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

“It’s all right,” I said, as I came up to him. “It’s gone.”

Instead of finding this statement reassuring, it seemed occasion for fresh alarm. He dropped the bucket, fell to his knees before me and crossed himself.

“Ha-have mercy, lady,” he stammered. To my extreme embarrassment, he then flung himself flat on his face and clutched at the hem of my dress.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said with some asperity. “Get up.” I prodded him gently with my toe, but he only quivered and stayed pressed to the ground like a flattened fungus. “Get up,” I repeated. “Stupid man, it’s only a…” I paused, trying to think. Telling him its Latin name was unlikely to help.

“It’s only a wee monster,” I said at last, and grabbing his hand, tugged him to his feet. I had to fill the bucket, as he would (not unreasonably) not go near the water’s edge again. He followed me back to the camp, keeping a careful distance, and scuttled off at once to tend to his mules, casting apprehensive glances over his shoulder at me as he went.

As he seemed undisposed to mention the creature to anyone else, I thought perhaps I should keep quiet as well. While Dougal, Jamie, and Ned were educated men, the rest were largely illiterate Highlanders from the remote crags and glens of the MacKenzie lands. They were courageous fighters and dauntless warriors, but they were also as superstitious as any primitive tribesmen from Africa or the Middle East.

So I ate my supper quietly and went to bed, conscious all the time of the wary gaze of the drover Peter.

Chapter 20. DESERTED GLADES

Two days after the raid, we turned again to the north. We were drawing closer to the rendezvous with Horrocks, and Jamie seemed abstracted from time to time, perhaps considering what importance the English deserter’s news might have.

I had not seen Hugh Munro again, but I had wakened in darkness the night before to find Jamie gone from the blanket beside me. I tried to stay awake, waiting for him to return, but fell asleep as the moon began to sink. In the morning, he was sound asleep beside me, and on my blanket rested a small parcel, done up in a sheet of thin paper, fastened with the tail-feather of a woodpecker thrust through the sheet. Unfolding it carefully, I found a large chunk of rough amber. One face of the chunk had been smoothed off and polished, and in this window could be seen the delicate dark form of a tiny dragonfly, suspended in eternal flight.

I smoothed out the wrapping. A message was incised on the grimy white surface, written in small and surprisingly elegant lettering.

“What does it say?” I asked Jamie, squinting at the odd letters and marks. “I think it’s in Gaelic.”

He raised up on one elbow squinting at the paper.

“Not Gaelic. Latin. Munro was a schoolmaster once, before the Turks took him. It’s a bit from Catullus,” he said.

…da mi basia mille, diende centum,

dein mille altera, dein secunda centum…

A faint blush pinkened his earlobes as he translated:

Then let amorous kisses dwell

On our lips, begin and tell

A Thousand and a Hundred score

A Hundred, and a Thousand more.

“Well, that’s a bit more high-class than your usual fortune cookie,” I observed, amused.

“What?” Jamie looked startled.

“Never mind,” I said hastily. “Did Munro find Horrocks for you?”

“Oh, aye. It’s arranged. I’ll meet him in a small place I know in the hills, a mile or two above Lag Cruime. In four days’ time, if nothing goes wrong meanwhile.”

The mention of things going wrong made me a bit nervous.

“Do you think it’s safe? I mean, do you trust Horrocks?”

He sat up, rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes and blinking.

“An English deserter? God, no. I imagine he’d sell me to Randall as soon as he’d spit, except that he canna very well go to the English himself. They hang deserters. No, I dinna trust him. That’s why I came wi’ Dougal on this journey, instead of seeking out Horrocks alone. If the man’s up to anything, at least I’ll have company.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure that Dougal’s presence was all that reassuring, given the apparent state of affairs between Jamie and his two scheming uncles.

“Well, if you think so,” I said doubtfully. “I don’t suppose Dougal would take the opportunity to shoot you, at least.”

“He did shoot me,” Jamie said cheerfully, buttoning his shirt. “You should know, ye dressed the wound.”

I dropped the comb I had been using.

“Dougal! I thought the English shot you!”

“Well, the English shot at me,” he corrected. “And I shouldna say it was Dougal shot me; in fact, it was probably Rupert – he’s the best marksman among Dougal’s men. No, when we were running from the English, I realized we were near the edge of the Fraser lands, and I thought I’d take my chances there. So I spurred up and cut to the left, around Dougal and the rest. There was a good deal of shooting goin’ on, mind ye, but the ball that hit me came from behind. Dougal, Rupert, and Murtagh were back of me then. And the English were all in front – in fact, when I fell off the horse, I rolled down the hill and ended almost in their laps.” He bent over the bucket of water I had brought, splashing cold handfuls over his face. He shook his head to clear his eyes, then blinked at me, grinning, glistening drops clinging to his thick lashes and brows.

“Come to that, Dougal had a sore fight to get me back. I was lyin’ on the ground, not fit for much, and he was standing over me, pulling on my belt with one hand to get me up and his sword in the other, going hand-to-hand with a dragoon who thought he had a certain cure for my ills. Dougal killed the man and got me on his own horse.” He shook his head. “Everything was a bit dim to me then; all I could think of was how hard it must be on the horse, tryin’ to make it up a hill like that with four hundred pounds on his back.”

I sat back, a little stunned.

“But… if he’d wanted to, Dougal could have killed you then.”

Jamie shook his head, taking out the straight razor he had borrowed from Dougal. He moved the bucket slightly, so the surface formed a reflecting pool, and pulling his face into the tortuous grimace men use when they shave, began to scrape his cheeks.

“No, not in front of the men. Besides, Dougal and Colum didna necessarily want me dead – especially not Dougal.”

“But-” My head was beginning to whirl again, as it seemed to do whenever I encountered the complexities of Scottish family life.

Jamie’s words were a little muffled, as he stuck out his chin, tilting his head to reach the bit of stubble beneath his jaw.

“It’s Lallybroch,” he explained, feeling with his free hand for stray whiskers. “Besides being a rich bit of ground, the estate sits at the head of a mountain pass, d’ye see. The only good pass into the Highlands for ten miles in either direction. Come to another Rising, it would be a valuable bit of land to control. And if I were to die before wedding, chances are the land would go back to the Frasers.”

He grinned, stroking his neck. “No, I’m a pretty problem to the brothers MacKenzie. On the one hand, if I’m a threat to young Hamish’s chieftainship, they want me safely dead. On the other, if I’m not, they want me – and my property – securely on their side if it comes to war – not wi’ the Frasers. That’s why they’re willing to help me wi’ Horrocks, ye see. I canna do that much wi’ Lallybroch while I’m outlawed, even though the land’s still mine.”

I rolled up the blankets, shaking my head in bewilderment over the intricate – and dangerous – circumstances through which Jamie seemed to move so nonchalantly. And it struck me suddenly that not only Jamie was involved now. I looked up.