Chapter 22 - Reckonings

Well, I must say, in this chapter there's a whole lotta beatin' goin' on. Between Claire being "punished" for risking the lives of the rest of the group, to Jamie sharing some of his youthful experiences with punishment, there is no lack of bruised and/or swollen hind ends or hands.

Not having read any of the fan comments that I'm sure are out there in regards to Jamie's treatment of Claire, I can only say that, for the time period and her behavior, she definitely put herself in a place for this to happen. I was actually surprised to see that Diana brought this aspect of accountability into the story; quite honestly, it makes Claire's situation so much more believable to me. Consequences for actions; who would have guessed?

“Do ye realize, Claire,” he said quietly, “that all of us came close to bein’ killed this afternoon?” I looked down at the quilt, shamefaced. “Yes, I know. My fault. I’m sorry.” “Aye, so ye realize,” he said. “Do ye know that if a man among us had done such a thing, to put the rest in danger, he would ha’ likely had his ears cropped, or been flogged, if not killed outright?” I blanched at this. “No, I didn’t know.” “Well, I know as you’re not yet familiar wi’ our ways, and it’s some excuse. Still I did tell ye to stay hid, and had ye done so, it would never have happened. Now the English will be lookin’ high and low for us; we shall have to lie hid during the days and travel at night now.”

Based on the ramifications of her actions, Jamie's response appears to me to be measured and appropriate. He would be right in saying that any man who had jeopardized their mission so severely would easily have suffered a worse punishment. And the response of the rest of the men as they ate dinner at the inn, dismissive and edged with silence, would be a natural reaction to this type of behavior.

As Claire reciprocates by ensuring Jamie sleeps on the floor, she was, as she puts it, "torn between fits of rage and philosophy". This also surprised me. There's a depth to some of her surmisings that caught me off guard. She admits to "having trouble with the scale of things"; "things" being what was truly a priority based on her future-knowledge of the ravages of mechanized war. It was hard for her to relate her actions among the clan fightings to the broader context of WWII.

A man killed with a musket was just as dead as one killed with a mortar. It was just that the mortar killed impersonally, destroying dozens of men, while the musket was fired by one man who could see the eyes of the one he killed. That made it murder, it seemed to me, not war. How many men to make a war? Enough, perhaps, so they didn’t really have to see each other? And yet this plainly was war—or serious business at least—to Dougal, Jamie, Rupert, and Ned. Even little rat-faced Murtagh had a reason for violence beyond his natural inclinations. And what about those reasons? One king rather than another? Hanovers and Stuarts? To me, these were still no more than names on a chart on the schoolroom wall. What were they, compared with an unthinkable evil like Hitler’s Reich? It made a difference to those who lived under the kings, I supposed, though the differences might seem trivial to me. Still, when had the right to live as one wished ever been considered trivial? Was a struggle to choose one’s own destiny less worthwhile than the necessity to stop a great evil?

Heavy thoughts, these. And not without precedent. My wife is a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and reading Claire's musings in her final sentence there regarding choosing personal destiny over resisting evil reminds me that the very same question is the root ethic of the Lord of the Rings epic.

Me personally, I'm not big on war. I have a hard time trying to determine what a "just cause" is. Typically, the truth of any conflict rarely surfaces until it's over, and the form and shape of the war simply follows base ethics of the participants. That probably comes across sounding pretty liberal for someone who is most certainly more conservative than most, and who served four years in the US Air Force, but, there it is. Time molds and changes our opinions as we grow, to be sure.

Continuing on, as they travel all night toward the Red Boar at Bargrennan, Jamie opens up and begins to reveal some of his own childhood thrashings. Jamie's intentions are to remove the sting of Claire's own predicament (no pun intended) by sharing some of his own self-deprecating moments, yet there's a ring of authenticity to his overall message. I was sensibly repulsed by his revelation of Randall's true intentions with him when he was a prisoner at the Fort, yet captivated by the story of his father's death during Jamie's flogging.

Through all of this, Claire finally comes to a measure of understanding regarding the motives behind Jamie's actions, and while she ultimately forgives him, she makes it clear that she will not be tolerant of Jamie laying a hand on her again. Although in Jamie's oath to her (upon her dirk), he simply says he would never lay a hand on her "in rebellion or anger". That certainly doesn't preclude another episode of defiance on Claire's part.

Chapter 21 - Une Mauvais Quart d'heure after Another

"One Bad Time Shift after Another." Yes, I had to go to Google translate to find out what the heck it meant.

I really liked this chapter. It had a lot of good stuff: the tense and witty dialogue between Randall and Claire; the gripping suspense of what he was going to do to her; the surprise rescue by Jamie; the daring escape from Fort William; and a good ol' adrenaline-fueled argument between the newlyweds. Let's break it down.

Good dialogue. And a good cartoon. :)

I LOVE good dialogue. Diana does not disappoint. The repartee of Randall and Claire in the barracks was thoroughly enjoyable, each character dancing around the situation, verbally lunging and parrying, thick with sarcasm and bluff. After sharing a glass of claret, Randall twistedly declares:

“I had forgotten to offer you felicitations on your marriage,” he said suddenly. “Forgive my lack of manners.” “Think nothing of it,” I said graciously. “I’m sure my husband’s family will be most obliged to you for offering me hospitality.”

And later:

The tension was slightly relieved by the entrance of an orderly, bearing a tray of tea things. Still silent, Randall poured out and offered me a cup. We sipped some more. “Don’t tell me,” I said finally. “Let me guess. It’s a new form of persuasion you’ve invented—torture by bladder. You ply me with drinkables until I promise to tell you anything in exchange for five minutes with a chamber pot.” He was so taken by surprise that he actually laughed. It quite transformed his face, and I had no difficulty seeing why there were so many scented envelopes with feminine handwriting in the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk. Having let the facade crack, he didn’t stifle the laugh, but let it go. Finished, he stared at me again, a half-smile lingering on his mouth. “Whatever else you may be, Madam, at least you’re a diversion,” he remarked.

As Claire struggles to find out her immediate fate, she comes up with a half-remembered name from Frank's research: the Duke of Sandringham, and she finds an opportune moment to inject the reputation for an unknown result. Randall falters briefly:

"...if you were working for Sandringham, why the devil would you act in such a damned ridiculous manner?” “Perhaps the Duke is testing your loyalty,” I suggested at random, preparing to leap to my feet if necessary. His fists were bunched at his side, and the discarded riding crop was within much too easy a reach on the desk nearby. He snorted in response to this suggestion. “You may be testing my gullibility. Or my tolerance to irritation. Both, Madam, are extremely low.” His eyes narrowed speculatively, and I braced myself for a quick dash.

Unfortunately for Claire, the intended result was achieved. However, such a bold ploy in the presence of a truly unstable individual simply motivates Randall's foregone conclusion to rape her.

Enter the wonderful timing of Jamie with the now famous, TV-series-cliffhanging-line:

“I’ll thank ye,” said a cool, level voice, “to take your hands off my wife.”

In the scuffle and escape that ensues, I totally bought the whole scene, and found it wonderful.

“You bluffed your way in here with an empty gun?” I croaked hysterically. “If it were loaded, I would ha’ just shot him in the first place, wouldn’t I?!” Jamie hissed.

Good point, J-man. Jamie then satisfyingly overpowers Randall, and both he and Claire jump out the window and escape over the fort barricade in the midst of a diversion elsewhere in the compound. A dashing execution of hastily-drawn-up plan by Jamie, as we come to find out later in the passionate argument that ensues when they reach safety.

Do ye know where I got the gun I used?” I shook my head numbly, my own anger beginning to fade. “I killed a guard near the wall. He fired at me; that’s why it was empty. He missed and I killed him wi’ my dirk; left it sticking in his wishbone when I heard you cry out. I would have killed a dozen men to get to you, Claire.” His voice cracked. “And when ye screamed, I went to you, armed wi’ nothing but an empty gun and my two hands.” Jamie was speaking a little more calmly now, but his eyes were still wild with pain and rage. I was silent. Unsettled by the horror of my encounter with Randall, I had not at all appreciated the desperate courage it had taken for him to come into the fort after me.

Upon making up and forgiving each other, they head off to the inn at Doonesbury with Dougal and the rest of the men to recover and gather their senses.

What strikes me about the scenes in this chapter is the intensity of emotion in every different place the narrative takes us. No one is an innocent or silent bystander; every character is heavily-weighted and charged with raw energy that leaps through the dialogue. I am beginning to sense the blurred lines when it comes to describing the kind of story that Outlander is, and why it appears to straddle several genres of "traditional" novels. This type of rich writing in this chapter easily demonstrates the ongoing appeal of the story to so many people over the years.

Chapter 20 - Deserted Glades

At the beginning of this chapter, Claire receives a gift from Jamie that was sent to the happy couple from Hugh Munro.

...on my blanket rested a small parcel, done up in a sheet of thin paper, fastened with the tail-feather of a woodpecker thrust through the sheet. Unfolding it carefully, I found a large chunk of rough amber. One face of the chunk had been smoothed off and polished, and in this window could be seen the delicate dark form of a tiny dragonfly, suspended in eternal flight.

Of course, I'm sure all of you women swooned over the poetic inscription that Hugh Munro had scribbled hastily, quoting from Catullus. Yet, at this point, all my guy-brain could think of was: insect imbedded in amber; only one place this story could go now:

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the case, but after a little more convoluted Fraser back-story, what with Jamie having been shot by either Dougal or Rupert, Claire comes to find out that if Jamie dies, she inherits Lollybroch. Hey, not bad after losing her original husband to a future time, her current husband to a past time, at least she would end up with a little Scottish land deal.

Once more, the amorous couple is after it again, but this time, savagely interrupted by a couple of English deserters. Really, you would think the English, even deserters, would have a bit more decorum than to interrupt them in the middle of...ahem. Anyway, with her new-found fighting skills, Claire makes short work of the attempted rape, while Jamie makes short work of, well, basically just more killing. Seems these two can never catch a break. Oh, wait. I just kept reading and...there it is, they were able to finish now.

So now, as Jamie is trying to ensure his meeting with Horrocks goes off without a hitch, he tries to make sure that Claire will stay put, out of harms way. Yeah; Claire stay put. Right.

True to form, she remembers where she is and, realizing she is only seven miles from Craigh na Dun, she heads off to the infamous stone circle. I thought it was interesting how quickly she was abandoning her new-found husband for the chance to be reunited with her original husband. (Diana can't win with me, as I have been complaining all along how Claire seemed to never think of Frank up to this point). Anyway, fickle as I am, it still seemed a bit abrupt, even to the point of unusual as she imagines Jamie finally hooking up with Laoghaire:

And finding no trace of me, eventually he would forget me, and wed again. Perhaps the lovely young Laoghaire, back at Leoch.

Yeah. Consoling yourself with leaving Jamie by having him shack up with Laoghaire, Claire. That is classic justification if I've ever seen it.

Here's a woman who doesn't know what she wants, running here and there to keep the hope of her desires alive. Problem is, every time she doesn't get what she wants, she finds some other obstacle to pull her even further in to the quagmire of confusion and chaos. This time, it happens to be a botched "escape" to the hill of Craigh na Dun.

And, once again, off to to Fort William we go.

Chapter 19 - The Waterhorse

Such a short, yet poignant, chapter. Claire's strange encounter with the waterhorse is the stuff that any out-of-town visitor to Loch Ness would relish.

It gave me an odd feeling to see the place again; so little had changed. Or would change, I should say.

I love how this simple statement made my brain skip for a moment; I had to re-think what the implications were and then....ohhhh yeah, that makes sense. Any changes Claire had previously seen were actually after the fact; a little reminder of her current time-challenge predicament.

As she watches the tentative waterhorse (or, rather, they watch each other), Claire describes the animal compared to the replica she had previously seen at the British museum, and how recognizable the basic shape was:

The colors of living things begin to fade with the last breath, and the soft, springy skin and supple muscle rot within weeks. But the bones sometimes remain, faithful echoes of the shape, to bear some last faint witness to the glory of what was.

Diana's naturalist side seems to be poking out through there, as well.

Peter, one of the drovers of their party, also witnesses Claire's encounter with the waterhorse, and Claire finds the superstitious nature of highlanders is alive and well.

“Ha-have mercy, lady,” he stammered. To my extreme embarrassment, he then flung himself flat on his face and clutched at the hem of my dress. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said with some asperity. “Get up...It’s only a wee monster,” I said at last, and grabbing his hand, tugged him to his feet.

What I love about this book is the little side-trips I can take while thinking about the current chapter. In this instance, it occurred to me that I didn't know the origin of the term "waterhorse" and thought it would be interesting to find out.

From what I can tell, the waterhorse is considered a mythical animal based on Greek stories of the hippocampus, a water creature with webbed feet and the head similar to a horse's.

A rendering of a hippocampus from the early 1500's.

Finding the picture above led me to discover Conrad Gessner, a botanist from the 1500's from whose book this image is taken. Seems that Conrad was also an innovator, and that prior to his contributions to the literary world, naturalist books were rarely found with pictures, but his were full of beautiful woodcuts like the above. Nowadays it seems difficult to imagine describing various botanical items without any pictures to help describe them.

I also enjoy using pictures for other reasons: