A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [116]
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . . .”
I looked up, wiping perspiration from my forehead with my sleeve, and saw that Thomas Christie now held the small Bible, closed and pressed against his body with his free arm. His chin jammed hard into his chest, his eyes tight closed and face contorted with pain.
Jamie still held the bound arm tight, but had his other hand on Christie’s shoulder, his own head bent near Christie’s; his eyes, too, were closed, as he whispered the words.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. . . .”
I knotted the last suture, clipped the thread, and in the same movement, cut through the linen bindings with my scissors, and let go the breath I’d been holding. The men’s voices stopped abruptly.
I lifted the hand, wrapped a fresh dressing tightly around it, and pressed the clawed fingers gently back, straightening them.
Christie’s eyes opened, slowly. His pupils were huge and dark behind his lenses, as he blinked at his hand. I smiled at him, and patted it.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” I said softly. “And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
24
TOUCH ME NOT
CHRISTIE’S PULSE WAS a little rapid, but strong. I set down the wrist I had been holding, and put the back of my hand against his forehead.
“You’re a bit feverish,” I said. “Here, swallow this.” I put a hand behind his back to help him sit up in bed, which alarmed him. He sat up in a flurry of bedclothes, drawing in his breath sharply as he jostled the injured hand.
I tactfully affected not to notice his discomposure, which I put down to the fact that he was clad in his shirt and I in my nightclothes. These were modest enough, to be sure, with a light shawl covering my linen night rail, but I was reasonably sure that he hadn’t been anywhere near a woman in dishabille since his wife died—if then.
I murmured something meaningless, holding the cup of comfrey tea for him as he drank, and then settled his pillows in comfortable but impersonal fashion.
Rather than send him back to his own cabin, I had insisted that he stay the night, so I could keep an eye on him in case of postoperative infection. Intransigent as he was by nature, I didn’t by any means trust him to follow instructions and not to be slopping hogs, cutting wood, or wiping his backside with the wounded hand. I wasn’t letting him out of sight until the incision had begun to granulate—which it should do by the next day, if all went well.
Still shaky from the shock of surgery, he had made no demur, and Mrs. Bug and I had put him to bed in the Wemysses’ room, Mr. Wemyss and Lizzie having gone to the McGillivrays’.
I had no laudanum, but had slipped Christie a strong infusion of valerian and St. John’s wort, and he had slept most of the afternoon. He had declined any supper, but Mrs. Bug, who approved of Mr. Christie, had been plying him through the evening with toddies, syllabubs, and other nourishing elixirs—all containing a high percentage of alcohol. Consequently, he seemed rather dazed, as well as flushed, and made no protest as I picked up the bandaged hand and brought the candle close to examine it.
The hand was swollen, which was to be expected, but not excessively so. Still, the bandage was tight, and cutting uncomfortably into the flesh. I snipped it, and holding the honeyed dressing that covered the wound carefully in place, lifted the hand and sniffed at it.
I could smell honey, blood, herbs, and the faintly metallic scent of fresh-severed flesh—but no sweet whiff of pus. Good. I pressed carefully near the dressing, watching for signs of sharp pain or streaks of vivid red in the skin, but bar a reasonable tenderness, I saw only a small degree of inflammation.
Still, he was feverish; it would bear watching. I took a fresh length of bandage and wound it carefully over the dressing, finishing with a neat bow at the back of the hand.
“Why do you never wear