𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

23 - Redcoats!

Four Months Later,

9th April 1740

Life as Jamie's future wife was blissful. I seemed to command a new manner of respect from the maids, Brian had started to give Jamie more responsibilities - as if him being engaged made him more responsible - and if possible, I had grown even closer to Jenny.

I was in the fields with Jamie, as I so often was during the day. We were talking happily, laughing quite often as he and Ian gathered the hay and put it into a cart to be taken to the stable yard. 

I pulled the thread until it was taught and then held the needlework up to the sun so I could examine my work. It was pretty - a new pillow case that I was working on for Jenny, as her birthday was just a few weeks away.

Jamie laughed at something that Ian said, and I giggled. It had been funny, but I didn't understand the joke as well as Jamie and Ian did.

And then we heard screaming.

For a few seconds, all of our eyes were wide, but when there was not another scream, we relaxed.

"Just a goat or something," Jamie said to calm me.

I nodded, still unsure, "aye, most likely -"
I was cut off by another shriek. The three of us recognised it.

"Jenny!" He yelled, dropping the pitchfork and turning to Ian. "Stay with Eira! Dinna let her out of yer sight, man!"
"But Jenny -"
Jamie was already halfway across the field, "I'll deal with it!" he called over his shoulder.

Ian and I went to the furthest field, the top one, so we could look down at Lallybroch and what was going on. From where we were, nobody would see us, but we would see everything. Jamie was down there defending Jenny, and I saw several redcoats - English soldiers.

Ian stood close beside me as if he did not trust me not to make a run for Jamie and Jenny.

One of the soldiers went across to Jenny and tore at her dress, revealing her bare skin. Ian gritted his teeth and took a step forward as if he made to go towards her, but I caught his wrist. "Nay!" I told him loudly, "they'll have ye both!" Ian took a step back to stand with me, taking me into his arms. I let him because I sensed that it was more for his sake than mine. Jamie had told him to stay with me - if he was holding me, protecting me, then he couldn't abandon me to go down and help Jenny, no matter how much he wanted to.

The soldier who had torn Jenny's dress punched Jamie over and over until we saw him sag unconscious, even from this distance. Jenny screamed again, calling out her brother's name, and I sobbed. Ian held me more tightly and tried to force my head to his chest so I didn't have to watch, but I couldn't look away.

The soldiers who had been holding Jamie back strung him up in the gateway to Lallybroch. Everything happened so fast that I could barely comprehend it. They dumped a bucket of (most likely) cold water over him to wake him up from his unconscious state, and then the soldier who had beat him in the first place produced a whip - a horse's whip - most likely from the stable. I hated how they were about to hurt Jamie with what was considered his own property, and I hated that I could do nothing to stop them. I wanted to beg Ian to go down and save his friend, but I knew that to do that would be to send Ian down to the same fate as my husband-to-be.

Jamie was whipped once, twice and then three times. Jenny's knees were weak - she was sobbing, and being held up by two redcoats. I hated the English for what they were doing to Jenny and Jamie. Jamie was sagging again, barely looking up at Jenny as she tried to free herself from her captors, her breasts still bare as she had no hands to hold her dress up.

My heart ached for the two of them.

"Jenny! Jamie!" I sobbed. Ian, I noticed, had tears rolling down his face too, but we didn't talk about it.

As one of the soldiers - the one who had whipped Jamie - dragged Jenny into the house, I tried to make a break to help her, but Ian had a tight grip on me.

"No!" He snapped, not angry with me but the whole situation and the helplessness that we both felt, "we canna do anything."

"But Jenny -"

He ground his teeth together again and turned his head away from the house and the limp Jamie, who was being loaded into the back of the redcoats' cart.

"There's nothing we can do, Eira." He pulled me away from the scene and over to the forest where the wild roses grew. "Come, in here."
"But Jamie..."

Ian didn't reply.

Twenty minutes later, we emerged from the forest having hidden for all the time that we could without seeing what was going on. Hand in hand, we walked back down to the house, Ian going in first to ensure that the redcoats were gone - we thought that they had because the soldiers were gone, as were their horses and the cart which Jamie had been thrown onto... but Ian wanted to be sure that one had not remained. He told me to hide in the stable, and I did... for a time.

Whilst I 'hid', I saddled up my own horse and climbed onto it.

I dug my heels into its ribs and it trotted out of the stable. Ian was just crossing the stable yard, "where're ye going?" He exclaimed to me, "Eira, ye must be mad to go after him - ye won't get him back."
I knew that, but to hear Ian say it made everything all the more real.

I blinked away my tears before I cleared my throat and held my head up high, "I'm going to get Brian - he needs to come home right away -"
"He's at a funeral. He'll be home tomorrow, ye'll be best to wait -"
"Bollocks to that!" I yelled, shocking Ian considerably. He had never heard me swear before - nor any other lady besides, most likely. "The only one who has a chance of getting Jamie out before something terrible happens to him is Brian Fraser, and he needs to be here right now."

And before Ian could reply, I had galloped through the gate of Lallybroch - where Jamie had been whipped just forty minutes or so before - and headed for the town, where Brian had gone early this morning.