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The old woman’s face was bleak, but the line of her irls

"I’m sorry, Aunt" Bree spoke softly She bent her head to kiss the knuckles of the hand she cradled, knobbed with age Jocasta tightened her hand a little in acknowledgment, but did not ave"And he killed thehters He killed theold"

The shock of it took o still behind o wide Brianna didn’t change expression She closed her eyes for abony hand

"What happened to them, Aunt?" she said quietly "Tell me"

Jocasta was silent for a few moments So was the roo, and the faint asthain, it wasn’t to Brianna Instead, she lifted her head and turned again toward Jaold, then, a e question, he gave no sign of it, but answered cal of it," he said Heround the bed to sit beside hlands, ever since Culloden Louis would send gold, they said, to help his cousin in his holy fight And then they said the gold had come, yet no man saw it"

"I saw it" Jocasta’s wide rimace, then relaxed "I saw it," she repeated

"Thirty thousand pound, in gold bullion I ith theht it came ashore, rowed in from the French ship It was in six small chests, each one so heavy that only two at a tiht, else the boat would sink Each chest had the fleur-de-lis carved on the lid, each one bound with iron bands and a lock, each lock itself sealed with red wax, and the wax bore the print of King Louis’s ring The fleur-de-lis"

A sigh ran through us all at the words, a collective breath of awe Jocasta nodded slowly, blind eyes open to the sights of that night long past

"Where was it brought ashore, Aunt?" Jah to herself, eyes fixed on the scene her memory painted

"On Innisach"

I had been holding my breath Now I let it out, slowly, and met Jamie’s eyes Innismaraich Island of the Sea-people; the silkies’ isle, it meant We knew that place

"There were the three men trusted with it," she said "Hector was one, al was another--the third man was al I didna ken the third man, nor did any of theh; a al’s name; at the name of Duncan Kerr he froze

"There were servants, too?" he asked

"Two," she said, and a faint, bitter sht Duncan Kerr, as I said, and al had a man with him from Leoch--I kent his face, but not his na woman--like you, a leannan, like you," she said softly, squeezing Brianna’s hand "I was strong, and Hector trusted me as he could trust no other I trusted him, too--then"

The noises froh the broken pane stirred the curtains, uneasy as a ghost that hears its name called from a distance

"There were three boats The chests were sh that it took two persons to carry one between them We took two chests into our boat, Hector and I, and ay, into the fog I could hear the splash of the others’ oars, growing fainter as they dreay, and then lost in the night"

"When was this, Aunt?" Jaold come from France?"

"Too late," she whispered "Much too late Daht her upright in her seat "Damn the wicked Frenchht have been, had he been true to his blood and his word!"

Jaold come sooner--when Charles landed at Glenfinnan, perhaps, or when he took Edinburgh, and for a few brief weeks held the city as a king returned--what then?

The ghost of a slanced at Brianna, then back at me, the question asked and answered in his eyes What, then?

"It was March," Jocasta said, recovering froht, but clear as ice I stood upon the cliff and looked far out to sea, and the path of thein upon that golden path, like a king to his coronation, and I did think it a sign" Her head turned toward Jamie, and her , then," she said "Black Brian Him who took my sister from me It would have been like hi of the silkies"

I atching Jaic, the reddish hairs on his forearht

"I didna ken ye knew e to his voice "But let that be for now, Aunt It was March, ye say?"