A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [523]
“Hiram’s come,” he informed me. “I hear his voice. That’s good.”
“If you say so,” I said dubiously, recollecting Hiram Crombie’s denunciations in church a week before—thinly veiled remarks clearly aimed at us. Roger hadn’t mentioned them; Amy McCallum had told me.
Jamie turned his head to look at me, and smiled, an expression of extraordinary sweetness coming over his face.
“Ye’re verra lovely, Sassenach,” he said as though surprised. “But, aye, it’s good. Whatever he thinks, he wouldna countenance Brown hanging us in the dooryard, nor yet setting the house afire to drive us out.”
There were more voices outside; the crowd was growing quickly.
“Mr. Fraser!”
He took a deep breath, took the candle from the table, and threw open the shutter, holding the candle near his face so they could see him.
It was almost full dark, but several of the crowd were holding torches, which gave me uneasy visions of the mob coming to burn Dr. Frankenstein’s monster—but did at least allow me to make out the faces below. There were at least thirty men—and not a few women—there, in addition to Brown and his thugs. Hiram Crombie was indeed there, standing beside Richard Brown, and looking like something out of the Old Testament.
“We require ye to come down, Mr. Fraser,” he called. “And your wife—if ye please.”
I caught sight of Mrs. Bug, plump and clearly terrified, her face streaked with tears. Then Jamie closed the shutters, gently, and offered me his arm.
JAMIE HAD WORN BOTH dirk and sword, and had not changed his clothes. He stood on the porch, bloodstained and battered, and dared them to harm us further.
“Ye’ll take my wife over my dead body,” he said, raising his powerful voice enough to be heard across the clearing. I was rather afraid they would. He’d been right—so far—about Hiram not countenancing lynching, but it was clear that public opinion was not in our favor.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd, and a stone whistled through the air, bouncing off the front of the house with a sharp report, like a gunshot. It struck no more than a foot from my head, and I flinched, instantly regretting it.
Angry murmurs had risen from the moment Jamie had opened the door, and this encouraged them. There were shouts of “Murderers!” and “Heartless! Heartless!” and a number of Gaelic insults that I didn’t try to understand.
“If she didn’t do it, breugaire, who did?” someone bellowed. “Liar” it meant.
The man Jamie had slashed across the face with his dirk was in the forefront of the crowd; the open wound gaped, still oozing, and his face was a mask of dried blood.
“If ’twasn’t her, ’twas him!” he shouted, pointing at Jamie. “Fear-siûrsachd!” Lecher.
There was an ugly rumble of agreement at that, and I saw Jamie shift his weight and set his hand to his sword, ready to draw if they charged him.
“Be still!” Hiram’s voice was rather shrill, but penetrating. “Be still, I tell ye!” He pushed Brown aside and came up the steps, very deliberately. At the top, he gave me a look of revulsion, but then turned to the crowd.
“Justice!” one of Brown’s men yelled, before he could speak. “We want justice!”
“Aye, we do!” Hiram shouted back. “And justice we shall have, for the puir raped lass and her bairn unborn!”
A satisfied growl greeted this, and icy terror ran down my legs, so that I feared my knees would give way.
“Justice! Justice!” Various people were taking up the chant, but Hiram stopped them, raising both hands as though he were bloody Moses parting the Red Sea.
“Justice is mine, sayeth the Lord,” Jamie remarked, in a voice just loud enough to be generally heard. Hiram, who had evidently been about to say the same thing, gave him a furious look, but couldn’t very well contradict him.
“And justice you’ll have, Mister Fraser!” Brown said very loudly. He lifted his face, narrow-eyed and malicious with triumph. “I wish to take her for trial. Anyone accused is entitled to that, nay? If she is innocent—if you are innocent—how can you refuse?”
“Certainly a point,