A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [360]
“Oh, sorry. Is it bad? I have a bit of balm I can put on it, when we get to the inn.”
“Och, no. Just blisters; it will bide.” He rubbed his arm gingerly, but shrugged off the discomfort, and taking me by the elbow, led me round the corner, toward the main street. We had decided earlier that since we might be late, we would stay at McLanahan’s King’s Inn, rather than make the long drive back to River Run.
The smell of hot tar still permeated this end of town, and the evening breeze swirled feathers into small drifts at the side of the road; now and then, a down feather floated past my ear like a slow-moving moth.
“I wonder, are they still picking the feathers off Neil Forbes?” Jamie said, a grin in his voice.
“Maybe his wife will just put a bolster cover on him and use him as a pillow,” I suggested. “No, wait, he hasn’t got a wife. They’ll have to—”
“Call him a rooster, and put him out in the yard to serve the hens,” Jamie suggested, giggling. “He’s a fine cock-a-doodle, if no much in the way of a cock.”
He wasn’t drunk—we had drunk weak coffee with Mrs. Sylvie, after the injections—but he was desperately tired; we both were, and suddenly in the state of exhaustion where the lamest joke seems immensely funny, and we staggered, bumping together and laughing at worse and worse jokes until our eyes teared.
“What’s that?” Jamie said suddenly, drawing a deep, startled breath through his nose. “What’s burning?”
Something substantial; there was a glow in the sky, visible over the roofs of the nearby houses, and the sharp scent of burning wood suddenly overlaid the thicker smell of hot tar. Jamie ran toward the corner of the street, with me hot on his heels.
It was Mr. Simms’s print shop; well ablaze. Evidently his political enemies, balked of their prey, had decided to vent their animosity on his premises.
A knot of men was milling in the street, much as they had earlier in the day. Again, there were calls of “Tory!” and a few were brandishing torches. More men were running down the street toward the scene of the fire, shouting. I caught a bellow of “Goddamn Whigs!” and then the two groups collided in a flurry of shoving and punching.
Jamie grabbed my arm and propelled me back the way we had come, out of sight around the corner. My heart was pounding, and I was short of breath; we ducked under a tree and stood panting.
“Well,” I said, after a short silence, filled with the shouts of the riot, “I suppose Fergus will have to find a different occupation. There’s an apothecary’s shop going cheap, I know.”
Jamie made a small sound, not quite a laugh.
“He’d do better to go into partnership wi’ Mrs. Sylvie,” he said. “There’s a business not subject to politics. Come on, Sassenach—we’ll go the long way round.”
When at length we reached the inn, we found Young Ian fidgeting on the porch, watching out for us.
“Where in the name of Bride have you been?” he demanded severely, in a manner that made me think suddenly of his mother. “We’ve been combin’ the town for ye, Uncle Jamie, and Fergus sure ye’d been caught up in the collieshangie yonder and maimed or killed.” He nodded toward the print shop; the blaze was beginning to die, though there was still enough light from it to see his face, set in a disapproving frown.
“We’ve been doing good deeds,” Jamie assured him piously. “Visiting the sick, as Christ commands us.”
“Oh, aye?” Ian responded, with considerable cynicism. “He said ye should visit those in prison, too. Too bad ye didna start wi’ that.”
“What? Why?”
“Yon bugger Donner’s escaped, that’s for why,” Ian informed him, seeming to take a grim pleasure in imparting bad news. “During the fight this afternoon. The gaoler came to join in the fun, and left the door on the latch; the bugger just walked out and awa’.”
Jamie inhaled deeply, then let his breath out slowly, coughing slightly from the smoke.
“Aye, well,” he said. “So we’re down by one print shop and one thief—but four whores to the good. D’ye think that a fair exchange, Sassenach?”
“Whores?” Ian exclaimed, startled. “What