A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [362]
“Prime. Ye want to see my scar?” He leaned back, pulling up his ratty shirttail to display a neat red four-inch weal across the pallid skin.
“Well done,” Roger approved. “Taking care of your Mam and wee Orrie, then, now ye’re mended, I suppose.”
“Oh, aye.” Aidan puffed his narrow chest. “I brought home six trout for supper last night, and the biggest one the size of me arm!” He stuck out a forearm in illustration.
“Ah, get on wi’ ye.”
“I did, then!” Aidan said indignantly, then twigged that he was being teased, and grinned.
Clarence was becoming restive, wanting home, and turned in little circles, stamping his feet and twitching at the reins.
“Best go. Ye want to ride up wi’ me?”
Aidan looked tempted, but shook his head.
“Nah, then. I promised Mrs. Ogilvie as I should come tell her, the minute ye came.”
Roger was surprised at that.
“Oh, aye? Why’s that?”
“She’s had a wean last week, what she wants ye to baptize.”
“Oh?” His heart rose a little at that, and the bubble of happiness he carried inside him seemed to expand a little. His first christening! Or rather—his first official baptism, he thought, with a small pang at the memory of the small O’Brian girl he had buried without a name. He wouldn’t be able to do it until after his ordination, but it was something to look forward to.
“Tell her I’ll be glad to christen the wean,” he said, lowering Aidan to the ground. “Have her send to tell me when. And dinna forget your wee fish!” he called.
Aidan grabbed up his pole and the string of silvery fish—none of them longer than the length of a hand—and plunged off into the wood, leaving Roger to turn Clarence’s head toward home.
He smelled smoke from a good way down the trail. Stronger than chimney smoke. With all the talk he had heard on his way, regarding the recent events in Cross Creek, he couldn’t help a small feeling of uneasiness, and urged Clarence on with a nudge of the heels. Clarence, scenting home even through the smoke, took the hint with alacrity, and trotted briskly up the steep incline.
The smell of smoke grew stronger, mixed with an odd musty sort of scent that seemed vaguely familiar. A visible haze grew among the trees, and when they burst out of the undergrowth into the clearing, he was nearly standing in his stirrups with agitation.
The cabin stood, weathered and solid, and relief dropped him back in the saddle with a force that made Clarence grunt in protest. Smoke rose around the house in thick swirls, though, and the figure of Brianna, swathed like a Muslim with a scarf around her head and face, was dimly visible in the midst of it. He dismounted, took a breath to call out to her, and immediately suffered a coughing fit. The damned groundhog kiln was open, belching smoke like hell’s chimney, and now he recognized the musty scent—scorched earth.
“Roger! Roger!” She’d seen him, and came running, skirts and scarf ends flying, leaping a stack of cut turves like a mountain goat to hurl herself into his arms.
He grabbed her and held on, thinking that nothing in life had ever felt better lid weight of her against him and the taste of her mouth, in spite of the fact that she’d plainly eaten onions for lunch.
She emerged beaming and wet-eyed from the embrace, long enough to say, “I love you!” then grabbed his face and kissed him again. “I missed you. When did you shave last? I love you.”
“Four days ago, when I left Charlotte. I love you, too. Is everything all right?”
“Sure. Well, actually no. Jemmy fell out of a tree and knocked out a tooth, but it was a baby tooth and Mama says she doesn’t think it will hurt the permanent one coming in. And Ian got exposed to syphilis, maybe, and we’re all disgusted with him, and Da was nearly tarred and feathered in Cross Creek, and we met Flora MacDonald, and Mama stuck a needle in Aunt Jocasta’s eye, and—”
“Eugh!” Roger said in instinctive revulsion. “Why?”
“So it wouldn’t burst. And I got paid six pounds in painting commissions!” she concluded triumphantly. “I bought some fine wire and silk to make paper screens with, and enough wool for a winter cloak