Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [221]
Mother Hildegarde’s long fingers probed in relentless gentleness through the cotton of the bedgown I wore, probing the depths of my belly, seeking the hard edges of a contracting uterus. The flesh was soft as ripe fruit, though, and tender beneath her fingers. I winced as her fingers sank deep, and she frowned, muttering something under her breath that might have been a prayer.
I caught a name in the murmurings, and asked, “Raymond? You know Master Raymond?” I could think of few less likely pairings than this redoubtable nun and the little gnome of the cavern of skulls.
Mother Hildegarde’s thick brows shot up, astonished.
“Master Raymond, you say? That heretical charlatan? Que Dieu nous en garde!” May God protect us.
“Oh. I thought I heard you say ‘Raymond.’ ”
“Ah.” The fingers had returned to their work, probing the crease of my groin in search of the lumps of enlarged lymph nodes that would signal infection. They were there, I knew; I had felt them myself, moving my hands in restless misery over my empty body. I could feel the fever, an ache and a chill deep in my bones, that would burst into flame when it reached the surface of my skin.
“I was invoking the aid of St. Raymond Nonnatus,” Mother Hildegarde explained, wringing out a cloth in cold water. “He is an aid most invaluable in the assistance of expectant mothers.”
“Of which I am no longer one.” I noticed remotely the brief stab of pain that creased her brows; it disappeared almost at once as she busied herself in mopping my brow, smoothing the cold water briskly over the rounds of my cheeks and down into the hot, damp creases of my neck.
I shivered suddenly at the touch of the cold water, and she stopped at once, laying a considering hand on my forehead.
“St. Raymond is not one to be picky,” she said, absently reproving. “I myself take help where it can be found; a course I would recommend to you.”
“Mmm.” I shut my eyes, retreating into the haven of gray fog. Now there seemed to be faint lights in the fog, brief cracklings like the scatter of sheet lightning on a summer horizon.
I heard the clicking of jet rosary beads as Mother Hildegarde straightened up, and the soft voice of one of the sisters in the doorway, summoning her to another in the day’s string of emergencies. She had almost reached the door when a thought struck her. She turned with a swish of heavy skirts, pointing at the foot of my bed with an authoritative finger.
“Bouton!” she said. “Au pied, reste!”
The dog, as unhesitating as his mistress, whirled smartly in mid-step and leaped to the foot of the bed. Once there, he took a moment to knead the bedclothes with his paws and turn three times widdershins, as though taking the curse off his resting place, before lying down at my feet, resting his nose on his paws with a deep sigh.
Satisfied, Mother Hildegarde murmured, “Que Dieu vous bénisse, mon enfant,” in farewell, and disappeared.
Through the gathering fog and the icy numbness that wrapped me, I dimly appreciated her gesture. With no child to lay in my arms, she had given me her own best substitute.
The shaggy weight on my feet was in fact a small bodily comfort. Bouton lay still as the dogs beneath the feet of the kings carved on the lids of their tombs at St. Denis, his warmth denying the marble chill of my feet, his presence an improvement on either solitude or the company of humans, as he required nothing of me. Nothing was precisely what I felt, and all I had to give.
Bouton emitted a small, popping dog-fart and settled into sleep. I drew the covers over my nose and tried to do likewise.
I slept, eventually. And I dreamed. Fever dreams of weariness and desolation, of an impossible task done endlessly. Unceasing painful effort, carried out in a stony, barren place. Of thick gray fog, through which loss pursued me like a demon in the mist.
I woke, quite suddenly, to