Dragonfly in Amber

  “If ye’ll oblige me, sir?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Murtagh’s gnarled hand reached out and took the strap. An expression that might have been amusement flickered in the little clansman’s bright black eyes.

  “Wi’ pleasure…sir.”

  Jamie turned his back to his men, and began to unfasten his shirt. His eye caught me, standing frozen between the tree trunks, and one eyebrow lifted in ironic question. Did I want to watch? I shook my head frantically, whirled, and blundered away through the trees, belatedly taking his advice.

  * * *

  In fact, I didn’t return to the tent. I couldn’t bear the thought of its stifling enclosure; my chest felt tight and I needed air.

  I found it on the crest of a small rise, just beyond the tent. I stumbled to a stop in a small open space, flung myself full-length on the ground, and put both arms over my head. I didn’t want to hear the faintest echo of the drama’s final act, down behind me by the fire.

  The rough grass beneath me was cold on bare skin, and I hunched to wrap the cloak around me. Cocooned and insulated, I lay quiet, listening to the pounding of my heart, waiting for the turmoil inside me to calm.

  Sometime later, I heard men passing by in small groups of four or five, returning to their sleeping spots. Muffled by folds of cloth, I couldn’t distinguish their words, but they sounded subdued, perhaps a little awed. Some time passed before I realized that he was there. He didn’t speak or make a noise, but I suddenly knew that he was nearby. When I rolled over and sat up, I could see his bulk shadowed on a stone, head resting on forearms, folded across his knees.

  Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, after a moment’s pause, voice neutral as I could make it.

  “Aye, I’ll do.” He unfolded himself slowly, and stretched, moving gingerly, with a deep sigh.

  “I’m sorry for your gown,” he said, a minute later. I realized that he could see my bare flesh shining dim-white in the darkness, and pulled the edges of my cloak sharply together.

  “Oh, for the gown?” I said, more than a slight edge to my voice.

  He sighed again. “Aye, and for the rest of it, too.” He paused, then said, “I thought perhaps ye might be willing to sacrifice your modesty to prevent my havin’ to damage the lad, but under the circumstances, I hadna time to ask your permission. If I was wrong, then I’ll ask your pardon, lady.”

  “You mean you would have tortured him further?”

  He was irritated, and didn’t trouble to hide it. “Torture, forbye! I didna hurt the lad.”

  I drew the folds of my cloak more tightly around me. “Oh, you don’t consider breaking his arm and branding him with a hot knife as hurting him, then?”

  “No, I don’t.” He scooted across the few feet of grass between us, and grasped me by the elbow, pulling me around to face him. “Listen to me. He broke his own silly arm, trying to force his way out of an unbreakable lock. He’s brave as any man I’ve got, but he’s no experience at hand-to-hand fighting.”

  “And the knife?”

  Jamie snorted. “Tcha! He’s a small sore spot under one ear, that won’t pain him much past dinner tomorrow. I expect it hurt a bit, but I meant to scare him, not wound him.”

  “Oh.” I pulled away and turned back to the dark wood, looking for our tent. His voice followed me.

  “I could have broken him, Sassenach. It would have been messy, though, and likely permanent. I’d rather not use such means if I dinna have to. Mind ye, Sassenach”—his voice reached me from the shadows, holding a note of warning—“sometime I may have to. I had to know where his fellows were, their arms and the rest of it. I couldna scare him into it; it was trick him or break him.”

  “He said you couldn’t do anything that would make him talk.”

  Jamie’s voice was weary. “Christ, Sassenach, of course I could. Ye can break anyone if you’re prepared to hurt them enough. I know that, if anyone does.”

  “Yes,” I said quietly, “I suppose you do.”

  Neither of us moved for a time, nor spoke. I could hear the murmurs of men bedding down for the night, the occasional stamp of boots on hard earth and the rustle of leaves heaped up as a barrier against the autumn chill. My eyes had adjusted sufficiently to the dark that I could now see the outline of our tent, some thirty feet away in the shelter of a big larch. I could see Jamie, too, his figure black against the lighter darkness of the night.

  “All right,” I said at last. “All right. Given the choice between what you did, and what you might have done…yes, all right.”

  “Thank you.” I couldn’t tell whether he was smiling or not, but it sounded like it.

  “You were taking the hell of a chance with the rest of it,” I said. “If I hadn’t given you an excuse for not killing him, what would you have done?”

  The large figure stirred and shrugged, and there was a faint chuckle in the shadows.

  “I don’t know, Sassenach. I reckoned as how you’d think of something. If ye hadn’t—well, I suppose I would have had to shoot the lad. Couldna very well disappoint him by just lettin’ him go, could I?”

  “You bloody Scottish bastard,” I said without heat.

  He heaved a deep exasperated sigh. “Sassenach, I’ve been stabbed, bitten, slapped, and whipped since supper—which I didna get to finish. I dinna like to scare children and I dinna like to flog men, and I’ve had to do both. I’ve two hundred English camped three miles away, and no idea what to do about them. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m sore. If you’ve anything like womanly sympathy about ye, I could use a bit!”

  He sounded so aggrieved that I laughed in spite of myself. I got up and walked toward him.

  “I suppose you could, at that. Come here, and I’ll see if I can find a bit for you.” He had put his shirt back on loose over his shoulders, not troubling to do it up. I slid my hands under it and over the hot, tender skin of his back. “Didn’t cut the skin,” I said, feeling gently upward.

  “A strap doesn’t; it just stings.”

  I removed the shirt and sat him down to have his back sponged with cold water from the stream.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Mmmm.” The muscles of his shoulders relaxed, but he flinched slightly as I touched a particularly tender spot.

  I turned my attention to the scratch under his ear. “You wouldn’t really have shot him, would you?”

  “What d’ye take me for, Sassenach?” he said, in mock outrage.

  “A Scottish poltroon. Or at best, a conscienceless outlaw. Who knows what a fellow like that would do? Let alone an unprincipled voluptuary.”

  He laughed with me, and his shoulder shook under my hand. “Turn your head. If you want womanly sympathy, you’ll have to keep still while I apply it.”

  “Mmm.” There was a moment of silence. “No,” he said at last, “I wouldna have shot him. But I had to save his pride somehow, after making him feel ridiculous over you. He’s a brave lad; he deserved to feel he was worth killing.”

  I shook my head. “I will never understand men,” I muttered, smoothing marigold ointment over the scratch.

  He reached back for my hands and brought them together under his chin.

  “You dinna need to understand me, Sassenach,” he said quietly. “So long as ye love me.” His head tilted forward and he gently kissed my clasped hands.

  “And feed me,” he added, releasing them.

  “Oh, womanly sympathy, love and food?” I said, laughing. “Don’t want a lot, do you?”

  There were cold bannocks in the saddlebags, cheese, and a bit of cold bacon as well. The tensions and absurdities of the last two hours had been more draining than I realized, and I hungrily joined in the meal.

  The sounds of the men surrounding us had now died down, and there was neither sound nor any flicker of an unguarded fire to indicate that we were not a thousand miles from any human soul. Only
the wind rattled busily among the leaves, sending the odd twig bouncing down through the branches.

  Jamie leaned back against a tree, face dim in the starlight, but body instinct with mischief.

  “I gave your champion my word that I’d no molest ye wi’ my loathsome advances. I suppose that means unless ye invite me to share your bed, I shall have to go and sleep wi’ Murtagh or Kincaid. And Murtagh snores.”

  “So do you,” I said.

  I looked at him for a moment, then shrugged, letting half my ruined gown slide off my shoulder. “Well, you’ve made a good start at ravishing me.” I dropped the other shoulder, and the torn cloth fell free to my waist. “You may as well come and finish the job properly.”

  The warmth of his arms was like heated silk, sliding over my cold skin.

  “Aye, well,” he murmured into my hair, “war’s war, no?”

  * * *

  “I’m very bad at dates,” I said to the star-thick sky sometime later. “Has Miguel de Cervantes been born yet?”

  Jamie was lying—perforce—on his stomach next to me, head and shoulders protruding from the tent’s shelter. One eye slowly opened, and swiveled toward the eastern horizon. Finding no trace of dawn, it traveled slowly back and rested on my face, with an expression of jaundiced resignation.

  “You’ve a sudden urge to discuss Spanish novels?” he said, a little hoarsely.

  “Not particularly,” I said. “I just wondered whether perhaps you were familiar with the term ‘quixotic.’ ”

  He heaved himself onto his elbows, scrubbed at his scalp with both hands to wake himself fully, then turned toward me, blinking but alert.

  “Cervantes was born almost two hundred years ago, Sassenach, and, me having had the benefit of a thorough education, aye, I’m familiar with the gentleman. Ye wouldna be implying anything personal by that last remark, would ye?”

  “Does your back hurt?”

  He hunched his shoulders experimentally. “Not much. A wee bit bruised, I expect.”

  “Jamie, why, for God’s sake?” I burst out.

  He rested his chin on his folded forearms, the sidelong turn of his head emphasizing the slant of his eyes. The one I could see narrowed still further with his smile.

  “Well, Murtagh enjoyed it. He’s owed me a hiding since I was nine and put pieces of honeycomb in his boots while he had them off to cool his feet. He couldna catch me at the time, but I learned a good many interesting new words whilst he was chasing me barefoot. He—”

  I put a stop to this by punching him as hard as I could on the point of the shoulder. Surprised, he let the arm collapse under him with a sharp “Oof!” and rolled onto his side, back toward me.

  I brought my knees up behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist. His back blotted out the stars, wide and smoothly muscled, still gleaming faintly with the moisture of exertion. I kissed him between the shoulder blades, then drew back and blew gently, for the pleasure of feeling his skin shiver under my fingertips and the tiny fine hairs stand up in goose bumps down the furrow of his spine.

  “Why?” I said again. I rested my face against his warm, damp back. Shadowed by the darkness, the scars were invisible, but I could feel them, faint tough lines hard under my cheek.

  He was quiet for a moment, his ribs rising and falling under my arm with each deep, slow breath.

  “Aye, well,” he said, then fell silent again, thinking.

  “I dinna ken exactly, Sassenach,” he said finally. “Could be I thought I owed it to you. Or maybe to myself.”

  I laid a light palm across the width of one shoulder blade, broad and flat, the edges of the bone clear-drawn beneath the skin.

  “Not to me.”

  “Aye? Is it the act of a gentleman to unclothe his wife in the presence of thirty men?” His tone was suddenly bitter, and my hands stilled, pressing against him. “Is it the act of a gallant man to use violence against a captive enemy, and a child to boot? To consider doing worse?”

  “Would it have been better to spare me—or him—and lose half your men in two days’ time? You had to know. You couldn’t—you can’t afford to let notions of gentlemanly conduct sway you.”

  “No,” he said softly, “I can’t. And so I must ride wi’ a man—with the son of my King—whom duty and honor call me to follow—and seek meanwhiles to pervert his cause that I am sworn to uphold. I am forsworn for the lives of those I love—I betray the name of honor that those I honor may survive.”

  “Honor has killed one bloody hell of a lot of men,” I said to the dark groove of his bruised back. “Honor without sense is…foolishness. A gallant foolishness, but foolishness nonetheless.”

  “Aye, it is. And it will change—you’ve told me. But if I shall be among the first who sacrifice honor for expedience…shall I feel nay shame in the doing of it?” He rolled suddenly to face me, eyes troubled in the starlight.

  “I willna turn back—I cannot, now—but Sassenach, sometimes I do sorrow for that bit of myself I have left behind.”

  “It’s my fault,” I said softly. I touched his face, the thick brows, wide mouth, and the sprouting stubble along the clean, long jaw. “Mine. If I hadn’t come…and told you what would happen…” I felt a true sorrow for his corruption, and shared a sense of loss for the naive, gallant lad he had been. And yet…what choice had either of us truly had, being who we were? I had had to tell him, and he had had to act on it. An Old Testament line drifted through my mind: “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.”

  As though he had picked up this biblical strain of thought, he smiled faintly.

  “Aye, well,” he said. “I dinna recall Adam’s asking God to take back Eve—and look what she did to him.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead as I laughed, then drew the blanket up over my bare shoulders. “Go to sleep, my wee rib. I shall be needin’ a helpmeet in the morning.”

  * * *

  An odd metallic noise woke me. I poked my head out of the blanket and blinked in the direction of the noise, to find my nose a foot from Jamie’s plaid-covered knee.

  “Awake, are ye?” Something silvery and chinking suddenly descended in front of my face, and a heavy weight settled around my neck.

  “What on earth is this?” I asked, sitting up in astonishment and peering downward. I seemed to be wearing a necklace composed of a large number of three-inch metal objects, each with a divided shank and a hooped top, strung together on a leather bootlace. Some of the objects were rusted at the tops, others brand-new. All showed scratches along the length of the shanks, as though they had been wrenched by force out of some larger object.

  “Trophies of war, Sassenach,” said Jamie.

  I looked up at him, and uttered a small shriek at the sight.

  “Oh,” he said, putting a hand to his face. “I forgot. I hadna time to wash it off.”

  “You scared me to death,” I said, hand pressed to my palpitating heart. “What is it?”

  “Charcoal,” he said, voice muffled in the cloth he was rubbing over his face. He let it down and grinned at me. The rubbing had removed some of the blackening from nose, chin and forehead, which glowed pinkish-bronze through the remaining smears, but his eyes were still ringed black as a raccoon’s, and charcoal lines bracketed his mouth. It was barely dawn, and in the dim light of the tent, his darkened face and hair tended to fade into the drab background of the canvas wall behind him, giving the distinctly unsettling impression that I was speaking to a headless body.

  “It was your idea,” he said.

  “My idea? You look like the end man in a minstrel show,” I replied. “What the hell have you been doing?”

  His teeth gleamed a brilliant white amid the sooty creases of his face.

  “Commando raid,” he said, with immense satisfaction. “Commando? Is that the right word?”

  “Oh, God,” I said. “You’ve been in the English camp? Christ! Not alone, I hope?”

  “I couldna leave my men out of the fun, could
I? I left three of them to guard you, and the rest of us had a verra profitable night.” He gestured at my necklace with pride.

  “Cotter pins from the cannon carriages. We couldna take the cannon, or damage them without noise, but they’ll no be goin’ far, wi’ no wheels to them. And the hell of a lot of good sixteen gallopers will do General Cope, stranded out on the moor.”

  I examined my necklace critically.

  “That’s well and good, but can’t they contrive new cotter pins? It looks like you could make something like this from heavy wire.”

  He nodded, his air of smugness abating not a whit.