Free A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon Page A

in the darkness for a rock, or a stick to use as a club.
    “Keep talking,” she whispered.
    “The Minister’s Cat is a fraidy cat, is she?” he said, his tone one of fairly convincing teasing.
    “The Minister’s Cat is a
ferocious
cat,” she replied, trying to match his bantering tone, meanwhile fumbling one-handed in her pocket. Her other hand closed on a stone, and she pulled it free of the clinging dirt, cold and heavy in her palm. She rose, all her senses focused on the darkness to their right. “She’ll freaking disembowel anything that—”
    “Oh, it’s you,” said a voice in the woods behind her.
    She shrieked, and Roger jerked in reflex, spun on his heel to face the threat, grabbed her and thrust her behind him, all in the same motion.
    The push sent her staggering backward. She caught a heel in a hidden root in the dark, and fell, landing hard on her backside, from which position she had an excellent view of Roger in the moonlight, knife in hand, charging into the trees with an incoherent roar.
    Belatedly, she registered what the voice had said, as well as the unmistakable tone of disappointment in it. A very similar voice, loud with alarm, spoke from the wood on the right.
    “Jo?” it said. “What? Jo, what?”
    There was a lot of thrashing and yelling going on in the woods to the left. Roger’d got his hands on someone.
    “Roger!” she shouted. “Roger, stop! It’s the Beardsleys!”
    She’d dropped the rock when she fell, and now got to her feet, rubbing the dirt from her hand on the side of her skirt. Her heart was still pounding, her left buttock was bruised, and her urge to laugh was tinged with a strong desire to strangle one or both of the Beardsley twins.
    “Kezzie Beardsley, come out of there!” she bellowed, then repeated it, even louder. Kezzie’s hearing had improved after her mother had removed his chronically infected tonsils and adenoids, but he was still rather deaf.
    A loud rustling in the brush yielded the slight form of Keziah Beardsley, dark-haired, white-faced, and armed with a large club, which he swung off his shoulder and tried abashedly to hide behind him when he saw her.
    Meanwhile, much louder rustling and a certain amount of cursing behind her portended the emergence of Roger, gripping the scrawny neck of Josiah Beardsley, Kezzie’s twin.
    “What in the name of God d’ye wee bastards think ye’re up to?” Roger said, shoving Jo across to stand by his brother in a patch of moonlight. “D’ye realize I nearly killed you?”
    There was just enough light for Brianna to make out the rather cynical expression that crossed Jo’s face at this, before it was erased and replaced with one of earnest apology.
    “We’re that sorry, Mr. Mac. We heard someone coming, and thought it might be brigands.”
    “Brigands,” Brianna repeated, feeling the urge to laugh rising, but keeping it firmly in check. “Where on earth did you get that word?”
    “Oh.” Jo looked at his feet, hands clasped behind his back. “Miss Lizzie was a-readin’ to us, from that book what Mr. Jamie brought. ’Twas in there. About brigands.”
    “I see.” She glanced at Roger, who met her eye, his annoyance obviously waning into amusement, as well.
“The Pirate Gow,”
she explained. “Defoe.”
    “Oh, aye.” Roger sheathed his dirk. “And why, exactly, did ye think there might be brigands coming?”
    Kezzie, with the quirks of his erratic hearing, picked that up and answered, as earnestly as his brother, though his voice was louder and slightly flat, the result of his early deafness.
    “We come across Mr. Lindsay, sir, on his way home, and he did tell us what passed, up by Dutchman’s Creek. It’s true, so, what he said? They was all burned to cinders?”
    “They were all dead.” Roger’s voice had lost any tinge of amusement. “What’s that to do with you lot lurking in the woods with clubs?”
    “Well, you see, sir, McGillivrays’ is a fine, big place, what with the