“I killed one of them,” Roger said abruptly. “Did you know that?”
Jamie hadn’t looked away and didn’t now; his mouth compressed for a moment, and he nodded.
“I didna see ye do it,” he said. “But it was plain enough in your face, next day.”
“I don’t wonder.” Roger’s throat was tight, and the words came out thick and gruff. He was surprised that Jamie had noticed—had noticed anything at all on that day other than Claire, once the fighting was over. The image of her, kneeling by a creek, setting her own broken nose by her reflection in the water, the blood streaking down over her bruised and naked body, came back to him with the force of a punch in the solar plexus.
“Ye never ken how it will be.” Jamie lifted one shoulder and let it fall; he’d lost the lace that bound his hair, snagged by a tree branch, and the thick red strands stirred in the evening breeze. “A fight like that, I mean. What ye recall and what ye don’t. I remember everything about that night, though—and the day beyond it.”
Roger nodded but didn’t speak. It was true that Presbyterians had no sacrament of Confession—and he rather regretted that they didn’t; it was a useful thing to have in your pocket. Particularly, he supposed, if you led the sort of life Jamie had. But any minister knows the soul’s need to speak and be understood, and that he could give.
“I expect ye do,” he said. “Do ye regret it, then? Telling the men to kill them all, I mean.”
“Not for an instant.” Jamie gave him a brief, fierce glance. “Do ye regret your part of it?”
“I—” Roger stopped abruptly. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t thought about it, but … “I regret that I had to,” he said carefully. “Very much. But I’m sure in my own mind that I did have to.”
Jamie’s breath came out in a sigh. “Ye’ll know Claire was raped, I expect.” It wasn’t a question, but Roger nodded. Claire hadn’t spoken of it, even to Brianna—but she hadn’t had to.
“The man who did it wasna killed, that night. She saw him alive two months past, at Beardsley’s.”
The evening breeze had turned chilly, but that wasn’t what raised the hairs on Roger’s forearms. Jamie was a man of precise speech—and he’d started this conversation with the word “Confession.” Roger took his time about replying.
“I’m thinking that ye’re not asking my opinion of what ye should do about it.”
Jamie sat silent for a moment, dark against the blazing sky.
“No,” he said softly. “I’m not.”
“Grandda! Look!” Jem and Germain were scrambling over the rocks and brush, each with a string of shimmering trout, dripping dark streaks of blood and water down the boys’ breeks, the swaying fish gleaming bronze and silver in the last of the evening light.
Roger turned back from the boys in time to see the flicker of Jamie’s eye as he glanced round at the boys, the sudden light on his face catching a troubled, inward look that vanished in an instant as he smiled and raised a hand to his grandsons, reaching out to admire their catch.
Jesus Christ, Roger thought. He felt as though an electric wire had run through his chest for an instant, small and sizzling. He was wondering if they were old enough yet. To know about things like this.
“We decided we got six each,” Jemmy was explaining, proudly holding up his string and turning it so his father and grandfather could appreciate the size and beauty of his catch.
“And these are Fanny’s,” Germain said, lifting a smaller string on which three plump trout dangled. “We decided she’d ha’ caught some, if she was here.”
“That was a kind thought, lads,” Jamie said, smiling. “I’m sure the lassie will appreciate it.”
“Mmphm,” said Germain, though he frowned a little. “Will she still be able to come fishin’ with us, Grand-père? Mrs. Wilson said she won’t be able to, once she’s a woman.”
Jemmy made a disgusted noise and elbowed Germain. “Dinna be daft,” he said. “My mam’s a woman and she goes fishin’. She hunts, too, aye?”
Germain nodded but looked unconvinced.
“Aye, she does,” he admitted. “Mr. Crombie doesna like it, though, and neither does Heron.”
“Heron?” Roger said, surprised. Hiram Crombie was under the impression that women should cook, clean, spin, sew, mind children, feed stock, and keep quiet save when praying. But Standing Heron Bradshaw was a Cherokee who’d married one of the Moravian girls from Salem and settled on the other side of the Ridge. “Why? The Cherokee women plant their own crops and I’m sure I’ve seen them catching fish with nets and fish traps by the fields.”
“Heron didna say about catching fish,” Jem explained. “He says women canna hunt, though, because they stink o’ blood, and it drives the game away.”
“Well, that’s true,” Jamie said, to Roger’s surprise. “But only when they’ve got their courses. And even so, if she stays downwind …”
“Would a woman who smells o’ blood not draw bears or painters?” Germain asked. He looked a little worried at the thought.
“Probably not,” Roger said dryly, hoping he was right. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t suggest any such thing to your auntie. She might take it amiss.”
Jamie made a small, amused sound and shooed the boys. “Get on wi’ ye, lads. We’ve a few things yet to talk of. Tell your grannie we’ll be in time for supper, aye?”
They waited, watching ’til the boys were safely out of hearing. The breeze had died away now and the last slow rings on the water spread and flattened, disappearing into the gathering shadows. Tiny flies began to fill the air, survivors of the hatch.
“Ye did it, then?” Roger asked. He was wary of the answer; what if it wasn’t done, and Jamie wished his help in the matter?
But Jamie nodded, his broad shoulders relaxing.
“Claire didna tell me about it, ken. I saw at once that something was troubling her, o’ course …” A thread of rueful amusement tinged his voice; Claire’s glass face was famous. “But when I told her so, she asked me to let it bide, and give her time to think.”
“Did you?”
“No.” The amusement had gone. “I saw it was a serious thing. I asked my sister; she told me. She was wi’ Claire at Beardsley’s, aye? She saw the fellow, too, and wormed it out of Claire what the matter was.
“Claire said to me—when I made it clear I kent what was going on—that it was all right; she was trying to forgive the bastard. And thought she was makin’ progress with it. Mostly.” Jamie’s voice was matter-of-fact, but Roger thought he heard an edge of regret in it.
“Do you … feel that you should have let her deal with it? It is a—a process, to forgive. Not a single act, I mean.” He felt remarkably awkward, and coughed to clear his throat.
“I ken that,” Jamie said in a voice dry as sand. “Few men ken it better.”
A hot flush of embarrassment burned its way up Roger’s chest and into his neck. He could feel it take him by the throat, and couldn’t speak at all for a moment.