Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [84]
I stiffened, and Rollo twitched his ears to full alert, but Jamie showed no immediate disposition either to berate me or to toss me overboard. Instead, he leaned down, frowning as he peered at me in the wavering lantern light.
“How d’ye feel, Sassenach? I canna tell if you’re really green, or is it only the light.”
“I’m all right. A bit shaky, perhaps.” More than a bit; my hands were still clammy, and I knew my trembling knees wouldn’t hold me if I tried to stand. I swallowed hard, coughed, and thumped myself on the chest.
“It’s probably my imagination, but it feels like the ring is caught in my throat.”
He squinted thoughtfully at me, then turned to Fergus, who had appeared from the cabin and was hovering nearby.
“Ask the captain might I see his pipe for a moment, Fergus.” He turned away, pulling his shirt over his head, and disappeared aft himself, returning moments later with a cup of water.
I reached gratefully for it, but he held it out of my reach.
“Not just yet, Sassenach,” he said. “Got it? Aye, thanks, Fergus. Fetch an empty bucket, now, will ye?” Taking the filthy pipe from a puzzled Fergus, he inserted his thumb into the stained bowl and began to scrape at the burnt, gummy residue that lined it.
Turning the pipe upside down, he tapped it over the cup of water, causing a small shower of brown crusts and moist crumbs of half-burnt tobacco, which he stirred into the water with his blackened thumb. Finished with these preparations, he looked up at me over the rim of the cup in a distinctly sinister fashion.
“No,” I said. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Come along, Sassenach; it’ll cure what ails ye.”
“I’ll just … wait,” I said. I folded my arms across my chest. “Thanks anyway.”
Fergus had by this time reappeared with the bucket, eyebrows raised high. Jamie took it from him and plunked it on the deck next to me.
“I’ve done it that way, Sassenach,” he informed me, “and it’s a good deal messier than ye might think. It’s also not a pleasant thing to do on a boat, in close company, aye?” He put a hand on the back of my head and pressed the cup against my lower lip. “This will be quick. Come on, now; a wee sip is all.”
I pressed my lips tightly together; the smell from the cup was enough to make my stomach turn over, combining as it did the stale reek of tobacco, the sight of the noisome brown surface of the liquid, crusts swimming below the surface, and the memory of Captain Freeman’s blobs of brown-tinged spittle sliding down the deck.
Jamie didn’t bother with argument or persuasion. He simply let go of my head, pinched my nose shut, and when I opened my mouth to breathe, tipped in the foul-smelling contents of the cup.
“Mmmfff!”
“Swallow,” he said, clapping a hand tightly across my mouth and ignoring both my frenzied squirming and the muffled sounds of protest I was making. He was a lot stronger than I was, and he didn’t mean to let go. It was swallow or strangle.
I swallowed.
“Good as new.” Jamie finished polishing the silver ring on his shirttail and held it up, admiring it in the glow of the lantern.
“That is somewhat better than can be said of me,” I replied coldly. I lay in a crumpled heap on the deck, which in spite of the placid current, seemed still to be heaving very slightly under me. “You are a grade-A, double-dyed, sadistic fucking bastard, Jamie Fraser!”
He bent over me and smoothed the damp hair off my face.
“I expect so. If ye feel well enough to call me names, Sassenach, you’ll do. Rest a bit, aye?” He kissed me gently on the forehead and sat back.
Excitement over and order restored to the ravaged decks, the other men had gone back to the cabin to restore themselves with the aid of a bottle of applejack that Captain Freeman had contrived to save from the pirates by dropping it into the water barrel. A small cup of this beverage rested on the deck near my head; I was still too queasy to countenance swallowing anything,