“He did what he did,” he said shortly. “What he thought right. That money was spent for the welfare of the clan. But Hector Cameron was a traitor, and his wife with him.”

“It was you who spoke to Jocasta in her tent,” I said suddenly, realizing. “At the Gathering where you met Jamie. You’d come there to find her, hadn’t you?”

Arch seemed surprised that I had spoken, but inclined his head an inch or so in acknowledgment. I wondered whether he had accepted—had sought?—a place with Jamie on account of his relationship with Jocasta.

“And that”—I poked a toe at the shaved ingot—“you found in Jocasta’s house, when you went with Roger and Duncan to bring back the fisher-folk.” Proof—if he had needed it—that Jocasta did indeed still have Hector’s share of the French gold.

“What I am wondering, myself,” Jamie said, rubbing a finger down the long, straight bridge of his nose, “is how the devil ye found the rest of it, and then got it away.”

Arch’s lips pursed for a moment, then reluctantly unsealed themselves.

“’Twas no great feat. I saw the salt at Hector’s tomb—the way the black slaves kept awa’. If he didna rest easy, it was nay wonder—but where would the gold better be, save wi’ him?” A wintry light shone in his faded eyes. “I kent Hector Cameron, a bit. He wasna the man to give up anything, only by reason of bein’ dead.”

Arch made frequent trips to Cross Creek as factor, to buy and trade. He was not usually a guest at River Run, but had been there often enough to be familiar with the property. If anyone saw a figure near the mausoleum at night—well, everyone knew that Hector Cameron’s ghost “walked,” confined to one spot only by the lines of salt; no one would ever go close enough to investigate.

And so he had simply abstracted one ingot on each trip—and not on every trip—eventually removing the whole hoard, before Duncan Innes discovered the loss.

“I shouldna have kept out that first ingot, I see that,” he said, ruefully nodding at it. “At the first, though, I thought we might have need of it—Murdina and I. And then, when she was obliged to kill yon Brown—”

Jamie’s head jerked up, and we both stared at him. He coughed.

“The wicked creature grew well enough to poke about the cabin when she was oot; he found that”—he nodded again at the ingot—“in her workbag, where she’d hidden it. He couldna ken, of course, what it was—but he kent well enough that ragged folk such as we ought not to have such a thing.” His thin mouth pressed tight again, and I remembered that he had been chief tacksman for the Grant of clan Grant—a man of worth. Once.

“He asked about it, and she wouldna tell him anything, of course. But then, when he made his way to your house, she feared he would tell what he’d seen. And so she made an end to him.”

It was said calmly; after all, what else could she do? Not for the first time, I wondered just what other things the Bugs had done—or been forced to do—in the years after Culloden.

“Well, ye kept the gold out of King George’s hands, at least,” Jamie said, a certain note of bleakness in his voice. I thought he was thinking of the battle at Moore’s Creek Bridge. If Hugh MacDonald had had that gold, with which to buy powder and arms, the victory there would not have been so easily won. Nor would the Highlanders have been slaughtered—again—charging sword in hand into the mouths of cannon.

“Arch,” I said, when the silence threatened to become oppressive, “what, exactly, did you plan to do with it?”

He blinked at that, and looked down at the ingot.

“I … I meant at first only to see if it was true what I’d heard—that Hector Cameron had taken his part of the gold away with him, used it for his own ends. Then I found Hector dead, but ’twas clear from the way his wife lived that he had indeed taken it. So I wondered—was there any left?”

One hand crept up, massaging his withered throat.

“To tell ye the truth, mistress—I wished mostly to take it back from Jocasta Cameron. Having done that, though …” His voice died away, but then he shook himself.

“I am a man of my word, Seaumais mac Brian. I swore an oath to my chief—and kept it, ’til he died. I swore my oath to the King across the water”—James Stuart, he meant—“but he is dead, now, too. And then—I swore loyalty to George of England when I came upon this shore. So tell me now where my duty lies?”

“Ye swore an oath to me, too, Archibald mac Donagh,” Jamie said.

Arch smiled at that, a wry expression, but a smile nonetheless.

“And by reason of that oath, ye’re still alive, Seaumais mac Brian,” he said. “I could have killed ye last night in your sleep and been well awa’.”

Jamie’s mouth twisted in a look that expressed considerable doubt of this statement, but he forbore to contradict.

“You are free of your oath to me,” he said formally in Gaelic. “Take your life from my hand.” And inclining his head toward the ingot, said, “Take that—and go.”

Arch regarded him for a moment, unblinking. Then stooped, picked up the ingot, and went.

“You didn’t ask him where the gold is now,” I observed, watching the tall old man make his way round the cabin to rouse his wife.

“Ye think he would ha’ told me?” He stood up then, and stretched himself. Then he shook himself like a dog, and went to stand in the doorway of the shed, arms braced in the door frame, looking out. It was beginning to snow again.

“I see it’s not only the Frasers who are stubborn as rocks,” I said, coming to stand beside him. “Scotland lives, all right.” That made him laugh.

He put one arm around me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

“Your hair smells of smoke, Sassenach,” he said softly.

“Everything smells of smoke,” I replied just as softly.

The burned ruins of the house were still too warm for snow to stick, but that would pass. If it went on snowing, by tomorrow the house would be obliterated, white as the rocks and trees. We, too—eventually.

I thought of Jocasta and Duncan, gone to the safety of Canada, the welcome of kinfolk. Where would the Bugs go—back to Scotland? For an instant, I longed to go, too. Away from loss and desolation. Home.

But then I remembered.

“So long as one hundred of us remain alive … ,” I quoted.

Jamie tilted his head against mine for a moment, then raised it and turned to look down at me.

“And when ye go to a sick man’s bed, Sassenach—to a wounding or a birth—how is it, then, that ye can rise from your own bed, even from mortal weariness, and go in the dark, alone? Why is it that ye willna wait, that ye dinna say no, ever? Why is it that ye willna forbear, even when ye know the case to be hopeless?”

“I can’t.” I kept my gaze on the ruin of the house, its ashes growing cold before my eyes. I knew what he meant, the unwelcome truth he would force me to speak—but the truth lay between us, and must be told. “I cannot … can not … admit … that there is anything to do but win.”

He cupped my chin and tilted my face upward, so that I was obliged to meet his eyes. His own face was worn with tiredness, the lines cut deep by eyes and mouth, but the eyes themselves were clear, cool, and fathomless as the waters of a hidden spring.

“Nor can I,” he said.

“I know.”

“Ye can at least promise me the victory,” he said, but his voice held the whisper of a question.

“Yes,” I said, and touched his face. I sounded choked, and my vision blurred. “Yes, I can promise that. This time.” No mention made of what that promise spared, of the things I could not guarantee. Not life, not safety. Not home, nor family; not law nor legacy. Just the one thing—or maybe two.

“The victory,” I said. “And that I will be with you ’til the end.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. Snowflakes pelted down, melting as they struck his face, sticking for an instant, white on his lashes. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me.