A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [673]
Jamie stiffened slightly. He knew what it was, too, and essentially what it did.
Then he took a deep breath and carefully moved me off his lap, setting me on the bench beside him. I saw his eyes go to the knife sagging in Donner’s hand, and heard what his keener ears had already picked up. Someone was coming.
He moved a little forward, getting his feet under him to spring, and flicked his eyes toward the cold hearth, where a heavy Dutch oven was sitting in the ashes. I nodded, very briefly, and as the back door opened, made a lunge across the kitchen.
Donner, with unexpected swiftness, stuck out a leg and tripped me. I fell headlong and slid, fetching up against the settle with a head-ringing thump. I groaned and lay still for a few moments, eyes closed, feeling all at once that I was much too old for this sort of carry-on. I opened my eyes reluctantly, and very stiffly got to my feet, to find the kitchen now full of people.
Donner’s original sidekick had returned with two others, presumably Richie and Jed, and with them, the Bugs, Murdina looking alarmed, and Arch, coldly furious.
“A leannan!” Mrs. Bug cried, rushing toward me. “Are ye hurt, then?”
“No, no,” I said, still rather dazed. “Just let me . . . sit down for a moment.” I looked at Donner, but he no longer held his knife. He had been frowning at the floor—evidently he had dropped it when he tripped me—but his head jerked up at sight of the newcomers.
“What? Did you find anything?” he asked eagerly, for both Richie and Jed were beaming with self-importance.
“Sure did,” one of them assured him. “Looka here!” He was holding Mrs. Bug’s workbag, and at this, he upended it and shook the contents out onto the table, where a mass of woolly knitting landed with a massive thunk! Eager hands pawed the wool away, revealing an eight-inch-long ingot of gold, the metal shaved away at one end, and stamped in the center with the royal French fleur-de-lis.
Stunned silence followed the appearance of this apparition. Even Jamie looked completely nonplussed.
Mrs. Bug had been pale when they came in; now she had gone the color of chalk, and her lips had disappeared. Arch’s eyes went straight to Jamie’s, dark and defiant.
The only person unimpressed by sight of the glowing metal was Donner.
“Well, neato-mosquito,” he said. “What about the jewels? Keep your eye on the goal here, people!”
His accomplices, however, had lost interest in theoretical jewels, with solid gold actually in hand, and were simultaneously discussing the possibility of more and squabbling over who should have custody of the present ingot.
My own head was spinning: from the blow, from the sudden appearance of the ingot and its revelations regarding the Bugs—and particularly from the fumes of ether, which were getting notably stronger. No one in the kitchen had noticed, but all sound from the surgery had ceased; the young lout in there had undoubtedly passed out.
The bottle of ether had been nearly full; enough to anesthetize a dozen elephants, I thought dizzily—or a houseful of people. Already, I could see Donner struggling to keep his head upright. A few minutes more, and all the thugs would likely have subsided into a state of innocuous desuetude—but so would we.
Ether is heavier than air; the stuff would sink to the floor, where it would gradually rise in a pool around our knees. I stood up, taking a quick breath from the presumably purer air higher up. I had to get the window open.
Jamie and Arch were speaking Gaelic to each other, much too fast for me to follow, even had my head been in normal working order. Donner was frowning at them, mouth open as though he meant to tell them to stop but couldn’t quite find the words.
I fumbled with the catch of the inside shutters, having to concentrate very hard in order to make my fingers work. Finally, the latch flipped free and I swung the shutter open—revealing the leering face of an unfamiliar Indian in the twilight outside the window.
I shrieked and staggered back. Next thing, the back door sprang