A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [204]
He wasn’t. I blew and thumped and blew, until bloody sweat ran down my body in streams and my thighs were slick with it and my ears rang and black spots swam before my eyes with hyperventilating. Finally, I stopped. I stood panting in deep, wheezing gasps, wet hair hanging in my face, my hands throbbing in time to my pounding heart.
The bloody man was dead.
I rubbed my hands on my apron, then used it to wipe my face. My mouth was swollen and tasted of blood; I spat on the floor. I felt quite calm; the air had that peculiar sense of stillness that often accompanies a quiet death. A Carolina wren called in the wood nearby, “Teakettle, teakettle, teakettle!”
I heard a small rustling noise and turned round. Mrs. Bug had righted the bench and sat down on it. She sat hunched forward, hands folded together in her lap, a small frown on her wrinkled round face as she stared intently at the body on the table. Brown’s hand hung limp, fingers slightly cupped, holding shadows.
The sheet was stained over his body; that was the source of the chamber pot smell. So, he’d been dead before I began my resuscitation efforts.
Another wave of heat bloomed upward, coating my skin like hot wax. I could smell my own sweat. I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them, and turned back to Mrs. Bug.
“Why on earth,” I asked conversationally, “did you do that?”
“SHE’S DONE WHAT?” Jamie stared at me uncomprehendingly, then at Mrs. Bug, who sat at the kitchen table, head bowed, her hands clasped together in front of her.
Not waiting for me to repeat what I’d said, he strode down the hall to the surgery. I heard his footsteps come to a sudden stop. There was an instant’s silence, and then a heartfelt Gaelic oath. Mrs. Bug’s plump shoulders rose around her ears.
The footsteps came back, more slowly. He came in, and walked to the table where she sat.
“O, woman, how have you dared to lay hands upon a man who was mine?” he asked very softly, in Gaelic.
“Oh, sir,” she whispered. She was afraid to look up; she cowered under her cap, her face almost invisible. “I—I didna mean to. Truly, sir!”
Jamie glanced at me.
“She smothered him,” I repeated. “With a pillow.”
“I think ye do not do such a thing without meaning it,” he said, with an edge in his voice that could have sharpened knives. “What were ye about, a boireannach, to do it?”
The round shoulders began to quiver with fright.
“Oh, sir, oh, sir! I ken ’twas wrong—only . . . only it was the wicked tongue of him. All the time I had care of him, he’d cower and tremble, aye, when you or the young one came to speak to him, even Arch—but me—” She swallowed, the flesh of her face seeming suddenly loose. “I’m no but a woman, he could speak his mind to me, and he did. Threatening, sir, and cursing most awfully. He said—he said as how his brother would come, him and his men, to free him, and would slaughter us all in our blood and burn the houses over our heids.” Her jowls trembled as she spoke, but she found the courage to look up and meet Jamie’s eyes.
“I kent ye’d never let that happen, sir, and did my best to pay him no mind. And when he did get under my skin enough, I told him he’d be deid long before his brother heard where he was. But then the wicked wee cur escaped—and I’m sure I’ve no idea how ’twas done, for I’d have sworn he was in no condition even to rise from the bed, let alone come so far, but he did, and threw himself upon your wife’s mercy, and she took him up—I would have dragged his evil carcass away myself, but she wouldna have it—” Here she darted a briefly resentful glance at me, but returned an imploring gaze to Jamie almost at once.
“And she took him to mend, sweet gracious lady that she is, sir—and I could see it in her face, that having tended him so, it was coming to her that she couldna bear to see him killed. And he saw it, too, the gobshite, and when she went out, he jeered at me, saying now he was safe, he’d fooled her into tending him and she’d never let him be killed,