31
QUARTER DAY
There was a light knock on the door, and Jenny stepped in, carrying a folded blue garment over her arm and a hat in one hand. She looked her brother over critically, then nodded.
“Aye, the shirt’s well enough. And I’ve let out your best coat for ye; you’ve grown a bit through the shoulders since I saw ye last.” She cocked her head to one side, considering. “Ye’ve done a braw job of it today—up to the neck, at least. Sit ye down over there, and I’ll tend to your hair.” She pointed to the stool by the window.
“My hair? What’s wrong wi’ my hair?” Jamie demanded, putting a hand up to check. Grown nearly to shoulder-length, he had as usual laced it back with a leather thong to keep it out of his face.
Wasting no time on chat, his sister pushed him down onto the stool, yanked the thong loose and began to brush him vigorously with the tortoiseshell brushes.
“What’s wrong wi’ your hair?” she asked rhetorically. “Weel, now. There’s cockleburs in it, for one thing.” She plucked a small brown object delicately from his head and dropped it on the dresser. “And bits of oak leaf. Where were ye yesterday—rootling under the trees like a hog? And more tangles than a skein of washed yarn—”
“Ouch!”
“Be still, roy.” Frowning with concentration, she picked up a comb and teased out the tangles, leaving a smooth, shining mass of auburn, copper, cinnamon, and gold, all gleaming together in the morning sun from the window. Jenny spread it in her hands, shaking her head over it.
“I canna think why the good Lord should waste hair like that on a man,” she remarked. “Like a reddeer’s pelt, in places.”
“It is wonderful isn’t it?” I agreed. “Look, where the sun’s bleached it on top, he’s got those lovely blond streaks.” The object of our admiration glowered up at us.
“If ye both dinna stop it, I shall shave my head.” He stretched out a threatening hand toward the dresser, where his razor rested. His sister, deft in spite of the enormous bulge of pregnancy, reached out and smacked his wrist with the hairbrush. He yelped, then yelped again as she yanked the hair back into a fistful.
“Keep still,” she ordered. She began to separate the hair into three thick strands. “I’ll make ye a proper cockernonny,” she declared with satisfaction. “I’ll no have ye goin’ down to your tenants looking like a savage.”
Jamie muttered something rebellious under his breath, but subsided under his sister’s ministrations. Dexterously tucking in stray bits here and there, she plaited the hair into a thick formal queue, tucking the ends under and binding them securely with thread. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out a blue silk ribbon and triumphantly tied it in a bow.
“There!” she said. “Bonny, no?” She turned to me for confirmation, and I had to admit it. The closely bound hair set off the shape of his head and the bold modeling of his face. Clean and orderly, in snowy linen and grey breeches, he cut a wonderful figure.
“Especially the ribbon,” I said, suppressing an urge to laugh. “The same color as his eyes.”
Jamie glared at his sister.
“No,” he said shortly. “No ribbons. This isna France, nor yet King Geordie’s court! I dinna care if it’s the color of the Virgin’s cloak—no ribbons, Janet!”
“Oh, all right, then, fusspot. There.” She pulled the ribbon loose and stood back.
“Aye, ye’ll do,” she said, with satisfaction. Then she turned her penetrating blue eyes on me.
“Hm,” she said, tapping her foot thoughtfully.
As I had arrived more or less in rags, it had been necessary to make me two new gowns as quickly as possible; one of homespun for daily use, and one of silk for occasions of state such as this. Better at stitching wounds than cloth, I had helped with the cutting and pinning, but been obliged to leave the design and sewing to Jenny and Mrs. Crook.
They had done a beautiful job, and the primrose yellow silk fitted my torso like a glove, with deep folds rolling back over the shoulders and falling behind in panels that flowed into the luxuriant drape of the full skirt. Bowing reluctantly to my absolute refusal to wear corsets, they had instead ingeniously reinforced the upper bodice with whale-bone stays ruthlessly stripped from an old corset.
Jenny’s eyes traveled slowly upward from my feet to my head, where they lingered. With a sigh, she reached for the hairbrush.
“You, too,” she said.
I sat, face burning, avoiding Jamie’s eyes, as she carefully removed small twigs and bits of oak leaf from my curls, depositing them on the dresser next to those seined from her brother’s hair. Eventually my hair was combed out and pinned up, and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small lace cap.
“There,” she said, pinning it firmly to the top of my pile of curls. “Kertch and all. Verra respectable ye look, Claire.”
I assumed this was meant as a compliment, and murmured something in reply.
“Have ye any jewelry, though?” Jenny asked.
I shook my head. “No, I’m afraid not. All I had were the pearls Jamie gave me for our wedding, and those—” Under the circumstances of our departure from Leoch, pearls had been the last thing on my mind.
“Oh!” Jamie exclaimed, suddenly reminded. He dug in the sporran resting on the dresser, and triumphantly pulled out the string of pearls.
“Where on earth did you get those?” I asked in amazement.
“Murtagh brought them, early this morning,” he answered. “He went back to Leoch during the trial and got everything he could carry—thinking that we’d need it if we got away. He looked for us on the road here, but of course we’d gone to…to the hill, first.”
“Is he still here?” I asked.
Jamie stood behind me to fasten the necklace.
“Oh, aye. He’s downstairs eating everything in the kitchen and deviling Mrs. Crook.”
Aside from his songs, I had heard the wiry little man say less than three dozen words throughout the course of our acquaintanceship, and the thought of his “deviling” anyone was incongruous. He must feel remarkably at home at Lallybroch, I thought.
“Who is Murtagh?” I asked. “I mean, is he a relation of yours?”
Jamie and Jenny both looked surprised.
“Oh, aye,” the latter replied. She turned to her brother. “He’s—what, Jamie?—Father’s second cousin’s uncle?”
“Nephew,” he corrected. “Ye dinna remember? Old Leo had the two boys, and then—”
I put my hands over my ears in a marked manner. This seemed to remind Jenny of something, for she clapped her hands together.
“Earbobs!” she exclaimed. “I think I’ve some pearl ones that will just do with that necklace! I’ll fetch them directly.” She vanished with her usual light speed.
“Why does your sister call you Roy?” I asked curiously, watching as he tied his stock before the looking glass. He wore the customary expression of a man doing battle with a mortal enemy, common to all men adjusting their neckwear, but he unclamped his lips to grin at me.
“Och, that. It isna the English name Roy. It’s a pet name in Gaelic; the color of my hair. The word’s ‘ruadh’—means ‘red.’ ” He had to spell the word and say it over several times before I could catch any difference.
“Sounds the same to me, roy,” I said, shaking my head.
Jamie picked up his sporran and began tucking in the loose bits of things that had come out when he pulled out the pearls. Finding a tangled length of fishing line, he upended the bag over the bed, dumping everything in a pile. He began to sort through it, painstakingly winding up the bits of line and string, finding loose fish hooks and firmly re-imbedding them in the piece of cork where they normally rested. I moved over to the bed and inspected the array.
“I’ve never seen so much rubbish in my life,” I observed. “You’re a regular jackdaw, Jamie.”
“It isna rubbish,” he said, stung. “I’ve uses for all these things.”
“Well, the fish lines, and the hooks, yes. And the string for snares. Even, stretching a point, the pistol wadding and the balls—you do carry a pistol now and again. And the little snake Willie gave you, I understand that. But the stones? And a snail shell? And a piece of glass? And…” I bent closer to peer at a dark, furry mass of something.
“What is—it isn’t, is it? Jamie, why on earth are you carrying a dried mole’s foot in your sporran?”
“Against rheumatism, of course.” He snatched the object from under my nose and stuffed it back in the badger skin.
“Oh, of course,” I agreed, surveying him with interest. His face was mildly flushed with embarrassment. “It must work; you don’t creak anywhere.” I picked a small Bible out of the remaining rubble and thumbed through it, while he stowed away the rest of his valuable equipment.
“Alexander William Roderick MacGregor.” I read aloud the name on the flyleaf. “You said there was a debt owing him, Jamie. What did you mean by that?”
“Oh, that.” He sat down beside me on the bed, took the small book from me and gently flipped the pages.
“I told ye this belonged to a prisoner who’d died at Fort William, no?”
“Yes.”
“I didna know the lad myself; he died a month before I came there. But the doctor who gave it to me told me about him, while he tended my back. I think he needed to tell someone about it, and he couldna speak to anyone in the garrison.” He closed the book, holding it on his knee, and stared out the window at the gay October sunshine.
Alex MacGregor, a lad of eighteen or so, had been arrested for the common offense of cattle-lifting. A fair, quiet lad, he had seemed likely to serve his sentence and be released without incident. A week before his release, though, he had been found hanging in the horseshed.
“There was no doubt he’d done it himself, the doctor said.” Jamie caressed the leather cover of the small book, drawing one large thumb along the binding. “And he did not exactly say what he thought, himself. But he did say that Captain Randall had had a private conversation with the lad a week before.”
I swallowed, suddenly cold despite the sunshine.
“And you think—”
“No.” His voice was soft and certain. “I dinna think. I know, and so did the doctor. And I imagine the sergeant-major knew for certain, and that’s why he died.” He spread his hands flat on his knees, looking down at the long joints of his fingers. Large, strong and capable; the hands of a farmer, the hands of a warrior. He picked up the small Bible and put it into the sporran.
“I’ll tell ye this, mo duinne. One day Jack Randall will die at my hands. And when he is dead, I shall send back that book to the mother of Alex MacGregor, with word that her son is avenged.”
The air of tension was broken by the sudden reappearance of Jenny, now resplendent in blue silk and her own lace kertch, holding a large box of worn red morocco leather.
“Jamie, the Currans are come, and Willie Murray and the Jeffries. You’d best go down and have a second breakfast with them—I’ve put out fresh bannocks and salt herring, and Mrs. Crook’s doing fresh jam cakes.”
“Oh, aye. Claire, come down when you’re ready.” Rising hastily, he paused long enough to gather me up for a brief but thorough kiss, and disappeared. His footsteps clattered down the first flight of stairs, slowing on the second to the more sedate pace suitable to a laird’s entrance, as he neared the ground floor.
Jenny smiled after him, then turned her attention to me. Placing the box on the bed, she threw back the lid, revealing a jumbled array of jewels and baubles. I was surprised to see it; it seemed unlike the neat, orderly Jenny Murray whose iron hand kept the household running smoothly from dawn to dusk.
She stirred a finger through the bright clutter, then as though picking up my thought, looked up and smiled at me.
“I keep thinking I must sort all these things one day. But when I was small, my mother would let me rummage in her box sometimes, and it was like finding magic treasure—I never knew what I’d pick up next. I suppose I think if it were all orderly, the magic would go, somehow. Daft, no?”
“No,” I said, smiling back at her. “No, it isn’t.”
We rummaged slowly through the box, holding the cherished bits and pieces of four generations of women.
“That was my grandmother Fraser’s,” Jenny said, holding up a silver brooch. It was in the shape of a fretworked crescent moon, a small single diamond shining above the tip like a star.
“And this—” She pulled out a slender gold band, with a ruby surrounded by brilliants. “That’s my wedding ring. Ian spent half a year’s salary on it, though I told him he was foolish to do it.” The fond look on her face suggested that Ian had been anything but foolish. She polished the stone on the bosom of her dress and admired it once more before replacing it in the box.
“I’ll be happy once the babe is born,” she said, patting her bulge with a grimace. “My fingers are so swollen in the mornings I can scarcely do up my laces, let alone wear my rings.”
I caught a strange nonmetallic gleam in the depths of the box, and pointed. “What’s that?”
“Oh, those,” she said, dipping into the box again. “I’ve never worn them; they don’t suit me. But you could wear them—you’re tall and queenly, like my mother was. They were hers, ye ken.”
They were a pair of bracelets. Each made from the curving, almost-circular tusk of a wild boar, polished to a deep ivory glow, the ends capped with silver tappets, etched with flowered tracery.
“Lord, they’re gorgeous! I’ve never seen anything so…so wonderfully barbaric.”
Jenny was amused. “Aye, that they are. Someone gave them to Mother as a wedding gift, but she never would say who. My father used to tease her now and then about her admirer, but she wouldna tell him, either, just smiled like a cat that’s had cream to its supper. Here, try them.”
The ivory was cool and heavy on my arm. I couldn’t resist stroking the deep yellow surface, grained with age.
“Aye, they suit ye,” Jenny declared. “And they go wi’ that yellow gown, as well. Here are the earbobs—put these on, and we’ll go down.”
Murtagh was seated at the kitchen table, industriously eating ham off the end of his dirk. Passing behind him with a platter, Mrs. Crook dexterously bent and slid three fresh hot bannocks onto his plate, hardly breaking her stride.
Jenny was bustling to and fro, preparing and overseeing. Pausing in her progress, she peered over Murtagh’s shoulder at his rapidly emptying plate.
“Don’t stint yourself, man,” she remarked. “There’s another hog in the pen, after all.”
“Begrudge a kinsman a bite, do ye?” he asked, not interrupting his chewing.
“Me?” Jenny put both hands on her hips. “Heavens, no! After all, ye’ve only had the four helpings so far. Mrs. Crook,” she turned to call to the departing housekeeper, “when you’ve done wi’ the bannocks, fix this starveling man a bowl of parritch to fill in the chinks with. We dinna want him fainting on the doorstep, ye ken.”
When Murtagh saw me standing in the doorway, he promptly choked on a bite of ham.
“Mmmphm,” he said, by way of greeting, after Jenny had pounded him helpfully on the back.
“Nice to see you too,” I replied, sitting down opposite him. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Mmphm?” The question was muffled by half a bannock, spread with honey.
“For fetching my things from the Castle.”
“Mmp.” He dismissed any notion of thanks with a wave that ended in a reach for the butter dish.
“I brought your wee bits of plant and such as well,” he said, with a jerk of the head at the window. “Out in the yard, in my saddlebags.”
“You’ve brought my medicine box? That’s wonderful!” I was delighted. Some of the medicinal plants were rare, and had taken no little trouble to find and prepare properly.
“But how did you manage?” I asked. Once I had recovered from the horror of the witchcraft trial, I often wondered how the occupants of the Castle had taken my sudden arrest and escape. “I hope you didn’t have any difficulty.”
“Och, no.” He took another healthy bite, but waited until it had made its leisurely way down his throat before replying further.
“Mrs. Fitz had them put away, like, packed up in a box already. I went to her at the first, ye ken, for I wasna sure what reception I’d get.”
“Very sensible. I don’t imagine Mrs. Fitz would scream at sight of you,” I agreed. The bannocks were steaming gently in the cool air, and smelt heavenly. I reached for one, the heavy boar’s-tooth bracelets clinking together on my wrist. I saw Murtagh’s eyes on them and adjusted them so he could see the engraved silver end pieces.
“Aren’t they lovely?” I said. “Jenny said they were her mother’s.”
Murtagh’s eyes dropped to the bowl of parritch that Mrs. Crook had thrust unceremoniously under his nose.
“They suit ye,” he mumbled. Then, returning suddenly to the earlier subject, he said, “No, she wouldna summon help against me. I was well acquent’ wi’ Glenna FitzGibbons, some time ago.”
“Oh, a long-lost love of yours, was she?” I teased, enjoying the incongruous thought of him entwined in amorous embrace with the ample Mrs. Fitz.
Murtagh glanced up coldly from his parritch.
“That she wasna, and I’ll thank ye to keep a civil tongue when ye speak of the lady. Her husband was my mother’s brother. And she was sore grieved for ye, I’ll ha’ ye to know.”
I lowered my eyes, abashed, and reached for the honey to cover my embarrassment. The stone jar had been set in a pot of boiling water to liquefy the contents, and it was comfortingly warm to the touch.
“I’m sorry,” I said, drizzling the sweet golden fluid over the bannock, watching carefully so as not to spill it. “I wondered, you know, what she felt like, when…when I…”
“They didna realize at the first ye were gone,” the little man said matter-of-factly, ignoring my apology. “When ye didna come in to dinner, they thought maybe you’d stayed late in the fields and gone up to your bed without eating; your door was closed. And the next day, when there was all the outcry over the taking of Mistress Duncan, no one thought to look for ye. There was no mention of you, only of her, when the news came, and in all the excitement, no one thought to look for ye.”
I nodded thoughtfully. No one would have missed me, save those seeking medical treatment; I had spent most of my time in Colum’s library while Jamie was away.
“What about Colum?” I asked. I was more than idly curious; had he really planned it, as Geilie thought?
Murtagh shrugged. He scanned the table for further victuals, apparently spotted nothing to his liking, and leaned back, folding his hands comfortably over his lean midriff.
“When he had the news from the village, he had the gates closed at once, and forbade anyone from the Castle to go down, for fear of being caught up in the moil.” He leaned further back, eyeing me speculatively.
“Mrs. Fitz thought to find ye, the second day. She said that she asked all the maids if they’d laid eyes on ye. No one had, but one of the girls said she thought perhaps ye’d gone to the village—maybe you’d taken shelter in a house there.” One of the girls, I thought cynically. The one that knew bloody well where I was.
He belched softly, not bothering to stifle the sound.
“I heard Mrs. Fitz turned the Castle upside down, then, and made Colum send down a man to the village, once she was sure ye werena to be found. And when they learned what had happened….” A faint look of amusement lighted the dark face.
“She didna tell me everything, but I gathered she made Himself’s life more of a misery to him than it usually is, naggin’ at him to send down and free ye by force of arms—and not the least bit of use, him arguin’ that it had gone well beyond the point where he could do that, and now it was in the hands o’ the examiners, and one thing and another. It must ha’ been something to see,” he said reflectively, “twa wills like that, set one against the other.”
And in the end, it seemed, neither had either triumphed nor given way. Ned Gowan, with his lawyer’s gift for compromise, had found the way between them, by offering to go himself to the trial, not as representative of the laird, but as an independent advocate.
“Did she think I might be a witch?” I asked curiously. Murtagh snorted briefly.
“I’ve yet to see the auld woman believes in witches, nor the young one, neither. It’s men think there must be ill-wishes and magic in women, when it’s only the natural way of the creatures.”
“I begin to see why you’ve never married,” I said.
“Do ye, then?” He pushed back his chair abruptly and rose, pulling the plaid forward over his shoulders.
“I’ll be off. Gie my respects to the laird,” he said to Jenny, who reappeared from the front hall, where she had been greeting tenants. “He’ll be busy, I’ve nae doubt.”
Jenny handed him a large cloth sack, tied in a knot at the mouth, and plainly holding enough provisions for a week.
“A wee bite for the journey home,” she said, dimpling at him. “Might last ye at least out of sight o’ the house.”
He tucked the knot of the sack snugly into his belt and nodded briefly, turning toward the door.
“Aye,” he said, “and if not, ye’ll see the corbies gatherin’ just beyond the rise, come to pick my bones.”
“A lot of good they’d get from it,” she answered cynically, eyeing his scrawny frame. “I’ve seen more sound flesh on a broomstick.”
Murtagh’s dour face remained unchanged, but a faint gleam showed in his eye, nonetheless.
“Oh, aye?” he said. “Weel, I’ll tell ye, lass…” The voices passed down the hall, mingling in amiable insult and argument, vanishing at last in the echoes of the front hall.
I sat at the table for a moment longer, idly caressing the warm ivory of Ellen MacKenzie’s bracelets. At the far-off slam of the door, I shook myself and stood up to take my place as the Lady of Lallybroch.
Usually a busy place, on Quarter Day the manor house simply bristled with activity. Tenants came and went all day. Many came only long enough to pay their rents; some stayed all day, wandering about the estate, visiting with friends, taking refreshment in the parlor. Jenny, blooming in blue silk, and Mrs. Crook, starched in white linen, flitted back and forth between kitchen and parlor, overseeing the two maidservants, who staggered to and fro under enormous platters of oatcake, fruitcake, “crumbly,” and other sweets.
Jamie, having introduced me with ceremony to the tenants present in dining room and parlor, then retired into his study with Ian, to receive the tenants singly, to confer with them over the needs of the spring planting, to consult over the sale of wool and grain, to note the activities of the estate, and to set things in order for the next quarter of the year.
I puttered cheerfully about the place, visiting with tenants, lending a hand with the refreshments when needed, sometimes just drifting into the background to watch the comings and goings.
Recalling Jamie’s promise to the old woman by the millpond, I waited with some curiosity for the arrival of Ronald MacNab.
He came shortly past noon, riding a tall, slip-jointed mule, with a small boy clinging to his belt behind. I viewed them covertly from the parlor door, wondering just how accurate his mother’s assessment had been.
I decided that while “drunken sot” might be overstating things slightly, Grannie MacNab’s general perceptions were acute. Ronald MacNab’s hair was long and greasy, carelessly tied back with twine, and his collar and cuffs were grey with dirt. While surely a year or two younger than Jamie, he looked at least fifteen years older, the bones of his face submerged in bloat, small grey eyes dulled and bloodshot.
As for the child, he also was scruffy and dirty. Worse, so far as I was concerned, he slunk along behind his father, keeping his eyes on the floor, cringing when Ronald turned and spoke sharply to him. Jamie, who had come to the door of his study, saw it too, and I saw him exchange a sharp look with Jenny, bringing a fresh decanter in answer to his call.
She nodded imperceptibly and handed over the decanter. Then, taking the child firmly by the hand, she towed him toward the kitchen, saying, “Come along wi’ me now, laddie. I believe we’ve a crumbly or two going wantin’. Or what about a slice of fruitcake?”
Jamie nodded formally to Ronald MacNab, standing aside as the man went into the study. Reaching out to shut the door, Jamie caught my eye and nodded toward the kitchen. I nodded back and turned to follow Jenny and young Rabbie.
I found them engaged in pleasant converse with Mrs. Crook, who was ladling punch from the big cauldron into a crystal bowl. She tipped a bit into a wooden cup and offered it to the lad, who hung back, eyeing her suspiciously, before finally accepting it. Jenny went on chatting casually to the lad as she loaded platters, receiving little more than grunts in return. Still, the half-wild little creature seemed to be relaxing a bit.
“Your sark’s a bit grubby, lad,” she observed, leaning forward to turn back the collar. “Take it off, and I’ll give it a bit of a wash before ye go.” “Grubby” was a gross understatement, but the boy pulled back defensively. I was behind him, though, and at a gesture from Jenny, grabbed him by the arms before he could dart away.
He kicked and yowled, but Jenny and Mrs. Crook closed in on him as well, and between the three of us, we peeled the filthy shirt off his back.
“Ah.” Jenny drew in her breath sharply. She was holding the boy’s head firmly under one arm, and the scrawny back was fully exposed. Welts and scabs scored the flesh on either side of the knobby backbone, some freshly healed, some so old as to be only faded shadows lapping the prominent ribs. Jenny took a good grip on the back of the boy’s neck, speaking soothingly to him as she released his head. She jerked her head in the direction of the hall, looking at me.
“You’d better tell him.”
I knocked tentatively at the study door, holding a plate of honeyed oatcakes as excuse. At Jamie’s muffled bidding, I opened the door and went in.
My face as I served MacNab must have been sufficient, for I didn’t have to ask to speak privately with Jamie. He stared meditatively at me for a moment, then turned back to his tenant.
“Well then, Ronnie, that will do for the grain allotment. There’s the one other thing I meant to speak wi’ you about, though. You’ve a likely lad named Rabbie, I understand, and I’m needing a boy of that size to help in the stables. Would ye be willing for him to come?” Jamie’s long fingers played with a goosequill on the desk. Ian, seated at a smaller table to one side, propped his chin on his fists, staring at MacNab with frank interest.
MacNab glowered belligerently. I thought he had the irritable resentment of a man who isn’t drunk but wishes he were.
“No, I’ve need of the lad,” he said curtly.
“Mm.” Jamie lounged back in his chair, hands folded across his middle. “I’d pay ye for his services, of course.”
The man grunted and shifted in his chair.
“My mother’s been at ye, eh? I said no, and I meant no. The lad’s my son, and I’ll deal wi’ him as I see fit. And I see fit to keep him to hame.”
Jamie eyed MacNab thoughtfully, but turned his attention back to the ledgers without further argument.
Late in the afternoon, as the tenants repaired to the warmer reaches of pantry and parlor for refreshment before departing, I spotted Jamie from the window, strolling in leisurely fashion toward the pigshed, arm slung about the scruffy MacNab in comradely style. The pair disappeared behind the shed, presumably to inspect something of agricultural interest, and reappeared within a minute or two, coming toward the house.
Jamie’s arm was still about the shorter man’s shoulders, but seemed now to be supporting him. MacNab’s face was an unhealthy grey, slicked with sweat, and he walked very slowly, seeming unable to straighten up all the way.
“Weel, that’s good, then,” Jamie remarked cheerfully as they came within earshot. “Reckon your missus will be glad of the extra money, eh, Ronald? Ah, here’s your animal for you—fine-looking beast, is he no?” The moth-eaten mule that had brought the MacNabs to the farm shambled out of the yard where it had been enjoying the hospitality of the estate. A wisp of hay still protruded from the corners of its mouth, jerking irregularly as the beast chewed.
Jamie gave MacNab a hand under the foot to assist him to his seat; much-needed help, by the look of it. MacNab did not speak or wave in response to Jamie’s voluble “God-speeds” and “safe journeys,” but only nodded in a dazed way as he left the yard at a walk, seemingly intent on some secret trouble that absorbed his attention.
Jamie stood leaning on the fence, exchanging pleasantries as other tenants wended their ways homeward, until the untidy figure of MacNab was out of sight over the crest of the hill. He straightened, gazing down the road, then turned and gave a whistle. A small figure in a torn but clean smock and stained kilt crept out from under the haywagon.
“Weel, then, young Rabbie,” said Jamie genially. “Looks as though your father’s given his permission for ye to be a stable lad after all. I’m sure as you’ll be a hard worker and a credit to him, eh?” Round, bloodshot eyes stared up dumbly out of the dirty face, and the boy made no response at all, until Jamie reached out, and grasping him gently by the shoulder, turned him toward the horse trough.
“There’ll be some supper waiting ye in the kitchen, laddie. Go and wash a bit first, though; Mrs. Crook’s a picky woman. Oh, and Rabbie”—he leaned down to whisper to the lad—”mind your ears, or she’ll do ‘em for ye. She scrubbed mine for me this morning.” He put his hands behind his ears and flapped them solemnly at the boy, who broke into a shy smile and fled toward the trough.
“I’m glad you managed it,” I said, taking Jamie’s arm to go in to supper. “With little Rabbie MacNab, I mean. How did you do it, though?”
He shrugged. “Took Ronald back of the brewhouse and fisted him once or twice in the soft parts. Asked him did he want to part wi’ his son or his liver.” He glanced down at me, frowning.
“It wasna right, but I couldn’t think what else to do. And I didna want the lad to go back wi’ him. It wasn’t only I’d promised his grannie, either. Jenny told me about the lad’s back.” He hesitated. “I’ll tell ye, Sassenach. My father whipped me as often as he thought I needed it, and a lot oftener than I thought I did. But I didna cower when he spoke to me. And I dinna think young Rabbie will lie in bed with his wife one day and laugh about it.”
He hunched his shoulders, with that odd half-shrug, something I hadn’t seen him do in months.
“He’s right; the lad’s his own son, he can do as he likes. And I’m not God; only the laird, and that’s a good bit lower down. Still…” He looked down at me with a crooked half-smile.
“It’s a damn thin line between justice and brutality, Sassenach. I only hope I’ve come down on the right side of it.”
I put an arm around his waist and hugged him.
“You did right, Jamie.”
“Ye think so?”
“Yes.”
We strolled back toward the house, arms about each other. The whitewashed farm buildings glowed amber in the setting sun. Instead of going into the house, though, Jamie steered me up the slight rise behind the manor. Here, sitting on the top rail of a fenced field, we could see the whole of the home farm laid out before us.
I laid my head on Jamie’s shoulder and sighed. He squeezed me gently in response.
“This is what you were born to do, isn’t it, Jamie?”
“Perhaps, Sassenach.” He looked out over the fields and buildings, the crofts and the roads, then looked down, a smile suddenly curving the wide mouth.
“And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don’s wife, or an outlaw’s lady?”
“I was born for you,” I said simply, and held out my arms to him.
“Ye know,” he observed, letting go at last, “you’ve never said it.”
“Neither have you.”
“I have. The day after we came. I said I wanted you more than anything.”
“And I said that loving and wanting weren’t necessarily the same thing,” I countered.
He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right, Sassenach.” He smoothed the hair from my face and kissed my brow. “I wanted ye from the first I saw ye—but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”
The sun sank below the line of black pines, and the first stars of the evening came out. It was mid-November, and the evening air was cold, though the days still kept fine. Standing on the opposite side of the fence, Jamie bent his head, putting his forehead against mine.
“You first.”
“No, you.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what, my Sassenach?” The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light.
“I’m afraid if I start I shall never stop.”
He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. “It’s nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne.” He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart.
“I love you.”