A Breath of Snow and Ashes (106 page)

He then straightened up, giving me a baleful look.

“If ye didna look as though ye were about to faint, Sassenach, I swear I would turn ye over and smack your bum for ye.”

“You can’t,” I said, rather faintly. “I haven’t got one.” I was in fact a little tired . . . well, to be honest, my heart was beating like a kettledrum, my ears were ringing, and if I didn’t lie down flat at once, I likely
would
faint. I did lie down, and lay with my eyes closed, feeling the room spin gently round me, like a merry-go-round, complete with flashing lights and hurdy-gurdy music.

Through this confusion of sensations, I dimly sensed hands on my legs, then a pleasant coolness on my heated body. Then something warm and cloudlike enveloped my head, and I flailed my hands about wildly, trying to get it off before I smothered.

I emerged, blinking and panting, to discover that I was naked. I glanced at my pallid, sagging, skeletal remains, and snatched the sheet up over myself. Jamie was bending to collect my discarded gown, petticoat, and jacket from the floor, adding these to the shift he had folded over his arm. He picked up my shoes and stockings and added these to his bag.

“You,” he said, pointing a long accusatory finger at me, “are going nowhere. You are not allowed to kill yourself, do I make myself clear?”

“Oh, so that’s where Bree gets it,” I murmured, trying to stop my head from swimming. I closed my eyes again.

“I seem to recall,” I said, “a certain abbey in France. And a very stubborn young man in ill health. And his friend Murtagh, who took his clothes in order to prevent his getting up and wandering off before he was fit.”

Silence. I opened one eye. He was standing stock still, the fading light from the window striking sparks in his hair.

“Whereupon,” I said conversationally, “if memory serves, you promptly climbed out a window and decamped. Naked. In the middle of winter.”

The stiff fingers of his right hand tapped twice against his leg.

“I was four-and-twenty,” he said at last, sounding gruff. “I wasna meant to have any sense.”

“I wouldn’t argue with
that
for an instant,” I assured him. I opened the other eye and fixed him with both. “But you do know why I did it. I had to.”

He drew a very deep breath, sighed, and set down my clothes. He came and sat down on the bed beside me, making the wooden frame creak and groan beneath his weight.

He picked up my hand, and held it as though it were something precious and fragile. It was, too—or at least it
looked
fragile, a delicate construct of transparent skin and the shadow of the bones within it. He ran his thumb gently down the back of my hand, tracing the bones from phalange to ulna, and I felt an odd, small tingle of distant memory; the vision of my own bones, glowing blue through the skin, and Master Raymond’s hands, cupping my inflamed and empty womb, saying to me through the mists of fever, “Call him. Call the red man.”

“Jamie,” I said very softly. Sunlight flashed on the metal of my silver wedding ring. He took hold of it between thumb and forefinger, and slid the little metal circlet gently up and down my finger, so loose that it didn’t even catch on the bony knuckle.

“Be careful,” I said. “I don’t want to lose it.”

“Ye won’t.” He folded my fingers closed, his own hand closing large and warm around mine.

He sat silent for a time, and we watched the bar of sun creep slowly across the counterpane. Adso had moved with it, to stay in its warmth, and the light tipped his fur with a soft silver glow, the fine hairs that edged his ears tiny and distinct.

“It’s a great comfort,” he said at last, “to see the sun come up and go down. When I dwelt in the cave, when I was in prison, it gave me hope, to see the light come and go, and know that the world went about its business.”

He was looking out the window, toward the blue distance where the sky darkened toward infinity. His throat moved a little as he swallowed.

“It gives me the same feeling, Sassenach,” he said, “to hear ye rustling about in your surgery, rattling things and swearin’ to yourself.” He turned his head, then, to look at me, and his eyes held the depths of the coming night.

“If ye were no longer there—or somewhere—” he said very softly, “then the sun would no longer come up or go down.” He lifted my hand and kissed it, very gently. He laid it, closed around my ring, upon my chest, rose, and left.

I SLEPT LIGHTLY NOW, no longer flung into the agitated world of fever dreams, nor sucked down into the deep well of oblivion as my body sought the healing of sleep. I didn’t know what had wakened me, but I
was
awake, quite suddenly, alert and fresh-eyed, with no interval of drowsiness.

The shutters were closed, but the moon was full; soft light striped the bed. I ran a hand over the sheet beside me, lifted my hand far above my head. My arm was a slender pale stem, bloodless and fragile as a toadstool’s stalk; my fingers flexed gently and spread, a web, a net to catch the dark.

I could hear Jamie breathing, in his accustomed spot on the floor beside the bed.

I brought my arm down, stroked my body lightly with both hands, assessing. A tiny swell of breast, ribs I could count, one, two, three, four, five, and the smooth concavity of my stomach, slung like a hammock between the uprights of my hipbones. Skin, and bones. Not much else.

“Claire?” There was a stirring in the dark beside the bed, and Jamie’s head rose up, a presence more sensed than seen, so dark was the shadow there by contrast with the moonlight.

A large dark hand groped across the quilt, touched my hip.

“Are ye well,
a nighean
?” he whispered. “D’ye need anything?”

He was tired; his head lay on the bed beside me, his breath warm through my shift. If he hadn’t been warm, his touch, his breath, perhaps I wouldn’t have had the courage, but I felt cold and bodiless as the moonlight itself, and so I closed my spectral hand on his and whispered, “I need you.”

He was quite still for a moment, slowly making sense of what I’d said.

“I’ll not trouble your sleep?” he said, sounding doubtful. I pulled on his wrist in answer, and he came, rising up from the pool of dark on the floor, the thin lines of moonlight rippling over him like water.

“Kelpie,” I said softly.

He snorted briefly in answer, and awkwardly, gingerly, eased himself beneath the quilt, the mattress giving under his weight.

We lay very shyly together, barely touching. He was breathing shallowly, clearly trying to make as little obtrusion of his presence as possible. Aside from a faint rustling of sheets, the house was silent.

Finally, I felt one large finger nudge gently against my thigh.

“I missed ye, Sassenach,” he whispered.

I rolled onto my side facing him, and kissed his arm in answer. I wanted to move closer, lay my head in the curve of his shoulder, and lie in the circle of his arm—but the idea of my short, bristly hair against his skin kept me from it.

“I missed you, too,” I said, into the dark solidness of his arm.

“Will I take ye, then?” he said softly. “D’ye want it, truly?” One hand caressed my arm; the other went downward, starting the slow, steady rhythm to ready himself.

“Let me,” I whispered, stilling his hand with my own. “Lie still.”

I made love to him at first like a sneak thief, hasty strokes and tiny kisses, stealing scent and touch and warmth and salty taste. Then he put a hand on the back of my neck, pressing me closer, deeper.

“Dinna hurry yourself, lass,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I’m no going anywhere.”

I let a quiver of silent amusement pass through me and he drew in a deep, deep breath as I closed my teeth very gently round him and slid my hand up under the warm, musky weight of his balls.

Then I rose up over him, light-headed at the sudden movement, needing urgently. We both sighed deeply as it happened, and I felt the breath of his laughter on my breasts as I bent over him.

“I missed ye, Sassenach,” he whispered again.

I was shy of his touching me, changed as I was, and leaned with my hands on his shoulders, keeping him from pulling me down to him. He didn’t try, but slid his hand curled between us.

I felt a brief pang at the thought that the hair on my privates was longer than that on my head—but the thought was driven out by the slow pressure of the big knuckle pressing deep between my legs, rocking gently back and forth.

I seized his other hand and brought it to my mouth, sucked his fingers hard, one by one, and shuddered, gripping his hand with all my strength.

I was still gripping it sometime later, as I lay beside him. Or rather, holding it, admiring the unseen shapes of it, complex and graceful in the dark, and the hard, smooth layer of callus on palms and knuckles.

“I’ve the hands of a bricklayer,” he said, laughing a little as I passed my lips lightly over the roughened knuckles and the still-sensitive tips of his long fingers.

“Calluses on a man’s hands are deeply erotic,” I assured him.

“Are they, so?” His free hand passed lightly over my shorn head and down the length of my back. I shivered and pressed closer to him, self-consciousness beginning to be forgotten. My own free hand roamed down the length of his body, toying with the soft, wiry bush of his hair, and the damply tender, half-hard cock.

He arched his back a little, then relaxed.

“Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach,” he said. “If I havena got calluses
there,
it’s no fault of yours, believe me.”

67

THE LAST LAUGH

I
T WAS AN OLD MUSKET, made perhaps twenty years before, but well-kept. The stock was polished with wear, the wood beautiful to the touch, and the metal of the barrel mellow and clean.

Standing Bear clutched it in ecstasy, running awed fingers up and down the gleaming barrel, bringing them to his nose to sniff the intoxicating perfume of oil and powder, then beckoning his friends to come and smell it, too.

Five gentlemen had received muskets from the beneficent hand of Bird-who-sings-in-the-morning, and a sense of delight ran through the house, spreading in ripples through the village. Bird himself, with twenty-five muskets still to give, was drunk with the sense of inestimable wealth and power, and thus in a mood to welcome anyone and anything.

“This is Hiram Crombie,” Jamie said to Bird, in Tsalagi, indicating Mr. Crombie, who had stood by him, white-faced with nerves, throughout the preliminary talk, the presentation of the muskets, the summoning of the braves, and the general rejoicing over the guns. “He has come to offer his friendship, and to tell you stories of the Christ.”

“Oh, your Christ? The one who went to the lower world and came back? I always wondered, did he meet Sky-woman there, or Mole? I am fond of Mole; I would like to know what he said.” Bird touched the stone pendant at his neck, a small red carving of Mole, the guide to the underworld.

Mr. Crombie’s brow was furrowed, but luckily he had not yet developed any sense of ease in Tsalagi; he was still in the stage of mentally translating each word into English, and Bird was a rapid speaker. And Ian had found no occasion to teach Hiram the word for Mole.

Jamie coughed.

“I am sure he will be happy to tell you all the stories he knows,” he said. “Mr. Crombie,” he said, switching momentarily to English, “Tsisqua offers you welcome.”

Bird’s wife Penstemon’s nostrils flared delicately; Crombie was sweating with nervousness, and smelled like a goat. He bowed earnestly, and presented Bird with the good knife he had brought as a present, slowly reciting the complimentary speech he had committed to memory. Reasonably well, too, Jamie thought; he’d mispronounced only a couple of words.

“I come to b-bring you great joy,” he finished, stammering and sweating.

Bird looked at Crombie—small, stringy, and dripping wet—for a long, inscrutable moment, then back at Jamie.

“You’re a funny man, Bear-Killer,” he said with resignation. “Let us eat!”

It was autumn; the harvest was in and the hunting was good. And so the Feast of the Guns was a notable occasion, with wapiti and venison and wild pig raised steaming from pits and roasted over roaring fires, with overflowing platters of maize and roasted squash and dishes of beans spiced with onion and coriander, dishes of pottage, and dozen upon dozen of small fish rolled in cornmeal, fried in bear grease, their flesh crisp and sweet.

Mr. Crombie, very stiff to begin with, began to unbend under the influence of food, spruce beer, and the flattering attention paid him. A certain amount of the attention, Jamie thought, was due to the fact that Ian, a wide grin on his face, stayed by his pupil for a time, prompting and correcting, ’til Hiram should feel more at ease in the tongue, and able to manage on his own. Ian was extremely popular, particularly with the young women of the village.

For himself, he enjoyed the feasting very much; relieved of responsibility, there was nothing to do save to talk and listen and eat—and in the morning he would go.

It was an odd feeling, and one he was not sure he had ever had before. He had had many leavetakings, most regretful—a few taken with a sense of relief—some that wrenched the heart from his chest and left him aching. Not tonight. Everything seemed strangely ceremonious, something consciously done for the last time, and yet there was no sadness in it.

Completion, he supposed, was the sense of it. He had done what he could do, and now must leave Bird and the others to make their own way. He might come again, but never again by duty, in his role as the agent of the King.

That was a peculiar thought in itself. He had never lived without the consciousness of allegiance—whether willing or not, witting or not—to a king, whether that be German Geordie’s house or the Stuarts. And now he did.

For the first time, he had some glimmer of what his daughter and his wife had tried to tell him.

Hiram was trying to recite one of the psalms, he realized. He was doing a good job of it, because he had asked Ian to translate it, and had then carefully committed it to memory. However . . .

“Oil runs down over the head and the beard . . .”

Penstemon cast a wary glance at the small pot of melted bear grease that they were using as a condiment, and narrowed her eyes at Hiram, plainly intending to snatch the dish from him if he tried to pour it over his head.

“It’s a story of his ancestors,” Jamie said to her, with a brief shrug. “Not his own custom.”

“Oh. Hm.” She relaxed a little, though continuing to keep a close eye on Hiram. He was a guest, but not all guests could be trusted to behave well.

Hiram did nothing untoward, though, and with many protests of sufficiency, and awkward compliments toward his hosts, was persuaded to eat until his eyes bulged, which pleased them.

Ian would stay for a few days, to be sure that Hiram and Bird’s people were in some sort of mutual accord. Jamie was not quite sure that Ian’s sense of responsibility would overcome his sense of humor, though—in some ways, Ian’s sense of humor tended toward the Indians’. A word from Jamie might therefore not come amiss, just by way of precaution.

“He has a wife,” Jamie said to Bird, with a nod toward Hiram, now engaged in close discourse with two of the older men. “I think he would not welcome a young woman in his bed. He might be rude to her, not understanding the compliment.”

“Don’t worry,” said Penstemon, overhearing this. She glanced at Hiram, and her lip curled with scorn. “Nobody would want a child from
him.
Now, a child from
you,
Bear-Killer . . .” She gave him a long look beneath her lashes, and he laughed, saluting her with a gesture of respect.

It was a perfect night, cold and crisp, and the door was left open that the air might come in. The smoke from the fire rose straight and white, streaming toward the hole above, its moving wraiths like spirits ascending in joy.

Everyone had eaten and drunk to the point of a pleasant stupor, and there was momentary silence and a pervading sense of peace and happiness.

“It is good for men to eat as brothers,” Hiram observed to Standing Bear, in his halting Tsalagi. Or rather, tried to. And after all, Jamie reflected, feeling his ribs creak under the strain, it was really a very minor difference between “as brothers” and “their brothers.”

Standing Bear gave Hiram a thoughtful look, and edged slightly farther away from him.

Bird observed this, and after a moment’s silence, turned to Jamie.

“You’re a very funny man, Bear-Killer,” he repeated, shaking his head. “You win.”

To Mr. John Stuart,
Superintendent of the Southern
Department of Indian Affairs

From Fraser’s Ridge,
on the First Day of November,
Anno Domini 1774,
James Fraser, Esq.

My dear sir,

This is to notify you of my Resignation as Indian Agent, as I find that my personal Convictions will no longer allow me to perform my Office on behalf of the Crown in good Conscience.

In thanks for your kind Attention and many Favors, and wishing you well in future, I remain

Your most humble Servant,

J. Fraser