Dragonfly in Amber 2(403)

“What is it?”

“The last thing he meant to do. I think…I think he failed.”

Her face paled suddenly, and she glanced wide-eyed at the book.

“His men? But I thought you found—”

“I did,” Roger interrupted. “No, I’m fairly sure he succeeded in that. He got the men of Lallybroch out; he saved them from Culloden, and set them on the road home.”

“But then…”

“He meant to turn back—back to the battle—and I think he did that, too.” He was increasingly reluctant, but it had to be said. Finding no words of his own, he flipped the book open, and read aloud:

“After the final battle at Culloden, eighteen Jacobite officers, all wounded, took refuge in the old house and for two days, their wounds untended, lay in pain; then they were taken out to be shot. One of them, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, escaped the slaughter; the others were buried at the edge of the domestic park.”

“One man, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment, escaped.…” Roger repeated softly. He looked up from the stark page to see her eyes, wide and unseeing as a deer’s fixed in the headlights of an oncoming car.

“He meant to die on Culloden Field,” Roger whispered. “But he didn’t.”