Inside again, the door bolted and the fire poked up, he went back to the books, the cedar twig making a small fresh smell for him that went well with the wine. He took up one of the small thick books about Hobbits that Bree had brought for him, but even with his spectacles, the print was dense enough to make him feel tired looking at it, and he put it down again, eyes seeking something else in the pile.
Not Manon, not yet. His forgiveness was sincere, but distinctly grudging, and he kent well enough it would need to be repeated a few times before he spoke to John Grey again.
Nay doubt it was the thought of reluctant forgiveness that made him pick up the book Brianna had brought for herself—Frank Randall’s book. The Soul of a Rebel.
“Mmphm,” he said, and drew it out of the stack, turning it over in his hands. It felt strange; a good weight and size, sound binding, but the paper cover was printed with a very peculiar tartan background in pink and green, on which there was a square of pale green with a decent wee painting of the basket hilt of a Scottish broadsword and a bit of the blade. Below the square, the subtitle, The Scottish Roots of the American Revolution. What made it feel odd, though, was the fact that it was wrapped in a transparent sheet of something that wasn’t paper, slick under his touch. Plastic, Brianna had told him when he asked. He kent the word, all right, but not with this meaning. He turned the book over to look at the photograph—he was becoming halfway accustomed to photographs, but it still took him back a bit to see the man looking out at him like that.
He pressed his thumb firmly over Frank Randall’s nose, then lifted it. He tilted the book from side to side, letting light from the fire play over the plastic covering. He’d made a very faint smudge, not visible if you were looking straight at it.
Suddenly ashamed of this childishness, he erased the mark with his shirtsleeve and set the book on his knee. The photograph looked calmly up at him through dark-rimmed spectacles.
It wasn’t only the writer that disturbed him. Hearing bits of what was to come from Claire and Bree and Roger Mac frequently alarmed him, but their physical presence was reassuring; whatever horrible events were to happen, many folk had survived them. Still, he kent well enough that while none of his family would ever lie to him, they did often temper what they said to him. Frank Randall was another thing: an historian, whose account of what was going to happen in the next few years would be …
Well, he didn’t ken exactly what it might be. Frightening, perhaps. Upsetting, maybe. Maybe reassuring … in spots.
Frank Randall wasn’t smiling, but he looked pleasant enough. Lines in his face that cut deep. Well, the man had been through a war.
“To say nothing of bein’ married to Claire,” he said aloud, and was surprised at the sound of his voice. He picked up his wineglass and took a mouthful, holding it for a moment, but then swallowed and turned the book over.
“Well, I dinna ken if I forgive ye or not, Englishman,” he murmured, opening the cover and taking a cleansing breath of cedar. “Or you me, but let’s see what ye have to say to me, then.”
HE WOKE THE next morning to an empty bed, sighed, stretched, and rolled out of it. He’d thought he’d dream about the events described in Randall’s book, but he hadn’t. He’d dreamed, rather pleasantly, about Achilles’s ships, and would have liked to tell Claire about it. He shook off the remnants of sleep and went to wash, making a mental note of some of the things he’d dreamed so as not to forget them. With luck, she’d be home before supper.
“Mr. Fraser?” A delicate rap on the door, Frances’s voice. “Your daughter says breakfast is ready.”
“Aye?” He wasn’t smelling anything of a savory nature, but “ready” was a relative term. “I’m coming, lass. Taing.”
“Tang?” she said, sounding startled. He smiled, pulled a clean shirt over his head, and opened the door. She was standing there like a field daisy, delicate but upright on her stem, and he bowed to her.
“Taing,” he said, pronouncing it as carefully as he could. “It means ‘thanks’ in the Gaelic.”
“Are you sure?” she said, frowning slightly.
“I am,” he assured her. “Moran taing means ‘thank you very much,’ should ye want something stronger.”
A faint flush rose in her cheeks.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t really mean are you th—sure. Of course you are. It’s only that Germain told me ‘thank you’ is ‘tabag leet.’ Is that wrong? He might have been practicing on me, but I didn’t think so.”