The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [355]
“Awake at last. Did ye sleep well, Sassenach?”
“Like the dead,” I replied automatically, and felt a small internal lurch as I said it.
He saw it reflected on my face, and came swiftly to sit down on the bed beside me.
“What is it? Have ye had an evil dream, Sassenach?”
“Not exactly,” I said slowly. In fact, I had no memory of having dreamed at all. And yet, my mind appeared to have been ticking away in the shadows of unconsciousness, making notes and drawing its deductions. Prompted now by the word “dead,” it had just presented me with its conclusions, which accounted for the feeling of unease with which I had awoken.
“That woman Betty. Have they buried her yet?”
“No. They’ve washed the body and put it in a shed, but Jocasta wished to wait until the morning for the burial, so as not to trouble her guests. Some are staying on for another night.” He frowned slightly, watching me. “Why?”
I rubbed a hand over my face, less to rouse myself than to collect my words.
“There’s something wrong. About her death, I mean.”
“Wrong . . . how?” One eyebrow lifted. “It was a fearful way to die, to be sure, but that’s not what ye mean, is it?”
“No.” My hands were cold; I reached automatically for his, and he took them, engulfing my fingers with warmth. “I mean—I don’t believe it was a natural death. I think someone killed her.”
Blurted out that way, the words hung cold and stark in the air between us.
His brows drew together, and he pursed his lips slightly, thinking. I noticed, though, that he did not reject the idea out of hand, and that strengthened my conviction.
“Who?” he asked at last. “And are ye sure of it, Sassenach?”
“I have no idea. And I can’t be totally sure,” I admitted. “It’s only—” I hesitated, but he squeezed one of my hands lightly in encouragement. I shook my head. “I’ve been a nurse, a doctor, a healer, for a long time, Jamie. I’ve seen a dreadful number of people die, and from all sorts of things. I can’t quite put into words what it is here, but now that I’ve slept on it, I just know—I think—it’s wrong,” I ended, rather lamely.
The light was fading; shadows were coming down from the corners of the room, and I shivered suddenly, gripping his hands.
“I see,” he said softly. “But there’s no way ye can tell for sure, is there?”
The window was still half-open; the curtains billowed suddenly into the room with a gust of wind, and I felt the hairs rise on my arms with cold.
“There might be,” I said.
52
A HARD DAY’S NIGHT
THE OUTBUILDING where they had put the body was well away from the house—a small toolshed outside the kitchen garden. The waning moon was low in the sky, but still shed light enough to see the brick path through the garden; the espaliered fruit trees spread black as spiderwebs against the walls. Someone had been digging; I could smell the cold damp of recently turned earth, and shivered involuntarily at the hint of worms and mold.
Jamie felt it, and put a light hand on my back.
“All right, Sassenach?” he whispered.
“Yes.” I gripped his free hand for reassurance. They would hardly be burying Betty in the kitchen garden; the digging must be for something prosaic, like an onion bed or a trench for early peas. The thought was comforting, though my skin still felt cold and thin, prickling with apprehensions.
Jamie himself was far from easy, though he was outwardly composed, as usual. He was no stranger to death, and had no great fear of it. But he was both Catholic and Celt, with a strong conviction of another, unseen world that lay past the dissolution of the body. He believed implicitly in tannasgeach—in spirits—and had no desire to meet one. Still, if I was determined, he would brave the otherworld for my sake; he squeezed my hand hard, and didn’t let go.
I