A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [52]
I had a most uneasy feeling. Whatever they wanted, it didn’t portend anything good, I was sure; they certainly hadn’t left on friendly terms. As for what Jamie might feel obliged to do in response to them—
Horse chestnut. That was sometimes used for the tertian ague, as Dr. Rawlings called it. Did I have any left? Glancing quickly over the jars and bottles in the medicine chest, I stopped, seeing one with an inch or so of dried black globules left at the bottom. Gallberries, the label read. Not mine; it was one of Rawlings’s jars. I’d never used them for anything. But something niggled at my memory. I’d heard or read something about gallberries; what was it?
Half-unconsciously, I picked up the jar and opened it, sniffing. A sharp, astringent smell rose from the berries, slightly bitter. And slightly familiar.
Still holding the jar, I went to the table where my big black casebook lay, and flipped hastily to the early pages, those notes left by the man who had first owned both book and medicine chest, Daniel Rawlings. Where had it been?
I was still flipping pages, scanning for the shape of a half-remembered note, when Jamie came back, a jug of hot water and a dish of honey in hand—and the Beardsley twins dogging his steps.
I glanced at them, but said nothing; they tended to pop up unexpectedly, like a pair of jack-in-the boxes.
“Is Miss Lizzie fearfully sick?” Jo asked anxiously, peering around Jamie to see what I was doing.
“Yes,” I said briefly, only half paying attention to him. “Don’t worry, though; I’m fixing her some medicine.”
There it was. A brief notation, added as an obvious afterthought to the account of treatment of a patient whose symptoms seemed clearly malarial—and who had, I noticed with an unpleasant twinge, died.
I am told by the Trader from whom I procured Jesuit Bark that the Indians use a Plant called Gallberry, which rivals the Bark of Cinchona for bitterness and is thought capital for Use in tertian and quartan Fevers. I have collected some for Experiment and propose to try an Infusion so soon as the Opportunity presents itself.
I picked out one of the dried berries and bit into it. The pungent taste of quinine at once flooded my mouth—accompanied by a copious flood of saliva, as my mouth puckered at the eye-watering bitterness. Gallberry, indeed!
I dived for the open window, spat into the herb bed beneath and went on spitting, to the accompaniment of giggles and snorts from the Beardsleys, who were most diverted at the unexpected entertainment.
“Are ye all right, Sassenach?” Amusement was fighting with worry for dominance of Jamie’s face. He poured a bit of water from the jug into a clay beaker, added a dollop of honey as an afterthought, and handed it to me.
“Fine,” I croaked. “Don’t drop that!” Kezzie Beardsley had picked up the jar of gallberries and was sniffing cautiously at it. He nodded at my admonition, but didn’t put the jar down, instead handing it off to his brother.
I took a good mouthful of hot, honeyed water, and swallowed. “Those—they have something like quinine in them.”
Jamie’s face changed at once, the worry lessening.
“So they’ll help the lass?”
“I hope so. There aren’t many, though.”
“D’ye mean you need more o’ these things for Miss Lizzie, Mrs. Fraser?” Jo glanced up at me, dark eyes sharp over the little jar.
“Yes,” I said, surprised. “You don’t mean you know where to get any, surely?”
“Aye, ma’am,” Kezzie said, his voice a little loud, as usual. “Indians got ’em.”
“Which Indians?” Jamie asked, his gaze sharpening.
“Them Cherokee,” Jo said, waving vaguely over one shoulder. “By the mountain.”
This description might have suited half a dozen villages, but evidently it was a specific village that they had in mind, for the two of them turned as one, obviously intending to go directly and fetch back gallberries.
“Wait a bit, lads,” Jamie said, snagging Kezzie by the collar. “I’ll go along with ye. Ye’ll be needing something to trade, after all.”
“Oh, we got hides a-plenty, sir,” Jo