Dragonfly In Amber

“Jamie’s lucky to have Ian,” I said.

Je

“Aye, he is. And so am I,” she said softly, picking up the shirt once more.

I took a child’s smock from the mending basket and turned it inside out, to get at the ripped seam beneath the armhole. It was too cold out for anyone but small boys at play or men at work, but it was warm and cozy in the parlor; the windows fogged over quickly as we worked, isolating us from the icy world outside.

“Speaking of brothers,” I said, squinting as I threaded my own needle, “did you see Dougal and Colum MacKenzie much, as you were growing up?”

Je

“No, I’m wrong; my da did say something about him, once. ’Twas just after Dougal had left, to go back to Bea

“I thought that odd, for I’d heard – who hasn’t? – that Colum is sore crippled, and Dougal does the chief’s work for him, collecting rents and settling claims – and leading the clan to battle, when needs be.”

“He does. But-” I hesitated, unsure how to describe that odd symbiotic relationship. “Well,” I said with a smile, “the closest I can come is to tell you that once I overheard them arguing, and Colum said to Dougal, ‘I’ll tell ye, if the brothers MacKenzie have but one cock and one brain between them, then I’m glad of my half of the bargain!’ ”

Je

“Och, so that’s the way of it, is it? I did wonder once, hearing Dougal talk about Colum’s son, wee Hamish; he seemed a bit fonder than an uncle might be.”

“You’re quick, Je

She shrugged modestly, but a small smile played about her lips.

“I listen,” she said simply. “To what folk say – and what they don’t. And people do gossip something terrible here in the Highlands. So” – she bit off a thread and spat the ends neatly into the palm of her hand – “tell me about Leoch. Folk say it’s big, but not so grand as Beauly or Kilravock.”

We worked and talked through the morning, moving from mending to winding wool for knitting, to laying out the pattern for a new baby dress for Maggie. The shouts from the boys outside ceased, to be replaced by murmurous noises and banging from the back of the house, suggesting that the younger male element had gotten cold and come to infest the kitchens, instead.

“I wonder will it snow soon?” Je

I shook my head. “I hope not. That will make it hard for Jamie and Ian, coming back.” The village of Broch Mordha was less than ten miles from Lallybroch, but the way lay over steadily rising hills, with steep and rocky slopes, and the road was little more than a deer track.

In the event, it did snow, soon after noon, and the flakes kept swirling down long past nightfall.

“They’ll have stayed in Broch Mordha,” Je

“Good night, Claire,” she called, already hurrying off on her maternal errand of mercy. “Sleep well.”

I usually did sleep well; in spite of the cold, damp climate, the house was tightly constructed, and the goosefeather bed was plentifully supplied with quilts. Tonight, though, I found myself restless without Jamie. The bed seemed vast and clammy, my legs twitchy, and my feet cold.

I tried lying on my back, hands lightly clasped across my ribs, eyes closed, breathing deep, to summon up a picture of Jamie; if I could imagine him there, breathing deeply in the dark beside me, perhaps I could fall asleep.

The sound of a cock crowing at full blast lifted me off the pillow, as though a stick of dynamite had been touched off beneath the bed.

“Idiot!” I said, every nerve in my body twanging from the shock. I got up and cracked the shutter. It had stopped snowing, but the sky was still pale with cloud, a uniform color from horizon to horizon. The rooster let loose another bellow in the hen-coop below.

“Shut up!” I said. “It’s the middle of the night, you feathered bastard!” The avian equivalent of a raspberry echoed through the still night, and down the hall, a child began to cry, followed by a rich but muffled Gaelic expletive in Je

“You,” I said to the invisible rooster, “are living on borrowed time.” There was no response to this, and after a pause to make certain that the rooster had in fact called it a night, I closed the shutters and did the same.

The commotion had derailed any coherent train of thought. Instead of trying to start another, I decided to try turning inward, in the hopes that physical contemplation would relax me enough to sleep.

It worked. As I began to hover on the edge of sleep, my mind fixed somewhere around my pancreas, I could dimly hear the sounds of small Jamie pattering down the hall to his mother’s bedroom – roused from sleep by a full bladder, he seldom had the presence of mind to take the obvious step, and would frequently blunder down the stair from the nursery in search of assistance instead.

I had wondered, coming to Lallybroch, whether I might find it difficult to be near Je

“There’s a pot right by your bed, clot-heid,” Je

There was another reason I did not envy Je

Je

“Bairns are certain joy, but nay sma’ care,” I murmured to myself, and fell asleep.