“Verra unfortunate,” MacDonald observed thoughtfully at one point. “That they should have met us together. D’ye think it’s dished your chances of worming your way into their councils? I should give my left ball to have an eye and an ear in that meeting they spoke of, I’ll tell ye that for nothing!”

With a dim sense of wonder, Jamie realized that having made his momentous declaration, overheard by the man whose cause he sought to betray, and then nearly killed by the new allies whose side he sought to uphold—neither side had believed him.

“D’ye ever wonder what it sounds like when God laughs, Donald?” he asked thoughtfully.

MacDonald pursed his lips and glanced at the horizon, where dark clouds swelled just beyond the shoulder of the mountain.

“Like thunder, I imagine,” he said. “D’ye not think so?”

Jamie shook his head.

“No. I think it’s a verra small, wee sound indeed.”

66



THE DARK RISES

I HEARD ALL THE SOUNDS OF the household below, and the rumble of Jamie’s voice outside, and felt entirely peaceful. I was watching the sun shift and glow on the yellowing chestnut trees outside, when the sound of feet came marching up the stairs, steady and determined.

The door flung open and Brianna came in, wind-tousled and bright-faced, wearing a steely expression. She halted at the foot of my bed, leveled a long forefinger at me, and said, “You are not allowed to die.”

“Oh?” I said, blinking. “I didn’t think I was going to.”

“You tried!” she said, accusing. “You know you did!”

“Well, not to say tried, exactly …” I began weakly. If I hadn’t exactly tried to die, though, it was true that I hadn’t quite tried not to, and I must have looked guilty, for her eyes narrowed into blue slits.

“Don’t you dare do that again!” she said, and wheeling in a sweep of blue cloak, stomped out, pausing at the door to say, “BecauseIloveyouandIcan’tdowithoutyou,” in a strangled voice, before running down the stairs.

“I love you too, darling!” I called, the always-ready tears coming to my eyes, but there was no reply, save the sound of the front door closing.

Adso, drowsing in a puddle of sun on the counterpane at my feet, opened his eyes a fraction of an inch at the noise, then sank his head back into his shoulders, purring louder.

I lay back on the pillow, feeling a good deal less peaceful, but somewhat more alive. A moment later, I sat up, put back the quilts, and swung my legs out of bed. Adso abruptly quit purring. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m not going to keel over; your supply of milk and scraps is perfectly safe. Keep the bed warm for me.”

I had been up, of course, and even allowed on short, intensely supervised excursions outside. But no one had let me try to go anywhere alone since before I fell ill, and I was reasonably sure they wouldn’t let me do it now.

I therefore stole downstairs in stockinged feet, shoes in hand, and instead of going through the front door, whose hinges squeaked, or through the kitchen, where Mrs. Bug was working, I slipped into my surgery, opened the window, and—having checked to be sure the white sow was not hanging about below—climbed carefully out.

I felt quite giddy at my escape, a rush of spirits that sustained me for a little way down the path. Thereafter, I was obliged to stop every few hundred feet, sit down, and gasp a bit while my legs recovered their strength. I persevered, though, and at last came to the Christie cabin.

No one was in sight, nor was there any response to my tentative “Hallo!”, but when I knocked at the door, I heard Tom Christie’s voice, gruff and dispirited, bid me enter.

He was at the table, writing, but from the looks of him, ought still to have been in bed. His eyes widened in surprise at sight of me, and he hastily tried to straighten the grubby shawl round his shoulders.

“Mrs. Fraser! Are you—that is—what in the name of God …” Deprived of speech, he pointed at me, eyes round as saucers. I had taken off my broad-brimmed hat when I entered, forgetting momentarily that I looked like nothing so much as an excited bottle brush.

“Oh,” I said, passing a self-conscious hand over my head. “That. You ought to be pleased; I’m not going about outraging the public by a wanton display of my flowing locks.”

“You look like a convict,” he said bluntly. “Sit down.”

I did, being rather in need of the stool he offered me, owing to the exertions of the walk.

“How are you?” I inquired, peering at him. The light in the cabin was very bad; he had been writing with a candle, and had put it out upon my appearance.

“How am I?” He seemed both astonished and rather put out at the inquiry. “You have walked all the way here, in a dangerously enfeebled condition, to ask after my health?”

“If you care to put it that way,” I replied, rather nettled by that “dangerously enfeebled.” “I don’t suppose you would care to step out into the light, so that I can get a decent look at you, would you?”

He drew the ends of the shawl protectively across his chest.

“Why?” He frowned at me, peaked brows drawing together so that he looked like an irritable owl.

“Because I want to know a few things regarding your state of health,” I replied patiently, “and examining you is likely the best way of finding them out, since you don’t seem able to tell me anything.”

“You are most unaccountable, madam!”

“No, I am a doctor,” I countered. “And I want to know—” A brief wave of giddiness came over me, and I leaned on the table, holding on ’til it passed.

“You are insane,” he stated, having scrutinized me for a moment. “You are also still ill, I believe. Stay there; I shall call my son to go and fetch your husband.”

I flapped a hand at him and took a deep breath. My heart was racing, and I was a trifle pale and sweaty, but essentially all right.

“The fact of the matter, Mr. Christie, is that while I’ve certainly been ill, I wasn’t ill with the same sickness that’s been afflicting people on the Ridge—and from what Malva was able to tell me, I don’t think you were, either.”

He had risen to go and call Allan; at this, he froze, staring at me with his mouth open. Then he slowly lowered himself back into his chair.

“What do you mean?”

Having finally got his attention, I was pleased to lay out the facts before him; I had them neatly to hand, having given them considerable thought over the last few days.

While several families on the Ridge had suffered the depredations of amoebic dysentery, I hadn’t. I had had a dangerously high fever, accompanied by dreadful headache and—so far as I could tell from Malva’s excited account—convulsions. But it certainly wasn’t dysentery.

“Are you certain of this?” He was twiddling his discarded quill, frowning.

“It’s rather hard to mistake bloody flux for headache and fever,” I said tartly. “Now—did you have flux?”

He hesitated a moment, but curiosity got the better of him.

“No,” he said. “It was as you say—a headache fit to split the skull, and fever. A terrible weakness, and … and extraordinarily unpleasant dreams. I had no notion that it was not the same illness afflicting the others.”

“No reason you should, I suppose. You didn’t see any of them. Unless—did Malva describe the illness to you?” I asked only from curiosity, but he shook his head.

“I do not wish to hear of such things; she does not tell me. Still, why have you come?” He tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes. “What difference does it make whether you and I suffered an ague, rather than a flux? Or anyone else, for that matter?” He seemed rather agitated, and got up, moving about the cabin in an unfocused, bumbling sort of way, quite unlike his usual decisive movements.

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my forehead. I’d got the basic information I came for; explaining why I’d wanted it was going to be uphill work. I had enough trouble getting Jamie, Young Ian, and Malva to accept the germ theory of disease, and that was with the evidence visible through a microscope to hand.