Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [492]
“I heard your nephew—in the fight. I heard him call out to you. He sounded all right.” Even as he offered this bit of information, he knew how feeble it was as reassurance. Fraser nodded, though, head bent on his knees.
“He’s a good lad, Ian,” he murmured. “And he has friends among the Mohawk. God send they will protect him.”
Roger’s curiosity was coming back, as the shock of the evening began to fade.
“Your wife,” he said. “What did she do? How could she possibly have been involved in this?”
Fraser sighed. He scrubbed his good hand over his face and through his hair, rubbing until the loose red locks stood up in knots and snarls.
“I shouldna have said so,” he said. “It wasna her fault in the least. It’s only—she’ll not be killed, but God, if they’ve harmed her …”
“They won’t,” Roger said firmly. “What happened?”
Fraser shrugged and closed his eyes. Head tilted back, he described the scene as though he could still see it, engraved on the inside of his eyelids. Perhaps he could.
“I didna take heed of the girl, in such a crowd. I couldna even say what she looked like. It was only at the last that I saw her.”
Claire had been by his side, white-faced and rigid in the press of shouting, swaying bodies. When the Indians had nearly finished with the priest, they untied him from the stake and fastened his hands instead to a long pole, held above his head, from which to suspend him in the flames.
Fraser glanced at him, wiping the back of a hand across his lips.
“I’ve seen a man’s heart pulled beating from his chest before,” he said. “But I hadna seen it eaten before his eyes.” He spoke almost shyly, as though apologizing for his squeamishness. Shocked, he had looked to Claire. It was then that he had seen the Indian girl standing on Claire’s other side, with a cradleboard in her arms.
With great calmness, the girl had handed the board to Claire, then turned and slipped through the crowd.
“She didna look to left or right, but walked straight into the fire.”
“What?” Roger’s throat closed with shock, the exclamation emerging in a strangled croak.
The flames had embraced the girl in moments. A head taller than the folk near him, Jamie had seen everything clearly.
“Her clothes caught, and then her hair. By the time she reached him, she was burning like a torch.” Still, he had seen the dark silhouette of her arms, raised to embrace the empty body of the priest. Within moments, it was no longer possible to distinguish man or woman; there was only the one figure, black amid the towering flames.
“It was then everything went mad.” Fraser’s wide shoulders slumped a little, and he touched the gash in his temple. “All I ken is one woman set up a howl, and then there was the hell of a screech, and of a sudden, everyone was either fleeing or fighting.”
He had himself tried to do both, shielding Claire and her burden while fighting his way out of the thrashing press of bodies. There were too many of them, though. Unable to escape, he had pushed Claire against the wall of a longhouse, seized a stick of wood with which to defend them, and shouted for Ian, while wielding his makeshift club on anyone reckless enough to come near.
“Then a wee fiend leapt out o’ the smoke, and struck me with his club.” He shrugged, one-shouldered. “I turned to fight him off, and then there were three of them on me.” Something had caught him in the temple, and he had known no more till waking in the longhouse with Roger.
“I havena seen Claire since. Nor Ian.”
The fire had burned itself to coals, and it was growing cold in the longhouse. Jamie unfastened his brooch and pulled the plaid around his shoulders as well as he could, one-handed, and leaned gingerly back against the wall.
His right arm might be broken; he’d taken a blow from one of the war clubs just below the shoulder, and the stricken spot went from numbness to blinding pain with no warning. That was of no moment, though, compared with his worry for Claire and wee Ian.
It was very late. If