Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [6]
Knowing from experience how difficult it was to distract Frank’s attention from this sort of discussion, I simply picked up his hand, wrapped his fingers about the stem of the glass and left him to his own devices.
I found Mrs. Baird on a deep bench near the window, sharing a companionable pint of bitter with an elderly man whom she introduced to me as Mr. Crook.
“This is the man I tell’t ye about, Mrs. Randall,” she said, eyes bright with the stimulation of alcohol and company. “The one as knows about plants of all sorts.
“Mrs. Randall’s verra much interested in the wee plants,” she confided to her companion, who inclined his head in a combination of politeness and deafness. “Presses them in books and such.”
“Do ye, indeed?” Mr. Crook asked, one tufted white brow raised in interest. “I’ve some presses—the real ones, mind—for plants and such. Had them from my nephew, when he come up from university over his holiday. He brought them for me, and I’d not the heart to tell him I never uses such things. Hangin’s what’s wanted for herbs, ye ken, or maybe to be dried on a frame and put in a bit o’ gauze bag or a jar, but whyever you’d be after squashing the wee things flat, I’ve no idea.”
“Well, to look at, maybe,” Mrs. Baird interjected kindly. “Mrs. Randall’s made some lovely bits out of mallow blossoms, and violets, same as you could put in a frame and hang on the wall, like.”
“Mmmphm.” Mr. Crook’s seamed face seemed to be admitting a dubious possibility to this suggestion. “Weel, if they’re of any use to ye, Missus, you can have the presses, and welcome. I didna wish to be throwing them awa’, but I must say I’ve no use for them.”
I assured Mr. Crook that I would be delighted to make use of the plant presses, and still more delighted if he would show me where some of the rarer plants in the area could be found. He eyed me sharply for a moment, head to one side like an elderly kestrel, but appeared finally to decide that my interest was genuine, and we fixed it up that I should meet him in the morning for a tour of the local shrubbery. Frank, I knew, meant to go into Inverness for the day to consult some records in the town hall there, and I was pleased to have an excuse not to accompany him. One record was much like another, so far as I was concerned.
Soon after this, Frank pried himself away from the Vicar, and we walked home in company with Mrs. Baird. I was reluctant to mention the cock’s blood on the doorstep, myself, but Frank suffered from no such reticence, and questioned her eagerly as to the background of the custom.
“I suppose it’s quite old, then?” he asked, swishing a stick along through the roadside weeds. Lamb’s-quarters and cinquefoil were already blooming, and I could see the buds of sweet broom swelling; another week and they’d be in flower.
“Och, aye.” Mrs. Baird waddled along at a brisk pace, asking no quarter from our younger limbs. “Older than anyone knows, Mr. Randall. Even back before the days of the giants.”
“Giants?” I asked.
“Aye. Fionn and the Feinn, ye ken.”
“Gaelic folktales,” Frank remarked with interest. “Heroes, you know. Probably from Norse roots. There’s a lot of the Norse influence round here, and all the way up the coast to the West. Some of the place names are Norse, you know, not Gaelic at all.”
I rolled my eyes, sensing another outburst, but Mrs. Baird smiled kindly and encouraged him, saying that was true, then, she’d been up to the north, and seen the Two Brothers stone, and that was Norse, wasn’t it?
“The Norsemen came down on that coast hundreds of times between A.D. 500 and 1300 or so,” Frank said, looking dreamily at the horizon, seeing dragon-ships in the wind-swept cloud. “Vikings, you know. And they brought a lot of their own myths along. It’s a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here.”
This I could believe. Twilight was coming on, and so was a storm. In the eerie light beneath the clouds, even the thoroughly modern houses along the road looked as ancient and as sinister as the weathered Pictish stone that stood