The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [678]
Everyone was silent for a moment, regarding the enormity—and the futility—of such a plan.
“He can’t have thought it would work,” Roger said, the rasping husk of his voice giving the words a sense of finality.
Jamie shook his head, looking down at the book, though his eyes were clearly looking through it, dark blue and remote.
“Nor he did,” he said softly. “What he said, here at the last”—his fingers touched the page, very gently—“was that thousands of his people had died for their freedom, thousands more would die in years to come. He would walk the path they walked, for the honor of his blood, and to die fighting was no more than a warrior of the Mohawk should ask.”
I heard Ian draw breath behind me in a sigh, and Brianna bent her head, so the bright hair hid her face. Roger’s own face was turned toward her, grave in profile—but it was none of them I saw. I saw a man with his face painted black for death, walking through a dripping forest at night, holding a torch that burned with cold fire.
A yank on my skirt pulled me away from this vision, and I glanced down to find Jemmy standing beside me, pulling on my hand.
“Watsat?”
“What—oh! It’s a rock, sweetheart; a pretty rock, see?” I held out the opal, and he seized it with both hands, plumping down on his bottom to look at it.
Brianna wiped a hand underneath her nose, and Roger cleared his throat with a noise like ripping cloth.
“What I want to know,” he said gruffly, gesturing toward the journal, “is why in hell did he write that in Latin?”
“Oh. He says that. He’d learnt Latin in school—perhaps that was what turned him against Europeans”—Jamie grinned at Young Ian, who grimaced—“and he thought if he wrote in Latin, anyone who happened to see it would think it only a priest’s book of prayers, and pay it no heed.”
“They did think that—the Kahnyen’kehaka,” Ian put in. “Old Tewaktenyonh kept the book, though. And when I—left, she gave me the wee book, and said as I must bring it back wi’ me, and give it to you, Auntie Claire.”
“To me?” I felt a sense of hesitation at touching the book, but nonetheless reached out a hand and touched the open pages. The ink, I saw, had begun to run dry toward the end—the letters skipped and stuttered, and some words were no more than indentations on the paper. Had he thrown the empty pen away, I wondered, or kept it, a useless reminder of his vanished future?
“Do you think she knew what was in the book?” I asked. Ian’s face was impassive, but his soft hazel eyes held a hint of trouble. When he had been a Scot, he hadn’t been one to hide his feelings.
“I dinna ken,” he said. “She kent something, but I couldna say what. She didna tell me—only that I must bring ye the book.” He hesitated, glancing from me to Brianna and Roger, then back. “Is it true?” he asked. “What ye said, cousin—about what will happen to the Indians?”
She looked up, meeting his eyes squarely, and nodded.
“I’m afraid so,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, Ian.”
He only nodded, rubbing a knuckle down the bridge of his nose, but I wondered.
He hadn’t forsaken his own people, I knew, but the Kahnyen’kehaka were his as well. No matter what had happened to cause him to leave.
I was opening my mouth to ask Ian about his wife, when I heard Jemmy. He had retired back under the table with his prize, and had been talking to it in a genially conversational—if unintelligible—manner for several minutes. His voice had suddenly changed, though, to a tone of alarm.
“Hot,” he said, “Mummy, HOT!”
Brianna was already rising from her stool, a look of concern on her face, when I heard the noise. It was a high-pitched ringing sound, like the weird singing of a crystal goblet when you run a wet finger round and round the rim. Roger sat up straight, looking startled.
Brianna bent and snatched Jemmy out from under the table, and as she straightened with him, there was a sudden pow! like a gunshot, and the ringing noise abruptly stopped.
“Holy God,” said Jamie, rather mildly under the circumstances.
Splinters of glimmering fire protruded from the