Chapter 10: The Oath-Taking

In this chapter, Claire makes some more half-assed attempts to escape.

Tonight was the night.

Everyone at Castle Leoch will be attending the oath-taking ceremony, giving Claire a chance to escape. She sneaks out of the castle, intending to take a horse and run for it.

Her plan is foiled when she trips over Jamie, who had been hiding in the stables. He laughs at Claire and tells her that there are lots of guards on duty, so she might as well give up now. I am mildly surprised to find that she obliges immediately. Again, she doesn't really seem to be trying all that hard to escape. They bicker a little bit, but she gives up on her escape in half a heartbeat.

Jamie escorts Claire back to the castle in order to keep her from being raped by the guards (I've given up on trying to count rape threats). They don't quite make it — the guards catch them, molest Claire, and drag Jamie off to the oath-taking ceremony he had been avoiding.

Rupert surveyed Jamie critically, with an eye to the oatstraws in his hair and the stains on his shirt. I saw his glance flicker to the oatstraws in my own hair, and a cynical grin split his face.

No one bothers to correct this impression.

Jamie's eye lighted on me, his expression still grim. This was my doing, his face seemed to say.

I mean, not really. Claire doesn't want to be there, was trying to leave, insisted that you stay in the stable, and has absolutely nothing to do with Clan MacKenzie politics, so it's hard to see how your current predicament is her fault. Though, of course, Jamie didn't actually say that it was — this is just Claire's interpretation of his expression.

He could, of course, announce that he did not mean to swear his oath to Colum, and head back to his warm bed in the stables. If he wanted a serious beating or his throat cut, that is.

So Jamie submits and cleans himself up for the ceremony. He accepts a MacKenzie tartan kilt, but takes off the Clan badge, telling Claire that his own Clan motto is "Je suis prest" (I am ready.). Presumably, Claire could find some way to lead a casual acquaintance into a discussion of Clan mottos if she really wanted to find out more about Jamie's background. But no.

Claire goes to observe the oath-taking, which is all very festive. Everyone is decked out, including Colum and Dougal. Dougal is the first man to take his oath, swearing his loyalty to Colum and sealing it with a drink.

I learned a new word here — quaich, a shallow, two-handled drinking bowl — and got somewhat off track in writing this recap as I spent an hour falling down various wikiholes as I attempted to determine the relationship between a quaich and a caudle cup (which is a deeper two-handled vessel used to drink caudle, a revolting-sounding drink/gruel involving eggs, wine, spices, and bread). I'm quite familiar with the latter (common in early American decorative arts), but did not come to a satisfying answer as to any relationship between the forms. 

John Coney Caudle Cup, c. 1690, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Colum and Dougal are much less interested in early modern silver holloware than I am, preoccupied as they are with Jamie's unexpected appearance. Claire's nervous, too, fearing that the MacKenzies will murder Jamie right there in the hall if he refuses to swear his fealty to Colum.

However, Jamie neatly sidesteps the difficulty by reminding everyone that his loyalty is already pledged to his own clan, but swearing that he will serve and obey Colum as long as he remains on MacKenzie land. Colum finds this acceptable.

There was a lessening of the tension over the hall, and almost an audible sigh of relief in the gallery as Colum drank from the quaich and offered it to Jamie.

So, I guess, no problem then? I remember reading once that if a problem can be solved by two characters just talking things out in a reasonable way, it was never really a problem at all. And this seems . . . weak. In fact, it reminds me of the end of Brave, not because it's set in Scotland, but because there was a lot of bluster about traditions that turned out to be completely irrelevant as soon as the characters decided not to make a big deal out of it. Which is one of the reasons nobody liked that movie. This seems similar. Like, if this can be solved by people just standing down, was it ever really a problem in the first place? 

Jamie chugs the whole bowl of ceremonial whisky (rude?), impressing everyone with his "knack for good theater." The ceremony devolves into general revelry and Mrs. Fitz tells the women to get out of sight so they don't get raped by drunken MacKenzies. Like I said, I can't even count anymore.

Claire tries to find her way back to her room, but, well . . .

I found myself pressed against the wall of the corridor, surrounded by bearded Highlanders with whisky on their breath and rape on their minds.

Dougal comes to the rescue, sort of:

"Ye shouldna be here. Since ye are, weel, you'll have to pay the penalty for that," he murmured, eyes gleaming in the half-dark. And without warning, he pulled me hard against him and kissed me.

Thus dies the dream of #TeamDougal. Also, Claire, why don't you have a knife yet? Surely there's something sharp in Davie Beaton's room that you could carry around with you. I mean, you probably can't murder Dougal MacKenzie in a hallway, but you can't go 10 steps without some asshole assaulting you. Go armed.

The next day, a large group of hunters goes out after boar. Claire is summoned to fix up their various wounds.

"Bloody Christ!" I said, examining a gaping, jagged wound that ran from knee to ankle.

I cannot tell a lie: I am a wimp and watched this part of the TV show through my fingers.

The boar goes tearing past Claire, but doesn't hurt her. Dougal comes to the rescue again, this time reserving his assaulting energies for the boar.

Dougal leapt aside like a bullfighter, jabbing at it with his spear. Back and forth, and again. It was less a rampage than a dance, both adversaries rooted in strength, but so nimble they seemed to float above the ground.

A man named Geordie has been mortally injured in the hunt. Dougal surprises Claire with his tenderness toward the wounded man:

Dougal the fierce, Dougal the ruthless, was speaking to the man in a low voice, repeating words of comfort, hugging the man hard against him, stroking the tumbled hair.

Again, I was watching most of this through my fingers, but I can report that this was the only scene in the TV show that moved Spouse to tears.

After confirming with Claire that Geordie's injuries are not survivable, Dougal removes the man's tourniquet, hastening his death. Both Claire and Dougal comfort the dying man. This leads Dougal to a realization:

"You've seen men die before,' he said flatly. "By violence." Not a question, almost an accusation.

"Many of them," I said, just as flatly. 

In fact, I imagine Claire has assisted at many more deathbeds than Dougal has. He's probably seen more of his close friends die, but there was nothing like D-Day or the Blitz in 18th-century Scotland. In general, I accept Steven Pinker's arguments about the present being substantially less violent than the past (with some quibbles), but a lot of that argument is based on percentages, rather than raw numbers. Given her post in WWII France, my money is on Claire having held a lot more dying hands than Dougal. 

Back at the castle, Claire patches up the less grievous injuries associated with the Gathering.

All I could say of authentic Highland games is that they were played for keeps.

I've been to some modern American Highland games, which are good fun, but not particularly serious. They seemed to be mostly drinking and listening to folk musicians who ranged widely in talent. No one in my family has a drop of Scottish blood, but Spouse is a redhead of the gold-and-flaming-carrots variety, so we fit right in.

Claire is still thinking about escaping, but, again, without much urgency. Skulking around the stables, she stumbles on Jamie and Dougal. Dougal surprises her by announcing that both she and Jamie will be part of a traveling party that will assist him in collecting rents from the many MacKenzies who could not attend the Gathering. Claire does not quite trust him (for good reason), but is willing to take luck where she can find it.

Outwardly tranquil, inwardly I was rejoicing.

Without the difficulty of sneaking out of the castle, Claire believes it will be easier for her to escape and make her way back to Craigh na Dun. Of course, being away from the castle means she won't be protected from the redcoats and Black Jack Randall, but she's not worried about that.

And with luck, back home.

Speculation time: How does this all work? Would touching the stones send Claire back to her own time? Or just throw her back another 200 years? Does each individual travel in her own personal continuity? Since I have seen the TV show, I know that Geillis is also a time traveler, but not from Claire's time, which seems to indicate that the stones don't just toss you back a set number of years. Geillis left long after Claire and came to a time before 1743, so it's not just a set corridor spanning 202 years (adjusted for all the shenanigans associated with the Julian/Gregorian calendar change and the Calendar Act adjustments in 1752). Can some travelers steer? Can a traveler choose whether to go forward or backward? And could someone use the stones to leap forward initially, rather than back? I assume we will get some answers to all this eventually.

Body Count:

Jamie: 3 + assorted redcoats