The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [31]
“It did come to me, walkin’ doon the road, as we were all dead,” he said dreamily. “Me and Joe and Hugh and the rest. I might sae well be one place as anither; it was only moving ’til the time came to lay my bones beside Abby. I didna mind it.”
When they reached Hillsborough, he had paid no great mind to what Joe intended; only followed, obedient and unthinking. Followed, and walked the muddy streets sparkling with broken glass from shattered windows, seen the torchlight and mobs, heard the shouts and screams—all quite unmoved.
“It was no but dead men, a-rattling their bones against one anither,” he said with a shrug. He was still for a moment, then turned his face to Jamie, and looked long and earnestly up into his face.
“Is it so? Are ye dead, too?” One limp, callused hand floated up from the red kerchief, and rested lightly against the bone of Jamie’s cheek.
Jamie didn’t recoil from the touch, but took MacLennan’s hand and brought it down again, held tight between his own.
“No, a charaid,” he said softly. “Not yet.”
MacLennan nodded slowly.
“Aye. Give it time,” he said. He pulled his hands free and sat for a moment, smoothing his kerchief. His head kept bobbing, nodding slightly, as though the spring of his neck had stretched too far.
“Give it time,” he repeated. “It’s none sae bad.” He stood up then, and put the square of red cloth on his head. He turned to me and nodded politely, his eyes vague and troubled.
“I thank ye for the breakfast, ma’am,” he said, and walked away.
3
BILIOUS HUMOURS
ABEL MACLENNAN’S DEPARTURE put an abrupt end to breakfast. Private Ogilvie excused himself with thanks, Jamie and Fergus went off in search of scythes and astrolabes, and Lizzie, wilting in the absence of Private Ogilvie, declared that she felt unwell and subsided palely into one of the lean-to shelters, fortified with a large cup of tansy and rue decoction.
Fortunately, Brianna chose to reappear just then, sans Jemmy. She and Roger had breakfasted with Jocasta, she assured me. Jemmy had fallen asleep in Jocasta’s arms, and since both parties appeared content with that arrangement, she had left him there, and come back to help me with the morning’s clinic.
“Are you sure you want to help me this morning?” I eyed Bree dubiously. “It’s your wedding day, after all. I’m sure Lizzie or maybe Mrs. Martin could—”
“No, I’ll do it,” she assured me, swiping a cloth across the seat of the tall stool I used for my morning surgery. “Lizzie’s feeling better, but I don’t think she’s up to festering feet and putrid stomachs.” She gave a small shudder, closing her eyes at the memory of the elderly gentleman whose ulcerated heel I had debrided the day before. The pain had caused him to vomit copiously on his tattered breeches, which in turn had caused several of the people waiting for my attention to throw up too, in sympathetic reflex.
I felt a trifle queasy at the memory myself, but drowned it with a final gulp of bitter coffee.
“No, I suppose not,” I agreed reluctantly. “Still, your gown isn’t quite finished, is it? Perhaps you should go—”
“It’s fine,” she assured me. “Phaedre’s hemming my dress, and Ulysses is ordering all the servants around up there like a drill sergeant. I’d just be in the way.”
I gave way without further demur, though I wondered a little at her alacrity. While Bree wasn’t squeamish about the exigencies of normal life, like skinning animals and cleaning fish, I knew the proximity of people with disfiguring conditions or obvious illness bothered her, though she did her best to disguise it. It wasn’t distaste, I thought, but rather a crippling empathy.
I lifted the kettle and poured freshly boiled water into a large, half-full jar of distilled alcohol, narrowing my eyes against hot clouds of alcoholic steam.
It was difficult to see so many people suffering from things that could