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A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander 6) Diana Gabaldon 122280K 2023-08-29

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PROLOGUE

TIME IS A LOT OF THE THINGS people say that God is

There’s the always preexisting, and having no end There’s the notion of being all powerful—because nothing can stand against time, can it? Not mountains, not armies

And tih ti 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 Ti akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil

PART ONE

Rumors of War

AN INTERRUPTED

CONVERSATION

THE DOG SENSED THEM FIRST Dark as it was, Ian Murray felt rather than saw Rollo’s head lift suddenly near his thigh, ears pricking He put a hand on the dog’s neck, and felt the hair there ridged arning

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 round He had lain down to rest on the fallen trunk of a giant tulip tree, preferring the tickle of wood-lice to seeping da

Rollo was growling, a low, constant rumble that Ian could barely hear but felt easily, the vibration of it traveling up his ar all the nerves of his body He hadn’t been asleep—he rarely slept at night any up into the vault of the sky, engrossed in his usual argument with God Quietness had vanished with Rollo’s s over the side of the half-rotted log, heart beating fast now

Rollo’s warning hadn’t changed, but the great head swiveled, following soht; Ian could see the faint silhouettes of trees and themore

Then he heard the nearer by the moment He stood and stepped softly into the pool of black under a balsa and followed, silent as the ho had been his father

Ian’s resting-place overlooked a ga

White men Now that was odd, and more than odd He couldn’t see them, but didn’t need to; the noise theywere not silent, and hosts in the wood—but he had no doubt whatever Metal, that was it He was hearing the jingle of harness, the clink of buttons and buckles—and gun barrels

A lot of thean to smell them He leaned forward a little, eyes closed, the better to snuff up what clue he could

They carried pelts; now he picked up the dried-blood cold-fur smell that had probably waked Rollo—but not trappers, surely; too many Trappers moved in ones and twos

Poor men, and dirty Not trappers, and not hunters Game was easy to coer And the sweat of bad drink

Close by now, perhaps ten feet fro sound, and Ian closed his hand once ’s ruff, but thefootsteps, the buhs of weariness

Twenty-three men, he made it, and there was a mule—no, two mules with them; he could hear the creak of laden panniers and that querulous heavy breathing, the way a loaded e of complaint

The men would never have detected them, but some freak of the air bore Rollo’s scent to thebray shattered the dark, and the forest erupted in front of hi and startled shouts Ian was already running when pistol shots crashed behind him

“A Dhia!” So Was he killed?

No Rollo was pushing a worried wet nose into his ear His head buzzed like a hive and he saw bright flashes of light before his eyes

“Run! Ruith!” he gasped, pushing at the dog “Run out! Go!” The dog hesitated, whining deep in his throat He couldn’t see, but felt the big body lunge and turn, turn back, undecided

“Ruith!” He got hi at last obeyed, running as he had been trained

There was no tiained his feet He fell facedown, thrust hands and feet deep into the leafin

A foot struck between his shoulder blades, but the breath it drove out of him wasso much noise Whoever had stepped on hi blow as the

The shooting ceased The shouting didn’t, but heflat on his face, cold da of dead leaves in his nose—but felt as though very drunk, the world revolving slowly round him His head didn’t hurt much, past the first burst of pain, but he didn’t seem able to lift it

He had the diht that if he died here, no one would know Hiswhat had become of him

The noises grew fainter, , but it had the sound of coht call out If they knehite, they ht not

He kept quiet Either he was dying or he wasn’t If he was, no help was possible If he wasn’t, none was needed

Well, I asked then, didn’t I? he thought, resuh he lay still on the trunk of the tulip tree, looking up into the depths of heaven above A sign, I said I didna quite expect Ye to be so proh

DUTCH CABIN

March 1773

NO ONE HAD KNOWN the cabin was there, until Kenny Lindsay had seen the flames, on his way up the creek

“I wouldna ha’ seen at all,” he said, for perhaps the sixth tiht, I’d never ha’ kent it, never” He wiped a tre hand over his face, unable to take his eyes off the line of bodies that lay at the edge of the forest “Was it savages, Mac Dubh? They’re no scalped, but maybe—”

“No” Jaently back over the staring blue face of a sirl “None of theht them out?”

Lindsay shook his head, eyes closed, and shivered convulsively It was late afternoon, and a chilly spring day, but the

“I didna look,” he said simply

My own hands were like ice; as nu as the rubbery flesh of the dead wo They had been dead forthem li had preserved thenities of putrefaction

Still, I breathed shallowly; the air was bitter with the scent of burning Wisps of steam rose now and then from the charred ruin of the tiny cabin Fro, then bend and pick up soround beneath

Kenny had pounded on our door long before daylight, su that ere far too late to offer aid Soe had cous and Ronnie Sinclair in a sether in low-voiced Gaelic

“D’ye ken what did for them, Sassenach?” Jamie squatted beside me, face troubled “The ones under the trees, that is” He nodded at the corpse in front of me “I ken what killed this puir woman”

The wo, slender feet shod in leather clogs A pair of long hands to h not so tall as Brianna, I thought, and looked auto the branches on the far side of the clearing

I had turned the woman’s apron up to cover her head and upper body Her hands were red, rough-knuckled ork, and with callused palhs and the slenderness of her body, I thought she was no er No one could say whether she had been pretty

I shook my head at his remark

“I don’t think she died of the burning,” I said “See, her legs and feet aren’t touched She ht fire, and it spread to the shoulders of her gown She h to the wall or the chiht, and then the whole bloody place went up”

Jamie nodded slowly, eyes on the dead woman

“Aye, that makes sense But as it killed theh none are burned like this But they ht, for none o’ them ran out Was it a deadly illness, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so Let ain”

I walked slowly down the row of still bodies with their cloth-covered faces, stooping over each one to peer again beneath the makeshift shrouds There were any number of illnesses that could be quickly fatal in these days—with no antibiotics to hand, and no way of ad fluids save by mouth or rectum, a simple case of diarrhea could kill within twenty-four hours

I saw such things often enough to recognize them easily; any doctor does, and I had been a doctor for s now and then in this century that I had never encountered in ht with the slave trade from the tropics—but it was no parasite that had done for these poor souls, and no illness that I knew, to leave such traces on its victims

All the bodies—the burned woman, a much older woman, and three children—had been found inside the walls of the fla house Kenny had pulled them out, just before the roof fell in, then ridden for help All dead before the fire started; all dead virtually at the saun to smolder soon after the woman fell dead on her hearth?

The victiiant red spruce, while the rave nearby Brianna stood by the sirl, her head bent I came to kneel by the little body, and she knelt down across from me

“What was it?” she asked quietly “Poison?”

I glanced up at her in surprise

“I think so What gave you that idea?”

She nodded at the blue-tinged face below us She had tried to close the eyes, but they bulged beneath the lids, giving the little girl a look of startled horror The sony, and there were traces of vomit in the corners of the mouth

“Girl Scout handbook,” Brianna said She glanced at the h to hear Herout her open hand “Never eat any strange mushroom,” she quoted “There areone fro in a ring by that log over there”

Moist, fleshy caps, a pale brohite warty spots, the open gills and slender stems so pale as to look almost phosphorescent in the spruce shadows They had a pleasant, earthy look to them that belied their deadliness

“Panther toadstools,” I said, half to aricus pantherinus—or that’s what they will be called, once so them properly Pantherinus, because they kill so swiftly—like a striking cat”

I could see the gooseflesh ripple on Brianna’s forearold hairs She tilted her hand and spilled the rest of the deadly fungus on the ground

“Who in their righther hand on her skirt with a slight shudder

“People who didn’t know better People ere hungry, perhaps,” I answered softly I picked up the little girl’s hand, and traced the delicate bones of the forearns of bloat, whether froes I couldn’t tell—but the collarbones were sharp as scythe blades All of the bodies were thin, though not to the point of emaciation

I looked up, into the deep blue shadows of the mountainside above the cabin It was early in the year for foraging, but there was food in abundance in the forest—for those who could recognize it

Jahtly on my back Cold as it was, a trickle of sweat streaked his neck, and his thick auburn hair was dark at the temples

OLOGUE