The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [12]
Assisted by Jamie’s godfather, Murtagh, Claire sets out to rescue him. Jamie has escaped from the Watch, she learns, but is now somewhere afoot in the Highlands. Plainly he cannot return to Lallybroch; the place is watched. How to find a man who might be anywhere in a desolate countryside?
Murtagh and Claire work their way north, thinking that Jamie might be heading for Beauly, where his Fraser grandfather, Simon, Lord Lovat, might offer him help. Before they reach Beauly, though, they encounter someone else—Dougal MacKenzie, who has brought disastrous news: Jamie has been captured, tried, and condemned to hang. He has been sent to Wentworth Prison, near the border, where the sentence of execution will be carried out.
Insisting that it is not possible to free Jamie, Dougal (a recent widower) instead promises to take care of Claire, proposing marriage to her. Instantly, a number of things become clear to Claire; by the terms of Jamie’s inheritance, a woman can own Lallybroch estate. If Jamie is executed, Lallybroch will belong to her—or to whoever marries her.
During the ensuing confrontation with Dougal, Claire verifies what she previously suspected; young Hamish is not Colum’s son—Colum’s disease renders him sterile, and largely impotent as well. Hamish was sired by Dougal, as an act of loyalty to the brother he loves, to give Colum an heir.
The t$$te-$$-t$$te is interrupted by Murtagh, armed with pistols, who politely suggests that they have more pressing business: getting to Wentworth while Jamie is still alive to save. Under duress, Dougal reluctantly supplies them with money and a few men—and a surprising bit of information.
Geillis Duncan, he tells Claire, was indeed burned as a witch, after the birth of her child—who was also sired by Dougal. Before being taken to the stake, though, she gave Dougal a message to be passed on to Claire, should Dougal ever meet her again. The message, to be repeated verbatim: “Tell her that I do not know for certain, but I think it is possible.” That sentence, and four numbers: one, nine, six, and eight.
Claire, Murtagh, and their companions leave at once on the long ride to Wentworth, which gives Claire time to ponder the meaning of Geillis’s message—clearly, what Geillis meant was that she herself thought it possible to return through the stones to Claire’s own time. And the numbers? “She had told them to him separately, for the sake of a secrecy which must have gone bone-deep in her by that time, but they were all part of one number, really. One, nine, six, eight. Nineteen sixty-eight. The year of her disappearance into the past.”
Arriving at Wentworth, Claire inveigles her way into the prison on the eve of the execution, searching for Jamie—and finds him in the dungeon, at the mercy of Jack Randall. Unable to exercise his inclinations to the fullest, Randall must content himself with such brutality as will pass without comment—bruises and broken bones are within the realm of official toleration; homosexual rape is not.
Claire succeeds in freeing Jamie from his shackles, but is interrupted by the return of Randall, in company with his hulking, mentally deficient—but terribly obedient—orderly, Marley. Delighted to see Claire again, Randall declares his intention of giving her to Marley to enjoy, allowing Jamie to watch as his final entertainment before hanging.
Jamie attacks Marley, and after a bone-crushing fight, succeeds in overpowering him. Randall, though, has a trump—a knife at Claire’s throat.
Desperate, and feeling that he has nothing left to lose, Jamie makes a devil’s bargain—his body, and his silence, in return for Claire’s freedom. Unable to resist the temptation of a victim at once completely unwilling but completely compliant, Randall agrees. After all, Claire is quite helpless—he thinks.