Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 46 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
The last chapter of Part Six, we start with Claire and Jamie getting to Inverness. They’re horrified by everything they’ve seen, both on the way and around the camp. The money has ran out so there’s no food for the men.
We see Old Alec again, but it’s not under happy circumstances. Claire notes that the stables sound too quiet, and it turns out the horses had been killed and used for food a month earlier. The only horse that’s been spared is Donas, who will be used in a “victory parade” by Charles.
It’s clear there’s going to be no victory parade, though. Charles is not going to be the rightful heir to the British throne. There isn’t a chance the starved and tired men will be able to defeat the British Army, but Charles won’t listen to reason. He wants to push the men until they break. Of course, he has nothing to worry about, as he’ll find a way to escape.
Jamie and Claire need to find one last way to prevent the battle from happening. They have a choice: killing Charles. Claire suggests that she pretends to treat him for an illness but give him cyanide. That would be too obvious. They could put the cyanide in his food instead.
In the end, the two decide that they can’t kill Charles, but it is too late. Dougal overheard them and has decided that Claire is the one bewitching Jamie. He wants to kill Claire, but Jamie isn’t going to let that happen. Jamie has no choice but to kill Dougal.
Willie sees everything happen. Jamie asks for just a few hours to deal with a few things and then he will answer for what he’s just done.
Those few things? The first is to sign the deeds to Lallybroch over to his nephew. The deeds are dated for 1745, before Jamie left to join Charles’s army. This should be enough to prevent the lands being forfeited to the crown as Jamie is viewed as a traitor. Claire and Murtagh witness the deeds and Fergus takes Donas to Lallybroch to hand the deeds to Jenny.
That gets Fergus out of the battle. Now for the others.
Jamie tells Murtagh to get the men ready but keep them grouped together for his return. First, he needs to get Claire to safety.
That safety is the stones. After a night together in the cottage by the stones of Craigh na Dun, they get ready to get Claire to the stones. Redcoats come upon them, so Claire rushes away to the stones and hopes that Jamie will get out of the cottage alive.
It’s time to head back to the 20th century.