My heart’s desire. The words lay like drops of lead in his ear. The wind had been whistling past his head, whipping the hair out of its binding and across his face. But he’d heard that, he knew he had, he hadn’t dreamed it …

But his eyes had been on Murtagh. There was movement, confusion, someone came toward him, he saw the dark blade of a bayonet, wet with rain or blood or mud, and he pushed it aside and suddenly it was a fight, with two of them pulling at him, bashing, trying to knock him down.

A sudden sound surprised him and he opened his eyes, disoriented, and realized that he’d made the noise, it was the sound he’d made when something took his left leg out from under him, a grunt of impact, impatience, he had to get up …

“And Captain Randall reached down to ye, then, where ye lay on the ground …”

“And I had my dirk in my hand and I—” He broke off and looked down at his sister, urgent. “Did I kill him? Did I say I did?”

She was watching him closely, a look of deep concern on her face. He made an impatient gesture, and she gave him a reproving look. No, she wouldn’t lie to him, he kent better than that …

“Ye said ye did. Ye said it over and over …”

“I said I killed him, over and over?”

Despite herself, she gave a small shudder. “No. That it was hot. The—his—blood. ‘Hot,’ ye kept saying, ‘God, it was so hot …’”

“Hot.” For a moment, that made no sense, and then he caught a glimpse of it: the dim sense of darkness leaning over him, the brush of wet wool across his face, effort, so much effort to raise his arm one more time, trembling, he saw drops of clean rain run down the blade, over his shaking hand, and effort, pushing, pushing up and the thick resisting, rasping cloth, momentary hardness, push, God damn it, then a deep, startling heat that had spilled over his frozen hand, his wind-chilled arm. He’d been desperately grateful for the warmth, he remembered that—but he could not remember the blow itself.

“Murtagh,” he said, and the sense of blood-heat left him as suddenly as it had come, the chilly wind in his ears. “Did I say what happened to Murtagh?” He gave a sigh of pain, exasperation, desolation. “Why would ye not go when I told ye, ye scabbit auld bugger?”

“He did,” Jenny said, unexpectedly. “He took the men as far as the road and set them on their way. They said so, when they came back to Lallybroch. But then he went back—for you.”