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

“You actually saw it?”

“Oh, aye. And I’ll tell ye, lass, watchin’ men bein’ flogged is not pleasant. I’ve had the good fortune never to experience it, but I expect bein’ flogged is not verra pleasant, either. Watching it happen to someone else while waitin’ for it yourself is probably least pleasant of all.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I murmured.

Dougal nodded. “Jamie looked grim enough, but he didna turn a hair, even listening to the screams and the other noises – did ye know ye can hear the flesh being torn?”

“Ugh!”

“So I thought myself, lass,” he said, grimacing in memory of it. “To say nothing of the blood and bruises. Ech!” He spat, carefully avoiding the pool and its coping. “Turned my stomach to see, and I’m no a squeamish man by any means.”

Dougal went on with his ghastly story.

“Come Jamie’s turn, he walks up to the post – some men have to be dragged, but not him – and holds out his hands so the corporal can unlock the manacles he’s wearing. The corporal goes to pull his arm, like, to haul him into place, but Jamie shakes him off and steps back a pace. I was half expectin’ him to make a dash for it, but instead he just pulls off his shirt. It’s torn here and there and filthy as a clout, but he folds it up careful like it was his Sunday best, and lays it on the ground. Then he walks over to the post steady as a soldier and puts his hands up to be bound.”

Dougal shook his head, marveling. The sunlight filtering through the rowan leaves dappled him with lacy shadows, so he looked like a man seen through a doily. I smiled at the thought, and he nodded approvingly at me, thinking my response due to his story.

“Aye, lass, courage like that is uncommon rare. It wasna ignorance, mind; he’d just seen two men flogged and he knew the same was coming to him. It’s just he had made up his mind there was no help for it. Boldness in battle is nothing out of the way for a Scotsman, ye ken, but to face down fear in cold blood is rare in any man. He was but nineteen at the time,” Dougal added as an afterthought.

“Must have been rather gruesome to watch,” I said ironically. “I wonder you weren’t sick.”

Dougal saw the irony, and let it lie. “I nearly was, lass,” he said, lifting his dark brows. “The first lash drew blood, and the lad’s back was half red and half blue within a minute. He didna scream, though, or beg for mercy, or twist round to try and save himself. He just set his forehead hard against the post and stood there. He flinched when the lash hit, of course, but nothin’ more. I doubt I could do that,” he admitted, “nor are there many that could. He fainted half through it, and they roused him wi’ water from a jug and finished it.”

“Very nasty indeed,” I observed. “Why are you telling me about it?”

“I havena finished telling ye about it.” Dougal pulled the dirk from his belt and began to clean his fingernails with the point. He was a fastidious man, in spite of the difficulties of keeping clean on the road.

“Jamie was slumped in the ropes, with the blood running down and staining his kilt. I dinna think he’d fainted, he was just too wambly to stand for the moment. But just then Captain Randall came down into the yard. I don’t know why he’d not been there to begin with; had business that delayed him, perhaps. Anyway, Jamie saw him coming, and had the presence o’ mind left to close his eyes and let his head flop, like as if he were unconscious.”

Dougal knitted his brows, concentrating fiercely on a recalcitrant hangnail.

“The Captain was fair put out that they’d flogged Jamie already; seems that was a pleasure he’d meant to have for himself. Still, not much to be done about it at the moment. But then he thought to make inquiries about how Jamie came to escape in the first place.”

He held up the dirk, examining it for nicks, then began to sharpen the edge against the stone he sat on. “Had several soldiers shaking in their boots before he was done – the man’s a way wi’ words, I’ll say that for him.”

“That he has,” I said dryly.

The dirk scraped rhythmically against the stone. Every so often, a faint spark leapt from the metal as it struck a rough patch in the rock.

“Weel, in the course of this inquiry, it came out that Jamie’d had the heel of a loaf and a bit of cheese with him when they caught him – taken it along when he went over the wall. Whereupon the Captain thinks for a moment, then smiles a smile I should hate to see on my grandmother’s face. He declares that theft bein’ a serious offense, the penalty should be commensurate, and sentences Jamie on the spot to another hundred lashes.”

I flinched in spite of myself. “That would kill him!”

Dougal nodded. “Aye, that’s what the garrison doctor said. He said as he’d permit no such thing; in good conscience, the prisoner must be allowed a week to heal before receiving the second flogging.”

“Well, how humanitarian of him,” I said. “Good conscience, my aunt Fanny! And what did Captain Randall think of this?”

“He was none too pleased at first, but he reconciled himself. Once he did, the sergeant-major, who knew a real faint when he saw one, had Jamie untied. The lad staggered a bit, but he kept to his feet, and a few of the men there cheered, which didna go ower a treat wi’ the Captain. He wasna best pleased when the sergeant picked up Jamie’s shirt and handed it back to the lad, either, though it was quite a popular move with the men.”

Dougal twisted the blade back and forth, examining it critically. Then he laid it across his knee and gave me a direct look.

“Ye know, lass, it’s fairly easy to be brave, sittin’ in a warm tavern ower a glass of ale. ’Tis not so easy, squatting in a cold field, wi’ musket balls going past your head and heather ticklin’ your arse. And it’s still less easy when you’re standing face to face wi’ your enemy, wi’ your own blood running down your legs.”

“I wouldn’t suppose so,” I said. I did feel a little faint, in spite of everything. I plunged both hands into the water, letting the dark liquid chill my wrists.

“I did go back to see Randall, later in the week,” Dougal said defensively, as though he felt some need to justify the action. “We talked a good bit, and I even offered him compensation-”

“Oh, I am impressed,” I murmured, but desisted in the face of his glare. “No, I mean it. It was kind of you. I gather Randall declined your offer, though?”

“Aye, he did. And I still dinna ken why, for I’ve not found English officers on the whole to be ower-scrupulous when it comes to their purses, and clothes such as the Captain’s come a bit dear.”

“Perhaps he has-other sources of income,” I suggested.

“He does, for a fact,” Dougal confirmed, but with a sharp glance at me. “Still…” he hesitated, then proceeded, more slowly.

“I went back, then, to be there for Jamie when he came up again, though there wasna much I could do for him at that point, poor lad.”

The second time, Jamie had been the only prisoner up for flogging. The guards had removed his shirt before bringing him out, just after sunup on a cold October morning.

“I could see the lad was dead scairt,” said Dougal, “though he was walking by himself and wouldna let the guard touch him. I could see him shaking, as much wi’ the cold as wi’ nerves, and the gooseflesh thick on his arms and chest, but the sweat was standing on his face as well.”

A few minutes later, Randall came out, the whip tucked under his arm, and the lead plummets at the tips of the lashes clicking softly together as he walked. He had surveyed Jamie coolly, then motioned to the sergeant-major to turn the prisoner around to show his back.

Dougal grimaced. “A pitiful sight, it was, too – still raw, no more than half-healed, wi’ the weals turned black and the rest yellow wi’ bruises. The thought of a whip comin’ down on that soreness was enough to make me blench, along wi’ most of those watching.”