Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [345]
“I’m fair starved,” he said. “Dancing gives ye a terrible appetite, and the talking’s worse.” He popped a whole cake into his mouth at once, chewed it briefly, and reached for another.
I saw Prince Charles bend over the slumped form of the guest of honor and shake him by the shoulder, to little effect. The Spanish envoy’s head was fallen back and his mouth was slack beneath the drooping mustache. His Highness stood, rather unsteadily, and glanced about for help, but Sheridan and Tullibardine, both elderly gentlemen, had fallen asleep themselves, leaning companionably together like a couple of old village sots in lace and velvet.
“Maybe you’d better give His Highness a hand?” I suggested.
“Mmphm.”
Resigned, Jamie swallowed the rest of his cake, but before he could rise, I saw the younger Simpson, who had taken quick note of the situation, nudge his father in the ribs.
Senior advanced and bowed ceremoniously to Prince Charles, then, before the glazed prince could respond, the swordmakers had the Spanish envoy by wrists and ankles. With a heave of forge-toughened muscles, they lifted him from his seat, and bore him away, gently swinging him between them like some specimen of big game. They disappeared through the door at the far end of the hall, followed unsteadily by His Highness.
This rather unceremonious departure signaled the end of the ball.
The other guests began to relax and move about, the ladies disappearing into an anteroom to retrieve shawls and cloaks, the gentlemen standing about in small, impatient knots, exchanging complaints about the time the women were taking to make ready.
As we were housed in Holyrood, we left by the other door, at the north end of the gallery, going through the morning and evening drawing rooms to the main staircase.
The landing and the soaring stairwell were lined with tapestries, their figures dim and silvery in candlelight. And below them stood the giant form of Angus Mhor, his shadow huge on the wall, wavering like one of the tapestry figures as they shimmered in the draft.
“My master is dead,” he said.
* * *
“His Highness said,” Jamie reported, “that perhaps it was as well.” He spoke with a tone of sarcastic bitterness.
“Because of Dougal,” he added, seeing my shocked bewilderment at this statement. “Dougal has always been more than willing to join His Highness in the field. Now Colum’s gone, Dougal is chief. And so the MacKenzies of Leoch will march with the Highland army,” he said softly, “to victory—or not.”
The lines of grief and weariness were cut deep into his face, and he didn’t resist as I moved behind him and laid my hands on the broad swell of his shoulders. He made a small sound of incoherent relief as my fingertips pressed hard into the muscles at the base of his neck, and let his head fall forward, resting on his folded arms. He was seated before the table in our room, and piles of letters and dispatches lay neatly stacked around him. Amid the documents lay a small notebook, rather worn, bound in red morocco leather. Colum’s diary, which Jamie had taken from his uncle’s rooms in hopes that it would contain a recent entry confirming Colum’s decision not to support the Jacobite cause.
“Not that it would likely sway Dougal,” he had said, grimly thumbing the close-written pages, “but there’s nothing else to try.”
In the event, though, there had been nothing in Colum’s diary for the last three days, save one brief entry, clearly made upon his return from the churchyard the day before.
Met with young Jamie and his wife. Have made my peace with Ellen at last. And that was, of course, important—to Colum, to Jamie, and possibly to Ellen—but of little use in swaying the convictions of Dougal MacKenzie.
Jamie straightened up after a moment and turned to me. His eyes were dark with worry and resignation.
“What it means is that now we are committed to him, Claire—to Charles, I mean. There’s less