The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [256]
“Tell me, Sassenach,” he said, a moment later. “If someone stood a man before ye, and told ye that if ye were to cut off your finger, the man would live, and if ye did not, he would die—would ye do it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, slightly startled. “If that was the choice, and no doubt about it, and he was a good man… yes, I suppose I would. I wouldn’t like it a bit, though,” I added practically, and his mouth curved in a smile.
“No,” he said. His expression was growing soft and dreamy. “Did ye know,” he said after a moment, “a colonel came to see me, whilst ye were at work wi’ the wounded? Colonel Johnson; Micah Johnson, his name was.”
“No; what did he say?”
His grip on my bottom was beginning to slacken; I put my own hand over his, to hold it in place.
“It was his company—in the fight. Part of Morgan’s, and the rest of the regiment just over the hill, in the path of the British. If the charge had gone through, they’d ha’ lost the company surely, he said, and God knows what might have become o’ the rest.” His soft Highland burr was growing broader, his eyes fixed on my skirt.
“So you saved them,” I said gently. “How many men are there in a company?”
“Fifty,” he said. “Though they wouldna all have been killed, I dinna suppose.” His hand slipped; he caught it and took a fresh grip, chuckling slightly. I could feel his breath through my skirt, warm on my thighs.
“I was thinking it was like the Bible,
aye?
“Yes?” I pressed his hand against the curve of my hip, keeping it in place.
“That bit where Abraham is bargaining wi’ the Lord for the Cities of the Plain. ’Wilt thou not destroy the city,’” he quoted, “’for the sake of fifty just men?’ And then Abraham does Him down, a bit at a time, from fifty to forty, and then to thirty, and twenty and ten.”
His eyes were half-closed, and his voice peaceful and unconcerned.
“I didna have time to inquire into the moral state of any o’ the men in that company. But ye’d think there might be ten just men among them—good men?”
“I’m sure there are.” His hand was heavy, his arm gone nearly limp.
“Or five. Or even one. One would be enough.”
“I’m sure there’s one.”
“The apple-faced laddie that helped ye wi’ the wounded—he’s one?”
“Yes, he’s one.”
He sighed deeply, his eyes nearly shut.
“Tell him I dinna grudge him the finger, then,” he said.
I held his good hand tightly for a minute. He was breathing slowly and deeply, his mouth gone slack in utter relaxation. I rolled him gently onto his back and laid the hand across his chest.
“Bloody man,” I whispered. “I knew you’d make me cry.”
The camp outside lay quiet, in the last moments of slumber before the rising sun should stir the men to movement. I could hear the occasional call of a picket, and the murmur of conversation as two foragers passed close by my tent, bound for the woods to hunt. The campfires outside had burnt to embers, but I had three lanterns, arranged to cast light without shadow.
I laid a thin square of soft pine across my lap as a working surface. Jamie lay facedown on the camp bed, head turned toward me so I could keep an eye on his color. He was solidly asleep; his breath came slow and he didn’t flinch when I pressed the sharp tip of a probe against the back of his hand. All ready.
The hand was swollen, puffy and discolored, the sword wound a thick black line against the sun-gold skin. I closed my eyes for a moment, holding his wrist, counting his pulse. One-and-two-and-three-and-four…
I never prayed consciously when preparing for surgery, but I did look for something—something I could not describe, but always recognized; a certain quietness of soul, the detachment of mind in which I could balance on that knife-edge between ruthlessness and compassion, at once engaged in utmost intimacy with the body under my hands and capable of destroying what I touched in the name of healing.
One-and-two-and-three-and-four…
I realized with a start that my own heartbeat had slowed; the pulse in my fingertip matched that in Jamie’s wrist, beat for beat, slow and strong.