Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [186]
There seemed to be an unspoken conspiracy of gallantry among the men; they took turns stopping at frequent intervals to relieve themselves, allowing me to dismount for a few minutes and surreptitiously rub my aching fundament. Now and again, one would suggest stopping for a drink, which necessitated my stopping as well, since Thistle carried the water bottles.
We jolted along for a couple of hours in this manner, but the pain grew steadily worse, keeping me shifting in the saddle incessantly. Finally I decided to hell with dignified suffering, I simply must get off for a while.
“Whoa!” I said to Thistle, and swung down. I pretended to examine her front left foot, as the other horses came to a milling stop around us.
“I’m afraid she’s had a stone in her shoe,” I lied. “I’ve got it out, but I’d better walk her a bit; don’t want her to go lame.”
“No, we can’t have that,” said Dougal. “All right, walk for a bit, then, but someone must stay wi’ ye. ’Tis a quiet enough road, but I canna have ye walkin’ alone.” Jamie immediately swung down.
“I’ll walk with her,” he said quietly.
“Good. Dinna tarry too long; we must be in Bargrennan before dawn. The sign of the Red Boar; landlord’s a friend.” With a wave, he gathered the others and they set off at a brisk trot, leaving us, in the dust.
* * *
Several hours of torture by saddle had not improved my temper. Let him walk with me. I was damned if I’d speak to him, the sadistic, violent brute.
He didn’t look particularly brutish in the light of the half-moon rising, but I hardened my heart and limped along, carefully not looking at him.
My abused muscles at first protested the unaccustomed exercise, but after a half hour or so I began to move much more easily.
“You’ll feel much better by tomorrow,” Jamie observed casually. “Though you won’t sit easy ’til the next day.”
“And what makes you such an expert?” I flared at him. “Do you beat people all that frequently?”
“Well, no,” he said, undisturbed by my attitude. “This is the first time I’ve tried it. I’ve considerable experience on the other end, though.”
“You?” I gaped at him. The thought of anyone taking a strap to this towering mass of muscle and sinew was completely untenable.
He laughed at my expression. “When I was a bit smaller, Sassenach. I’ve had my backside leathered more times than I could count, between the ages of eight and thirteen. That’s when I got taller than my father, and it got unhandy for him to bend me over a fence rail.”
“Your father beat you?”
“Aye, mostly. The schoolmaster, too, of course, and Dougal or one of the other uncles now and then, depending on where I was and what I’d been doing.”
I was growing interested, in spite of my determination to ignore him.
“What did you do?”
He laughed again, a quiet but infectious sound in the still night air.
“Well, I canna remember everything. I will say I generally deserved it. I don’t think my Da ever beat me unfairly, at least.” He paced without speaking for a minute, thinking.
“Mm. Let’s see, there was once for stoning the chickens, and once for riding the cows and getting them too excited for milking, and then for eating all of the jam out of the cakes and leaving the cakes behind. Ah, and letting the horses out of the barn by leaving the gate unlatched, and setting the thatch of the dovecote on fire—that was an accident, I didna do it on purpose—and losing my schoolbooks—I did do that on purpose—and…” He broke off, shrugging, as I laughed despite myself.
“The usual sorts of things. Most often, though, it was for opening my mouth when I should ha’ kept it closed.”
He snorted at some memory. “Once my sister Jenny broke a pitcher; I made her angry, teasing, and she lost her temper and threw it at me. When my