The untiring and diligent Kathy Lord, who copy-edited this entire manuscript in some impossible time frame, and did not either go blind or lose her sense of humor.
Virginia Norey, Goddess of Book Design, who has once again managed to cram The Whole Thing between two covers and make it not only readable but elegant.
Steven Lopata, for invaluable technical advice re explosions and burning things down.
Arnold Wagner, Lisa Harrison, Kateri van Huystee, Luz, Suzann Shepherd, and Jo Bourne, for technical advice on grinding pigments, storing paint, and other picturesque tidbits, such as the bit about Egyptian Brown being made of ground-up mummies. I couldnt figure out how to work that into the book, but it was too good not to share.
Karen Watson, for her former brother-in-laws notable quote regarding the sensations of a hemorrhoid sufferer.
Pamela Patchet, for her excellent and inspiring description of driving a two-inch splinter under her fingernail.
Margaret Campbell, for the wonderful copy of Piedmont Plantation.
Janet McConnaughey, for her vision of Jamie and Brianna playing Brag.
Marte Brengle, Julie Kentner, Joanne Cutting, Carol Spradling, Beth Shope, Cindy R., Kathy Burdette, Sherry, and Kathleen Eschenburg, for helpful advice and entertaining commentary on Dreary Hymns.
Lauri Klobas, Becky Morgan, Linda Allen, Nikki Rowe, and Lori Benton for technical advice on paper-making.
Kim Laird, Joel Altman, Cara Stockton, Carol Isler, Jo Murphey, Elise Skidmore, Ron Kenner, and many, many (many, many) other inhabitants of the Compuserve Literary Forum (now renamed as the Books and Writers Community (http://community.compuserve.com/books), but still the same gathering of eclectic eccentricity, trove of erudition, and source of Really Strange Facts, for their contributions of links, facts, and articles they thought I might find helpful. I always do.
Chris Stuart and Backcountry, for the gift of their marvelous CDs, Saints and Strangers and Mohave River, to which I wrote quite a bit of this book.
Ewan MacColl, whose rendition of Eppie Morrie inspired Chapter 85.
Gabi Eleby, for socks, cookies, and general moral supportand to the Ladies of Lallybroch, for their boundless goodwill, manifested in the form of food boxes, cards, and enormous quantities of soap, both commercial and handmade (Jack Randall Lavender is nice, and I quite like the one called Breath of Snow. The one called Lick Jamie All Over was so sweet one of the dogs ate it, though).
Bev LaFrance, Carol Krenz, Gilbert Sureau, Laura Bradbury, Julianne, Julie, and several other nice people whose names I unfortunately forgot to write down, for help with the French bits.
Monika Berrisch, for allowing me to appropriate her persona.
And to my husband, Doug Watkins, who this time gave me the opening lines of the Prologue.
PROLOGUE
TIME IS A LOT OF THE THINGS people say that God is.
Theres the always preexisting, and having no end. Theres the notion of being all powerfulbecause nothing can stand against time, can it? Not mountains, not armies.
And time is, of course, all-healing. Give anything enough time, and everything is taken care of: all pain encompassed, all hardship erased, all loss subsumed.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Remember, man, that thou art dust; and unto dust thou shalt return.
And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil.
PART ONE
Rumors of War
1
AN INTERRUPTED
CONVERSATION
THE DOG SENSED THEM FIRST. Dark as it was, Ian Murray felt rather than saw Rollos head lift suddenly near his thigh, ears pricking. He put a hand on the dogs neck, and felt the hair there ridged with warning.
So attuned as they were to each other, he did not even think consciously, Men, but put his other hand to his knife and lay still, breathing. Listening.
The forest was quiet. It was hours til dawn and the air was still as that in a church, with a mist like incense rising slowly up from the ground. He had lain down to rest on the fallen trunk of a giant tulip tree, preferring the tickle of wood-lice to seeping damp. He kept his hand on the dog, waiting.
Rollo was growling, a low, constant rumble that Ian could barely hear but felt easily, the vibration of it traveling up his arm, arousing all the nerves of his body. He hadnt been asleephe rarely slept at night anymorebut had been quiet, looking up into the vault of the sky, engrossed in his usual argument with God. Quietness had vanished with Rollos movement. He sat up slowly, swinging his legs over the side of the half-rotted log, heart beating fast now.
Rollos warning hadnt changed, but the great head swiveled, following something unseen. It was a moonless night; Ian could see the faint silhouettes of trees and the moving shadows of the night, but nothing more.
Then he heard them. Sounds of passage. A good distance away, but coming nearer by the moment. He stood and stepped softly into the pool of black under a balsam fir. A click of the tongue, and Rollo left off his growling and followed, silent as the wolf who had been his father.