A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [278]
“Things called spirochetes. Those are the particular kind of germ that causes syphilis.”
“Oh, aye.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, I smiled, hearing the note of skepticism in his voice. I’d shown him microorganisms before, but—like Jamie—like almost everyone—he simply couldn’t believe that something so nearly invisible was capable of harm. The only one who had seemed to accept the notion wholeheartedly was Malva Christie, and in her case, I thought the acceptance was due simply to her faith in me. If I told her something, she believed me; very refreshing, after years of assorted Scots looking at me with varying degrees of squiggle-eyed suspicion.
“Has he gone home, d’ye think? Manfred?”
“I don’t know.” I spoke absently, slowly moving the slide to and fro, searching. I could make out the red blood cells, pale pink discs that floated past my field of view, drifting lazily in the watery stain. No deadly spirals visible—but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, only that the stain I had used might not reveal them.
Lizzie stirred and moaned, and I looked round to see her eyes flutter open.
“There, lass,” Ian said softly, and smiled at her. “Better, is it?”
“Is it?” she said faintly. Still, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly, and she put a hand out from under her blanket, groping. He took it in his, patting it.
“Manfred,” she said, turning her head to and fro, eyes half-lidded. “Is Manfred here?”
“Um . . . no,” I said, exchanging a quick glance of consternation with Ian. How much had she heard? “No, he was here, but he’s—he’s gone now.”
“Oh.” Seeming to lose interest, she closed her eyes again. Ian looked down at her, still stroking her hand. His face showed deep sympathy—with perhaps a tinge of calculation.
“Shall I maybe carry the lassie up to her bed?” he asked softly, as though she might be sleeping. “And then maybe go and find . . . ?” He tilted his head toward the open window, raising one eyebrow.
“If you would, please, Ian.” I hesitated, and his eyes met mine, deep hazel and soft with worry and the shadow of remembered pain. “She’ll be all right,” I said, trying to infuse a sense of certainty into the words.
“Aye, she will,” he said firmly, and stooped to gather her up, tucking the blanket under her. “If I’ve anything to say about it.”
46
IN WHICH THINGS
GANG AGLEY
MANFRED MCGILLIVRAY did not come back. Ian did, with a blackened eye, skinned knuckles, and the terse report that Manfred had declared a set intention of going off and hanging himself, and good riddance to the fornicating son of a bitch, and might his rotten bowels gush forth like Judas Iscariot’s, the traitorous, stinking wee turd. He then stamped upstairs, to stand silent over Lizzie’s bed for a time.
Hearing this, I hoped that Manfred’s statement was merely the counsel of temporary despair—and cursed myself for not having told him at once and in the strongest terms that he could be cured, whether it was absolutely true or not. Surely he wouldn’t . . .
Lizzie was half-conscious, prostrated with the burning fevers and shaking agues of malaria, and in no fit state to be told of her betrothed’s desertion, nor the cause of it. I would have to make some delicate inquiries, though, so soon as she was fit, because there was the possibility that she and Manfred had anticipated their marriage vows, and if so . . .
“Well, there’s the one thing about it,” Jamie observed grimly. “The Beardsley twins were making ready to track our poxed lad down and castrate him, but now they’ve heard he means to hang himself, they’ve magnanimously decided that will do.”
“Thank the Lord for small blessings,” I said, sinking down at the table. “They might really do it.” The Beardsleys, particularly Josiah, were excellent trackers—and not given to idle threats.
“Oh, they would,” Jamie assured me. “They were most seriously sharpening their knives when I found them at it and told them not to trouble themselves.”
I suppressed an involuntary smile at the image of the Beardsleys, bent side by side over a grindstone, their