampered by the clinging forms of the locksman’s assistants, who were trying to restrain him, Jamie had come to a dead halt. A man hanging from each arm, he struggled to force his hand toward his belt. Thinking him reaching for a knife, one man punched him hard in the belly.

Jamie doubled slightly, then came up, smashing an elbow to the nose of the man who’d hit him. One arm temporarily freed, he ignored the frantic pawings of the man on the other side. He dipped a hand into his sporran, raised his arm and threw. His shout reached me as the object left his hand.

“Claire! Stand still!”

Not much place for me to go, I thought dazedly. There was a dark blur headed straight for my face, and I started to flinch backward, but stopped in time. The blur struck my face with a clattering sting and the black beads fell on my shoulders as the jet rosary, flung bola-style, neatly ringed my neck. Or not quite neatly; the strand had caught on my right ear. I shook my head, eyes watering from the blow, and the circlet settled into place, crucifix swinging jauntily between my naked breasts.

The faces in the front row were staring at it in a kind of horrified bemusement. Their sudden silence affected those further back, and the roaring seethe of noise subsided. Jamie’s voice, customarily soft-spoken, even in anger, rang out in the silence. There was nothing soft about it now.

“Cut her down!”

The hangers-on had dropped away, and the waves of the crowd parted before him as he strode forward. The locksman watched him come, standing gape-jawed and frozen.

“I said, cut her down! Now!” The locksman, freed from his trance by the apocalyptic vision of red-haired death bearing down on him, stirred himself and fumbled hastily for his dirk. The rope, sawn through, let go with a shuddering snap and my arms dropped like bolsters, aching with released strain. I staggered and would have fallen, but a strong, familiar hand caught my elbow and pulled me upright. Then my face was against Jamie’s chest, and nothing mattered to me anymore.

I may have lost consciousness for a few moments, or only been so overcome with relief that it seemed that way. Jamie’s arm was hard around my waist, holding me up, and his plaid had been thrown over me, hiding me at last from the stare of the villagers. There was a confusion of voices all around, but it was no longer the crazed and gleeful bloodlust of the mob.

The voice of Mutt—or was it Jeff?—cut through the confusion.

“Who are you? How dare ye to interfere wi’ the investigations of the court?”

I could feel, rather than see, the crowd pushing forward. Jamie was large, and he was armed, but he was only one man. I cowered against him under the folds of the plaid. His right arm tightened around me, but his left hand went to the sheath on his hip. The silver-blue blade hissed with menace as it came half out of its scabbard, and those in the forefront of the crowd came to a sudden stop.

The judges were made of somewhat tougher fabric. Peering out from my hiding place, I could see Jeff glaring at Jamie. Mutt appeared more bemused than annoyed at this sudden intrusion.

“Do ye dare to draw arms against the justice of God?” snapped the tubby little judge.

Jamie drew the sword completely, with a flash of steel, then thrust it point-first into the ground, leaving the hilt quivering with the force of the blow.

“I draw it in defense of this woman, and the truth,” he said. “If any here be against those two, they’ll answer to me, and then God, in that order.”

The judge blinked once or twice, as though unable to credit this behavior, then surged to the attack once more.

“You have no place in the workings o’ this court, sir! I’ll demand that ye surrender the prisoner at once. Your own behavior will be dealt with presently!”

Jamie looked the judges over coolly. I could feel his heart hammering beneath my cheek as I clung to him, but his hands were rock-steady, one resting on the hilt of his sword, the other on the dirk at his belt.

“As to that, sir, I swore an oath before the altar of God to protect this woman. And if you’re tellin’ me that ye consider your own authority to be greater than that of the Almighty, then I must inform ye that I’m no of that opinion, myself.”

The silence that followed this was broken by an embarrassed titter, echoed here and there by a nervous laugh. While the sympathies of the crowd had not shifted to our side, still the momentum carrying us to disaster had been broken.

Jamie turned me with a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t bear to face the crowd, but I knew I must. I kept my chin as high as I could, and my eyes focused beyond the faces, to a small boat in the center of the loch. I stared at it ‘til my eyes watered.

Jamie turned back the plaid, holding it around me, but letting it drop far enough to show my neck and shoulders. He touched the black rosary and set it swinging gently to and fro.

“Jet will burn a witch’s skin, no?” he demanded of the judges. “Still more, I should think, would the cross of our Lord. But look.” He dipped a finger under the beads and lifted up the crucifix. My skin beneath was pure white, unmarked save for the smudges of captivity, and there was a gasp and murmur from the crowd.

Raw courage, an ice-cold presence of mind, and that instinct for showmanship. Colum MacKenzie had been right to be apprehensive of Jamie’s ambitions. And given his fear that I might reveal Hamish’s parentage, or what he thought I knew of it, what he had done to me was understandable too. Understandable, but not forgivable.

The mood of the crowd now swayed to and fro, uncertain. The bloodlust that had driven it earlier was dissipating, but it might still tilt like a cresting wave and crush us. Mutt and Jeff glanced at each other, undecided; taken aback by this last development, the judges had momentarily lost control of the situation.

Geillis Duncan stepped forward into the breach. I do not know whether there was hope for her at that point or not. In any case, she now tossed her fair hair defiantly over one shoulder, and threw her life away.

“This woman is no witch,” she said simply. “But I am.”

Jamie’s show, good as it was, was no match for this. The resulting uproar drowned completely the voices of the judges, questioning and exclaiming.

There was no clue to what she thought or felt, no more than there ever was; her high white brow was clear, the big green eyes gleaming in what might be amusement. She stood straight in her ragged garments, daubed with filth, and stared down her accusers. When the tumult had quieted a bit, she began to speak, not deigning to raise her voice, but forcing them to quiet themselves to hear her.

“I, Geillis Duncan, do confess that I am a witch, and the mistress of Satan.” This caused another outcry, and she waited again with perfect patience for them to quiet.

“In obedience to my Master, I do confess that I killed my husband, Arthur Duncan, by means of witchcraft.” At this, she glanced aside, catching my eye, and the hint of a smile touched her lips. Her eyes rested on the woman in the yellow shawl, but did not soften. “Of malice, I placed a spell upon the changeling child, that it might die, and the human child it replaced remain with the fairies.” She turned and gestured in my direction.

“I took advantage of the ignorance of Claire Fraser, using her for my purposes. But she had neither part nor knowledge in my doings, nor does she serve my Master.”

The crowd was muttering again, people jostling to get a better look, pushing nearer. She stretched out both hands toward them, palm outward.

“Stay back!” The clear voice cracked like a whip, to much the same effect. She tilted back her head to the skies and froze, like one listening.

“Hear!” she said. “Hear the wind of his coming! Beware, ye people of Cranesmuir! For my Master comes on the wings o’ the wind!” She lowered her head and screamed, a high, eerie sound of triumph. The large green eyes were fixed and staring, trancelike.

The wind was rising; I could see the clouds of the storm rolling across the far side of the loch. People began to look uneasily around; a few souls dropped back from the edge of the crowd.

Geilie began to spin, twirling round and round, hair whipping in the wind, hand gracefully overhead like a maypole dancer’s. I watched her in stunned disbelief.

As she turned, her hair hid her face. On the last turn, though, she snapped her head to throw the fair mane to one side and I saw her face clearly, looking at me. The mask of trance had vanished momentarily, and her mouth formed a single word. Then her turn took her around to face the crowd once more, and she began her eerie screaming again.

The word had been “Run!”

She stopped her spinning suddenly, and with a look of mad exultation, gripped the remnants of her bodice with both hands and tore it down the front. Tore it far enough to show the crowd the secret I had learned, huddled close beside her in the cold filth of the thieves’ hole. The secret Arthur Duncan had learned, in the hour before his death. The secret for which he had died. The shreds of her loose gown dropped away, exposing the swelling bulge of a six-month pregnancy.

I still stood like a rock, staring. Jamie had no such hesitations. Seizing me with one hand and his sword with the other, he flung himself into the crowd, knocking people out of the way with elbows, knees, and sword hilt, bulling his way toward the edge of the loch. He let out a piercing whistle through his teeth.

Intent on the spectacle under the oak, few people at first realized what was happening. Then, as individuals began to shout and grab at us, there was the sound of galloping hooves on the hard-packed dirt above the shore.

Donas still didn’t care much for people, and was all too willing to show it. He bit the first hand reaching for his bridle, and a man dropped back, crying out and dripping blood. The horse reared, squealing and pawing the air, and the few bold souls still intent on stopping him suddenly lost interest.

Jamie flung me over the saddle like a sack of meal and swung up himself in one fluid motion. Clearing a path with vicious swipes of his sword, he turned Donas through the hindering mass of the crowd. As people fell back from the onslaught of teeth, hooves, and blade, we picked up speed, leaving the loch, the village, and Leoch behind. Breath knocked out of me by the impact, I struggled to speak, to scream to Jamie.

For I hadn’t stood frozen at the revelation of Geilie’s pregnancy. It was something else I had seen that chilled me to the marrow of my bones. As Geilie had spun, white arms stretched aloft, I saw what she had seen when my own clothes were stripped away. A mark on one arm like the one I bore. Here, in this time, the mark of sorcery, the mark of a magus. The small, homely scar of a smallpox vaccination.

Rain pattered on the water, soothing my swollen face and the rope burns on my wrists. I dipped a handful of water from the stream and sipped it slowly, feeling the cold liquid trickle down my throat with gratitude.

Jamie disappeared for a few minutes. He came back with a handful of dark green oblate leaves, chewing something. He spat a glob of macerated green into the palm of his hand, stuffed another wad of leaves into his mouth and turned me away from him. He rubbed the chewed leaves gently over my back, and the stinging eased considerably.

“What is that?” I asked, making an effort to control myself. I was still shaky and snuffling, but the helpless tears were beginning to ebb.

“Watercress,” he answered, voice slightly muffled by the leaves in his mouth. He spat them out and applied them to my back. “You’re no the only one knows a bit about grass-cures, Sassenach,” he said, a bit clearer.

“How—how does it taste?” I asked, gulping back the sobs.

“Fair nasty,” he replied laconically. He finished his application and laid the plaid softly back across my shoulders.

“It won’t—” he began, then hesitated, “I mean, the cuts are not deep. I—I think you’ll no be…marked.” He spoke gruffly, but his touch was very gentle, and reduced me to tears once more.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, dabbling my nose on a corner of the plaid. “I—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I can’t stop crying.”

He shrugged. “I dinna suppose anyone’s tried to hurt ye on purpose before, Sassenach,” he said. “It’s likely the shock of that, so much as the pain.” He paused, picking up a plaid-end.

“I did just the same, lass,” he said matter-of-factly. “Puked after, and cried while they cleansed the cuts. Then I shook.” He wiped my face carefully with the plaid, then put a hand under my chin and tilted my face up to his.

“And when I stopped shaking, Sassenach,” he said quietly, “I thanked God for the pain, because it meant I was still alive.” He let go, nodding at me. “When ye get to that point, lassie, tell me; for I’ve a thing or two I want to be sayin’ to ye then.”

He got up and went down to the edge of the burn, to wash out the bloodstained handkerchief in cold water.

“What brought you back?” I asked, when he returned. I had managed to stop crying, but I still shook, and huddled deeper into the folds of the plaid.

“Alec MacMahon,” he said, smiling. “I told him to watch over ye while I was gone. When the villagers took you and Mrs. Duncan, he rode all night and the next day to find me. And then I rode like the devil himself comin’ back. Lord, that’s a good horse.” He looked approvingly up the slope to Donas, tethered to a tree at the top of the bank, his wet coat gleaming like copper.

“I’ll have to move him,” he said, thoughtfully. “I doubt anyone will follow, but it isna that far from Cranesmuir. Can ye walk now?”

I followed him up the steep slope with some difficulty, small rocks rolling under my feet and bracken and bramble catching my shift. Near the top of the slope was a grove of young alders, grown so close together that the lower branches interlaced, forming a green roof over the bracken beneath. Jamie shoved the branches up far enough for me to crawl into the narrow space, then carefully rearranged the crushed bracken before the entrance. He stood back and surveyed the hiding place critically, nodding in satisfaction.

“Aye, that’s good. No one will find ye there.” He turned to go, then turned back. “Try to sleep, if ye can, and don’t worry if I’m not back at once. I’ll hunt a bit on the way back; we’ve no food with us, and I dinna want to attract attention by stopping at a croft. Pull the tartan up over your head, and make sure it covers your shift; the white shows for a long way.”

Food seemed irrelevant; I felt as though I would never want to eat again. Sleep was something else again. My back and arms still ached, the rope burns on my wrists were raw, and I felt sore and bruised all over; but worn out with fear, pain, and simple exhaustion, I fell asleep almost at once, the pungent scent of ferns rising around me like incense.

I awoke with something gripping my foot. Startled, I sat up straight, crashing into the springy branches overhead. Leaves and sticks showered down around me, and I flailed my arms wildly, trying to disentangle my hair from the snagging twigs. Scratched, disheveled, and irritated, I crawled out of my sanctuary to find an amused Jamie squatting nearby, watching my emergence. It was near sunset; the sun had dropped below the lip of the burn, leaving the rocky canyon in shadow. The smell of roasting meat rose from a small fire burning among the rocks near the stream, where two rabbits browned on a makeshift spit made of sharpened green sticks.

Jamie held out a hand to help me down the slope. I haughtily declined and swept down myself, tripping only once on the trailing ends of the plaid. My earlier nausea had vanished, and I fell ravenously on the meat.

“We’ll move up into the forest after supper, Sassenach,” Jamie said, tearing a joint from the rabbit carcass. “I dinna want to sleep near the burn; I canna hear anyone coming over the noise of the water.”

There was not much conversation as we ate. The horror of the morning, and the thought of what we had left behind, oppressed us both. And for me there was a profound sense of mourning. I had lost not only the chance of finding out more about the why and wherefore of my presence here, but a friend as well. My only friend. I was often in doubt as to Geilie’s motives, but I had no doubt at all that she had saved my life that morning. Knowing herself doomed, she had done her best to give me a chance of escape. The fire, almost invisible in daylight, was growing brighter now as darkness filled the burn. I looked into the flames, seeing the crisp skin and browned bones of the rabbits on their spits. A drop of blood from a broken bone fell into the fire, hissing into nothing. Suddenly the meat stuck in my throat. I set it down hastily and turned away, retching.

Still without speaking much, we moved out of the burn and found a comfortable place near the edge of a clearing in the forest. Hills rose in undulant mounds all around us, but Jamie had chosen a high spot, with a good view of the road from the village. The dusk momentarily heightened all the colors of the countryside, lighting the land with jewels; a glowing emerald in the hollows, a lovely shadowed amethyst among the clumps of heather, and burning rubies on the red-berried rowan trees that crowned the hills. Rowan berries, a specific against witchcraft. Far in the distance, the outline of Castle Leoch was still visible at the foot of Ben Aden. It faded quickly as the light died.

Jamie made a fire in a sheltered spot, and sat down next to it. The rain had eased to a faint drizzle that misted the air and spangled my eyelashes with rainbows when I looked at the flames.

He sat staring into the fire for a long time. Finally he looked up at me, hands clasped around his knees.

“I said before that I’d not ask ye things ye had no wish to tell me. And I’d not ask ye now; but I must know, for your safety as well as mine.” He paused, hesitating.

“Claire, if you’ve never been honest wi’ me, be so now, for I must know the truth. Claire, are ye a witch?”

I gaped at him. “A witch? You—you can really ask that?” I thought he must be joking. He wasn’t.

He took me by the shoulders and gripped me hard, staring into my eyes as though willing me to answer him.

“I must ask it, Claire! And you must tell me!”

“And if I were?” I asked through dry lips. “If you had thought I were a witch? Would you still have fought for me?”

“I would have gone to the stake with you!” he said violently. “And to hell beyond, if I must. But may the Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul and on yours, tell me the truth!”

The strain of it all caught up with me. I tore myself out of his grasp and ran across the clearing. Not far, only to the edge of the trees; I could not bear the exposure of the open space. I clutched a tree; put my arms around it and dug my fingers hard into the bark, pressed my face to it and shrieked with hysterical laughter.

Jamie’s face, white and shocked, loomed up on the other side of the tree. With the dim realization that what I was doing must sound unnervingly like cackling, I made a terrific effort and stopped. Panting, I stared at him for a moment.

“Yes,” I said, backing away, still heaving with gasps of unhinged laughter. “Yes, I am a witch! To you, I must be. I’ve never had smallpox, but I can walk through a room full of dying men and never catch it. I can nurse the sick and breathe their air and touch their bodies, and the sickness can’t touch me. I can’t catch cholera, either, or lockjaw, or the morbid sore throat. And you must think it’s an enchantment, because you’ve never heard of vaccine, and there’s no other way you can explain it.”

“The things I know—” I stopped backing away and stood still, breathing heavily, trying to control myself. “I know about John Randall because I was told about him. I know when he was born and when he’ll die, I know about what he’s done and what he’ll do, I know about Sandringham because…, because Frank told me. He knew about Randall because he…he…oh, God!” I felt as though I might be sick, and closed my eyes to shut out the spinning stars overhead.

“And Colum…he thinks I’m a witch, because I know Hamish isn’t his own son. I know…he can’t sire children. But he thought I knew who Hamish’s father is…I thought maybe it was you, but then I knew it couldn’t be, and…” I was talking faster and faster, trying to keep the vertigo at bay with the sound of my own voice.

“Everything I’ve ever told you about myself was true,” I said, nodding madly as though to reassure myself. “Everything. I haven’t any people, I haven’t any history, because I haven’t happened yet.”

“Do you know when I was born?” I asked, looking up. I knew my hair was wild and my eyes staring, and I didn’t care. “On the twentieth of October, in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and eighteen. Do you hear me?” I demanded, for he was blinking at me unmoving, as though paying no attention to a word I said. “I said nineteen eighteen! Nearly two hundred years from now! Do you hear?”

I was shouting now, and he nodded slowly.

“I hear,” he said softly.

“Yes, you hear!” I blazed. “And you think I’m raving mad. Don’t you? Admit it! That’s what you think. You have to think so, there isn’t any other way you can explain me to yourself. You can’t believe me, you can’t dare to. Oh, Jamie…” I felt my face start to crumple. All this time spent hiding the truth, realizing that I could never tell anyone, and now I realized that I could tell Jamie, my beloved husband, the man I trusted beyond all others, and he wouldn’t—he couldn’t believe me either.

“It was the rocks—the fairy hill. The standing stones. Merlin’s stones. That’s where I came through.” I was gasping, half-sobbing, becoming less coherent by the second. “Once upon a time, but it’s really two hundred years. It’s always two hundred years, in the stories….But in the stories, the people always get back. I couldn’t get back.” I turned away, staggering, grasping for support. I sank down on a rock, shoulders slumped, and put my head in my hands. There was a long silence in the wood. It went on long enough for the small night birds to recover their courage and start their noises once again, calling to each other with a thin, high zeek! as they hawked for the last insects of the summer.

I looked up at last, thinking that perhaps he had simply risen and left me, overcome by my revelations. He was still there, though, still sitting, hands braced on his knees, head bowed as though in thought.

The hairs on his arms shone stiff as copper wires in the firelight, though, and I realized that they stood erect, like the bristles on a dog. He was afraid of me.

“Jamie,” I said, feeling my heart break with absolute loneliness. “Oh, Jamie.”

I sat down and curled myself into a ball, trying to roll myself around the core of my pain. Nothing mattered any longer, and I sobbed my heart out.

His hands on my shoulders raised me, enough to see his face. Through the haze of tears, I saw the look he wore in battle, of struggle that had passed the point of strain and become calm certainty.

“I believe you,” he said firmly. “I dinna understand it a bit—not yet—but I believe you. Claire, I believe you! Listen to me! There’s the truth between us, you and I, and whatever ye tell me, I shall believe it.” He gave me a gentle shake.

“It doesna matter what it is. You’ve told me. That’s enough for now. Be still, mo duinne. Lay your head and rest. You’ll tell me the rest of it later. And I’ll believe you.”

I was still sobbing, unable to grasp what he was telling me. I struggled, trying to pull away, but he gathered me up and held me tightly against himself, pushing my head into the folds of his plaid, and repeating over and over again, “I believe you.”

At last, from sheer exhaustion, I grew calm enough to look up and say, “But you can’t believe me.”

He smiled down at me. His mouth trembled slightly, but he smiled.

“Ye’ll no tell me what I canna do, Sassenach.” He paused a moment. “How old are ye?” he asked curiously. “I never thought to ask.”

The question seemed so preposterous that it took me a minute to think.

“I’m twenty-seven…or maybe twenty-eight,” I added. That rattled him for a moment. At twenty-eight, women in this time were usually on the verge of middle-age.

“Oh,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I thought ye were about my age—or younger.”

He didn’t move for a second. But then he looked down and smiled faintly at me. “Happy Birthday, Sassenach,” he said.

It took me completely by surprise and I just stared stupidly at him for a moment. “What?” I managed at last.

“I said ‘Happy Birthday.’ It’s the twentieth of October today.”

“Is it?” I said dumbly. “I’d lost track.” I was shaking again, from cold and shock and the force of my tirade. He drew me close against him and held me, smoothing his big hands lightly over my hair, cradling my head against his chest. I began to cry again, but this time with relief. In my state of upheaval, it seemed logical that if he knew my real age and still wanted me, then everything would be all right.

Jamie picked me up, and holding me carefully against his shoulder, carried me to the side of the fire, where he had laid the horse’s saddle. He sat down, leaning against the saddle, and held me, light and close.

A long time later, he spoke.

“All right. Tell me now.”

I told him. Told him everything, haltingly but coherently. I felt numb from exhaustion, but content, like a rabbit that has outrun a fox, and found temporary shelter under a log. It isn’t sanctuary, but at least it is respite. And I told him about Frank.

“Frank,” he said softly. “Then he isna dead, after all.”

“He isn’t born.” I felt another small wave of hysteria break against my ribs, but managed to keep myself under control. “Neither am I.”

He stroked and patted me back into silence, making his small murmuring Gaelic sounds.

“When I took ye from Randall at Fort William,” he said suddenly, “you were trying to get back. Back to the stones. And…Frank. That’s why ye left the grove.”

“Yes.”

“And I beat you for it.” His voice was soft with regret.

“You couldn’t know. I couldn’t tell you.” I was beginning to feel very drowsy indeed.

“No, I dinna suppose ye could.” He pulled the plaid closer around me, tucking it gently around my shoulders. “Do ye sleep now, mo duinne. No one shall harm ye; I’m here.”

I burrowed into the warm curve of his shoulder, letting my tired mind fall through the layers of oblivion. I forced myself to the surface long enough to ask, “Do you really believe me, Jamie?”

He sighed, and smiled ruefully down at me.

“Aye, I believe ye, Sassenach. But it would ha’ been a good deal easier if you’d only been a witch.”

I slept like the dead, awakening sometime after dawn with a terrible headache, stiff in every muscle. Jamie had a few handfuls of oats in a small bag in his sporran, and forced me to eat drammach—oats mixed with cold water. It stuck in my throat, but I choked it down.

He was slow and gentle with me, but spoke very little. After breakfast, he quickly packed up the small campsite and saddled Donas.

Numb with the shock of recent events, I didn’t even ask where we were going. Mounted behind him, I was content to rest my face against the broad slope of his back, feeling the motion of the horse rock me into a state of mindless trance.

We came down from the braes near Loch Madoch, pressing through the chilly dawn mist to the edge of a still sheet of grey. Wild ducks began to rise from the reeds in untidy flocks that circled the marshes, quacking and calling to rouse late sleepers below. By contrast, a well-disciplined wedge of geese passed over us, calling of heartbreak and desolation.

The grey fog lifted near midday on the second day, and a weak sun lighted the meadows filled with yellow gorse and broom. A few miles past the loch, we came out onto a narrow road and turned northwest. The way took us up again, rising into low rolling hills that gave way gradually to granite tors and crags. We met few travelers on the road, and prudently turned aside into the brush whenever hoofbeats were heard ahead.

The vegetation turned to pine forest. I sniffed deeply, enjoying the crisp resinous air, though it was turning chill toward dusk. We stopped for the night in a small clearing some way from the path. We scooped together a nestlike wallow of pine needles and blankets and huddled close together for warmth, covered by Jamie’s plaid and blanket.

He woke me sometime in the darkness and made love to me, slowly and tenderly, not speaking. I watched stars winking through the lattice of black branches overhead, and fell asleep again with his comforting weight still warm on top of me.

In the morning Jamie seemed more cheerful, or at least more peaceful, as though a difficult decision had been reached. He promised me hot tea for supper, which was small comfort then in the frigid air. Sleepily I followed him back to the path, brushing pine needles and small spiders from my skirt. The narrow path faded during the morning to no more than a faint trace through rough sheep’s fescue, zigzagging around the more prominent rocks.

I had been paying little attention to our surroundings, as I dreamily enjoyed the growing warmth of the sun, but suddenly my eye struck a familiar rock formation and I started out of my torpor. I knew where we were. And why.

“Jamie!”

He turned at my exclamation.

“You didna know?” he asked curiously.

“That we were coming here? No, of course not.” I felt mildly sick. The hill of Craigh na Dun was no more than a mile away; I could see the hump-backed shape of it through the last shreds of the morning mist.

I swallowed hard. I had tried for nearly six months to reach this place. Now that I was here at last, I wanted to be anywhere else. The standing stones on the hilltop were invisible from below, but they seemed to emanate a subtle terror that reached out for me.

Well below the summit, the footing grew too uncertain for Donas. We dismounted and tethered him to a scrubby pine, continuing on foot.

I was panting and sweating by the time we reached the granite ledge; Jamie showed no signs of exertion, save a faint flush rising from the neck of his shirt. It was quiet here above the pines, but with a steady wind whining faintly in the crevices of the rock. Swallows shot past the ledge, rising abruptly on the air currents in pursuit of insects, dropping like dive bombers, slender wings outspread.

Jamie took my hand to pull me up the last step to the wide flat ledge at the base of the cleft rock. He didn’t release it, but drew me close, looking carefully at me, as though memorizing my features. “Why—?” I began, gasping for breath.

“It’s your place,” he said roughly. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I stared as though hypnotized at the stone circle. “It looks just the same.”

Jamie followed me into the circle. Taking me by the arm, he marched firmly up to the split rock.

“Is it this one?” he demanded.

“Yes.” I tried to pull away. “Careful! Don’t go too near it!” He glanced from me to the rock, clearly skeptical. Perhaps he was right to be. I felt suddenly doubtful of the truth of my own story.

“I—I don’t know anything about it. Perhaps the…whatever it is…closed behind me. Maybe it only works at certain times of the year. It was near Beltane when I came through last.”

Jamie glanced over his shoulder at the sun, a flat disc hanging in mid-sky behind a thin screen of cloud.

“It’s almost Samhain now,” he said. “All Hallows’ Eve. Seems suitable, no?” He shivered involuntarily, in spite of the joke. “When you…came through. What did ye do?”

I tried to remember. I felt ice-cold, and I folded my hands under my armpits.

“I walked round the circle, looking at things. Just randomly, though; there was no pattern. And then I came near to the split rock, and I heard a buzzing, like bees—”

It was still like bees. I drew back as though it had been the rattle of a snake.

“It’s still here!” I reared in panic, throwing my arms around Jamie, but he set me firmly away from him, his face white, and turned me once again toward the stone.

“What then?” The keening wind was sharp in my ears, but his voice was sharper still.

“I put my hand on the rock.”

“Do it, then.” He pushed me closer, and when I did not respond, he grasped my wrist and planted my hand firmly against the brindled surface.

Chaos reached out and grabbed me.

The sun stopped whirling behind my eyes at last, and the shriek faded out of my ears. There was another persistent noise, Jamie calling my name.

I felt too sick to sit up or open my eyes, but I flapped my hand weakly, to let him know I was still alive.

“I’m all right,” I said.

“Are ye then? Oh, God, Claire!” He clasped me against his chest then, holding me tightly. “Jesus, Claire. I thought ye were dead, sure. You…you began to…go, somehow. You had the most awful look on your face, like ye were frightened to death. I—I pulled ye back from the stone. I stopped ye, I shouldna have done so—I’m sorry, lassie.”

My eyes were open enough now to see his face above me, shocked and frightened.

“It’s all right.” It was still an effort to speak, and I felt heavy and disoriented, but things were coming clearer. I tried to smile, but felt nothing more than a twitch.

“At least…we know…it still works.”

“Oh, God. Aye, it works.” He cast a glance of fearful loathing at the stone.

He left me long enough to wet a kerchief in a puddle of rainwater that stood in one of the stony depressions. He wet my face, still muttering reassurances and apologies. At last I felt well enough to sit up.

“You didn’t believe me after all, did you?” Groggy as I was, I felt somehow vindicated. “It’s true, though.”

“Aye, it’s true.” He sat next to me, staring at the stone for several minutes. I rubbed the wet cloth over my face, feeling still faint and dizzy. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, walked to the rock and slapped his hand against it.

Nothing whatsoever happened, and after a minute his shoulders slumped and he came back to me.

“Maybe it’s only women it works on,” I said fuzzily. “It’s always women in the legends. Or maybe it’s only me.”

“Well, it isna me,” he said. “Better make sure, though.”

“Jamie! Be careful!” I shouted, to no avail. He marched to the stone, slapped it again, threw himself against it, walked through the split and back again, but it remained no more than a solid stone monolith. As for myself, I shuddered at the thought of even approaching that door to madness once again.

And yet. Yet when I had begun to pass into the realm of chaos this time, I had been thinking of Frank. And I had felt him, I was sure of it. Somewhere in the void had been a tiny pinprick of light, and he was in it. I knew. I knew also that there had been another point of light, one that sat still beside me, staring at the stone, cheeks gleaming with sweat in spite of the chill of the day.

At last he turned to me and grasped both my hands. He raised them to his lips and kissed each one formally.

“My lady,” he said softly. “My…Claire. It’s no use in waiting. I must part wi’ ye now.”

My lips were too stiff to speak, but the expression on my face must have been as easily readable as usual.

“Claire,” he said urgently, “it’s your own time on the other side of…that thing. You’ve a home there, a place. The things that you’re used to. And…and Frank.”

“Yes,” I said, “there’s Frank.”

Jamie caught me by the shoulders, pulling me to my feet and shaking me gently in supplication.

“There’s nothing for ye on this side, lass! Nothing save violence and danger. Go!” He pushed me slightly, turning me toward the stone circle. I turned back to him, catching his hands.

“Is there really nothing for me here, Jamie?” I held his eyes, not letting him turn away from me.

He pulled himself gently from my grasp without answering and stood back, suddenly a figure from another time, seen in relief upon a background of hazy hills, the life in his face a trick of the shadowing rock, as if flattened beneath layers of paint, an artist’s reminiscence of forgotten places and passions turned to dust.

I looked into his eyes, filled with pain and yearning, and he was flesh again, real and immediate, lover, husband, man.

The anguish I felt must have been reflected in my face, for he hesitated, then turned to the east and pointed down the slope. “Do ye see behind the small clump of oak down there? About halfway.”

I saw the clump, and saw what he was pointing at, the half-ruined crofter’s cottage, abandoned on the haunted hill.

“I shall go down to the house, and I shall stay there ‘til the evening. To make sure—to be sure that you’re safe.” He looked at me, but made no move to touch me. He closed his eyes, as though he could no longer bear to look at me.

“Goodbye,” he said, and turned to go.

I watched him, numb, and then remembered. There was something that I had to tell him. I called after him.

“Jamie!”

He stopped and stood motionless for a moment, fighting to control his face. It was white and strained and his lips were bloodless when he turned back to me.

“Aye?”

“There’s something…I mean, I have to tell you something before…before I go.”

He closed his eyes briefly, and I thought he swayed, but it might have been only the wind tugging at his kilts.

“There’s no need,” he said. “No. Do ye go, lass. Ye shouldna tarry. Go.” He made to turn away, but I clutched him by the sleeve.

“Jamie, listen to me! You must!” He shook his head helplessly, lifting a hand as though to push me away.

“Claire…no. I can’t.” The wind was bringing the moisture to his eyes.

“It’s the Rising,” I said urgently, shaking his arm. “Jamie, listen. Prince Charlie—his army. Colum is right! Do you hear me, Jamie? Colum is right, not Dougal.”

“Eh? What d’ye mean, lass?” I had his attention now. He rubbed his sleeve across his face and the eyes that looked down at me were sharp and clear. The wind sang in my ears.

“Prince Charlie. There will be a Rising, Dougal’s right about that, but it won’t succeed. Charlie’s army will do well for a bit, but it will end in slaughter. At Culloden, that’s where it will end. The—the clans…” In my mind’s eye I saw the clanstones, the grey boulders that would lie scattered on the field, each stone bearing the single clan name of the butchered men who lay under it. I took a breath and gripped his hand to steady myself. It was cold as a corpse’s. I shuddered and closed my eyes to concentrate on what I was saying.

“The Highlanders—all the clans that follow Charlie—will be wiped out. Hundreds and hundreds of the clansmen will die at Culloden; those that are left will be hunted and killed. The clans will be crushed…and they’ll not rise again. Not in your time—not even in mine.”

I opened my eyes to find him staring at me, expressionless.

“Jamie, stay out of it!” I begged him. “Keep your people out of it if you can, but for the Lord’s sake…Jamie, if you—” I broke off. I had been going to say “Jamie, if you love me.” But I couldn’t. I was going to lose him forever, and if I could not speak of love to him before, I could not do it now.

“Don’t go to France,” I said, softly. “Go to America, or to Spain, to Italy. But for the sake of the people who love you, Jamie, don’t set foot on Culloden Field.”

He went on staring at me. I wondered if he had heard.

“Jamie? Did you hear me? Do you understand?”

After a moment, he nodded numbly.

“Aye,” he said quietly, so quietly I could hardly hear him, beneath the whining of the wind. “Aye, I hear.” He dropped my hand.

“Go wi’ God…mo duinne.”

He stepped off the ledge and made his way down the steep incline, bracing his feet against tufts of grass, catching at branches to keep his balance, not looking back. I watched him until he disappeared into the oak clump, walking slowly, like a man wounded, who knows he must keep moving, but feels his life ebbing slowly away through the fingers he has clenched over the wound.

My knees were trembling. Slowly, I lowered myself to the granite shelf and sat crosslegged, watching the swallows about their business. Below, I could just see the roof of the cottage that now held my past. At my back loomed the cleft stone. And my future.

I sat without moving through the afternoon. I tried to force all emotion from my mind and use reason. Jamie certainly had logic on his side when he argued that I should go back: home, safety, Frank; even the small amenities of life that I sorely missed from time to time, like hot baths and indoor plumbing, to say nothing of larger considerations such as proper medical care and convenient travel.

And yet, while I would certainly admit the inconveniences and outright dangers of this place, I would have also to admit that I had enjoyed many aspects of it. If travel was inconvenient, there were no enormous stretches of concrete blanketing the countryside, nor any noisy, stinking autos—contrivances with their own dangers, I reminded myself. Life was much simpler, and so were the people. Not less intelligent, but much more direct—with a few sterling exceptions like Colum ban Campbell MacKenzie, I thought grimly.

Because of Uncle Lamb’s work, I had lived in a great many places, many even cruder and more lacking in amenities than this one. I adapted quite easily to rough conditions, and did not really miss “civilization” when away from it, though I adapted just as easily to the presence of niceties like electric cookers and hot-water geysers. I shivered in the cold wind, hugging myself as I stared at the rock.

Rationality did not appear to be helping much. I turned to emotion, and began, shrinking from the task, to reconstruct the details of my married lives—first with Frank, then with Jamie. The only result of this was to leave me shattered and weeping, the tears forming icy trails on my face.

Well, if not reason nor emotion, what of duty? I had given Frank a wedding vow, and had meant it with all my heart. I had given Jamie the same, meaning to betray it as soon as possible. And which of them would I betray now? I continued to sit, as the sun sank lower in the sky and the swallows disappeared to their nests.

As the evening star began to glow among the black pines’ branches, I concluded that in this situation reason was of little use. I would have to rely on something else; just what, I wasn’t sure. I turned toward the split rock and took a step, then another, and another. Pausing, I faced around and tried it in the other direction. A step, then another, and another, and before I even knew that I had decided, I was halfway down the slope, scrabbling wildly at grass clumps, slipping and falling through the patches of granite scree.

When I reached the cottage, breathless with fear lest he had left already, I was reassured to see Donas hobbled and grazing nearby. The horse raised his head and eyed me unpleasantly. Walking softly, I pushed the door open.

He was in the front room, asleep on a narrow oak settle. He slept on his back, as he usually did, hands crossed on his stomach, mouth slightly open. The last rays of daylight from the window behind me limned his face like a metal mask; the silver tracks of dried tears glinted on golden skin, and the copper stubble of his beard gleamed dully.

I stood watching him for a moment, filled with an unutterable tenderness. Moving as quietly as I could, I lay down beside him on the narrow settle and nestled close. He turned to me in sleep as he so often did, gathering me spoon-fashion against his chest and resting his cheek against my hair. Half-conscious, he reached to smooth my hair away from his nose; I felt the sudden jerk as he came awake to realize that I was there, and then we overbalanced and crashed together onto the floor, Jamie on top of me.

I didn’t have the slightest doubt that he was solid flesh. I pushed a knee into his abdomen, grunting.

“Get off! I can’t breathe!”

Instead, he aggravated my breathless condition by kissing me thoroughly. I ignored the lack of oxygen temporarily in order to concentrate on more important things.

We held each other for a long time without speaking. At last he murmured “Why?”—his mouth muffled in my hair.

I kissed his cheek, damp and salty. I could feel his heart beating against my ribs, and wanted nothing more than to stay there forever, not moving, not making love, just breathing the same air.

“I had to,” I said. I laughed, a little shakily. “You don’t know how close it was. The hot baths nearly won.” And I wept then, and shook a little, because the choice was so freshly made, and because my joy for the man I held in my arms was mingled with a tearing grief for the man I would never see again.

Jamie held me tightly, pressing me down with his weight, as though to protect me, to save me from being swept away by the roaring pull of the stone circle. At length my tears were spent, and I lay exhausted, head against his comforting chest. It had grown altogether dark by this time, but still he held me, murmuring softly as though I were a child afraid of the night. We clung to each other, unwilling to let go even long enough to start a fire or light a candle.

At length Jamie rose, and picking me up, carried me to the settle, where he sat with me cradled on his lap. The door of the cottage still hung open, and we could see the stars beginning to burn over the valley below.

“Do you know,” I said drowsily, “that it takes thousands and thousands of years for the light of those stars to reach us? In fact, some of the stars we see may be dead by now, but we won’t know it, because we still see the light.”

“Is that so?” he answered, stroking my back. “I didna know that.”

I must have fallen asleep, head on his shoulder, but roused briefly when he laid me gently on the floor, on a makeshift bed of blankets from the horse’s saddleroll. He lay down beside me, and drew me close again.

“Lay your head, lass,” he whispered. “In the morning, I’ll take ye home.”

We rose just before dawn, and were on the downward trail when the sun rose, eager to leave Craigh na Dun.

“Where are we going, Jamie?” I asked, rejoicing that I could look forward into a future that held him, even as I left behind the last chance of returning to the man who had—who would? once love me.

Jamie reined in the horse, pausing to look over his shoulder for a moment. The forbidding circle of standing stones was invisible from here, but the rocky hillside seemed to rise impassable behind us, bristling with boulders and gorse bushes. From here, the crumbling husk of the cottage looked like one more crag, a bony knuckle jutting from the granite fist of the hill.

“I wish I could have fought him for you,” he said abruptly, looking back at me. His blue eyes were dark and earnest.

I smiled at him, touched.

“It wasn’t your fight, it was mine. But you won it anyway.” I reached out a hand, and he squeezed it.

“Aye, but that’s not what I meant. If I’d fought him man to man and won, ye’d not need to feel any regret over it.” He hesitated. “If ever—”

“There aren’t any more ifs,” I said firmly. “I thought of every one of them yesterday, and here I still am.”

“Thank God,” he said, smiling, “and God help you.” Then he added, “Though I’ll never understand why.”

I put my arms around his waist and held on as the horse slithered down the last steep slope.

“Because,” I said, “I bloody well can’t do without you, Jamie Fraser, and that’s all about it. Now, where are you taking me?”

Jamie twisted in his saddle, to look back up the slope.

“I prayed all the way up that hill yesterday,” he said softly. “Not for you to stay; I didna think that would be right. I prayed I’d be strong enough to send ye away.” He shook his head, still gazing up the hill, a faraway look in his eyes.

“I said ‘Lord, if I’ve never had courage in my life before, let me have it now. Let me be brave enough not to fall on my knees and beg her to stay.’ ” He pulled his eyes away from the cottage and smiled briefly at me.

“Hardest thing I ever did, Sassenach.” He turned in the saddle, and reined the horse’s head toward the east. It was a rare bright morning, and the early sun gilded everything, drawing a thin line of fire along the edge of the reins, the curve of the horse’s neck, and the broad planes of Jamie’s face and shoulders.

He took a deep breath and nodded across the moor, toward a distant pass between two crags.

“So now I suppose I can do the second-hardest thing.” He kicked the horse gently, clicking his tongue. “We’re going home, Sassenach. To Lallybroch.”