An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana. Страница 188

He shook his head, though, still rummaging in the bag.

“Nay, I found it at the edge of a wee creek. Dropped in flight, I expect.”

Well, that was better, though I was sure the man who had dropped it would regret the loss of this treasured companion. I opened the book at random and squinted at the small type.

“Sassenach.”

“Hmm?” I glanced up, jerked out of the text, to see Jamie regarding me with a mixture of sympathy and amusement.

“Ye need spectacles, don’t ye?” he said. “I hadna realized.”

“Nonsense!” I said, though my heart gave a small jump. “I see perfectly well.”

“Oh, aye?” He moved beside me and took the book out of my hand. Opening it to the middle, he held it in front of me. “Read that.”

I leaned backward, and he advanced in front of me.

“Stop that!” I said. “How do you expect me to read anything that close?”

“Stand still, then,” he said, and moved the book away from my face. “Can ye see the letters clear yet?”

“No,” I said crossly. “Farther. Farther. No, bloody farther!”

And at last was obliged to admit that I could not bring the letters into focus at a distance of nearer than about eighteen inches.

“Well, it’s very small type!” I said, flustered and discomfited. I had, of course, been aware that my eyesight was not so keen as it once had been, but to be so rudely confronted with the evidence that I was, if not blind as a bat, definitely in competition with moles in the farsight sweepstakes was a trifle upsetting.

“Twelve-point Caslon,” Jamie said, giving the text a professional glance. “I will say the leading’s terrible,” he added critically. “And the gutters are half what they should be. Even so—” He flipped the book shut and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Ye need spectacles, a nighean,” he repeated gently.

“Hmph!” I said. And on impulse picked up the book, opened it, and handed it to him. “So—read it yourself, why don’t you?”

Looking surprised and a little wary, he took the book and looked into it. Then extended his arm a little. And a little more. I watched, experiencing that same odd mix of amusement and sympathy, as he finally held the book nearly at arm’s length, and read, “So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth—both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT—as his RESISTANCE.”

He closed it and looked at me, the edge of his mouth tucked back.

“Aye, well,” he said. “I can still shoot, at least.”

“And I can tell one herb from another by smell, I suppose,” I said, and laughed. “Just as well. I don’t suppose there’s a spectacle-maker this side of Philadelphia.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said ruefully. “When we get to Edinburgh, though, I ken just the man. I’ll buy ye a tortoiseshell pair for everyday, Sassenach, and a pair wi’ gold rims for Sundays.”

“Expect me to read the Bible with them, do you?” I inquired.

“Ah, no,” he said, “that’s just for show. After all”—he picked up my hand, which smelled of dill weed and coriander, and, lifting it to his mouth, ran the point of his tongue delicately down the lifeline in my palm—“the important things ye do by touch, aye?”

WE WERE INTERRUPTED by a cough from the door of the tent, and I turned to see a large, bearlike man with long gray hair loose upon his shoulders. He had an amiable face with a scar through the upper lip and a mild but keen eye, which went at once to the bag on the table.

I stiffened a little; there were strict prohibitions against the looting of farms, and while Jamie had taken these particular hens scratching in the wild, there was no way of proving that, and this gentleman, while dressed in casual homespun and hunting shirt, bore himself with the unmistakable authority of an officer.

“You’d be Colonel Fraser?” he said, with a nod toward Jamie, and extended a hand. “Daniel Morgan.”

I recognized the name, though the only thing I knew about Daniel Morgan—a footnote in Brianna’s eighth-grade history book—was that he was a famous rifleman. This wasn’t particularly useful; everyone knew that, and the camp had buzzed with interest when he had arrived at the end of August with a number of men.

He now glanced with interest at me, and then at the bag of chickens, flecked with incriminating tufts of feather.

“By your leave, ma’am,” he said, and without waiting for my leave, picked up the sack and pulled out a dead chicken. The neck flopped limp, showing the large, bloody hole through its head where an eye—well, two eyes—had once been. His scarred mouth pursed in a soundless whistle and he looked sharply up at Jamie.

“You do that a-purpose?” he asked.

“I always shoot them through the eye,” Jamie replied politely. “Dinna want to spoil the meat.”

A slow grin spread over Colonel Morgan’s face, and he nodded. “Come with me, Mr. Fraser. Bring your rifle.”

WE ATE THAT night at Daniel Morgan’s fire, and the company—filled with chicken stew—raised cups of beer and hooted to toast the addition of a new member to their elite corps. I hadn’t had a chance of private conversation with Jamie since Morgan’s abduction of him that afternoon, and rather wondered what he made of his apotheosis. But he seemed comfortable with the riflemen, though he glanced now and then at Morgan, with the look that meant he was still making up his mind.

For my part, I was extremely pleased. By their nature, riflemen fought from a distance—and often a distance much greater than a musket’s range. They were also valuable, and commanders were not likely to risk them in close combat. No soldier was safe, but some occupations had a much higher rate of mortality—and while I accepted the fact that Jamie was a born gambler, I liked him to have the best odds possible.

Many of the riflemen were Long Hunters, others what they called “over-mountain men,” and thus had no wives with them here. Some did, and I made instant acquaintance with the women by the simple expedient of admiring one young woman’s baby.

“Mrs. Fraser?” one older lady said, coming to plump down on the log beside me. “Are you the conjure-woman?”

“I am,” I said pleasantly. “They call me the White Witch.” That reared them back a bit, but the forbidden has its own strong appeal—and after all, what could I do in the middle of military camp, surrounded by their husbands and sons, all armed to the teeth?

Within minutes, I was dispensing advice on everything from menstrual cramps to colic. I caught a glimpse of Jamie, grinning at sight of my popularity, and gave him a discreet wave before turning back to my audience.

The men, of course, continued drinking, with outbreaks of raucous laughter, then the fall of voices as one man took over a story, only to have the cycle repeat. At one point, though, the atmosphere changed, so abruptly that I broke off an intense discussion of diaper rash and looked over toward the fire.

Daniel Morgan was rising laboriously to his feet, and there was a distinct air of anticipation among the watching men. Was he about to make a speech, welcoming Jamie?

“Oh, dear Lord,” said Mrs. Graham under her breath beside me. “He’s a-doing it again.”

I hadn’t time to ask her what he was a-doing, before he a-did it.

He shambled to the center of the gathering, where he stood swaying like an old bear, his long gray hair wafting in the wind of the fire and his eyes creased with amiability. They were focused on Jamie, though, I saw.

“Got something to show you, Mr. Fraser,” he said, loudly enough that the women who had still been talking stopped, every eye going to him. He took hold of the hem of his long woolen hunting shirt and pulled it off over his head. He dropped it on the ground, spread his arms like a ballet dancer, and stumped slowly round.