A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [646]
“Have you got a bloody nose, Ian?”
He shook his head, still giggling. “No, Auntie. Some o’ the Society do, though.”
“Well, why have you got your finger up your nose, then? Have you picked up a tick or something?”
“No, he’s keepin’ his brains from falling out,” Jamie said, and went off into another fit. I glanced at the basket, but Mandy slept peacefully on, quite used to racket.
“Well, maybe you’d best stick both your own fingers up your nose, then,” I suggested. “Keep you out of trouble for a moment or two, at least.” I tilted up Jamie’s chin to get a better look at the eye. “You hit someone with that fish, didn’t you?”
The giggling had died down to a subterranean vibration between them, but threatened at this to break out anew.
“Gilbert Butler,” Jamie said with a masterful effort at self-control. “Smack across the face. Sent him straight across the quay and into the water.”
Ian’s shoulders shook with remembered ecstasy.
“Bride, what a splash! Oh, it was a braw fight, Auntie! I thought I’d broke my hand on a fellow’s jaw, but it’s all right now the deadness has worn off. Just a bit numb and tingly.” He wiggled the free fingers of his hand at me in illustration, wincing only slightly as he did so.
“Do take your finger out of your nose, Ian,” I said, anxiety over their condition fading into annoyance at how they’d got that way. “You look like a half-wit.”
For some reason, they both found that hysterically funny and laughed like loons. Ian did, however, eventually withdraw the finger, with an expression of wary cautiousness, as though he truly expected his brains to follow in its wake. Nothing did emerge, though, not even the ordinary bits of unsavory excreta one might expect from such a maneuver.
Ian looked puzzled, then mildly alarmed. He sniffed, prodding experimentally at his nose, then stuck the finger back into his nostril, rooting vigorously.
Jamie went on grinning, but his amusement began to fade as Ian’s explorations became more frantic.
“What? Ye’ve not lost it, have ye, lad?”
Ian shook his head, frowning.
“Nay, I feel it. It’s . . .” He stopped, giving Jamie a panic-stricken look over the embedded finger. “It’s stuck, Uncle Jamie! I canna get it out!”
Jamie was on his feet at once. He pulled the finger from its resting-place with a moist, sucking noise, then tilted back Ian’s head, peering urgently up his nose with his one good eye.
“Bring a light, Sassenach, will ye?”
There was a candlestick on the table, but I knew from experience that the only likely effect of using a candle to look up someone’s nose was to set their nose hairs on fire. Instead, I bent and pulled my medical kit out from under the settle where I had stowed it.
“I’ll get it,” I said, with the confidence of one who has removed everything from cherry pits to live insects from the nasal cavities of small children. I drew out my longest pair of thin forceps, and clicked the slender blades together in token of assurance. “Whatever it is. Just keep quite still, Ian.”
The whites of Ian’s eyes showed briefly in alarm as he looked at the shining metal of the forceps, and he looked pleadingly at Jamie.
“Wait. I’ve a better idea.” Jamie laid a quelling hand on my arm for an instant, then disappeared out the door. He thundered downstairs, and I heard a sudden burst of laughter from below, as the door to the taproom opened. The sound was as suddenly cut off as the door closed, like the valve on a faucet.
“Are you all right, Ian?” There was a smear of red on his upper lip; his nose was beginning to bleed, aggravated by his jabbings and pokings.
“Well, I do hope so, Auntie.” His original jubilation was beginning to be replaced by a certain expression of worry. “Ye dinna think I can have pushed it into my brain, do ye?”
“I think it very unlikely. What on earth—”
But the door below had opened and closed again, spilling another