Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [433]
Brianna dropped her gaze to the yarn in her hand, and with a quick, sharp gesture, snapped it. Leaving the loose end to flap from the spindle, she got up and crossed the room, sitting down at the table with her back to us.
“I’m sorry, lass,” Jamie said, more quietly. He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, gingerly, as though she might bite him.
She stiffened slightly, but didn’t pull away. After a moment, she reached up and took his hand, squeezing it lightly, then putting it aside.
“I see,” she said. “Thank you, Da.” She sat, eyes fixed on the flames, her face and figure utterly still, but managing to radiate complete desolation. I put my hands on her shoulders, rubbing gently, but she felt like a wax manikin under my fingers—not resisting but not acknowledging the touch.
Jamie studied her for a moment, frowning, and glanced at me. Then, with an air of decision, he got up, reached to the shelf, brought down his inkhorn and quill jar, and set them on the table with a clank.
“Here’s a thought,” he said firmly. “Let us draw up a broadsheet, here, and I will take it to Gillette in Wilmington. He can print it up, and Ian and the Lindsey lads will take the copies up and down the coast, from Charleston to Jamestown. It may be that someone’s not kent Wakefield, not hearing his name, but they’ll maybe know him by his looks.”
He shook ink powder made of iron and oak gall into the stained half-gourd he used as a well, and poured a little water from the pitcher, using the shaft of a quill to stir the ink. He smiled at Brianna, and took a sheet of paper from the drawer.
“Now, then, lass, how is this man of yours to look at?”
The suggestion of action had brought a spark of life back to Brianna’s face. She sat up straighter, and a current of energy flowed up her spine, into my fingers.
“Tall,” she said. “Nearly as tall as you, Da. People would notice; they always look at you. He has black hair, and green eyes—bright green; it’s one of the first things you notice about him, isn’t it, Mama?”
Ian gave a small start, and looked up from his grooming.
“Yes,” I said, sitting down on the bench next to Brianna. “But you can maybe do better than just the written description. Bree’s a good hand with a likeness,” I explained to Jamie. “Can you draw Roger from memory, do you think, Bree?”
“Yes!” She reached for the quill, eager to try. “Yes, I’m sure I can—I’ve drawn him before.”
Jamie surrendered the quill and paper, the vertical lines between his brows showing in a slight frown.
“Can the printer work from an ink sketch?” I asked, seeing it.
“Oh—aye, I expect so. It’s no great matter to make a woodblock, if the lines are clear.” He spoke abstractedly, eyes fixed on the paper in front of Brianna.
Ian pushed Rollo’s head off his knee and came to stand by the table, looking over Bree’s shoulder in what seemed a rather exaggerated curiosity.
Lower lip fixed between her teeth, she drew clean and swiftly. High forehead, with a thick lock of black hair that rose from an invisible cowlick, then dipped almost to the strongly marked black brows. She drew him in profile; a bold nose, not quite beaky, a clean-lined, sensitive mouth and a wide, slanted jaw. Thick-lashed eyes, deepset, with lines of good humor marking a strong, appealing face. She added a neat, flat ear, then turned her attention to the elegant curve of the skull, drawing thick, wavy dark hair pulled back in a short tail.
Ian made a small, strangled noise in his throat.
“Are you all right, Ian?” I looked up at him, but he wasn’t looking at the drawing—he was looking across the table, at Jamie. He was wearing a glazed sort of expression, like a pig on a spit.
I turned, to find precisely the same expression on Jamie’s face.
“What on earth is the matter?” I asked.
“Oh … nothing.” The muscles of his throat moved in a convulsive swallow. The corner of his mouth twitched, and twitched again, as though he couldn’t control