The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [445]
I couldn’t speak past the lump in my own throat; only nodded to her and hurried out again, the parcel under my arm.
A figure stepped out of the darkness in front of me, and I nearly ran bang into it. I stopped short with an exclamation, clutching the parcel to my chest.
“My apologies, Mrs. Fraser. I did not realize that you didn’t see me.” It was the Governor. He took another step, into the glow of light from the tent.
He was alone, and looked very tired, the flesh of his face furrowed and loose. He smelt of drink; his Council and the militia officers would have been toasting his victory, I supposed. His eyes were clear, though, and his step firm.
“Your son-in-law,” he said, and glanced toward the tent behind me. “Is he—”
“He is alive,” said a soft, deep voice behind the Governor. He whirled round with a smothered exclamation, and my head jerked up.
I saw a shadow move and take shape, and Jamie rose up slowly out of the night; he had been sitting at the base of a hickory tree, invisible in the dark. How long had he been there? I wondered.
“Mr. Fraser.” The Governor had been startled, but he firmed his jaw, hands folded into fists at his sides. He was obliged to tilt his head back to look up at Jamie, and I could see that he didn’t like it. Jamie could see it, too, and plainly didn’t care. He stood close to Tryon, looming over him, with an expression on his face that would have rattled most people.
It appeared to rattle Tryon, too, but he lifted his chin, determined to say whatever he had come to say.
“I have come to make my apologies for the injury done to your son-in-law,” he said. “It was a most regrettable error.”
“Most regrettable,” Jamie repeated, with an ironic intonation. “And would ye care to say, sir, how this . . . error . . . came about?” He took a step forward, and Tryon automatically took a step back. I could see the heat rise in the Governor’s face, and his jaw clench.
“It was a mistake,” he said, through his teeth. “He was wrongly identified as one of the outlawed ringleaders of the Regulation.”
“By whom?” Jamie’s voice was polite.
Small hectic spots burned in the Governor’s cheeks.
“I do not know. By several people. I had no reason to doubt the identification.”
“Indeed. And did Roger MacKenzie say nothing in his own defense? Did he not say who he was?”
Tryon’s lower teeth fastened briefly in the flesh of his upper lip, then let go.
“He . . . did not.”
“Because he was bloody bound and gagged!” I said. I had pulled the gag from his mouth myself, when Jamie had cut him down from the hanging tree. “You didn’t let him speak, did you, you—you—”
The lamplight from the tent-flap gleamed off Tryon’s gorget, a crescent of silver that hung round his throat. Jamie’s hand rose slowly—so slowly that Tryon plainly perceived no threat—and very gently fitted itself around the Governor’s throat, just above the gorget.
“Leave us, Claire,” he said. There was no particular threat in his voice; he sounded merely matter-of-fact. A flash of panic lit Tryon’s eyes, and he jerked backward, gorget flashing in the light.
“You dare to lay hands on me, sir!” The panic subsided at once, replaced by fury.
“Oh, I do, aye. As ye laid hands on my son.”
I didn’t think Jamie actually intended to harm the Governor. On the other hand, this was by no means merely an act of intimidation; I could feel the core of cold rage inside him, and see it like an ice-burn in his eyes. So could Tryon.
“It was a mistake! And one I have come to rectify, so far as I may!” Tryon was standing his ground, jaw tight as he glared upward.
Jamie made a sound of contempt, low in his throat.
“A mistake. And is the loss of an innocent man’s life no more than that to ye? You will kill and maim, for the sake of your glory, and pay no heed to the destruction ye leave—save only that the record of your exploits may be enlarged. How will it look in the dispatches ye send to England—sir? That ye