Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [370]
“It was me,” Marsali said proudly, clinging to the arm of her husband at the celebratory feast that followed the trial.
“You?” Jamie gave her an amused glance. “That fisted yon deputy in the face, ye mean?”
“Not my fist, my foot,” she corrected. “When the wicked salaud tried to drag me off the horse, I kicked him in the jaw. He’d never ha’ got me down,” she added, glowering at the memory, “save he snatched Germaine from me, so of course I had to go and get him.”
She petted the sleek blond head of the toddler who clung to her skirts, a piece of biscuit clutched in one grubby fist.
“I don’t quite understand,” Brianna said. “Did Mr. Berowne not want to admit that a woman hit him?”
“Ah, no,” Jamie said, pouring another cup of ale and handing it to her. “It was only Sergeant Murchison making a nuisance of himself.”
“Sergeant Murchison? That would be the army officer who was at the trial?” she asked. She took a small sip of the ale, for politeness’ sake. “The one who looks like a half-roasted pig?”
Her father grinned at this characterization.
“Aye, that’ll be the man. He’s a mislike of me,” he explained. “This wilna be the first time—or the last—that he’s tried such a trick to cripple me.”
“He could not hope to succeed with such a ridiculous charge,” Jocasta chimed in, leaning forward and reaching out a hand. Ulysses, standing by, moved the plate of bannocks the necessary inch. She took one, unerringly, and turned her disconcerting blind eyes toward Jamie.
“Was it really necessary for you to subvert Farquard Campbell?” she asked, disapproving.
“Aye, it was,” Jamie answered. Seeing Brianna’s confusion, he explained.
“Farquard Campbell is the usual justice of this district. If he hadna fallen ill so conveniently”—and here he grinned again, mischief dancing in his eyes—“the trial would have been held last week. That was their plan, aye? Murchison and Berowne. They meant to bring the charge, arrest Fergus, and force me down from the mountain in the midst of the harvest—and they succeeded in that much, damn them,” he added ruefully.
“But they counted on my not being able to obtain a copy of the grant from New Bern before the trial—as indeed I could not, had it been last week.” He gave Ian a smile, and the boy, who had ridden hellbent to New Bern to procure the document, blushed pink and buried his face in a bowl of punch.
“Farquard Campbell is a friend, Auntie,” Jamie said to Jocasta, “but ye ken as well as I that he’s a man of the law; it wouldna make a bit of difference that he knows the terms of my grant as well as I do; if I couldna produce the proof in court, he would feel himself forced to rule against me.
“And if he had,” he went on, returning to Brianna, “I should have been forced to appeal the verdict, which would mean Fergus being taken to prison in New Bern, and a new trial scheduled there. The end of it would have been the same—but it would have taken both Fergus and myself off the land for most of the harvest season, and cost me more in fees than the harvest will bring.”
He looked at Brianna over the rim of his cup, blue eyes suddenly serious.
“You’ll no be thinking me rich, I hope?” he asked.
“I hadn’t thought of it at all,” she replied, startled, and he smiled.
“That’s as well,” he said, “for while I’ve a good bit of land, there’s little of it under cultivation as yet; we’ve enough—barely—to seed the fields and feed ourselves, wi’ a bit left over for the cattle. And capable as your mother is”—the smile widened—“she canna bring in thirty acres of corn and barley by herself.” He set down his empty cup and stood up.
“Ian, will ye see to the supplies and drive up the wagon with Fergus and Marsali? The lass and I will go ahead, I think.” He glanced down at Brianna questioningly.
“Jocasta will care for your wee maid here. Ye dinna mind going so soon?”
“No,” she said, putting down her cup and standing up too. “Can we go today?”
I took down the bottles from the cupboard, one by one, uncorking one now and then to sniff at