Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [327]
“Ye’re a stubborn lass, Morag,” the older woman declared, stepping boldly forward, “and if ye willna be asking for yourself, I shall do it for ye!”
The good-lady laid a broad hand on Roger’s arm and gave him a charming smile.
“And what might your name be, lad?”
“MacKenzie, ma’am,” Roger said respectfully, holding back a smile.
“Ah, MacKenzie, is it! Well, there, ye see, Morag, and belike he’ll be some kinsman of your man’s, and happy to do ye a service, at that!” The woman turned triumphantly to the girl, then swung back to let Roger have the full force of her personality.
“She’s suckling a wean, and dyin’ o’ thirst in the doin’ of it. A woman needs to drink when she’s giving suck, or her milk dries; everyone kens that weel enough. But the silly lass cannae bring herself to ask ye for a bittie more water. There’s nane here grudge it to her—is there?” she demanded rhetorically, turning round to glare at the other women in line. Not surprisingly, all the heads shook back and forth like clockwork toys.
It was getting dark, but Morag’s face was visibly pink. Lips pressed tight together, she accepted the brimming bucket of water with a brief bob of her head.
“I thank ye, Mr. MacKenzie,” she murmured. She didn’t look up until she had reached the hatchway—but then she stopped, and looked back over her shoulder at him, with a smile of such gratitude that he felt himself grow warm, in spite of the sharp evening wind that blew through his shirt and jacket.
He was sorry to see the water line finish and the emigrants go below, the hatch battened down over them for the night watches. He knew they told stories and sang songs to pass the time, and would have given much to hear them. Not only from curiosity, but from longing—what moved him was neither pity for their poverty nor thought of their uncertain future; it was envy of the sense of connection among them.
But the Captain, the crew, the passengers, even the all-important weather, occupied no more than a fragment of Roger’s thoughts. What he thought about, day and night, wet or dry, hungry or fed, was Brianna.
He went down to the mess when the signal came for supper, and ate without much noticing the contents of his trencher. His was the second watch; he went to his hammock after eating, choosing solitude and rest over the possibility of companionship on the forecastle.
Solitude was an illusion, of course. Swinging gently in his hammock, he could feel each twitch and turn of the man next to him, the sweating heat of sleeping flesh clammy against his own through the thick cotton mesh. Each man had eighteen inches of sleeping space to call his own, and Roger was uncomfortably aware that when he lay upon his back, his shoulders exceeded that allowance by a good two inches on either side.
After two nights of sleep interrupted by the bumps and muttered insults of his shipmates, he had swapped places and ended in the space next the bulkhead, where he would have only one companion to discommode. He learned to lie on one side, his face an inch or two from the wooden partition, back turned to his companions, and tune his ears to the sounds of the ship, blocking out the noises of the men around him.
A very musical thing was a ship—lines and hawsers singing in the wind, the timber knees creaking with each rise and fall, the faint thumps and murmurs on the far side of the bulkhead, in the dark recesses of the passengers’ hold in the steerage. He stared at the dark wood, lit by the shadows of the swinging lantern overhead, and began to re-create her, the lines of face and hair and body all vivid in the dark. Too vivid.
He could conjure her face without difficulty. What lay behind it was a good deal harder.
Rest was also an illusion. When she had gone through the stones, she had taken with her all peace of mind. He lived in a mixture of fear and anger, spiced with the hurt of betrayal, rubbed like pepper into the wounds. The same questions ran round and round inside his mind without answers, a snake chasing its tail.
Why had she gone?
What was she doing?
Why didn’t she tell