Drums of Autumn, Page 47

  hands stayed on my shoulders, warm and comforting.

  “It means the one thing else, doesn’t it?” he asked quietly. “It means there is another…place. Perhaps nearby.”

  Another stone circle—or something like it. I had thought of that, too, and the notion made me shudder once again. Jamie looked thoughtfully at the skull, then drew the handkerchief from his sleeve and draped it gently over the empty eyes.

  “I’ll bury him after supper,” he said.

  “Oh, supper.” I pushed my hair behind my ear, trying to get my scattered thoughts to focus on food. “Yes, I’ll see if I can find some eggs. That will be quick.”

  “Dinna trouble yourself, Sassenach.” Jamie peered into the pot on the hearth. “We can eat this.”

  This time, the shudder was purely one of fastidiousness.

  “Ugh,” I said. Jamie grinned at me.

  “Nothing wrong wi’ good barley crowdie, is there?”

  “Assuming there is such a thing,” I replied, looking into the pot with distaste. “This smells more like distiller’s mash.” Made with wet grain, insufficiently cooked and left standing, the cold, scummy soup was already giving off a yeasty whiff of fermentation.

  “Speaking of which,” I said, giving the opened sack of damp barley a poke with my toe, “this needs to be spread to dry, before it starts to mold, if it hasn’t already.”

  Jamie was staring at the disgusting soup, brows furrowed in thought.

  “Aye?” he said absently, then, coming to consciousness, “Oh, aye. I’ll do it.” He twisted shut the top of the bag, and heaved it onto his shoulder. On the way out the door, he paused, looking at the shrouded skull.

  “You said ye didna think him Christian,” he said, and glanced curiously at me. “Why was that, Sassenach?”

  I hesitated, but there was no time to tell him about my dream—if that’s what it had been. I could hear Duncan and Ian in conversation, coming toward the house.

  “No particular reason,” I said, with a shrug.

  “Aye, well,” he said. “We’ll give him the benefit o’ the doubt.”

  24

  LETTER-WRITING: THE GREAT ART O’ LOVE

  Oxford, March 1971

  Roger supposed that it must rain as much in Inverness as it did in Oxford, but somehow he had never minded the northern rain. The cold Scottish wind sweeping in off the Moray Firth was exhilarating and the drenching rain both stimulation and refreshment to the spirit.

  But that had been Scotland, when Brianna was with him. Now she was in America, he in England, and Oxford was cold and dull, all its streets and buildings gray as the ash of dead fires. Rain pattered on the shoulders of his scholar’s gown as he dashed across the quad, shielding an armload of papers under the poplin folds. Once in the shelter of the porter’s lodge, he stopped to shake himself, doglike, flinging droplets over the stone passage.

  “Any letters?” he asked.

  “Think so, Mr. Wakefield. Just a sec.” Martin disappeared into his inner sanctum, leaving Roger to read the names of the College’s war dead, carved on the stone tablet inside the entry.

  George Vanlandingham, Esq. The Honorable Phillip Menzies. Joseph William Roscoe. Not for the first time, Roger found himself wondering about those dead heroes and what they had been like. Since meeting Brianna and her mother, he’d found that the past too often wore a disturbingly human face.

  “Here you are, Mr. Wakefield.” Martin leaned beaming across the counter, holding out a thin sheaf of letters. “One from the States today,” he added, with a broad wink.

  Roger felt an answering grin break out on his face, and a warm glow spread at once from his chest through his limbs, dispelling the chill of the rainy day.

  “Will we be seeing your young woman up soon, Mr. Wakefield?” Martin craned his neck, peering frankly at the letter with its U.S. stamps. The porter had met Brianna when she had come down with Roger just before Christmas, and had fallen under her spell.

  “I hope so. Perhaps in the summer. Thanks!”

  He turned toward his staircase, tucking the letters carefully into the sleeve of his gown while he groped for his key. He felt a mingled sense of elation and dismay at thought of the summer. She’d said she’d come in July—but July was still four months away. In some moods, he didn’t think he’d last four days.

  * * *

  Roger folded the letter again and tucked it into his inside pocket, next to his heart. She wrote every few days, from brief notes to long screeds, and each of her letters left him with a small warm glow that lasted usually until the next arrived.

  At the same time, her letters were faintly unsatisfactory these days. Still warmly affectionate, always signed “Love,” always saying she missed him and wanted him with her. No longer the sort of thing that burned the page, though.

  Perhaps it was natural; a normal progression as they knew each other longer; no one could go on writing passionate missives day after day, not with any honesty.

  No doubt it was only his imagination that Brianna seemed to hold back a bit in her letters. He could do without the excesses of one friend’s girl, who had clipped bits of her pubic hair and included them in a letter—though he rather admired the sentiment behind the gesture.

  He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed absentmindedly, thinking of the latest article Fiona had showed him. Now married, Fiona considered herself an expert on matters matrimonial, and took a sisterly interest in the bumpy course of Roger’s love affair.

  She was constantly clipping helpful tips from women’s magazines and mailing them to him. The latest had been a piece from My Weekly, entitled “How to Intrigue a Man.” Sauce for the gander, Fiona had written pointedly in the margin.

  “Share his interests,” one tip advised. “If you think football’s a loss, but he’s dead keen, sit down beside him and ask about Arsenal’s chances the week. If football’s boring, he isn’t.”

  Roger smiled a little grimly. He’d been sharing Brianna’s interests, all right, if tracking her bloody parents through their hair-raising history counted as a pastime. Damn little of that he could share with her, though.

  “Be coy,” said another of the magazine’s tips. “Nothing piques a man’s interest more than an air of reserve. Don’t let him get too close, too soon.”

  It occurred to Roger to wonder whether Brianna had been reading similar advice in American magazines, but he dismissed the thought. She wasn’t above reading fashion magazines—he had seen her do it on occasion—but Brianna Randall was as incapable of playing that sort of silly game as he was himself.

  No, she wouldn’t put him off just to raise his interest in her; what would be the point? Surely she knew just how much he cared about her.

  Did she, though? With a qualm of uneasiness, Roger recalled another of My Weekly’s tips to the lovelorn.

  “Don’t assume he can read your mind,” the article said. “Give him a hint of how you feel.”

  Roger took a random bite of the sandwich and chewed, oblivious to its contents. Well, he’d hinted, all right. Come out and bared his bloody soul. And she’d promptly leapt into a plane and buggered off to Boston.

  “Don’t be too aggressive,” he murmured, quoting Tip #14, and snorted. The woman don next to him edged slightly away.

  Roger sighed and deposited the bitten sandwich distastefully on the plastic tray. He picked up the cup of what the dining hall was pleased to call coffee, but didn’t drink it, merely sat with it between his hands, absorbing its meager warmth.

  The trouble was that while he thought he had succeeded in deflecting Brianna’s attention from the past, he had been unable to ignore it himself. Claire and that bloody Highlander of hers obsessed him; they might as well have been his own family, for the fascination they held.

  “Always be honest.” Tip #3. If he had been, if he’d helped her to find out everything, perhaps the ghost of Jamie Fraser would be laid now—and so would Roger.

  “Oh, bugger!” he muttered to himself.

/>   The woman next to him crashed her coffee cup onto her tray and stood up suddenly.

  “Go bugger yourself!” she said crisply, and walked off.

  Roger stared after her for a moment.

  “No fear,” he said. “I think maybe I already have.”

  25

  ENTER A SERPENT

  October 1768

  In principle, I had no objection to snakes. They ate rats, which was laudable of them, some were ornamental, and most of them were wise enough to keep out of my way. Live and let live was my basic attitude.

  On the other hand, that was theory. In practice, I had any number of objections to the huge snake curled up on the seat of the privy. Beyond the fact that he was gravely discommoding me at present, he wasn’t usefully eating rats and he wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, either, being a sort of drab gray with darker splotches.

  My major objection to him, though, was the fact that he was a rattlesnake. I supposed that in a way it was fortunate that he was; it was only the heartstopping buzz of his rattles that had prevented me sitting on him in the dawn’s early light.

  The first sound froze me in place, just inside the tiny privy. I extended one foot behind me, groping gingerly for the doorsill. The snake didn’t like that; I froze again as the warning buzz increased in volume. I could see the vibrating tip of his tail, sticking up like a thick yellow finger, rudely pointing from the heap of coils.

  My mouth had gone dry as paper; I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to summon a little saliva.

  How long was he? I seemed to recall Brianna’s telling me—from her Girl Scout handbook—that rattlesnakes were capable of striking at a distance up to one-third their own body length. No more than two feet separated my nightgown-covered thighs from the nasty flat head with its lidless eyes.

  Was he six feet long? It was impossible to tell, but the squirm of coils looked unpleasantly massive, the rounded body thick with scaled muscle. He was a bloody big snake, and the fear of being ignominiously bitten in the crotch if I moved was enough to make me stand still.

  I couldn’t stand still forever, though. Other considerations aside, the shock of seeing the snake hadn’t decreased the urgency of my bodily functions in the slightest.

  I had some vague notion that snakes were deaf; perhaps I could shout for help. But what if they weren’t? There was that Sherlock Holmes story about the snake who responded to a whistle. Perhaps the snake would find whistling inoffensive, at least. Cautiously, I pursed my lips and blew. Nothing came out but a thin stream of air.

  “Claire?” said a puzzled voice behind me. “What the hell are ye doing?”

  I jumped at the sound, and so did the snake—or at least it moved suddenly, flexing its coils in what appeared to be imminent attack.

  I froze to the doorframe and the snake quit moving, except for the chronic whirr of its rattles, like the annoying buzz of an alarm clock that wouldn’t shut off.

  “There’s a fucking snake in here,” I said through my teeth, trying not to move even my lips.

  “Well, why are ye standing there? Move aside and I’ll pitch it out.” I could hear Jamie’s footsteps, coming close.

  The snake heard him too—obviously it wasn’t deaf—and revved up its rattling.

  “Ah,” Jamie said, in a different tone of voice. I heard a rustle as he stooped behind me. “Stand still, Sassenach.”

  I hadn’t time to respond to this piece of gratuitous advice before a heavy stone whizzed past my hip and struck the snake amidships. It sprang into something resembling a Gordian knot, squirmed, writhed—and fell into the privy, where it landed with a nasty sort of hollow thwuck!

  I didn’t wait to congratulate the victorious warrior, but instead turned and ran for the nearest patch of woods, the dew-wet hem of my nightgown slapping round my ankles.

  Returning a few minutes later in a more settled frame of mind, I found Jamie and Young Ian squeezed into the privy together—a tight fit, considering their sizes—the latter squatting on the bench with a pine-knot torch as the former bent over the hole, peering into the depths beneath.

  “Can they swim?” Ian was asking, trying to see past Jamie’s head without setting his uncle’s hair on fire.

  “I dinna ken,” Jamie replied dubiously. “I think maybe so. What I want to know is, can they jump?”

  Ian jerked back, then laughed a little nervously, not altogether sure that Jamie was joking.

  “Here, I canna see a thing; hand me the light.” Jamie reached up to take the splinter of pine from Ian, and lowered it gingerly into the hole.

  “If the stink doesna put the flame out, belike we’ll burn down the privy,” he muttered, bending low. “Now, then, where the devil—”

  “There it is! I see it!” Ian cried.

  Both heads jerked, and cracked together with the sound of splitting melons. Jamie dropped the torch, which fell into the hole and was promptly extinguished. A thin wisp of smoke drifted up from the rim of the hole, like incense.

  Jamie staggered out of the privy, hands clutching his forehead, eyes squeezed shut with pain. Young Ian leaned against the inside wall, hands pressed tightly over the crown of his head, making abrupt and breathless remarks in Gaelic.

  “Is it still alive?” I asked anxiously, peering toward the privy.

  Jamie opened one eye and regarded me under the clutching fingers.

  “Oh, my head’s fine, thanks,” he said. “I expect my ears will ha’ quit ringing by next week, sometime.”

  “Now, now,” I said soothingly. “It would take a sledgehammer to dent your skull. Let me look, though.” I pushed his fingers aside and pulled his head down, feeling gently through the thick hair. There was a small bruised spot just above the hairline, but no blood.

  I kissed the spot perfunctorily and patted him on the head.

  “You won’t die,” I said. “Not from that, anyway.”

  “Oh, good,” he said dryly. “I’d much rather die of snakebite next time I sit down to my business.”

  “It’s a poisonous serpent, is it?” Ian asked, letting go of his head and coming out of the privy. He inhaled deeply, filling his thin chest with fresh air.

  “Venemous,” Jamie corrected him. “If it bites you and makes ye sick, it’s venemous; if you bite it and it makes ye sick, it’s poisonous.”

  “Oh, aye,” Ian said, dismissing this pedantry. “It’s a wicked snake, though?”

  “Very wicked,” I said, with a slight shudder. “What are you going to do about it?” I asked, turning to Jamie.

  He raised one eyebrow.

  “Me? Why ought I to do anything about it?” he asked.

  “You can’t just let him stay in there!”

  “Why not?” he said, raising the other brow.

  Ian scratched his head absently, winced as he encountered the lump left by his collision with Jamie, and stopped.

  “Well, I dinna ken, Uncle Jamie,” he said dubiously. “If ye want to let your balls hang over a pit wi’ a deadly viper in it, that’s your concern, but the notion makes my flesh creep a bit. How big’s the thing?”

  “Fair-sized, I’ll admit.” Jamie flexed his wrist, showing his forearm by way of comparison.

  “Eeugh!” said Ian.

  “You don’t know they don’t jump,” I put in helpfully.

  “Aye, I do.” Jamie eyed me cynically. “Still, I grant ye, the thought’s enough to make one a bit costive. How d’ye mean to get him out, though?”

  “I could shoot him wi’ your pistol,” Ian offered, brightening at the thought of getting his hands on Jamie’s treasured pistols. “We needn’t get him out if we can kill him.”

  “Is he…ah…visible?” I put in delicately.

  Jamie rubbed his chin dubiously. He hadn’t shaved yet, and the dark red bristles rasped under his thumb.

  “Not very. There’s no more than a few inches o’ filth in the pit, but I shouldna think ye could see him well enough to aim, and I hate to waste the shot.”

  “We could invi
te all of the Hansens for dinner, serve beer, and drown him,” I suggested facetiously, naming a nearby—and very numerous—Quaker family.

  Ian erupted in giggles. Jamie gave me an austere sort of look, and turned toward the woods.

  “I’ll think of something,” he said. “After my breakfast.”

  * * *

  Breakfast was luckily no great problem, as the hens had helpfully provided me with nine eggs and the bread had risen satisfactorily. The butter was still immured in the back of the pantry, under the baleful guard of the newly-farrowed sow, but Ian had managed to lean in and snatch a pot of jam from the shelf as I stood by with the broom, jabbing it into the sow’s gnashing jaws as she made little darting charges at Ian’s legs.

  “I’ll have to have a new broom,” I remarked, eyeing the tattered remains as I dished up the eggs. “Perhaps I’ll go up to the willow grove by the stream this morning.”

  “Mmphm.” Jamie reached out a hand and patted absently around on the table, searching for the bread plate. His attention was wholly focused on the book he was reading, Bricknell’s Natural History of North Carolina.

  “Here it is,” he said. “I knew I’d seen a bit about rattlesnakes.” Locating the bread by feel, he took a piece and used it to scoop a healthy portion of egg into his mouth. Having engulfed this, he read aloud, holding the book in one hand while groping over the tabletop with the other.

  “ ‘The Indians frequently pull out the snakes’ Teeth, so that they never afterwards can do any Mischief by biting; this may be easily done, by tying a bit of red Wollen Cloth to the upper end of a long hollow Cane, and so provoking the Rattle-Snake to bite, and suddenly pulling it away from him, by which means the Teeth stick fast in the Cloath, which are plainly to be seen by those present.’ ”

  “Have we any red cloth, Auntie?” Ian asked, washing down his own share of the eggs with chicory coffee.

  I shook my head, and speared the last of the sausages before Jamie’s groping hand reached it.

  “Blue, green, yellow, drab, white, and brown. No red.”

  “That’s a fine wee book, Uncle Jamie,” Ian said, with approval. “Does it say more about the snakes?” He looked hungrily over the expanse of table, in search of more food. Without comment, I reached into the hutch and brought out a plate of spoonbread, which I set before him. He sighed happily and waded in, as Jamie turned the page.

  “Well, here’s a bit about how the rattlesnakes charm squirrels and rabbits.” Jamie touched his plate, but encountered nothing save bare surface. I pushed the muffins toward him.

  “ ‘It is surprizing to observe how these Snakes will allure and charm Squirrels, Hedge-Conneys, Partridges and many other small Beasts and Birds to them, which they quickly devour. The Sympathy is so strong between these, that you shall see the Squirrel or Partridge (as they have espied this Snake) leap or fly from Bough to Bough, until at last they run or leap directly into its Mouth, not having power to avoid their Enemy, who never stirs out of the Posture or Quoil until he obtains his Prey.’ ”

  His hand, blindly groping after sustenance, encountered the muffins. He picked one up and glanced up at me. “Damned if I’ve ever seen that, myself. D’ye think it likely?”

  “No,” I said, pushing the curls back off my forehead. “Does that book have any helpful suggestions for dealing with vicious pigs?”

  He waved absently at me with the remnants of his muffin.

  “Dinna fash,” he murmured. “I’ll manage the pig.” He took his eyes off the book long enough to glance over the table at the empty dishes. “Are there no more eggs?”

  “There are, but I’m taking them up to our guest at the corncrib.” I added two slices of bread to the small basket I was packing, and took up the bottle of