Outlander aka Cross Stitch - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 32

I glanced out the window at the end of the corridor. The sun was, in fact, a little past the zenith, and I became conscious of increasing hunger pangs. I smiled at the girls.

“I might just do that. Thank you.”

I brought lunch to the fields again, fearing that Jamie might get nothing to eat until dinner otherwise. Seated on the grass, watching him eat, I asked him why he had been living in the rough, raiding cattle and thieving over the Border. I had seen enough by now both of the folk that came and went from the nearby village and of the castle dwellers, to be able to tell that Jamie was both higher born and much better educated than most. It seemed likely that he came from a fairly wealthy family, judging from the brief description he had given me of their farm estate. Why was he so far from home?

“I’m an outlaw,” he said, as though surprised that I didn’t know. “The English have a price of ten pounds sterling on my head. Not quite so much as a highwayman,” he said, deprecatingly, “but a bit more than a pickpocket.”

“Just for obstruction?” I said, unbelievingly. Ten pounds sterling here was half the yearly income of a small farm; I couldn’t imagine a single escaped prisoner was worth that much to the English government.

“Och, no. Murder.” I choked on a mouthful of bread-and-pickle. Jamie pounded me helpfully on the back until I could speak again.

Eyes watering, I asked, “Wh-who did you k-kill?”

He shrugged. “Well, it’s a bit odd. I didna actually kill the man whose murder I’m outlawed for. Mind ye, I’ve done for a few other redcoats along the way, so I suppose it’s not unjust.”

He paused and shifted his shoulders, as though rubbing against some invisible wall. I had noticed him do it before, on my first morning in the castle, when I had doctored him and seen the marks on his back.

“It was at Fort William. I could hardly move for a day or two, after I’d been flogged the second time, and then I had fever from the wounds. Once I could stand again, though, some… friends made shift to get me out of the camp, by means I’d best not go into. Anyhow, there was some ruckus as we left, and an English sergeant-major was shot – by coincidence, it was the man that gave me the first flogging. I’d not ha’ shot him, though; I had nothing personal against him, and I was too weak to do more than hang onto the horse, in any case.” The wide mouth tightened and thinned. “Though had it been Captain Randall, I expect I’d ha’ made the effort.” He eased his shoulders again, stretching the rough linen shirt taut across his back, and shrugged.

“There it is, though. That’s one reason I do not go far from the castle alone. This far into the Highlands, there’s little chance of running into an English patrol, but they do come over the Border quite often. And then there’s the Watch, though they’ll not come near the castle, either. Colum’s not much need of their services, having his own men to hand.” He smiled, running a hand through his bright cropped hair ’til it stood on end like porcupine quills.

“I’m no precisely inconspicuous, ye ken. I doubt there’s informers in the castle itself, but there might be a few here and there about the countryside as would be glad enough to earn a few pence by letting the English know where I was, did they know I was a wanted man.” He smiled at me. “Ye’ll have gathered the name’s not MacTavish?”

“Does the laird know?”

“That I’m an outlaw? Oh, aye, Colum knows. Most people through this part of the Highlands likely know that; what happened at Fort William caused quite a bit of stir at the time, and news travels fast here. What they won’t know is that Jamie MacTavish is the man that’s wanted; provided nobody that knows me by my own name sees me.” His hair was still sticking up absurdly. I had a sudden impulse to smooth it for him, but resisted.

“Why do you wear your hair cropped?” I asked suddenly, then blushed. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. I only wondered, since most of the other men I’ve seen here wear it long…”

He flattened the spiky licks, looking a bit self-conscious.

“I used to wear mine long as well. It’s short now because the monks had to shave the back of my head and it’s had but a few months to grow again.” He bent forward at the waist, inviting me to inspect the back of his head.

“See there, across the back?” I could certainly feel it, and see it as well when I spread the thick hair aside; a six-inch weal of freshly healed scar tissue, still pink and slightly raised. I pressed gently along its length. Cleanly healed, and a nice neat job by whoever had stitched it; a wound like that must have gaped and bled considerably.

“Do you have headaches?” I asked professionally. He sat up, smoothing the hair down over the wound. He nodded.

“Sometimes, though none so bad as it was. I was blind for a month or so after it happened, and my head ached like fury all the time. The headache started to go away when my sight came back.” He blinked several times, as though testing his vision.

“Fades a bit sometimes,” he explained, “if I’m verra tired. Things get blurry round the edges.”

“It’s a wonder it didn’t kill you,” I said. “You must have a good thick skull on you.”

“That I have. Solid bone, according to my sister.” We both laughed.

“How did it happen?” I asked. He frowned, and a look of uncertainty came over his face.

“Weel, there’s just the question,” he answered slowly. “I dinna remember anything about it. I was down near Carryarick Pass with a few lads from Loch Laggan. Last I knew, I was pushing my way uphill through a wee thicket; I remember pricking my hand on a hollybush and thinking the blood drops looked just like the berries. And the next thing I remember is waking in France, in the Abbey of Sainte Anne de Beaupre, with my head throbbing like a drum and someone I couldn’t see giving me something cool to drink.”

He rubbed the back of his head as though it ached yet.

“Sometimes I think I remember little bits of things – a lamp over my head, swinging back and forth, a sort of sweet oily taste on my lips, people saying things to me – but I do not know if any of it’s real. I know the monks gave me opium, and I dreamed nearly all the time.” He pressed his fingers flat over closed eyelids.

“There was one dream I had over and over. Tree roots growing inside my head, big gnarled things, growing and swelling, pushing out through my eyes, thrusting down my throat to choke me. It went on and on, with the roots twisting and curling and getting bigger all the time. Finally they’d get big enough to burst my skull and I’d wake hearing the sound of the bones popping apart.” He grimaced. “Sort of a juicy, cracking noise, like gunshots under water.”

“Ugh!”

A shadow fell suddenly over us and a stout boot shot out and nudged Jamie in the ribs.

“Idle young bastard,” the newcomer said without heat, “stuffin’ yerself while the horses run wild. And when’s that filly goin’ to be broke, hey, lad?”

“None the sooner for my starving myself, Alec,” Jamie replied. “Meanwhile, have a bit; there’s plenty.” He reached a chunk of cheese up to a hand knotted with arthritis. The fingers, permanently curled in a half-grip, slowly closed on the cheese as their owner sank down on the grass.

With unexpectedly courtly manners, Jamie introduced the visitor; Alec McMahon MacKenzie, Master of Horse of Castle Leoch.

A squat figure in leather breeks and rough shirt, the Master of Horse had an air of authority sufficient, I thought, to quell the most recalcitrant stallion. An “eye like Mars, to threaten or command,” the quotation sprang at once to mind. A single eye it was, the other being covered with a black cloth patch. As if to make up for the loss, his eyebrows sprouted profusely from a central point, sporting long grey hairs like insects’ antennae that waved threateningly from the basic brown tufts.