Page 214 (1/2)

"We didna mind so much," Jamie said His eyes were open, but fixed on whatever he was seeing in the summer dim of memory "It was better to be outside than in And yet, by the evening, ould be so droukit wi’ fatigue that we could barely set one foot before the other It was like walking in a dreauards and men were numb with exhaustion, by the tiroups of prisoners were collected, formed up into a colu across the , drunk with the need to fall down and sleep

"We were still by the quarry, when they set off; ere to load the wagon wi’ the stone-cutting tools and the last of the blocks, and follow I reon bed, and stood back, panting wi’ the effort There was a sound behind eant Murchison--Billy, it was, though I didna find that out ’til later"

The Sergeant was no ainst a sky the color of an oyster’s shell

"I wondered, now and then, if I wouldna have done it, had I seen his face" The fingers of Jamie’s left hand stroked his wrist absently, and I realized that he still felt the weight of the irons he had worn

The Sergeant had raised his club, poked Jamie hard in the ribs, then used it to point to a eant turned away

"I didna think about it for a moment," Jamie said softly "I was on hiainst his throat He hadna tion stood no more than ten feet from the lip of the quarry pool; there was a drop of forty feet straight down, and the water below, a hundred feet deep, black and waveless under that hollohite sky

"I tied him to one of the blocks and threw hion The twolike statues in the di, nor did I I stepped up and took the reins, they got into the back of the wagon, and I drove toward the prison We caught up to the coluether, without a word No one , for they thought he was down in the village, off-duty I dinna think they ever found hi, then, and took his hand away from his wrist

"And the two men?" I asked softly He nodded

"Tohed deeply, and stretched his arh to ease the fit of his shirt--though he wore a loose nightshirt Then he raised one hand and turned it to and fro, frowning at his wrist in the light

"That’s odd," he said, sounding faintly surprised

"What is?"

"The one"

"Marksfro both his wrists in beold, but otherwise unble, aye? I never noticed that they’d gone"

I set a hand on his wrist, rubbing ently over the pulse where his radial artery crossed the bone

"You didn’t have theone a long time"

He looked down at his arh unable to believe it

"Aye," he said softly "Well, so has Toerous Business

96

AURUM

IT WAS QUIET IN THE HOUSE; Mr We with hie to co that the beasts were fed and bedded doood and water fetched, the fires built up for supper