The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [77]
I closed my eyes for a moment, summoning up a wistful vision of this haven of delight, then opened them to reality: a crusted griddle, black with the remnants of scorched oatcake; soggy shoes and frozen feet; damp clothes that chafed with grit and sand; hampers whose abundance had dwindled to a single loaf of bread—well-nibbled by mice—ten apples, and a heel of cheese; three screeching babies; one frazzled young mother with sore breasts and cracked nipples; one expectant bride with a case of incipient nerves; one white-faced serving-maid with menstrual cramps; four slightly inebriated Scotsmen—and one Frenchman in similar condition—who wandered in and out of camp like bears and were not going to be any help whatever in packing up this evening . . . and a deep, clenching ache in my lower belly that gave me the unwelcome news that my own monthly—which had grown thankfully much less frequent than monthly of late—had decided to keep Lizzie’s company.
I gritted my teeth, plucked a cold, damp clout off a clump of brush, and made my way duck-footed down the trail toward the women’s privy trench, thighs pressed together.
The first thing to greet me on my return was the hot stink of scorching metal. I said something very expressive in French—a useful bit of phraseology acquired at L’Hôpital des Anges, where strong language was often the best medical tool available.
Marsali’s mouth fell open. Germain looked at me in admiration and repeated the expression, correctly and with a beautiful Parisian accent.
“Sorry,” I said, looking to Marsali in apology. “Someone’s let the teakettle boil dry.”
“Nay matter, Mother Claire,” she said with a sigh, juggling little Joanie, who’d started to scream again. “It’s no worse than the things his father teaches him a-purpose. Is there a dry cloth?”
I was already hunting urgently for a dry cloth or a pot-lifter with which to grasp the wire handle, but nothing came to hand save soggy diapers and damp stockings. Kettles were hard to come by, though, and I wasn’t sacrificing this one. I wrapped my hand in a fold of my skirt, seized the handle, and jerked the kettle away from the flames. The heat shot through the damp cloth like a bolt of lightning, and I dropped it.
“Merde!” said Germain, in happy echo.
“Yes, quite,” I said, sucking a blistered thumb. The kettle hissed and smoked in the wet leaves, and I kicked at it, rolling it off onto a patch of mud.
“Merde, merde, merde, merde,” sang Germain, with a fair approximation of the tune of “Rose, Rose”—a manifestation of precocious musical feeling that went lamentably unappreciated in the circumstances.
“Do hush, child,” I said.
He didn’t. Jemmy began to screech in unison with Joan, Lizzie—who had had a relapse owing to the reluctant departure of Private Ogilvie—began to moan under her bush, and it started in to hail, small white pellets of ice dancing on the ground and pinging sharply off my scalp. I pulled the soggy mobcap off a branch and clapped it on my head, feeling like an extremely put-upon toad beneath a particularly homely mushroom. All it wanted was warts, I thought.
The hail was short-lived. As the rush and clattering lessened, though, the crunching noise of muddy boots came up the path. Jamie, with Father Kenneth Donahue in tow, crusted hail on their hair and shoulders.
“I’ve brought the good Father for tea,” he said, beaming round the clearing.
“No, you haven’t,” I said, rather ominously. And if he thought I’d forgotten about Stephen Bonnet, he was wrong about that, too.
Turning at the sound of my voice, he jerked in an exaggeration of startled shock at sight of me in my mobcap.
“Is that you, Sassenach?” he asked in mock alarm, pretending to lean forward and peek under the drooping frill of my cap. Owing to the presence of the priest,