Dragonfly in Amber 2(345)

“You have one minute to come out and give yourselves up,” it said, “or we fire the thatch.”

I glanced upward in complete horror. The walls of the church were stone, but the thatch would burn in short order, even soaked with rain and sleet, and once well caught, would send flames and smoking embers raining down to engulf us. I remembered the awful speed with which the torch of twisted reed had burned the night before; the charred remnant lay on the floor near Rupert’s shrouded corpse, a grisly token in the gray dawn light.

“No!” I screamed. “Bloody bastards! This is a church! Have you never heard of sanctuary?”

“Who is that?” came the sharp voice from outside. “Is that an English-woman in there?!”

“Yes!” shouted Dougal, springing to the door. He cracked it ajar and bellowed out at the English soldiers on the hillside below. “Yes! We hold an English lady captive! Fire the thatch, and she dies with us!”

There was an outbreak of voices at the bottom of the hill, and a sudden shifting among the men in the church. Jamie whirled on Dougal with a scowl, saying, “What…!”

“It’s the only chance!” Dougal hissed back. “Let them take her, in return for our freedom. They’ll not harm her if they think she’s our hostage, and we’ll get her back later, once we’re free!”

I came out of my hiding space and went to Jamie, gripping his sleeve.

“Do it!” I said urgently. “Dougal is right, it’s the only chance!”

He looked down at me helplessly, rage and fear mingled on his face. And under it all, a trace of humor at the underlying irony of the situation.

“I am a sassenach, after all,” I said, seeing it.

He touched my face briefly with a rueful smile.

“Aye, mo duinne. But you’re my sassenach.” He turned to Dougal, squaring his shoulders. He drew in a deep breath, and nodded.

“All right. Tell them we took her”—he thought quickly, rubbing one hand through his hair—“from Falkirk road, late yesterday.”

Dougal nodded, and without waiting for more, slipped out of the church door, a white handkerchief held high overhead in signal of truce.

Jamie turned to me, frowning, glancing at the church door, where the sounds of English voices were still audible, though we couldn’t make out words as they talked.

“I don’t know what you’re to tell them, Claire; perhaps ye’d better pretend to be so shocked that ye canna speak of it. It’s maybe better than telling a tale; for if they should realize who you are—” He stopped suddenly and rubbed his hand hard over his face.

If they realized who I was, it would be London, and the Tower—followed quite possibly by swift execution. But while the broadsheets had made much of “the Stuart Witch,” no one, so far as I knew, had realized or published the fact that the witch was English.

“Don’t worry,” I said, realizing just what a silly remark this was, but unable to come up with anything better. I laid a hand on his sleeve, feeling the swift pulse that beat in his wrist. “You’ll get me back before they have a chance to realize anything. Do you think they’ll take me to Callendar House?”

He nodded, back in control. “Aye, I think so. If ye can, try to be alone near a window, just after nightfall. I’ll come for ye then.”

There was time for no more. Dougal slipped back through the door, closing it carefully behind him.

“Done,” he said, looking from me to Jamie. “We give them the woman, and we’ll be allowed to leave unmolested. No pursuit. We keep the horse. We’ll need it, for Rupert, ye see,” he said to me, half-apologetically.

“It’s all right,” I told him. I looked at the door, with its small dark spot where the bullet had passed, the same size as the hole in Rupert’s side. My mouth was dry and I swallowed hard. I was a cuckoo’s egg, about to be laid in the wrong nest. The three of us hesitated before the door, all reluctant to take the final step.

“I’d b-better go,” I said, trying hard to control my shaking voice and limbs. “They’ll wonder what’s keeping us.”

Jamie closed his eyes for a moment, nodded, then stepped toward me.

“I think you’d better swoon, Sassenach,” he said. “It will be easier that way, maybe.” He stooped, picked me up in his arms, and carried me through the door that Dougal held open.

His heart pounded beneath my ear, and I could feel the trembling in his arms as he carried me. After the stuffiness of the church, with its smells of sweat, blood, black powder and horse manure, the cold fresh air of early morning took my breath away, and I huddled against him, shivering. His hands tightened under my knees and shoulders, hard as a promise; he would never let me go.