A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [629]
Aidan and Orrie, roused in the dark and dragged through the cold, had promptly crawled into Jemmy’s trundle, and the three little boys were sound asleep, curled up like hedgehogs beneath their quilt. Amy was helping Bree with the breakfast; savory smells of porridge and bacon rose from the hearth.
“Is all well, ma’am?” Amy hurried over to take the big bundle I had brought—this contained my medical chest, the more scarce and valuable herbs from my surgery—and the sealed jar with the latest shipment of white phosphorus that Lord John had sent as a farewell present to Brianna.
“It is,” I assured her, setting Adso’s basket on the floor. I yawned, and eyed the bed wistfully, but set about to stow my chest in the lean-to pantry, where the children wouldn’t get into it. I put the phosphorus on the highest shelf, well back from the edge, and moved a large cheese in front of it, just in case.
Jamie had divested himself of cloak and rabbit ears, and handing Roger the fowling piece, shot pouch, and powder horn he’d carried, was stamping snow from his boots. I saw him glance round the cabin, counting heads, then, at last, draw a small breath, nodding to himself. All safe, so far.
The morning passed peacefully. Breakfast eaten and cleared away, Amy, Bree, and I settled down by the fire with an enormous heap of mending. Adso, tail still twitching with indignation, had taken up a place on a high shelf, from whence he glared at Rollo, who had taken over the trundle bed when the boys got out of it.
Aidan and Jemmy, each now the proud possessor of two vrooms, drove them over hearthstones, under the bed, and through our feet, but for the most part, refrained from punching each other or stepping on Orrie, who was sitting placidly under the table gnawing on a piece of toast. Jamie, Roger, and Ian took turns going outside to pace back and forth and stare at the Big House, deserted in the shelter of the snow-dusted spruce.
As Roger came back from one of these expeditions, Brianna looked up suddenly from the sock she was darning.
“What?” he said, seeing her face.
“Oh.” She had paused, needle halfway through the sock, and now looked down, completing her stitch. “Nothing. Just a—just a thought.”
The tone of her voice made Jamie, who had been frowning his way through a battered copy of Evelina, look up.
“What sort of thought was that, a nighean?” he asked, his radar quite as good as Roger’s.
“Er . . . well.” She bit her lower lip, but then blurted, “What if it’s this house?”
That froze everyone except the little boys, who continued crawling industriously around the room and over bed and table, screeching and vrooming.
“It could be, couldn’t it?” Bree looked round, from rooftree to hearth. “All the—the prophecy said”—with an awkward nod toward Amy McCallum—“was the home of James Fraser would burn. But this was your home, to start with. And it’s not like there’s a street address. It just said, On Fraser’s Ridge.”
Everyone stared at her, and she flushed deeply, dropping her eyes to the sock.
“I mean . . . it’s not like they—er, prophecies—like they’re always accurate, is it? They might have got the details wrong.”
Amy nodded seriously; evidently, vagueness in the matter of detail was an accepted characteristic of prophecies.
Roger cleared his throat explosively; Jamie and Ian exchanged glances, then looked at the fire, leaping on the hearth and the towering stack of bone-dry firewood next to it, the overflowing kindling basket . . . Everyone’s eyes turned expectantly to Jamie, whose face was a study in conflicting emotions.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “we could remove to Arch’s place.”
I began to count on my fingers: “You, me, Roger, Bree, Ian, Amy, Aidan, Orrie, Jemmy—plus Mr. and Mrs. Bug—is eleven people. In a one-room cabin that measures eight feet by ten?” I closed my fists and stared at him. “No one would have to set the place on fire; half of us would be sitting in the hearth already, well alight.”
“Mmphm. Well, then . . . the Christie place is empty.”
Amy’s eyes went round with horror,