A Breath of Snow and Ashes (54 page)

“I kent ye’d never let that happen, sir, and did my best to pay him no mind. And when he did get under my skin enough, I told him he’d be deid long before his brother heard where he was. But then the wicked wee cur escaped—and I’m sure I’ve no idea how ’twas done, for I’d have sworn he was in no condition even to rise from the bed, let alone come so far, but he did, and threw himself upon your wife’s mercy, and she took him up—I would have dragged his evil carcass away myself, but she wouldna have it—” Here she darted a briefly resentful glance at me, but returned an imploring gaze to Jamie almost at once.

“And she took him to mend, sweet gracious lady that she is, sir—and I could see it in her face, that having tended him so, it was coming to her that she couldna bear to see him killed. And he saw it, too, the gobshite, and when she went out, he jeered at me, saying now he was safe, he’d fooled her into tending him and she’d never let him be killed, and directly he was free of the place, he’d have a score of men down upon us like vengeance itself, and then . . .” She closed her eyes, swaying briefly, and pressed a hand to her chest.

“I couldn’t help it, sir,” she said very simply. “I really couldn’t.”

Jamie had been attending to her, a look like thunder on his brow. At this point, he glanced sharply at me—and evidently saw corroborative evidence upon my own battered features. His lips pressed tight together.

“Go home,” he said to Mrs. Bug. “Tell your husband what you have done, and send him to me.”

He turned on his heel then, and headed for his study. Not looking at me, Mrs. Bug rose awkwardly to her feet and went out, walking like a blind woman.

“YOU WERE RIGHT. I’m sorry.” I stood stiffly in the door of the study, hand on the jamb.

Jamie was sitting with his elbows on his desk, head resting on his hands, but looked up at this, blinking.

“Did I not forbid ye to be sorry, Sassenach?” he said, and gave me a lopsided smile. Then his eyes traveled over me, and a look of concern came over his face.

“Christ, ye look like ye’re going to fall down, Claire,” he said, getting up hastily. “Come and sit.”

He put me in his chair, and hovered over me.

“I’d call Mrs. Bug to bring ye something,” he said, “but as I’ve sent her away . . . shall I bring ye a cup of tea, Sassenach?”

I’d been feeling like crying, but laughed instead, blinking back tears.

“We haven’t got any. We haven’t had for months. I’m all right. Just rather—rather shocked.”

“Aye, I suppose so. Ye’re bleeding a bit.” He pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and, bending over, dabbed my mouth, his brows drawn together in an anxious frown.

I sat still and let him, fighting a sudden wave of exhaustion. All at once, I wanted nothing save to lie down, go to sleep, and never wake up again. And if I did wake up, I wanted the dead man in my surgery to be gone. I also wanted the house not to be burned over our heads.

But it isn’t time,
I thought suddenly, and found that thought—idiotic as it was—obscurely comforting.

“Will it make things harder for you?” I asked, struggling to fight off the weariness and think sensibly. “With Richard Brown?”

“I dinna ken,” he admitted. “I’ve been trying to think. I could wish we were in Scotland,” he said a little ruefully. “I’d ken better what Brown might do, were he a Scotsman.”

“Oh, really? Say you were dealing with your uncle Colum, for instance,” I suggested. “What would he do, do you think?”

“Try to kill me and get his brother back,” he replied promptly. “If he kent I had him. And if your Donner
did
go back to Brownsville—Richard knows by now.”

He was entirely right, and the knowledge made small fingers of apprehension creep briskly up my back.

The worry evidently showed on my face, for he smiled a little.

“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach,” he said. “The Lindsay brothers left for Brownsville the morning after we came back. Kenny’s keeping an eye on the town, and Evan and Murdo are waiting at points along the road, with fresh horses. If Richard Brown and his bloody Committee of Safety should come this way, we’ll hear of it in good time.”

That was reassuring, and I sat up a little straighter.

“That’s good. But—even if Donner did go back, he wouldn’t know that you had Lionel Brown captive; you might have killed him d-during the fight.”

He flicked a narrow blue glance at me, but merely nodded.

“I could wish I had,” he said with a slight grimace. “It would have saved trouble. But then—I’d not have found out what they were doing, and I did need to know that. If Donner’s gone back, though, he’ll ha’ told Richard Brown what happened, and led them back to claim the bodies. He’ll see his brother’s no among them.”

“Whereupon he’ll draw the logical conclusion and come here looking for him.”

The sound of the back door opening at this point made me jump, heart pounding, but it was succeeded by the soft shuffle of moccasined feet in the hall, announcing Young Ian, who peered inquiringly into the study.

“I’ve just met Mrs. Bug, hurrying off to her house,” he said, frowning. “She wouldna stop and speak to me, and she looked verra queer indeed. What’s amiss?”

“What isn’t?” I said, and laughed, causing him to glance sharply at me.

Jamie sighed.

“Sit,” he said, pushing a stool toward Ian with one foot. “And I’ll tell ye.”

Ian listened with great attention, though his mouth fell open a little when Jamie reached the point about Mrs. Bug putting the pillow over Brown’s face.

“Is he still there?” he asked, at the end of the tale. He hunched a little, looking suspiciously back over his shoulder, as though expecting Brown to come through the surgery door at any moment.

“Well, I hardly think he’s going anywhere under his own steam,” I observed tartly.

Ian nodded, but got up to look anyway. He came back in a moment, looking thoughtful.

“He’s no marks on him,” he said to Jamie, sitting down.

Jamie nodded. “Aye, and he’s freshly bandaged. Your auntie had just tended him.”

They exchanged nods, both obviously thinking the same thing.

“Ye canna tell by looking that he’s been killed, Auntie,” Ian explained, seeing that I was not yet on their wavelength. “He might have died of himself.”

“I suppose you could say that he
did.
If he hadn’t tried to terrorize Mrs. Bug . . .” I rubbed a hand—gently—over my forehead, where a headache was beginning to throb.

“How do ye feel—” Ian began, in a worried tone, but I had quite suddenly had more than enough of people asking me how I felt.

“I scarcely know,” I said abruptly, dropping my hand. I looked down at my fists, curled in my lap.

“He—he wasn’t a
wicked
man, I don’t think,” I said. There was a splotch of blood on my apron. I didn’t know whether it was his or mine. “Just . . . terribly weak.”

“Better off dead then,” said Jamie matter-of-factly, and without any particular malice. Ian nodded in agreement.

“Well, so.” Jamie returned to the point of the discussion. “I was just saying to your auntie, if Brown were a Scot, I should better know how to deal with him—but then it struck me, that while he isna Scottish, he
is
by way of doing business in a Scottish manner. Him and his committee. They’re like a Watch.”

Ian nodded, sketchy brows raised.

“So they are.” He looked interested. “I’ve never seen one, but Mam told me—about the one that arrested you, Uncle Jamie, and how she and Auntie Claire went after them.” He grinned at me, his gaunt face suddenly transforming to show a hint of the boy he’d been.

“Well, I was younger then,” I said. “And braver.”

Jamie made a small noise in his throat that might have been amusement.

“They’re no verra thrifty about it,” he said. “Killing and burning, I mean—”

“As opposed to ongoing extortion.” I was beginning to see where he was going with this. Ian had been born after Culloden; he’d never seen a Watch, one of those organized bands of armed men that rode the country, charging fees from the Highland chiefs to protect tenants, land, and cattle—and if the black rent they charged was not paid, promptly seizing goods and cattle themselves. I had. And in all truth, I’d heard of them burning and killing now and then, too—though generally only to create an example and improve cooperation.

Jamie nodded. “Well, Brown’s no Scot, as I said. But business is business, isn’t it?” A contemplative look had come over his face, and he leaned back a little, hands linked over one knee. “How fast can ye get to Anidonau Nuya, Ian?”

AFTER IAN LEFT, we stayed in the study. The situation in my surgery would have to be dealt with, but I was not quite ready yet to go and face it. Beyond a minor remark to the effect that it was a pity he had not yet had time to build an icehouse, Jamie made no reference to it, either.

“Poor old Mrs. Bug,” I said, beginning to get a grip. “I’d no idea he’d been playing on her that way. He must have thought she was a soft touch.” I laughed weakly. “
That
was a mistake. She’s terribly strong. I was amazed.”

I shouldn’t have been; I’d seen Mrs. Bug walk for a mile with a full-grown goat across her shoulders—but somehow one never translates the strength required for daily farm life into a capacity for homicidal fury.

“So was I,” Jamie said dryly. “Not that she was strong enough to do it, but that she dared take matters into her own hands. Why did she no tell Arch, if not myself?”

“I suppose it’s what she said—she thought it wasn’t her place to say anything; you’d given her the job of looking after him, and she’d move heaven and earth to do anything you asked. I daresay she thought she was coping well enough, but when he showed up that way, she . . . just snapped. It does happen; I’ve seen it.”

“So have I,” he muttered. A small frown had formed, deepening the crease between his brows, and I wondered what violent incidents he might be recalling. “But I shouldna have thought . . .”

Arch Bug came in so quietly that I didn’t hear him; I only realized that he was there when I saw Jamie look up, stiffening. I whirled about, and saw the ax in Arch’s hand. I opened my mouth to speak, but he strode toward Jamie, taking no notice of his surroundings. Clearly, for him, there was no one in the room save Jamie.

He reached the desk and laid the ax upon it, almost gently.

“My life for hers, O, chieftain,” he said quietly in Gaelic. He stepped back then, and knelt, head bowed. He had braided his soft white hair in a narrow plait and bound it up, so that the back of his neck was left bare. It was walnut-brown and deeply seamed from weather, but still thick and muscular above the white band of his collar.

A tiny noise from the door made me turn from the scene, riveting as it was. Mrs. Bug was there, clinging to the jamb for support, and in obvious need of it. Her cap was askew, and sweaty strands of iron-gray hair stuck to a face the color of cream gone bad.

Her eyes flickered to me when I moved, but then shot back to fix again upon her kneeling husband—and on Jamie, who was now standing, looking from Arch to his wife, then back again. He rubbed a finger slowly up and down the bridge of his nose, eyeing Arch.

“Oh, aye,” he said mildly. “I’m to take your head, am I? Here in my own room and have your wife mop up the blood, or shall I do it in the dooryard, and nail ye up by the hair over my lintel as a warning to Richard Brown? Get up, ye auld fraudster.”

Everything in the room was frozen for an instant—long enough for me to notice the tiny black mole in the exact middle of Arch’s neck—and then the old man rose, very slowly.

“It is your right,” he said, in Gaelic. “I am your tacksman,
a ceann-cinnidh,
I swear by my iron; it is your right.” He stood very straight, but his eyes were hooded, fixed on the desk where his ax lay, the sharpened edge a silver line against the dull gray metal of the head.

Jamie drew breath to reply, but then stopped, eyeing the old man narrowly. Something changed in him, some awareness taking hold.

“A ceann-cinnidh?”
he said, and Arch Bug nodded, silent.

The air of the room had thickened in a heartbeat, and the hairs prickled on the back of my own neck.