The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [152]
Captain Honey saw him coming and met him halfway. Honey was young, perhaps in his early twenties, and much paler than either of the combatants.
“Joseph Honey, your servant, sir,” he said, offering his hand. “I—I am not sure what to say, really.”
“That makes the two of us,” Jamie assured him. “I take it Captain Twelvetrees doesna intend to withdraw his assertion that Lord John is a sodomite?”
The word made Captain Honey blush, and he looked down.
“Er … no. And I quite understand that your principal will not brook the insult?”
“Certainly not,” Jamie said. “Ye wouldna expect it, would ye?”
“Oh, no!” Honey looked aghast at the suggestion. “But I did have to ask.” He swallowed. “Well. Um … terms. Sabers—I see your principal is suitably equipped; I’d brought an extra, just in case. At ten—oh, no, you don’t do paces when it’s swords, naturally not … er … Will your principal agree to first blood?”
Jamie smiled, but not in a friendly fashion.
“Would yours?”
“Worth a try, isn’t it?” Honey rallied bravely, looking up at Jamie. “If Lord John would be willing—”
“He is not.”
Honey nodded, looking unhappy.
“Right. Well, then … there’s not much more to say, is there?” He bowed to Jamie and turned away, but then turned back. “Oh—we have brought a surgeon. He is of course at Lord John’s service, should that be necessary.”
Jamie saw Honey’s eyes travel past him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Lord John, stripped to shirt and breeches, barefoot on the wet grass, warming his muscles with a series of slashes and lunges that, while not showy, clearly indicated that he knew how to use a saber. Honey exhaled audibly.
“I dinna think ye’ll have to fight him,” Jamie said gently. He looked toward the trees and saw Twelvetrees openly gauging him. Eyes meeting the other man’s, Jamie very slowly stretched himself, displaying both reach and confidence. Twelvetrees’s mouth quirked up at one corner, acknowledging the information—but in no way disturbed at the possibilities. Either he thought there was no chance of his having to fight Jamie—or he thought he could win if he did. Jamie inclined his head in a slight bow.
Grey had turned his back on Twelvetrees and was tossing the sword lightly from hand to hand.
The weight of the saber felt good in his hand, solid, heavy. The freshly sharpened edge glittered in the light; he could still smell the oil of the sharpening stone; it made the hairs prickle agreeably down his arms.
Jamie walked back, to find that Harry Quarry had joined Lord John and Tom Byrd. The colonel nodded at him.
“Couldn’t stay away,” he said, half-apologetically.
“Ye mean His Grace doesna quite trust me to give him a complete report of the outcome—should that be necessary?”
“Partly that. Mostly—dammit, he’s my friend.”
Grey had barely registered Harry’s arrival, absorbed as he was in his own preparations, but he heard that and smiled.
“Thank you, Harry.” He walked to his supporters, suffused with a sudden overwhelming affection for the three of them. The lines of the old folk song drifted through his mind: God send each noble man at his end / Such hawks, such hounds, and such a friend. He wondered briefly which was which and decided that Tom must be his faithful hound, Harry of course the friend, and Jamie Fraser his hawk, untamed and ferocious but there with him at the last—if that’s what it was, though in all honesty he thought not.
I can feel my heart beating. Feel my breath. How can it stop?
Harry reached out and clasped his hand quickly. He smiled reassuringly at Tom, who was standing there clutching his coat, waistcoat, and stockings,