He tilted his head back, resting it against the carved stone back of the bench. His eyes were closed against the wind.
“I could forgive his not wanting me,” he said, with quiet bitterness. “But I couldn’t forgive him for making me use him in that fashion. Not forcing me merely to hurt him, but to degrade him. He could not merely refuse to acknowledge my feeling; he must destroy it. It was too much.”
Bits of debris boiled past on the flood; storm-cracked twigs and branches, a broken board from the hull of a boat, wrecked somewhere upstream. Her hand covered his where it rested on his knee. It was slightly larger than his own, and warm from sheltering in her cloak.
“There was a reason. It wasn’t you. But it’s for him to tell you, if he wants to. You did forgive him, though,” she said quietly. “Why?”
He sat up then, and shrugged, but didn’t put away her hand.
“I had to.” He glanced at her, eyes straight and level. “I hated him for as long as I could. But then I realized that loving him…that was part of me, and one of the best parts. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t love me, that had nothing to do with it. But if I could not forgive him, then I could not love him, and that part of me was gone. And I found eventually that I wanted it back.” He smiled, faintly. “So you see, it was really entirely selfish.”
He squeezed her hand then, stood up, and pulled her to her feet.
“Come, my dear. We shall both freeze solid if we sit here any longer.”
They walked back toward the house, not talking, but walking close together, arm in arm. As they came back through the gardens he spoke abruptly.
“You’re right, I think. To live with someone you love, knowing that they tolerate the relation only for the sake of obligation—no, I wouldn’t do it, either. Were it only a matter of convenience and respect on both sides, then yes; such a marriage is one of honor. As long as both parties are honest—” His mouth twisted briefly as he glanced in the direction of the servants’ quarters. “There is no need for shame on either side.”
She looked down at him, brushing a strand of windblown copper hair out of her eyes with her free hand.
“Then you’ll accept my proposal?” The hollow feeling in her chest didn’t feel like the relief she had expected.
“No,” he said bluntly. “I may have forgiven Jamie Fraser for what he did in the past—but he would never forgive me for marrying you.” He smiled at her, and patted the hand he held tucked in the curve of his arm.
“I can give you some respite from both your suitors and your aunt, though.” He glanced at the house, whose curtains hung unstirring against the glass.
“Do you suppose anyone’s watching?”
“I’d say you can bet on it,” she said, a little grimly.
“Good.” Pulling off the sapphire ring he wore, he turned to face her and took her hand. He pulled off her mitten and ceremoniously slid the ring onto her little finger—the only one it would fit. Then he rose smoothly on his toes and kissed her on the lips. Leaving her no time to recover from surprise, he clasped her hand in his, and turned once more toward the house, his expression bland.
“Come along, my dear,” he said. “Let us announce our engagement.”
60
TRIAL BY FIRE
They were left alone all day. The fire was dead, and there was no food left. It didn’t matter; neither man could eat, and no fire would have reached Roger’s soul-deep chill.
The Indians came back in late afternoon. Several warriors, escorting an elderly man, dressed in a flowing lace shirt and a woven mantle, his face painted with red and ocher—the sachem, bearing a small clay pot in his hand, filled with black liquid.
Alexandre had put on his clothes; he stood when the sachem approached him, but neither spoke nor moved. The sachem began to sing in a cracked old voice, and as he sang, dipped a rabbit’s foot into the pot and painted the priest’s face in black, from forehead to chin.
The Indians left, and the priest sat down on the ground, his eyes closed. Roger tried to speak to him, to offer him water, or at least the knowledge of company, but Alexandre made no response, sitting as though he had been carved of stone.
In the last of the twilight, he spoke, finally.
“There is not much time,” he said softly. “I asked you once before to pray for me. I did not know then what I would have you pray for—for the preservation of my life, or my soul. Now I know that neither is possible.”
Roger moved to speak, but the priest twitched a hand, stopping him.
“There is only the only thing I can ask for. Pray for me, brother—that I might die well. Pray that I may die in silence.” He looked at Roger for the first time, then, his eyes glinting with moisture. “I would not shame her by crying out.”
It was some time after dark that the drums began. Roger had not heard them in his time in the village. Impossible to say how many there were; the sound seemed to come from everywhere. He felt it in the marrow of his bones and the soles of his feet.
The Mohawks returned. When they came in, the priest stood up at once. He undressed himself, and walked out, naked, without a backward glance.
Roger sat staring at the hide-covered doorway, praying—and listening. He knew what a drum could do; had done it himself—evoked awe and fury with the beating of a stretched hide, calling to the deep and hidden instincts of the listener. Knowing what was happening, though, didn’t make it any less frightening.
* * *
He could not have said how long he sat there listening to the drums, hearing other sounds—voices, footsteps, the noises of a large assembly—trying not to listen for Alexandre’s voice.
Suddenly the drumming stopped. It started again, no more than a few tentative thumps, and then quit altogether. There were shouts, and then a sudden cacophany of yells. Roger started up, and hobbled toward the door. The guard was still there, though; he thrust his head through the flap and gestured menacingly, one hand on his war club.
Roger stopped, but couldn’t return to the fire. He stood in the half-dark, sweat rolling down his ribs, listening to the sounds outside.
It sounded like all the devils in hell had been let loose. What in God’s name was going on out there? A terrific fight, obviously. But who, and why?
After the first salvo of shrieks, the vocal part of it had lessened, but there were still individual high-pitched yelps and ululations from every part of the central clearing. There were thuds, too; moans, and other noises indicative of violent combat. Something struck the wall of the longhouse; the wall shivered and a bark panel cracked down the middle.
Roger glanced at the door flap; no, the guard wasn’t looking. He dashed across to the panel and tore at it with his fingers. No good; the wood fibers shredded away beneath his nails and wouldn’t give him purchase. In desperation, he pressed his eye to the hole he had made, trying to see what was happening outside.
No more than a narrow slice of the central clearing was visible. He could see the longhouse opposite, a strip of churned earth between, and over everything, the flickering light of an enormous fire. Red and yellow shadows fought with black ones, peopling the air with fiery demons.
Some of the demons were real; two dark figures reeled past and out of sight, locked in violent embrace. More figures streaked across his line of sight, running toward the fire.