The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [128]
These were bizarre, as opium dreams so often were, and he half-woke from a vision of himself erotically enmeshed with a naked Quinn, this sufficiently vivid that he scrubbed at his mouth and spat to rid himself of the taste. The taste proved to be not of the Irishman but of the tonic he had drunk; a ginger-tasting belch rose up the back of Grey’s nose and he subsided against the side of the boat, feeling unequal to the occasion.
He was enmeshed with Tom, he found. Byrd was lying close against him, breathing stertorously; his face was pressed against Grey’s chest, his flushed cheek hot even through Grey’s half-dry shirt. All motion had stopped, and they were alone in the boat.
It was still dark, but the cloud cover had thinned, and the faded look of the few visible stars told him that it was no more than an hour ’til dawn. He lay flat on the wet boards, fighting to keep his eyes open—and fighting not to recall any of the details of the recent dream.
So groggy was he that it hadn’t occurred to him even to wonder where Fraser and Quinn had gone, until he heard their voices. They were near the boat, on land—well, of course they’re on land, he thought vaguely, but his drugged mind furnished him with a surreptitious vision of the two of them sitting on clouds, arguing with each other as they drifted through a midnight sky spangled with the most beautiful stars.
“I said I wouldna do it, and that’s flat!” Fraser’s voice was low, intense.
“Ye’ll turn your back on the men ye fought with, all the blood spilt for the Cause?”
“Aye, I will. And so would you, if ye’d half the sense of a day-old chick.”
The words faded, and Grey’s vision of Quinn melted into one of a red-eyed banty rooster, crowing in Irish and flapping its wings, darting pecks at Fraser’s feet. Fraser seemed to be naked but was somewhat disguised by drifts of vapor from the cloud he was sitting on.
The vision melted slowly into a vaguely erotic twinning of Stephan von Namtzen with Percy Wainwright, which he watched in a pleasant state of ennui, until von Namtzen evolved into Gerald Siverly, the ghastly wound in his head not seeming to hamper his movements.
Loud moaning from Tom woke him, sweating and queasy, to find the little boat gliding under sail along the shore of a flat green island—Inchcleraun.
Feeling mildly disembodied, and with only the crudest notion how to walk, he staggered up the path behind Fraser and Quinn, who were hauling Tom Byrd along as gently as they could, making encouraging noises. The remnants of his dreams mingled with the mist through which they walked, and he remembered the words he had overheard. He wished very much that he knew how that particular conversation had ended.
27
Loyalty and Duty
JAMIE WAS GREETED WITH CONCERNED WELCOME BY THE monks, who took Tom Byrd away at once to Brother Infirmarian. He left Quinn and Grey to be given food and went in to see Father Michael, disturbed in mind.
The abbot looked him over with fascination and offered him a seat and a glass of whiskey, both of which he accepted with deep gratitude.
“You do lead the most interesting life, Jamie dear,” he said, having been given a brief explanation of recent events. “So you’ve come to seek sanctuary, is it? And your friends—these would be the two gentlemen you told me of before, I make no doubt?”
“They would, Father. As for sanctuary …” He tried for a smile, though weariness weighed down even the muscles of his face. “If ye might see to the poor lad’s arm, we’ll be off as soon as he’s fettled. I wouldna put ye in danger. And I think perhaps the deputy justiciar of Athlone might not respect your sanctuary, should he come to hear about Colonel Grey’s presence.”
“Do you think the colonel did in fact murder Major Siverly?” the abbot asked with interest.
“I’m sure he did not. I think the miscreant is a man called Edward Twelvetrees, who has—had, I mean—some associations with Siverly.”
“What sort of associations?”
Jamie lifted his hand in a vague gesture. His bruised right shoulder burned like fire when he moved