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As far as Murtagh Fitzgibbons was concerned, there was “good shite” and there was “bad shite”. The distinction between the two was lost on most, for it was the rare man who could resist the temptations of the French and appreciate the muddied boots and overcast skies of the Scots.
All of Paris was “bad shite” – a parade of costumes concealing carefully laid schemes. Snuff sprinkled from nostrils like black snowflakes, drifting down to meet the sewage-lined streets. The lauded joie de vivre of the French, Murtagh had realized, was nothing more than a religious observance of excess. Booze flowed in plenty but was rarely savored, merely a means to a salacious end between a whore’s legs. And while men sprouted like mushrooms in the brothels’ darkened bowels, their women stood like flowers – explosions of frills, baubles, and titters. Paris was drowning in bad shite, a counterfeit pearl passed as authentic to the less discerning.
“Good shite”, on the other hand, was Scotland. Horse manure, hay and sweat, the sight of a mountain peak through morning’s fog. Whisky, the “angels’ breath” – not a whore’s – gliding like honey down your throat. Scottish women could be equally as infuriating, of course, but at least they wore no masks. They were less forthcoming with their bodies – virtue was a rarity in lust-crazed Paris, after all – but at least their offerings were not made of porcelain, presented on a platter of lacquered nails and lashes. Scotland was the antithesis of Paris: grounded, honest, real.
Since his arrival at Lallybroch six weeks ago, Murtagh had reveled in the “good shite”, wrangling cattle and mucking stalls with a long-absent glee. Each day, he rose before the sun, eager to increase the distance between himself and the rot of the French capital.
It was while pondering the differences between good and bad shite that Murtagh stumbled across something much more concrete; unmistakable:
Grief.
For while the world was filled with dualities, grief was simply – always – grief. One might lose a cousin or a spouse, but both elicited similar feelings of despair, a sense of helplessness that accompanied the loss of a beloved. Murtagh had known his own griefs, of course – the death of his sister, for one; the scorn and then subsequent passing of Ellen Mackenzie for another – and so he recognized that hole of darkness, bleeding the sounds of sorrow just beyond the wood’s edge.
He hastened towards the noise, the grass wet and trodden underfoot. The blades clung to the last of their teardrops, the noontime sun climbing high among the clouds. Though the sound grew louder as Murtagh neared the trees, he sensed its restraint. Quietly, he crept through the brush and found the source.
Sitting against an oak was his godson: Jamie, knees pulled to his chest, head of crimson resting upon them. The scene was familiar, as if lifted from years long before.
Even in the wake of Brian’s death, Jamie had maintained a soldier's sobriety. He had stood tall, jaw set, betraying no glimpses of his grief to those who offered sympathy. Like any boy on the cusp of manhood, he had believed there was great honor in such stoicism. Death and war had conditioned Jamie into hardness, and though marriage had since changed the lad, perhaps this was, in part, why they had failed so disastrously in Paris. Jamie was headstrong - too prideful at times - and quick to protect his honor and others’ too. It had led to brawls with other soldiers, fights with the Mackenzie brothers – and to the Bois du Boulogne with Jonathan Randall.
Murtagh approached Jamie slowly, remembering that moment after Brian’s passing. He knew what words needed to be said.
“A bhalaich,” Murtagh whispered. Jamie’s muscles tightened at his godfather’s greeting, but he did not lift his head in acknowledgement. “Ciamar a tha u?”
Silence.
Jamie inhaled through nostrils, returning his grief to its proper place. Finally, two blue eyes looked up to Murtagh’s face, both dry and adamantly fierce in the way they challenged him. One less familiar with the Fraser ways might be deceived, but Murtagh was fluent in the family’s pride, could see straight to the boy’s darkness.
“Aye,” Jamie said, “dinna fash yerself. I was only – ” He looked again to the ground, reinforcements crowding his stony defenses.
Murtagh sighed and sat down beside him.
“It’s my business to fash myself.” He offered a consolatory pat on the shoulder, but Jamie shrugged the touch away.
“I’ve known you since you were a bairn,” Murtagh said, more forceful now. “Dinna pretend I canna see when yer troubled.”
“Aye,” Jamie repeated, mouth stretching into a mirthless grin. “So ye have.” Jamie clenched and unclenched his hands, wiggling his fingers as one might test the fit of new gloves. He watched their movements with a cool detachment, seeing the flexing and bending of his bones as something outside of himself. Independent, foreign.
Murtagh waited. Only a steadfast patience could outlive a Fraser’s resolve – be that to fight, to love, or to stay quiet. A boulder could not be cleaved easily, but Murtagh thought he detected a crack in Jamie’s fortress. The boy wanted to break – like all those years ago – but needed assurance that it was all right to do so.
“I have sinned, a ghoistdh,” Jamie whispered at last, hands now stilled. His shame had deepened the Scots accent, the “s” burning like lightening. The “t” sliced the air like a swinging sword.
“And what is it that ye’ve done, lad?”
“Killed,” Jamie seethed. “Murdered.” He shifted uncomfortably, shrugging to lessen the burden of his shirt. “And hurt someone I hold dear.”
Murtagh thought of Lallybroch then, sitting peacefully in the distance. Inside, Claire would be helping Jenny prepare for supper, chopping, stewing, and roasting with single-minded purpose. The necessities of homemaking had been good for the lass, providing some distraction from the ghosts of Paris. Not enough – but some.
When he turned back to Jamie, Murtagh recognized these same ghosts haunting his godson’s face. They had hollowed his eyes so that they lay in sunken shadow, the skin underneath bruised a purple-blue. Jamie and the lass might have found comfort in keeping busy, but their relief was only temporary. The pain of loss did not fade so quickly, and even the passage of six weeks was only a bandage, not a cure.
How long had Murtagh mourned Ellen Mackenzie? Had he ever stopped?
“Indeed,” he replied. “Yer actions have had consequences – as all actions do. But that doesna make you a murderer, mo ghille. It doesna make you a bad person.”
“But I am,” Jamie said. His tone was even, but not enough to hide the anger. “A man must be accountable for his actions, aye? I canna forgive myself for what I’ve done. What has happened is my own doing.”
Murtagh knew better than to deny the boy his fury, and so he pushed himself to his feet and stood in front of him.
“Then speak of your sins,” he said, hands held above Jamie’s head. “What is it that yer sorry for?”
“My daughter’s death,” Jamie said quietly, “And my wife’s distress.”
“If ye speak of Randall, ye ken well ye had good reason. You did it for Ferg –”
“For the boy, aye,” Jamie whispered. “But then what of the girl? Of – of my child?” He beat his fist against his knee, cursing quietly in the Gàidhlig. “I confess my own selfishness to you, a ghoistdh, for I betrayed a promise. And for this transgression, I bore the death of my own bairn.”
“The Lord forgives men of such selfishness,” Murtagh replied, feeling slightly foolish. When was the last time he had attended Sunday Mass? Pledged himself to the Lord’s mercy in request for absolution? “He forgives it, because we canna help it. You are not alone, mo charaid. You are no more a sinner than the rest of us.”
“But Claire.” Jamie’s voice cracked. “She –”
“She has played her part in this.” Murtagh dropped to his knees to grasp his godson’s hands. He started, suddenly noticing time’s marks on the body: how once-tiny fingers had grown to engulf his own, how soft skin had been weathered to callus. “But He has forgiven her too, just as you have.” Murtagh took Jamie’s chin and titled the boy’s face upwards. “You, James Fraser, are a good man, adecent man. You have suffered a great loss, and ye canna blame yourself.”
“How? How can I no’ see my own misdoings when my wife’s arms are empty?”
Murtagh shook his head and hissed through his teeth.
“Ach, Sheumais! Eìsd thugam: We only place blame when we canna understand the why of things. We want to give our pain – our grief – a name, so that we can hold on to it, shape it, know it. Hate it. D’ye think yerself so smart as to ken the cause of everything? Can ye tell me why this or that happens? What or who is at fault?”
“N-no.”
“So dinna pretend ye can. Ye may be a braw lad, but ye dinna ken all the answers. The man who pretends he does is a no’ but a fool.”
Jamie nodded, though his body remained hunched, closed in on itself as if to reject this single truth.
“She cries herself to sleep when she thinks I canna hear,” he said without preamble. “She curls into a wee ball, clutching her stomach, and I dinna turn to her. I dinna – dinna touch her, because I ken she doesna want me to see. But perhaps…A Dhia, perhaps I am only a coward for doing so. A coward who canna bear to witness the pain he’s caused.”
“Jamie – ”
He cut Murtagh off, fists balled again.
“I’ve listened to my wife’s cries in the darkness for nigh on six weeks. I’ve allowed her moments of grief wi’out touching her, wi’out begging for forgiveness. D’ye ken what that’s like?” His brows drew together, face grown suddenly pensive. “So many nights I had dreamt of killing Randall. So many weeks spent in the Bastille, wishing the same thing. Dreaming of it, praying for it.”
Jamie stood and paced the length of the small enclosure, feet hitting the soil like a drum.
“But the blade that pierced Randall…Now – now I sometimes wish it had pierced my own heart instead.”
Murtagh grunted contemptuously and took hold of Jamie’s shirtfront, pulling them both nose-to-nose.
“And d’ye not think she’s done the same?” Murtagh spat, “Has Fergus told ye nothing? Claire blamed herself for this too; she dreamed of dying too.” He muttered under his breath, releasing his grip so that he could walk away. With his back turned to Jamie, he waited for his frustration to ease. The sounds of summer rose around them, the chirps of crickets, the gurgle of a stream. Composure regained at last, Murtagh spoke softly.
“And what good does it do the both of ye? To hate yerselves as such? Is this how the bairn should be remembered – by her parents’ anger? Their guilt and self-hatred?”
The only sound behind him was a single, strangled sob. A rustling of grass.
Jamie had collapsed to his knees and now wept soundlessly into his palms. On the ground, he was a young boy again, divested of his armor and vulnerable to his grief.
“What has happened canna be changed,” Murtagh said, quickly lowering himself beside his godson. “But ye will get through this – the both of ye. I’ve no’ met a pair of bulls so stubborn in my life.”
Jamie chuckled.
“Aye, she is no’ one for surrender,” he agreed. “Doesna let ye get away wi’ anything.”
“And yer the same, mo ghille,” Murtagh replied. “They say it takes a true man to own his mistakes. And you have – now, here, and all the nights ye’ve lain awake beside yer wife and slept beside her pain. Whether it was by your fault or no, the Lord has forgiven ye.”
Jamie looked up, cheeks tracked.
“And a real man kens when it is time to move on. To recognize he will never understand why the world is the way it is. A real man honors the dead, honors his grief, but he doesna lose himself in it. He kens that the night doesna last forever. The dark always gives way to the light.”
Bad shite, good shite.
Jamie nodded. “I found this,” he said quietly, retrieving a small pouch from his sporran. He pulled it loose of its rose-colored ribbon, revealing what lay inside: a tuft of strawberry silk, curled and fine.
“The bairn’s?” Murtagh breathed. He bit back the lump in his throat, recalling his own sadness at the loss of what could have been. How many times had he dreamed of bouncing Jamie’s child on his knee, life coming full circle?
“Aye. Faith’s.” Reverent fingers reached inside and pulled out the threads of copper, each glistening roan and cinnabar in the sunlight. Jamie brought them to his lips and closed his eyes.
“I am grateful,” he began some moments later, “grateful that Claire was able to hold her, to – to see her. I do thank God for that.” He bowed his head and swallowed. “But there are times when I canna see the grace. When I canna bear that this is the only piece of her I’ll ever know. No’ but a few wee strands of hair.”
“More than that, Jamie. Your hair. The spit o’ yours.”
Jamie smiled, and placed the threads back inside, and tied it shut. “It is,” he conceded. “And there is some consolation in that. Perhaps when I look in the mirror – when I look at my wife – I can find something of her there.”
“Ye dinna need a mirror for that,” Murtagh whispered, putting a hand over his godson’s heart. Jamie’s face crumpled then, the final waves of sorrow ripping violently through him. He clutched the pouch in the palm of his hand, seeking strength in the small weight of his daughter.
“I wish to give it to Claire – in Mam’s locket, aye? The one she kept Willie’s hair in.”
“I ken the locket ye mean.”
“I dinna think she would mind it.”
“Nay,” Murtagh choked, despite himself. “She wouldna mind.”
“I’ll have to find somewhere to put Willie’s hai – “
Murtagh wrapped his arms around his godson and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“Móran taing, a ghoistdgh,” Jamie said into his shoulder, “For everything.”
A shout came ringing across the field, through the woods.
“Jamie!” the voice yelled. Claire was just barely visible beyond the screen of trees, arms waving and hands cupped around her mouth. “Food is on the table! And if you don’t hurry, I’m afraid Young Jamie is going to eat it all himself!”
“Best not keep a bull waiting,” Murtagh said, eyes shining with unshed tears.
Jamie laughed and wiped his nose. “Aye. “No’ one for surrender.”
The pair broke apart, standing at once to head to their suppers.
“A bhalaich,” Murtagh called back, now several feet ahead, for his godson had stopped a few paces behind him. Jamie’s eyes reached past Murtagh’s shoulders, and on to the white-stoned house, his wife now standing in the doorway: happy and smiling – despite the bad. Calling him home – to the good.
“Ye’ll make a fine father one day,” Murtagh said at last, “I’ve faith in that.”
Jamie’s eyes fell to his daughter, and the right side of his mouth lifted at the corner.
“Aye, I will.” Jamie said, looking up, “I’ve learned from the best.”
Gaelic Translations:
A bhalaich – Oh, laddie.
Ciamar a tha u? – How are you?
A ghoistdh – Oh, godfather.
Mo ghille – My boy.
Mo charaid – My friend.
Ach, Sheumais! Eìsd thugam. – Ach, James! Listen to me. (I’ve taken some liberties here.)
Móran taing, a ghoistdgh – Thank you, godfather.