An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 80

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“Ick!” Brianna put down the book—one of Roger’s collection of Scottish folklore—and stared at Jem. “You saw one of these? Up by the broch?”

Her son shifted from foot to foot. “Well, he said he was. He said if I didna clear straight off, he’d change into himself, and I didna want to see that, so I cleared.”

“Neither would I.” Brianna’s heart began to slow down a little. All right. He’d met a man, then, not a monster. Not that she’d actually believed … but the fact that someone had been hanging around the broch was worrying enough.

“What did he look like, this man?”

“Well … big,” Jem said dubiously. Given that Jem was not quite nine, most men would be.

“As big as Daddy?”

“Maybe.”

Further catechism elicited relatively few details; Jem knew what a Nuckelavee was—he’d read most of the more sensational items in Roger’s collection—and had been so terrified at meeting someone who might at any moment shed his skin and eat him that his impressions of the man were sparse. Tall, with a short beard, hair that wasn’t very dark, and clothes “like Mr. MacNeil wears.” Working clothes, then, like a farmer.

“Why didn’t you tell me or Daddy about him?”

Jem looked about to cry.

“He said he’d come back and eat Mandy if I did.”

“Oh.” She put an arm around him and pulled him to her. “I see. Don’t be afraid, honey. It’s all right.” He was trembling now, as much with relief as with memory, and she stroked his bright hair, soothing him. A tramp, most likely. Camping in the broch? Likely he was gone by now—so far as she could tell from Jem’s story, it had been more than a week since he had seen the man—but …

“Jem,” she said slowly. “Why did you and Mandy go up there today? Weren’t you afraid the man would be there?”

He looked up at her, surprised, and shook his head, red hair flying.

“Nay, I cleared, but I hid and watched him. He went away to the west. That’s where he lives.”

“He said so?”

“No. But things like that all live in the west.” He pointed at the book. “When they go away to the west, they dinna come back. And I’ve not seen him again; I watched, to be sure.”

She nearly laughed, but was still too worried. It was true; a good many Highland fairy tales did end with some supernatural creature going away to the west, or into the rocks or the water where they lived. And of course they didn’t come back, since the story was over.

“He was just a nasty tramp,” she said firmly, and patted Jem’s back before releasing him. “Don’t worry about him.”

“Sure?” he said, obviously wanting to believe her, but not quite ready to relax into security.

“Sure,” she said firmly.

“Okay.” He heaved a deep sigh and pushed away from her. “Besides,” he added, looking happier, “Grandda wouldn’t let him eat Mandy or me. I should have thought o’ that.”

IT WAS NEARLY SUNSET by the time she heard the chugging of Roger’s car on the farm road. She rushed outside, and he’d barely got out of the car before she flung herself into his arms.

He didn’t waste time with questions. He embraced her passionately and kissed her in a way that made it clear that their argument was over; the details of mutual apology could wait. For an instant, she allowed herself to let go of everything, feeling weightless in his arms, breathing the scents of petrol and dust and libraries full of old books that overlay his natural smell, that indefinable faint musk of sun-warmed skin, even when he hadn’t been in the sun.

“They say women can’t really identify their husbands by smell,” she remarked, reluctantly coming back to earth. “I don’t believe it. I could pick you out of King’s Cross tube station in the pitch-dark.”

“I did have a bath this morning, aye?”

“Yes, and you stayed in college, because I can smell the horrible industrial-strength soap they use there,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I’m surprised it doesn’t take your skin off. And you had black pudding for your breakfast. With fried tomato.”

“Right, Lassie,” he said, smiling. “Or do I mean Rin-Tin-Tin? Saved any small children or tracked any robbers to their lairs today, have ye?”

“Well, yes. Sort of.” She glanced up at the hill behind the house, where the broch’s shadow had grown long and black. “But I thought I’d better wait until the sheriff came back from town before I went any further.”

ARMED WITH A STOUT blackthorn walking stick and an electric torch, Roger approached the broch, angry but cautious. It wasn’t likely the man was armed, if he was still there, but Brianna was at the kitchen door, the telephone—at the full stretch of its long cord—beside her, and two nines already dialed. She’d wanted to come with him, but he’d convinced her that one of them had to stay with the kids. Still, it would have been a comfort to have her at his back; she was a tall, muscular woman, and not one to shrink from physical violence.

The door of the broch hung askew; the ancient leather hinges had long since rotted away and been replaced with cheap iron, which had rusted in turn. The door was still attached to its frame, but barely. He lifted the latch and maneuvered the heavy, splintering wood inward, pulling it away from the floor so it swung without scraping.

There was still plenty of light outside; it wouldn’t be full dark for half an hour yet. Inside the broch, though, it was black as a well. He shone his torch on the floor and saw fresh drag marks in the dirt that crusted the stone floor. Aye, someone had been here, then. Jem might be able to move the door, but the kids weren’t allowed to go in the broch without an adult, and Jem swore he hadn’t.

“Halloooo!” he shouted, and was answered by a startled movement somewhere far above. He gripped his stick in reflex, but recognized the flutter and rustle for what it was almost at once. Bats, hanging up under the conical roof. He flashed his light round the ground floor and saw a few stained and crumpled newspapers by the wall. He picked one up and smelled it: old, but the scent of fish and vinegar was still discernible.

He hadn’t thought Jem was making up the Nuckelavee story, but this evidence of recent human occupation renewed his anger. That someone should not only come and lurk on his property, but threaten his son … He almost hoped the fellow was still here. He wanted a word.

He wasn’t, though. No one with sense would have gone to the upper floors of the broch; the boards were half rotted, and as his eyes adjusted, he could see the gaping holes, a faint light coming through them from the slit windows higher up. Roger heard nothing, but an urge to be certain propelled him up the narrow stone stair that spiraled round the inside of the tower, testing each step for loose stones before trusting his weight to it.

He disturbed a quantity of pigeons on the top floor, who panicked and whirled round the inside of the tower like a feathery tornado, shedding down feathers and droppings, before finding their way out of the windows. He pressed himself against the wall, heart pounding as they battered blindly past his face. Something—a rat, a mouse, a vole—ran over his foot, and he jerked convulsively, nearly losing his torch.

The broch was alive, all right; the bats up above were shifting around, uneasy at all the racket below. But no sign of an intruder, human or not.

Coming down, he put his head out to signal to Bree that all was well, then closed the door and made his way down to the house, brushing dirt and pigeon feathers off his clothes.

“I’ll put a new hasp and a padlock on that door,” he told Brianna, lounging against the old stone sink as she started the supper. “Though I doubt he’ll be back. Likely just a traveler.”

“From the Orkneys, do you think?” She was reassured, he could tell, but there was still a line of worry between her brows. “You said that’s where they have stories about the Nuckelavee.”

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