Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [78]
“You were saying yesterday to Colum that ye needed betony and some odd bits of herbs?”
“Yes, to make up some medicines for the people with food poisoning. What of it?” I demanded, still suspicious.
He shrugged good-naturedly. “Only that I’m going down to the smith’s in the village, taking three horses to be shod. The fiscal’s wife is something of an herb-woman, and has stocks to hand. Doubtless she has the simples that you’re needing. And if it please ye, lady, you’re welcome to ride one of the horses down wi’ me to the village.”
“The fiscal’s wife? Mrs. Duncan?” I immediately felt happier. The prospect of escaping the castle altogether, even if only for a short time, was irresistible.
I mopped my face hurriedly and tucked the soiled kerchief in my belt.
“Let’s go,” I said.
* * *
I enjoyed the short ride downhill to the village of Cranesmuir, even though the day was dark and overcast. Dougal himself was in high spirits, and chatted and joked pleasantly as we went along.
We stopped first at the smith’s, where he left the three extra horses, taking me up behind him on his saddle for the trip up the High Street to the Duncans’ house. This was an imposing half-timbered manor of four stories, the lower two equipped with elegant leaded-glass windows; diamond-shaped panes in watery tones of purple and green.
Geilie greeted us with delight, pleased to have company on such a dreary day.
“How splendid!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting an excuse to go through the stillroom and sort out some things. Anne!”
A short, middle-aged serving woman with a face like a winter apple popped out of a door I hadn’t noticed, concealed as it was in the bend of the chimney.
“Take Mistress Claire up to the stillroom,” Geilie ordered, “and then go and fetch us a bucket of spring water. From the spring, mind, not the well in the square!” She turned to Dougal. “I’ve the tonic put by that I promised your brother. If you’ll come out to the kitchen with me for a moment?”
I followed the serving woman’s pumpkin-shaped rear up a set of narrow wooden stairs, emerging unexpectedly into a long, airy loft. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was furnished with casement windows, shut now against the damp, but still providing a great deal more light than had been available in the fashionably gloomy parlor downstairs.
It was clear that Geilie knew her business as an herbalist. The room was equipped with long drying frames netted with gauze, hooks above the small fireplace for heat-drying, and open shelves along the walls, drilled with holes to allow for air circulation. The air was thick with the delicious, spicy scent of drying basil, rosemary, and lavender. A surprisingly modern long counter ran along one side of the room, displaying a remarkable assortment of mortars, pestles, mixing bowls, and spoons, all immaculately clean.
It was some time before Geilie appeared, flushed from climbing the stairs, but smiling in anticipation of a long afternoon of herb-pounding and gossip.
It began to rain lightly, drops spattering the long casements, but a small fire was burning on the stillroom hearth, and it was very cozy. I enjoyed Geilie’s company immensely; she had a wry-tongued, cynical viewpoint that was a refreshing contrast to the sweet, shy clanswomen at the castle, and clearly she had been well educated, for a woman in a small village.
She also knew every scandal that had occurred either in village or castle in the last ten years, and she told me endless amusing stories. Oddly enough, she asked me few questions about myself. I thought perhaps that was not her way; she would find out what she wanted to know about me from other people.
For some time, I had been conscious of noises coming from the street outside, but had attributed them to the traffic of villagers coming from Sunday Mass; the kirk was located at the end of the street by the well, and the High Street ran from kirk to square, spreading from there into a fan of tiny lanes and walks.
In fact, I had amused myself on the ride to the smithy by imagining an aerial view of the village