The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [204]
Jamie dropped the rope and shot for the ladder, with me at his heels. He let out a shout as his head topped the ladder, and dived forward. As I scrambled into the loft behind him, I saw him in the shadows, grappling with Mrs. Beardsley.
She smashed an elbow at his face, hitting him in the nose. This removed any inhibitions he might have had about manhandling a woman, and he jerked her round to face him and struck her with a short, sharp uppercut to the chin that clicked her jaws and made her stagger, eyes glazing. I dashed forward to save the candle, as she collapsed on her rump in a pouf of skirts and petticoats.
“God . . . dab . . . that . . . womad.” Jamie’s voice was muffled, his sleeve pressed across his face to stanch the flow of blood from his nose, but the sincerity in it was unmistakable.
Mr. Beardsley was flopping like a landed fish, wheezing and gurgling. I lifted the candle and found him flailing at his neck with one splayed hand. A linen kerchief had been twisted into a rope and wrapped round his neck, and his face was black, his one eye popping. I hastily seized the kerchief and undid it, and his breathing eased with a great whoosh of fetid air.
“If she’d been faster, she’d have had him.” Jamie lowered his blood-streaked arm and felt his nose tenderly. “Christ, I think she broke my dose.”
“Why? Why did you thtop me?” Mrs. Beardsley was still conscious, though swaying and glassy-eyed. “He thould die, I want him to die, he mutht die.”
“A nighean na galladh, ye could ha’ killed him at your leisure any time this month past, if ye wanted him dead,” Jamie said impatiently. “Why in God’s name wait until ye had witnesses?”
She looked up at him, eyes suddenly sharp and clear.
“I did not want him dead,” she said. “I wanted him to die.” She smiled, showing the stubs of her broken teeth. “Thlowly.”
“Oh, Christ,” I said, and wiped a hand across my face. It was only mid-morning, but I felt as though the day had lasted several weeks already. “It’s my fault. I told her I thought I could help; she thought I’d save him, maybe cure him altogether.” The curse of a reputation for magic healing! I might have laughed, had I been in the mood for irony.
There was a sharp, fresh stink in the air, and Mrs. Beardsley turned on her husband with a cry of outrage.
“Filthy beast!” She scrambled to her knees, snatched up a hard roll from the plate, and threw it at him. It bounced off his head. “Filthy, thtinking, dirty, wicked . . .” Jamie seized her by the hair as she hurled herself at the prone body, grabbed her arm, and jerked her away, sobbing and shrieking abuse.
“Bloody hell,” he said, over the uproar. “Fetch me that rope, Sassenach, before I kill them both myself.”
The job of getting Mr. Beardsley down from the loft was enough to leave both Jamie and me sweat-soaked and streaked with filth, reeking and weak in the knees with effort. Mrs. Beardsley squatted on a stool in the corner, quiet and malevolent as a toad, making no effort to help.
She gave a gasp of outrage when we laid the big, lolling body on the clean table, but Jamie glared at her, and she sank back on her stool, mouth clamped to a thin, straight line.
Jamie wiped his bloodstained sleeve across his brow, and shook his head as he looked at Beardsley. I didn’t blame him; even cleaned up, warmly covered, and with a little warm gruel spooned into him, the man was in a dreadful state. I examined him once more, carefully, in the light from the window. No doubt about the toes; the stink of gangrene was distinct, and the greenish tinge covered the outer dorsal aspect of the foot.
I’d have to take more than the toes—I frowned, feeling my way carefully around the putrefying area, wondering whether it was better to try for a partial amputation between the metacarpals, or simply to take the foot off at the ankle. The ankle dissection would be faster, and while I would normally try for the more conservative partial amputation, there was really no point to it in this case; Beardsley was plainly never going to walk again.
I gnawed my lower lip dubiously.