Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [256]
I still stood like a rock, staring. Jamie had no such hesitations. Seizing me with one hand and his sword with the other, he flung himself into the crowd, knocking people out of the way with elbows, knees, and sword hilt, bulling his way toward the edge of the loch. He let out a piercing whistle through his teeth.
Intent on the spectacle under the oak, few people at first realized what was happening. Then, as individuals began to shout and grab at us, there was the sound of galloping hooves on the hard-packed dirt above the shore.
Donas still didn’t care much for people, and was all too willing to show it. He bit the first hand reaching for his bridle, and a man dropped back, crying out and dripping blood. The horse reared, squealing and pawing the air, and the few bold souls still intent on stopping him suddenly lost interest.
Jamie flung me over the saddle like a sack of meal and swung up himself in one fluid motion. Clearing a path with vicious swipes of his sword, he turned Donas through the hindering mass of the crowd. As people fell back from the onslaught of teeth, hooves, and blade, we picked up speed, leaving the loch, the village, and Leoch behind. Breath knocked out of me by the impact, I struggled to speak, to scream to Jamie.
For I hadn’t stood frozen at the revelation of Geilie’s pregnancy. It was something else I had seen that chilled me to the marrow of my bones. As Geilie had spun, white arms stretched aloft, I saw what she had seen when my own clothes were stripped away. A mark on one arm like the one I bore. Here, in this time, the mark of sorcery, the mark of a magus. The small, homely scar of a smallpox vaccination.
* * *
Rain pattered on the water, soothing my swollen face and the rope burns on my wrists. I dipped a handful of water from the stream and sipped it slowly, feeling the cold liquid trickle down my throat with gratitude.
Jamie disappeared for a few minutes. He came back with a handful of dark green oblate leaves, chewing something. He spat a glob of macerated green into the palm of his hand, stuffed another wad of leaves into his mouth and turned me away from him. He rubbed the chewed leaves gently over my back, and the stinging eased considerably.
“What is that?” I asked, making an effort to control myself. I was still shaky and snuffling, but the helpless tears were beginning to ebb.
“Watercress,” he answered, voice slightly muffled by the leaves in his mouth. He spat them out and applied them to my back. “You’re no the only one knows a bit about grass-cures, Sassenach,” he said, a bit clearer.
“How—how does it taste?” I asked, gulping back the sobs.
“Fair nasty,” he replied laconically. He finished his application and laid the plaid softly back across my shoulders.
“It won’t—” he began, then hesitated, “I mean, the cuts are not deep. I—I think you’ll no be…marked.” He spoke gruffly, but his touch was very gentle, and reduced me to tears once more.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, dabbling my nose on a corner of the plaid. “I—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I can’t stop crying.”
He shrugged. “I dinna suppose anyone’s tried to hurt ye on purpose before, Sassenach,” he said. “It’s likely the shock of that, so much as the pain.” He paused, picking up a plaid-end.
“I did just the same, lass,” he said matter-of-factly. “Puked after, and cried while they cleansed the cuts. Then I shook.” He wiped my face carefully with the plaid, then put a hand under my chin and tilted my face up to his.
“And when I stopped shaking, Sassenach,” he said quietly, “I thanked God for the pain, because it meant I was still alive.” He let go, nodding at me. “When ye get to that point, lassie, tell me; for I’ve a thing or two I want to be sayin’ to ye then.”
He got up and went down to the