The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [152]
That made him smile, though with a wry twist to it nonetheless.
“I expect my self-respect will recover, with or without the pigs,” he said. “The worst of it will be telling the sharpshooters”—he jerked his head toward the wall, where Brianna’s voice mingled with Jamie’s in muffled conversation—“what the problem is. They’ll be very kind—like one is to somebody who’s missing a foot.”
I laughed, finished swabbing out my mortar, and reached up to put it away in the cupboard.
“Bree’s only worrying about you, because of this Regulation trouble. But Jamie thinks it won’t amount to anything; the chances of you needing to shoot someone are very small. Besides, birds of prey haven’t got binocular vision, either,” I added, as an afterthought. “Except for owls. Hawks and eagles can’t have; their eyes are on either side of their heads. Just tell Bree and Jamie I said you have eyes like a hawk.”
He laughed outright at that, and stood up, dusting off the skirts of his coat.
“Right, I will.” He waited for me, opening the door to the hall for me. As I reached it, though, he put a hand on my arm, stopping me.
“This binocular thing,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward his eyes. “I was born with it, I suppose?”
I nodded.
“Yes, almost certainly.”
He hesitated, clearly not knowing quite how to put what he wanted to say.
“Is it . . . inherited, then? My father was in the RAF; he can’t have had it, surely—but my mother wore spectacles. She kept them on a chain round her neck; I remember playing with it. I might have gotten the eye thing from her, I mean.”
I pursed my lips, trying to recall what—if anything—I had ever read on the subject of inherited eye disorders, but nothing concrete came to mind.
“I don’t know,” I said at last. “It might be. But it might not, too. I really don’t know. Are you worried about Jemmy?”
“Oh.” A faint look of disappointment crossed his features, though he blotted it out almost at once. He gave me an awkward smile, and opened the door, holding it for me to pass through.
“No, not worried. I was just thinking—if it was inherited, and if the little fella should have it, too . . . then I’d know.”
The corridor was full of the savory scents of squirrel stew and fresh bread, and I was starving, but I stood still, staring up at him.
“I wouldn’t wish it on him,” Roger said hastily, seeing my expression. “Not at all! Just, if it should be that way—” He broke off and looked away, swallowing. “Look, don’t tell Bree I thought of it, please.”
I touched his arm lightly.
“I think she’d understand. Your wanting to know—for sure.”
He glanced at the kitchen door, from which Bree’s voice rose, singing “Clementine,” to Jemmy’s raucous pleasure.
“She might understand,” he said. “That doesn’t mean she wants to hear it.”
22
THE FIERY CROSS
THE MEN WERE GONE. Jamie, Roger, Mr. Chisholm and his sons, the MacLeod brothers . . . they had all disappeared before daybreak, leaving no trace behind save the jumbled remains of a hasty breakfast, and a collection of muddy bootprints on the doorsill.
Jamie moved so quietly that he seldom woke me when he left our bed to dress in the dark predawn. He did usually bend to kiss me goodbye, though, murmuring a quick endearment in my ear and leaving me to carry the touch and scent of him back into dreams.
He hadn’t wakened me this morning.
That job had been left to the tender offices of the junior Chisholms and MacLeods, several of whom had held a pitched battle directly under my window, just after dawn.
I had sprung into wakefulness, momentarily confused by the shouts and screams, my hands reaching automatically for sponge and oxygen, syringe and alcohol, visions of a hospital emergency room vivid around me. Then I drew breath, and smelled woodsmoke, not ethanol. I shook my head, blinking at the sight of a rumpled blue and yellow quilt, the peaceful row of clothes on their pegs, and the wash of pure, pale light streaming through half-opened shutters. Home. I was home, on the