“You heard it, too?” he asked. Brianna went on crying, but nodded her head, jerky as a puppet.
“Did your—” he began, still laboriously assembling his thoughts piecemeal, then snapped upright as one came to him full-formed.
“Your mother!” he exclaimed, gripping Brianna hard by both arms. “Claire! Where is she?”
Brianna’s mouth dropped open in shock, and she scrambled to her feet, wildly scanning the confines of the empty circle, where the man-high stones loomed stark, half-seen in the shadows of the dying fire.
“Mother!” she screamed. “Mother, where are you?”
* * *
“It’s all right,” Roger said, trying to sound authoritatively reassuring. “She’ll be all right now.”
In truth, he had no idea whether Claire Randall would ever be all right. She was alive, at least, and that was all he could vouch for.
They had found her, senseless in the grass near the edge of the circle, white as the rising moon above, with nothing but the slow, dark seep of blood from her abraded palms to testify that her heart still beat. Of the hellish journey down the path to the car, her dead weight slung across his shoulder, bumping awkwardly as stones rolled under his feet and twigs snatched at his clothing, he preferred to remember nothing.
The trip down the cursed hill had exhausted him; it was Brianna, the bones of her face stark with concentration, who had driven them back to the manse, hands clamped to the wheel like vises. Slumped in the seat beside her, Roger had seen in the rearview mirror the last faint glow of the hilltop behind them, where a small, luminous cloud floated like a puff of cannon smoke, mute evidence of battle past.
Brianna hovered now over the sofa where her mother lay, motionless as a tomb figure on a sarcophagus. With a shudder, Roger had avoided the hearth where the banked fire lay sleeping, and had instead pulled up the small electric fire with which the Reverend had warmed his feet on winter nights. Its bars glowed orange and hot, and it made a loud, friendly whirring noise that covered the silence in the study.
Roger sat on a low stool beside the sofa, feeling limp and starchless. With the last remnants of resolve, he reached toward the telephone table, his hand hovering a few inches above the instrument.
“Should we—” He had to stop to clear his throat. “Should we…call a doctor? The police?”
“No.” Brianna’s voice was intent, almost absentminded, as she bent over the still figure on the couch. “She’s coming around.”
The domed eyelids stirred, tightened briefly in the returning memory of pain, then relaxed and opened. Her eyes were clear and soft as honey. They drifted to and fro, skimmed over Brianna, standing tall and stiff at his side, and fixed on Roger’s face.
Claire’s lips were bloodless as the rest of her face; it took more than one try to get the words out, in a hoarse whisper.
“Did she…go back?”
Her fingers were twisted in the fabric of her skirt, and he saw the faint, dark smear of blood they left behind. His own hands clutched instinctively on his knees, palms tingling. She had held on, too, then, grappling among the grass and gravel for any small hold against the engulfment of the past. He closed his eyes against the memory of that pulling rupture, nodding.
“Yes,” he said. “She went.”
The clear eyes went at once to her daughter’s face, brows above them arched as though in question. But it was Brianna who asked.
“It was true, then?” she asked hesitantly. “Everything was true?”
Roger felt the small shudder that ran through the girl’s body, and without thinking about it, reached up to take her hand. He winced involuntarily as she squeezed it, and suddenly in memory heard one of the Reverend’s texts: “Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.” And those who must see, in order to believe? The effects of belief wrought by seeing trembled fearful at his side, terrified at what else must now be believed.
Even as the girl tightened, bracing herself to meet a truth she had already seen, the lines of Claire’s tensed body on the sofa relaxed. The pale lips curved in the shadow of a smile, and a look of profound peace smoothed the strained white face, and settled glowing in the golden eyes.
“It’s true,” she said. A tinge of color came back into the pallid cheeks. “Would your mother lie to you?” And she closed her eyes once more.
* * *
Roger reached down to switch off the electric fire. The night was cold, but he could stay no longer in the study, his temporary sanctuary. He still felt groggy, but he couldn’t delay longer. The decision had to be made.
It had been dawn before the police and the doctor had finished their work the night before, filling in their forms, taking statements and vital signs, doing their best to explain away the truth. “Blessed are they who have not seen,” he thought again, devoutly, “but who have believed.” Especially in this case.
Finally, they had left, with their forms and badges and cars with flashing lights, to oversee the removal of Greg Edgars’s body from the ring of stone, to issue a warrant for the arrest of his wife, who, having lured her husband to his death, had fled the scene. To put it mildly, Roger thought dazedly.
Exhausted in mind and body, Roger had left the Randalls to the care of the doctor and Fiona, and had gone to bed, not bothering to undress or turn back the quilts, merely collapsing into a welcome oblivion. Roused near sunset by gnawing hunger, he had stumbled downstairs to find his guests, similarly silent, if less disheveled, helping Fiona with the preparation of supper.
It had been a quiet meal. The atmosphere was not strained; it was as though communication ran unseen among the people at the table. Brianna sat close to her mother, touching her now and then in the passing of food, as though to reassure herself of her presence. She had glanced occasionally at Roger, shy small looks from beneath her lashes, but didn’t talk to him.
Claire said little, and ate almost nothing, but sat quite still, quiet and peaceful as a loch in the sun, her thoughts turned inward. After dinner, she had excused herself and gone to sit in the deep window seat at the end of the hall, pleading tiredness. Brianna had cast a quick glance at her mother, silhouetted in the last glow of the fading sun as she faced the window, and gone to help Fiona in the kitchen with the dishes. Roger had gone to the study, Fiona’s good meal heavy in his stomach, to think.
Two hours later, he was still thinking, to remarkably little effect. Books were stacked untidily on the desk and table, left half-open on the seats of chairs and the back of the sofa, and gaping holes in the crowded bookshelves testified to the effort of his haphazard research.
It had taken some time, but he had found it—the short passage he remembered from his earlier search on Claire Randall’s behalf. Those results had brought her comfort and peace; this wouldn’t—if he told her. And if he were right? But he must be; it accounted for that misplaced grave, so far from Culloden.
He rubbed a hand over his face, and felt the rasp of beard. Not surprising that he had forgotten to shave, what with everything. When he closed his eyes, he could still smell smoke and blood; see the blaze of fire on dark rock, and the strands of fair hair, flying just beyond the reach of his fingers. He shuddered at the memory, and felt a sudden surge of resentment. Claire had destroyed his own peace of mind; did he owe her any less? And Brianna—if she knew the truth now, should she not know all of it?
Claire was still there at the end of the hall; feet curled under her on the window seat, staring out at the blank black stretch of the night-filled glass.
“Claire?” His voice felt scratchy from disuse, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Claire? I…have something to tell you.”
She turned and looked up at him, no more than the faintest curiosity visible on her features. She wore a look of calm, the look of one who has borne terror, despair, and mourning, and the desperate burden of survival—and has endured. Looking at her, he felt suddenly that he couldn’t do it.
But she had told the truth; he must do likewise.
&nb
sp; “I found something.” He raised the book in a brief, futile gesture. “About…Jamie.” Speaking that name aloud seemed to brace him, as though the big Scot himself had been conjured by his calling, to stand solid and unmoving in the hallway, between his wife and Roger. Roger took a deep breath in preparation.
“What is it?”
“The last thing he meant to do. I think…I think he failed.”
Her face paled suddenly, and she glanced wide-eyed at the book.
“His men? But I thought you found—”
“I did,” Roger interrupted. “No, I’m fairly sure he succeeded in that. He got the men of Lallybroch out; he saved them from Culloden, and set them on the road home.”
“But then…”
“He meant to turn back—back to the battle—and I think he did that, too.” He was increasingly reluctant, but it had to be said. Finding no words of his own, he flipped the book open, and read aloud:
“After the final battle at Culloden, eighteen Jacobite officers, all wounded, took refuge in the old house and for two days, their wounds untended, lay in pain; then they were taken out to be shot. One of them, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, escaped the slaughter; the others were buried at the edge of the domestic park.”
“One man, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, escaped.…” Roger repeated softly. He looked up from the stark page to see her eyes, wide and unseeing as a deer’s fixed in the headlights of an oncoming car.
“He meant to die on Culloden Field,” Roger whispered. “But he didn’t.”
Books by Diana Gabaldon
Outlander
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Outlandish Companion
The Hunt Begins
INVERNESS
MAY 2, 1968
“Of course he’s dead!” Claire’s voice was sharp with agitation; it rang loudly in the half-empty study, echoing among the rifled bookshelves. She stood against the cork-lined wall like a prisoner awaiting a firing squad, staring from her daughter to Roger Wakefield and back again.
“I don’t think so.” Roger felt terribly tired. He rubbed a hand over his face, then picked up the folder from the desk; the one containing all the research he’d done since Claire and her daughter had first come to him, three weeks before, and asked his help.
He opened the folder and thumbed slowly through the contents. The Jacobites of Culloden. The Rising of the ’45. The gallant Scots who had rallied to the banner of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and cut through Scotland like a blazing sword—only to come to ruin and defeat against the Duke of Cumberland on the gray moor at Culloden.
“Here,” he said, plucking out several sheets clipped together. The archaic writing looked odd, rendered in the black crispness of a photocopy. “This is the muster roll of the Master of Lovat’s regiment.”
He thrust the thin sheaf of papers at Claire, but it was her daughter, Brianna, who took the sheets from him and began to turn the pages, a slight frown between her reddish brows.
“Read the top sheet,” Roger said. “Where it says ‘Officers.’ “
“All right. ‘Officers,’ ” she read aloud, “ ‘Simon, Master of Lovat’ …”
“The Young Fox,” Roger interrupted. “Lovat’s son. And five more names, right?”
Brianna cocked one brow at him, but went on reading.
“ ‘William Chisholm Fraser, Lieutenant; George D’Amerd Fraser Shaw, Captain; Duncan Joseph Fraser, Lieutenant; Bayard Murray Fraser, Major,” she paused, swallowing, before reading the last name, “ ‘… James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. Captain.’ “ She lowered the papers, looking a little pale. “My father.” Claire moved quickly to her daughter’s side, squeezing the girl’s arm. She was pale, too.
“Yes,” she said to Roger. “I know he went to Culloden. When he left me … there at the stone circle … he meant to go back to Culloden Field, to rescue his men who were with Charles Stuart. And we know he did”—she nodded at the folder on the desk, its manila surface blank and innocent in the lamplight—”you found their names. But … but … Jamie …” Speaking the name aloud seemed to rattle her, and she clamped her lips tight.
Now it was Brianna’s turn to support her mother.
“He meant to go back, you said.” Her eyes, dark blue and encouraging, were intent on her mother’s face. “He meant to take his men away from the field, and then go back to the battle.”
Claire nodded, recovering herself slightly.
“He knew he hadn’t much chance of getting away; if the English caught him … he said he’d rather die in battle. That’s what he meant to do.” She turned to Roger, her gaze an unsettling amber. Her eyes always reminded him of hawk’s eyes, as though she could see a good deal farther than most people. “I can’t believe he didn’t die there—so many men did, and he meant to!”
Almost half the Highland army had died at Culloden, cut down in a blast of cannonfire and searing musketry. But not Jamie Fraser.
“No,” Roger said doggedly. “That bit I read you from Linklater’s book—” He reached to pick it up, a white volume, entitled The Prince in the Heather.
“Following the battle,” he read, “eighteen wounded Jacobite officers took refuge in the farmhouse near the moor. Here they lay in pain, their wounds untended, for two days. At the end of that time, they were taken out and shot. One man, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, escaped the slaughter. The rest are buried at the edge of the domestic park.
“See?” he said, laying the book down and looking earnestly at the two women over its pages. “An officer, of the Master of Lovat’s regiment.” He grabbed up the sheets of the muster roll.
“And here they are! Just six of them. Now, we know the man in the farmhouse can’t have been Young Simon; he’s a well-known historical figure, and we know very well what happened to him. He retreated from the field—unwounded, mind you—with a group of his men, and fought his way north, eventually making it back to Beaufort Castle, near here.” He waved vaguely at the full-length window, through which the nighttime lights of Inverness twinkled faintly.
“Nor was the man who escaped Leanach farmhouse any of the other four officers—William, George, Duncan, or Bayard,” Roger said. “Why?” He snatched another paper out of the folder and brandished it, almost triumphantly. “Because they all did die at Culloden! All four of them were killed on the field—I found their names listed on a plaque in the church at Beauly.”
Claire let out a long breath, then eased herself down into the old leather swivel chair behind the desk.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she said. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and her head against her hands, the thick, curly brown hair spilling forward to hide her face. Brianna laid a hand on Claire’s back, face troubled as she bent over her mother. She was a tall girl, with large, fine bones, and her long red hair glowed in the warm light of the desk lamp.
“If he didn’t die …” she began tentatively.
Claire’s head snapped up. “But he is dead!” she said. Her face was strained, and small lines were visible around her eyes. “For God’s sake, it’s two hundred years; whether he died at Culloden or not, he’s dead now!”
Brianna stepped back from her mother’s vehemence, and lowered her head, so the red hair—her father’s red hair—swung down beside her cheek.
“I guess so,” she whispered. Roger could see she was fighting back tears. And no wonder, he thought. To find out in short order that first, the man you had loved and called “Father” all your life really wasn’t your father, secondly, that your real father was a Highland Scot who had lived two hundred years ago, and thirdly, to realize that he had likely perished in some horrid fashion, unthinkably far from the wife and child he had sacrificed himself to save … enough to rattle one, Roger thought.
He crossed to Brianna and touched her arm. She gave him a brief, distracted glance, and tried to smile. He put his arms around her,
even in his pity for her distress thinking how marvelous she felt, all warm and soft and springy at once.
Claire still sat at the desk, motionless. The yellow hawk’s eyes had gone a softer color now, remote with memory. They rested sightlessly on the east wall of the study, still covered from floor to ceiling with the notes and memorabilia left by the Reverend Wakefield, Roger’s late adoptive father.
Looking at the wall himself, Roger saw the annual meeting notice sent by the Society of the White Rose—those enthusiastic, eccentric souls who still championed the cause of Scottish independence, meeting in nostalgic tribute to Charles Stuart, and the Highland heroes who had followed him.
Roger cleared his throat slightly.
“Er … if Jamie Fraser didn’t die at Culloden …” he said.
“Then he likely died soon afterward.” Claire’s eyes met Roger’s, straight on, the cool look back in the yellow-brown depths. “You have no idea how it was,” she said. “There was a famine in the Highlands—none of the men had eaten for days before the battle. He was wounded—we know that. Even if he escaped, there would have been … no one to care for him.” Her voice caught slightly at that; she was a doctor now, had been a healer even then, twenty years before, when she had stepped through a circle of standing stones, and met destiny with James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser.