Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [285]
My fingers grew icy as I read, and I was conscious of a feeling of terror so acute that it was a real effort to keep on breathing. My ears rang with pounding blood, and there were dark spots before my eyes.
At the bottom of the sheet were signed the names of the Scottish chieftains who had declared their loyalty to the world, and staked their lives and reputations on the success of Charles Stuart. Clanranald was there, and Glengarry. Stewart of Appin, Alexander MacDonald of Keppoch, Angus MacDonald of Scotus.
And at the bottom of the list was written, “James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, of Broch Tuarach.”
“Jesus bloody fucking Christ,” I whispered, wishing there were something stronger I could say, as a form of relief. “The filthy bastard’s signed your name to it!”
Jamie, still pale and tight-faced, was beginning to recover.
“Aye, he has,” he said briefly. His hand snaked out for the unopened letter remaining on the table—a heavy vellum, with the Stuart crest showing plainly in the wax seal. Jamie ripped the letter open impatiently, tearing the paper. He read it quickly, then dropped it on the table as though it burned his hands.
“An apology,” he said hoarsely. “For lacking the time to send me the document, in order that I might sign it myself. And his gratitude, for my loyal support. Jesus, Claire! What am I going to do?”
It was a cry from the heart, and one to which I had no answer. I watched helplessly as he sank onto a hassock and sat staring, rigid, at the fire.
Jenny, transfixed by all this drama, moved now to take up the letters and the broadsheet. She read them over carefully, her lips moving slightly as she did so, then set them gently down on the polished tabletop. She looked at them, frowning, then crossed to her brother, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Jamie,” she said. Her face was very pale. “There’s only the one thing ye can do, my dearie. Ye must go and fight for Charles Stuart. Ye must help him win.”
The truth of her words penetrated slowly through the layers of shock that wrapped me. The publication of this Bond of Association branded those who signed it as rebels, and as traitors to the English crown. It didn’t matter now how Charles had managed, or where he had gotten the funds to begin; he was well and truly launched on the seas of rebellion, and Jamie—and I—were launched with him, willy-nilly. There was, as Jenny had said, no choice.
My eye caught Charles’s letter, where it had fallen from Jamie’s hand. “…Though there be manie who tell me I am foolish to embark in this werk without the support of Louis—or at least of his bankes!—I will entertain no notion at all of returning to that place from whence I come,” it read. “Rejoice with me, my deare frend, for I am come Home.”
35
MOONLIGHT
As the preparations for leaving went forward, a current of excitement and speculation ran all through the estate. Weapons hoarded since the Rising of the ’15 were excavated from thatch and hayrick and hearth, burnished and sharpened. Men met in passing and paused to talk in earnest groups, heads together under the hot August sun. And the women grew quiet, watching them.
Jenny shared with her brother the capacity to be opaque, to give no clue of what she was thinking. Transparent as a pane of glass myself, I rather envied this ability. So, when she asked me one morning if I would fetch Jamie to her in the brewhouse, I had no notion of what she might want with him.
Jamie stepped in behind me and stood just within the door of the brewhouse, waiting as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. He took a deep breath, inhaling the bitter, damp pungency with evident enjoyment.
“Ahh,” he said, sighing dreamily. “I could get drunk in here just by breathing.”
“Weel, hold your breath, then, for a moment, for I need ye sober,” his sister advised.
He obligingly inflated his lungs and puffed out his cheeks, waiting. Jenny poked him briskly in the stomach with the handle of her masher, making him double over in an explosion of breath.
“Clown,” she said, without