The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [115]
Quinn was deathly pale, drenched in sweat, and gasping for breath.
“I think ye’d best come, Jamie. Your friend’s killed Major Siverly, and the constable’s after arresting him.”
THERE WAS A KNOT of people standing on the lawn, most of them gesticulating. There was a man in a sober cloth coat and good cocked hat who seemed to be in charge of the proceedings—Jamie supposed this must be the constable. Most of the other folk there were obviously the servants of the house, all talking at once and waving their arms. And in the midst of it all stood John Grey, looking vastly irritated.
He was disheveled, his hair coming out of its plait, and there were smears of mud on his uniform—Tom Byrd willna care for that, Jamie thought automatically. He was right; beside him, Tom gave a small squeak of outrage, and Jamie put his hand on the lad’s arm to keep him quiet.
Making his way cautiously toward the little knot of people, he kept out of sight as much as he might, until he should determine how best to be of help. From twenty feet away, he saw that Grey’s wrists were bound together in front of him and that the dark smears on his boots and breeks were blood, not dirt.
Grey was saying something, his voice pitched loud to be heard over the clishmaclaver, but Jamie couldn’t make out what he said. Grey turned away from the constable, shaking his head in disgust—and his eye caught Jamie’s. His face went from anger to calculation in an instant, and he made a brief, violent shooing gesture with one hand. “Go away,” it said, clear as day.
“What are they going to do with him?” Tom whispered urgently in Jamie’s ear.
“I dinna ken.” Jamie faded back a step or two into the shrubbery. “They’ve arrested him, Quinn said. Maybe they’ll take him to the local gaol.”
“They can’t do that!”
He glanced at Tom, whose round face was set in indignation, fists clenched at his sides.
“Aye, well, wait and see.” Thoughts were running through his mind, trying to make out what it was Grey wanted him to do.
“Go out where he can see ye, wee Byrd,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the scene. “They’ll let ye near him, I think, as ye’re his servant.”
Tom gave him a wild look, but then drew himself up and nodded manfully. He stepped out of the shrubbery and walked toward the group, and Jamie saw Grey’s expression of annoyance and anxiety ease a little. His own eased, as well; he’d guessed right, then.
There was a good bit of palaver and some shoving, the servants trying to keep Tom Byrd away from Grey. The young valet stood his ground, though, and Grey added his own insistence, scowling and gesturing at the constable with his bound hands. The constable looked slow and suspicious, but he had an air about him of authority; when he lifted a hand for silence, the magpie chatter ceased.
“You’re this man’s valet, ye say?” Jamie could just hear, above the patter of rain on the leaves and the servants’ muttering.
“I am, sir.” Tom Byrd bowed deeply. “Will you let me talk to him, please?”
The constable glanced from Tom Byrd to Grey, then back. He stood in thought for some moments, but then nodded.
“Aye, go ahead. You lot!” He lifted his chin imperiously at the servants. “I want to speak to the person who found the body.”
There was a general shifting and glancing to and fro, but then a maid stepped out of the throng, pushed by two of her fellow servants. She looked wild, her eyes showing white like a spooked horse, and her hands wrapped in her apron, strangling it.
“Was it you found your master, then? Go on, now, there’s naught to fear,” the constable said, in a tone that he probably thought was reassuring. He might as well have said that he proposed to take her straight to the hangman, for the maid wailed in terror and threw the mangled apron over her head.
One of the men with her appeared to be her husband, for he put an arm around her and stuck out his chin—trembling, but out, Jamie noted with approval—at the constable.
“She did, then, your honor, and