Monday, January 13, 2025
OK, here’s the excerpt I mentioned yesterday on Facebook. (For those who may not have read GO TELL THE BEES or don’t remember, “Wounded Lady” is the name of a blue spring, high in the mountain above the Frasers’ New House. We left everyone at the wedding festivities for Bobby Higgins and Silvia Hardman at the end of BEES, and this is the morning after.
[EXCERPT from BOOK TEN (Untitled), Copyright © 2025 Diana Gabaldon]
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[Spoiler Alert – well, frankly, any excerpts you read from this book will contain spoilers, but there are always a few people who don’t realize that and become disgruntled (isn’t that a neat word? <g>) – anyway, at the end of GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE, William arrives suddenly at Fraser’s Ridge, and tells Jamie, “Sir, I need your help.” Indeed he does…]
Jamie made it as far as Wounded Lady, where he called to the dog and sat down on the big stone, more abruptly than he’d intended.
“A Màthair Dhè.” He sat still and breathed for a bit, his knee throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He’d escaped the house before Claire discovered that he was walking about unencumbered by splints or bandages—and without a stick, forbye. He should have brought a stick, and wished he had, but he’d been feeling feisty, impatient with infirmity.
“Aye, well, I admit it’s no as bad as bein’ crucified,” he said apologetically, addressing the Mother of God whom he’d just invoked. “Besides, it’ll be horseback for the most part, it’ll be fine,” he muttered unconvincingly to himself, and grasping the paper-white trunk of the big aspen, hauled himself to his feet, whistled to the dog, clenched his teeth, and set off up the mountain, wondering why the devil he hadn’t given Young Ian land closer to the Big House.
Occupied with the pain in his knee, he hadn’t been looking out for the lad, and was surprised to come in hail of the cabin and find Rachel alone. She had been looking out for Young Ian, and for some time; that much was clear from the anxious look of her, which increased when she saw Jamie and Skennen.
“Down, beast,” she said to the puppy, who paid no attention. “Has thee met Ian on the trail?” she asked.
Jamie shook his head, slightly disquieted.
“I didna see hide nor hair of him, anywhere between New House and here, lass. Nor yet the lads,” he added, forestalling her next question. “Sàmhchair, a cù,” he added to Skennen, who considered whether to heed this command for half a second, and then subsided meekly, lying down at Rachel’s feet.
“Why does he not do that when I tell him to?” she demanded of Jamie. “I speak to him in what I am sure is the Gaelic, and he merely laughs at me.” Skennen widened his doggy grin, tongue lolling out as though in appreciation of the joke.
“He doesna think ye mean it,” Jamie said, giving the dog a firm look. “And he kens I do. Don’t ye, a cù?” He toed the dog gently in the ribs, whereupon Skennen rolled onto his back, barked and pawed the air, tail madly wagging.
Rachel cleared her throat.
“Will thee have some buttermilk, Jamie? Or perhaps some garlic pickles?”
He was beginning to be hungry from the climb, but declined the kind offer in favor of a cup of cold water, and likewise declined Rachel’s offer of her rocking chair, lowering himself carefully onto the edge of the porch.
“Sit, lass,” he said, noticing the rush basket. “I’ll finish the peas for ye.”
She laughed, sat down, and pushed the yellow bowl toward him with her bare foot.
“How does one say, ‘like father, like son’ in the Gaelic?”
“Ye don’t, usually, but ye might say, “coltach ri dà phòna ann am pod.” ‘Like as twa peas in a pod.’ Have ye seen William, then?” He didn’t look up at her, but pressed the seam of the pod with his thumbnail, and scooped the peas out with a practiced flick.
“I have. He told me something of his situation—and that of… John Grey…” He caught the momentary hesitation in her voice and looked at her sharply. She raised one dark brow. “I suppose thee has come to tell me more?”
Jamie told her. Everything, after a moment’s hesitation. Rachel was well aware of William’s paternity already, and as the rest of the Ridge would shortly be similarly informed, there was nothing to hide. As to the shape of Lord John Grey’s personal circumstances…
“D’ye ken that his lordship is—” he began hesitantly.
“What is commonly known as a sodomite?” she interrupted. She’d brought out a stool and sat down upon it, by him. “Yes, or at least I supposed so. Denny told me he thought it was the case.”
“And how would your brother ken a thing like that?” Jamie asked, surprised. Granted, Denzell Hunter was a physician, but…
Rachel lifted a shoulder.
“For a time when we lived in Philadelphia, Denny had a… it sounds quite wrong to call it a friendship, because it was… well, it wasn’t.” She smiled at him. “He had an acquaintance, though, who was in the habit of visiting a nearby molly house; I imagine thee knows what that is? Of course thee does. Well, on one such occasion, the man was involved in a fight and was seriously injured—he was drunk, and lost his balance while attempting to strike another man, and fell face-first into a marble mantelpiece, breaking his nose, three toes—he’d attempted to kick his opponent, but missed and kicked a rather solid oak table, which accident is what propelled him toward the mantelpiece—and his left arm, which was broken and also rather singed and blistered, as there happened to be a fire going when he knocked himself insensible on the mantelpiece and fell into the hearth.”
“Oh. Aye?”
“Aye, indeed,” she assured him. “His… I suppose you would call them friends?”
“Aye, well, common interests…” Jamie muttered. His face felt warm.
“Indeed. His friends, then, sent for Denny, who came and re-assembled his acquaintance’s nose, set his arm and taped his toes. This so impressed all the onlookers—which included the house’s proprietor—that Denny became the de facto physician for them all.”
Jamie was—against his will—fascinated.
“Did… you…?” He began, then broke off.
“I never accompanied Denny to the house,” she assured him. “But a number of the… patrons?… would call upon us, in time of need. I have met several slightly damaged sodomites. They are, on the whole, much like other men.”
“Aside from—”
“Well, yes. Hence, I gather, the danger to his lordship. I take it thee means that the man holding him is not merely physically restraining him, but also threatens his…”
“His life,” Jamie finished. His voice was gruff and he cleared his throat. “In all respects.”
She nodded, her face troubled.
“What will thee do?”
Jamie sat up and stretched his back, cautiously straightening his legs as he did so.
“Aye, that’s the question we’ve been wrestling wi’, as soon as we heard what William had to say. The first thing, o’course, is to find John Grey and get him free.”
“I fear that getting him free may be the easier part.”
“So do I, lass.”
His knee had stopped feeling as though it was being repeatedly stabbed with a pen-knife, but it was still throbbing, in time with his heartbeat. He didn’t touch it, but gave it a surreptitious glance, along with its fellow. The bad one had turned a sort of purplish-red, like a ripe plum. None so bad.
“We’ve the two things, to start with,” he said. “Shipping ports and a man named Denys Randall.”
Rachel’s dark brows lifted.
“I—we, that is—know a man named Denys Randall,” she said. “Does thee think there could be two of them?”
“I don’t,” Jamie said, startled. “But just to be sure—is the one you and Denny ken a soldier? And is he known sometimes as Denys Randall-Isaacs?”
She stared at him for a moment, her hand resting gently on her belly.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “and yes. He is and he is.”
She might have said more, but a shout from the path brought her at once to her feet.
“Mama! Mama!”
Jamie stood up at once, gesturing her back.
“Sit, lass, I’ll see to it.”
She gave him a quick glance and a raised brow that suggested he surely knew better.
“That’s Totis,” she said, her foot already on the top step. “Something’s wrong.”
[end section]
Click to visit my Book Ten webpage for information on this book, and to read more excerpts from it.
This blog entry was also posted on my official Facebook page on Monday, January 13, 2025.
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