Virgins_ An Outlander Novella (Outlander #0.5) - Diana Gabaldon Page 0,8

he told everyone about her. A woman he met in Marseilles. He has a book of her poetry, and read some out.”

“Any good?”

“How would I ken? There was a good bit o’ swoonin’ and swellin’ and burstin’ goin’ on, but it seemed to be to do wi’ flowers, mostly. There was a good wee bit about a bumblebee, though, doin’ the business wi’ a sunflower. Pokin’ it, I mean. With its snout.”

There was a momentary silence as Jamie absorbed the mental picture.

“Maybe it sounds better in French,” he said.

“I’ll help ye,” Ian said suddenly, in a tone that was serious to the bone.

“Help me …?”

“Help ye kill this Captain Randall.”

He lay silent for a moment, feeling his chest go tight.

“Jesus, Ian,” he said, very softly. He lay for several minutes, eyes fixed on the shadowy tree roots that lay near his face.

“No,” he said at last. “Ye can’t. I need ye to do something else for me, Ian. I need ye to go home.”

“Home? What—”

“I need ye to go home and take care of Lallybroch—and my sister. I—I canna go. Not yet.” He bit his lower lip hard.

“Ye’ve got tenants and friends enough there,” Ian protested. “Ye need me here, man. I’m no leavin’ ye alone, aye? When ye go back, we’ll go together.” And he turned over in his plaid with an air of finality.

Jamie lay with his eyes tight closed, ignoring the singing and conversation near the fire, the beauty of the night sky over him, and the nagging pain in his back. He should perhaps be praying for the soul of the dead Jew, but he had no time for that just now. He was trying to find his father.

Brian Fraser’s soul must still exist, and he was positive that his father was in heaven. But surely there must be some way to reach him, to sense him. When first Jamie had left home, to foster with Dougal at Beannachd, he’d been lonely and homesick, but Da had told him he would be, and not to trouble overmuch about it.

“Ye think of me, Jamie, and Jenny and Lallybroch. Ye’ll not see us, but we’ll be here nonetheless, and thinking of you. Look up at night, and see the stars, and ken we see them, too.”

He opened his eyes a slit, but the stars swam, their brightness blurred. He squeezed his eyes shut again and felt the warm glide of a single tear down his temple. He couldn’t think about Jenny. Or Lallybroch. The homesickness at Dougal’s had stopped. The strangeness when he went to Paris had eased. This wouldn’t stop, but he’d have to go on living anyway.

Where are ye, Da? he thought in anguish. Da, I’m sorry!

He prayed as he walked next day, making his way doggedly from one Hail Mary to the next, using his fingers to count the Rosary. For a time, it kept him from thinking and gave him a little peace. But eventually the slippery thoughts came stealing back, memories in small flashes, quick as sun on water. Some he fought off—Captain Randall’s voice, playful as he took the cat in hand—the fearful prickle of the hairs on his body in the cold wind when he took his shirt off—the surgeon’s “I see he’s made a mess of you, boy …”

But some memories he seized, no matter how painful they were. The feel of his da’s hands, hard on his arms, holding him steady. The guards had been taking him somewhere, he didn’t recall and it didn’t matter, just suddenly his da was there before him, in the yard of the prison, and he’d stepped forward fast when he saw Jamie, a look of joy and eagerness on his face, this blasted into shock the next moment, when he saw what they’d done to him.

“Are ye bad hurt, Jamie?”

“No, Da, I’ll be all right.”

For a minute, he had been. So heartened by seeing his father, sure it would all come right—and then he’d remembered Jenny, taking that bastard into the house, sacrificing herself for—

He cut that one off short, too, saying, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!” savagely out loud, to the startlement of Petit Phillipe, who was scuttling along beside him on his short bandy legs. “Blessed art thou amongst women,” Phillipe chimed in obligingly. “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen!”

“Hail Mary,” said Père Renault’s deep voice behind him, taking it up, and within seconds seven or eight of them