Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [374]
His grandfather’s mouth widened in a humorless smile that showed the yellowed stump of a lone broken tooth in the lower jaw.
“No?” he said. “Will ye underthand a bargain?” He shot a quick look at me, seeing nothing more than another counter to be put into play. “Your oath for your wife’s honor, how’s that?”
Jamie laughed out loud, still holding the teeth in one hand.
“Oh, aye? D’ye mean to force her before my eyes, then, Grandsire?” He lounged back contemptuously, hand on the table. “Go ahead, and when she’s done wi’ ye, I’ll send Aunt Frances up to sweep up the pieces.”
His grandfather looked him over calmly. “Not I, lad.” One side of the toothless mouth rose in a lopsided smile as he turned his head to look at me. “Though I’ve taken my pleasure with worthe.” The cold malice in the dark eyes made me want to pull my cloak over my breasts in protection; unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing one.
“How many men are there in Beaufort, Jamie? How many, who’d be of a mind to put your thathenach wench to the only uth thee’s good for? You cannot guard her night and day.”
Jamie straightened slowly, the great shadow echoing his movements on the wall. He stared down at his grandfather with no expression on his face.
“Oh, I think I needna worry, Grandsire,” he said softly. “For my wife’s a rare woman. A wisewoman, ye ken. A white lady, like Dame Aliset.”
I had never heard of Dame Aliset, but Lord Lovat plainly had; his head jerked round to stare at me, eyes sprung wide with shocked alarm. His mouth drooped open, but before he could speak, Jamie had gone on, an undercurrent of malice clearly audible in his smooth speech.
“The man that takes her in unholy embrace will have his privates blasted like a frostbitten apple,” he said, with relish, “and his soul will burn forever in hell.” He bared his teeth at his grandfather, and drew back his hand. “Like this.” The beechwood teeth landed in the midst of the fire with a plop, and at once began to sizzle.
41
THE SEER’S CURSE
Most of the Lowland Scots had gone over to Presbyterianism in the two centuries before. Some of the Highland clans had gone with them, but others, like the Frasers and MacKenzies, had kept their Catholic faith. Especially the Frasers, with their strong family ties to Catholic France.
There was a small chapel in Beaufort Castle, to serve the devotional uses of the Earl and his family, but Beauly Priory, ruined as it was, remained the burying place of the Lovats, and the floor of the open-roofed chancel was paved thick with the flat tombstones of those who lay under them.
It was a peaceful place, and I walked there sometimes, in spite of the cold, blustery weather. I had no idea whether Old Simon had meant his threat against me, or whether Jamie’s comparing me to Dame Aliset—who turned out to be a legendary “white woman” or healer, the Scottish equivalent of La Dame Blanche—was sufficient to put a stop to that threat. But I thought that no one was likely to accost me among the tombs of extinct Frasers.
One afternoon, a few days after the scene in the study, I walked through a gap in the ruined Priory wall and found that for once, I didn’t have it to myself. The tall woman I had seen outside Lovat’s study was there, leaning against one of the red-stone tombs, arms folded about her for warmth, long legs thrust out like a stork.
I made to turn aside, but she saw me, and motioned me to join her.
“You’ll be my lady Broch Tuarach?” she said, though there was no more than a hint of question in her soft Highland voice.
“I am. And you’re…Maisri?”
A small smile lit her face. She had a most intriguing face, slightly asymmetrical, like a Modigliani painting, and long black hair that flowed loose around her shoulders, streaked with white, though she was plainly still young. A seer, hm? I thought she looked the part.
“Aye, I have the Sight,” she said, the smile widening a bit on her lopsided mouth.
“Do mind-reading, too, do you?” I asked.
She laughed, the sound vanishing on the wind that moaned through the ruined walls.
“No, lady. But I do read