An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana. Страница 204

“I’ll find you,” he said abruptly, turning back to me. “Your husband—he is the tall Scottish rebel, I think they said he is kin to the general?”

I saw his gaze flick momentarily toward something beyond me, and alarm pricked like needles in my skin. Rawlings’s brows were slightly knitted, and I knew, as clearly as if he had spoken, that the word “kin” had triggered some connection in his mind—and that he was looking at William.

“Yes. Colonel Fraser,” I said hurriedly, grasping him by the sleeve before he could look at Jamie and complete the thought that was forming.

I had been groping in my kit as we spoke and at this point found the folded square of paper I’d been looking for. I pulled it out and, unfolding it quickly, handed it to him. There was still room for doubt, after all.

“Is this your brother’s hand?”

He seized the paper from me and devoured the small, neat script with an expression in which eagerness, hope, and despair were mingled. He closed his eyes for an instant, then opened them, reading and rereading the receipt for Bowel-Bind as if it were Holy Writ.

“The page is burnt,” he said, touching the singed edge. His voice was husky. “Did Daniel… die in a fire?”

“No,” I said. There was no time; one of the British officers stood impatiently behind him, waiting. I touched the hand that held the page. “Keep that, please. And if you can manage to cross the lines—I suppose you can now—you’ll find me most easily in my tent, near the artillery park. They… er… they call me the White Witch,” I added diffidently. “Ask anyone.”

His bloodshot eyes widened at that, then narrowed as he examined me closely. But there was no time for further questions; the officer stepped forward and muttered something in Rawlings’s ear, with no more than a cursory glance in my direction.

“Yes,” Rawlings said. “Yes, certainly.” He bowed to me, deeply. “Your servant, madam. I am very much obliged to you. May I… ?” He lifted the paper, and I nodded.

“Yes, of course, please keep it.”

The officer had turned, obviously intent on chivvying another errant member of his party, and with a brief glance at his back, Dr. Rawlings stepped close and touched my hand.

“I’ll come,” he said, low-voiced. “As soon as I may. Thank you.” He looked up then at someone behind me, and I realized that Jamie had finished his business and come to fetch me.

He stepped forward and, with a brief nod to the doctor, took my hand.

“Where is your hat, Lieutenant Ransom?” The colonel spoke behind me, quietly reproving, and for the second time in five minutes I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Not at the colonel’s words but at the murmured reply.

“… rebel whoreson shot it off my head,” said a voice. It was an English voice, young, hoarse with suppressed grief, and tinged with anger. Other than that—it was Jamie’s voice, and Jamie’s hand tightened so abruptly on mine that he nearly crushed my fingers.

We were at the trailhead that led upward from the river; two more steps would see us safely into the shelter of the fog-veiled trees. Instead of taking those two steps, Jamie stopped dead for the space of a heartbeat, then dropped my hand, turned on his heel, and, taking the hat off his head, strode over and thrust it into Lieutenant Ransom’s hands.

“I believe I owe ye a hat, sir,” he said politely, and turned away at once, leaving the young man blinking at the battered tricorne in his hands. Glancing back, I caught a glimpse of William’s baffled face as he looked after Jamie, but Jamie was propelling me up the path as though Red Indians were at our heels, and a stand of fir saplings hid the lieutenant from view within seconds.

I could feel Jamie vibrating like a plucked violin string, and his breath was coming fast.

“Have you quite lost your mind?” I inquired conversationally.

“Very likely.”

“What on earth—” I began, but he only shook his head and pulled me along, until we were well out of both sight and hearing of the cabin. A fallen log that had so far escaped the woodcutters lay half across the path, and Jamie sat down suddenly on this and put a shaking hand to his face.

“Are you all right? What on earth is the matter?” I sat beside him and put a hand on his back, beginning to be worried.

“I dinna ken whether to laugh or to weep, Sassenach,” he said. He took his hand away from his face, and I saw that, in fact, he appeared to be doing both. His lashes were wet, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.

“I’ve lost a kinsman and found one, all in the same moment—and a moment later realize that for the second time in his life, I’ve come within an inch of shooting my son.” He looked at me and shook his head, quite helpless between laughter and dismay.

“I shouldna have done it, I ken that. It’s only—I thought all at once, What if I dinna miss, a third time? And—and I thought I must just… speak to him. As a man. In case it should be the only time, aye?”

COLONEL GRANT cast a curious look at the trailhead, where a trembling branch marked the passage of the rebel and his wife, then turned his gaze on the hat in William’s hands.

“What the devil was that about?”

William cleared his throat. “Evidently, Colonel Fraser was the, um, rebel whoreson who deprived me of my hat during the battle yesterday,” he said, hoping for a tone of dry detachment. “He has … recompensed me.”

A hint of humor came into Grant’s strained face.

“Really? Decent of him.” He peered dubiously at the object in question. “Has it got lice, do you think?”

In another man, at another time, this might have been interpreted as calumny. But Grant, while more than ready to denigrate the Colonials’ courage, abilities, and dispositions, clearly intended the question only as a practical discovery of fact; most of the English and Hessian troops were crawling with lice, and so were the officers.

William tilted the hat, scrutinizing it as well as the dim light allowed. The thing was warm in his hands, but nothing moved along the seams.

“Don’t think so.”

“Well, put it on, then, Captain Ransom. We must show a good example to the men, you know.”

William had in fact assumed the object, feeling slightly queer at the warmth of it on his head, before properly hearing what Grant had said.

“Captain… ?” he said faintly.

“Congratulations,” Grant said, the ghost of a smile lightening the exhaustion on his face. “The brigadier…” He glanced back at the reeking, silent cabin, and the smile faded. “He wanted you made captain after Ticonderoga—should have been done then, but… well.” His lips thinned, but then relaxed. “General Burgoyne signed the order last night, after hearing several accounts of the battle. I gather that you distinguished yourself.”

William ducked his head awkwardly. His throat was thick and his eyes burned. He couldn’t remember what he’d done—only that he’d failed to save the brigadier.

“Thank you,” he managed, and could not keep from glancing back himself. They had left the door open. “Do you know—did he—no, it doesn’t matter.”

“Did he know?” Grant said gently. “I told him. I brought the order.”

Unable to speak, William bobbed his head. The hat, for a wonder, fit him, and stayed in place.

“God, it’s cold,” Grant said softly. He tugged his coat closer, glancing round at the dripping trees and the fog that lay thick among them. The others had gone back to their duties, leaving them alone. “What a desolate place. Terrible time of day, too.”

“Yes.” William felt a momentary relief at being able to admit his own sense of desolation—though the hour and the place had little to do with it. He swallowed, glancing back at the cabin. The open door bothered him; while the fog lay heavy as a feather bed on the forest, the mist near the cabin was rising, drifting around the windows, and he had the uneasy fancy that it was somehow… coming for the brigadier.