Jamie groaned, his eyes wide and blank with shock. Randall set the mallet down with care. He took Jamie's chin in his hand and turned his face up. "Now kiss me," he said softly, and lowered his head to Jamie's unresisting mouth.
Randall's face when he rose was dreamy, eyes gentle and faraway, long mouth quirked in a smile. Once upon a time, I had loved a smile like that, and that dreamy look had roused me in anticipation. Now it sickened me. Tears ran into the corner of my mouth, though I didn't remember starting to cry. Randall stood a moment in his trance, gazing down at Jamie. Then he stirred, remembering, and drew the knife once more from its sheath.
The blade slashed carelessly through the binding around my wrists, grazing the skin. I hardly had time to rub the circulation back into my hands before he was urging me up with a hand beneath my elbow, pushing me toward the door.
"Wait!" Jamie spoke behind us, and Randall turned impatiently.
"You'll allow me to say goodbye?" It was a statement more than a question, and Randall hesitated only briefly before nodding and giving me a shove back toward the motionless figure at the table.
Jamie's good arm was tight around my shoulders and my wet face was buried in his neck.
"You can't," I whispered. "You can't. I won't let you."
His mouth was warm against my ear. "Claire, I'm to hang in the morning. What happens to me between now and then doesna matter to anyone." I drew back and stared at him.
"It matters to me!" The strained lips quivered in what was almost a smile, and he raised his free hand and laid it against my wet cheek.
"I know it does, mo duinne. And that's why you'll go now. So I'll know there is someone still who minds for me." He drew me close again, kissed me gently and whispered in Gaelic, "He will let you go because he thinks you are helpless. I know you are not." Releasing me, he said in English, "I love you. Go now."
Randall paused as he ushered me out the door. "I'll be bad very shortly." It was the voice of a man taking reluctant leave of his lover, and my stomach heaved.
Silhouetted in red by the torch behind him, Jamie inclined his head gracefully toward the pinioned hand. "I expect you'll find me here."
Black Jack. A common name for rogues and scoundrels in the eighteenth century. A staple of romantic fiction, the name conjured up charming highwaymen, dashing blades in plumed hats. The reality walked at my side.
One never stops to think what underlies romance. Tragedy and terror, transmuted by time. Add a little art in the telling, and voila! a stirring romance, to make the blood run fast and maidens sigh. My blood was running fast, all right, and never maiden sighed like Jamie, cradling his mangled hand.
"This way." It was the first time Randall had spoken since we had left the cell. He indicated a narrow alcove in the wall, unlighted by torches. The way out, of which he had spoken to Jamie.
By now I had sufficient command of myself to speak, and I did so. I stepped back a pace, so that the torchlight fell full on me, for I wanted him to remember my face.
"You asked me, Captain, if I were a witch," I said, my voice low and steady. "I'll answer you now. Witch I am. Witch, and I curse you. You will marry, Captain, and your wife will bear a child, but you shall not live to see your firstborn. I curse you with knowledge, Jack Randall—I give you the hour of your death."
His face was in shadow, but the gleam of his eyes told me he believed me. And why should he not? For I spoke the truth, and I knew it. I could see the lines of Frank's genealogical chart as though they were drawn on the mortar lines between the stones of the wall, and the names listed by them. "Jonathan Wolverton Randall," I said softly, reading it from the stones. "Born, September the 3rd, 1705. Died—" He made a convulsive movement toward me, but not fast enough to prevent me from speaking.
A narrow door at the back of the alcove crashed open with a squeal of hinges. Expecting further darkness, my eyes were dazzled by a blinding flash of light on snow. A quick shove from behind sent me staggering headlong into the drifts, and the door slammed to behind me.
I was lying in a ditch of sorts, behind the prison. The drifts around me covered heaps of something—the prison's refuse, most likely. There was something hard beneath the drift I had fallen into; wood, perhaps. Looking up at the sheering wall above me, I could see streaks and runnels down the stone, marking the path of garbage tipped from a sliding door forty feet above. That must be the kitchen quarters.
I rolled over, bracing myself to rise, and found myself looking into a pair of wide blue eyes. The face was nearly as blue as the eyes, and hard as the log of wood I had mistaken him for. I stumbled to my feet, choking, and staggered back against the prison wall.