Then he glanced across the table at Claire, uncombed hair standing on end as she blinked sleepily at him over the toast, and generously concluded that it probably wasn’t a conscious choice on Bree’s part, but rather the influence of genetics.
Claire roused at once, though, when he explained his errand, between bites of bacon and toast.
“Old Mrs. Wilson?” she asked with interest. “What did she die of, did Mr. Crombie say?”
Roger shook his head, swallowing oatmeal.
“Only that she’d passed in the night. I suppose they found her dead. Her heart, maybe—she must have been at least eighty.”
“She was about five years older than I am,” Claire said dryly. “She told me.”
“Oh. Mmphm.” Clearing his throat hurt, and he took a sip of the hot, dark stuff in his cup. It was a brew of roasted chicory and acorns, but not that bad.
“I hope ye didna tell her how old you are, Sassenach.” Jamie reached across and snared the last piece of toast. Mrs. Bug, ever-vigilant, whisked the plate away to refill it.
“I’m not that careless,” Claire said, dabbing a forefinger delicately into a smear of honey and licking it. “They already think I’ve made some sort of pact with the devil; if I told them my age, they’d be sure of it.”
Roger chuckled, but thought privately that she was right. The marks of her ordeal had nearly vanished, bruises faded and the bridge of her nose healed straight and clean. Even unkempt and puffy-eyed from sleep, she was more than handsome, with lovely skin, lushly thick curly hair, and an elegance of feature undreamt of among the Highland fisher-folk. To say nothing of the eyes, sherry-gold and startling.
Add to these natural gifts the twentieth-century practices of nutrition and hygiene—she had all of her teeth, white and straight—and she easily appeared a good twenty years younger than other women of her own age. He found that a comforting thought; perhaps Bree had inherited the art of aging beautifully from her mother, as well. He could always make his own breakfast, after all.
Jamie had finished his own meal and gone to fetch the Bible. He came back, laying it beside Roger’s plate.
“We’ll go up with ye to the burying,” he said, nodding at the book. “Mrs. Bug—can ye maybe put up a wee basket for the Crombies?”
“Done it already,” she informed him, and plunked a large basket on the table before him, covered with a napkin and bulging with goodies. “Ye’ll take it, then? I must go tell Arch and fetch my good shawl, and we’ll see ye at the graveside, aye?”
Brianna came in then, yawning but well-groomed, and set about making Jem presentable while Claire vanished to find cap and shawl. Roger picked up the Bible, intending to thumb through the Psalms for something suitably somber but uplifting.
“Maybe the Twenty-third?” he said, half to himself. “Nice and short. Always a classic. And it does mention death, at least.”
“Are you going to give a eulogy?” Brianna asked, interested. “Or a sermon?”
“Oh, Christ, I hadn’t thought of that,” he said in dismay. He cleared his throat experimentally. “Is there more coffee?”
He’d been to a great many funerals in Inverness presided over by the Reverend, and was well aware that the paying customers considered such an event a dismal failure unless the preaching went on for at least half an hour. Granted, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and the Crombies couldn’t expect—
“Why do you have a Protestant Bible, Da?” Bree paused in the act of disentangling a piece of toast from Jemmy’s hair, peering over Roger’s shoulder.
Surprised, he shut the cover, but she was right; King James Version, it said, the letters of the inscription nearly worn away.
“It was given to me,” Jamie said. The reply was casual, but Roger glanced up; there was something odd in Jamie’s voice. Brianna heard it, too; she shot her father a brief, sharp look, but his face was tranquil as he took a final bite of bacon and wiped his lips.
“D’ye want a dram in your coffee, Roger Mac?” he said, nodding at Roger’s cup, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to offer whisky with breakfast.
In fact, the notion sounded really appealing, given the immediate prospects, but Roger shook his head.
“No, thanks; I’ll do.”
“Are you sure?” Brianna transferred the sharp look to him. “Maybe you should. For your throat.”
“It’ll be fine,” he said shortly. He was worried about his voice himself; he didn’t need solicitude from the redheaded contingent, all three of whom were giving him thoughtful looks that he interpreted as casting extreme doubt upon his speaking abilities. Whisky might help his throat, but he doubted it would do much for his preaching—and the last thing he wanted was to show up at a funeral reeking of strong drink in front of a lot of strict teetotalers.
“Vinegar,” advised Mrs. Bug, bending to take away his plate. “Hot vinegar’s the thing. Cuts the phlegm, aye?”
“I’ll bet it would,” Roger said, smiling despite his misgivings. “But I think I won’t, Mrs. Bug, thanks.” He’d awakened with a slight sore throat, and hoped the consumption of breakfast would cure it. It hadn’t, and the thought of drinking hot vinegar made his tonsils seize up.
He held out his cup for more chicory coffee, instead, and set his mind to the task ahead.
“Now—does anyone know anything about old Mrs. Wilson?”
“She’s dead,” Jemmy piped up confidently. Everybody laughed, and Jem looked confused, but then joined the laughter, though plainly having not the slightest idea what was funny.
“Good start, sport.” Roger reached out and brushed crumbs from Jemmy’s shirtfront. “Might be a point, at that. The Reverend had a decent sermon on something in the Epistles—the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. I heard him give it more than once. What d’ye think?” He raised a brow at Brianna, who frowned in thought and picked up the Bible.
“That would probably work. Does this thing have a concordance?”
“No.” Jamie put down his coffee cup. “It’s in Romans, chapter six, though.” Seeing the looks of surprise turned upon him, he flushed slightly, and jerked his head toward the Bible.
“I had that book in prison,” he said. “I read it. Come along, a bhailach, are ye ready now?”
THE WEATHER WAS louring, clouds threatening anything from freezing rain to the first snow of the season, and occasional cold gusts of wind catching cloaks and skirts, bellying them out like sails. The men held tight to their hats, and the women huddled deep in their hoods, all walking with their heads down, like sheep pushing stubbornly into the wind.
“Great weather for a funeral,” Brianna murmured, pulling her cloak tight around her after one such gust.
“Mmphm.” Roger responded automatically, obviously unaware of what she’d said, but registering that she’d spoken. His brow was furrowed, and he seemed tight-lipped and pale. She put a hand on his arm, squeezing in reassurance, and he glanced at her with a faint smile, his face easing.
An unearthly wail cut through the air, and Brianna froze, clutching Roger’s arm. It rose to a shriek, then broke in a series of short, jerky gulps, coming down a scale of sobs like a dead body rolling down a staircase.
Gooseflesh prickled down her spine and her stomach clenched. She glanced at Roger; he looked nearly as pale as she felt, though he pressed her hand reassuringly.
“That will be the ban-treim,” her father remarked calmly. “I didna ken there was one.”
“Neither did I,” said her mother. “Who do you suppose it is?” She had startled, too, at the sound of it, but now looked merely interested.
Roger had been holding his breath, too; he let it out now, with a small rattling sound, and cleared his throat.
“A mourning woman,” he said. The words emerged thickly, and he cleared his throat again, much harder. “They, um, keen. After the coffin.”
The voice rose again out of the wood, this time with a more deliberate sound. Brianna thought there were words in the wailing, but couldn’t make them out. Wendigo. The word came unbidden into her mind, and she shivered convulsively. Jemmy whimpered, trying to burrow inside his grandfather’s coat.
“It’s nothing to fear, a bhailach.” He patted Jemmy on the back. Jem appeared unconvinced, and put his thumb in his mouth, huddling round-eyed into Jamie’s chest as the wailing faded into moans.
“Well, come, then, we’ll meet her, shall we?” Jamie turned aside and began making his way into the forest, toward the voice.
There was nothing to do but follow. Brianna squeezed Roger’s arm, but left him, walking close to her father so Jemmy could see her and be reassured.
“It’s okay, pal,” she said softly. The weather was growing colder; her breath puffed out in wisps of white. The end of Jemmy’s nose was red and his eyes seemed a little pink around the edges—was he catching a cold, too?
She put out a hand to touch his forehead, but just then the voice broke out afresh. This time, though, something seemed to have happened to it. It was a high, thready sound, not the robust keening they’d heard before. And uncertain—like an apprentice ghost, she thought in uneasy jest.
An apprentice it proved to be, though not a ghost. Her father ducked under a low pine and she followed him, emerging in a clearing facing two surprised women. Or rather, a woman and a teenaged girl, with shawls wrapped over their heads. She knew them, but what were their names?
“Maduinn mhath, maighistear,” the older woman said, recovering from her surprise and dropping into a low curtsy to Jamie. Good morn to you, sir.
“And to you, my mistresses,” he replied, also in Gaelic.
“Good morn, Mrs. Gwilty,” Roger said in his soft, hoarse voice. “And to you, a nighean,” he added, bowing courteously to the girl. Olanna, that was it; Brianna recalled the round face, just like the “O” that began her name. She was Mrs. Gwilty’s . . . daughter? Or her niece?
“Ach, bonny boy,” the girl crooned, reaching out a finger to touch Jem’s rounded cheek. He pulled back a little and sucked harder on his thumb, watching her suspiciously under the edge of his blue woolly bonnet.
The women spoke no English, but Brianna’s Gaelic was sufficient by now to allow her to follow the conversation, if not to join fluently in it. Mrs. Gwilty was, she explained, showing her niece the way of a proper coronach.
“And a fine job of work you will make of it between you, I’m sure,” Jamie said politely.
Mrs. Gwilty sniffed, and gave her niece a disparaging look.
“Mmphm,” she said. “A voice like a bat farting, but she is the only woman left of my family, and I shall not live forever.”
Roger made a small choking noise, which he hastily developed into a convincing cough. Olanna’s pleasant round face, already flushed from the cold, went a blotchy red, but she said nothing, merely cast her eyes down and huddled deeper into her shawl. It was a dark brown homespun, Brianna saw; Mrs. Gwilty’s was a fine wool, dyed black—and if it was a trifle frayed around the edges, she wore it still with the dignity of her profession.