A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [432]
Ian raised both brows, and went on eating. Sun Elk waited for a moment, but as Ian said nothing, eventually nodded and turned away.
“Ahkote’ohskennonton,” Ian said, calling his name. The man turned back, expectant.
“This person dreamed of you, too.” Sun Elk glanced sharply at him. Ian didn’t speak further, but let a slow and evil smile grow upon his face.
Sun Elk stared at him. He kept smiling. The other man turned away with a snort of disgust, but not before Ian had seen the faint look of unease in Sun Elk’s eyes.
“WELL, SO.” Ian took a deep breath. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. “Ye ken the child died, aye?”
He spoke with no emotion at all in his voice. It was that dry, controlled tone that seared her heart, and choked her so that she could do no more than nod in reply.
He couldn’t keep it up, though. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but the big, bony hands clenched suddenly on his knees, and instead, he rose abruptly to his feet.
“Aye,” he said. “Let’s go. I’ll—I’ll tell ye the rest, walking.”
And he did, his back resolutely turned, as he led her higher up the mountain, then across a narrow ridge, and down the path of a stream that fell in a series of small, enchanting waterfalls, each encircled with a mist of miniature rainbows.
Works with Her Hands had conceived again. That child was lost just after her belly began to swell with life.
“They say, the Kahnyen’kehaka,” Ian explained, his voice muffled as he shoved his way through a screen of brilliant red creeper, “that for a woman to conceive, her husband’s spirit does battle with hers, and must overcome it. If his spirit isna strong enough”—his voice came clear as he ripped a handful of creeper down, breaking the branch it hung from, and cast it viciously away—“then the child canna take root in the womb.”
After this second loss, the Medicine Society had taken the two of them to a private hut, there to sing and beat drums and to dance in huge painted masks, meant to frighten away whatever evil entities might be hampering Ian’s spirit—or unduly strengthening Emily’s.
“I wanted to laugh, seeing the masks,” Ian said. He didn’t turn round; yellow leaves spangled the shoulders of his buckskin and stuck in his hair. “They call it the Funny-Face Society, too—and for a reason. Didna do it, though.”
“I don’t . . . suppose Em-Emily laughed.” He was going so fast that she was pressed to keep up with him, though her legs were nearly as long as his own.
“No,” he said, and uttered a short, bitter laugh himself. “She didna.”
She had gone into the medicine hut beside him silent and gray, but had come out with a peaceful face, and reached for him in their bed that night with love. For three months, they had made love with tenderness and ardor. For another three, they had made love with a sense of increasing desperation.
“And then she missed her courses again.”
He had at once ceased his attentions, terrified of causing a further mishap. Emily had moved slowly and carefully, no longer going into the fields to work, but staying in the longhouse, working, always working, with her hands. Weaving, grinding, carving, boring beads of shell for wampum, hands moving ceaselessly, to compensate for the waiting stillness of her body.
“Her sister went to the fields. It’s the women who do, ken?” He paused to slash an outreaching brier with his knife, tossing the severed branch out of the way so it wouldn’t snap back and hit Brianna in the face.
“Looking at the Sky brought us food. All the women did, but her most of all. She was a sweet lass, Karònya.”
There was a slight catch in his voice at this, the first in his harsh recitation of facts.
“What happened to her?” Brianna hastened her step a little as they came out onto the top of a grass-covered bank, so that she drew up nearly even with him. He slowed a little, but didn’t turn to look at her—kept his face forward, chin raised as though confronting enemies.
“Taken.” Looking at the Sky had been in the habit of staying later in the fields than the other women, gathering extra corn or squash for