Roger had been building a rail fence, within earshot of the creek. Hearing boys shouting and Félicité’s steam-whistle shrieks, he had dropped the rail he was holding and rushed down the hill, thinking that she was being tormented.
Instead, he had burst from the trees just in time to see Henri-Christian, in his basket, tip slowly over the edge of the outfall and start bumping crazily from rock to rock, spinning in the current and taking on water.
Running down the bank and launching himself in a flat dive, Roger had landed full-length in the creek just below the fall, in time for Henri-Christian, bawling with terror, to drop from his sodden basket, plummet down the fall, and land on Roger, who grabbed him.
“I was just in time to see it,” Jamie informed me, grinning at the memory. “And then to see Roger Mac rise out o’ the water like a triton, wi’ duckweed streaming from his hair, blood runnin’ from his nose, and the wee lad clutched tight in his arms. A terrible sight, he was.”
The miscreant boys had followed the basket’s career, yelling along the banks, but were now struck dumb. One of them moved to flee, the others starting up like a flight of pigeons, but Roger had pointed an awful finger at them and bellowed, “Sheas!” in a voice loud enough to be heard over the racket of the creek.
Such was the force of his presence, they did stay, frozen in terror.
Holding them with his glare, Roger had waded almost to the shore. There, he squatted and cupped a handful of water, which he poured over the head of the shrieking baby—who promptly quit shrieking.
“I baptize thee, Henri-Christian,” Roger had bellowed, in his hoarse, cracked voice. “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost! D’ye hear me, wee bastards? His name is Christian! He belongs to the Lord! Trouble him again, ye lot of scabs, and Satan will pop up and drag ye straight down screaming—TO HELL!”
He stabbed an accusing finger once more at the boys, who this time did break and run, scampering wildly into the brush, pushing and falling in their urge to escape.
“Oh, dear,” I said, torn between laughter and dismay. I looked down at Henri-Christian, who had lately discovered the joys of thumb-sucking and was absorbed in further study of the art. “That must have been impressive.”
“It impressed me, to be sure,” Jamie said, still grinning. “I’d no notion Roger Mac had it in him to preach hellfire and damnation like that. The lad’s a great roar to him, cracked voice and all. He’d have a good audience, did he do it for a Gathering, aye?”
“Well, that explains what happened to his voice,” I said. “I wondered. Do you think it was only mischief, though? Them putting the baby in the creek?”
“Oh, it was mischief, sure enough,” he said, and cupped a big hand gently round Henri-Christian’s head. “Not just boys’ mischief, though.”
Jamie had caught one of the fleeing boys as they hurtled past him, grabbing him by the neck and quite literally scaring the piss out of the lad. Walking the boy firmly into the wood, he’d pinned him hard against a tree and demanded to know the meaning of this attempted murder.
Trembling and blubbering, the boy had tried to excuse it, saying that they hadn’t meant any harm to the wean, truly! They’d only wanted to see him float—for their parents all said he was demon-born, and everyone kent that those born of Satan floated, because the water would reject their wickedness. They’d taken the baby in his basket and put that into the water, because they were afraid to touch him, fearing his flesh would burn them.
“I told him I’d burn him myself,” Jamie said with a certain grimness, “and did.” He’d then dismissed the smarting lad, with instructions to go home, change his breeks, and inform his confederates that they were expected in Jamie’s study before supper to receive their own share of retribution—or else Himself would be coming round to their houses after supper, to thrash them before their parents’ eyes.
“Did they come?” I asked, fascinated.
He gave me a look of surprise.
“Of course. They took their medicine, and then we went to the kitchen and had bread and honey. I’d told Marsali to bring the wee lad, and after we’d eaten, I took him on my knee, and had them all come and touch him, just to see.”
He smiled lopsidedly.
“One of the lads asked me was it true, what Mr. Roger said, about the wean belonging to the Lord? I told him I certainly wouldna argue with Mr. Roger about that—but whoever else he belonged to, Henri-Christian belongs to me, as well, and best they should remember it.”
His finger trailed slowly down Henri-Christian’s round, smooth cheek. The baby was nearly asleep now, heavy eyelids closing, a tiny, glistening thumb half in, half out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry I missed that,” I said softly, so as not to wake him. He’d grown much warmer, as sleeping babies did, and heavy in the curve of my arm. Jamie saw that I was having difficulty holding him, and took him from me, handing him back to Mrs. Bug, who had been bustling quietly round the room, tidying, all the while listening with approval to Jamie’s account.
“Oh, ’twas something to see,” she assured me in a whisper, patting Henri-Christian’s back as she took him. “And the lads all poking their fingers out to touch the bairnie’s wee belly, gingerlike, as if they meant to prod a hot potato, and him squirmin’ and giggling like a worm wi’ the fits. The wicked little gomerels’ eyes were big as sixpences!”
“I imagine they were,” I said, amused.
“On the other hand,” I remarked sotto voce to Jamie as she left with the baby, “if their parents think he’s demon-born, and you’re his grandfather . . .”
“Well, you’re his grannie, Sassenach,” Jamie said dryly. “It might be you. But aye, I’d prefer not to have them dwell on that aspect of the matter.”
“No,” I agreed. “Though—do any of them know, do you think, that Marsali isn’t your daughter by blood? They must know about Fergus.”
“It wouldna much matter,” he said. “They think wee Henri’s a changeling, in any case.”
“How do you know that?”
“People talk,” he said briefly. “Are ye feeling well in yourself, Sassenach?”
Relieved of the baby’s weight, I had put back the covers a bit to let in air. Jamie stared at me in disapproval.
“Christ, I can count all your ribs! Right through your shift!”
“Enjoy the experience while you can,” I advised him tartly, though I felt a sharp pang of hurt. He seemed to sense this, for he took my hand, tracing the lines of the deep blue veins that ran across the back of it.
“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach,” he said, more gently. “I didna mean it that way. Here, Mrs. Bug’s brought ye something tasty, I expect.” He lifted the lid off a small covered dish, frowned at the substance in it, then stuck a cautious finger in and licked it.
“Maple pudding,” he announced, looking happy.
“Oh?” I had no appetite at all yet, but maple pudding sounded at least innocuous, and I made no objection as he scooped up a spoonful, guiding it toward my mouth with the concentration of a man flying an airliner.
“I can feed myself, you kn—” He slipped the spoon between my lips, and I resignedly sucked the pudding off it. Amazing revelations of creamy sweetness immediately exploded in my mouth, and I closed my eyes in minor ecstasy, recalling.
“Oh, God,” I said. “I’d forgotten what good food tastes like.”
“I knew ye hadn’t been eating,” he said with satisfaction. “Here, have more.”
I insisted upon taking the spoon myself, and managed half the dish; Jamie ate the other half, at my urging.
“You may not be as thin as I am,” I said, turning my hand over and grimacing at the sight of my protruding wrist bones, “but you haven’t been eating a lot, either.”
“I suppose not.” He scraped the spoon carefully round the bowl, retrieving the last bits of pudding, and sucked the spoon clean. “It’s been . . . busy.”
I watched him narrowly. He was being patently cheerful, but my rusty sensibilities were beginning to come back. For some unknowable span of time, I’d had neither energy nor attention for anything that lay outside the fever-racked shell of my body; now I was seeing the small familiarities of Jamie’s body, voice and manner, and becoming reattuned to him, like a slack violin string being tightened in the presence of a tuning fork.
I could feel the vibration of some strain in him, and I was beginning to think it wasn’t all due to my recent near-demise.
“What?” I said.
“What?” He raised his eyebrows in question, but I knew him too well for that. The question alone gave me confidence that I was right.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked, with what patience I could muster. “Is it Brown again? Have you got news of Stephen Bonnet? Or Donner? Or has the white sow eaten one of the children and choked to death?”
That made him smile, at least, though only for a moment.
“Not that,” he said. “She went for MacDonald, when he called a few days ago, but he made it onto the porch in time. Verra agile the Major is, for a man of his age.”
“He’s younger than you are,” I objected.
“Well, I’m agile, too,” he said logically. “The sow hasna got me yet, has she?”
I felt a qualm of unease at his mention of the Major, but it wasn’t news of political unrest or military rumblings that was troubling Jamie; he would have told me that at once. I narrowed my eyes at him again, but didn’t speak.
He sighed deeply.
“I am thinking I must send them away,” he said quietly, and took my hand again.
“Send who away?”
“Fergus and Marsali and the weans.”
I felt a sharp, sudden jolt, as though someone had struck me just below the breastbone, and found it suddenly difficult to draw breath.
“What? Why? And—and where?” I managed to ask.
He rubbed his thumb lightly over my knuckles, back and forth, his eyes focused on the small motion.
“Fergus tried to kill himself, three days ago,” he said very quietly.
My hand gripped his convulsively.
“Holy God,” I whispered. He nodded, and I saw that he was unable to speak for the moment; his teeth were set in his lower lip.
Now it was I who took his hand in both of mine, feeling coldness seep through my flesh. I wanted to deny it, reject the notion utterly—but couldn’t. It sat there between us, an ugly thing like a poisonous toad that neither of us wished to touch.
“How?” I said at last. My voice seemed to echo in the room. I wanted to say, “Are you sure?” but I knew he was.
“With a knife,” he replied literally. The corner of his mouth twitched again, but not with humor. “He said he would have hanged himself, but he couldna tie the rope with one hand. Lucky, that.”
The pudding had formed a small, hard ball, like rubber, that lay in the bottom of my stomach.