A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [415]
Only Aidan remained at large. Seeing his comrades in captivity, he hesitated at the edge of the slope, obviously wanting to flee, but nobly gave in, coming back with dragging step to share their fate.
“Right, lads; sorry, it’s not on.” Roger spoke with some sympathy; Jemmy had been upset for days at the prospect of Germain’s leaving.
“But we do not want to go, Uncle Roger,” Germain said, employing his most effective look of wide-eyed pleading. “We will stay here; we can live in the cave, and hunt for our food.”
“Aye, sir, and me and Jem, we’ll share our dinners wi’ them,” Aidan piped up in anxious support.
“I brought some of Mama’s matches, so they’ve got a fire to keep warm,” Jem chipped in eagerly, “and a loaf of bread, too!”
“So ye see, Uncle—” Germain spread his hands gracefully in demonstration, “we shall be no trouble to anyone!”
“Oh, nay trouble, is it?” Ian said, with no less sympathy. “Tell your mother that, aye?”
Germain put his hands behind him, clutching his buttocks protectively by reflex.
“And what were ye thinking, dragging your wee brother up here?” Roger said a little more severely. “He can barely walk yet! Two steps out of there”—he nodded at the cave—“and he’d be tumbling down the burn and his neck broken.”
“Oh, no, sir!” Germain said, shocked. He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a piece of string. “I should tie him up, when I was not there, so he shouldna wander or fall. But I couldna be leaving him; I promised Maman, when he was born, I said I would never leave him.”
Tears were beginning to trickle down Aidan’s thin cheeks. Henri-Christian, totally confused, began to howl in sympathy, which made Jem’s lower lip tremble, as well. He wriggled out of Roger’s grasp, ran to Germain, and clutched him passionately about the middle.
“Germain can’t go, Daddy, please don’t make him go!”
Roger rubbed his nose, exchanged brief looks with Ian, and sighed.
He sat down on a rock, and motioned to Ian, who was having a certain amount of difficulty in deciding which way up to hold Henri-Christian. Ian gave him the baby with a noticeable air of relief, and Henri-Christian, feeling the need of security, seized Roger’s nose with one hand and his hair with the other.
“Look, a bhailach,” he said, detaching Henri-Christian’s grasp with some difficulty. “Wee Henri-Christian needs his mother to feed him. He’s barely got teeth, for God’s sake—he canna be living up here in the wild, eating raw meat wi’ you savages.”
“He has too got teeth!” Aidan said stoutly, extending a bitten forefinger in proof. “Look!”
“He eats pap,” Germain said, but with some uncertainty to his tone. “We would mash up biscuits for him with milk.”
“Henri-Christian needs his mother,” Roger repeated firmly, “and your mother needs you. Ye dinna expect her to manage a wagon and two mules and your sisters, all the way to New Bern alone, do ye?”
“But Papa can help,” Germain protested. “The girls mind him, when they mind no one else!”
“Your papa’s gone already,” Ian informed him. “He’s ridden ahead, to find a place for ye all to live, once ye’ve got there. Your mother’s to follow on, wi’ all your things. Roger Mac’s right, a bhailach—your mother needs ye.”
Germain’s small face paled a little. He looked helplessly down at Jemmy, still clinging to him, then up the hill at Aidan, and gulped. The wind had come up, and blew his blond fringe back from his face, making him look very small and fragile.
“Well, then,” he said, and stopped, swallowing. Very gently, he put his arms round Jemmy’s shoulders and kissed the top of his round red head.
“I’ll come back, cousin,” he said. “And you will come and visit me by the sea. You’ll come, too,” he assured Aidan, looking up. Aidan sniffed, nodding, and made his way slowly down the slope.
Roger reached out a free hand and gently detached Jemmy. “Get on my back, mo chuisle,” he said. “It’s a steep slope; I’ll take ye down pick-a-back.”
Not waiting to be asked, Ian leaned down and picked up Aidan, who wrapped his legs round Ian’s middle, hiding his tear-streaked face in Ian’s buckskin shirt.