The Scottish Prisoner - Diana Gabaldon [85]
“Why … yes. Yes, I think perhaps I do know someone.” Sir Melchior beckoned to his steward to fetch a fresh decanter of port. “Do you know Inchcleraun?”
Both Grey and Fraser shook their heads, but Grey felt his heart pick up its pace a bit.
“It’s a Catholic monastery,” Sir Melchior said. “A glass with you, Lord John? Yes, yes.” He drank deep and set down the glass to be refilled, belching contentedly. “It’s on an island—the island’s called Inchcleraun, too—up toward the north end of Lough Ree. Only about ten miles from here by water. The abbot—Michael FitzGibbons, he’s called—is quite a collector of old things: parchments, oddments, all-sorts. I met him once; decent sort, for a priest. I think if anyone could tell you where to find the rest of your poem, it might be him.”
Grey saw Jamie’s face change suddenly. The change was transient, like the ripple of wine in the glass the steward set down before him, but definitely there. Perhaps he took exception to that “decent for a priest” remark? Surely not; such remarks were commonplace, and it hadn’t been said with any particular tone of derogation.
“I thank ye,” Jamie said, and smiled, nodding over his lifted glass. “A glass with ye, sir? It’s a verra nice make of wine, to be sure.”
18
Fireside Tales
GREY HAD HOPED TO BE RID OF QUINN ONCE THEY REACHED Athlone, but the Irishman clung like a burr, popping up wherever he and Jamie went in the city, cheerful as a grig, and giving no indication that he viewed John as anything but an esteemed acquaintance.
“Can’t you get rid of him?” he’d snapped at Jamie finally, discovering Quinn lounging in the yard of the stable where they’d gone to hire a mule cart for the larger baggage—for Tom had arrived by coach that morning.
“D’ye want me to shoot him?” Fraser inquired. “You’ve got the pistols, aye?”
“What does he bloody want?” Grey demanded in exasperation, but Fraser merely shrugged and looked stubborn—or, rather, more stubborn than usual, if such a thing were possible.
“He says he has business near Inchcleraun, and I’ve nay grounds to call him a liar. Have you? Or do ye ken the way, for that matter?”
Grey had given up, having no choice, and suffered Quinn to ride along with them. With Tom and the baggage-cart and with Jamie Fraser’s inclination to seasickness in mind, they had determined to go by road up the coast of Lough Ree, then find a boat to ferry Jamie across to Inchcleraun, where he would see the abbot and make inquiries regarding the Wild Hunt poem, before they made their assault upon Siverly’s estate near the village of Ballybonaggin, this being only a few miles from the end of Lough Ree, where the island of Inchcleraun lay.
Quinn had promptly declared that he knew Lough Ree well, would guide them safely and find them transport to Inchcleraun. “For sure, I’m after having my own small bit of business nearby, am I not?”
It was roughly twenty miles from Athlone to the far end of Lough Ree, but a torrential downpour that turned the road to liquid mud, bogged the horses, and sank the cart to its axles marooned them four miles short of their goal.
At this point, Grey was not precisely grateful but at least not displeased that Quinn had come with them, for the Irishman did apparently know the countryside and found them shelter in a tumbledown structure that had once been a cow byre. True, the roof leaked and there was a lingering scent of the building’s former inhabitants, but it was substantially drier than the open air, and there was enough dung and a few damp peats to scrape together for a meager fire.
Grey admitted to a reluctant admiration for Quinn’s sangfroid. He behaved precisely as though they were all jolly companions, joking and telling