Alamance from The Fiery Cross
Copyright © 1999 Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross. All rights reserved.

A group of women were working on the far side of the stream; camp-followers. Some crouched bare-legged in the shallows, washing, others were carrying wet laundry up the bank, to be hung from trees and bushes. His eye passed casually beyond them, then jerked back, caught by...what? What was it?

There. He couldn’t say why he had spotted her at all--there was nothing even faintly distinctive about her. And yet she stood out among the other women as though she had been outlined, drawn with black ink to stand out against the backdrop of stream and budding foliage.

“Morag,” he said, and his heart thumped suddenly with ridiculous joy. She was alive.

He was halfway through the screen of pines before it occurred to him to wonder what he was doing, let alone why he was doing it. It was too late by then, though; he was already out on the bank, walking openly toward them.

Several of the women glanced at him; a few half-froze, watchful. But he was only one man, unarmed. There were more than twenty women by the river, their own men nearby. They watched him as he splashed across the shallow creek, curious, but not alarmed.

She stood stock-still, knee-deep in the water, her skirts kirtled high, and watched him come. She knew him, he could see, but she gave him no sign of acknowledgement.

The other women fell back slightly, wary of him. She stood among the darting dragonflies, strands of brown hair poking out from her cap, a wet smock held forgotten in her hands. He stepped up out of the water and stood before her, wet to the knees.

“Mrs. MacKenzie,” he said softly. “Well met.”

A tiny smile touched the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were brown; he hadn’t noticed that before.

“Mr. MacKenzie,” she said, and gave him a small nod.

He stood helpless and awkward for a moment, not knowing what to do, then stooped and seized an armload of dripping laundry where it swirled in the water near her legs. He turned and clambered up the bank with it, Morag following in sudden haste.

“What are ye doing?” she demanded. “Here, come back wi’ my clothes!”

He carried the wad of wet clothes a short way into the trees, then dropped them casually into a bush, mindful enough of the effort of washing not to let them drag in the dirt. Morag was right behind him, face flushed with indignation.

“What d’ye think you’re about, ye theivin’ clotheid?” she demanded heatedly. “Give those back!”

“I’m not taking them,” Roger assured her. “I only wanted to talk to you for a bit.”

“Oh, aye?” She gave him a suspicious glance. “What about, then?”

He smiled at her; she was still thin, he saw, but her arms were brown and her small face a healthy color--she was clean, and she had lost the pallid, bruised look she had had on board the Gloriana.

“I wished to ask if you are well,” he said softly. “And your child--Jemmy?” To speak the name gave him an odd frisson, and for a split second he saw the image of Brianna in the doorway, her son in her arms, laid over his memory of Morag, holding her baby in the dimness of the hold, ready to kill or die to keep him.

“Oh,” she said, and the suspicion faded slightly, replaced by a reluctant acknowledgement of his right to ask. “We’re well...the both of us. And my husband, too,” she added pointedly.

“I’m pleased to hear it,” he assured her. “Very pleased.” He groped for something else to say, feeling awkward. “I--had thought of you now and then...wondered whether--whether everything was all right. When I saw you just now...well, I thought I’d ask, that’s all.”

“Oh, aye. Aye, I see. Well, I do thank ye, Mr. MacKenzie.” She looked up and met his eyes directly as she said it, her own gaze brown and earnest. “I ken what ye did for us. I’ll not forget; ye’re in my prayers each night.”

“Oh.” Roger felt as though some soft weight had struck him in the breast. “Ahh...thank you.” He had wondered, now and then, if she ever thought of him. Did she remember the kiss he had given her, there in the hold, seeking the spark of her warmth as some shield against the chill of loneliness? He cleared his throat, flushing at the memory.

“You--live nearby?”

She shook her head, and some thought, some memory, tightened her mouth.

He was clearly dismissed. He wiped his hands down his breeks and shifted his feet, not wanting to leave. Having found her again, he was oddly reluctant simply to let her go; curiosity bubbled in him--curiosity and a peculiar sense of connection.

Perhaps not so peculiar; this small brown woman was his relative, his own family--the only person of his own blood he had known since the death of his parents. At the same time, it was very peculiar, he realized, even as his hand reached out and curved around her arm. She was his many-times great-grandmother, after all.

She stiffened, tried to pull away, but he kept hold of her forearm. Her skin was cold from the water, but he felt her pulse throb under his fingers.

“Wait,” he said. “Please. Just a moment. I--I need to tell you...things.”

“No, ye don’t. I’d rather ye didn’t.” She pulled harder, and her hand slid through his, pulled free.

“Your husband. Where is he?” Belated realizations were forming in his brain. If she did not live nearby, then she was what he had first thought when he saw the women--a camp-follower. She was not a whore, he would stake his life on that; so she followed her husband, which meant--

“He is very near by!” She backed up a step, eyeing the distance between herself and the remnants of her laundry. Roger stood between her and the bush; she would have to pass near him in order to retrieve her petticoats and stockings.

Realizing suddenly that she was slightly afraid of him, he turned hastily, grabbing a handful of things at random.

“I’m sorry. Your laundry...here.” He thrust them at her, and she reached to take them by reflex. Something fell--a baby’s shirt--and both ducked to reach for it, cracking foreheads with a solid smack.

“Oh! Oh! Mary and Bride!” Morag clutched her head, though she still clasped the wet clothes against her bosom with one hand.

“Christ, are you all right? Morag--Mrs. MacKenzie--are you all right? I’m very sorry!” Roger touched her shoulder, squinting at her through eyes that watered with pain. He stooped to pick up the tiny shirt that had fallen to the ground between them, and made a vain effort to wipe the smears of mud off the wet cloth. She blinked, eyes similarly watering, and laughed at his expression of dismay.

The collision had somehow broken the tension between them; she stepped back, but seemed not to feel threatened now.

“Aye, I’m fine.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes, then touched the spot on her forehead gingerly. “I’ve got a thick skull, my Mam always said. Are you all right yourself, then?”

“Aye, fine.” Roger touched his own forehead, suddenly and tinglingly aware that the curve of the browbone under his fingers was precisely echoed on the face before him. Hers was smaller, lighter--but just the same.

“I’ve a thick skull, too.” He grinned at her, feeling ridiculously happy. “It runs in my family.”

He handed her the mud-stained shirt, carefully.

“I am sorry,” he said, apologizing again--and not only for the ruined laundry. “Your husband. I asked about him because--is he one of the Regulators, then?”

She looked at him curiously, one brow lifted.

“Of course. Are ye not with the Regulation yourself?”

Of course. Here on this side of Alamance, what else? Tryon’s troops were drawn up in good military order on the field beyond the creek; over here, the Regulators swarmed like bees, without leadership or direction, an angry mass buzzing with random violence.

“No,” he said. “I’ve come with the militia.” He waved toward the distant smudge, where the smoke of Tryon’s campfires hung, far beyond the creek. Her eyes grew wary again, but not frightened; he was only one man.

“That’s the thing I wanted to tell you,” he said. “To warn you, and your husband. The Governor is serious this time; he’s brought organized troops, he’s brought cannon. Lots of troops, all armed.” He leaned toward her, holding out the rest of the wet stockings. She reached out a hand to take them, but kept her eyes on his, waiting.

“He means to put down this rebellion, by any means necessary. He has given orders to kill, if there is resistance. Do you understand? You must tell your husband, make him leave before--before anything happens.”

She paled, and her hand went reflexively to her belly. The wet from the clothes had soaked through her muslin dress, and he saw the small swelling that had been hidden there, round and smooth as a melon under the damp cloth. He felt the jolt of her fear go through him, as though the wet stockings she held conducted electricity.

“We did before, but not now...” she had said, when he asked whether they lived nearby. She might mean only that they had moved to some new place, but...there were baby’s things in her wash; her son was with her here. Her husband was somewhere in this boiling of men.

A single man might pick up his gun and join a mob, for no reason beyond drink or boredom; a married man with a child would not. That spoke of serious disaffection, consequential grievance. And to bring both wife and child to war suggested that he had no safe place to leave them.

Roger thought it likely that Morag and her husband had no home at all now, and he understood her fear perfectly. If her husband should be maimed or killed, how was she to provide for Jemmy, for the new baby swelling under her skirt? She had no one, no family here to turn to.

Except that she did, though she did not know it. He gripped her hand hard, pulling her toward him, overcome with the need somehow to protect her and her children. He had saved them once; he could do it again.

“Morag,” he said. “Hear me. If anything should happen--anything--come to me. If you are in need of anything at all. I’ll take care of you.”

She made no effort to pull away, but searched his face, her eyes brown and serious, a small frown between those curving brows. He had an irresistible urge to touch her, to make some physical connection between them--this time for her sake, as much as his. He leaned forward and kissed her, very gently.

He opened his eyes then, and lifted his head, to find himself looking over her shoulder, into the disbelieving face of his many- times great-grandfather.