The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [116]
There, a sound he had expected; footsteps passing on the far side of the rocks that bordered his family’s sanctuary. Quick and light, headed downhill. He waited, eyes open, and in a few moments heard the faint hail of a sentry near the tent. No figure showed in the firelight below, but the tent flap beyond it stirred, gaped open, then fell unbroken.
As he had thought, then; sentiment lay strong against the rioters. It was not held a betrayal of friends, but rather the necessary giving up of criminals for the protection of those who chose to live by law. It might be reluctant—the witnesses had waited for the dark—but not secretive.
“. . . j’ante plumerai la tête . . .”
It occurred to him to wonder why the songs sung to bairns were so often gruesome, and no thought given to the words they took in with their mothers’ milk. The music of the songs was no more to him than tuneless chanting—perhaps that was why he paid more mind than most to the words.
Even Brianna, who came from what was presumably a more peaceable time, sang songs of fearsome death and tragic loss to wee Jem, all with a look on her face as tender as the Virgin nursing the Christ Child. That verse about the miner’s daughter who drowned amidst her ducklings . . .
It occurred to him perversely to wonder what awful things the Blessed Mother might have counted in her own repertoire of cradle songs; judging from the Bible, the Holy Land had been no more peaceful than France or Scotland.
He would have crossed himself in penance for the notion, but Claire was lying on his right arm.
“Were they wrong?” Claire’s voice came softly from beneath his chin, startling him.
“Who?” He bent his head to hers, and kissed the thick softness of her curls. Her hair smelt of woodsmoke and the sharp, clear tang of juniper berries.
“The men in Hillsborough.”
“Aye, I think so.”
“What would you have done?”
He sighed, moved one shoulder in a shrug.
“Can I say? Aye, if it was me that was cheated, and no hope of redress, I might have laid hands on the man who’d done it. But what was done there—ye heard it. Houses torn down and set afire, men dragged out and beaten senseless only for cause of the office they held . . . no, Sassenach. I canna say what I might have done—but not that.”
She turned her head a little, so he saw the high curve of her cheekbone, rimmed in light, and the flexing of the muscle that ran in front of her ear as she smiled.
“I didn’t think you would. Can’t see you as part of a mob.”
He kissed her ear, not to reply directly. He could see himself as part of a mob, all too easily. That was what frightened him. He knew much too well the strength of it.
One Highlander was a warrior, but the mightiest man was only a man. It was the madness that took men together that had ruled the glens for a thousand years; that thrill of the blood, when you heard the shrieks of your companions, felt the strength of the whole bear you up like wings, and knew immortality—for if you should fall of yourself, still you would be carried on, your spirit shrieking in the mouths of those who ran beside you. It was only later, when the blood lay cold in limp veins, and deaf ears heard the women weeping . . .
“And if it wasn’t a man who cheated you? If it was the Crown, or the Court? No one person, I mean, but an institution.”
He knew where she meant to lead him. He tightened his arm around her, her breath warm on the knuckles of his hand, curled just under her chin.
“It isna that. Not here. Not now.” The rioters had lashed out in response to the crimes of men, of individuals; the price of those crimes might be paid in blood, but not requited by war—not yet.
“It isn’t,” she said quietly. “But it will be.”
“Not now,” he said again.
The piece of paper was safely hidden in his saddlebag, its damnable summons concealed. He must deal with it, and soon, but for tonight he would pretend it wasn’t there. One final night of peace, with his wife in his arms, his family around him.
Another shadow by the fire. Another hail by the sentry, one more to pass through the traitor’s gate.