Diana Gabaldon - Dragonfly In Amber

Fergus was speechless with alarmed excitement, but Murtagh frowned dubiously at him.

“D’ye think the bairn can manage yon wicked beast?” he said.

“Aye, he can,” Jamie said firmly. Overcome, Fergus stuttered, then sank to his knees and kissed Jamie’s hand fervently. Springing to his feet, he darted away in the direction of the stables, his slight figure disappearing in the mist.

Jamie licked dry lips, and closed his eyes briefly, then turned to Murtagh with decision.

“And you – mo caraidh – I need ye to gather the men.”

Murtagh’s sketchy brows shot up, but he merely nodded.

“Aye,” he said. “And when I have?”

Jamie glanced at me, then back at his godfather. “They’ll be on the moor now, I think, with Young Simon. Just gather them together, in one place. I shall see my wife safe, and then-” He hesitated, then shrugged. “I will find you. Wait my coming.”

Murtagh nodded once more, and turned to go. Then he paused, and turned back to face Jamie. The thin mouth twitched briefly, and he said, “I would ask the one thing of ye, lad – let it be the English. Not your ain folk.”

Jamie flinched slightly, but after a moment, he nodded. Then, without speaking, he held out his arms to the older man. They embraced quickly, fiercely, and Murtagh, too, was gone, in a swirl of ragged tartan.

I was the last bit of business on the agenda.

“Come on, Sassenach,” he said, seizing me by the arm. “We must go.”

No one stopped us; there was so much coming and going by the roads that we were scarcely noticed while we were near the moor. Farther away, when we left the main road, there was no one to see.

Jamie was completely silent, concentrating single-mindedly on the job at hand. I said nothing to him, too occupied with my own shock and dread to wish for conversation.

“I shall see my wife safe.” I hadn’t known what he meant by that, but it became obvious within two hours, when he turned the head of his horse farther south, and the steep green hill called Craigh na Dun came in view.

“No!” I said, when I saw it, and realized where we were headed. “Jamie, no! I won’t go!”

He didn’t answer me, only spurred his horse and galloped ahead, leaving me no option but to follow.

My feelings were in turmoil; beyond the doom of the coming battle and the horror of Dougal’s death, now there was the prospect of the stones. That accursed circle, through which I had come here. Plainly Jamie meant to send me back, back to my own time – if such a thing was possible.

He could mean all he liked, I thought, clenching my jaw as I followed him down the narrow trail through the heather. There was no power on earth that could make me leave him now.

We stood together on the hillside, in the small dooryard of the ruined cottage that stood below the crest of the hill. No one had lived there for years; the local folk said the hill was haunted – a fairy’s dun.

Jamie had half-urged, half-dragged me up the slope, paying no attention to my protests. At the cottage he had stopped, though, and sunk to the ground, chest heaving as he gasped for breath.

“It’s all right,” he said at last. “We have a bit of time now; no one will find us here.”

He sat on the ground, his plaid wrapped around him for warmth. It had stopped raining for the moment, but the wind blew cold from the mountains nearby, where snow still capped the peaks and choked the passes. He let his head fall forward onto his knees, exhausted by the flight.

I sat close by him, huddled within my cloak, and felt his breathing gradually slow as the panic subsided. We sat in silence for a long time, afraid to move from what seemed a precarious perch above the chaos below. Chaos I felt I had somehow helped create.

“Jamie,” I said, at last. I reached out a hand to touch him, but then drew back and let it fall. “Jamie – I’m sorry.”

He continued to look out, into the darkening void of the moor below. For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me. He closed his eyes. Then he shook his head very slightly.

“No,” he said softly. “There is no need.”

“But there is.” Grief nearly choked me, but I felt as though I must say it; must tell him that I knew what I had done to him.

“I should have gone back. Jamie – if I had gone, then, when you brought me here from Cranesmuir… maybe then-”

“Aye, maybe,” he interrupted. He swung toward me abruptly, and I could see his eyes fixed on me. There was longing there, and a grief that matched mine, but no anger, no reproach.

He shook his head again.

“No,” he said once more. “I ken what ye mean, mo duinne . But it isna so. Had ye gone then, matters might still have happened as they have. Maybe so, maybe no. Perhaps it would have come sooner. Perhaps differently. Perhaps – just perhaps – not at all. But there are more folk have had a hand in this than we two, and I willna have ye take the guilt of it upon yourself.”

His hand touched my hair, smoothing it out of my eyes. A tear rolled down my cheek, and he caught it on his finger.

“Not that,” I said. I flung a hand out toward the dark, taking in the armies, and Charles, and the starved man in the wood, and the slaughter to come. “Not that. What I did to you.”

He smiled then, with great tenderness, and smoothed his palm across my cheek, warm on my spring-chilled skin.

“Aye? And what have I done to you, Sassenach? Taken ye from your own place, led ye into poverty and outlawry, taken ye through battlefields and risked your life. D’ye hold it against me?”

“You know I don’t.”

He smiled. “Aye, well; neither do I, my Sassenach.” The smile faded from his face as he glanced up at the crest of the hill above us. The stones were invisible, but I could feel the menace of them, close at hand.

“I won’t go, Jamie,” I repeated stubbornly. “I’m staying with you.”

“No.” He shook his head. He spoke gently, but his voice was firm, with no possibility of denial. “I must go back, Claire.”

“Jamie, you can’t!” I clutched his arm urgently. “Jamie, they will have found Dougal by now! Willie Coulter will have told someone.”

“Aye, he will.” He put a hand over my arm and patted it. He had reached his decision on the ride to the hill; I could see it in his shadowed face, resignation and determination mingled. There was grief there, and sadness, too, but those had been put aside; he had no time for mourning now.

“We could try to get away to France,” I said. “Jamie, we must!” But even as I spoke, I knew I could not turn him from the course he had decided on.

“No,” he said again, softly. He turned and lifted a hand, gesturing toward the darkening valley below, the shaded hills beyond. “The country is roused, Sassenach. The ports are closed; O’Brien has been trying for the last three months to bring a ship to rescue the Prince, to take him to safety in France – Dougal told me… before.” A tremor passed over his face, and a sudden spasm of grief knit his brows. He pushed it aside, though, and went on, explaining in a steady voice.

“It’s only the English who are hunting Charles Stuart. It will be the English, and the clans as well, who hunt me. I am a traitor twice over, a rebel and a murderer. Claire…” He paused, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, then said gently, “Claire, I am a dead man.”

The tears were freezing on my cheeks, leaving icy trails that burned my skin.

“No,” I said again, but to no effect.

“I’m no precisely inconspicuous, ye ken,” he said, trying to make a joke of it as he ran a hand through the rusty locks of his hair. “Red Jamie wouldna get far, I think. But you…” He touched my mouth, tracing the line of my lips. “I can save you, Claire, and I will. That is the most important thing. But then I shall go back – for my men.”