Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [382]
“Supper,” Jamie said, closing his eyes in bliss as he inhaled the fragrant aromas. “God, I could eat a horse.” Melting ice dripped from the hem of his cloak, making wet spots on the wooden floor.
“I thought we were going to have to eat one of them,” I remarked, untying the strings of my cloak and brushing melting snow from my hair. “That poor creature you traded in Kirkinmill could barely hobble.”
The sound of our voices carried through the hall, and a door opened overhead, followed by the sound of small running feet and a cry of joy as the younger Jamie spotted his namesake below.
The racket of their reunion attracted the attention of the rest of the household, and before we knew it, we were enveloped in greetings and embraces as Jenny and the baby, little Maggie, Ian, Mrs. Crook, and assorted maidservants all rushed into the hall.
“It’s so good to see ye, my dearie!” Jenny said for the third time, standing on tiptoe to kiss Jamie. “Such news as we’ve heard of the army, we feared it would be months before ye came home.”
“Aye,” Ian said, “have ye brought any of the men back with ye, or is this only a visit?”
“Brought them back?” Arrested in the act of greeting his elder niece, Jamie stared at his brother-in-law, momentarily forgetting the little girl in his arms. Brought to a realization of her presence by her yanking his hair, he kissed her absently and handed her to me.
“What d’ye mean, Ian?” he demanded. “The men should all ha’ returned a month ago. Did some of them not come home?”
I held small Maggie tight, a dreadful feeling of foreboding coming over me as I watched the smile fade from Ian’s face.
“None of them came back, Jamie,” he said slowly, his long, good-humored face suddenly mirroring the grim expression he saw on Jamie’s. “We havena seen hide nor hair of any of them, since they marched awa’ with you.”
There was a shout from the dooryard outside, where Rabbie MacNab was putting away the horses. Jamie whirled, turned to the door and pushed it open, leaning out into the storm.
Over his shoulder, I could see a rider coming through the blowing snow. Visibility was too poor to make out his face, but that small, wiry figure, clinging monkeylike to the saddle, was unmistakable. “Fast as chain lightning,” Jamie had said, and clearly he was right; to make the trip from Beauly to Edinburgh, and then to Lallybroch in a week was a true feat of endurance. The coming rider was Murtagh, and it didn’t take Maisri’s gift of prophecy to tell us that the news he bore was ill.
42
REUNIONS
White with rage, Jamie flung back the door of Holyrood’s morning drawing room with a crash. Ewan Cameron leaped to his feet, upsetting the inkpot he had been using. Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, was seated across the table, but merely raised thick black brows at his half-nephew’s entrance.
“Damn!” Ewan said, scrabbling in his sleeve for a handkerchief to mop the spreading puddle with. “What’s the matter wi’ ye, Fraser? Oh, good morning to ye, Mistress Fraser,” he added, seeing me behind Jamie.
“Where’s His Highness?” Jamie demanded without preamble.
“Stirling Castle,” Cameron replied, failing to find the handkerchief he was searching for. “Got a cloth, Fraser?”
“If I did, I’d choke ye with it,” Jamie said. He had relaxed slightly, upon finding that Charles Stuart was not in residence, but the corners of his lips were still tight. “Why have ye let my men be kept in the Tolbooth? I’ve just seen them, kept in a place I wouldna let pigs live! Surely to God you could have done something!”
Cameron flushed at this, but his clear brown eyes met Jamie’s steadily.
“I tried,” he said. “I told his Highness that I was sure it was a mistake—aye, and the thirty of them ten miles from the army when they were found, some mistake!—and besides, even if they’d really meant to desert, he didna have such a strength of men that he could afford to do without them. That’s all that kept him from ordering the lot of them to be hanged