Still, all he had ever heard of hell made him think it unlikely that the torments reserved for its luckless inhabitants could be restricted to a sore nose. While he placed considerable trust in the understanding and mercy of his Creator, he harbored that residue of elemental guilt that made all men fear the chance of hell. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances. "Will Te No Come Back Again" APe was dead.
Death itself were dearly bought, All for Scotland's King and law. I The Corbies' Feast Many a Highland chieftain fought, Many a gallant man did fall. Even now, when I see a puddle in my path, my mind half-balts -though myfeet do not-then hurries on, with only the echo of the thought left behind. If I looked in the water and saw one lighted pinprick there, I could splash through unafraid-for if I sbouldfall into the puddle and on into space, I could grab hold of the star as I passed, and be safe. The only time I would dare to walk through a puddle was at twilight, when the evening stars came out. if I stepped in there, I would drop at once, and keep onfalling, on and on, into blue space. And then, looking down into reflection, I would see my own roundface andfrizzled hair against afeatureless blue sweep, and think instead that the puddle was the entrance to another sky. n which the lazy coil of tentacle andgleam of scale lay bidden, with the threat of huge bodies and sharp teeth adrift and silent in the far-down depths. Sometimes, seeing the tiny ripples caused by my approach, I thought the puddle impossibly deep, a bottomless sea I. I believed it was an opening into some fathomless space. It was because I couldn't bring myself to believe that that perfect smooth expanse was no more than a thin film of water over solid earth. Not because of anyfear of drowned worms or 7vet stockings I was by and large a grubby child, with a blissful disregard for filth of any kind. Prologue When I was small, I never wanted to step I.
Simpson, Jr., Sheryl Smith, Alit, Norman Shimmel, Walter Ha,n, Kareu Pershing, Margaret Ball, Paul Solyn, Diane Engel, David Chaifetz, and man\, others, for being interested, providing useful discussion, and laughing in the right places. Viii AcknowIedgments MacKnnon Taylor, and his brother Hamish Taylor, for their most helpful suggestions and corrections of Gaelic spelling and usages and as always, the various members of the CompuServe Literary Forum, including Janet McConnaughey, Matte Brengle, Akua Lezli Hope, John L. PS3557.A22V69 1994 813'.54-dc2O 93-21907 CIP Canadian Cataloging in Publication Data Applied For Manufactured in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada Book design by Robin Arzt January 1994 1 n 0 Q 7 i, C A q To my children, Laura Juliet, Samuel Gordon, and Jennifer Rose, Whogave me the heart, the blood, and the bones of thl 'sbook, Man-xvoman relationships-Scotland-Fiction. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gabaldon, Diana.
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