Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [200]
Ian’s hand clamped down on my arm like the jaws of a trap.
“Ian!” he shrieked, loud enough to be heard above the noises of crowd and fire alike.
I looked up in the direction of his gaze, and saw a wraithlike shape at the second-story window. It seemed to struggle briefly with the sash, and then to fall back or be enveloped in the smoke.
My heart leapt into my mouth. There was no telling whether the shape was indeed Young Ian, but it was certainly a human form. Ian had lost no time in gaping, but was stumping toward the door of the printshop with all the speed his leg would allow.
“Wait!” I shouted, running after him.
Jamie was leaning on the printing press, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath and thank his assistants at the same time.
“Jamie!” I snatched at his sleeve, ruthlessly jerking him away from a red-faced barber, who kept excitedly wiping sooty hands on his apron, leaving long black streaks among the smears of dried soap and the spots of blood.
“Up there!” I shouted, pointing. “Young Ian’s upstairs!”
Jamie stepped back, swiping a sleeve across his blackened face, and stared wildly at the upper windows. Nothing was to be seen but the roiling shimmer of the fire against the panes.
Ian was struggling in the hands of several neighbors who sought to prevent his entering the shop.
“No, man, ye canna go in!” the Guard captain cried, trying to grasp Ian’s flailing hands. “The staircase has fallen, and the roof will go next!”
Despite his stringy build and the handicap of his leg, Ian was tall and vigorous, and the feeble grasp of his well-meaning Town Guard captors—mostly retired pensioners from the Highland regiments—was no match for his mountain-hardened strength, reinforced as it was by parental desperation. Slowly but surely, the whole confused mass jerked by inches up the steps of the printshop as Ian dragged his would-be rescuers with him toward the flames.
I felt Jamie draw breath, gulping air as deep as he could with his seared lungs, and then he was up the steps as well, and had Ian round the waist, dragging him back.
“Come down, man!” he shouted hoarsely. “Ye’ll no manage—the stair is gone!” He glanced round, saw me, and thrust Ian bodily backward, off-balance and staggering, into my arms. “Hold him,” he shouted, over the roar of the flames. “I’ll fetch down the lad!”
With that, he turned and dashed up the steps of the adjoining building, pushing his way through the patrons of the ground-floor chocolate shop, who had emerged onto the pavement to gawk at the excitement, pewter cups still clutched in their hands.
Following Jamie’s example, I locked my arms tight around Ian’s waist and didn’t let go. He made an abortive attempt to follow Jamie, but then stopped and stood rigid in my arms, his heart beating wildly just under my cheek.
“Don’t worry,” I said, pointlessly. “He’ll do it; he’ll get him out. He will. I know he will.”
Ian didn’t answer—might not have heard—but stood still and stiff as a statue in my grasp, breath coming harshly with a sound like a sob. When I released my hold on his waist, he didn’t move or turn, but when I stood beside him, he snatched my hand and held it hard. My bones would have ground together, had I not been squeezing back just as hard.
It was no more than a minute before the window above the chocolate shop opened and Jamie’s head and shoulders appeared, red hair glowing like a stray tongue of flame escaped from the main fire. He climbed out onto the sill, and cautiously turned, squatting, until he faced the building.
Rising to his stockinged feet, he grasped the gutter of the roof overhead and pulled, slowly raising himself by the strength of his arms, long toes scrabbling for a grip in the crevices between the mortared stones of the housefront. With a grunt audible even over the sound of fire and crowd, he