An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana. Страница 147

It was an apt description, and Sun Elk’s disposition was not improved either by Ian’s reply nor by the subsequent smile.

“What do you want?” Sun Elk demanded.

“Nothing that’s yours,” Ian replied, as mildly as possible.

Sun Elk’s eyes narrowed, but before he could say anything else, Turtle intervened, inviting Ian to come into his house, to eat, to drink.

He should. It wasn’t polite to refuse. And he could ask, later, privately, where Emily was. But the need that had brought him over three hundred miles of wilderness acknowledged no requirements of civility. Neither would it brook delay.

Besides, he reflected, readying himself, he’d known it would come to this. No point in putting it off.

“I wish to speak with her who was once my wife,” he said. “Where is she?”

Several of the men blinked at that, interested or taken back—but he saw Turtle’s eyes flick toward the gates of the large house at the end of the road.

Sun Elk, to his credit, merely drew himself up and planted himself more solidly in the road, ready to defy two bears, if necessary. Rollo didn’t care for this and lifted his lip in a growl that made one or two of the men step back sharply. Sun Elk, who had better reason than most of them to know just what Rollo was capable of, didn’t move an inch.

“Do you mean to set your demon on me?” he asked.

“Of course not. Sheas, a cu,” he said quietly to Rollo. The dog stood his ground for a moment longer—just long enough to indicate that it was his idea—and then turned aside and lay down, though he kept up a low grumble, like distant thunder.

“I have not come to take her from you,” Ian said to Sun Elk. He’d meant to be conciliatory, but he hadn’t really expected it to work, and it didn’t.

“You think you could?”

“If I dinna want to, does it matter?” Ian said testily, lapsing into English.

“She wouldn’t go with you, even if you killed me!”

“How many times must I say that I dinna want to take her away from ye?”

Sun Elk stared at him for a minute, his eyes quite black.

“Often enough for your face to say the same thing,” he whispered, and clenched his fists.

An interested murmur rose from the other men, but there was an intangible drawing away. They wouldn’t interfere in a fight over a woman. That was a blessing, Ian thought vaguely, watching Sun Elk’s hands. The man was right-handed, he remembered that. There was a knife on his belt, but his hand wasn’t hovering near it.

Ian spread his own hands peaceably.

“I wish only to talk with her.”

“Why?” Sun Elk barked. He was close enough for Ian to feel the spray of spittle on his face, but he didn’t wipe it away. He didn’t back away, either, and dropped his hands.

“That’s between me and her,” he said quietly. “I daresay she’ll tell ye later.” The thought of it gave him a pang. The statement didn’t seem to reassure Sun Elk, who without warning hit him in the nose.

The crunch echoed through his upper teeth, and Sun Elk’s other fist struck him a glancing blow on the cheekbone. He shook his head to clear it, saw the blur of movement through watering eyes, and—more by good fortune than intent—kicked Sun Elk solidly in the crotch.

He stood breathing heavily, dripping blood on the roadway. Six pairs of eyes went from him to Sun Elk, curled in the dust and making small, urgent noises. Rollo got up, walked over to the fallen man, and smelled him with interest. All the eyes came back to Ian.

He made a small motion of the hand that brought Rollo to heel and walked up the road toward Brant’s house, six pairs of eyes fixed on his back.

WHEN THE DOOR OPENED, the young white woman who stood there gaped at him, eyes round as pennies. He’d been in the act of wiping his bloody nose with his shirttail. He completed this action and inclined his head civilly.

“Will ye be so good as to ask Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa if she will be pleased to speak wi’ Ian Murray?”

The young woman blinked, twice. Then she nodded and swung the door to—pausing with it halfway shut, in order to look at him once more and assure herself that she’d really seen him.

Feeling strange, he stepped down into the garden. It was a formal English garden, with rosebushes and lavender and stone-flagged paths. The smell of it reminded him of Auntie Claire, and he wondered briefly whether Thayendanegea had brought back an English gardener from London.

There were two women at work in the garden, some distance away; one was a white woman, by the color of the hair beneath her cap, and in her middle years by the stoop of her shoulders—perhaps Brant’s wife? he wondered. Was the young woman who had answered the door their daughter? The other woman was Indian, with her hair in a plait down her back but streaked with white. Neither one turned to look at him.

When he heard the click of the door latch behind him, he waited a moment before turning around, steeling himself against the disappointment of being told that she was not here—or, worse, that she had refused to see him.

But she was there. Emily. Small and straight, with her breasts showing round in the neck of a blue calico gown, her long hair bound up behind but uncovered. And her face fearful—but eager. Her eyes lit with joy at the sight of him, and she took a step toward him.

He would have crushed her to him had she come to him, made any gesture inviting it. And what then? he wondered dimly, but it didn’t matter; after that first impulsive movement toward him, she stopped and stood, her hands fluttering for an instant as though they would shape the air between them, but then folding tight before her, hidden in the folds of her skirt.

“Wolf’s Brother,” she said softly, in Mohawk. “My heart is warm to see you.”

“Mine, too,” he said in the same language.

“Have you come to speak with Thayendanegea?” she asked, tilting her head back toward the house.

“Perhaps later.” Neither of them mentioned his nose, though from the throbbing, it was likely twice its normal size and there was blood all down the front of his shirt. He glanced around; there was a path that led away from the house, and he nodded at that. “Will you walk with me?”

She hesitated for a moment. The flame in her eyes had not gone out, but it burned lower now; there were other things there—caution, mild distress, and what he thought was pride. He was surprised that he should see them so clearly. It was as though she were made of glass.

“I—the children,” she blurted, half turning toward the house.

“It doesna matter,” he said. “I only—” A dribble of blood from one nostril stopped him, and he paused to wipe the back of his hand across his upper lip. He took the two steps necessary to bring them within touching distance, though he was careful not to touch her.

“I wished to say to you that I am sorry,” he said formally, in Mohawk. “That I could not give you children. And that I am glad you have them.”

A lovely warm flush rose in her cheeks, and he saw the pride in her overcome the distress.

“May I see them?” he asked, surprising himself as much as her.

She wavered for an instant, but then turned and went into the house. He sat on a stone wall, waiting, and she returned a few moments later with a small boy, maybe five years old, and a girl of three or so in short plaits, who looked gravely at him and sucked her fist.

Blood had run down the back of his throat; it felt raw and tasted of iron.

Now and then on his journey, he’d gone carefully over the explanation Auntie Claire had given him. Not with any notion of telling it to Emily; it could mean nothing to her—he barely understood it himself. Only, maybe, as some shield against this moment, seeing her with the children he could not give her.

“Call it fate,” Claire had said, looking at him with a hawk’s eye, the one that sees from far above, so far above, maybe, that what seems mercilessness is truly compassion. “Or call it bad luck. But it wasn’t your fault. Or hers.”