The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [98]
“Shh!” I clapped a hand across his mouth, moist and sticky with whatever he’d been eating. “Don’t sing, sweetheart, we don’t want to wake the babies.”
I heard a small, stifled noise from Marsali, a strangled snort from Bree, and realized that Jamie was still confessing. He appeared to have hit his stride, and was now inventing freely—or at least I hoped so. He certainly hadn’t been doing any of that with me.
I poked my head out, looking up and down the trail, but no one was near. I motioned to the girls, and we scuttled across the path and into the darkened tent.
Jamie stopped abruptly as we fumbled our way inside. Then I heard him say quickly, “And sins of anger, pride, and jealousy—oh, and the odd wee bit of lying as well, Father. Amen.” He dropped to his knees, raced through an Act of Contrition in French, and was on his feet and taking Germain from me before Father Kenneth had finished saying the “Ego te absolvo.”
My eyes were becoming adapted to the dark; I could make out the voluminous shapes of the girls, and Jamie’s tall outline. He stood Germain on the table before the priest, saying, “Quickly, then, Father; we havena much time.”
“We haven’t any water, either,” the priest observed. “Unless you ladies thought to bring any?” He had picked up the flint and tinderbox, and was attempting to relight the lamp.
Bree and Marsali exchanged appalled glances, then shook their heads in unison.
“Dinna fash, Father.” Jamie spoke soothingly, and I saw him reach out a hand for something on the table. There was the brief squeak of a cork being drawn, and the hot, sweet smell of fine whisky filled the tent, as the light caught and grew from the wick, the wavering flame steadying to a small, clear light.
“Under the circumstances . . .” Jamie said, holding out the open flask to the priest.
Father Kenneth’s lips pressed together, though I thought with suppressed amusement, rather than irritation.
“Under the circumstances, aye,” he repeated. “And what should be more appropriate than the water of life, after all?” He reached up, undid his stock, and pulled up a leather string fastened round his neck, from which dangled a wooden cross and a small glass bottle, stoppered with a cork.
“The holy chrism,” he explained, undoing the bottle and setting it on the table. “Thank the Virgin Mother that I had it on my person. The Sheriff took the box with my Mass things.” He made a quick inventory of the objects on the table, counting them off on his fingers. “Fire, chrism, water—of a sort—and a child. Very well, then. You and your husband will stand as godparents to him, I suppose, ma’am?”
This was addressed to me, Jamie having gone to take up a station by the tent flap.
“For all of them, Father,” I said, and took a firm grip on Germain, who seemed disposed to leap off the table. “Hold still, darling, just for a moment.”
I heard a small whish behind me; metal drawn from oiled leather. I glanced back to see Jamie, dim in the shadows, standing guard by the door with his dirk in his hand. A qualm of apprehension curled through my belly, and I heard Bree draw in her breath beside me.
“Jamie, my son,” said Father Kenneth, in a tone of mild reproval.
“Be going on with it, if ye please, Father,” Jamie replied, very calmly. “I mean to have my grandchildren baptized this night, and no one shall prevent it.”
The priest drew in his breath with a slight hiss, then shook his head.
“Aye. And if you kill someone, I hope there’ll be time for me to shrive you again before they hang us both,” he muttered, reaching for the oil. “If there’s a choice about it, try for the Sheriff, will you, man dear?”
Switching abruptly to Latin, he pushed back Germain’s heavy mop of blond hair and his thumb flicked deftly over forehead, lips, and then—diving under the boy’s gown in a gesture that made Germain double up in giggles—heart, in the sign of the Cross.
“On-behalf-of-this-child-do-you-renounce-Satan-and-all-his-works?” he asked, speaking so fast that I scarcely realized he was speaking English again, and barely caught up in time to join with