Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [302]
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In fact, I didn’t return to the tent. I couldn’t bear the thought of its stifling enclosure; my chest felt tight and I needed air.
I found it on the crest of a small rise, just beyond the tent. I stumbled to a stop in a small open space, flung myself full-length on the ground, and put both arms over my head. I didn’t want to hear the faintest echo of the drama’s final act, down behind me by the fire.
The rough grass beneath me was cold on bare skin, and I hunched to wrap the cloak around me. Cocooned and insulated, I lay quiet, listening to the pounding of my heart, waiting for the turmoil inside me to calm.
Sometime later, I heard men passing by in small groups of four or five, returning to their sleeping spots. Muffled by folds of cloth, I couldn’t distinguish their words, but they sounded subdued, perhaps a little awed. Some time passed before I realized that he was there. He didn’t speak or make a noise, but I suddenly knew that he was nearby. When I rolled over and sat up, I could see his bulk shadowed on a stone, head resting on forearms, folded across his knees.
Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.
“Are you all right?” I asked, after a moment’s pause, voice neutral as I could make it.
“Aye, I’ll do.” He unfolded himself slowly, and stretched, moving gingerly, with a deep sigh.
“I’m sorry for your gown,” he said, a minute later. I realized that he could see my bare flesh shining dim-white in the darkness, and pulled the edges of my cloak sharply together.
“Oh, for the gown?” I said, more than a slight edge to my voice.
He sighed again. “Aye, and for the rest of it, too.” He paused, then said, “I thought perhaps ye might be willing to sacrifice your modesty to prevent my havin’ to damage the lad, but under the circumstances, I hadna time to ask your permission. If I was wrong, then I’ll ask your pardon, lady.”
“You mean you would have tortured him further?”
He was irritated, and didn’t trouble to hide it. “Torture, forbye! I didna hurt the lad.”
I drew the folds of my cloak more tightly around me. “Oh, you don’t consider breaking his arm and branding him with a hot knife as hurting him, then?”
“No, I don’t.” He scooted across the few feet of grass between us, and grasped me by the elbow, pulling me around to face him. “Listen to me. He broke his own silly arm, trying to force his way out of an unbreakable lock. He’s brave as any man I’ve got, but he’s no experience at hand-to-hand fighting.”
“And the knife?”
Jamie snorted. “Tcha! He’s a small sore spot under one ear, that won’t pain him much past dinner tomorrow. I expect it hurt a bit, but I meant to scare him, not wound him.”
“Oh.” I pulled away and turned back to the dark wood, looking for our tent. His voice followed me.
“I could have broken him, Sassenach. It would have been messy, though, and likely permanent. I’d rather not use such means if I dinna have to. Mind ye, Sassenach”—his voice reached me from the shadows, holding a note of warning—“sometime I may have to. I had to know where his fellows were, their arms and the rest of it. I couldna scare him into it; it was trick him or break him.”
“He said you couldn’t do anything that would make him talk.”
Jamie’s voice was weary. “Christ, Sassenach, of course I could. Ye can break anyone if you’re prepared to hurt them enough. I know that, if anyone does.”
“Yes,” I said quietly, “I suppose you do.”
Neither of us moved for a time, nor spoke. I could hear the murmurs of men bedding down for the night, the occasional stamp of boots on hard earth and the rustle of leaves heaped up as a barrier against the autumn chill. My eyes had adjusted sufficiently to the dark that I could now see the outline of our tent, some thirty feet away in the shelter of a big larch. I could see Jamie, too, his figure black against the lighter darkness of the night.
“All right,” I said at last. “All right. Given the choice between what you did, and what you might have done…yes, all right.”
“Thank you.