Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [126]
The boat had drifted halfway round, so that the drooping branch hung now between us. There was a small snort from the darkness behind the leaves.
“Blessed are the merciful,” he said, “for they shall find mercy. Byrnes wasn’t, and he didn’t. And as for me, once God had made his opinion of the man known, I didna think it right to interfere.”
“You think God gave him tetanus?”
“I canna think anyone else would have the imagination for it. Besides,” he went on, logically, “where else would ye look for justice?”
I searched for words, and failed to find any. Giving up, I returned to the only possible point of argument. I felt a little sick.
“You ought to have told me. Even if you didn’t think I could help, it wasn’t your business to decide—”
“I didna want ye to go.” His voice was still quiet, but there was a note of steel in it now.
“I know you didn’t! But it doesn’t matter whether you thought Byrnes deserved to suffer or—”
“Not for him!” The boat rocked suddenly as he moved, and I grasped the sides to keep my balance. He spoke violently.
“I didna care a fig whether Byrnes died easy or hard, but I’m no a monster of cruelty! I didna keep you from him to make him suffer; I kept ye away to protect you.”
I was relieved to hear this, but increasingly angry as the truth of what he’d done dawned on me.
“It wasn’t your business to decide that. If I’m not your conscience, it isn’t up to you to be mine!” I brushed angrily at the screen of willow fronds between us, trying to see him.
Suddenly a hand shot through the leaves and grabbed my wrist.
“It’s up to me to keep ye safe!”
I tried to jerk away, but he had a tight grip on me, and he wasn’t letting go.
“I am not a young girl who needs protection, nor yet an idiot! If there’s some reason for me not to do something, then tell me and I’ll listen. But you can’t decide what I’m to do and where I’m to go without even consulting me—I won’t stand for that, and you bloody well know it!”
The boat lurched, and with a huge rustling of leaves, he popped his head through the willow, glaring.
“I am not trying to say where ye’ll go!”
“You decided where I mustn’t go, and that’s just as bad!” The willow leaves slid back over his shoulders as the boat moved, jarred by his violence, and we revolved slowly, coming out of the tree’s shadow.
He loomed in front of me, massive as the mill, his head and shoulders blotting out a good bit of the scenery behind him. The long, straight nose was an inch from mine, and his eyes had gone narrow. They were a dark enough blue to be black in this light, and looking into them at close range was most unnerving.
I blinked. He didn’t.
He had let go of my wrist when he came through the leaves. Now he took hold of my upper arms. I could feel the heat of his grip through the cloth. His hands were very big and very hard, making me suddenly aware of the fragility of my own bones in contrast. I am a violent man.
He’d shaken me a time or two before, and I hadn’t liked it. In case he had something of the sort in mind just now, I inserted a foot between his legs, and prepared to give him a swift knee where it would do most good.
“I was wrong,” he said.
Tensed for violence, I had actually started to jerk my foot up, when I heard what he had said. Before I could stop, he had clamped his legs tight together, trapping my knee between his thighs.
“I said I was wrong, Sassenach,” he repeated, a touch of impatience in his voice. “D’ye mind?”
“Ah … no,” I said, feeling a trifle sheepish. I wiggled my knee tentatively, but he kept his thighs squeezed tight together.
“You wouldn’t consider letting go of me, would you?” I said politely. My heart was still pounding.
“No, I wouldn’t. Are ye going to listen to me now?”
“I suppose so,” I said, still polite. “It doesn’t look as though I’m very busy at the moment.”
I was close enough to see