The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [525]
Roger kicked a stone back into the pile.
“That will do, to start.”
Jamie stood for a moment, looking him over. It was a thoroughly dispassionate examination, much as he would have given a bullock he thought to buy. Roger stood still, feeling the sweat stream down the groove of his back, and thought that once more, he was being compared—to his disadvantage—with the absent Ian Murray.
“You’re auld for it, mind,” Jamie said at last. “Most swordsmen start when they’re boys.” He paused. “I had my first sword at five.”
Roger had had a train when he was five. With a red engine that tooted its whistle when you pulled the cord. He met Jamie’s eye, and smiled pleasantly.
“Old for it, maybe,” he said. “But not dead.”
“Ye could be,” Fraser answered. “A little learning is a dangerous thing—a fool wi’ a blade by his side in a scabbard is safer than a fool who thinks he kens what to do with it.”
“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” Roger quoted. “Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. Do you think me a fool?”
Jamie laughed, surprised into amusement.
“There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,” he replied, finishing the verse. “And drinking largely sobers us again. As for foolish—ye’ll no just be drunk on the thought of it, I suppose?”
Roger smiled slightly in reply; he had given up being surprised by the breadth of Jamie’s reading.
“I’ll drink deep enough to stay sober,” he said. “Will ye teach me?”
Jamie squinted, then lifted one shoulder slightly. “Ye’ve size to your credit, and a good reach, forbye.” He looked Roger head to toe once more and nodded. “Aye, ye’ll maybe do.”
He turned and walked away, toward the next heap of stones. Roger followed, feeling oddly gratified, as though he had passed some small but important test.
The test hadn’t yet begun, though. It was only partway through the building of the new pillar that Jamie spoke again.
“Why?” he asked, eyes on the huge stone he was slowly heaving into place. It was too heavy to lift, the size of a whisky keg. Knotted clumps of grass roots stuck out from under it, ripped out of the earth by the stone’s slow and brutal passage across the ground.
Roger bent to lend his own weight to the task. The lichens on the rock’s surface were rough under his palms, green and scabby with age.
“I’ve a family to protect,” he said. The rock moved grudgingly, sliding a few inches across the uneven ground. Jamie nodded, once, twice; on the silent “three,” they shoved together, with an echoed grunt of effort. The monster half-rose, paused, rose altogether and overbalanced, chunking down into place with a thunk! that quivered through the ground at their feet.
“Protect from what?” Jamie stood and wiped a wrist across his jaw. He glanced up and away, gesturing with his chin at the hanging pig. “I shouldna care to take on a panther wi’ a sword, myself.”
“Oh, aye?” Roger bent his knees and maneuvered another large rock into his arms. “I hear you’ve killed two bears—one with a dirk.”
“Aye, well,” Jamie said dryly. “A dirk’s what I had. As for the other—if it was a sword, it was Saint Michael’s, not mine.”
“Aye, and if ye’d known ahead of time that you might—ugh—meet it—would you not have armed yourself—better?” Roger bent his knees, lowering the stone carefully into place. He let it drop the last few inches, and wiped stinging hands on his breeks.
“If I’d known I should meet a damn bear,” Jamie said, grunting as he lifted another stone into place, “I would have taken another path.”
Roger snorted and wiggled the new stone, easing its fit against the others. There was a small gap at one side that left it loose; Jamie eyed it, walked to the stone pile, and picked up a small chunk of granite, tapered at one end. It fit the gap exactly, and the two men smiled involuntarily at each other.
“D’ye think there’s another path to take, then?” Roger asked.
Fraser rubbed a hand across his mouth, considering.
“If it’s the war ye mean—then, aye, I do.” He gave Roger a stare. “Maybe I’ll