A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [678]
It was said calmly; after all, what else could she do? Not for the first time, I wondered just what other things the Bugs had done—or been forced to do—in the years after Culloden.
“Well, ye kept the gold out of King George’s hands, at least,” Jamie said, a certain note of bleakness in his voice. I thought he was thinking of the battle at Moore’s Creek Bridge. If Hugh MacDonald had had that gold, with which to buy powder and arms, the victory there would not have been so easily won. Nor would the Highlanders have been slaughtered—again—charging sword in hand into the mouths of cannon.
“Arch,” I said, when the silence threatened to become oppressive, “what, exactly, did you plan to do with it?”
He blinked at that, and looked down at the ingot.
“I . . . I meant at first only to see if it was true what I’d heard—that Hector Cameron had taken his part of the gold away with him, used it for his own ends. Then I found Hector dead, but ’twas clear from the way his wife lived that he had indeed taken it. So I wondered—was there any left?”
One hand crept up, massaging his withered throat.
“To tell ye the truth, mistress—I wished mostly to take it back from Jocasta Cameron. Having done that, though . . .” His voice died away, but then he shook himself.
“I am a man of my word, Seaumais mac Brian. I swore an oath to my chief—and kept it, ’til he died. I swore my oath to the King across the water”—James Stuart, he meant—“but he is dead, now, too. And then—I swore loyalty to George of England when I came upon this shore. So tell me now where my duty lies?”
“Ye swore an oath to me, too, Archibald mac Donagh,” Jamie said.
Arch smiled at that, a wry expression, but a smile nonetheless.
“And by reason of that oath, ye’re still alive, Seaumais mac Brian,” he said. “I could have killed ye last night in your sleep and been well awa’.”
Jamie’s mouth twisted in a look that expressed considerable doubt of this statement, but he forbore to contradict.
“You are free of your oath to me,” he said formally in Gaelic. “Take your life from my hand.” And inclining his head toward the ingot, said, “Take that—and go.”
Arch regarded him for a moment, unblinking. Then stooped, picked up the ingot, and went.
“You didn’t ask him where the gold is now,” I observed, watching the tall old man make his way round the cabin to rouse his wife.
“Ye think he would ha’ told me?” He stood up then, and stretched himself. Then he shook himself like a dog, and went to stand in the doorway of the shed, arms braced in the door frame, looking out. It was beginning to snow again.
“I see it’s not only the Frasers who are stubborn as rocks,” I said, coming to stand beside him. “Scotland lives, all right.” That made him laugh.
He put one arm around me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.
“Your hair smells of smoke, Sassenach,” he said softly.
“Everything smells of smoke,” I replied just as softly.
The burned ruins of the house were still too warm for snow to stick, but that would pass. If it went on snowing, by tomorrow the house would be obliterated, white as the rocks and trees. We, too—eventually.
I thought of Jocasta and Duncan, gone to the safety of Canada, the welcome of kinfolk. Where would the Bugs go—back to Scotland? For an instant, I longed to go, too. Away from loss and desolation. Home.
But then I remembered.
“So long as one hundred of us remain alive . . . ,” I quoted.
Jamie tilted his head against mine for a moment, then raised it and turned to look down at me.
“And when ye go to a sick man’s bed, Sassenach—to a wounding or a birth—how is it, then, that ye can rise from your own bed, even from mortal weariness, and go in the dark, alone? Why is it that ye willna wait, that ye dinna say no, ever? Why is it that ye willna forbear, even when ye know the case to be hopeless?”
“I can’t.” I kept my gaze on the ruin of the house, its ashes growing cold before my eyes. I knew what he meant, the unwelcome truth he would force me to speak—but the