“I’ll go and talk to Rachel,” he said, eyeing her. “Surely she’s better sense than to—”

“Ye think I didn’t? Or Young Ian?” Jenny shook her head, half admiringly. “It would be easier to move yon wee mountain there”—she nodded at the bulk of Roan Mountain, looming dark green in the distance—“than to get that Quaker lass to change her mind, once it’s made up.”

“But the bairn—!”

“Aye, aye,” she said, a little irritably. “Ye think I didna mention that? And she did squinch her eyes a bit. But then she said to me, reasonable as Sunday, would I let my husband go alone seven hundred miles to rescue his first wife, and her wi’ three pitiable bairns—one of whom might just possibly be Ian’s?—and that’s the first I heard of it, too,” she added, seeing his face. “I see her point.”

“Jesus.”

“Aye.” She stretched herself, groaning a little, and shook her skirts, which were thick with foxtails by now. Jamie could feel the prick of them through his stockings, dozens of tiny needles. The thought of Jenny’s going was a dirk right through his heart. It hurt to breathe.

He knew she could tell; she didn’t look at him but coiled up the pearl rosary neatly and, taking his hand, dropped it into his palm.

“Keep it for me,” she said, matter-of-factly, “and if I dinna come back, give it to Mandy, when she’s old enough.”

“Jenny …” he said softly.

“See, when ye come to reckon your life,” she said briskly, stooping to pick up the goat’s rope, “ye see that it’s the bairns are most important. They carry your blood and they carry whatever else ye gave them, on into the time ahead.” Her voice was perfectly steady, but she cleared her throat with a tiny hem before going on.

“Mandy’s the farthest out, aye?” she said. “As far as I can reach. The youngest girl of Mam’s blood. Let her take it on, then.”

He swallowed, hard.

“I will,” he said, and closed his hand over the beads, warm from his sister’s touch, warm with her prayers. “I swear, sister.”

“Well, I ken that, clot-heid,” she said, smiling up at him. “Come and help me catch these goats.”

Part Four

A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES

59

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JAMIE HANDED IAN A small, heavy purse.

“I can manage, Uncle,” he said, trying to hand it back. “We’ve horses, and I’ve got enough coin to feed us, I think.”

“You’d be happy enough to sleep in the woods along the way, and Rachel’s young and strong, and doubtless she’d do it for love of ye. But if ye think ye can make your mother travel seven hundred miles, sleeping by the side of the road and eating what ye can catch along the way … think again, aye?”

“Mmphm.” Ian acknowledged the reason in this, though he weighed the purse reluctantly in the palm of his hand.