Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [523]
Jamie reacted instantly to this unfamiliar darkening of his door; he pushed Brianna off the bench and lunged for his pistols on the wall. He had one leveled at Roger’s chest before he realized what—or whom—he was looking at, and lowered it with a small exclamation of disgust.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said.
The baby, rudely wakened by the crash of the overturned bench, was shrieking like a fire engine. Brianna scooped him out of his cradle and clasped him to her breast, looking wild-eyed at the apparition in the door.
I had forgotten that she hadn’t had the benefit of seeing him even as recently as I had; he must be substantially changed from the young history professor who’d left her in Wilmington nearly a year before.
Roger took a step toward her; instinctively, she took a step back. He stood quite still, looking at the child. She sat down on the nursing stool, fumbling at her bodice, bending protectively over the baby. She pulled a shawl across her shoulder and gave him a breast in its shelter, and he stopped squawking at once.
I saw Roger’s eyes shift from the baby to Jamie. Jamie stood beside Brianna with that utter stillness that so frightened me—straight and still as a stick of dynamite, with a lit match laid a hairsbreadth from the fuse.
The flame of Brianna’s head moved slightly, looking from one to the other, and I saw what she saw; the echo of Jamie’s dangerous stillness in Roger. It was both unexpected and shocking; I had never seen any resemblance between them at all—and yet at the moment they might have been day and dark, images of fire and night, each mirroring the other.
MacKenzie, I thought suddenly. Viking beasts, bloody-minded and big. And saw the third echo of that flaming heritage blaze up in Brianna’s eyes, the only thing alive in her face.
I should say something, do something, to break the awful stillness. But my mouth was dry, and there was nothing I could say in any case.
Roger’s reached his hand toward Jamie, palm up, and the gesture held no hint of supplication.
“I don’t imagine it pleases you any more than it does me,” he said, in his rusty voice, “but you are my nearest kinsman. Cut me. I’ve come to swear an oath in our shared blood.”
I couldn’t tell whether Jamie hesitated or not; time seemed to have stopped, the air in the room crystallized around us. Then I watched Jamie’s dirk cut the air, honed edge draw swift across the thin, tanned wrist, and blood well red and sudden in its path.
To my surprise, Roger didn’t look at Brianna, or reach for her hand. Instead, he swiped his thumb across his bleeding wrist, and stepped close to her, eyes on the baby. She pulled back instinctively, but Jamie’s hand came down on her shoulder.
She stilled at once under its weight, at once a promise of restraint and protection, but she held the child tight, cradled against her breast. Roger knelt in front of her, and reaching out, pushed the shawl aside and smeared a broad red cross upon the downy curve of the baby’s forehead.
“You are blood of my blood,” he said softly, “and bone of my bone. I claim thee as my son before all men, from this day forever.” He looked up at Jamie, challenging. After a long moment, Jamie gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment, and stepped back, letting his hand fall from Brianna’s shoulder.
Roger’s gaze shifted to Brianna.
“What do you call him?”
“Nothing—yet.” Her eyes rested on him, questioning. It was only too clear that the man who had come back was not the man who’d left her.
Roger’s eyes were fixed on hers as he stood. Blood was still dripping from his wrist. With a small shock, I realized that she was as changed to him as he to her.
“He’s my son,” Roger said quietly, nodding at the baby. “Are you my wife?”
Brianna had gone pale to the lips.
“I don’t know.”
“This man says that you are handfast.” Jamie took a step closer to her, watching Roger. “Is that true?”
“We—we were.”
“We still are.” Roger took a deep breath, and I realized suddenly that he was