A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [102]
Jamie made a derisive Scottish noise, then picked up Christie’s half-full cup and thriftily drained it.
“No, he wouldna—frigging Sassenach.” Then he caught a glimpse of my face, and gave me a lopsided smile. “I didna mean you, Sassenach.”
I knew he didn’t mean me; the word was spoken with a completely different—and quite shocking—intonation; a bitterness that reminded me that “Sassenach” was by no means a friendly term in normal usage.
“Why do you call him that?” I asked curiously. “And just what did he mean by that ‘honorable scar’ crack?”
He looked down, and didn’t answer for a moment, though the stiffened fingers of his right hand drummed soundlessly against his thigh.
“Tom Christie’s a solid man,” he said at last. “But by God, he is a stiff-necked wee son of a bitch!” He looked up then, and smiled at me, a little ruefully.
“Eight years he lived in a cell wi’ forty men who had the Gaelic—and he wouldna lower himself to let a word of such a barbarous tongue pass his lips! Christ, no. He’d speak in English, no matter who it was he spoke to, and if it was a man who had no English, why, then, he’d just stand there, dumb as a stone, ’til someone came along to interpret for him.”
“Someone like you?”
“Now and then.” He glanced toward the window, as though to catch a glimpse of Christie, but the night had come down altogether, and the panes gave back only a dim reflection of the surgery, our own forms ghostlike in the glass.
“Roger did say that Kenny Lindsay mentioned something about Mr. Christie’s . . . pretensions,” I said delicately.
Jamie shot me a sharp glance at that.
“Oh, he did, did he? So, Roger Mac had second thoughts about his wisdom in taking on Christie as a tenant, I suppose. Kenny wouldna have said, unless he was asked.”
I had more or less got used to the speed of his deductions and the accuracy of his insights, and didn’t question this one.
“You never told me about that,” I said, coming to stand in front of him. I put my hands on his chest, looking up into his face.
He put his own hands over mine, and sighed, deep enough for me to feel the movement of his chest. Then he wrapped his arms around me, and drew me close, so my face rested against the warm fabric of his shirt.
“Aye, well. It wasna really important, ken.”
“And you didn’t want to think about Ardsmuir, perhaps?”
“No,” he said softly. “I have had enough of the past.”
My hands were on his back now, and I realized suddenly what Christie had likely meant. I could feel the lines of the scars through the linen, clear to my fingertips as the lines of a fishnet, laid across his skin.
“Honorable scars!” I said, lifting my head. “Why, that little bastard! Is that what he meant?”
Jamie smiled a little at my indignation.
“Aye, he did,” he said dryly. “That’s why he called me Mac Dubh—to remind me of Ardsmuir, so I’d ken for sure what he meant by it. He saw me flogged there.”
“That—that—” I was so angry, I could barely speak. “I wish I’d stitched his fucking hand to his balls!”
“And you a physician, sworn to do nay harm? I’m verra much shocked, Sassenach.”
He was laughing now, but I wasn’t amused at all.
“Beastly little coward! He’s afraid of blood, did you know that?”
“Well, aye, I did. Ye canna live in a man’s oxter for three years without learning a great many things ye dinna want to know about him, let alone something like that.” He sobered a bit, though a hint of wryness still lurked at the corner of his mouth. “When they brought me back from being whipped, he went white as suet, went and puked in the corner, then lay down with his face to the wall. I wasna really taking notice, but I remember thinking that was a bit raw; I was the one was a bloody mess, why was he takin’ on like a lass wi’ the vapors?”
I snorted. “Don’t you go making jokes about it! How dare he? And what does he mean, anyway—I know what happened at Ardsmuir, and those bloody well . . . I mean, those certainly are honorable scars, and everyone there knew it!”
“Aye, maybe,” he said, all hint of laughter disappearing. “That