My own arm was lying across his midsection; at this, I reached up involuntarily, putting my hand over his heart. I knew he’d dreamed—and I had a very good idea what he’d dreamed about, from the things he’d said in his sleep. And the way he’d wakened, trembling. “They get worse.”
“Shh,” he said, and bent his head to kiss my hair. “Dinna fash, a nighean. I want only to lie here wi’ you in my arms, to keep ye safe and watch ye sleep. I can rise then with a clear mind . . . and go to do what must be done.”
WAR PAINT
“NESSUN DORMA.” None shall sleep. It was a song—an aria, Brianna had called it—from an opera she knew; she’d played a part in it at her university, dressed up in Chinese robes. Ian smiled at thought of his cousin, taller than most men, striding up and down on a stage, swishing her silk robes about her; he wished he’d seen that.
He’d thought of her from the moment he’d opened the little deerskin bag that held his paints. She was a painter, Bree, and a good one. She ground her own pigments, and she’d made his red ochre for him, and the black and white from charcoal and dried clay—and made for him, too, a deep green from ground malachite, and a brilliant yellow from the gall of the buffalo she and her mother had killed; no other man had such deep colors to his paint, and he wished for a moment that Eats Turtles and some of his other Mohawk clan brothers could be with him to admire them.
The noise of the distant camp was like the singing of cicadas in the trees near a river: a buzz too loud to think through, but one that went away as you got used to it. None shall sleep . . . The women and children, they might sleep—but the whores surely didn’t. Not tonight.
He felt a twitch at the thought, but dismissed it. Thought of Rachel, and dismissed her, too, but reluctantly.
He opened the willow-bark box of deer fat and anointed his face and chest and shoulders with it, slowly, focusing his mind. Normally he’d speak to the spirits of the earth as he did this, and then to his own particular saints, Michael and Bride. But he wasn’t seeing Michael or Bride; Brianna was still faintly with him, but what he was feeling was a strong sense of his da, which was disconcerting.
It didn’t seem respectful to be dismissing his own father. He stopped what he was doing and closed his eyes instead, waiting to see if maybe Da had a thing to tell him.
“I hope ye’re no bringing me word of my death, aye?” he said aloud. “Because I dinna mean to die until I’ve lain wi’ Rachel, at least.”
“Well, there’s a noble goal, to be sure.” The dry voice was Uncle Jamie’s, and Ian’s eyes popped open. His uncle was standing among the trailing fronds of a river willow, dressed in nothing but his shirt.
“Out of uniform, are ye not, Uncle?” he said, though his heart had leapt in his chest like a startled deer mouse. “General Washington willna be pleased.” Washington was a great stickler for proper uniform. Officers must be dressed suitably at all times; he said the Continentals couldn’t be taken seriously as an army, did they come to the field looking and acting like a rabble in arms.
“I’m sorry to interrupt ye, Ian,” Uncle Jamie said, stepping out from the willow. The moon was nearly down; he was nay more than a ghost, bare-legged in his floating sark. “Who were ye speaking to, though?”
“Oh. My da. He was just . . . there in my mind, ken? I mean, I think of him often, but it’s not sae often I feel him with me. So I wondered had he come to tell me I’d die this day.”
Jamie nodded, not seeming bothered at the thought.
“I doubt it,” he said. “Ye’re putting on your paint, aye? Getting ready, I mean.”
“Aye, I was about to. Ye want some, too?” It was only half said in jest, and Jamie took it that way.
“I would, Ian. But I think General Washington might have me strung up by the thumbs and flogged, should I come before him wi’ my troops all marshaled and me wi’ war paint on.”
Ian made a small sound of amusement and scooped two fingers into the dish of red ochre, which he began to rub on his chest.
“And what are ye doin’ out here in your sark, then?”
“Washing,” Jamie said, but in a tone indicating that that wasn’t all of it. “And . . . talkin’ to my ain dead.”
“Mmphm. Anyone in particular?”
“My uncle Dougal, and Murtagh, him who was my godfather. They’re the two I’d most want with me, in battle.” Jamie made a small restless movement. “If I can, I make a wee moment to be alone before a fight. To wash, ken, and pray a bit, and then . . . to just ask if they’ll bide with me as I go.”
Ian thought this interesting; he hadn’t known either man himself—they’d both died at Culloden—but he’d heard stories.
“Bonnie fighters,” he said. “Did ye ask my da, too? To go with ye, I mean. Perhaps that’s why he’s about.”
Jamie turned his head sharply toward Ian, surprised. Then relaxed, shaking his head.
“I never had to ask Ian Mòr,” he said softly. “He was always . . . just with me.” He gestured briefly to the darkness on his right.
Ian’s eyes stung and his throat closed. But it was dark; it didn’t matter.
He cleared his throat and held out one of the tiny dishes. “Will ye help me, Uncle Jamie?”
“Oh? Aye, surely. How d’ye want it?”
“Red across my forehead—I can do that bit. But black from the wee dots to the chin.” He drew a finger across the line of tattooed dots that curved under his cheekbones. “Black’s for strength, aye? It declares ye’re a warrior. And yellow means ye’re no afraid to die.”