A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [280]
“You! Weibchen! How you dare, such insult, such lies to say my son about! You I kill, I tear off your hair, nighean na galladh! You—”
She lunged at me and I flung myself sideways, narrowly avoiding her grab at my arm.
“Ute! Frau McGillivray! Listen to—”
The second grab was more successful; she got hold of the sleeve of my night rail and wrenched, dragging the garment off my shoulder with a rending noise of torn cloth, even as she clawed at my face with her free hand.
I jerked back, and screamed with all my strength, my nerves recalling for one dreadful instant a hand striking at my face, hands pulling at me. . . .
I struck at her, the strength of terror flooding through my limbs, screaming, screaming, some tiny remnant of rationality in my brain watching this, bemused, appalled—but completely unable to stop the animal panic, the unreasoning rage that geysered up from some deep and unsuspected well.
I hit out, hammering blindly, screaming—wondering even as I did so, why, why was I doing this?
An arm grabbed me round the waist and I was lifted off the ground. A fresh spurt of panic ripped through me, and then I found myself suddenly alone, untouched. I was standing in the corner by the wardrobe, swaying drunkenly, panting. Jamie stood in front of me, shoulders braced and elbows raised, shielding me.
He was talking, very calmly, but I had lost the capacity to make sense of words. I pressed my hands back against the wall, and felt some sense of comfort from its solid bulk.
My heart was still hammering in my ears, the sound of my own breathing scaring me, it was so like the gasping sound when Harley Boble had broken my nose. I shut my mouth hard, trying to stop. Holding my breath seemed to work, allowing only small inhalations through my now-functioning nose.
The movement of Ute’s mouth caught my eye and I stared at it, trying to fix myself once more in time and space. I was hearing words, but couldn’t quite make the jump of comprehension. I breathed, letting the words flow over me like water, taking emotion from them—anger, reason, protest, placation, shrillness, growling—but no explicit meaning.
Then I took a deep breath, wiped my face—I was surprised to find it wet—and suddenly everything snapped back to normal. I could hear, and understand.
Ute was staring at me, anger and dislike clear on her face, but muted by a lurking horror.
“You are mad,” she said, nodding. “I see.” She sounded almost calm at this point. “Well, then.”
She turned to Jamie, automatically twisting up untidy handsful of grizzled blond hair, stuffing them under her enormous cap. The ribbon had been torn; a loop of it dangled absurdly over one eye.
“So, she is mad. I will say so, but still, my son—my son!—is gone. So.” She stood heaving, surveying me, and shook her head, then turned again to Jamie.
“Salem is closed to you,” she said curtly. “My family, those who know us—they will not trade with you. Nor anyone else I speak to, to tell them the wicked thing she has done.” Her eye drifted back to me, a cold, gelid blue, and her lip curled in a heavy sneer under the loop of torn ribbon.
“You are shunned,” she said. “You do not exist, you.” She turned on her heel and walked out, forcing Ian and Rollo to sidestep hastily out of her way. Her footfalls echoed heavily on the stair, a ponderous, measured tread, like the tolling of a passing bell.
I saw the tension in Jamie’s shoulders relax, little by little. He was still wearing his nightshirt—there was a damp patch between his shoulder blades—and had the pistol still in his hand.
The front door boomed shut below. Everyone stood still, struck silent.
“You wouldn’t really have shot her, would you?” I asked, clearing my throat.
“What?” He turned, staring at me. Then he caught the direction of my glance, and looked at the pistol in his hand as though wondering where that had come from.