“Put that down and go sit with the children outside in the sun,” I said firmly. “They need someone to hold them. Where’s Roger?” She shook her head, unable to take her eyes off the table. Amy’s fichu had been pulled halfway out of her bodice and was hanging down, soaked with rapidly drying blood that left faint smears on the table. I pulled the cloth loose and dropped it into the bucket of cold water at my feet.
“Roger’s with Bobby,” she said, her voice colorless. “Fanny’s minding Mandy and the little boys for a minute. You—you’ll need help, won’t you? With—” She broke off and swallowed audibly, looking away.
“Someone will be here soon,” I said, and took a little comfort in the thought. I was familiar with death, but that didn’t mean I’d got used to it. “Your father sent Germain running for Young Ian; Rachel and Jenny will come down, too. And Jem’s gone for Gilly MacMillan. His wife will gather up the women who live along the creek.”
She nodded, seeming a little calmer, though her hands were still trembling, the folded sheet bunched between them.
“Why is Da sending for Mr. MacMillan?” she asked.
“He has two good hunting dogs,” I said evenly. “And a boar spear.”
“Holy Lord. He—they—they’re going to hunt the bear? Now?”
“Well, yes,” I said mildly. “Before it gets too far away. Where’s Aidan?” I added, realizing that she’d said “the little boys.” Aidan was twelve, but still qualified, in my book. “Did he go with Jem?”
“No,” she said, her voice sounding odd. “He’s with Da.”
AIDAN WAS WHITE as milk and he kept blinking his swollen red eyes, though he’d stopped greeting. He hadn’t stopped shaking. Jamie put a hand on the lad’s shoulder and could feel the tremble coming up from the earth through Aidan’s flesh.
“I-I-I’m c-c-coming,” Aidan said, though his chin wobbled so much you could scarce understand him. “T-to hunt the b-bear.”
“Of course ye are.” Jamie squeezed the fragile shoulder and, after a moment’s hesitation, let go and turned toward the house. “Come with me, a bhalaich,” he said. “We’ll need to fettle ourselves before we go out.”
Every instinct he had was for avoiding the house, where Claire and the women would be laying Amy out. But he’d been younger than Aidan was now when his own mother died, and he remembered the desolation of being shut out, sent away from the house while the women opened the windows and doors, covered the mirror, and went purposefully about with bowls of water and herbs, completing the secret rituals of taking his mother away from him.
Besides, he thought bleakly, glancing down at the blanched wee lad stumbling along beside him, the boy had seen his mother dying in her blood little more than an hour ago, her face torn half away. Nothing he might see or hear now would be worse.
They stopped at the well and Jamie made Aidan drink cold water and wash his face and hands, and Jamie did likewise and said the beginning of the Consecration of the Chase for him:
“In name of the Holy Threefold as one,
In word, in deed, and in thought,
I am bathing my own hands,
In the light and in the elements of the sky.
“Vowing that I shall never return in my life,
Without fishing, without fowling either,
Without game, without venison down from the hill,
Without fat, without blubber from out the copse.”
Aidan was breathing hard from the shock of the cold water, but he could talk again.
“Bears have fat,” he said.
“Aye. And we will take it from him.” Jamie scooped water in his hand and, dipping three fingers into the puddle in his palm, made the Sign of the Cross on Aidan’s forehead, breast, and shoulders.
“Life be in my speech,
Sense in what I say,
The bloom of cherries on my lips,
’Til I come back again.
“Traversing corries, traversing forests,
Traversing valleys long and wild.
The fair white Mary still uphold me,
The Shepherd Jesu be my shield.
“Say that last bit wi’ me, lad.”
Aidan drew himself up a little and piped along,
“The fair white Mary still uphold me,
The Shepherd Jesu be my shield.”
“Well, then.” Jamie pulled out his shirttail and wiped Aidan’s face and his own. “Will ye have heard that prayer before?”
Aidan shook his head. Jamie hadn’t thought he would; Aidan’s real father, Orem McCallum, might have taught him, but Bobby Higgins was an Englishman, and while a good man in himself, he wouldn’t know the auld ways.