A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [430]
“The clans?”
“Aye. In the Highlands, ye’d mostly marry within your own clan, save it was to make an alliance wi’ another. Among the Iroquois nations, though, ye canna ever marry someone from your own clan, and ye can only marry someone from particular clans, not just any other.”
“Mama said the Iroquois reminded her a lot of Highlanders,” Brianna said, mildly amused. “Ruthless, but entertaining, was how she put it, I think. Bar some of the torturing, maybe, and the burning your enemies alive.”
“Your mother’s no heard some of Uncle Jamie’s stories about his grandsire, then,” he replied with a wry smile.
“What, Lord Lovat?”
“No, the other—Seaumais Ruaidh—Red Jacob, him Uncle Jamie’s named for. A wicked auld bugger, my Mam always said; he’d put any Iroquois to shame for pure cruelty, from all I’ve heard of him.” He dismissed this tangent with a wave of the hand, though, returning to his explanation.
“Well, so, when the Kahnyen’kehaka took me, and named me, I was adopted to the Wolf clan, aye?” he said, with an explanatory nod at Rollo, who had consumed the honeycomb, dead bees and all, and was now meditatively licking his paws.
“Very appropriate,” she murmured. “What clan was Sun Elk?”
“Wolf, of course. And Emily’s mother and grandmother and sisters were Turtle. But what I was saying—if a lad and lassie from properly different clans seemed maybe suited to each other, then the mothers would speak—they call all the aunties ‘mother,’ too,” he added. “So there might be a good many mothers involved in the matter. But if all the mothers and grandmothers and aunties were to agree that it would be a good match . . .” He shrugged. “They’d marry.”
Brianna rocked back a little, arms around her knees.
“But you didn’t have a mother to speak for you.”
“Well, I did wonder what my Mam would ha’ said, if she’d been there,” he said, and smiled, despite his seriousness.
Brianna, having met Ian’s mother, laughed at the thought.
“Aunt Jenny would be a match for any Mohawk, male or female,” she assured him. “But what happened, then?”
“I loved Emily,” he said very simply. “And she loved me.”
This state of affairs, which rapidly became apparent to everyone in the village, caused considerable public comment. Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa, Works with Her Hands, the girl Ian called Emily, had been widely expected to marry Sun Elk, who had been a visitor to her family’s hearth since childhood.
“But there it was.” Ian spread his hands and shrugged. “She loved me, and she said so.”
When Ian had been taken into the Wolf clan, he had been given to foster parents, as well—the parents of the dead man in whose stead he had been adopted. His foster mother had been somewhat taken aback by the situation, but after discussing the matter with the other women of the Wolf clan, had gone to speak formally with Tewaktenyonh, Emily’s grandmother—and the most influential woman in the village.
“And so we married.” Dressed in their best, and accompanied by their parents, the two young people had sat together on a bench before the assembled people of the village, and exchanged baskets—his containing the furs of sable and beaver, and a good knife, symbolizing his willingness to hunt for her and protect her; hers filled with grain and fruit and vegetables, symbolizing her willingness to plant, gather, and provide for him.
“And four moons later,” Ian added, “Sun Elk wed Looking at the Sky, Emily’s sister.”
Brianna raised one eyebrow.
“But . . . ?”
“Aye, but.”
IAN HAD THE GUN Jamie had left with him, a rare and valued item among the Indians, and he knew how to use it. He also knew how to track, to lie in ambush, to think like an animal—other things of