A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [297]
Germain was already arrowing his way toward shore, his sleek blond head dark with water. Jemmy popped up behind him, though, splashing and spluttering, and Germain dived, turned like an otter, and came up alongside.
“Kick!” he called to Jemmy, churning up a huge spray in illustration. “Go on your back!”
Jemmy ceased flailing, went on his back, and kicked madly. His hair was plastered over his face and the spray of his efforts must have obscured any remnants of vision—but he went on valiantly kicking, to encouraging whoops from Jamie and Germain.
The pool was no more than ten feet across, and he reached the shallows on the opposite bank within seconds, beaching among the rocks by virtue of crashing headfirst into one. He stopped, thrashing feebly in the shallows, then bounced to his feet, showering water, and shoved the wet hair out of his face. He looked amazed.
“I can swim!” he shouted. “Mama, I can swim!”
“That’s wonderful!” she called, torn between sharing his ecstatic pride, the urge to rush home and tell Roger about it—and dire visions of Jemmy now leaping heedlessly into bottomless ponds and rock-jagged rapids, under the reckless delusion that he could indeed swim. But he’d gotten his feet wet, in no uncertain terms; there was no going back.
“Come here!” She bent toward him, clapping her hands. “Can you swim back to me? Come on, come here!”
He looked blankly at her for an instant, then around him at the rippling water of the pool. The blaze of excitement in his face died.
“I forget,” he said, and his mouth curled down, fat with sudden woe. “I forget how!”
“Fall down and kick!” Germain bellowed helpfully, from his perch on the rock. “You can do it, cousin!”
Jemmy took one or two blundering steps into the water, but stopped, lip trembling, terror and confusion starting to overwhelm him.
“Stay there, a chuisle! I’m coming!” Jamie called, and dove cleanly into the pool, a long pale streak beneath the water, bubbles streaming from hair and breeks. He popped up in front of Jemmy in an explosion of breath and shook his head, flinging strands of wet red hair out of his face.
“Come along then, man,” he said, scooting round on his knees in the shallows, so that his back was to Jemmy. He looked back, patting his own shoulder. “Take hold of me here, aye? We’ll swim back together.”
And they did, kicking and splashing in ungainly dog paddle, Jemmy’s shrieks of excitement echoed by Germain, who had leaped into the water to paddle alongside.
Hauled out onto the rock, the three of them lay puddled, gasping and laughing at her feet, water spreading in pools around them.
“Well, you are cleaner,” she said judiciously, moving her foot away from a spreading streamlet. “I’ll admit that much.”
“Of course we are.” Jamie sat up, wringing out the long tail of his hair. “It occurs to me, lass, that there’s maybe a better way to do what ye want.”
“What I w—oh. You mean the water?”
“Aye, that.” He sniffed, and rubbed the back of his hand under his nose. “I’ll show ye, if ye come up to the house after supper.”
“What’s that, Grandda?” Jemmy had got to his feet, wet hair standing up in red spikes, and was looking curiously at Jamie’s back. He put out a tentative finger and traced one of the long, curving scars.
“What? Oh . . . that.” Jamie’s face went quite blank for a moment. “It’s . . . ah . . .”
“Some bad people hurt Grandda once,” she interrupted firmly, bending down to pick Jemmy up. “But that was a long time ago. He’s all right now. You weigh a ton!”
“Papa says Grandpère is perhaps a silkie,” Germain remarked, viewing Jamie’s back with interest. “Like his papa before him. Did the bad people find you in your silkie skin, Grandpère, and try to cut it from you? He would then of course become a man again,” he explained matter-of-factly, looking up at Jemmy, “and could kill them with his sword.”
Jamie was staring at Germain. He blinked, and wiped his nose again.
“Oh,” he said. “Aye. Um. Aye, I expect that was the way of it. If your papa says so.”
“What’s a silkie?” asked