The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [572]
JAMIE WAS SITTING UP in bed, attended hand and foot by devoted women, and looking desperate in consequence. His face relaxed a little at sight of a fellow man, and he waved away his handmaidens. Lizzie, Marsali, and Mrs. Bug left reluctantly, but Claire remained, busy with her bottles and blades.
Roger moved to sit down on the bed-foot, only to be shooed off by Claire, who motioned him firmly to a stool before lifting the sheet to check matters beneath and be sure that his ill-advised gesture had caused no damage.
“All right,” she said at last, poking at the white cheesecloth dressing with an air of satisfaction. The maggots were back, evidently earning their keep. She straightened up and nodded to Roger—like the Grand Vizier granting an audience with the Caliph of Baghdad, Roger thought, amused. He glanced at Jamie, who rolled his eyes upward, then gave Roger a small, wry smile of greeting.
“How is it?” both of them said at once. Roger smiled, and the corner of Jamie’s mouth turned up. He gave a brief shrug.
“I’m alive,” he said. “Mind, that doesna prove ye were right. Ye’re not.”
“Right about what?” Claire asked, glancing up with curiosity from the bowl in her hands.
“Oh, a wee point of philosophy,” Jamie told her. “Regarding choice, and chance.”
She snorted.
“I don’t want to hear a word about it.”
“Just as well. I’m no inclined to discuss such matters on nothing but bread and milk.” Jamie glanced with mild distaste at a bowl of that nourishing but squashy substance, sitting half-finished on the table at his side. “So, have ye seen to the ulcer on the mule’s leg, then, Roger Mac?”
“I did,” Claire told him. “It’s healing very well. Roger’s been busy, interviewing new tenants.”
“Oh, aye?” Fraser’s brows went up in interest.
“Aye, a man named Tom Christie and his family. He said he was at Ardsmuir with you.”
For a split second, Roger felt as though all the air in the room had been removed by a vacuum, freezing everything. Fraser stared at him, expressionless. Then he nodded, his expression of pleasant interest restored as though by magic, and normal time resumed.
“Aye, I mind Tom Christie fine. Where has he been in the last twenty years?”
Roger explained both Tom Christie’s account of his wanderings, and what accommodations had been reached for his tenancy.
“That will do verra well,” Jamie said approvingly, hearing of Christie’s willingness to be schoolmaster. “Tell him he may use any of the books here—and ask him to make up a list of others he might need. I’ll tell Fergus to look about, next time he’s in Cross Creek or Wilmington.”
The conversation moved on to more mundane affairs, and after a few minutes, Roger got up to take his leave.
Everything seemed perfectly all right, and yet he felt obscurely uneasy. Surely he hadn’t imagined that instant? Turning to close the door behind him, he saw that Jamie had folded his hands neatly on his chest and closed his eyes; if not yet asleep, effectively forbidding conversation. Claire was looking at her husband, her yellow hawk-eyes narrowed in speculation. No, she’d seen it, too.
So he hadn’t imagined it. What on earth was the matter with Tom Christie?
95
THE SUMMER DIM
THE NEXT DAY Roger closed the door behind him and stood on the porch for a moment, breathing the cold bright air of the late morning—late, Christ, it couldn’t be more than half seven, but it was a good deal later than he was accustomed to start the day. The sun had already drifted into the chestnut trees on the highest ridge, the curve of its flaming disk visible in silhouette through the last of the yellow leaves.
The air still held the tang of blood, but there was no trace of the buffalo left, beyond a dark patch in the flattened pumpkin vines. He glanced around, taking stock as he mentally made his list of chores for the day. Chickens scratched in the fall-shabby yard, and he could hear a small group of hogs rooting for mast in the chestnut grove.
He had the odd feeling that he had left his work months, or even years, before, not days. The feeling of dislocation