Parcel O' Rogues
Four days and two villages later, I am driving the Rover, following the party's lead car, heading into Brockton, our first official checkpoint town in nearly a week, and our last one until Inverness.
Jamie is beside me, doing something on his com, enjoying the last hour or so of his freedom before he must go into his hiding place in the horse trailer again. He's had to hide there at every checkpoint, of course, but today has been so clear and beautiful the prospect must be particularly galling. The winter sun hasn't been especially warm, but inside the Rover that doesn't matter much. Out in the trailer, though, he will have none of the day's benefits, and all of its drawbacks.
My hands tighten on the steering yoke. It's not fair. No one should be subjected to how Jamie is being forced to live, and that he's sweet, and kind, and wonderful just make it worse.
Unfair.
Unjust.
Of course, justice has always been a tricky thing, in my view. So much of what is right and wrong depend on what is going on inside an individual's own head, and applying that socially has never been simple. But external, performative justice isn't any better, and attempting to blend the two is a big part of how Scotland got saddled with Peace Agents in the first place.
It only gets more complicated when I remember that the only reason Jamie has ever had to hide in the horse trailer at all is because he is actively supporting a nationwide conspiracy to summarily execute thousands of men.
It may be right, but is it justice? And if it is justice, is it right? And what are all the small injustices along way if the end in view is such a question in itself?
From my world, of dead oceans and floating cities, it is impossible to tell. It is terribly easy to suggest that the Second Battle of Culloden doomed the world to widespread destruction, but did it really? It was a pivot-point in history, that is certain enough, but taking it away would not prevent history from pivoting around something else.
And that's assuming it could be prevented in the first place, let alone should.
I begin to understand what Geillis meant about changing things not actually changing things. . .
Fate is a capricious goddess.
I look at the little cord-bracelet I have wrapped twice around my wrist.
When I fell in love with Frank, every feeling felt new – bright, fresh, interesting.
Safe.
So far with Jamie, every feeling has felt old – mysterious, towering, elemental.
Frightening.
I realize now I've been waiting for a new feeling to show up, and tell me that this world two hundred years ago is my world, and staying here could possibly work. To tell me I don't need to be frightened. That even here and now, I can be safe.
At last, I understand that it's never going to happen. That isn't what Jamie inspires in me.
Oh, he can make me feel safe – but around him, I am not a safe person.
And so I have no idea what's right, or what I should do. A big part of me wants to wholly embrace the better life two-hundred years in the past can provide me, but I can't help but feel that going back to Craigh na Dun would be right, and staying would be selfish.
And then, an even bigger part of me knows that justice isn't nearly as ephemeral and difficult as I'm making it out to be. I'm here for a reason, and I haven't done much towards that reason so far. Something tells me I'm not done with the stones atop that hill, but the same something is telling me – not yet. Don't go yet. Don't make the decision yet.
Don't give up yet.
It's a hard thing to listen to when there's a crawling dark place inside you that's been whispering for years that there's nothing worth doing ever, so the world might as well go to hell. . .
At some point in your spiritual past the two of you exchanged souls. . . you chose to bear each other's burdens. . . you each voluntarily gave your self to the other. And you each accepted. . .
Iona's words come back to me suddenly, like an echo skipping off a cliff face.
Soulmates. . .
. . . most of them are born into different ages of the world – the later one so they can finish the work left undone by the former. That's why it's so special when soulmates meet. . .
Jamie and I belong to two whole different eras of the world. Ought I to go back to my time, and finish his work? Or ought I to stay here, to begin my own?
Is my being here an accident, or fate?
Is my connection with Jamie a choice, or inevitable?
And how many times have I thought these things before? If Fraser's Beech is a remnant of a different past, then I might have been here, in this Rover, watching Jamie sit in this exact sunlight, a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times before. Who knows how many pasts I have lived without knowing? And who knows how, or why, the cycle keeps going? There must be some way of finding out – some sort of scholarship on this sort of thing. . .
"Ye'er thinking so loud I c'n practically hear ye, Sorcha," Jamie looks up from his com with a half-smile and a glint in his eye, "Care tae share wi' the class?"
"I was. . . thinking about what Iona said," I say, half-haltingly, "About. . . soulmates."
"Ah. Were ye now?"
"Yes. I was."
"Think there's anything in it, then?"
His voice is light and conversational, but there is something almost stern back behind his tone.
"I don't know, Jamie," I sigh, "It seemed so hopelessly story-bookish at first blush, you know?"
"Aye, I felt the same. But now?"
"Well, compared to that unicorn glade, nothing seems overly story-bookish anymore. . ."
He chuckles a little bit, "Aye, I ken what you mean."
"But it's not the kind of thing I can just accept – I mean what is it supposed to mean? It's all very well to say "soulmates" and spout metaphysical buzzwords, but out here in the real world, what does it boil down to? We like each other?" I smile at him, "We've known that for months."
"Aye. We have."
"So, practically, pragmatically, what does being soulmates – mean?"
He scratches behind his ear, "Weel, I see it like this. Soulmates are. . . perfect complements, aye? Each one zigs where the other one zags, if ye catch my meanin'."
"I follow you, yes."
"So that means they're a perfect machine. They fit taegether, tae do somethin'. There's nae gaps, an' nae extra bits – they belong."
"And they have a job to do?"
"Oh aye, that's a given."
"Alright, so what's our job, Jamie? I hardly think we're destined to be attached to Dougal's retinue for all eternity – or be holed away back at Leoch either. What are we here for? Why do we exist?"
He laughs, "Remind me what ye were saying about metaphysical buzzwords?"
"Alright alright – but I did mean practically. A machine exists for a reason. It does things for a reason. So what's our reason?"
"Dinnae ken for sure, mo nighean. But it may ha' something tae do wi' this," his taps the screen on his com.
"The information Murtagh gave you?"
"Aye."
Heroically, Murtagh had forged a trail for us in regards to Sandringham the night of the Burns supper. It was actually fortunate we left when we did, he'd told us later, because then he, Murtagh, could speak to him without fear of interruption from either of us.
He had asked him if there was anything he could do to help in lifting the arrest warrant on his godson. He hadn't mentioned Jamie, just said his godson.
Sandringham had been pleasant – or as pleasant as possible, under the circumstances – but hadn't given up much – either because he didn't know it, there wasn't much to know, or he simply didn't want to say, Murtagh wasn't sure. But the end result was a small data drive, delivered to us the next morning via one of the hotel's staff.
Jamie has spent a good amount of his spare time since looking through it. Apparently it is dry stuff – scheduling and requisition documents mostly – for all the Peace Agents garrisoned in the Third Highland Quarter – namely – Inverness Section.
What good we're supposed to get out stuff like that I have no idea, but I suppose that's why Sandringham gave it to us. It's been a brilliant distraction for Jamie the past few days, and if there's one thing I am certain Sandringham is good at, it's smoke and mirrors.
"Found something at last, have you?"
"No' exactly."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"It's no' exactly something – bu' it might be an indication of something."
"I'm all ears."
"It says heer that an armoured vehicle is scheduled tae make a transfer run through the Inverness pipeline the furst week of February. An' the attached requisition says. . ." he scrolls down several screens, "Room and meal chits for one driver, two guards, an' one custodian, for three days."
"A custodian?"
"Aye, it means they'll be carryin' sensitive documents."
"Alright. . ."
"Oh, an' one last thing. . ." he scrolls back up, a long ways, "Heer we are. An armoured vehicle is scheduled tae leave the Second Highland Quarter on or about the last day of January."
I don't say anything.
"Broch Mordha is in the Second Highland Quarter, Sorcha."
He gestures a little. Then I get it.
"Oh! You mean that truck might be carrying information about the murder you're under warrant for?"
"Aye. It might."
"I see."
"It may no' end up swinging things much, if things go tae trial, but if we c'n proove I didnae kill him, it might gi' Sandringham the excuse he needs tae lift the warrant."
I shake my head, "I still have a hard time believing he's a genuine revolutionary."
We've had several not-quite arguments about Sandringham the past few days. . .
"Aye, I ken, an' I do see yer point. Bu' we havetae try, don' we?"
"Of course we do – no question of that – but I just wonder. . ."
Jamie sighs, "Wonder what?"
"Well – could it be a trap?"
He laughs, "A trap hidden in months' worth of schedule an' requisition documents?"
"You never know, Jamie."
He sobers quickly, "Aye, tha's true. Bu' I dinnae really think it is, ye ken?"
"You might be right."
He pauses a long time, expectantly.
My forehead wrinkles in confusion, "Do you want me to say something else, Jamie?"
"Weel. I was waitin' for ye tae say tha' a wee arrest warrant is hardly reason enough tae bring soulmates taegether. . ."
"Jamie!" I gasp in rebuke, "You don't really think that of me do you? It's your life. I'd never say that. Your happiness alone would be reason enough as far as I'm concerned, but with your actual life and limb at stake?" I take one hand off the wheel, and grip his hand, hard, but briefly, "If giving you your life back is the only reason I'm here, then it's a joy, an honour, and a privilege, James Fraser."
He's staring at me, almost reverent wonder written all over him.
"Christ, an' ye mean it, too."
I laugh, shortly, "You bet your sweet backside, I do," I steal a quick look at him, "I'm a woman, Jamie. I can handle pain. Sometimes not very well, when there's too much of it, but I can take more than anybody ever thinks I can. Including myself." Quickly, I grip his hand again.
"I can't handle your pain at all."
He considers this a long time.
"D'ye think mebbe that's part of it?" he says at last.
"Part of the soulmate thing?"
"Aye."
"Could be," I shrug.
"An' is it irony or poetry tha' I'm the one allus patchin' ye up?"
"How about serendipity?"
He grins, "Fair enough."
I see the lead car pull over. We must be just one or two turns out of eyeshot of Brockton. It's time for Jamie to get into his hiding place.
But when we get out of the Rover, the first thing we notice in the chill breeze of the late afternoon, is an horrifically foul stench on the air.
Dougal and the rest of the men in the lead car practically tumble out of it, and stand staring up at something by the side of the road.
There is a small stand of trees between here and there, so Jamie and I cannot see what they are looking at.
I am only very reluctantly morbidly curious. But the rest of the cars have stopped now, and as the men crowd up behind us, they carry us along to stand near Dougal.
I only catch the merest glimpse of the pair of corpses nailed to two x-form crosses before I turn my head away. I have seen and smelled decaying Humanity before, and it is not an image I need in my mind again. But in ducking my head down, my eyes catch a glimpse of strange marks on wrists and ankles.
Not rope gouges. Not cuff-bruises. Not anything one might expect to be on prisoners or kidnap victims.
Burns.
I gather all my courage, hold my breath, and manage to take one long look at the bodies.
Each has a large T branded into their chest.
"The Watch carve that inta folks who put the Agents onta them," says Dougal, his voice very bleak and grim, "An' they leave them out as warnings. For what happens tae traitors." He looks around at us all, "Back tae yer cars, lads. This isn't any of our business."
Very, very slowly, the men comply.
Half the men are just past the Rover when there is a great shout, and suddenly the air is full of stones and smoking burning rags, and bits of brick and metal. Jamie hustles me to shelter behind the horse trailer, and pulls a knife from somewhere. He claps it into my hand, and says urgently, "If things go south, Sorcha, run like hell's followin' after ye – 'cause it is." Then he shouts something in Gàidhlig to Angus, who tosses him a long stunpike, already sparking at one end with incapacitating electricity.
"Jamie, you're a doctor!" I say, fear and confusion muddling everything else.
"Aye, I'm a Scot too, Sorcha!" he shouts, just as a screaming wave of men in ragged black break upon our line of cars. Jamie leaps into the fray, and our men fire Stunbows, and zap and strike with their other electric weapons – far more weapons than I knew they could even field. There are more whizzing rocks, and sizzling sounds, and the smell of burned cloth and rancid meat, and more shouting and thumping and glass crashing, and long ripping noises, and I clutch my knife in the lee of the horse trailer, and feel supremely useless. I bat away a few stones, and stamp out one bit of burning cloth, but I have no idea what else is happening, and no notion at all what I am supposed to do with the knife in my hand.
It is over in less than three minutes, but it feels more like a week.
All at once Jamie is back beside me, his stunpike deactivated, but the battle-light still bright in his eyes.
"What was that?" I nearly screech, now more furious than scared.
"The Watch," he says, throwing open a back door of the Rover and pulling out a first aid kit, "Angus!" he shouts, "Wha's the damage?"
"Four tyres, twa windows, twa long cuts, lots of nicks an' stabs, burns an' bruises," comes Angus's voice, from behind one of the nearby cars.
"They get anything?"
"A dozen water bottles an' a crate of flyers."
There is a good deal of scattered laughter.
"Any dead?"
"One of theirs, none of ours."
"Good lad!"
There is a lot of shuffling and murmuring, as the men start to regroup and clean up. Several men go to the supply van – the one that had two of its windows broken – and pull out some tape and canvas to make a temporary repair. The two regular car maintenance crews assemble themselves, find where the slashed tyres are, and start to replace them.
Once again, I feel supremely useless. I could do any of those things, but I'm the specialty mechanic – here to nurse the Rover if it acts up.
"They don't just use those crucifixions as warnings, do they?" I ask, going along with Jamie as he starts to see to the wounded.
He shakes his head, "No. They're lures too, right enough."
I lean close and whisper, "Jamie, there's something strange about those corps-"
"Tell me later, Sorcha," he snaps, in urgent doctor-mode, "It'll keep, aye?"
I nod, and let him get back to it.
I wander back toward the stand of trees, making sure all the burning bits of rags are fully stamped out.
I resolutely do not look at the pair of crucifixes again.
But a little ways up the hill behind them, there is Dougal, hacking away at the hard-packed snow with a dung shovel he must have gotten from the trailer.
I take in what he's doing at a glance, and know he's never going to manage it. Not in the middle of January. . .
I put Jamie's knife carefully into one of the compartments in the Rover, then go back around behind it, and unhitch the horse trailer. Then I dig around in one of my boxes in the supply van, getting in everybody's way, but I am very insistent. I take the plasma filter hose and fuel distributor bar, and carefully drive the Rover to where Dougal is labouring alone. I don't speak to him, I just get out, open the bonnet, and hook up my hose and distributor. I pace off the correct distance, adjust the point limiter, and flip a switch.
Perfectly controlled plasma jets out, melting the snow and biting deep into the frozen ground.
Dougal stops hacking, and stares at me.
Once I have a two by one meter rectangle fully defrosted, I gesture him over.
"It'll only be soft for about forty centimeters down. Tell me when you need me to heat the ground again."
He nods grimly, and starts shoveling.
I melt out two more rectangles, get another shovel, and help him.
Eventually, as the men finish with their own tasks, they start to notice what we're doing. Soon, a crowd of them are watching us, confusion and some disdain in their expressions.
"Ye ken the bastards gave information tae the Peace Agents, aye, Sassenach?" Angus sneers in my direction.
"Did they?" I ask, with a sneer of equal hauteur, "I suggest you go and take one more look at those corpses then."
"Oh aye?"
I stop shoveling for a moment, and stretch my back, "Yes. You saw those Watch attackers just now – what kind of weapons did they have?"
He scoffs, but answers, "Knives an' sticks an' stones an' fire, lass – all deadly enough."
"And if I recall correctly, Dougal said the Watch carves their symbol on traitors."
"Aye, but-"
"Well if you'd shut your trap and look for once, Angus, you'd see those two men were not cut. They were burned. In lines so perfectly straight they look like cuts. Who around here has the technology to burn their victims so precisely? Who around here has the proclivity? Who around here has a vested interest in keeping all Scots in as much conflict with each other as possible? Who, Angus?"
"She's right," says Jamie, coming up behind everyone, "Half those burns had evan started healin'. Caused before death. A long time before death. Days. Maybe weeks. The Watch doesnae do that." He steps up to the third grave, and digs in a shovel, "Only Peace Agents do that."
"And I for one don't give a flying chicken shit if they were traitors or not. They were betrayed too. Every Scot has been," I fling out one more shovelful of earth, "Maybe they deserved what they got – I'm certainly not going to be the one to say. But they deserve this too." I bend my head resolutely to my digging.
The men wander away in ones and twos, every one of them coming back with something that can either dig, or carry earth.
All three graves are dug in record time.
When the two crucified corpses and one Watch casualty are back beneath their own good Scottish soil, a plain cross at the head of each, Dougal takes a rag and a lighter, and starts the two great x's ablaze. He removes his cap in respect, but clenches his jaw, clearly still deep inside his soldier's mind, and not in any shape to know what to say.
But I do. I can't sing it all, since I only started learning the song two days ago, when I got curious and looked up more information about Burns suppers.
But the men will fill in what I don't know. I'm one-hundred percent certain of it.
"Fareweel tae all oor Scottish fame,
Fareweel oor ancient glory."
My Scottish accent isn't perfect, even in my singing voice, but how every man's ears perk up at the sound tells me that, for once, it won't matter.
"Fareweel ev'n tae the Scottish name,
Sae fam'd in martial story."
Dougal's eyes slip closed, and he takes up the next verse,
"Noo Sark rins o'er the Solway sands,
An' Tweed rins tae the ocean,
Too mark wheer England's province stands-"
All the men join in for the last line of the verse,
"Such a parcel o' rogues in a nation!"
That's all the words I've memorized so far, but I was right. First Rupert, then Alain, then Angus, then Murtagh each take up the next verses, all of us joining in on the repeated line -
"Such a parcel o' rogues in a nation!"
Halfway through, Dougal opens his eyes again, and stares at me, curious, cold, suspicious, and jealously, disgustedly, grudgingly admiring.
I wonder for a moment what his next move will be. Then, I decide I do not want to know.
"Such a parcel o' rogues in a nation!"