Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [332]
“Ah,” Colum said again, staring thoughtfully at my flushed countenance. “I thought perhaps that was the way of it. Tell me,” he continued, raising one dark brow, “if a mere apology strikes you as inadequate, will ye have vengeance instead?”
“Vengeance?” I must have looked startled at the idea, for he smiled faintly, though without humor.
“Aye. The lass was wed six months ago, to Hugh MacKenzie of Muldaur, one of my tacksmen. He’ll do with her as I say, and ye want her punished. What will ye have me do?”
I blinked, taken aback by his offer. He appeared in no hurry for an answer; he sat quietly, sipping the fresh glass of brandy that Angus Mhor poured for him. He wasn’t staring at me, but I got up and moved away toward the windows, wanting to be alone for a moment.
The walls here were five feet thick; by leaning forward into the deep window embrasure I could assure myself of privacy. The bright sun illuminated the fine blond hairs on my forearms as I rested them on the sill. It made me think of the thieves’ hole, that damp, reeking pit, and the single bar of sunlight that had shone through an opening above, making the dark hole below seem that much more like a grave by contrast.
I had spent my first day there in cold and dirt, full of stunned disbelief; the second in shivering misery and growing fear as I discovered the full extent of Geillis Duncan’s treachery and Colum’s measures against it. And on the third day, they had taken me to trial. And I had stood, filled with shame and terror, under the clouds of a lowering autumn sky, feeling the jaws of Colum’s trap close round me, sprung by a word from the girl Laoghaire.
Laoghaire. Fair-skinned and blue-eyed, with a round, pretty face, but nothing much to distinguish her from the other girls at Leoch. I had thought about her—in the pit with Geillis Duncan, I had had time to think of a lot of things. But furious and terrified as I had been, furious as I remained, I couldn’t, either then or now, bring myself to see her as intrinsically evil.
“She was only sixteen, for God’s sake!”
“Old enough to marry,” said a sardonic voice behind me, and I realized that I had spoken aloud.
“Yes, she wanted Jamie,” I said, turning around. Colum was still sitting on the sofa, stumpy legs covered with a rug. Angus Mhor stood silent behind him, heavy-lidded eyes fixed on his master. “Perhaps she thought she loved him.”
Men were drilling in the courtyard, amid shouts and clashing of arms. The sun glanced off the metal of swords and muskets, the brass studding of targes—and off the red-gold of Jamie’s hair, flying in the breeze as he wiped a hand across his face, flushed and sweating from the exercise, laughing at one of Murtagh’s deadpan remarks.
I had perhaps done Laoghaire an injustice, after all, in assuming her feelings to be less than my own. Whether she had acted from immature spite or from a true passion, I could never know. In either case, she had failed. I had survived. And Jamie was mine. As I watched, he rucked up his kilt and casually scratched his bottom, the sunlight catching the reddish-gold fuzz that softened the iron-hard curve of his thigh. I smiled, and went back to my seat near Colum.
“I’ll take the apology,” I said.
He nodded, gray eyes thoughtful.
“You’ve a belief in mercy, then, Mistress?”
“More in justice,” I said. “Speaking of which, I don’t imagine you traveled all the way from Leoch to Edinburgh merely to apologize to me. It must have been a hellish journey.”
“Aye, it was.” The huge, silent bulk of Angus Mhor shifted an inch or two behind him, and the massive head bent toward his laird in eloquent witness. Colum sensed the movement and raised a hand briefly—it’s all right,