The other men were all shouting and running, too. But Aidan had got the knife from his belt and was roaring in a high treble as he stumbled the last few feet toward the bear. The dogs had already reached it and were snapping and tearing at the carcass—if it was a carcass.
Gillebride was belting down the slope, spear in both hands and bellowing at the dogs. The bear rose suddenly, swaying, and swatted Bluebell away. She crashed against a tree with a yelp and fell and Aidan stabbed his little knife into the bear’s side, screaming and screaming, and then Roger had him, grabbed him round the middle and flung himself away with Aidan beneath him and heard behind him the thunk! of the spear and a long, long sigh from the bear. Leaves flew up as the bear hit the ground. They touched Roger’s face and one of the dogs galloped across him, its nails digging into his back as it launched itself at the dead bear.
“Dad! Dad! Are you okay?” Jemmy was pulling at him, yelling. He dimly heard Gillebride and Ian beating the dogs away from the carcass and felt a big, hard hand under his elbow, pulling him upright, and the forest spun.
“The dog’s all right,” Jamie was saying, and Roger wondered whether he must have asked without realizing it, or whether Jamie was just making conversation. “She’s maybe cracked a rib, nay more. The wee lad’s fine, too,” he added. “Here.” He took a small flask from his sporran and wrapped Roger’s hands around it.
“Daddy?” Jem was kneeling by him, anxious. Roger smiled at him, though his face felt like melted rubber, unable to hold its shape for more than a few seconds.
“It’s all right, a bhalaich.”
The strong smell of the bear mingled with the scent of whisky and dead leaves. He could hear Aidan sobbing and looked for him. Ian had him, an arm round the boy, cuddled against his side as they sat in the yellow leaves against a fallen log. He saw that Ian had thumbed some of the white paint mixed with bear fat from his own face and streaked it across Aidan’s forehead.
Jamie and Gillebride were by the bear, examining it, Germain peeking cautiously from behind his grandfather. With a great effort, Roger got to his feet and held out a hand to Jem.
“Come on.”
It was a beautiful thing, in spite of the wounds. The softness of its muzzle, the colors of the body, and the perfect vivid curves of claws, pads, huge rounded back, brought him close to tears.
Jamie knelt by the bear’s head and lifted it, the heavy skull moving easily as he turned it and thumbed the lip away from the big teeth, fingers moving along the jaw. He grimaced and, reaching gingerly into the bear’s maw, drew out a tiny scrap from between the back teeth—something that looked like a fragment of some plant, something dark green. He spread out his palm and touched the thing, spreading it open, and Roger saw that it was a scrap of dark-green homespun, tinged black at one edge. The wet black seeped out onto Jamie’s palm, and Roger could see that it was blood.
Jamie nodded, as though to himself, and tucked the fragment of Amy’s bodice into his sporran. Then he stood, with a definite intent of body that made Ian stand up, too, leading Aidan to come and stand with them all, while Jamie said the prayer for the soul of one fallen in battle.
THEY CAME DOWN to the Big House at sunset, Brianna and Tom MacLeod carrying the coffin between them, he at the head and she at the foot.
She watched the back of his head as they negotiated their way through the long tree-shadows, and wondered how old he might be. His hair was thin and mostly white, tied back in a wisp, and his skin scaly and brown as a turtle’s. But his eyes were bright and fierce as a turtle’s, too, and his broad hands knew wood.
They hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words during the afternoon, but they hadn’t needed to.
At first, she’d felt deep sorrow at thought of a coffin; Amy being buried, put away, separated. But her soul had settled in the work, fear, shock, and worry fading with the concentration needed in the handling of sharp objects, and she’d begun to feel a sense of peace. This was a thing she could do for Amy: lay her to rest in clean wood. Her hands were rough now with sanding and her clothes full of sawdust; she smelled of sweat and fresh pine, and the balsam firs perfumed the coffin trail. Incense, she thought.
IT WAS NEARLY dark by the time Brianna left Tom and the coffin in the yard and went upstairs to make a hasty toilet and change her clothes. They fell off, heavy with sweat and sawdust, and she felt a moment’s relief, as though she’d shed some small part of the day’s burden. She pushed the discarded clothes into a corner with her foot and stood still, naked.
The house below hummed like her mother’s beehive, with intermittent bangs and callings-out as people came through the open door, the voices instantly hushing in respect—but only momentarily. She closed her eyes and ran her hands very slowly over her body, feeling skin and bone, the soft swing of the damp, heavy hair that hung down her back, unbraided.
She thought she should feel guilty. She did feel guilty, through the fog of exhaustion, but as her mother had said—more than once—the flesh has no conscience. Her body was grateful to find itself alive in a cool, dark room, being soothed and sponged and combed by candlelight.
A soft knock at the door, and Roger came in. She dropped the petticoat she’d been about to put on and went to him in her shift and stays.
“What did you do with the bear?” she mumbled into his shoulder, some minutes later. He smelled of blood.
“Gralloched it, put ropes on it, and dragged it home. I think your da put it in the root cellar, to keep things from getting at it. He says he and Gilly MacMillan will skin and butcher it tomorrow. It’ll be a lot of meat,” he added.
A faint shudder went down her back and into her belly. He felt it and hugged her closer.
“You okay?” he said softly into her hair. She nodded, unable to speak, and they stood together in silence, listening to the subdued rumble of the house below.
“Are you okay?” she asked, at last letting go. She stepped back to look at him; his eyes looked bruised with tiredness and he’d just shaved. His face was damp and blotched from scraping and there was a small cut just below his jaw, a dark line of dried blood. “Was it awful?”
“Aye, it was—but really wonderful, too.” He shook his head and stooped to pick up the fallen petticoat. “I’ll tell ye later. I’ve got to put on my gear and go speak to people.” He’d straightened his shoulders as he spoke; she could see him reach beyond his own emotion and tiredness and grasp his calling as another man might grip his sword.
“Later,” she echoed, and thought fleetingly that maybe she should learn the words of the blessing for a warrior going out.
IT TOOK HER some time to pull herself together enough to leave the sanctuary of her bedroom and go down.
Amy’s coffin had been placed on trestles in the kitchen, as the crowd come to wake her would never fit into the small parlor. Everyone brought food; Rachel and the two eldest Chisholm girls had taken charge of unpacking the baskets and bags and laying things out. Brianna drew in a hesitant deep breath as she entered the room, making her stays creak, but it was all right; if there was any smell of bear or decay, it was masked by the scents of burning firewood, candle wax, berry jam, apple cider, cheese, bread, cold meat, and beer, with the comforting ghost of her father’s whisky floating through the crowd.