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For a time, I had hoped that Jenny’s letter had simply been mis-sent, , and I had stopped hoping Jaht perhaps I should send her this" He shuffled through the stack of papers at the side of the desk, and withdrew a se where it had been torn froe from Ian; the only concrete evidence we had that the boy was still alive and well It had reached us at the Gathering in Noveency of John Quincy Myers, a mountain man who roamed the wilderness, as much at home with Indian as with settler, and more at home with deer and possum than with anyone who lived in a house

Written in clumsy Latin as a joke, the note assured us that Ian ell, and happy Married to a girl "in the Mohawk fashion" (ht, that he had decided to share her house, bed, and hearth, and she had decided to let hi" And that was all Spring had coone, with no further word Ian wasn’t dead, but the next thing to it The chances of us ever seeing hiain were remote, and Jamie knew it; the wilderness had sed hi the round, still-childish letters He’d told Jenny what the note said, I knew--but I also knehy he hadn’t sent the original before It was the only physical link with Ian; to give it up was in some final way to relinquish him to the Mohawk

"Ave!" said the note, in Ian’s half-for "Ian salutat avunculus Jacobus" Ian salutes his uncle James

Ian was more to Jamie than one of his nephews Much as he loved all of Jenny’s children, Ian was special--a foster-son, like Fergus; but unlike Fergus, a son of Jamie’s blood, replacement in a way for the son he had lost That son wasn’t dead, either, but could not ever be claimed The world seemed suddenly full of lost children

"Yes," I said, ht "I think you should send it Jenny should have it, even if" I coughed, reminded suddenly by the note of the casebook I reached for it, hoping it would distract hi of Latinthere’s an odd bit in here Could you have a look at it, perhaps?"

"Aye, of course" He set Ian’s note aside and took the book fro it so the last of the afternoon sun fell across the page He frowned slightly, a finger tracing the lines of writing

"Christ, the rammar than ye have yourself, Sassenach"

"Oh, thanks We can’t all be scholars now, can we?" Iover his shoulder as he read I’d been right, then; Rawlings didn’t drop casually into Latin for the fun of it, or merely to show off his erudition

"An oddity" Jaer e "I am awake--no, he means ‘I akened,’ I think--by sounds in the chaht’--that my patient went to make water, and am risen to followWhy should he do that, I wonder?"

"The patient--it’s Hector Cas would have wanted to watch him urinate, to see what sort of difficulty he had, whether he had pain, or blood in the urine, that sort of thing"

Jalance, one brow raised, then shook his head and returned to the casebook,about the peculiar tastes of physicians

"Homo procedientethe man proceedsWhy does he call hi in Latin to be secret," I said, impatient to hear what came next "If Cameron saw his name in the book, he’d be curious, I expect What happened?"

"The oes out--outdoors, does he mean, or only out of his chaoes out, and I follow He walks steadily, quicklyWhy should he not? Oh, here--I arains of laudanurains? Are you sure that’s what he says?" I leaned over Jah--he pointed to the entry, inscribed in clear black and white "But that’s enough laudanurains of laudanum to assist sleep,’ he says No wonder the doctor was puzzled, then, to see Caht"

I nudged him with an elbow

"Get on!"

"Mmphm Well, he says he went to the necessary house--no doubt thinking to find Cameron--but no one was there, and there wasna any smell oferhe didna think anyone had been there recently"

"You needn’t be delicate on"But my own sensibilities are no quite coarsened yet, in spite ofassociation with you, Sassenach Ow!" He jerked away, rubbing his arave hihtened the mood for both of us

"Less about your sensibilities, if you please," I said, tapping ot any in the first place, or you’d never have e, lips silently for words

"He doesna ken He prowled about the place until the butler popped out of his wee hole, thinking him a marauder of some sort, and threatened him wi’ a bottle of whisky"

"A forht of a nightcapped Ulysses, brandishing his implement of destruction "How do you say ‘bottle of whisky’ in Latin?"

Jalance