Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [238]
I realized dimly that I was either being hypnotized, or under the influence of some drug, and my mind took some last foothold on the edge of conscious thought, resisting the pull of the sweet-scented smoke. I could see my reflection in the water, pupils shrunk to pinpoints, eyes wide as a sun-blind owl’s. The word “opium” drifted through my fading thoughts.
“Who are you?” I couldn’t tell which of us had asked the question, but I felt my own throat move as I answered, “Claire.”
“Who sent you here?”
“I came.”
“Why did you come?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Why can’t you tell?”
“Because no one will believe me.”
The voice in my head grew still more soothing, friendly, beguiling.
“I will believe you. Believe me. Who are you?”
“Claire.”
A sudden loud noise broke the spell. Geilie started and her knee bumped the bassin, startling the reflection back into the water.
“Geillis? My dear?” A voice called through the door, tentative yet commanding. “We must be going, my dear. The horses are ready, and you’re not yet gowned.”
Muttering something rude under her breath, Geilie rose and flung open the window, so that the fresh air rushed into my face, making me blink and dispelling some of the fog in my head.
She stood looking down at me speculatively, then stooped to help me up.
“Come along, then,” she said. “Come over a bit queer, have you? Sometimes it takes folk that way. You’d best lie down on my bed while I dress.”
I lay flat on the coverlet in her bedroom below, eyes closed, listening to the small rustling noises Geilie made in her privy closet, wondering what the hell that had been all about. Nothing to do with the ill-wish or its sender, clearly. Only with my identity. With sharpness returning gradually to my wits, it occurred to me to wonder whether Geilie perhaps was a spy for Colum. Placed as she was, she heard the business and the secrets of the whole district. And who, other than Colum, would be so interested in my origins?
What would have happened, I wondered, had Arthur not interrupted the summoning? Would I have heard, somewhere in the scented fog, the standard hypnotist’s injunction, “When you wake, you will remember nothing”? But I did remember, and I wondered.
In the event, however, there was no chance to ask Geilie about it. The bedroom door flew open, and Arthur Duncan came in. Crossing to the door of the privy closet, he knocked once, hastily, and went in.
There was a small startled scream from within, and then dead silence.
Arthur Duncan reappeared in the door, eyes wide and staring-blind, face so white that I thought perhaps he was suffering an attack of some sort. I leaped to my feet and hurried toward him as he leaned heavily against the door jamb.
Before I reached him, though, he pushed himself away from the door and went out of the room, staggering slightly, pushing past me as though he didn’t see me.
I knocked on the door myself.
“Geilie! Are you all right?”
There was a moment’s silence, then a perfectly composed voice said, “Aye, of course. I’ll be out in a moment.”
When we at length descended the stairs, we found Arthur, apparently somewhat recovered, sipping brandy with Jamie. He seemed a bit abstracted, as though he were thinking of something, but greeted his wife with a mild compliment on her appearance, before sending the groom for the horses.
The banquet was just beginning as we arrived, and the fiscal and his wife were shown to their places of honor at the head table. Jamie and I, somewhat lower in status, took our places at a table with Rupert and Ned Gowan.
Mrs. Fitz had excelled herself, and beamed in gratification at the compliments heaped upon the food, the drink, and other preparations.
It was in fact delicious. I had never tasted roast pheasant stuffed with honeyed chestnuts, and was helping myself to a third slice, when Ned Gowan, watching in some amusement