She’d run down the path, to get well away from the broch, just in case, and was picking her way through the stones of the family burying ground, eyes on the man coming up the steep, rocky path.
A tall, solid-looking man, his dark hair graying a little but still thick, glossy, and loose on his shoulders. His eyes were on the rough ground, watching his footing. And then he came to his destination and made his way across the hill, to one of the stones in the burying ground. He knelt by it and laid down something he’d been carrying in his hand.
She shifted her weight, uncertain whether to call out or wait ’til he’d finished his business with the dead. But the small stones under her feet shifted, too, rolling down with a click-clack-click that made him look up and, seeing her, rise abruptly to his feet, black brows raised.
Black hair, black brows. Brian Dubh. Black Brian.
I met Brian Fraser (you would like him, and he, you) . . .
Wide, startled hazel eyes met hers, and for a second that was all she saw. His beautiful deep-set eyes, and the expression of stunned horror in them.
“Brian,” she said. “I—”
“A Dhia!” He went whiter than the harled plaster of the house below. “Ellen!”
Astonishment deprived her of speech for an instant—long enough to hear light footsteps scrambling down the hill behind her.
“Mam!” Jem called, breathless.
Brian’s glance turned up, behind her, and his mouth fell open at sight of Jem. Then a look of radiant joy suffused his face.
“Willie!” he said. “A bhalaich! Mo bhalaich!” He looked back at Brianna and stretched out a trembling hand to her. “Mo ghràidh . . . mo chridhe . . .”
“Brian,” she said softly, her heart in her voice, filled with pity and love, unable to do anything but respond to the need of the soul that showed so clearly in his lovely eyes. And with her speaking of his name for the second time, he stopped dead, swaying for a moment, and then the eyes rolled up in his head and he fell.
SHE WAS KNEELING in the crunchy dead heather beside Brian Fraser before she’d even thought to move. There was a slight blue tinge to his lips, but he was breathing, and she drew a deep cold breath of relief herself, seeing his chest rise slowly under the worn linen shirt.
Not for the first time, she wished fervently that her mother was there, but turned his head to one side and laid two fingers on the pulse she could see at the side of his neck. Her fingers were cold, and his flesh was startlingly warm. He didn’t rouse or stir at her touch, though, and she began to fear that he hadn’t just fainted.
He’d died—would die—of a stroke. If there was some weakness in his brain . . . oh, God. Had she just killed him prematurely?
“Don’t die!” she said to him aloud. “For God’s sake, don’t die here!”
She glanced hastily toward the house below, but no one was coming. Looking down again, she saw what it was he’d held: a small bouquet of evergreen twigs, tied with red thread. Yew—she recognized the oddly tubular red berries—and holly.
And then she saw the stone. She knew it well, had sat on the ground beside it often, contemplating Lallybroch and those who lay sleeping on its hillside.
Ellen Caitriona Sileas MacKenzie Fraser
Beloved wife and mother
Born 1691, Died in childbed 1729
And below, in smaller letters:
Robert Brian Gordon MacKenzie Fraser
Infant son
Died at birth 1729
And:
William Simon Murtagh MacKenzie Fraser
Beloved son
Born 1716, Died of the smallpox 1727
“Mam!” Jem skidded down the last few feet, almost falling beside her. “Mam, Mam—Mandy says—who is he?” He stared from Brian’s pallid face to her own and back again.
“His name’s Brian Fraser. He’s your great-grandfather.” Her hands were trembling, but to her surprise she felt suddenly calm at the speaking of the words, as though she had stepped into the center of a puzzle and found herself to be the missing piece. “What about Mandy?”
“Did I scare him?” Jem squatted down, looking worried. “He looked at me just before he fell down. Is he—dead?”
“Don’t worry, I think he’s just had a shock. He thought we were . . . somebody else.” She touched Brian’s cheekbone, feeling the soft prickle of his beard stubble, and smoothed the tumbled hair behind his ear. His mouth twitched a little as she did so, the ghost of a half smile, and her heart jumped. Thank God, he was coming round. “What did Mandy say?”
“Oh!” Jem stood up, fast, eyes wide. “She says she hears Dad!”
REALITY IS THAT WHICH, WHEN YOU STOP BELIEVING IN IT, DOESN’T GO AWAY
ROGER TURNED HIS horse’s head toward Lallybroch, knowing nowhere else to go. He’d taken leave of Brian Fraser six weeks before and had been sad at what he’d thought was a permanent parting. His heart was eased a little now at the thought of seeing Brian again. Also at the certainty of a sympathetic ear, even though there was little he could openly discuss with him.
He’d have to tell Brian, of course, that he hadn’t found Jem. That thought was a thorn in his heart, and one felt at every beat. For the last weeks, he had been able to put the brutal ache of Jemmy’s absence aside for a little, hoping that somehow, finding Jerry might also lead to finding Jem. But it hadn’t.
What the devil it did mean was a complete mystery. Had he found the only Jeremiah there was to be found here? If he had . . . where was Jem?
He wanted to tell Brian that he’d found the man to whom the identity disks belonged—Brian would ask. But how to do so without divulging either Jerry’s identity, Roger’s relationship with him—or explaining what had happened to him? He sighed, reining his horse around a large puddle in the road. Maybe better to say simply that he’d failed, hadn’t found J. W. MacKenzie—though it troubled him to lie outright to such an openhearted man.