Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [333]
“No,” Colum went on. “I did not know ye were in Edinburgh, in fact, until His Highness mentioned Jamie Fraser, and I asked.” A sudden smile grew on his face. “His Highness isn’t over fond of you, Mistress Claire. But I suppose ye knew that?”
I ignored this. “So you really are considering joining Prince Charles?”
Colum, Dougal, and Jamie all had the capacity for hiding what they were thinking when they chose to, but of the three, Colum was undoubtedly best at it. You’d get more from one of the carved heads on the fountain in the front courtyard, if he was feeling uncommunicative.
“I’ve come to see him” was all he said.
I sat a moment, wondering what, if anything, I could—or should—say in Charles’s behalf. Perhaps I would do better to leave it to Jamie. After all, the fact that Colum felt regret over nearly killing me by accident didn’t mean he was necessarily inclined to trust me. And while the fact that I was here, part of Charles’s entourage, surely argued against my being an English spy, it wasn’t impossible that I was.
I was still debating with myself when Colum suddenly put down his glass of brandy and looked straight at me.
“D’ye know how much of this I’ve had since morning?”
“No.” His hands were steady, calloused and roughened from his disease, but well kept. The reddened lids and slightly bloodshot eyes could as easily be from the rigors of travel as from drink. There was no slurring of speech, and no more than a certain deliberateness of movement to indicate that he wasn’t sober as a judge. But I had seen Colum drink before, and had a very respectful idea of his capacity.
He waved away Angus Mhor’s hand, hovering above the decanter. “Half a bottle. I’ll have finished it by tonight.”
“Ah.” So that was why I had been asked to bring my medicine box. I reached for it, where I had set it on the floor.
“If you’re needing that much brandy, there isn’t much that will help you besides some form of opium,” I said, flicking through my assortment of vials and jars. “I think I have some laudanum here, but I can get you some—”
“That isn’t what I want from you.” The tone of authority in his voice stopped me, and I looked up. If he could keep his thoughts to himself, he could also let them show when he chose.
“I could get laudanum easily enough,” he said. “I imagine there’s an apothecarist in the city who sells it—or poppy syrup, or undiluted opium, for that matter.”
I let the lid of the small chest fall shut and rested my hands on top of it. So he didn’t mean to waste away in a drugged state, leaving the leadership of the clan uncertain. And if it were not a temporary oblivion he sought from me, what else? A permanent one, perhaps. I knew Colum MacKenzie. And the clear, ruthless mind that had planned Geillis Duncan’s destruction would not hesitate over his own.
Now it was clear. He had come to see Charles Stuart, to make the final decision whether to commit the MacKenzies of Leoch to the Jacobite cause. Once committed, it would be Dougal who led the clan. And then…
“I was under the impression that suicide was considered a mortal sin,” I said.
“I imagine it is,” he said, undisturbed. “A sin of pride, at least, that I should choose a clean death at the time of my own devising, as best suits my purpose. I don’t, however, expect to suffer unduly for my sin, having put no credence in the existence of God since I was nineteen or so.”
It was quiet in the room, beyond the crackle of the fire and the muffled shouts of mock battle from below. I could hear his breathing, a slow and steady sigh.
“Why ask me?” I said. “You’re right, you could get laudanum where you liked, so long as you have money—and you do. Surely you know that enough of it will kill you. It’s an easy death, at that.”
“Too easy.” He shook his head. “I have had little to depend on in life, save my wits. I would keep them, even to meet death. As for ease…” He shifted slightly on the sofa, making no effort to hide his discomfort. “I shall have enough, presently.”
He nodded toward my box. “You shared Mrs. Duncan