That went home; Fraser’s head jerked up and there was a flash of dark-blue anger.

“I wouldna deceive another man in his marriage. Believe that of me, at least.”

Oddly enough, he did. And in spite of the anger he still struggled to keep in check, he began to think he perhaps understood how it might have been.

“She was reckless.” He made it a statement, not a question, and saw Fraser blink. It wasn’t a nod, but he thought it was acknowledgment and went on, more confident.

“Everyone says that—everyone who knew her. She was reckless, beautiful, careless … she took chances …”

“She had courage.” It was said softly, the words dropped like pebbles in water, and the ripples spread through the tiny room. Fraser was still looking straight at him. “Did they tell ye that, then? Her family, the folk who kent her?”

“No,” William said, and felt the word sharp as a stone in his throat. For just an instant, he’d seen her in those words. He’d seen her, and the knowledge of the immensity of his loss struck through his anger like a lightning bolt. He drove his fist into the table, striking it once, twice, hammering it ’til the wood shook and the legs juddered over the floor, papers flying and the inkwell falling over.

He stopped as suddenly as he’d started, and the racket ceased.

“Are you sorry?” he said, and made no effort to keep his voice from shaking. “Are you sorry for it, damn you?”

Fraser had turned away; now he turned sharply to face William but didn’t speak at once. When he did, his voice was low and firm.

“She died because of it, and I shall sorrow for her death and do penance for my part in it until my own dying day. But—” He compressed his lips for an instant, and then, too fast for William to back away, came round the table and, raising his hand, cupped William’s cheek, the touch light and fierce.

“No,” he whispered. “No! I am not sorry.” Then he whirled on his heel, threw open the door, and was gone, kilt flying.

PART NINE



“Thig crioch air an t-saoghal ach mairidh ceol agus gaol.”

“The world may come to an end, but love and music will endure.”



IN THE WILDERNESS A LODGING PLACE

ICOULDN’T STOP BREATHING. From the moment we left the salt-marsh miasma of Savannah, with its constant fog of rice paddies, mud, and decaying crustaceans, the air had grown clearer, the scents cleaner—well, putting aside the Wilmington mudflats, redolent with their memories of crocodiles and dead pirates—spicier, and more distinct. And as we reached the summit of the final pass, I thought I might explode from simple joy at the scent of the late-spring woods, an intoxicating mix of pine and balsam fir, oaks mingling the spice of fresh green leaves with the must of the winter’s fallen acorns, and the nutty sweetness of chestnut mast under a layer of wet dead leaves, so thick that it made the air seem buoyant, bearing me up. I couldn’t get enough of it into my lungs.

“If ye keep gasping like that, Sassenach, ye’re like to pass out,” Jamie said, smiling as he came up beside me. “How’s the new knife, then?”

“Wonderful! Look, I found a huge ginseng root, and a birch gall and—”

He stopped this with a kiss, and I dropped the soggy gunnysack full of plants on the path and kissed him back. He’d been eating wild spring onions and watercress plucked dripping from a creek and he smelled of his own male scent, pine sap, and the bloody tang of the two dead rabbits hanging at his belt; it was like kissing the wilderness itself, and it went on for a bit, interrupted only by a discreet cough a few feet away.

We let go of each other at once, and I took an automatic step back behind Jamie even as he stepped in front of me, hand hovering within reach of his dirk. A split second later, he’d taken a huge stride forward and engulfed Mr. Wemyss in an enormous hug.

“Joseph! A charaid! Ciamar a tha thu?”

Mr. Wemyss, a small, slight, elderly man, was swept literally off his feet; I could see a shoe dangling loose from the toes of one stockinged foot as he groped for traction. Smiling at this, I glanced round to see if Rachel and Ian had come into sight yet and spotted instead a small, round-faced boy on the path. He was perhaps four or five, with long fair hair, this flying loose around his shoulders.

“Er … Rodney?” I asked, making a hasty guess. I hadn’t seen him since he was two or so, but I couldn’t think who else might be accompanying Mr. Wemyss.

The child nodded, examining me soberly.

“You be the conjure-woman?” he said, in a remarkably deep voice.

“Yes,” I said, rather surprised at this address, but still more surprised at how right my acknowledgment of it felt. I realized at that moment that I had been resuming my identity as we walked, that step by step as we climbed the mountain, smelling its scents and harvesting its plenty, I had sloughed off a few layers of the recent past and become again what I had last been in this place. I had come back.

“Yes,” I said again. “I am Mrs. Fraser. You may call me Grannie Fraser, if you like.”

He nodded thoughtfully, taking this in and mouthing “Grannie Fraser” to himself once or twice, as though to taste it. Then he looked at Jamie, who had set Mr. Wemyss back on his feet and was smiling down at him with a look of joy that turned my heart to wax.

“Izzat Himself?” Rodney whispered, drawing close to me.

“That is Himself,” I agreed, nodding gravely.

“Aidan said he was big,” Rodney remarked, after another moment’s scrutiny.

“Is he big enough, do you think?” I asked, rather surprised by the realization that I didn’t want Rodney to be disappointed in this first sight of Himself.

Rodney gave an odd sideways tilt of his head, terribly familiar—it was what his mother, Lizzie, did when making a judgment about something—and said philosophically, “Well, he’s lot’s bigger ’n me, anyway.”

“Everything is relative,” I agreed. “And speaking of relatives, how is your mother? And your … er … father?”

I was wondering whether Lizzie’s unorthodox marriage was still in effect. Having fallen accidentally in love with identical-twin brothers, she had—with a guile and cunning unexpected in a demure nineteen-year-old Scottish bond servant—contrived to marry them both. There was no telling whether Rodney’s father was Josiah or Keziah Beardsley, but I did wonder—

“Oh, Mammy’s breedin’ again,” Rodney said casually. “She says she’s a-going to castrate Daddy or Da or both of ’em, if that’s what it takes to put a stop to it.”

“Ah … well, that would be effective,” I said, rather taken aback. “How many sisters or brothers have you got?” I’d delivered a sister before we’d left the Ridge, but—

“One sister, one brother.” Rodney was clearly growing bored with me and stood on his toes to look down the path behind me. “Is that Mary?”

“What?” Turning, I saw Ian and Rachel navigating a horseshoe bend some way below; they vanished into the trees even as I watched.

“You know, Mary ’n Joseph a-flying into Egypt,” he said, and I laughed in sudden understanding. Rachel, very noticeably pregnant, was riding Clarence, with Ian, who hadn’t troubled to shave for the last several months and was sporting a beard of quasi-biblical dimensions, walking beside her. Jenny was presumably still out of sight behind them, riding the mare with Franny and leading the pack mule.

“That’s Rachel,” I said. “And her husband, Ian. Ian is Himself’s nephew. You mentioned Aidan—is his family well, too?” Jamie and Mr. Wemyss had started off toward the trailhead, talking sixteen to the dozen about affairs on the Ridge. Rodney took my hand in a gentlemanly way and nodded after them.

“We’d best be going down. I want to tell Mam first, afore Opa gets there.”

“Opa … oh, your grandfather?” Joseph Wemyss had married a German lady named Monika, soon after Rodney’s birth, and I thought I recalled that “Opa” was a German expression for “grandfather.”