The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [155]
Gerhard Mueller, followed by his sons and nephews, stood in the doorway, nonplussed. Mrs. Bug, undeterred either by the fact that he towered over her by more than a foot, or that he spoke no English, screwed up her face and poked fiercely at his boots with her broom.
I waved welcomingly to the Muellers, then seized the chance of escape, and fled.
SEEKING TO AVOID the crowd in the house, I washed at the well outside, then went to the sheds and occupied myself in taking inventory. The situation was not as bad as I’d feared; we had enough, with careful management, to last out the winter, though I could see that Mrs. Bug’s lavish hand might have to be constrained a bit.
Besides six hams in the smokeshed, there were four sides of bacon and half another, plus a rack of dried venison and half of a relatively recent carcass. Looking up, I could see the low roof beams, black with soot and thick with clusters of smoked, dried fish, split and bound stiffly in bunches, like the petals of large ugly flowers. There were ten casks of salt fish, as well, and four of salt pork. A stone crock of lard, a smaller one of the fine leaf lard, another of headcheese . . . I had my doubts about that.
I had made it according to the instructions of one of the Mueller women, as translated by Jamie, but I had never seen headcheese myself, and was not quite sure it was meant to look like that. I lifted the lid and sniffed cautiously, but it smelled all right; mildly spiced with garlic and peppercorn, and no scent at all of putrefaction. Perhaps we wouldn’t die of ptomaine poisoning, though I had it in mind to invite Gerhard Mueller to try it first.
“How can ye bide the auld fiend in your house?” Marsali had demanded, when Gerhard and one of his sons had ridden up to the Ridge a few months earlier. She had heard the story of the Indian women from Fergus, and viewed the Germans with horrified revulsion.
“And what would ye have me do?” Jamie had demanded in return, spoon lifted halfway from his bowl. “Kill the Muellers—all of them, for if I did for Gerhard, I’d have to do for the lot—and nail their hair to my barn?” His mouth quirked slightly. “I should think it would put the cow off her milk. It would put me off the milkin’, to be sure.”
Marsali’s brow puckered, but she wasn’t one to be joked out of an argument.
“Not that, maybe,” she said. “But ye let them into your house, and treat them as friends!” She glanced from Jamie to me, frowning. “The women he killed—they were your friends, no?”
I exchanged a look with Jamie, and gave a slight shrug. He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, as he slowly stirred his soup. Then he laid down the spoon and looked at her.
“It was a fearful thing that Gerhard did,” he said simply. “But it was a matter of vengeance to him; thinking as he did, he couldna have done otherwise. Would it make matters better for me to take vengeance on him?”
“Non,” Fergus said positively. He laid a hand on Marsali’s arm, putting a stop to whatever she might have said next. He grinned up at her. “Of course, Frenchmen do not believe in vengeance.”
“Well, perhaps some Frenchmen,” I murmured, thinking of the Comte St. Germain.
Marsali wasn’t to be put off so easily, though.
“Hmph,” she said. “What ye mean is, they weren’t yours, isn’t it?” Seeing Jamie’s brow flick up in startlement, she pressed the point. “The women who were murdered. But if it were your family? If it had been me and Lizzie and Brianna, say?”
“That,” said Jamie evenly, “is my point. It was Gerhard’s family.” He pushed back from the table and stood up, leaving half his soup unfinished. “Are ye done, Fergus?”
Fergus cocked a sleek brow at him, picked up his bowl, and drank it down, Adam’s apple bobbing in his long brown throat.
“Oui,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He stood and patted Marsali on the head, then plucked a strand of her straw-pale hair free of her kerch. “Do not worry yourself, chéri—even though I do not believe