The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [593]
“Why do you want blood?” he asked, interested. “You can have all ye want of mine, for free.” Grinning, he lifted the injured hand.
“A generous offer,” I said, laying out a linen cloth and a handful of clean glass rectangles. “But you haven’t had malaria, have you?” I plucked Adso out of the milk jug by the scruff of the neck and dropped him on the floor, before reaching into the cupboard above.
“Not so far as I know.” Roger was watching my preparations, deeply interested.
Lizzie gave a small, forlorn sound of mirth.
“Ye’d ken it well enough if ye had, sir.”
“I suppose I would.” He gave her a look of sympathy. “Very nasty, from all I hear.”
“It is that. Your bones ache so ye think they’ve all broken inside ye, and your eyes flame like a demon’s. Then the sweat pours off your skin in rivers, and the chills come on, fit to crack your teeth with the chatterin’ . . .” She hunched into herself, shuddering at the memory. “I did think it was gone, though,” she said, glancing uneasily at the lancet I was sterilizing in the flame of my alcohol lamp.
“I hope it is,” I said, frowning at the tiny blade. I picked up a small cloth and the blue glass bottle that held my distilled alcohol, and thoroughly cleaned the tip of her middle finger. “Some people never have another attack after the first, and I do hope you’re one of them, Lizzie. But for most people, it does come back now and then. I’m trying to find out whether yours might be coming back. Ready?”
Without waiting for her nod, I jabbed the lancet swiftly through the skin, then set it down and snatched up a glass slide. I squeezed the fingertip, dotting generous blood drops on each of three slides, then wrapped the cloth round her finger and let go.
Working swiftly, I took up a clean slide and laid it over a blood-drop, then drew it quickly away, smearing the blood thinly across the original slide. Again, and a third, and I laid them down to dry.
“That’s all, then, Lizzie,” I told her with a smile. “It will take a bit of preparation before these are ready to look at. When they are, I’ll call you, shall I?”
“Oh . . . no, that’s quite all right, ma’am,” she murmured, sliding off the high stool with a fearful look at the blood-smeared slides. “I dinna need to see.” She set down the discarded cloth, brushed at her apron, and scampered out of the room—forgetting the butter and cream, after all.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I apologized to Roger. “I just thought . . .” I reached into the cupboard, withdrew three small earthenware pots, and uncorked them.
“Not a problem,” he assured me. He watched with fascination as I checked each slide to be sure the blood-smear was dry, then slid a bit of glass into each of the pots.
“All right, then.” Now I could turn my attention to cleaning and dressing his hand—a straightforward-enough process. “Not so bad as I thought,” I murmured, wiping caked blood off his knuckles. “It bled quite a bit, which is good.”
“Aye, if you say so.” He didn’t flinch at all, but carefully kept his face turned away from what I was doing, his attention focused out the window.
“Washes out the wounds,” I explained, dabbing with alcohol. “I needn’t swab so deeply to clean them.”
He drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, then, to distract himself, nodded at the pots where the slides were soaking.
“Speaking of blood, what are you doing with Mistress Mousie’s?”
“Trying something. I don’t know whether it will work or not, but I’ve made up some experimental stains, using extracts from some of the dyeing-plants. If any of them work on blood, I’ll be able to see the red cells clearly under the microscope—and what’s in them.” I spoke with a mixture of hope and tentative excitement.
Trying to duplicate cellular stains with the materials I had at hand was a long shot—but not totally unfeasible. I had the ordinary solvents—alcohol, water,