The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [519]
I heard him swallow, and half-clear his throat.
“The hair lay down across her breast, so it covered the child who lay with her. I thought perhaps he wouldna like it; to be smothered so. So I lifted up the locks of red to let him out. I could see him—my wee brother, curled up in her arms, wi’ his head on her breast, all shadowed and snug under the curtain of her hair.
“So then I thought no, he’d be happier if I left him so—so I smoothed her hair down again, to cover his head.” He drew a deep breath, and I felt his chest rise under my cheek. His fingers ran slowly down through my hair.
“She hadna one white hair, Sassenach. Not one.”
Ellen Fraser had died in childbirth, aged thirty-eight. My own mother had been thirty-two. And I . . . I had the richness of all those long years lost to them. And more.
“To see the years touch ye gives me joy, Sassenach,” he whispered, “—for it means that ye live.”
He lifted his hand and let my hair fall slowly from his fingers, brushing my face, skimming my lips, floating soft and heavy on my neck and shoulders, lying like feathers at the tops of my breasts.
“Mo nighean donn,” he whispered, “mo chridhe. My brown lass, my heart.”
“Come to me. Cover me. Shelter me, a bhean, heal me. Burn with me, as I burn for you.”
I lay on him, covered him, my skin, his bone, and still—still!—that fierce bright core of flesh to join us. I let my hair fall down around us both, and in the fire-shot cavern of its darkness, whispered back.
“Until we two be burned to ashes.”
86
THERE’S A HOLE IN THE
BOTTOM OF THE SEA
Fraser’s Ridge
October, 1771
ROGER WAS INSTANTLY AWAKE, in that way that allowed no transition through drowsiness; body inert, but mind alert, ears tuned to the echo of what had wakened him. He had no conscious recollection of Jemmy’s cry, but it echoed in his inner ear, with that combination of hope and resignation that is the lot of the more-easily wakened parent.
Sleep dragged at him, pulling him back under the waves of slumber like a ten-ton boulder chained to his foot. A tiny rustling noise kept his head momentarily above the surface.
“Go back to sleep,” he thought fiercely, in the direction of the cradle. “Shhhhh. Hush. Quiet. Go . . . to . . . sleeeeeep.” This telepathic hypnosis seldom worked, but it delayed for a few precious seconds the necessity of moving. And now and then the miracle happened, and his son actually did go back to sleep, relaxing into the warm sogginess of wet diaper and crumb-caked dreams.
Roger held his breath, clinging to the fading edge of sleep, hoarding the cherished seconds of immobility. Then another small sound came, and he was on his feet at once.
“Bree? Bree, what is it?” The “r” in her name fluttered in his throat, not quite there, but he didn’t take the time to be troubled by it. All his attention was for her.
She was standing by the cradle, a ghostly column in the dark. He touched her, took her by the shoulders. Her arms were wrapped tight around the little boy, and she was shuddering with cold and fear.
He pulled her close by instinct; her cold infected him at once. He felt the chill on his heart and forced himself to hold tighter, not to look at the empty cradle.
“What is it?” he whispered. “Is it Jemmy? What’s . . . happened?”
A shiver rose up the length of her body, and he felt the goosebumps rise under the thin cloth of her shift. Despite the warmth of the room, he felt the hair on his own arms rising.
“Nothing,” she said. “He’s all right.” Her voice was thick, but she was right; Jem, waking to find himself uncomfortably squashed between his parents, let out a sudden yelp of surprised indignation, and began to churn his arms and legs like an eggbeater.
This sturdy battering filled Roger with a flood of warm relief, drowning the cold imaginings that had seized his mind at the sight of her. With a little difficulty, he pried Jemmy from his mother’s arms and hoisted him high against his own shoulder.
He patted the solid little back in reassurance—reassurance of himself, as much as Jemmy