Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [371]
The thought of molds made me think once more of my penicillin plantation. Or what I hoped might one day be one, were I lucky enough, and observant enough to know my luck. Of the hundreds of molds that grew easily on stale, damp bread, Penicillium was only one. What were the odds of a stray spore of that one precious mold taking root on the slices of bread I laid out weekly? What were the odds of an exposed slice of bread surviving long enough for any spores to find it? And lastly, what were the odds that I would recognize it if I saw it?
I had been trying for more than a year, with no success so far.
Even with the marigolds and yarrow I scattered for repellency, it was impossible to keep the vermin away. Mice and rats, ants and cockroaches; one day I had even found a party of burglarious squirrels in the pantry, holding riot over scattered corn and the gnawed ruins of half my seed potatoes.
The only recourse was to lock all edibles in the big hutch Jamie had built—that, or keep them in thick wooden casks or lidded jars, resistent to the efforts of tooth and claw. But to seal food away from four-footed thieves was also to seal it away from the air—and the air was the only messenger that might one day bring me a real weapon against disease.
Each of the plants carries an antidote to some illness—if we only knew what it was. I felt a renewed pang of loss when I thought of Nayawenne; not only for herself but for her knowledge. She had taught me only a fraction of the things she knew, and I regretted that most bitterly—though not as bitterly as the loss of my friend.
Still, I knew one thing she had not—the manifold virtues of that smallest of plants, the lowly bread mold. To find it would be difficult, to recognize it, and to use it, even more so. But I never doubted it was worth the search.
To leave bread exposed in the house was to draw the mice and rats inside. I had tried setting it on the sideboard—Ian had absentmindedly consumed half of my budding antibiotic incubator, and mice and ants made short work of the rest while I was away from the house.
It was simply impossible, in summer, spring, or autumn, either to leave bread exposed and unguarded or to stay inside to look after it. There were too many urgent chores to be done outside, too many calls to attend births or illness, too much opportunity for foraging.
In the winter, of course, the vermin went away, to lay their eggs against the spring, and hibernate under a blanket of dead leaves, secure from the cold. But the air was cold, too; too cold to bring me living spores. The bread I laid out either curled and dried, or went soggy, depending on its distance from the fire; in either case, sporting nothing but the occasional orange or pink crust: the molds that lived in the crevices of the human body.
I would try again in the spring, I thought, sniffing at a bottle of dried marjoram. It was good; musky as incense, smelling of dreams. The new house on the ridge was already rising, foundation laid and rooms marked out. I could see the skeletal framework from the cabin door, black against the clear September sky on the ridge.
By the spring, it would be finished. I would have plastered walls and laid oak floors, glass windows with stout frames that kept out mice and ants—and a nice snug, sunny surgery in which to conduct my medical practice.
My glowing visions were interrupted by a raucous bellow from the pen-fold; Clarence announcing an arrival. I could hear voices in the distance, in between Clarence’s shrieks of ecstasy, and I hastily began to tidy away the scatter of corks and bottles. It must be Jamie returning with Fergus and Marsali—or at least I hoped so.
Jamie had been confident of the trial’s outcome, but I worried nonetheless. Raised to believe that British law in the abstract was one of the great achievements of civilization, I had seen a good deal too many of its concrete applications to have much faith in its avatars. On the