Dragonfly In Amber - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 37

“I wasna there for petitioning, but only as a mark of favor,” Jamie explained, “so I just knelt and said, ‘Good morning, Your Majesty,’ while the Duc told the King who I was.”

“Did the King say anything to you?” I asked.

Jamie grinned, hands linked behind his head as he stretched. “Oh, aye. He opened one eye and looked at me as though he didna believe it.”

One eye still open, Louis had surveyed his visitor with a sort of dim interest, then remarked, “Big, aren’t you?”

“I said, ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ ” Jamie said. “Then he said, ‘Can you dance?’ and I said I could. Then he shut his eye again, and the Duc motioned me back.”

Introductions complete, the gentlemen of the bedchamber, ceremoniously assisted by the chief nobles, had then proceeded to make the King’s toilette. As they did so, the various petitioners came forward at the beckoning of the Duc d’Orleans, to murmur into the King’s ear as he twisted his head to accommodate the razor, or bent his neck to have his wig adjusted.

“Oh? And were you honored by being allowed to blow His Majesty’s nose for him?” I asked.

Jamie grinned, stretching his linked hands until the knuckles cracked.

“No, thank God. I skulked about against the wardrobe, trying to look like part of the furniture, wi’ the bitty wee comtes and ducs all glancing at me out of the sides of their eyes as though Scottishness were catching.”

“Well, at least you were tall enough to see everything?”

“Oh, aye. That I did, even when he eased himself on his chaise percee.”

“He really did that? In front of everyone?” I was fascinated. I’d read about it, of course, but found it difficult to believe.

“Oh, aye, and everyone behaving just as they did when he washed his face and blew his nose. The Duc de Neve had the unspeakable honor,” he added ironically, “of wiping His Majesty’s arse for him. I didna notice what they did wi’ the towel; took it out and had it gilded, no doubt.

“A verra wearisome business it was, too,” he added, bending over and setting his hands on the floor to stretch the muscles of his legs. “Took forever; the man’s tight as an owl.”

“Tight as an owl?” I asked, amused at the simile. “Constipated, do you mean?”

“Aye, costive. And no wonder, the things they eat at Court,” he added censoriously, stretching backward. “Terrible diet, all cream and butter. He should eat parritch every morning for breakfast – that’d take care of it. Verra good for the bowels, ye ken.”

If Scotsmen were stubborn about anything – and, in fact, they tended to be stubborn about quite a number of things, truth be known – it was the virtues of oatmeal parritch for breakfast. Through eons of living in a land so poor there was little to eat but oats, they had as usual converted necessity into a virtue, and insisted that they liked the stuff.

Jamie had by now thrown himself on the floor and was doing the Royal Air Force exercises I had recommended to strengthen the muscles of his back.

Returning to his earlier remark, I said, “Why did you say ‘tight as an owl’? I’ve heard that before, to mean drunk, but not costive. Are owls constipated, then?”

Completing his course, he flipped over and lay on the rug, panting.

“Oh, aye.” He blew out a long sigh, and caught his breath. He sat up and pushed the hair out of his eyes. “Or not really, but that’s the story ye hear. Folk will tell ye that owls havena got an arsehole, so they canna pass the things they eat – like mice, aye? So the bones and the hairs and such are all made up into a ball, and the owl vomits them out, not bein’ able to get rid of them out the other end.”

“Really?”

“Oh, aye, that’s true enough, they do. That’s how ye find an owl-tree; look underneath for the pellets on the ground. Make a terrible mess, owls do,” he added, pulling his collar away from his neck to let air in.

“But they have got arseholes,” he informed me. “I knocked one out of a tree once wi’ a slingshot and looked.”

“A lad with an inquiring mind, eh?” I said, laughing.

“To be sure, Sassenach.” He grinned. “And they do pass things that way, too. I spent a whole day sitting under an owl-tree with Ian, once, just to make sure.”

“Christ, you must have been curious,” I remarked.

“Well, I wanted to know. Ian didna want to sit still so long, and I had to pound on him a bit to make him stop fidgeting.” Jamie laughed, remembering. “So he sat still wi’ me until it happened, and then he snatched up a handful of owl pellets, jammed them down the neck of my shirt, and was off like a shot. God, he could run like the wind.” A tinge of sadness crossed his face, his memory of the fleet-footed friend of his youth clashing with more recent memories of his brother-in-law, hobbling stiffly, if good-naturedly, on the wooden leg a round of grapeshot taken in a foreign battle had left him with.

“That sounds an awful way to live,” I remarked, wanting to distract him. “Not watching owls, I don’t mean – the King. No privacy, ever, not even in the loo.”

“I wouldna care for it myself,” Jamie agreed. “But then he’s the King.”

“Mmm. And I suppose all the power and luxury and so forth makes up for a lot.”

He shrugged. “Well, if it does or no, it’s the bargain God’s made for him, and he’s little choice but to make the best of it.” He picked up his plaid and drew the tail of it through his belt and up to his shoulder.

“Here, let me.” I took the silver ring-brooch from him and fastened the flaming fabric at the crest of his shoulder. He arranged the drape, smoothing the vivid wool between his fingers.

“I’ve a bargain like that myself, Sassenach,” he said quietly, looking down at me. He smiled briefly. “Though thank God it doesna mean inviting Ian to wipe my arse for me. But I was born laird. I’m the steward of that land and the people on it, and I must make the best of my own bargain wi’ them.”

He reached out and touched my hair lightly.

“That’s why I was glad when ye said we’d come, to try and see what we might do. For there’s a part of me would like no better than to take you and the bairn and go far away, to spend the rest of my life working the fields and the beasts, to come in in the evenings and lie beside ye, quiet through the night.”

The deep blue eyes were hooded in thought, as his hand returned to the folds of his plaid, stroking the bright checks of the Fraser tartan, with the faint white stripe that distinguished Lallybroch from the other septs and families.

“But if I did,” he went on, as though speaking more to himself than to me, “there’s a part of my soul would feel forsworn, and I think – I think I would always hear the voices of the people that are mine, calling out behind me.”

I laid a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up, a faint lopsided smile on the wide mouth.

“I think you would, too,” I said. “Jamie… whatever happens, whatever we’re able to do…” I stopped, looking for words. As so often before, the sheer enormity of the task we had taken on staggered me and left me speechless. Who were we, to alter the course of history, to change the course of events not for ourselves, but for princes and peasants, for the entire country of Scotland?

Jamie laid his hand over mine and squeezed it reassuringly.

“No one can ask more of us than our best, Sassenach. Nay, if there’s blood shed, it wilna lie on our hands at least, and pray God it may not come to that.”

I thought of the lonely gray clanstones on Culloden Moor, and the Highland men who might lie under them, if we were unsuccessful.

“Pray God,” I echoed.