The Outlandish Companion Page 16

  Fired by excitement, Brianna makes the arrangements to travel by canoe to Cross Creek—and returns to the inn in the evening, where she is found by Roger, who has jumped ship in Edenton, made his way to Wilmington, and has been searching the inns and taverns of the town.

  His greeting is not quite what he might have hoped; Brianna’s initial joy at seeing him turns at once to shocked dismay. What, she demands to know, is he doing here? Looking for her, he heatedly replies, and what was her notion in rushing off through the stones without a word to him?

  She arranged to deceive him, she informs him, because she was convinced that if he discovered what she was about to do, he would have tried his best to stop her. Roger can hardly deny the truth of that— he did in fact try to stop her, and can only hope she never finds out how.

  But now what are they to do? she asks in evident distress. So far as she could determine, the only way of navigation through the currents of time is to have a point of attachment—a person whose presence in a time can draw the traveler to a safe haven.

  “GETTING BACK! You have to have somebody to go to—somebody you care for. You’re the only person I love at that end—or you were! How am I going to get back, if you’re here? And how will you get back, if I’m here?”

  He stopped dead, fear and anger both forgotten, and his hands clamped tight on her wrists to stop her hitting him again.

  “That’s why? That’s why you wouldn’t tell me? Because you love me? Jesus Christ!” She reached up and took hold of his wrist, but didn’t pull his hand away. He felt her swallow.

  “Right,” he whispered. “Say it. I want to hear it.”

  “I… love… you,” she said, between her teeth. “Got it?”

  “Aye, I’ve got it.” He took her face between his hands, very gently, and drew her down. She came, arms trembling and giving way beneath her.

  “You’re sure,” he said.

  “Yes. What are we going to do?” she said, and began to cry.

  “We.” She’d said we. She’d said she was sure.

  Roger lay in the dust of the road, bruised, filthy, and starving, with a woman trembling and weeping against his chest, now and then giving him a small thump with her fist. He had never felt happier in his life.

  It will be all right, Roger assures her; there is another way—Geilie Duncan’s way. He has seen gemstones, in Stephen Bonnet’s possession aboard the Gloriana. He knows roughly where the Gloriana was going—he will find the ship, and get the gems, by whatever means are necessary.

  Brianna is more than dubious; beyond the simple difficulties of finding the gems is the risk entailed. As she says, “They hang people for stealing in this time, Roger!”

  He is insistent, though; he must act now, while the gems can be found—for what other chance might there be, in a place like this? One thing he wants, though, before he leaves.

  Handfasting is an old and honorable Highland tradition; a couple may wed by this means, for a year and a day. At the end of that time, if they are well-suited, they may wed more formally, by kirk and Book; if not, they may part. Both Roger and Brianna are sure of themselves and their love—but with no minister at hand, and time so short…

  If I make a vow like that, I’ll keep it— no matter what it costs me. Was she thinking of that now?

  She brought their linked hands down together, and spoke with great deliberation.

  “I, Brianna Ellen, take thee, Roger Jeremiah …” Her voice was scarcely louder than the beating of his own heart, but he heard every word. A breeze came through the tree, rattling the leaves, lifting her hair.

  “… as long as we both shall live.”

  The phrase meant a good bit more to each of them now, he thought, than it would have even a few months before. The passage through the stones was enough to impress anyone with the fragility of life.

  There was a moment’s silence, broken only by the rustle of the leaves overhead and a distant murmur of voices from the tavern’s taproom. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it, on the knuckle of her fourth finger, where one day—God willing—her ring would be.

  A BRIEF AND PASSIONATE wedding night, spent in a shed behind the inn, comes to an even more passionate end, when Brianna discovers accidentally just what it was that led Roger to find her in North Carolina. Finding that he had learned of the death notice months earlier, and had suppressed it, Brianna is enraged. How dare he presume to keep such a thing from her? she demands. He might have deprived her of the only chance ever to find the father she has never known!

  Given that this was precisely what Roger intended to do, he finds himself with no defense but the—in her eyes, quite inadequate—truth: He wished to protect her from the dangers of the stones, from the risks of the past. At its simplest and most ignoble—he was afraid to lose her. Beyond that, he wished to save her pain; the future can’t be changed, he is convinced of it. She cannot save her parents.

  Brianna’s response to this is immediate and furious. She will find her parents, she will save them from the fire—and as for Roger … he can bloody well go and get hanged if he wants to!

  Stomping back into the inn, Brianna dashes the candlestick to the floor, flings off her clothes, and crashes closed the shutters, as her terrified maid cowers in bed, hearing a voice outside roar, “Brianna! I will come for you!”

  Brianna says nothing of what has passed, and after a long time, falls asleep, leaving Lizzie wide-eyed in the dark. The dark wicked man named MacKenzie took her mistress out of the inn with him, and now she has come back, disheveled and upset, with MacKenzie outside, vowing to return. What in the name of God has happened?

  Unable to sleep, Lizzie creeps out of bed at dawn, and tries to order her mind by setting the tumbled room to rights. Picking up Brianna’s discarded, dirtied clothing, Lizzie is appalled to find the rank scent of a man upon it—and the stain of fresh blood in the breeks. But with the daylight, Lizzie’s fever comes once more, and she cannot ask her mistress anything; only shiver and moan, and hope not to die in this strange place.

  For her part, Brianna’s turbulent feelings are further exacerbated by this delay. She wants nothing but to leave this place, put aside all thought of Roger and his perfidy, to go upriver at once to find Jamie Fraser. But here she is, and here she must stay, chafing and fuming, until Lizzie mends enough to travel.

  Going down to the inn’s kitchen to fetch up tea for Lizzie, though, she sees a sight that drives impatience and anger from her mind at once, to replace them with fear. Men are gambling in the taproom, and one man has among his stake a wide gold band—a woman’s wedding ring, with an inscription inside that Brianna knows well: From F. to C. with love. Always.

  Whatever the strains of her marriage to Frank Randall, nothing would cause Claire willingly to give up that band. What has happened to her mother, and where did this man—this Bonnet, as he is called— come by that ring?

  Her hand was trembling as she gave it back.

  “It’s very pretty,” she said. “Where did you get it?”

  He looked startled, then wary, and she hastened to add, “It’s too small for you— won’t your wife be angry if you lose her ring?” How? she thought wildly. How did he get it? And what’s happened to my mother?

  The full lips curved in a charming smile.

  “And if I had a wife, sweetheart, sure I’d leave her for you.” He looked her over once more closely, long lashes dropping to hide his gaze. He touched her waist in a casual gesture of invitation.

  “I’m busy just now, sweetheart, but later… eh?”

  The jug was burning through the cloth, but her fingers felt cold. Her heart had congealed into a small lump of terror.

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “In the daylight.”

  He looked at her, startled, then threw his head back and laughed.

  “Well, I’ve heard men say I’m not a one to be met in the dark, poppet, but the women seem to prefer it.” He ran a thickfinger down her forearm in play; the red-gold hairs rose at his t
ouch.

  “In the daylight, then, if ye like. Come to my ship—Gloriana, near the naval yard.”

  With no other way to discover what may have happened to Claire, Brianna goes to meet Bonnet next day, offering to buy the ring from him, and inquiring as to its past history. He tells her that the previous owner of the ring is in good health, so far as he knows, and agrees to sell her the ring. The price he has in mind, however, isn’t money.

  LIZZIE’S FEVER BREAKS and then recurs on the journey upriver, and Brianna has neither time nor thought to spare for anything but the struggle to keep Lizzie alive until they reach Cross Creek.

  Tired and grubby from the agonizing trip, Brianna cannot rest; Jamie Fraser is meant to be in town, and she must find him. Leaving Lizzie in safe hands, she ventures into Cross Creek—and finds what she is seeking in the backyard of a tavern.

  She could scarcely breathe. His eyes were dark blue, soft with kindness. Her eyes fixed on the open collar of his shirt, where the curly hairs showed, bleached gold against his sunburnt skin.

  “Are you—you’re Jamie Fraser, aren’t you:

  He glanced sharply at her face.

  “I am,” he said. The wariness had returned to his face; his eyes narrowed against the sun. He glanced quickly behind him, toward the tavern, but nothing stirred in the open doorway. He took a step closer to her.

  “Who asks?” he said softly. “Have you a message for me, lass?”

  She felt an absurd desire to laugh welling up in her throat. Did she have a message?

  “My name is Brianna,” she said. He frowned, uncertain, and something flickered in his eyes. He knew it! He’d heard the name and it meant something to him. She swallowed hard, feeling her cheeks blaze as though they’d been seared by a candle flame.

  “I’m your daughter,” she said, her voice sounding choked to her own ears. “Brianna.”

  Jamie Fraser is all that Brianna had hoped for. Overwhelmed with emotion at finding her, he takes her and Lizzie to River Run, where Jocasta makes much of them.

  Jamie has come down from Fraser’s Ridge to testify at a trial; Fergus has been arrested on false charges of attacking and defrauding a tax collector. Both charges and trial are the result of Sergeant Murchison’s machinations—a malicious attempt to damage Jamie both by imprisoning Fergus and by compelling Jamie to leave his land in the midst of harvest in order to help his foster son.

  The charges are proved false, though, and Jamie and Brianna are allowed to leave for Fraser’s Ridge—and Claire.

  THE REUNION IS EVERYTHING Claire might have dared to wish; her beloved daughter is with her again, and Jamie and Brianna take a shy but obvious delight in each other, that delights Claire as well. The only fly in the ointment is the absence of Roger Wakefield. Brianna has told her parents about Roger’s following her, their argument, and about his quest for gemstones to ensure safe passage. But days— and weeks—pass, and there is no sign of Roger.

  Has something happened to him? Or has he decided not to come back, angered and wounded by Brianna’s words? There is no telling—and no word of the missing Wakefield, though Jamie has made inquiries everywhere.

  One day a visitor does come to the Ridge, though. Young Ian and Lizzie are at the flour mill when a man comes asking for directions to Fraser’s Ridge—a man Lizzie recognizes as the man called MacKenzie. Terrified that he has come to claim Brianna, Lizzie tells Young Ian, and the two young people take steps to delay Roger, then rush home to warn Jamie of the danger.

  Lizzie tells a shocked Jamie of their encounter with the “wicked MacKenzie” in Wilmington, of her discovery that Brianna had—she thinks—been assaulted by MacKenzie, and her much more recent discovery—that Brianna is pregnant.

  Thus it is that when Roger reaches a clearing below the Ridge, he finds a welcoming party, composed of Jamie and Young Ian. Confused by their evident hostility, Roger admits that his name is indeed MacKenzie, and tells them that he has come for his wife. Further, upon Ian’s taunting, Roger is stung into admitting that he has indeed taken Brianna’s maidenhead. This being all Jamie needs to hear, he promptly beats Roger insensible, and takes further steps to be sure that this threat to his daughter is safely removed.

  Meanwhile, Claire has taken Brianna mushroom-hunting, in order to gain sufficient privacy to question her daughter. Observing small physical changes, Claire has reached her own conclusions, which Brianna verifies. She is indeed pregnant.

  Claire’s immediate concern for Brianna’s well-being gives way to another pressing worry; it is well into the autumn now, nearly past the time of year when ships will set sail for Europe. Brianna must leave at once, Claire exclaims, putting aside her own fear and grief. She must go back to Scotland now; she can return through the stones pregnant—Claire herself did it while pregnant with Brianna— but no one in their right mind would undertake the journey through the stones with a small child. Brianna has only three choices—go back through the stones at once, without waiting for Roger to appear; bear her child in the dangerous conditions of the eighteenth century and then abandon it there—or stay forever, trapped in the past.

  Brianna rejects the first two possibilities, insisting that she must stay and find Roger; if he is in trouble, she can’t leave him alone in the past. Claire reluctantly concedes, only to face further shock when Brianna reveals that there is in fact another small problem—the baby is quite possibly not Roger’s.

  With a firm grip on her own shaky emotions, she tells her mother what happened aboard Stephen Bonnet’s ship in Wilmington. Bonnet callously raped her, but did then carelessly give her the thing she had come for—Claire’s wedding ring, which Brianna now returns to her shocked and grieving mother. She will tell Jamie, Brianna agrees, but in her own time.

  When Jamie arrives that evening, with his hands scraped and damaged—from building a chimney, he says—he forestalls her confession, making it clear that he already knows about the child. She need not worry, he tells Brianna, he will take care of her, and her baby. However, as the days pass and there is still no sign of Roger Wakefield, Jamie becomes worried about Brianna’s prospects, and goads Young Ian into proposing marriage to her—at least she will have a kind husband, and one who will have the means to take care of her and her child.

  During the escalating arguments resulting from this proposal, Brianna furiously rejects Jamie’s attempts to find her a husband, insisting that she will have Roger— or no one. Jamie protests that he has done everything he can think of to find Wakefield—but pressed further by Brianna’s evident distress, comes up with a fresh inspiration: He will have a broadsheet printed, he declares, and published throughout the Colony, with particulars of Wakefield. Perhaps someone has seen the man, and will come forward.

  Heartened by this suggestion, Claire suggests that Brianna might draw a picture of Roger Wakefield, to be published with his description; Brianna is a great hand with a likeness, she tells Jamie. Brianna eagerly agrees, and sits down, charcoal in hand—whereupon the picture of Roger MacKenzie Wakefield emerges before the horrified gaze of Jamie and Young Ian.

  Ian was leaning over the table, looking as though he might be going to throw up any minute. “Coz—d’ye mean honestly to tell me that… this”—he gestured feebly at the sketch—“is Roger Wakefield?”

  “Yes, ”she said, looking up at him in puzzlement. “Ian, are you all right? Did you eat something funny?”

  He didn’t answer, but dropped heavily onto the bench beside her, put his head in his hands, and groaned.

  During the resulting scene, in which Brianna upbraids Jamie for “disposing” of Roger by selling him to the Iroquois, and Jamie reproaches Brianna for telling him that she was pregnant as the result of rape, Bree reveals to her father that indeed she was raped, by Stephen Bonnet—and Claire, horrified by the vicious way in which Bree and Jamie are attacking each other, throws down her gold wedding ring on the table in proof of Bree’s word.

  This puts an immediate stop to the argument, but does not improve r
elations, and it is in a strained condition that the small family makes its next preparations.

  Jamie instructs Claire to pack Brianna’s things; they will take the girl to River Run, to stay with Jocasta, while he, Claire, and Young Ian head north, to rescue Roger MacKenzie Wakefield, and bring him back to his wife—and possible child.

  CONDITIONS BETWEEN CLAIRE and Jamie are strained as well, with the weight of the gold ring and guilt over Brianna’s secrets hanging between them. The journey north is lightened only by an encounter with Pollyanne, the ex-slave whom Jamie and Claire had helped to escape. Now ensconced in a new life with the Tuscarora, she has married and has a child. In the course of conversation, she tells the Frasers what happened on the night that the girl died in the sawmill; hiding in the shadows, Pollyanne saw a heavyset man enter the mill, and leave a few minutes later, just before the Frasers’ arrival. The firelight fell upon his face as he passed close to her, however, and she saw that he was pockmarked. She didn’t recognize the man, but Claire does—Sergeant Murchison.

  Seeing the constraint between his beloved uncle and aunt, Young Ian takes a hand, and the situation is resolved in the dark intimacy of an Indian longhouse.

  Reconciled and encouraged by each other’s strength, the little party pushes on toward Snaketown, the distant Mohawk village where they hope to find Roger and ransom him with whisky. Young Ian, with his appreciation and knowledge of Indian ways and his skill with the Tuscaroran tongue—closely related to the tongue of the Mohawk, the Kahnyen’kehaka—is an invaluable ambassador. His budding relationship with a Mohawk girl promises help in their endeavor—if Roger is, in fact, captive in Snaketown.

  IN FACT, HE IS. Enslaved by the Mohawk, he has not been badly mistreated, but life as an Indian slave is no bed of roses, and the constant hard work is not eased by a continuing infection in his foot, injured while trying to escape. Beyond physical injury and hardship, though, is the burden of questions that he bears: Was it by Brianna’s doing that he is here? Was she so angered at his betrayal that she has in turn betrayed him?