Dragonfly in Amber
Page 62

Today, though, there was a large packet of letters and books, wrapped against the weather in a sheet of oiled parchment, tied with twine. Sending the postal messenger to the kitchen for refreshment, Jenny untied the string carefully and thriftily stowed it in her pocket. She thumbed through the small pile of letters, putting aside for the moment an enticing-looking package addressed from Paris.
"A letter for Ian—that'll be the bill for the seed, I expect, and one from Auntie Jocasta—oh, good, we've not heard from her in months, I thought she might be ill, but I see her hand is firm on the pen—"
A letter addressed with bold black strokes fell onto Jenny's pile, followed by a note from one of Jocasta's married daughters. Then another for Ian from Edinburgh, one for Jamie from Jared—I recognized the spidery, half-legible writing—and another, a thick, creamy sheet, sealed with the Royal crest of the House of Stuart. Another of Charles's complaints about the rigors of life in Paris, and the pains of intermittently requited love, I imagined. At least this one looked short; usually he went on for several pages, unburdening his soul to "cher James," in a misspelled quadrilingual patois that at least made it clear he sought no secretarial help for his personal letters.
"Ooh, three French novels and a book of poetry from Paris!" Jenny said in excitement, opening the paper-wrapped package. "C'est un embarras de richesse, hm? Which shall we read tonight?" She lifted the small stack of books from their wrappings, stroking the soft leather cover of the top one with a forefinger that trembled with delight. Jenny loved books with the same passion her brother reserved for horses. The manor boasted a small library, in fact, and if the evening leisure between work and bed was short, still it usually included at least a few minutes' reading.
"It gives ye something to think on as ye go about your work," Jenny explained, when I found her one night swaying with weariness, and urged her to go to bed, rather than stay up to read aloud to Ian, Jamie, and myself. She yawned, fist to her mouth. "Even if I'm sae tired I hardly see the words on the page, they'll come back to me next day, churning or spinning or waulkin' wool, and I can turn them over in my mind."
I hid a smile at the mention of wool waulking. Alone among the Highland farms, I was sure, the women of Lallybroch waulked their wool not only to the old traditional chants but also to the rhythms of Molière and Piron.
I had a sudden memory of the waulking shed, where the women sat in two facing rows, barefooted and bare-armed in their oldest clothes, bracing themselves against the walls as they thrust with their feet against the long, sodden worm of woolen cloth, battering it into the tight, felted weave that would repel Highland mists and even light rain, keeping the wearer safe from the chill.
Every so often one woman would rise and go outside, to fetch the kettle of steaming urine from the fire. Skirts kilted high, she would walk spraddle-legged down the center of the shed, drenching the cloth between her legs, and the hot fumes rose fresh and suffocating from the soaking wool, while the waulkers pulled back their feet from random splashes, and made crude jokes.
"Hot piss sets the dye fast," one of the women had explained to me as I blinked, eyes watering, on my first entrance to the shed. The other women had watched at first, to see if I would shrink back from the work, but wool-waulking was no great shock, after the things I had seen and done in France, both in the war of 1944 and the hospital of 1744. Time makes very little difference to the basic realities of life. And smell aside, the waulking shed was a warm, cozy place, where the women of Lallybroch visited and joked between bolts of cloth, and sang together in the working, hands moving rhythmically across a table, or bare feet sinking deep into the steaming fabric as we sat on the floor, thrusting against a partner thrusting back.
I was pulled back from my memories of wool-waulking by the noise of heavy boots in the hallway, and a gust of cool, rainy air as the door opened. Jamie, and Ian with him, talking together in Gaelic, in the comfortable, unemphatic manner that meant they were discussing farm matters.
"That field's going to need draining next year," Jamie was saying as he came past the door. Jenny, seeing them, had put down the mail and gone to fetch fresh linen towels from the chest in the hallway.
"Dry yourselves before ye come drip on the rug," she ordered, handing one to each of the men. "And tak' off your filthy boots, too. The post's come, Ian—there's a letter for ye from that man in Perth, the one ye wrote to about the seed potatoes."
"Oh, aye? I'll come read it, then, but is there aught to eat while I do it?" Ian asked, rubbing his wet head with the towel until the thick brown hair stood up in spikes. "I'm famished, and I can hear Jamie's belly garbeling from here."
Jamie shook himself like a wet dog, making his sister emit a small screech as the cold drops flew about the hall. His shirt was pasted to his shoulders and loose strands of rain-soaked hair hung in his eyes, the color of rusted iron.
I draped a towel around his neck. "Finish drying off, and I'll go fetch you something."
I was in the kitchen when I heard him cry out. I had never heard such a sound from him before. Shock and horror were in it, and something else—a note of finality, like the cry of a man who finds himself seized in a tiger's jaws. I was down the hall and running for the drawing room without conscious thought, a tray of oatcakes still clutched in my hands.
When I burst through the door, I saw him standing by the table where Jenny had laid the mail. His face was dead white, and he swayed slightly where he stood, like a tree cut through, waiting for someone to shout "Timber" before falling.
"What?" I said, scared to death by the look on his face. "Jamie, what? What is it?!"
With a visible effort, he picked up one of the letters on the table and handed it to me.
I set down the oatcakes and took the sheet of paper, scanning it rapidly. It was from Jared; I recognized the thin, scrawly handwriting at once. " ‘Dear Nephew,' " I read to myself, " ‘…so pleased…words cannot express my admiration…your boldness and courage will be an inspiration…cannot fail of success…my prayers shall be with you…' " I looked up from the paper, bewildered. "What on earth is he talking about? What have you done, Jamie?"
The skin was stretched tight across the bones of his face, and he grinned, mirthless as a death's-head, as he picked up another sheet of paper, this one a cheaply printed handbill.
"It's not what I've done, Sassenach," he said. The broadsheet was headed by the crest of the Royal House of Stuart. The message beneath was brief, couched in stately language.
It stated that by the ordination of Almighty God, King James, VIII of Scotland and III of England and Ireland asserted herewith his just rights to claim the throne of three kingdoms. And herewith acknowledged the support of these divine rights by the chieftains of the Highland clans, the Jacobite lords, and "various other such loyal subjects of His Majesty, King James, as have subscribed their names upon this Bill of Association in token thereof."
My fingers grew icy as I read, and I was conscious of a feeling of terror so acute that it was a real effort to keep on breathing. My ears rang with pounding blood, and there were dark spots before my eyes.
At the bottom of the sheet were signed the names of the Scottish chieftains who had declared their loyalty to the world, and staked their lives and reputations on the success of Charles Stuart. Clanranald was there, and Glengarry. Stewart of Appin, Alexander MacDonald of Keppoch, Angus MacDonald of Scotus.
And at the bottom of the list was written, "James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, of Broch Tuarach."
"Jesus bloody f**king Christ," I whispered, wishing there were something stronger I could say, as a form of relief. "The filthy bastard's signed your name to it!"
Jamie, still pale and tight-faced, was beginning to recover.
"Aye, he has," he said briefly. His hand snaked out for the unopened letter remaining on the table—a heavy vellum, with the Stuart crest showing plainly in the wax seal. Jamie ripped the letter open impatiently, tearing the paper. He read it quickly, then dropped it on the table as though it burned his hands.
"An apology," he said hoarsely. "For lacking the time to send me the document, in order that I might sign it myself. And his gratitude, for my loyal support. Jesus, Claire! What am I going to do?"
It was a cry from the heart, and one to which I had no answer. I watched helplessly as he sank onto a hassock and sat staring, rigid, at the fire.
Jenny, transfixed by all this drama, moved now to take up the letters and the broadsheet. She read them over carefully, her lips moving slightly as she did so, then set them gently down on the polished tabletop. She looked at them, frowning, then crossed to her brother, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Jamie," she said. Her face was very pale. "There's only the one thing ye can do, my dearie. Ye must go and fight for Charles Stuart. Ye must help him win."
The truth of her words penetrated slowly through the layers of shock that wrapped me. The publication of this Bond of Association branded those who signed it as rebels, and as traitors to the English crown. It didn't matter now how Charles had managed, or where he had gotten the funds to begin; he was well and truly launched on the seas of rebellion, and Jamie—and I—were launched with him, willy-nilly. There was, as Jenny had said, no choice.
My eye caught Charles's letter, where it had fallen from Jamie's hand. "…Though there be manie who tell me I am foolish to embark in this werk without the support of Louis—or at least of his bankes!—I will entertain no notion at all of returning to that place from whence I come," it read. "Rejoice with me, my deare frend, for I am come Home."
35
MOONLIGHT
As the preparations for leaving went forward, a current of excitement and speculation ran all through the estate. Weapons hoarded since the Rising of the '15 were excavated from thatch and hayrick and hearth, burnished and sharpened. Men met in passing and paused to talk in earnest groups, heads together under the hot August sun. And the women grew quiet, watching them.
Jenny shared with her brother the capacity to be opaque, to give no clue of what she was thinking. Transparent as a pane of glass myself, I rather envied this ability. So, when she asked me one morning if I would fetch Jamie to her in the brewhouse, I had no notion of what she might want with him.
Jamie stepped in behind me and stood just within the door of the brewhouse, waiting as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. He took a deep breath, inhaling the bitter, damp pungency with evident enjoyment.
"Ahh," he said, sighing dreamily. "I could get drunk in here just by breathing."
"Weel, hold your breath, then, for a moment, for I need ye sober," his sister advised.
He obligingly inflated his lungs and puffed out his cheeks, waiting. Jenny poked him briskly in the stomach with the handle of her masher, making him double over in an explosion of breath.
"Clown," she said, without rancor. "I wanted to talk to ye about Ian."
Jamie took an empty bucket from the shelf, and upturning it, sat down on it. A faint glow from the oiled-paper window above him lit his hair with a deep copper gleam.
"What about Ian?" he asked.
Now it was Jenny's turn to take a deep breath. The wide bran tub before her gave off a damp warmth of fermentation, filled with the yeasty aroma of grain, hops, and alcohol.
"I want ye to take Ian with you, when ye go."
Jamie's eyebrows flew up, but he didn't say anything immediately. Jenny's eyes were fixed on the motions of the masher, watching the smooth roil of the mixture. He looked at her thoughtfully, big hands hanging loose between his thighs.
"Tired of marriage, are ye?" he asked conversationally. "Likely it would be easier just for me to take him out in the wood and shoot him for ye." There was a quick flash of blue eyes over the mash tub.
"If I want anyone shot, Jamie Fraser, I'll do it myself. And Ian wouldna be my first choice as target, either."
He snorted briefly, and one corner of his mouth quirked up.
"Oh, aye? Why, then?"
Her shoulders moved in a seamless rhythm, one motion fading into the next.
"Because I'm asking ye."
Jamie spread his right hand out on his knee, absently stroking the jagged scar that zigzagged its way down his middle finger.
"It's dangerous, Jenny," he said quietly.
"I know that."
He shook his head slowly, still gazing down at his hand. It had healed well, and he had good use of it, but the stiff fourth finger and the roughened patch of scar tissue on the back gave it an odd, crooked appearance.
"You think ye know."
"I know, Jamie."
His head came up, then. He looked impatient, but was striving to stay reasonable.
"Aye, I know Ian will ha' told ye stories, about fighting in France, and all. But you've no notion how it really is, Jenny. Mo cridh, it isna a matter of a cattle raid. It's a war, and likely to be a damn bloody shambles of one, too. It's—"
The masher struck the side of the tub with a clack and fell back into the mash.
"Don't tell me I dinna ken what it's like!" Jenny blazed at him. "Stories, is it? Who d'ye think nursed Ian when he came home from France wi' half a leg and a fever that nearly killed him?"
She slapped her hand flat on the bench. The stretched nerves had snapped.
"Don't know? I don't know? I picked the maggots out of the raw flesh of his stump, because his own mother couldna bring herself to do it! I held the hot knife against his leg to seal the wound! I smelled his flesh searing like a roasted pig and listened to him scream while I did it! D'ye dare to stand there and tell me I…don't…KNOW how it is!"
Angry tears ran down her cheeks. She brushed at them, groping in her pocket for a handkerchief.
Lips pressed tight together, Jamie rose, pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve, and handed it to her. He knew better than to touch or try to comfort her. He stood staring at her for a moment as she wiped furiously at her eyes and dripping nose.
"Aye, well, ye know, then," he said. "And yet you want me to take him?"
"I do." She blew her nose and wiped it briskly, then tucked the handkerchief in her pocket.
"He kens well enough that he's crippled, Jamie. Kens it a good bit too well. But he could manage with ye. There's a horse for him; he wouldna have to walk."
He made an impatient gesture with one hand.
"Could he manage is no the question, is it? A man can do what he thinks he must—why do you think he must?"
Composed once more, she fished the tool out of the mash and shook it. Brown droplets spattered into the tub.
"He hasna asked ye, has he? Whether ye'll need him or no?"
"No."
She stabbed the masher back into the tub and resumed her work.
"He thinks ye wilna want him because he's lame, and that he'd be no use to ye." She looked up then, troubled dark-blue eyes the twins of her brother's. "Ye knew Ian before, Jamie. He's different now."
He nodded reluctantly, resuming his seat on the bucket.
"Aye. Well, but ye'd expect it, no? And he seems well enough." He looked up at his sister and smiled.
"He's happy wi' ye, Jenny. You and the bairns."
She nodded, black curls bobbing.
"Aye, he is," she said softly. "But that's because he's a whole man to me, and always will be." She looked directly at her brother. "But if he thinks he's of no use to you, he wilna be whole to himself. And that's why I'll have ye take him."
Jamie laced his hands together, elbows braced on his knees, and rested his chin on his linked knuckles.
"This wilna be like France," he said quietly. "Fighting there, ye risk no more than your life in battle. Here…" He hesitated, then went on. "Jenny, this is treason. If it goes wrong, those that follow the Stuarts are like to end on a scaffold."
Her normally pale complexion went a shade whiter, but her motions didn't slow.
"There's nay choice for me," he went on, eyes steady on her. "But will ye risk us both? Will ye have Ian look down from the gallows on the fire waiting for his entrails? You'll chance raising your bairns wi'out their father—to save his pride?" His face was nearly as pale as hers, glimmering in the darkness of the brewhouse.
The strokes of the masher were slower now, without the fierce velocity of her earlier movements, but her voice held all the conviction of her slow, inexorable mashing.
"I'll have a whole man," she said steadily. "Or none."
Jamie sat without moving for a long moment, watching his sister's dark head bent over her work.
"All right," he said at last, quietly. She didn't look up or vary her movements, but the white kertch seemed to incline slightly toward him.
He sighed explosively, then rose and turned abruptly to me.
"Come on out of here, Sassenach," he said. "Christ, I must be drunk."
"What makes ye think you can order me about?" The vein in Ian's temple throbbed fiercely. Jenny's hand squeezed mine tighter.
Jamie's assertion that Ian would accompany him to join the Stuart army had been met first with incredulity, then with suspicion, and—as Jamie persisted—anger.
"You're a fool," Ian declared flatly. "I'm a cripple, and ye ken it well enough."
"I ken you're a bonny fighter, and there's none I'd rather have by my side in a battle," Jamie said firmly. His face gave no sign of doubts or hesitation; he had agreed to Jenny's request, and would carry it out, no matter what. "You've fought there often enough; will ye desert me now?"
Ian waved an impatient hand, dismissing this flattery. "That's as may be. If my leg comes off or gives way, there's precious little fighting I'll do—I'll be lyin' on the ground like a worm, waiting for the first Redcoat who comes by to spit me. And beyond that"—he scowled at his brother-in-law—"who d'ye think will mind this place for ye until you come back, and I'm off to the wars with ye?"
"Jenny," Jamie replied promptly. "I shall leave enough men behind that they can be seeing to the work; she can manage the accounts well enough."
Ian's brows shot up, and he said something very rude in Gaelic.
"Pog ma mahon! You'll ha' me leave her to run the place alone, wi' three small bairns at her apron, and but half the men needed? Man, ye've taken leave o' your senses!" Flinging up both hands, Ian swung around to the sideboard where the whisky was kept.
Jenny, seated next to me on the sofa with Katherine on her lap, made a small sound under her breath. Her hand sought mine under cover of our mingled skirts, and I squeezed her fingers.