A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [100]
“Best listen to her,” he advised Christie, setting it on the counter. “I ken what it’s like to try to write wi’ a stiff finger, aye?” He held up his own right hand and flexed it, looking rueful. “If she could mend that wi’ her wee knife, I’d lay my hand on the block this instant.”
Jamie’s problem was almost the reverse of Christie’s, though the effect was quite similar. The ring finger had been smashed so badly that the joints had frozen; it could not be bent. Consequently, the two fingers on either side had limited motion, as well, though the joint capsules were intact.
“The difference being that your hand isn’t getting any worse,” I told Jamie. “His is.”
Christie made a small movement, pushing his right hand down between his thighs, as though to hide it.
“Aye, well,” he said uncomfortably. “It can bide awhile, surely.”
“At least long enough to let my wife mend the other,” Jamie observed, pouring out a cup of wine. “Here—can ye hold it, Tom, or shall I—?” He made a questioning gesture, holding the cup as though to feed it to Christie, who snatched his right hand out of the sheltering folds of his clothes.
“I’ll manage,” he snapped, and took the wine—holding the cup between thumb and forefinger with an awkwardness that made him flush even more deeply. His left hand still hung in the air above his shoulder. He looked foolish, and obviously felt it.
Jamie poured another cup and handed it to me, ignoring Christie. I would have thought it natural tact on his part, were I not aware of the complicated history between the two men. There was always a small barbed edge in any dealings between Jamie and Tom Christie, though they managed to keep an outwardly cordial face on things.
With any other man, Jamie’s display of his own injured hand would have been just what it seemed—reassurance, and the offering of fellowship in infirmity. With Tom Christie, it might have been consciously meant as reassurance, but there was a threat implied, as well, though perhaps Jamie couldn’t help that.
The simple fact was that people came to Jamie for help more often than they did to Christie. Jamie had widespread respect and admiration, despite his crippled hand. Christie was not a personally popular man; he might well lose what social position he had, if he lost his ability to write. And—as I had bluntly noted—Jamie’s hand would not get worse.
Christie’s eyes had narrowed a little over his cup. He hadn’t missed the threat, whether intended or not. He wouldn’t; Tom Christie was a suspicious man by nature, and inclined to see threat where it wasn’t intended.
“I think that’s settled a bit by now; let me take care of it.” I took hold of his left hand, gently, and unwrapped it. The bleeding had stopped. I set the hand to soak in a bowl of water boiled with garlic, added a few drops of pure ethanol for additional disinfection, and set about gathering my kit.
It was beginning to grow dark, and I lit the alcohol lamp Brianna had made for me. By its bright, steady flame, I could see that Christie’s face had lost its momentary flush of anger. He wasn’t as pale as he had been, but looked uneasy as a vole at a convention of badgers, his eyes following my hands as I laid out my sutures, needles, and scissors, all clean and gleaming-sharp in the light.
Jamie didn’t leave, but stayed leaning against the counter, sipping his own cup of wine—presumably, in case Christie passed out again.
A fine trembling ran through Christie’s hand and arm, braced as they were on the table. He was sweating again; I could smell it, acrid and bitter. It was the scent of that, half-forgotten, but immediately familiar, that finally made me realize the difficulty: it was fear. He was afraid of blood, perhaps; afraid of pain, certainly.
I kept my eyes fixed on my work, bending my head lower to keep him from seeing anything in my face. I should have seen it sooner; I would have, I thought, had he not been a man. His paleness, the fainting . . . not due to loss of blood, but to shock at seeing blood lost.
I stitched up men and boys routinely; mountain farming