Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [360]
“Are ye all right?” she repeated, uncertainly.
“Fine!” said Brianna.
From the black air beyond the window a voice roared, “Brianna! I shall come for you! Do ye hear me! I will come!”
Her mistress made no answer, but strode to the window, seized the shutters and crashed them shut with a bang that made the room echo. Then she turned like a panther striking, and dashed the candlestick to the floor, plunging the room in suffocating dark.
Lizzie eased herself back into bed and lay frozen, afraid to move or speak. She could hear Brianna tearing off her clothes in silent frenzy, the hiss of indrawn breath punctuating the rustle of cloth and the stamp of bare feet on the wooden floor. Through the shutter, she heard outside the muffled sound of cursing, then nothing.
She had seen Brianna’s face for a moment in the light; white as paper and hard as bone, with the eyes black holes. Her gentle, kindly mistress had vanished like smoke, taken over by a deamhan, a she-devil. Lizzie was a town lass, born long after Culloden. She had never seen the wild clansmen of the glens, or a Highlander in the grip of blood fury—but she’d heard the auld stories, and now she knew them true. A person who looked like that might do anything at all.
She tried to breathe as though she were sleeping, but the air came through her mouth in strangled gasps. Brianna seemed not to notice, though; she walked about the room in quick, hard steps, poured water in the bowl and splashed it on her face, then slid between the quilts and lay flat, rigid as a board.
Summoning all her courage, she turned her head toward her mistress.
“Are ye … all right, a bann-sielbheadair?” she asked, in a voice so low that her mistress could pretend not to have heard it if she wanted.
For a moment she thought that Brianna meant to ignore her. Then, “Yes” came the answer, in a voice so flat and expressionless, it didn’t sound like Brianna’s at all. “Go to sleep.”
She didn’t, of course. A body didn’t sleep, lying next to someone who might turn into a ursiq next thing. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark again, but she was afraid to look, in case the red hair lying on the pillow next to her should suddenly be a mane, and the delicate straight nose changed to a curved, soft muzzle, over teeth that would rend and devour.
It was a few moments before Lizzie realized that her mistress was trembling. Not weeping; there was no sound—but shaking hard enough to make the bedclothes rustle.
Fool, she scolded herself. It’s no but your friend and your lady, with something terrible that’s happened to her—and you lyin’ here sniveling over fancies!
On impulse she rolled toward Brianna, reaching for the other girl’s hand.
“Bree,” she said softly. “Can I be helpin’ ye at all, then?”
Brianna’s hand curled round hers and squeezed, quick and hard, then let go.
“No,” Brianna said, very softly. “Go to sleep, Lizzie; everything will be all right.”
Lizzie took leave to doubt that, but said no more, lying back down and breathing quietly. It was a very long time, but at last Brianna’s long body shuddered gently and relaxed into sleep. Lizzie couldn’t sleep—with the fever gone again, she was alert and restless. The single quilt lay heavy and damp on her, and with the shutters closed, the air in the tiny room was like breathing hot molasses.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Lizzie slid quietly out of bed. Keeping an ear out for any sound from the bed, she crept to the window and eased open the shutters.
The air was still hot and muggy outside, but it had begun to move a little; the dawn breeze was coming, with the turn of the air from sea to land. It was still dark, but the sky had begun to lighten as well; she could make out the line of the road below, blessedly empty.
Not knowing what else to do, she did what she always did when troubled or confused; set about to make things tidy. Moving quietly about the room, she picked up the clothes Brianna had so violently discarded, and shook them out.
They were filthy; covered with streaks of leaf stain and dirt, riddled