Outlander aka Cross Stitch

Chapter 35. WENTWORTH PRISON

Sir Fletcher Gordon was a short and portly man, whose striped silk waistcoat fitted him like a second skin. Slope-shouldered and paunch-bellied, he looked rather like a large ham seated in the governor’s wheel-backed chair.

The bald head and rich pinkish color of his complexion did little to dispel this impression, though few hams boasted such bright blue eyes. He turned over the sheaf of papers on his desk with a slow, deliberate forefinger.

“Yes, here it is,” he said, after an interminable pause to read a page. “Fraser, James. Convicted of murder. Sentenced to hang. Now, where’s the Warrant of Execution?” He paused again, shuffling nearsightedly through the papers. I dug my fingers deep into the satin of my reticule, willing my face to remain expressionless.

“Oh, yes. Date of execution, December 23. Yes, we still have him.”

I swallowed, relaxing my hold on my bag, torn between exultation and panic. He was still alive, then. For another two days. And he was nearby, somewhere in the same building with me. The knowledge surged through my veins with a rush of adrenaline and my hands trembled.

I sat forward in the visitor’s chair, trying to look winsomely appealing.

“May I see him, Sir Fletcher? Just for a moment, in case he… he might wish me to convey a message to his family?”

In the guise of an English friend of the Fraser family, I had found it reasonably easy to gain admittance to Wentworth, and to the office of Sir Fletcher, civilian governor of the prison. It was dangerous to ask to see Jamie; not knowing my cover story, he might well give me away if he saw me suddenly without warning. For that matter, I might give myself away; I was not at all sure that I could maintain my precarious self-control if I saw him. But the next step was clearly to find out where he was; in this huge stone rabbit warren, the chances of finding him without direction were almost nil.

Sir Fletcher frowned, considering. Plainly he considered this request from a mere family acquaintance a nuisance, but he was not an unfeeling man. Finally he shook his head reluctantly.

“No, my dear. No, I’m afraid I really cannot allow that. We are rather crowded at present, and haven’t sufficient facilities to permit private interviews. And the man is presently in” – he consulted his pile of papers again – “in one of the large cells in the west block, with several other condemned felons. It would be extremely perilous for you to visit him there – or at all. The man is a dangerous prisoner, you understand; I see here that we have been keeping him in chains since his arrival.”

I gripped my bag again; this time to keep from striking him.

He shook his head again, plump chest rising and falling with his labored breathing. “No, if you were an immediate member of his family, perhaps…” He looked up, blinking. I clamped my jaw tightly, determined to give nothing away. Surely a slight show of agitation was reasonable, under the circumstances.

“But perhaps, my dear…” He seemed struck by sudden inspiration. He got ponderously to his feet and went to an inner door, where a uniformed soldier stood on guard. He murmured to the man, who nodded once and vanished.

Sir Fletcher came back to his desk, pausing on the way to retrieve a decanter and glasses from the top of a cabinet. I accepted his offer of claret; I needed it.

We were both halfway through the second glass by the time the guard returned. He marched in without invitation, placed a wooden box on the desk at Sir Fletcher’s elbow, and turned to march out again. I caught his eye lingering on me and modestly lowered my own gaze. I was wearing a gown borrowed from a lady of Rupert’s acquaintance in the nearby town, and from the scent that saturated the dress and its matching reticule, I had a reasonably good idea just what this particular lady’s profession was. I hoped the guard didn’t recognize the gown.

Draining his cup, Sir Fletcher set it down and pulled the box toward him. It was a plain, square box of unfinished wood, with a sliding lid. There were letters chalked on the lid. I could read them, even upside down. FRAYSER, they read.

Sir Fletcher slid back the lid, peered inside for a moment, then closed the box and pushed it toward me.

“The prisoner’s personal effects,” he explained. “Customarily, we send them to whomever the prisoner designates as next of kin, after execution. This man, though” – he shook his head – “has refused altogether to say anything about his family. Some estrangement, no doubt. Not unusual, of course, but regrettable under the circumstances. I hesitate to make the request, Mrs. Beauchamp, but I thought that perhaps, since you are acquainted with the family, you would consider taking it upon yourself to convey his effects to the appropriate person?”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, but nodded and buried my nose in my cup of claret.

Sir Fletcher seemed relieved, whether at disposing of the box, or at the thought of my imminent departure. He sat back, wheezing slightly, and smiled expansively at me.

“That is very kind of you, Mrs. Beauchamp. I know such a thing cannot but be a painful duty to a young woman of feeling, and I am most sensible of your kindness in undertaking it, I do assure you.”

“N-not at all,” I stammered. I managed to stand up, and to gather up the box. It measured about eight inches by six, and was four or five inches deep. A small, light box, to hold the remains of a man’s life.

I knew the things it held. Three fishing lines, neatly coiled; a cork stuck with fishhooks; a flint and steel; a small piece of broken glass, edges blunt with wear; various small stones that looked interesting or had a good feel between the fingers; a dried mole’s foot, carried as a charm against rheumatism. A Bible – or perhaps they had let him keep that? I hoped so. A ruby ring, if it hadn’t been stolen. And a small wooden snake, carved of cherry wood, with the name SAWNY scratched on its underside.

I paused at the door, gripping the frame with my fingers to steady myself.

Sir Fletcher, following courteously to see me out, was at my side in a moment.

“Mrs. Beauchamp! Are you feeling faint, my dear? Guard, a chair!”

I could feel the prickles of a cold sweat breaking out along the sides of my face, but I managed to smile and wave away the proffered chair. I wanted more than anything to get out of there – I needed fresh air, in large quantities. And I needed to be alone to cry.

“No, I’m quite all right,” I said, trying to sound convincing. “It’s only… a bit close in here, perhaps. No, I shall be perfectly all right. My groom is waiting outside, in any case.”

Forcing myself to stand up straight and smile, I had a thought. It might not help, but it couldn’t hurt.

“Oh, Sir Fletcher…”

Still worried by my appearance, he was all gallantry and attention.

“Yes, my dear?”

“It occurred to me… How sad for a young man in this situation to be estranged from his family. I thought perhaps… if he wished to write to them – a letter of reconciliation, perhaps? I would be pleased to deliver it to – to his mother.”

“You are thoughtfulness itself, my dear.” Sir Fletcher was jovial, now that it seemed I was not going to collapse on his carpet after all. “Of course. I will inquire. Where are you staying, my dear? If there is a letter, I shall have it sent to you.”

“Well,” I was doing better with the smile, though it felt pasted on my face. “That is rather uncertain at the moment. I have several relatives and close acquaintances in the town, with whom I fear I shall be obliged to stay in turn, in order to avoid offending anyone, you see.” I managed a small laugh.

“So if it does not disturb you too much, perhaps my groom could call to inquire for the letter?”

“Of course, of course. That will do excellently, my dear. Excellently!”

And with a quick glance back at his decanter, he took my arm to escort me to the gate.

“Better, lassie?” Rupert pushed back the curtain of my hair to peer at my face. “Ye look like an ill-cured pork belly. Here, better have a bit more.”

I shook my head at the proffered whisky flask and sat up, wiping the damp rag he had brought across my face.

“No, I’m all right now.” Escorted by Murtagh, who was disguised as my groom, I had barely made it out of sight of the prison before sliding off my horse and being sick in the snow. There I remained, weeping, with Jamie’s box clutched to my bosom, until Murtagh had gathered me up bodily, forced me to mount, and led me to the small inn in Wentworth town where Rupert had found lodgings. We were in an upper room, from which the bulk of the prison was barely visible in the gathering dusk.

“Is the lad dead then?” Rupert’s broad face, half-obscured by his beard, was grave and kind, lacking any of its usual clowning.

I shook my head and took a deep breath. “Not yet.”

After hearing my story, Rupert paced slowly around the room, pushing his lips in and out as he thought. Murtagh sat still, as usual, no sign of agitation on his features. He would have made a wonderful poker player, I thought.

Rupert returned, sinking down on the bed beside me with a sigh.

“Weel, he’s alive still, and that’s the most important thing. Damned if I see what to do next, though. We’ve no way to get into the place.”

“Aye, we have,” Murtagh said, suddenly. “Thanks to the wee lassie’s thought about the letter.”

“Mmmphm. One man, though. And only so far as the governor’s office. But aye, it’s a start.” Rupert drew his dirk and idly scratched his thick beard with the point. “It’s a damn big place to search.”

“I know where he is,” I said, feeling better with the planning, and the knowledge that my companions weren’t giving up, no matter how hopeless our enterprise seemed. “At least I know which wing he’s in.”

“Do ye, then? Hmm.” He replaced the dirk and resumed his pacing, stopping to demand, “How much money have ye, lass?”

I fumbled in the pocket of my gown. I had Dougal’s purse, the money Jenny had forced me to take, and my string of pearls. Rupert rejected the pearls, but took the purse, pouring a stream of coins into the palm of one capacious hand.

“That’ll do,” he said, jingling them experimentally. He cocked an eye at the Coulter twins. “You twa laddies and Willie – come wi’ me. John and Murtagh can stay here wi’ the lassie.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He poured the coins into his sporran, keeping back one, which he tossed meditatively in the air.

“Och,” he said vaguely. “Happen there’s another inn, the other side of the town. The guards from the prison go there when they’re off duty, for it’s closer, and the drink’s a penny cheaper.” He flipped the coin with his thumb, and turning his hand, caught it between two knuckles.

I watched it, with a growing idea of what he intended.

“Is that so?” I said. “I wouldn’t suppose they play cards there, too, would you?”

“I wouldna ken, lassie, wouldna ken,” he answered. He tossed the coin once more and clapped his hands together, trapping it, then spread his hands apart, to show nothing but thin air. He smiled, teeth white in the black beard.

“But we might go and see, no?” He snapped his fingers, and the coin appeared once more between them.

Shortly past one o’clock on the following afternoon, I passed again beneath the spiked portcullis that had guarded the gate of Wentworth since its construction in the late sixteenth century. It had lost very little of its forbidding aspect in the succeeding two hundred years, and I touched the dagger in my pocket for courage.

Sir Fletcher should now be well dug in at his midday repast, according to the information Rupert and his assistant spies had extracted from the prison guards during their foray the evening before. They had staggered in, red-eyed and reeking of ale, just before dawn. All Rupert would say in response to my questions was “Och, lassie, all it takes to win is luck. It takes skill to lose!” He curled up in the corner then and went soundly to sleep, leaving me to pace the floor in frustration, as I had been doing all night.

He woke an hour later, though, clear-eyed and clear-headed, and laid out the rudiments of the plan I was about to put into execution.

“Sir Fletcher doesna allow anyone or anything to disturb his meals,” he said. “Anyone wantin’ him then must just go on wantin’ until he’s done wi’ his food and drink. And after the midday meal, it’s his habit to retire to his quarters for a wee sleep.”

Murtagh, in the character of my groom, had arrived a quarter of an hour previously, and been admitted without difficulty. Presumably, he would be shown to Sir Fletcher’s office and asked to wait. While there, he was to search the office, first for a plan of the west wing, and then, on the off-chance, for keys that might open the cells.

I hung back a bit, glancing at the sky to judge the time. If I arrived before he had sat down, I might be invited to join Sir Fletcher for luncheon, which would be highly inconvenient. But Rupert’s card-playing acquaintances among the guards had assured him that the governor’s habits were invariable; the bell for dinner was rung promptly at one, and the soup served five minutes later.

The guard on duty at the entrance was the same as the day before. He looked surprised, but greeted me courteously.

“So vexing,” I said, “I had meant my groom to bring a small present for Sir Fletcher, as some return for his kindness to me yesterday. But I found that the silly man had ridden off without it, and so I was obliged to follow with it myself, hoping to catch him up. Has he arrived already?” I displayed the small package I carried and smiled, thinking that it would help if I had dimples. Since I hadn’t, I settled for a brilliant display of teeth.

It seemed to be sufficient. I was admitted and led through the corridors of the prison toward the governor’s office. Though this part of the castle was decently furnished, there was little mistaking the place for anything other than a prison. There was a smell about the place, which I imagined as the smell of misery and fear, though I supposed it was no more than the niff of ancient squalor and an absence of drains.

The guard allowed me to precede him down the hall, following discreetly so as not to step on my cloak. And a damn good thing he did, for I rounded the corner toward Sir Fletcher’s office a few feet ahead of him, just in time to see Murtagh through the open door, dragging the unconscious form of the office guard behind the enormous desk.

I took one step back and dropped my package onto the stone floor. There was a shattering of glass, and the air was filled with the smothering aroma of peach brandy.

“Oh, dear,” I said, “what have I done?”

While the guard was calling for a prisoner to clear up the mess, I tactfully murmured something about waiting for Sir Fletcher in his private office, slipped in, and hastily shut the door behind me.

“What the bloody hell have you done?” I snapped at Murtagh. He looked up from his rummaging of the body, unconcerned at my tone.

“Sir Fletcher doesna keep keys in his office,” he informed me in a low voice, “but this wee laddie has a set.” He pulled the huge ring free of the man’s coat, careful to keep the keys from jingling.

I dropped to my knees behind him. “Oh, good show!” I said. I cast an eye over the prostrate soldier; still breathing, at least. “What about a plan of the prison?”

He shook his head. “Not that either, but my friend here told me a bit while we waited. The condemned cells are on the same floor as this, in the middle of the west corridor. There’re three cells, though, and I couldna ask more than that – he was a bit suspicious as it was.”

“It’s enough – I hope. All right, give me the keys and get out.”

“Me? It’s you should leave, lassie, and right smart too.” He glanced at the door, but there was no sound on the other side.

“No, it has to be me,” I said, reaching again for the keys. “Listen,” I said impatiently. “If they find you wandering round the prison with a bunch of keys, and the guard here laid out like a mackerel, we’re both done for, because why didn’t I cry out for help?” I snatched the keys and crammed them in my pocket, with some difficulty.

Murtagh was still skeptical, but had risen to his feet.

“And if you’re caught?” he demanded.

“I swoon,” I said crisply. “And when I recover – eventually – I say that I saw you apparently murdering the guard and fled in terror, with no idea where I was going. I lost my way looking for help.”

He nodded slowly. “Aye, all right.” He moved toward the door, then stopped.

“But why did I – oh.” He crossed swiftly to the desk and pulled out one drawer after another, stirring the contents with one hand and tossing items onto the floor with the other.

“Theft,” he explained, coming back to the door. He opened it a crack, looking out.

“If it’s theft, shouldn’t you take something?” I suggested, looking about for something small and portable. I picked up an enameled snuffbox. “This, perhaps?”

He made an impatient gesture to me to put it down, still peering through the crack.

“Nay, lass! If I’m found wi’ Sir Fletcher’s property, that’s a hanging offense. Attempted theft is only flogging or mutilation.”

“Oh.” I put the snuffbox down hastily and stood behind him, peering over his shoulder. The hall seemed empty.

“I go first,” he said. “If I meet anyone, I’ll draw ’ em off. Wait to the count of thirty, then follow. We’ll meet ye in the small wood to the north.” He opened the door, then paused and turned back.

“If you’re caught, mind ye throw the keys awa’.” Before I could speak, he was through the door like an eel and down the corridor, moving silently as a shadow.

It seemed to take an eternity to find the west wing, dodging through the corridors of the old castle, peering around corners and hiding behind columns. I saw only one guard on my way, though, and managed to avoid him by diving back around a corner, pressing myself to the wall with hammering heart until he passed.

Once I found the west wing, though, I had little doubt that I was in the right place. There were three large doors in the corridor, each with a tiny barred window from which I could catch no more than a frustrating glimpse of the room behind it.

“Eenie, meenie, minie, mo,” I muttered to myself, and headed for the center cell. The keys on the ring were unlabeled, but of different sizes. Clearly only one of three big ones would fit the lock before me. Naturally, it was the third one. I took a deep breath as the lock clicked, then wiped my sweating hands on my skirt and shoved the door open.

I sorted frantically through the stinking mass of men in the cell, stepping over outstretched feet and legs, pushing past heavy bodies that moved with maddening sluggishness out of my way. The stir occasioned by my abrupt entrance had spread; those who had been asleep amid the filth on the floor began to sit up, roused by the rippling murmur of astonishment. Some were manacled to the walls; the chains grated and clanked in the half-light as they moved. I grabbed one of the standing men, a brown-bearded clansman in ragged yellow-and-green tartan. The bones of his arm under my hand were frighteningly near the skin; the English wasted little extra food on their prisoners.

“James Fraser! A big, redheaded man! Is he in this cell? Where is he?”

He was already moving toward the door with the others who were not chained, but paused a moment to glance down at me. The prisoners by now had seized the idea, and were pouring through the open door in a shuffling flood, peering and murmuring to each other.

“Who? Fraser? Och, they took him awa’ this mornin’.” The man shrugged, and pushed at my hands, trying to shake me off.

“I took hold of his belt with a grip that halted him in his tracks. “Where did they take him? Who took him?”

“I dinna ken where; was yon Captain Randall took ’im – a pinch-faced snark, he is.” With an impatient wrench, he freed himself and headed for the door with a step born of long-nourished purpose.

Randall. I stood stunned for a moment, jostled by the escaping men, deaf to the shouts of the chained. Finally I shook myself from my stupor and tried to think. Geordie had watched the castle since dawn. No one had left in the morning save a small kitchen party going to fetch supplies. So they were still here, somewhere.

Randall was a captain; likely no one ranked higher in a prison garrison, save Sir Fletcher himself. Presumably Randall could thus command the castle’s resources so as to provide him with some suitable spot in which to torture a prisoner at his leisure.

And torture it surely was. Even if it was meant to end in hanging, the man I had seen at Fort William was a cat by nature. He could no more resist the chance to play with this particular mouse than he could alter his height or the color of his eyes.

I took a deep breath, resolutely shoving aside thoughts of what might have happened since morning, and charged out the door myself, colliding full force with an English Redcoat rushing in. The man reeled backward, staggering with tiny running steps to keep his balance. Thrown off balance myself, I crashed heavily into the doorjamb, numbing my left side and banging my head. I clutched the doorpost for support, the ringing in my ears chiming with the echoes of Rupert’s voice: Ye have a moment of surprise, lass. Use it!

It was open to question, I thought dizzily, who was more surprised. I groped madly for the pocket that held my dagger, cursing my stupidity for not having entered the cell with it already drawn.

The English soldier, balance recovered, was staring at me with his mouth agape, but I could feel my precious moment of surprise already slipping away. Abandoning the elusive pocket, I stooped and drew the dagger from my stocking in a move that continued upward with all the force I could muster. The knifepoint took the advancing soldier just under the chin as he reached for his belt. His hands rose halfway to his throat, then, with a look of surprise, he staggered back against the wall, and slid down it in slow motion, as the life drained away from him. Like me, he had come to investigate without bothering to draw his weapon first, and that small oversight had just cost him his life. The grace of God had saved me from this mistake; I could afford no more. Feeling very cold, I stepped over the twitching body, careful not to look.

I dashed back the way I had come, as far as the turning by the stairs. There was a spot here by the wall where I would be sheltered from view from both directions. I leaned against the wall and indulged myself in a moment of trembling nausea.

Wiping my sweaty hands on my skirt, I dredged the dirk from its hidden pocket. It was now my only weapon; I had neither time nor stomach enough to retrieve my sock-knife. Perhaps that was as well, I thought, rubbing my fingers on my bodice; there had been surprisingly little blood, and I shrank from the thought of the gush that would follow if I pulled the knife free.

Dagger now safely in hand, I peered cautiously out into the corridor. The prisoners I had inadvertently released had gone to the left. I had no idea what they were set on doing, but they would likely occupy the English while they were doing it. With no reason to pick one direction over another for my search, it made sense to move away from whatever commotion they caused.

The light from the high slit windows fell aslant behind me; this was the west side of the castle, then. I must keep my bearings as I moved, since Rupert would be waiting for me near the south gate.

Stairs. I forced my numbed mind to think, trying to reason my way to the spot I was looking for. If you wanted to torture someone, presumably you wanted both privacy and soundproofing. Both considerations pointed to an isolated dungeon as the most likely spot. And the dungeons in castles such as this were customarily underground, where tons of earth muffled any cries, and darkness hid all cruelty from the eyes of those responsible.

The wall rounded into a curve at the end of the corridor; I had reached one of the four corner towers – and the towers had stairs.

The spiral stair opened around another curve, the wedge-shaped steps plunging down in dizzying flights that deceived the eye and twisted the ankles. The plunge from the relative light of the corridor into the gloom of the stairwell made it even harder to judge the distance from one stair to the next, and I slipped several times, barking my knuckles and skinning my palms on the stone walls as I caught myself.

The stairway yielded one benefit. From a narrow window let in to save the stairwell from total darkness, I could see the main courtyard. At least I could now orient myself. A small group of soldiers was drawn up in neat red lines for inspection, but not, apparently, to witness the summary punishment of a Scottish rebel. There was a gibbet in the courtyard, black and foreboding, but unoccupied. The sight of it was like a blow in the stomach. Tomorrow morning. I clattered down the stairs, heedless of scraped elbows and stubbed toes.

Hitting the bottom in a swish of skirts, I stopped to listen. Dead silence all around, but at least this part of the castle was in use; there were torches in the wall sconces, dyeing the granite blocks in pools of flickering red, each pool ebbing into darkness at its edges before the pool of the next torch leached into light again. Smoke from the torches hung in grey swirls along the vaulted roof of the corridor.

There was only one way to go from this point. I went, dagger still gripped at the ready. It was eerie to be pacing softly down this corridor. I had seen similar dungeons before, as a day-tripper, visiting historic castles with Frank. But then the massive granite blocks had been stripped of their menace by the glare of fluorescent tubes hung from the arches of the cavernous ceiling. I remembered recoiling from the small, dank chambers, even in those days, when they had been in disuse for over a century. Seeing the remnants of old and horrible ways, the thick doors and the rusting manacles on the wall, I had been able, I thought, to imagine the torments of those imprisoned in these forbidding cells. I would have laughed now at my naivete. There were some things, as Dougal said, that the imagination was simply not equal to.

I tiptoed past bolted doors three inches thick; thick enough to smother any sound from inside. Bending close to the floor, I checked for a strip of light at the base of each door. Prisoners might be left to rot in darkness, but Randall would need to see what he was doing. The floor here was gummy with ancient dirt, covered with a thick layer of loose dust. Apparently this part of the prison was not in current use. But the torches showed that someone was down here.

The fourth door in the corridor showed the light I was looking for. I listened, kneeling on the floor with my ear pressed against the crack, but heard nothing more than the thin crackle of a fire.

The door was unlocked. I pushed it open a small crack and peered cautiously within. Jamie was there, sitting on the floor against one wall, curled into himself with his head between his knees. He was alone.

The room was small, but well lit, with a rather homely looking brazier in which burned a cheery fire. For a dungeon, it was remarkably cozy; the stone flags were halfway clean, and a small camp bed leaned against one wall. The room was further furnished with two chairs and a table, on which sat a number of objects, including a large pewter flask and horn cups. It was an astonishing sight, after my visions of dripping walls and scuttling rats. It occurred to me that perhaps the garrison officers had furnished this snuggery as a refuge in which to entertain such female companionship as they could induce to visit them within the prison; clearly it had the advantage of privacy over the barracks.

“Jamie!” I called softly. He didn’t raise his head or answer me, and I felt a thrill of fear. Pausing only long enough to shut the door behind me, I crossed rapidly to him and touched his shoulder.

“Jamie!”

He looked up then; his face was dead-white, unshaven and sheened with a cold sweat that had soaked his hair and shirt. The room stank of fear and vomit.

“Claire!” he said, speaking hoarsely through lips cracked with dryness. “How did you – ye must get out of here at once. He’ll be back soon.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I was assessing the situation as rapidly as I could, hoping that concentration on the job at hand would ease the choking sensation and help melt the large ball of ice in the pit of my stomach.

He was chained by the ankle to a bolt in the wall, but otherwise unfettered. A coil of rope among the rubble of objects on the table had plainly been used, though; there were raw marks on his wrists and elbows.

I was puzzled by his condition. He was clearly dazed and every line of his body was eloquent with pain, but I could see no obvious damage. There was no blood and no wound visible. I dropped to my knees and began methodically to try the keys of my ring on the manacle around his ankle.

“What has he done to you?” I asked, keeping my voice low for fear of Randall’s return.

Jamie swayed where he sat, eyes closed, the sweat beading in hundreds of tiny pearls on his skin. Plainly he was near to fainting, but opened his eyes for a moment at my voice. Moving with exquisite care, he used his left hand to lift the object he had been cradling in his lap. It was his right hand, almost unrecognizable as a human appendage. Grotesquely swollen, it was now a bloated bag, blotched with red and purple, the fingers dangling at crazy angles. A white shard of bone poked through the torn skin of the middle finger, and a trickle of blood stained the knuckles, puffed into shapeless dimples.

The human hand is a delicate marvel of engineering, an intricate system of joints and pulleys, served and controlled by a network of millions of tiny nerves, exquisitely sensitive to touch. A single broken finger is enough to sink a strong man to his knees with nauseated pain.

“Payment,” Jamie said, “for his nose – with interest.” I stared at the sight for a moment, then said in a voice that I didn’t recognize as mine, “I’m going to kill him for this.”

Jamie’s mouth twitched slightly as a flicker of humor forced its way through the mask of pain and dizziness. “I’ll hold your cloak, Sassenach,” he whispered. His eyes closed again and he sagged against the wall, too far gone to protest my presence further.

I went back to work on the lock, glad to see that my hands were no longer shaking. The fear was gone, replaced by a glorious rage.

I had gone through the complete ring of keys twice, and still found none that would turn the lock. My hands were growing sweaty and the keys slid through my fingers like minnows as I began to try the most likely ones again. My muttered cursing roused Jamie from his stupor, and he leaned down slowly to look at what I was doing.

“Ye needn’t find a key will turn it,” he said, bracing a shoulder on the wall to keep upright. “If one will fit to the length of the barrel, you can spring the lock wi’ a good bash on the head of it.”

“You’ve seen this kind of lock before?” I wanted to keep him awake and talking; he was going to have to walk if we were to leave here.

“I’ve been in one. When they brought me here, they chained me in a big cell with a lot of others. A lad named Reilly was chained next to me; a Leinsterman – said he’d been in most of the jails in Ireland and decided to try Scotland for a change o’ scenery.” Jamie was struggling to talk; he realized as well as I that he must rouse himself. He managed a feeble smile. “He told me a good bit about locks and such, and showed me how we could break the ones we were wearing, if we’d had a spare bit of straight metal, which we didn’t.”

“Tell me, then.” The effort of talking was making him sweat freely, but he seemed more alert. Concentrating on the problem of the lock seemed to help.

Following his directions, I found a suitable key and thrust it in as far as it would go. According to Reilly, a solid blow straight in on the end of the key would force the other end hard against the tumblers and spring them loose. I looked around for a suitable instrument for bashing.

“Use the mallet on the table, Sassenach,” said Jamie. Caught by a grim note in his voice, I glanced from his face to the table, where a medium-sized wooden mallet lay, the handle wrapped with tarred twine.

“Is that what-” I began, aghast.

“Aye. Brace the manacle against the wall, lass, before ye hit it.”

Grasping the handle gingerly, I picked up the mallet. It was awkward to get the iron manacle correctly positioned so that one side was braced by the wall, as this required that Jamie cross the manacled leg under the other and press his knee to the wall on the far side.

My first two blows were too weak and timorous. Gathering determination about me like a cloak, I smashed the rounded end of the key as hard as I could. The mallet slipped off the key and caught Jamie a glancing but hard blow on the ankle. Recoiling, he lost his precarious balance and fell, instinctively reaching out his right hand to save himself. He let out an unearthly moan as his right arm crumpled beneath him and his shoulder hit the floor.

“Oh, damn,” I said wearily. Jamie had fainted, not that I could blame him. Taking advantage of his momentary immobility, I turned his ankle so that the manacle was well braced, and banged doggedly on the embedded key, with little apparent effect. I was thinking grim thoughts about Irish locksmiths, when the door beside me swung suddenly open.

Randall’s face, like Frank’s, seldom showed what he was thinking, presenting instead a bland and impenetrable facade. At the moment, though, the Captain’s customary poise had deserted him, and he stood in the doorway with his jaw agape, looking not unlike the man who accompanied him. A very large man in a stained and ragged uniform, this assistant had the sloping brow, flat nose, and loose prominent lips characteristic of some types of mental retardation. His expression did not change as he peered over Randall’s shoulder, showing no particular interest either in me or the unconscious man on the floor.

Recovering, Randall walked into the room and reached down to prod the manacle around Jamie’s ankle. “Been damaging the Crown’s property, I see, my girl. That’s an offense punishable by law, you know. To say nothing of attempting to aid a dangerous prisoner in escaping.” His pale grey eyes held a spark of amusement. “We’ll have to arrange something suitable for you. In the meantime…” He jerked me to my feet and pulled my arms behind me, twisting his stock around my wrists.

Struggle was plainly fruitless, but I stamped on his toes as hard as I could, purely to vent some of my own frustration.

“Ouch!” He turned me and gave me a hard shove, so that my legs hit the bed and I fell, half-lying on the rough blankets. Randall surveyed me with grim satisfaction, rubbing the scuffed toe of his boot with a linen handkerchief. I glared back at him, and he gave a short laugh.

“You’re no coward, I’ll give you that. In fact, you’re a fit match for him,” he nodded at Jamie, who was beginning to stir a bit, “and I can’t give you a better compliment than that.” He tenderly fingered his throat, where a darkening bruise showed in the open neck of his shirt. “He tried to kill me, one-handed, when I untied him. And damned near managed it too. Pity I didn’t realize he was left-handed.”

“How unreasonable of him,” I said.

“Quite,” said Randall, with a nod. “I don’t suppose you’d be so impolite, do you? Still, on the off-chance…” He turned to the large servant, who was simply standing in the doorframe, shoulders sloped, waiting for orders.

“Marley,” said Randall, “come here and search this woman for weapons.” He watched with some amusement as the man groped clumsily about my person, eventually coming upon and extracting my dirk.

“You don’t care for Marley?” asked the Captain, watching me try to avoid the thick fingers that prodded me all too intimately. “Rather a pity; I’m sure he’s quite taken with you.”

“Poor Marley hasn’t much luck with women,” the Captain went on, a malicious gleam in his eye. “Have you, Marley? Even the whores won’t have him.” He fixed me with a designing sort of look, smiling wolfishly. “Too big, they say.” He raised one eyebrow. “Which is quite a judgment, coming from a whore, is it not?” He raised the other brow, making his meaning quite clear.

Marley, who had begun to pant rather heavily during the search, stopped and wiped a thread of saliva from the side of his mouth. I moved as far away as I could manage, disgusted.

Randall, watching me, said, “I imagine Marley would like to entertain you privately in his quarters, once we’ve finished our conversation. Of course, he might decide later on to share his good fortune with his friends, but that’s up to him.”

“Oh, you don’t want to watch?” I asked sarcastically.

Randall laughed, truly amused.

“I may have what are called ‘unnatural tastes’ myself, as I imagine you know by this time. But give me credit for some aesthetic principles.” He glanced at the immense orderly, slouched in his filthy clothes, paunch straining over his belt. The loose, blubbery lips chewed and mumbled constantly, as though seeking some fragment of food, and the short, thick fingers worked nervously against the crotch of the stained breeches. Randall shuddered delicately.

“No,” he said. “You’re a very lovely woman, shrewish tongue notwithstanding. To see you with Marley – no, I don’t believe I want to watch that. Appearance aside, Marley’s personal habits leave quite a lot to be desired.”

“So do yours,” I said.

“That’s as may be. At any rate, they’ll not concern you much longer.” He paused, looking down at me. “I would still like to know who you are, you know. A Jacobite, plainly, but whose? Marischal’s? Seaforth’s? Lovat’s, most likely, since you’re with the Frasers.” Randall nudged Jamie gently with a polished boot-toe, but he still lay inert. I could see his chest rising and falling regularly; perhaps he had merely slipped from unconsciousness into sleep. The smudges under his eyes gave evidence that he had had little rest of late.

“I’ve even heard from some that you’re a witch,” the Captain went on. His tone was light, but he watched me closely, as though I might suddenly turn myself into an owl and flap away. “There was some kind of trouble at Cranesmuir, wasn’t there? A death of some kind? But no doubt that’s all superstitious nonsense.”

Randall eyed me speculatively. “I might be persuaded to make a bargain with you,” he said abruptly. He leaned back, half-sitting on the table, inviting me.

I laughed bitterly. “I can’t say I’m in either a position or a mood to bargain at the moment. What can you offer me?”

Randall glanced at Marley. The idiot’s eyes were fixed on me, and he was mumbling under his breath.

“A choice, at least. Tell me – and convince me – who you are and who sent you to Scotland. What you’re doing and what information you’ve sent to whom. Tell me that, and I’ll take you to Sir Fletcher, instead of giving you to Marley.”

I kept my eyes firmly away from Marley. I had seen the rotting stumps of teeth embedded in pustulant gums, and the thought of him kissing me, let alone – I choked the thought off. Randall was right; I wasn’t a coward. But neither was I a fool.

“You can’t take me to Sir Fletcher,” I said, “and I know it as well as you do. Take me to him and risk my telling him about this?” My nod took in the snug little room, the cozy fire, the bed I sat on, and Jamie lying at my feet. “Whatever his own shortcomings, I don’t imagine Sir Fletcher would stand, officially, for his officers torturing prisoners. Even the English army must have some standards.”

Randall raised both eyebrows. “Torture? Oh, that.” He waved negligently at Jamie’s hand. “An accident. He fell in his cell and was trampled by the other prisoners. It’s rather crowded in those cells, you know.” He smiled derisively.

I was silent. While Sir Fletcher might or might not believe the damage to Jamie’s hand was an accident, he was most unlikely to believe anything I said, once I was unmasked as an English spy.

Randall was watching me, eyes alert for any signs of weakening. “Well? The choice is yours.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, tired of looking at him. The choice wasn’t mine, but I could hardly tell him why not.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said wearily. “I can’t tell you anything.”

“Think it over for a moment.” He stood up, and stepped carefully over Jamie’s unconscious form, taking a key from his pocket. “I may need Marley’s help for a bit, but then I’ll send him back to his quarters – and you with him, if you don’t mean to cooperate.” He stooped, unlocked the manacle, and heaved the inert body up with an impressive display of strength for one so slightly built. The muscles of his forearms ridged the cloth of his snowy shirt as he carried Jamie, head lolling, to a stool in the corner. He nodded at the bucket standing nearby.

“Rouse him,” he directed the silent hulk curtly. Cold water splashed from the stones in the corner and puddled on the floor, making a filthy pool underneath. “Once more,” Randall said, inspecting Jamie, who was moaning slightly, head stirring against the stones of the wall. He flinched and coughed under the second drenching shower.

Randall strode forward and took him by the hair, yanking his head back, shaking it like a drowned animal, so that drops of fetid water spattered the walls. Jamie’s eyes were dull slits. Randall threw Jamie’s head back in disgust, wiping his hand down the side of his trousers as he turned away. His eye must have caught the flicker of movement, because he began to turn back, but not in time to brace himself against the big Scot’s sudden lunge.

Jamie’s arms went around Randall’s neck. Lacking the use of his right hand, he gripped his right wrist with the able left and pulled, forearm braced on the Englishman’s windpipe. As Randall turned purple and began to sag, he let go his left hand long enough to drive it into the captain’s kidney. Even weakened as Jamie was, the blow was enough to make Randall give at the knees.

Dropping the limp captain, Jamie whirled to face the hulking orderly, who had been watching events so far without the slightest flicker of interest on his slack-jawed face. Although his expression remained rather inert, he did move, picking up the mallet from the table as Jamie came toward him, holding the stool by one leg in his good left hand. A certain dull wariness came into the orderly’s face as the two men circled each other slowly, looking for an opening.

Better-armed, Marley tried first, swinging the mallet at Jamie’s ribs. Jamie whirled away and feinted with the stool, forcing the orderly back toward the door. The next attempt, a murderous blow downward, would have split Jamie’s skull had it landed on target. As it was, the stool split instead, one leg and the seat sheared away.

Impatiently, Jamie smashed the stool against the wall with his next swing, reducing it to a smaller but more manageable club; a two-foot length of wood with a ragged, splintered end.

The air in the cell, made stifling with smoke from the torches, was still except for the gasping breath of the two men and the occasional bruising thud of wood on flesh. Afraid to speak for fear of disturbing Jamie’s precarious concentration, I pulled my feet up onto the bed and shrank back against the wall, trying to stay out of the way.

It was plain to me – and by his faint smile of anticipation, to the orderly also – that Jamie was tiring rapidly. Amazing enough that he was on his feet at all, let alone fighting. It was clear to all three of us that the fight couldn’t last much longer; if he was to have any chance at all, he must move soon. With short, hard jabs of the stool-leg, he advanced cautiously on Marley, forcing the bigger man into the corner where the arc of his swing would be restricted. Realizing this by some instinct, the orderly came out with a vicious horizontal swing, expecting to force Jamie back.

Instead of stepping back, Jamie stepped forward into the swing, taking the full brunt of the blow in the left side as he brought his club down full-force on Marley’s temple. Intent on the scene before me, I had paid no attention to Randall’s prone body on the floor near the door. But as the orderly tottered, eyes glazing, I heard the scraping sounds of boots on stone, and a labored breathing rasped in my ear.

“Nicely fought, Fraser.” Randall’s voice was hoarse from the choking, but as composed as ever. “Cost you a few ribs, though, didn’t it?”

Jamie leaned against the wall, breathing in sobbing gasps, still holding the club, elbow pressed hard to his side. His eyes dropped to the floor, measuring the distance.

“Don’t try it, Fraser.” The light voice was bland. “She’ll be dead before you get two steps.” The thin cool knife blade slid past my ear; I could feel the point gently pricking the corner of my jaw.

Jamie surveyed the scene with dispassionate eyes for a moment, still braced by the wall. With a sudden effort, he straightened painfully and stood swaying. The club clanked hollowly on the stone floor. The knifepoint pricked infinitesimally harder, but otherwise Randall stood motionless as Jamie slowly crossed the few feet to the table, stooping carefully on the way to pick up the twine-wrapped mallet. He held it dangling in two fingers in front of him, his nonoffensive intent apparent.

The mallet clattered on the table in front of me, the handle spinning hard enough to carry the weighty head nearly to the edge. It lay dark and heavy on the oak, a homely, solid tool. A reed basket of ha’penny nails to go with it lay in the jumble of objects at the far end of the table; something perhaps left behind by the carpenters who had furnished the room. Jamie’s good hand, the fine straight fingers rimmed with gold in the light, gripped the table-edge hard. With an effort I could only guess at, he lowered himself slowly into a chair and deliberately spread both hands flat before him on the scarred wood surface, the mallet within easy reach.

His gaze had been locked with Randall’s during the painful trip across the room, and did not waver now. He nodded briefly in my direction without looking at me and said, “Let her go.”

The knife-hand seemed to relax a trifle. Randall’s voice was amused and curious. “Why should I?”

Jamie seemed now in complete command of himself, despite his white face and the sweat that ran unregarded down his face like tears.

“You cannot hold a knife on two people at once. Kill the woman or leave her side, and I’ll kill you.” He spoke softly, a steely thread beneath the quiet Scots accent.

“And what’s to stop me killing both of you, one at a time?”

I would have called the expression on Jamie’s face a smile only because his teeth were showing. “What, and cheat the hangsman? Bit hard to explain, come morning, no?” He nodded briefly at the unconscious hulk on the floor. “You’ll recall that ye had to have your wee helper bind me wi’ rope before ye broke my hand.”

“So?” The knife stayed steady at my ear.

“Your helper is no going to be much good to ye awhile yet.” This was undeniably true; the monstrous orderly was lying on his face in the corner, breathing in ragged, stertorous snores. Severe concussion, I thought, mechanically. Possible cerebral hemorrhage. I couldn’t care less if he died before my eyes.

“You can’t take me alone, one-handed or no.” Jamie shook his head slowly, appraising Randall’s size and strength. “No. I’m bigger, and far the better fighter, hand to hand. Did ye not have the woman there, I would take that wee knife from ye and cram it down your throat. And you know it, which is why you’ve not harmed her.”

“But I do have her. You could leave yourself, of course. There’s a way out, quite near. That would leave your wife – you did say she’s your wife? – to die, of course.”

Jamie shrugged. “And myself as well. I’d not get far, with the whole garrison hunting me. To be shot in the open might be preferable to being hanged in here, but not enough to make a difference.” A brief grimace of pain crossed his face and he held his breath for a moment. When he breathed again, it was in shallow, panting gulps. Whatever shock had been protecting him from the worst of the pain, it was apparently wearing off.

“So we seem to be at an impasse.” Randall’s well-bred English tones were casual. “Unless you have a suggestion?”

“I have. You want me.” The cool Scottish voice was matter-of-fact. “Let the woman go, and ye can have me.” The knifepoint moved slightly, nicking my ear. I felt a sting and the warm ooze of blood.

“Do what ye wish to me. I’ll not struggle, though I’ll allow you to bind me if ye think it needful. And I’ll not speak of it, come tomorrow. But first you’ll see the woman safe from the prison.” My eyes were on Jamie’s ruined hand. A small pool of blood under the middle finger was growing, and I realized with a shock that he was deliberately pressing the finger into the table, using the pain as a spur to stay conscious. He was bargaining for my life using the only thing he had left – himself. If he fainted now, that single chance was gone.

Randall had relaxed completely; the knife lay carelessly on my right shoulder as he thought it through. I was there before him. Jamie was meant to hang in the morning. Sooner or later, he would be missed, and the Castle would be searched. While a certain amount of brutality might be tolerated among officers and gentlemen – I was sure it would extend to a broken hand or a flayed back – Randall’s other inclinations were not so likely to be overlooked. No matter what Jamie’s status as a condemned prisoner, if he stood at the foot of the gallows come morning and claimed abuse at the hands of Randall, his claims would be investigated. And if physical examination proved them true, Randall’s career was at an end, and possibly his life as well. But with Jamie sworn to silence…

“You’ll give me your word?”

Jamie’s eyes were like blue matchflames in the parchment of his face. After a moment, he nodded slowly. “In return for yours.”

The attraction of a victim at once completely unwilling and completely compliant was irresistible.

“Done.” The knife left my shoulder and I heard the susurrus of sheathed metal. Randall walked slowly past me, around the table, picking up the mallet as he went. He held it up, ironically questioning. “You’ll allow me a brief test of your sincerity?”

“Aye.” Jamie’s voice was as steady as his hands, flat and motionless on the table. I tried to speak, to utter some protest, but my throat had dried to a sticky silence.

Moving without haste, Randall leaned past Jamie to pluck a ha’penny nail delicately from the reed basket. He positioned the point with care and brought the mallet down, driving the nail through Jamie’s right hand into the table with four solid blows. The broken fingers twitched and sprang straight, like the legs of a spider pinned to a collection board.

Jamie groaned, his eyes wide and blank with shock. Randall set the mallet down with care. He took Jamie’s chin in his hand and turned his face up. “Now kiss me,” he said softly, and lowered his head to Jamie’s unresisting mouth.

Randall’s face when he rose was dreamy, eyes gentle and faraway, long mouth quirked in a smile. Once upon a time, I had loved a smile like that, and that dreamy look had roused me in anticipation. Now it sickened me. Tears ran into the corner of my mouth, though I didn’t remember starting to cry. Randall stood a moment in his trance, gazing down at Jamie. Then he stirred, remembering, and drew the knife once more from its sheath.

The blade slashed carelessly through the binding around my wrists, grazing the skin. I hardly had time to rub the circulation back into my hands before he was urging me up with a hand beneath my elbow, pushing me toward the door.

“Wait!” Jamie spoke behind us, and Randall turned impatiently.

“You’ll allow me to say goodbye?” It was a statement more than a question, and Randall hesitated only briefly before nodding and giving me a shove back toward the motionless figure at the table.

Jamie’s good arm was tight around my shoulders and my wet face was buried in his neck.

“You can’t,” I whispered. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”

His mouth was warm against my ear. “Claire, I’m to hang in the morning. What happens to me between now and then doesna matter to anyone.” I drew back and stared at him.

“It matters to me!” The strained lips quivered in what was almost a smile, and he raised his free hand and laid it against my wet cheek.

“I know it does, mo duinne. And that’s why you’ll go now. So I’ll know there is someone still who minds for me.” He drew me close again, kissed me gently and whispered in Gaelic, “He will let you go because he thinks you are helpless. I know you are not.” Releasing me, he said in English, “I love you. Go now.”

Randall paused as he ushered me out the door. “I’ll be back very shortly.” It was the voice of a man taking reluctant leave of his lover, and my stomach heaved.

Silhouetted in red by the torch behind him, Jamie inclined his head gracefully toward the pinioned hand. “I expect you’ll find me here.”

Black Jack. A common name for rogues and scoundrels in the eighteenth century. A staple of romantic fiction, the name conjured up charming highwaymen, dashing blades in plumed hats. The reality walked at my side.

One never stops to think what underlies romance. Tragedy and terror, transmuted by time. Add a little art in the telling, and voila! a stirring romance, to make the blood run fast and maidens sigh. My blood was running fast, all right, and never maiden sighed like Jamie, cradling his mangled hand.

“This way.” It was the first time Randall had spoken since we had left the cell. He indicated a narrow alcove in the wall, unlighted by torches. The way out, of which he had spoken to Jamie.

By now I had sufficient command of myself to speak, and I did so. I stepped back a pace, so that the torchlight fell full on me, for I wanted him to remember my face.

“You asked me, Captain, if I were a witch,” I said, my voice low and steady. “I’ll answer you now. Witch I am. Witch, and I curse you. You will marry, Captain, and your wife will bear a child, but you shall not live to see your firstborn. I curse you with knowledge, Jack Randall – I give you the hour of your death.”

His face was in shadow, but the gleam of his eyes told me he believed me. And why should he not? For I spoke the truth, and I knew it. I could see the lines of Frank’s genealogical chart as though they were drawn on the mortar lines between the stones of the wall, and the names listed by them. “Jonathan Wolverton Randall,” I said softly, reading it from the stones. “Born, September the 3rd, 1705. Died-” He made a convulsive movement toward me, but not fast enough to prevent me from speaking.

A narrow door at the back of the alcove crashed open with a squeal of hinges. Expecting further darkness, my eyes were dazzled by a blinding flash of light on snow. A quick shove from behind sent me staggering headlong into the drifts, and the door slammed to behind me.

I was lying in a ditch of sorts, behind the prison. The drifts around me covered heaps of something – the prison’s refuse, most likely. There was something hard beneath the drift I had fallen into; wood, perhaps. Looking up at the sheering wall above me, I could see streaks and runnels down the stone, marking the path of garbage tipped from a sliding door forty feet above. That must be the kitchen quarters.

I rolled over, bracing myself to rise, and found myself looking into a pair of wide blue eyes. The face was nearly as blue as the eyes, and hard as the log of wood I had mistaken him for. I stumbled to my feet, choking, and staggered back against the prison wall.

Head down, breathe deep, I told myself firmly. You are not going to faint, you have seen dead men before, lots of them, you are not going to faint – God, he has blue eyes like – you are not going to faint, damn it!

My breathing slowed at last, and with it my racing pulse. As the panic receded, I forced myself back to that pathetic figure, wiping my hands convulsively on my skirt. I don’t know whether it was pity, curiosity, or simple shock that made me look again. Seen without the suddenness of surprise, there was nothing frightening about the dead man; there never is. No matter how ugly the manner in which a man dies, it’s only the presence of a suffering human soul that is horrifying; once gone, what is left is only an object.

The blue-eyed stranger had been hanged. He was not the only inhabitant of the ditch. I didn’t bother to excavate the drift, but now that I knew what it contained, I could plainly see the outline of frozen limbs and the softly rounded heads under the snow. At least a dozen men lay here, waiting either for a thaw that would make their burial easier, or for a cruder disposal by the beasts of the nearby forest.

The thought startled me out of my pensive immobility. I had no time to waste in graveside meditation, or one more pair of blue eyes would stare sightless up into falling snow.

I had to find Murtagh and Rupert. That hidden postern door could be used, perhaps. Clearly it was not fortified or guarded like the main gates and other entrances to the prison. But I needed help, and I needed it quickly.

I glanced up at the rim of the ditch. The sun was quite low, burning through a haze of cloud just above the treetops. The air felt heavy with moisture. Likely it would snow again by nightfall; the haze was thick across the sky in the east. There was perhaps an hour of light left.

I began to follow the ditch, not wanting to climb the steep rocky sides until I had to. The ravine curved away from the prison quite soon, and looked as though it would lead down toward the river; presumably the runoff of melting snow carried the prison’s refuse away. I was nearly to the corner of the soaring wall when I heard a faint sound behind me. I whirled. The sound had been made by a rock falling from the lip of the ditch, dislodged by the foot of a large grey wolf.

As an alternative to the items under the snow, I had certain desirable characteristics, from a wolf’s point of view. On the one hand, I was mobile, harder to catch, and posed the possibility of resistance. On the other, I was slow, clumsy, and above all, not frozen stiff, thus offering no danger of broken teeth. I also smelled of fresh blood, temptingly warm in this frozen waste. Were I a wolf, I thought, I wouldn’t hesitate. The animal made up its mind at the same time I came to my own decision regarding our future relations.

There had been a Yank at Pembroke Hospital, name of Charlie Marshall. He was a pleasant chap, friendly as all the Yanks were, and most entertaining on his pet subject. His pet subject was dogs; Charlie was a sergeant in the K-9 Corps. He had been blown up, along with two of his dogs, by an antipersonnel mine outside a small village near Arles. He grieved for his dogs, and often told me stories about them when I would sit with him during the odd slack moments in my shift.

More to the immediate point, he had also once told me what to do, and not do, should I ever be attacked by a dog. I felt it was stretching a point to call the eerie creature picking its delicate way down the rocks a dog, but hoped that it might yet share a few basic character traits with its tame descendants.

“Bad dog,” I said firmly, staring it in one yellow eyeball. “In fact,” I said, backing very slowly toward the prison wall, “you are a perfectly horrible dog.” (Speak firmly and loudly, I heard Charlie saying.) “Probably the worst I’ve ever seen,” I said, firmly and loudly. I continued to back up, one hand feeling behind me for the stones of the wall, and once there, I sidled toward the corner, some ten yards away.

I pulled the ties at my throat and began to fumble at the brooch fastening my cloak, still telling the wolf firmly and loudly what I thought of him, his ancestors, and his immediate family. The beast seemed interested in the diatribe, tongue lolling in a doggy grin. He was in no hurry; he limped slightly, I could see, as he drew nearer, and was thin and mangy. Perhaps he had trouble hunting, and infirmity was what drew him to the prison midden to scavenge. I certainly hoped so; the more infirm, the better.

I found my leather gloves in the pocket of my cloak and put them on. Then I wrapped the heavy cloak several times around my right forearm, blessing the weight of the velvet. “They’ll go for the throat,” Charlie had instructed me, “unless their trainer tells them otherwise. Keep looking him in the eye; you’ll see it when he makes up his mind to jump. That’s your moment.”

I could see a number of things in that wicked yellow orb, including hunger, curiosity, and speculation, but not yet a decision to leap.

“You disgusting creature,” I told it, “don’t you dare leap at my throat!” I had other ideas. I had wrapped the cloak in several loose folds about my right arm, leaving the bulk of it dangling, but providing enough padding, I hoped, to keep the beast’s teeth from sinking through.

The wolf was thin, but not emaciated. I judged it to weigh perhaps eighty or ninety pounds; less than me, but not enough to give me any great advantage. The leverage was definitely in the animal’s favor; four legs against two gave better balance on the slippery crust of snow. I hoped bracing my back against the wall would help.

A certain feeling of emptiness at my back told me I had reached the corner. The wolf was some twenty feet away. This was it. I scraped enough snow from under my feet to give good footing and waited.

I didn’t even see the wolf leave the ground. I could swear I had been watching its eyes, but if the decision to leap had registered there, it had been followed by action too swiftly to note. It was instinct, not thought, that raised my arm as a whitish-grey blur hurtled toward me.

The teeth sank into the padding with a force that bruised my arm. It was heavier than I thought; I was unprepared for the weight, and my arm sagged. I had planned to try to throw the beast against the wall, perhaps stunning it. Instead, I heaved myself at the wall, squashing the wolf between the stone blocks and my hip. I struggled to wrap the loose cloak around it. Claws shredded my skirt and scraped my thigh. I drove a knee viciously into its chest, eliciting a strangled yelp. Only then did I realize that the odd, growling whimpers were coming from me and not the wolf.

Strangely enough, I was not at all frightened now, though I had been terrified watching the wolf stalk me. There was room in my mind for only one thought: I would kill this animal, or it would kill me. Therefore, I was going to kill it.

There comes a turning point in intense physical struggle where one abandons oneself to a profligate usage of strength and bodily resource, ignoring the costs until the struggle is over. Women find this point in childbirth; men in battle.

Past that certain point, you lose all fear of pain or injury. Life becomes very simple at that point; you will do what you are trying to do, or die in the attempt, and it does not really matter much which.

I had seen this sort of struggle during my training on the wards, but never had I experienced it before. Now all my concentration was focused on the jaws locked around my forearm and the writhing demon tearing at my body.

I managed to bang the beast’s head against the wall, but not hard enough to do much good. I was growing tired rapidly; had the wolf been in good condition, I would have had no chance. I hadn’t much now, but took what there was. I fell on the animal, pinning it under me and knocking the wind from it in a gust of carrion breath. It recovered almost immediately and began squirming beneath me, but the second’s relaxation enabled me to get it off my arm, one hand clamped under its wet muzzle.

By forcing my fingers back into the corners of its mouth, I managed to keep them out from between the scissoring carnassial teeth. Saliva drizzled down my arm. I was lying flat on top of the wolf. The corner of the prison wall was perhaps eighteen inches ahead of me. Somehow I must get there, without releasing the fury that heaved and squirmed under me.

Scrabbling with my feet, pressing down with all my might, I pushed myself forward inch by inch, constantly straining to keep the fangs from my throat. It cannot have taken more than a few minutes to move those eighteen inches, but it seemed I had lain there most of my life, locked in battle with this beast whose hind claws raked my legs, seeking a good ripping purchase in my belly.

At last I could see around the corner. The blunt angle of stone was directly in front of my face. Now was the tricky part. I must maneuver the wolf’s body to allow me to get both hands under the muzzle; I would never be able to exert the necessary force with one.

I rolled abruptly away, and the wolf slithered at once into the small clear space between my body and the wall. Before it could rise to its feet, I brought my knee up as hard as I could. The wolf grunted as my knee drove into its side, pinning it, however fleetingly, against the wall.

I had both hands beneath its jaw now. The fingers of one hand were actually in its mouth. I could feel a crushing sting across my gloved knuckles, but ignored it as I forced the hairy head back, and back, and back again, using the angle of the wall as a fulcrum for the lever of the beast’s body. I thought my arms would break, but this was the only chance.

There was no audible noise, but I felt the reverberation through the whole body as the neck snapped. The straining limbs – and the bladder – at once relaxed. The intolerable strain on my arms now released, I dropped, as limp as the dying wolf. I could feel the beast’s heart fibrillating beneath my cheek, the only part still capable of a death struggle. The stringy fur stank of ammonia and soggy hair. I wanted to move away, but could not.

I think I must have slept for a moment, odd as that sounds, cheek pillowed on the corpse. I opened my eyes to see the greenish stone of the prison a few inches in front of my nose. Only the thought of what was transpiring on the other side of that wall got me to my feet.

I stumbled down the ditch, cloak dragged over one shoulder, tripping on stones hidden in the snow, banging my shins painfully on half-buried tree branches. Subconsciously, I must have been aware that wolves usually run in packs, because I do not recall being surprised by the howl that wavered out of the forest above and behind me. If I felt anything, it was black rage at what seemed a conspiracy to thwart and delay me.

Wearily I turned to see where the sound had come from. I was in the open away from the prison by this time; no wall to brace my back against, and no weapon to hand. It had been luck as much as anything that helped me with the first wolf; there was not a chance in a thousand that I could kill another animal bare-handed – and how many more might there be? The pack I had seen feeding in the moonlight in the summer had had at least ten wolves. I could hear in memory the sounds of their teeth scraping, and the crack of breaking bones. The only question now was whether I bothered to fight at all, or whether I would rather just lie down in the snow and give up. That option seemed remarkably attractive, all things considered.

Still, Jamie had given up his life, and considerably more than that, to get me out of the prison. I owed it to him at least to try.

Once more I backed slowly away, moving farther down the ditch. The light was fading; soon the ravine would be filled with shadow. I doubted that that would help me. The wolves undoubtedly had better night-sight than I did.

The first of the hunters appeared on the rim of the ditch as the other had; a shaggy figure, standing motionless and alert. It was with something of a shock that I realized two more were already in the ravine with me, trotting slowly, almost in step with each other. They were almost the same color as the snow in the twilight – dirty grey – and almost invisible, though they moved with no attempt at concealment.

I stopped moving. Flight was clearly useless. Bending, I freed a dead pine branch from the snow. The bark was black with the wet, and rough even through my gloves. I waved the branch around my head and shouted. The animals stopped moving toward me, but did not retreat. The closest one flattened its ears, as though objecting to the noise.

“Don’t like it?” I screeched. “Too bloody bad! Back off, you fucking sod!” Scooping up a half-buried rock, I hurled it at the wolf. It missed, but the beast scooted to one side. Encouraged, I began to fling missiles wildly; rocks, twigs, handfuls of snow, anything I could grab one-handed. I shrieked until my throat was raw with cold air, howling like the wolves themselves.

At first I thought one of my missiles had scored a hit. The nearest wolf yelped and seemed to convulse. The second arrow passed within a foot of me and I caught the tiny blur of motion before it thudded home in the chest of the second wolf. That animal died where it stood. The first, struck less vitally, kicked and struggled in the snow, no more than a heaving lump in the growing dusk.

I stood stupidly staring at it for some time, then looked up by instinct to the lip of the ravine. The third wolf, wisely choosing discretion, had vanished back into the trees, from whence a shivering howl went up.

I was still looking up at the dark trees when a hand clutched my elbow. I whirled with a gasp to find myself looking up into the face of a stranger. Narrow-jawed and with a weak chin ill-disguised by a scabby beard, he was a stranger indeed, but his plaid and his dirk marked him a Scot.

“Help,” I said, and fell forward into his arms.

Chapter 36. MACRANNOCH

It was dark in the cottage and there was a bear in the corner of the room. In panic, I recoiled against my escort, wanting nothing more to do with wild beasts. He shoved me strongly forward, into the cottage. As I staggered toward the fire, the hulking shape turned toward me, and I realized belatedly that it was merely a large man in a bearskin.

A bearskin cloak, to be exact, fastened at the neck with a silver-gilt brooch as large as the palm of my hand. It was made in the shape of two leaping stags, backs arched and heads meeting to form a circle. The locking pin was a short, tapered fan, the head of it shaped like the tail of a fleeing deer.

I noticed the brooch in detail because it was directly in front of my nose. Looking up, I briefly considered the possibility that I had been wrong; perhaps it really was a bear.

Still, bears presumably did not wear brooches or have eyes like blueberries; small, round, and a dark, shiny blue. They were sunk in heavy cheeks whose lower slopes were forested with silver-shot black hair. Similar hair cascaded over thickset shoulders to mingle with the hair of the cloak, which, in spite of its new use, was still pungently redolent of its former owner.

The shrewd little eyes flickered over me, evaluating both the bedraggled state of my attire, and the good basic quality of it, including the two wedding rings, gold and silver. The bear’s address was formulated accordingly.

“You seem to have had some difficulty, Mistress,” he said formally, inclining a massive head still spangled with melting snow. “Perhaps we might assist ye?”

I hesitated over what to say. I desperately needed this man’s help, yet I would be suspect immediately my speech revealed me to be English. The archer who had brought me here forestalled me.

“Found her near Wentworth,” he said laconically. “Fightin’ wolves. An English lassie,” he added, with an emphasis that made my host’s blueberry eyes fix on me with a rather unpleasant speculation in their depths. I pulled myself up to my full height and summoned as much of the Matron attitude as I could.

“English by birth, Scots by marriage,” I said firmly. “My name is Claire Fraser. My husband is a prisoner in Wentworth.”

“I see,” said the bear, slowly. “Weel, my own name is MacRannoch, and ye’re presently on my land. I can see by your dress as you’re a woman of some family; how come ye to be alone in Eldridge Wood on a winter night?”

I caught at the opening; here was some chance to establish my bona fides, as well as to find Murtagh and Rupert.

“I came to Wentworth with some clansmen of my husband’s. As I was English, we thought I could gain entrance to the prison, and perhaps find some way of, er, removing him. However, I – I left the prison by another way. I was looking for my friends when I was set upon by wolves – from which this gentleman kindly rescued me.” I tried a grateful smile on the raw-boned archer, who received it in stony silence.

“Ye’ve certainly met something wi’ teeth,” MacRannoch agreed, eyeing the gaping rents in my skirt. Suspicion yielded temporarily to the demands of hospitality.

“Are ye hurt, then? Just a bit scratched? Weel, you’re cold, nae doubt, and a wee bit shaken, I imagine. Sit here by the fire. Hector will fetch ye a sup of something, and then ye can tell me a bit more about these friends of yours.” He pulled a rough three-legged stool up with one foot, and sat me firmly on it with a massive hand on my shoulder.

Peat fires give little light but are comfortingly hot. I shuddered involuntarily as the blood started to flow back into my frozen hands. A couple of gulps from the leather flask grudgingly provided by Hector started the blood flowing internally again as well.

I explained my situation as well as I could, which was not particularly well. My brief description of my exit from the prison and subsequent hand-to-hand encounter with the wolf was received with particular skepticism.

“Given that ye did manage to get into Wentworth, it doesna seem likely that Sir Fletcher would allow ye to wander about the place. Nor if this Captain Randall had found ye in the dungeons, he would merely ha’ shown ye the back door.”

“He – he had reasons for letting me go.”

“Which were?” The blueberry eyes were implacable.

I gave up and put the matter baldly; I was much too tired for delicacy or circumlocutions.

MacRannoch appeared semiconvinced, but still reluctant to take any action.

“Aye, I see your concern,” he argued, “still, that may not be so bad.”

“Not so bad!” I sprang to my feet in outrage.

He shook his head as though plagued by deerflies. “What I mean,” he explained, “is that if it’s the lad’s arse he’s after, he’s none so likely to hurt him badly. And, savin’ your presence, ma’am” – he cocked a bushy eyebrow in my direction – “bein’ buggered has seldom killed anyone.” He held up placating hands the size of soup plates.

“Now, I’m no sayin’ he’ll enjoy it, mind, but I do say it’s not worth a major set-to with Sir Fletcher Gordon, just to save the lad a sore arse. I’ve a precarious position here, ye know, verra precarious.” And he puffed out his cheeks and beetled his brows at me.

Not for the first time, I regretted the fact that there were no real witches. Had I been one, I would have turned him into a toad on the spot. A big fat one, with warts.

I choked down my rage and tried reason yet again.

“I rather think his arse is beyond saving by this time; it’s his neck I’m concerned with. The English mean to hang him in the morning.”

MacRannoch was muttering to himself, twisting back and forth like a bear in a too-small cage. He stopped abruptly in front of me and thrust his nose to within an inch of my own. I would have recoiled, had I not been so exhausted. As it was, I merely blinked.

“And if I said I’d help ye, what good would that do?” he roared. He resumed his turning and pacing, two steps to one wall, hurling around in a fling of fur, and two steps to the other. He spoke as he paced, words keeping time to the steps, pausing to puff as he turned.

“If I were to go to Sir Fletcher myself, what would I say? Ye’ve a captain on your staff who’s engaged in torturin’ the prisoners in his spare time? And when he asks how I know that, I tell him a stray Sassenach wench my men found wanderin’ in the dark told me this man’s been makin’ indecent advances to her husband, who’s an outlaw wi’ a price on his head, and a condemned murderer, to boot?”

MacRannoch stopped and thumped one paw on the flimsy table. “And as for takin’ men into the place! If, and mind ye, I say if we could get in-”

“You could get in,” I interrupted. “I can show you the way.”

“Mmmphm. That’s as may be. If we could get in, what happens when Sir Fletcher finds my men wanderin’ about his fortress? He sends Captain Randall round next mornin’ with a brace of cannon and levels Eldridge Hall to the ground, that’s what!” He shook his head again, making the black locks fly.

“Nay, lass, I canna see-”

He was interrupted by the sudden flinging open of the cottage door to admit another bowman, this one pushing Murtagh in front of him at knife-point. MacRannoch stopped and stared in amazement.

“What is this?” he demanded. “Ye’d think ’twas May Day, and the lads and lassies all out gatherin’ flowers in the wood, not the dead o’ winter and snow comin’ on!”

“This is my husband’s clansman,” I said. “As I told you-”

Murtagh, undisturbed by the less than cordial greeting, was eyeing the bear-clad figure closely, as though mentally stripping hair and years away.

“MacRannoch, is it no?” he said, in a tone almost accusing. “Ye’ll have been at a Gathering, I think, some time ago at Castle Leoch?”

MacRannoch was more than startled. “Some time ago, I should say! Why, that must ha’ been near on thirty year ago. How d’ye know that, man?”

Murtagh nodded, satisfied. “Och, I thought so. I was there. And I remember that Gathering, likely for the same reason ye do yourself.”

MacRannoch was studying the wizened little man, trying to subtract thirty years from the seamed countenance.

“Aye, I know ye,” he said at last. “Or not the name, but you. Ye killed a wounded boar single-handed with a dagger, during the tynchal. A gallant beast too. That’s right, the MacKenzie gave ye the tushes – a bonny set, almost a complete double curve. Lovely work that, man.” A look perilously close to gratification creased Murtagh’s pitted cheek momentarily.

I started, remembering the magnificent, barbaric bracelets I had seen at Lallybroch. My mother’s, Jenny had said, given to her by an admirer. I stared at Murtagh in disbelief. Even allowing for the passage of thirty years, he did not seem a likely candidate for the tender passion.

Thinking of Ellen MacKenzie, I remembered her pearls, which I was still carrying, sewn into the seam of my pocket. I groped for the free end, pulling them out into the firelight.

“I can pay you,” I said. “I wouldn’t expect your men to risk themselves for nothing.”

Moving a good deal faster than I would have thought possible, he snatched the pearls from my hand. He stared at them disbelievingly.

“Where did ye get these, woman?” he demanded. “Fraser, did ye say your name is?”

“Yes.” Tired as I was, I drew myself up straight. “And the pearls are mine. My husband gave them to me on our wedding day.”

“Did he, then?” The hoarse voice was suddenly hushed. He turned to Murtagh, still holding the pearls.

“Ellen’s son? Is this lass’s husband Ellen’s son?”

“Aye,” Murtagh said, unemphatic as ever. “As ye’d ken at once if ye saw him; he’s the spit of her.”

Mindful at last of the pearls he was clutching, MacRannoch unfolded his hand and gently stroked the shining gems.

“I gave these to Ellen MacKenzie,” he said. “For a wedding gift. I would ha’ given them to her as my wife, but as she’d chosen elsewhere – well, I’d thought of them so often, around her bonny throat, I told her I couldna see them elsewhere. So I bade her keep them, and only think of me when she wore them. Hm!” He snorted briefly at some memory, then handed the pearls carefully back to me.

“So they’re yours now. Well, wear them in good health, lassie.”

“I’ll stand a much better chance of doing so,” I said, trying to control my impatience at these sentimental displays, “if you’ll help me to get my husband back.”

The small rosy mouth, which had been smiling slightly at its owner’s thought, tightened suddenly.

“Ah,” said Sir Marcus, pulling at his beard. “I see. But I’ve told ye, lassie, I canna see how it can be done. I’ve a wife and three weans at home. Aye, I’d do a bit for Ellen’s lad. But it’s a bit much ye’re askin’.”

Suddenly my legs gave way altogether, and I sat down with a thump, letting my shoulders sag and my head droop. Despair dragged at me like an anchor, pulling me down. I closed my eyes and retreated to some dim place within, where there was nothing but an aching grey blankness, and where the sound of Murtagh’s voice, still arguing, was no more than a faint yapping.

It was the bawling of cattle that roused me from my stupor. I looked up to see MacRannoch swirl out of the cottage. As he opened the door, a blast of winter air came in, thick with the lowing of cattle and yelling of men. The door thumped shut behind the vast hairy figure, and I turned to ask Murtagh what he thought we should do next.

The look on his face stopped me, wordless. I had seldom seen him with anything more than a sort of patient dourness showing on his features, but now he positively glowed with suppressed excitement.

I caught at his arm. “What is it? Tell me quickly!”

He had time only to say, “The kine! They’re MacRannoch’s!” before MacRannoch himself plunged back into the cottage, pushing a lanky young man before him.

With a last shove, he brought the young man flat up against the plastered wall of the cottage. Apparently MacRannoch found confrontation effective; he tried the same nose-to-nose technique he had used on me earlier. Less poised, or less tired, than I, the young man hunched nervously back against the wall as far as he could go.

MacRannoch started out being sweetly reasonable. “Absalom, man, I sent ye out three hours ago to bring in forty head of cattle. I told ye it was important to find them, because there’s about to be a damn awfu’ snowstorm.” The nicely modulated voice was rising. “And when I heard the sound of kine bellowin’ outside, I said to meself, Ah, Marcus, there’s Absalom gone and found all the cattle, what a good lad, now we can all go home and thaw ourselves by the fire, with the kine safe in their barns.”

One ham-fist had fastened itself onto Absalom’s jacket. The material, gathered between those stubby fingers, began to twist.

“And then I go out to congratulate you on a good job done, and begin to count the beasts. And how many do I count, Absalom, me bonny wee lad?” The voice had risen to a full-powered roar. While not possessed of a particularly deep voice, Marcus MacRannoch had enough lung-power for three ordinary-sized men.

“Fifteen!” he shouted, jerking the unfortunate Absalom to his tiptoes. “Fifteen beasts he finds, out of forty! And where are the rest o’ them? Where? Out loose in the snow, to freeze to death!”

Murtagh had faded quietly back into the shadows in the corner while all this was going on. I was watching his face, though, and saw the sudden gleam of amusement in his eyes at these words. Suddenly I realized what he had started to tell me, and I knew where Rupert was now. Or, if not precisely where he was, at least what he was doing. And I began to hope a little.

It was full dark. The prison’s lights below shone weakly through the snow like the lamps of a drowned ship. Waiting under the trees with my two companions, I mentally reviewed for the thousandth time everything that could go wrong.

Would MacRannoch carry out his part of the bargain? He’d have to, if he expected to get his prized purebred Highland cattle back. Would Sir Fletcher believe MacRannoch and order a search of the basement dungeons at once? Likely – the baronet wasn’t a man to be taken lightly.

I had seen the cattle disappear, one shaggy beast at a time, down the ditch that led to the hidden postern door, under the expert driving of Rupert and his men. But would they be able to force the cattle through that door, singly or not? And if so, what would they do once inside; half-wild cattle, trapped suddenly in a stone corridor lit with glaring torchlight? Well, perhaps it would work. The corridor itself would be not unlike their stone-floored barn, including torches and the scent of humans. If they got so far, the plan might succeed. Randall himself was unlikely to call for help in the face of the invasion, for fear of having his own little games uncovered.

The handlers were to get away from the prison as fast as possible, once the beasts were well and truly launched on their chaotic path, and then to ride hell-for-leather for the MacKenzie lands. Randall didn’t matter; what could he do alone, in the circumstances? But what if the noise attracted the rest of the prison garrison too soon? If Dougal had been reluctant to try to break his nephew out of Wentworth, I could imagine his choler if several MacKenzies were arrested for breaking into the place. I didn’t want to be responsible for that, either, though Rupert had been more than willing to take the risk. I bit my thumb and tried to comfort myself, thinking of the tons of solid, sound-muffling granite that separated the dungeons from the prison quarters above.

Most worrying of all, of course, was the fear that everything might work, and might be still too late. Waiting hangsman or no, Randall might go too far. I knew too well, from stories told by returning soldiers from POW camps, that nothing is easier than for a prisoner to die by “accident,” and the body be conveniently disposed of before embarrassing official questions can be asked. Even if questions were asked, and Randall found out, it would be small comfort to me – and to Jamie.

I had been resolutely keeping myself from imagining the possible uses of the homely objects on the table of that room. But I could not keep from seeing over and over the bone-ends of that shattered finger pressing into the table. I rubbed my own knuckles hard against the saddle leather, trying to erase the image. I felt a slight burning, and pulled off the glove to examine the grazes left across my hand by the wolf’s teeth. Not bad, no more than a few scratches, with one small puncture where a cusp had penetrated the leather. I licked the wound absently. It was little use telling myself that I had done my best. I had done the only possible thing, but knowing it didn’t make the waiting easier.

At last, we heard a faint, confused shouting from the direction of the prison. One of the MacRannoch men put a hand on the bridle of my horse and motioned toward the shelter of the trees. The snow was much lighter on the ground and the flurries diminished under the interlaced branches of the grove, thin lines of snow stark and sudden on the rocky leaf-strewn ground. While the snow fell less thickly in here, visibility was still so poor that tree trunks a few feet away loomed surprisingly as I walked my horse restlessly around the small clearing, trunks springing up black in the pinkish light.

Muffled by the heavy snow, the approaching hoofbeats were almost upon us before we heard them. The two MacRannoch men drew their pistols and reined their horses up close to the trees, waiting, but I had picked up the dull lowing of cattle, and spurred my horse forward out of the grove.

Sir Marcus MacRannoch, distinguishable by his piebald mount and his bearskin cloak, was leading the way up the slope, snow spurting in small explosions from under the hooves of his horse. He was followed by several men, all in high good humor, from the sound of it. More of his men rode further back, chivvying the milling herd of cattle from behind, driving the band of bewildered beasts around the base of the hill, toward their well-earned shelter in the MacRannoch barns.

MacRannoch reined up beside me, laughing heartily. “I’ve to thank ye, Mistress Fraser,” he shouted through the snow, “for a most entertaining evening.” His earlier suspicion had vanished, and he greeted me with the utmost geniality. His eyebrows and mustache coated with snow, he looked like Father Christmas on a spree. Taking my bridle, he led my horse back into the quieter air of the grove. He waved my two companions down the hill to help with the cattle, then dismounted and swung me down from my saddle, still laughing to himself.

“Ye should ha’ seen it!” he chortled, hugging himself in ecstasy. “Sir Fletcher went red as a robin’s breast when I pushed in in the midst of his dinner, shouting that he was concealing stolen property on his premises. And then when we got below-stairs and he heard the beasts bellowin’ like thunder, I thought he’d dirtied his breeches. He-” I shook his arm impatiently.

“Never mind Sir Fletcher’s breeches. Did you find my husband?”

MacRannoch sobered a bit, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Oh, aye. We found him.”

“Is he all right?” I spoke calmly, though I wanted to scream.

MacRannoch nodded toward the trees behind me, and I whirled to see a rider making his way carefully through the branches, a bulky cloth-covered shape draped across the saddlebow in front of him. I dashed forward, followed by MacRannoch, explaining helpfully.

“He’s no deid, or at least he wasn’t when we found him. Been mistreated a good bit, though, poor laddie.” I had pushed aside the cloth over Jamie’s head, and was anxiously examining him as best I could, with the horse fidgeting from the excitement of the cold ride and the extra burden. I could see dark bruises and feel stiff patches of blood in the rumpled hair, but could tell little more in the dim light. I thought I could feel a pulse in the icy neck, but wasn’t sure.

MacRannoch caught my elbow and pulled me away. “We’ll do best to get him inside quick, lass. Come with me. Hector will bring him along to the house.”

In the main drawing room of Eldridge Manor, MacRannoch’s home, Hector humped his burden onto the rug before the fire. Seizing one corner of the blanket, he unrolled it carefully, and a limp, naked figure flopped out onto the pink and yellow flowers of Lady Annabelle MacRannoch’s pride and joy.

To do the Lady Annabelle credit, she didn’t seem to notice the blood soaking into her expensive Aubusson rug. A birdlike woman in her early forties, arrayed like a goldfinch in a sunburst of yellow silk dressing gown, she had servants bustling in all directions with a brisk clap of her hands, and blankets, linen, hot water, and whisky appeared at my elbow almost before I had got my cloak off.

“Best turn him on his belly,” advised Sir Marcus, pouring out two large whiskies. “He’s had his back flayed, and it must feel fierce to lie on it. Not that he looks like he feels anything, much,” he added, peering closely at Jamie’s ashen face and sealed, bluish eyelids. “You’re sure he’s still alive?”

“Yes,” I answered shortly, hoping I was right. I struggled to pull Jamie over. Unconsciousness seemed to have tripled his weight. MacRannoch lent a hand, and we got him positioned on a blanket, back to the fire.

A rapid triage having established that he was in fact alive, missing no body parts, and not in immediate danger of bleeding to death, I could afford to make a less hurried inventory of the damage.

“I can send for a physician,” said Lady Annabelle, looking dubiously at the corpselike figure on her hearth, “but I doubt he can get here under an hour; it’s snowing something fierce out.” The reluctance in her tone was only partly on account of the snow, I thought. A physician would make one more dangerous witness to the presence of an escaped criminal in her home.

“Don’t bother,” I said absently, “I am a physician.” Disregarding the looks of surprise from both MacRannochs, I knelt beside what was left of my husband, covered him with blankets and began to apply cloths soaked in hot water to the outlying parts. My chief concern was to get him warm; the blood from his back was a slow ooze, which could be dealt with later.

Lady Annabelle faded into the distance, her high goldfinch’s voice summoning, beckoning, and arranging. Her spouse sank down on his haunches beside me, and began to rub Jamie’s frozen feet in a businesslike way between large blunt-fingered hands, pausing occasionally to sip his whisky.

Turning back the blankets in bits, I surveyed the damage. He had been finely striped from nape to knees with something like a coachwhip, the weals crisscrossing neatly like hemstitching. The sheer orderliness of the damage, speaking as it did of a deliberation that reveled in each punishing stroke, made me feel sick with rage.

Something heavier, perhaps a cane, had been used with less restraint across his shoulders, cutting so deeply in spots that a gleam of bone showed over one shoulderblade. I pressed a thick pad of lint gently over the worst of the mess and went on with the examination.

The spot on his left side where the mallet had struck was an ugly contused swelling, a black and purple patch bigger than Sir Marcus’s hand. Broken ribs there for sure, but those too could wait. My attention was caught by the livid patches on neck and breast, where the skin was puckered, reddened and blistered. The edges of one such patch were charred, rimmed with white ash.

“What in hell did that?” Sir Marcus had completed his ministrations and was looking over my shoulder with deep interest.

“A hot poker.” The voice was weak and indistinct; it was a moment before I realized that it was Jamie who had spoken. He raised his head with an effort, showing the reason for his difficult speech; the lower lip was badly bitten on one side and puffed like a beesting.

With considerable presence of mind, Sir Marcus put a hand behind Jamie’s neck and pressed the beaker of whisky to his lips. Jamie winced as the spirit stung his torn mouth, but drained the beaker before laying his head down again. His eyes slanted up at me, slightly filmed with pain and whisky, but alight with amusement nonetheless. “Cows?” he asked, “Was it really cows, or was I dreaming?”

“Well, it was all I could manage in the time,” I said, beaming in my relief at seeing him alive and conscious. I placed a hand on his head, turning it to inspect a large bruise over the cheekbone. “You look bloody awful. How do you feel?” I asked, from force of long-held habit.

“Alive.” He struggled up onto one elbow to accept with a nod a second beaker of whisky from Sir Marcus.

“Do you think you should drink so much all at once?” I asked, trying to examine his pupils for signs of concussion. He foiled me by closing his eyes and tilting his head back.

“Yes,” he said, handing back the empty beaker to Sir Marcus, who bore it back in the direction of the decanter.

“Now, that’ll be enough for the present, Marcus.” Lady Annabelle, reappearing like the sun in the east, stopped her husband with a commanding chirp. “The lad needs hot strong tea, not more whisky.” The tea followed her processionally in a silver pot, borne by a maidservant whose air of natural superiority was unimpaired by the fact that she was still attired in her nightdress.

“Hot strong tea with plenty of sugar in it,” I amended.

“And perhaps a wee tot of whisky as well,” said Sir Marcus, neatly removing the lid of the teapot as it passed and adding a generous dollop from his decanter. Accepting the steaming cup gratefully, Jamie raised it in mute tribute to Sir Marcus before cautiously bringing the hot liquid to his mouth. His hand shook badly, and I wrapped my own around his fingers to guide the cup.

More servants were bringing in a portable camp bed, a mattress, more blankets, more bandages and hot water, and a large wooden chest containing the household’s medical supplies.

“I thought we had best work here before the fire,” Lady Annabelle explained in her charming bird-voice. “There’s more light, and it’s far the warmest place in the house.”

At her direction, two of the larger menservants each seized an end of the blanket under Jamie and transferred it smoothly, contents and all, to the camp bed, now set up before the fire, where another servant was industriously poking the night-banked coals and feeding the growing blaze. The maid who had brought in the tea was efficiently lighting the wax tapers in the branched candelabra on the sideboard. Despite her songbird appearance, the Lady Annabelle plainly had the soul of a master-sergeant.

“Yes, now that he’s awake, the sooner the better,” I said. “Have you a flat board about two feet long,” I asked, “a stout strap, and perhaps some small straight flat sticks, about so long?” I held my fingers apart, measuring a length of four inches or so. One of the servants disappeared into the shadows, flicking out of sight like a djinn to do my bidding.

The whole house seemed magical, perhaps because of the contrast between the howling cold outside and the luxurious warmth within, or maybe only because of the relief of seeing Jamie safe, after so many hours of fear and worry.

Heavy dark furniture gleamed with polish in the lamplight, silver shone on the sideboard, and a collection of delicate glass and china ornamented the mantelpiece, in bizarre contrast to the bloody, bedraggled figure before it.

No questions were asked. We were Sir Marcus’s guests, and Lady Annabelle behaved as though it were an everyday occurrence to have people come and bleed on the carpet at midnight. It occurred to me for the first time that such a visit might have happened before.

“Verra nasty,” said Sir Marcus, examining the smashed hand with an expertise born of the battlefield. “And wretched painful, too, I expect. Still, it’s no going to kill ye, is it?” He straightened up and addressed me in confidential tones.

“I thought it might be worse than this, given what ye told me. Except the ribs and hand, there’s no bones broken, and the rest will heal fine. I’d say maybe ye were lucky, lad.”

There was a faint snort from the recumbent figure on the bed.

“I suppose ye could call it luck. They meant to be hanging me in the morning.” He moved his head restlessly on the pillow, trying to look up at Sir Marcus. “Did ye know that… sir?” he added, catching sight of Sir Marcus’s embroidered waistcoat, with its coat of arms worked in silver stitchery among the pigeons and roses.

MacRannoch waved a hand, dismissing this minor detail.

“Weel, if he meant to be keepin’ ye presentable for the hangsman, he went a bit far on your back, then,” Sir Marcus remarked, removing the soaked lint and replacing it with a fresh pad.

“Aye. He lost his head a bit when… when he…” Jamie struggled to get the words out, then gave it up as a bad job and turned his face to the fire, eyes closed. “God, I’m tired,” he said.

We let him rest until the manservant materialized by my elbow with the splints I had requested. Then I carefully picked up the smashed right hand, bringing it into the candlelight for examination.

It would have to be set, and as soon as possible. The injured muscles were already clawing the fingers inward. I felt hopeless as I saw the full extent of the damage. But if he was ever to have any use of the hand again, it would have to be attempted.

Lady Annabelle had hung back during my examination, watching interestedly. When I set the hand down, she stepped forward and opened the small chest of medical supplies.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting the boneset, and perhaps the cherry bark. I don’t know…” She eyed Jamie doubtfully. “Leeches, do you think?” Her well-kept hand hovered over a small lidded jar filled with murky liquid.

I shuddered and shook my head. “No, I don’t think so; not just now. What I could really use… do you by chance have any sort of opiate?” I sank to my knees beside her to pore over the contents of the box.

“Oh, yes!” Her hand went unerringly to a small green flask. “Flowers of laudanum,” she read from the label. “Will that do?”

“Perfect.” I accepted the flask gratefully.

“All right, then,” I said briskly to Jamie, pouring a small amount of the odorous liquid into a glass, “you’ll need to sit up just long enough to swallow this. Then you’ll go to sleep and stay that way for a good long time.” In fact, I had some doubts as to the advisability of administering laudanum on top of such a quantity of whisky, but the alternative – reconstructing that hand while he was conscious – was unthinkable. I tipped the bottle to pour a bit more.

Jamie’s good hand on my arm stopped me.

“I don’t want drugs,” he said firmly. “Just perhaps a wee drop more of whisky” – he hesitated, tongue touching the bitten lip – “and maybe something to bite down on.”

Sir Marcus, hearing this, crossed to the lovely glowing Sheraton desk in the corner and began to rummage. He returned in a moment with a small piece of well-worn leather. Looking more closely, I could see the dozens of overlapping semicircular indentations in the thick leather – toothmarks, I realized with a shock.

“Here,” Sir Marcus said helpfully. “I used this myself at St. Simone; got me through it while I had a musket ball dug out of my leg.”

I looked on, open-mouthed, as Jamie took the leather with a nod of thanks, smoothing his thumb over the marks. I spoke slowly, stunned. “You actually expect me to set nine broken bones while you’re awake?”

“Yes,” he said briefly, placing the leather between his teeth and biting down experimentally. He shifted it back and forth, seeking a comfortable grip.

Overcome by the sheer theatricality of it, the precarious control I had been hoarding suddenly snapped.

“Will you stop being such a goddamned frigging hero!” I blazed at Jamie. “We all know what you’ve done, you don’t have to prove how much you can stand! Or do you think we’ll all fall apart if you’re not in charge, telling everyone what to do every minute? Who in bloody hell do you think you are, frigging John Wayne!?”

There was an awkward silence. Jamie looked at me, openmouthed. Finally he spoke.

“Claire,” he said softly, “we’re perhaps two miles from Wentworth prison. I’m meant to hang in the morning. No matter what’s happened to Randall, the English are going to notice I’m gone soon.”

I bit my lip. What he said was true. My inadvertent release of the other prisoners might confuse the issue for a time, but eventually a tally would be made, and a search begun. And thanks to the flamboyant method of escape I had chosen, attention was bound to be focused on Eldridge Manor in short order.

“If we’re lucky,” the quiet voice continued, “the snow will delay a search ’til we’ve gone. If not…” He shrugged, staring into the flames. “Claire, I’ll not let them take me back. And to be drugged, to lie here helpless if they come, and maybe wake up chained in a cell again… Claire, I couldna bear it.”

There were tears blurring on my lower lashes. I stared wide-eyed at him, not wanting to blink and let them run down my cheeks.

He closed his eyes against the fire’s heat. The glow lent a spurious look of ruddy health to the white cheeks. I could see the long muscles in his throat work as he swallowed.

“Don’t cry, Sassenach,” he said, so softly I could hardly hear him. He reached out and patted my leg with his good hand, trying to be reassuring. “I imagine we’re safe enough, lass. If I thought likely we’d be captured, I’d certainly no waste one of my last hours having you mend a hand I’d not be going to need. Go and fetch Murtagh for me. Then bring me a drink and we’ll get on wi’ it.”

Busy at the table with the medical preparations, I couldn’t hear what he said to Murtagh, but I saw the two heads close together for a moment, then Murtagh’s sinewy hand gently touch the younger man’s ear – one of the few uninjured spots available.

With a brief nod of farewell, Murtagh sidled toward the door. Like a rat, I thought, darting along the wainscoting, not to be noticed. I was behind him as he went out into the hall, and grabbed him by the plaid just before he escaped altogether through the front door.

“What did he tell you?” I demanded fiercely. “Where are you going?”

The dark stringy little man hesitated for a moment, but answered evenly, “I’m to go wi’ young Absalom toward Wentworth and keep watch in that direction. If any Redcoats are headin’ this way, I’m to beat them here, and if there’s time, I’m to see you and him both hidden, then ride off with three horses, to draw followers away from the Manor. There’s a cellar; it might do for hiding, if the search isna too thorough.”

“And if there isn’t time to hide?” I eyed him narrowly, daring him not to answer.

“Then I’m to kill him, and take you wi’ me,” he answered promptly. “Willing or no,” he added, with an evil grin, and turned to go.

“Just a minute!” I spoke sharply and he stopped. “Do you have an extra dirk?”

His scruffy brows shot upward, but his hand went to his belt without hesitation.

“Do ye need one? Here?” His glance took in the opulence and serenity of the entrance hall, with its painted Adam ceiling and linenfold paneling.

My dagger-pocket was shredded beyond use. I took the proffered dagger, and slid it between kirtle and bodice in the back, as I had seen the Gypsy women do.

“One never knows, does one?” I said evenly.

Preparations complete, I probed as gently as possible, assessing harm, deciding what must be done. Jamie drew in his breath sharply when I touched an especially bad spot, but kept his eyes closed as I felt my way slowly along each separate bone and joint, noting the position of each fracture and dislocation. “Sorry,” I murmured.

I took his good hand as well, and felt carefully down each finger of both the good hand and the injured, making comparisons. With neither X rays nor experience to guide me, I would have to depend on my own sensitivity to find and realign the smashed bones.

The first joint was all right, but the second phalange was cracked, I thought. I pressed harder to determine the length and direction of the crack. The damaged hand stayed motionless in my fingers, but the good one made a small, involuntary clenching gesture.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured once more.

The good hand pulled suddenly out of my grasp as Jamie raised himself on one elbow. Spitting out the leather gag, he regarded me with an expression between amusement and exasperation.

“Sassenach,” he said, “if you apologize each time ye hurt me, it’s going to be a verra long night – and it’s lasted some time already.”

I must have looked stricken, because he started to reach toward me, then stopped, wincing at the movement. He controlled the pain, though, and spoke firmly. “I know you dinna wish to hurt me. But you’ve no more choice about it than I have, and there’s no need for more than one of us to suffer for it. You do what’s needed, and I’ll scream if I have to.”

Replacing the leather strip, he bared his clenched teeth ferociously at me, then slowly and deliberately crossed his eyes. This made him look so like an addlepated tiger that I burst into half-hysterical laughter before I could stop myself.

I clapped my hands over my mouth, cheeks flaming as I saw the astonished looks on the faces of Lady Annabelle and the servants, who, standing behind Jamie, naturally could see nothing of his face. Sir Marcus, who had caught a brief glimpse from his seat at the bedside, grinned in his spade-shaped beard.

“Besides,” said Jamie, spitting out the leather once more, “if the English turn up after this, I expect I’ll beg them to take me back.”

I picked up the leather, put it between his teeth and pushed his head down again.

“Clown,” I said. “Know-all. Sodding hero.” But he had relieved me of a burden, and I worked more calmly. If I still noticed every twitch and grimace, at least I no longer felt it as badly.

I began to lose myself in the concentration of the job, directing all my awareness to my fingertips, assessing each point of damage and deciding how best to draw the smashed bones back into alignment. Luckily the thumb had suffered least; only a simple fracture of the first joint. That would heal clean. The second knuckle on the fourth finger was completely gone; I felt only a pulpy grating of bone chips when I rolled it gently between my own thumb and forefinger, making Jamie groan. Nothing could be done about that, save splint the joint and hope for the best.

The compound fracture of the middle finger was the worst to contemplate. The finger would have to be pulled straight, drawing the protruding bone back through the torn flesh. I had seen this done before – under general anesthesia, with the guidance of X rays.

To this point, it had been more a mechanical problem than a real one, deciding how to reconstruct a smashed, disembodied hand. I was now smack up against the reason that physicians seldom treat members of their own families. Some jobs in medicine require a certain ruthlessness to complete successfully; detachment is necessary to inflict pain in the process of effecting a healing.

Quietly, Sir Marcus had brought up a stool by the side of the bed. He settled his bulk comfortably as I finished the strapping, and gripped Jamie’s good hand with his own.

“Squeeze all ye like, lad,” he said.

Divested of the bearskin, and with his grizzled locks neatly clubbed and laced back, MacRannoch was no longer the intimidating wildman of the forest, but appeared as a soberly clad man of late middle age, with a neatly trimmed spade-beard and a military bearing. Nervous at what I was about to attempt, I found his solid presence comforting.

I drew a deep breath and prayed for detachment.

It was a long, horrible, nerve-wracking job, though not without its fascination. Some parts, such as the splinting of the two fingers with simple fractures, went quite easily. Others did not. Jamie did scream – loudly – when I set his middle finger, exerting the considerable force necessary to draw the ends of splintered bone back through the skin. I hesitated for an instant, unnerved, but “Go on, lass!” Sir Marcus said with quiet urgency.

I remembered suddenly what Jamie had said to me, the night Jenny’s baby was born: I can bear pain, myself, but I could not bear yours. That would take more strength than I have. He was right; it did take strength; I hoped that each of us had enough.

Jamie’s face was turned away from me, but I could see the jaw muscles bunch as he clenched his teeth harder on the leather strip. I clenched my own teeth and did go on; the sharp bone end slowly disappeared back through the skin and the finger straightened with agonizing reluctance, leaving us both trembling.

As I worked, I began to lose consciousness of anything outside the job I was doing. Jamie groaned occasionally, and we had to stop twice briefly in order for him to be sick, retching up mostly whisky, as he had taken little food in prison. For the most part, though, he kept up a low, constant muttering in Gaelic, forehead pressed hard against Sir Marcus’s knees. I couldn’t tell through the leather gag whether he was cursing or praying.

All five fingers eventually lay straight as new pins, stiff as sticks in their bandaged splints. I was afraid of infection, particularly from the torn middle finger, but otherwise was fairly sure they would heal well. By good luck, only the one joint had been badly damaged. It would likely leave him with a stiff ring finger, but the others might function normally – in time. There was nothing I could do about the cracked metacarpal bones or the puncture wound except apply an antiseptic wash and a poultice and pray against a tetanus infection. I stepped back, shaking in every limb from the strain of the night, my bodice soaked with sweat from the fire’s heat at my back.

Lady Annabelle was at my side at once, guiding me to a chair and pressing a cup of tea, laced with whisky, into my shaking hands. Sir Marcus, as good an operating-room assistant as any physician could have, was unfastening Jamie’s captive arm and rubbing the marks where the strap had bitten deep into straining flesh. The older man’s hand was red, I saw, where Jamie had gripped it.

I was not aware of having nodded off, but suddenly jerked, my head snapping on my neck. Lady Annabelle was urging me upward, soft hand under my elbow. “Come along, my dear. You’re all in; you must have your own hurts seen to, and sleep a bit.”

I shook her off as politely as possible. “No, I can’t. I must finish…” My words trailed off into the fuzziness of my mind, as Sir Marcus smoothly took the vinegar bottle and rag from my hand.

“I’ll take care of the rest,” he said. “I’ve some experience wi’ field dressing, ye understand.” Flipping back the blankets, he began to swab the blood from the whip cuts, moving with a brisk gentleness that was impressive. Catching my eye, he grinned, beard tilted jauntily. “I’ve cleansed a good many stripes in my time,” he said. “And applied a few too. These are naught, lass; they’ll heal in a few days.” Knowing he was right, I walked up to the head of the cot. Jamie was awake, grimacing slightly at the sting of the antiseptic solution on the raw cuts, but his eyelids were heavy and the blue eyes darkened with pain and weariness.

“Go and sleep, Sassenach. I’ll do.”

Whether he would or not, I didn’t know. It was clear, however, that I wouldn’t do, or not for much longer. I was swaying with exhaustion and the scratches on my legs were beginning to burn and ache. Absalom had cleansed them for me at the cottage, but they needed salving.

I nodded numbly and turned in response to Lady Annabelle’s gently insistent pressure on my elbow.

Halfway up the stairs, I remembered that I had forgotten to tell Sir Marcus how to bandage the cuts. The deep wounds over the shoulders would have to be bound and padded, to allow for wearing a shirt over them when we made our escape. But the lighter lash-marks should be left in the open air to scab over. I took a quick look at the guestroom Lady Annabelle showed me, then excused myself with a word and stumbled back down the stairs toward the drawing room.

I paused in the shadowed doorway, Lady Annabelle behind me. Jamie’s eyes were closed; apparently he had fallen into a doze brought on by whisky and fatigue. The blankets were thrown back, rendered unnecessary by the heat of the fire. Sir Marcus casually rested a hand on Jamie’s bare rump as he reached across the bed for a rag. The effect was electric. Jamie’s back arched sharply, the muscles of his buttocks clenched tightly and he let out an involuntary sound of protest, flinging himself backward in spite of the shattered ribs, to glare up at Sir Marcus with startled, dazed eyes. Startled himself, Sir Marcus stood stock-still for a second, then leaned forward and took Jamie by the arm, gently settling him facedown once more. Thoughtfully he drew a finger very gingerly across Jamie’s flesh. He rubbed his fingers together, leaving an oily sheen visible in the firelight.

“Oh,” he said matter-of-factly. The old soldier drew the blanket up to Jamie’s waist, and I saw the tense shoulders relax slightly under their dressing.

Sir Marcus seated himself companionably near Jamie’s head and poured another pair of whiskies. “At least he had the consideration to grease ye a bit beforehand,” he observed, handing one beaker to Jamie, who heaved himself laboriously up on his elbows to accept it.

“Aye, well. I dinna think it was so much for my convenience,” he said dryly.

Sir Marcus took a gulp of his drink and smacked his lips meditatively. There was no sound for a moment save the crackle of flames, but neither Lady Annabelle nor I made any motion to enter the room.

“If it’s any comfort to ye,” Sir Marcus said suddenly, eyes fixed on the decanter, “he’s dead.”

“You’re sure?” Jamie’s tone was unreadable.

“I dinna see how anybody could live after bein’ trampled flat by thirty half-ton beasts. He peeked out into the corridor to see what was causin’ the noise, then tried to go back when he saw. A horn caught him by the sleeve and pulled him out, and I saw him go down next to the wall. Sir Fletcher an’ I were on the stair, keepin’ out o’ the way. O’ course Sir Fletcher was rare excited, and sent some men after ’im, but they couldna get anywhere near, with all the horns pokin’ and beasts shovin’, and the torches shook down from the wall wi’ the ruckus. Christ, man, ye should ha’ seen it!” Sir Marcus hooted at the memory, clutching the decanter by the neck. “Your wife’s a rare lass, and no mistake, lad!” Snorting, he poured out another glass and gulped, choking a bit as the laugh interfered with the swallow.

“Anyway,” he resumed, pounding himself on the chest, “by the time we’d cleared the cattle out, there was no much left but a rag doll rolled in blood. Sir Fletcher’s men carried him awa’, but if he was still livin’ then, he didna last long. A bit more, lad?”

“Aye, thanks.”

There was a short silence, broken by Jamie. “No, I canna say it’s much comfort to me, but thank ye for tellin’ me.” Sir Marcus looked at him shrewdly.

“Mmphm. Ye’re no goin’ to forget it,” he said abruptly. “Don’t bother to try. If ye can, let it heal like the rest o’ your wounds. Don’t pick at it, and it’ll mend clean.” The old warrior held up a knotted forearm, from which the sleeve had been pushed back during his ministrations, to show the scar of a jagged tear running from elbow to wrist. “Scars are nothin’ to trouble ye.”

“Aye, well. Some scars, maybe.” Apparently reminded of something, Jamie struggled to turn onto his side. Sir Marcus set down his glass with an exclamation.

“Here, lad, be careful! Ye’ll get a rib-end through the lung, next thing.” He helped Jamie balance on his right elbow, wadding a blanket behind to prop him there.

“I need a wee knife,” said Jamie, breathing heavily. “A sharp one, if it’s handy.” Without question, Sir Marcus lumbered to the gleaming French walnut sideboard and rummaged through the drawers with a prodigious clatter, emerging at last with a pearl-handled fruit knife. He thrust it into Jamie’s sound left hand and sat down again with a grunt, resuming his glass.

“Ye don’t think ye have enough scars?” he inquired. “Going to add a few more?”

“Just one.” Jamie balanced precariously on one elbow, chin pressed on his chest as he awkwardly aimed the razor-sharp knife under his left breast. Sir Marcus’s hand shot out, a bit unsteadily, and gripped Jamie’s wrist.

“Best let me help ye, man. Ye’ll fall on it in a moment.” After a moment’s pause, Jamie reluctantly surrendered the knife and lay back against the wadded blanket. He touched his chest an inch or two below the nipple.

“There.” Sir Marcus reached to the sideboard and snagged a lamp, setting it on the stool he had vacated. At this distance, I couldn’t see what he was peering at; it looked like a small red burn, roughly circular in shape. He took another deliberate pull at his whisky glass, then set it down next to the lamp and pressed the tip of the knife against Jamie’s chest. I must have made an involuntary movement, because the Lady Annabelle clutched my sleeve with a murmured caution. The knife point pressed in and twisted suddenly, flicking away in the motion one uses to cut a bad spot out of a ripe peach. Jamie grunted, once, and a thin stream of red ran down the slope of his belly to stain the blanket. He rolled onto his stomach, stanching the wound against the mattress.

Sir Marcus laid down the fruit knife. “As soon as ye’re able, man,” he advised, “take your wife to bed, and let her comfort ye. Women like to do that,” he said, grinning toward the shadowed doorway, “God knows why.”

Lady Annabelle said softly, “Come away now, dear. He’s better alone for a bit.” I decided that Sir Marcus could manage the bandaging by himself, and stumbled after her up the narrow stair to my room.

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, I 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 fear, 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 fingers 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.”

Chapter 37. ESCAPE

His color was better in the morning, though the bruises had darkened through the night and now mottled a good part of his face. He sighed deeply, then stiffened with a groan and let his breath out much more cautiously.

“How do you feel?” I laid a hand on his head. Cool and damp. No fever, thank God.

He grimaced, eyes still closed. “Sassenach, if I’ve got one, it hurts.” He extended his good hand, groping. “Help me up; I’m stiff as pudding.”

The snow stopped at mid-morning. The sky was still grey as wool, threatening further flurries, but the threat of search from Wentworth was greater yet, so we set out from Eldridge Manor just before noon, heavily cloaked against the weather. Murtagh and Jamie bristled with arms beneath their cloaks. I carried nothing but my dagger, and that well hidden. Much against my own will, I was to pose as a kidnapped English hostage, should the worst happen.

“But they’ve seen me at the prison,” I had argued. “Sir Fletcher already knows who I am.”

“Aye.” Murtagh was carefully loading the pistols, an array of balls, wadding, powder, patches, rods, and pouches neatly spread on Lady Annabelle’s polished table, but looked up to nail me with a black glance. “That’s just the point, lass. We must keep ye out o’ Wentworth, no matter what. Do no one any good to have ye in there along wi’ us.”

He rammed a short rod down the mouth of a scroll-butted dag, punching the wad into place with hard, economical strokes. “Sir Fletcher willna be doin’ his own huntin’, not on a day like this. Any Redcoats we meet will likely not know ye. If we’re found out, ye mun say we forced ye along wi’ us unwillin’, and convince the Redcoats ye’ve nothin’ to do wi’ a pair o’ Scottish scalawags like me an’ yon ragtag.” He nodded at Jamie, balancing gingerly on a stool with a bowl of warm bread and milk.

Sir Marcus and I had padded Jamie’s hips and thighs as thickly as we could with linen bandages under a pair of worn breeches and hose, dark in color to hide any telltale blood spots that might seep through. Lady Annabelle had split one of her husband’s shirts down the back to accommodate the breadth of Jamie’s shoulders and the thickness of the bandage across them. Even so, the shirt would not meet across the front, and the ends of the strapping around his chest peeked through. He had refused to comb his hair, on grounds that even his scalp was sore, and he looked a wild and woolly sight, red spikes sticking up above a swollen purple face with one eye squeezed disreputably shut.

“If ye’re taken,” Sir Marcus chipped in, “tell them ye’re a guest of mine, kidnapped while riding near the estate. Make them bring ye to Eldridge for me to identify. That should convince ’em. We’ll tell ’em you’re a friend of Annabelle’s, from London.”

“And then get you safely out of here before Sir Fletcher comes round to offer his regards,” Annabelle added, practically.

Sir Marcus had offered us Hector and Absalom as escorts, but Murtagh pointed out that this would certainly implicate Eldridge, should we meet any English soldiers. So there were only the three of us, bundled against the cold, on the road toward Dingwall. I carried a fat purse and a note from the Master of Eldridge, one or both of which should insure our passage across the Channel.

It was hard going through the snow. Less than a foot deep, the treacherous white stuff hid rocks, holes, and other obstacles, making footing for the horses slippery and dangerous. Clods of snow and mud flew up with each step, spattering bellies and hocks, and clouds of horse-breath vanished steaming into the frozen air.

Murtagh led the way, following the faint depression that marked the road. I rode beside Jamie, to help if he should lose consciousness, though he was, at his own insistence, tied to his horse. Only his left hand was free, resting on the pistol looped to the saddle bow, concealed under his cloak.

We passed a few scattered bothies, smoke rising from the thatched roofs, but the inhabitants and their beasts seemed all within, secured against the cold. Here and there a lone man passed from cot to shed, carrying buckets or hay, but the road was deserted for the most part.

Two miles from Eldridge we passed under the shadow of Wentworth Castle, a grim bulk set in the hillside. The road was trampled here; traffic in and out did not cease even in the worst of weathers.

Our passage had been timed to coincide with the midday meal, in hopes that the sentries would be immersed in their pasties and ale. We plodded slowly past the short road that led to the gate, just a party of travelers with the ill-luck to be abroad on such a miserable day.

Once past the prison, we paused to rest the horses for a moment, in the shelter of a small pine grove. Murtagh bent to peer under the slouch hat that masked Jamie’s telltale hair.

“All right, lad? Ye’re quiet.”

Jamie lifted his head. His face was pale, and trickles of sweat ran down his neck, despite the icy wind, but he managed a half-hearted grin.

“I’ll do.”

“How do you feel?” I asked, anxious. He sat slumped in the saddle, without much sign of his usual erect grace. I got the other half of the grin.

“I’ve been trying to decide which hurts worst – my ribs, my hand, or my arse. Tryin’ to choose among them keeps my mind off my back.” He took a deep pull from the flask which Sir Marcus had thoughtfully provided, shuddered, and passed it to me. It was a good deal better than the raw spirit I had drunk on the road to Leoch, but every bit as potent. We rode on, a small cheerful fire burning in my stomach.

The horses were laboring up a modest slope, snow spurting from their hooves, when I saw Murtagh’s head jerk up. Following the direction of his gaze, I saw the Redcoat soldiers, four of them, mounted, at the top of the slope.

There was no help for it. We had been seen, and a shouted challenge echoed down the hill. There was no place to run. We were going to have to try to bluff it out. Without a backward glance, Murtagh spurred forward to meet them.

The corporal with the group was a middle-aged career soldier, erect in his winter greatcoat. He bowed politely to me, then turned his attention to Jamie.

“Your pardon, sir, madame. We have orders to stop all parties traveling this road, to inquire for details of prisoners lately escaped from Wentworth Prison.”

Prisoners. So I had managed to release more than Jamie yesterday. I was glad of it, on various grounds. For one, they would dilute the search somewhat. Four against three was better odds than we might have expected.

Jamie didn’t reply, but slouched farther forward, letting his head loll. I could see the gleam of his eyes beneath the hat brim; he wasn’t unconscious. These must be men he knew; his voice would be recognized. Murtagh was edging his horse forward, between me and the soldiers.

“Aye, the master’s a bit the worse for illness, sir, as ye can see,” he said, obsequiously tugging his forelock. “Perhaps ye could point out the road toward Ballagh to me? I’m no convinced that we’re headed right.”

I wondered what on earth he was up to, until I caught his eye. His glance flickered back and down, then back to the soldier, so fast that the soldier would assume him to have been listening with rapt attention all the time. Was Jamie in danger of falling from the saddle? Pretending to adjust my bonnet, I glanced casually over my shoulder in the direction he had indicated, and nearly froze with shock.

Jamie was sitting upright, head bent to shadow his face. But blood was dripping gently from the tip of the stirrup under his foot, pocking the snow with gently steaming red pits.

Murtagh, pretending vast stupidity, had succeeded in drawing the soldiers ahead to the crest of the hill, so that they could point out that the road to Dingwall was the only road in sight, which ran down the other side of the hill. It ran through Ballagh, and straight toward the coast, still three miles away.

I slid hastily to the ground, yanking feverishly at my horse’s girth strap. Floundering through the drifts, I kicked enough snow under the belly of Jamie’s horse to obliterate the telltale drops. A quick look showed the soldiers apparently still engaged in argument with Murtagh, though one of them glanced down the hill at us, as though to insure that we had not wandered off. I gave a cheery wave, then as soon as the soldier turned his head, stooped and ripped off one of the three petticoats I was wearing. I whipped Jamie’s cloak aside and stuffed the wadded petticoat under his thigh, ignoring his exclamation of pain. The cloak flipped back in place just in time for me to dash back to my own horse and be discovered fiddling with the girth when Murtagh and the Englishmen arrived.

“It seems to have worked its way loose,” I explained guilelessly, batting my eyes at the nearest redcoat.

“Oh? And why are you not helping the lady?” he said to Jamie.

“My husband’s not well,” I said. “I can manage it myself, thank you.”

The corporal seemed interested. “Sick, eh? What’s the matter with you, then?” He urged his beast forward, staring closely under the slouch hat at Jamie’s pale face. “Don’t look well, I’ll say that much. Take your hat off, fellow. What’s the matter with your face?”

Jamie shot him through the folds of his cloak. The redcoat was no more than six feet away, and he toppled sideways out of the saddle before the stain on his chest grew bigger than my hand.

Murtagh had a pistol in each hand before the corporal hit the ground. One bullet went wild as his horse shied away from the sudden noise and movement. The second found its mark, ripping through a soldier’s upper arm leaving a tuft of shredded fabric flapping from a rapidly reddening sleeve. The man kept his saddle, though, and was tugging at his saber, one-handed, as Murtagh plunged beneath his cloak for fresh weapons.

One of the two remaining soldiers turned his horse, slipping in the snow, and spurred away, back toward the prison, presumably in search of help.

“Claire!” The shout came from above. I looked up, startled, to see Jamie waving after the fleeing figure. “Stop him!” He had time to toss me a second pistol, then turned back, drawing his sword to meet the charge of the fourth soldier.

My horse was battle-trained; his ears were laid flat against his head and he stamped and pawed at the noise, but he hadn’t run at the sound of gunshots, and he stood his ground as I groped for the saddle iron. Glad to be leaving the fight behind, he dug in as soon as I was mounted, and we made off at good speed after the fleeing figure.

The snow hampered our going nearly as much as his, but mine was the better horse, and we had the advantage of the rough path the soldier’s flight had plowed through the fresh snow. We gained slowly on him, but I could see that it wouldn’t be enough. He had a rise ahead of him, though; if I cut to the right, perhaps I could make better time on the flat and meet him coming down the other side. I jerked the rein and leaned hard to keep my seat as the horse slithered into a messy turn, found his feet and plunged ahead.

I didn’t quite catch him up, but I had cut the distance between us to no more than ten yards. Given unlimited distance, I could likely catch him, but I didn’t have that luxury; the prison wall loomed less than a mile ahead. Much closer, and we would be seen from the walls.

I pulled up and slid off. Battle-trained or not, I didn’t know what the horse would do if I fired a pistol from his back. Even if he stood like a statue, I didn’t think my own aim was up to it. I knelt in the snow, bracing my elbow on my knee, the gun across my forearm as Jamie had shown me. “Brace it here, aim there, fire it here,” he had said. I did.

Much to my amazement, I hit the fleeing horse. It went into a skid, went to one knee and rolled in a flurry of snow and legs. My arm was numb from the pistol’s recoil; I stood rubbing it, watching the fallen soldier.

He was injured; he struggled to rise, then fell back in the snow. His horse, bleeding from the shoulder, stumbled away, reins dangling.

I didn’t realize until later what I had been thinking, but I knew when I approached him that I could not let him live. Near as we were to the prison, and with other patrols out seeking escaped prisoners, he was sure to be found before too long. And if he were found alive, he could not only describe us – so much for our hostage story in that case! – but tell which way we were traveling. We had still three miles to go to the coast; two hours’ travel in the heavy snow. And a boat to find, once there. I simply could not take the chance of allowing him to tell anyone about us.

He struggled to his elbows as I approached. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw me, then relaxed. I was a woman. He wasn’t afraid of me.

A more experienced man might have been apprehensive, my sex notwithstanding, but this was a boy. No more than sixteen, I thought, with a sense of sick shock. His spotty cheeks still held the last round curves of childhood, though his upper lip sported the fuzz of a hopeful mustache.

He opened his mouth, but only groaned in pain. He pressed his hand to his side, and I could see blood soaking through his tunic and coat. Internal injuries, then; the horse must have rolled on him.

It was possible, I thought, that he would die in any case. But that wasn’t something I could count on.

The dirk in my right hand was hidden under my cloak. I laid my left hand on his head. Just so I had touched the heads of hundreds of men, comforting, examining, steadying them for whatever lay ahead. And they had looked up at me much as this boy did; with hope and trust.

I couldn’t cut his throat. I sank to my knees beside him, and turned his head gently away from me. Rupert’s techniques for swift killing had all assumed resistance. There was no resistance as I bent his head forward, as far as I could, and plunged the dirk into his neck at the base of his skull.

I left him lying facedown in the snow and went to join the others.

Our unwieldy cargo stowed under blankets on a bench below, Murtagh and I met on the Cristabel’s deck to survey the storm-tossed skies.

“Looks like a fair, steady wind,” I said hopefully, holding a wet finger aloft.

Murtagh gloomily scanned the clouds, hanging black-bellied over the harbor, their freight of snow wastefully melting into the frigid waves. “Aye, well. We’ll hope for a smooth crossing. If not, we’ll likely get there wi’ a corpse on our hands.”

Half an hour later, launched on the choppy waters of the English Channel, I discovered what he had meant by this remark.

“Seasick?” I said incredulously. “Scotsmen aren’t seasick!”

Murtagh was testy. “Then mayhap he’s a red-heided Hottentot. All I know is he’s green as a rotten fish and pukin’ his guts out. Are ye goin’ to come down and help me stop him puttin’ his ribs out through his chest?”

“Damn it,” I said to Murtagh, as we hung over the rail for fresh air during a brief hiatus in the unpleasantness belowdecks, “if he knows he’s seasick, why in the name of God did he insist on a boat?”

The basilisk stare was unwinking. “Because he knows bluidy well we’d never make it overland wi’ him in the state he’s in, and he’d no stay at Eldridge for fear o’ bringin’ the English down on MacRannoch.”

“So he’s going to kill himself quietly at sea, instead,” I said bitterly.

“Aye. He figures this way he’ll only kill himself, and no take anyone else along wi’ him. Unselfish, see. Nothin’ quiet about it, though,” added Murtagh, heading for the companionway in response to unmistakable sounds from below.

“Congratulations,” I said to Jamie an hour or two later, pushing dank wisps away from my cheeks and forehead. “I believe you’re going to make medical history by being the only documented person ever actually to die of seasickness.”

“Oh, good,” he mumbled into the wreck of pillows and blankets, “I’d hate to think it was all a waste.” He heaved himself suddenly to one side. “God, here it comes again.” Murtagh and I sprang once more to our stations. The job of holding a large man immobile while he succumbs to merciless spasms of retching is not one for the weak.

Afterward, I took his pulse yet again, and rested a hand briefly on the clammy forehead. Murtagh read my face, and followed me unspeaking up the gangway to the top deck. “He’s no doin’ verra weel, is he?” he said quietly.

“I don’t know,” I said helplessly, shaking out my sweat-drenched hair in the sharp wind. “I’ve honestly never heard of anyone dying of seasickness, but he’s bringing up blood now.” The little man’s hands tightened on the rail, knuckles knifing through the sun-speckled skin. “I don’t know if he’s damaged himself internally with the sharp rib ends, or if it’s just that his stomach is raw with the vomiting. Either way, it’s not a good sign. And his pulse is much weaker, and irregular. It’s a strain on his heart, you know.”

“He’s a heart like a lion.” It was quietly said, and I wasn’t sure I’d heard it at first. It might only have been the salt wind making the tears stand in his eyes. He turned abruptly to me. “And a heid like an ox. Have ye any o’ that laudanum left that Lady Annabelle gave ye?”

“Yes, all of it. He wouldn’t take it; doesn’t want to sleep, he said.”

“Aye, well. For most folk, what they want and what they get are no the same thing; I dinna see why he should be any different. Come on.”

I followed him anxiously back belowdecks. “I don’t think he can keep it down.”

“Leave that to me. Get the bottle and help me sit him up.”

Jamie was half-unconscious as it was, an unwieldy burden who protested being manhandled upright against the bulkhead. “I’m going to die,” he said weakly but precisely, “and the sooner the better. Go away and let me do it in peace.”

Taking firm hold of Jamie’s blazing hair, Murtagh forced his head up and applied the flask to his lips. “Swallow this, me bonny wee dormouse, or I’ll break yer neck. And forbye ye’ll keep it down, too. I’m goin’ to hold shut yer nose and yer mouth; if ye bring it up, it comes out yer ears.”

By the concerted force of our wills, we transferred the contents of the flask slowly but inexorably into the young laird of Lallybroch. Choking and gagging, Jamie manfully drank as much as he could manage before subsiding, green-faced and gasping, against the bulkhead. Murtagh forestalled each threatened explosion of nausea by vicious nose-pinching, an expedient not uniformly successful, but one which allowed a gradual accumulation of the opiate in the patient’s bloodstream. At length we laid him slack on the bed, the vivid flames of hair, brows, and lashes the only color on the pillow.

Murtagh came up beside me on deck a bit later. “Look,” I said pointing. The dim light of sunset, shining in fugitive rays beneath the clouds, gilded the rocks of the French coast ahead. “The master says we’ll be ashore in three or four hours.”

“And not before time,” said my companion, wiping lank brown hair out of his eyes. He turned to me, and gave me the closest thing I had ever seen to a smile on his dour countenance.

And so at length, following the prostrate body of our charge, laid on a board between two stout monks, we passed through the looming gates of the Abbey of Ste. Anne de Beaupré.

Chapter 38. THE ABBEY

The abbey was an enormous twelfth-century edifice, walled to resist both the smashing of sea storms and the onslaughts of land-based invaders. Now, in more peaceful times, its gates stood open to allow easy traffic with the nearby village, and the small stone cells of its guest wing had been softened by the addition of tapestries and comfortable furniture.

I rose from the padded chair in my own chamber, not sure exactly how one greeted an abbot; did one kneel and kiss his ring, or was that only for Popes? I settled for a respectful curtsy.

Jamie’s slanted cat-eyes did come from the Fraser side. Likewise the solid jaw, though the one facing me was somewhat obscured by black beard.

Abbot Alexander had his nephew’s wide mouth as well, though he looked as though he smiled somewhat less with it. The slanted blue eyes remained cool and speculative as he greeted me with a pleasant, warm smile. He was a good deal shorter than Jamie, about my height, and stocky. He wore the robe of a priest, but walked with a warrior’s stride. I thought it likely he had been both in his time.

“You are welcome, ma nièce,” he said, inclining his head. I was a little startled at the greeting, but bowed back.

“I’m grateful for your hospitality,” I said, meaning it. “Have – have you seen Jamie?” The monks had taken Jamie away to be bathed, a process in which I thought I had better not assist.

The Abbot nodded. “Oh, aye,” he said, a faint Scots accent showing through the cultured English. “I’ve seen him. I’ve set Brother Ambrose to tend his wounds.” I must have looked dubious at this, for he said, a bit dryly, “Do not worry, Madame; Brother Ambrose is most competent.” He looked me over with an air of frank appraisal disturbingly like that of his nephew.

“Murtagh said that you are an accomplished physician yourself.”

“I am,” I said bluntly.

This provoked a real smile. “I see that you do not suffer from the sin of false modesty,” he observed.

“I have others,” I said, smiling back.

“So do we all,” he said. “Brother Ambrose will be eager to converse with you, I’m sure.”

“Has Murtagh told you… what happened?” I asked hesitantly.

The wide mouth tightened. “He has. So far as he knows what happened.” He waited, as though expecting further contributions from me, but I stayed silent.

It was clear that he would have liked to ask questions, but he was kind enough not to press me. Instead, he raised his hand in a gesture of benediction and dismissal.

“You are welcome,” he said once more. “I will send a serving brother to bring you some food.” He looked me over once more. “And some facilities for washing.” He made the sign of the Cross over me, in farewell or possibly as an exorcism of filth, and left in a swirl of brown skirts.

Suddenly realizing how tired I was, I sank down on the bed, wondering whether I could stay awake long enough to both eat and wash. I was still wondering when my head hit the pillow.

I was having a dreadful nightmare. Jamie was on the other side of a solid stone wall without a door. I could hear him screaming, over and over, but couldn’t reach him. I pounded desperately on the wall, only to see my hands sink into the stone as if it were water.

“Ouch!” I sat up in the narrow cot, clutching the hand I had smashed against the unyielding wall next to my bed. I rocked back and forth, squeezing the throbbing hand between my thighs, then realized that the screaming was still going on.

It stopped abruptly as I ran into the hall. The door to Jamie’s room was open, flickering lamplight flooding the corridor.

A monk I had not seen before was with Jamie, holding him tightly. A seepage of fresh blood stained the bandages on Jamie’s back, and his shoulders shook as though with chill.

“A nightmare,” the monk said in explanation, seeing me in the doorway. He relinquished Jamie into my arms, and went to the table for a cloth and the water jug.

Jamie was still trembling, and his face was glossy with sweat. His eyes were closed, and he breathed heavily, with a hoarse, gasping sound. The monk sat down beside me and began to swab his face with a gentle hand, smoothing the heavy, wet hair away from his temples.

“You would be his wife, of course,” he said to me. “I think he’ll be better presently.”

The trembling did begin to ease within a minute or two, and Jamie opened his eyes with a sigh.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Claire, I’m all right, now. But for God’s sake, get rid of that stink!”

It was only then that I consciously noticed the scent in the room – a light, spicy, floral smell, so common a perfume that I had thought nothing of it. Lavender. A scent for soaps and toilet waters. I had last smelled it in the dungeons of Wentworth Prison, where it anointed the linen or the person of Captain Jonathan Randall.

The source of the scent was a small metal cup filled with herb-scented oil, suspended from a heavy, rose-bossed iron base and hung over a candle flame.

Meant to soothe the mind, its effects were plainly not as intended. Jamie was breathing more easily, sitting up by himself and holding the cup of water the monk had given him. But his face was still white, and the corner of his mouth twitched uneasily.

I nodded at the Franciscan to do as he said, and the monk quickly muffled the hot cup of oil in a folded towel, then carried it away down the hall.

Jamie heaved a long sigh of relief, then winced, ribs hurting.

“You’ve opened up your back a bit,” I said, turning him slightly to get at the bandages. “Not bad, though.”

“I know. I must have rolled onto my back in my sleep.” The thick wedge of folded blanket meant to keep him propped on one side had slipped to the floor. I retrieved it and laid it on the bed beside him.

“That’s what made me dream, I think. I dreamt of being flogged.” He shuddered, took a sip of the water, then handed me the cup. “I need something a bit stronger, if it’s handy.”

As though on cue, our helpful visitor came through the door with a jug of wine in one hand and a small flask of poppy syrup in the other.

“Alcohol or opium?” he asked Jamie with a smile, holding up the two flasks. “You may have your choice of oblivions.”

“I’ll have the wine, if ye please. I’ve had enough of dreams for one night,” Jamie said, with a lopsided answering smile. He drank the wine slowly, as the Franciscan helped me to change the stained bandages, smoothing fresh marigold ointment over the wounds. Not until I had resettled Jamie for sleep, back firmly propped and coverlet drawn up, did the visitor turn to go.

Passing the bed, he bent over Jamie and sketched the sign of the Cross above his head. “Rest well,” he said.

“Thank ye, Father.” Jamie answered drowsily, clearly half-asleep already. Seeing that Jamie would likely not need me now until morning, I touched him on the shoulder in farewell and followed the visitor out into the corridor.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m most grateful for your help.”

The monk waved a graceful hand, dismissing my thanks.

“I was pleased to be able to assist you,” he said, and I noticed that he spoke excellent English, though with a faint French accent. “I was passing through the guest wing on my way to the chapel of St. Giles when I heard the screaming.”

I winced at the memory of that screaming, hoarse and dreadful, and hoped I would not hear it again. Glancing at the window at the end of the corridor, I saw no sign of dawn behind the shutter.

“To the chapel?” I said, surprised. “But I thought Matins were sung in the main church. And it’s surely a bit early, in any case.”

The Franciscan smiled. He was fairly young, perhaps in his early thirties, but his silky brown hair was threaded with grey. It was short and neatly tonsured and he had a brown beard, finely trimmed to a point that just skimmed the deep rolled collar of his habit.

“Very early, for Matins,” he agreed. “I was on my way to the chapel because it is my turn for the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at this hour.” He glanced back into Jamie’s room, where a clock candle marked the time as half past two.

“I’m very late,” he said. “Brother Bartolome will be wanting his bed.” Raising his hand, he quickly blessed me, turned on a sandaled heel, and was through the swinging door at the end of the corridor before I could muster wits enough to ask his name.

I stepped into the room and bent to check Jamie. He was asleep again, breathing lightly, with a slight frown creasing his brow. Experimentally, I ran my hand lightly over his hair. The frown eased a bit, and then resumed. I sighed and tucked the blankets more securely around him.

I felt much better in the morning, but Jamie was hollow-eyed and queasy after the broken night. He emphatically rejected any suggestion of caudle or broth for breakfast, and snapped irritably at me when I tried to check the dressings on his hand.

“For Christ’s sake, Claire, will ye no leave me alone! I dinna want to be poked at any more!”

He yanked his hand away, scowling. I turned away without speaking and went to busy myself with tidying the small pots and packets of medicines on the side table. I arranged them into small groups, sorted by function: marigold ointment and poplar balm for soothing, willowbark, cherry bark and chamomile for teas, St. John’s wort, garlic, and yarrow for disinfection.

“Claire.” I turned back, to find him sitting on the bed, looking at me with a shamefaced smile.

“I’m sorry, Sassenach. My bowels are griping, and I’ve a damn evil temper this morning. But I’ve no call to snarl at ye. D’ye forgive me?”

I crossed to him swiftly and hugged him lightly.

“You know there’s nothing to forgive. But what do you mean, your bowels are griping?” Not for the first time, I reflected that intimacy and romance are not synonymous.

He grimaced, bending forward slightly and folding his arms over his abdomen. “It means,” he said, “that I’d like ye to leave me to myself for a bit. If ye dinna mind?” I hastily complied with his request, and went to find my own breakfast.

Returning from the refectory a bit later, I spotted a trim figure in the black robes of a Franciscan, crossing the courtyard toward the cloister. I hurried to catch up with him.

“Father!” I called, and he turned, smiling when he saw me.

“Good morning,” he said. “Madame Fraser; is that the name? And how is your husband this morning?”

“Better,” I said, hoping it was true. “I wanted to thank you again for last night. You left before I could even ask your name.”

Clear hazel eyes sparkled as he bowed to me, hand over his heart. “François Anselm Mericoeur d’Armagnac, Madame,” he said. “Or so I was born. Known now only as Father Anselm.”

“Anselm of the Merry Heart?” I asked, smiling. He shrugged, a completely Gallic gesture, unchanged for centuries.

“One tries,” he said, with an ironic twist of the mouth.

“I don’t wish to keep you,” I said, glancing toward the cloister. “I only wanted to thank you for your help.”

“You do not detain me in the least, Madame. I was delaying going to my work, in fact; indulging most sinfully in idleness.”

“What is your work?” I asked, intrigued. Plainly this man was a visitor to the monastery, his black Franciscan robes conspicuous as an inkblot among the brown of the Benedictines. There were several such visitors, or so Brother Polydore, one of the serving brothers, had told me. Most of them were scholars, here to consult the works stored in the abbey’s renowned library. Anselm, it seemed, was one of these. He was, as he had been for several months, engaged in the translation of several works by Herodotus.

“Have you seen the library?” he asked. “Come, then,” he said, seeing me shake my head. “It is really most impressive, and I am sure the Abbot your uncle would have no objection.”

I was both curious to see the library, and reluctant to go back at once to the isolation of the guest wing, so I followed him without hesitation.

The library was beautiful, high-roofed, with soaring Gothic columns that joined in ogives in the multichambered roof. Full-length windows filled the spaces between columns, letting an abundance of light into the library. Most were of clear glass, but some had deceptively simple-looking stained-glass parables. Tiptoeing past the bent forms of studying monks, I paused to admire one of the Flight into Egypt.

Some of the bookshelves looked like those I was used to, the books nestling side by side. Other shelves held the books laid flat, to protect the ancient covers. There was even one glass-fronted bookshelf holding a number of rolled parchments. Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers. I left the library feeling soothed, and strolled slowly across the main courtyard with Father Anselm.

I tried again to thank him for his help the night before, but he shrugged off my thanks.

“Think nothing of it, my child. I hope that your husband is better today?”

“So do I,” I said. Not wanting to dwell on that subject, I asked, “What exactly is perpetual adoration? You said that was where you were going last night.”

“You are not a Catholic?” he asked in surprise. “Ah, but I forgot, you are English. So of course, I suppose you would be Protestant.”

“I’m not sure that I’m either one, in terms of belief,” I said. “But technically, at least, I suppose I am a Catholic.”

“Technically?” The smooth eyebrows shot up in astonishment. I hesitated, cautious after my experiences with Father Bain, but this man did not seem the sort to start waving crucifixes in my face.

“Well,” I said, bending to pull a small weed from between the paving stones, “I was baptized as a Catholic. But my parents died when I was five, and I went to live with an uncle. Uncle Lambert was…” I paused, recalling Uncle Lambert’s voracious appetite for knowledge, and that cheerfully objective cynicism that regarded all religion merely as one of the earmarks by which a culture could be cataloged. “Well, he was everything and nothing, I suppose, in terms of faith,” I concluded. “Knew them all, believed in none. So nothing further was ever done about my religious training. And my… first husband was Catholic, but not very observant, I’m afraid. So I suppose I’m really rather a heathen.”

I eyed him warily, but rather than being shocked by this revelation, he laughed heartily.

“Everything and nothing,” he said, savoring the phrase. “I like that very much. But as for you, I am afraid not. Once a member of Holy Mother Church, you are eternally marked as her child. However little you know about your faith, you are as much a Catholic as our Holy Father the Pope.” He glanced at the sky. It was cloudy, but the leaves of the alder bushes near the church hung still.

“The wind has dropped. I was going for a short stroll to clear my brain in the fresh air. Why do you not accompany me? You need air and exercise, and I can perhaps make the occasion spiritually beneficial as well, by enlightening you as to the ritual of Perpetual Adoration as we go.”

“Three birds with one stone, eh?” I said dryly. But the prospect of air, if not light, was enticing, and I went to fetch my cloak without demur.

With a glance at the form within, head bent in prayer, Anselm led me past the quiet darkness of the chapel entrance and down the cloister, out to the edge of the garden.

Beyond the possibility of disturbing the monks within the chapel, he said, “It’s a very simple idea. You recall the Bible, and the story of Gethsemane, where Our Lord waited out the hours before his trial and crucifixion, and his friends, who should have borne him company, all fell fast asleep?”

“Oh,” I said, understanding all at once. “And he said ‘Can you not watch with me one hour?’ So that’s what you’re doing – watching with him for that hour – to make up for it.” I liked the idea, and the darkness of the chapel suddenly seemed inhabited and comforting.

“Oui, madame,” he agreed. “Very simple. We take it in turns to watch, and the Blessed Sacrament on the altar here is never left alone.”

“Isn’t it difficult, staying awake?” I asked curiously. “Or do you always watch at night?”

He nodded, a light breeze lifting the silky brown hair. The patch of his tonsure needed shaving; short bristly hairs covered it like moss.

“Each watcher chooses the time that suits him best. For me, that is two o’clock in the morning.” He glanced at me, hesitating, as though wondering how I would take what he was about to say.

“For me, in that moment…” He paused. “It’s as though time has stopped. All the humors of the body, all the blood and bile and vapors that make a man; it’s as though just at once all of them are working in perfect harmony.” He smiled. His teeth were slightly crooked, the only defect in his otherwise perfect appearance.

“Or as though they’ve stopped altogether. I often wonder whether that moment is the same as the moment of birth, or of death. I know that its timing is different for each man… or woman, I suppose,” he added, with a courteous nod to me.

“But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it’s as though…” He hesitated for a moment, carefully choosing words.

“As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.”

“But… do you actually do anything?” I asked. “Er, pray, I mean?”

“I? Well,” he said slowly, “I sit, and I look at Him.” A wide smile stretched the fine-drawn lips. “And He looks at me.”

Jamie was sitting up when I returned to the room, and essayed a short trip up and down the hall, leaning on my shoulder. But the effort left him pale and sweating, and he lay down without protest when I turned back the coverlet for him.

I offered him a little broth and milk, but he shook his head wearily. “I’ve no appetite, Sassenach. If I take anything, I think I shall be sick again.”

I didn’t press the matter, but took the broth away in silence.

At dinner I was more insistent, and succeeded in persuading him to try a few spoonsful of soup. He managed quite a bit of it, but didn’t manage to keep it down.

“I’m sorry, Sassenach,” he said, afterward. “I’m disgusting.”

“It doesn’t matter, Jamie, and you are not disgusting.” I set the basin outside the door and sat down beside him, smoothing back the tumbled hair from his brow.

“Don’t worry. It’s only that your stomach is still irritated from the seasickness. Perhaps I’ve pushed you too fast to eat. Let it rest and heal.”

He closed his eyes, sighing under my hand.

“I’ll be all right,” he said, without interest. “What did ye do today, Sassenach?”

He was obviously restless and uncomfortable, but eased a bit as I told him about my explorations of the day; the library, the chapel, the winepress, and finally, the herb garden, where I had at last met the famous Brother Ambrose.

“He’s amazing,” I said enthusiastically. “Oh, but I forgot, you’ve met him.” Brother Ambrose was tall – even taller than Jamie – and cadaverous, with the long, drooping face of a basset hound. And ten long, skinny fingers, every one of them bright green.

“He seems to be able to make anything grow,” I said. “He’s got all the normal herbs there, and a greenhouse so tiny that he can’t even stand up straight inside it, with things that shouldn’t grow at this season, or shouldn’t grow in this part of the world, or just shouldn’t grow. Not to mention the imported spices and drugs.”

The mention of drugs reminded me of the night before, and I glanced out the window. The winter twilight set in early, and it was already full dark outside, the lanterns of the monks who tended the stables and outdoor work bobbing to and fro as they passed on their rounds.

“It’s getting dark. Do you think you can sleep by yourself? Brother Ambrose has a few things that might help.”

His eyes were smudged with tiredness, but he shook his head.

“No, Sassenach. I dinna want anything. If I fall asleep… no, I think I’ll read for a bit.” Anselm had brought him a selection of philosophical and historical works from the library, and he stretched out a hand for a copy of Tacitus that lay on the table.

“You need sleep, Jamie,” I said gently, watching him. He opened the book before him, propped on the pillow, but continued to stare at the wall above it.

“I didna tell ye what I dreamed,” he said suddenly.

“You said you dreamed of being flogged.” I didn’t like the look on his face; already pale under the bruises, it was lightly sheened with dampness.

“That’s right. I could look up and see the ropes, cutting into my wrists. My hands had gone almost black, and the rope scraped bone when I moved. I had my face pressed against the post. Then I could feel the lead plummets at the ends of the lashes, cutting through the flesh of my shoulders.

“The lashes kept coming, long past when they should have stopped, and I realized that he didn’t mean to stop. The tips of the cords were biting out small chunks of my flesh. The blood… my blood was running down my sides and my back, soaking into my kilt. I was very cold.

“Then I looked up again, and I could see that the flesh had begun to fall away from my hands, and the bones of my fingers were scrabbling at the wood, leaving long raw scratches behind. The bones of my arms were bare, and only the ropes were holding them together. I think that’s when I began to scream.

“I could hear a strange rattling noise when he hit me, and after a time I realized what it was. He’d stripped all the flesh off my bones, and the plummets of the whip were rattling on my dry rib bones. And I knew that I was dead, but it didn’t matter. He would go on and on, and it would never stop, he would go on until I began to fall to pieces and crumble away from the post, and it would never stop, and…”

I moved to take hold of him and make him hush, but he had already stopped himself, gripping the edge of the book with his good hand. His teeth were set hard in the torn flesh of his lower lip.

“Jamie, I’ll stay with you tonight,” I said. “I can lay a pallet on the floor.”

“No.” Weak as he was, there was no mistaking the basic stubbornness. “I’ll do best alone. And I’m not sleepy now. Do ye go and find your own supper, Sassenach. I’ll… just read for a bit.” He bent his head over the page. After a minute of helplessly watching him, I did as he said, and left.

I was becoming more and more worried by Jamie’s condition. The nausea lingered; he ate almost nothing, and what he did eat seldom stayed with him. He grew paler and more listless, showing little interest in anything. He slept a great deal in the daytime, because of sleeping so little at night. Still, whatever his fears of dreaming, he would not allow me to share his chamber, so that his wakefulness need not impair my own rest.

Not wishing to hover over him, even if he would have allowed it, I spent much of my time in the herbarium or the drying shed with Brother Ambrose, or wandering idly through the Abbey’s grounds, engaged in conversation with Father Anselm. He took the opportunity to engage in a gentle catechism, trying to instruct me in the basics of Catholicism, though I had assured him over and over of my basic agnosticism.

“Ma chère,” he said at last, “do you recall the conditions necessary for the commission of sin that I told you yesterday?”

There was nothing wrong with my memory, whatever my moral shortcomings might be.

“First, that it be wrong, and secondly, that you give full consent to it,” I parroted.

“That you give full consent to it,” he repeated. “And that, ma chère, is the condition for grace to occur, as well.” We were leaning on the fence of the abbey pigsty, watching several large brown hogs huddling together in the weak winter sun. He turned his head, resting his face on his forearms, folded on the fence rail.

“I don’t see how I can,” I protested. “Surely grace is something you have or you don’t. I mean” – I hesitated, not wishing to seem rude – “to you, the thing on the altar in the chapel is God. To me, it’s a bit of bread, no matter how lovely the holder it’s in.”

He sighed with impatience and straightened up, stretching his back.

“I have observed, on my way to my nightly watch, that your husband does not sleep well,” he said. “And consequently, neither do you. Since you are not asleep in any case, I invite you to come with me tonight. Join me in the chapel for an hour.”

I eyed him narrowly. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Why not?”

I had no difficulty in waking up for my appointment with Anselm, largely because I had not been asleep. Neither had Jamie. Whenever I poked my head out into the corridor, I could see the flicker of candlelight from the half-open door of his room, and hear the flip of pages and the occasional grunt of discomfort as he shifted his position.

Unable to rest, I had not bothered to undress, and so was ready when a tap at my door announced Anselm’s presence.

The monastery was quiet, in the way that all large institutions grow quiet at night; the rapid pulse of the day’s activities has dropped, but the heartbeat goes on, slower, softer, but unending. There is always someone awake, moving quietly through the halls, keeping watch, keeping things alive. And now it was my turn to join the watch.

The chapel was dark except for the burning of the red sanctuary lamp and a few of the clear white votive candles, flames rising straight in still air before the shadowed shrines of saints.

I followed Anselm down the short center aisle, genuflecting in his wake. The slight figure of Brother Bartolome knelt toward the front, head bowed. He didn’t turn at the faint noise of our entrance, but stayed motionless, bent in adoration.

The Sacrament itself was almost obscured by the magnificence of its container. The huge monstrance, a sunburst of gold more than a foot across, sat serenely on the altar, guarding the humble bit of bread at its center.

Feeling somewhat awkward, I took the seat Anselm indicated, near the front of the chapel. The seats, ornately carved with angels, flowers, and demons, folded up against the wooden panels of the backing to allow easy passage in and out. I heard the faint creak of a lowered seat behind me, as Anselm found his place.

“But what shall I do?” I had asked him, voice lowered in respect of night and silence as we had approached the chapel.

“Nothing, ma chère,” he had replied, simply. “Only be.”

So I sat, listening to my own breathing, and the tiny sounds of a silent place; the inaudible things normally hidden in other sounds. The settling of stone, the creak of wood. The hissing of the tiny, unquenchable flames. A faint skitter of some small creature, wandered from its place into the home of majesty.

It was a peaceful place, I would grant Anselm that. In spite of my own fatigue and my worry over Jamie, I gradually felt myself relaxing, the tightness of my mind gently unwinding, like the relaxation of a clock spring. Strangely, I didn’t feel at all sleepy, despite the lateness of the hour and the strains of the last few days and weeks.

After all, I thought, what were days and weeks in the presence of eternity? And that’s what this was, to Anselm and Bartolome, to Ambrose, to all the monks, up to and including the formidable Abbot Alexander.

It was in a way a comforting idea; if there was all the time in the world, then the happenings of a given moment became less important. I could see, perhaps, how one could draw back a little, seek some respite in the contemplation of an endless Being, whatever one conceived its nature to be.

The red of the sanctuary lamp burned steadily, reflected in the smooth gold. The flames of the white candles before the statues of St. Giles and the Blessed Mother flickered and jumped occasionally, as the burning wicks yielded an occasional imperfection, a momentary sputter of wax or moisture. But the red lamp burned serene, with no unseemly waver to betray its light.

And if there was eternity, or even the idea of it, then perhaps Anselm was right; all things were possible. And all love? I wondered. I had loved Frank; I still did. And I loved Jamie, more than my own life. But bound in the limits of time and flesh, I could not keep them both. Beyond, perhaps? Was there a place where time no longer existed, or where it stopped? Anselm thought so. A place where all things were possible. And none were necessary.

And was there love there? Beyond the limits of flesh and time, was all love possible? Was it necessary?

The voice of my thoughts seemed to be Uncle Lamb’s. My family, and all I knew of love as a child. A man who had never spoken love to me, who had never needed to, for I knew he loved me, as surely as I knew I lived. For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary. It is all. It is undying. And it is enough.

Time passed without my awareness of it, and I was startled by the sudden appearance of Anselm before me, coming through the small door near the altar. Surely he had been sitting behind me? I glanced behind, to see one of the young monks whose name I didn’t know genuflecting near the rear entrance. Anselm bowed low before the altar, then motioned to me with a nod toward the door.

“You left?” I said, once outside the chapel. “But I thought you weren’t supposed to leave the, er, the Sacrament, alone?”

He smiled tranquilly. “I didn’t, ma chère. You were there.”

I repressed the urge to argue that I didn’t count. After all, I supposed, there was no such thing as a Qualified Official Adorer. You only had to be human, and I imagined I was still that, though I barely felt it at times.

Jamie’s candle still burned as I passed his door, and I caught the rustle of turning pages. I would have stopped, but Anselm went on, to leave me at the door of my own chamber. I paused there to bid him good night, and to thank him for taking me to the chapel.

“It was… restful,” I said, struggling to find the right word.

He nodded, watching me. “Oui, madame. It is.” As I turned to go, he said, “I told you that the Blessed Sacrament was not alone, for you were there. But what of you, ma chère? Were you alone?”

I stopped, and looked at him for a moment before answering.

“No,” I said. “I wasn’t.”

Chapter 39. TO RANSOM A MAN’S SOUL

In the morning, I went as usual to check Jamie, hoping that he had managed some breakfast. Just short of his room, Murtagh slid out of a wall alcove, barring my way.

“What is it?” I said abruptly. “What’s wrong?” My heart began to beat faster and my palms were suddenly wet.

My panic must have been obvious, for Murtagh shook his head in reassurance. “Nay, he’s all right.” He shrugged, “Or as much all right as he’s been.” He turned me with a light hand under the elbow and began to walk me back down the corridor. I thought with a moment’s shock that this was the first time Murtagh had ever deliberately touched me; his hand on my arm was light and strong as a pelican’s wing.

“What’s the matter with him?” I demanded. The little man’s seamed face was as expressionless as usual, but the crinkled eyelids twitched at the corners.

“He doesna want to see ye just yet,” he said.

I stopped dead and pulled my arm from his grasp.

“Why not?” I demanded.

Murtagh hesitated, as though choosing his words carefully. “Weel, it’s just… he’s decided as it would be best for ye to leave him here and go back to Scotland. He-”

The rest of what he was saying was lost as I pushed my way rudely past him.

The heavy door swung shut with a soft thump behind me. Jamie was dozing, facedown on the bed. He was uncovered, clad only in a novice’s short gown; the charcoal brazier in the corner made the room comfortably warm, if smoky.

He started violently when I touched him. His eyes, still glazed with sleep, were sunk deep and his face was haunted by dreams. I took his hand between both of mine, but he wrenched it away. With a look of near-despair, he shut his eyes and buried his face in the pillow.

Trying not to exhibit any outward sign of disturbance, I quietly pulled up a stool and sat down near his head. “I won’t touch you,” I said, “but you must talk to me.” I waited for several minutes while he lay unmoving, shoulders hunched defensively. At last he sighed and sat up, moving slowly and painfully, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot.

“Aye,” he said flatly, not looking at me, “aye, I suppose I must. I should have done so before… but I was coward enough to hope I need not.” His voice was bitter and he kept his head bowed, hands clasped loosely around his knees. “I didna used to think myself a coward, but I am. I should have made Randall kill me, but I did not. I had no reason to live, but I was not brave enough to die.” His voice dropped, and he spoke so softly I could hardly hear him. “And I knew I would have to see you one last time… to tell you… but… Claire, my love… oh, my love.”

He picked up the pillow from the bed and hugged it to him as though for protection, a substitute for the comfort he could not seek from me. He rested his forehead on it for a moment, gathering strength.

“When ye left me there at Wentworth, Claire,” he said quietly, head still bowed, “I listened to your footsteps, going away on the flags outside, and I said to myself, I’ll think of her now. I’ll remember her; the feel of her skin and the scent of her hair and the touch of her mouth on mine. I’ll think of her until that door opens again. And I’ll think of her tomorrow, when I stand on the gallows, to give me courage at the last. Between the time the door opens, and the time I leave this place to die” – the big hands clenched briefly and relaxed – “I will not think at all,” he finished softly.

In the small dungeon room, he had closed his eyes and sat waiting. The pain was not bad, so long as he sat still, but he knew it would grow worse soon. Fearing pain, still he had dealt with it often before. He knew it and his own response to it well enough that he was resigned to endurance, hoping only that it would not exceed his strength too soon. The prospect of physical violation, too, was only a matter of mild revulsion now. Despair was in its own way an anesthetic.

There was no window in the room by which to judge the time. It had been late afternoon when he was brought to the dungeon, but his sense of time was unreliable. How many hours could it be until dawn? Six, eight, ten? Until the end of everything. He thought with grim humor that Randall at least had done him the favor of rendering death welcome.

When the door opened, he had looked up, expecting – what? There was only a man, slightly built, handsome, and a little disheveled, linen shirt torn and hair disarranged, leaning against the wood of the door, watching him.

After a moment, Randall had crossed the room unspeaking and stood beside him. He rested a hand briefly on Jamie’s neck, then bent and freed the trapped hand with a jerk of the nail that brought Jamie to the edge of fainting. A glass of brandy was set before him, and a firm hand raised his head and helped him to drink it.

“He lifted my face then, between his hands, and he licked the drops of brandy from my lips. I wanted to pull back from him, but I’d given my word, so I just sat still.”

Randall had held Jamie’s head for a moment, looking searchingly into his eyes, then released him and sat down on the table next to him.

“He sat there for quite a time, not saying anything, just swinging one leg back and forth. I had no idea what he wanted, and wasn’t disposed to guess. I was tired and feeling a bit sick from the pain in my hand. So after a time I just laid my head down on my arms and turned my face away.” He sighed heavily.

“After a moment, I could feel a hand on my head, but I didn’t move. He began to stroke my hair, very gently, over and over. There wasn’t any sound but the big fellow’s hoarse breathing and the crackle of the fire in the brazier, and I think… I think I went to sleep for a few moments.”

When he woke, Randall was standing in front of him.

“Are you feeling a bit better?” Randall had asked in a remote, courteous tone.

Wordless, Jamie had nodded, and stood up. Randall had stripped him, careful of the wounded hand, and led him to the bed.

“I’d given my word not to struggle, but I did not mean to help, either, so I just stood, as though I were made of wood. I thought I would let him do as he liked, but I’d take no part in it – I would keep a distance from him, in my mind at least.” Randall had smiled then, and gripped Jamie’s right hand, hard enough to make him sink onto the bed, sick and dizzy with the sudden stab of pain. Randall had knelt then on the floor before him, and taught him, in a few shattering minutes, that distance is an illusion.

“When he rose up, he took the knife and drew it across my chest, from one side to the other. It was not a deep cut, but it bled a bit. He watched my face a moment, then reached out a finger and dipped it in the blood.” Jamie’s voice was unsteady, tripping and stammering from time to time. “He licked my blood off his finger, with little flicks of his tongue, like a c-cat washing itself. He smiled a bit, then – very kind, like – and bent his head to my chest. I was not bound at all, but I could not have moved. I just… sat there, while he used his tongue to… It did not hurt, precisely, but it felt verra queer. After a time, he stood up and cleaned himself careful with a towel.”

I watched Jamie’s hand. With his face turned away, it was the best indicator of his feelings. It clenched convulsively on the edge of the cot as he went on.

“He – he told me that… I was delicious. The cut had almost stopped bleeding, but he took the towel and scrubbed it hard over my chest to open the wound again.” The knuckles of the clenched hand were knobs of bloodless bone. “He unbuttoned his breeches then, and smeared the fresh blood on himself, and said it was my turn now.”

Afterward, Randall held his head and helped him to be sick, wiped his face gently with a wet cloth, and gave him brandy to cleanse his mouth of foulness. And so, by turns vicious and tender, bit by bit, using pain as his weapon, he had destroyed all barriers of mind and body.

I wanted to stop Jamie, to tell him that he didn’t need to go on, must not go on, but I bit my lip hard to keep from speaking and clasped my own hands tight together to keep from touching him.

He told me the rest of it, then; the slow and deliberate whipstrokes, interspersed with kisses. The shocking pain of burns, administered to drag him from the brink of a desperately sought unconsciousness to face further degradations. He told me everything, with hesitations, sometimes with tears, much more than I could bear to hear, but I heard him out, silent as a confessor. He glanced quickly up at me, then away.

“I could have stood being hurt, no matter how bad it was. I expected to be… used, and I thought I could stand that too. But I couldn’t… I… he…” I dug my nails fiercely into my palms in the struggle to keep quiet. He shook soundlessly for a time, then his voice came again, thick, but desperately steady.

“He did not just hurt me, or use me. He made love to me, Claire. He hurt me – hurt me badly – while he did it, but it was an act of love to him. And he made me answer him – damn his soul! He made me rouse to him!” The hand bunched into a fist and struck the bedframe with an impotent rage that made the whole bed tremble.

“The… first time, he was verra careful with me. He used oil, and took a long time, rubbing it all over me… touchin’ me gentle in all my parts. I could no more stop myself rising to his touch than I could stop myself bleeding when he cut me.” Jamie’s voice was weary and wretched with despair. He paused, and looked directly at me for the first time since I had come in.

“Claire, I did not want to think of you. I couldna bear to be there, naked, and… like that… and to remember loving you. It was blasphemy. I meant to wipe you from my mind, and only to… exist, so long as I must. But he would not allow it.” Wetness shone on his cheeks, but he was not crying now.

“He talked. All during it, he talked to me. Partly it was threats, and partly it was love talk, but often it was you.”

“Me?” My voice, unused for so long, came out of my strained throat as little more than a croak. He nodded, looking down at the pillow again.

“Aye. He was most terribly jealous of you, you know.”

“No. No, I didn’t know.”

He nodded again. “Oh, yes. He would ask me – while he touched me – he would ask, ‘Does she do this for you? Can your woman r-rouse you like this?” His voice trembled. “I wouldna answer him – I couldn’t. And then, he’d ask how I thought you would feel to see me… to see me…” He bit his lip hard, unable to go on for a moment.

“He’d hurt me a bit, then stop and love me ’til I began to rouse… and then he’d hurt me fierce and take me in the midst of the hurting. And all the time, he would talk of you, and keep you before my eyes. I fought, in my mind… I tried to keep myself from him, to keep my mind apart from my body, but the pain broke through, again and again, past every barrier I could put up. I tried, Claire – God, I tried so hard, but…”

He sank his head in his hands, fingers digging hard into his temples. He spoke abruptly. “I know why young Alex MacGregor hanged himself. I’d do the same, did I not know it to be mortal sin. If he’s damned me in life, he’ll not do so in heaven.” There was a moment’s silence while he struggled to control himself. I noticed automatically that the pillow on his knees was blotched with dampness, and wanted to get up and change it for him. He shook his head slowly, still gazing down at his feet.

“The… it’s all linked for me now. I canna think of you, Claire, even of kissing you or touching your hand, without feeling the fear and the pain and the sickness come back. I lie here feeling that I will die without your touch, but when you touch me, I feel as though I will vomit with shame and loathing of myself. I canna even see you now without…” His forehead rested on knotted fists, knuckles dug hard into his eye-sockets. The tendons of his neck were sharply etched with strain, and his voice came half-muffled.

“Claire, I want you to leave me. Go back to Scotland, to Craigh na Dun. Go back to your place, to your… husband. Murtagh will take you safe, I’ve told him.” He was silent for a moment, and I did not move.

He looked up again with desperate bravery, and spoke very simply.

“I will love you as long as I live, but I cannot be your husband any longer. And I will not be less to you.” His face began to break apart. “Claire, I want you so badly that my bones shake in my body, but God help me, I am afraid to touch you!”

I started up to go to him, but he stopped me with a sudden motion of his hand. He was half doubled up, face contorted with internal struggle, and his voice was strangled and breathless.

“Claire… please. Please go. I’m going to be verra sick, and I don’t want you to see it. Please.”

I heard the pleading in his voice and knew I must spare him this one indignity, at least. I rose, and for the first time in my professional life, left a sick man to his own devices, helpless and alone.

I left his chamber, numbed, and leaned against the white stone wall outside, cooling my flushed cheek against the unyielding blocks, ignoring the stares of Murtagh and Brother William. God help me, he had said. God help me, I am afraid to touch you.

I straightened and stood alone. Well, why not? Surely there was no one else.

At the hour when time began to slow, I genuflected in the aisle of the chapel of St. Giles. Anselm was there, elegant shoulders straight beneath his habit, but no other. He neither moved nor looked around, but the living silence of the chapel embraced me.

I remained on my knees for a moment, reaching out to the quiet darkness, staying my mind from its hurry. Only when I felt my heart slow to the rhythms of the night did I slide into a seat near the back.

I sat rigid, lacking the form and ritual, the liturgical courtesies that eased the brothers into the depths of their sacred conversation. I did not know how to begin. Finally, I said, silently, bluntly, I need help. Please.

And then I let the silence fall back in waves around me, lapping me like the folds of a cloak, comforting against the cold. And I waited, as Anselm had told me, and the minutes passed by uncounted.

There was a small table at the back of the chapel, covered with a linen cloth, bearing the stoup of holy water, and beside it, a Bible and two or three other inspirational works. For use by adorers for whom the silence was too much, I supposed.

It was becoming too much for me, and I rose and got the Bible, bringing it back to the prie-dieu with me. I was hardly the first person to have recourse to the sortes Virgilianae in time of confusion or trouble. There was sufficient light from the candles for me to read, turning the flimsy pages carefully and squinting over the lines of fine black type.

“…and he smote them with emerods, and they were very sore.” No doubt they were, I thought. What in hell were emerods? Try Psalms, instead.

“But I am a worm, and no man… I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” Well, yes, a competent diagnosis, I thought, with some impatience. But was there some treatment?

“But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.” Hmm.

I turned to the Book of Job, Jamie’s favorite. Surely if anyone was in a position to offer helpful advice…

“But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.” Mmm, yes, I thought, and turned the page.

“He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain… His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out.” Spot on, I thought. What next?

“Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.” Not so good, but the next bit was more heartening. “If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth.” And what was the ransom, then, that would buy a man’s soul, and deliver my darling from the power of the dog?

I closed the book and my eyes. The words muddled together, blurring with my urgent need. An overriding misery struck me when I spoke Jamie’s name. And yet there was some small peace there, a lessening of tension when I said, as I did over and over again, “O Lord, into thy hands I commend the soul of your servant James.”

The thought came to me that perhaps Jamie would be better off dead; he had said he wanted to die. I was morally sure that if I left him as he wished, he would be dead soon, whether from the aftereffects of torture and illness, from hanging, or in some battle. And I was in no doubt that he knew it as well. Ought I to do as he said? Damned if I will, I said to myself. Damned if I will, I said fiercely to the sunburst on the altar and opened the book again.

It was some time before I became aware that my thread of petition was no longer a monologue. In fact, I knew it only when I realized that I had just answered a question I had no memory of asking. In my trance of sleepless misery, something had been asked of me, I wasn’t sure just what, and I had answered without thinking, “Yes, I will.”

I stopped all thought abruptly, listening to the ringing silence. And then, more cautiously, repeated, voiceless, “Yes. Yes, I will,” and thought fleetingly, The conditions of sin are these: first, you must give your full consent to it… And the conditions of grace as well, came an echo of Anselm’s quiet voice.

There was a feeling, not sudden, but complete, as though I had been given a small object to hold unseen in my hands. Precious as opal, smooth as jade, weighty as a river stone, more fragile than a bird’s egg. Infinitely still, live as the root of Creation. Not a gift, but a trust. Fiercely to cherish, softly to guard. The words spoke themselves and disappeared into the groined shadows of the roof.

I genuflected to the Presence then, and left the chapel, never doubting, in the eternity of the moment when time stops, that I had an answer, but having no idea what that answer was. I knew only that what I held was a human soul; my own or another’s, I could not tell.

It did not appear to be an answer to prayer, when I woke to the resumption of ordinary time in the morning to find a lay brother standing over me, telling me that Jamie was burning with fever.

“How long has he been like this?” I asked, laying a practiced hand on brow and back, armpit and groin. No trace of relieving sweat; only the dry stretched skin of persistent parching, fiery with heat. He was awake, but heavy-eyed and groggy. The source of the fever was plain. The shattered right hand was puffy, with a foul-smelling ooze soaking the bandages. Ominous red streaks ran up the wrist. A bloody infection, I thought to myself. A filthy, suppurating, blood poisoning, life-threatening infection.

“I found him so when I came to look in on him after Matins,” replied the serving brother who had come to fetch me. “I gave him water, but he began to vomit just after dawn.”

“You should have fetched me at once,” I said. “Still, never mind. Bring me hot water, raspberry leaves, and Brother Polydore, as quickly as possible.” He left with the assurance that he would see some breakfast was brought for me as well, but I waved such amenities aside, reaching for the pewter jug of water.

By the time Brother Polydore appeared, I had tried the internal application of water, only to have it violently rejected, and was applying it externally instead, soaking the sheets and wrapping them loosely over the hot skin.

Simultaneously, I set the infected hand to soak in fresh-boiled water, as hot as could be stood without burning the skin. Lacking sulfa drugs or modern antibiotics, heat was the only defense against a bacterial infection. The patient’s body was doing its best to supply that heat by means of high fever, but the fever itself posed a serious danger, wasting muscle and damaging brain cells. The trick was to apply sufficient local heat to destroy the infection, while keeping the rest of the body cool enough to prevent damage, and sufficiently hydrated to maintain its normal functions. A bloody three-tier balancing act, I thought bleakly.

Neither Jamie’s state of mind nor his physical discomfort were relevant any longer. It was a straightforward struggle to keep him alive until the infection and the fever ran their course; nothing else mattered.

In the afternoon of the second day, he began to hallucinate. We tied him to the bed with soft rags to prevent his hurling himself to the floor. Finally, as a desperate measure to break the fever, I sent one of the lay brothers out to bring in a bushel basket of snow, which we packed around him. This resulted in a violent shivering fit that left him drained and exhausted, but did briefly bring his temperature down.

Unfortunately, the treatment had to be repeated at hourly intervals. By sunset, the room looked like a swamp, with puddles of melted snow standing on the floor, tussocks of sodden sheeting mounded among them, and steam like marsh gas rising from the brazier in the corner. Brother Polydore and myself were sodden, too, soaked with sweat, chilled with snow water, and near to exhaustion, in spite of the helpful assistance of Anselm and the lay brothers. Febrifuges such as coneflower, goldenseal, catnip, and hyssop had been tried, without effect. Willowbark tea, which might have helped with its content of salicylic acid, could not be consumed in amounts large enough to matter.

In one of his increasingly rare lucid intervals, Jamie asked me to let him die. I answered curtly, as I had the night before, “Damned if I will,” and went on with what I was doing.

As the sun went down, there was a stir of approaching men in the corridor. The door opened and the abbot, Jamie’s uncle Alex, came in, accompanied by Brother Anselm and three other monks, one carrying a small cedarwood box. The abbot came over to me and blessed me briefly, then took one of my hands in his.

“We are going to anoint the lad,” he said, his deep voice kind. “Do not be frightened.”

He turned toward the bed and I looked wildly to Anselm for explanation.

“The sacrament of Extreme Unction,” he explained, moving close so that his low tones would not disturb the monks gathered around the bed. “The Last Anointing.”

“Last Anointing! That’s for people who are dying!”

“Ssh.” He drew me farther away from the bed. “It might more properly be called anointing of the sick, though in fact it is usually reserved for those in danger of death.” The monks had turned Jamie gently onto his back, arranging him tenderly so that he might lie with the least hurt to his raw shoulders.

“The purpose of the sacrament is twofold,” Anselm went on, murmuring in my ear as the preparations went on. “First, it is intended as a sacrament of healing; we pray that the sufferer may be restored to health, if that be God’s will for him. The chrism, the consecrated oil, is used as a symbol of life and healing.”

“And the second purpose?” I asked, already knowing.

Anselm nodded. “If it is not God’s will that he should recover, then he is given absolution of sins, and we commend him to God, that his soul may depart in peace.” He saw me tighten in protest, and laid a warning hand on my arm.

“These are the last rites of the Church. He is entitled to them, and to whatever peace they may bring him.”

The preparations were complete. Jamie lay on his back, a cloth modestly draped across his loins, with lighted candles at the head and the foot of the bed that reminded me most unpleasantly of grave lights. Abbot Alexander sat at the bedside, accompanied by a monk who held a tray with a covered ciborium, two small silver bottles containing holy water and chrism, and a white cloth draped across both forearms. Like a bloody wine steward, I thought crossly. The whole procedure unnerved me.

The rites were conducted in Latin, the soft antiphonal murmuring soothing to the ear, though I did not understand the meaning. Anselm whispered softly to me the meaning of some parts of the service; others were self-explanatory. At one point, the Abbot motioned to Polydore, who stepped forward and held a small vial under Jamie’s nose. It must have contained spirits of ammonia or some other stimulant, because he jerked and turned his head away sharply, eyes still closed.

“Why are they trying to wake him?” I whispered.

“If possible, the person should be conscious in order to give assent to the statement that he is sorry for any sins committed during his life. Also, if he is capable of receiving it, the Abbot will give him the Blessed Sacrament.”

The Abbot stroked Jamie’s cheek softly, turning his head back to the vial, speaking quietly to him. He had dropped from Latin into the broad Scots of their family, and his voice was gentle.

“Jamie! Jamie, lad! It’s Alex, lad. I’m here wi’ ye. Ye must wake a bit now, only for a bit. I shall be givin’ ye the absolution now, and then the Blessed Sacrament of Our Lord. Take a wee sup, now, so ye can answer me when ye must.” The monk called Polydore held the cup against Jamie’s lips, carefully pouring the water a drop at a time, until the parched tongue and throat could take more. His eyes were open, still heavy with fever, but alert enough.

The Abbot went on then, the questions in English, but pitched so low that I could scarcely catch them. “Do ye renounce Satan and all his works?” “Do ye believe in the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ?” and so on. To each one, Jamie answered “Aye,” in a scratchy whisper.

Once the sacrament had been given, Jamie lay back with a sigh, closing his eyes once more. I could see his ribs as the deep-sprung chest moved with his breathing. He had wasted dreadfully, between the sickness and the fever. The Abbot, taking the vials of holy water and chrism in turn, made the sign of the Cross on his body, anointing forehead, lips, nose, ears, and eyelids. Then, in turn, he made the sign of the Cross with the holy oil in the hollow of the chest over the heart, on the palm of each hand, and the arch of each foot. He lifted the injured hand with infinite care, brushing the oil across the wound lightly and laying the hand back on Jamie’s chest, where it lay below the livid slash of the knife scar.

The anointing was quick and immeasurably gentle, a feather touch by the Abbot’s rapidly moving thumb. “Superstitious magic,” said the rational side of my brain, but I was deeply moved by the love on the faces of the monks as they prayed. Jamie’s eyes were open once more, but very calm, and his face was peaceful for the first time since we had left Lallybroch.

The ceremony concluded with a brief prayer in Latin. Laying his hand on Jamie’s head, the Abbot said in English, “Lord, into thy hands we commend the soul of your servant, James. Heal him, we pray, if that be Thy will, and strengthen his soul, that he may be filled with grace, and know Thy peace throughout eternity.”

“Amen,” replied the other monks. And so did I.

By dark, the patient had lapsed into semiconsciousness again. As Jamie’s strength waned, it was all we could do to rouse him for the sips of water that were keeping him alive. His lips were cracked and peeling, and he could no longer talk, though he would still open glazed eyes when shaken roughly. He no longer recognized us; his eyes stared fixedly, then gradually closed as he turned his head away, moaning.

I stood by the bed looking down at him, so exhausted from the rigors of the day that I felt no more than a sort of dull despair. Brother Polydore touched me gently, bringing me out of my daze.

“You cannot do any more for him now,” he said, leading me firmly away. “You must go and rest.”

“But-” I began, then stopped. He was right, I realized. We had done everything possible. Either the fever would break soon of itself, or Jamie would die. Even the strongest body could not endure the consuming ravages of high fever for more than a day or two, and Jamie had little strength left to see him through such a siege.

“I will stay with him,” Polydore said. “Go to your bed. I’ll summon you if…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but waved me gently in the direction of my own chamber.

I lay sleepless on my cot, staring at the beamed ceiling. My eyes were dry and hot, and my throat ached, as though I were coming down with a fever as well. Was this the answer to my prayer, that we would die here together?

At last I rose, and took up the jug and basin from the table by the door. I set the heavy pottery dish in the center of the floor and filled it carefully, letting the water swell up over the thickened rim into a trembling bubble.

I had made a short detour to Brother Ambrose’s stillroom on the way to my chamber. I undid the small packets of herbs and scattered the contents into my brazier, where the myrrh leaves gave off a fragrant smoke, and the crumbs of camphor flamed with tiny blue tongues between the red glow of the charcoal sticks.

I set the candlestick behind my reflecting pool, took my place before it, and sat down to summon a ghost.

The stone corridor was cold and dark, lit at intervals by dimly flickering oil lamps hung from the ceiling. My shadow stretched forward under my feet as I passed beneath each one, lengthening until it seemed to dive headfirst and disappear into the dark ahead.

In spite of the cold, I was barefoot and wearing only a coarse white cotton nightrobe. A small envelope of warmth moved with me under the robe, but the chill from the stones crept up my feet and legs.

I knocked once, softly, and pushed open the heavy door without waiting for an answer.

Brother Roger was with him, sitting by the bed, telling beads with bowed head. The wooden rosary rattled as he looked up, but his lips continued to move silently for a few seconds, finishing the Ave Maria before acknowledging my presence.

He met me near the door, speaking quietly, though it was clear that he could have shouted without disturbing the motionless figure on the bed.

“No change. I’ve just put fresh water in the hand bath.” A few drops gleamed on the sides of the small pewter kettle on the brazier, freshly filled.

I nodded and put a hand on his arm in thanks. It was startlingly solid and warm after the imaginations of the last hour, and somehow comforting.

“I’d like to stay with him alone, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. I’ll go to the chapel – or should I stay near in case…” His voice trailed off, hesitant.

“No.” I tried to smile reassuringly. “Go to the chapel. Or better yet, go to bed. I can’t sleep; I’ll stay here ’til morning. If I need help, I’ll send for you.”

Still dubious, he glanced back at the bed. But it was very late, and he was tired; there were shadows under the kind brown eyes.

The heavy door squeaked on its hinges, and I was alone with Jamie. Alone and afraid, and very, very doubtful about what I proposed to do.

I stood at the foot of the bed, watching him for a moment. The room was dimly lit by the glow of the brazier and by two enormous candlesticks, each nearly three feet tall, that stood on the table at the side of the room. He was naked, and the faint light seemed to accentuate the hollows left by the wasting fever. The multicolored bruise over the ribs stained the skin like a spreading fungus.

A dying man takes on a faint greenish tinge. At first just a touch at the edge of the jaw, this pallor spreads gradually, over the face and down the chest as the force of life begins to ebb. I had seen it many times. A few times, I had seen that deadly progress arrested and reversed, the skin flush with blood once more, and the man live. More often… I shook myself vigorously and turned away.

I brought my hand out of the folds of my robe and laid on the table the objects I had collected in a surreptitious visit to Brother Ambrose’s darkened workshop. A vial of spirits of ammonia. A packet of dried lavender. Another of valerian. A small metal incense burner, shaped like an open blossom. Two pellets of opium, sweet scented and sticky with resin. And a knife.

The room was close and stuffy with smoke from the brazier. The only window was covered with a heavy tapestry, one showing the execution of Saint Sebastian. I eyed the saint’s upturned face and arrow-punctured torso, wondering afresh at the mentality of the person who had chosen this particular decoration for a sickroom.

Indifferently rendered as it was, the tapestry was of heavy silk and wool, and excluded all but the strongest drafts. I lifted the lower edge and flapped it, urging the charcoal smoke out through the stone arch. The cold, damp air that streamed in was refreshing, and did something to calm the throbbing that had started in my temples as I stared into the reflecting water, remembering.

There was a faint moan behind me, and Jamie stirred in the draft. Good. He was not deeply unconscious, then.

Letting the tapestry fall back over the window, I next took up the incense burner. I fixed one of the opium pellets on the spike and lighted it with one of the wax tapers for the candlesticks. I placed it on the small table near Jamie’s head, careful not to inhale the sickly fumes myself.

There was not much time. I must finish my preparations quickly, before the opium smoke drove him too far under to be roused.

I unlaced the front of my robe and rubbed my body quickly with handfuls of the lavender and valerian. It was a pleasant, spicy smell, distinctive and richly evocative. A smell that, to me, conjured the shade of the man who wore its perfume, and the shade of the man behind him; shades that evoked confusing images of present terror and lost love. A smell that, to Jamie, must recall the hours of pain and rage spent wrapped in its waves. I rubbed the last of it vigorously between my palms and dropped the fragrant shreds on the floor.

With a deep breath for courage, I picked up the vial of ammoniacal spirits. I stood by the bed a moment holding it, looking down at the gaunt, stubbled face. At most he might last a day; at the least, only a few more hours.

“All right, you bloody Scottish bastard,” I said softly. “Let’s see how stubborn you really are.” I lifted the injured hand, dripping, from the water and set the soaking dish aside.

I opened the vial and waved it closely under his nose. He snorted and tried to turn his head away, but didn’t open his eyes. I dug my fingers into the hair on the back of his head to prevent his turning away, and brought the vial back to his face. He shook his head slowly, swinging it from side to side like an ox roused from slumber, and his eyes came open just a crack.

“Not done yet, Fraser,” I whispered in his ear, trying as best I could to catch the rhythm of Randall’s clipped consonants.

Jamie moaned and hunched his shoulders. I grasped him by both shoulders and shook him roughly. His skin was so hot I nearly let go.

“Wake up, you Scottish bastard! I’m not done with you yet!” He began to struggle up onto his elbows with a pitiful effort at obedience that nearly broke my heart. His head was still shaking back and forth, and the cracked lips were muttering something that sounded like “please not yet” over and over again.

Strength failing, he rolled to one side and collapsed facedown on the pillow again. The room was beginning to fill with opium smoke and I felt mildly dizzy.

I gritted my teeth and plunged my hand between his buttocks, gripping one curving round. He screamed, a high breathy sound, and rolled painfully sideways, curling into a ball with his hands clasped between his legs.

I had spent the hour in my chamber, hovering over my pool of reflection, conjuring memories. Of Black Jack Randall and of Frank, his six-times-great-grandson. Such very different men, but with such startling physical similarities.

It tore me to think of Frank, to recall his face and voice, his mannerisms, his style of lovemaking. I had tried to obliterate him from my mind, once my choice was made in the circle of stone, but he was always there, a shadowy figure in the recesses of my mind.

I felt sick with betrayal of him, but in the extremity I had forced my mind to clear as Geilie had shown me, concentrating on the flame of the candle, breathing the astringency of the herbs, calming myself until I could bring him from the shadows, see the lines of his face, feel once more the touch of his hand without weeping.

There was another man in the shadows, with the same hands, the same face. Eyes filled with the candle flame, I had brought him forward, too, listening, watching, seeing the likenesses and the differences, building a – a what? A simulacrum, a persona, an impression, a masquerade. A shaded face, a whispered voice, and a loving touch that I might bring to deceive a mind adrift in delirium. And I left my chamber at last, with a prayer for the soul of the witch Geillis Duncan.

Jamie was on his back now, writhing slightly against the pain of his wounds. His eyes were fixed and staring, with no sign of recognition.

I caressed him in the way I knew so well, tracing the line of his ribs from breastbone to back, lightly as Frank would have done, pressing hard on the aching bruise, as I was sure the other would have. I leaned forward and ran my tongue slowly around his ear, tasting and probing, and whispered, “Fight me! Fight back, you filthy scut!”

His muscles tightened and his jaw clenched, but he continued to stare upward. No choice, then. I would have to use the knife after all. I knew the risk I was taking in this, but better to kill him myself, I thought, than to sit quietly by and let him die.

I took the knife from the table and drew it firmly across his chest, along the path of the freshly healed scar. He gasped with the shock of it, and arched his back. Seizing a towel, I scrubbed it briskly over the wound. Before I could falter, I forced myself to run my fingers over his chest, scooping up a gout of blood which I rubbed savagely over his lips. There was one phrase that I didn’t have to invent, having heard it myself. Bending low over him, I whispered, “Now kiss me.”

I was not at all prepared for it. He hurled me half across the room as he came up off the bed. I staggered and fell against the table, making the giant candlesticks sway. The shadows darted and swung as the wicks flared and went out.

The edge of the table had struck me hard across the back, but I recovered in time to dodge away as he lunged for me. With an inarticulate growl, he came after me, hands outstretched.

He was both faster and stronger than I expected, though he staggered awkwardly, bumping into things. He cornered me for a moment between the brazier and the table, and I could hear his breath rasping harshly in his throat as he grabbed for me. He smashed his left hand toward my face; had his strength and reflexes been anything like normal, the blow would have killed me. Instead, I jerked to one side, and his fist glanced off my forehead, knocking me to the floor, mildly stunned.

I crawled under the table. Reaching for me, he lost his balance and fell against the brazier. Glowing coals scattered across the stone floor of the chamber. He howled as his knee crunched heavily into a patch of hot coal. I seized a pillow from the bed and beat out a smoldering nest of sparks in the trailing bedcover. Preoccupied with this, I didn’t notice his approach, until a solid clout across the head knocked me sprawling.

The cot overturned as I tried to pull myself up with a hand on the frame. I lay sheltering behind it for a moment, trying to get my senses back. I could hear Jamie hunting me in the semidarkness, breath rasping between incoherent phrases of Gaelic cursing. Suddenly he caught sight of me and flung himself over the bed, eyes mad in the dim light.

It is difficult to describe in detail what happened next, if only because everything happened a number of times, and the times all overlap in my memory. It seems as though Jamie’s burning hands closed on my neck only once, but that once went on forever. In fact, it happened dozens of times. Each time I managed to break his grip and throw him off, to retreat once more, dodging and ducking around the wrecked furniture. And once again he would follow, a man pulled by rage from the edge of death, swearing and sobbing, staggering and flailing wildly.

Deprived of the sheltering brazier, the coals died quickly, leaving the room black as pitch and peopled with demons. In the last flickers of light, I saw him crouched against the wall, maned in fire and mantled in blood, penis stiff against the matted hair of his belly, eyes blue murder in a skull-white face. A Viking berserker. Like the Northern devils who burst from their dragon-ships into the mists of the ancient Scottish coast, to kill and plunder and burn. Men who would kill with the last ounce of their strength. Who would use that last strength to rape and sow their violent seed in the bellies of the conquered. The tiny incense burner gave no light, but the sickly smell of opium clogged my lungs. Though the coals were out, I saw lights in the darkness, colored lights that floated at the edge of my vision.

Movement was becoming harder; I felt as though I were wading through water thigh-deep, pursued by monstrous fish. I lifted my knees high, running in slow motion, feeling the water splash against my face.

I shook off the dream, to realize that there was in fact wetness on my face and hands. Not tears, but blood, and the sweat of the nightmare creature I grappled with in the dark.

Sweat. There was something I should remember about sweat, but I couldn’t recall it. A hand tightened on my upper arm and I pulled away, a slick film left on my skin.

Around and around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel. But something was wrong, it was the weasel chasing me, a weasel with sharp white teeth that pierced my forearm. I hit out at it and the teeth let go, but the claws… around and around the mulberry bush…

The demon had me up against the wall; I could feel stone behind my head and stone beneath my grasping fingers, and a stone-hard body pressing hard against me, bony knee between my own, stone and bone, between my own… legs, more stony hardness… ah. A softness amidst the hardness of life, pleasant coolness in the heat, comfort in the midst of woe…

We fell locked together to the floor, rolling over and over, tangled in the folds of the fallen tapestry, washed in the drafts of cold air from the window. The mists of madness began to recede.

We bashed into some piece of furniture and both lay still. Jamie’s hands were locked on my breasts, fingers digging bruisingly into the flesh. I felt the plop of dampness on my face, sweat or tears, I couldn’t tell, but opened my eyes to see. Jamie was looking down at me, face blank in the moony light, eyes wide, unfocused. His hands relaxed. One finger gently traced the outline of my breast, from slope to tip, over and over. His hand moved to cup the breast, fingers spread like a starfish, soft as the grip of a nursing child.

“M-mother?” he said. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. It was the high, pure voice of a young boy. “Mother?”

The cold air laved us, whirling the unhealthy smoke away in a drift of snowflakes. I reached up and laid the palm of my hand along his cold cheek.

“Jamie, love,” I said, whispering through a bruised throat, “Come then, come lay your head, man.” The mask trembled then and broke, and I held the big body hard against me, the two of us shaking with the force of his sobbing.

It was, by considerable good luck, the unflappable Brother William who found us in the morning. I woke groggily to the sound of the door opening, and snapped to full consciousness when I heard him clear his throat emphatically before saying “Good morning to ye,” in his soft Yorkshire drawl.

The heavy weight on my chest was Jamie. His hair had dried in bronze streaks and whorled over my breasts like the petals of a Chinese chrysanthemum. The cheek pressed against my sternum was warm and slightly sticky with sweat, but the back and arms I could touch were as cold as my thighs, chilled by the winter air gusting in on us.

Daylight streaming through the uncurtained window revealed the full extent of the wreckage I had only dimly realized the night before; smashed furniture and crockery littered the room, and the massive paired candlesticks lay like fallen logs in the midst of a tangle of torn hangings and scattered bedclothes. From the pattern of indentations impressing itself painfully into my back, I thought I must be lying on the indifferently executed tapestry of St. Sebastian the Human Pincushion; no great loss to the monastery, if so.

Brother William stood motionless in the doorway, jug and basin in hand. With great precision, he fixed his eyes on Jamie’s left eyebrow and inquired, “And how do you feel this morning?”

There was a rather long pause, during which Jamie considerately remained in place, blanketing most of me from view. At last, in the hoarse tones of one to whom a revelation has been vouchsafed, he replied, “Hungry.”

“Oh, good,” said Brother William, still staring hard at the eyebrow, “I’ll go and tell Brother Josef.” The door closed soundlessly behind him.

“Nice of you not to move,” I remarked. “I shouldn’t like us to be responsible for giving Brother William impure thoughts.”

Dense blue eyes stared down at me. “Aye, well,” he said judiciously, “a view of my arse is no going to corrupt anyone’s Holy Orders; not in its present condition. Yours, though…” He paused to clear his throat.

“What about mine?” I demanded.

The bright head lowered slowly to plant a kiss on my shoulder. “Yours,” he said, “would compromise a bishop.”

“Mmmphm.” I was, I felt, getting rather good at Scottish noises myself. “Be that as it may, perhaps you should move now. I don’t suppose even Brother William’s tact is infinite.”

Jamie lowered his head next to mine with some care, laying it on a fold of tapestry, from which he peered sideways at me. “I dinna know how much of last night I dreamed and how much was real.” His hand unconsciously strayed to the scratch across his chest. “But if half what I thought happened really happened, I should be dead now.”

“You’re not. I looked.” With some hesitation, I asked, “Do you want to be?”

He smiled slowly, eyes half-closing. “No, Sassenach, I don’t.” His face was gaunt and shadowed with illness and fatigue, but peaceful, the lines around his mouth smoothed out and the blue eyes clear. “But I’m damned close to it, want to or not. The only reason I think I’m not dying now is that I’m hungry. I wouldna be hungry if I were about to die, do ye think? Seems a waste.” One eye closed altogether, but the other stayed half-open, fixed on my face with a quizzical expression.

“You can’t stand up?”

He considered carefully. “If my life depended on it, I might possibly lift my head again. But stand up? No.”

With a sigh, I wriggled out from under him and righted the bed before trying to lever him into a vertical position. He managed to stand for only a few seconds before his eyes rolled back and he fell across the bed. I groped frantically for the pulse in his neck, and found it, slow and strong, just below the three-cornered scar at the base of his throat. Simple exhaustion. After a month of imprisonment and a week of intense physical and mental stress, starvation, injury, sickness and high fever, even that vigorous frame had finally come to the end of its resources.

“The heart of a lion,” I said, shaking my head, “and the head of an ox. Too bad you haven’t also got the hide of a rhinoceros.” I touched a freshly bloodied weal on his shoulder.

He opened one eye. “What’s a rhinoceros?”

“I thought you were unconscious!”

“I was. I am. My head’s spinning like a top.”

I drew a blanket up over him. “What you need now are food and rest.”

“What you need now,” he said, “are clothes.” And shutting the eye again, he fell promptly asleep.

Chapter 40. ABSOLUTION

I had no memory of finding my way to bed, but I must have done so, because I woke up there. Anselm was sitting by the window, reading. I sat bolt upright in bed.

“Jamie?” I croaked.

“Asleep,” he said, putting the book aside. He glanced at the hour-candle on the table. “Like you. You have been with the angels for the last thirty-six hours, ma belle.” He filled a cup from the earthenware jug and held it to my lips. At one time I would have considered drinking wine in bed before brushing one’s teeth to be the last word in decadence. Performed in a monastery, in company with a robed Franciscan, the act seemed somewhat less degenerate. And the wine did cut through the mossy feeling in my mouth.

I swung my feet over the side of the bed, and sat swaying. Anselm caught me by the arm and eased me back onto the pillow. He seemed suddenly to have four eyes, and altogether more noses and mouths than strictly necessary.

“I’m a bit dizzy,” I said, closing my eyes. I opened one. Somewhat better. At least there was only one of him, if a trifle blurry around the edges.

Anselm bent over me, concerned.

“Shall I fetch Brother Ambrose or Brother Polydore, Madame? I have little skill in medicine, unfortunately.”

“No, I don’t need anything. I just sat up too suddenly.” I tried again, more slowly. This time the room and its contents stayed relatively still. I became aware of numerous bruises and sore spots earlier submerged in the dizziness. I tried to clear my throat and discovered that it hurt. I grimaced.

“Really, ma chère, I think perhaps…” Anselm was poised by the door, ready to fetch assistance. He looked quite alarmed. I reached for the looking glass on the table and then changed my mind. I really wasn’t ready for that. I grasped the wine jug instead.

Anselm came slowly back into the room and stood watching me. Once convinced that I wasn’t going to collapse after all, he sat down again. I sipped the wine slowly as my head cleared, trying to shake off the aftereffects of opium-induced dreams. So we were alive, after all. Both of us.

My dreams had been chaotic, filled with violence and blood. I had dreamed over and over that Jamie was dead or dying. And somewhere in the fog had been the image of the boy in the snow, his surprised round face overlying the image of Jamie’s bruised and battered one. Sometimes the pathetic, fuzzy mustache seemed to appear on Frank’s face. I distinctly remembered killing all three of them. I felt as though I had spent the night in stabbing and butchery, and I ached in every muscle with a sort of dull depression.

Anselm was still there, patiently watching me, hands on his knees.

“There is something you could do for me, Father,” I said.

He rose at once, eager to help, reaching for the jug.

“Of course? More wine?”

I smiled wanly.

“Yes, but later. Right now, I want you to hear my confession.”

He was startled, but quickly gathered his professional self-possession around him like his robes.

“But of course, chère madame, if you wish it. But really, would it not be better to fetch Father Gerard? He is well known as a confessor, while I” – he gave a Gallic shrug – “I am allowed to hear confessions, of course, but in truth I seldom do so, being only a poor scholar.”

“I want you,” I said firmly. “And I want to do it now.”

He sighed in resignation and went to fetch his stola. Arranging it about his neck so that the purple silk lay straight and shimmering down the black front of his habit, he took a seat on the stool, blessed me briefly and sat back, waiting.

And I told him. Everything. Who I was and how I came there. About Frank, and about Jamie. And about the young English dragoon with the pale, spotty face, dying against the snow.

He showed no change of expression while I spoke, except that the round brown eyes grew rounder still. When I finished, he blinked once or twice, opened his mouth as though to speak, closed it again, and shook his head as though to clear it.

“No,” I said patiently. I cleared my throat again; I croaked like a bullfrog. “You haven’t been hearing things. And you’re not imagining it, either. Now you see why I wanted you to hear it under the seal of confession?”

He nodded, a bit abstractedly.

“Yes. Yes, to be sure. If… but yes. Of course, you wished me to tell no one. And also, since you tell it to me under the seal of the sacrament, then you expect that I must believe it. But…” He scratched his head, then looked up at me. A wide smile spread slowly across his countenance.

“But how marvelous!” he exclaimed softly. “How extraordinary, and how wonderful!”

“ ‘Wonderful’ isn’t precisely the word I would have chosen,” I said dryly, “but ‘extraordinary’ is all right.” I coughed and reached for more wine.

“But it is… a miracle,” he said, as though to himself.

“If you insist,” I said, sighing. “But what I want to know – what ought I to do? Am I guilty of murder? Or adultery, for that matter? Not that there’s much to be done about it in either case, but I’d like to know. And since I am here, how ought I to act? Can I – should I, I mean – use what I know to… change things? I don’t even know if such a thing is possible. But if it is, have I the right?”

He rocked back on his stool, considering. Slowly he raised both index fingers, placed them tip to tip and stared at them for a long time. Finally, he shook his head and smiled at me.

“I don’t know, ma bonne amie. It is not, you will appreciate, a situation one is prepared to encounter in the confessional. I will have to think, and to pray. Yes, assuredly to pray. Tonight I will contemplate your situation when I hold my watch before the Blessed Sacrament. And tomorrow perhaps I can advise you.”

He motioned me gently to kneel.

“But for now, my child, I will absolve you. Whatever your sins might be, have faith that they will be forgiven.”

He lifted one hand in blessing, placing the other on my head. “Te absolvo, in nomine Patri, et Filii,…”

Rising, he lifted me to my feet.

“Thank you, Father,” I said. Unbeliever that I was, I had used confession only to force him to take me seriously, and was somewhat surprised to feel a lightening of the burden on my spirits. Perhaps it was only the relief of telling someone the truth.

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I will see you tomorrow, chère madame. For now, you should rest more, if you can.”

He headed for the door, winding his stola up neatly into a square. At the doorway, he paused for a moment, turning to smile at me. A childlike excitement lighted his eyes.

“And perhaps tomorrow…” he said, “perhaps you could… tell me what it is like?”

I smiled back.

“Yes, Father. I’ll tell you.”

After he left, I staggered down the hall to see Jamie. I had seen any number of corpses in much better condition, but his chest rose and fell regularly, and the sinister green tinge had faded from his skin.

“I’ve been waking him every few hours, just long enough to swallow a few spoonfuls of broth.” Brother Roger was at my elbow, speaking softly. He moved his gaze from the patient to me, and recoiled noticeably at my appearance. I should probably have combed my hair. “Er, perhaps you would… like some?”

“No, thank you. I think… I think perhaps I will sleep a bit more, after all.” I no longer felt weighed down by guilt and depression, but a drowsy, contented heaviness was spreading through my limbs. Whether it was due to the effects of confession or of wine, I found to my surprise that I was looking forward to bed and to oblivion.

I leaned forward to touch Jamie. He was warm, but with no trace of fever. I gently stroked his head, smoothing the tumbled red hair. The corner of his mouth stirred briefly and fell back into place. But it had turned up. I was sure of it.

The sky was cold and damp, filling the horizon with a grey blankness that blended into the grey mist of the hills and the grimy cover of last week’s snow, so that the abbey seemed wrapped inside a ball of dirty cotton. Even inside the cloister, the winter’s silence weighed on the inhabitants. The chanting from the Hours of Praise in the chapel was muted, and the thick stone walls seemed to absorb all sound, swaddling the bustle of daily activity.

Jamie slept for nearly two days, waking only to take a little broth or wine. Once awake, he began to heal in the usual fashion of a normally healthy young man, suddenly deprived of the strength and independence usually taken for granted. In other words, he enjoyed the cosseting for approximately twenty-four hours and then became in turn restive, restless, testy, irritable, cranky, fractious, and extremely bad tempered.

The cuts on his shoulders ached. The scars on his legs itched. He was sick of lying on his belly. The room was too hot. His hand hurt. The smoke from the brazier made his eyes burn so that he could not read. He was sick of broth, posset, and milk. He wanted meat.

I recognized the symptoms of returning health, and was glad of them, but was prepared to put up with only so much of this. I opened the window, changed his sheets, applied marigold salve to his back and rubbed his legs with aloe juice. Then I summoned a serving brother and ordered more broth.

“I don’t want any more of this slop! I need food!” He pushed the tray irritably away, making the broth splash onto the napkin cradling the bowl.

I folded my arms and stared down at him. Imperious blue eyes stared right back. He was thin as a rail, the lines of jaw and cheekbone bold against the skin. Though he was mending well, the raw nerves of his stomach would take a little longer to heal. He still could not always keep down the broth and milk.

“You’ll get food when I say you can have it,” I informed him, “and not before.”

“I’ll have it now! D’ye think you can tell me what I’m to eat?”

“Yes, I bloody well do! I’m the doctor here, if you’ve forgotten.”

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed, clearly intending to take steps. I put a hand on his chest and shoved him back.

“Your job is to stay in that bed and do as you’re told, for once in your life,” I snapped. “You’re not fit to be up, and you’re not fit for solid foot yet. Brother Roger said you vomited again this morning.”

“Brother Roger can mind his own business, and so can you,” he said through his teeth, struggling back up. He reached out and got a hold on the table edge. With considerable effort, he made it to his feet, and stood there, swaying.

“Get back in bed! You’re going to fall down!” He was alarmingly pale, and even the small effort of standing had made him break out in a cold sweat.

“I’ll not,” he said. “And if I do, it’s my own concern.”

I was really angry by this time.

“Oh, is it! And who do you think saved your miserable life for you, anyway? Did it all by yourself, did you?” I grabbed his arm to steer him back to bed, but he jerked it away.

“I didna ask ye to, did I? I told ye to leave me, no? And I canna see why ye bothered to save my life, anyway, if it’s only to starve me to death – unless ye enjoy watching it!”

This was altogether too much.

“Bloody ingrate!”

“Shrew!”

I drew myself to my full height, and pointed menacingly at the cot. With all the authority learned in years of nursing, I said, “Get back in that bed this instant, you stubborn, mulish, idiotic-”

“Scot,” he finished for me, succinctly. He took a step toward the door, and would have fallen, had he not caught hold of a stool. He plumped heavily down on it and sat swaying, his eyes a little unfocused with dizziness. I clenched my fists and glared at him.

“Fine,” I said. “Bloody fine! I’ll order bread and meat for you, and after you vomit on the floor, you can just get down on your hands and knees and clean it up yourself! I won’t do it, and if Brother Roger does, I’ll skin him alive!”

I stormed into the hall and slammed the door behind me, just before the porcelain washbasin crashed into it from the other side. I turned to find an interested audience, no doubt attracted by the racket, standing in the hall. Brother Roger and Murtagh stood side by side, staring at my flushed face and heaving bosom. Roger looked disconcerted, but a slow smile spread over Murtagh’s craggy countenance as he listened to the string of Gaelic obscenities going on behind the door.

“He’s feeling better, then,” he said contentedly. I leaned against the corridor wall, and felt an answering smile spread slowly across my own face.

“Well, yes,” I said, “he is.”

On my way back to the main building from a morning spent in the herbary, I met Anselm coming from the cloister near the library. His face lighted when he saw me, and he hurried to join me in the courtyard. We walked together through the abbey grounds, talking.

“Yours is an interesting problem, to be sure,” he said, breaking a stick from a bush near the wall. He examined the winter-tight buds critically, then tossed it aside, and glanced up at the sky, where a feeble sun poked its way through the light cloud layer.

“Warmer, but a good way to go until the spring,” he observed. “Still, the carp should be lively today – let us go down to the fish pools.”

Far from being the delicate ornamental structures I had imagined them to be, the fish pools were little more than utilitarian rock-lined troughs, placed conveniently near to the kitchens. Stocked with carp, they provided the necessary food for Fridays and fast days, when the weather was too rough to permit ocean fishing for the more customary haddock, herring, and flounder.

True to Anselm’s word, the fish were lively, the fat fusiform bodies gliding past each other, white scales reflecting the clouds overhead, the vigor of their movements occasionally stirring up small waves that sloshed against the sides of their rocky prison. As our shadows fell on the water, the carp turned toward us like compass needles surging toward the north.

“They expect to be fed, when they see people,” Anselm explained. “It would be a shame to disappoint them. One moment, chère madame.”

He darted into the kitchens, returning shortly with two loaves of stale bread. We stood on the lip of the pool, tearing crumbs from the loaves and tossing them to the endlessly hungry mouths below.

“You know, there are two aspects to this curious situation of yours,” Anselm said, absorbed in tearing bread. He glanced aside at me, a sudden smile lighting his face. He shook his head in wonderment. “I can scarcely believe it still, you know. Such a marvel! Truly, God has been good, to show me such things.”

“Well, that’s nice,” I said, a bit dryly, “I don’t know whether He’s been quite so obliging to me.”

“Really? I think so.” Anselm sank down on his haunches, crumbling bread between his fingers. “True,” he said, “the situation has caused you no little personal inconvenience-”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I muttered.

“But it may also be regarded as a signal mark of God’s favor,” he went on, disregarding my interruption. The bright brown eyes regarded me speculatively.

“I prayed for guidance, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament,” he went on, “and as I sat in the silence of the chapel, I seemed to see you as a shipwrecked traveler. And it seems to me that that is a good parallel to your present situation, is it not? Imagine such a soul, Madame, suddenly cast away in a strange land, bereft of friends and familiarity, without resources save what the new land can provide. Such a happening is disaster, truly, and yet may be the opening for great opportunity and blessings. What if the new land shall be rich? New friends may be made, and a new life begun.”

“Yes, but-” I began.

“So” – he said authoritatively, holding up a finger to hush me – “if you have been deprived of your earlier life, perhaps it is only that God has seen fit to bless you with another, that may be richer and fuller.”

“Oh, it’s full, all right,” I agreed. “But-”

“Now, from the standpoint of canon law,” he said frowning, “there is no difficulty regarding your marriages. Both were valid marriages, consecrated by the church. And strictly speaking, your marriage to the young chevalier in there antedates your marriage to Monsieur Randall.”

“Yes, ‘strictly speaking,’ ” I agreed, getting to finish a sentence for once. “But not in my time. I don’t believe canon law was constructed with such contingencies in mind.”

Anselm laughed, the pointed end of his beard quivering in the slight breeze.

“More than true, ma chère, more than true. All that I meant was that, considered from a strictly legal standpoint, you have committed neither sin nor crime in what you have done regarding these two men. Those were the two aspects of your situation, of which I spoke earlier: what you have done, and what you will do.” He reached up a hand and took mine, tugging me down to sit beside him, so our eyes were on a level.

“That is what you asked me when I heard your confession, is it not? What have I done? And what shall I do?”

“Yes, that’s it. And you’re telling me that I haven’t done anything wrong? But I’ve-”

He was, I thought, nearly as bad as Dougal MacKenzie for interrupting.

“No, you have not,” he said firmly. “It is possible to act in strict accordance with God’s law and with one’s conscience, you comprehend, and still to encounter difficulties and tragedy. It is the painful truth that we still do not know why le bon Dieu allows evil to exist, but we have His word for it that this is true. ‘I created good,’ He says in the Bible, ‘and I created evil.’ Consequently, even good people sometimes, I think, especially good people,” he added meditatively, “may encounter great confusion and difficulties in their lives. For example, take the young boy you were obliged to kill. No,” he said, raising a hand against my interruption, “make no mistake. You were obliged to kill him, given the exigencies of your situation. Even Holy Mother Church, which teaches the sanctity of life, recognizes the need for defense of oneself and of one’s family. And having seen the earlier condition of your husband” – he cast a look back at the guests’ wing – “I have no doubt that you were obliged to take the path of violence. That being so, you have nothing with which to reproach yourself. You do, of course, feel pity and regret for the action, for you are, Madame, a person of great sympathy and feeling.” He gently patted the hand that rested on my drawn-up knees.

“Sometimes our best actions result in things that are most regrettable. And yet you could not have acted otherwise. We do not know what God’s plan for the young man was – perhaps it was His will that the boy should join him in heaven at that time. But you are not God, and there are limits to what you can expect of yourself.”

I shivered briefly as a cold wind came round the corner, and drew my shawl closer. Anselm saw it, and motioned toward the pool.

“The water is warm, Madame. Perhaps you would care to soak your feet?”

“Warm?” I gaped incredulously at the water. I hadn’t noticed before, but there were no broken sheets of ice in the corners of the trough, as there were on the holy water fonts outside the church, and small green plants floated in the water, sprouting from the cracks between the rocks that lined the pool.

In illustration, Anselm slipped off his own leather sandals. Cultured as his face and voice were, he had the square, sturdy hands and feet of a Normandy peasant. Hiking the skirt of his habit to his knees, he dipped his feet into the pool. The carp dashed away, turning almost at once to nose curiously at this new intrusion.

“They don’t bite, do they?” I asked, viewing the myriad voracious mouths suspiciously.

“Not flesh, no,” he assured me. “They have no teeth to speak of.”

I shed my own sandals and gingerly inserted my feet into the water. To my surprise, it was pleasantly warm. Not hot, but a delightful contrast to the damp, chilly air.

“Oh, that’s nice!” I wiggled my toes with pleasure, causing considerable consternation among the carp.

“There are several mineral springs near the abbey,” Anselm explained. “They bubble hot from the earth, and the waters hold great healing powers.” He pointed to the far end of the trough, were I could see a small opening in the rocks, half obscured by the drifting water plants.

“A small amount of the hot mineral water is piped here from the nearest spring. That is what enables the cook to maintain live fish for the table at all seasons; normally the winter weather would be too bitter for them.”

We paddled our feet in congenial silence for a time, the heavy bodies of the fish flicking past, occasionally bumping into our legs with a surprisingly weighty impact. The sun came out again, bathing us in a weak but perceptible warmth. Anselm closed his eyes, letting the light wash over his face. He spoke again without opening them.

“Your first husband – Frank was his name? – he, too, I think, must be commended to God as one of the regrettable things that you can do nothing about.”

“But I could have done something,” I argued. “I could have gone back – perhaps.”

He opened one eye and regarded me skeptically.

“Yes, ‘perhaps,’ ” he agreed. “And perhaps not. You need not reproach yourself for hesitating to risk your life.”

“It wasn’t the risk,” I said, flicking my toes at a big black-and-white splotched carp. “Or not entirely. It was – well, it was partly fear, but mostly it was that I – I couldn’t leave Jamie.” I shrugged helplessly. “I – simply couldn’t.”

Anselm smiled, opening both eyes.

“A good marriage is one of the most precious gifts from God,” he observed. “If you had the good sense to recognize and accept the gift, it is no reproach to you. And consider…” He tilted his head to one side, like a brown sparrow.

“You have been gone from your place for nearly a year. Your first husband will have begun to reconcile himself to your loss. Much as he may have loved you, loss is common to all men, and we are given means of overcoming it for our good. He will have started, perhaps, to build a new life. Would it do good for you to desert the man who needs you so deeply, and whom you love, to whom you are united in the bonds of holy matrimony, to return and disrupt this new life? And in particular, if you were to go back from a sense of duty, but feeling that your heart is given elsewhere – no.” He shook his head decisively.

“No man can serve two masters, and no more can a woman. Now, if that were your only valid marriage, and this” – he nodded again toward the guest wing – “merely an irregular attachment, then your duty might lie elsewhere. But you were bound by God, and I think you may honor your duty to the chevalier.

“Now, as to the other aspect – what you shall do. That may require some discussion.” He pulled his feet from the water, and dried them on the skirt of his habit.

“Let us adjourn this meeting to the abbey kitchens, where perhaps Brother Eulogius may be persuaded to provide us with a warming drink.”

Finding a stray bit of bread on the ground, I tossed it to the carp and stooped to put my sandals on.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to talk to someone about it,” I said. “And I still can’t get over the fact that you really do believe me.”

He shrugged, gallantly offering me an arm to hold while I slipped the rough straps of the sandal over my instep.

“Ma chère, I serve a man who multiplied the loaves and fishes” – he smiled, nodding at the pool, where the swirls of the carps’ feeding were still subsiding – “who healed the sick and raised the dead. Shall I be astonished that the master of eternity has brought a young woman through the stones of the earth to do His will?”

Well, I reflected, it was better than being denounced as the whore of Babylon.

The kitchens of the abbey were warm and cavelike, the arching roof blackened with centuries of grease-filled smoke. Brother Eulogius, up to his elbows in a vat of dough, nodded a greeting to Anselm and called in French to one of the lay brothers to come and serve us. We found a seat out of the bustle, and sat down with two cups of ale and a plate containing a hot pastry of some kind. I pushed the plate toward Anselm, too preoccupied to be interested in food.

“Let me put it this way,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “If I knew that some harm was going to occur to a group of people, should I feel obliged to try to avert it?”

Anselm rubbed his nose reflectively on his sleeve; the heat of the kitchen was beginning to make it run.

“In principle, yes,” he agreed. “But it would depend also upon a number of other things – what is the risk to yourself, and what are your other obligations? Also what is the chance of your success?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Of any of those things. Except obligation, of course – I mean, there’s Jamie. But he’s one of the group who might be hurt.”

He broke off a piece of pastry and passed it to me, steaming. I ignored it, studying the surface of my ale. “The two men I killed,” I said, “either of them might have had children, if I hadn’t killed them. They might have done-” I made a helpless gesture with the cup, “ – who knows what they might have done? I may have affected the future… no, I have affected the future. And I don’t know how, and that’s what frightens me so much.”

“Um.” Anselm grunted thoughtfully, and motioned to a passing lay brother, who hastened over with a fresh pasty and more ale. He refilled both cups before speaking.

“If you have taken life, you have also preserved it. How many of the sick you have treated would have died without your intervention? They also will affect the future. What if a person you have saved should commit an act of great evil? Is that your fault? Should you on that account have let that person die? Of course not.” He rapped his pewter mug on the table for emphasis.

“You say that you are afraid to take any actions here for fear of affecting the future. This is illogical, Madame. Everyone’s actions affect the future. Had you remained in your own place, your actions would still have affected what was to happen, no less than they will now. You have still the same responsibilities that you would have had then – that any man has at any time. The only difference is that you may be in a position to see more exactly what effects your actions have – and then again, you may not.” He shook his head, looking steadily across the table.

“The ways of the Lord are hidden to us, and no doubt for good reason. You are right, ma chère; the laws of the Church were not formulated with situations such as yours in mind, and therefore you have little guidance other than your own conscience and the hand of God. I cannot tell you what you should do, or not do.

“You have free choice; so have all the others in this world. And history, I believe, is the cumulation of all those actions. Some individuals are chosen by God to affect the destinies of many. Perhaps you are one of those. Perhaps not. I do not know why you are here. You do not know. It is likely that neither of us will ever know.” He rolled his eyes, comically. “Sometimes I don’t even know why I am here!” I laughed and he smiled in return. He leaned toward me across the rough planks of the table, intense.

“Your knowledge of the future is a tool, given to you as a shipwrecked castaway might find himself in possession of a knife or a fishing line. It is not immoral to use it, so long as you do so in accordance with the dictates of God’s law, to the best of your ability.”

He paused, drew a deep breath, and blew it out in an explosive sigh that ruffled his silky mustache. He smiled.

“And that, ma chère madame, is all I can tell you – no more than I can tell any troubled soul who comes to me for advice: put your trust in God, and pray for guidance.”

He shoved the fresh pastry toward me.

“But whatever you are to do, you will require strength for it. So take one last bit of advice: when in doubt, eat.”

When I came into Jamie’s room in the evening, he was asleep, head pillowed on his forearms. The empty broth bowl sat virtuously on the tray, the untouched platter of bread and meat beside it. I looked from the innocent, dreaming face to the platter and back. I touched the bread. My finger left a slight depression in the moist surface. Fresh.

I left him asleep and went in search of Brother Roger, who I found in the buttery.

“Did he eat the bread and meat?” I demanded, without preliminaries.

Brother Roger smiled in his fluffy beard. “Yes.”

“Did he keep it down?”

“No.”

I eyed him narrowly. “You didn’t clean up after him, I hope.”

He was amused, the round cheeks pink above his beard. “Would I dare? No, he took the precaution of having a basin ready, in case.”

“Damn wily Scot,” I said, laughing despite myself. I returned to his chamber and kissed him lightly on the forehead. He stirred, but didn’t wake. Heeding Father Anselm’s advice, I took the platter of fresh bread and meat back to my chamber for my own supper.

Thinking I would give Jamie time to recover, both from pique and indigestion, I stayed in my own room most of the next day, reading an herbal Brother Ambrose had provided me. After lunch I went to check on my recalcitrant patient. Instead of Jamie, though, I found Murtagh, sitting on a stool tilted back against the wall, wearing a bemused expression.

“Where is he?” I said, looking blankly around the room.

Murtagh jerked a thumb toward the window. It was a cold, dark day, and the lamps were lit. The window was uncovered and the chilly draft set the little flame fluttering in its dish.

“He went out?” I asked incredulously. “Where? Why? And what on earth is he wearing?” Jamie had remained largely naked over the last several days, since the room was warm and any pressure on his healing wounds was painful. He had worn a monk’s outer robe when leaving his room on necessary short excursions, with the support of Brother Roger, but the robe was still present, neatly folded at the foot of the bed.

Murtagh rocked his stool forward and regarded me owlishly.

“How many questions is that? Four?” He held up one hand, index finger pointing up.

“One: aye, he went out.” The middle finger rose. “Two: Where? Damned if I know.” The fourth finger joined its companions. “Three: Why? He said he was tired of bein’ cooped up indoors.” The little finger waggled briefly. “Four: Also damned if I know. He wasna wearin’ anything at all last time I saw him.”

Murtagh folded all four fingers and stuck out his thumb.

“Ye didna ask me, but he’s been gone an hour or so.”

I fumed, at a loss as to what to do. Since the offender wasn’t available, I snapped at Murtagh instead.

“Don’t you know it’s near freezing out there, and snow coming on? Why didn’t you stop him? And what do you mean he isn’t wearing anything?”

The diminutive clansman was tranquil. “Aye, I know it. Reckon he does, too, not bein’ blind. As for stoppin’ him, I tried.” He nodded at the robe on the bed.

“When he said he was goin’ out, I said he wasna fit for it, and you’d have my head, did I let him go. I snatched up his gown and set my back against the door, and told him he wasna leavin’, unless he was prepared to go through me.”

Murtagh paused, then said irrelevantly, “Ellen MacKenzie had the sweetest smile I ever saw; would warm a man to the backbone just to see it.”

“So you let her fat-headed son go out and freeze to death,” I said impatiently. “What’s his mother’s smile to do with it?”

Murtagh rubbed his nose meditatively. “Weel, when I said I wouldna let him pass, young Jamie just looked at me for a moment. Then he gave me a smile looked just like his ma’s, and stepped out of the window in naught but his skin. By the time I got to the window, he was gone.”

I rolled my eyes heavenward.

“Reckoned I should let ye know where he’d gone,” Murtagh continued, “so ye’d no be worrit for him.”

“So I’d no be worrit for him!” I muttered under my breath as I strode toward the stables. “He’d better be ‘worrit,’ when I catch up to him!”

There was only the one main road heading inland. I rode along it at a good pace, keeping an eye on the fields as I passed. This part of France was a rich farming area, and luckily most of the forest had been cleared; wolves and bears would not be as much a danger as they might be further inland.

As it happened, I found him barely a mile beyond the gates of the monastery, sitting on one of the ancient Roman mile-markers that dotted the roads.

He was barefoot, but otherwise clad in a short jerkin and thin breeches, the property of one of the stable lads, to judge from the stains on them.

I reined up and stared at him for a moment, leaning on the pommel. “Your nose is blue,” I remarked conversationally. I glanced downward. “And so are your feet.”

He grinned and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

“So are my balls. Want to warm them for me?” Cold or not, he was plainly in good spirits. I slid off the horse and stood in front of him, shaking my head.

“It’s no use at all, is it?” I asked.

“What isn’t?” He rubbed his hand on the ragged breeches.

“Being angry with you. You don’t care a bit whether you give yourself pneumonia, or get eaten by bears, or worry me half to death, do you?”

“Well, I’m no much worrit about the bears. They sleep in the winter, ye know.”

I lost my temper and swung my hand at him, intending to slap his ear through the side of his head. He caught my wrist and held it without difficulty, laughing at me. After a moment’s fruitless struggle, I gave up and laughed too.

“Are you coming back, now?” I asked. “Or have you got anything else to prove?”

He gestured back along the road with his chin. “Take the horse back to that big oak tree and wait for me there. I’ll walk that far. Alone.”

I bit my tongue to repress the several remarks I felt bubbling to the surface, and mounted. At the oak tree, I got off and looked down the road. After a moment, though, I found I couldn’t bear to watch his labored progress. When he fell the first time, I clutched the reins tight in my gloved hands, then resolutely turned my back, and waited.

We barely made it back to the guests’ wing, but managed, staggering through the corridor, his arm looped over my shoulder for support. I spotted Brother Roger, anxiously lurking in the hall, and sent him. scampering for a warming pan, while I steered my awkward burden into the chamber and dumped him onto the bed. He grunted at the impact, but lay still, eyes closed, as I proceeded to strip the filthy rags off him.

“All right; in you get.”

He rolled obediently under the covers I held back for him. I thrust the warming pan hastily between the sheets at the foot of the bed and shoved it back and forth. When I removed it, he stretched his long legs down and relaxed with a blissful sigh as his feet reached the pocket of warmth.

I went quietly about the room, picking up the discarded clothes, straightening the trifling disorder on the table, putting fresh charcoal in the brazier, adding a pinch of elecampane to sweeten the smoke. I thought he was asleep, and was startled when he spoke behind me.

“Claire.”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“Oh.” I was mildly surprised, but undeniably pleased. “I love you too.”

He sighed, and opened his eyes halfway.

“Randall,” he said. “Toward the end. That’s what he wanted.” I was even more startled by this, and replied cautiously.

“Oh?”

“Aye.” His eyes were fixed on the open window, where the snow clouds filled the space with a deep, even grey.

“I was lying on the floor, and he was lying next to me. He was naked by then, too, and both of us were smeared with blood – and other things. I remember trying to lift my head, and feeling my cheek stuck to the stone of the floor with dried blood.” He frowned, a distant look in his eyes as he conjured the memory.

“I was far gone by then; so far that I didna even feel much pain – I was just terribly tired, and everything seemed far away and not very real.”

“Just as well,” I said, with some asperity, and he smiled briefly.

“Aye, just as well. I was drifting a bit, half-fainted, I expect, so I don’t know how long we both lay there, but I came awake to find him holding me and pressing himself against me.” He hesitated, as though the next part were difficult to say.

“I’d not fought him ’til then. But I was so tired, and I thought I couldna bear it again… anyway, I started to squirm away from him, not really fighting, just pulling back. He had his arms round my neck, and he pulled on me, and buried his face in my shoulder, and I could feel he was crying. I couldna tell what he was saying for a bit, and then I could; he was saying ‘I love you, I love you,’ over and over, with his tears and his spittle running down my chest.” Jamie shuddered briefly, from cold or memory. He blew out a long breath, disturbing the cloud of fragrant smoke that swirled near the ceiling.

“I canna think why I did it. But I put my arms about him, and we just lay still for a bit. He stopped crying, finally, and kissed me and stroked me. Then he whispered to me, ‘Tell me that you love me.’ ” He paused in the recital, smiling faintly.

“I would not do it. I dinna know why. By then I would ha’ licked his boots and called him the King of Scotland, if he’d wanted it. But I wouldna tell him that. I don’t even remember thinking about it; I just – wouldn’t.” He sighed and his good hand twitched, gripping the coverlet.

“He used me again – hard. And he kept on saying it: ‘Tell me that you love me, Alex. Say that you love me.’ ”

“He called you Alex?” I interrupted, not able to hold back.

“Aye. I remember I wondered how he knew my second name. Did not occur to me to wonder why he’d use it, even if he knew.” He shrugged.

“Anyway, I didna move or say a word, and when he’d finished, he jumped up as though he’d gone mad, and started to beat me with something – I could not see what – cursing and shouting at me, saying ‘You know you love me! Tell me so! I know it’s true!” I got my arms up over my head to protect it, and after a bit I must have fainted again, because the pain in my shoulders was the last I remember, except for sort of a dream about bellowing kine. Then I woke, jouncing along belly-down on a horse for a few moments, and then nothing again ’til I came round on the hearthside at Eldridge, with you looking down on me.” He closed his eyes again. His tone was dreamy, almost unconcerned.

“I think… if I had told him that… he would have killed me.”

Some people have nightmares peopled by monsters. I dreamed of genealogical charts, thin black branches, bearing clusters of dates on every stem. The lines like snakes, with death between the brackets of their jaws. Once again I heard Frank’s voice, saying He became a soldier, a good choice for a second son. There was a third brother who became a curate, but I don’t know much about him… I didn’t know much about him, either. Only his name. There were the three sons listed on that chart; the sons of Joseph and Mary Randall. I had seen it many times: the oldest, William; and the second, Jonathan; and the third, Alexander.

Jamie spoke again, summoning me from my thoughts.

“Sassenach?”

“Yes?”

“Ye know the fortress I told ye of, the one inside me?”

“I remember.”

He smiled without opening his eyes, and reached out a hand for me.

“Well, I’ve a lean-to built, at least. And a roof to keep out the rain.”

I went to bed tired but peaceful, and wondering. Jamie would recover. When that had been in doubt, I had looked no further than the next hour, the next meal, the next administration of medicine. But now I needed to look further.

The abbey was a sanctuary, but only a temporary one. We could not stay here indefinitely, no matter how hospitable the monks. Scotland and England were too dangerous by far; unless Lord Lovat could help – a remote contingency, under the circumstances. Our future must lie on this side of the channel. Knowing what I now knew about Jamie’s seasickness, I understood his reluctance to consider emigration to America – three months of nausea was a daunting prospect to anyone. So what was left?

France was the most likely. We both spoke French fluently. While Jamie could do as well in Spanish, German, or Italian, I was not so linguistically blessed. Also, the Fraser family was rich in connections here; perhaps we could find a place on an estate owned by a relative or friend, and live peacefully in the country. The idea held considerable attractions.

But there remained, as always, the question of time. It was the beginning of 1744 – the New Year was but two weeks past. And in 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie would take ship from France to Scotland, the Young Pretender come to claim his father’s throne. With him would come disaster; war and slaughter, the crushing of the Highland clans, and with them, the butchery of all that Jamie – and I – held dear.

And between now and then, there lay one year. One year, when things might happen. When steps might be taken to prevent disaster. How, and by what means? I had no idea, but neither had I any doubts about the consequences of inaction.

Could events be changed? Perhaps. My fingers stole to my left hand and idly caressed the gold ring on my fourth finger. I thought of what I had said to Jonathan Randall, burning with rage and horror in the dungeons under Wentworth Prison.

“I curse you,” I had said, “with the hour of your death.” And I had told him when he would die. Had told him the date written on the genealogical chart, in Frank’s fine black calligraphic script – April 16, 1745. Jonathan Randall was to die at the battle of Culloden, caught up in the slaughter that the English would create. But he didn’t. He had died instead a few hours later, trampled beneath the hooves of my revenge.

And he had died a childless bachelor. Or at least I thought so. The chart – that cursed chart! – had given the date of his marriage, sometime in 1744. And the birth of his son, Frank’s five-times-great-grandfather, soon after. If Jack Randall was dead and childless, how would Frank be born? And yet his ring was still upon my hand. He had existed, would exist. I comforted myself with the thought, rubbing the ring in the darkness, as though it contained a jinni that could advise me.

I woke out of a sound sleep sometime later with a half-scream.

“Ssh. ’Tis only me.” The large hand lifted from my mouth. With the candle out, the room was pitch-black. I groped blindly until my hand struck something solid.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed!” I exclaimed, still groggy with sleep. My fingers slid over smooth cold flesh. “You’re freezing!”

“Well, of course I am,” he said, somewhat crossly. “I havena got any clothes on, and it’s perishing in the corridor. Will ye let me in bed?”

I wriggled as far over as I could in the narrow cot, and he slid in naked beside me, clutching me for warmth. His breathing was uneven, and I thought his trembling was from weakness as much as from cold.

“God, you’re warm.” He snuggled closer, sighing. “It feels good to hold ye, Sassenach.”

I didn’t bother asking what he was doing there; that was becoming quite plain. Nor did I ask whether he was sure. I had my own doubts, but would not voice them for fear of making self-fulfilling prophecies. I rolled to face him, mindful of the injured hand.

There was that sudden startling moment of joining, that quick gliding strangeness that at once becomes familiar. Jamie sighed deeply, with satisfaction and, perhaps, relief. We lay still for a moment, as though afraid to disturb our fragile link by moving. Jamie’s good hand caressed me slowly, feeling its way in the dark, fingers spread like a cat’s whiskers, sensitive to vibration. He moved against me, once, as though asking a question, and I answered him in the same language.

We began a delicate game of slow movements, a balancing act between his desire and his weakness, between pain and the growing pleasure of the body. Somewhere in the dark, I thought to myself that I must tell Anselm that there was another way to make time stop, but then thought perhaps not, as it was not a way open to a priest.

I held Jamie steady, with a light hand on his scarred back. He set our rhythm, but let me carry the force of our movement. We were both silent save our breathing, until the end. Feeling him tiring, I grasped him firmly and pulled him to me, rocking my hips to take him deeper, forcing him toward the climax. “Now,” I said softly, “come to me. Now!” He put his forehead hard against mine and yielded himself to me with a quivering sigh.

The Victorians called it “the little death,” and with good reason. He lay so limp and heavy that I would have thought him dead, if not for the slow thump of his heart against my ribs. It seemed a long time before he stirred and mumbled something against my shoulder.

“What did you say?”

He turned his head so his mouth was just below my ear. I felt warm breath on my neck. “I said,” he answered softly, “my hand doesna hurt at all just now.”

The good hand gently explored my face, smoothing away the wetness on my cheeks.

“Were ye afraid for me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I thought it was too soon.”

He laughed softly in the dark. “It was; I almost killed myself. Aye, I was afraid too. But I woke with my hand painin’ me and couldna go back to sleep. I was tossing about, feeling lonely for ye. The more I thought about ye, the more I wanted ye, and I was halfway down the corridor before I thought to worry about what I was going to do when I got here. And once I thought…” He paused, stroking my cheek. “Well, I’m no verra good, Sassenach, but I’m maybe not a coward, after all.”

I turned my head to meet his kiss. His stomach rumbled loudly.

“Don’t laugh, you,” he grumbled. “It’s your fault, starving me. It’s a wonder I could manage at all, on nothing but beef broth and ale.”

“All right,” I said, still laughing. “You win. You can have an egg for your breakfast tomorrow.”

“Ha,” he said, in tones of deep satisfaction. “I knew ye’d feed me, if I offered ye a suitable inducement.”

We fell asleep face to face, locked in each other’s arms.

Chapter 41. FROM THE WOMB OF THE EARTH

Over the next two weeks, Jamie continued to heal, and I continued to wonder. Some days I would feel that we must go to Rome, where the Pretender’s court held sway, and do… what? Other times, I wanted with all my heart only to find a safe and isolated spot, to live our lives in peace.

It was a warm, bright day, and the icicles hanging from the gargoyles’ noses dripped incessantly, leaving deep ragged pits in the snow beneath the eaves. The door of Jamie’s room had been left ajar and the window uncovered, to clear out some of the lingering vapors of smoke and illness.

I poked my head cautiously around the jamb, not wishing to wake him if he was asleep, but the narrow cot was empty. He was seated by the open window, turned half away from the door so that his face was mostly hidden.

He was desperately thin still, but the shoulders were broad and straight beneath the rough fabric of the novice’s habit, and the grace of his strength was returning; he sat solidly without a tremor, back straight and legs curled back beneath the stool, the lines of his body firm and harmonious. He was holding his right wrist with his sound left hand, slowly turning the right hand in the sunlight.

There was a small pile of cloth strips on the table. He had removed the bandages from the injured hand and was examining it closely. I stood in the doorway, not moving. From here, I could see the hand clearly as he turned it back and forth, probing gingerly.

The stigma of the nail wound in the palm of the hand was quite small, and well healed, I was glad to see; no more than a small pink knot of scar tissue that would gradually fade. On the back of the hand, the situation was not so favorable. Eroded by infection, the wound there covered an area the size of sixpence, still patched with scabs and the rawness of a new scar.

The middle finger, too, showed a jagged ridge of pink scar tissue, running from just below the first joint almost to the knuckle. Released from their splints, the thumb and index finger were straight, but the little finger was badly twisted; that one had had three separate fractures, I remembered, and apparently I had not been able to set them all properly. The ring finger was set oddly, so that it protruded slightly upward when he laid the hand flat on the table, as he did now.

Turning the hand palm upward, he began to manipulate the fingers gently. None would bend more than an inch or two; the ring finger not at all. As I had feared, the second joint was likely permanently frozen.

He turned the hand to and fro, holding it before his face, watching the stiff, twisted fingers and the ugly scars, mercilessly vivid in the sunlight. Then he suddenly bent his head, clutching the injured hand to his chest, covering it protectively with the sound one. He made no sound, but the wide shoulders trembled briefly.

“Jamie.” I crossed the room swiftly and knelt beside him, putting my hand softly on his knee.

“Jamie, I’m sorry,” I said. “I did the best I could.”

He looked down at me in astonishment. The thick auburn lashes sparkled with tears in the sunlight, and he dashed them hastily away with the back of his hand.

“What?” he said, gulping, clearly taken aback by my sudden appearance. “Sorry? For what, Sassenach?”

“Your hand.” I reached out and took it, lightly tracing the crooked lines of the fingers, touching the sunken scar on the back.

“It will get better,” I assured him anxiously. “Really it will. I know it seems stiff and useless right now, but that’s only because it’s been splinted so long, and the bones haven’t fully knitted yet. I can show you how to exercise, and massage. You’ll get back a good deal of the use of it, honestly-”

He stopped me by laying his good hand along my cheek.

“Did you mean…?” He started, then stopped, shaking his head in disbelief. “You thought…?” He stopped once more and started over.

“Sassenach,” he said, “ye didna think that I was grieving for a stiff finger and a few more scars?” He smiled, a little crookedly. “I’m a vain man, maybe, but it doesna go that deep, I hope.”

“But you-” I began. He took both my hands in both of his and stood up, drawing me to my feet. I reached up and smoothed away the single tear that had rolled down his cheek. The tiny smear of moisture was warm on my thumb.

“I was crying for joy, my Sassenach,” he said softly. He reached out slowly and took my face between his hands. “And thanking God that I have two hands. That I have two hands to hold you with. To serve you with, to love you with. Thanking God that I am a whole man still, because of you.”

I put my own hands up, cupping his.

“But why wouldn’t you be?” I asked. And then I remembered the butcherous assortment of saws and knives I seen among Beaton’s implements at Leoch, and I knew. Knew what I had forgotten when I had been faced with the emergency. That in the days before antibiotics, the usual – the only – cure for an infected extremity was amputation of the limb.

“Oh, Jamie,” I said. I was weak-kneed at the thought, and sat down on the stool rather abruptly.

“I never thought of it,” I said, still stunned. “I honestly never thought of it.” I looked up at him. “Jamie. If I’d thought of it, I probably would have done it. To save your life.”

“It’s not how… they don’t do it that way, then, in… your time?”

I shook my head. “No. There are drugs to stop infections. So I didn’t even think of it,” I marveled. I looked up suddenly. “Did you?”

He nodded. “I was expecting it. It’s why I asked you to let me die, that once. I was thinking of it, in between the bouts of muzzy-headedness, and – just for that one moment – I didna think I could bear to live like that. It’s what happened to Ian, ye know.”

“No, really?” I was shocked. “He told me he’d lost it by grape shot, but I didn’t think to ask about the details.”

“Aye, a grape-shot wound in the leg went bad. The surgeons took it off to keep it from poisoning his blood.” He paused.

“Ian does verra well, all things considered. But” – he hesitated, pulling on the stiff ring finger – “I knew him before. He’s as good as he is only because of Jenny. She… keeps him whole.” He smiled sheepishly at me. “As ye did for me. I canna think why women bother.”

“Well,” I said softly, “women like to do that.”

He laughed quietly and drew me close. “Aye. God knows why.”

We stood entwined for a bit, not moving. My forehead rested on his chest, my arms around his back, and I could feel his heart beating, slow and strong. Finally he stirred and released me.

“I’ve something to show ye,” he said. He turned and opened the small drawer of the table, removing a folded letter which he handed to me.

It was a letter of introduction, from Abbot Alexander, commending his nephew, James Fraser, to the attention of the Chevalier-St. George – otherwise known as His Majesty King James of Scotland – as a most proficient linguist and translator.

“It’s a place,” Jamie said, watching as I folded the letter. “And we’ll need a place to go, soon. But what ye told me on the hill at Craigh na Dun – that was true, no?”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “It’s true.”

He took the letter from me and tapped it thoughtfully on his knee.

“Then this” – he waved the letter – “is not without a bit of danger.”

“It could be.”

He tossed the parchment into the drawer and sat staring after it for a moment. Then he looked up and the dark blue eyes held mine. He laid a hand along my cheek.

“I meant it, Claire,” he said quietly. “My life is yours. And it’s yours to decide what we shall do, where we go next. To France, to Italy, even back to Scotland. My heart has been yours since first I saw ye, and you’ve held my soul and body between your two hands here, and kept them safe. We shall go as ye say.”

There was a light knock at the door, and we sprang apart like guilty lovers. I dabbed hastily at my hair, thinking that a monastery, while an excellent convalescent home, lacked something as a romantic retreat.

A lay brother came in at Jamie’s bidding, and dumped a large leather saddlebag on the table. “From MacRannoch of Eldridge Manor,” he said with a grin. “For my lady Broch Tuarach.” He bowed then and left, leaving a faint breath of seawater and cold air behind.

I unbuckled the leather straps, curious to see what MacRannoch might have sent. Inside were three things: a note, unaddressed and unsigned, a small package addressed to Jamie, and the cured skin of a wolf, smelling strongly of the tanner’s arts.

The note read: “For a virtuous woman is a pearl of great price, and her value is greater than rubies.”

Jamie had opened the other parcel. He held something small and glimmering in one hand and was quizzically regarding the wolf pelt.

“A bit odd, that. Sir Marcus has sent ye a wolf pelt, Sassenach, and me a pearl bracelet. Perhaps he’s got his labels mixed?”

The bracelet was a lovely thing, a single row of large baroque pearls, set between twisted gold chains.

“No,” I said, admiring it. “He’s got it right. The bracelet goes with the necklace you gave me when we wed. He gave that to your mother; did you know?”

“No, I didn’t,” he answered softly, touching the pearls. “Father gave them to me for my wife, whoever she was to be” – and a quick smile tugged at his mouth – “but he didna tell me where they came from.”

I remembered Sir Marcus’s help on the night we had burst so unceremoniously into his house, and the look on his face when we had left him next day. I could see from Jamie’s face that he also was remembering the baronet who might have been his father. He reached out and took my hand, fastening the bracelet about my wrist.

“But it’s not for me!” I protested.

“Aye, it is,” he said firmly. “It isna suitable for a man to send jewelry to a respectable married woman, so he gave it to me. But clearly it’s for you.” He looked at me and grinned. “For one thing, it won’t go round my wrist, even scrawny as I am.”

He turned to the bundled wolfskin and shook it out.

“Whyever did MacRannoch send ye this, though?” He draped the shaggy wolfhide about his shoulders and I recoiled with a sharp cry. The head had been carefully skinned and cured as well, and equipped with a pair of yellow glass eyes, it was glaring nastily at me from Jamie’s left shoulder.

“Ugh!” I said. “It looks just like it did when it was alive!”

Jamie, following the direction of my glance, turned his head and found himself suddenly face-to-face with the snarling countenance. With a startled exclamation, he jerked the skin off and flung it across the room.

“Jesus God,” he said, and crossed himself. The skin lay on the floor, glowering balefully in the candlelight.

“What d’ye mean, ‘when it was alive,’ Sassenach? A personal friend, was it?” Jamie asked, eyeing it narrowly.

I told him then the things I had had no chance to tell him; about the wolf, and the other wolves, and Hector, and the snow, and the cottage with the bear, and the argument with Sir Marcus, and the appearance of Murtagh, and the cattle, and the long wait on the hillside in the pink mist of the snow-swept night, waiting to see whether he was dead or alive.

Thin or not, his chest was broad and his arms warm and strong. He pressed my face into his shoulder and rocked me while I sobbed. I tried for a bit to control myself, but he only hugged me harder, and said small and gentle things into the cloud of my hair, and I finally gave up and cried with the complete abandon of a child, until I was worn to utter limpness and hiccupping exhaustion.

“Come to think of it, I’ve a wee giftie for ye, myself, Sassenach,” he said, smoothing my hair. I sniffed and wiped my nose on my skirt, having nothing else handy.

“I’m sorry I haven’t got anything to give you,” I said, watching as he stood up and began to dig through the tumbled bedclothes. Probably looking for a handkerchief, I thought, sniffing some more.

“Aside from such minor gifts as my life, my manhood, and my right hand?” he asked dryly. “They’ll do nicely, mo duinne.” He straightened up with a novice’s robe in one hand. “Undress.”

My mouth fell open. “What?”

“Undress, Sassenach, and put this on.” He handed me the robe, grinning. “Or do ye want me to turn my back first?”

Clutching the rough homespun around me, I followed Jamie down yet another flight of dark stairs. This was the third, and the narrowest yet; the lantern he held lit the stone blocks of walls no more than eighteen inches apart. It felt rather like being swallowed up into the earth, as we went further and further down the narrow black shaft.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I asked. My voice echoed in the stairwell, but with a curiously muffled sound, as though I were speaking underwater.

“Well, there’s no much chance of taking the wrong turning, now is there?”

We had reached another landing, but true enough, the way ahead lay in only one direction – down.

At the bottom of this flight of steps, though, we came to a door. There was a small landing, carved out of the solid side of a mountain, from the looks of it, and a wide, low door made of oak planks and brass hinging. The planks were grey with age, but still solid, and the landing swept clean. Plainly this part of the monastery was still in use, then. The wine cellar perhaps?

There was a sconce near the door that held a torch, half-burnt from previous use. Jamie paused to light it with a paper spill from the pile that lay ready nearby, then pushed open the unlocked door and ducked beneath the lintel, leaving me to follow.

At first, I could see nothing at all inside but the glow of Jamie’s lantern. Everything was black. The lantern bobbed along, moving away from me. I stood still, following the blob of light with my eyes. Every few feet he would stop, then continue, and a slow flame would rise up in his wake to burn in a small red glow. As my eyes slowly accustomed themselves, the flames became a row of lanterns, situated on rock pillars, shining into the black like beacons.

It was a cave. At first I thought it was a cave of crystals, because of the odd black shimmer beyond the lanterns. But I stepped forward to the first pillar and looked beyond, and then I saw it.

A clear black lake. Transparent water, shimmering like glass over fine black volcanic sand, giving off red reflections in the lantern light. The air was damp and warm, humid with the steam that condensed on the cool cavern walls, running down the ribbed columns of rock.

A hot spring. The faint scent of sulfur bit at my nostrils. A hot mineral spring, then. I remembered Anselm’s mentioning the springs that bubbled up from the ground near the abbey, renowned for their healing powers.

Jamie stood behind me, looking out over the gently steaming expanse of jet and rubies.

“A hot bath,” he said proudly. “Do ye like it?”

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I said.

“Oh, ye do,” he said, grinning at the success of his surprise. “Come in, then.”

He dropped his own robe and stood glowing dimly in the darkness, patched with red in the glimmering reflections off the water. The arched ceiling of the cave seemed to swallow the light of the lanterns, so that the glow reached only a few feet before being engulfed.

A little hesitantly, I let the novice’s robe drop from my arms.

“How hot is it?” I asked.

“Hot enough,” he answered. “Dinna worry, it won’t burn ye. But stay over an hour or so, and it might cook the flesh off your bones like soupmeat.”

“What an appealing idea,” I said, discarding the robe.

Following his straight, slender figure, I stepped cautiously into the water. There were steps cut in the stone, leading down underwater, with a knotted rope fastened along the wall to provide handholds.

The water flowed up over my hips, and the flesh of my belly shivered in delight as the heat swirled through me. At the bottom of the steps, I stood on clean black sand, the water just below the level of my shoulders, my breasts floating like glass fisher-floats. My skin was flushed with the heat, and small prickles of perspiration were starting on the back of my neck, under the heavy hair. It was pure bliss.

The surface of the spring was smooth and waveless, but the water wasn’t still; I could feel small stirrings, currents running through the body of the pool like nerve impulses. It was that, I suppose, added to the incredible soothing heat, that gave me the momentary illusion that the spring was alive – a warm, welcoming entity that reached out to soothe and embrace. Anselm had said that the springs had healing powers, and I wasn’t disposed to doubt it.

Jamie came up behind me, tiny wavelets marking his passage through the water. He reached around me to cup my breasts, softly smoothing the hot water over the upper slopes.

“Do ye like it, mo duinne?” He bent forward and planted a kiss on my shoulder.

I let my feet float out from under me, resting against him.

“It’s wonderful! It’s the first time I’ve been warm all the way through since August.” He began to tow me, backing slowly through the water; my legs streamed out in the wake of our passage, the amazing warmth passing down my limbs like caressing hands.

He stopped, swung me around, and lowered me gently onto hard wood. Half-visible in the shadowy underwater light, I could see planks set into a rocky niche. He sat down on the bench beside me, stretching his arms out on the rocky ledge behind us.

“Brother Ambrose brought me down here the other day to soak,” he said. “To soften the scars a bit. It does feel good, doesn’t it?”

“More than good.” The water was so buoyant that I felt I might float away if I loosed my hold on the bench. I looked upward into the black shadows of the roof.

“Does anything live in this cave? Bats, I mean? Or fish?”

He shook his head. “Nothing but the spirit of the spring, Sassenach. The water bubbles up from the earth through a narrow crack back there” – he nodded toward the Stygian blackness at the back of the cave – “and trickles out through a dozen tiny openings in the rock. But there’s no real opening to the outside, save the door into the monastery.”

“Spirit of the spring?” I said, amused. “Sounds rather pagan, to be hiding under a monastery.”

He stretched luxuriously, long legs wavering under the glassy surface like the stems of water plants.

“Well, whatever ye wish to call it, it’s been here a good deal longer than the monastery.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

The walls of the cave were of smooth, dark volcanic rock, almost like black glass, slick with the moisture of the spring. The whole chamber looked like a gigantic bubble, half-filled with that curiously alive but sterile water. I felt as though we were cradled in the womblike center of the earth, and that if I pressed my ear to the rock, I would hear the infinitely slow beat of a great heart nearby.

We were very quiet for a long time then, half-floating, half-dreaming, brushing now and then against each other as we drifted in the unseen currents of the cave.

When I spoke at last, my voice seemed slow and drugged.

“I’ve decided.”

“Ah. Will it be Rome, then?” Jamie’s voice seemed to come from a long way away.

“Yes. I don’t know, once there-”

“It doesna matter. We shall do what we can.” His hand reached for me, moving so slowly I thought it would never touch me.

He drew me close, until the sensitive tips of my breasts rubbed across his chest. The water was not only warm but heavy, almost oily to the touch, and his hands floated down my back to cup my buttocks and lift me.

The intrusion was startling. Hot and slippery as our skins were, we drifted over each other with barely a sensation of touching or pressure, but his presence within me was solid and intimate, a fixed point in a watery world, like an umbilical cord in the random driftings of the womb. I made a brief sound of surprise at the small inrush of hot water that accompanied his entrance, then settled firmly onto my fixed point of reference with a little sigh of pleasure.

“Oh, I like that one,” he said appreciatively.

“Like what?” I asked.

“That sound that ye made. The little squeak.”

It wasn’t possible to blush; my skin was already as flushed as it could get. I let my hair swing forward to cover my face, the curls relaxing as they dragged the surface of the water.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be noisy.”

He laughed, the deep sound echoing softly in the columns of the roof.

“I said I like it. And I do. It’s one of the things I like the best about bedding ye, Sassenach, the small noises that ye make.”

He pulled me closer, so my forehead rested against his neck. Moisture sprang up at once between us, slick as the sulfur-laden water. He made a slight movement with his hips, and I drew in my breath in a half-stifled gasp.

“Yes, like that,” he said softly. “Or… like that?”

“Urk,” I said. He laughed again, but kept doing it.

“That’s what I thought most about,” he said, drawing his hands slowly up and down my back, cupping, curving, tracing the swell of my hips. “In prison at night, chained in a room with a dozen other men, listening to the snoring and farting and groaning. I thought of those small tender sounds that ye make when I love you, and I could feel ye there next to me in the dark, breathing soft and then faster, and the little grunt that ye give when I first take you, as though ye were settling yourself to your job.”

My breathing was definitely coming faster. Supported by the dense, mineral-saturated water, I was buoyant as an oiled feather, kept from floating away only by my grip on the curved muscles of his shoulders, and the snug, firm clasp I kept of him lower down.

“Even better,” his voice was a hot murmur in my ear, “when I come to ye fierce and wanting, and ye whimper under me, and struggle as though you wanted to get away, and I know it’s only that you’re struggling to come closer, and I’m fighting the same fight.”

His hands were exploring, gently, slowly as tickling a trout, sliding deep into the rift of my buttocks, gliding lower, groping, caressing the stretched and yearning point of our joining. I quivered and the breath went from me in an unwilled gasp.

“Or when I come to you needing, and ye take me into you with a sigh and that quiet hum like a hive of bees in the sun, and ye carry me wi’ you into peace with a little moaning sound.”

“Jamie,” I said hoarsely, my voice echoing off the water. “Jamie, please.”

“Not yet, mo duinne.” His hands came hard around my waist, settling and slowing me, pressing me down until I did groan.

“Not yet. We’ve time. And I mean to hear ye groan like that again. And to moan and sob, even though you dinna wish to, for ye canna help it. I mean to make you sigh as though your heart would break, and scream with the wanting, and at last to cry out in my arms, and I shall know that I’ve served ye well.”

The rush began between my thighs, shooting like a dart into the depths of my belly, loosening my joints so that my hands slipped limp and helpless off his shoulders. My back arched and the slippery firm roundness of my breasts pressed flat against his chest. I shuddered in hot darkness, Jamie’s steadying hands all that kept me from drowning.

Resting against him, I felt boneless as a jellyfish. I didn’t know – or care – what sort of sounds I had been making, but I felt incapable of coherent speech. Until he began to move again, strong as a shark under the dark water.

“No,” I said. “Jamie, no. I can’t bear it like that again.” The blood was still pounding in my fingertips and his movement within me was an exquisite torture.

“You can, for I love ye.” His voice was half-muffled in my soaking hair. “And you will, for I want ye. But this time, I go wi’ you.”

He held my hips firm against him, carrying me beyond myself with the force of an undertow. I crashed formless against him, like breakers on a rock, and he met me with the brutal force of granite, my anchor in the pounding chaos.

Boneless and liquid as the water around us, contained only by the frame of his hands, I cried out, the soft, bubbling half-choked cry of a sailor sucked beneath the waves. And heard his own cry, helpless in return, and knew I had served him well.

We struggled upward, out of the womb of the world, damp and steaming, rubber-limbed with wine and heat. I fell to my knees at the first landing, and Jamie, trying to help me, fell down next to me in an untidy heap of robes and bare legs. Giggling helplessly, drunk more with love than with wine, we made our way side by side, on hands and knees up the second flight of steps, hindering each other more than helping, jostling and caroming softly off each other in the narrow space, until we collapsed at last in each other’s arms on the second landing.

Here an ancient oriel window opened glassless to the sky, and the light of the hunter’s moon washed us in silver. We lay clasped together, damp skins cooling in the winter air, waiting for our racing hearts to slow and breath to return to our heaving bodies.

The moon above was a Christmas moon, so large as almost to fill the empty window. It seemed no wonder that the tides of sea and woman should be subject to the pull of that stately orb, so close and so commanding.

But my own tides moved no longer to that chaste and sterile summons, and the knowledge of my freedom raced like danger through my blood.

“I have a gift for you too,” I said suddenly to Jamie. He turned toward me and his hand slid, large and sure, over the plane of my still-flat stomach.

“Have you, now?” he said.

And the world was all around us, new with possibility.