Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [41]
I busied myself at the fire, dropping in a few more handfuls of witch hazel and garlic, setting more cloths to soak. When I thought I could control my voice and face, I came back to Jamie, sponge in hand.
“Why were you flogged?” I asked abruptly.
It was hardly tactful, but I badly wanted to know, and was too tired to phrase it more gently.
He sighed, moving his shoulder uneasily under my ministrations. He was tired, too, and I was undoubtedly hurting him, gentle as I tried to be.
“The first time was escape, and the second was theft—or at least that’s what the charge-sheet read.”
“What were you escaping from?”
“The English,” he said, with an ironic lift of his brow. “If ye mean where, Fort William.”
“I gathered it was the English,” I said, matching the dryness of his tone. “What were you doing in Fort William in the first place?”
He rubbed his brow with his free hand. “Oh, that. I think that was obstruction.”
“Obstruction, escape, and theft. You sound a right dangerous character,” I said lightly, hoping to distract him from what I was doing.
It worked at least slightly; one corner of the wide mouth turned up, and one dark blue eye glinted back over his shoulder at me.
“Oh, I am that,” he said. “A wonder you think yourself safe in the same room wi’ me, and you an English lassie.”
“Well, you look harmless enough at the moment.” This was entirely untrue; shirtless, scarred and blood-smeared, with stubbled cheeks and reddened eyelids from the long night ride, he looked thoroughly disreputable. And tired or not, he looked entirely capable of further mayhem, should the need arise.
He laughed, a surprisingly deep, infectious sound.
“Harmless as a setting dove,” he agreed. “I’m too hungry to be a threat to anything but breakfast. Let a stray bannock come within reach, though, and I’ll no answer for the consequences. Ooh!”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “The stab wound’s deep, and it’s dirty.”
“It’s all right.” But he had gone pale beneath the coppery stubble of his beard. I tried to lead him back into conversation.
“What exactly is obstruction?” I asked casually. “I must say it doesn’t sound a major crime.”
He took a deep breath, fixing his eyes resolutely on the carved bedpost as I swabbed deeper.
“Ah. Well, I suppose it’s whatever the English say it is. In my case, it meant defending my family and my property, and getting myself half killed in the process.” He pressed his lips together, as if to say no more, but after a moment went on, as though seeking to focus his attention on anything other than his shoulder.
“It was near to four years ago. There was a levy put on the manors near Fort William—food for the garrison, horses for transport, and suchlike. I wouldna say many liked it, but most would yield what they had to. Small parties of soldiers would go round with an officer and a wagon or two, collecting the bits of food and things. And one day in October, yon Captain Randall came along to L—” he caught himself quickly, with a glance at me, “to our place.”
I nodded encouragingly, eyes on my work.
“We’d thought they’d not come so far; the place is a good distance from the fort, and not easy to get to. But they did.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “My father was away—gone to a funeral at the next farm. And I was up in the fields wi’ most of the men, for it was close to harvest, and a lot to be done. So my sister was alone in the house, except for two or three of the women servants, and they all rushed upstairs to hide their heads under the bedclothes when they saw the red coats. Thought the soldiers were sent by the devil—and I’ll no just say they were wrong.”
I laid down my cloth. The nasty