Roger drew breath, meaning to say … what, he wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter.
“And then I killed Dougal, just before the battle.” Jamie didn’t turn round; just kept climbing, slow and dogged, gravel sliding now and then beneath his feet.
“I know,” Roger said. “And I know why. Claire told us. When she came back,” he added, seeing Jamie’s shoulders stiffen. “When she thought you were dead.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing and the high, thin zeek! of hunting swallows.
“I dinna ken,” Jamie said, obviously taking care with his words, “if I could bring myself to die for an idea. No that it isn’t a fine thing,” he added hurriedly. “But … I asked Brianna whether any o’ those men—the ones who thought of the notions and the words ye’d need to make them real—whether any of them actually did the fighting.”
“In the Revolution, ye mean? I don’t think they did,” Roger said dubiously. “Will, I mean. Unless you count George Washington, and I don’t believe he does so much talking.”
“He talks to his troops, believe me,” Jamie said, a wry humor in his voice. “But maybe not to the King, or the newspapers.”
“No. Mind,” Roger added in fairness, pushing aside a pine branch, thick with a pungent sap that left his palm sticky, “John Adams, Ben Franklin, all the thinkers and talkers—they’re risking their necks as much as you—as we—are.”
“Aye.” The ground was rising steeply now, and nothing more was said as they climbed, feeling their way over the broken ground of a gravel fall.
“I’m thinking that maybe I canna die—or lead men to their own deaths—only for the notion of freedom. Not now.”
“Not now?” Roger echoed, surprised. “You could have—earlier?”
“Aye. When you and the lass and your weans were … there.” Roger caught the brief movement of a hand, flung out toward the distant future. “Because what I did here then would be—it would matter, aye? To all of you—and I can fight for you.” His voice grew softer. “It’s what I’m made to do, aye?”
“I understand,” Roger said quietly. “But ye’ve always known that, haven’t you? What ye’re made to do.”
Jamie made a sound in his throat, half surprised.
“Dinna ken when I knew it,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Maybe at Leoch, when I found I could get the other lads into mischief—and did. Perhaps I should be confessing that?”
Roger brushed that aside.
“It will matter to Jem and Mandy—and to those of our blood who come after them,” he said. Provided Jem and Mandy survive to have children of their own, he added mentally, and felt a cold qualm in the pit of his stomach at the thought.
Jamie stopped quite suddenly, and Roger had to step to the side to avoid running into him.
“Look,” Jamie said, and he did. They were standing at the top of a small rise, where the trees fell away for a moment, and the Ridge and the north side of the cove below it spread before them, a massive chunk of solid black against the indigo of the faded sky. Tiny lights pricked the blackness, though: the windows and sparking chimneys of a dozen cabins.
“It’s not only our wives and our weans, ken?” Jamie said, and nodded toward the lights. “It’s them, as well. All of them.” His voice held an odd note; a sort of pride—but rue and resignation, too.
All of them.
Seventy-three households in all, Roger knew. He’d seen the ledgers Jamie kept, written with painful care, noting the economy and welfare of each family who occupied his land—and his mind.
“Now therefore so shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel.” The quote sprang to mind, and he’d spoken it aloud before he could think.
Jamie drew a deep, audible breath.
“Aye,” he said. “Sheep would be easier.” Then, abruptly, “Frank Randall—his book, it says the war is coming through the South, not that I needed him to tell me that.
“But Claire, Brianna, and the children—and them—I canna shield them, should it come close.” He nodded toward the distant sparks, and it was clear to Roger that by “them” he meant his tenants—his people. He didn’t pause for a reply, but resettled the creel on his shoulder and started down.