Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [497]
“And you did! Her and us both! Of all the—Roger, how could you do such a thing?”
“He did right,” Jamie said. “After all—” I turned on him fiercely, interrupting.
“He did not! He deliberately kept it from her, and tried to keep her from—don’t you realize, if he’d succeeded, you’d never have seen her?”
“Aye, I do. And what’s happened to her would not have happened.” His eyes were deep blue, steady on mine. “I would it had been so.”
I swallowed down my grief and anger, until I thought I could speak again without choking.
“I don’t think she would have had it so,” I said softly. “And it was hers to say.”
Roger jumped in, before Jamie could reply.
“You said what’s happened to her wouldn’t have—you mean, being pregnant?” He didn’t wait for a reply; he had plainly recovered from the shock of the news sufficiently to begin thinking, and was rapidly reaching the same unpleasant conclusions Brianna had come to, some months earlier. He swung his head toward me, eyes wide with shock.
“She’s seven months along, you said. Jesus! She can’t go back!”
“Not now,” I said, with bitter emphasis. “She might have, when we first found out. I tried to make her go back to Scotland, or at least to the Indies—there’s another … opening, there. But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t go without finding out what happened to you.”
“What happened to me,” he repeated, and glanced at Jamie. Jamie’s shoulders tensed, and he set his jaw.
“Aye,” he said. “It’s my fault, and no remedy for it. She’s trapped here. And I can do nothing for her—save bring ye back to her.” And that, I realized, was why he had not wanted to tell Roger anything; for fear that when he realized Brianna was trapped in the past, Roger would refuse to come back with us. Following her into the past was one thing; staying there forever with her was something else again. Neither was it guilt over Bonnet alone that had eaten Jamie up on our journey here; the Spartan boy with the fox gnawing at his vitals would have recognized a kindred soul on the spot, I thought, looking at him with exasperated tenderness.
Roger gazed at him, completely at a loss for words.
Before he could find any, a noise of shuffling footsteps approached the door of the hut. The flap lifted, and a large number of Mohawks came in, one after the other.
We looked at them in astonishment; there were about fifteen of them, men and women and children, all dressed for traveling, in leggings and furs. One of the older women held a cradleboard, and without hesitation she walked up to Roger and pressed it into his arms, saying something in Mohawk.
He frowned at her, not understanding. Jamie, suddenly alert, leaned toward her and said a few halting words. She repeated what she had said, impatiently, then looked behind her and motioned to a young man.
“You are … priest,” he said haltingly to Roger. He pointed at the cradleboard. “Water.”
“I’m not a priest.” Roger tried to give the board back to the woman, but she refused to take it.
“Prees,” she said definitely. “Babtize.” She motioned to one of the younger women, who stepped forward, holding a small bowl made of horn, filled with water.
“Father Alexandre—he say you priest, son of priest,” said the young man. I saw Roger’s face go pale beneath the beard.
Jamie had stepped aside, murmuring in French patois to a man he recognized among the crowd. Now he pushed his way back to us.
“These are what is left of the priest’s flock,” he said softly. “The council has told them to leave. They mean to travel to the Huron mission at Ste. Berthe, but they would have the child baptized, lest it die on the journey.” He glanced at Roger. “They think ye are a priest?”
“Evidently.” Roger looked down at the child in his arms.
Jamie hesitated, glancing at the waiting Indians. They stood patiently, their faces calm. I could only guess what lay behind them. Fire and death, exile—what else? There were marks of sorrow on the face of the old woman who brought the baby; she would be its grandmother, I thought.
“In case of need,” Jamie said quietly to Roger, “any man may do the