Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [148]
Without troubling to lift his head, he opened the front of his shirt and spread the cloth aside, laying his chest bare to the waist. He drew the dirk from its sheath and tossed it toward me. It thunked on the boards at my feet.
He put his arm back over his eyes and stretched his head back, showing the place where the dark stubble of his sprouting beard stopped abruptly, just below the jaw.
“Straight up, just under the breastbone,” he advised. “Quick and neat, though it takes a bit of strength. The throat-cutting’s easier, but it’s verra messy.”
I bent to pick up the dirk.
“Serve you right if I did,” I remarked. “Cocky bastard.”
The grin visible beneath the crook of his arm widened still further.
“Sassenach?”
I stopped, dirk still in my hand.
“What?”
“I’ll die a happy man.”
17
WE MEET A BEGGAR
We slept fairly late the next morning, and the sun was high as we left the inn, heading south this time. Most of the horses were gone from the paddock, and none of the men from our party seemed to be about. I wondered aloud where they had gone.
Jamie grinned. “I canna say for sure, but I could guess. The Watch went that way yesterday”—he pointed west—“so I should say Rupert and the others have gone that way.” Pointing east.
“Cattle,” he explained, seeing that I still didn’t understand. “The estate-holders and tacksmen pay the Watch to keep an eye out, and get back their cattle, if they’re stolen in a raid. But if the Watch is riding west toward Lag Cruime, any herds to the east are helpless—for a bit, anyway. It’s the Grants’ lands down that way, and Rupert’s one of the best cattle-lifters I’ve ever seen. Beasts will follow him anywhere, wi’ scarcely a bleat amongst them. And since there’s no more entertainment to be had here, most likely he’s got restless.”
Jamie himself seemed rather restless, and set a good pace. There was a deer trail through the heather, and the going was fairly easy, so I kept up with no difficulty. After a bit, we came out onto a stretch of moorland, where we could walk side by side.
“What about Horrocks?” I asked suddenly. Hearing him mention the town of Lag Cruime, I had remembered the English deserter and his possible news. “You were supposed to meet him in Lag Cruime, weren’t you?”
He nodded. “Aye. But I canna go there now, wi’ both Randall and the Watch headed that way. Too dangerous.”
“Could someone go for you? Or do you trust anyone enough?”
He glanced down at me and smiled. “Well, there’s you. Since ye didna kill me last night after all, I suppose I may trust you. But I’m afraid you couldna go to Lag Cruime alone. No, if necessary, Murtagh will go for me. But I may be able to arrange something else—we’ll see.”
“You trust Murtagh?” I asked curiously. I had no very friendly feelings toward the scruffy little man, since he was more or less responsible for my present predicament, having kidnapped me in the first place. Still, there was clearly a friendship of some kind between him and Jamie.
“Oh, aye.” He glanced at me, surprised. “Murtagh’s known me all my life—a second cousin of my father’s, I think. His father was my—”
“He’s a Fraser, you mean,” I interrupted hastily. “I thought he was one of the MacKenzies. He was with Dougal when I met you.”
Jamie nodded. “Aye. When I decided to come over from France I sent word to him, asking him to meet me at the coast.” He smiled wryly. “I didna ken, ye see, whether it was Dougal had tried to kill me earlier. And I did not quite like the idea of meeting several MacKenzies alone, just in case. Didna want to end up washing about in the surf off Skye, if that’s what they had in mind.”
“I see. So Dougal isn’t the only one who believes in witnesses.”
He nodded. “Very handy things, witnesses.”
On the other side of the moorland was a stretch of twisted rocks, pitted and gouged by the advance and retreat of glaciers long gone. Rainwater filled the deeper pits, and thistle and tansy and meadowsweet surrounded these tarns with thick growth, the flowers reflected in the still water.
Sterile and