Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [427]
“Jamie,” I said, and swallowed. I could barely speak the next words, but they had to be said. I had known what news he would bring, and I had thought of what might still be done. “Jamie. There’s only one thing left—only the one possibility.”
His head was bent, forehead resting on his knuckles. He shook his head, not looking at me.
“There is no way,” he said. “He’s bent on it. Murray has tried to turn him, so has Lochiel. Balmerino. Me. But the men are standing on the plain this hour. Cumberland has set out for Drumossie. There is no way.”
The healing arts are powerful ones, and any physician versed in the use of substances that heal knows also the power of those that harm. I had given Colum the cyanide he had not had time to use, and taken back the deadly vial from the table by the bed where his body lay. It was in my box now, the crudely distilled crystals a dull brownish-white, deceptively harmless in appearance.
My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t speak at once. There was a little wine left in my flask; I drank it, the acid taste like bile on my tongue.
“There is one way,” I said. “Only one.”
Jamie’s head stayed sunk in his hands. It had been a long ride, and the shock of Alec’s news had added depression to his tiredness. We had detoured to find his men, or most of them, a miserable, ragged crew, indistinguishable from the skeletal Frasers of Lovat who surrounded them. The interview with Charles was far beyond the last straw.
“Aye?” he said.
I hesitated, but had to speak. The possibility had to be mentioned; whether he—or I—could bring ourselves to it or not.
“It’s Charles Stuart,” I said, at last. “It’s him—everything. The battle, the war—everything depends on him, do you see?”
“Aye?” Jamie was looking up at me now, bloodshot eyes quizzical.
“If he were dead.…” I whispered at last.
Jamie’s eyes closed, and the last vestiges of blood drained from his face.
“If he were to die…now. Today. Or tonight. Jamie, without Charles, there’s nothing to fight for. No one to order the men to Culloden. There wouldn’t be a battle.”
The long muscles of his throat rippled briefly as he swallowed. He opened his eyes and stared at me, appalled.
“Christ,” he whispered. “Christ, ye canna mean it.”
My hand closed on the smoky, gold-mounted crystal around my neck.
They had called me to attend the Prince, before Falkirk. O’Sullivan, Tullibardine, and the others. His Highness was ill—an indisposition, they said. I had seen Charles, made him bare his breast and arms, examined his mouth and the whites of his eyes.
It was scurvy, and several of the other diseases of malnutrition. I said as much.
“Nonsense!” said Sheridan, outraged. “His Highness cannot suffer from the yeuk, like a common peasant!”
“He’s been eating like one,” I retorted. “Or rather worse than one.” The “peasants” were forced to eat onions and cabbage, having nothing else. Scorning such poor fare, His Highness and his advisers ate meat—and little else. Looking around the circle of scared, resentful faces, I saw few that didn’t show symptoms of the lack of fresh food. Loose and missing teeth, soft, bleeding gums, the pus-filled, itching follicles of “the yeuk” that so lavishly decorated His Highness’s white skin.
I was loath to surrender any of my precious supply of rose hips and dried berries, but had offered, reluctantly, to make the Prince a tea of them. The offer had been rejected, with a minimum of courtesy, and I understood that Archie Cameron had been summoned, with his bowl of leeches and his lancet, to see whether a letting of the Royal blood would relieve the Royal itch.
“I could do it,” I said. My heart was beating heavily in my chest, making it hard to breathe. “I could mix him a draught. I think I could persuade him to take it.”
“And if he should die upon drinking your medicine? Christ, Claire! They would kill ye on the spot!”
I folded my hands beneath my arms, trying to warm them.
“D-does that matter?” I asked, desperately trying to steady my voice. The truth was that it did. Just at the