"Strip and stand to me, the both of ye." The McClures moved at once, thick fingers fumbling with shirt fastenings, as though eager to obey, relieved that the preliminaries were over and the reckoning arrived.
I thought perhaps I would be sick, though I gathered that the punishment was light enough, by the standards applied to such things. There was no sound in the clearing, save the slap of the lash and an occasional gasp or groan from the man being flogged.
At the last stroke, Jamie let the thong fall to his side. He was sweating heavily, and the grimed linen of his shirt was pasted to his back. He nodded to the McClures in dismissal, and wiped his wet face on his sleeve as one man bent painfully to retrieve the discarded shirts, his brother, shaky himself, bracing him on the other side.
The men in the clearing seemed to have ceased even breathing, during the punishment. Now there was a tremor through the group, as though a collective breath had been released in a sigh of relief.
Jamie eyed them, shaking his head slightly. The night wind was rising, stirring and lifting the hair on his crown.
"We canna afford carelessness, mo duinnen," he said softly. "Not from anyone." He took a deep breath and his mouth twisted wryly. "And that includes me. It was my unshielded fire drew the lad to us." Fresh sweat had sprung out on his brow, and he wiped a hand roughly across his face, drying it on his kilt. He nodded toward Murtagh, standing grimly apart from the other men, and held the leather strap out toward him.
"If ye'll oblige me, sir?"
After a moment's hesitation, Murtagh's gnarled hand reached out and took the strap. An expression that might have been amusement flickered in the little clansman's bright black eyes.
"Wi' pleasure…sir."
Jamie turned his back to his men, and began to unfasten his shirt. His eye caught me, standing frozen between the tree trunks, and one eyebrow lifted in ironic question. Did I want to watch? I shook my head frantically, whirled, and blundered away through the trees, belatedly taking his advice.
In fact, I didn't return to the tent. I couldn't bear the thought of its stifling enclosure; my chest felt tight and I needed air.
I found it on the crest of a small rise, just beyond the tent. I stumbled to a stop in a small open space, flung myself full-length on the ground, and put both arms over my head. I didn't want to hear the faintest echo of the drama's final act, down behind me by the fire.
The rough grass beneath me was cold on bare skin, and I hunched to wrap the cloak around me. Cocooned and insulated, I lay quiet, listening to the pounding of my heart, waiting for the turmoil inside me to calm.
Sometime later, I heard men passing by in small groups of four or five, returning to their sleeping spots. Muffled by folds of cloth, I couldn't distinguish their words, but they sounded subdued, perhaps a little awed. Some time passed before I realized that he was there. He didn't speak or make a noise, but I suddenly knew that he was nearby. When I rolled over and sat up, I could see his bulk shadowed on a stone, head resting on forearms, folded across his knees.
Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.
"Are you all right?" I asked, after a moment's pause, voice neutral as I could make it.
"Aye, I'll do." He unfolded himself slowly, and stretched, moving gingerly, with a deep sigh.
"I'm sorry for your gown," he said, a minute later. I realized that he could see my bare flesh shining dim-white in the darkness, and pulled the edges of my cloak sharply together.
"Oh, for the gown?" I said, more than a slight edge to my voice.
He sighed again. "Aye, and for the rest of it, too." He paused, then said, "I thought perhaps ye might be willing to sacrifice your modesty to prevent my havin' to damage the lad, but under the circumstances, I hadna time to ask your permission. If I was wrong, then I'll ask your pardon, lady."
"You mean you would have tortured him further?"
He was irritated, and didn't trouble to hide it. "Torture, forbye! I didna hurt the lad."
I drew the folds of my cloak more tightly around me. "Oh, you don't consider breaking his arm and branding him with a hot knife as hurting him, then?"
"No, I don't." He scooted across the few feet of grass between us, and grasped me by the elbow, pulling me around to face him. "Listen to me. He broke his own silly arm, trying to force his way out of an unbreakable lock. He's brave as any man I've got, but he's no experience at hand-to-hand fighting."
"And the knife?"
Jamie snorted. "Tcha! He's a small sore spot under one ear, that won't pain him much past dinner tomorrow. I expect it hurt a bit, but I meant to scare him, not wound him."
"Oh." I pulled away and turned back to the dark wood, looking for our tent. His voice followed me.
"I could have broken him, Sassenach. It would have been messy, though, and likely permanent. I'd rather not use such means if I dinna have to. Mind ye, Sassenach"—his voice reached me from the shadows, holding a note of warning—"sometime I may have to. I had to know where his fellows were, their arms and the rest of it. I couldna scare him into it; it was trick him or break him."
"He said you couldn't do anything that would make him talk."
Jamie's voice was weary. "Christ, Sassenach, of course I could. Ye can break anyone if you're prepared to hurt them enough. I know that, if anyone does."
"Yes," I said quietly, "I suppose you do."
Neither of us moved for a time, nor spoke. I could hear the murmurs of men bedding down for the night, the occasional stamp of boots on hard earth and the rustle of leaves heaped up as a barrier against the autumn chill. My eyes had adjusted sufficiently to the dark that I could now see the outline of our tent, some thirty feet away in the shelter of a big larch. I could see Jamie, too, his figure black against the lighter darkness of the night.
"All right," I said at last. "All right. Given the choice between what you did, and what you might have done…yes, all right."
"Thank you." I couldn't tell whether he was smiling or not, but it sounded like it.
"You were taking the hell of a chance with the rest of it," I said. "If I hadn't given you an excuse for not killing him, what would you have done?"
The large figure stirred and shrugged, and there was a faint chuckle in the shadows.
"I don't know, Sassenach. I reckoned as how you'd think of something. If ye hadn't—well, I suppose I would have had to shoot the lad. Couldna very well disappoint him by just lettin' him go, could I?"
"You bloody Scottish bastard," I said without heat.
He heaved a deep exasperated sigh. "Sassenach, I've been stabbed, bitten, slapped, and whipped since supper—which I didna get to finish. I dinna like to scare children and I dinna like to flog men, and I've had to do both. I've two hundred English camped three miles away, and no idea what to do about them. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm sore. If you've anything like womanly sympathy about ye, I could use a bit!"
He sounded so aggrieved that I laughed in spite of myself. I got up and walked toward him.
"I suppose you could, at that. Come here, and I'll see if I can find a bit for you." He had put his shirt back on loose over his shoulders, not troubling to do it up. I slid my hands under it and over the hot, tender skin of his back. "Didn't cut the skin," I said, feeling gently upward.
"A strap doesn't; it just stings."
I removed the shirt and sat him down to have his back sponged with cold water from the stream.
"Better?" I asked.
"Mmmm." The muscles of his shoulders relaxed, but he flinched slightly as I touched a particularly tender spot.
I turned my attention to the scratch under his ear. "You wouldn't really have shot him, would you?"
"What d'ye take me for, Sassenach?" he said, in mock outrage.
"A Scottish poltroon. Or at best, a conscienceless outlaw. Who knows what a fellow like that would do? Let alone an unprincipled voluptuary."
He laughed with me, and his shoulder shook under my hand. "Turn your head. If you want womanly sympathy, you'll have to keep still while I apply it."
"Mmm." There was a moment of silence. "No," he said at last, "I wouldna have shot him. But I had to save his pride somehow, after making him feel ridiculous over you. He's a brave lad; he deserved to feel he was worth killing."
I shook my head. "I will never understand men," I muttered, smoothing marigold ointment over the scratch.
He reached back for my hands and brought them together under his chin.
"You dinna need to understand me, Sassenach," he said quietly. "So long as ye love me." His head tilted forward and he gently kissed my clasped hands.
"And feed me," he added, releasing them.
"Oh, womanly sympathy, love and food?" I said, laughing. "Don't want a lot, do you?"
There were cold bannocks in the saddlebags, cheese, and a bit of cold bacon as well. The tensions and absurdities of the last two hours had been more draining than I realized, and I hungrily joined in the meal.
The sounds of the men surrounding us had now died down, and there was neither sound nor any flicker of an unguarded fire to indicate that we were not a thousand miles from any human soul. Only the wind rattled busily among the leaves, sending the odd twig bouncing down through the branches.