Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [336]
The child didn’t really seem so sick; his eyes were clear, not gummy. And while the tiny boy seemed feverish, it wasn’t the searing heat he had felt the night before. The baby whined and squirmed, true, but he kicked with a fretful strength in the tiny limbs, not the weak spasms of a dying child.
The very young go quickly, Claire had said. You have no notion how fast disease moves, when there’s nothing to fight it with. He had some notion, after last night.
“All right,” he whispered at last. “I think you’re maybe right.” He felt, rather than saw, the easing of her arm—she had held her dagger ready.
He gingerly handed back the child, with a mingled sense of relief and reluctance. And the terrifying realization of the responsibility he had accepted.
Morag was cooing to the boy, cuddling him against her breast as she hastily rewrapped him.
“Sweet Jemmy, aye, that’s a good laddie. Hush, bittie, hush now, it’ll be all right, Mammy’s here for ye.”
“How long?” Roger whispered, laying a hand on her arm. “How long will the rash last, if it’s milk rash?”
“Maybe four days, maybe five,” she whispered back. “But it’s no but maybe twa more, and the rash will be different—less. Anyone can see then that it’s not the pox. I can come out, then.”
Two days. If it was pox, the child would be dead in two days. But if not—he might just manage. And so might she.
“Can you keep awake that long? The rats—”
“Aye, I can,” she said fiercely. “I can do what I must. Will ye help me, then?”
He drew a deep breath, ignoring the stench.
“Aye, I will.” He stood up, and gave her his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it, and stood too. She was small, she barely reached his shoulder, and her hand in his was the size of a child’s—in the shadows, she looked like a young girl cradling her doll.
“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.
He caught the gleam of her eyes, surprised, and then the flash of teeth.
“Yesterday I was two-and-twenty,” she said dryly. “Today, I’m maybe a hundred.”
The small damp hand pulled free of his, and she melted back into the darkness.
39
A GAMBLING MAN
The fog gathered through the night. By dawn the ship rode in a cloud so thick that the sea below could not be seen from the rail, and only the susurrus of the hull’s passage indicated that the Gloriana still floated on water, not air.
There was no sun, and little wind; the sails hung limp, shuddering now and then with a passing air. Oppressed by the dimness, men walked the decks like ghosts, appearing out of the murk with a suddenness that startled one another.
This obscurity served Roger well; he was able to pass almost unseen through the ship, and slip unobserved into the hold, the small store of food he had kept back from his own meals concealed in his shirt.
The fog had gotten into the hold as well; clammy white tendrils touched his face, drifting out between the looming water casks, and hovered near his feet. It was darker than ever here below, gone from dusty-gold dimness to the black-brown of cold, wet wood.
The child was asleep; Roger saw no more than the curve of its cheek, still spattered with red pustules. They looked angry and inflamed. Morag saw his look of doubt and said nothing, but took his hand in her own and pressed it to the baby’s neck.
The tiny pulse went bump-bump-bump under his finger, and the soft creased skin was warm but damp. Reassured, he smiled at Morag, and she gave him back a tiny glimmer.
A month in steerage had left her thin and grimy; the last two days had stamped her face with permanent lines of fear. Her hair straggled lank around her face, caked with grease and thick with lice. Her eyes were bruised with tiredness, and she smelled of feces and urine, sour milk and stale sweat. Her lips were tight and pale as the rest of her face. Roger took her very gently by the shoulders, bent, and kissed her mouth.
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