Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [84]
“I hadna forgotten,” Fraser said simply. Grey steeled himself to look across the table, but when he did so, he found no hint of laughter in the slanted blue eyes.
Fraser nodded at him, gravely formal. “Ye were a worthy foe, Major; I wouldna forget you.”
John Grey laughed bitterly. Oddly enough, he felt less upset than he had thought he would, at having the shameful memory so explicitly recalled.
“If you found a sixteen-year-old shitting himself with fear a worthy foe, Mr. Fraser, then it is little wonder that the Highland army was defeated!”
Fraser smiled faintly.
“A man that doesna shit himself with a pistol held to his head, Major, has either no bowels, or no brains.”
Despite himself, Grey laughed. One edge of Fraser’s mouth turned slightly up.
“Ye wouldna speak to save your own life, but ye would do it to save a lady’s honor. The honor of my own lady,” Fraser said softly. “That doesna seem like cowardice to me.”
The ring of truth was too evident in the Scot’s voice to mistake or ignore.
“I did nothing for your wife,” Grey said, rather bitterly. “She was in no danger, after all!”
“Ye didna ken that, aye?” Fraser pointed out. “Ye thought to save her life and virtue, at the risk of your own. Ye did her honor by the notion—and I have thought of it now and again, since I—since I lost her.” The hesitation in Fraser’s voice was slight; only the tightening of the muscles in his throat betrayed his emotion.
“I see.” Grey breathed deep, and let it out slowly. “I am sorry for your loss,” he added formally.
They were both quiet for a moment, alone with their ghosts. Then Fraser looked up and drew in his breath.
“Your brother was right, Major,” he said. “I thank ye, and I’ll bid ye good e’en.” He rose, set down his cup and left the room.
* * *
It reminded him in some ways of his years in the cave, with his visits to the house, those oases of life and warmth in the desert of solitude. Here, it was the reverse, going from the crowded, cold squalor of the cells up to the Major’s glowing suite, able for a few hours to stretch both mind and body, to relax in warmth and conversation and the abundance of food.
It gave him the same odd sense of dislocation, though; that sense of losing some valuable part of himself that could not survive the passage back to daily life. Each time, the passage became more difficult.
He stood in the drafty passageway, waiting for the turnkey to unlock the cell door. The sounds of sleeping men buzzed in his ears and the smell of them wafted out as the door opened, pungent as a fart.
He filled his lungs with a quick deep breath, and ducked his head to enter.
There was a stir among the bodies on the floor as he stepped into the room, his shadow falling black across the prone and bundled shapes. The door swung closed behind him, leaving the cell in darkness, but there was a ripple of awareness through the room, as men stirred awake to his coming.
“You’re back late, Mac Dubh,” said Murdo Lindsay, voice rusty with sleep. “Ye’ll be sair tuckered tomorrow.”
“I’ll manage, Murdo,” he whispered, stepping over bodies. He pulled off his coat and laid it carefully over the bench, then took up the rough blanket and sought his space on the floor, his long shadow flickering across the moon-barred window.
Ronnie Sinclair turned over as Mac Dubh lay down beside him. He blinked sleepily, sandy lashes nearly invisible in the moonlight.
“Did Wee Goldie feed ye decent, Mac Dubh?”
“He did, Ronnie, thank ye.” He shifted on the stones, seeking a comfortable position.
“Ye’ll tell us about it tomorrow?” The prisoners took an odd pleasure in hearing what he had been served for dinner, taking it as an honor that their chief should be well fed.
“Aye, I will, Ronnie,” Mac Dubh promised. “But I must sleep now, aye?”
“Sleep well, Mac Dubh,” came a whisper from the corner where Hayes was rolled up, curled like a set of teaspoons with MacLeod, Innes, and Keith, who all liked to sleep warm.
“Sweet dreams, Gavin,” Mac Dubh whispered back, and little by little, the cell settled back into silence.
* * *
He dreamed