The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (192 page)

“Yes,
that
,” I said, coming to take a closer look. “What happened?”

“It’s no matter,” he said, speech coming thickly through a towel. “I spoke a bit hasty this afternoon, and my grandsire had Young Simon give me a small lesson in respect.”

“So he had a couple of minor Frasers hold you while he punched you in the belly?” I said, feeling slightly ill.

Tossing the towel aside, Jamie reached for his nightshirt.

“Verra flattering of you to suppose it took two to hold me,” he said, grinning as his head popped through the opening. “Actually, there were three; one was behind, chokin’ me.”

“Jamie!”

He laughed, shaking his head ruefully as he pulled back the quilt on the bed.

“I don’t know what it is about ye, Sassenach, that always makes me want to show off for ye. Get myself killed one of these days, tryin’ to impress ye, I expect.” He sighed, gingerly smoothing the woolen shirt over his stomach. “It’s only play-acting, Sassenach; ye shouldna worry.”

“Play-acting! Good God, Jamie!”

“Have ye no seen a strange dog join a pack, Sassenach? The others sniff at him, and nip at his legs, and growl, to see will he cower or growl back at them. And sometimes it comes to biting, and sometimes not, but at the end of it, every dog in the pack knows his place, and who’s leader. Old Simon wants to be sure I ken who leads this pack; that’s all.”

“Oh? And do you?” I lay down, waiting for him to come to bed. He picked up the candle and grinned down at me, the flickering light picking up a blue gleam in his eyes.

“Woof,” he said, and blew out the candle.

I saw very little of Jamie for the next two weeks, save at night. During the day, he was always with his grandfather, hunting or riding—for Lovat was a vigorous man, despite his age—or drinking in the study, as the Old Fox slowly drew his conclusions and laid his plans.

I spent most of my time with Frances and the other women. Out of the shadow of her redoubtable old father, Frances gained enough courage to speak her own mind, and proved an intelligent and interesting companion. She had the responsibility for the smooth running of the castle and its staff, but when her father appeared on the scene, she dwindled into insignificance, seldom raising her eyes or speaking above a whisper. I wasn’t sure I blamed her.

Two weeks after our arrival, Jamie came to fetch me from the drawing room where I sat with Frances and Aline, saying that Lord Lovat wished to see me.

Old Simon waved a casual hand at the decanters set on the table by the wall, then sat down in a wide-seated chair of carved walnut, with crushed padding in well-worn blue velvet. The chair fitted his short, stocky form as though it had been built around him; I wondered whether it had in fact been built to order, or whether, from long use, he had grown into the shape of the chair.

I sat down quietly in a corner with my glass of port, and kept quiet while Simon questioned Jamie once again about Charles Stuart’s situation and prospects.

For the twentieth time in a week, Jamie patiently rehearsed the number of troops available, the structure of command—insofar as one existed—the armament on hand and its condition—mostly poor—the prospects of Charles being joined by Lord Lewis Gordon or the Farquharsons, what Glengarry had said following Prestonpans, what Cameron knew or deduced of the movement of English troops, why Charles had decided to march south, and so on and so forth. I found myself nodding over the cup in my hand, and jerked myself into wakefulness, just in time to keep the ruby liquid from tipping onto my skirt.

“… and Lord George Murray and Kilmarnock both think His Highness would be best advised to pull back into the Highlands for the winter,” Jamie concluded, yawning widely. Cramped on the narrow-backed chair he had been given, he rose and stretched, his shadow flickering on the pale hangings that covered the stone walls.

“And what d’ye think, yourself?” Old Simon’s eyes glittered under half-fallen lids as he leaned back in his chair. The fire burned high and bright on the hearth; Frances had smoored the fire in the main hall, covering it with peats, but this one had been rekindled at Lovat’s order, and with wood, not peat. The smell of pine resin from the burning wood was sharp, mingled with the thicker smell of smoke.

The light cast Jamie’s shadow high on the wall as he turned restlessly, not wanting to sit down again. It was close and dark in the small study, with the window draped against the night—very different from the open, sunny kirkyard in which Column had asked him the same question. And the situation now had shifted; no longer the popular darling to whom clan chieftains deferred, Charles now was sending to the chiefs, grimly calling in his obligations. But the shape of the problem was the same—a dark, amorphous shape, hanging like a shadow over us.

“I’ve told ye what I think—a dozen times or more.” Jamie spoke abruptly. He moved his shoulders impatiently, shrugging as though the fit of his coat was too tight.

“Oh, aye. You’ve told me. But this time I think we shall have the truth.” The old man settled more comfortably into his padded chair, hands linked across his belly.

“Will ye, then?” Jamie uttered a short laugh, and turned to face his grandfather. He leaned back against the table, hands braced behind him. Despite the differences in posture and figure, there was a tension between the two men that brought out a fugitive resemblance between them. The one tall and the other squat, but both of them strong, stubborn, and determined to win this encounter.

“Am I not your kinsman? And your chief? I command your loyalty, do I not?”

So that was the point. Colum, so accustomed to physical weakness, had known the secret of turning another man’s weakness to his own purposes. Simon Fraser, strong and vigorous even in old age, was accustomed to getting his own way by more direct means. I could see from the sour smile on Jamie’s face that he, too, was contrasting Colum’s appeal with his grandfather’s demand.

“Can ye? I dinna recall that I’ve sworn ye an oath.”

Several long stiff hairs grew out of Simon’s eyebrows, in the way of old men. These quivered in the firelight, though I couldn’t tell whether with indignation or amusement.

“Oath, is it? And is it not Fraser blood in your veins?”

Jamie’s mouth twisted wryly as he answered. “They do say that it’s a wise child as kens his own father, no? My mother was a MacKenzie; I know that much.”

Simon’s face grew dark with blood, and his brows drew together. Then his mouth fell open, and he shouted with laughter. He laughed until he was forced to pull himself up in the chair and bend forward, sputtering and choking. At last, beating one hand on the arm of the chair in helpless mirth, he reached into his mouth with the other and pulled out his false teeth.

“Dod,” he sputtered, gasping and wheezing. Face streaming with tears and saliva, he groped blindly for the small table by his chair, and dropped the teeth onto the cake plate. The gnarled fingers closed on a linen napkin, and he pressed it to his face, still emitting strangled grunts of laughter as he conducted his mopping up.

“Chritht, laddie,” he said at last, lisping heavily. “Path me the whithky.”

Eyebrows raised, Jamie took the decanter from the table behind him and passed it to his grandfather, who removed the stopper and gulped a substantial amount of the contents without bothering about the formality of a glass.

“You think you’re not a Frather?” he said, lowering the decanter and exhaling gustily. “Ha!” He leaned back once more, belly rising and falling rapidly as he caught his breath. He pointed a long, skinny finger at Jamie.

“Your own father thtood right where you’re thstanding, laddie, and told me jutht what you did, the day he left Beaufort Cathtle once and for all.” The old man was growing calmer now; he coughed several times and wiped his face again.

“Did ye know that I’d tried to thtop your parents’ marriage by claiming that Ellen MacKenzie’s child wathn’t Brian’s?”

“Aye, I knew.” Jamie was leaning back on the table again, surveying his grandfather through narrowed eyes.

Lord Lovat snorted. “I’ll not thay there’s been always goodwill atween me and mine, but I know my thons.
And
my grandthons,” he added pointedly. “De’il take me and I think any one of ’em could be a cuckold, nay more than I could.”

Jamie didn’t turn a hair, but I couldn’t stop myself from glancing away from the old man. I found myself staring at his discarded teeth, the stained beechwood gleaming wetly amid the cake crumbs. Luckily Lord Lovat hadn’t noticed my slight motion.

He went on, serious once more. “Now, then. Dougal MacKenzie of Leoch hath declared for Charles. D’ye call him your chief? Is that what ye’re telling me—that ye’ve given him an oath?”

“No. I havena sworn to anyone.”

“Not even Charles?” The old man was fast, pouncing on this like a cat on a mouse. I could almost see his tail twitch as he watched Jamie, slanted eyes deep-set and gleaming under crepey lids.

Jamie’s eyes were fixed on the leaping flames, his shadow motionless on the wall behind him.

“He hasna asked me.” This was true. Charles had had no need to request an oath from Jamie—having precluded the necessity by signing Jamie’s name to his Bond of Association. Still, I knew that he had not, in fact, given his word to Charles was important to Jamie. If he must betray the man, let it not be as an acknowledged chief. The idea that the entire world thought such an oath existed was a matter of much less concern.

Simon grunted again. Without his false teeth, his nose and chin came close together, making the lower half of his face oddly foreshortened.

“Then nothing hampers you to thwear to me, as chief of your clan,” he said quietly. The twitching tail was less visible, but still there. I could almost hear the thoughts in his head, gliding round on padded feet. With Jamie’s loyalty sworn to him, rather than Charles, Lovat’s power would be increased. As would his wealth, with a share of the income from Lallybroch that he might claim as his chieftain’s due. The prospect of a dukedom drew slightly nearer, gleaming through the mist.

“Nothing save my own will,” Jamie agreed pleasantly. “But that’s some small obstacle, no?” His own eyes creased at the corners as they narrowed further.

“Mmphm.” Lovat’s eyes were almost closed, and he shook his head slowly from side to side. “Oh, aye, lad, you’re your father’s thon. Thtubborn as a block, and twith ath thtupid. I thould have known that Brian would thire nothing but fools from that harlot.”

Jamie reached forward and plucked the beechwood teeth from the plate. “Ye’d better put these back, ye auld gomerel,” he said rudely. “I canna understand a word ye say.”

His grandfather’s mouth widened in a humorless smile that showed the yellowed stump of a lone broken tooth in the lower jaw.

“No?” he said. “Will ye underthand a bargain?” He shot a quick look at me, seeing nothing more than another counter to be put into play. “Your oath for your wife’s honor, how’s that?”

Jamie laughed out loud, still holding the teeth in one hand.

“Oh, aye? D’ye mean to force her before my eyes, then, Grandsire?” He lounged back contemptuously, hand on the table. “Go ahead, and when she’s done wi’ ye, I’ll send Aunt Frances up to sweep up the pieces.”

His grandfather looked him over calmly. “Not I, lad.” One side of the toothless mouth rose in a lopsided smile as he turned his head to look at me. “Though I’ve taken my pleasure with worthe.” The cold malice in the dark eyes made me want to pull my cloak over my breasts in protection; unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing one.

“How many men are there in Beaufort, Jamie? How many, who’d be of a mind to put your thathenach wench to the only uth thee’s good for? You cannot guard her night and day.”

Jamie straightened slowly, the great shadow echoing his movements on the wall. He stared down at his grandfather with no expression on his face.

“Oh, I think I needna worry, Grandsire,” he said softly. “For my wife’s a rare woman. A wisewoman, ye ken. A white lady, like Dame Aliset.”

I had never heard of Dame Aliset, but Lord Lovat plainly had; his head jerked round to stare at me, eyes sprung wide with shocked alarm. His mouth drooped open, but before he could speak, Jamie had gone on, an undercurrent of malice clearly audible in his smooth speech.

“The man that takes her in unholy embrace will have his privates blasted like a frostbitten apple,” he said, with relish, “and his soul will burn forever in hell.” He bared his teeth at his grandfather, and drew back his hand. “Like this.” The beechwood teeth landed in the midst of the fire with a plop, and at once began to sizzle.

41

THE SEER’S CURSE

Most of the Lowland Scots had gone over to Presbyterianism in the two centuries before. Some of the Highland clans had gone with them, but others, like the Frasers and MacKenzies, had kept their Catholic faith. Especially the Frasers, with their strong family ties to Catholic France.

There was a small chapel in Beaufort Castle, to serve the devotional uses of the Earl and his family, but Beauly Priory, ruined as it was, remained the burying place of the Lovats, and the floor of the open-roofed chancel was paved thick with the flat tombstones of those who lay under them.

It was a peaceful place, and I walked there sometimes, in spite of the cold, blustery weather. I had no idea whether Old Simon had meant his threat against me, or whether Jamie’s comparing me to Dame Aliset—who turned out to be a legendary “white woman” or healer, the Scottish equivalent of La Dame Blanche—was sufficient to put a stop to that threat. But I thought that no one was likely to accost me among the tombs of extinct Frasers.

One afternoon, a few days after the scene in the study, I walked through a gap in the ruined Priory wall and found that for once, I didn’t have it to myself. The tall woman I had seen outside Lovat’s study was there, leaning against one of the red-stone tombs, arms folded about her for warmth, long legs thrust out like a stork.

I made to turn aside, but she saw me, and motioned me to join her.

“You’ll be my lady Broch Tuarach?” she said, though there was no more than a hint of question in her soft Highland voice.

“I am. And you’re … Maisri?”

A small smile lit her face. She had a most intriguing face, slightly asymmetrical, like a Modigliani painting, and long black hair that flowed loose around her shoulders, streaked with white, though she was plainly still young. A seer, hm? I thought she looked the part.

“Aye, I have the Sight,” she said, the smile widening a bit on her lopsided mouth.

“Do mind-reading, too, do you?” I asked.

She laughed, the sound vanishing on the wind that moaned through the ruined walls.

“No, lady. But I do read faces, and …”

“And mine’s an open book. I know,” I said, resigned.

We stood side by side for a time then, watching tiny spatters of fine sleet dashing against the sandstone and the thick brown grass that overgrew the kirkyard.

“They do say as you’re a white lady,” Maisri observed suddenly. I could feel her watching me intently, but with none of the nervousness that seemed common to such an observation.

“They do say that,” I agreed.

“Ah.” She didn’t speak again, just stared down at her feet, long and elegant, stockinged in wool and clad in leather sandals. My own toes, rather more sheltered, were growing numb, and I thought hers must be frozen solid, if she’d been here any time.

“What are you doing up here?” I asked. The Priory was a beautiful, peaceful place in good weather, but not much of a roost in the cold winter sleet.

“I come here to think,” she said. She gave me a slight smile, but was plainly preoccupied. Whatever she was thinking, her thoughts weren’t overly pleasant.

“To think about what?” I asked, hoisting myself up to sit on the tomb beside her. The worn figure of a knight lay on the lid, his claymore clasped to his bosom, the hilt forming a cross over his heart.

“I want to know why!” she burst out. Her thin face was suddenly alight with indignation.

“Why what?”

“Why! Why can I see what will happen, when there’s no mortal thing I can be doin’ to change it or stop it? What’s the good of a gift like that? It’s no a gift, come to that—it’s a damn curse, though I havena done anything to be cursed like this!”

She turned and glared balefully at Thomas Fraser, serene under his helm, with the hilt of his sword clasped under crossed hands.

“Aye, and maybe it’s
your
curse, ye auld gomerel! You and the rest o’ your damned family. Did ye ever think that?” she asked suddenly, turning to me. Her brows arched high over brown eyes that sparked with furious intelligence.

“Did ye ever think perhaps that it’s no your own fate at all that makes you what ye are? That maybe ye have the Sight or the power only because it’s necessary to someone else, and it’s nothing to do wi’ you at all—except that it’s you has it, and has to suffer the having of it. Have you?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Or yes, since you say it, I have wondered. Why me? You ask that all the time, of course. But I’ve never come up with a satisfactory answer. You think perhaps you have the Sight because it’s a curse on the Frasers—to know their deaths ahead of time? That’s a hell of an idea.”

“A hell is right,” she agreed bitterly. She leaned back against the sarcophagus of red stone, staring out at the sleet that sprayed across the top of the broken wall.

“What d’ye think?” she asked suddenly. “Do I tell him?”

I was startled.

“Who? Lord Lovat?”

“Aye, his lordship. He asks what I see, and beats me when I tell him there’s naught to see. He knows, ye ken; he sees it in my face when I’ve had the Sight. But that’s the only power I’ve got; the power not to say.” The long white fingers snaked out from her cloak, playing nervously with the folds of soaked cloth.

“There’s always the chance of it, isn’t there?” she said. Her head was bent so that the hood of her cloak shielded her face from my gaze. “There’s a chance that my telling would make a difference. It has, now and then, ye know. I told Lachlan Gibbons when I saw his son-in-law wrapped in seaweed, and the eels stirring beneath his shirt. Lachlan listened; he went out straightaway and stove a hole in his son-in-law’s boat.” She laughed, remembering. “Lord, there was the kebbie-lebbie to do! But when the great storm came the next week, three men were drowned, and Lachlan’s son-in-law was safe at hame, still mending his boat. And when I saw him next, his shirt hung dry on him, and the seaweed was gone from his hair.”

“So it can happen,” I said softly. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” she said, nodding, still staring at the ground. Lady Sarah Fraser lay at her feet, the lady’s stone surmounted with a skull atop crossed bones.
Hodie mihi cras tibi
, said the inscription.
Sic transit gloria mundi
. My turn today, yours tomorrow. And thus passes away the glory of the world.

“Sometimes not. When I see a man wrapped in his winding sheet, the illness follows—and there’s naught to be done about that.”

“Perhaps,” I said. I looked at my own hands, spread on the stone beside me. Without medicine, without instruments, without knowledge—yes, then illness was fate, and naught to be done. But if a healer was near, and had the things to heal with … was it possible that Maisri saw the shadow of a coming illness, as a real—if usually invisible—symptom, much like a fever or a rash? And then only the lack of medical facilities made the reading of such symptoms a sentence of death? I would never know.

“We aren’t ever going to know,” I said, turning to her. “We can’t say. We know things that other people don’t know, and we can’t say why or how. But we have got it—and you’re right, it’s a curse. But if you have knowledge, and it
may
prevent harm … do you think it could
cause
harm?”

She shook her head.

“I canna say. If you knew ye were to die soon, are there things you’d do? And would they be good things only that ye’d do, or would ye take the last chance ye might have to do harm to your enemies—harm that might otherwise be left alone?”

“Damned if I know.” We were quiet for a time, watching the sleet turn to snow, and the blowing flakes whirl up in gusts through the ruined tracery of the Priory wall.

“Sometimes I know there’s something there, like,” Maisri said suddenly, “but I can block it out of my mind, not look. ’Twas like that with his lordship; I knew there was something, but I’d managed not to see it. But then he bade me look, and say the divining spell to make the vision come clear. And I did.” The hood of her cloak slipped back as she tilted her head, looking up at the wall of the Priory as it soared above us, ochre and white and red, with the mortar crumbling between its stones. White-streaked black hair spilled down her back, free in the wind.

“He was standing there before the fire, but it was daylight, and clear to see. A man stood behind him, still as a tree, and his face covered in black. And across his lordship’s face there fell the shadow of an ax.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, but the shiver ran up my spine nonetheless. She sighed at last, and turned to me.

“Weel, I will tell him, then, and let him do what he will. Doom him or save him, that I canna do. It’s his choice—and the Lord Jesus help him.”

She turned to go, and I slid off the tomb, landing on the Lady Sarah’s slab.

“Maisri,” I said. She turned back to look at me, eyes black as the shadows among the tombs.

“Aye?”

“What do you see, Maisri?” I asked, and stood waiting, facing her, hands dropped to my sides.

She stared at me hard, above and below, behind and beside. At last she smiled faintly, nodding.

“I see naught but you, lady,” she said softly. “There’s only you.”

She turned and disappeared down the path between the trees, leaving me among the blowing flakes of snow.

Doom, or save. That I cannot do. For I have no power beyond that of knowledge, no ability to bend others to my will, no way to stop them doing what
they
will. There is only me.

I shook the snow from the folds of my cloak, and turned to follow Maisri down the path, sharing her bitter knowledge that there was only me. And I was not enough.

Old Simon’s manner was much as usual over the course of the next two or three weeks, but I imagined that Maisri had kept her intention of telling him about her visions. While he had seemed on the verge of summoning the tacksmen and tenants to march, suddenly he backed off, saying that there was no hurry, after all. This shilly-shallying infuriated Young Simon, who was champing at the bit to go to war and cover himself with glory.

“It’s not a matter of urgency,” Old Simon said, for the dozenth time. He lifted an oatcake, sniffed at it, and set it down again. “Perhaps we’ll do best to wait for the spring planting, after all.”

“They could be in London before spring!” Young Simon glowered across the dinner table at his father and reached for the butter. “If ye will not go yourself, then let me take the men to join His Highness!”

Lord Lovat grunted. “You’ve the Devil’s own impatience,” he said, “but not half his judgment. Will ye never learn to wait?”

“The time for waiting’s long since past!” Simon burst out. “The Camerons, the MacDonalds, the MacGillivrays—they’ve all been there since the first. Are we to come meachin’ along at the finish, to find ourselves beggars, and taking second place to Clanranald and Glengarry? Fat chance you’ll have of a dukedom then!”

Lovat had a wide, expressive mouth; even in old age, it retained some trace of humor and sensuality. Neither was visible at the moment. He pressed his lips tight together, surveying his heir without enthusiasm.

“Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” he said. “And it’s more true when choosing a laird than a lass. A woman can be got rid of.”

Young Simon snorted and looked at Jamie for support. Over the last two months, his initial suspicious hostility had faded into a reluctant respect for his bastard relative’s obvious expertise in the art of war.

“Jamie says …” he began.

“I ken well enough what he says,” Old Simon interrupted. “He’s said it often enough. I shall make up my own mind in my own time. But bear it in mind, lad—when it comes to declaring yourself in a war, there’s little to be lost by waiting.”

“Waiting to see who wins,” Jamie murmured, studiously wiping his plate with a bit of bread. The old man looked up sharply, but evidently decided to ignore this contribution.

“Ye gave your word to the Stuarts,” Young Simon continued stubbornly, paying no heed to his father’s displeasure. “Ye dinna mean to break it, surely? What will people say of your honor?”

“The same things they said in ’15,” his father calmly replied. “Most of those who ‘said things’ then are dead, bankrupt, or paupers in France. But I am still here.”

“But …” Young Simon was red in the face, the usual result of this sort of conversation with his father.

“That will do,” the old Earl interrupted sharply. He shook his head as he glared at his son, lips tight with disapproval. “Christ. Sometimes I could wish that Brian hadna died. He may have been a fool, too, but at least he knew when to stop talking.”

Both Young Simon and Jamie flushed with anger, but after a wary glance at each other, turned their attentions to their food.

“And what are you looking at?” Lord Lovat growled, catching my eye on him as he turned away from his son.

“You,” I said bluntly. “You don’t look at all well.” He didn’t, even for a man in his seventies. No more than middle-height, slumped and broadened by age, he was normally still a solid-looking man, giving the impression that his barrel chest and rounded paunch were firm and healthy under his linen. Lately he had begun to look flabby, though, as if he had shrunk a bit within his skin. The wrinkled bags beneath his eyes were darkened, and his skin had a sickly pallor to it.

“Mphm,” he grunted. “And why not? I get nay rest when I sleep, nor comfort when I’m awake. No wonder if I dinna look like a bridegroom.”

“Oh, but ye do, Father,” said Young Simon maliciously, seeing a chance to get a bit of his own back. “One at the end of his honeymoon, wi’ all the juice sapped out of him.”

“Simon!” said Lady Frances. Still, there was a ripple of laughter around the table at this, and even Lord Lovat’s mouth twitched slightly.

“Aye?” he said. “Well, I’d sooner suffer soreness from that cause, I’ll tell ye, lad.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and pushed away the platter of boiled turnips being offered. He reached for his wineglass, raised it to his nose for a sniff, then morosely put it down again.

“It’s ill-mannered to stare,” he remarked coldly to me. “Or perhaps the English have different standards of politeness?”

I flushed slightly, but didn’t drop my eyes. “I was just wondering—you don’t have an appetite, and you don’t drink. What other symptoms have you?”