A Breath of Snow and Ashes (95 page)

That a real minister—for they could not be convinced otherwise—should appear in this wilderness, and condescend to come confer the blessing of God upon their child—they were overwhelmed by their good fortune.

Roger and Brianna stayed for some time, and left as the sun was going down, glowing with the faintly self-conscious pleasure of doing good.

“Poor things,” Brianna said, voice trembling between sympathy and amusement.

“Poor wee things,” Roger agreed, sharing her sentiments. The christening had gone beautifully; even the screaming, purple-faced infant had suspended operations long enough for him to pour the water on her bald head and claim heaven’s protection for her soul. He felt the greatest joy in it, and immense humility at having been allowed to perform the ceremony. There was only the one thing—and his feelings were still confused between embarrassed pride and deep dismay.

“Her name—” Brianna said, and stopped, shaking her head.

“I tried to stop them,” he said, trying to control his voice. “I did
try
—you’re my witness. Elizabeth, I said. Mairi. Elspeth, perhaps. You heard me!”

“Oh, now,” she said, and her voice trembled. “I think Rogerina is a perfectly
beautiful
name.” Then she lost control, sat down in the grass, and laughed like a hyena.

“Oh, God, the poor wee lassie,” he said, trying—and failing—not to laugh himself. “I’ve heard of Thomasina, and even Jamesina, but . . . oh, God.”

“Maybe they’ll call her Ina for short,” Brianna suggested, snuffling and wiping her face on her apron. “Or they can spell it backward—Aniregor—and call her Annie.”

“Oh,
you’re
a great comfort,” Roger said dryly, and reached down to haul her to her feet.

She leaned against him and put her arms round him, still vibrating with laughter. She smelled of oranges and burning, and the light of the setting sun rippled in her hair.

Finally, she stopped, and lifted her head from his shoulder.

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine,”
she said, and kissed him. “You did good, Reverend. Let’s go home.”

PART EIGHT

The Call

58

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

R
OGER TOOK THE DEEPEST breath he could, and shouted as loudly as he could. Which was not very damn loud. Again. And again.

It hurt. It was aggravating, too; the feeble, choked sound of it made him want to shut up and never open his mouth again. He breathed, shut his eyes, and screamed with all his might, or tried to.

A searing flash of pain shot down inside his throat on the right, and he broke off, gasping. All right. He breathed gingerly for a moment, swallowing, then did it again.

Jesus, that hurt.

He rubbed a sleeve across his watering eyes and braced himself for another go. As he inflated his chest, fists curling, he heard voices, and let the breath out.

The voices were calling to each other, not far from him, but the wind was away and he couldn’t make out the words. Likely hunters, though. It was a fine fall day, with air like blue wine and the forest restless with dappled light.

The leaves had just begun to turn, but some were already falling, a silent, constant flicker at the edge of vision. Any movement could look like game in such surroundings, he knew that well. He drew breath to call out, hesitated, and said, “Shit,” under his breath. Great. He’d rather be shot in mistake for a deer than embarrass himself by calling out.

“Ass,” he said to himself, drew breath, and shouted, “Halloooo!” at the top of his voice—reedy and without volume as it was. Again. Again. And yet again. By the fifth time, he was beginning to think he’d rather be shot than go on trying to make them hear him, but at last a faint “Halloooo!” drifted back to him on the crisp, light air.

He stopped, relieved, and coughed, surprised not to be bringing up blood; his throat felt like raw meat. But he essayed a quick hum, then, cautiously, a rising arpeggio. An octave. Just barely, and it was a strain that sent shooting pains through his larynx—but a full octave. The first time he’d managed that much of a range in pitch since the injury.

Encouraged by this small evidence of progress, he greeted the hunters cheerfully when they came in view: Allan Christie and Ian Murray, both with long rifles in hand.

“Preacher MacKenzie!” Allan greeted him, grinning, like an incongruously friendly owl. “What are you doing out here all on your owney-o? Rehearsing your first sermon?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Roger said pleasantly. It was true, in a way—and there was no other good explanation for what he was doing out in the woods by himself, lacking weapons, snare, or fishing pole.

“Well, best make it good,” Allan said, wagging his head. “Everyone will be coming. Da’s had Malva hard at it from dawn to dusk, sweeping and cleaning.”

“Ah? Well, do tell her I appreciate it, will ye?” After a good deal of thought, he’d asked Thomas Christie whether the Sunday services might be held in the schoolmaster’s home. It was no more than a rude cabin, like most on the Ridge, but since lessons were held there, the main room was somewhat more commodious than the average. And while Jamie Fraser would certainly have allowed the use of the Big House, Roger felt that his congregation—what a daunting word—might well be uneasy at holding their services in the house of a Papist, accommodating and tolerant though said Papist might be.

“Ye’re coming, are ye not?” Allan was asking Ian. Ian looked surprised at the invitation, and rubbed an uncertain knuckle beneath his nose.

“Och, well, but I was baptized Romish, eh?”

“Well, ye’re a Christian, at least?” Allan said with some impatience. “Or no? Some folk do say as how ye turned pagan, with the Indians, and didna turn back.”

“Do they?” Ian spoke mildly, but Roger saw his face tighten a little at that. He noticed with interest that Ian didn’t answer the question, though, instead asking him, “Will your wife come to hear ye, cousin?”

“She will,” he said, mentally crossing his fingers against the day, “and wee Jem, too.”

“How’s this?”
Bree had asked him, fixing him with a look of rapt intensity, chin slightly lifted, lips just a fraction of an inch apart.
“Jackie Kennedy. That about right, do you think, or shall I aim for Queen Elizabeth reviewing the troops?”
Her lips compressed, the chin drew in a bit, and her mobile face altered from rapt attention to dignified approbation.

“Oh, Mrs. Kennedy, by all means,”
he’d assured her. He’d be pleased if she kept a straight face, let alone anyone else’s.

“Aye, well, I’ll come along then—if ye dinna think anyone would take it amiss,” Ian added formally to Allan, who dismissed the notion with a hospitable flap of the hand.

“Oh, everyone will be there,” he repeated. The notion made Roger’s stomach contract slightly.

“Out after deer, are ye?” he asked with a nod toward the rifles, in hopes of turning the conversation toward something other than his own impending debut as a preacher.

“Aye,” Allan answered, “but then we heard a painter screech, off this way.” He nodded, indicating the wood just around them. “Ian said if there’s a painter about, the deer will be long gone.”

Roger shot a narrow glance at Ian, whose unnaturally blank expression told him more than he wanted to know. Allan Christie, born and raised in Edinburgh,
might
not know a panther’s scream from a man’s, but Ian most assuredly did.

“Too bad if it’s frightened away the game,” he said, lifting one brow at Ian. “Come on, then; I’ll walk back with ye.”

HE’D CHOSEN “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as the text for his first sermon. “An oldie but a goodie,” as he’d told Brianna, causing her to fizz slightly. And having heard at least a hundred variations on that theme, he was reasonably sure of having sufficient material to go on for the requisite thirty or forty minutes.

A standard church service was a great deal longer—several readings of psalms, discussion of the lesson of the day, intercessions for members of the congregation—but his voice wouldn’t take that yet. He was going to have to work up to the full-bore service, which could easily run three hours. He’d arrange with Tom Christie, who was an elder, to do the readings and the earliest parayers, to start with. Then they’d see how things went.

Brianna was sitting modestly off to one side now, watching him—not like Jackie Kennedy, thank God, but with a hidden smile that warmed her eyes whenever he met her gaze.

He’d brought notes, in case he should dry up or inspiration fail, but found that he didn’t need them. He’d had a moment’s breathlessness, when Tom Christie, who had read the lesson, snapped shut his Bible and looked significantly at him—but once launched, he felt quite at home; it was a lot like lecturing at university, though God knew the congregation was more attentive by far than his university students usually were. They didn’t interrupt with questions or argue with him, either—at least not while he was talking.

He was intensely conscious for the first few moments of his surroundings: the faint fug of bodies and last night’s fried onions in the air, the scuffed boards of the floor, scrubbed and smelling of lye soap, and the close press of people, ranged on benches, but so many that they crammed into every bit of standing space, as well. Within a few minutes, though, he lost all sense of anything beyond the faces in front of him.

Allan Christie hadn’t exaggerated; everyone had come. It was nearly as crowded as it had been during his last public appearance, presiding at old Mrs. Wilson’s untimely resurrection.

He wondered how much that occasion had to do with his present popularity. A few people were watching him covertly, with a faint air of expectation, as though he might turn water into wine for an encore, but for the most part, they appeared satisfied with the preaching. His voice was hoarse, but loud enough, thank God.

He believed in what he was saying; after the start he found himself talking more easily, and without the need of concentrating on his speech was able to glance from one person to another, making it seem he spoke to each one personally—meanwhile making fleeting observations in the back of his mind.

Marsali and Fergus hadn’t come—no surprise there—but Germain was present; he sat with Jem and Aidan McCallum next to Brianna. All three boys had poked each other excitedly and pointed at him when he began to speak, but Brianna had quelled this behavior with some muttered threat of sufficient force to reduce them to simple squirming. Aidan’s mother sat on his other side, looking at Roger with a sort of open adoration that made him uneasy.

The Christies had the place of honor in the center of the first bench: Malva Christie, demure in a lacy cap, her brother sitting protectively on one side, her father on the other, apparently unaware of the occasional looks shot her way by some of the young men.

Rather to Roger’s surprise, Jamie and Claire had come, as well, though they stood at the very back. His father-in-law was calmly impassive, but Claire’s face was an open book; she clearly found the proceedings amusing.

“. . . and if we are truly considering the love of Christ as it is . . .” It was instinct, honed by innumerable lectures, that made him aware that something was amiss. There was some slight disturbance in the far corner, where several half-grown lads had congregated. A couple of the numerous McAfee boys, and Jacky Lachlan, widely known as a limb of Satan.

No more than a nudge, the glint of an eye, some sense of subterranean excitement. But he sensed it, and kept glancing back at that corner with a narrowed eye, in hopes of keeping them subdued. And so happened to be looking when the serpent slithered out between Mrs. Crombie’s shoes. It was a largish king snake, brightly striped with red, yellow, and black, and it seemed fairly calm, all things considered.

“Now, ye may say, ‘Who’s my neighbor, then?’ And a good question, coming to live in a place where half the folk ye meet are strangers—and plenty of them more than a bit strange, too.”

A titter of appreciation ran through the congregation at that. The snake was casting about in a leisurely sort of way, head raised and tongue flickering with interest as it tested the air. It must be a tame snake; it wasn’t bothered by the crush of people.

The reverse was not true; snakes were rare in Scotland, and most of the immigrants were nervous of them. Beyond the natural association with the devil, most folk couldn’t or wouldn’t distinguish a poison snake from any other, since the only Scottish snake, the adder,
was
venomous. They’d have fits, Roger thought grimly, were they to look down and see what was gliding silently along the floorboards by their feet.

A strangled giggle, cut short, rose from the corner of guilty parties, and several heads in the congregation turned, uttering a censorious “Shoosh!” in unison.

“. . . when I was hungry, ye gave me to eat; when I was thirsty, ye gave me to drink. And who d’ye ken here who would ever turn away even . . . even a Sassenach, say, who came to your door hungry?”

A ripple of amusement, and slightly scandalized glances at Claire, who was rather pink, but with suppressed laughter, he thought, not offense.

A quick glance down; the snake, having paused for a rest, was on the move again, snooving its way gently round the end of a bench. A sudden movement caught Roger’s eye; Jamie had seen the snake, and jerked. Now he was standing rigid, eyeing it as though it were a bomb.

Roger had been sending up brief prayers, in the interstices of his sermon, suggesting that heavenly benevolence might see fit to shoo the snake quietly out the open door at the back. He intensified these prayers, at the same time unobtrusively unbuttoning his coat to allow for freer action.

If the damned thing came toward the front of the room instead of the back, he’d have to dive forward and try to catch it before it got out in full sight of everyone. That would cause a disturbance, but nothing to what might happen if . . .

“. . . now ye’ll have noticed what Jesus said, when He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well . . .”

The snake was still wrapped halfway round the bench leg, making up its mind. It was no more than three feet from his father-in-law. Jamie was watching it like a hawk, and a visible gloss of sweat had appeared on his brow. Roger was aware that his father-in-law had a fixed dislike of snakes—and no wonder, given that a big rattler had nearly killed him three years before.