The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [559]
The sound of the brush was soft and regular, like surf on sand, and I felt the stress of the day lessen slowly, as though I could brush all the anxieties and dreads out of my hair as easily as tangles and bits of pumpkin vine. When at last I put down the brush and rose, Jamie’s eyes were closed.
I knelt to smoor the fire, rose to blow out the candle, and went at last to bed.
I eased myself gently into the bed beside him, not to jostle. He lay turned away from me, on his side, and I turned toward him, echoing the curve of his body with my own, careful not to touch him.
I lay very quietly, listening. All the house sounds had settled to their night-time rhythm; the hiss of the fire and the rumble of wind in the flue, the sudden startling crack! of the stairs, as though some unwary foot had stepped upon a riser. Mr. Wemyss’s adenoidal snoring reached me, reduced to a soothing buzz by the thickness of the intervening doors.
There were still voices outside, muffled by distance, disjointed with drink and the lateness of the hour. All jovial, though; no sound of hostility or incipient violence. I didn’t really care, though. The inhabitants of the Ridge could hammer each other senseless and dance on the remains, for all I cared. All my attention was focused on Jamie.
His breathing was shallow but even, his shoulders relaxed. I didn’t want to disturb him; he needed rest above all things. At the same time, I ached to touch him. I wanted to reassure myself that he was here, alive beside me—but I also needed badly to know how things went with him.
Was he feverish? Had the incipient infection in his leg blossomed in spite of the penicillin, spreading poison through his blood?
I moved my head cautiously, bringing my face within an inch of his shirt-covered back, and breathed in, slow and deep. I could feel the warmth of him on my face, but couldn’t tell through the linen nightshirt just how hot he really was.
He smelt faintly of the woods, more strongly of blood. The onions in the dressing gave off a bitter tang; so did his sweat.
I inhaled again, testing the air. No scent of pus. Too early for the smell of gangrene, even if the rot was beginning, invisible under the bandages. I thought there was a strange scent about his skin, though; something I hadn’t smelled before. Necrosis of the tissue? Some breakdown product of the snake’s venom? I blew a short breath through my nose and took in a fresh one, deeper.
“Do I stink verra badly?” he inquired.
“Uk!” I said, startled into biting my tongue, and he quivered slightly, in what I took to be suppressed amusement.
“Ye sound like a wee truffle-pig, Sassenach, snortling away back there.”
“Oh, indeed,” I said, a bit crossly. I touched the tender spot on my tongue. “Well, at least you’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Like a pile of moldy tripes.”
“Very picturesque,” I said. “Can you be a trifle more specific?” I put a hand lightly on his side, and he let his breath out in a sound like a small moan.
“Like a pile of moldy tripes . . .” he said, and pausing to breathe heavily, added, “. . . .with maggots.”
“You’d joke on your deathbed, wouldn’t you?” Even as I said it, I felt a tremor of unease. He would, and I hoped this wasn’t it.
“Well, I’ll try, Sassenach,” he murmured, sounding drowsy. “But I’m no really at my best under the circumstances.”
“Do you hurt much?”
“No. I’m just . . . tired.” He sounded as though he were in fact too exhausted to search for the proper word, and had settled for that one by default.
“Little wonder if you are. I’ll go and sleep somewhere else, so you can rest.” I made to throw back the covers and rise, but he stopped me, raising one hand slightly.
“No. No, dinna leave me.” His shoulder fell back toward me, and he tried to lift his head from the pillow. I felt still more uneasy when I realized that he was too weak even to turn over by himself.
“I won’t leave you. Maybe I should sleep in the chair, though. I don’t want to—”
“I’m cold,” he said softly. “I’m verra cold.”
I pressed my fingers lightly just under his breastbone,