The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (267 page)

The sound of the shot was no more than a small cracking noise, lost amid the tumult. The result of it, though, was spectacular. The lantern exploded in a shower of burning oil, abruptly darkening the beach and silencing the shouting.

The silence was broken within seconds by a howl of mingled pain and indignation. My eyes, momentarily blinded by the flash of the lantern, adapted quickly, and I saw another glow—the light of several small flames, which seemed to be moving erratically up and down. As my night vision cleared, I saw that the flames rose from the coat sleeve of a man, who was dancing up and down as he howled, beating ineffectually at the fire started by the burning oil that had splashed him.

The gorse bushes quivered violently as Jamie plunged over the cliffside and was lost to view below.

“Jamie!”

Roused by my cry, Young Ian yanked harder, pulling me half off my feet and forcibly dragging me away from the cliff.

“Come on, Auntie! They’ll be up here, next thing!”

This was undeniably true; I could hear the shouts on the beach coming closer, as the men swarmed up the rocks. I picked up my skirts and went, following the boy as fast as we could go through the rough marrow-grass of the clifftop.

I didn’t know where we were going, but Young Ian seemed to. He had taken off his coat and the white of his shirt was easily visible before me, floating like a ghost through the thickets of alder and birch that grew farther inland.

“Where are we?” I panted, coming up alongside him when he slowed at the bank of a tiny stream.

“The road to Arbroath’s just ahead,” he said. He was breathing heavily, and a dark smudge of mud showed down the side of his shirt. “It’ll be easier going in a moment. Are ye all right, Auntie? Shall I carry ye across?”

I politely declined this gallant offer, privately noting that I undoubtedly weighed as much as he did. I took off my shoes and stockings, and splashed my way knee-deep across the streamlet, feeling icy mud well up between my toes.

I was shivering violently when I emerged, and did accept Ian’s offer of his coat—excited as he was, and heated by the exercise, he was clearly in no need of it. I was chilled not only by the water and the cold November wind, but by fear of what might be happening behind us.

We emerged panting onto the road, the wind blowing cold in our faces. My nose and lips were numb in no time, and my hair blew loose behind me, heavy on my neck. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, though; it carried the sound of voices to us, moments before we would have walked into them.

“Any signal from the cliff?” a deep male voice asked. Ian stopped so abruptly in his tracks that I bumped into him.

“Not yet,” came the reply. “I thought I heard a bit of shouting that way, but then the wind turned.”

“Well, get up that tree again then, heavy-arse,” the first voice said impatiently. “If any o’ the whoresons get past the beach, we’ll nibble ’em here. Better us get the headmoney than the buggers on the beach.”

“It’s cold,” grumbled the second voice. “Out in the open where the wind gnaws your bones. Wish we’d drawn the watch at the abbey—at least it would be warm there.”

Young Ian’s hand was clutching my upper arm tight enough to leave bruises. I pulled, trying to loosen his grip, but he paid no attention.

“Aye, but less chance o’ catching the big fish,” the first voice said. “Ah, and what I might do with fifty pound!”

“Awright,” said the second voice, resigned. “Though how we’re to see red hair in the dark, I’ve no notion.”

“Just lay ’em by the heels, Oakie; we’ll look at their heads later.”

Young Ian was finally roused from his trance by my tugging, and stumbled after me off the road and into the bushes.

“What do they mean by the watch at the abbey?” I demanded, as soon as I thought we were out of earshot of the watchers on the road. “Do you know?”

Young Ian’s dark thatch bobbed up and down. “I think so, Auntie. It must be Arbroath abbey. That’s the meeting point, aye?”

“Meeting point?”

“If something should go wrong,” he explained. “Then it’s every man for himself, all to meet at the abbey as soon as they can.”

“Well, it couldn’t go more wrong,” I observed. “What was it your uncle shouted when the Customs men popped up?”

Young Ian had half-turned to listen for pursuit from the road;now the pale oval of his face turned back to me. “Oh—he said, ‘Up, lads! Over the cliff and run!’ ”

“Sound advice,” I said dryly. “So if they followed it, most of the men may have gotten away.”

“Except Uncle Jamie and Mr. Willoughby.” Young Ian was running one hand nervously through his hair; it reminded me forcibly of Jamie, and I wished he would stop.

“Yes.” I took a deep breath. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about them just now. The other men, though—if they’re headed for the abbey—”

“Aye,” he broke in, “that’s what I was tryin’ to decide; ought I do as Uncle Jamie said, and take ye to Lallybroch, or had I best try to get to the abbey quick and warn the others as they come?”

“Get to the abbey,” I said, “as fast as you can.”

“Well, but—I shouldna like to leave ye out here by yourself, Auntie, and Uncle Jamie said—”

“There’s a time to follow orders, Young Ian, and a time to think for yourself,” I said firmly, tactfully ignoring the fact that I was in fact doing the thinking for him. “Does this road lead to the abbey?”

“Aye, it does. No more than a mile and a quarter.” Already he was shifting to and fro on the balls of his feet, eager to be gone.

“Good. You cut round the road and head for the abbey. I’ll walk straight along the road, and see if I can distract the excisemen until you’re safely past. I’ll meet you at the abbey. Oh, wait—you’d best take your coat.”

I surrendered the coat reluctantly; besides being loath to part with its warmth, it felt like giving up my last link with a friendly human presence. Once Young Ian was away, I would be completely alone in the cold dark of the Scottish night.

“Ian?” I held his arm, to keep him a moment longer.

“Aye?”

“Be careful, won’t you?” On impulse, I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cold cheek. I was near enough to see his brows arch in surprise. He smiled, and then he was gone, an alder branch snapping back into place behind him.

It was very cold. The only sounds were the
whish
of the wind through the bushes and the distant murmur of the surf. I pulled the woolen shawl tightly round my shoulders, shivering, and headed back toward the road.

Ought I to make a noise? I wondered. If not, I might be attacked without warning, since the waiting men might hear my footsteps but couldn’t see that I wasn’t an escaping smuggler. On the other hand, if I strolled through singing a jaunty tune to indicate that I was a harmless woman, they might just lie hidden in silence, not wanting to give away their presence—and giving away their presence was exactly what I had in mind. I bent and picked up a rock from the side of the road. Then, feeling even colder than before, I stepped out onto the road and walked straight on, without a word.

31

SMUGGLERS’ MOON

The wind was high enough to keep the trees and bushes in a constant stir, masking the sound of my footsteps on the road—and those of anyone who might be stalking me, too. Less than a fortnight past the feast of Samhain, it was the sort of wild night that made one easily believe that spirits and evil might well be abroad.

It wasn’t a spirit that grabbed me suddenly from behind, hand clamped tight across my mouth. Had I not been prepared for just such an eventuality, I would have been startled senseless. As it was, my heart gave a great leap and I jerked convulsively in my captor’s grasp.

He had grabbed me from the left, pinning my left arm tight against my side, his right hand over my mouth.
My
right arm was free, though. I drove the heel of my shoe into his kneecap, buckling his leg, and then, taking advantage of his momentary stagger, leaned forward and smashed backward at his head with the rock in my hand.

It was of necessity a glancing blow, but it struck hard enough that he grunted with surprise, and his grip loosened. I kicked and squirmed, and as his hand slipped across my mouth, I got my teeth onto a finger and bit down as hard as I could.

“The maxillary muscles run from the sagittal crest at the top of the skull to an insertion on the mandible,” I thought, dimly recalling the description from
Grey’s Anatomy
. “This gives the jaw and teeth considerable crushing power; in fact, the average human jaw is capable of exerting over three hundred pounds of force.”

I didn’t know whether I was bettering the average, but I was undeniably having an effect. My assailant was thrashing frantically to and fro in a futile effort to dislodge the death grip I had on his finger.

His hold on my arm had loosened in the struggle, and he was forced to lower me. As soon as my feet touched the dirt once more, I let go of his hand, whirled about, and gave him as hearty a root in the stones with my knee as I could manage, given my skirts.

Kicking men in the testicles is vastly overrated as a means of defense. That is to say, it does work—and spectacularly well—but it’s a more difficult maneuver to carry out than one might think, particularly when one is wearing heavy skirts. Men are extremely careful of those particular appendages, and thoroughly wary of any attempt on them.

In this case, though, my attacker was off guard, his legs wide apart to keep his balance, and I caught him fairly. He made a hideous wheezing noise like a strangled rabbit and doubled up in the roadway.

“Is that you, Sassenach?” The words were hissed out of the darkness to my left. I leaped like a startled gazelle, and uttered an involuntary scream.

For the second time within as many minutes, a hand clapped itself over my mouth.

“For God’s sake, Sassenach!” Jamie muttered in my ear. “It’s me.” I didn’t bite him, though I was strongly tempted to.

“I know,” I said, through my teeth, when he released me. “Who’s the other fellow that grabbed me, though?”

“Fergus, I expect.” The amorphous dark shape moved away a few feet and seemed to be prodding another shape that lay on the road, moaning faintly. “Is it you, Fergus?” he whispered. Receiving a sort of choked noise in response, he bent and hauled the second shape to its feet.

“Don’t talk!” I urged them in a whisper. “There are excisemen just ahead!”

“Is that so?” said Jamie, in a normal voice. “They’re no verra curious about the noise we’re making, are they?”

He paused, as though waiting for an answer, but no sound came but the low keening of the wind through the alders. He laid a hand on my arm and shouted into the night.

“MacLeod! Raeburn!”

“Aye, Roy,” said a mildly testy voice in the shrubbery. “We’re here. Innes, too, and Meldrum, is it?”

“Aye, it’s me.”

Shuffling and talking in low voices, more shapes emerged from the bushes and trees.

“ … four, five, six,” Jamie counted. “Where are Hays and the Gordons?”

“I saw Hays go intae the water,” one of the shapes volunteered. “He’ll ha’ gone awa’ round the point. Likely the Gordons and Kennedy did, too. I didna hear anything as though they’d been taken.”

“Well enough,” Jamie said. “Now, then, Sassenach. What’s this about excisemen?”

Given the nonappearance of Oakie and his companion, I was beginning to feel rather foolish, but I recounted what Ian and I had heard.

“Aye?” Jamie sounded interested. “Can ye stand yet, Fergus? Ye can? Good lad. Well, then, perhaps we’ll have a look. Meldrum, have ye a flint about ye?”

A few moments later, a small torch struggling to stay alight in his hand, he strode down the road, and around the bend. The smugglers and I waited in tense silence, ready either to run or to rush to his assistance, but there were no noises of ambush. After what seemed like an eternity, Jamie’s voice floated back along the road.

“Come along, then,” he said, sounding calm and collected.

He was standing in the middle of the road, near a large alder. The torchlight fell round him in a flickering circle, and at first I saw nothing but Jamie. Then there was a gasp from the man beside me, and a choked sound of horror from another.

Another face appeared, dimly lit, hanging in the air just behind Jamie’s left shoulder. A horrible, congested face, black in the torchlight that robbed everything of color, with bulging eyes and tongue protruding. The hair, fair as dry straw, rose stirring in the wind. I felt a fresh scream rise in my throat, and choked it off.

“Ye were right, Sassenach,” Jamie said. “There
was
an exciseman.” He tossed something to the ground, where it landed with a small plop! “A warrant,” he said, nodding toward the object. “His name was Thomas Oakie. Will any of ye ken him?”

“Not like he is now,” a voice muttered behind me. “Christ, his mither wouldna ken him!” There was a general mutter of negation, with a nervous shuffling of feet. Clearly, everyone was as anxious to get away from the place as I was.

“All right, then.” Jamie stopped the retreat with a jerk of his head. “The cargo’s lost, so there’ll be no shares, aye? Will anyone need money for the present?” He reached for his pocket. “I can provide enough to live on for a bit—for I doubt we’ll be workin’ the coast for a time.”

One or two of the men reluctantly advanced within clear sight of the thing hanging from the tree to receive their money, but the rest of the smugglers melted quietly away into the night. Within a few minutes, only Fergus—still white, but standing on his own—Jamie, and I were left.

“Jesu!”
Fergus whispered, looking up at the hanged man. “Who will have done it?”

“I did—or so I expect the tale will be told, aye?” Jamie gazed upward, his face harsh in the sputtering torchlight. “We’ll no tarry longer, shall we?”

“What about Ian?” I said, suddenly remembering the boy. “He went to the abbey, to warn you!”

“He did?” Jamie’s voice sharpened. “I came from that direction, and didna meet him. Which way did he go, Sassenach?”

“That way,” I said, pointing.

Fergus made a small sound that might have been laughter.

“The abbey’s the other way,” Jamie said, sounding amused. “Come on, then; we’ll catch him up when he realizes his mistake and comes back.”

“Wait,” said Fergus, holding up a hand. There was a cautious rustling in the shrubbery, and Young Ian’s voice said, “Uncle Jamie?”

“Aye, Ian,” his uncle said dryly. “It’s me.”

The boy emerged from the bushes, leaves stuck in his hair, eyes wide with excitement.

“I saw the light, and thought I must come back to see that Auntie Claire was all right,” he explained. “Uncle Jamie, ye mustna linger about wi’ a torch—there are excisemen about!”

Jamie put an arm about his nephew’s shoulders and turned him, before he should notice the thing hanging from the alder tree.

“Dinna trouble yourself, Ian,” he said evenly. “They’ve gone.”

Swinging the torch through the wet shrubbery, he extinguished it with a hiss.

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice calm in the dark. “Mr. Willoughby’s down the road wi’ the horses; we’ll be in the Highlands by dawn.”