Chapter 23: Return to Leoch — Outlander Recaps

In this chapter, welp, I guess we're still talking about consent here.

I need to cut back on how much detail I'm putting into these recaps. That last one was nearly as long as the chapter itself. There's a lot to say! But I'm going to try for brevity here.

Claire and Jamie reach the inn and take a nap. Later, they discuss their plans for the future.

I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. I felt like a traitor, in fact . . . Even now, I was thinking that I should try to talk him out of going to France, as that would carry me farther away from my own goal: the stone circle.

Do I believe her? At the midpoint of chapter 22, I would have. But she let Jamie back into bed with her, so I'm not convinced she means it.

News: the Duke of Sandrigham is coming to Leoch to visit! He might help Jamie get a pardon! This seems wildly optimistic!

They ride hellbent for Castle Leoch, arriving dirty, hungry, and exhausted. Claire is so tired that Jamie carries her across the threshold, traditional newly-wed style. I read this as a nod to the renewed commitment they made to one another at the end of the last chapter. Again, the formal wedding vows are less important than the improvised oaths they swear to one another.

As word of their marriage spreads, Claire and Jamie are mobbed by the inhabitants of Castle Leoch, including—uh oh—Laoghaire.

It was the girl Laoghaire, face shining and radiant as she heard Jamie's voice. Her eyes grew wide and the rosebud mouth dropped unbecomingly open, though, as she saw what he carried.

Poor girl. A nasty surprise.

Colum is there, also less than overjoyed at the happy news. But not openly hostile. Jamie makes a point of reminding Colum that something something now that he's married he gets a share of the MacKenzie's quarterly rents. Then he whisks Claire off to bed.

I had just about decided that I might get up for Gabriel's Trump, but not much else, when I saw that Jamie, who had not only washed face and hands but combed his hair to boot, was headed toward the door.

He goes out. Instead of falling asleep, Claire decides to spend the next hour or so working herself into a froth of anger, imagining that Jamie has run off to see Laoghaire. I appreciated this scene — I have wasted many an hour conducting one-sided arguments with imaginary interlocutors. Claire's tendency to escalate, jumping from one problem to another as she hits her stride, was nicely humanizing.

First, she's worried that Jamie spruced himself up and ran off to find Laoghaire.

I found, a bit to my surprise, that I strongly disliked the memory of Jamie kissing Laoghaire. I remembered what he had said about that, too — "'Tis better to marry than to burn, and I was burning badly then." I burned a bit myself, flushing strongly as I remembered the effect of Jamie's kisses on my own lips. Burning indeed.

Let's roll the tape on this one. Did Jamie make out with Laoghaire after he saved her from he whipping? No. You found them in the alcove on the day after the concert. Jamie was completely dismissive of her during that event, but then went down to your room with you, where you drunkenly caressed his naked flesh and somehow managed not to fall into bed with him. Consult your book — it's all there in chapter 8!

Not having a copy of Outlander, Claire cannot peruse the evidence. Instead, she gets herself more worked up, because perhaps Jamie married her just to collect his share of the rents. Then she's back to jealousy, remembering the time she caught Jamie and Laoghaire making out in an alcove. Then she's fretting over Jamie's too-practical reasons for marrying her again. And from there, we're launched back into her existential questions about her situation.

What am I doing here? I asked myself for the thousandth time. Here, in this strange place, unreachable distances from everything familiar, from home and husband and friends, adrift and alone among what amounted to savages?

Go to sleep, Claire. You're unspooling.

Exhausted and emotionally vulnerable, Claire begins to think of Frank, but finds that she can't summon a clear memory of his face. Black Jack Randall keeps getting in the way. Yuck.

If I meant to leave, as I did, I was doing neither of us a favor by allowing the bond between us to strengthen any further. I should not allow him to fall in love with me.

Jamie's back. And Claire immediately tries to bite his head off, accusing him of sneaking off to see his girlfriend. Jamie adopts the calm tone common to parents whose toddlers are throwing incomprehensible tantrums, at least at first.

"Are ye suggesting I've played ye false?" he said, unbelievingly. "We've been back to the Castle less than an hour, I'm covered wi' the sweat and dust of two days in the saddle and so tired my knees wabble, and yet ye think I've gone straight out to seduce a maid of sixteen?"

All valid points, Jamie. But you're supposed to be perceptive. Answer the fear she is expressing, not the details she's throwing at you.

Claire bumbles around a bit more, finally attempting to offer Jamie some version of an open relationship. Given that she has just spent several pages writhing with jealousy and anger, I doubt that this is a genuine offer.

"I have no claim at all on you. You're at perfect liberty to behave as you wish. If you . . . if there's an attraction elsewhere . . . I mean . . . I won't stand in your way."

Jamie, mostly calm until this point, is not impressed.

"No claim on me!" he exclaimed. "And what d'ye think a wedding vow is, lassie? Just words in a church?"

Pretty much? This novel has taken a modern/secular, rather than a sacramental, view of marriage thus far, with the promises made between the two parties forming the heart of the relationship and the formal vows serving practical purposes.

And then we get a test of whether Jamie actually meant it when he pledged not to do violence to Claire. It's another uncomfortable scene, but one that highlights how his oath goes against so many of his expectations about marriage.

Things Jamie says/does in this scene:

kisses Claire roughly
picks her up and won't put her down when she struggles
"He kissed me again, deliberately hard, cutting off my protest."
"I didna ask your preferences in the matter, Sassenach."
"You're my wife, and if I want ye, woman, then I'll have you, and be damned to ye!"

Things Claire says/does in this scene:

"Let go of me!"
"I don't want to sleep with you!"
"You think you can order me to your bed? Use me like a whore when you feel like it? Well, you can't you fucking bastard. Do that, and you're no better than your precious Captain Randall!"

Yikes. Just when it looks like we're going to get an honest-to-goodness rape scene as a followup to the beating scene, things shift. Jamie angrily offers to let Claire leave (though it is not clear that he actually would have let her).

"No," I said. "No. I don't run away from things. And I'm not afraid of you."

Her defiance defuses him. He takes a step back, a deep breath, and then lightens the mood by asking Claire what "fucking" means. I think I remember reading somewhere that couples who joke in the midst of serious fights do well in the long run.

Also, I am reminded of those court documents that show that "fuck" was being used in English in the early 14th century. The etymology is so disputed we'll probably never untangle it completely, but it is a remarkably old curse word.

One brow lifted, and he looked sourly amused. "Oh, swiving? Then I was right; it is a damn filthy word. And what's a sadist? Ye called me that the other day."

I suppressed the urge to laugh. "It's er, it's a person who . . . who, er, gets sexual pleasure from hurting someone." My face was crimsoning, but I couldn't stop the corners of my mouth from turning up slightly.

Jamie snorted briefly. "Well, ye dinna flatter me overmuch," he said, "but I canna fault your observations."

A word here. Yes, all this dialogue appears in the TV show. But I seem to remember it being played a bit more as "tee hee, you're a sadist." Whereas, in the novel . . . I mean, Jamie actually is a sadist, isn't he? Maybe not, like, an Olympic-level sadist, but at least somewhere in the Dom/sadist realm. Hard to say, exactly, so early on. It's not just the beating scene. In fact, the scene coming up here is a bit —more— than anything we saw in the TV show.

I don't know whether there is any particular utility to trying to find specific labels for these characters' individual kinks. It's probably enough to say that they both seem to enjoy sex that is rough enough to leave them literally bruised and bleeding. I don't necessarily have a problem with that — they both give as good as they get. And Jamie is slowly coming around to this whole consent thing.

But I am still feeling a little squicked out by the way this novel is portraying the way a loving couple explores their desires. In general, you don't want to go with, "hey, let's just try out this potentially traumatizing move, full-bore, without discussing it first! I'm sure we'll both love it and there will be no problems!" It's nice that Claire and Jamie are (magically) sexually compatible! But they don't negotiate their boundaries beforehand. If both of you are up for the type of sex that has one partner yelling, "stop, please, you're hurting me" and being completely ignored, for God's sake work that out in advance. And have a safe word or some other failsafe that distinguishes between "stop" and "No, really, I mean STOP." The upcoming scene veers a bit too far into "No Means Yes" territory for me to feel good about enjoying it. Yes, it is a sexy novel, not real life. I'm just feeling that urge to text my little sister again. Discuss boundaries while everyone still has clothes on! Have fun, be safe!

But we actually aren't quite to that part of the chapter yet.

First, Claire admits to Jamie that she's upset because she interpreted his remark to Colum about the rent as saying that he just married her for the money. Good for you, Claire! Introspective and communicative! Jamie finds this very funny. First, because it's not very much money at all. And second, he only asked for the money because he wanted to go buy her a wedding ring. Awwwww.

Reaching, he took the package from my lap and tore away the wrapping, revealing a wide silver band, decorated in the Highland interlace style, a small and delicate Jacobean thistle bloom carved in the center of each link.

So much I saw, and then my eyes blurred again.

In a welcome reversal, the near-rape of a few pages ago has become an extended conversation about consent and choice. Jamie offers Claire the ring, but gives her a the chance to refuse it.

So he was giving me the choice I had started out to give him. Forced on me by circumstance, he would force himself on me no longer, if I chose to reject him. And there was the alternative, of course: to accept the ring, and all that went with it.

Claire accepts the ring and Jamie puts it on her finger. "A good fit," Claire notes, making oblique reference to their legal wedding, in which their union was symbolized by an ill-fitting ring improvised for the occasion. Now that Claire has freely chosen to marry him, they have this private little ceremony that improves on the formal vows. A much better fit. Just another example of the theory of marriage in this novel. I'm quite enjoying it — marriage as an ongoing process of choosing one another, rather than as a single ceremony.

We also get some character development from Jamie. It has been well established that his cultural understanding of marriage is one of authority/obedience. But here, after Claire has accepted a wedding ring from him, he explicitly asks her consent for the sexual access that an 18th-century husband would regard as his right. Observe as Jamie struggles, but ultimately respects Claire's expectations about consent:

"I want ye, Claire," he said, sounding choked. He paused a moment, as though unsure what to say next. "I want ye so much — I can scarcely breath. Will —" He swallowed, then cleared his throat. "Will ye have me?"

Yes, yes, very romantic and all that. But note the movement from thinking of his own desires, through a bit of uncertainty, and ultimately ending up asking about Claire's desires. Character development!

Again, Claire says yes. And more specifically:

"I'll not . . . I can't . . . Claire, I canna be gentle about it."

I had time only to nod once, in acknowledgment or permission, before he bore me back before him, his weight pinning me to the bed.

In terms of genre, this is where a lot of "adventure" or "sci-fi" or "historical" fiction would cut out. In fact, it is where this novel cut out on the beating scene. The characters have had their say, and continuing past this point could mean a couple of different things:

Genre: Erotica. We see more of the sex scene because it's meant to be salacious.
Narrative: Important character development happens within the sex scene, not just before and after.

So far, I have been impressed by Diana Gabaldon's commitment to showing a relationship negotiated through sex. There's plenty of relationship-building going on in this scene. It's another mind/body thing: Claire accepts Jamie rationally and then, somewhat more emphatically, physically.

Again, for the love of God, please do not treat any real-life sex partners in this way unless you have previously discussed boundaries and ground rules.

"Aye, I mean to use ye hard, my Sassenach," he whispered. "I want to own you, body and soul . . . I mean to make ye call me 'Master,' Sassenach."

Usually, Jamie's use of "Sassenach" as a pet name for Claire is just setdressing, but in this passage, I'm wondering a bit about their relationship in the context of Jamie's ongoing struggle with English authority. Here he is, an outlaw who has been driven off his land by the English soldiers who raped his sister and sort of killed his dad in the process of flogging him nearly to death, deeply embedded in a culture that regards the English as their oppressors, and he's getting pretty emphatic about dominating his English wife, whom he calls by an epithet that others use in suspicion/derision/hatred. That's some sort of mindfuck.

Maybe I am over-reading some of this. Maybe this scene is just supposed to be titillating and reader enjoyment will vary with individual preferences. But I can't help quoting one more passage:

He thrust harder and faster, as though he would force my soul as he forced my body. In body or soul, somewhere he struck a spark, and an answering fury of passion and need sprang from the ashes of surrender.

That's all well and good here. But holy shit, this is going to be bad news twenty chapters from now. Claire literally falls asleep thinking about how Frank never unlocked the secret to mutual possession that Jamie has in this encounter. Fine. But your physical possession of my body has awakened something that even my spouse has never glimpsed is a devastating line of thought in other circumstances.

There's a bit more to the chapter, but just restatements of the major themes. Claire and Jamie have re-committed to one another. They have both made concessions to the other's cultural values. And they have discovered an extremely fortunate (and somewhat unlikely) sexual compatibility. They're ready to begin Part Four happy, united, and in love. So you know things are going to go to hell pretty soon.

Body Count:

Jamie: 5 + assorted redcoats + two years as mercenary in France

Claire: 1