A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [184]
“Milady,” he murmured, and unexpectedly bent to kiss my cheek, hand on my shoulder. “Comment ça va?”
“Tres bien, merci,” I replied, smiling gingerly. “How are Marsali and the children? And our hero, Germain?” I had asked Jamie about Marsali on the way back, and had been assured that she was all right. Germain, monkey that he was, had gone straight up a tree when he heard Hodgepile’s men approaching. He had seen everything from his perch, and as soon as the men departed, had scrambled down, dragged his semiconscious mother away from the fire, and run for help.
“Ah, Germain,” Fergus said, a faint smile momentarily lifting the shadows of fatigue. “Nous p’tit guerrier. He says Grandpère has promised him a pistol of his own, to shoot bad people with.”
Grandpère undoubtedly meant it, I reflected. Germain couldn’t manage a musket, being somewhat shorter than the gun itself—but a pistol would do. In my present state of mind, the fact that Germain was only six didn’t seem particularly important.
“Have you had breakfast, Fergus?” I pushed the pot toward him.
“Non. Merci.” He helped himself to cold biscuit, ham, and coffee, though I noticed that he ate without much appetite.
We all sat quietly, sipping coffee and listening to the birds. Carolina wrens had built a late nest under the eaves of the house and the parent birds swooped in and out, just above our heads. I could hear the high-pitched cheeping of the nestlings begging, and saw a scatter of twigs and a bit of empty eggshell on the floorboards of the porch. They were nearly ready to fledge; just in time, before the real cold weather came.
The sight of the brown-speckled eggshell reminded me of Monsieur le Oeuf. Yes, that’s what I would do, I decided, with a small sense of relief at having something firm in mind. I would go and see Marsali later. And perhaps Mrs. Bug, as well.
“Did you see Mrs. Bug this morning?” I asked, turning to Ian. His cabin—little more than a brush-roofed lean-to—lay just beyond the Bugs’; he would have passed them on his way to the house.
“Oh, aye,” he said, looking a little surprised. “She was sweeping out as I went by. Offered me breakfast, but I said I’d eat here. I kent Uncle Jamie had a ham, aye?” He grinned, lifting his fourth ham biscuit in illustration.
“So she’s all right? I thought she might be ill; she usually comes quite early.”
Ian nodded, and took an enormous bite of the biscuit.
“Aye, I expect she’s busy, minding the ciomach.”
My fragile sense of well-being cracked like the wrens’ eggs. A ciomach was a captive. In my soggy-minded euphoria, I had somehow managed to forget Lionel Brown’s existence.
Ian’s remark that Jamie meant to ask questions this morning dropped suddenly into context—as did Fergus’s presence. And the knife Ian had been sharpening.
“Where is Jamie?” I asked, rather faintly. “Have you seen him?”
“Oh, aye,” Ian said, looking surprised. He swallowed, and gestured toward the door with his chin. “He’s just out in the woodshed, makin’ new shingles. He says the roof’s sprung a leak.”
No sooner had he said this than the sound of hammering came from the roof, far above. Of course, I thought. First things first. But then, I supposed Lionel Brown wasn’t going anywhere, after all.
“Perhaps . . . I should go and see Mr. Brown,” I said, swallowing.
Ian and Fergus exchanged glances.
“No, Auntie, ye shouldn’t,” Ian said quite calmly, but with an air of authority I wasn’t accustomed to seeing in him.
“Whatever do you mean?” I stared at him, but he merely went on eating, though a trifle more slowly.
“Milord says you should not,” Fergus amplified, drizzling a spoonful of honey into his coffee.
“He says what?” I asked incredulously.
Neither of them would look at me, but they seemed to draw together, emanating a reluctant sort of stubborn resistance. Either one would do anything I asked, I knew—except defy Jamie. If Jamie thought I ought not to see Mr. Brown, I wasn’t going to do it with the assistance of either Ian or Fergus.
I dropped the spoon back into my bowl of