Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [278]
“Here.” Grey pushed the pot of ale across the table toward me.
I drank deeply, the cool sourness soothing for a moment the deeper bitterness of spirit. I set the pot down and sat for a moment, eyes closed. There was a fresh-smelling breeze from the window, but the sun was warm on the tabletop under my hands. All the tiny joys of physical existence were still mine, and I was the more acutely aware of them, for the knowledge that they had been so abruptly taken from others—from those who had barely tasted them.
“Thank you,” I said, opening my eyes.
Grey was watching me, with an expression of deep sympathy.
“You’d think it wouldn’t be such a shock,” I said, needing suddenly to try to explain. “They die here so easily. The young ones, especially. It isn’t as though I haven’t seen it before. And there’s so seldom anything I can do.”
I felt something warm on my cheek, and was surprised to find it was a tear. He reached into his sleeve, pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to me. It wasn’t especially clean, but I didn’t mind.
“I did sometimes wonder what he saw in you,” he said, his tone deliberately light. “Jamie.”
“Oh, you did? How flattering.” I sniffed, and blew my nose.
“When he began to speak of you, both of us thought you dead,” he pointed out. “And while you are undoubtedly a handsome woman, it was never of your looks that he spoke.”
To my surprise, he picked up my hand and held it lightly.
“You have his courage,” he said.
That made me laugh, if only halfheartedly.
“If you only knew,” I said.
He didn’t reply to that, but smiled faintly. His thumb ran lightly over the knuckles of my hand, his touch light and warm.
“He doesn’t hold back for fear of skinned knuckles,” he said. “Neither do you, I think.”
“I can’t.” I took a deep breath and wiped my nose; the tears had stopped. “I’m a doctor.”
“So you are,” he said quietly, and paused. “I have not thanked you for my life.”
“It wasn’t me. There isn’t really anything much I can do, for something like a disease. All I can do is to … be there.”
“A little more than that,” he said dryly, and released my hand. “Will you have more ale?”
I was beginning to see quite clearly what Jamie saw in John Grey.
The afternoon passed quietly. Ian tossed and moaned, but by late afternoon, the rash was fully developed, and his fever seemed to drop a little. He wouldn’t be wanting food, but perhaps I could induce him to take a little milk broth. The thought reminded me that it was nearly milking time, and I stood up, with a murmured word to Lord John, and put aside my mending.
I opened the cabin door and stepped out, directly in front of Gerhard Mueller, who was standing in the dooryard.
Mueller’s eyes were a reddish brown, and seemed always to be burning with an inner intensity. They burned more brightly now, for the bruised frailty of the flesh surrounding them. The deep-set eyes fixed on me, and he nodded, once, and then again.
Mueller had shrunk since I had last seen him. All his flesh had fallen away; still a huge man, he was more bone than muscle now, cadaverous and ancient. His eyes were fixed on mine, the only spark of life in a face like crumpled paper.
“Herr Mueller,” I said. My voice sounded calm to my own ears; I hoped it sounded the same to him. “Wie geht es Euch?”
The old man stood swaying in front of me, as though the evening breeze might knock him down. I didn’t know if he had lost his mount, or left it down below the ridge, but there was no sign of horse or mule.
He took a step toward me, and I took one back, involuntarily.
“Frau Klara,” he said, and there was a note of pleading in his voice.
I stopped, wanting to call out to Lord John, but hesitant. He wouldn’t call me by my first name if he meant to do me harm.
“They are dead,” he said. “Mein Mädchen. Mein Kind.” Tears welled suddenly in the bloodshot eyes, and ran slowly down the weather-beaten grooves of his face. The misery in his eyes was so acute that I reached out and took his huge, work-scarred old hand in mine.
“I know,” I said.