The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [30]
They moved purposefully toward him, one taking him by each arm. He couldn’t avoid it but felt the urge to jerk himself free. They led him into the hall and out the front door; he could see the butler smirking from his pantry and two of the maids hanging wide-eyed and openmouthed out of the upper windows as the men emerged onto the drive, where a coach stood waiting.
“Where are ye taking me?” he asked, with what calmness he could.
The men glanced at each other; one shrugged.
“You’re going to London,” he said.
“To visit the Queen,” the other said, and sniggered.
He had to duck to enter the carriage and, in doing so, turned his head. Lady Isobel stood in the window, mouth open in shock. William was in her arms, small head laid in sleep on her shoulder. Behind them, Betty smiled at him, maliciously pleased.
SECTION II
Force Majeure
7
When a Man Is Tired of London,
He Is Tired of Life
THE SOLDIERS GAVE HIM A SERVICEABLE CLOAK TO WEAR AND food at the taverns and inns, shoving it indifferently across the table toward him, ignoring him while they talked, save an occasional sharp glance to be sure he wasn’t getting up to something. What, exactly, did they think he might do? he wondered. If he’d ever meant to escape, he could have done it much more easily from Helwater.
He gathered nothing from their conversation, which seemed mostly regimental gossip, bawdy remarks about women, and low jokes. Not a word as to their destination.
At the second stop, there was wine—decent wine. He drank it cautiously; he hadn’t tasted anything stronger than small beer in years, and the lush flavor clung to his palate and rose like smoke inside his head. The soldiers shared three bottles—and so did he, welcoming the slowing of his racing thoughts as the alcohol seeped into his blood. It would do him no good to think, until he knew what to think about.
He tried to keep his mind off their unknown destination and what might await him there, but it was like trying not to think of a—
“Rhinoceros,” Claire said, with a muffled snort of amusement that stirred the hairs on his chest. “Have you ever seen one?”
“I have,” he said, shifting her weight so she rested more comfortably in the hollow of his shoulder. “In Louis’s zoo. Aye, that would stick in the mind.”
Abruptly, she vanished and left him sitting there, blinking stupidly into his wine cup.
Had it really happened, that memory? Or was it only his desire that now and then brought her so vividly to life, in snatched moments that left him desperate with longing but strangely comforted, as though she had in fact touched him briefly?
He became aware that the soldiers had all stopped talking and were staring at him. And that he was smiling. He looked back at them over his cup, not altering his expression.
They looked away, uneasy, and he went back to his wife, for the moment tranquil in his mind.
THEY DID TAKE HIM to London.
He tried not to gawk; he was aware of the soldiers casting covert glances at him, sly smiles. They expected him to be impressed, and he declined to give them the satisfaction—but he was impressed, nonetheless.
So this was London. It had the stink of any city, the narrow alleys, the smell of slops and chimney smoke. But any large city has its own soul, and London was quite different from either Paris or Edinburgh. Paris was secretive, self-satisfied; Edinburgh solidly busy, a merchants’ town. But this … It was rowdy, churning like an anthill, and gave off a sense of pushing, as though the energy of the place would burst its bonds and spill out over the countryside, spill out into the world at large. His blood stirred, despite his fears and the tooth-jolting ride.
The Jacobite soldiers would talk about London, early in the campaign, when they were victorious and London seemed a plum within their grasp. Wild tales—almost none of them had ever seen a city, before