Outlander Book Club: An Echo in the Bone Chapter 3 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Claire tending to Jamie’s injuries. The bullet from Murdina hit his leg, but it’s not clear initially how bad it is. Claire notes that it is just a graze, but it could have been much worse. It is close to both his private parts and his femoral artery.

Now that Jamie is patched up, Claire can go off in search for Young Ian. She knows that he will have gone into hiding of sort, a way to deal with his actions. After all, at no point did he mean to kill Murdina. He thought it was Arch or someone else working with him.

Well, it turns out Ian is hiding in a barn. There are a few animals in there with him, including Rollo who went out to find his best friend. Ian shares that Murdina was like a grandmother to him, and that he didn’t mean to kill her. He does feel guilty for his actions, although Claire doesn’t think there’s a reason to feel that way. Had Murdina not been going after the stolen gold, none of this would have had to happen. Does that help at all?

Probably not. Ian has killed before, but not someone like this who he cared about. He has to deal with the grief as well as the guilt.

This chapter is so important for me as a fan of Ian. We get to see so much development for this young man throughout the books. This is another layer of him becoming a man, especially a man of his time.