Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [263]
I recognized young Rabbie MacNab, and deduced that the woman must be his mother, Mary. The bustle and shuffle of horses, bundles and mattresses precluded much conversation, but I had time for a quick hug of greeting with Jenny. She smelled of cinnamon and honey and the clean sweat of exertion, with an undertone of baby-scent, that paradoxical smell composed of spit-up milk, soft feces, and the ultimate cleanliness of fresh, smooth skin.
We clung together for a moment, hugging tight, remembering our last embrace, when we had parted on the edge of a night-dark wood—me to go in search of Jamie, she to return to a newborn daughter.
“How’s little Maggie?” I asked, breaking away at last.
Jenny made a face, wryness mingled with pride. “She’s just walking, and the terror o’ the house.” She glanced up the empty road. “Met Ian, did ye?”
“Yes, Jamie, Murtagh, and Fergus went with him to find the sheep.”
“Better them than us,” she said, with a quick gesture toward the sky. “It’s coming on to rain any minute. Let Rabbie stable the horses and you come lend a hand wi’ the mattresses, or we’ll all sleep wet tonight.”
A frenzy of activity ensued, but when the rain came, Jenny and I were snug in the parlor, undoing the parcels we had brought from France, and admiring the size and precocity of wee Maggie, a sprightly miss of some ten months, with round blue eyes and a head of strawberry fuzz, and her elder brother, Young Jamie, a sturdy almost-four-year-old. The impending arrival was no more than a tiny bulge beneath their mother’s apron, but I saw her hand rest tenderly there from time to time, and felt a small pang to see it.
“You mentioned Fergus,” Jenny said, as we talked. “Who’s that?”
“Oh, Fergus? He’s—well, he’s—” I hesitated, not sure quite how to describe Fergus. A pickpocket’s prospects for employment on a farm seemed limited. “He’s Jamie’s,” I said at last.
“Oh, aye? Well, I suppose he can sleep in the stable,” said Jenny, resigned. “Speaking of Jamie”—she glanced at the window, where the rain was streaming down—“I hope they find those sheep soon. I’ve a good dinner planned, and I dinna want it to spoil with keeping.”
In fact, darkness had fallen, and Mary MacNab had laid the table before the men returned. I watched her at her work; a small, fine-boned woman with dark-brown hair and a faintly worried look that faded into a smile when Rabbie returned from the stables and went to the kitchen, hungrily asking when dinner would be.
“When the men are back, mo luaidh,” she said, “Ye know that. Go and wash, so you’ll be ready.”
When the men finally did appear, they seemed a good deal more in need of a wash than did Rabbie. Rain-soaked, draggled, and muddy to the knees, they trailed slowly into the parlor. Ian unwound the wet plaid from his shoulders and hung it over the firescreen, where it dripped and steamed in the heat of the fire. Fergus, worn out by his abrupt introduction to farm life, simply sat down where he was and stared numbly at the floor between his legs.
Jenny looked up at the brother she had not seen for nearly a year. Glancing from his rain-drenched hair to his mud-crusted feet, she pointed to the door.
“Outside, and off wi’ your boots,” she said firmly. “And if ye’ve been in the high field, remember to piss on the doorposts on your way back in. That’s how ye keep a ghost from comin’ in the house,” she explained to me in a lowered tone, with a quick look at the door through which Mary MacNab had disappeared to fetch the dinner.
Jamie, slumped into a chair, opened one eye and gave his sister a dark-blue look.
“I land in Scotland near dead wi’ the crossing, ride for four days over the hills to get here, and when I arrive, I canna even come in the house for a drop to wet my parched throat; instead I’m off through the mud, huntin’ lost sheep. And