Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [57]
Encouraged by the laughter, he went on to describe the new Governor’s clothes—“fine as a laird’s”—his equipage and servant—“one of they Sassenachs as talks like he’s burnt his tongue”—and as much as had been overheard of the new man’s speech.
“He talks sharp and quick, like he’ll know what’s what,” Hayes said, shaking his head dubiously. “But he’s verra young, forbye—he looks scarce more than a wean, though I’d reckon he’s older than his looks.”
“Aye, he’s a bittie fellow, smaller than wee Angus,” Baird chimed in, with a jerk of the head at Angus MacKenzie, who looked down at himself in startlement. Angus had been twelve when he fought beside his father at Culloden. He had spent nearly half his life in Ardsmuir, and in consequence of the poor fare of prison, had never grown much bigger.
“Aye,” Hayes agreed, “but he carries himself well; shoulders square and a ramrod up his arse.”
This gave rise to a burst of laughter and ribald comment, and Hayes gave way to Ogilvie, who knew a long and scurrilous story about the laird of Donibristle and the hogman’s daughter. Hayes left the hearth without resentment, and went—as was the custom—to sit beside Mac Dubh.
Mac Dubh never took his place on the hearth, even when he told them the long stories from the books that he’d read—The Adventures of Roderick Random, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, or everyone’s favorite, Robinson Crusoe. Claiming that he needed the room to accommodate his long legs, Mac Dubh sat always in his same spot in the corner, where everyone might hear him. But the men who left the fire would come, one by one, and sit down on the bench beside him, to give him the warmth that lingered in their clothes.
“Shall ye speak to the new Governor tomorrow, d’ye think, Mac Dubh?” Hayes asked as he sat. “I met Billy Malcolm, coming in from the peat-cutting, and he shouted to me as the rats were grown uncommon bold in their cell just now. Six men bitten this sennight as they slept, and two of them festering.”
Mac Dubh shook his head, and scratched at his chin. He had been allowed a razor before his weekly audiences with Harry Quarry, but it had been five days since the last of these, and his chin was thick with red stubble.
“I canna say, Gavin,” he said. “Quarry did say as he’d tell the new fellow of our arrangement, but the new man might have his own ways, aye? If I’m called to see him, though, I shall be sure to say about the rats. Did Malcolm ask for Morrison to come and see to the festering, though?” The prison had no doctor; Morrison, who had a touch for healing, was permitted by the guards to go from cell to cell to tend the sick or injured, at Mac Dubh’s request.
Hayes shook his head. “He hadna time to say more—they were marching past, aye?”
“Best I send Morrison,” Mac Dubh decided. “He can ask Billy is there aught else amiss there.” There were four main cells where the prisoners were kept in large groups; word passed among them by means of Morrison’s visits and the mingling of men on the work crews that went out daily to haul stone or cut peats on the nearby moor.
Morrison came at once when summoned, pocketing four of the carved rats’ skulls with which the prisoners improvised games of draughts. Mac Dubh groped under the bench where he sat, drawing out the cloth bag he carried when he went to the moor.
“Och, not more o’ the damn thistles,” Morrison protested, seeing Mac Dubh’s grimace as he groped in the bag. “I canna make them eat those things; they all say, do I think them kine, or maybe pigs?”
Mac Dubh gingerly set down a fistful of wilted stalks, and sucked his pricked fingers.
“They’re stubborn as pigs, to be sure,” he remarked. “It’s only milk thistle. How often must I tell ye, Morrison? Take the thistle heads off, and mash the leaves and stems fine, and if they’re too prickly to eat spread on a bannock, then make a tea of them and have them drink it. I’ve yet to see pigs drink tea, tell them.”
Morrison’s lined face cracked in a grin. An elderly