“Must you?”
“I think so. Sometime. But not now—not unless you . . . you need to hear.” I swallowed. “First.”
He shook his head, very slightly, but still didn’t look at me.
“Not now,” he whispered. “Not now.”
I took my hand away, and swallowed the rest of the wine in my cup, rough and warm and musky with the tang of grape skins. I had stopped going hot and cold by turns; now I was only warm throughout, and grateful for it.
“Your nose,” I said, and poured another cup. “Tell me, then. Please.”
He shrugged slightly.
“Aye, well. There were two English soldiers, come scouting up the hill. I think they didna expect to find anyone—neither had his musket loaded, or I should ha’ died there.”
He spoke quite casually. A small shiver went over me, but not from cold.
“They saw me, ken, and then one of them saw you, up above. He shouted, and made to go after ye, so I threw myself on him. I didna care at all what happened, so long as ye were safe away, so I went for him bald-heided; plunged my dirk into his side. But his bullet box swung into my way and the knife stuck in it, and—” He smiled, lopsided. “And while I was trying to get it free and keep from bein’ killed, his friend came up and swung the stock of his musket into my face.”
His free hand had curled up as he spoke, grasping the hilt of a remembered dirk.
I flinched, knowing now exactly what that had felt like. Just hearing about it made my own nose throb. I sniffed, dabbed cautiously at it with the back of my hand, and poured more wine.
“How did you get away?”
“I took the musket from him and clubbed them both to death with it.”
He spoke quietly, almost colorlessly, but there was an odd resonance to his voice that made my stomach shift uneasily. It was too fresh, that sight of the blood drops gleaming by dawn light in the hairs of his arm. Too fresh, that undertone of—what was it? satisfaction?—in his voice.
I was suddenly too restless to sit still. A moment before I had been so exhausted that my bones were melting; now I had to move. I stood up, leaning out over the sill. The storm was coming; the wind was freshening, blowing back my new-washed hair, and lightning flickered in the distance.
“I’m sorry, Sassenach,” Jamie said, sounding worried. “I shouldna have told ye. Are ye bothered by it?”
“Bothered? No, not by that.”
I spoke a little tersely. Why had I asked him about his nose, of all things? Why now, when I had been content to live in ignorance for the last several years?
“What bothers ye, then?” he asked quietly.
What was bothering me was that the wine had been doing its job of anesthetizing me nicely; now I had ruined it. All the images of the night before were back inside my head, thrown into vivid Technicolor by that simple statement, that oh-so-matter-of-fact, “I took the musket from him and clubbed them both to death with it.” And its unspoken echo, It is myself who kills for her.
I wanted to throw up. Instead, I gulped more wine, not even tasting it, swallowing it down as fast as I could. I dimly heard Jamie ask again what bothered me, and swung round to glare at him.
“What bothers me—bothers! What a stupid word! What drives me absolutely mad is that I might have been anyone, anything—a convenient warm spot with spongy bits to squeeze—God, I was no more than a hole to them!”
I struck the sill with my fist, then, angered by the impotent little thump of it, picked up my cup, turned round, and hurled it against the wall.
“It wasn’t that way with Black Jack Randall, was it?” I demanded. “He knew you, didn’t he? He saw you when he used you; it wouldn’t have been the same if you were anyone—he wanted you.”
“My God, ye think that was better?” he blurted, and stared at me, eyes wide.
I stopped, panting for breath and feeling dizzy.
“No.” I dropped onto the stool and closed my eyes, feeling the room go round and round me, colored lights like a carousel behind my eyes. “No. I don’t. I think Jack Randall was a bloody sociopathic, grade-A pervert, and these—these”—I flipped a hand, unable to think of a suitable word—“they were just . . . men.”
I spoke the last word with a sense of loathing evident even to me.
“Men,” Jamie said, his voice sounding odd.
“Men,” I said. I opened my eyes and looked at him. My eyes felt hot, and I thought they must glow red, like a possum’s in torchlight.
“I have lived through a f**king world war,” I said, my voice low and venomous. “I have lost a child. I have lost two husbands. I have starved with an army, been beaten and wounded, been patronized, betrayed, imprisoned, and attacked. And I have f**king survived!” My voice was rising, but I was helpless to stop it. “And now should I be shattered because some wretched, pathetic excuses for men stuck their nasty little appendages between my legs and wiggled them?!” I stood up, seized the edge of the washstand and heaved it over, sending everything flying with a crash—basin, ewer, and lighted candlestick, which promptly went out.
“Well, I won’t,” I said quite calmly.
“Nasty little appendages?” he said, looking rather stunned.
“Not yours,” I said. “I didn’t mean yours. I’m rather fond of yours.” Then I sat down and burst into tears.
His arms came round me, slowly and gently. I didn’t startle or jerk away, and he pressed my head against him, smoothing my damp, tangled hair, his fingers catching in the mass of it.
“Christ, ye are a brave wee thing,” he murmured.
“Not,” I said, eyes closed. “I’m not.” I grabbed his hand and brought it to my lips, closing my eyes as I did so.
I brushed my battered mouth across his knuckles, blind. They were swollen, as bruised as mine; I touched my tongue to his flesh, tasted soap and dust and the silver taste of scrapes and gashes—marks left by bones and broken teeth. Pressed my fingers to the veins beneath the skin of wrist and arm, softly resilient, and the solid lines of the bones beneath. I felt the tributaries of his veins, wished to enter into his bloodstream, travel there, dissolved and bodiless, to take refuge in the thick-walled chambers of his heart. But I couldn’t.
I ran my hand up his sleeve, exploring, clinging, relearning his body. I touched the hair in his oxter and stroked it, surprised at the soft, silky feel of it.
“Do you know,” I said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever touched you there before?”
“I dinna believe ye have,” he said, with a hint of nervous laughter in his voice. “I would ha’ remembered. Oh!” A stipple of gooseflesh burst out over the soft skin there, and I pressed my forehead to his chest.
“The worst of it is,” I said, into his shirt, “that I knew them. Each one of them. And I’ll remember them. And feel guilty that they’re dead, because of me.”
“No,” he said softly, but very firmly. “They are dead because of me, Sassenach. And because of their own wickedness. If there is guilt, let it rest upon them. Or on me.”
“Not on you alone,” I said, my eyes still closed. It was dark in there, and soothing. I could hear my voice, distant but clear, and wondered dimly where the words were coming from. “You’re blood of my blood, bone of my bone. You said so. What you do rests on me, as well.”
“Then may your vow redeem me,” he whispered.
He lifted me to my feet and gathered me to him, like a tailor gathering up a length of fragile, heavy silk—slowly, long-fingered, fold upon fold. He carried me then across the room, and laid me gently on the bed, in the light from the flickering fire.
HE’D MEANT TO be gentle. Very gentle. Had planned it with care, worrying each step of the long way home. She was broken; he must go canny, take his time. Be careful in gluing back her shattered bits.
And then he came to her and discovered that she wished no part of gentleness, of courting. She wished directness. Brevity and violence. If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle.
For a moment, two moments, he struggled, trying to hold her close and kiss her tenderly. She squirmed like an eel in his arms, then rolled over him, wriggling and biting.
He’d thought to ease her—both of them—with the wine. He’d known she lost all sense of restraint when in drink; he simply hadn’t realized what she was restraining, he thought grimly, trying to seize her without hurting.
He, of all people, should have known. Not fear or grief or pain—but rage.
She raked his back; he felt the scrape of broken nails, and thought dimly that was good—she’d fought. That was the last of his thought; his own fury took him then, rage and a lust that came on him like black thunder on a mountain, a cloud that hid all from him and him from all, so that kind familiarity was lost and he was alone, strange in darkness.
It might be her neck he grasped, or anyone’s. The feel of small bones came to him, knobbled in the dark, and the screams of rabbits, killed in his hand. He rose up in a whirlwind, choked with dirt and the scourings of blood.
Wrath boiled and curdled in his balls, and he rode to her spurs. Let his lightning blaze and sear all trace of the intruder from her womb, and if it burnt them both to bone and ash—then let it be.
WHEN SENSE CAME back to him, he lay with his weight full on her, crushing her into the bed. Breath sobbed in his lungs; his hands clenched her arms so hard he felt the bones like sticks about to snap within his grasp.
He had lost himself. Was not sure where his body ended. His mind flailed for a moment, panicked lest it have been unseated altogether—no. He felt a drop of cold, sudden on his shoulder, and the scattered parts of him drew at once together like shattered bits of quicksilver, to leave him quaking and appalled.
He was still joined to her. He wanted to bolt like a startled quail, but managed to move slowly, loosening his fingers one by one from their death grip on her arms, lifting his body gently away, though the effort of it seemed immense, as though his weight were that of moons and planets. He half-expected to see her crushed and flattened, lifeless on the sheet. But the springy arch of her ribs rose and fell and rose again, roundly reassuring.
Another drop struck him in the back of his neck, and he hunched his shoulders in surprise. Caught by his movement, she looked up, and he met her eyes with shock. She shared it; the shock of strangers meeting one another naked. Her eyes flicked away from his, up toward the ceiling.
“The roof’s leaking,” she whispered. “There’s a wet patch.”
“Oh.” He had not even realized that it was raining. The room was dark with rainlight, though, and the roof thrummed overhead. The sound of it seemed inside his blood, like the beat of the bodhrana inside the night, like the beat of his heart in the forest.
He shuddered, and for lack of any other notion, kissed her forehead. Her arms came up sudden as a snare and held him fiercely, pulling him down onto her again and he seized her, too, crushing her to him hard enough to feel the breath go out of her, unable to let go. He thought vaguely of Brianna’s talk of giant orbs that whirled through space, the thing called gravity—and what was grave about it? He saw that well enough just now: a force so great as to balance some body unthinkably immense in thin air, unsupported—or send two such bodies crashing into each other, in an explosion of destruction and the smoke of stars.