The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [168]
“Well, perhaps. But what—”
“Ye’ve told me what will happen here, Sassenach. You and Brianna and MacKenzie, all three. Rebellion, and war—and this time . . . victory.”
Victory. I nodded numbly, remembering what I knew of wars and the cost of victory. It was, however, better than defeat.
“Well, then.” He stooped to pick up his dirk, and gestured with it to the mountains around us. “I have sworn an oath to the Crown; if I break it in time of war, I am a traitor. My land is forfeit—and my life—and those who follow me will share my fate. True?”
“True.” I swallowed, hugging my arms tight around me, wishing I still held Jemmy. Jamie turned to face me, his eyes hard and bright.
“But the Crown willna prevail, this time. Ye’ve told me. And if the King is overthrown—what then of my oath? If I have kept it, then I am traitor to the rebel cause.”
“Oh,” I said, rather faintly.
“Ye see? At some point, Tryon and the King will lose their power over me—but I dinna ken when that may be. At some point, the rebels will hold power—but I dinna ken when that may be. And in between . . .” He tilted the point of his dirk downward.
“I do see. A very tidy little cleft stick,” I said, feeling somewhat hollow as I realized just how precarious our situation was.
To follow Tryon’s orders now was plainly the only choice. Later, however . . . for Jamie to continue as the Governor’s man into the early stages of the Revolution was to declare himself a Loyalist—which would be fatal, in the long run. In the short run, though, to break with Tryon, forswear his oath to the King, and declare for the rebels . . . that would cost him his land, and quite possibly his life.
He shrugged, with a wry twist of the mouth, and sat back a little, easing Jemmy on his lap.
“Well, it’s no as though I’ve never found myself walking between two fires before, Sassenach. I may come out of it a bit scorched round the edges, but I dinna think I’ll fry.” He gave a faint snort of what might be amusement. “It’s in my blood, no?”
I managed a short laugh.
“If you’re thinking of your grandfather,” I said, “I admit he was good at it. Caught up with him in the end, though, didn’t it?”
He tilted his head from one side to the other, equivocating.
“Aye, maybe so. But do ye not think things perhaps fell out as he wished?”
The late Lord Lovat had been notorious for the deviousness of his mind, but I couldn’t quite see the benefit in planning to have his head chopped off, and said so.
Jamie smiled, despite the seriousness of the discussion.
“Well, perhaps beheading wasna quite what he’d planned, but still—ye saw what he did; he sent Young Simon to battle, and he stayed home. But which of them was it who paid the price on Tower Hill?”
I nodded slowly, beginning to see his point. Young Simon, who was in fact close to Jamie’s own age, had not suffered physically for his part in the Rising, overt though it had been. He had not been imprisoned or exiled, like many of the Jacobites, and while he had lost most of his lands, he had in fact regained quite a bit of his property since, by means of repeated and tenacious lawsuits brought against the Crown.
“And Old Simon could have blamed his son, and Young Simon would have ended up on the scaffold—but he didn’t. Well, I suppose even an old viper like that might hesitate to put his own son and heir under the ax.”
Jamie nodded.
“Would ye let someone chop off your head, Sassenach, if it was a choice betwixt you and Brianna?”
“Yes,” I said, without hesitation. I was reluctant to admit that Old Simon might have possessed such a virtue as family feeling, but I supposed even vipers had some concern for their children’s welfare.
Jemmy had abandoned the proffered finger in favor of his grandfather’s dirk, and was gnawing