Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [274]
“Yes,” I said. “At least he’s not squirming, so he must have. It’s rather like holding a large ham.”
Jamie laughed, then was still himself. I could feel the hardness of his arm just brushing mine, and the warmth of his body through the folds of plaid and arisaid.
A night breeze brushed a strand of hair across my face. I brushed it back, and discovered that small Jamie was right; my hands smelled of leeks and butter, and the starchy smell of cut potatoes. Asleep, he was a dead weight, and while holding him was comforting, he was cutting off the circulation in my left leg. I twisted a bit, intending to lay him across my lap.
“Don’t move, Sassenach,” Jamie’s voice came softly, next to me. “Just for a moment, mo duinne—be still.”
I obligingly froze, until he touched me on the shoulder.
“That’s all right, Sassenach,” he said, with a smile in his voice. “It’s only that ye looked so beautiful, wi’ the fire on your face, and your hair waving in the wind. I wanted to remember it.”
I turned to face him, then, and smiled at him, across the body of the child. The night was dark and cold, alive with people all around, but there was nothing where we sat but light and warmth—and each other.
33
THY BROTHER’S KEEPER
Fergus, after an initial period of silent watchfulness from corners, had become a part of the household, taking on the official position of stable-lad, along with young Rabbie MacNab.
While Rabbie was a year or two younger than Fergus, he was as big as the slight French lad, and they quickly became inseparable friends, except on the occasions when they argued—which was two or three times a day—and then attempted to kill each other. After a fight one morning had escalated into a punching, kicking, fist-swinging brawl that rolled through the dairy shed and spilled two pannikins of cream set out to sour, Jamie took a hand.
With an air of long-suffering grimness, he had taken each miscreant by the scruff of a skinny neck, and removed them to the privacy of the barn, where, I assumed, he overcame any lingering scruples he might have had about the administration of physical retribution. He strode out of the barn, shaking his head and buckling his belt back on, and left with Ian to ride up the valley to Broch Mordha. The boys had emerged some time later, substantially subdued and—united in tribulation—once more the best of friends.
Sufficiently subdued, in fact, to allow young Jamie to tag along with them as they did their chores. As I glanced out the window later in the morning, I saw the three of them playing in the dooryard with a ball made of rags. It was a cold, misty day, and the boys’ breath rose in soft clouds as they galloped and shouted.
“Nice sturdy little lad you’ve got there,” I remarked to Jenny, who was sorting through her mending basket in search of a button. She glanced up, saw what I was looking at, and smiled.
“Oh, aye, wee Jamie’s a dear lad.” She came to join me by the window, peering out at the game below.
“He’s the spit of his da,” she remarked fondly, “but he’s going to be a good bit wider through the shoulder, I think. He’ll maybe be the size of his uncle; see those legs?” I thought she was probably right; while small Jamie, nearly four, still had the chunky roundness of a toddler, his legs were long, and the small back was wide and flat with muscle. He had the long, graceful bones of his uncle, and the same air his larger namesake projected, of being composed of something altogether tougher and springier than mere flesh.
I watched the little boy pounce on the ball, scoop it up with a deft snatch, and throw it hard enough to sail past the head of Rabbie MacNab, who raced off, shouting, to retrieve it.
“Something else is like his uncle,” I said. “I think he’s maybe going to be left-handed, too.”
“Oh, God!” said Jenny, brow furrowed as she peered at her offspring. “I hope not, but you’re maybe right.” She shook her head, sighing.
“Lord, when I think of the trouble poor Jamie had, from being caurry-fisted! Everybody tried to break