A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [231]
“What’s that one?” she asked, raising her voice to reach him. He looked up, his eyes a mossy green in the dim rainlight from the window behind him.
“I think it’s a ’57 Chevrolet pickup truck,” he said, grinning. “Here, then, a nighean. This one’s yours.” He brushed a last shaving from his creation and handed the blocky thing to Félicité, whose mouth and eyes were round with awe.
“Issa vroom?” she said, clutching it to her bosom. “My vroom?”
“It’s a druck,” Jemmy informed her with kindly condescension. “Daddy says.”
“A truck is a vroom,” Roger assured Félicité, seeing doubt begin to pucker her forehead. “It’s just a bigger kind.”
“Issa big vroom, see!” Félicité kicked Jem in the shin. He yelped and grabbed for her hair, only to be butted in the stomach by Joan, always there to defend her sister.
Brianna tensed, ready to intervene, but Roger broke up the incipient riot by holding Jem and Félicité each at arm’s length, glaring Joan into retreat.
“Right, you lot. No fighting, or we put the vrooms away ’til tomorrow.”
That quelled them instantly, and Brianna felt Marsali relax, resuming the rhythm of her spinning. The rain hummed on the roof, solid and steady; it was a good day to be inside, despite the difficulty of entertaining bored children.
“Why don’t you play something nice and quiet?” she said, grinning at Roger. “Like . . . oh . . . Indianapolis 500?”
“Oh, you’re a great help,” he said, giving her a dirty look, but he obligingly set the children to work laying out a racetrack in chalk on the big hearthstone.
“Too bad Germain’s not here,” he said casually. “Where’s he gone in the rain and all, Marsali?” Germain’s vroom—according to Roger, it was a Jaguar X-KE, though so far as Brianna could tell, it looked exactly like the others: a block of wood with a rudimentary cab and wheels—was sitting on the mantelpiece, awaiting its master’s return.
“He’s with Fergus,” Marsali answered calmly, not faltering in her rhythm. Her lips pressed together, though, and it was easy to hear the note of strain in her voice.
“And how’s Fergus, then?” Roger looked up at her, kindly, but intent.
The thread skipped, bounced in Marsali’s hand, and wound itself up with a visible slub in it. She grimaced, and didn’t reply until the thread was running once more smoothly through her fingers.
“Well, I will say, for a man wi’ one hand, he’s a bonny wee fighter,” she said at last, eyes on the thread and a wry note in her voice.
Brianna glanced at Roger, who raised an eyebrow back at her.
“Who’s he been fighting?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“He doesna often tell me,” Marsali said evenly. “Though yesterday it was the husband of a woman who asked him why he didna just strangle Henri-Christian at birth. He took offense,” she added, offhand, leaving it unclear as to whether it was Fergus, the husband, or both who had taken offense. Lifting the thread, she bit it sharply off.
“I should think so,” Roger murmured. His head was bent, marking off the starting line, so his hair fell over his forehead, obscuring his face. “Not the only one, though, I take it.”
“No.” Marsali began winding the thread onto the niddy-noddy, a small, seemingly permanent frown showing between her fair brows. “I suppose it’s better than the ones who point and whisper. Those are the ones who think Henri-Christian’s the—the devil’s seed,” she finished bravely, though her voice quivered a little. “I think they’d burn the wee man—and me and the other weans along with him, if they thought they could.”
Brianna felt the bottom of her stomach drop, and cuddled the object of discussion in her lap.
“What sort of idiots could possibly think such a thing?” she demanded. “Let alone say it out loud!”
“Let alone do it, ye mean.” Marsali put aside the yarn and rose, leaning over to take Henri-Christian and put him to her breast. With his knees still curled