“I imagine they were,” I said, amused.

“On the other hand,” I remarked sotto voce to Jamie as she left with the baby, “if their parents think he’s demon-born, and you’re his grandfather …”

“Well, you’re his grannie, Sassenach,” Jamie said dryly. “It might be you. But aye, I’d prefer not to have them dwell on that aspect of the matter.”

“No,” I agreed. “Though—do any of them know, do you think, that Marsali isn’t your daughter by blood? They must know about Fergus.”

“It wouldna much matter,” he said. “They think wee Henri’s a changeling, in any case.”

“How do you know that?”

“People talk,” he said briefly. “Are ye feeling well in yourself, Sassenach?”

Relieved of the baby’s weight, I had put back the covers a bit to let in air. Jamie stared at me in disapproval.

“Christ, I can count all your ribs! Right through your shift!”

“Enjoy the experience while you can,” I advised him tartly, though I felt a sharp pang of hurt. He seemed to sense this, for he took my hand, tracing the lines of the deep blue veins that ran across the back of it.

“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach,” he said, more gently. “I didna mean it that way. Here, Mrs. Bug’s brought ye something tasty, I expect.” He lifted the lid off a small covered dish, frowned at the substance in it, then stuck a cautious finger in and licked it.

“Maple pudding,” he announced, looking happy.

“Oh?” I had no appetite at all yet, but maple pudding sounded at least innocuous, and I made no objection as he scooped up a spoonful, guiding it toward my mouth with the concentration of a man flying an airliner.

“I can feed myself, you kn—” He slipped the spoon between my lips, and I resignedly sucked the pudding off it. Amazing revelations of creamy sweetness immediately exploded in my mouth, and I closed my eyes in minor ecstasy, recalling.

“Oh, God,” I said. “I’d forgotten what good food tastes like.”

“I knew ye hadn’t been eating,” he said with satisfaction. “Here, have more.”

I insisted upon taking the spoon myself, and managed half the dish; Jamie ate the other half, at my urging.

“You may not be as thin as I am,” I said, turning my hand over and grimacing at the sight of my protruding wrist bones, “but you haven’t been eating a lot, either.”

“I suppose not.” He scraped the spoon carefully round the bowl, retrieving the last bits of pudding, and sucked the spoon clean. “It’s been … busy.”

I watched him narrowly. He was being patently cheerful, but my rusty sensibilities were beginning to come back. For some unknowable span of time, I’d had neither energy nor attention for anything that lay outside the fever-racked shell of my body; now I was seeing the small familiarities of Jamie’s body, voice and manner, and becoming reattuned to him, like a slack violin string being tightened in the presence of a tuning fork.

I could feel the vibration of some strain in him, and I was beginning to think it wasn’t all due to my recent near-demise.

“What?” I said.

“What?” He raised his eyebrows in question, but I knew him too well for that. The question alone gave me confidence that I was right.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked, with what patience I could muster. “Is it Brown again? Have you got news of Stephen Bonnet? Or Donner? Or has the white sow eaten one of the children and choked to death?”

That made him smile, at least, though only for a moment.

“Not that,” he said. “She went for MacDonald, when he called a few days ago, but he made it onto the porch in time. Verra agile the Major is, for a man of his age.”

“He’s younger than you are,” I objected.

“Well, I’m agile, too,” he said logically. “The sow hasna got me yet, has she?”

I felt a qualm of unease at his mention of the Major, but it wasn’t news of political unrest or military rumblings that was troubling Jamie; he would have told me that at once. I narrowed my eyes at him again, but didn’t speak.

He sighed deeply.

“I am thinking I must send them away,” he said quietly, and took my hand again.

“Send who away?”

“Fergus and Marsali and the weans.”

I felt a sharp, sudden jolt, as though someone had struck me just below the breastbone, and found it suddenly difficult to draw breath.

“What? Why? And—and where?” I managed to ask.

He rubbed his thumb lightly over my knuckles, back and forth, his eyes focused on the small motion.

“Fergus tried to kill himself, three days ago,” he said very quietly.

My hand gripped his convulsively.

“Holy God,” I whispered. He nodded, and I saw that he was unable to speak for the moment; his teeth were set in his lower lip.

Now it was I who took his hand in both of mine, feeling coldness seep through my flesh. I wanted to deny it, reject the notion utterly—but couldn’t. It sat there between us, an ugly thing like a poisonous toad that neither of us wished to touch.

“How?” I said at last. My voice seemed to echo in the room. I wanted to say, “Are you sure?” but I knew he was.

“With a knife,” he replied literally. The corner of his mouth twitched again, but not with humor. “He said he would have hanged himself, but he couldna tie the rope with one hand. Lucky, that.”

The pudding had formed a small, hard ball, like rubber, that lay in the bottom of my stomach.

“You … found him? Or was it Marsali?”

He shook his head.

“She doesna ken. Or rather, I expect she does, but she’s no admitting it—to either of them.”

“He can’t have been badly wounded, then, or she’d have to know for sure.” My chest still hurt, but the words were coming more easily.

“No. I saw him go past, whilst I was scraping a deer’s hide up on the hill. He didna see me, and I didna call out—I dinna ken what it was that struck me queer about him … but something did. I went on wi’ my work for a bit—I didna want to go far from the house, in case—but it niggled at me.” He let go of my hand and rubbed his knuckles underneath his nose.

“I couldna seem to let go of the thought that something was amiss, and finally I put down my work and went after him, thinking myself all kinds of a fool for it.”

Fergus had headed over the end of the Ridge, and down the wooded slope that led to the White Spring. This was the most remote and secluded of the three springs on the Ridge, called “white” because of the large pale boulder that stood near the head of the pool.

Jamie had come down through the trees in time to see Fergus lie down by the spring, sleeve rolled up and coat folded beneath his head, and submerge his handless left arm in the water.

“I should maybe ha’ shouted then,” he said, rubbing a distracted hand through his hair. “But I couldna really believe it, ken?”

Then Fergus had taken a small boning knife in his right hand, reached down into the pool, and neatly opened the veins of his left elbow, blood blooming in a soft, dark cloud around the whiteness of his arm.

“I shouted then,” Jamie said. He closed his eyes, and scrubbed his hands hard over his face, as though trying to erase the memory of it.

He had run down the hill, grabbed Fergus, jerked him to his feet, and hit him.

“You hit him?”

“I did,” he said shortly. “He’s lucky I didna break his neck, the wee bastard.” Color had begun to rise in his face as he talked, and he pressed his lips tight together.

“Was this after the boys took Henri-Christian?” I asked, my memory of the conversation in the stable with Fergus vividly in mind. “I mean—”

“Aye, I ken what ye mean,” he interrupted. “And it was the day after the lads put Henri-Christian in the creek, aye. It wasna only that, though—not only all the trouble over the wee laddie being a dwarf, I mean.” He glanced at me, his face troubled.

“We talked. After I’d bound up his arm and brought him round. He said he’d been thinking of it for some time; the thing wi’ the bairn only pushed him into it.”