“Do you … can you tell me about it?” I said, drawing back after a bit. Sometimes he could, and it seemed to help. More often, he couldn’t, and would just shake until the dream let go its grip on his mind and let him turn away.
“I don’t know,” he said, the note of surprise still in his voice. “I mean—it was Culloden, but … it was different.”
“How?” I asked warily. I knew from what he’d told me that he remembered only bits and pieces of the battle, single vivid images. I’d never encouraged him to try to remember more, but I had noticed that such dreams came more frequently, the closer we came to any looming conflict. “Did you see Murtagh?”
“Aye, I did.” The tone of surprise in his voice deepened, and his hand stilled on my back. “He was with me, by me. But I could see his face; it shone like the sun.”
This description of his late godfather was more than peculiar; Murtagh had been one of the more dour specimens of Scottish manhood ever produced in the Highlands.
“He was … happy?” I ventured doubtfully. I couldn’t imagine anyone who’d set foot on Culloden moor that day had cracked so much as a smile—likely not even the Duke of Cumberland.
“Oh, more than happy, Sassenach—filled wi’ joy.” He let go of me then, and glanced down into my face. “We all were.”
“All of you—who else was there?” My concern for him had mostly subsided now, replaced by curiosity.
“I dinna ken, quite … there was Alex Kincaid, and Ronnie …”
“Ronnie MacNab?” I blurted, astonished.
“Aye,” he said, scarcely noticing my interruption. His brows were drawn inward in concentration, and there was still something of an odd radiance about his own face. “My father was there, too, and my grandsire—” He laughed aloud at that, surprised afresh. “I canna imagine why he’d be there—but there he was, plain as day, standing by the field, glowering at the goings-on, but lit up like a turnip on Samhain, nonetheless.”
I didn’t want to point out to him that everyone he’d mentioned so far was dead. Many of them hadn’t even been on the field that day—Alex Kincaid had died at Prestonpans, and Ronnie MacNab … I glanced involuntarily at the fire, glowing on the new black slate of the hearthstone. But Jamie was still looking into the depths of his dream.
“Ken, when ye fight, mostly it’s just hard work. Ye get tired. Your sword’s so heavy ye think ye canna lift it one more time—but ye do, of course.” He stretched, flexing his left arm and turning it, watching the play of light over the sun-bleached hairs and deep-cut muscle. “It’s hot—or it’s freezing—and either way, ye just want to go and be somewhere else. Ye’re scairt or ye’re too busy to be scairt until it’s over, and then ye shake because of what ye’ve just been doing …” He shook his head hard at this, dislodging the thoughts.
“Not this time. Once in a long while, something comes over ye—the red thing, is what I’ve always called it.” He glanced at me, almost shyly. “I had it—well, I was far beyond that—when I charged the field at Culloden. This time, though—” He ran a hand slowly through his hair. “In the dream … it was different. I wasna afraid at all, nor tired—do ye ever sweat in your dreams, Sassenach?”
“If you mean literally, yes. If you mean am I conscious of sweating in the dream … no, I don’t think so.”
He nodded, as though this confirmed something.
“Aye. I dinna think one smells things in a dream, either, unless it’s maybe smoke because the house took fire around ye whilst ye slept. But I felt things, just now, dreamin’. The rasp o’ the moor plants on my legs, gorse stuck to the edge of my kilt, and the feel o’ grass on my cheek when I fell. And I felt cold from the water I was lyin’ in, and felt my heart grow chill in my chest, and the beating grow slower … I kent I was bleeding, but nothing hurt—and I wasna afraid, either.”
“Did you take your clothes off in your dream?” I asked, touching his bare chest. He looked down at my finger, blank-faced. Then let his breath out explosively.
“God. I’d forgot that part. It was him—Jack Randall. He came out o’ nowhere, walking through the fight, stark naked.”
“What?”
“Well, dinna ask me, Sassenach, I dinna ken why. He just … was.” His hand floated back to his chest, gingerly touching the small hollow in his breastbone. “And I dinna ken why I was, either. I just … was.”
140
Three Rounds with a Rhinoceros
Fraser’s Ridge
September 16, 1780
“ONE WOULD THINK YOU’D done this before,” I remarked, smiling up between Brianna’s knees.
“If one thinks I’m ever doing this again …” she panted, but broke off, her sweating face contorting like a gargoyle’s. “NRRRRGH.”
“Wonderful, darling,” I said, my fingers on the rounded, hairy object showing briefly between her legs. I felt it for only a second before it disappeared again, an instant’s throbbing pulse, but that was enough; there was no sense of distress, only of bewilderment and an intense curiosity.
“Jesus, it looks like a coconut,” Roger blurted from his spot kneeling on the floor behind me.
“ARRRGHHHH! NGGGGHHH! I’m going to kill you! You—effing—” Brianna stopped, panted like a dog, then drove her blood-streaked legs hard into the straw-covered floor, half-rose from the birthing chair, and the baby shot out and fell heavily into my hands.
“Oh, my God,” said Roger.
“Don’t faint back there,” I said, busy swabbing the little boy’s nose and mouth. “Fanny? If he falls over, drag him out of the way.”
“I won’t faint,” he said, his voice trembling. “Oh, Bree. Oh. Oh, Bree!” I could feel him scuffling the straw as he rose to go to her, but my attention was split between Brianna and the baby—a good bit of blood, a small perineal tear, but no apparent hemorrhage—pink, wriggling, face screwed up in the exact gargoyle’s expression his mother had had a moment before, heart thumping like a tiny trip-hammer and … I was already smiling, but my smile widened as he jerked away from my bit of gauze and started yelling like an angry buzz saw.
“Apgar nine or ten,” I said happily. “Well done, darling—both of you!”
“Where’s his Apgar?” Fanny said, frowning at the baby. “Is that what you call his—”
“Oh. No, it’s a list you run through with a new baby, to evaluate their state. ‘Apgar’ stands for Activity, Pulse, Grimace—he’s certainly got that—Appearance—see how pink he is? A baby that’s had a difficult time might have bluish fingers and toes, or be blue all over—that would be very bad.” I had a quick vision of Amanda’s birth—and of the last blue baby I’d held—and gooseflesh rippled over my arms. I closed my eyes with a quick prayer for little Abigail Cloudtree and for the healthy grandson in my arms.
“What’s the ‘R’ for?” Roger asked, curious. I glanced up; he was cradling Bree’s head, gently wiping back the strands of sweat-soaked hair pasted to her face, but his eyes were glued to the baby.