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ATEEZ Official Twitter Update

[#WOOYOUNG] Thanks for coming to ATEEZ in school today ㅎㅎ The cheers were so loud!! And now that the weather is getting colder, be sure to wear warm clothes!! #ATEEZ #에이티즈

I was in the kitchen when I heard him cry out. I had never heard such a sound from him before. Shock and horror were in it, and something else—a note of finality, like the cry of a man who finds himself seized in a tiger’s jaws. I was down the hall and running for the drawing room without conscious thought, a tray of oatcakes still clutched in my hands.

When I burst through the door, I saw him standing by the table where Jenny had laid the mail. His face was dead white, and he swayed slightly where he stood, like a tree cut through, waiting for someone to shout “Timber” before falling.

“What?” I said, scared to death by the look on his face. “Jamie, what? What is it?!”

With a visible effort, he picked up one of the letters on the table and handed it to me.

I set down the oatcakes and took the sheet of paper, scanning it rapidly. It was from Jared; I recognized the thin, scrawly handwriting at once. “ ‘Dear Nephew,’ ” I read to myself, “ ‘…so pleased…words cannot express my admiration…your boldness and courage will be an inspiration…cannot fail of success…my prayers shall be with you…’ ” I looked up from the paper, bewildered. “What on earth is he talking about? What have you done, Jamie?”

The skin was stretched tight across the bones of his face, and he grinned, mirthless as a death’s-head, as he picked up another sheet of paper, this one a cheaply printed handbill.

“It’s not what I’ve done, Sassenach,” he said. The broadsheet was headed by the crest of the Royal House of Stuart. The message beneath was brief, couched in stately language.

It stated that by the ordination of Almighty God, King James, VIII of Scotland and III of England and Ireland asserted herewith his just rights to claim the throne of three kingdoms. And herewith acknowledged the support of these divine rights by the chieftains of the Highland clans, the Jacobite lords, and “various other such loyal subjects of His Majesty, King James, as have subscribed their names upon this Bill of Association in token thereof.”

My fingers grew icy as I read, and I was conscious of a feeling of terror so acute that it was a real effort to keep on breathing. My ears rang with pounding blood, and there were dark spots before my eyes.

At the bottom of the sheet were signed the names of the Scottish chieftains who had declared their loyalty to the world, and staked their lives and reputations on the success of Charles Stuart. Clanranald was there, and Glengarry. Stewart of Appin, Alexander MacDonald of Keppoch, Angus MacDonald of Scotus.

And at the bottom of the list was written, “James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, of Broch Tuarach.”

“Jesus bloody fucking Christ,” I whispered, wishing there were something stronger I could say, as a form of relief. “The filthy bastard’s signed your name to it!”

Jamie, still pale and tight-faced, was beginning to recover.

“Aye, he has,” he said briefly. His hand snaked out for the unopened letter remaining on the table—a heavy vellum, with the Stuart crest showing plainly in the wax seal. Jamie ripped the letter open impatiently, tearing the paper. He read it quickly, then dropped it on the table as though it burned his hands.

“An apology,” he said hoarsely. “For lacking the time to send me the document, in order that I might sign it myself. And his gratitude, for my loyal support. Jesus, Claire! What am I going to do?”

It was a cry from the heart, and one to which I had no answer. I watched helplessly as he sank onto a hassock and sat staring, rigid, at the fire.

Jenny, transfixed by all this drama, moved now to take up the letters and the broadsheet. She read them over carefully, her lips moving slightly as she did so, then set them gently down on the polished tabletop. She looked at them, frowning, then crossed to her brother, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Jamie,” she said. Her face was very pale. “There’s only the one thing ye can do, my dearie. Ye must go and fight for Charles Stuart. Ye must help him win.”

The truth of her words penetrated slowly through the layers of shock that wrapped me. The publication of this Bond of Association branded those who signed it as rebels, and as traitors to the English crown. It didn’t matter now how Charles had managed, or where he had gotten the funds to begin; he was well and truly launched on the seas of rebellion, and Jamie—and I—were launched with him, willy-nilly. There was, as Jenny had said, no choice.

My eye caught Charles’s letter, where it had fallen from Jamie’s hand. “…Though there be manie who tell me I am foolish to embark in this werk without the support of Louis—or at least of his bankes!—I will entertain no notion at all of returning to that place from whence I come,” it read. “Rejoice with me, my deare frend, for I am come Home.”

— Dragonfly In Amber

Photos: Starz, Season Two, Episode Eight, May 28, 2016

Book: Dragonfly In Amber, Diana Gabaldon, 1992

Tumblr: October 4, 2018, WhenFraserMetBeauchamp 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿❤️🇬🇧

(More from the October 4 Huangzhou concert at the 玉儿 YUER channel.)

You’re welcome. ⬇️