A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [218]
“Hmp,” she said, and lifted her nose in order to look down it. “My faither says Highlanders are such fierce fighters because there’s sae little of any value in the Highlands, and the worst battles are always fought for the lowest stakes.”
Everyone dissolved in laughter at that, and Jamie rose to come to me, leaving Ian and Malva to resume their wrangle.
“How is it wi’ the lass?” he asked quietly, dipping up hot water from the kettle for me.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Fergus is . . . er . . . helping her.”
Jamie’s eyebrows went up.
“How?” he asked. “I didna ken there was much a man had to do wi’ that business, once he’s got it properly begun.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” I assured him. “I certainly was!”
He looked intrigued by this, but was prevented from asking further questions by Mrs. Bug’s demand that everyone leave off talking about wretched folk who get up to no good in the pages of books, and come sit down to eat.
I sat down to supper, too, but couldn’t really eat, distracted as I was by concern for Marsali. The raspberry-leaf tea had finished steeping as we ate; I poured it out and took it to the surgery—rapping cautiously on the door before entering.
Fergus was flushed and breathless, but bright-eyed. He could not be persuaded to come and eat, insisting that he would stay with Marsali. His efforts were showing fruit; she was having regular contractions now, though still fairly far apart.
“It will be fast, once the waters break,” Marsali told me. She was a little flushed, too, with a look of inward listening. “It always is.”
I checked the heartbeat again—no great change; still bumpy, but not weakening—and excused myself. Jamie was in his study, across the hall. I went in and sat with him, so as to be handy when needed.
He was writing his usual evening note to his sister, pausing now and then to rub the cramp from his right hand before resuming. Upstairs, Mrs. Bug was putting the children to bed. I could hear Félicité whining, and Germain attempting to sing to her.
Across the hall, small shufflings and murmurings, the shifting of weight and the creak of the table. And in the depths of my inner ear, echoing my own pulse, the soft, rapid beat of a baby’s heart.
It could so easily end badly.
“What are ye doing, Sassenach?”
I looked up, startled.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Ye’re staring fit to see through the wall, and it doesna seem that ye like what ye’re looking at.”
“Oh.” I dropped my gaze, and realized that I had been pleating and repleating the fabric of my skirt between my fingers; there was a large wrinkled patch in the fawn-colored homespun. “Reliving my failures, I suppose.”
He looked at me for a moment, then rose and came behind me, putting his hands on the base of my neck, kneading my shoulders with a strong, warm touch.
“What failures?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and let my head nod forward, trying not to groan with the sensations of pain from knotted muscles and the simultaneous exquisite relief.
“Oh,” I said, and sighed. “Patients I couldn’t save. Mistakes. Disasters. Accidents. Stillbirths.”
That last word hung in the air, and his hands paused in their work for a moment, then resumed more strongly.
“There are times, surely, when there’s nothing ye could do? You or anyone. Some things are beyond the power of anyone to make right, aye?”
“You never believe that, when it’s you,” I said. “Why should I?”
He paused in his kneading, and I looked up over my shoulder at him. He opened his mouth to contradict me, then realized that he couldn’t. He shook his head, sighed, and resumed.
“Aye, well. I suppose it’s true enough,” he said, with extreme wryness.
“That what the Greeks called hubris, do you think?”
He gave a small snort, which might have been amusement.
“I do. And ye ken where that leads.”
“To a lonely rock under a burning sun, with a vulture gnawing on your liver,” I said, and laughed.
So did Jamie.
“Aye, well, a lonely rock under a burning sun is a verra good place to have company, I should think. And I dinna mean the