The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [199]
The peat fire hissed on the hearth behind me, smelling of the Highlands, and the rich scent of cock-a-leekie and baking bread spread through the house, warm and comforting as a blanket.
I could feel the pull of it around me—the house, the family, the place itself. I, who couldn’t remember a childhood home, felt the urge to sit down here and stay forever, enmeshed in the thousand strands of daily life, bound securely to this bit of earth. What would it have meant to him, who had lived all his life in the strength of that bond?
—Voyager, chapter 37, “What’s in a Name”
Brianna let the reins lie on Brutus’s neck, letting him rest after the last climb, and sat still, surveying the small valley below. The big white-harled farmhouse sat serenely in the middle of pale green fields of oats and barley, its windows and chimneys edged in gray stone, the walled kailyard and the numerous outbuildings clustering around it like chicks round a big white hen.
She had never seen it before, but she was sure. She had heard her mother’s descriptions of Lallybroch often enough. And besides, it was the only substantial house for miles; she had seen nothing else in the last three days but the tiny stone-walled crofters’ cottages, many deserted and tumbled down, some no more than fire-black ruins.
Smoke was rising from a chimney below; someone was home.
—Drums of Autumn, chapter 34, “Lallybroch”
I caught a strange nonmetallic gleam in the depths of the box, and pointed. “What’s that?”
“Oh, those,” she said, dipping into the box again. “I’ve never worn them; they don’t suit me. But you could wear them—you’re tall and queenly, like my mother was. They were hers, ye ken.”
They were a pair of bracelets. Each made from the curving, almost-circular tusk of a wild boar, polished to a deep ivory glow, the ends capped with silver tappets, etched with flowered tracery.
“Lord, they’re gorgeous! I’ve never seen anything so… so wonderfully barbaric.”
Jenny was amused. “Aye, that they are. Someone gave them to Mother as a wedding gift, but she never would say who. My father used to tease her now and then about her admirer, but she wouldna tell him, either, just smiled like a cat that’s had cream to its supper. Here, try them.”
The ivory was cool and heavy on my arm. I couldn’t resist stroking the deep yellow surface, grained with age.
“Aye, they suit ye,” Jenny declared.…
The bannocks were steaming gently in the cool air, and smelt heavenly. I reached for one, the heavy boars-tooth bracelets clinking together on my wrist. I saw Murtagh’s eyes on them and adjusted them so he could see the engraved silver end pieces.
“Aren’t they lovely?” I said. “Jenny said they were her mother’s.”
Murtagh’s eyes dropped to the bowl of parritch that Mrs. Cook had thrust unceremoniously under his nose.
“They suit ye,” he mumbled.
—Outlander, chapter 31,
“Quarter Day”
MacRannoch was studying the wizened little man, trying to subtract thirty years from the seamed countenance.
“Aye, I know ye,” he said at last. “Or not the name, but you. Ye killed a wounded boar single-handed with a dagger, during the tynchal. A gallant beast too. That’s right, the MacKenzie gave ye the tushes—a bonny set, almost a complete double curve. Lovely work, that, man.” A look perilously close to gratification creased Murtagh’s pitted cheek momentarily.
I started, remembering the magnificent, barbaric bracelets I had seen at Lallybroch. My mother’s, Jenny had said, given to her by an admirer.
—Outlander, chapter 36,
“MacRannoch”
1I am an honorary Fraser, as well.
2Carlos and Deborah Gonzales, of Running Changes, Inc.
3You, and no other.
“ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO”
rapping his hand in the bloodstained cloth, Jamie cautiously pulled the dirk from the fire. He advanced slowly toward the boy, letting the blade fall, as though of its own volition, until it touched the lad’s jerkin. There was a strong smell of singed cloth from the handkerchief wrapped around the haft of the knife, which grew stronger as a narrow burnt line traced its way up the front of the jerkin in the