The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [186]
“Cold, isn’t it?” Roger hunched his shoulders, smiling as he shivered exaggeratedly in sympathy.
“Yes, indeed,” I said. “Freeze the balls off a brass monkey, wouldn’t it?”
Jamie and Roger burst into simultaneous coughing fits.
SENTRY IN PLACE and horses bedded down, we retired to our own resting place, a discreet distance from the circle by the fire. I had dug the largest rocks and twigs out of the leaf mold, cut spruce branches, and spread our blankets over them by the time Jamie finished his last round of the camp. The warmth of food and fire had faded, but I didn’t begin to shiver in earnest until he touched me.
I would have moved at once to get under the blankets, but Jamie still held me. His original intent appeared intact—to say the least—but his attention was momentarily distracted. His arms were still clasped round me, but he was standing quite still, head up as though listening, looking into the murk of the wood. It was full dark; no more showed of the trees than the glow of fire reflected from the few trunks that stood nearest the camp—the last shadow of twilight had faded, and everything beyond was a depthless black.
“What is it?” I drew back a little, pressing instinctively against him, and his arms tightened round me.
“I dinna ken. But I do feel something, Sassenach.” He moved a little, lifting his head in restless query, like a wolf scenting the wind, but no message reached us save a distant rattling of leafless branches.
“If it’s no rhinoceroses, it’s something,” he said softly, and a whisper of unease raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “A moment, lass.”
He left me, the wind blowing suddenly cold about me with the loss of his presence, and went to speak quietly with a couple of the men.
And what might he feel, out there in the dark? I had the greatest respect for Jamie’s sense of danger. He had lived too long as hunter and as hunted, not to sense the edgy awareness that lay between the two—invisible or not.
He returned a moment later, and squatted beside me as I burrowed shivering into the blankets.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve said we’ll have two guards tonight, and each man to keep his piece loaded and to hand. But I think it’s all right.” He looked beyond me, into the wood, but his face now was merely thoughtful.
“It’s all right,” he repeated again, more certainly.
“Is it gone?”
He turned his head, his lips curling slightly. His mouth looked soft, tender and vulnerable amid the stiff, ruddy wires of his starting beard.
“I dinna ken if it was ever there, Sassenach,” he said. “I thought I felt eyes upon me, but it could have been a passing wolf, an owl—or nay more than a restless spiorad, a-roaming in the wood. But aye, it’s gone now.”
He smiled at me; I saw the flicker of the light that rimmed his head and shoulders as he turned, silhouetted by the fire. Beyond, the sound of Roger’s voice drifted to me above the crackle of the fire, as he learned the melody of the silkie-song, following Evan’s voice, hoarse but confident. Jamie slid into the blankets beside me and I turned to him, cold hands fumbling to return the favor he had done me earlier.
We shivered convulsively, urgent for each other’s warmth. I found him, and he turned me, ruffling up the layers of fabric between us, so that he lay behind me, his arm secure around me, the small secret patches of our nakedness joined in warmth beneath the blankets. I lay facing the darkness of the wood, watching the firelight dance among the trees, as Jamie moved behind me—behind, between, within—warm and big, and so slowly as scarcely to rustle the branches beneath us. Roger’s voice rose strong and sweet above the murmur of the men, and the shivering slowly stopped.
I WOKE MUCH LATER beneath a blue-black sky, dry-mouthed, the rasping sigh of Jamie’s breath in my ear. I had been dreaming; one of those pointless dreams of uneasy repetition, that fades at once with the waking but leaves a nasty taste in mouth and mind. Needing both water and relief of my bladder,