A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [399]
The pudding had formed a small, hard ball, like rubber, that lay in the bottom of my stomach.
“You . . . found him? Or was it Marsali?”
He shook his head.
“She doesna ken. Or rather, I expect she does, but she’s no admitting it—to either of them.”
“He can’t have been badly wounded, then, or she’d have to know for sure.” My chest still hurt, but the words were coming more easily.
“No. I saw him go past, whilst I was scraping a deer’s hide up on the hill. He didna see me, and I didna call out—I dinna ken what it was that struck me queer about him . . . but something did. I went on wi’ my work for a bit—I didna want to go far from the house, in case—but it niggled at me.” He let go of my hand and rubbed his knuckles underneath his nose.
“I couldna seem to let go of the thought that something was amiss, and finally I put down my work and went after him, thinking myself all kinds of a fool for it.”
Fergus had headed over the end of the Ridge, and down the wooded slope that led to the White Spring. This was the most remote and secluded of the three springs on the Ridge, called “white” because of the large pale boulder that stood near the head of the pool.
Jamie had come down through the trees in time to see Fergus lie down by the spring, sleeve rolled up and coat folded beneath his head, and submerge his handless left arm in the water.
“I should maybe ha’ shouted then,” he said, rubbing a distracted hand through his hair. “But I couldna really believe it, ken?”
Then Fergus had taken a small boning knife in his right hand, reached down into the pool, and neatly opened the veins of his left elbow, blood blooming in a soft, dark cloud around the whiteness of his arm.
“I shouted then,” Jamie said. He closed his eyes, and scrubbed his hands hard over his face, as though trying to erase the memory of it.
He had run down the hill, grabbed Fergus, jerked him to his feet, and hit him.
“You hit him?”
“I did,” he said shortly. “He’s lucky I didna break his neck, the wee bastard.” Color had begun to rise in his face as he talked, and he pressed his lips tight together.
“Was this after the boys took Henri-Christian?” I asked, my memory of the conversation in the stable with Fergus vividly in mind. “I mean—”
“Aye, I ken what ye mean,” he interrupted. “And it was the day after the lads put Henri-Christian in the creek, aye. It wasna only that, though—not only all the trouble over the wee laddie being a dwarf, I mean.” He glanced at me, his face troubled.
“We talked. After I’d bound up his arm and brought him round. He said he’d been thinking of it for some time; the thing wi’ the bairn only pushed him into it.”
“But . . . how could he?” I said, distressed. “To leave Marsali, and the children—how?”
Jamie looked down, hands braced on his knees, and sighed. The window was open, and a soft breeze came in, lifting the hairs on the crown of his head like tiny flames.
“He thought they would do better without him,” he said flatly. “If he was dead, Marsali could wed again—find a man who could care for her and the weans. Provide for them. Protect wee Henri.”
“He thinks—thought—he couldn’t?”
Jamie glanced sharply at me.
“Sassenach,” he said, “he kens damn well he can’t.”
I drew breath to protest this, but bit my lip instead, finding no immediate rebuttal.
Jamie stood up and moved restlessly about the room, picking things up and putting them down.
“Would you do such a thing?” I asked, after a bit. “In the same circumstances, I mean.”
He paused for a moment, his back to me, hand on my hairbrush.
“No,” he said softly. “But it’s a hard thing for a man to live with.”
“Well, I see that . . .” I began, slowly, but he swung round to face me. His own face was strained, filled with a weariness that had little to do with lack of sleep.
“No, Sassenach,” he said. “Ye don’t.” He spoke gently, but with such a tone of despair in his voice that tears came to my eyes.
It was as much sheer physical weakness as emotional distress, but I knew that if I gave way to