A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [494]
“But he didn’t,” I said stubbornly, out loud. “If he had, and that was it—I could forgive him. But God damn it, he didn’t!”
My subconscious subsided in the face of this certainty, but I was aware of subterranean stirrings—not suspicions, nothing strong enough to be called doubts. Only small, cool observations that poked their heads above the surface of my own dark well like spring peepers, high, thin pipings that were barely audible individually but that together might eventually form a racket of sound to shake the night.
You’re an old woman.
See how the veins stand out on your hands.
The flesh has fallen away from your bones; your breasts sag.
If he were desperate, needing comfort . . .
He might reject her, but could never turn away from a child of his blood.
I closed my eyes and fought a rising sense of nausea. The hail had passed, succeeded by heavy rain, and cold steam began to rise from the ground, vapor drifting upward, disappearing like ghosts into the downpour.
“No,” I said aloud. “No!”
I felt as though I had swallowed several large rocks, jagged and dirt-covered. It wasn’t just the thought that Jamie might—but that Malva had most certainly betrayed me. Had betrayed me if it were true—and still more, if it were not.
My apprentice. My daughter of the heart.
I was safe from the rain, but the air was thick with water; my garments grew damp and hung heavy on me, clammy on my skin. Through the rain, I could see the big white stone that stood at the head of the spring, that gave the pool its name. Here it was that Jamie had shed his blood in sacrifice, and dashed it on that rock, asking the help of the kinsman he had slain. And here it was that Fergus had lain down, opening his veins in despair for his son, his blood blooming dark in the silent water.
And I began to realize why I had come here, why the place had called me. It was a place to meet oneself, and find truth.
The rain passed, and the clouds broke. Slowly, the light began to fade.
IT WAS NEARLY DARK when he came. The trees were moving, restless with twilight and whispering among themselves; I didn’t hear his footsteps on the sodden trail. He was just there, suddenly, at the edge of the clearing.
He stood searching; I saw his head lift when he saw me, and then he strode round the pool and ducked under the overhanging branches of my shelter. He’d been out for some time, I saw; his coat was wet and the cloth of his shirt plastered to his chest with rain and sweat. He’d brought a cloak with him, bundled under his arm, and he unfolded this and wrapped it round my shoulders. I let him.
He sat quite close to me then, arms wrapped about his knees, and stared into the darkening pool of the spring. The light had reached that point of beauty, just before all color fades, and the hairs of his eyebrows arched auburn and perfect over the solid ridges of his brows, each hair distinct, like the shorter, darker hairs of his sprouting beard.
He breathed long and deep, as though he had been walking for some time, and rubbed away a drop of moisture that dripped from the end of his nose. Once or twice, he took a shorter breath, as though about to say something, but didn’t.
The birds had come out briefly after the rain. Now they were going to their rest, cheeping softly in the trees.
“I do hope you were planning to say something,” I said finally, politely. “Because if you don’t, I’ll probably start screaming, and I might not be able to stop.”
He made a sound somewhere between amusement and dismay, and sank his face into the palms of his hands. He stayed that way for a moment, then rubbed his hands hard over his face and sat up, sighing.
“I have been thinking all the time I was searching for ye, Sassenach, what in God’s name I should say when I found ye. I thought of one thing and another—and . . . there seemed nothing whatever I could say.” He sounded helpless.
“How is that?” I asked, a distinct edge in my voice.