A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [530]
We lay pressed flat for a few moments, and I became aware of the uncomfortably spiky plant squashed under my cheek, the scent of its leaves harsh and bitter in my nose.
Then Jamie sat up, slowly, drawing in his breath with a catch, and I rose in turn on a shaky arm, nearly falling. My cheek was puffed and my hand and shoulder throbbed, but I had no attention to spare for that.
“Are you all right?” Jamie had got halfway to his feet, then sat down again, suddenly. He was pale, and a trickle of blood ran down the side of his face from a cut in his scalp, but he nodded, a hand pressed to his side.
“Aye, fine,” he said, but with a breathlessness that told me he likely had cracked ribs. “Ye’re all right, Sassenach?”
“Fine.” I managed to get to my feet, trembling. Brown’s men were scattered, some chasing the horses who had fled in the melee, others cursing, gathering up scattered bits of belongings from the road. Tom Christie was vomiting into the bushes by the road. Richard Brown stood under a tree, watching, his face white. He glanced at me sharply, then away.
We stopped at no more taverns on the way.
89
A MOONLICHT FLICHT
WHEN YE GO TO HIT SOMEONE, Sassenach, ye want to do it in the soft parts. Faces have too many bones. And then there’s the teeth to be thinkin’ of.”
Jamie spread her fingers, gently pressing the scraped, swollen knuckles, and air hissed between her own teeth.
“Thanks so much for the advice. And you’ve broken your hand how many times, hitting people?”
He wanted to laugh; the vision of her pounding that wee boy in a fury of berserk rage, hair flying in the wind and a look of blood in her eye, was one he would treasure. He didn’t, though.
“Your hand’s not broken, a nighean.” He curled her fingers, cupping her loose fist with both of his.
“How would you know?” she snapped. “I’m the doctor here.”
He stopped trying to hide his smile.
“If it were broken,” he said, “ye’d be white and puking, not red-faced and crankit.”
“Crankit, my arse!” She pulled her hand free, glaring at him as she nursed it against her bosom. She was in fact only slightly flushed, and most attractive, with her hair curling out in a wild mass round her head. One of Brown’s men had picked up her fallen cap after the attack, timidly offering it to her. Enraged, she had snatched it from him and stuffed it violently into a saddlebag.
“Are ye hungry, lass?”
“Yes,” she admitted grudgingly, as aware as he was that folk with broken bones generally had little appetite immediately, though they ate amazingly, once the pain had backed a bit.
He rummaged in the saddlebag, blessing Mrs. Bug as he came out with a handful of dried apricots and a large wrapped wedge of goat’s cheese. Brown’s men were cooking something over their fire, but he and Claire had not touched any food but their own, not since the first night.
How much longer might this farce go on? he wondered, breaking off a bit of cheese and handing it to his wife. They had food for perhaps a week, with care. Long enough, maybe, to reach the coast, and the weather held good. And what then?
It had been plain to him from the first that Brown had no plan, and was attempting to deal with a situation that had been out of his control since the first moment. Brown had ambition, greed, and a respectable sense of revenge, but almost no capacity of forethought, that much was clear.
Now, here he was, saddled with the two of them, forced to travel on and on, the unwelcome responsibility dragging like a worn-out shoe tied to a dog’s tail. And Brown the hindered dog, snarling and turning in circles, snapping at the thing that hampered him, and biting his own tail in consequence. Half his men had been wounded by the flung stones. Jamie thoughtfully touched a large, painful bruise on the point of his elbow.
He himself had had no choice; now Brown hadn’t, either. His men were growing restive; they had crops to tend, and hadn’t bargained for what they must