A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [620]
The rain was still falling, but the last of the sun shone through the wood, the long rays nearly horizontal, filling the space between the shadows with an odd, shifting light that seemed to waver as she watched, as though the world around her were about to disappear.
In the midst of it, dreamlike, she saw the women appear, the Fulani twins. They turned the identical faces of fawns to her, huge eyes black with fear, and ran into the wood. She called out to them, but they disappeared. Feeling unutterably tired, she trudged after them.
She didn’t find them. Nor was there a sign of anyone else. The light began to die, and she turned back, limping, toward the house. She ached everywhere, and began to suffer from the illusion that there was no one left in the world but her. Nothing but the burning light, fading to ashes moment by moment.
Then she remembered the baby in her womb, and felt better. No matter what, she wasn’t alone. Nonetheless, she gave a wide berth to the place where she thought Emmanuel’s body lay. She had meant to circle back toward the house, but went too far. As she turned to go back, she caught a glimpse of them, standing together in the shelter of the trees on the other side of a stream.
The wild horses, tranquil as the trees around them, flanks gleaming bay and chestnut and black with the wet. They raised their heads, scenting her, but didn’t run, only stood regarding her with big, gentle eyes.
THE RAIN HAD stopped when she reached the house. Ian sat on the stoop, wringing water out of his long hair.
“You have mud on your face, Ian,” she said, sinking down beside him.
“Oh, have I?” he said, giving her a half-smile. “How is it, then, coz?”
“Oh. I’m . . . I think I’m fine. What—?” She gestured at his shirt, stained with watery blood. Something seemed to have hit him in the face; besides the smudges of mud, his nose was puffed, there was a swelling just above his brow, and his clothes were torn, as well as wet.
He drew a deep, deep breath and sighed, as though he were as tired as she was.
“I got back the wee black lass,” he said. “Phaedre.”
That pierced the dreamlike fugue that filled her mind, but only a little.
“Phaedre,” she said, the name feeling like that of someone she had once known, long ago. “Is she all right? Where—”
“In there.” Ian nodded back toward the house, and she became aware that what she had thought the sound of the sea was in fact someone weeping, the small sobs of someone who has already wept herself to exhaustion, but cannot stop.
“Nay, leave her to herself, coz.” Ian’s hand on her arm stopped her from rising. “Ye canna help.”
“But—”
He stopped her, reaching into his shirt. From around his neck, he took a battered wooden rosary, and handed it to her.
“She’ll maybe want this—later. I picked it up from the sand, after the ship . . . left.”
For the first time since her escape, the nausea was back, a sense of vertigo that threatened to pull her down into blackness.
“Josh,” she whispered. Ian nodded silently, though it hadn’t been a question.
“I’m sorry, coz,” he said very softly.
IT WAS NEARLY DARK when Roger appeared at the edge of the wood. She hadn’t been worrying, only because she was in a state of shock too deep even to think of what was happening. At sight of him, though, she was on her feet and flying toward him, all the fears she had suppressed erupting at last into tears, running down her face like the rain.
“Da,” she said, choking and sniffling into his wet shirt. “He’s—is he—”
“He’s all right. Bree—can ye come with me? Are ye strong enough—just for a bit?”
Gulping and wiping her nose on the soggy arm of her shift, she nodded, and leaning on his arm, limped into the darkness under the trees.
Bonnet was lying against a tree, head lolling to one side. There was blood on his face, running down onto his shirt. She felt no sense of victory at sight of him, only an infinitely weary distaste.
Her father was standing