Outlander (38 page)

Several hours of torture by saddle had not improved my temper. Let him walk with me. I was damned if I'd speak to him, the sadistic, violent brute.

He didn't look particularly brutish in the light of the half-moon rising, but I hardened my heart and limped along, carefully not looking at him.

My abused muscles at first protested the unaccustomed exercise, but after a half hour or so I began to move much more easily.

"You'll feel much better by tomorrow," Jamie observed casually. "Though you won't sit easy 'til the next day."

"And what makes you such an expert?" I flared at him. "Do you beat people all that frequently?"

"Well, no," he said, undisturbed by my attitude. "This is the first time I've tried it. I've considerable experience on the other end, though."

"You?" I gaped at him. The thought of anyone taking a strap to this towering mass of muscle and sinew was completely untenable.

He laughed at my expression. "When I was a bit smaller, Sassenach. I've had my backside leathered more times than I could count, between the ages of eight and thirteen. That's when I got taller than my father, and it got unhandy for him to bend me over a fence rail."

"Your father beat you?"

"Aye, mostly. The schoolmaster, too, of course, and Dougal or one of the other uncles now and then, depending on where I was and what I'd been doing."

I was growing interested, in spite of my determination to ignore him.

"What
did
you do?"

He laughed again, a quiet but infectious sound in the still night air.

"Well, I canna remember everything. I will say I generally deserved it. I don't think my da ever beat me unfairly, at least." He paced without speaking for a minute, thinking.

"Mm. Let's see, there was once for stoning the chickens, and once for riding the cows and getting them too excited for milking, and then for eating all of the jam out of the cakes and leaving the cakes behind. Ah, and letting the horses out of the barn by leaving the gate unlatched, and setting the thatch of the dovecote on fire—that was an accident, I didna do it on purpose—and losing my schoolbooks—I did do that on purpose—and …" He broke off, shrugging, as I laughed despite myself.

"The usual sorts of things. Most often, though, it was for opening my mouth when I should ha' kept it closed."

He snorted at some memory. "Once my sister Jenny broke a pitcher; I made her angry, teasing, and she lost her temper and threw it at me. When my da came in and demanded to know who'd done it, she was too scared to speak up, and she just looked at me, with her eyes all wide and frightened—she's got blue eyes, like mine, but prettier, wi' black lashes all around." Jamie shrugged again. "Anyway, I told my father I'd done it."

"That was very noble of you," I said, sarcastically. "Your sister must have been grateful."

"Aye, well, she might have been. Only my father'd been on the other side of the open door all along, and he'd seen what really happened. So she got whipped for losing her temper and breaking the pitcher, and I got whipped twice; once for teasing her and again for lying."

"That's not fair!" I said indignantly.

"My father wasna always gentle, but he was usually fair," Jamie said imperturbably. "He said the truth is the truth, and people should take responsibility for their own actions, which is right." He shot me a sidelong glance.

"But he said it was good-hearted of me to take the blame, so while he'd have to punish me, I could take my choice between being thrashed or going to bed without my supper." He laughed ruefully, shaking his head. "Father knew me pretty well. I took the thrashing with no questions."

"You're nothing but a walking appetite, Jamie," I said.

"Aye," he agreed without rancor, "always have been. You too, glutton," he said to his mount. "Wait a bit, 'til we stop for a rest." He twitched the rein, pulling his horse's questing nose from the tempting tufts of grass along the roadside.

"Aye, Father was fair," he went on, "and considerate about it, though I certainly didna appreciate that at the time. He wouldn't make me wait for a beating; if I did something wrong, I got punished at once—or as soon as he found out about it. He always made sure I knew what I was about to get walloped for, and if I wanted to argue my side of it, I could."

Oh, so that's what you're up to, I thought. You disarming schemer. I doubted he could charm me out of my set intention of disemboweling him at the first opportunity, but he was welcome to try.

"Did you ever win an argument?" I asked.

"No. It was generally a straightforward-enough case, with the accused convicted out of his own mouth. But sometimes I got the sentence reduced a bit." He rubbed his nose.

"Once I told him I thought beating your son was a most uncivilized method of getting your own way. He said I'd about as much sense as the post I was standing next to, if as much. He said respect for your elders was one of the cornerstones of civilized behavior, and until I learned that, I'd better get used to looking at my toes while one of my barbaric elders thrashed my arse off."

This time I laughed along with him. It was peaceful on the road, with that sort of absolute quiet that comes when you are miles from any other person. The sort of quiet so hard to come by in my own more crowded time, when machines spread the influence of man, so that a single person could make as much noise as a crowd. The only sounds here were the stirrings of plants, the occasional
skreek
of a nightbird, and the soft thudding steps of the horses.

I was walking a little easier now, as my cramped muscles began to stretch freely with the exercise. My prickly feelings began to relax a little, too, listening to Jamie's stories, all humorous and self-deprecating.

"I didna like being beaten at all, of course, but if I had a choice, I'd rather my da than the schoolmaster. We'd mostly get it across the palm of the hand with a tawse, in the school-house, instead of on the backside. Father said if he whipped me on the hand, I'd not be able to do any work, whereas if he whipped my arse, I'd at least not be tempted to sit down and be idle.

"We had a different schoolmaster each year, usually; they didna last long—usually turned farmer or moved on to richer parts. Schoolmasters are paid so little, they're always skinny and starving. Had a fat one once, and I could never believe he was a real schoolmaster; he looked like a parson in disguise." I thought of plump little Father Bain and smiled in agreement.

"One I remember especially, because he'd make ye stand out in the front of the schoolroom with your hand out, and then he'd lecture ye at great length about your faults before he started, and again in between strokes. I'd stand there wi' my hand out, smarting, just praying he'd stop yammering and get on with the job before I lost all my courage and started crying."

"I imagine that's what he wanted you to do," I said, feeling some sympathy in spite of myself.

"Oh, aye," he replied matter-of-factly. "It took some time for me to realize that, though. And once I did, as usual I couldna keep my mouth shut." He sighed.

"What happened?" I had all but forgotten to be furious by this time.

"Well, he had me up one day—I got it a lot because I couldna write properly with my right hand, kept doing it with my left. He'd smacked me three times—takin' nearly five minutes to do it, the bastard—and he was goin' on at me for being a stupid, idle, stubborn young lout before givin' me the next. My hand burned something fierce, because it was the second time that day, and I was scared because I knew I'd get an awful thrashing when I got home—that was the rule; if I got a beating at school, I'd get another directly I came home, for my father thought schooling important—anyway, I lost my temper." His left hand curled involuntarily around the rein, as though protecting the sensitive palm.

He paused and glanced at me. "I seldom lose my temper, Sassenach, and generally regret it when I do." And that, I thought, was likely to be as close to an apology as I'd get.

"Did you regret it that time?"

"Well, I doubled up my fists and glared up at him—he was a tall, scrawny fellow, maybe twenty, I suppose, though he looked quite old to me—and I said 'I'm not afraid o' you, and ye can't make me cry, no matter how hard you hit me!'  " He drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "I suppose it was a bit of a mistake in judgment to tell him that while he was still holding the strap."

"Don't tell me," I said. "He tried to prove you were wrong?"

"Oh, aye, he tried." Jamie nodded, head dark against the cloud-lit sky. His voice held a certain grim satisfaction on the word "tried."

"He didn't succeed, then?"

The shaggy head shook back and forth. "No. At least he couldna make me cry. He surely made me regret not keeping quiet, though."

He paused for a moment, turning his own face toward me. The cloud cover had parted for a moment and the light touched the edges of jaw and cheek, making him look gilded, like one of Donatello's archangels.

"When Dougal was describing my character to ye, before we wed, did he by chance mention that I'm sometimes a bit stubborn?" The slanted eyes glinted, much more Lucifer than Michael.

I laughed. "That's putting it mildly. As I recall, what he said is that all the Frasers are stubborn as rocks, and you're the worst of the lot. Actually," I said, a little dryly, "I'd noticed something of the kind myself."

He smiled as he reined the horse around a deep puddle in the road, leading mine by the checkrein after him.

"Mmph, well, I'll no just say Dougal's wrong," he said, once the hazard had been negotiated. "But if I'm stubborn, I come by it honest. My father was just the same, and we'd get in wrangles from time to time that we couldna get out of without the application of force, usually wi' me bent over the fence rail."

Suddenly, he put out a hand to grab my horse's rein, as the beast reared and snorted. "Hey now! Hush!
Stad, mo dhu
!" His own, less spooked, only jerked and tossed its head nervously.

"What is it?" I could see nothing, despite the patches of moonlight that mottled road and field. There was a pine grove up ahead, and the horses seemed disinclined to go any nearer to it.

"I don't know. Stay here and keep quiet. Mount your horse and hold mine. If I call to ye, drop the checkrein and run for it." Jamie's voice was low and casual, calming me as well as the horses. With a muttered "
Sguir
!" to the horse and a slap on the neck to urge it closer to me, he faded into the heather, hand on his dirk.

I strained eyes and ears to discern whatever it was still troubling the horses; they shifted and stamped, ears and tails twitching in agitation. The clouds by now had shredded and flown on the nightwind, leaving only scattered trails across the face of a brilliant half moon. In spite of the brightness, I could see nothing on the road ahead, or in the menacing grove.

It seemed a late hour and an unprofitable road for highwaymen, scarce as these were anywhere in the Highlands; there were too few travelers to make an ambush worthwhile.

The grove was dark, but not still. The pines roared softly to themselves, millions of needles scouring in the wind. Very ancient trees, pines, and eerie in the gloom. Gymnosperms, cone-bearers, winged-seed scatterers, older and sterner by far than the soft-leaved, frail-limbed oaks and aspens. A suitable home for Rupert's ghosts and evil spirits.

Only you, I thought crossly to myself, could work yourself up into being afraid of a lot of trees. Where was Jamie, though?

The hand gripping my thigh made me squeak like a startled bat; a natural consequence of trying to scream with your heart in your mouth. With the unreasonable fury of the irrationally afraid, I struck out at him, kicking him in the chest.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Hush," he said, "come with me." Tugging me unceremoniously from the saddle, he swung me down and hastily tethered the horses, who whickered uneasily after us as he led me into the tall grass.

"What is it?" I hissed, stumbling blindly over roots and rocks.

"Quiet. Don't speak. Look down and watch my feet. Step where I step, and stop when I touch you."

Slowly and more or less silently, we made our way into the edges of the pine grove. It was dark under the trees, with only crumbs of light falling through to the needle litter underfoot. Even Jamie couldn't walk silently on that, but the rustle of dry needles was lost in that of the green ones overhead.

There was a rift in the litter, a mass of granite rising from the forest floor. Here Jamie put me in front of him, guiding my hands and feet to climb the sloping crumble of the mound. At the top, there was enough room to lie belly-flat, side by side. Jamie put his mouth next to my ear, barely breathing. "Thirty feet ahead, to the right. In the clearing. See them?"

Once I saw them, I could hear as well. Wolves, a small pack, eight or ten animals, perhaps. No howling, not these. The kill lay in the shadow, a blob of dark with an upthrust leg, stick-thin and vibrating under the impact of teeth yanking at the carcass. There was only the occasional soft growl and yip as a cub was batted away from an adult's morsel, and the contented sounds of feeding, crunching, and the crack of a bone.

As my eyes grew more accustomed to the moon-flecked scene, I could pick out several shaggy forms stretched under the trees, glutted and peaceful. Bits of grey fur shone here and there, as those still at the carcass pushed and rooted for tender bits overlooked by the earlier diners.

A broad, yellow-eyed head thrust suddenly up into a blotch of light, ears pricked. The wolf made a soft, urgent noise, something between a whine and a growl, and there was a sudden stillness under the trees below.

The saffron eyes seemed fixed on my own. There was no fear in the animal's posture, nor curiosity, only a wary acknowledgment. Jamie's hand on my back warned me not to move, though I felt no desire to run. I could have stayed locked in the wolf's eyes for hours, I think, but she—I was sure it was a female, though I didn't know how I knew—flicked her ears once, as though dismissing me, and bent once more to her meal.

We watched them for a few minutes, peaceful in the scattered light. At last, Jamie signaled that it was time to go, with a touch on my arm.