Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [375]
“There he is!” Lawrence stopped, waiting for me to come up alongside him on the path. He gestured upward, toward a slight, wiry figure, picking its way carefully down the hillside toward us. I squinted at the figure as it wandered through the sheep, who took no apparent notice of his passage.
“Jesus!” I said. “It’s St. Francis of Assisi.”
Lawrence glanced at me in surprise.
“No, neither one. I told you he’s English.” He raised an arm and shouted, “ÁHola! Señor Fogden!”
The gray-robed figure paused suspiciously, one hand twined protectively in the wool of a passing ewe.
“ÀQuien es?”
“Stern!” called Lawrence. “Lawrence Stern! Come along,” he said, and extended a hand to pull me up the steep hillside onto the sheep path above.
The ewe was making determined efforts to escape her protector, which distracted him from our approach. A slender man a bit taller than I, he had a lean face that might have been handsome if not disfigured by a reddish beard that straggled dust-mop-like round the edges of his chin. His long and straying hair had gone to gray in streaks and runnels, and fell forward into his eyes with some frequency. An orange butterfly took wing from his head as we reached him.
“Stern?” he said, brushing back the hair with his free hand and blinking owlishly in the sunlight. “I don’t know any…oh, it’s you!” His thin face brightened. “Why didn’t you say it was the shitworm man; I should have known you at once!”
Stern looked mildly embarrassed at this, and glanced at me apologetically. “I…ah…collected several interesting parasites from the excrement of Mr. Fogden’s sheep, upon the occasion of my last visit,” he explained.
“Horrible great worms!” Father Fogden said, shuddering violently in recollection. “A foot long, some of them, at least!”
“No more than eight inches,” Stern corrected, smiling. He glanced at the nearest sheep, his hand resting on his collecting bag as though in anticipation of further imminent contributions to science. “Was the remedy I suggested effective?”
Father Fogden looked vaguely doubtful, as though trying to remember quite what the remedy had been.
“The turpentine drench,” the naturalist prompted.
“Oh, yes!” The sun broke out on the priest’s lean countenance, and he beamed fondly upon us. “Of course, of course! Yes, it worked splendidly. A few of them died, but the rest were quite cured. Capital, entirely capital!”
Suddenly it seemed to dawn on Father Fogden that he was being less than hospitable.
“But you must come in!” he said. “I was just about to partake of the midday meal; I insist you must join me.” The priest turned to me. “This will be Mrs. Stern, will it?”
Mention of eight-inch intestinal worms had momentarily suppressed my hunger pangs, but at the mention of food, they came gurgling back in full force.
“No, but we should be delighted to partake of your hospitality,” Stern answered politely. “Pray allow me to introduce my companion—a Mrs. Fraser, a countrywoman of yours.”
Fogden’s eyes grew quite round at this. A pale blue, with a tendency to water in bright sun, they fixed wonderingly upon me.
“An Englishwoman?” he said, disbelieving. “Here?” The round eyes took in the mud and salt stains on my crumpled dress, and my general air of disarray. He blinked for a moment, then stepped forward, and with the utmost dignity, bowed low over my hand.
“Your most obedient servant, Madame,” he said. He rose and gestured grandly at the ruin on the hill. “Mi casa es su casa.” He whistled sharply, and a small King Charles cavalier spaniel poked its face inquiringly out of the weeds.
“We have a guest, Ludo,” the priest said, beaming. “Isn’t that nice?” Tucking my hand firmly under one elbow, he took the sheep by its topknot of wool and towed us both toward the Hacienda de la Fuente, leaving Stern to follow.
The reason for the name became clear as we entered the dilapidated courtyard; a tiny cloud of dragonflies hovered like blinking lights over an algae-filled