Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [464]
“As it is, that may be what makes the difference.”
“What, Roger’s looks? Or yours?”
“The fact that more than one lady wants the bugger. Ian says his lassie says her aunt thinks it will make trouble to keep him; she’s thinking better to give him back to us than to have ill-feeling amongst the women over him.”
I rubbed my cold-reddened knuckles over my lips, trying to keep from laughing.
“Has the men’s Council any idea that some of the women are interested in Roger?”
“I dinna ken. Why?”
“Because if they knew, they’d give him to you for free.”
Jamie snorted at that, but gave me a reluctant lift of one eyebrow.
“Aye, maybe. I’ll have Ian mention the matter among the young men. It canna hurt.”
“You said the women wished you would offer something instead of whisky. Did you mention the opal to Acts Fast?”
He sat up straight at that, interested.
“Aye, I did. They couldna have been taken more aback had I pulled a snake from my sporran. They got verra excited—angry and fearful both, and I think they might well have done me harm, save I’d already mentioned the whisky.”
He reached into the breast of his coat and drew out the opal, dropping it into my hand.
“Best you take it, Sassenach. But I think you’ll maybe not want to show it to anyone.”
“How odd.” I looked down at the stone, its spiral petroglyph shimmering with color. “So it did mean something to them.”
“Oh, that it did,” he assured me. “I couldna say what, but whatever it was, they didna like it a bit. The war chief demanded to know where I’d got it, and I told them ye’d found it. That made them back off a bit, but they were like a kettle on the boil over it.”
“Why are you wanting me to take it?” The stone was warm from his body, and felt smooth and comfortable in my hand. Instinctively, my thumb ran round and round the spiraled carving.
“They were shocked when they saw it, as I said—and then angry. One or two of them made as though to strike me, but they held back. I watched for a bit, wi’ the stone in my hand, and I realized that they were afraid of it; they wouldna touch me while I held it.”
He reached out and closed my fist around the stone.
“Keep it by ye. If there should be danger, bring it out.”
“You’re more likely to be in danger than I am,” I protested, trying to hand it back.
He shook his head, though, the ends of his hair lifting in the wind.
“No, not now they ken about the whisky. They’d not harm me until they’ve heard where it is.”
“But why should I be in any danger?” The thought was disquieting; the women had been cautious but not hostile, and the men of the village had largely ignored me.
He frowned, and looked down toward the village. From here, little was visible save the outer palisades, with trails of smoke drifting above them from the unseen longhouses beyond.
“I canna say, Sassenach. Only that I have been a hunter—and I have been hunted. Ye ken how when something strange is near, the birds stop singing, and there is a stillness in the wood?”
He nodded toward the village, eyes fixed on the swirl of smoke as though some shape might emerge from it.
“There is a stillness there. Something is happening that I canna see. I dinna think it is to do with us—and yet … I am uneasy,” he said abruptly. “And I have lived too long to dismiss such a feeling.”
Ian, who joined us shortly at the rendezvous, seconded this opinion.
“Aye, it’s like holding the edge of a fishing net that’s underwater,” he said, frowning. “Ye can feel the wriggling through your hands, and ye ken there’s fish there—but ye canna see where.” The wind ruffled his thick brown hair; as usual, it was half plaited, with strands coming loose. He thumbed one absently behind an ear.
“There’s something happening among the people; some disagreement, I think. And something happened last night, in the Council house. Emily willna answer me when I ask about it; she only looks away and tells me it’s naught to do with us. But I think it is, somehow.”
“Emily?” Jamie lifted one eyebrow, and Ian grinned.
“It’s what I call her for short,” he