The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [74]
When the Indians come at nightfall to remove the priest, Roger is sure the worst is happening. Still, he has no choice but to sit and listen to the beating of the drums, and the sound of upraised voices outside.
The yelling escalates, though, and it becomes clear that whatever is happening outside, it’s out of control. A fight is raging in the center of the village, and among the shouts and screams, Roger hears an undeniably Scottish voice, shouting in Gaelic. Inspired by the thought that rescue is at hand, Roger seizes the absence of the guard from his doorway to rush out, armed with a makeshift spear broken from a bedframe.
Outside, everything is confusion. Men are fighting, stumbling to and fro in the darkness amid a reek of whisky—and in the huge firepit, the flames are roaring high, consuming the body of the priest. Roger is attacked and strikes back with his spear, felling his opponent, but then is attacked himself from behind, clubbed into near-insensibility.
Waking back in the confines of the hut, he finds another senseless body lying on the ground nearby—Jamie Fraser, the man he has been itching to get his hands on for the last several months. Faced with Fraser at last, though, his response is neither fury nor alarm, but joyful relief—Fraser can be here only because Brianna has sent him.
The Fraser stone.
Dying with the assurance that Brianna loves him is better than dying without it— but he hadn’t wanted to die in the first place. Luckily, Fraser is not dead, either, and only slightly injured. Restored to his senses, Jamie is less than thrilled to see Roger, being more concerned with the whereabouts of Claire. He tells Roger what he knows of events outside; the Indians had tortured the priest and hung him in the flames, when quite unexpectedly, a girl standing in the crowd had handed a cradleboard with a baby to Claire and walked steadily into the fire herself.
An uproar immediately began, apparently exacerbated by drunkenness—some of the Indians having discovered the cache of whisky barrels. Caught up in the maelstrom, Jamie found himself fighting, along with Young Ian, to protect Claire and the baby, but was overcome.
The rest of the story is supplied by Claire, who arrives near daybreak. She has spent the night in a longhouse, under the protection of Tewaktenyonh, and is able to tell the men what has happened—or most of it.
Some of the younger braves had taken the whisky, assuming the bargain for Roger to be concluded. However, one man has perished in the fighting—the man Roger pierced with his spear. Since the whisky was given as the price for Roger’s life, the Indians do not intend to kill him in revenge—but rather intend to forcibly adopt one member of the ransom party, in replacement of the dead man. The only things Claire doesn’t know at this point are who will be selected—and where Young Ian is.
Jamie insists that he will remain with the Indians; Roger must return with Claire, for Brianna’s sake. Besides, as he points out logically, if he and Claire are to die in a fire in 1776, neither of them can be killed in the meantime. He will be safe enough in Snaketown, and so soon as an opportunity presents itself, he will escape and head south by himself.
Claire is more than reluctant to agree to this, but has no choice. Neither has Jamie; later in the day, the door flap opens to admit Ian, his scalp plucked to a war lock, and the marks of fresh tattooing blood-crusted on his cheeks. He has made his choice, he says quietly—he will remain, with the young woman he calls Emily. The others are free to go.
Remonstrance and objection are useless; Ian is now Kahnyen’kehaka, allowed to speak in no tongue but the Mohawk, scrubbed clean of the taint of white blood, named Wolf’s Brother in a ceremony that claims him forever as an Indian. Heartsick, Claire and Jamie take leave of Ian and Rollo, turning to go south with Roger.
They haven’t gone