Drums of Autumn (134 page)

“Oh, aye? I thought ye said wee Murray was a charlatan.”

“I said he was ignorant, stubborn, and a menace to the public health,” I corrected. “That’s not the same thing—quite.”

“Quite,” said Jamie, grinning. “Ye mean to educate him, then—or poison him?”

“Whichever seems most effective. If nothing else, I might accidentally step on his fleam and break it; that’s probably the only way I’ll stop him bleeding people. Let’s go, though, I’m freezing!”

“Aye, we’ll away, then,” Jamie agreed, with a glance at the soldiers, still drawn up along the creekbank at parade rest. “No doubt wee Archie means to keep his lads there ’til the crowd’s gone; they’re going a wee bit blue round the edges.”

Though fully armed and uniformed, the row of Highlanders was relaxed; imposing, to be sure, but no longer threatening. Small boys—and not a few wee girls—scampered to and fro among them, impudently flicking the hems of the soldiers’ kilts or dashing in, greatly daring, to touch the gleaming muskets, dangling canteens, and the hilts of dirks and swords.

“Abel,
a charaid!”
Jamie had paused to greet the last of the men from Drunkard’s Creek. “Will ye ha’ eaten yet the day?”

MacLennan had not brought his wife to the Gathering, and thus ate where luck took him. The crowd was dispersing around us, but he stood stolidly in place, holding the ends of a red flannel handkerchief pulled over his balding head against the spatter of rain. Probably hoping to cadge an invitation to breakfast, I thought cynically.

I eyed his stocky form, mentally estimating his possible consumption of eggs, parritch, and toasted bread against the dwindling supplies in our hampers. Not that simple shortage of food would stop any Highlander from offering hospitality—certainly not Jamie, who was inviting MacLennan to join us, even as I mentally divided eighteen eggs by nine people instead of eight. Not fried, then; made into fritters with grated potatoes, and I’d best borrow more coffee from Jocasta’s campsite on the way up the mountain.

We turned to go, and Jamie’s hand slid suddenly downward over my backside. I made an undignified sound, and Abel MacLennan turned round to gawk at me. I smiled brightly at him, resisting the urge to kick Jamie again, less discreetly.

MacLennan turned away, and scrambled up the slope in front of us with alacrity, coattails bouncing in anticipation over worn breeks. Jamie put a hand under my elbow to help me over the rocks, bending down as he did so to mutter in my ear.

“Why the devil are ye not wearing a petticoat, Sassenach?” he hissed. “Ye’ve nothing at all on under your skirt—you’ll catch your death of cold!”

“You’re not wrong there,” I said, shivering in spite of my cloak. I did in fact have on a linen shift under my gown, but it was a thin, ragged thing, suitable for rough camping-out in summertime, but quite insufficient to stem the wintry blasts that blew through my skirt as though it were cheesecloth.

“Ye had a fine woolen petticoat yesterday. What’s become of it?”

“You don’t want to know,” I assured him.

His eyebrows went up at this, but before he could ask further questions, a scream rang out behind us.

“Germain!”

I turned to see a small blond head, hair flying as the owner streaked down the slope below the rocks. Two-year-old Germain had taken advantage of his mother’s preoccupation with his newborn sister to escape custody and make a dash for the row of soldiers. Eluding capture, he charged headlong down the slope, picking up speed like a rolling stone.

“Fergus!” Marsali screamed. Germain’s father, hearing his name, turned round from his conversation, just in time to see his son trip over a rock and fly headlong. A born acrobat, the little boy made no move to save himself, but collapsed gracefully, rolling into a ball like a hedgehog as he struck the grassy slope on one shoulder. He rolled like a cannonball through the ranks of soldiers, shot off the edge of a rocky shelf, and plopped with a splash into the creek.

There was a general gasp of consternation, and a number of people ran down the hill to help, but one of the soldiers had already hurried to the bank. Kneeling, he thrust the tip of his bayonet through the child’s floating clothes and towed the soggy bundle to the shore.

Fergus charged into the icy shallows, reaching out to clasp his waterlogged son.

“Merci, mon ami, merci beaucoup,”
he said to the young soldier.
“Et toi, garnement,”
he said, addressing his spluttering offspring with a small shake.
“Comment vas-tu
, ye wee chowderheid?”

The soldier looked startled, but I couldn’t tell whether the cause was Fergus’s unique patois, or the sight of the gleaming hook he wore in place of his missing left hand.

“That’s all right then, sir,” he said, with a shy smile. “He’ll no be damaged, I think.”

Brianna appeared suddenly from behind a chinkapin tree, six-month-old Jemmy on one shoulder, and scooped baby Joan neatly out of Marsali’s arms.

“Here, give Joanie to me,” she said. “You go take care of Germain.”

Jamie swung the heavy cloak from his shoulders and laid it in Marsali’s arms in place of the baby.

“Aye, and tell the soldier laddie who saved him to come and share our fire,” he told her. “We can feed another, Sassenach?”

“Of course,” I said, swiftly readjusting my mental calculations. Eighteen eggs, four loaves of stale bread for toast—no, I should keep back one for the trip home tomorrow—three dozen oatcakes if Jamie and Roger hadn’t eaten them already, half a jar of honey …

Marsali’s thin face lighted with a rueful smile, shared among the three of us, then she was gone, hastening to the aid of her drenched and shivering menfolk.

Jamie looked after her with a sigh of resignation, as the wind caught the full sleeves of his shirt and belled them out with a muffled
whoomp
. He crossed his arms across his chest, hunching his shoulders against the wind, and smiled down at me, sidelong.

“Ah, well. I suppose we shall both freeze together, Sassenach. That’s all right, though. I wouldna want to live without ye, anyway.”

“Ha,” I said amiably. “You could live naked on an ice floe, Jamie Fraser, and melt it. What have you done with your coat and plaid?” He wore nothing besides his kilt and sark save shoes and stockings, and his high cheekbones were reddened with cold, like the tips of his ears. When I slipped a hand back inside the crook of his arm, though, he was warm as ever.

“Ye dinna want to know,” he said, grinning. He covered my hand with one large, callused palm. “Let’s go; I’m starved for my breakfast.”

“Wait,” I said, detaching myself. Jemmy was indisposed to share his mother’s embrace with the newcomer, and howled and squirmed in protest, his small round face going red with annoyance under a blue knitted cap. I reached out and took him from Brianna, as he wriggled and fussed in his wrappings.

“Thanks, Mama.” Brianna smiled briefly, boosting tiny Joan into a more secure position against her shoulder. “Are you sure you want that one, though? This one’s quieter—and weighs half as much.”

“No, he’s all right. Hush, sweetie, come see Grannie.” I smiled as I said it, with the still-new feeling of mingled surprise and delight that I could actually be someone’s grandmother. Recognizing me, Jemmy abandoned his fuss and went promptly into his mussel-clinging-to-a-rock routine, chubby fists gripped tight in my hair. Disentangling his fingers, I peered over his head, but things below seemed under control.

Fergus, breeches and stockings soaking wet, Jamie’s cloak draped round his shoulders, was wringing out his shirtfront one-handed, saying something to the soldier who had rescued Germain. Marsali had whipped off her arisaid and wrapped the little boy in it, her loosened blond hair flying out from under her kerch like cobwebs in the wind.

Lieutenant Hayes, attracted by the noise, was peering out from the flap of his tent like a whelk from its shell. He looked up, and caught my eye; I waved briefly, then turned to follow my own family back to our campsite.

Jamie was saying something to Brianna in Gaelic, as he helped her over a rocky patch in the trail ahead of me.

“Yes, I’m ready,” she said, replying in English. “Where’s your coat, Da?”

“I lent it to your husband,” he said. “We dinna want him to look a beggar at your wedding, aye?”

Bree laughed, wiping a flying strand of red hair out of her mouth with her free hand.

“Better a beggar than an attempted suicide.”

“A what?” I caught up with them as we emerged from the shelter of the rocks. The wind barreled across the open space, pelting us with sleet and bits of stinging gravel, and I pulled the knitted cap further down over Jemmy’s ears, then pulled the blanket up over his head.

“Whoof!” Brianna hunched over the swaddled baby girl she carried, sheltering her from the blast. “Roger was shaving when the drums started up; he nearly cut his throat. The front of his coat is covered with bloodstains.” She glanced at Jamie, eyes watering with the wind. “So you’ve seen him this morning. Where is he now, do you know?”

“The lad’s in one piece,” he assured her. “I told him to go and talk wi’ Father Donahue, while Hayes was about his business.” He gave her a sharp look. “Ye might have told me the lad was no a Catholic.”

“I might,” she said, unperturbed. “But I didn’t. It’s no big deal to me.”

“If ye mean by that peculiar expression, that it’s of no consequence—” Jamie began with a distinct edge in his voice, but was interrupted by the appearance of Roger himself, resplendent in a kilt of green-and-white MacKenzie tartan, with the matching plaid draped over Jamie’s good coat and waistcoat. The coat fit decently—both men were of a size, long-limbed and broad-shouldered, though Jamie was an inch or two the taller—and the gray wool was quite as becoming to Roger’s dark hair and olive skin as it was to Jamie’s burnished auburn coloring.

“You look very nice, Roger,” I said. “Where did you cut yourself?” His face was pink, with the raw look common to just-shaved skin, but otherwise unmarked.

Roger was carrying Jamie’s plaid under his arm, a bundle of red and black tartan. He handed it over and tilted his head to one side, showing me the deep gash just under his jawbone.

“Just there. Not so bad, but it bled like the dickens. They don’t call them cutthroat razors for nothing, aye?”

The gash had already crusted into a neat dark line, a cut some three inches long, angled down from the corner of his jaw across the side of his throat. I touched the skin near it briefly. Not bad; the blade of the razor had cut straight in, no flap of skin needing suture. No wonder it had bled a lot, though; it did look as though he had tried to cut his throat.

“A bit nervous this morning?” I teased. “Not having second thoughts, are you?”

“A little late for that,” Brianna said dryly, coming up beside me. “Got a kid who needs a name, after all.”

“He’ll have more names than he knows what to do with,” Roger assured her. “So will you—Mrs. MacKenzie.”

A small flush lit Brianna’s face at the name, and she smiled at him. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, taking the cocooned baby from her as he did so. A look of sudden shock crossed his face as he felt the weight of the bundle in his arms, and he gawked down at it.

“That’s not ours,” Bree said, grinning at his look of consternation. “It’s Marsali’s Joan. Mama has Jemmy.”

“Thank God,” he said, holding the bundle with a good deal more caution. “I thought he’d evaporated or something.” He lifted the blanket slightly, exposing tiny Joan’s sleeping face, and smiled—as people always did—at sight of her comical quiff of brown hair, which came to a point like a Kewpie doll’s.

“Not a chance,” I said, grunting as I hoisted a well-nourished Jemmy, now peacefully comatose in his own wrappings, into a more comfortable position. “I think he’s gained a pound or two on the way uphill.” I was flushed from exertion, and held the baby a little away from myself, as a sudden wave of heat flushed my cheeks and perspiration broke out under the waves of my disheveled hair.

Jamie took Jemmy from me, and tucked him expertly under one arm like a football, one hand cupping the baby’s head.

“Ye’ve spoken wi’ the priest, then?” he said, eyeing Roger skeptically.

“I have,” Roger said dryly, answering the look as much as the question. “He’s satisfied I’m no the Anti-Christ. So long as I’m willing the lad should be baptized Catholic, there’s no bar to the wedding. I’ve said I’m willing.”

Jamie grunted in reply, and I repressed a smile. While Jamie had no great religious prejudices—he had dealt with, fought with, and commanded far too many men, of every possible background—the revelation that his son-in-law was a Presbyterian—and had no intention of converting—had occasioned some small comment.

Bree caught my eye and gave me a sidelong smile, her own eyes creasing into blue triangles of catlike amusement.

“Very wise of you not to mention religion ahead of time,” I murmured, careful not to speak loudly enough for Jamie to hear me. Both men were walking ahead of us, still rather stiff in their attitudes, though the formality of their demeanor was rather impaired by the trailing draperies of the babies they carried.

Jemmy let out a sudden squawk, but his grandfather swung him up without breaking stride, and he subsided, round eyes fixed on us over Jamie’s shoulder, sheltered under the hooding of his blanket. I made a face at him, and he broke into a huge, gummy smile.

“Roger wanted to say something, but I told him to keep quiet.” Bree stuck out her tongue and wiggled it at Jemmy, then fixed a wifely look on Roger’s back. “I knew Da wouldn’t make a stramash about it, if we waited ’til just before the wedding.”

I noted both her astute evaluation of her father’s behavior, and her easy use of Scots. She resembled Jamie in a good deal more than the obvious matter of looks and coloring; she had his talent for human judgment and his glibness with language. Still, there was something niggling at my mind, something to do with Roger and religion …

We had come up close enough behind the men to hear their conversation.

“… about Hillsborough,” Jamie was saying, leaning toward Roger so as to be heard over the wind. “Calling for information about the rioters.”