Sassenach,” he said against my shoulder, a moment later. “Mm?” “Who in God’s name is John Wayne?” “You are,” I said. “Go to sleep. I really needed that laugh to break the tears.
She supposed that it it perhaps not fair to quarrel with someone on the basis of what you thought they were thinking.
Twenty-four years ago today, I married ye, Sassenach,” he said softly. “I hope ye willna have cause yet to regret it.
Your face is my heart, Sassenach,” he said softly, “and love of you is my soul. But you’re right; ye canna be my conscience.
I dinna mean to interruupt ye, Sassenach” he whispered in my air. “But would ye like a bit of help we that?
He wasn’t a whole person any longer, but only half of something not yet made.
After all, I thought, what were days and weeks in the presence of eternity?
Is thee afraid of me, Rachel?” he whispered. “I am,” she whispered back, and closed her hand on his wounded shoulder, lightly but hard enough for him to feel the hurt of it. “And I am afraid for thee, as well. But there are things I fear much more than death – and to be without thee is what I fear most.
My first coherent thought was, “It’s raining. This must be Scotland.
No, the fault lies with the artists,” Claire went on. “The writers, the singers, the tellers of tales. It’s them that take the past and re-create it to their liking. Them that could take a fool and give you back a hero, take a sot and make him a king.
You are mine,” it had said. “Mine! And I will not let you go.
There’s no place on earth with more of the old superstitions and magic mixed into its daily life than the Scottish Highlands.
There is no more perfect stillness than the solitude in the heart of a snowstorm.
The vivid memory of the woods had blossomed into a visceral longing for the Ridge, so immediate that I felt the ghost of my vanished house rise around me, a cold mountain wind thrumming past its walls, and thought that, if I reached down, I could feel Adso’s soft gray fur under my fingers. I swallowed, hard.
It was not Monsieur Arouet, but a colleague of his – a lady novelist – who remarked to me once that writing novels was a cannibal’s art, in which one often mixed small portions of one’s friends and one’s enemies together, seasoned them with imagination, and allowed the whole to stew together into a savory concoction.
I mean to take my time about it, aye?
I didn’t know what it was about red hair, but many years’ experience with Jamie, Brianna, and Jemmy had taught me that while most people became irritable when hungry, a redheaded person with an empty stomach was a walking time bomb.
My father always said that was the difference between an American and an Englishman. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; an American thinks a hundred years is a long time.
How was yer first time, Jamie? Did ye bleed?” shouted Rupert.
I believe you,” he said firmly. “I dinna understand it a bit – not yet – but I believe you. Claire, I believe you! Listen to me! There’s the truth between us, you and I, and whatever ye tell me, I shall believe it.” He gave me a gentle shake. “It doesna matter what it is. You’ve told me. That’s enough for now. Be still, mo duinne. Lay your head and rest. You’ll tell me the rest of it later. And I’ll believe you.