Outlander aka Cross Stitch - Gabaldon Diana (библиотека электронных книг txt) 📗

Chapter 10. THE OATH-TAKING

There was a terrific stir over the next two days, with comings and goings and preparations of every sort. My medical practice dropped off sharply; the food-poisoning victims were well again, and everyone else seemed to be much too busy to fall sick. Aside from a slight rash of splinters-in-fingers among the boys hauling in wood for the fires, and a similar outbreak of scalds and burns among the busy kitchen maids, there were no accidents either.

I was excited myself. Tonight was the night. Mrs. Fitz had told me that all the fighting men of the MacKenzie clan would be in the hall tonight, to make their oaths of allegiance to Colum. With a ceremony of this importance going on inside, no one would be watching the stables.

During my hours helping in the kitchens and orchards, I had managed to stow away sufficient food to see me provided for several days, I thought. I had no water flask, but had contrived a substitute using one of the heavier glass jugs from the surgery. I had stout boots and a warm cloak, courtesy of Colum. I would have a decent horse; on my afternoon visit to the stables, I had marked out the one I meant to take. I had no money, but my patients had given me a handful of small trinkets, ribbons, and bits of carving or jewelry. If necessary, I might be able to use these to trade for anything else I needed.

I felt badly about abusing Colum’s hospitality and the friendship of the castle inhabitants by leaving without a word or a note of farewell, but after all, what could I possibly say? I had pondered the problem for some time, but finally decided just to leave. For one thing, I had no writing paper, and was not willing to take the risk of visiting Colum’s quarters in search of any.

An hour past first dark, I approached the stable cautiously, ears alert for any signs of human presence, but it seemed that everyone was up in the Hall, readying themselves for the ceremony. The door stuck, but gave with a slight push, its leather hinges letting it swing silently inward.

The air inside was warm and alive with the faint stirrings of resting horses. It was also black as the inside of an undertaker’s hat, as Uncle Lamb used to say. Such few windows as there were for ventilation were narrow slits, too small to admit the faint starlight outside. Hands outstretched, I walked slowly into the main part of the stable, feet shuffling in the straw.

I groped carefully in front of me, looking for the edge of a stall to guide me. My hands found only empty air, but my shins met a solid obstruction resting on the floor, and I pitched headlong with a startled cry that rang in the rafters of the old stone building.

The obstruction rolled over with a startled oath and grasped me hard by the arms. I found myself held against the length of a sizable male body, with someone’s breath tickling my ear.

“Who are you?” I gasped, jerking backward. “And what are you doing here?” Hearing my voice, the unseen assailant relaxed his grip.

“I might ask the same of you, Sassenach,” said the deep soft voice of Jamie MacTavish, and I relaxed a little in relief. There was a stirring in the straw, and he sat up.

“Though I suppose I could guess,” he added dryly. “How far d’ye think you’d get, lassie, on a dark night and a strange horse, wi’ half the MacKenzie clan after ye by morning?”

I was ruffled, in more ways than one.

“They wouldn’t be after me. They’re all up at the Hall, and if one in five of them is sober enough to stand by morning, let alone ride a horse, I’ll be most surprised.”

He laughed, and standing up, reached down a hand to help me to my feet. He brushed the straw from the back of my skirt, with somewhat more force than I thought strictly necessary.

“Well, that’s verra sound reasoning on your part, Sassenach,” he said, sounding mildly surprised that I was capable of reason. “Or would be,” he added, “did Colum not have guards posted all round the castle and scattered through the woods. He’d hardly leave the castle unprotected, and the fighting men of the whole clan inside it. Granted that stone doesna burn so well as wood…”

I gathered he was referring to the infamous Glencoe Massacre, when one John Campbell, on government orders, had put thirty-eight members of the MacDonald clan to the sword and burned the house above them. I calculated rapidly. That would have been only fifty-some years before; recent enough to justify any defensive precautions on Colum’s part.

“In any case, ye could scarcely have chosen a worse night to try to escape,” MacTavish went on. He seemed entirely unconcerned with the fact that I had meant to escape, only with the reasons why it wouldn’t work, which struck me as a little odd. “Besides the guards, and the fact that every good horseman for miles around is here, the way to the castle will be filled wi’ folk coming from the countryside for the tynchal and the games.”

“Tynchal?”

“A hunt. Usually stags, maybe a boar this time; one of the stable lads told Old Alec there’s a large one in the east wood.” He put a large hand in the center of my back and turned me toward the faint oblong of the open door.

“Come along,” he said. “I’ll take ye back up to the castle.”

I pulled away from him. “Don’t bother,” I said ungraciously. “I can find my own way.”

He took my elbow with considerable firmness. “I daresay ye can. But you’ll not want to meet any of Colum’s guards alone.”

“And why not?” I snapped. “I’m not doing anything wrong; there’s no law against walking outside the castle, is there?”

“No. I doubt they’d mean to do ye harm,” he said, peering thoughtfully into the shadows. “But it’s far from unusual for a man to take a flask along to keep him company when he stands guard. And the drink may be a boon companion, but it’s no a verra good adviser as to suitable behavior, when a small sweet lass comes on ye alone in the dark.”

“I came on you in the dark, alone,” I reminded him, with some boldness. “And I’m neither particularly small, nor very sweet, at least at present.”

“Aye, well, I was asleep, not drunk,” he responded briefly. “And questions of your temper aside, you’re a good bit smaller than most of Colum’s guards.”

I put that aside as an unproductive line of argument, and tried another tack. “And why were you asleep in the stable?” I asked. “Haven’t you a bed somewhere?” We were in the outer reaches of the kitchen gardens by now, and I could see his face in the faint light. He was intent, checking the stone arches carefully as we went, but he glanced sharply aside at this.

“Aye,” he said. He continued to stride forward, still gripping me by the elbow, but went on after a moment, “I thought I’d be better out of the way.”

“Because you don’t mean to swear allegiance to Colum MacKenzie?” I guessed. “And you don’t want to stand any racket about it?”

He glanced at me, amused at my words. “Something like that,” he admitted.

One of the side gates had been left welcomingly ajar, and a lantern perched atop the stone ledge next to it shed a yellow glow on the path. We had almost reached this beacon when a hand suddenly descended on my mouth from behind and I was jerked abruptly off my feet.

I struggled and bit, but my captor was heavily gloved, and, as Jamie had said, a good deal larger than I.

Jamie himself seemed to be having minor difficulties, judging from the sound of it. The grunting and muffled cursing ceased abruptly with a thud and a rich Gaelic expletive.

The struggle in the dark stopped, and there was an unfamiliar laugh.

“God’s eyes, if it’s no the young lad; Colum’s nephew. Come late to the oath-taking, are ye not, lad? And who’s that wi’ ye?”

“It’s a lassie,” replied the man holding me. “And a sweet juicy one, too, by the heft of her.” The hand left my mouth and administered a hearty squeeze elsewhere. I squeaked in indignation, reached over my shoulder, got hold of his nose and yanked. The man set me down with a quick oath of his own, less formal than those about to be taken within the hall. I stepped back from the blast of whisky fumes, feeling a sudden surge of appreciation for Jamie’s presence. Perhaps his accompanying me had been prudent, after all.