Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [156]
I stole a glance at Jamie, riding ahead now. His back was straight as an alder sapling and his hair shone under the sun like a helmet of burnished metal.
Dougal followed my glance.
“Could have been worse, no?” he said, with an ironic lift of his brow.
* * *
Two nights later, we were encamped on a stretch of moorland, near one of those strange outcroppings of glacier-pocked granite. It had been a long day’s travel, with only a hasty meal eaten in the saddle, and everyone was pleased to stop for a cooked dinner. I had tried early on to assist with the cooking, but my help had been more or less politely rejected by the taciturn clansman whose job it apparently was.
One of the men had killed a deer that morning, and a portion of the fresh meat, cooked with turnips, onions, and whatever else he could find, had made a delicious dinner. Bursting with food and contentment, we all sprawled around the fire, listening to stories and songs. Surprisingly enough, little Murtagh, who seldom opened his mouth to speak, had a beautiful, clear tenor voice. While it was difficult to persuade him to sing, the results were worth it.
I nestled closer to Jamie, trying to find a comfortable spot to sit on the hard granite. We had camped at the edge of the rocky outcrop, where a broad shelf of reddish granite gave us a natural hearth, and the towering jumble of rocks behind made a place to hide the horses. When I asked why we did not sleep more comfortably on the springy grass of the moor, Ned Gowan had informed me that we were now near the southern border of the MacKenzie lands. And thus near the territory of both Grants and Chisholms.
“Dougal’s scouts say there’s no sign of anyone nearabouts,” he had said, standing on a large boulder to peer into the sunset himself, “but ye can never tell. Better safe than sorry, ye ken.”
When Murtagh called it quits, Rupert began to tell stories. While he lacked Gwyllyn’s elegant way with words, he had an inexhaustible fund of stories, about fairies, ghosts, the tannasg or evil spirits, and other inhabitants of the Highlands, such as the waterhorses. These beings, I was given to understand, inhabited almost all bodies of water, being especially common at fords and crossings, though many lived in the depths of the lochs.
“There’s a spot at the eastern end of Loch Garve, ye ken,” he said, rolling his eyes around the gathering to be sure everyone was listening, “that never freezes. It’s always black water there, even when the rest o’ the loch is frozen solid, for that’s the waterhorse’s chimney.”
The waterhorse of Loch Garve, like so many of his kind, had stolen a young girl who came to the loch to draw water, and carried her away to live in the depths of the loch and be his wife. Woe betide any maiden, or any man, for that matter, who met a fine horse by the water’s side and thought to ride upon him, for a rider once mounted could not dismount, and the horse would step into the water, turn into a fish, and swim to his home with the hapless rider still stuck fast to his back.
“Now, a waterhorse beneath the waves has but fish’s teeth,” said Rupert, wiggling his palm like an undulating fish, “and feeds on snails and waterweeds and cold, wet things. His blood runs cold as the water, and he’s no need of fire, d’ye ken, but a human woman’s a wee bit warmer than that.” Here he winked at me and leered outrageously, to the enjoyment of the listeners.
“So the waterhorse’s wife was sad and cold and hungry in her new home beneath the waves, not caring owermuch for snails and waterweed for her supper. So, the waterhorse being a kindly sort, takes himself