Outlander (72 page)

I woke with a start from a dream of endless winding stairs, with horror lurking at the bottom. Tiredness dragged at my back and my legs ached, but I sat up in my borrowed nightdress and groped for the candle and flintbox. I felt uneasy, so far from Jamie. What if he needed me? Worse, what if the English did come, while he was alone below, unarmed? I pressed my face against the cold casement, reassured by the steady hiss of snow against the panes. While the storm continued, we were likely safe. I pulled on a bedgown, and picking up candle and dirk, made my way to the stair.

The house was quiet, save for the fire's crackle. Jamie was asleep, or at least had his eyes closed, face turned to the fire. I sat down on the hearthrug, quietly, so as not to wake him. This was the first time we had been alone together since those few desperate minutes in the dungeon of Wentworth Prison. It felt as though that were many years ago. I studied Jamie carefully, as though inspecting a stranger.

He seemed not too bad physically, all things considered, but I worried nonetheless. He had had enough whisky during the surgery to fell a draft horse, and a good bit of it was plainly still inside him, despite the retching.

Jamie was not my first hero. The men moved too quickly through the field hospital, as a rule, for the nurses to become well acquainted with them, but now and again you would see a man who talked too little or joked too much, who held himself more stiffly than pain and loneliness would account for.

And I knew, roughly, what could be done for them. If there was time, and if they were the kind who talked to keep the dark at bay, you sat with them and listened. If they were silent, you touched them often in passing, and watched for the unguarded moment, when you might draw them outside of themselves and hold them while they exorcised their demons. If there was time. And if there wasn't, then you jabbed them with morphine, and hoped they would manage to find someone else to listen, while you passed on to a man whose wounds were visible.

Jamie would talk to someone, sooner or later. There was time. But I hoped it wouldn't be me.

He was uncovered to the waist, and I leaned forward to examine his back. It was a remarkable sight. Barely a hand's thickness separated the welted cuts, inflicted with a regularity that boggled the mind. He must have stood like a guardsman while it was done. I stole a quick glance at his wrists—unmarked. He had kept his word then, not to struggle. And had stood unmoving through the ordeal, paying the ransom agreed on for my life.

I rubbed my eyes on my sleeve. He wouldn't thank me, I thought, for blubbering over his prostrate form. I shifted my weight with a soft rustle of skirts. He opened his eyes at the sound, but did not seem particularly haunted. He gave me a smile, faint and tired, but a real one. I opened my mouth, and suddenly realized I had no idea what to say to him. Thanks were impossible. "How do you feel?" was ridiculous; obviously he felt like hell. While I considered, he spoke first.

"Claire? Are you all right, love?"

"Am
I
all right? My God, Jamie!" Tears stung my eyelids and I blinked hard, sniffing. He raised his good hand slowly, as though it were weighted with chains, and stroked my hair. He drew me toward him, but I pulled away, conscious for the first time what I must look like, face scratched and covered with tree sap, hair stiff with blotches of various unmentionable substances.

"Come here," he said. "I want to hold ye a moment."

"But I'm covered with blood and vomit," I protested, making a vain effort to tidy my hair.

He wheezed, the faint exhalation that was all his broken ribs would permit in the way of laughter. "Mother of God, Sassenach, it's my blood and my vomit. Come here."

His arm was comforting around my shoulders. I rested my head on the pillow next to his, and we sat in silence by the fire, drawing strength and peace from one another. His fingers gently touched the small wound under my jaw.

"I did not think ever to see ye again, Sassenach." His voice was low and a bit hoarse from whisky and screaming. "I'm glad you're here."

I sat up. "Not see me again! Why? Did you think I wouldn't get you out?"

He smiled, one-sided. "Weel, no, I didn't expect ye would. I thought if I said so, though, ye might get stubborn and refuse to go."

"
Me
get stubborn!" I said indignantly. "Look who's talking!"

There was a pause, which grew slightly awkward. There were things I should ask, necessary from the medical point of view, but rather touchy from the personal aspect. Finally, I settled for "How do you feel?"

His eyes were closed, shadowed and sunken in the candlelight, but the lines of the broad back were tense under the bandages. The wide, bruised mouth twitched, somewhere between a smile and a grimace.

"I don't know, Sassenach. I've never felt like this. I seem to want to do a number of things, all at once, but my mind's at war wi' me, and my body's turned traitor. I want to get out of here at once, and run as fast and as far as I can. I want to hit someone. God, 1 want to hit someone! I want to burn Wentworth Prison to the ground. I want to sleep."

"Stone doesn't burn," I said practically. "Maybe you'd better sleep, instead."

His good hand groped for mine and found it, and the mouth relaxed somewhat, though his eyes stayed closed.

"I want to hold you hard to me and kiss you, and never let you go. I want to take you to my bed and use you like a whore, 'til I forget that I exist. And I want to put my head in your lap and weep like a child."

The mouth turned up at one corner, and a blue eye opened slitwise.

"Unfortunately," he said, "I can't do any but the last of those without fainting or being sick again."

"Well, then, I suppose you'll just have to settle for that, and put the rest under the heading of future business," I said, laughing a little.

It took a bit of shifting, and he nearly was sick again, but at last I was seated on his cot, my back against the wall, and his head resting on my thigh.

"What was it Sir Marcus cut from your breast?" I asked. "A brand?" I said softly, as he gave me no reply. The bright head moved slightly in affirmation.

"A signet, with his initials." Jamie laughed shortly. "It's enough I'll carry his marks for the rest of my life, without letting him sign me, like a bloody painting."

His head lay heavy on my thigh and his breathing eased at last in drowsy exhalations. The white bandages on his hand were ghostly against the dark blanket. I gently traced a burn mark on his shoulder, gleaming faintly with sweet oil.

"Jamie?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you badly hurt?" Awake, he glanced from his bandaged hand to my face. His eyes closed and he began to shake. Alarmed, I thought I had triggered some unbearable memory, until I realized that he was laughing, hard enough to force tears from the corners of his eyes.

"Sassenach," he said at length, gasping, "I've maybe six square inches of skin left that are not bruised, burned, or cut. Am I
hurt
?" And he shook again, making the felted mattress rustle and squeak.

Somewhat crossly, I said, "I meant—" but he stopped me by putting his good hand over mine and bringing it to his lips.

"I know what ye meant, Sassenach," he said, turning his head to look up at me. "Never worry, the six inches that are left are all between my legs."

I appreciated the effort it took to make the joke, feeble as it was. I slapped his mouth lightly. "You're drunk, James Fraser," I said. I paused a moment. "Six, eh?"

"Aye, well. Maybe seven, then. Oh, God, Sassenach, dinna make me laugh again, my ribs won't, stand it." I wiped his eyes with a fold of my skirt and fed him a sip of water, holding his head up with my knee.

"That isn't what I meant, anyway," I said.

Serious then, he reached for my hand again and squeezed it.

"I know," he said. "Ye needna be delicate about it." He drew a cautious breath, and winced at the results. "I was right, it did hurt less than flogging." He closed his eyes. "But it was much less enjoyable." A quick flash of bitter humor stirred one corner of his mouth. "At least I'll not be costive for a bit." I flinched, and he gritted his teeth, breathing in short, reedy gasps.

"I'm sorry, Sassenach. I… didna think I'd mind it so much. What you mean—that—it's all right. I'm not damaged."

I made an effort to keep my own voice steady and matter-of-fact. "You don't have to tell me about it, if you don't want to. If it might ease you, though…" My voice trailed off in embarrassed silence.

"I don't
want
to." His voice was suddenly bitter and emphatic. "I don't want ever to think about it again, but short of cutting my throat, I think I have not got a choice about it. Nay, lass, I dinna want to tell ye about it, any more than ye want to hear it… but I think I am going to have to drag it all out before it chokes me." The words came out now in a burst of bitterness.

"He wanted me to crawl and beg, and by Christ, I did so. I told ye once, Sassenach, ye can break anyone if you're willing to hurt them enough. Well, he was willing. He made me crawl, and he made me beg; he made me do worse things than that, and before the end he made me want verra badly to be dead."

He was silent for a long moment, looking into the fire, then heaved a deep sigh, grimacing at the pain.

"I wish ye could ease me, Sassenach, I do wish it most fervently, for I've little of ease in me now. But it's not like a poisoned thorn, where if ye found the right grip, ye could draw it clean out." His good hand rested on my knee. He flexed the fingers and spread them flat, ruddy in the firelight. "It's not even like a brokenness anywhere. If ye could mend it bit by bit, like ye did my hand, I'd stand the pain gladly." He bunched the fingers into a fist and rested it on my leg, frowning at it.

"It's… difficult to explain. It's… it's like… I think it's as though everyone has a small place inside themselves, maybe, a private bit that they keep to themselves. It's like a little fortress, where the most private part of you lives—maybe it's your soul, maybe just that bit that makes you yourself and not anyone else." His tongue probed his swollen lip unconsciously as he thought.

"You don't show that bit of yourself to anyone, usually, unless sometimes to someone that ye love greatly." The hand relaxed, curling around my knee. Jamie's eyes were closed again, lids sealed against the light.

"Now, it's like… like my own fortress has been blown up with gunpowder—there's nothing left of it but ashes and a smoking rooftree, and the little naked thing that lived there once is out in the open, squeaking and whimpering in tear, tryin' to hide itself under a blade of grass or a bit o' leaf, but… but not… makin' m-much of a job of it." His voice broke, and he turned his head so that his face was hidden in my skirt. Helpless, I could do nothing but stroke his hair.

He suddenly raised his head, face strained as though it would break apart along the seams of the bones. "I've been close to death a few times, Claire, but I've never really wanted to die. This time I did. I…" His voice cracked and he stopped speaking, clutching my knee hard. When he spoke again, his voice was high and oddly breathless, as though he had been running a long way.

"Claire, will you—I just—Claire, hold on to me. If I start to shake again now, I canna stop it. Claire, hold me!" He was in fact beginning to tremble violently, the shivering making him moan as it caught the splintered ribs. I was afraid to hurt him, but more afraid to let the shaking go on.

I crouched over him, wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held on as tightly as I could, rocking to and fro as though the comforting rhythm might break the racking spasms. I got one hand on the back of his neck and dug my ringers deep into the pillared muscles, willing the clenching to relax as I massaged the deep groove at the base of the skull. Finally the trembling eased, and his head fell forward onto my thigh, exhausted.

"I'm sorry," he said a minute later, in his normal voice. "I didna mean to go on so. The truth is I do hurt verra bad, and I am most awfully damn drunk. I'm no in much control of mysel'." For a Scot to admit, even privately, to being drunk, was some indication, I thought, of just how badly he did hurt.

"You need sleep," I said softly, still rubbing the back of his neck. "You need it badly." I used my fingers as best I could, gentling and pressing as Old Alec had showed me, and managed to ease him back into drowsiness.

"I'm cold," he murmured. There was a good fire, and several blankets on the bed, but his fingers were chilly to the touch.

"You're in shock," I said practically. "You've lost the hell of a lot of blood." I looked around, but MacRannochs and servants alike had all disappeared to their own beds. Murtagh, I assumed, was still out in the snow, keeping an eye out in the direction of Wentworth in case of pursuit. With a mental shrug for anyone's opinion of the proprieties, I stood up, stripped off the nightdress, and crawled under the blankets.

As gently as possible, I eased against him, giving him my warmth. He turned his face into my shoulder like a small boy. I stroked his hair, gentling him, rubbing the ridged columns of muscle at the back of his neck, avoiding the raw places. "Lay your head, then, man," I said, remembering Jenny and her boy.

Jamie gave a small grunt of amusement. "That's what my mother used to say to me," he murmured. "When I was a bairn."

"Sassenach," he said against my shoulder, a moment later.

"Mm?"

"Who in God's name is John Wayne?"

"You are," I said. "Go to sleep."