Deftly whipping a small tuning fork from his pocket, he struck it smartly against a pillar and held it next to Jamie's left ear. Jamie rolled his eyes heavenward, but shrugged and obligingly sang a note. The little man jerked back as though he'd been shot.

He touched the rough crucifix that lay against his chest and whispered to the moving air, "Lord, that she might be safe, she and my children." Then turned his cheek to her reaching hand and touched her throught the veils of time.

Hodie mihi cras tibi, said the inscription. Sic transit gloria mundi. My turn today, yours tomorrow. And thus passes away the glory of the world.

"Sassenach." He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection.

Gentle he would be, denied he would not.

I wasn't used to living crowded cheek by jowl with numbers of other people, as was customary here. People ate, slept, and frequently copulated, crammed into tiny, stifling cottages, lit and warmed by smoky peat fires. The only thing they didn't do together was bathe - largely because they didn't bathe.

What are you doing with the child?" I inquired cautiously. "I'm teachin' young James here the fine art of not pissing on his feet," he explained.