Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [66]
“The white witch?” Grey interrupted. “He spoke of a white witch? And seals?” It scarcely seemed more farfetched than the rest of it, but still he spoke disbelievingly.
“Aye, he did.”
“Say it to me again,” Grey commanded. “As best you remember. If you please,” he added.
He felt oddly comfortable with the man, he realized, with a feeling of surprise. Part of it was sheer fatigue, of course; all his usual reactions and feelings were numbed by the long night and the strain of watching a man die by inches.
The entire night had seemed unreal to Grey; not least was this odd conclusion, wherein he found himself sitting in the dim dawn light of a country tavern, sharing a pitcher of ale with Red Jamie Fraser.
Fraser obeyed, speaking slowly, stopping now and then to recall. With the difference of a word here or there, it was identical to the first account—and those parts of it that Grey himself had been able to understand were faithfully translated.
He shook his head, discouraged. Gibberish. The man’s ravings had been precisely that—ravings. If the man had ever seen any gold—and it did sound as though he had, at one time—there was no telling where or when from this hodgepodge of delusion and feverish delirium.
“You are quite positive that is all he said?” Grey grasped at the slim hope that Fraser might have omitted some small phrase, some statement that would yield a clue to the lost gold.
Fraser’s sleeve fell back as he lifted his cup; Grey could see the deep band of raw flesh about his wrist, dark in the gray early light of the taproom. Fraser saw him looking at it, and set down the cup, the frail illusion of companionship shattered.
“I keep my bargains, Major,” Fraser said, with cold formality. He rose to his feet. “Shall we be going back now?”
They rode in silence for some time. Fraser was lost in his own thoughts, Grey sunk in fatigue and disappointment. They stopped at a small spring to refresh themselves, just as the sun topped the small hills to the north.
Grey drank cold water, then splashed it on his face, feeling the shock of it revive him momentarily. He had been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and was feeling slow and stupid.
Fraser had been awake for the same twenty-four hours, but gave no apparent sign of being troubled by the fact. He was crawling busily around the spring on his hands and knees, evidently plucking some sort of weed from the water.
“What are you doing, Mr. Fraser?” Grey asked, in some bewilderment.
Fraser looked up, mildly surprised, but not embarrassed in the slightest.
“I am picking watercress, Major.”
“I see that,” Grey said testily. “What for?”
“To eat, Major,” Fraser replied evenly. He took the stained cloth bag from his belt and dropped the dripping green mass into it.
“Indeed? Are you not fed sufficiently?” Grey asked blankly. “I have never heard of people eating watercress.”
“It’s green, Major.”
In his fatigued state, the Major had suspicions that he was being practiced upon.
“What in damnation other color ought a weed to be?” he demanded.
Fraser’s mouth twitched slightly, and he seemed to be debating something with himself. At last he shrugged slightly, wiping his wet hands on the sides of his breeks.
“I only meant, Major, that eating green plants will stop ye getting scurvy and loose teeth. My men eat such greens as I take them, and cress is better-tasting than most things I can pick on the moor.”
Grey felt his brows shoot up.
“Green plants stop scurvy?” he blurted. “Wherever did you get that notion?”
“From my wife!” Fraser snapped. He turned away abruptly, and stood, tying the neck of his sack with hard, quick movements.
Grey could not prevent himself asking.
“Your wife, sir—where is she?”
The answer was a sudden blaze of dark blue that seared him to the