“Captain Randall spoke to ye, ye said …”
“Kill me.” He heard his own voice whisper the words. “He asked me to kill him.”
My heart’s desire. The words lay like drops of lead in his ear. The wind had been whistling past his head, whipping the hair out of its binding and across his face. But he’d heard that, he knew he had, he hadn’t dreamed it …
But his eyes had been on Murtagh. There was movement, confusion, someone came toward him, he saw the dark blade of a bayonet, wet with rain or blood or mud, and he pushed it aside and suddenly it was a fight, with two of them pulling at him, bashing, trying to knock him down.
A sudden sound surprised him and he opened his eyes, disoriented, and realized that he’d made the noise, it was the sound he’d made when something took his left leg out from under him, a grunt of impact, impatience, he had to get up …
“And Captain Randall reached down to ye, then, where ye lay on the ground …”
“And I had my dirk in my hand and I—” He broke off and looked down at his sister, urgent. “Did I kill him? Did I say I did?”
She was watching him closely, a look of deep concern on her face. He made an impatient gesture, and she gave him a reproving look. No, she wouldn’t lie to him, he kent better than that …
“Ye said ye did. Ye said it over and over …”
“I said I killed him, over and over?”
Despite herself, she gave a small shudder. “No. That it was hot. The—his—blood. ‘Hot,’ ye kept saying, ‘God, it was so hot …’”
“Hot.” For a moment, that made no sense, and then he caught a glimpse of it: the dim sense of darkness leaning over him, the brush of wet wool across his face, effort, so much effort to raise his arm one more time, trembling, he saw drops of clean rain run down the blade, over his shaking hand, and effort, pushing, pushing up and the thick resisting, rasping cloth, momentary hardness, push, God damn it, then a deep, startling heat that had spilled over his frozen hand, his wind-chilled arm. He’d been desperately grateful for the warmth, he remembered that—but he could not remember the blow itself.
“Murtagh,” he said, and the sense of blood-heat left him as suddenly as it had come, the chilly wind in his ears. “Did I say what happened to Murtagh?” He gave a sigh of pain, exasperation, desolation. “Why would ye not go when I told ye, ye scabbit auld bugger?”
“He did,” Jenny said, unexpectedly. “He took the men as far as the road and set them on their way. They said so, when they came back to Lallybroch. But then he went back—for you.”
“For me.” He didn’t have to close his eyes now, he saw it; he’d felt it in his own back, seeing the jolt of Murtagh’s knife, up hard, aiming for the captain’s kidney. Randall had dropped like a rock—hadn’t he? But then how was he standing later … and then the others were all on them.
He’d been knocked flat onto his face and someone had stepped on his back, kicked him in the head, a gun-butt had struck him in the ribs and knocked his breath out … There was shouting all around and the sense of ice was creeping up his body—of course, he’d been badly wounded but hadn’t known it, was slowly bleeding to death. But all he could think of was Murtagh, that he must reach Murtagh … He’d crawled. He remembered seeing the water come up between his fingers as his hand pressed down and the tough black prickle of wet heather as he grasped it, pulling himself along … his kilt was soaked from falling, heavy and dragging between his legs, hindering …
“I found him,” he said, and took a breath that shook in his lungs. “Something happened—the soldiers were gone, I dinna ken how long it took—from one breath to the next, is how it felt.” His godfather had been lying a few yards away from him, curled up like a babe asleep. But he hadn’t been asleep—nor dead. Not yet. Jamie’d gathered him up into his arms, seen the terrible dented wound that had caved in his temple, the blood pumping black from a gash in his neck. But seen too the beauty, the lightening of Murtagh’s face as he opened his eyes to see Jamie holding him.
“He told me that it didna hurt to die,” Jamie said. His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat. “He touched my face and said not to be afraid.”
He’d remembered that—but now he remembered, too, the sense of sudden, overwhelming peace. The lightness. The exultation that had come back so strangely in his dream. Nothing mattered any longer. It was over. He’d bent his head and kissed Murtagh’s mouth, laid his own forehead against the bloody, tangled hair, and given up his soul to God.
“But—” He opened his eyes—didn’t recall closing them—and turned to Jenny, urgent. “But he came back! Randall. He wasna dead, he came back!”
Black, a black thing, man-shaped, upright against a sky gone white and blind. Jamie’s hands curled into fists, so sudden the nails bit his palms.
“He came back!”
Jenny didn’t speak and didn’t move, but her eyes were fixed on him, urging him silently to remember. And he did.
His limbs had gone weak and he’d lost the feeling in his leg altogether. Without meaning it, he’d fallen to the ground, losing his hold on Murtagh’s body. Was lying flat on his back, still able to feel the rain on his face but nothing else, his sight gone. He didn’t care about the black man, about anything. The peace of death was upon him. Pain and fear had gone and even hate had seeped away.
He’d closed his eyes again now, seeing it, and imagined that he felt Murtagh’s hand, hard and callused, still holding his as they lay on the ground.
“Did I kill him?” he whispered, more to himself than to Jenny. “I did … I ken I did … but how …”
The blood. The hot blood.
“The blood—it spilled down my arm, and then I … I wasna there anymore. But when I woke, my eyes were sealed shut wi’ dried blood and that’s what made me think I was dead—I couldna see anything but a sort of dark-red light. But then later I couldna find a wound on my head. It was his blood blinding me. And he was lyin’ on me, on my leg—”
He’d opened his eyes, still explaining it to himself, and found that he was sitting on the ground, the callused hand clinging tight to his was his sister’s, and tears were running silently down her face as she watched him.
“Och,” he said, and rising to his knees gathered her off her rock and into his arms. “Dinna weep, a leannan. It’s over.”
“That’s what you think, is it?” she said, voice muffled in his shirt. She was right, he knew that. But she held him tight. And slowly, slowly the morning came back.
They sat for a little while, not speaking. The sun had come well above the treetops by now, and while the air was still fresh and sweet, there was no longer any chill in it.
“Aye, well,” he said, at last, standing up. “Do ye still want to pray?” For she still held the pearl rosary, dangling from one hand. He didn’t wait for her reply but reached into his shirt and drew out the wooden rosary that he wore about his neck.
“Oh, ye’ve got your old beads after all,” she said, surprised. “Ye didna have your rosary in Scotland, so I thought ye’d lost it. Meant to make ye a new one, but there wasna time, what with Ian …” She lifted one shoulder, the gesture encompassing the whole of the terrible months of Ian’s long dying.