Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [139]
“She has someone,” he said shortly. “You need not trouble yourself.” He turned away, and rubbed a hand over his face, scrubbing violently as though to wipe away all feeling. “Go to my office,” he said, voice half muffled. “You must make a statement—see the clerk. Go!”
The office was empty, the clerk no doubt gone in search of his own luncheon. I sat down to wait, but Jamie prowled restlessly around the small room, eyes flitting from the regimental banners on the wall to the drawered cabinet in the corner behind the desk.
“Damn the luck,” he said, half to himself. “It would have to be Murchison.”
“I take it you know the Sergeant well?”
He glanced at me with a wry quirk of the lips.
“Well enough. He was in the garrison at Ardsmuir prison.”
“I see.” No love lost between them, then. It was close in the little office; I blotted a trickle of sweat that ran down between my breasts. “What do you suppose he’s doing here?”
“That much I ken; he was sent in charge of the prisoners when they were transported to be sold. I imagine the Crown saw no good reason to bring him back to England, when there was need of soldiers here—that would have been during the war wi’ the French, aye?”
“What was that business about his brother?”
He snorted, a brief, humorless sound.
“There were two o’ them—twins. Wee Billy and Wee Bobby, we called them. Alike as peas, and not only in looks.”
He paused, marshaling memories. He didn’t often speak of his time in Ardsmuir, and I could see the shadows of it pass across his face.
“Ye’ll maybe know the sort of man is decent enough on his own, but get him wi’ others like him, and they might as well be wolves?”
“Bit hard on the wolves,” I said, smiling. “Think of Rollo. But yes, I know what you mean.”
“Pigs, then. But beasts, when they’re together. There’s no lack of such men in any army; it’s why armies work—men will do terrible things in a mob, that they wouldna dream of on their own.”
“And the Murchisons were never on their own?” I asked slowly.
He gave me a slight nod of acknowledgment.
“Aye, that’s it. There were the two of them, always. And what one might scruple at, the other would not. And of course, when it came to trouble—why, there was no saying which was to blame, was there?”
He was still prowling, restless as a caged panther. He paused by the window, looking out.
“I—the prisoners—we might complain of ill-treatment, but the officers couldna discipline both for the sins of one, and a man seldom knew which Murchison it was that had him on the ground wi’ a boot in the ribs, or which it was that hung him from a hook by his fetters and left him so until he’d soil himself for the amusement of the garrison.”
His eyes were fixed on something outside, his expression unguarded. He’d spoken of beasts; I could see that the memories had roused one. His eyes caught the light from the window, gem-blue and unblinking.
“Are both of them here?” I asked, as much to break that unnerving stare as because I wanted to know.
It worked; he turned abruptly from the window.
“No,” he said, shortly. “This is Billy. Wee Bobby died at Ardsmuir.” His two stiff fingers twitched against the fabric of his kilt.
It had occurred to me briefly to wonder why he had worn his kilt this morning, instead of changing to breeks; the crimson tartan might be quite literally a red flag to a bull, flaunted thus before an English soldier. Now I knew.
They’d taken it from him once before, thinking to take with it pride and manhood. They had failed in that attempt, and he meant to underscore that failure, whether it was sense to do so or not. Sense had little to do with the sort of stubborn pride that could survive years of such insult—and while he had more than his share of both, I could see that pride was well in the ascendancy at present.
“From the Sergeant’s reactions, I suppose we may assume it wasn’t natural causes?” I asked.
“No,” he said. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders slightly, easing them inside the tight coat.
“They marched us out to the stone quarry each