Chapter Text
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
In spite of Jamie's worldliness, returning home to Lallybroch had always brewed feelings of pride, joy, and security within him. This is where you belong, the grounds said every time he stood on them after being away for a duration.
The entrance to his ancestral home was paved by lines of trees with branches grasping for the clouds and thick clusters of leaves that shuddered furiously in the wind. There was a clearing at the tail of the road, and the way the trees had grown outwards created a large circle always made Jamie feel as though they had grown that way consciously, to create a perfect and unobstructed view of the castle up ahead, welcoming both strangers and family to the beautiful estate.m
At Lallybroch, his troubles only whispered to him. His daily schedules were enough to gradually fade them out, so that they didn't threaten to taunt him as they did when he went beyond the courtyard entrance.
For all that coming home always made Jamie feel, leaving home had made him feel just as much.
"So it's all settled then?"
Murtagh emerged through the courtyard arch, his boots making patchy soft noises over the crushed leaves, pebbles and crumbs of branches in the dirt path.
Cair, Murtagh's horse, trotted behind him, head bobbing with each step.
Jamie's answer was left in the way he pat the black neck of his horse, Donas.
Elspeth, a sweet mare, chestnut colored with a white heart on her chin, was the other horse he'd chosen to accompany them. She would carry along the wagon filled with jars of seeds, grains, books, some vegetables, agricultural plans, tool diagrams, and chests of clothes. She was the calmest horse in the stables at Lallybroch, so unlike Cair and farthest from the likes of the temperamental Donas. She would obey Jamie's orders without him having to move a muscle to signal something to her. She didn't need to be minded as much as Cair and Donas did. Neither would pull the wagon, the independent and protesting creatures that they were. Elspeth was content to do as she needed and do it with a simplicity one would liken to a well behaved and quiet child.
"Bringing Cair for a journey such as this?" Jamie asked. "Cair isna suited for long rides. Why no' take Nory? Or one of the stallions we've broken in last month?"
"Because Cair is my damned horse, ye coot," Murtagh answered. "And because so, Cair will do just fine on this journey. Besides, it's no' him ye need to be worrit about. It's yer Devil-taken beast ye should fret over. One of these days he'll toss ye off his back and trample over yer body like he's beating the dust out of a rug."
"Mebbe," Jamie chuckled, patting Donas' neck again. "Mebbe no'. The Devil-taken beast has my trust and I his. We have...an agreement."
Murtagh leaned in close to Jamie, clasping him on his back while his other hand gathered Cair's reins together. "Stuck wi' me on the road for the next couple of months, eh?"
"Aye, Da told me as much," Jamie smiled sturdily. "'Tis part of his agreement with Colum, that he be allowed to send my most trusted man with me. There's no one else I'd ask along, naturally."
His godfather's face was covered by bushy brows and an even bushier mustache and beard. His hair was dark, nearly as dark as his Da's, and nearly as dark as Donas' as well. It made him look intimidating, a right Viking, as though flowers wilted when he walked past them and grasses went ashen and dried up when he set foot on them. But truth be told, the man was warmth if its essence ever took the form of a person. His tenderness sheltered him like a cloak and he more trustworthy than Jamie's own right hand itself. He had looked out for him since his Mam died. And even more since his Da fell ill.
"Ye havena been to Castle Leoch since ye were a bairn," Murtagh muttered as he began mounting Cair. Jamie followed suit, slipping his boot into the stirrups of his own horse. "I ken the place weel enough from memory of when yer Da was courting yer Mam. 'tis from before. Things were different. It willna be the atmosphere yer expecting, Jamie. Willna be as simple as things are here."
"I'm no' a fool," Jamie glared at his godfather. "And I'm no' a coward. Nor do I revel in the idea of people suffering for the sake of what lies between our families. I'll do my duty as promised. I'm a man of my word like my Da. Ye ken that verra well."
"Aye, Jamie. But...ye dinna know yer uncles like yer father and I. Ye'll need to be careful. Shrewd."
"Och, my father already gave me this speech ten times since I woke. And I'll tell ye like I told him. It's no' like I'm going to fight a war," Jamie said.
"Didna imply so," his godfather pressed his mouth together like he always did when he disagreed with one's notions or prospects.
Jamie knew the truth of the man's thoughts. It's exactly what he was implying. It may not be a war fought over lands and seas, with muskets and broadswords, wars where mothers hugged their brave sons to their bosoms and prayed for their husbands until they were blue in the cheeks. Nay, Scotland hasn't seen a war like that since before Jamie's time.
It was a war of family against family.
A war of animosity between the Laird of Clan Fraser and the Laird of Clan Mackenzie.
It started twenty six years ago when his mam, Ellen Mackenzie, had rebelled against the wishes of her second eldest brother Colum Mackenzie when she chose to wed Brian Fraser, his da, rather than picking a suitor from Clan Grant as she was expected to. His mother not only insulted Clan Grant, but she broke the fealty she swore to her brother, the Laird of Leoch, and thusly to Clan Mackenzie and the lands that generations of Mackenzies had dwelt in. She swore life away at Castle Leoch to live instead at Lallybroch on Fraser lands.
Worst of all, all had known she had sinned. Because she lay with his father and fell with child with Jenny, his elder sister, before the two were married by a priest. They were handfast, his Da still bearing a thin silvery scar right beneath his palm, but its validity couldn't hold. The man who was there when they exchanged their blood oath had been startled into silence by Colum Mackenzie's ire and wouldn't speak of it no matter how much his parents pled for it. There were therefore no witnesses to bear the truth of their oath.
Other parts of the world advanced faster than the clouds spun around the earth. People turned from scythes to cantankerous machinery the size of elks. They've traded oars for engines made of coal and steam. Some places had carriages without horses. They traded religion and superstition for science and universities.
But Scotland, enormous island that it is, propped on its bonny glens and jagged crags and curtained by heavy grey clouds, held long and stubbornly to its traditions and practices.
Ellen had broken her oath to Clan Mackenzie.
To break an oath was to be marked by others and by god himself. You swore upon his holy iron. Only the courage of the devil would stir itself up in you to go back on your word that you gave to Him. There was no place with a depth deep enough nor a space wide enough to lodge the weight of repentance it would take to undo the damage wrought.
Jamie was a man of pragmatism. He'd been granted a better education than the average Highlander. He knew things of life on other continents. He swam in the great bright blue lakes of Rome during his studies there. His schooling in Paris required him to attend the operas and ballets where he watched bodies soar and heard voices soar even higher. He had schooling in Prussia where he spent a great deal of time working with machinery. He knew of geometry, of infrastructure, and astronomy. He knew of lawmaking and engineering and agriculture. He could speak more languages than the fingers on his hands.
But he wasn't so foolish to tempt things that stretched beyond his understanding either. All the finest education in the world that children of status were entitled to couldn't help one escape the pressures of superstition. You're not a born and bred Scot if you don't believe even an inkling in the powers beyond the physical world and spirits and such.
There remained some things about this life that arithmetic and science couldn't provide rationale for.
His mam died horrifically in childbirth only a few years after his older brother Willie fell ill and died within days from a sickness no one kent the source of. Jamie's back bore the amenities of war and his innermost part of his self knew that he was just as gashed and scarred on the inside as he was on the out. Da had been suffering and housebound for years. And Clan Mackenzie's crop lands have been withering since the new season began and now the people and livestock faced the threat of famine and worse.
There was no mistake that prices had been paid and are still being paid.
Jamie could never begrudge his mam or his da for choosing love, though. There was no stage grand enough that he could stand on to look down on the man and woman who made him, who raised and loved him and taught him almost all that he knows about life.
"'Tisn't what yer Mam would've wanted for her family. Ye ken that. Ellen loved her brothers and her nephews and nieces sae much. Time and pain didna diminish the warmth her heart cast upon her family. Besides, lad, ye may no' be Laird Broch Tuarach yet. But that Mackenzie land and family is as much yers as this family and this land. Always will be so long as them lungs of yers are puffed wi' air," his Da had told him after he read Laird Colum Mackenzie's letters to him.
There was never a time when the Mackenzies and Frasers were thick as thieves. But there was a nature between them that was agreeable and harmonious. For generations, they were welcome to cross each other's lands and welcome to be guests in each other's halls. They used to make trade deals with each other, selling and buying blades and crops and livestock. It was civil as it should be between the clans of the Highlands. Jamie never got to witness these civilities with his own eyes. It may as well been folklore. But it was as his Da and godfather told him.
"I'm no' trying to change things between the clans. I'm Laird-to-be. I'm a Fraser wi' a reputation of honor to uphold. Frasers dinna turn their backs on ones in need. Even if they're a Mackenzie. I ken everything there is to ken about land, about what makes it sing and grow and what makes it stifle and die."
"There's no denying it," Murtagh grunted in agreement. "Yer a sprite lad wi' fingers that roam the earth wi' the tenacity of the devil. Frasers are farmers. The finest crops of the Highlands are grown right here on Fraser land. Everyone kens that. Yer uncle sought ye out because you are the best person for the job. It just wouldna hurt if there was more time to prepare for this little adventure we're set to embark on, ye ken?"
"If there was any time to finally meet my uncles, finally meet the people I was meant to call family, there's no occasion more apt than the threat of a famine, ah, athair-athar?" Jamie scratched the underside of Donas' face. "'Tis funny. Colum writes a letter asking for respite, to, to put things aside. Says he surrenders his pride to ask me to help his men, help the land. Yet he couldna come here himself to deliver the letter. He sent one of his cousins as proxy. A matter of urgency such as this should light a spark in a man to do things himself. Wi' his own hands. Nay. My uncle's still the same coward who couldna see to it that his nephew and niece had a chance to know their family outside of Lallybroch."
Murtagh's mouth repeated its telltale clamping motion.
"My father always said that Castle Leoch was as much my home as Lallybroch's. But a home canna be a place ye've never kent. This is home. Here is filled with Love. Memories. Safety. Legacy. Things I'm used to. And I'm setting to leave it for a verra considerable amount of time," Jamie stuck his hand out and shuffled his fingers through the leaves that hung from one of the tree branches that grew low enough to touch. "Are ye no' going to miss it?"
"Don't be daft, Jamie. I dinnae live here."
"Nay, but ye're here all the time. So ye ken ye can call it home."
"I'm here to watch over ye, Jamie. If ye wanted to make a dwelling in the Lowlands, in a city like Edinburgh even though it's crawling with stinking Redcoats, or sail o'erseas to The Colony and be a vagabond, I'd be right there wi' ye. Home isna always a place, lad. Sometimes it takes purchase in people. In things."
Jamie's chest tightened and he felt his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.
"Ye make me feel like a lad, for I've yet to become acquainted with the meaning of which ye speak of, godfather."
"That's because ye are a lad, Jamie. Now, shall we get on wi' it? The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll be back home."
It was the first time that Jamie rode through the opening of the tree-lined road to Lallybroch with a heart heavier than an anchor in the sea.
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
They rode for several weeks and the weather that chaperoned their broad journey across rough terrain had been unusually kind. They prepared for heavy rain but instead were met with sprinkles of drizzle, nothing the wind from the speed at which they rode couldn't dry off in minutes.
Every few days they took small breaks, tending to their horses and making sure they were in good comfort. An exhausted or frustrated horse was good for no one. Between the galloping and the prattling of the clay jars and starch baskets, Jamie felt as if he and Murtagh were making the greatest commotion the highlands had ever heard.
The farther they went from Abercorn District, the more Jamie found his self regretting that his father nor sister couldn't personally send him off. His father was confined to his bed and Jenny was too ripe with child to be walking around, bound to pop like the cork of a wine bottle at a moment's notice.
Murtagh sang often in Gaelic, some songs Jamie remembered his mam used to sing to him at night. Songs about Lochs with treasure at the bottom of the sea floor and about mischievous kelpies. Even though Jamie could carry a tune about as gracefully as a baby foal taking its first steps, he crooned along anyways, voice cracking in between Murtagh's low but steady vocals.
About a quarter way to their destination point, they made camp in the deep borough of a glen that his godfather had directed them too.
It was descending and narrow like a stairwell, well hidden by long rocks, furnished by moss and trees that bent over as if to umbrella any interlopers who would take use of the stream of cool water rushing through the center of it. It was a perfect place to take a break, Jamie decided.
"Aye, this'll do us verra well," Murtagh said with satisfaction. "Tie off the horses near the stream. Let them wet their thrapples while I go look for something other than trout to fill our bellies for the next few days. Eyes up at all times, Jamie. Ye dinnae know who may try to jump ye."
"Gabh fois, godfather. Go on, then."
Off Murtagh had gone and Jamie made the choice to strip in front of the stream until he'd only been in his boots and scrub his body down as swiftly as he could. He thought for a moment as the horses looked at him in between their gulps that it was most likely their first time ever seeing a naked human being. He laughed as he cupped puddles of water in the palm of his hands and wet his self all over. He used the small nub of soap to work up a medium lather and scrubbed swiftly away. It was bloody cold, cold enough to snap his cock off, but he couldn't stand the smell of his own armpits and sweaty arse any longer. Jamie may be a farmer and man of the stables, but he was also Laird-to-be. He knew better than to wander around smelling any worse than he was supposed to for too long.
The privacy was good and fair. It spared him the worry of his godfather seeing his back. Jamie's soap sudsy hand rose over the arch of his shoulder down the hard lines of back muscle until the tips of his fingers were greeted by hard raised skin. He paused for a moment. Darkness began to bleed into his eyes. His fingers clenched from a curious splay to a recoiled fist. His chest tightened like a knotted rope and his breathing was heavy when he hissed like smoke from a cannon's blast.
He stayed that way for a moment that felt longer than it truly was. He tentatively spread his fingers once more and let them wander over the rough flesh. He seldom touched his back. It was a part of his body that still felt like a stranger to him. Phantom. Even after four years. He only saw his skin once after their physician, a older fellow from Clan Beaton that had healed his split flesh as best as he could, positioned him between two large mirrors.
He felt sorry for any eyes that ever had to lay sight on the skin. So Jamie did well to hide it. He didn't need to remind his self anymore than his own body had been forced to remember what happened to him.
It wasn't long before Murtagh had returned with his prize: a pair of grey rabbits bunched together in his fist by their ears. So rabbits they ate with a side of lightly roasted potatoes they brought along with them for the journey.
Making sure Donas and Cair and Elspeth were fed, they laid their extra tartans out before the fire to lay on top of. They hoped the wind would have mercy on them tonight and not blow their fire out to a whisper of smoke undulating upwards into the dark.
At night, the streams always sang loudest. The crackle of the fire had barely been audible at all above the coarse roar of the water. It was considerably dangerous to rest here. There was a chance that they could be set upon by hungry trotters and they were but two men. But they'd take it. They needed the food and rest. Fortunately, both Murtagh and Jamie were light sleepers and they kept a sturdy grip on their dirks and guns.
Happily full and glad to finally have his arse on the soft grassy ground than the tough curve of the saddle, Jamie dug into his sporran, fingers filtering through the sack until he found what he was looking for.
On the other side of the fire, Murtagh lifted his head. "Is that Sawny?"
"Aye...ye remember?" Jamie asked, a warm smile of pride curling over his lips at the man's recognition of a possession dear to him.
"How could I forget? Ye used to carry that damned thing around all the time when ye were a wee one. Ye wouldna part wi' it as if it were yer own heart," Murtagh chuckles. "Yer father used to take it from ye whenever ye were up to no good and yet ye'd always find it. He gave ye a thrashing every time but it mattered nothing to ye, nay."
Jamie's body shook with the force of his laughter, both of amusement and fondness. It was a snake that his elder brother Willie had chiseled for him a couple of years before he died. He twirled the wooden carving between his fingers, thumb tracing the swirling shape of its body and the letters S A W N Y that had been whittled onto its stomach.
"Weel, I outgrew it eventually. I nearly forgot it existed if I'm being honest. Seeing it again..." Jamie's voice trailed off as his mind gave way to memories of his late brother. "...Jenny gave it to me before we departed, when we were saying our goodbyes. She all but accosted me where I stood." He had been talking to wee Jamie, Jenny's firstborn and his only nephew as of now, who was still deeply asleep. He didn't want to wake him so left him with one of his ancient coins from his small collection. His nephew been asking him for one for so long, he thought why not give the wee'an something that'll make him so happy that he'll forget to be sore with his uncle when he doesn't see him for a long time? "She handed me the wee thing, blubbering and the like. She tried to give me Saint Anthony's cross for protection too but I swore to her I wouldna need it."
"It's frightening for her, she has never been parted from ye for so long...not since yer travels when ye were receiving an education abroad," Murtagh sympathized.
"She's nothing to be afraid of," Jamie said. And he meant it. "Ian will watch over her as her husband. And Lallybroch. He swore it to me, and to my father and to his wife. He may be crippled but he's still a sharpshooter and can take any man by surprise wi' his dirk. I trust him to keep his word. And so should she."
"She's still yer older sister, Jamie. Ye cannae be so clotheided that ye cannae see it's no' the protection of herself she's concerned for. It's yers. Ye may be grown and twice her size. But ye'll always be wee to her."
Murtagh was an only child and his mother and father died when he was only a lad. He never wed nor created any children of his own. He still seemed to understand family better than most. Perhaps it's his allegiance to them and how much time he's spent as a godfather that granted him this perception.
Jamie smirked, popping the last slice of potato in his mouth and laying on his back, holding Sawny up so he could observe the snake with the assistance of the orange glow from the fire.
He and his sister clashed harder than thunder clouds and more frequently than rain touched the ground in these parts of Scotland. Their love for each other was fierce, Jenny's mouse-like size bearing no hindrance on her fiery temper. The thought of her seeing him as but a bairn when he's very much a man brought a particular grin to his face. He couldn't believe how much he missed her and her pestering already.
"What are ye thinking about?" his godfather inquired.
"Nothing," Jamie lied. "And ye?"
"Yer mam."
Jamie's eyebrows rose high enough to touch the edges of his red curls that dangled over his forehead. He sat back up, the expression on his face asking his godfather, why?
"I swore to her I'd always look after ye. Now I'm accompanying ye to the people that turned ye away when ye were a bairn. When yer parents brought ye to Castle Leoch, they did so in the hopes that a baby would bring good fortune and amity to them. Yer uncles had rejected Janet because she was conceived out of wedlock. By the time yer parents had ye they had already been wed by a priest for a few years then. Willie was born about two years after Janet but they didna try to reconcile the chasm between the two clans with him. When ye were born, we all kent that ye favored the Mackenzies while yer siblings favored the Frasers. It was as though ye were a painting of yer own mother. So they chose ye, seeking to show Colum and Dougal that Mackenzie blood and Fraser blood could flow together. That ye were still Mackenzies as well. But yer uncles were still furious over the broken oath. And yer parents had shown up without invitation and three bairns in their arms. And for some reason..." Murtagh's voice floated away.
"What is it?" Jamie asked, enthralled with details of his life that his brain had long discarded from infancy.
"Och, weel," Murtagh answered, jumping a little as if he'd been elsewhere. "It's like ye knew ye werena welcome there. Ye bawled the moment we entered the castle and ye wouldna stop wailing til after we left the walls of Leoch. Ye cried like yer soul was the most wretched thing in existence. Christ, Jamie ye were right bawling as though yer lungs were as sturdy as a ship's mast. Never kent a wee'an could be sae loud. I remember it verra well," Murtagh laughed. "Ye wouldna take to yer wet nurse nor to yer da. And yer father, och, Brian's skin was as red as tomatoe. But Ellen..." his voice softened. "She was sae calm. Like a boat on still waters. She had a gift, ye ken? She always knew things before others did. She said ye'd be back there someday and her brothers would be powerless to turn ye away."
The fire began to die and it grew difficult for Jamie to see his godfather's face while he spoke. All he could hear was his voice, low and gentle with recollection.
"I trusted her word. I kent the day would come when ye would fulfill yer mam and da's wishes to walk the halls of Castle Leoch. It was a matter of when, and a matter of if ye'd be ready for it. Are ye, Jamie?"
Heart thumping harder than a horse's hooves, Jamie tucked Sawny safely and soundly back into his sporran. He pulled half of his tartan over his body, wrapping his self protectively for the night.
"We're nearly there, are we no'?" he answered before dozing off.
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
They reached Mackenzie lands one and a half weeks later.
The border was marked by large flag posts with the Mackenzie family crest mounted on them. Making up the design of the crest was hills with flames scattered across them, encircled by a buckled belt. LUCEO NON URO, it read. I shine, not burn.
There were armed men stationed at each one and- Iffrinn! - They drew their swords and muskets, and aimed them straightly at Jamie and Murtagh. Donas shrieked and nearly jettisoned Jamie from his back as he stood on his hind legs, rotating his front hooves in a fit of terror.
Herds of voices shouted in Gaelic for them to dismount promptly. Jamie knew he and Murtagh were large men, larger than the average Scot, but they weren't a bloody army. They had come with their dirks scabbarded and a wagon of grains and seeds, for the love of Christ
"Easy, man," Jamie whispered to his horse while Murtagh began arguing in Gaelic with the postmen.
They couldn't let them through without proof of Jamie and Murtagh's identities and reason for stepping foot on Mackenzie lands. It was procedural but laden with such an unnecessary aggression that Jamie took for a sign of how things were going to go while he was here.
"Show these dolts yer brooch, Jamie," Murtagh grumbled, flashing his own in the men's faces. "Bastards, the lot o' ye. Pointing yer weapons to Laird Broch Tuarach's heir."
Jamie pulled his out of his sporran, flashing his Fraser crest to the men.
"Letter explaining our business here, from yer Laird, my uncle, Colum Mackenzie," Jamie added, reaching into his saddlebag and procuring the rolled up sheet of paper.
Upon that, they withdrew their arms, stifled from the realization of what they'd done. They hadn't threatened bloodshed but Murtagh was right. It was most dishonorable to point a weapon at a chief's son and their chief's nephew especially when he had come to them non-threateningly.
One of the men whose name was apparently Dugan read studiously albeit over the paperwork, eyebrows raising each time he peeked up at Jamie.
"I trust the details of the letter are satisfying enough? Surely yer Laird briefed the lot of ye on my visit."
"Aye," the Dugan fellow said, his lips a devastatingly thin line, even when he spoke. "But ye can never be too careful, James Fraser, Sir. Our deepest apologies for the stramash. Ye are most permitted to pass. Continue along the path, it'll take ye-"
"-We ken the way just fine," Murtagh interrupted, mounting Cair once more. "Let's go, Jamie."
Jamie didn't know the way at all, actually. But he didn't need to. His godfather hadn't been having any difficulty recalling the way to Castle Leoch.
Strathpeffer Road, Jamie recalled from his geographical studies what the path was called. It was worn as any road would be, and darker than mahogany. It was a long and curving pathway, with cottages planted their on opposite sides like baubles strewn across the land.
It made more sense to Jamie why the Mackenzie crest was a cluster of hills. The Highlands were known for its mountainous regions but such regions were wide and at great altitudes. The Mackenzie lands became bumpier and more teeth rattling levels of uneven the deeper they went into it. The hills were like giant knots and welts that had swelled as if god himself gave the land a right thrashing.
Up ahead, Jamie could hear signs of busy activity. The castle was a large brown block from the distance, but as they came through the clearing, the large brown block was actually a bonny cluster of stones and mortar.
It was built on the tallest hill Jamie had ever seen used as a foundation. Most people would've used dynamite or shovels to ground the hills down, customize the land for which they would build their castle, but it seemed whoever designed the plans for Castle Leoch wanted to boast their impressive berth of architectural innovation.
There were mossy greens crawling up on the sides of the walls but as it descended to the ground, the green faded gracelessly to straw yellow. Jamie thought it was hay that was lazily scattered about but he realized it was overgrown and dead land. Christ.
There were straw huts tacked about where people were working and keeping their selves occupied. There was some trading going on, some knitting, some pottery making. Some of them paused their ministrations to glare at Jamie and Murtagh and the wagon that Elspeth had been carting along. Many eyes fell on their Fraser tartans. Jamie felt his self and his godfather stiffen with pride. Aye, we're Frasers on Mackenzie land, he challenged through his thoughts, as if everyone here could read his mind.
Their murmurs could hardly be called inconspicuous. Jamie merely nodded at the ones who stared him in his eyes. He wondered if the discord between the Laird of Fraser lands and the Laird of Mackenzie lands had been felt as strongly among the tenants here. Was it truly their tartans that garnered the attention or was it because they hadn't been anticipating visitors at the castle? Had Colum not told anyone here that they were expected?
"Good day to ye," Jamie said to some of the children that circled around their horses. They ignored the admonitions of who he assumed to be their supervisors as they peeked into the wagon to see what they had brought with them. They fluttered around him and Murtagh like crows over a carcass.
He's Broch Taurach's heir, he told his self. He's the representative of his people. He isn't here to change the bad blood between families, he reminded his self, he's here to help these people, even as they look upon him with hard and distantly curious faces.
"Yer horse is bonny, sir," one of the children, a boy whose hair was nearly as ruddy as Jamie's said. He had a wooden sword tacked to his hip with a rope and his shoes, fine shoes Jamie could tell, were mucked over from playing all day in the dirt. His eyes reminded him of his Mam's and for a moment too fleeting, Jamie was struck with a familial warmth he hadn't felt since he was a wee one.
"Thank ye, lad. What's yer name?"
"Hamish, sir."
Jamie opened his mouth to make his acquaintance with young Hamish but the boy was quickly distracted as the other boys tugged him along to bolt across the courtyard.
"I'll be damned...it's about as ugly as I remember it," Murtagh tilted his head, baring his impression of the expanse of the territory.
Jamie disagreed with him.
Castle Leoch was enormous. It usurped Lallybroch by nearly four times, judging by its scale. There was black smoke ascending to the sky in huffing currents from about half a dozen chimneys, Jamie reckoned.
It grandly stood five stories tall. The tower must've been built around stood about a quarter higher than the castle. It blocked out the view of the sky from here. The castle and tower was formed of rubble and ashlar stones, Jamie observed. Very fine masonry. Castle Leoch was younger than Lallybroch, he could tell from the veneer the stones still had. His Da had preferred the more Scottish rugged look at Lallybroch. Colum Mackenzie had different tastes.
Castle Leoch must entertain many aristocrats. This was a place meant to be the talk of the Highlands. There were also parapets lining all around the tip of the structure. It was tall enough for men as large as oak trees to hide behind as they kept watch for their targets below. There were turrets carved in that were fit for large cannons. Around the edges and corners were bruised with dark marks from gunpowder blasts.
It was imposing and brutal. A highland warrior recognizes a place where battles have been fought. Castle Leoch may have been newer than Lallybroch, but it had seen action too. It was a fortress, unlike Lallybroch.
Jamie tried to imagine coming here as an infant. Had he been terrified of its great scale? Had his father wrapped him proudly in his Fraser-patterned tartan beforehand? Had his mother held him close to her warm bosom, clutched him and fretted over him?
"Ye must be James Fraser."
A small mousy voice had nearly startled Jamie out of his boots as he dismounted.
It belonged to a young lass, by indication of tonality. Jamie's arm zipped out to brush his curls out of his face. His bangs have gotten too long, he'd have to cut them again as soon as he had a moment to his self. He looked harder at the lass. A very young lass, she was. Couldn't be more than sixteen, about six years younger than him. Her lips were upturned like a fish and her eyebrows were fixed in a permanent raise from either excitement or angst. Her eyes were large and fairly blue and her hair was like spun gold, tumbling messily out of its long braid. Aye, she was bonny. But something about how her energy bobbed about her put any attraction Jamie could have towards her at an impasse. He looked to his godfather cautiously before nodding to her.
"And ye must be Murtagh Fraser," the lass turned to Murtagh.
"Aye," Murtagh said. "And who might ye be?"
"I'm Laoghaire. Laoghaire Mackenzie. I was told by my grandmother when ye'd arrive to collect ye and bring ye inside. To be made presentable for the Laird, ye see. Ye must've rode here fast. We werena expecting ye to arrive for another few days. I ken because I waited every day to mark yer arrival. We've no' had visitors in a while. Weel, no' since-" Laoghaire Mackenzie babbled.
"Hush yer wheesht, for Christ's sake, lass," Murtagh cut in, his eyebrows furrowed deeply with agitation. She clamped her mouth obediently. Jamie almost felt sorry for the girl, looking to his godfather with an expression that came close to beration. "Where are we to dock the horses? Where are the stables?"
She brought them to Alec MacMahon, Master of the Horse for Clan Mackenzie, to take their horses off of them. He was short, a few cropped stark white hairs located over the dome of his bald head, and he had a gimp in his step. One leg was wrapped in more linen than the other. A recent injury, Jamie surmised.
Cair and Elspeth had cooperated just fine with him but Donas planted his hooves into the ground as Alec took a concentrated grip of his reins.
"Be careful wi' Donas. He's got a wicked temper, doesna take too kindly to new faces," Jamie warned, watching the horse master with sympathy as his beast of a horse put on a fervent display of malcontent.
Alec huffed, trying to appear staid even as he pulled harder, cursing at the horse in Gaelic.
"Dinna be aggressive wi' him, it only makes him worse," Jamie admonished. "Donas. Shocair, ye beastie." Jamie splayed his fingers against the horse's withers, applying the firm pressure he knew would soothe him.
"Touch him there like so while ye guide him and he wilna fash wi' ye. At least no' as much as acting like a snot nosed bairn that hasna had its supper."
"Och, I dinna suppose ye know a thing or two about horses?" Alec asked, bemused as his fingers rubbed over Donas' withers and the horse finally seemed to yield after a few more protestant shivers.
"I do, actually. I prefer spending most of my time in the stables. I'm right fond of it."
"I'll keep that in mind. Welcome to Castle Leoch mister..."
"Fraser. James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser."
"A Mackenzie Fraser...." Jamie watched as Alec prepared to remark on his specific combination of names but then a rush of snot and damp air shot from the tunnel of Donas' nose. "Weel....off ye go. The maids will fetch yer chests from the wagon and have them brought to yer quarters. I'll leave the baskets and vases here until ye tell the men what to do wi' them."
"Sounds good to us, Mr. McMahon." Murtagh said between a humph. Jamie had been doing his best to be a model Fraser but Murtagh had no interest in any part of Clan Mackenzie and wasn't afraid to show it.
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
Laoghaire had talked the entire way as she led them through the castle's corridors. Jamie hadn't paid her words any mind because he found his self taking in the interiors. The walls were grey and bricked, lined with torches and arrangements of vines that hanged between them. There were ornamental vases on long auburn tables situated up against the walls, should one want to rest between the commutes down long hallways, and tall doors that led to one room and another. It was very Scottish. It was nothing like the deep hued homes in France, colors both warm and cool and encrusted with polished gold. Nor like the ivory pillars in Rome with stairs of marble and mustard-colored paths of gravel.
A short and plump as pie woman was awaiting them. Her hair was light as straw, so frizzy it looked more like shredded cotton than what Jamie could only assume were curls. They were tumbling out of her white bonnet as though she had braved a great storm to get here. Her eyes were tiny and dark like molasses and so narrow they made her look as if she suspected them of a crime they had yet to commit. Her skin was creased like worn leather from use and age. There was a strawberry tinted flush splotched across her large cheeks. Her rouged shiny cheeks reminded him of the German paintings his Mam had with the little naked cherubs dancing across the page. When she smiled, she revealed a missing bottom front tooth.
"Hullo, I'm Mrs. Fitzgibbons but ye can call me Mrs. Fitz. Laoghaire here is my eldest granddaughter. She's permitted a month's stay at the castle while her father is out on business. She's under my watch, ye see? I'm the head cook, but I also do a bit o' healing and dressing as weel."
Jamie determined that babbling is a genetic trait, then.
"I'm James Fraser and this is my godfather Murtagh Fraser."
"I ken fine who ye both are, of course. Now let me ha' a look at ye," Mrs. Fitz' fingers were both coarse and smooth at the same time as they took Jamie's face in a steady hold. "By god, ye've the bonny blue Mackenzie eyes. And the height. And the handsomeness. Och, I dinna mean to coo over ye, Mister Fraser. Come, let's get ye cleaned and fed. Ye as weel, Murtagh Fraser. Laoghaire, m'dear go and fetch me a pail o' water and a bit of honeysuckle for the smell?"
When she was done grooming Murtagh, Mrs. Fitz immediately went and scrubbed Jamie's knees and hands with a rough soapy rag. She had fussed with him, asking him to remove his shirt and Jamie fussed back, protesting with the stubborn countenance that exceeded Donas' reputation. He refused to let anyone, let alone an auld woman such as Mrs. Fitz, see the flesh on his back.
In the end, Jamie's protest overpowered Mrs. Fitz's. Her dark eyes narrowed at him with warning. He had won this round for now, but she would see to it before he completed his stay here at Leoch that she got to give him the bath she intended for him.
He asked her as recompense if she would be kind enough to cut his bangs a little shorter. She ended up cropping off two inches of his hair all over his head. His red curls no longer dangled around his jaw. They spiraled around his ears instead. It made Jamie look younger, made him look his age, which wasn't his desire. When he made a face once Mrs. Fitz proudly showed him his new haircut in the mirror, she chided him in Gaelic.
"Dinna fash yerself. The ladies will still be taken to ye, even more so now. There'll be many a heart broken. Puir lasses."
"I dinna care about the ladies," Jamie rolled his eyes when he saw his godfather smirking from the other side of the room. "I came here to help wi' yer land. Wi' tending and such. To help keep yer bellies full and bring ye a healthy harvest. My duty is to the land, no' its lasses."
"Aye...weel...I'm glad o' it. Speaking of filling yer wames, ye'll be needing something to eat, I reckon?"
Mrs. Fitz screeched Laoghaire's name and the lass sped in and out the door with cool bowls of porridge.
"Ye missed breakfast. 'Tis lukewarm now but still perfectly edible."
The food protested during its soggy descent down Jamie's throat. He exchanged discontented and amused glances with his godfather, who stared at the food under two suspiciously downturned thickets of black eyebrows before decidedly scarfing down the sludge of food.
"Now yer ready to be taken to Himself," Mrs. Fitz declared.
Himself being Laird Colum Mackenzie.
The Laird's room was stocked with drooping tapestries that covered the stone walls. There were Celtic mythological tales told in the stitching and dyes and enormous paintings of what appeared to be esteemed Dukes and Duchesses and former lairds of Leoch. There were towers of candles congregating at every corner of the room and dried running lines of wax stuck to the brass holders.
Tall windows invited in copious daylight that illuminated the multitudes of bird cages Colum had erected throughout the room. There was one noticeably large brass cage propped near the widest and tallest window. It was filled with pairs of warblers and finches.
Chirps and twitters could be heard across the room, accompanied by the occasional light beating of wings and the unmistakable sound of beaks nibbling idly on the cylindrical strips of wood they were perched on.
Jenny loved birds too. Did she inherit that from her uncle, Jamie sourly pondered.
There were two men, one short and one tall.
Jamie's eyes fell immediately on the taller one. He was bald with a great bristling of a mustache and beard, peppered with grey, black, and white. He proudly bore Highlander regalia, carrying his dirk and sword with him, thumbs tucked into his belt that held his kilt to his body. His build was solid and burly. His legs were spread apart in a way that made him soak up all the space in the room, eclipsing the presence of the shorter man. Jamie knew from gleaning over them that the two were brothers.
The taller man must be Colum Mackenzie. His father had described the man as an unmovable force, with a voice so gruff he could shake the entire room with a single bellow.
The taller man stepped forward and bowed slightly.
"Dougal Mackenzie, War Chief of Clan Mackenzie. Welcome to Leoch," he clapped his large hands around Jamie's shoulders, taking stock of his physique. He then pulled him in close, hugging him tightly and then pushing him back again to survey him. "Christ, lad. Look at ye..." he had a proud smile on his face, but his beard was so dense, you could hardly see his teeth and lips. The way his cheeks rose gave his unabashed joy away. "He's the spit of her, is he no'?" He looked back at the shorter man, who was undoubtedly Colum Mackenzie.
He was the opposite of Dougal Mackenzie in every way. He couldn't have exceeded more than five feet of height. His hair, unlike Dougal's, was very long and fanned out down his back, bearing a faint semblance of a wavy texture. He sported a clean shaven face, contrasted to Dougal's bushiness. They must not be that far apart in age either. Their faces had equal weather and their eyes, Jamie imagined once blazed like sapphire, were aged, now as muted as the sky before a drizzle was set to come. He wore his Mackenzie tartan just as Dougal did. And his legs...
Jamie tried to swallow as discretely as he could.
His legs were as grotesque as Jamie's back. It was a jarring sight. They were like tree branches, skeletal, bent awkwardly outwards, and knobby, utterly deformed.
"Aye. Aye he is," the man's voice rumbled and rolled, just as his father said it did. "Colum Mackenzie, Chief of Clan Mackenzie and Laird of Castle Leoch. Welcome, nephew."
Dougal's physicality had seemingly controlled the energy in the room. But once Colum Mackenzie spoke, it was immediately evident who the leader and eldest sibling was.
"And taller than I am," Dougal's hands shot out lightning quick and pressed into Jamie's chest and arms. "And a body sturdier than Christ's Iron. Ye could strangle the waterhorse of Loch Ness wi' yer bare hands if ye were up to it."
The shorter man stepped forward, sturdily yet slowly, the slightest hints of pain in his eyes. Physical pain from his legs, Jamie reckoned. There was immense doubt that a man who wouldn't see his sister buried had felt anything when he set his eyes upon her only surviving son.
"I will hold a formal court where ye will be introduced properly but no' for another few days. I want ye to settle into yer rooms for the night. Dinner will be brought to yer quarters and ye shall a good night's rest from yer no doubt long and tiresome journey here. And then I want to hear all about how ye intend to use yer knowledge of the land to help us get through this challenging time."
"My Laird..." Jamie bent on one knee.
"My Laird," Murtagh said, bending on his knee besides Jamie. "Ye may or may no' remember me. Murtagh Fraser. Godfather to James Fraser."
"'Twas many decades ago," Colum answered, "But I recall ye always being at El-, at the Frasers' side. Ye've remained loyal to yer clan, and yer Laird. Good." Two sharp raps against the solid ground marked the strained steps Colum took and then he made a gesture to them both. "Ye may rise."
They both did, towering mightily over the man. But his uncle's eyes remained steeled on Jamie. It was different from how his other uncle Dougal had been looking at him. Jamie felt him sizing him up like cattle under inspection. Opportunity blazed in his eyes like the flames of the Mackenzie crest.
"Shake my hand, James."
His eyebrows tersely came together with confusion. Not wanting to make an emphasis of the awkward thoughts jumbling in his mind, Jamie reached out and did so.
His hand was so much larger than his uncle's.
"Fine grip ye have," Colum said. "Worn but cared for hands. Ye have the touch of a hard working man. Ye may be a man of property and entitlements but ye're a Highlander through and through. We value that greatly here at Clan Mackenzie."
"Aye. As do we at Clan Fraser. My father raised me just as so." Jamie could not tame the small smirk that found its way to his lips. "He didna want a Laird who only spent his days learning how silverware should be held with each meal and reading in Greek and Latin and studying politics to rule Fraser lands. I may be Laird-to-be but, I live like a working lad as well. Education is just as important as being able to provide for yerself and yer people wi' yer own two hands if need be."
"I see. And erm," Colum inhaled sharply, "How is Brian Fraser doing these days? I didnae get a chance to ask in my letters of inquiry."
"There have been kinder days, my Laird," Jamie answered stiffly. Their hands separated like a rope snapping from a sail and he broke from Colum's gaze, finding that he couldn't hold it any longer. He was careful not to look at Dougal either. The man still watched him with a hawkish bearing.
In truth, images fluttered in his mind like a colony of butterflies. This is where his Mam must've stood once while her brother, this very man, barked his declarations of banishments into her face. He could see her long swooping red curls touching her hips as she kept her head bent and her trembling hands submissively pressed to her abdomen where his dear sister Jenny lay beneath.
He felt the certainty of distance, unspoken words, and emotions that had hardened and aged like sediment.
When Jamie lifted his head back up, he knew his eyes were burning.
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
Murtagh had all but thrown a fit when Colum requested Jamie's company and Jamie's company alone for a ride. The man paced around the room like an anxious horse before a thunderstorm, his boots clonking on the wooden ground.
"I'll be fine, Murtagh," Jamie said assuredly, sliding his belt across his waist until his kilt felt secured, fabric rustled rigidly up against his abdomen.
"And what am I to do in the meantime, eh? Bugger around?"
"Aye, if ye like," Jamie laughed. His godfather's taut expression didn't yield. "Ye'll think of something. Dinna fash, godfather."
"I dinna trust him."
"I ken. I dinna trust my uncle either. But I've a duty-"
"Aye, aye, yer duty," Murtagh made a noise of concession.
His finger nevertheless tapped anxiously on his belt. "Fill yer belly first, Jamie. And do be mindful."
"I always am, athair-athar," Jamie checked the contents of his sporran. "I'll tell ye everything when I get back. It'll be no more than a day, I think. Depending on how much land he means for us to survey today."
"Surely the man doesna mean to do this every day. It'd take months to cover all Mackenzie territory and I dinna think for a moment that all the land is spoilt. Ye've seen his legs, Jamie. He canna ride."
"I ken..." Jamie snapped his sporran shut and pat his godfather meaningfully on the shoulder. "Beannachd an-drasta."
He journeyed down the long hall and down the solid stone stairs. It was a nauseating descent, as the stairs were constructed in a downward spiral and there was very narrow space for navigation. His bedroom was across from Murtagh's on the fourth story. The lower levels were reserved from the workers in the castle.
He hadn't a chance yet to become too familiar with the castle. There would be time for that as the days grew into weeks and months.
The wind whistled and moaned down these halls, and Jamie couldn't escape the eerie feeling that nipped at his heels.
"James?" the voice startled him to the very marrow of his bones. He sharply turned around, his fist a strangled grip on his dirk, ready to unsheathe and plunge itself into the heart of his attacker. It was Laoghaire and her large blue eyes, still bright in spite of the low lighting in the halls. "Christ, Lass. Have ye come from the shadows?"
"I was waiting for ye," she said by way of explanation. Her expression and tone remained expectant, and Jamie's hand dropped from his dirk.
"Really? Ye didna have to do so."
"No, but I wanted to," Laoghaire smiled brightly, flashing her teeth, the gleam of ivory. "It's just... I brought ye a bag of oats? For yer ride. Mrs. Fitz, my grandmother, says sorry no bannocks today. The ovens arena cooperating."
She brought her hands forward, a small sac in the curve of her palms.
"Thank you, Laoghaire. 'Tis verra kind of ye, lass," Jamie took it from her.
"I added a bit of honey. If ye like it sweet."
"Aye, thank ye," Jamie squeezed the bag approvingly, feeling the grains grinding against each other on the inside. "I must be going now."
"Have a bonny ride, James Fraser," she called after him, her shrill voice echoing across the stones.
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
The last time Jamie had ridden in a carriage was during his former years while he was receiving his educational courses at the noble universities overseas.
Though Jamie had not been of distinctive nobility like most of his peers, he did come from noble blood nonetheless. His grandfather Simon Lovat Fraser was a Lord, and he himself was the inheritor of the minor nobility title Laird Broch Tuarach. He came from powerful and vast clan lands that belonged to his family for many generations. His father had been raised in Beaufort Castle, an establishment that many of royal and noble blood had spent their formative years in.
He wasn't a stranger to luxury and all the things acquainted with it. Lallybroch was filled with family heirlooms, rare gold and jewels, centuries old Viking swords, fine carpets and elegant chandeliers that would make even the King of Prussia blush. It was a grand and enviable estate and the arability of the land on which it stood reaped the Frasers a great sum of money to be able to send Jamie beyond the horizons of the oceans to learn as a future ruler would.
That meant being made to adhere to a way of life Jamie found terribly ostentatious for the time being. Other than to boast their places in elevated society, what use did being trussed up in ruffles and silks and tying ribbons in his hair and being transported around with his other mates in carriages have? He could've learned Greek and Latin in his kilt up against a rolling hill just as well.
He truly hated carriages. They were stuffy creaking boxes atop outrageously large wheels and they bobbed on the road like a glass jar in the swaying sea.
Ah dhia.
Jamie was a horse rider. He loved the power and speed and sensation of muscle between his thighs. He loved the control he had. A click of tongue, a jerk of the reins, a tap of his heels, a hearty cry, and he could maneuver across the land with such fine technique, it was as though he were bonded with the horse's mind and soul itself.
In carriages, he didn't have control.
It spurred a terrible sense of claustrophobia in him. Much like being at the mercy of the sea, the motions turned his face greener than moss on a fat oak tree and made his wame toss and turn.
Much to his dismay, Colum Mackenzie rode around in carriages.
So Jamie had to try his best to keep some of the food Laoghaire had brought to him inside his stomach.
"Ye'll recall in my letters, I explain that the land's been steadily turning o'er us for months now. The farmers didna notice until crop yields began to drop significantly. We've had a high streak of rapid production and then suddenly nothing wants to grow anymore. The land's like a stubborn child. There's still green, but no' nearly enough sustain the amount of growth we need to feed the dozens of thousands inhabiting these lands encircling the castle. Never mind the cattle."
"Forgive me, but your Master of Agriculture should be here wi' us now, should he no'?" he was aware of the ulterior motive involved with today's excursion, but the glaring absence of the man responsible for running the land placed an unavoidably dubious feeling inside of Jamie. Surely he would know more about the affairs of the land than Colum, who didn't spend all that much time outside of Leoch's walls if his appearance was anything to go by.
"They're imprisoned at Fort William," Colum replied, his expression chaste, as though he had commented that it was a bonny day for a stroll along the beach.
"What in god's name for?" Jamie gawked. He briskly recounting his own personal time there. A shudder rolled over him.
"Clan matters," Colum answered, his eyes following the way his body quietly jolted. "Yer familiar wi' the place then, lad?"
Jamie's eyelids pinched. Would he have heard talks about Broch Tuarach's son being unlawfully imprisoned and tortured and chose to make play that he knew nothing of that fateful day in the Highlands? To what hope? That he would recount his firsthand experience there to him? Colum's gaze was passive and welcoming but further into the dull blue of his eyes, beneath the glass of his irises laid the mark of certain knowledge.
Pursing his lips to display a cooled indifference, Jamie turned his head to the carriage window, the glares of bright blue daylight and the fresh scent of pine and heather mingling and playing on his senses.
"I've heard stories."
Over the next few hours, they made several stops, for which Jamie was grateful for the mercy it extended towards his stomach. He was also glad for the chances to step out of the asphyxiating mist that surrounded Colum Mackenzie's person. His uncle couldn't get out of the carriage without great difficulty so he stayed and watched from the square window while Jamie got out to make his assessments.
He got down to his knees, brushing his fingers over the plants and earth to feel the starkness of its texture and digging into the dirt to check for moisture levels. Each time it was the same. The soil was terribly eroded and in dire need of ploughing.
Given how far the Mackenzie lands had stretched out, Jamie knew he'd have to assemble a team to oversee each region and that he'd have to train the men to follow the Fraser method, not the Mackenzie way.
He knew from how the grass had been growing around Leoch in ragged clumps and the overgrown herds of weed that it was in a very severe state of neglect. It was a lot worse than Colum's letters had conveyed.
Jamie stood up, tucking his thumbs into his belt, and turned back to look at Colum with concern and deepened wariness.
How long has their Master of Agriculture been imprisoned? Who oversaw land development in his place before Colum had finally reached out to his father? What were they doing in the meantime to assure that cattle and people wouldn't go hungry?
"My Laird, if I may give my assessment-"
"Please, dinna call me Laird when it's just the two of us. We are kin, James. Call me Uncle in the confines of privacy. Same goes for my braithair."
We are kin...
If Murtagh were here he would've snorted gruffly under his breath like Donas often did whenever he was in the company of someone he found irksome and unpleasant.
"Weel...uncle...it's clearly in a state of agricultural neglect. It's no' a drought or else there'd be nothing but dried soil everywhere. And no' just here but in Fraser land as well. The MacLennans and Grants and Chisolms would've reported it as weel, I'd expect. Nay, these parts have lost its fertility because the soil is overworked. And its reproductivity isna being looked after either. I'll need to ken the former Master's record books and agricultural plans. See what he used for fertilizer and so on. And I'll need ye to commission the records from yer tenants who've reported problems on their plots to see how they've been managing as weel."
"Aye, aye, ye'll receive what all that ye ask. It can be fixed, though?" Colum asked.
"Aye...but wi' a considerable amount of time and some verra necessary changes, uncle. I ken the Highlands have seen many a famine. It's no' the most arable land especially when ye've got people who dinna understand it as weel as they think they do working it."
"Do ye ken how something like this happens, James?"
"Over-production, as I said. Ye can always tell. I've seen this many a season. When our tenants couldna make their payments in time for Quarter Day, and debts starting piling up, we've had to produce higher outputs of crops to ease out the balance. We were taking more than the land could give. In yer case it's far worse because the terrain here compared to everywhere else in the Highlands is more hilly and coarse. Wi' the altitude and lack of conditioning of the soil, 'tis a miracle Leoch hasnae fallen to destitution before. No disrespect intended, uncle. Tis a fine land nevertheless."
"None taken, nephew," Colum said. He gestured to the seat he was planted on. "Come back inside. We've to make our rounds back to Leoch. I had hoped to cover more ground today but I'm afraid I've back pains."
Jamie rose from his kneeling position, rubbing his hands together to clear the flecks of dirt from his skin.
"Ye'll have been struggling for a while then?"
Confusion passed over Colum's face. Jamie realized it may be taken that he was asking about his legs and he nearly blanched.
"I- I mean, overworked land only means forced production by way of necessity and desperation," he corrected as he stepped back into the confining carriage.
"O mo chreach, James. Ye truly are my sister's son. Even a man as blind as a bat would ken it. Ye've her shrewdness as weel. A mark of the Mackenzies."
Jamie's teeth ground against each other hard enough to spark a fire.
He didn't like his uncles bringing up his mam. He hoped it infuriated them as much as it impressed them that he carried the spirit of the Mackenzies. His father never let him forget it, never made him bury it in the woods of his mind. He wanted him to be proud of who he was. Had his uncles done so? Try as they might have to ignore their kin, had they successfully muffled the echoes of their existence? Or did it slip out into the night sometimes like a mist hovering above the shore, haunting them?
Silence eddied around them as the carriage driver took them back the way they came.
"It's the bluidy Britons," Colum finally said as nausea from the motion of the carriage retook possession of Jamie's stomach. His uncle's voice descended to a low grumble. He leaned forward and gestured to Jamie to do the same. "Ye'll have noticed more patrollers than ever have moved into the Lowlands. That entire part of the country will have been inhabited by them by the next few years, I reckon."
"Aye," Jamie nodded. He rarely went into the lower townships for this very reason.
"They've taken up plots here and there in the Highlands over the last decade and organized settlement posts even though they told us they wouldn't occupy any further territory upon clan lands."
They've been doing far more than just that. Since the eve of a dynastic union centuries back, the Briton Empire, ruled by a long string of generations of monarchs, had stood tall, its great shadow heaving over Scotland. And not just her but over her neighbors Wales and Ireland as well.
The Continental War had happened, a war of unimaginable scale, and it had ravaged the world to near destruction, teetering on the cataclysmic edge of biblical prophecy. In the aftermath, each country's governing leaders had sealed their ports. Alliances were broken and the ties of diplomacy that once bound countries to each other had unraveled, never to be retied again. Trade and immigrations systems had collapsed and rebuilt itself into something far more stringent and elitist. These days you needed more than a boat and ambition to be allowed to pass through ports. It was difficult for Jamie to ever imagine a time where one could explore the world on a whim. Or a time when Scotland belonged truly to herself and her people.
It was barely merciful, but Scotland had small jurisdictional exceptions that acted as points of contention for the Brits. Highlander territory wasn't directly governed by Briton's forces and clan lands had belonged to its inhabitants under the governance of Lairds and their War Chiefs for centuries. The Britons took a percentage of payments to the Crown on Quarter Day but beyond those realms, their dominion was largely limited in these ancestral hills.
But everyone had felt the stifling force of the Britons pressing their hands around the Highlands' throat over the years now.
It was like the sensation of breath fanning down your neck that you couldn't ignore. You willed yourself to stay still despite the gooseflesh sparking over the surface of your skin.
Though by law, the British patrollers had no rights to be on clan lands without permission from the Clan Chiefs or by order of His Majesty or in supposition of acting in His Majesty's interests, they circumvented it often. For years, they've been popping up and igniting small raids, thievery, destruction of properties, or further violent atrocities. Rape. Torture. Murder. Lallybroch had the honor of enjoying their vicious company on more occasions than Jamie would've liked.
They had often justified their abuses of power by declaring that the Scottish Highlanders were untamed savages who didn't appreciate the graciousness their benefactors relayed to them. They were a blight on the reputation of citizens under His Majesty's care.
The Highlanders may not be saints, rightly enough they had earned their reputation of being vigorously daunting men, as they were Viking descendants and Celtic warriors. But surely all man would elect to an image of the unconquerable than that of a coward.
It was impossible to determine where pride and shame were meant to meet, let alone how pride and shame could reconcile their selves with the way the mightiest empire had regarded the people of this green mountainous island.
Jamie knew from personal experience that the Britons were no stranger to ruthless barbarousness either. They were perfectly intimate with it, in fact. He had the welted skin on his back and near slaughtering of his sister to speak for the veracity of it.
If Scots were uncivilized beasts, he didn't know how many words there were in the Gaelic or English lexicon that could explicate the Britons and their hatred that they carried with them for anyone they deemed to be beneath them.
"The Brits have been putting pressures on Clan leaders to provide them with quarters and food as recompense for 'keeping the peace in Scotland,'" Colum continued to explain. "They've set their particular sights on Clan Mackenzie, sending droves of patrollers this way. We've been working the land sae bluidy furiously to turn crops over to them that they use to feed their men at their large settlement camps. We've lost quite an amount of profit in the process as weel."
Why not Fraser lands? Jamie thought. Not that he welcomed any British attention that way, but Clan Fraser had the reputation of being a great generation of farmers, and the land was known to have the best crop yields of all the Scottish Highlands.
The Laird-to-be in him recognized the potentiality of there being more interest to Clan Mackenzie than just their crops. The person in him who was once tied to a mast, ears ringing from the unending sounds of leather, ivory, and rope cracking in the sky, also knew it didn't matter what motivated them. They were treacherous men with a bottomless lust for cruelty.
"So I ask ye for help, no' just for the sake of keeping the goddamned Britons off my back, but so we dinnae die of starvation either. For I've a wife, a son, and many nephews and nieces of tender age that live here. No' to mention the tenants who're depending on Leoch's soil. It's a great undertaking I ask of ye, but I also ask for yer prudence. I havena even mentioned the involvement of the Brits to yer father, ye ken."
The carriage let out a sudden fearsome screech and it lurched side to side before wobbling back on all four of its wheels. The driver outside let out a coarse declaration in Gaelic and apologized fretfully to them. They must've rolled over a large stone that had fallen wayside from the hill they were coming around.
Jamie's arms shot out to the interior walls of the carriage to steady his self even as he was certain his stomach just flexed inside out. He was a man of a considerable mass. He was already taking up most of the space in the carriage. If he had fallen forward he would've crushed his uncle. His sharp eyes caught the way his uncle's hands gripped the seat futilely and how his legs, two twining slats of flesh, had been unable to keep him planted. Much to both of their horror, he was going to fall out of the seat.
Jamie saw pain flashing in his pale blue eyes when he reached out to touch Colum's shoulders to steady him until he regained his balance.
He had begrudged the man for not delivering the letter himself to Lallybroch. But having seen his legs, he understood why at once.
Since he couldn't ride horseback, he would've had to rely on transport by way of carriage. That would've taken twice as long as a single agile man on a horse.
Had his legs been this way nearly thirty years ago? His father never mentioned that his uncle was a cripple. Then again, the Mackenzie's chief and war chief were scarcely breathed about at Lallybroch.
His limitations were physical and visible to every eye that set themselves upon him. It must be difficult to be Laird under such conditions.
Jamie's lips twisted momentarily in shame. The skin on his back was striped and twisted like a rung rag. At least it could be covered with a shirt. There's nothing you can do to hide the very appendages that carry your body. Save for wearing a dress. But Colum was no fillie. He didn't hide his legs. He let the world see it.
It hadn't been long before they were back on Strathpeffer Road to Leoch. Their driver took them straight to the courtyard. The skies had darkened to a rich inky indigo and oil lamps were lit all around the castle perimeter. There was little buzzing about, as most people had gone to their cottages or to their quarters inside the castle now. Night patrollers were stationed around the circumference of the castle.
Dougal had been waiting at the entrance and beside him stood Murtagh, his hand on his dirk and his eyes darker than the sky above their heads.
Colum got out first, hobbling out of the carriage before Jamie could make any gesture of assistance towards the man's dismount. Jamie stepped out after him, breathing with gratitude for the solid ground once more. He walked behind his uncle, already gathering his plans in his head for the upcoming weeks.
"Afore I dismiss ye, James," Colum called when they got to the door, "At court, I intend to introduce ye to someone. She began as a guest to Clan Mackenzie but since showing her very fine skills as a healer, she replaced our former head of beatony. Her name is Claire Beauchamp. But her last name is pronounced more so like Beecham than Bowcham. Unusual, I ken."
"French?" Jamie inquired, marvel burbling in his head. He couldn't recall the last time he encountered someone who hailed from France.
"By paternal way, I presume," Colum shrugged and Dougal had laughed under his breath. Both Jamie and Murtagh looked to him, not understanding what was funny about that.
"A French woman in the Highlands? Is she a traveler?"
Travelers were often met in the Highlands with suspicion. Travelers belonged to no Clan, nor to any other distinct part of the world. It was difficult to obtain a Pass through Port to other countries if you weren't someone of particular status or profession. How on earth had a French woman come to a place like this? And in the custody of Colum Mackenzie, a strictly devout Highlander chief?
Jamie found his self inflamed with curiosity about this Mistress Beauchamp.
"She grows her own medicinal herbs," Colum informed him. "But as ye ken, the land isna agreeing wi' anyone as of late. She's been having to go to the Lowlands to visit expensive apothecaries and paying for medicines and mixtures and such. They charge a fare too great and I'm losing more money than I am saving paying for her surgery. It's a reasonable loss given she treats all the men and women here in the castle, sometimes going to the tenants as well. But I would prefer she make her own medicine as she once did. The less money spent on outside resources can be distributed elsewhere. Such as to the re-cultivation of the land. I want the two of ye to become acquainted. She knows her share of things about land. You will be able to help each other."
Murtagh's one telling eyebrow shot to his hairline. Jamie held the same thoughts. He hadn't been expecting to have a partner thrust upon him. Colum never expressed this additional condition in his letters.
"Oh, and James? She's a feisty lass wi' a verra sharp tongue. She can conjure up a storm wi' her words so dinna be afraid to muzzle the lass if ye see it fit."
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
The stones bobbled loosely under Claire's feet. There were millions of them, no larger than cherries, closely compacted together and scattered along the stretch of the creek. She imagined giants over six stories high huddled concertedly inside a quarry, breaching the stones with their bare hands, grinding them in their fists, and putting them away in large burlap sacks. She thought of them tip toeing into the creek and pouring the stones along the tart runnel of water because they felt they ought to garnish it in their brutishly industrial way that giant creatures might perceive as aesthetically beautiful.
Well it was beautiful. Her eyes hadn't had a chance to venture themselves upon all of the Scottish Highlands since she arrived here at the Isle of Skye with her uncle Lambert four years ago now, but nonetheless, its beauty had maintained itself in her eyes.
She supposed it could be imagined that such giants roamed these lands, that their iron muscled masses and feet the size of freighters had tumbled and shaken the earth, creasing and parting the soul and giving birth to these knotted hills and craggy waters, and sweeping valleys, and rolling streams, eddies, and creeks that unfurled through every part of this world like veins of the circulatory system netted through the human body.
For a woman of her grooming, education, and repertoire, having been raised by a respected archeologist and invited along on expeditions in countries that she may never return to again, it would've been frowned upon to entertain such notions. She seldom had dalliances with fantasy. Her uncle was adventurous and always invited boundless opportunity when it came their way, but he was a man who stood soundly in logic and science, not imagination and fairy tales.
Her upbringing under Lambert had made it challenging to connect with the Highlander people.
As Highlander children were brought up on stories of faeries and curses and spirits, Claire was brought up on the stories of advanced science practiced in early societies and how life had actually begun in the sea, not on land. While Highlander children fought with swords carved from wood on the grounds of castle ruins, she had been down in digging sites in her britches, sweeping sediment off the skeletons of bizarre creatures. While Highlander children chilled to the bone at the thought of passing burial grounds they deemed cursed, she had spent a great deal of time in tombs and taking part in examinations of cadavers, assisting her uncle Lambert by taking down notes and drawing anatomical diagrams.
Children brought up in superstition and fantasy had made for intractably suspicious and fearful adults. Medicine and science had crept too close to the edge of witchcraft for these people. Claire was also British with no anchor to any family or cultural practices, and she was an unwed woman. She had come to Scotland only with the credentials of being the assistant and niece of a highly regarded archeologist and educator. She was, for all intents and purposes, a walking ill-wish to most of the people here.
"Oh dear, uncle," Claire said to herself aloud, voice concealed under the continuous flow of the water, "Damn you for leaving me here."
Her shoes weren't the most ideal for this secret expedition but she simply had to get away from Castle Leoch while the Laird was occupied with a business outing. It was very rare that Colum left the castle. She had sent him along with an ointment that would abate any inflammation in his lower spine so he wouldn't be needing her services for the next few days and she was most grateful for the personal time it afforded her.
Court and its festivities had filled the great hall at Castle Leoch but Claire hadn't any involvement in it. Stuffing the pockets of her dress with rolls of bread, a cube of venison, and a block of cheese, she had retired to her room before the evening arose, feigning incapacity due to her monthly courses to avoid attending court.
Men were absolutely doltish when it came to the affairs of a woman's uterus. You could dab the corner of your eye daintily with a handkerchief and tell them snakes sprouted from between your thighs once a week every month and they would believe it. All men treat it as ghastly business, best left to a woman to handle alone and discreetly. Formidable Highlander warriors were no exception to the assumptive ignorance of their gender and cowardice in the face of things about women they didn't understand.
Hosting court at a time like this was remarkably incautious. Truly, how thoughtless could Colum be when food could go scarce at any moment? A peacock-y ostentatious display to appease a guest of honor felt more absurd than exciting. It only roused annoyance in Claire rather than inspired thrill like it seemed to for the other castle dwellers. Why, the walls themselves were vibrating as everyone began to fuss and twirl around the halls.
Before she successfully sprung her plan of attack, Colum had told her that it was vital she involve herself in the social atmosphere of court this time, as she needed to make her acquaintance with the honored guest.
The last time court had been held at Leoch, it had been in the honor of a Duke whom Claire had found to be boisterous, garish, and vulgar. The time before that had been when Claire herself arrived in the company of her uncle.
In full truth, she went through the trouble of evasion because she didn't want to be trussed up like a Giving Thanks turkey being placed in the center of the dining table. She didn't want Mrs. Fitz in her hair yanking her snarling curls to resemble some sort of elegant hairstyle and she didn't want to deal with the indiscreet stares and unsubtle gossip from the women and men at the tables. She always sat alone in the farthest corner of the room and yet she was still often the center of very unwanted attention. She hated having to endure that very much. The honored guest would have to wait!
When she first came through Port Skye with her uncle, they were embosomed by the eager and invitational energy of Clan Mackenzie. Uncle Lambert had a fascination that lingered into a fixation on the cultural links between Vikings and Scottish Highlanders. He wanted to study Norse-Scotch artifacts up close and learn about the Celtic practices of the Highlanders, how it shaped the people and what was of tangible value to them. He was working on Great Research, as he loved to call it, and the Highlands had been the key of many, to completing his pursuit.
He had picked this place because it was said to be the most beautiful castle among all the Highlander clan lands. And it really had been a sight to behold, though nothing in comparison to the ingeniously structured mud mosques of West Africa and tear drop shaped palaces in the East of Europe, if Claire had anything to say about it. Large castles flooded her veins with exhilaration nonetheless. She was British, after all.
But the novelty of Castle Leoch had eventually worn off of Claire like a shiny penny turned dull and green from perspiration and oxidization. It was exacerbated by the fact that she didn't like to stay in one place for too long, and her stay here had long been exhausted.
Her last conversation with her uncle had been about leaving Scotland, in fact.
"When will we leave, Lamby? Hasn't some place else tickled your fancy?"
He had pat her knee absently while a tobacco pipe hung between his lips as he scribbled onto a map.
"Settle down, bee. You know how long it takes to obtain a Pass through Port. We've discussed already that we mean to stay here for quite a bit of time. Besides, I thought you were enjoying the herb gardens here, bee?"
'Bee' had been her uncle's pet name for her because she was always buzzing around flowers and herbs ever since she was a teenager when she first took up a great affection for botanical studies. Claire had learned to combine it with her practices in medicine, fusing together a unique approach of surgical and herbaceous talent that set her apart as a healer so much so, it earned her a permanent spot as Clan Mackenzie's healer; a spot she was forbidden to budge from.
There came a great measure of recompense for being held against your will while doing something you have a fathomless passion for.
Claire swatted a cluster of midges away, though they hadn't yet acquainted their selves with her skin, she certainly wasn't going to give them a moment to consider it. Cautiously, she gathered her grey shawl closer to her shoulders, covering her bosom that was exposed by the cut of her dress. She would have worn one of her buttoned dresses but they were in a chest waiting to be taken to the laundry. More preferably, she would've worn britches, but it was so deeply frowned upon for a lady to be seen in pants in this country, all but one pair Claire managed to stash away had been snatched from her and repurposed for the use of the men of the castle.
She grimaced at the memory of it.
At least within her practice of medicine she was free. Free to mix and concoct and slice open and stitch close. Even if her efforts were recurrently met with scowls or initial bouts of opposition. Claire knew that she was a very reliable and efficient healer and as much as these Highlanders tip toed around her or liked to think sometimes that they had better ideas than she, deep down, they knew it too. Her surgery saw traffic every day and that was sufficient proof alone.
"Mistress?"
A voice of deep yet curious timber shocked Claire out of her very musings and she jumped, shrieking as she staggered over the pebbles and lost her footing.
"Ah- Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!" the words fell out her mouth in an anxious fitted jumble.
She turned around to glower at her intruder.
"Why, you bloody- Oh."
Good heavens.
A woman of Claire's height, merely a toe raise to six feet, afforded her the lifelong experience of being equal to or sometimes taller than a man. She was the same height as her uncle by the time she was a teenager. It was an uncomfortable experience most of the time, as it was always piercingly evident that a man didn't like to feel overtaken by a woman. This was hardly Claire's fault that her genetics made her this way, but such were the flow of things. And it was unrelentingly compromising for her.
To her surprise, this was a man Claire found that she had to tilt her head back and wind her eyes upwards to see. He was a large man too, by way of muscular mass. She could tell from how his tweed coat clung to his broad shoulders. Scottish, as obvious by his Highlander wardrobe. He wore a kilt with a tartan print she wasn't familiar with. Not a Mackenzie. A visitor, then.
Not a bandit either, it seemed. His clothes weren't ragged or torn nor was he in disguise with a mask with weapons drawn. He wore a brooch made of fine silver and it was pinned close to his shoulder where his tartan was wrapped across his torso. His dirk and sword were strapped to his sides but his hands were nowhere near them.
He pulled his grey wool tam off his head to reveal large red curls spiraling from his scalp, a miscellany of sharp cinnamon, rich scarlet, and bright copper all in one. It was a rather fascinating combination of ginger, no doubt brought to fruition by some sort of genetic war between one ginger parent and one dark brown haired parent.
"Is there something that you want? Do you require my services?" Claire asked. Rationality whispered that this man, no matter how smartly dressed, still might attack her. But it had whistled right out her other ear. The man had the certainty of kindness in his eyes and a calm, respectful hesitance in his stance. There were neither signs of rabidity nor predation.
"Nay, I-" the man's breath was caught. "A Sassenach?"
Oh just bloody great, another superstitious prejudiced Scot.
He caught the offended expression on her face and his eyebrows lowered ruefully. "Sorry. Colum Mackenzie told me ye were French. So I expected a French accent. He didnae mention yer Britishness. Usually dinna see any of yer folk around here unless they're with Briton's patrollers. I've never met a British woman before, if ye want to ken the truth."
"I am French by blood. And I haven't lived in Briton since I was a child so I can assure you I'm not nor have I ever been with Briton's patrollers. Are you going to avoid me like the plague, now? Or will you stare at me as if I have barnacles stuck to my face?" Claire challenged the man, the feeling of defensiveness arousing itself in her like the quick burst of a powder keg.
"No, no, I, dinna have much of a say in that anyhow," he made a sheepish expression which looked rather adorable, an incredible accomplishment for a man that was strikingly handsome. And handsome he was. She didn't really have a choice but to acknowledge it. It accosted her, nearly. "We're to work together."
"Oh, are we? And just who the hell are you?" Claire folded her arms into each other, doing her best to appear imposing to this redheaded giant.
He stepped closer to her and she made out the orange, nearly blond, light prickles of hair around his face, accentuating the path of his high cheekbones down, cleft chin, and, as her eyes inevitably followed, to his perfectly carved pink lips. Said pink lips were stretched into a warm and obliging smile.
"I'm James Fraser. Stand-in Master of Agriculture for Clan Mackenzie, Mistress Beauchamp."
This was the honored guest she had avoided? Claire considered whether she regretted her decision or not. They were going to meet regardless. At least she would not be inconvenienced by a large and nosey crowd.
She had never seen turquoise eyes before, and this James Fraser was in possession of a rather striking pair of turquoise eyes.
"Oh," Claire said, dumbly. She shook her head. "Shit. I'm Claire Beauchamp, Healer of Clan Mackenzie." Here against my will, she neglected to add.
She let silence follow, anticipating him to chastise her for her foul language and to insist upon it being unlady-like and that she ought to have her 'arse skelped by her husband', as she was told often by men and women here, to which she would then say that she isn't married and he ought to mind his own bloody business.
But such a remark never came. In fact, his eyes began to glitter with something Claire could only liken to enjoyment. What the bleeding Christ? Was he amused by her coarse language?
"I ken fine who ye are, Mistress Beauchamp. Although...Roosevelt? Dinna ken any bible or religion where Jesus goes by such a name," the man chuckled. A fine sense of humor was in his possession, then.
"It's...a thing my uncle says- said."
"Catholic, are ye?" he asked. So full of questions, this man was.
"Yes. Now how did you come to find me here?" she had a few of her own.
"Ehm, Rupert Mackenzie directed me here."
Of-bloody-course he did, that lard gutted bastard. Rupert was one of Colum's infinite collective of cousins and an inconspicuous log-head that Colum had likely sacked on Claire to spy on and report for activities. He only did it when he was out of town, the weasel. It wasn't too much of a challenge to lose the man. He was an uncoordinated drunkard and a lecher, and when he wasn't gurgling whisky, he was trying to get a peek down Claire's breasts or find some other woman who was willing to wet his beak. Today of all days, he chose to have the wherewithal to commit to Colum's orders of tracking her down. That absolute prick.
"Ye ken we were meant to make our acquaintance at court but the Laird informed me ye werena fit for the occasion. That ye had taken up wi' the affairs of yer monthly courses. I trust ye're doing better now? It doesna last for more than a few days," the man said with an impish look.
"And how in god's name do you know that?" Claire's stony expression shifted into astonishment.
"I have a sister forbye, yer reputation precedes ye, which means ye're a verra skilled healer. One would ken how to treat such conditions expertly. It isnae precisely my place to speak on such matters, given I am but a man. But I'm no' a fool either, Sassenach." He flashed her a smirk. He was pleased with his deliverance.
Claire raised her eyebrows and her cheeks simmered. Her mouth fell agape, unsure whether it was due to her impression with his comfort with speaking of matters most Highlanders blanched and stuttered when broached with, or offense at how immediately he saw through her fallacy.
And did he just call her Sassenach again?
"For all it's worth, I willna go ratting ye out like some snot nosed bairn eager for a prize. Ye have yer reasons, I trust," the man nodded sympathetically.
"I most certainly do, Mister Fraser," Claire retorted. "I quite appreciate your forbearance."
He blinked and made a happy grunting sound. She never knew such a noise existed before that moment. What an invention.
"I suppose this means we've made our acquaintance now, Mistress Beauchamp," his fingers tapped jovially on his belt.
"Well, I..." Claire looked around, her words momentarily losing their selves, "I suppose we have. Am I expected to give you anything in return for your discretion, Fraser?"
"Och- nay!" his eyebrows creased together. "I meant it when I said I kent ye had yer reasons. I dinna want anything in return. I'm no' that sort of man, Mistress Beauchamp. And speaking in candor, just between the two of us, I'm no' exactly happy to be here, either."
When in god's name had she mentioned being unhappy? Was she made of glass? Had her entrapment acted as a buffing tool, polishing her varnish away until the cracks could be seen with the naked eye? He could see what was incontrovertible. She wasn't happy here. She desired nothing more than to leave this country on the next ship set to leave Port Skye.
"Well," Fraser said before Claire could respond, swinging his tam around his index finger before propping it back over his ruddy curls, "I'll leave ye to yer wee creek. I've got to get back to the castle and fill my belly or else I'll suckle on one of these puir wee pebbles."
He made a curtsy, an impressively graceful execution given his sizable mass.
She watched the man walk up the steep and pebbled hill with a lack of difficulty that made her envious.
An inscrutable intensity had abruptly taken up inside of her. She realized she was panting, words not coming to her, but she was suddenly anxious.
She didn't understand what compelled her to do so, and a part of her felt rather foolish given she'd come here to get some fresh air away from the stuffiness of the castle, but she began to walk unsteadily over the rocks.
Just who the hell are you, James Fraser? And why have I suddenly found myself drawn inexplicably to you after we've just met ?
"Wait, sir!" she called after the giant Scot. He listened, a flash of red spinning as he froze and turned to her. "I shall accompany you on your return to Leoch. I'm famished as well. And I suppose we unhappy pair ought to get better acquainted on the way there." Claire said, groping her skirts as she struggled to catch up with her new partner.
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~
"I'm nearly out of aloe, Mrs. Fitz," Claire sighed warningly as she dipped a spoon into the jar. The goop of translucent concoction slide off the slope of the spoon onto the small rag Claire had wrapped around her finger and she began dabbing sparingly at the angry red blotch on the woman's hand.
Mrz. Fitz had a natural cozy and affable ambience that extended to her physicality. Her hands were always warm and doughy like milk bread rolls. Her dark and narrow eyes might appear unwelcoming to a stranger but within moments of conversation, you'd learn it was because she was concerned for the wellbeing of every person that crossed her threshold and when she took in your appearance, it was with the hopeful intent of finding anything amiss that none other than she could balm. So untypical was it that Mrs. Fitz needed tending to. It was always her that was doing the tending and that was how the plump woman liked it.
"I find myself having to chastise you more and more to be mindful around the ovens."
"Aye, aye, Mistress Claire, but the bannocks willnae bake themselves, ye ken? Faulty ovens or no', what Himself desires, Himself shall get." Mrs. Fitz placated, hissing as the burn on her hand inflamed with the contact from the rag.
"Can't you let your granddaughter use the ovens instead?" Claire frowned as she continued dabbing.
"Och, Laoghaire? One should think so, aye? But she's o' flighty nature. Why, this morning, I sent her on laundry duty for the castle because she cannae be idle for too long or else she'll wander into trouble. And ye ken what I found the lass doing?"
Mrs. Fitz paused, her thin blonde eyebrows raised to Claire with expectation. Claire realized she was supposed to give an indication. So she nodded, gesturing for her to continue.
"Sniffing- yes- sniffing a man's shirt," Mrs. Fitz nodded with emphasis of each word. "She's taken op an infatuation wi' someone here. 'Tis verra crude business, ye ken. She ought tae learn what a woman should do, as she'll be seventeen come Yuletide. But weel, she's as fanciful as a wee'an. She simply isna ready for that life."
Claire knew who Laoghaire Mackenzie was.
She hadn't spent a great deal of time around teenage girls growing up. Her childhood and teen years were collectively spent in the company of adults and elders, professors, doctors, and explorers. Claire was very independent and self-sufficient as a teenage girl. She slept often on the ground either under an open sky or in a tent rather than on a bed. She hunted her own food and learned how to shoot while she was in the single digits. What ever she had pursued, she had obtained.
She gathered the typicality of a teenager from other adults' discussions and fictional novels she'd read in her spare time. In some ways, Laoghaire acted as one would expect from someone her age. But there were other things about her that presented itself in ways that were inexplicably troublesome.
She stared at everyone with bug eyes and flitting mannerisms that made Claire wonder if you placed your ear to her forehead, could you hear wind gusting through the empty space behind her skull? She was always seeking guidance and orders yet she did not seem to listen to a thing anyone said to her either. She tended to abandon her tasks to go meddle with something else. She also often was in great trouble. Just last month she was beaten in the great hall and Claire had to make a salve to soothe the temporary welts on her back while she wept declaring the cruel injustices she endured. Later she found out she was whipped for making advances on a newly married lad and embarrassing both him and his wife. She had denied it, but Claire knew it to be true. The girl was troubling.
Sniffing men's dirty clothes were interpreted as a sign of infatuation? Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.
"I don't know why Colum insists on forcing the kitchen maids to serve bannocks," Claire murmured through tight lips, "We should be conserving the oats and grains for porridge. It's perfectly filling on its own and it may soon be the only thing we can depend on to eat."
"Himself kens best, Mistress," Mrs. Fitz said, her eyebrows drawing together, reflecting how seriously she took Colum's word. Had it been any other clan chief, then Claire would've been impressed with the devotion Mrs. Fitz displayed. But it was Colum, her imprisoner. He didn't sparkle with nobility in her eyes like he seemed to before the people's eyes.
"If you say so..." Claire answered tightly, dabbing continuously over the burn. She got up from the bench they were sitting on and went to one of the oak shelves where she kept rolls of boiled clean strips of linen stacked neatly on top of each other. She unfurled just enough fabric to wrap around Mrs. Fitz' chubby hand, snipping it with a scissor. She coated the inside of the linen with a thin layer of aloe and began folding it over her injured hand.
"You're to wash this burn occasionally in ice cold water. It will soothe the inflammation and prevent bacterial infection. You're to return to me every day to check your linens should I need to redress them and check for blistering until I see fit for you to return to the ovens, have I made myself clear?"
"Aye, Mistress Claire," Mrs. Fitz nodded. "I'll follow yer every word."
"If the pain brings you terrible discomfort, I can brew some rose hip tea for you or give you a dash of peppermint oil."
"Aye...aye... Ohhh," Mrs. Fitz perked up. "Did I no' tell ye whose shirt it was that my granddaughter got caught sniffing?"
"No," Claire answered as she tucked the tails of the wrap into a fold. She didn't care for gossip very much. Not that anyone here was keen to share scandalous details with a Sassenach. She appreciated that Mrs. Fitz never made her feel excluded, though because the woman's kindness was distributed equally to anyone in her presence, it wasn't enough to make Claire feel special, or wanted. Still, she found her curiosity had piqued for once. "Who did it belong to?"
"It belonged to the new guest of Clan Mackenzie. Ye missed his arrival and introduction in the great hall when ye were indisposed because o' yer monthly courses. Ye puir lass. Ye should have seen the picture he made. He makes an auld woman like meself blush, imagine what the lad does to a lass's heart such as my own darling Laoghaire."
"Might this lad be James Fraser?" Claire asked, wondering why her ears grew warm at the tips when she said his name. She schooled her face and tone of voice to appear just a little underneath impassive.
"Ye've met?" Mrs. Fitz's eyes widened. The lines etched into her skin with age appeared greatly prominent as she expressed shock at Claire's small reveal.
"Oh," Claire's head dipped, not wanting to lose her countenance before the woman's eyes. She hadn't considered up until this moment that it was in fact a secret that they made their acquaintance down at the creek after she had snuck away from the castle in pursuit of momentary privacy and to ease her nerves. "Um, yes. When I was looking for herbs the other day."
It had actually been a couple of days since she last saw James Fraser. The walk back to Leoch from the creek hadn't been long. The creek was only a breath away from the castle, so they hadn't the lengthiest conversation. Yet, their chatter had been enjoyable and easy. She had ended up laughing at a joke he made about bees and again about Colum's warblers and finches. Thinking about it made her flush with feelings lodged in the privacy of her chest.
James Fraser made an impression on her very quickly. She had no right to make claims on the man. But damn that Laoghaire child and her sniffings of his clothes. She had best keep her distance if she knew what was good for her. She surely didn't want to relive the experience of being thrashed before an audience at Leoch.
Suddenly Laoghaire's appearance in Claire's mind had morphed from an irresponsible air headed child to a salacious little brat. Claire's fingers buckled into fists as she rolled her hands over her pleated brown skirt.
Footsteps could be heard behind her head and a coincidentally and pleasantly familiar Scottish voice burred through the surgery.
"Mistress Beauchamp? Hope I didna startle ye this time."
Claire turned around and greeted the owner of the voice with a smile. Her hands unclenched. As did the rest of her body that she hadn't realized had wound itself up at Mrs. Fitz's gossip.
"Not this time," she said to him with a widening smile. "Hello, Mister Fraser."
He beamed- yes, beamed at her, making that pleased grunting sound that mystified Claire once more.
No tam nor jacket in sight today. He wore a vest that was dark cinnamon like some strands of hair on his head and his undershirt was ruffled, light splotches of dirt around the cuffs and sleeves. He'd been working the fields. Of course that was why she hadn't seen him since that day.
"Hello, Mrs. Fitz." James Fraser greeted the other woman in the room, who Claire had forgotten was even there for a moment.
"Good day, lad. Are ye hungry?" Mrs. Fitz got up as a dutiful caretaker would, already refastening the ties of her apron. "I was just about to head back to the kitchen. I can fix ye op a plate o' bannocks and some warm honey and milk for a glaze."
"Nay, ma'am," Jamie raised a deferential hand. "I'm no' hungry. I need to speak wi' Mistress Beauchamp."
"Oh..." Mrs. Fitz's eyes swung carefully between them. Claire tapped her foot guiltily, though she had no reason to feel so. "I see. I'll be out o' yer way, then. Thank ye again, Mistress Claire..." she began fussing in hushed Gaelic as she walked out the door.
It was the two of them now. Again. His size became overbearingly apparent and it started to assault her senses. Claire didn't know if she felt intimidated or aroused by it. Perhaps an interesting amalgamation of both? The foreignness yet potency of it threatened to make her delirious. Neither of them spoke, and silence had endured for moments. There was that look in his turquoise eyes that was the same as before. The look of interest and reticence all wrapped in one.
Claire found herself twining her fingers together. The air had evolved into a thick constitution, nearly tactile.
"Ye've a fine surgery, Mistress Beauchamp," he finally spoke. His eyes danced around the room appraisingly and Claire knew that he had truly meant it.
"Thank you," Claire grinned and shook her head deferentially, "I wouldn't say it's mine, though. The former healer here, Davie Beaton, had arranged everything like this. All of the apothecary cupboards and surgical tables are as he left them after his untimely death, according to Colum. It didn't seem right to change it. The people here appreciate the memory of Beaton being upheld. It brings a familiar warmth of a trusted caretaker back to them, eases the distraction of a strange 'Sesneck' woman treating them."
"I suppose there's bits of yerself here at the least, though," he postulated. There was a prying look and a half smirk on his face.
"Well...some things," Claire admitted. "Herbs, jars, linen, needles. Nothing of outstanding significance. It wouldn't be very different if I weren't here at all."
Fraser made a disapproving expression and he shook his head. His red curls appeared mostly cinnamon in the musky lighting of the surgery. The windows in here were docked low, as the room was located below ground, so they only caught few glimpses of natural lumination at this time of day. It could get very dank and stuffy in the surgery but with Fraser standing there, it wasn't so noticeable at the time.
He was a force in and of itself. She found that her eyes had to acclimatize to him. In his pleated kilt and buckled black leather boots, he didn't look like the other Highlanders here, despite him wearing the common traditional garb. He looked more like a handsome rogue coming to whisk her away on a swashbuckling adventure against ghoulish pirates and twenty-tentacled sea monsters.
It was how his face was set. It was sculpted in a way that would've made Michelangelo give up his hammer and chisel. He had a slight slant to his eyes and they were set firmly beneath his brows, ruddy like his curls. And he had a cleft chin, which stretched out into a sharp and handsome jawline. His cheekbones were pronounced and when he moved about the room, the shadows fell on his face like the buttery finish of a baroque painting.
He was- aptly put- stunning.
"I canna say I agree. I've never been here before, as ye ken from our talk before. Yer presence here feels right to me."
Claire didn't know what to say to that. Her body had responded, though. A warmth conceived itself in her womb and it danced and kicked lightly. Oh god. Speak, Beauchamp.
"Thank you."
He made a Scottish noise of satisfaction.
"So," Claire screwed the cover back on to her nearly empty jar of aloe, trying not to mentally fret over how much it would cost to replace it when the need inevitably arose. "What did you wish to discuss?"
Fraser stepped closer to her, shadowing her as she began to tidy a few stray things up. "I need to take account of yer herbs and how ye like to grow them. I would like to learn about the things ye need and rely on."
"I have a herb garden here," Claire stated.
"Aye, Colum told me ye carved one out for yourself in a wee patch of land he granted to ye for use. If ye dinna mind, can ye take me there?"
Claire raised her eyebrows. "You want to see it?"
Fraser reached into his satchel, procuring a medium sized leather-clad book. He smiled eagerly, his teeth without flaw and whiter than she's ever seen on any man in the Highlands. "Aye. If it's nay trouble. Do ye have a lot of patients to see today?"
"No," Claire answered. And damn them if she did. This man wanted to see her garden. The one thing about her sentencing at Castle Leoch that meant most to her. No one had cared to ask about her garden before. When the land began to turn, she had moaned to Colum that her plants were no longer thriving in the uncooperative soil. But the Laird was occupied with extra affairs as always. So keen to keep her chained to this place, yet treating her and her interests as trite matters Despite the fact that he himself relied on her garden.
"But the herb garden's a bit of a walk away. You've clearly been working these past few days, I wouldn't want you to overtire yourself."
They both looked down at some of patches of dirt on his clothes. She hoped she hadn't offended the man. It veritably wasn't her intention.
His shoulders quaked with a light laugh. It was a small chortling noise yet so full of unoffended joviality. It made Claire break into a blushing beam.
"Dinna fash on my account. I was only doing a bit o' surveying and light land preparations. I'm a farmer, Sassenach. It takes a fair great deal to exhaust a man like me. The real work hasna even begun yet. Asides, I like yer company. I hadna gotten a chance to speak to ye in days and I've some free time now. Even if we are doing something related to work."
He liked her company. It brought warm pleasure to her to know that she had made just as much an impression on him as he did on her.
"Well in that case, I'll bring my personal record book along as well. It's a ledger of all the herbs I've been growing here for the past couple of years. Along with my original garden plans."
They received stares when they walked beside each other through the castle walls. Claire wasn't unaccustomed to trailing eyes here. But she realized rather quickly that she and Fraser would swiftly occupy the topic of many conversations and rumors, now having been seen walking together in synchronous mirth. She wondered if he too had come to the same conclusion. If he noticed all the looks darting their way, he didn't betray an indication. He stayed devoted in stride beside her, curls waggling with each step that he took, arms moving animatedly as he asked her about when she began her garden and she responded in like kind and enthusiasm.
Prying eyes be damned!
They left the castle and trekked over the open brushing glades to their destination. The earth was a gentle cushion beneath their feet. The sun was obscured behind the cottony density of white patches of clouds. It wouldn't rain today, it seemed.
It was a shame, Claire thought. Harvesting season was right upon them and the only thing truly thriving at the moment was inedible fields of heather and moss. There was a light fragrance both woody and fresh that came about this time of year. It sparkled in the air as though honeysuckle was trickling from the sky and she discovered that she felt unusually joyous today.
They came upon large sequoia trees and a little trodden path. From this distance, the castle looked shrunken and small. Claire was always amused by the visual. The land was far patchier here. There was mostly dirt and curry-colored dead grass. Tufty fistfuls of fresh green grass sprouted from the ground like overgrown hairs in an old man's ears, a sign that nature had still been trying its best, despite the abuse of the ground.
"Here we are," Claire announced almost timidly. "It's not much now. Most of it had been harvested already so it's rather barren. But there are still some things here or there. I planted flowers last spring, hyacinth and marigold but they've died out..."
There were straw dividers tacked into the ground, meant to section each portion of herbs by growth rate and usage. Some things couldn't be grown too close together because they were genetically incompatible. There was lots of trial and error involved with the running of this garden but with determination, Claire had found the perfect stride. Until the land began working against her, that is. Colum wouldn't offer her a new patch of land to start a new herb garden either. Not that it would've mattered if he had.
"I imagine it was a bonny arrangement."
"I suppose it was. It's the first garden I've ever grown. I've had a fascination with horticulture and herbaceous studies since I was a young girl but, well, I was raised by my uncle who was an archaeologist and a traveler so I never stayed in one place long enough to truly practice it in the manner I would've liked."
"'Was'? He's dead then?" the tall Scot asked.
"Yes," Claire answered. Her throat tightened and she felt a mournful pang thrusting up beneath the surface of her chest and she blinked rapidly to tame the salted burn in her eyes. "Two years ago."
"I'm truly sorry to hear it. I ken the pain of that kind of loss." Fraser's voice and face was ripe with sincerity. "To have someone who loved and cared for you just ripped away... I'm sad to hear it, Mistress Beauchamp."
"I...thank you, Mister Fraser." She repaid his words of condolence with a grateful smile. It had been quite some time since anyone had spared consideration for the loss of her dear uncle Lambert. It was hard to believe that Leoch had once been so welcoming for the excitement of new visitors. Her uncle was held in high esteem, his prestige garnering marvel and respect from the castle's inhabitants and Colum him self. It didn't matter that he was a 'Sassenach traveler'.
Then he died. And Colum had uttered a few words of pity while Claire's body crumbled to the ground and heaved. The sincerity hadn't been there. Not like it was there with Mister Fraser. There was no pretense or words carried out in impersonal and unfeeling protocol. There was a shared understanding and knowledge of a pain most cruel.
Something caught Claire's eye a bit of a distance away. Out in the fuzzy stalks of a grass, a man stood, unmoving.
People didn't often come near her garden. They didn't have use or understanding for the things she grew here and there seemed to be an unspoken yet adamantly established consensus that the belongings of the Sassenach healer were not to be toyed with.
"Is someone bloody watching us?" Claire swung her hand towards the figure.
Fraser's curls on his head lopped to the side as he looked over to where she pointed. A noise of recognition emanated from the depths of his chest.
"'Tis my godfather, Murtagh Fraser. Ye havnay met him yet but. Weel, he's my shadow. He watches over me even when I dinna ask him to."
Claire squinted unapprovingly at the man, this Murtagh, who stood as still as a cheetah on its haunches, hundreds of miles of speed and prowess trapped in muscles and fur. She didn't like being followed. She didn't like when Colum's men did it and she found it made little difference that Fraser's man did the same.
"Don't you find it rather harrowing at times?"
"To tell ye the truth? No. He's done it since I was a wee lad, so I dinna really notice it," Fraser shook his head. "Does it make ye uncomfortable, lass? I can send him away."
""No," Claire shook her head, much to her own surprise. "I only wanted to know who he was."
"I must ask, why is yer garden so far away from the castle? It's a journey walking up these slopes of hills for bitty herbs. Could Colum no' have picked place with less distance for ye?"
"Do forgive the harshness of my tongue," Claire answered, "But that man is outright conniving and has the heart of a bastard." Fraser chuckled at that. "I believe he did it on purpose, to prove a lady such as myself couldn't handle the distance and exertion. Not to mention my lack of gardening experience led me to accept this position very eagerly. I wouldn't have a say, though I truly wish I did. It would be easier if it were nearer to the castle. The trees here grow bent and lurching and sometimes they rob the herbs of necessary sunlight."
"There's nothing to forgive, Mistress. Our feelings arena dissimilar. I dinna think I've mentioned it to ye. Colum's my uncle. As is Dougal. They're my mother's brothers. Being here as their guest is my first time meeting them, actually."
Claire was taken aback. "Really? You've never met your uncles before? That sounds..." Well, not as preposterous as it should. She never met her relatives either, save for her uncle who carted her across the globe with him.
"It's a long story..." Fraser ducked his head in a furtive but failed attempt at hiding his blush.
Claire glanced towards the lurking godfather figure in the heather a few walks away from them and returned her gaze considerately to Fraser.
She leaned closer to him, a motion that made her realize their shoulders had been already touching this whole time. "Tell me."
"My clan is Clan Fraser. Ye ken Broch Mordha? Tis a weel kent village in this part of the Highlands and that's where my ancestral home is located. It's on Fraser lands. My father, Brian Fraser is Laird of Clan Fraser. I am to assume his position in a few year's time."
She was startled by this. A gasp escaped her parted lips and her eyelashes batted several times. She thought he was jesting for a moment. But there was a conclusive seriousness in his eyes. This man wasn't just a farmer at all, bloody hell! He nearly had as much power as Colum Mackenzie himself!
"My mother was Ellen Mackenzie," he said soberly.
"Colum and Dougal's sister?" Claire inquired, realizing she heard the name before. It was known that the chief and war chief of Clan Mackenzie had three sisters. Two of which were dead and a third had been living a life of bountiful affluence in The Colony, many waters beyond Briton's grasp.
"Aye. She and my father marrit against Colum's wishes and spited Clan Grant in the midst of it. Ye see, they had a contract between them and my mother was to be promised to a suitor from Clan Grant. Instead, she chose my father and aligned herself wi' Clan Fraser. My uncles banished her from Castle Leoch and they unofficially disowned me and my siblings. It's no' something I'm proud of. It makes me right angry to tell ye the truth. I dinna like to dwell on it."
"You needn't be embarrassed over that, Mister Fraser," Claire said. "It's hardly your fault."
"I ken that. Tis just..." he exhaled self consciously. "Ye must think my family mad."
"To tell you the truth, Fraser, I don't at all. I feel less guilty about my verbal besmirching of your relatives now. How unusually cruel it is to punish the innocent for the sake of wounded pride."
"It wasna just wounded pride, Mistress Beauchamp. I ken what promises mean to clan chiefs. My mother and father's choice cost Clan Mackenzie a great deal. But I ken that family should never turn their backs on each other either. So ye see, I'm torn. It feels like a betrayal to my mam and da, even though my da encouraged my being here. He kens that I am no' going to turn away when help is needed. And if I am to help, best it be something I'm good at, something I find joy in. Working land takes my mind off things. Leave me stranded on an island somewhere wi'out family or prospects and I willna take it as entirely hopeless. As long as there's dirt and I can grow things out of it, I will be content."
Claire felt her heart straining from his words.
"You're the only person that understands, then," she whispered. He met her eyes with a tense nod of affirmation.
"I've erm, told ye a great deal. Will ye keep it safe, Mistress Beauchamp?"
Of bloody course?! she started to blurt. His expression was so earnest it nearly broke her heart.
"You're the only person here that speaks truly to me, Mister Fraser. I've no one else to tell, even if I wanted to make it anyone's business but my own."
Claire had plenty cause to be appalled by how unguarded she was being with the man. It's only that this man was so bloody easy to talk to and he had mutual regards for her as well by indication of how he was more than forthcoming his self. She would gain nothing by betraying what he entrusted to her to another soul. It was the absoluteness of him. She knew what it felt like to have your wings ripped from the bones of your back and be rendered unable to heal properly. To be torn between hatred and humanity. She vowed to guard James Fraser's revelations to her. It belonged to her now. He had given her that. She would hold it close to her.
They sank to a kneeling position as their attentions shifted to the herb garden.
She named the plants to him in Latin, pointing over the illustrations in her book so he could see what went where. He wrote in his own book, penning everything she had told him. When her eyes flitted over to his book, she noticed small annotations in both Latin and Gaelic, along with scrabbles of arithmetic. Measurements, they appeared to be.
He had taken liberties as well, turning over some of her pages and asking her to describe what some of her herbs were used for. Each time he came close, she breathed him in. He smelled sharp and sweet and fresh, like the earth around them, yet distinctly fragrant and refreshing. Their fingers brushed over each other frequently while they compared notes and skimmed through each other's pages. Each time their fingers met, so did their eyes. They had mirroring blushes.
"Dinna dismay, Mistress Beauchamp," Fraser said later. "We can resurrect yer herb garden and ye can properly practice yer medicine and healing again. I'll see to it. We both will."
It was the way he had made it just as much his undertaking as it was hers that spread warmth in her bosom.
Then there was a squelching grumbling sound coming from his belly and he made a rather horrified expression at first. Both of their cheeks ballooned with laughter and giggles.
"I lied to Mrs. Fitz," Fraser said once the two of them finally got a hold of their selves. "I didna eat at all this morning. Truth is, I was keen to walk wi' ye. I brought bread and cheese and a bit o' whisky to wash it down. I'm happy to share it wi' ye, Mistress Beauchamp."
"Thank you," Claire gnawed her lip, appreciation for him fluttering in her belly, along with the bite of hunger. She watched as the giant Scot pulled the food from his satchel, a cloth tied around the small bundle. "Please, call me Claire?"
"Only if ye agree to call me Jamie?" he broke a piece of bread off for her and a small block of cheese and handed them to her.
Jamie? It was perfect. He looked exactly like a Jamie. Sweet like a lad but strong, firm, and intelligent like a man. Her redheaded Jamie Fraser.
You can't make claims on the man, Beauchamp, her conscience scolded her. Try and stop me, she dared back at herself.
"All right, Jamie," Claire said, warming the name on her tongue.
"All right, Claire." Jamie said, her name a rumbling whisper in his throat. His turquoise eyes were shimmering like a river under bright moonlight. It made her shiver.
~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~