A Breath of Snow and Ashes (48 page)

I spoke the last word with a sense of loathing evident even to me.

“Men,” Jamie said, his voice sounding odd.

“Men,” I said. I opened my eyes and looked at him. My eyes felt hot, and I thought they must glow red, like a possum’s in torchlight.

“I have lived through a fucking world war,” I said, my voice low and venomous. “I have lost a child. I have lost two husbands. I have starved with an army, been beaten and wounded, been patronized, betrayed, imprisoned, and attacked. And I have fucking survived!” My voice was rising, but I was helpless to stop it. “And now should I be shattered because some wretched, pathetic excuses for men stuck their nasty little appendages between my legs and
wiggled
them?!” I stood up, seized the edge of the washstand and heaved it over, sending everything flying with a crash—basin, ewer, and lighted candlestick, which promptly went out.

“Well, I won’t,” I said quite calmly.

“Nasty little appendages?” he said, looking rather stunned.

“Not yours,” I said. “I didn’t mean yours. I’m rather fond of yours.” Then I sat down and burst into tears.

His arms came round me, slowly and gently. I didn’t startle or jerk away, and he pressed my head against him, smoothing my damp, tangled hair, his fingers catching in the mass of it.

“Christ, ye are a brave wee thing,” he murmured.

“Not,” I said, eyes closed. “I’m not.” I grabbed his hand and brought it to my lips, closing my eyes as I did so.

I brushed my battered mouth across his knuckles, blind. They were swollen, as bruised as mine; I touched my tongue to his flesh, tasted soap and dust and the silver taste of scrapes and gashes—marks left by bones and broken teeth. Pressed my fingers to the veins beneath the skin of wrist and arm, softly resilient, and the solid lines of the bones beneath. I felt the tributaries of his veins, wished to enter into his bloodstream, travel there, dissolved and bodiless, to take refuge in the thick-walled chambers of his heart. But I couldn’t.

I ran my hand up his sleeve, exploring, clinging, relearning his body. I touched the hair in his oxter and stroked it, surprised at the soft, silky feel of it.

“Do you know,” I said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever touched you there before?”

“I dinna believe ye have,” he said, with a hint of nervous laughter in his voice. “I would ha’ remembered. Oh!” A stipple of gooseflesh burst out over the soft skin there, and I pressed my forehead to his chest.

“The worst of it is,” I said, into his shirt, “that I knew
them.
Each one of them. And I’ll remember them. And feel guilty that they’re dead, because of me.”

“No,” he said softly, but very firmly. “They are dead because of
me,
Sassenach. And because of their own wickedness. If there is guilt, let it rest upon them. Or on me.”

“Not on you alone,” I said, my eyes still closed. It was dark in there, and soothing. I could hear my voice, distant but clear, and wondered dimly where the words were coming from. “You’re blood of my blood, bone of my bone. You said so. What you do rests on me, as well.”

“Then may your vow redeem me,” he whispered.

He lifted me to my feet and gathered me to him, like a tailor gathering up a length of fragile, heavy silk—slowly, long-fingered, fold upon fold. He carried me then across the room, and laid me gently on the bed, in the light from the flickering fire.

HE’D MEANT TO be gentle. Very gentle. Had planned it with care, worrying each step of the long way home. She was broken; he must go canny, take his time. Be careful in gluing back her shattered bits.

And then he came to her and discovered that she wished no part of gentleness, of courting. She wished directness. Brevity and violence. If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle.

For a moment, two moments, he struggled, trying to hold her close and kiss her tenderly. She squirmed like an eel in his arms, then rolled over him, wriggling and biting.

He’d thought to ease her—both of them—with the wine. He’d known she lost all sense of restraint when in drink; he simply hadn’t realized what she was restraining, he thought grimly, trying to seize her without hurting.

He, of all people, should have known. Not fear or grief or pain—but rage.

She raked his back; he felt the scrape of broken nails, and thought dimly that was good—she’d fought. That was the last of his thought; his own fury took him then, rage and a lust that came on him like black thunder on a mountain, a cloud that hid all from him and him from all, so that kind familiarity was lost and he was alone, strange in darkness.

It might be her neck he grasped, or anyone’s. The feel of small bones came to him, knobbled in the dark, and the screams of rabbits, killed in his hand. He rose up in a whirlwind, choked with dirt and the scourings of blood.

Wrath boiled and curdled in his balls, and he rode to her spurs. Let his lightning blaze and sear all trace of the intruder from her womb, and if it burnt them both to bone and ash—then let it be.

WHEN SENSE CAME back to him, he lay with his weight full on her, crushing her into the bed. Breath sobbed in his lungs; his hands clenched her arms so hard he felt the bones like sticks about to snap within his grasp.

He had lost himself. Was not sure where his body ended. His mind flailed for a moment, panicked lest it have been unseated altogether—no. He felt a drop of cold, sudden on his shoulder, and the scattered parts of him drew at once together like shattered bits of quicksilver, to leave him quaking and appalled.

He was still joined to her. He wanted to bolt like a startled quail, but managed to move slowly, loosening his fingers one by one from their death grip on her arms, lifting his body gently away, though the effort of it seemed immense, as though his weight were that of moons and planets. He half-expected to see her crushed and flattened, lifeless on the sheet. But the springy arch of her ribs rose and fell and rose again, roundly reassuring.

Another drop struck him in the back of his neck, and he hunched his shoulders in surprise. Caught by his movement, she looked up, and he met her eyes with shock. She shared it; the shock of strangers meeting one another naked. Her eyes flicked away from his, up toward the ceiling.

“The roof’s leaking,” she whispered. “There’s a wet patch.”

“Oh.” He had not even realized that it was raining. The room was dark with rainlight, though, and the roof thrummed overhead. The sound of it seemed inside his blood, like the beat of the bodhrana inside the night, like the beat of his heart in the forest.

He shuddered, and for lack of any other notion, kissed her forehead. Her arms came up sudden as a snare and held him fiercely, pulling him down onto her again and he seized her, too, crushing her to him hard enough to feel the breath go out of her, unable to let go. He thought vaguely of Brianna’s talk of giant orbs that whirled through space, the thing called gravity—and what was grave about it? He saw that well enough just now: a force so great as to balance some body unthinkably immense in thin air, unsupported—or send two such bodies crashing into each other, in an explosion of destruction and the smoke of stars.

He’d bruised her; there were dark red marks on her arms where his fingers had been. They would be black within the day. The marks of other men bloomed black and purple, blue and yellow, clouded petals trapped beneath the whiteness of her skin.

His thighs and buttocks were strained with effort, and a cramp took him hard, making him groan and twist to ease it. His skin was wet; so was hers, and they slid apart with slow reluctance.

Eyes puffed and bruised, clouded like wild honey, inches from his own.

“How do you feel?” she asked softly.

“Terrible,” he replied with complete honesty. He was hoarse, as though he had been screaming—God, perhaps he had been. Her mouth had bled again; there was a red smear on her chin, and the taste of metal from it in his own mouth.

He cleared his throat, wanting to look away from her eyes, but unable to do it. He rubbed a thumb over the smear of blood, clumsily erasing it.

“You?” he asked, and the words were like a rasp in his throat. “How do ye feel?”

She had drawn back a little at his touch, but her eyes were still fixed on his. He had the feeling that she was looking far beyond him, through him—but then the focus of her gaze came back, and she looked directly at him, for the first time since he had brought her home.

“Safe,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. She took one huge breath and her body relaxed all at once, going limp and heavy like a dying hare.

He held her, both arms wrapped around her as though to save her from drowning, but felt her sink away all the same. He wished to call out to her not to go, not to leave him alone. She vanished into the depths of sleep, and he yearned after her, wishing her healed, fearing her flight, and bent his head, burying his face in her hair and her scent.

The wind banged the open shutters as it passed, and in the dark outside, one owl hooted and another answered, hiding from the rain.

Then he cried, soundless, muscles strained to aching that he might not shake with it, that she might not wake to know it. He wept to emptiness and ragged breath, the pillow wet beneath his face. Then lay exhausted beyond the thought of tiredness, too far from sleep even to recall what it was like. His only comfort was the small, so fragile weight that lay warm upon his heart, breathing.

Then her hands rose and rested on him, the tears cool on his face, congealing, the white of her clean as the silent snow that covers char and blood and breathes peace upon the world.

30

THE CAPTIVE

I
T WAS A STILL, WARM morning; the last of the Indian summer. A woodpecker hammered in the wood nearby, and some insect was making a noise like rasping metal in the tall grass beyond the house. I came downstairs slowly, feeling mildly disembodied—and wishing I were, since the body I had hurt almost everywhere.

Mrs. Bug hadn’t come this morning; perhaps she wasn’t feeling well. Or perhaps she wasn’t sure yet how to deal with seeing me, or what to say to me when she did. My mouth tightened a little, something I realized only because the partially healed split in my lip stung when I did it.

I very consciously relaxed my face and went about getting down the coffee things from the kitchen shelf. There was a trail of tiny black ants running along the edge of the shelf, and a swarm of them over the small tin box in which I kept lump sugar. I flicked them off with a few stern swipes of my apron, and made a mental note to see about finding some avens root for repellant.

That resolve, small as it was, made me feel better and steadier at once. Ever since Hodgepile and his men had turned up at the malting shed, I had been completely at the mercy of someone else, prevented from any sort of independent action. For the first time in days—it seemed much longer—I was able to decide what I was going to do. It seemed a precious liberty.

Very well, I thought. What would I do, then? I would . . . drink some coffee. Eat a bit of toast? No. I felt gingerly with my tongue; several teeth on one side were loose, and my jaw muscles so sore that serious chewing was out of the question. Just coffee, then, and while I drank it, I would decide upon the shape of my day.

Feeling pleased with this plan, I put back the plain wooden cup, and instead ceremoniously set out my sole china cup and saucer, a delicate bit of porcelain Jocasta had given me, hand-painted with violets.

Jamie had poked up the fire earlier and the kettle was boiling; I dipped out enough water to warm the pot, swished it round, and opened the back door in order to toss it out. Fortunately, I looked first.

Ian was sitting cross-legged on the back porch, a small whetstone in one hand, knife in the other.

“Good morn to ye, Auntie,” he said cheerfully, and drew the knife across the stone, making the thin, monotonous rasping noise I had heard earlier. “Feeling better, then?”

“Yes, fine,” I assured him. He raised one eyebrow dubiously, looking me over.

“Well, better than ye look, I hope.”

“Not
that
good,” I said tartly, and he laughed. He put down the knife and stone and got to his feet. He was much taller than I; nearly Jamie’s height, though thinner. He’d inherited his father’s whipcord leanness, as well as the elder Ian’s sense of humor—and his toughness.

He took me by the shoulders and turned me into the sunlight, pursing his lips a little as he inspected me at close range. I blinked up at him, imagining what I must look like. I hadn’t had the nerve to look into a mirror yet, but I knew the bruising must be going from blacks and reds to a colorful assortment of blues, greens, and yellows. Add in assorted knobbly swellings, flecks of crusty black for the split lip and the scabby bits, and I was undoubtedly quite the picture of health.

Ian’s soft hazel eyes peered intently into my face with no apparent surprise or distress, though. At last he let go, and patted my shoulder gently.

“Ye’ll do, Auntie,” he said. “It’s still you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. And with no warning at all, tears welled up and overflowed. I knew exactly what he’d meant, and why he’d said it—and it was true.

I felt as though my center had turned unexpectedly to liquid and was gushing out, not from grief, but from relief. I
was
still me. Fragile, battered, sore, and wary—but myself. Only when I recognized that, did I realize how much I had feared that I might not be—that I might emerge from shock and find myself irrevocably altered, some vital part forever missing.

“I’m all right,” I assured Ian, hastily wiping my eyes with the edge of my apron. “Just a bit—”

“Aye, I know,” he said, and took the pot from me, tossing the water into the grass by the path. “It’s a bit strange, aye? Coming back.”

I took the coffeepot from him, squeezing his hand hard as I did so. He had come back twice from captivity: rescued from Geillis Duncan’s strange compound on Jamaica, only to choose later exile with the Mohawk. He had come to manhood on that journey, and I did wonder what parts of himself might have been left behind on the way.

“Do you want breakfast, Ian?” I asked, sniffing and dabbing gingerly at my swollen nose.

“Of course I do,” he said, grinning. “Come and sit yourself down, Auntie—I’ll fetch it.”

I followed him inside, filled the coffeepot and set it to brew, then sat at the table, the sun on my back through the open door, and watched as Ian rummaged the pantry. My mind felt soggy and incapable of thought, but a sense of peace crept over me, gentle as the wavering light through the chestnut trees. Even the small throbbings here and there seemed pleasant, a sense of healing being quietly accomplished.

Ian spread an armload of random foodstuffs on the table and sat down across from me.

“All right, Auntie?” he asked again, raising one of his father’s feathery eyebrows.

“Yes. It’s rather like sitting on a soap bubble, though. Isn’t it?” I glanced at him as I poured the coffee, but he looked down at the chunk of bread he was buttering. I thought a slight smile touched his lips, but couldn’t tell for sure.

“Something like,” he said quietly.

The heat of the coffee warmed my hands through the china, and soothed the raw membranes of my nose and palate. I felt as though I had been screaming for hours, but didn’t recall actually doing any such thing. Had I, with Jamie the night before?

I didn’t quite want to think about the night before; it was part of the soap-bubble feeling. Jamie had been gone when I woke, and I wasn’t sure whether I was glad or sorry about that.

Ian didn’t talk, but ate his way in a businesslike manner through half a loaf with butter and honey, three raisin muffins, two thick slices of ham, and a jug of milk. Jamie had done the milking, I saw; he always used the blue jug, while Mr. Wemyss used the white one. I wondered vaguely where Mr. Wemyss was—I hadn’t seen him, and the house felt empty—but didn’t really care. It occurred to me that perhaps Jamie had told both Mr. Wemyss and Mrs. Bug to stay away for a bit, feeling that I might need a little time alone.

“More coffee, Auntie?”

At my nod, Ian rose from the table, reached down the decanter from the shelf, and poured a large slug of whisky into my cup before refilling it.

“Mam always said it’s good for what ails ye,” he said.

“Your mother is right. Do you want some?”

He sniffed at the aromatic fumes, but shook his head.

“No, I think not, Auntie. I must have a clear head this morning.”

“Really? Why?” The porridge in the pot wasn’t nine days old—quite—but it had been there for three or four. Of course; no one had been here to eat it. I eyed the cementlike glob adhering to my spoon critically, then decided that it was still soft enough to eat, and doused it with honey.

Ian was dealing with a mouthful of the same substance, and took a moment to clear it from his palate before replying.

“Uncle Jamie means to ask his questions,” he answered, giving me a cautious glance as he reached for the bread.

“Does he?” I said, rather blankly, but before I could inquire what he meant by that, the sound of footsteps on the path announced the arrival of Fergus.

He looked as though he had been sleeping in the woods—well, of course, I thought, he had been. Or rather, not sleeping; the men had barely stopped to rest in their pursuit of Hodgepile’s gang. Fergus had shaved, but his normally fastidious grooming was sadly lacking, and his handsome face was gaunt, the deep eyes shadowed.

“Milady,” he murmured, and unexpectedly bent to kiss my cheek, hand on my shoulder.
“Comment ça va?”

“Tres bien, merci,”
I replied, smiling gingerly. “How are Marsali and the children? And our hero, Germain?” I had asked Jamie about Marsali on the way back, and had been assured that she was all right. Germain, monkey that he was, had gone straight up a tree when he heard Hodgepile’s men approaching. He had seen everything from his perch, and as soon as the men departed, had scrambled down, dragged his semiconscious mother away from the fire, and run for help.

“Ah, Germain,” Fergus said, a faint smile momentarily lifting the shadows of fatigue. “
Nous p’tit guerrier.
He says
Grandpère
has promised him a pistol of his own, to shoot bad people with.”

Grandpère
undoubtedly meant it, I reflected. Germain couldn’t manage a musket, being somewhat shorter than the gun itself—but a pistol would do. In my present state of mind, the fact that Germain was only six didn’t seem particularly important.

“Have you had breakfast, Fergus?” I pushed the pot toward him.

“Non. Merci.”
He helped himself to cold biscuit, ham, and coffee, though I noticed that he ate without much appetite.

We all sat quietly, sipping coffee and listening to the birds. Carolina wrens had built a late nest under the eaves of the house and the parent birds swooped in and out, just above our heads. I could hear the high-pitched cheeping of the nestlings begging, and saw a scatter of twigs and a bit of empty eggshell on the floorboards of the porch. They were nearly ready to fledge; just in time, before the real cold weather came.

The sight of the brown-speckled eggshell reminded me of
Monsieur le Oeuf.
Yes, that’s what I would do, I decided, with a small sense of relief at having something firm in mind. I would go and see Marsali later. And perhaps Mrs. Bug, as well.

“Did you see Mrs. Bug this morning?” I asked, turning to Ian. His cabin—little more than a brush-roofed lean-to—lay just beyond the Bugs’; he would have passed them on his way to the house.

“Oh, aye,” he said, looking a little surprised. “She was sweeping out as I went by. Offered me breakfast, but I said I’d eat here. I kent Uncle Jamie had a ham, aye?” He grinned, lifting his fourth ham biscuit in illustration.

“So she’s all right? I thought she might be ill; she usually comes quite early.”

Ian nodded, and took an enormous bite of the biscuit.

“Aye, I expect she’s busy, minding the
ciomach.
”

My fragile sense of well-being cracked like the wrens’ eggs. A
ciomach
was a captive. In my soggy-minded euphoria, I had somehow managed to forget Lionel Brown’s existence.

Ian’s remark that Jamie meant to ask questions this morning dropped suddenly into context—as did Fergus’s presence. And the knife Ian had been sharpening.

“Where is Jamie?” I asked, rather faintly. “Have you seen him?”

“Oh, aye,” Ian said, looking surprised. He swallowed, and gestured toward the door with his chin. “He’s just out in the woodshed, makin’ new shingles. He says the roof’s sprung a leak.”

No sooner had he said this than the sound of hammering came from the roof, far above. Of course, I thought. First things first. But then, I supposed Lionel Brown wasn’t going anywhere, after all.

“Perhaps . . . I should go and see Mr. Brown,” I said, swallowing.

Ian and Fergus exchanged glances.

“No, Auntie, ye shouldn’t,” Ian said quite calmly, but with an air of authority I wasn’t accustomed to seeing in him.

“Whatever do you mean?” I stared at him, but he merely went on eating, though a trifle more slowly.

“Milord says you should not,” Fergus amplified, drizzling a spoonful of honey into his coffee.

“He says what?” I asked incredulously.

Neither of them would look at me, but they seemed to draw together, emanating a reluctant sort of stubborn resistance. Either one would do anything I asked, I knew—except defy Jamie. If Jamie thought I ought not to see Mr. Brown, I wasn’t going to do it with the assistance of either Ian or Fergus.

I dropped the spoon back into my bowl of porridge, uneaten lumps still adhering to it.

“Did he happen to mention
why
he thinks I ought not to visit Mr. Brown?” I asked calmly, under the circumstances.

Both men looked surprised, then exchanged another look, this one longer.

“No, milady,” Fergus said, his voice carefully neutral.

There was a brief silence, during which both of them seemed to be considering. Then Fergus glanced at Ian, deferring to him with a shrug.

“Well, d’ye see, Auntie,” Ian said carefully, “we do mean to question the fellow.”

“And we will have answers,” Fergus said, eyes on the spoon with which he was stirring his coffee.

“And when Uncle Jamie is satisfied that he has told us what he can . . .”

Ian had laid his newly sharpened knife on the table beside his plate. He picked it up, and thoughtfully drew it down the length of a cold sausage, which promptly split open, with an aromatic burst of sage and garlic. He looked up then, and met my eyes directly. And I realized that while I might still be me—Ian was no longer the boy he used to be. Not at all.