At this point, I gave up pretending indifference.
“And what happened then?”
He frowned. “There was an awful collieshangie, but I couldna hear much. Auntie…I mean Laoghaire—she doesna seem to know how to fight properly, like my Mam and Uncle Jamie. She just weeps and wails a lot. Mam says she snivels,” he added.
“Mmphm,” I said. “And so?”
Laoghaire had slid off her own mount, clutched Jamie by the leg, and more or less dragged him off as well, according to Young Ian. She had then subsided into a puddle in the dooryard, clutching Jamie about the knees, weeping and wailing as was her usual habit.
Unable to escape, Jamie had at last hauled Laoghaire to her feet, flung her bodily over his shoulder, and carried her into the house and up the stairs, ignoring the fascinated gazes of his family and servants.
“Right,” I said. I realized that I had been clenching my jaw, and consciously unclenched it. “So he sent you after me because he was too occupied with his
My knuckles were white where my hand clutched the edge of the saddle. Not caring about subtlety any more, I leaned down, snatching for the reins.
“Let go!”
“But Auntie Claire, it’s not that!”
“What’s not that?” Caught by his tone of desperation, I glanced up. His long, narrow face was tight with the anguished need to make me understand.
“Uncle Jamie didna stay to tend Laoghaire!”
“Then why did he send you?”
He took a deep breath, renewing his grip on my reins.
“She shot him. He sent me to find ye, because he’s dying.”
“If you’re lying to me, Ian Murray,” I said, for the dozenth time, “you’ll regret it to the end of your life—which will be short!”
I had to raise my voice to be heard. The rising wind came whooshing past me, lifting my hair in streamers off my shoulders, whipping my skirts tight around my legs. The weather was suitably dramatic; great black clouds choked the mountain passes, boiling over the crags like seafoam, with a faint distant rumble of thunder, like far-off surf on packed sand.
Lacking breath, Young Ian merely shook his bowed head as he leaned into the wind. He was afoot, leading both ponies across a treacherously boggy stretch of ground near the edge of a tiny loch. I glanced instinctively at my wrist, missing my Rolex.
It was difficult to tell where the sun was, with the in-rolling storm filling half the western sky, but the upper edge of the dark-tinged clouds glowed a brilliant white that was almost gold. I had lost the knack of telling time by sun and sky, but thought it was no more than midafternoon.
Lallybroch lay several hours ahead; I doubted we would reach it by dark. Meaching my way reluctantly toward Craigh na Dun, I had taken nearly two days to reach the small wood where Young Ian had caught up with me. He had, he said, spent only one day in the pursuit; he had known roughly where I was headed, and he himself had shod the pony I rode; my tracks had been plain to him, where they showed in the mud-patches among the heather on the open moor.
Two days since I had left, and one—or more—on the journey back. Three days, then, since Jamie had been shot.
I could get few useful details from Young Ian; having succeeded in his mission, he wanted only to return to Lallybroch as fast as possible, and saw no point in further conversation. Jamie’s gunshot wound was in the left arm, he said. That was good, so far as it went. The ball had penetrated into Jamie’s side, as well. That wasn’t good. Jamie was conscious when last seen—that was good—but was starting a fever. Not good at all. As to the possible effects of shock, the type or severity of the fever, or what treatment had so far been administered, Young Ian merely shrugged.
So perhaps Jamie was dying; perhaps he wasn’t. It wasn’t a chance I could take, as Jamie himself would know perfectly well. I wondered momentarily whether he might conceivably have shot himself, as a means of forcing me to return. Our last interview could have left him in little doubt as to my response had he come after me, or used force to make me return.
It was beginning to rain, in soft spatters that caught in my hair and lashes, blurring my sight like tears. Past the boggy spot, Young Ian had mounted again, leading the way upward to the final pass that led to Lallybroch.
