"And then, someone hit me in the head wi' an ax or something o' the sort," he said, shrugging. "And I've to take Dougal's word for what happened during the next two months, as I wasna taking much notice of things myself."
Dougal had been on a nearby estate at the time of the attack. Summoned by Jamie's friends, he had somehow managed to transport his nephew to France.
"Why France?" I asked. "Surely it was taking a frightful risk to move you so far."
"More of a risk to leave me where I was. There were English patrols all over the district—we'd been fairly active thereabouts, ye see, me and the lads—and I suppose Dougal didna want them to find me lying senseless in some cottar's hut."
"Or in his own house?" I said, a little cynically.
"I imagine he'd ha' taken me there, but for two things," Jamie replied. "For one, he'd an English visitor at the time. For the second, he thought from the look of me I was going to die in any case, so he sent me to the abbey."
The Abbey of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, on the French coast, was the domain, it seemed, of the erstwhile Alexander Fraser, now abbot of that sanctuary of learning and worship. One of Jamie's six Fraser uncles.
"He and Dougal do not get on, particularly," Jamie explained, "but Dougal could see there was little to be done for me here, while if there was aught to help me, it might be found there."
And it was. Assisted by the monks' medical knowledge and his own strong constitution, Jamie had survived and gradually mended, under the care of the holy brothers of St. Dominic.
"Once I was well again, I came back," he explained. "Dougal and his men met me at the coast, and we were headed for the MacKenzie lands when we, er, met with you."
"Captain Randall said you were stealing cattle," I said.
He smiled, undisturbed by the accusation. "Well, Dougal isna the man to overlook an opportunity of turning a bit of a profit," he observed. "We came on a nice bunch of beasts, grazing in a field, and no one about. So…" He shrugged, with a fatalistic acceptance of the inevitabilities of life.
Apparently I had come upon the end of the confrontation between Dougal's men and Randall's dragoons. Spotting the English bearing down on them, Dougal had sent half his men around a thicket, driving the cattle before them, while the rest of the Scots had hidden among the saplings, ready to ambush the English as they came by.
"Worked verra well too," Jamie said in approval. "We popped out at them and rode straight through them, yelling. They took after us, of course, and we led them a canty chase uphill and through burns and over rocks and such; and all the while the rest of Dougal's men were making off over the border wi' the kine. We lost the lobsterbacks, then, and denned up at the cottage where I first saw ye, waiting for darkness to slip out."
"I see," I said. "Why did you come back to Scotland in the first place, though? I should have thought you'd be much safer in France." He opened his mouth to reply, then reconsidered, sipping wine. Apparently I was getting near the edge of his own area of secrecy.
"Well, that's a long story, Sassenach," he said, avoiding the issue. "I'll tell it ye later, but for now, what about you? Will ye tell me about your own family? If ye feel ye can, of course," he added hastily.
I thought for a moment, but there really seemed little risk in telling him about my parents and Uncle Lamb. There was, after all, some advantage to Uncle Lamb's choice of profession. A scholar of antiquities made as much—or as little—sense in the eighteenth century as in the twentieth.
So I told him, omitting only such minor details as automobiles and airplanes, and of course, the war. As I talked, he listened intently, asking questions now and then, expressing sympathy at my parents' death, and interest in Uncle Lamb and his discoveries.
"And then I met Frank," I finished up. I paused, not sure how much more I could say, without getting into dangerous territory. Luckily Jamie saved me.
"And ye'd as soon not talk about him right now," he said understandingly. I nodded, wordless, my vision blurring a little. Jamie let go of the hand he had been holding, and putting an arm around me, pulled my head gently down on his shoulder.
"It's all right," he said, softly stroking my hair. "Are ye tired, lass? Shall I leave ye to your sleep?"
I was tempted for a moment to say yes, but I felt that that would be both unfair and cowardly. I cleared my throat and sat up, shaking my head.
"No," I said, taking a deep breath. He smelled faintly of soap and wine. "I'm all right. Tell me—tell me what games you used to play, when you were a boy."