A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [333]
Knowing I had a patient, though, I slept lightly, waking at intervals to tiptoe into her room. Duncan was sleeping on a pallet at the foot of her bed, dead to the world from the exhaustions of the day. I could hear his heavy breathing, as I lit a taper from the hearth and came to stand by the bed.
Jocasta was still soundly asleep, lying on her back, arms crossed gracefully over the coverlet and her head thrown back, sternly long-nosed and aristocratic as the tomb figures in the chapel of St. Denys. All she wanted was a crown, and a small dog of some kind crouched at her feet.
I smiled at the thought, thinking as I did how odd it was: Jamie slept in exactly that fashion, lying flat on his back, hands crossed, straight as an arrow. Brianna didn’t; she was a wild sleeper, and had been from a child. Like me.
The thought gave me a small, unexpected feeling of pleasure. I knew I had given her some parts of me, of course, but she resembled Jamie so strongly, it was always something of a surprise to notice one.
I blew out the taper, but didn’t at once return to bed. I had taken Phaedre’s cot in the dressing room, but it was a hot, airless little space. The hot day and the consumption of alcohol had left me cotton-mouthed, with a vague headache; I picked up the carafe from Jocasta’s bedside, but it was empty.
No need to relight the taper; one of the sconces in the hallway was still burning, and a dim glow outlined the door. I pushed it open quietly and looked out. The corridor was lined with bodies—servants sleeping by the doors of the bedrooms—and the air throbbed gently with the snoring and heavy breathing of a great many people sunk in slumber of varying degrees.
At the end of the corridor, though, one pale figure stood upright, looking out through the tall casement window toward the river.
She must have heard me, but didn’t turn around. I came to stand beside her, looking out. Phaedre was undressed to her shift, her hair free of its cloth and falling in a soft thick mass around her shoulders. Rare for a slave to have such hair, I thought; most women kept their hair very short under turban or headcloth, lacking both time and tools for dressing it. But Phaedre was a body servant; she would have some leisure—and a comb, at least.
“Would you like your bed back?” I asked, low-voiced. “I’ll be up for a while—and can sleep on the divan.”
She glanced at me, and shook her head.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” she said softly. “Thankee kindly; I ain’t sleepy.” She saw the carafe I carried, and reached for it. “I fetch you some water, ma’am?”
“No, no, I’ll do it. I’d like the air.” Still, I stood beside her, looking out.
It was a beautiful night, thick with stars that hung low and bright over the river, a faint silver thread that wound its way through the dark. There was a moon, a slender sickle, riding low on its way below the curve of the earth, and one or two small campfires burned in the trees beside the river.
The window was open, and bugs were swarming in; a small cloud of them danced around the candle in the sconce behind us, and tiny winged things brushed my face and arms. Crickets sang, so many of them that their song was a high, constant sound, like a bow drawn over violin strings.
Phaedre moved to shut it—to sleep with a window open was considered most unhealthy, and likely was, given the various mosquito-borne diseases in this swampish atmosphere.
“I thought I heard something. Out there,” she said, nodding toward the dark below.
“Oh? Probably my husband,” I said. “Or Ulysses.”
“Ulysses?” she said, looking startled.
Jamie, Ian, and Ulysses had organized a system of patrol, and were doubtless out somewhere in the night, gliding round the house and keeping an eye on Hector’s mausoleum, just in case. Knowing nothing of the disappearing gold nor Jocasta’s mysterious visitor, though, Phaedre wouldn’t be aware of the increased vigilance, save in the indirect way in which slaves always knew things—the instinct that had doubtless