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Outlander Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the Outlander novel. A total of 245 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 : PART ONE
Inverness, 1945
1
A NEW BEGINNING
It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearan
PART ONE
Inverness, 1945
1
A NEW BEGINNING
It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance. Mrs. Baird’s was like a thousand other Highland bed-and-breakfast establishments in 1945; clean and quiet, with fading floral wallpaper,
- 252 He opened the book gently, to keep the pages from falling out. Greek lettering looked to me like the conniptions of an ink-soaked worm, but he found the bit he was looking for with no difficulty. “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
- 251 “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques. . . .” Roger looked up at Bree, and something seemed to pa.s.s through the air between them. He reached down and took hold of Jem’s other hand, momentarily interrupting his song. “So, a bhalaich, can ye do it, then?” “FRÈRE
- 250 “Let Mama see.” With a little difficulty, Brianna succeeded in getting her fingers onto the rock, though Jemmy wouldn’t surrender it. “It’s warm,” she said, looking up. “Like the piece of opal—but not way hot. If it gets way hot, you drop it fast, OK?” sh
- 249 I saw gooseb.u.mps rise suddenly on Brianna’s arms, and caught the look she sent me—one of sudden understanding. She had abruptly imagined just how it might be, to arrive suddenly out of one’s own time . . . alone. I gave her a small smile, and put my han
- 248 Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d. . . . Where are they? IT WAS AFTERNOON of the next day before we managed to collect Brianna, Roger, and Ian and retire privately to Jamie’s study without attracting unwanted attention. The night before, the haze of fatigue, following o
- 247 “Look,” he said softly, turning the book toward me and pointing to one line. Written in Latin like the others, but there were unfamiliar words mixed into the text—long, strange-looking words. “Mohawk?” Jamie said. He looked up, into Ian’s face. “That is a
- 246 “Has Ian brought friends? Or—his family, perhaps?” He had said his wife was expecting, and that was nearly two years back. The child—if all had gone well—must be nearly old enough to walk. Jamie’s smile dimmed a little at that. “No,” he said. “He’s alone.
- 245 He couldn’t duck aside and let it go past; Jem was still close behind him. He kicked it in the jaw with all his strength, then flung himself on it, grasping for a hold round its neck. His fingers slipped and slid, unable to get a firm grip on the wiry hai
- 244 “Come!” “No, I said ye must . . .” Roger began. “COME!” “Now, look, lad—” both men began together, then stopped, looked at each other, and laughed. “Where’s Mummy, then?” Roger said, trying another tack. “Mummy will be worried about you, aye?” The small r
- 243 He chuckled softly. “That’s true. He stinks worse than you do.” “I do not stink!” I said indignantly. “Mmphm.” He took my hand and lifted it to his nose, sniffing delicately. “Onions,” he said, “and garlic. Something hot . . . peppercorns. Aye, and clove.
- 242 “I know that.” To my surprise, a single tear slid down my cheek and dropped on the page, puckering the paper. I blinked hard, struggling for control. I didn’t want to distress Brianna. She wasn’t distressed. Her hands left my shoulders, and I heard the sc
- 241 I glanced at the coffin, sitting on its trestles under the rain-smeared window. The Lindsays’ cabin was very small, not suited for a funeral in the pouring rain, where a large number of mourners were expected. The coffin was open, awaiting the evening wak
- 240 It wasn’t nailed; the lid was heavy, but s.h.i.+fted at once. “Oh,” Jamie said softly, looking down. Gold will never tarnish, no matter how damp or dank its surroundings. It will lie at the bottom of the sea for centuries, to emerge one day in some random
- 239 “Haunt the place?” “Aye, of course. A murder victim, done to death here, and hidden, unavenged?” “You mean . . . really haunt the place?” I asked, carefully, “or do you only mean the slaves would think so?” He shrugged, twitching his shoulders uneasily. “
- 238 By the time we had reached it, I knew something was wrong. There was a sinister air of stillness about the house; no sound of scurrying servants, no music from the parlor, no scents of supper being fetched in from the cookhouse. Most peculiar of all, Ulys
- 237 “Well, now,” Bonnet said slowly. I could see his eyes trace the distance between him and Marsali—fifteen feet or more, too much to reach her with a dive. He put one foot on the ground, beginning to rise. He could reach her in three strides. “Don’t let him
- 236 I took another step backward as I said this, and he took a step toward me at the same time. A flicker of panic must have crossed my face, for he looked amused, and took another step. “Oh, I doubt that, Mrs. Fraser dear. For see, the man’s dead by now.” I
- 235 “Come back,” I’d said. He’d smiled at me, smoothing a curl behind my ear. “Ye ken what I said at Alamance? Well, it’s no today, either, Sa.s.senach. We’ll both be back.” MRS. CRAWFORD’S a.s.sEMBLY, held the next evening, boasted the same performers, for t
- 233 As though the thought had drawn attention to him, he heard the slosh and swish of someone walking slowly through the marsh nearby. Searching. He froze, hoping the rain would cover the sound of his breath, loud and rasping in his ears. Closer. d.a.m.n, the
- 232 He had hoped they would simply accept his story and depart—and they might still do that, once they satisfied themselves that there really was no whisky hidden anywhere near the landing. Another possibility had occurred to him, though; one that was making
- 231 None of them appeared to be at all alarmed. The man looked surprised, the woman affronted. The girl laughed heartily, pointing at Jamie, then at Roger. “I begin to feel rather foolish,” Jamie said to Roger. Removing the pistol, he stepped back warily. “We
- 230 “Mmphm. What if he doesna come alone?” Jamie shrugged, eyes fixed on the flint of the pistol in his hand. He wiggled it to be sure it was firmly seated, then set the gun down. “Then he does not. If there are men with him, we must separate him from them. I
- 229 Jamie turned back toward the sea, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked toward the sinking sun. “A monster,” he said softly. “Something less than a man—or more.” Roger opened his mouth to reply, but found he could not. For it was a monster that shad
- 227 “Och, well, as to that . . .” Duff looked up at him speculatively, taking in the details of his clothing and appearance, and obviously wondering exactly how much the answer to that question might be worth. His partner below was growing increasingly restiv
- 226 “Well, there you have me,” I admitted. “The principle holds, though; you haven’t any idea what may happen.” “That’s true,” he agreed. “But whatever does happen, I shall be ready for it.” He patted the dirk that lay on the corner of his desk, and went back
- 225 No. He was. He’d been half-asleep—or wholly so—and he’d b.l.o.o.d.y thought I was b.l.o.o.d.y Laoghaire! Nothing else could account for the way he had been touching me, with a sense of painful impatience tinged with anger; he had never touched me like tha
- 224 “Laid sideways, the babe was, and the size of a six-month shoat . . .” “Ha, Germain had a head like a cannonball, the midwife said, and he was facing backward, the wee rattan—” “Jemmy had a huge head, but it was his shoulders that were the problem. . . .”
- 223 Here the text broke off, as Jenny had apparently been called away upon some domestic errand. It resumed, freshly dated, on the next page. September 18, 1771 I dream of young Ian now and then. . . . “What?” I exclaimed. “To h.e.l.l with Young Ian—who was w
- 222 “There were children crying, but not me. I wasn’t really afraid at all.” He hadn’t been afraid, because Mum was holding his hand. If she was there, nothing bad could happen. “There was a big thump nearby. I could see the lights shake. Then there was a noi
- 221 That made her laugh again, a little wryly. “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know.” “What d’ye mean by that?” “Well, when you hear things about somebody before you meet them, of course the real person isn’t just like what yo
- 220 “What?” she said, in an edgy tone. “What do you mean, they’re born potty?” She had one hand on Jemmy’s shoulder, balancing him, while the other cupped his round little belly, an index finger disappearing into the shadows below to direct his aim. “Potty,”
- 219 I took a deep breath, and picked up the pencil from the spot where Roger had laid it down. I drew slowly as I talked, ill.u.s.trating the possibilities. “But”—I tapped the pencil on the paper—“if Jemmy were to show as type A or type AB—then his father was
- 218 “Sorry to keep you waiting,” I apologized to Roger. “I just thought . . .” I reached into the cupboard, withdrew three small earthenware pots, and uncorked them. “Not a problem,” he a.s.sured me. He watched with fascination as I checked each slide to be s
- 217 To my surprise, Jamie laughed. “I shouldna think so, Sa.s.senach. It’s a Freemason’s compa.s.s.” “It is?” I blinked at it, then glanced at Jamie. “Was Cameron a Mason?” He shrugged, running a hand through his hair. Jamie never spoke of his own a.s.sociati
- 216 For a time, I had hoped that Jenny’s letter had simply been mis-sent, misplaced, lost somewhere in transit. But it had been too long, and I had stopped hoping. Jamie hadn’t. “I thought perhaps I should send her this.” He shuffled through the stack of pape
- 215 I smiled at that; however crude his methods, Daniel Rawlings was a good doctor. I wondered once again what had happened to him, and whether I should ever get the chance to meet him. I had the rather sad feeling that I should not; I couldn’t imagine a doct
- 214 “We didna mind so much,” Jamie said. His eyes were open, but fixed on whatever he was seeing in the summer dim of memory. “It was better to be outside than in. And yet, by the evening, we would be so droukit wi’ fatigue that we could barely set one foot b
- 213 It was a soft spring night, the air still crisp, but smelling of fresh green things from the sprouting moor and the salt scent of the distant sea; a night to make a man yearn to run free upon the earth and feel the blood humming dark in his veins. Tired o
- 212 Take a few staunch Calvinists, convinced that if they didn’t tuck their blankets tight, the Pope would nip down the chimney and bite their toes, and bang them up in a prison cheek-by-jowl with men who prayed out loud to the Virgin Mary . . . aye, he could
- 211 Jamie had buried the head, with due respect and a brief prayer, on a hill near the house—the first inhabitant of the small, sun-filled clearing intended as the future cemetery of Fraser’s Ridge. At Claire’s insistence, he had marked the small grave with a
- 210 “Mr. Fraser is ill? I am sorry to hear it.” The unfamiliar soft voice came from behind, startling him, and he turned to find Malva Christie looking up at him in question. He hadn’t taken much notice of her, but was now struck by the beauty of her eyes—an
- 209 He dressed slowly, his mind still pleasantly torpid. As he bent to dredge his stockings out from under the bed, though, something in the tumbled bedclothes caught his eye, just under the edge of the pillow. He reached out slowly and picked it up. The “aul
- 208 “Evan Lindsay’s pigs,” Mr. Bug explained, in a rare burst of loquacity. Both Bugs beamed at me, begrimed with their efforts. “Thank you,” I said, feeling choked, and not only from the smell. I blinked, eyes watering slightly from the miasma of the corn li
- 207 “Thank you,” I said faintly. “I’ll . . . ah . . . do something with it. Thank you.” Keziah beamed and bowed his way out, leaving me in personal custody of a sack containing what appeared to be a small but highly annoyed rattlesnake. I looked round frantic
- 206 His eyes were closed, and his skin was the color of old ivory. His head was turned slightly away from me, so that the cords of his neck stood out, but I couldn’t see any pulse in his throat. He was still warm, or at least the bedclothes were still warm. I
- 205 “Done,” I said, a moment later, and gently replaced the poultice. Stewed onion and garlic wrapped in muslin and soaked with penicillin broth would keep the wounds moist and draining. Renewed every hour or so, I hoped that the warmth of the poultices would
- 204 “No,” he said, sounding drowsy. “I dinna fancy anything.” “You should eat a bit of soup, if you can, before you fall asleep.” I turned and smoothed the hair off his face, frowning a little as I looked at him. The flush had faded a bit, I thought—hard to t
- 203 “Maybe you don’t, but I do!” “I’m no going to die,” he said firmly, “and I dinna wish to live with half a leg. I’ve a horror of it.” “Well, I’m not very keen on it myself. But if it’s a choice between your leg and your life?” “It’s not.” “It d.a.m.n well
- 202 Soon the mountainside was alive with fires. Here and there were smaller, moving flames, as the head of each family or plantation thrust a brand into his fire and brought it down the hill, to add to the blazing pyre at the foot. From our perch high on the
- 201 Roger nodded. “I have, though not on my own account. You might say it is a message to be pa.s.sed on for someone else.” Jamie lifted one quizzical brow, in a gesture so reminiscent of Brianna that Roger felt a small internal start. To cover it, he coughed
- 200 “Oh, ’deed I have, ’deed I have, Mrs. Claire. Halfway up the Mohawk River, to the place they call the Upper Castle.” “The Mohawk?” My heart began to beat faster. “Mm.” He withdrew something from his bag, squinted at it, put it back, and rummaged further.
- 199 These things all helped, but the general atmosphere of drowsy well-being owed more to the night before than to the events of the morning. It had been a perfect moon-drenched night. Jamie had put out the candle and gone to bolt the door, but instead he sto
- 198 “Go ahead,” she said. “Nothing much worth looking at.” Without a word, he stood up and began to undress. “What are you doing?” Her voice was low, but shocked. “Not fair for me to sit here gawking at you, is it? It’s much less worth looking at, I expect, b
- 197 “Thanks.” Fraser had brought a small looking gla.s.s and a pot of shaving soap as well. Very thoughtful. He could have wished that Fraser might have left him alone, rather than leaning against the doorframe, lending a critical eye to the proceedings, but
- 196 Both faces were a pale green by now. Finished with the work, I wrapped the foot loosely in gauze bandages, and patted Roger’s leg. “There now,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ve seen it before. One brave told me that they tickle a bit, gnawing, but it doesn’t hu
- 195 I felt as though someone had struck me in the breastbone. My marriages, she meant. I looked for Jamie, and found him looking at me with the same expression of shock I knew was on my own face. He coughed to break the silence, and cleared his throat, turnin
- 194 “You have the adamant,” I said, touching it gently. It was still cool to the touch, in spite of being worn so close to his body. “I have,” he said, but he was looking at me, not at the stone, a slight smile on his face. “What is it an adamant gives ye? Th
- 193 I could see a line of large birds flying, a stately procession skimming down the distant sh.o.r.eline. Pelicans, searching the shallows for fish, with the sun gleaming on their wings. I tugged at Jamie’s sleeve and pointed at them. “Look—” I began, but go
- 192 The man-of-war swung heavily round this impromptu anchor, and came sliding sideways down the face of a wave. The wall of water towered over the s.h.i.+p, and came cras.h.i.+ng down, catching her broadside. The Porpoise heeled, spun around once. The next w
- 191 “Not pirates,” he said. “It’s the slaves. Look!” Unskilled in the seamans.h.i.+p of large vessels, the escaped slaves of the Yallahs River plantations had evidently made a slow and blundering pa.s.sage toward Hispaniola, and having somehow arrived at that
- 190 Ian had been taken into the kitchen, where he was stripped, bathed, dressed in a clean s.h.i.+rt—but nothing else—and taken to the main house. “It was just at night,” he said wistfully, “and all the windows lighted. It looked verra much like Lallybroch, w
- 189 I could see nothing; no hint of Jamie’s s.h.i.+rt in front of my face, snowy white as I knew it to be, not even a flicker of the movement of my own light-colored skirts, though I heard them swish about my feet as I walked, the sound blending with that of
- 188 If we should not return… He must have felt my grip tighten, for he stopped, and drew me alongside him. “Claire,” he said softly. “I must say something.” I knew already, and groped for his mouth to stop him, but my hand brushed by his face in the dark. He
- 187 “Faith is as powerful a force as science,” he concluded, voice soft in the darkness, “—but far more dangerous.” We sat quietly for a time, looking over the bow of the tiny s.h.i.+p, toward the thin slice of darkness that divided the night, darker than the
- 186 Grey smiled unhappily. “Trouble? Yes, you might call it trouble, with four plantation houses burnt, and over two hundred slaves gone—G.o.d knows where! But I vastly doubt that anyone will take notice of my social acquaintance, under the circ.u.mstances. B
- 185 There was no sound save the crackling of the fire. Ishmael stood transfixed, staring at the woman beside me. Then she spoke again, in Brianna’s soft, husky tones. “I love you, Daddy. You too, Mama.” She leaned toward me, and I smelled the fresh blood. Th
- 184 “Guests first,” she said politely. “Will you have one lump, Mrs. Malcolm, or two?” I was fortunately saved from answering by Ishmael, who thrust a crude horn cup into my hands, indicating that I should drink from it. Considering the alternative, I raised
- 182 They were not there. The boat floated silently, empty in the shadows of the big cecropia where we had left it, but of Jamie and the rest, there was no sign at all. One of the cane fields lay a short distance to my right, between me and the looming rectang
- 181 “Just stand still, please, Reverend Campbell,” I said. Hands shaking, I drew the pistol Jamie had given me out of the pocket of my habit and pointed it at him. Rather to my surprise, he did stand still, staring at me as though I had just grown two heads.
- 180 “Look,” I said, trying to extract myself from his grasp, “you’re quite wrong about Jamie. He had nothing to do with your sister, he told me. He—” “You’ve spoken to him about Margaret?” His grip tightened. I gave a small grunt of discomfort and yanked a bi
- 179 “What do you plan to do about Ian?” I asked, once we had made our way back to the path. “I’ll need help,” he answered briskly. “I mean to come up the river with Innes and MacLeod and the rest. There’s a landing there, no great distance from the refinery.
- 177 The fishermen who discovered the castaway were more interested in his means of salvation than in the slave himself. Breaking open the cask, however, they were shocked and appalled to find inside the body of a man, somewhat imperfectly preserved by the spi
- 176 “Did ye have blood to protect you, or stones? I wouldna think ye’d the nerve for blood—but maybe I’m wrong. For surely ye’re stronger than I thought, to have done it three times, and lived through it.” “Blood?” I shook my head, confused. “No. Nothing. I t
- 175 “Probably a lot more than one,” I said. I pushed the slave gently onto his back and began to palpate his stomach. The spleen was tender and slightly enlarged—also a common finding here—but I felt no suspicious ma.s.ses in the abdomen that might indicate a
- 174 MacRae had untied the body and carried it, lolling, to the barrel of pitch ready waiting. “The court granted me the mercy to be weirrit before the burning,” Geillis explained ironically. “So they expected the body to be dead—no difficulty there, if I was
- 173 “Aye, that’s right.” She nodded, eyes still fixed on me in speculation. “So ye found my wee book? Is that how ye knew to come and look for me on Craigh na Dun? It was you, no? That shouted my name, just before I stepped through the stones?” “Gillian,” I s
- 172 The Chinaman had not been found in spite of an intensive search of the town by the island militia. The special detachment of marines from the barracks on Antigua was expected to arrive tomorrow. In the meantime, every house in Kingston was shut up like a
- 171 “Come see,” he whispered. There was a small herd of manatees in the lagoon, big gray bodies gliding under the dark crystal water, rising gleaming like smooth, wet rocks. Birds were beginning to call in the trees near the house; besides this, the only sou
- 170 “Ye dinna want me, then?” Grey got to his feet, dusting the seat of his breeches. “I shall probably want you to the day I die,” he said matter-of-factly. “But tempted as I am—” He shook his head, brus.h.i.+ng wet gra.s.s from his hands. “Do you really thi
- 169 He breathed deeply, and laid down the paperweight. “I suppose there is.” He jerked his head abruptly at the decanter. “Will you have brandy?” “I will,” I said promptly, “and I strongly suggest you have some, too. I expect you need it as much as I do.” A s
- 168 It was another hour before the door opened again, this time to admit the Governor. He was still handsome and neat as a white camellia, but definitely beginning to turn brown round the edges. I set the untouched gla.s.s of brandy down and got to my feet to
- 167 I followed the direction of his frown and saw that he was looking at a chubby, jolly-looking woman in her thirties, with light brown hair done in gathered ringlets, who was giggling at Mr. Willoughby. I looked at her with interest. So this was the infamou
- 166 We knew no one, and had no social sponsor to make introductions. However, due to Jamie’s foresight, we had no need of one. Within moments of our arrival, women had begun to cl.u.s.ter around us, fascinated by Mr. Willoughby. “My acquaintance, Mr. Yi Tien
- 165 “Surely one of him is sufficient,” Jamie said dryly. “Given the quality of his opinions.” He picked up the wig and fitted it carefully on his head, raising little puffs of scented powder as he poked it here and there. “Is Mr. Housman an acquaintance of yo
- 164 “The cow licked it all off last time she milked me,” he said between his teeth. “For G.o.d’s sake, Sa.s.senach!” I laughed, and returned to my work. At last I stopped and raised myself on my elbows. “I think you’ve had enough,” I said, brus.h.i.+ng hair o
- 163 As we rounded the tip of the headland, a lithe black figure materialized next to the rail. Now clothed in spare seaman’s clothes, with his scars hidden, Ishmael looked less like a slave and a good deal more like a pirate. Not for the first time, I wondere
- 162 By the time he turned back, I had made it out of the berth and was standing—a trifle shakily, but still upright—against the frame. He eyed me critically. “It’s no going to work, Sa.s.senach,” he said, shaking his head. He looked rather regretful, himself.
- 161 “I dinna believe something only because someone’s set words down in a book—for G.o.d’s sake, I print the d.a.m.n things! I ken verra well just what charlatans and fools some writers are—I see them! And surely I ken the difference between a romance and a f
- 160 “I’ve a daughter,” he said. “And two grandsons; bonny lads. But I’m forgetting; you’ll have seen them last week, aye?” I had. They came at least twice a week to see him, bringing scribbled school papers and autographed baseb.a.l.l.s to show their grandpa.
- 159 “That’s verra sensible of ye, Sa.s.senach,” Jamie said, sounding faintly surprised that I was capable of sense. For that matter, I was a little surprised myself; my thoughts were becoming more fragmented by the moment, and it was an effort to keep talking
- 158 Ishmael snorted briefly, but complied, pausing only to refresh himself from the tray of food Fergus had brought. Fergus himself lounged against the door, watching the prisoner through half-lidded eyes. “They be twelve boys talkin’ strange, like you.” Jami
- 157 The man stared impa.s.sively at Jamie for a moment, eyes still as tide pools. Then one eyebrow flicked up and he extended his bound feet before him. “Bene-bene, amiki?” he said, with an ironic intonation that couldn’t be missed, whatever the language. Is
- 156 I moved closer to him, and his hand rose up from the shadows to take mine. “Men fell to either side of me, and I could hear the grapeshot and the musket b.a.l.l.s hum past my head like b.u.mblebees. But I wasna touched.” He had reached the British lines u
- 155 “I dinna want to know how ye did this,” he said, with a sigh, “but for G.o.d’s sake, Sa.s.senach, don’t do it again!” “Well, I didn’t intend to do anything…” I began crossly, when I was interrupted by the return of Mr. Willoughby. He was carrying the litt
- 154 “I am not going to die,” I said crossly, “unless it’s from heat exhaustion. Take some of this b.l.o.o.d.y stuff off me!” Marsali, who had been tearfully pleading with me not to expire, looked rather relieved at this outburst. She stopped crying and sniffe
- 153 “What in the name of G.o.d—” Jamie began. A rending crash drowned his words, and he pitched sideways, eyes wide with alarm, as the cabin tilted. The stool I was on fell over, throwing me onto the floor. The oil lamp had shot from its bracket, luckily exti
- 152 “Villiers didna ken. He said he had spoken some time wi’ the captain of the Bruja, and the man seemed verra secretive about where he’d been and what he’d been doing. Villiers thought no great thing of it, knowin’ as the Bruja has a reputation as a crook s
- 151 “I wasn’t planning to take up residence here,” I said tartly. “I don’t care what they think.” Not pausing to argue further, I began walking down the road, toward a distant murmur of noise that I took to be the slave market. “Yer face will…get…red!” Murphy
- 150 “This man,” he said, with a nod toward Fergus, “and this woman,” with another toward Marsali. “Marry them, Father. Now. Please,” he added, as an obvious afterthought, and stood back a pace, restoring order among the audience by dint of dark glances from s
- 149 “All right. What’s happened to this Arabella, though? Has one of the crew debauched her?” “I suppose you might say that.” I drew breath to explain further, but before I could speak, another knock sounded on the door. “Can a man not dress in peace?” Jamie