Dragonfly In Amber - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений txt) 📗
Jamie bowed to Mrs. Munro and turned to take my arm. Before we could leave, though, the cowhide that hung across the low doorway was thrust aside, and I stood back to make way for Mary Hawkins, followed by Murtagh.
Mary looked both bedraggled and bewildered, a damp plaid clasped around her shoulders and her muddy bedroom slippers protruding under the sodden hem of her nightrobe. Spotting me, she pressed close to me as though grateful for my presence.
“I didn’t w-want to come in,” she whispered to me, glancing shyly at Hugh Munro’s widow, “but Mr. Murtagh insisted.”
Jamie’s brows were raised in inquiry, as Murtagh nodded respectfully to Mrs. Munro and said something to her in Gaelic. The little clansman looked just as he always did, dour and competent, but I thought there was an extra hint of dignity in his demeanor. He carried one of the saddlebags before him, bulging heavily with something. Perhaps a parting gift for Mrs. Munro, I thought.
Murtagh laid the bag on the floor at my feet, then straightened up and looked from me to Mary, to Hugh Munro’s widow, and at last to Jamie, who looked as puzzled as I felt. Having thus assured himself of his audience, Murtagh bowed formally to me, a lock of wet dark hair falling free over his brow.
“I bring ye your vengeance, lady,” he said, as quietly as I’d ever heard him speak. He straightened and inclined his head in turn to Mary and Mrs. Munro. “And justice for the wrong done to ye.”
Mary sneezed, and wiped her nose hastily with a fold of her plaid. She stared at Murtagh, eyes wide and baffled. I gazed down at the bulging saddle-bag, feeling a sudden deep chill that owed nothing to the weather outside. But it was Hugh Munro’s widow who sank to her knees, and with steady hands opened the bag and drew out the head of the Duke of Sandringham.
45 DAMN ALL RANDALLS
It was a torturous trip northward into Scotland. We had to dodge and hide, always afraid of being recognized as Highlanders, unable to buy or beg food, needing to steal small bits from unattended sheds or pluck the few edible roots I could find in the fields.
Slowly, slowly, we made our way north. There was no telling where the Scottish army was by now, except that it lay to the north. With no way of telling where the army was, we decided to make for Edinburgh; there at least there would be news of the campaign. We had been out of touch for several weeks; I knew the relief of Stirling Castle by the English had failed, Jamie knew the Battle of Falkirk had succeeded, ending in victory for the Scots. But what had come after?
When we rode at last into the cobbled gray street of the Royal Mile, Jamie went at once to the army’s headquarters, leaving me to go with Mary to Alex Randall’s quarters. We hurried up the street together, barely speaking, both too afraid of what we might find.
He was there, and I saw Mary’s knees give way as she entered the room and collapsed by his bed. Startled from a doze, he opened his eyes and blinked once, then Alex Randall’s face blazed as though he had received a heavenly visitation.
“Oh, God!” he kept muttering brokenly into her hair. “Oh, God. I thought… oh, Lord, I had prayed… one more sight of you. Just one. Oh, Lord!”
Simply averting my gaze seemed insufficient; I went out onto the landing, and sat on the stairs for half an hour, resting my weary head on my knees.
When it seemed decent to return, I went back into the small room, grown grimy and cheerless again in the weeks of Mary’s absence. I examined him, my hands gentle on the wasted flesh. I was surprised that he had lasted so long; it couldn’t be much longer.
He saw the truth in my face, and nodded, unsurprised.
“I waited,” he said softly, lying back in exhaustion on his pillows. “I hoped… she would come once more. I had no reason… but I prayed. And now it is answered. I shall die in peace now.”
“Alex!” Mary’s cry of anguish burst out of her as though his words had struck her a physical blow, but he smiled and pressed her hand.
“We have known it for a long time, my love,” he whispered to her. “Don’t despair. I will be with you always, watching you, loving you. Don’t cry, my dearest.” She brushed obediently at her pink-washed cheeks, but could do nothing to stem the tears that came streaming down them. Despite her obvious despair, she had never looked so blooming.
“Mrs. Fraser,” Alex said, clearly mustering his strength to ask one more favor. “I must ask… tomorrow… will you come again, and bring your husband? It is important.”
I hesitated for a moment. Whatever Jamie found out, he was going to want to leave Edinburgh immediately, to join the army and find the rest of his men. But surely one more day could make no difference to the outcome of the war – and I could not deny the appeal in the two pairs of eyes that looked at me so hopefully.
“We’ll come,” I said.
“I am a fool,” Jamie grumbled, climbing the steep, cobbled streets to the wynd where Alex Randall had his lodgings. “We should have left yesterday, at once, as soon as we got back your pearls from the pawnbroker! D’ye no ken how far it is to Inverness? And we wi’ little more than nags to get us there?”
“I know,” I said impatiently. “But I promised. And if you’d seen him… well, you will see him in a moment, and then you’ll understand.”
“Mphm.” But he held the street door for me and followed me up the winding stair of the decrepit building without further complaint.
Mary was half-sitting, half-lying on the bed. Still dressed in her tattered traveling clothes, she was holding Alex, cradling him fiercely against her bosom. She must have stayed with him so all night.
Seeing me, he gently freed himself from her grasp, patting her hands as he laid them aside. He propped himself on one elbow, face paler than the linen sheets on which he lay.
“Mrs. Fraser,” he said. He smiled faintly, despite the sheen of unhealthy sweat and the gray pallor that betokened a bad attack.
“It was good of you to come,” he said, gasping a little. He glanced beyond me. “Your husband… he is with you?”
As though in answer, Jamie stepped into the room behind me. Mary, stirred from her misery by the noise of our entry, glanced from me to Jamie, then rose to her feet, laying a hand timidly on his arm.
“I… we… n-need you, Lord Tuarach.” I thought it was the stammer, more than the use of his title, that touched him. Though he was still grim-faced, some of the tension went out of him. He inclined his head courteously toward her.
“I asked your wife to bring you, my lord. I am dying, as you see.” Alex Randall had pushed himself upright, sitting on the edge of the bed. His slender shins gleamed white as bone beneath the frayed hem of his nightshirt. The toes, long, slim, and bloodless, were shadowed with the bluing of poor circulation.
I had seen death often enough before, in all its forms, but this was always the worst – and the best; a man who met death with knowledge and courage, while the healer’s futile arts fell aside. Futile or not, I rummaged through the contents of my case for the digitalin I had made for him. I had several infusions, in varying strengths, a spectrum of brown liquids in glass vials. I chose the darkest vial without hesitation; I could hear his breath bubbling through the water in his lungs.
It wasn’t digitalin, but his purpose that sustained him now, lighting him with a glow as though a candle burned behind the waxy skin of his face. I had seen that a few times before, too; the man – or woman – whose will was strong enough to override for a time the imperatives of the body.
I thought that was perhaps how some ghosts were made; where a will and a purpose had survived, heedless of the frail flesh that fell by the wayside, unable to sustain life long enough. I didn’t much want to be haunted by Alex Randall; that, among other reasons, was why I had made Jamie come with me today.
