The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [71]
During the escalating arguments resulting from this proposal, Brianna furiously rejects Jamie’s attempts to find her a husband, insisting that she will have Roger— or no one. Jamie protests that he has done everything he can think of to find Wakefield—but pressed further by Brianna’s evident distress, comes up with a fresh inspiration: He will have a broadsheet printed, he declares, and published throughout the Colony, with particulars of Wakefield. Perhaps someone has seen the man, and will come forward.
Heartened by this suggestion, Claire suggests that Brianna might draw a picture of Roger Wakefield, to be published with his description; Brianna is a great hand with a likeness, she tells Jamie. Brianna eagerly agrees, and sits down, charcoal in hand—whereupon the picture of Roger MacKenzie Wakefield emerges before the horrified gaze of Jamie and Young Ian.
Ian was leaning over the table, looking as though he might be going to throw up any minute. “Coz—d’ye mean honestly to tell me that… this”—he gestured feebly at the sketch—“is Roger Wakefield?”
“Yes, ”she said, looking up at him in puzzlement. “Ian, are you all right? Did you eat something funny?”
He didn’t answer, but dropped heavily onto the bench beside her, put his head in his hands, and groaned.
During the resulting scene, in which Brianna upbraids Jamie for “disposing” of Roger by selling him to the Iroquois, and Jamie reproaches Brianna for telling him that she was pregnant as the result of rape, Bree reveals to her father that indeed she was raped, by Stephen Bonnet—and Claire, horrified by the vicious way in which Bree and Jamie are attacking each other, throws down her gold wedding ring on the table in proof of Bree’s word.
This puts an immediate stop to the argument, but does not improve relations, and it is in a strained condition that the small family makes its next preparations.
Jamie instructs Claire to pack Brianna’s things; they will take the girl to River Run, to stay with Jocasta, while he, Claire, and Young Ian head north, to rescue Roger MacKenzie Wakefield, and bring him back to his wife—and possible child.
CONDITIONS BETWEEN CLAIRE and Jamie are strained as well, with the weight of the gold ring and guilt over Brianna’s secrets hanging between them. The journey north is lightened only by an encounter with Pollyanne, the ex-slave whom Jamie and Claire had helped to escape. Now ensconced in a new life with the Tuscarora, she has married and has a child. In the course of conversation, she tells the Frasers what happened on the night that the girl died in the sawmill; hiding in the shadows, Pollyanne saw a heavyset man enter the mill, and leave a few minutes later, just before the Frasers’ arrival. The firelight fell upon his face as he passed close to her, however, and she saw that he was pockmarked. She didn’t recognize the man, but Claire does—Sergeant Murchison.
Seeing the constraint between his beloved uncle and aunt, Young Ian takes a hand, and the situation is resolved in the dark intimacy of an Indian longhouse.
Reconciled and encouraged by each other’s strength, the little party pushes on toward Snaketown, the distant Mohawk village where they hope to find Roger and ransom him with whisky. Young Ian, with his appreciation and knowledge of Indian ways and his skill with the Tuscaroran tongue—closely related to the tongue of the Mohawk, the Kahnyen’kehaka—is an invaluable ambassador. His budding relationship with a Mohawk girl promises help in their endeavor—if Roger is, in fact, captive in Snaketown.
IN FACT, HE IS. Enslaved by the Mohawk, he has not been badly mistreated, but life as an Indian slave is no bed of roses, and the constant hard work is not eased by a continuing infection in his foot, injured while trying to escape. Beyond physical injury and hardship, though, is the burden of questions that he bears: Was it by Brianna’s doing that he is here? Was she so angered at his betrayal that she has in turn betrayed him?
Returning to the village after a hunting trip, burdened with