A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [414]
“Dollars to donuts the little fiends are hiding somewhere,” Bree said, smoothing tumbled red hair out of her face. Her plait had come undone, and straggling wisps of hair were sticking damply to her face. I was momentarily grateful for my short thicket of curls; no matter what it looked like, it was certainly convenient.
“Shall I go and look?” Ian asked, emerging from the wooden pudding basin he’d been carrying upside down on his head. “They’ll no have gone far.”
Sounds of hasty feet from below made everyone turn expectantly in that direction—but it was not the boys, but Marsali, breathless and wide-eyed.
“Henri-Christian,” she gasped, her eyes flicking rapidly round the group. “Have ye got him, Mother Claire? Bree?”
“I thought you had him,” Bree said, catching Marsali’s sense of urgency.
“I did. Wee Aidan McCallum was minding him for me, whilst I loaded things into the wagon. But then I stopped to feed him”—a hand went briefly to her bosom—“and they were both vanished! I thought perhaps . . .” Her words died away as she began scanning the bushes along the trail, her cheeks flushed with exertion and annoyance.
“I’ll strangle him,” she said through gritted teeth. “And where’s Germain, then?” she cried, catching sight of Mirabel, who had taken advantage of the stop to nibble tasty thistles by the path.
“This is beginning to have the look of a plan about it,” Roger observed, obviously amused. Ian, too, seemed to be finding something funny in the situation, but vicious glares from the frazzled females present wiped the smirks off their faces.
“Yes, do go and find them, please,” I said, seeing that Marsali was about to either burst into tears or go berserk and throw things.
“Aye, do,” she said tersely. “And beat them, while ye’re at it.”
“YE KEN WHERE THEY ARE?” Ian asked, shading his eyes to look up a trough of tumbled rock.
“Aye, likely. This way.” Roger pushed through a tangle of yaupon and redbud, with Ian after him, and emerged onto the bank of the small creek that paralleled the trail here. Below, he caught a glimpse of Aidan’s favorite fishing place near the ford, but there was no sign of life down there.
Instead, he turned upward, making his way through thick dry grass and loose rocks along the creekbank. Most of the leaves had fallen from the chestnuts and poplars, and lay in slippery mats of brown and gold underfoot.
Aidan had shown him the secret place some time ago; a shallow cave, barely three feet high, hidden at the top of a steep slope overgrown by a thicket of oak saplings. The oaks were bare now, and the cave’s opening easily visible, if you knew to look for it. It was particularly noticeable at the moment, because smoke was coming out of it, slipping veil-like up the face of the rock above, leaving a sharp scent in the cold, dry air.
Ian raised one eyebrow. Roger nodded, and made his way up the slope, making no effort to be quiet about it. There was a mad scuffle of noises inside the cave, thumpings and low cries, and the veil of smoke wavered and stopped, replaced by a loud hiss and a puff of dark gray from the cave mouth as someone threw water on the fire.
Ian, meanwhile, had made his way silently up the side of the rockface above the cave, seeing a small crevice from which a tiny plume of smoke issued. Clinging one-handed to a dogwood that grew out of the rock, he leaned perilously out, and cupping a hand near his mouth, let out a frightful Mohawk scream, directed into the crevice.
Terror-stricken shrieks, much higher-pitched, issued from the cave, followed in short order by a tumble of little boys, pushing and tripping over each other in their haste.
“Ho, there!” Roger snagged his own offspring neatly by the collar as he rushed past. “The jig’s up, mate.”
Germain, with Henri-Christian’s sturdy form clutched to his midsection, was attempting to escape down the slope, but Ian leapt past him, springing pantherlike down the rocks, and grabbed the baby from him, bringing him to