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PROLOGUE
When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles Not because of any fear of droorrubby child, with a blissful disregard for filth of any kind
It was because I couldn’t bring myself to believe that that perfect smooth expanse was no more than a thin fil into so the tiny ripples caused by ht the puddle impossibly deep, a bottoleae bodies and sharp teeth adrift and silent in the far-down depths
And then, looking down into reflection, I would see ainst a featureless blue sweep, and think instead that the puddle was the entrance to another sky If I stepped in there, I would drop at once, and keep on falling, on and on, into blue space
The only tiht, when the evening stars cahted pinprick there, I could splash through unafraid—for if I should fall into the puddle and on into space, I could grab hold of the star as I passed, and be safe
Even nohen I see a puddle in h my feet do not—then hurries on, with only the echo of the thought left behind
What if, this time, you fall?
PART ONE
Battle, and the Loves of Men
1
THE CORBIES’ FEAST
Many a Highland chieftain fought,
Many a gallant man did fall
Death itself were dearly bought,
All for Scotland’s King and law
—“Will Ye No Coain”
April 16, 1746
He was dead However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances While he placed considerable trust in the understanding and uilt that made all men fear the chance of hell 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
On the other hand, this couldn’t be heaven, on several counts For one, he didn’t deserve it For another, it didn’t look it And for a third, he doubted that the rewards of the blessed included a broken nose, any more than those of the damned
While he had always thought of Purgatory as a gray sort of place, the faint reddish light that hid everything around hi a bit, and his power to reason was coht to see him and tell him just what the sentence was, until he should have suffered enough to be purified, and at last to enter the Kingdoel was uncertain He had no idea of the staffing requireatory; it wasn’t a matter the dominie had addressed in his schooldays
While waiting, he began to take stock of whatever other torht be required to endure There were nuashes, and bruises here and there, and he was fairly sure he’d broken the fourth finger of his right hand again—difficult to protect it, the way it stuck out so stiff, with the joint frozen None of that was too bad, though What else?
Claire The na than anything his body had ever been called on to withstand
If he had had an actual body anyony He had known it would be like this, when he sent her back to the stone circle Spiritual anguish could be taken as a standard condition in Purgatory, and he had expected all along that the pain of separation would be his chief punish he’d ever done: murder and betrayal included
He did not knohether persons in Purgatory were allowed to pray or not, but tried anyway Lord, he prayed, that she may be safe She and the child He was sure she would have one with child, she was still light and fleet of foot—and the most stubbornly detered the dangerous transition back to the place froh whatever rip of the rock—that he could never know, and the thought of it was enough toin his nose
He resumed his interrupted inventory of bodily ills, and beca appeared to beSensation stopped at the hip, with a sort of pins-and-needles tingling at the joint Presuet it back in due time, either when he finally arrived in Heaven, or at the least, at Judged very well on the wooden peg he wore to replace his
OLOGUE
When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles Not because of any fear of droorrubby child, with a blissful disregard for filth of any kind
It was because I couldn’t bring myself to believe that that perfect smooth expanse was no more than a thin fil into so the tiny ripples caused by ht the puddle impossibly deep, a bottoleae bodies and sharp teeth adrift and silent in the far-down depths
And then, looking down into reflection, I would see ainst a featureless blue sweep, and think instead that the puddle was the entrance to another sky If I stepped in there, I would drop at once, and keep on falling, on and on, into blue space
The only tiht, when the evening stars cahted pinprick there, I could splash through unafraid—for if I should fall into the puddle and on into space, I could grab hold of the star as I passed, and be safe
Even nohen I see a puddle in h my feet do not—then hurries on, with only the echo of the thought left behind
What if, this time, you fall?
PART ONE
Battle, and the Loves of Men
1
THE CORBIES’ FEAST
Many a Highland chieftain fought,
Many a gallant man did fall