Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [194]
“No,” I agreed dryly. “I don’t suppose he’d have been pleased, no matter what you said.”
“He wasn’t. He backhanded me across the mouth, to shut me up. I fell down—I was still a bit weak—and he stood over me, just staring down at me. I’d better sense than to try and get up, so I just lay there until he called the soldiers to take me back to my cell.” He shook his head. “He didna change expression at all; just said as I left, ‘I’ll see you on Friday,’ as though we had an appointment to discuss business or somesuch.”
The soldiers had not returned Jamie to the cell he had shared with three other prisoners. Instead, he was put into a small room by himself, to await Friday’s reckoning with no distractions save the daily visit of the garrison’s physician, who came to dress his back.
“He wasna much of a doctor,” Jamie said, “but he was kindly enough. The second day he came, along wi’ the goose grease and charcoal, he brought me a small Bible that belonged to a prisoner who’d died. Said he understood I was a Papist, and whether I found the word of God any comfort or not, at least I could compare my troubles with Job’s.” He laughed.
“Oddly enough, it was some comfort. Our Lord had to put up wi’ being scourged too; and I could reflect that at least I wasna going to be hauled out and crucified afterward. On the other hand,” he said judiciously, “Our Lord wasna forced to listen to indecent proposals from Pontius Pilate, either.”
Jamie had kept the small Bible. He rummaged in his saddlebag, and handed it across now for me to look at. It was a worn, leather-covered volume, about five inches long, printed on paper so flimsy the print showed through from one side of each page to the other. On the flyleaf was written ALEXANDER WILLIAM RODERICK MACGREGOR, 1733. The ink was faded and blurred, and the covers warped as though the book had gotten wet on more than one occasion.
I turned the little book over curiously. Small as it was, it must have cost something in effort to keep it by him, through the travels and adventures of the last four years.
“I’ve never seen you read it,” I handed it back.
“No, that’s not why I keep it,” he said. He tucked it away, stroking the edge of the worn cover with a thumb as he did so. He patted the saddlebag absently.
“There’s a debt owing to Alex MacGregor; I mean to collect it sometime.
“Anyway,” he continued, returning to his story, “Friday came at last, and I don’t know whether I was glad or sorry to see it. The waiting and the fear were almost worse than I thought the pain would be. When it came, though…” He made that odd half-shrugging gesture of his, easing the shirt across his back. “Well, you’ve seen the marks. You know what it was like.”
“Only because Dougal told me. He said he was there.”
Jamie nodded. “Aye, he was there. And my father as well, though I didna know it at the time. I’d no mind for anything much beyond my own problems, then.”
“Oh,” I said slowly, “and your father—”
“Mmm. That’s when it happened. Some of the men there told me after that they thought I was dead, halfway through, and I reckon my father thought so too.” He hesitated, and his voice was thick when he resumed. “When I fell, Dougal told me, my father made a small sound and put his hand to his head. Then he dropped like a rock. And did not get up again.”
The birds were moving in the heather, trilling and calling from the still-dark leaves of the trees. Jamie’s head was bowed, face still invisible.
“I did not know he was dead,” he said softly. “They didna tell me until a month later—when they thought I was strong enough to bear it. So I did not bury him, as his son should have done. And I have never seen his grave—because I am afraid to go home.”
“Jamie,” I said. “Oh, Jamie, dear.”
After what seemed a long silence, I said, “But you don’t—you can’t—feel responsible. Jamie, there was nothing you could have done; or done differently.”
“No?” he said. “No, maybe not; though I wonder would it still have happened, had I chosen the other way. But to know that does