“No, a nighean,” he said. “I’ve got to go for a bit, though. Here, it’s only damp where I’ve been sitting; curl up there, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She cleared her throat—everyone had catarrh from spending day and night in wet clothes beside smoky fires—and shook her head to clear that, too, but Ian was wise enough to keep quiet, and she settled into the little half-warm hollow he’d made, scuttering into the wet leaves and drawing herself up into a ball.

THE RAIN HAD actually stopped, he realized. It was only that the dripping foliage all around made the same sound as the rain itself. The respite had allowed someone to light a tiny fire—no doubt someone had thought to bring a bit of kindling in his pack—but it hissed and fumed in the damp, billowing smoke over the gathered men as the wind changed. Jamie caught a sudden lungful and coughed, squinting through watering eyes at the hulking dark shape of Benjamin Cleveland, who was addressing a number of smaller shapes with violent language and gestures of the same nature.

“Ian,” he said, wiping his face on his sleeve, “go and find Colonel Campbell, aye? Tell him what’s afoot.”

Ian shook his head, the movement visible only because he was wearing a hat.

“No, Uncle,” he said. “Whatever’s afoot is going to happen in the next few minutes.”

“Damn you for a lily-livered pig-son,” Cleveland said—fairly mildly—to one of the smaller figures. “We’ve got no place to keep prisoners, and no need to try ’em in any case. I know the smell of a Tory. We’ll string ’em up and there’s an end to it!”

There was a shuffling and mumbling among the men, but Young Ian was right; Jamie could feel the shift of sentiment among them. The doubters were still trying to make a case for mercy, but were being overwhelmed by a rising flame of anger, lit and encouraged by Cleveland himself, who was visible in the fitful light, brandishing a large coil of rope.

Does he travel about with a dozen nooses, just in case of need? Jamie thought, unnerved and growing angry himself. He shoved between two men and got close enough to Cleveland to shout loud enough to interrupt him.

“Stad an sin!” he bellowed. Cleveland, as he’d hoped, turned toward him in puzzlement.

“Fraser?” he said, squinting into the hazy dark. “That you?”

“It is,” Jamie said, still loud. “And I dinna mean to let ye make me a murderer!”

“Why, if that troubles you, Mister Fraser,” Cleveland said with elaborate courtesy, “you just turn round and trot back to your wife, and your conscience won’t itch you a bit.”

That made most of the crowd laugh, though there were still dissenters calling out, “Murder! He’s right! It’s goddamned murder, ’thout a trial!” The breeze changed again and the cloud of smoke that had hidden the prisoners fled away, showing a line of six men, each with his hands bound behind his back, swaying to keep his balance. And then the clouds split for an instance, and Jamie saw the prisoners’ faces.