Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [207]
“Two spoonfuls of the rose madder—that’s this one”—I tapped the small clear-glass bottle, filled with a dark pinkish fluid—“to be taken four hours before you plan to demonstrate your symptoms. Take another spoonful every two hours after the first dose—we don’t know how long you’ll have to keep it up.”
I handed him the second bottle, this one of green glass filled with a purplish-black liquor. “This is concentrated essence of rosemary leaves. This one acts faster. Drink about one-quarter of the bottle half an hour before you mean to show yourself; you should start flushing within half an hour. It wears off quickly, so you’ll need to take more when you can manage inconspicuously.” I took another, smaller vial from my medicine box. “And once you’re well advanced with the ‘fever,’ then you can rub the nettle juice on your arms and face, to raise blisters. Do you want to keep these instructions?”
He shook his head decidedly. “Nay, I’ll remember. There’s more risk to being found wi’ the paper than there is to forgetting how much to take.” He turned to Jamie.
“And you’ll meet the ship at Orvieto, lad?”
Jamie nodded. “Aye. She’s bound to make port there; all the wine haulers do, to take on fresh water. If by chance she doesna do so, then—” He shrugged. “I shall hire a boat and try to catch her up. So long as I board her before we reach Le Havre, it should be all right, but best if we can do it while we’re still close off the coast of Spain. I dinna mean to spend longer at sea than I must.” He pointed with his chin at the bottle in Murtagh’s hand.
“Ye’d best wait to take the stuff ’til ye see me come on board. With no witnesses, the captain might take the easy way out and just put ye astern in the night.”
Murtagh grunted. “Aye, he might try.” He touched the hilt of his dirk, and there was the faintest ironic emphasis on the word “try.”
Jamie frowned at him. “Dinna forget yourself. You’re meant to be suffering from the pox. With luck, they’ll be afraid to touch ye, but just in case…wait ’til I’m within call and we’re well offshore.”
“Mmphm.”
I looked from one to the other of the two men. Farfetched as it was, it might conceivably work. If the captain of the ship could be convinced that one of his passengers was infected with smallpox, he would under no circumstances take his ship into the harbor at Le Havre, where the French health restrictions would require its destruction. And, faced with the necessity of sailing back with his cargo to Lisbon and losing all profit on the voyage, or losing two weeks at Orvieto while word was sent to Paris, he might very well instead consent to sell the cargo to the wealthy Scottish merchant who had just come aboard.
The impersonation of a smallpox victim was the crucial role in this masquerade. Jamie had volunteered to be the guinea pig for testing the herbs, and they had worked magnificently on him. His fair skin had flushed dark red within minutes, and the nettle juice raised immediate blisters that could easily be mistaken for those of pox by a ship’s doctor or a panicked captain. And should any doubt remain, the madder-stained urine gave an absolutely perfect illusion of a man pissing blood as the smallpox attacked his kidneys.
“Christ!” Jamie had exclaimed, startled despite himself at the first demonstration of the herb’s efficacy.
“Oh, jolly good!” I said, peering over his shoulder at the white porcelain chamber pot and its crimson contents. “That’s better than I expected.”
“Oh, aye? How long does it take to wear off, then?” Jamie had asked, looking down rather nervously.
“A few hours, I think,” I told him. “Why? Does it feel odd?”
“Not odd, exactly,” he said, rubbing. “It itches a bit.”
“That’s no the herb,” Murtagh interjected dourly. “It’s just the natural condition for a lad of your age.”
Jamie grinned at his godfather. “Remember back that far, do ye?”
“Farther back than you were born or thought of, laddie,” Murtagh had said, shaking his head.
The little clansman now stowed the vials in his sporran, methodically