The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [530]
It was no more than a few quick lines, the essence of a sketch. A man tired to death, still watchful; head on one hand, neck bowed with exhaustion—free arm clamped tight around a treasured, helpless thing.
She’d titled it. En garde, it said, in her slanted, spiky script.
He closed the book and slid it back behind the plate. She was standing in the pantry doorway, the milk jug in her hand.
“Come and eat,” she said softly, eyes on his. “You need your strength.”
88
ROGER BUYS A SWORD
Cross Creek
November, 1771
HE’D HANDLED EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY broadswords before; neither the weight nor the length surprised him. The basket around the hilt was slightly bent, but not enough to interfere with fitting his hand inside the grip. He’d done that before, too. There was a considerable difference, though, beyond reverently placing an antique artifact into a museum display, and picking up a length of sharpened metal with the conscious intent of driving it through a human body.
“It’s a bit battered,” Fraser had told him, squinting critically down the length of the sword before handing it to him, “but the blade’s well-balanced. Try the feel of it, to see if it suits.”
Feeling a total fool, he slipped his hand into the basket and struck a fencing pose, based on memories of Errol Flynn films. They were standing in the busy lane outside the smithy in Cross Creek, and a few passersby paused to watch and offer helpful comment.
“What’s Moore asking for that bit of pot tin?” someone asked disparagingly. “Anything more than two shillings, and it’s highway robbery.”
“That’s a fine sword,” said Moore, leaning over the half-door of his forge and glowering. “I had it from my uncle, who saw service at Fort Stanwyck. Why, that blade’s killed a-many Frenchmen, and no but the one wee nick to be seen in it.”
“One nick!” cried the disparager. “Why, the thing’s bent so, if you went to stick a man, you’d end up cutting off his ear!”
There was a laugh from the gathering crowd that drowned the smith’s response. Roger lowered the point of the sword, raised it slowly. How the hell did one road-test a sword? Ought he to wave it to and fro? Stick something with it? There was a cart standing a little way down the lane, loaded with burlap bags of something—raw wool, from the smell.
He looked for the proprietor of the bags, but couldn’t pick him out from the growing crowd; the huge draft horse hitched to the cart was unattended, ears twitching sleepily over his dropped reins.
“Ah, if it’s a sword the young man’s wanting, sure and Malachy McCabe has a better one than that, left from his service. I think he’d part with it for nay more than three shillings.” The cobbler from across the lane pursed his lips, nodding shrewdly at the sword.
“’Tisn’t an elegant piece,” one middle-aged ex-soldier agreed, head tilted on one side. “Serviceable, though, I grant you that.”
Roger extended his arm, lunged toward the door of the smithy, and narrowly missed Moore, coming out to defend the quality of his wares. The smith leaped aside with a startled cry, and the crowd roared.
Roger’s apology was interrupted by a loud, nasal voice behind him.
“Here, sir! Let me offer a foe more worthy of your steel than an unarmed smith!”
Whirling round, Roger found himself confronting Dr. Fentiman, who was pulling a long, thin blade from the head of his ornamental cane. The doctor, who was roughly half Roger’s size, brandished his rapier with a genial ferocity. Obviously fueled by a liberal luncheon, the tip of his nose glowed like a Christmas bulb.
“A test of skill, sir?” The doctor whipped his sword to and fro, so the narrow blade sang as it cut the air. “First to pink his man, first to draw blood is the victor, what say you?”
“Oh, an unfair advantage to the doctor! And isn’t drawing blood your business, then?”
“Ha