“Oh?” he said, cautious. “Do I want to know?”
“Probably not,” she said frankly, “but I’d like to tell you about it. It could wait until morning, though …”
“As if something like coherent conversation happens in the morning around here,” he said, and rolled onto his back, yawning. “All right, tell me.”
“Well … you remember I was thinking about the problem of mass.”
“Dimly, yes. I don’t recall what you decided, though.”
“I didn’t,” she said frankly. “I just don’t know enough—and there are a lot of problems with the hypothesis that I don’t have a way to resolve. But it made me think about what mass is.”
“Mmh.” His eyes were closed, but his hand slid down her back and cupped her behind, warm and substantial. He jiggled it, gently. “There’s some. I’m pretty sure that’s mass.”
“Yes. So’s that.” She slid a hand down between them and cupped his testicles. Lightly, but it made him open his eyes.
“Point taken,” he said, and moved his hand to the small of her back. “So?”
“What do you think happens to us when we die?”
That woke him completely, though it took a moment to assemble words.
“When we die,” he said slowly. “If you mean in terms of our souls, the basic truth is that we don’t know, but we do have faith that we’ll go on existing, and we have a pretty good reason for having said faith. But that’s not what you mean, is it?”
“No. I mean bodies. Physically.”
He changed metaphysical gears, not without a small sense of clashing and grinding.
“You mean something other than just … er … decay?”
“Well, no, that is what I mean—but kind of … beyond rotting.”
He rolled onto his side and she followed, nestling under his chin, much like Adso, but with better-smelling hair.
“Beyond rotting … this is the kind of thing that keeps you up at night? God, what kind of dreams do you have? You’re the scientist here, but so far as I know, the process just goes on … what, dissolving?”
“Dissolution. Yes, exactly.”
“You know, normal people talk about sex in bed, don’t they?”
“Most of them probably talk about what horrible thing their child did during the day, the price of tobacco, or what to do about the sick cow. If they can stay awake. Anyway—I only had the required physics classes in college, so this is pretty basic and it may be completely wrong, and—”
“And nobody will ever be able to prove it one way or the other, so let’s not trouble about that part,” he suggested.
“Good thought. And speaking of smelling …” She turned her head and snuffled gently at his neck. “You smell like gunpowder. You haven’t been hunting, have you?” Her voice held a certain amount of incredulity. Not without reason, but he was slightly nettled.
“I have not. Your da asked me to show a’ chraobh àrd how to load his new musket and fire it without knocking his teeth out.”
“Cyrus Crombie?” she said. “Why? Da isn’t conscripting him into his gang, is he?”
“I believe ‘partisan band’ is the proper term,” Roger said primly. “And no. Hiram asked Jamie to take the boy on and teach him to fight—with a gun and dirk, that is. He said if it was a matter of fists, any fisherman could lay a landsman out like a flatfish without half trying—and he’s probably right—but none of the Thurso folk had ever even held a gun before coming here, and most of them still haven’t. They fish, and snare, and trade for meat.”
“Mm. Do you think Hiram made him, or was it Cyrus’s own idea?”
“The latter. He’s courting Frances—in his own inimitable way—but he knows he hasn’t a chance unless your da thinks he’ll make her a good husband. So he means to prove his mettle.”
“How old is he?” Brianna asked, a note of concern in her voice.
“Sixteen, I think,” Roger said. “Old enough to fight, so far as that goes.”
“So far as that goes,” she muttered, huffing a little under her breath, and he knew why.
“Jemmy won’t be old enough to ride with them before the war’s over,” he assured her. “No matter how good he is with a gun.”
“Great. So he can stay and guard the ramparts here with me, Rachel, and Aunt Jenny and the Sachem, while the partisan band—and Mama, because she won’t let Da go alone—and probably you—go roaming the countryside, getting their asses shot off.”