A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [39]
“I might,” he agreed, with a certain note of bleakness in his voice. “But putting aside any question as to the honor of such a course—that would help condemn them, no? Would the same thing happen to them in the end, d’ye think, if the English were to win?”
“They won’t,” I said, with a slight edge.
He glanced sharply at me.
“I do believe ye,” he said, with a similar edge. “I’ve reason to, aye?”
I nodded, my lips pressed together. I didn’t want to talk about the earlier Rising. I didn’t want to talk about the oncoming Revolution, either, but there was little choice about that.
“I don’t know,” I said, and took a deep breath. “No one can say—since it didn’t happen—but if I were to guess . . . then I think the Indians might quite possibly do better under British rule.” I smiled at him, a little ruefully.
“Believe it or not, the British Empire did—or will, I should say—generally manage to run its colonies without entirely exterminating the native people in them.”
“Bar the Hieland folk,” he said, very dryly. “Aye, I’ll take your word for it, Sassenach.”
He stood up, running a hand back through his hair, and I caught a glimpse of the tiny streak of white that ran through it, legacy of a bullet wound.
“You should talk to Roger about it,” I said. “He knows a great deal more than I do.”
He nodded, but didn’t reply, beyond a faint grimace.
“Where do you suppose Roger and Bree went, speaking of Roger?”
“To the MacGillivrays’, I suppose,” he replied, surprised. “To fetch wee Jem.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, equally surprised.
“When there’s mischief abroad, a man wants his family safe under his eye, ken?” He raised one brow at me, and reaching to the top of the wardrobe, took down his sword. He drew it halfway from its scabbard, then put it back and set the scabbard gently back in place, the sword loosened, hilt ready to hand.
He’d brought a loaded pistol upstairs with him; that was placed on the washstand by the window. The rifle and fowling piece too had been left loaded and primed, hanging from their hooks above the hearth downstairs. And, with a small ironic flourish, he drew the dirk from its belt sheath and slid it neatly under our pillow.
“Sometimes I forget,” I said a little wistfully, watching this. There had been a dirk under the pillow of our wedding couch—and under many a one since then.
“Do ye?” He smiled at that; a little lopsidedly, but he smiled.
“Don’t you? Ever?”
He shook his head, still smiling, though it had a rueful tinge.
“Sometimes I wish I did.”
This colloquy was interrupted by a spluttering snort across the hall, followed at once by a thrashing of bedclothes, violent oaths, and a sharp thump! as something—likely a shoe—struck the wall.
“Fucking cat!” bellowed Major MacDonald. I sat, hand pressed across my mouth, as the stomp of bare feet vibrated through the floorboards, succeeded briefly by the crash of the Major’s door, which flung open, then shut with a bang.
Jamie too had stood frozen for an instant. Now he moved, very delicately, and soundlessly eased our own door open. Adso, tail arrogantly S-shaped, strolled in. Magnificently ignoring us, he crossed the room, leapt lightly onto the washstand, and sat in the basin, where he stuck a back leg into the air and began calmly licking his testicles.
“I saw a man once in Paris who could do that,” Jamie remarked, observing this performance with interest.
“Are there people willing to pay to watch such things?” I assumed that no one was likely to engage in a public exhibition of that sort merely for the fun of it. Not in Paris, anyway.
“Well, it wasna the man, so much. More his female companion, who was likewise flexible.” He grinned at me, his eyes glinting blue in the candlelight. “Like watching worms mate, aye?”
“How fascinating,” I murmured. I glanced at the washstand, where Adso was now doing something even more indelicate. “You’re lucky the Major doesn’t sleep armed,