The Scottish Prisoner (Lord John Grey #3)(47)
Author: Diana Gabaldon

“Bloody hell,” said Tom, moved either by excitement or example. “Where is he? He’s not left us, has he?”

“If he has, he’s a dead man,” Fraser muttered briefly, and vanished into the dark, casting upstream. Grey deduced that “he” was likely Quinn and that Fraser had gone to find him.

“Are we waiting for a boat?” Grey asked Tom, keeping one eye on the bulk of the castle above them. They were no more than twenty yards from the wall, and every instinct urged him to leg it as fast as possible.

“Yes, me lord. Quinn said he could find a boat, and he was to meet us here at”—he glanced round, helpless—“well, at whatever time it was Mr. Fraser said. Which I think it’s just now.” He, too, glanced back at the castle, his face a pale splotch in the darkness. There was no light in the town nearby, not even a watchman’s lantern in the streets.

Grey clutched the gladius in one hand, his dagger in the other—and precious little use either one would be to him if they were fired upon from the ramparts. Not much if the whole garrison suddenly poured out of the gate, eith—

“Hold these!” He shoved the weapons into Tom’s startled hands and, crouching, moved fast along the riverbank, scrabbling his hands through the edge of the water, searching for an appropriate bit of flotsam. He stubbed toes and fingers, floundering in the dark, but found what he wanted: a chunk of wood—a shattered plank. He tugged it free of the mud and ran back to the river gate, where he thrust his prize beneath the edge of the door. It slid under easily; no good, he needed—

Tom, bless him, had divined his need and was just behind him, his arms full of rubbish, sticks, and stones. Grey rummaged feverishly through this pile of dripping rejecta and crammed as much as he could beneath the free end of the plank, driving the wad in with his foot. His toes were going to be as blue as Fraser’s arse, he thought, giving his improvised door jam a final, vicious kick.

Final, because there was no time to do more. There were shouts coming from inside the castle. Seizing Tom by the arm, Grey ran up the bank in the direction Fraser had gone.

The ground was muddy and uneven, and they lurched and stumbled, gasping as they went. Grey’s foot skidded in the mud, then shot suddenly downward, and he fell sideways with a tremendous splash; he’d stepped into a reedbed. Gasping, he surfaced on his back, waving arms and legs in a vain attempt to stand up and catch his breath at the same time.

“Me lord!” Tom splashed in after him, though more carefully, wading out knee-deep, the reeds creaking and rasping as he pushed his way through them.

There was a sudden rattle, like pebbles thrown against glass. Shots, Grey thought, and flung himself over in a heavy swash of awkward, sopping clothes, able at last to get a purchase and crawl toward shore on hands and knees.

Single shots now, an irregular pop-pop! Pop! Could they see Tom and him, or were they firing at random to make a show? He thought suddenly of the arrow slits, and his shoulders hunched instinctively. Tom got him by the arm and hoisted him onto the shore like a harpooned turtle.

“Let’s—” Tom said, and stopped suddenly, with a choked grunt of surprise.

“What—Tom!” Tom’s knees were buckling. Grey caught him halfway down and eased him to the ground. “Where?” he said. “Where are you hit?” He’d heard that sound before: sheer astonishment—and, all too often, a man’s final comment on life.

“Arm,” Tom said, quite breathless but still more astonished than alarmed. “Something hit my arm. Like a hammer.”

It was dark as the inside of a coal mine, but Grey could make out a black smudge on the left arm of Tom’s coat. Spreading fast. He swore under his breath, scrabbled through the wet mass of his hair, and came away with a mangled ribbon between his fingers.

“Above the elbow? Below?” he asked rapidly, prodding the arm.

“Ow! Just there—ow!” A little above. He wrapped the ribbon round Tom’s arm, regretting the loss of his handkerchief, and pulled it tight. It snapped.

A moment’s panic, when the night blurred round him and the sound of shots hitting water sounded harmless, like the early drops of rain from a passing cloud. Then things clicked back into focus, and he found—to his vague surprise—that some part of his mind had kept on working; he was sitting on the ground, one shoe off, pulling the sopping stocking off his foot.

This, with the other balled up to use as a wad, made an admirable tourniquet.

“I shall have something to say to the coves at Jennings and Brown,” Tom said, in a voice that quavered only a little. “That’s where I bought that ribbon.”

“You do that, Tom,” Grey said, smiling in spite of himself as he shoved his bare feet back into wet shoes. His mind was working through the possibilities. If Tom was seriously hurt, then he needed care at once. And the only place to get it was the castle. If it was no more than a flesh wound, though … “Do you think you can walk? Can you sit up?”

“Oh, yes, me … ohhh …” Tom, halfway up, suddenly sagged and subsided onto the ground. “Oh,” he murmured. “Me head’s not half spinnnn …” His voice trailed off into silence. Grey felt frantically for a heartbeat, ripping Tom’s shirt out of his breeches and rummaging up under it, feeling here and there on the cold, wet skin of his chest. He found one, thank God, and, with a gasp of relief, pulled his hand out of Tom’s shirt and looked round.

The river gate was opening, in slow jerks as men hit it from behind, forcing loose his improvised jam. He could see the light of their lanterns, rimming the door in a fiery nimbus.

“Shit,” he said, and, seizing Tom under the arms, waded back into the reeds, dragging his senseless valet.

THE BOAT BOBBED as Jamie shifted his weight, bringing his heart into his mouth.

“Be still, ye great galoot.” Quinn’s voice came from behind, just audible over the lapping of the water against the sides, and the water uneasily close to the top of the boat, if you asked Jamie. “Ye’ll have us over, if ye don’t give over your squirming, and you like a tiger in a sack. Are ye like to be sick again?”

“Dinna even mention it,” Jamie said, and swallowed, closing his eyes. He’d tried convincing himself that if he couldn’t see the water, his stomach would be oblivious, but he was morbidly aware that less than an inch of wood separated his cringing buttocks from the cold black water of the Shannon, and that wood leaking like a sieve. His feet were wet, and as for squirming, he was convinced that the wicked wee boat was doing just that, even drifting down the current as they were.

“Should we not row?” he whispered back over his shoulder—having been warned that sound travels over water.

“We shall not,” Quinn said decidedly. “It’s a bloody flat calm, so it is, and if ye think I mean to go splashing past Castle Athlone, hallooing and cryin’ out for your friends … Hist!”

Jamie jerked his head round to see the bulk of the castle rise up on his right, black as hell against the drizzling sky. The intimation of hell was the more pronounced as he saw the river gate from which they had escaped now burst open, spilling red light and black, shouting figures capered, demonlike, on the bank of the river.

“Hail Mary, Mother of God …” he whispered, and took firm hold of the edge of the boat to steady himself. Where were Grey and Tom Byrd? He shut his eyes tight to accustom them to dark and looked away from the castle before opening them again. But what he could see of the bank was featureless, dark blobs that might be boats or sea monsters bobbing near the shore, the black patches of what Quinn said were reedbeds like tar against the dull shimmer of the water. Nothing seemed to move. Nothing that looked like two men running, at least. And, by God, they should be running, he thought, with that lot after them.

For now the whole garrison was roused, and the shore near the castle was aglow with lanterns, their swinging lights shooting beams up and down the riverbank, the bawling of the sergeant—Jamie grinned despite the situation, recognizing the furious voice of the man he’d taken prisoner—echoing across the water.

A quiet splash made him turn his head. Quinn had put an oar in the water and was sculling, very gently, to slow their progress. The boat’s head turned inward in a slow, meditative circle.

“What if they’re not here?” Quinn said very quietly.

“They’re here. I left them on the bank, just by the castle.”

“They’re not there now,” Quinn observed, an edge to his voice, low as it was.

“They saw me go upstream. They’ll have followed me. We’ll need to turn round. They’ll not have seen us, coming down so quiet.”

He spoke with a great deal more confidence than he felt, but Quinn said no more than a muttered “God and Mary and Padraic be with us” before putting the other oar in the water and settling himself to it. The boat turned, the current hissing past its sides, and with as little splashing as could be managed, they began slowly to retrace their progress, Jamie leaning out as far as he dared to scan the shore.

Nothing. He caught a flicker of movement, but it disappeared between two sheds. A dog, likely—too small to be a man, let alone two.

Where would they go, with the soldiers about to erupt into the night? Into the town was the logical answer. The castle was surrounded by a labyrinth of narrow, winding streets.

“How far d’ye want to go?” Quinn grunted. He was breathing hard with the effort of rowing against the current.

“This is far enough. Turn round again,” Jamie said abruptly. They were perhaps a furlong upstream of the castle; if Grey and the lad had been on the bank, they would have found them by now. They must have gone into the town, and the soldiers would doubtless be coming to that conclusion, too.

Jamie started praying again. How was he to find them in the town? He was as noticeable himself as either of the Englishmen. It would have to be Quinn searching the town, and he doubted that the Irishman would be enthused at the prospect.

Aye, well, he’d just have to—

A heavy clunk! struck the hull of the boat near his hand, and he jerked with such violence that the little vessel rocked wildly. Quinn cursed and backed his oars.

“What in the name of the Holy Ghost did we hit?”

Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! The sound was repeated, a frenzied demand, and Jamie leaned over the side and nearly let out a skelloch at the sight that greeted him: a wild-eyed head like Medusa protruding from the water a few inches from his hand, snaky hair in all directions and teeth bared in a ferocious grimace. This startling figure held what looked to be a large bundle in one arm, a sort of sword in the other hand, and as Jamie gaped at it, openmouthed, the figure gritted its teeth and swung the weapon once more against the side of the boat with a peremptory clunk!

“Get us in!” said the figure. “I can’t hold him much longer.”

26

Opium Dreams

GREY HUDDLED IN A SODDEN HEAP IN THE BOTTOM OF THE boat, dully aware of Fraser’s back in front of him. The Scot’s long arms stretched and pulled, shoulders bunching as he rowed steadily upstream, and the black bulk of the castle slowly, slowly diminished behind them. He heard peremptory shouts from the shore and Quinn, standing up in the boat, clinging to the mast and shouting back in Irish, but Grey was too dazed with cold and exhaustion to worry much about what he was saying.