The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [10]
She discovers her mistake; Jamie is in fact the nephew of Colum and his brother, Dougal (the clan’s war chieftain, who leads the men to battle in place of his crippled brother), though his father belonged to clan Fraser. He is also an outlaw, wanted by the English for offenses ranging from theft to unspecified “obstruction”—offenses that have left his back webbed with the scars of flogging.
Relations between uncles and nephew appear oddly strained, and the reason is explained following a clan Gathering, at which Colum demands an oath of loyalty from Jamie—and fails to get it. Colum has one son, Hamish, age eight. As Jamie explains to Claire, if Colum should die—as is likely, given the nature of his disease—before young Hamish is of an age to lead the clan, who will inherit the chieftainship?
Dougal is the obvious candidate, but there are those among the clan who feel that while he is an able warrior, he lacks the cool head and intelligence a chief should have. Hamish is plainly too young—but there is another candidate: Jamie. While Jamie himself professes no desire to usurp the chieftainship, Colum and Dougal are not so sure his protestations are sincere, and are inclined to take steps—some of them lethal—to prevent any such attempt.
Claire has so far failed twice in her attempts to escape from Leoch, so she is delighted to hear Dougal announce that he intends to take her with him on his journey to collect rents from the tacksmen of the district. His professed intention is to take her to the captain of the English garrison, who may either be able to shed light on her presence or take charge of her. Or both.
Claire is highly in favor of this, feeling sure that she can persuade the English captain to send her back to the stone circle, from which she may be able to get back to her own time. Her hopes vanish abruptly upon her discovery that the captain of the garrison is Jack Randall.
For his part, Jack Randall is delighted to see Claire again, and determined to find out who and what she is. Englishwomen simply don’t go to the Highlands; if she is here, alone, she must undoubtedly be a spy—but for whom, and why? His notions of interrogation are not gentle, and even Dougal MacKenzie is appalled. Refusing to leave her with the Captain, Dougal takes Claire away with him, and after a pause for thought, tells her that he has conceived a plan: The Captain has the right to compel the person of an English citizen, but cannot arrest a Scotswoman in her own country without legal formalities. So, Dougal announces triumphantly, he will make her a Scot; she must marry his nephew Jamie without delay.
Nearly as horrified by this notion as by the Captains behavior, Claire does her best to resist, but can find no alternative. Convinced at last that if she marries Jamie, she will have a better chance of escape, she consents, finding her horror tempered with bemusement at her prospective bridegrooms inexperience:
“Does it bother you that I’m not a virgin?” He hesitated a moment before answering.
“Well, no,” he said slowly, “so long as it doesna bother you that I am.” He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door.
“Reckon one of us should know what they’re doing,” he said. The door closed softly behind him; clearly the courtship was over.
However, there is no immediate chance of escape, and Claire is obliged to consummate her marriage with Jamie—under Dougal’s firm orders. Dougal, it appears, is killing two birds with one stone; while he has sufficient humanitarian instincts to wish to keep Claire away from Randall (and is still curious enough about her to want to find out for himself what she’s doing there), his principal motive is to stifle any chance of his nephew attaining the chieftainship of clan MacKenzie—for the clan will never accept Jamie as leader with an English wife.
Realizing that Jamie is as much under duress as is she, Claire accepts the inevitable—and