80

CREAMED CRUD

JAMIE LEANED BACK from the table, sighing in repletion. As he started to get up, though, Mrs. Bug popped up from her place, wagging an admonitory finger at him.

“Now, sir, now, sir, ye’ll be going nowhere, and me left wi’ gingerbread and fresh crud to go to waste!”

Brianna clapped a hand to her mouth, with the muffled noise characteristic of one who has just shot milk up one’s nose. Jamie and Mr. Bug, to whom “crud” was the familiar Scottish usage for “curds,” both looked at her curiously, but made no comment.

“Well, I’ll surely burst, Mrs. Bug, but I expect I’ll die a happy man,” Jamie informed her. “Bring it on, then—but I’ve a wee thing to fetch whilst ye serve it out.” With amazing agility for a man who had just consumed a pound or two of spiced sausage with fried apples and potatoes, he slid out of his chair and disappeared down the hall toward his study.

I took a deep breath, pleased that I had smelled the gingerbread cooking earlier in the afternoon, and had had the foresight to remove my stays before sitting down to supper.

“Wan’ crud!” Jemmy crowed, picking up infallibly on the word most calculated to cause maternal consternation. He pounded his hands on the table in ecstasy, chanting, “Crud-crud-crud-crud!” at the top of his lungs.

Roger glanced at Bree with a half-smile, and I was pleased to see that she caught it, smiling back even as she captured Jemmy’s hands and started the job of wiping the remains of dinner off his face.

Jamie returned just as the gingerbread and curds—these being sugared and whipped into creamy blobs—made their appearance. He reached over Roger’s shoulder as he passed, and deposited a cloth-bound ledger on the table in front of him, topped with the small wooden box containing the astrolabe.

“The weather’s good for another two months, maybe,” he said casually, sitting down and sticking a finger into the huge dollop of creamed crud on his plate. He stuck the finger in his mouth, closing his eyes in bliss.

“Aye?” The word came out choked and barely audible, but enough to make Jemmy quit babbling and stare at his father open-mouthed. I wondered whether it was the first time Roger had spoken today.

Jamie had opened his eyes and picked up his spoon, eyeing his dessert with the determination of a man who means to die trying.

“Aye, well, Fergus will be going down to the coast just before snowfall—if he can take the surveying reports to be filed in New Bern then, that will be good, no?” He dug into the gingerbread in a businesslike way, not looking up.

There was a silence, filled only with heavy breathing and the clack of spoons on wooden plates. Then Roger, who had not picked up his spoon, spoke.

“I can . . . do that.” It might have been no more than the effort it took to force air through his scarred throat, but there was an emphasis on the last word, that made Brianna wince. Only slightly, but I saw it—and so did Roger. He glanced at her, then looked down at his plate, lashes dark against his cheek. His jaw tightened, and he picked up his spoon.

“Good, then,” Jamie said, even more casually. “I’ll show ye how. Ye can go in a week.”

Last night I dreamed that Roger was leaving. I’ve been dreaming about his going for a week, ever since Da suggested it. Suggested—ha. Like Moses brought down the Ten Suggestions from Mount Sinai.

In the dream, Roger was packing things in a big sack, and I was busy mopping the floor. He kept getting in my way, and I kept pushing the sack aside to get at another part of the floor. It was filthy, with all sorts of stains and sticky glop. There were little bones scattered around, like Adso had eaten some little animal there, and the bones kept getting caught up in my mop.

I don’t want him to go, but I do, too. I hear all the things he isn’t saying; they echo in my head. I keep thinking that when he’s gone, it will be quiet.

SHE PASSED ABRUPTLY from sleep to instant wakefulness. It was just past dawn, and she was alone. There were birds singing in the wood. One was caroling near the cabin, its notes sharp and musical. Was it a thrush? she wondered.

She knew he was gone, but lifted her head to check. The rucksack was gone from beside the door, as was the bundle of food and bottle of cider she had prepared for him the night before. The bodhran still hung in its place on the wall, seeming to float suspended in the unearthly light.

She had tried to get him to play again, after the hanging, feeling that at least he could still have music, if not his voice. He had resisted, though, and finally she could see that she was angering him with her insistence, and had stopped. He would do things his way—or not at all.

She glanced toward the cradle, but all was quiet, Jemmy still sound asleep. She lay back on her pillow, hands lifting to her breasts. She was naked, and they were smooth, round, and full as gourds. She squeezed one nipple gently, and tiny pearls of milk popped out. One swelled bigger, overflowed, and ran in a tiny, tickling droplet down the side of her breast.

They had made love before sleeping, the night before. At first, she hadn’t thought he would, but when she came up to him and put her arms around him, he had clasped her hard against himself, kissed her slowly for a long, long time, and finally carried her to bed.

She had been so anxious for him, wanting to assure him of her love with mouth and hands and body, to give him something of herself to take away, that she had forgotten herself completely, and been surprised when the climax overtook her. She slid one hand down, between her legs, remembering the sense of being caught up suddenly by a great wave, swept helplessly toward shore. She hoped that Roger had noticed; he hadn’t said anything, nor opened his eyes.

He had kissed her goodbye in the dark before dawn, still silent. Or had he? She put a hand to her mouth, suddenly unsure, but there was no clue in the smooth, cool flesh of her lips.

Had he kissed her goodbye? Or had she only dreamed it?