Outlander 03 - Voyager

and trying to get warm. He thought he likely would never be warm again. The chill of the sea had seeped into his bones, and he could still feel the churn of the crashing breakers, deep in his belly.

He wished for the presence of the other prisoners—Morrison, Hayes, Sinclair, Sutherland. Not only for company, but for the heat of their bodies. On bitter nights, the men would huddle close together for warmth, breathing each other’s stale breath, tolerating the bump and knock of close quarters for the sake of warmth.

He was alone, though. Likely they would not return him to the large cell with the other men until after they had done whatever they meant to do to him as punishment for escaping. He leaned back against the wall with a sigh, morbidly aware of the bones of his spine pressing against the stone, and the fragility of the flesh covering them.

He was very much afraid of being flogged, and yet he hoped that would be his punishment. It would be horrible, but it would be soon over—and infinitely more bearable than being put back in irons. He could feel in his flesh the crash of the smith’s hammer, echoing through the bones of his arm as the smith pounded the fetters firmly into place, holding his wrist steady on the anvil.

His fingers sought the rosary around his neck. His sister had given it to him when he left Lallybroch; the English had let him keep it, as the string of beechwood beads had no value.

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” he muttered, “blessed art thou amongst women.”

He hadn’t much hope. That wee yellow-haired fiend of a major had seen, damn his soul—he knew just how terrible the fetters had been.

“Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”

The wee Major had made him a bargain, and he had kept it. The major would not be thinking so, though.

He had kept his oath, had done as he promised. Had relayed the words spoken to him, one by one, just as he had heard them from the wandering man. It was no part of his bargain to tell the Englishman that he knew the man—or what conclusions he had drawn from the muttered words.

He had recognized Duncan Kerr at once, changed though he was by time and mortal illness. Before Culloden, he had been a tacksman of Colum MacKenzie, Jamie’s uncle. After, he had escaped to France, to eke out what living might be made there.

“Be still, a charaid; bi samhach,” he had said softly in Gaelic, dropping to his knees by the bed where the sick man lay. Duncan was an elderly man, his worn face wasted by illness and fatigue, and his eyes were bright with fever. At first he had thought Duncan too far gone to know him, but the wasted hand had gripped his with surprising strength, and the man had repeated through his rasping breath, “mo charaid.” My kinsman.

The innkeeper was watching, from his place near the door, peering over Major Grey’s shoulder. Jamie had bent his head and whispered in Duncan’s ear, “All you say will be told to the English. Speak wary.” The landlord’s eyes narrowed, but the distance between them was too far; Jamie was sure he hadn’t heard. Then the Major had turned and ordered the innkeeper out, and he was safe.

He couldn’t tell whether it was the effect of his warning, or only the derangement of fever, but Duncan’s speech wandered with his mind, often incoherent, images of the past overlapping with those of the present. Sometimes he had called Jamie “Dougal,” the name of Colum’s brother, Jamie’s other uncle. Sometimes he dropped into poetry, sometimes he simply raved. And within the ravings and the scattered words, sometimes there was a grain of sense—or more than sense.

“It is cursed,” Duncan whispered. “The gold is cursed. Do ye be warned, lad. It was given by the white witch, given for the King’s son. But the Cause is lost, and the King’s son fled, and she will not let the gold be given to a coward.”

“Who is she?” Jamie asked. His heart had sprung up and choked him at Duncan’s words, and it beat madly as he asked. “The white witch—who is she?”

“She seeks a brave man. A MacKenzie, it is for Himself. MacKenzie. It is theirs, she says it, for the sake of him who is dead.”

“Who is the witch?” Jamie asked again. The word Duncan used was ban-druidh—a witch, a wisewoman, a white lady. They had called his wife that, once. Claire—his own white lady. He squeezed Duncan’s hand tight in his own, willing him to keep his senses.

“Who?” he said again. “Who is the witch?”

“The witch,” Duncan muttered, his eyes closing. “The witch. She is a soul-eater. She is death. He is dead, the MacKenzie, he is dead.”

“Who is dead? Colum MacKenzie?”

“All of them, all of them. All dead. All dead!” cried the sick man, clutching tight to his hand. “Colum, and Dougal, and Ellen, too.”

Suddenly his eyes opened, and fixed on Jamie’s. The fever had dilated his pupils, so his gaze seemed a pool of drowning black.

“Folk do say,” he said, with surprising clarity, “as how Ellen MacKenzie did leave her brothers and her home, and go to wed with a silkie from the sea. She heard them, aye?” Duncan smiled dreamily, the black stare swimming with distant vision. “She heard the silkies singing, there upon the rocks, one, and two, and three of them, and she saw from her tower, one and two, and three of them, and so she came down, and went to the sea, and so under it, to live wi’ the silkies. Aye? Did she no?”

“So folk say,” Jamie had answered, mouth gone dry. Ellen had been his mother’s name. And that was what folk had said, when she had left her home, to elope with Brian Dubh Fraser, a man with the shining black hair of a silkie. The man for whose sake he was himself now called Mac Dubh—Black Brian’s son.

Major Grey stood close, on the other side of the bed, brow furrowed as he watched Duncan’s face. The Englishman had no Gaelic, but Jamie would have been willing to wager that he knew the word for gold. He caught the Major’s eye, and nodded, bending again to speak to the sick man.

“The gold, man,” he said, in French, loud enough for Grey to hear. “Where is the gold?” He squeezed Duncan’s hand as hard as he could, hoping to convey some warning.

Duncan’s eyes closed, and he rolled his head restlessly, to and fro upon the pillow. He muttered something, but