The Fiery Cross Page 7

  posthaste to Salem. But by the time he returned, six shillings in hand, his property had been seized and sold-to Howard Travers's father-in-law-and his cabin was inhabited by strangers, his wife gone.

  "I kent she'd no go far," he explained. "She'd not leave the bairns."

  And that in fact was where he found her, wrapped in a threadbare quilt and shivering under the big spruce tree on the hill that sheltered the graves of the four MacLennan children, all dead in their first year of life. In spite of his entreaties, Abigail would not go down to the cabin that had been theirs, would seek no aid from those who had dispossessed her. If it was madness from the fever that gripped her, or only stubbornness, he could not tell; she had clung to the branches of the tree with demented strength, crying out the names of her children-and there had died in the night.

  His whisky cup was empty. He set it carefully on the ground by his feet, ignoring Jamie's gesture toward the bottle.

  The Fiery Cross 43

  -They'd given her leave to carry awa what she c ould. She'd a bundle with her, and her grave-claes in it. I ken weel her sitting down the day after we were wed, to spin her winding-sheet. it had wee flowers all along one edge, that she'd made; she was a good hand wi' a needle - "

  He had wrapped Abigail in her embroidered shroud, buried her by the side of their youngest child, and then walked two miles down the road, intending, he thought, to tell the Hobsons what had happened.

  "But I came to the house, and found them all abuzzing like hornets-Hugh Fowles had had a visit from Travers, come for the tax, and no money to pay. Travers grinned like an ape and said it was all one to him-and sure enough, ten days later he came along wi' a paper and three men, and put them oot."

  Hobson had scraped up the money to pay his own taxes, and the Fowleses were crowded in safely enough with the rest of the fiunilybut Joe Hobson was foaming with wrath over the treatment of his son-in-law.

  "He was a-rantin', Joe, bleezin' mad wi' fury. Janet Hobson bid me come and sit, and offered me supper, and there was Joe shoutin' that he'd take the price of the land out of Howard Travers's hide, and Hugh slumped down like a trampled dog, and his wife greetin', and the weans all squealin' for their dinners like a brood o' piglets, and ... well, I thought of telling them, but then. . . He shook his head, as though confused anew.

  Sitting half-forgotten in the chimney-corner, he had been overcome by a strange sort of fatigue, one that made him so tired that his head nodded on his neck, lethargy stealing over him. It was warm, and he was overcome with a sense of unreality. If the crowded confines of the Hobsons' one-roomed cabin were not real, neither was the quiet hillside and its fresh grave beneath the spruce tree.

  He slept under the table, and woke before dawn, to find that the sense of unreality persisted. Everything around him seemed no more than a waking dream. MacLennan himself seemed to have ceased to exist; his body rose, washed itself, and ate, nodded and spoke without his cognizance. None of the outer world existed any longer. And so it was that when Joe Hobson had risen and announced that he and Hugh would go to Hillsborough, there to seek redress from the Court, that Abel MacLennan had found himself marching down the road along with them, nodding and speaking when spoken to, with no more will than a dead man - i " he said "It did come to me, walkin' doon the road, as we were all dea( ,

  dreamily. "Me and Joe and Hugh and the rest. I might sae well be one place as anither; it was only moving 'til the time came to lay my bones beside Abby. I didna mind it."

  When they reached Hillsborough, he had paid no great mind to what Joe intended; only followed, obedient and unthinking. Followed, and walked the muddy streets sparkling with broken glass from shattered windows, seen the torchlight and mobs, heard the shouts and screams-all quite unmoved.

  "It was no, but dead men, a-rattling their bones against one anither," he said with a shrug. He was still for a moment, then turned his face to Jamie, and looked long and earnestly up into his face.

  "Is it so? Are ye dead, too?" One limp, callused hand floated up from the red kerchief, and rested lightly against the bone of Jamie's cheek.

  44 Diana Gabaldon

  Jamie didn't recoil from the touch, but took MacLennan's hand and brought it down again, held tight between his own.

  "No, a cbaraid," he said softly. "Not yet." MacLennan nodded slowly.

  "Aye. Give it time," he said. He pulled his hands free and sat for a moment, smoothing his kerchief. His head kept bobbing, nodding slightly, as though the spring of his neck had stretched too far.

  "Give it time," he repeated. "It's none sae bad." He stood up then, and put the square of red cloth on his head. He turned to me and nodded politely, his eyes vague and troubled.

  "I thank ye for the breakfast, ma'am," he said, and walked away.

  BILIOUS HUMOURS

  BEL MAcLENNAN'S DEPARTURE put an abrupt end to breakfast. Private Ogilvie excused himself with thanks, Jamie and Fergus

  Awent off in search of scythes and astrolabes, and Lizzie, wilting in the absence of Private Ogilvie, declared that she felt unwell and subsided palely into one of the lean-to shelters, fortified with a large cup of tansy and rue decoction.

  Fortunately, Brianna chose to reappear just then, sans Jemmy. She and Roger had breakfasted with Jocasta, she assured me. Jemmy had fallen asleep in Jocasta's arms, and since both parties appeared content with that arrangement, she had left him there, and come back to help me with the morning's clinic.

  "Are you sure you want to help me this morning?" I eyed Bree dubiously. "It's your wedding day, after all. I'm sure Lizzie or maybe Mrs. Martin could-"

  "No, I'll do it," she assured me, swiping a cloth across the seat of the tall stool I used for my morning surgery. "Lizzie's feeling better, but I don't think she's up to festering feet and putrid stomachs." She gave a small shudder, closing her eyes at the memory of the elderly gentleman whose ulcerated heel I had debrided the day before. The pain had caused him to vomit copiously on his tattered breeches, which in turn had caused several of the people waiting for my attention to throw up too, in sympathetic reflex.

  I felt a trifle queasy at the memory myself, but drowned it with a final gulp of bitter coffee.

  "No, I suppose not," I agreed reluctantly. "Still, your gown isn't quite finished, is it? Perhaps you should go-"

  44 It's fine," she assured me. "Phaedre's hemming my dress, and Ulysses is

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  ordering all the servants around up there like a drill sergeant. I'd just be in the way.11

  I gave way without further demur, though I wondered a little at her alacrity. While Bree wasn't squeamish about the exigencies of normal life, like skinning animals and cleaning fish, I knew the proximity of people with disfiguring conditions or obvious illness bothered her, though she did her best to disguise it. It wasn't distaste, I thought, but rather a crippling empathy.

  I lifted the kettle and poured freshly boiled water into a large, half-full jar of distilled alcohol, narrowing my eyes against hot clouds of alcoholic steam.

  It was difficult to see so many people suffering from things that could have been easily treated in a time of antiseptics, antibiotics, and anesthesia-but I had learned detachment in the field hospitals of a time when such medical innovations were not only new but rare, and I knew both the necessity and the value of it.

  I could not help anyone, if my own feelings got in the way. And I must help. It was as simple as that. But Brianna had no such knowledge to use as a shield. Not yet.

  She had finished wiping down the stools, boxes, and other impedimenta for the morning surgery, and straightened up, a small frown between her brows. "Do you remember the woman you saw yesterday? The one with the retarded little boy?"

  "Not something you'd forget," I said, as lightly as possible. "Why? Here, can you deal with this?" I gestured at the folding table I used, which was stubbornly declining to fold up properly, its joints having swollen with the damp.

  Brianna frowned slightly, studying it, th
en struck the offending joint sharply with the side of her hand. It gave way and collapsed obediently at once, recognizing superior force.

  "There." She rubbed the side of her hand absently, still frowning. "You were making a big thing of telling her to try not to have any more children. The little boywas it an inheritable condition, then?"

  "You might say that," I replied dryly. "Congenital syphilis." She looked up, blanching.

  "Syphilis? You're sure?"I nodded, rolling up a length of boiled linen for bandaging. It was still very damp, but no help for it.

  o," I said mildly. "Happens in the best of families, though-and you were asking."

  She snorted heavily

  The mother had come simply to have a gumboil lanced, the little boy clinging to her skirts. He'd had the characteristic "saddle nose," with its pushed-in bridge, as well as a jaw so malformed that I wasn't surprised at his poor nutrition; he could barely chew. I couldn't tell how much of his evident backwardness was due to brain damage and how much to deafness; he appeared to have both, but I hadn't tested their extent-there being exactly nothing I could d to remedy eithrr condition. I had advised the mother to give him pot liquor, which might help with the malnutrition, but there was little else to be done for him, poor mite.

  sort of barrier. A piece of silk or a sponge, soaked with anything from vinegar to brandythough if you have it, tansy oil or oil of cedar is supposed to work the best. I have heard of women in the Indies using half a lemon, but that's obviously not a suitable alternative here."

  She uttered a short laugh.

  "No, I wouldn't think so. I don't think the tansy oil works all that well, either-that's what Marsali was using when she got pregnant with Joan. "

  "Oh, she was using it? I thought perhaps she'd just not bothered once-and once is enough."

  I felt, rather than saw her stiffen, and bit my lip again, this time in chagrin. Once had been enough-we just didn't know which once. She hunched her shoulders, though, then let them fall, deliberately dismissing whatever memories my thoughtless remark had conjured.

  "She said she'd been using it-but she might have forgotten. It doesn't work all the time, though, does it?"

  I slung the bag of surgical linens and dried herbs over my shoulder and picked up the medical chest by the leather strap Jamie had made for it.

  "The only thing that always works is celibacy," I said. "I suppose that isn't a satisfactory option in the present case?"

  She shook her head, her eyes fixed broodingly on a cluster of young men visible through th trees below, taking turns at pitching stones across the creek. "That's what I was afraid of," she said, and bent to pick up the folding table and a pair of stools.

  I looked round the clearing, considering. Anything else? No worry about

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  leaving the campfire, even if Lizzie fell asleep; nothing on the mountainside would burn in this weather; even the kindling and firewood we had stored at

  the end of our lean-to the day before were damp. Something was missing, though ... what? Oh, yes - I put down the box for a moment and knelt to crawl into the lean-to. I dug about in the jumble of quilts, coming out finally with my tiny leather medicine pouch.

  I said a brief prayer to St. Bride and slipped it round my neck and down inside the bodice of my dress. I was so much in the habit of wearing the amulet when I set out to practice medicine that I had almost ceased to feet ridiculous about this small ritual-almost. Bree was watching me, a rather odd look on her face, but she said nothing.

  I didn't, either; merely picked up my things and followed her across the clearing, stepping careUly round the boggiest spots. It wasn't raining now, but the clouds sat on the tops of the trees, promising more at any moment, and wisps of mist rose from fallen logs and dripping bushes.

  Why was Bree worrying about contraception? I wondered. Not that I didn't think it sensible-but why now? Perhaps it was to do with the imminence of her wedding to Roger. Even if they had been living as man and wife for the last several months-and they had-the formality of vows spoken before God and man was enough to bring a new sobriety to even the giddiest of young people. And neither Bree nor Roger was giddy.

  "There is another possibility," I said to the back of her neck, as she led the way down the slippery trail. "I haven't tried it on anyone yet, so I can't say how reliable it may be. Nayawenne-the old Tuscaroran lady who gave me my medicine bag-she said there were 'women's herbs.' Different mixtures for different things-but one plant in particular for that; she said the seeds of it would keep a man's spirit from overwhelming a woman's."

  Bree paused, half-turning as I came up beside her.

  "Is that how the Indians see pregnancy?" One corner of her mouth curled wryly. "The man wins?"

  Ilaughed. "Well, in a way. If the woman's spirit is too strong for the man's, or won't yield to it, she can't conceive. So if a woman wants a child and can't have one, most often the shaman will treat her husband, or both of them, rather than just her."

  She made a small throaty noise, partly amusement-but only partly. "What's the plant-the women's herb?" she asked. "Do you know it?"

  "I'm not positive," I admitted. "Or not sure of the name, I should say. She did show it to me, both the growing plant and the dried seeds, and I'm sure I'd know it again-but it wasn't a plant I knew by an English name. One of the Umbelliferae, though," I added helpfully.

  She gave me an austere look that reminded me once more of Jamie, then turned to the side to let a small stream of Campbell women go by, clattering with empty kettles and pails, each one bobbing or bowing politely to us as they passed on their way down to the creek.

  "Good day to ye, Mistress Fraser," said one, a neat young woman that I recognized as one of Farquard Campbell's younger daughters. "Is your man about? My faither would be glad of a word, he says."

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  "No, he's gone off, I'm afraid." I gestured vaguely; Jamie could be anywhere. "I'll tell him if I see him, though."

  She nodded and went on, each of the women behind her pausing to wish Brianna happiness on her wedding day, their woolen skirts and cloaks brushing small showers of rainwater from the bayberry bushes that lined the path here.

  Brianna accepted their good wishes with gracious politeness, but I saw the small fine that formed between her thick red brows. Something was definitely bothering her.

  "What?" I said bluntly, as soon as the Campbells were out of earshot. "What's what?" she said, startled.

  "What's troubling you?" I asked. "And don't say 'nothing,' because I see there is. Is it to do with Roger? Are you having second thoughts about the wedding?"

  "Not exactly," she replied, looking wary. "I want to marry Roger, I meanthat's all right. It's just ... I just ... thought of something. . . " She trailed off, and a slow flush rose in her cheeks.

  "Oh?" I asked, feeling rather alarmed. "What's that?"

  "Venereal disease," she blurted. "What if I have i0 Not Roger, not him, but-from Stephen Bonnet?"

  Her face was flaming so hotly that I was surprised not to see the raindrops sizzle into steam when they struck her skin. My own face felt cold, my heart tight in my chest. The possibility had occurred to me-vividlyat the time, but I hadn't wanted even to suggest such a thing, if she hadn't thought of it herself. I remembered the weeks of watching her covertly for any hint of malaise-but women often showed no symptoms of early infection. Jemmy's healthy birth had been a relief in more ways than one.

  "Oh," I said softly. I reached out and squeezed her arm. "Don't worry, lovey. You haven't."

  She took a deep breath, and let it out in a pale nfisty cloud, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.

  "You're sure?" she said. "You can tell? I feel all right, but I thoughtwomen don't always have symptoms."

  "They don't," I said, "but men most certainly do. And if Roger had contracted anything nasty from you, I'd have heard about it long since."

  Her face had faded somewhat, but the pinkness came back at that. She co
ughed, mist rising from her breath.

  "Well, that's a relief. So Jemmy's all right? You're sure?"

  "Absolutely," I assured her. I had put drops of silver nitrate-procured at considerable cost and difficulty-in his eyes at birth, just in case, but I was indeed sure. Aside from the lack of any specific signs of illness, Jemmy had an air of robust health about him that made the mere thought of infection incredible. He radiated well-being like a potful of stew.

  "Is that why you asked about contraception?" I asked, waving a greeting as we passed the MacRaes' campsite. "You were worried about having more children, in case ... 11

  "Oh. No. I mean-I hadn't even thought about venereal disease until you mentioned syphilis, and then it just Struck me as a horrible realization-that he

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  might have-" She stopped and cleared her throat. "Er, no. I just wanted to know.')

  A slippery patch of trail put paid to the conversation at that point, but not to my speculations.

  It wasn't that a young bride's mind might not turn lightly to thoughts of contraception-but under the circumstances ... what was it? I wondered. Fear for herself, or for a new baby? Childbirth could be dangerous, of course-and anyone who had seen the attendees at my surgery or heard the women's conversations round the campfires in the evening could be in no doubt as to the dangers to infants and children; it was the rare family that had not lost at least one infant to fever, morbid sore throat, or "the squitters"-uncontrolled diarrhea. Many women had lost three, four, or more babies. I remembered Abel MacLennan's story, and a small shiver ran down my spine.

  Still, Brianna was very healthy, and while we did lack important things like antibiotics and sophisticated medical facilities, I had told her not to underestimate the power of simple hygiene and good nutrition.

  No, I thought, watching the strong curve of her back as she lifted the heavy equipment over an entangling root that hunched across the trail. It wasn't that. She might have reason to be concerned, but she wasn't basically a fearful person.

  Roger? On the face of it, it would seem that the best thing to do was to become pregnant again quickly, with a child that was definitely Roger's. That would certainly help to cement their new marriage. On the other hand ... what if she did? Roger would be more than pleased-but what about Jernmy?

  Roger had sworn a blood oath, taking Jemmy as his own. But human nature was human nature, and while I was sure that Roger would never abandon or neglect Jemmy, it was quite possible that he would feet differentlyand obviously differently-for a child he knew was his. Would Bree risk that?

  On due consideration, I rather thought she was wise to wait-if she could. Give Roger time to feel a close bond with Jemmy, before complicating the family situation with another child. Yes, very sensible-and Bree was an eminently sensible person.

  It wasn't until we had arrived, finally, at the clearing where the morning surgeries were held that another possibility occurred to me.

  "Can we be helpin' ye at all, Missus Fraser?"

  Two of the younger Chisholm boys hurried forward to help, relieving me and Brianna of our heavy loads, and without being told, started in at once to unfold tables, fetch clean water, kindle a fire, and generally make themselves useful. They were no more than eight and ten, and watching them work, I realized afresh that in this time, a lad of twelve or fourteen could be essentially a grown man.

  Brianna knew that, too. She would never leave Jemmy, I knew-not while he needed her. But ... later? What might happen when he left her?

  I opened my chest and began slowly to lay out the necessary supplies for the morning's work: scissors, probe, forceps, alcohol, scalpel, bandages, tooth pliers, suture needles, ointments, salves, washes, purges ...

  Brianna was twenty-three. She might be no more than in her mid-thirties by

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  the time Jem was ffilly independent. And if he no longer needed her care-she and Roger might possibly go back. Back to her own time, to safety-to the interrupted life that had been hers by birth.

  But only if she had no ffirther children, whose helplessness would keep her here.

  "Good morn to ye, ma'am." A short, middle-aged gentleman stood before me, the morning's first patient. He was bristling with a week's worth of whiskers, but noticeably pallid round the gills, with a clammy look and bloodshot eyes so raw with smoke and whisky that his malady was instantly discernible. Hangover was endemic at the morning surgery.

  "I've a wee gripin' in my guts, ma'am," he said, swallowing unhappily. "Would ye have anything like to settle 'em, maybe?"

  "Just the thing," I assured him, reaching for a cup. "Raw egg and a bit of ipecac. Have you a good vomit, and you'll be a new man."

  THE SURGERY was held at the edge of the big clearing at the foot of the hill, where the great fire of the Gathering burned at night. The damp air smelled of soot and the acrid scent of wet ashes, but the blackened patch of earth-some ten feet across, at least-was already disappearing under a crisscross of fresh branches and kindling. They'd have a time starting it tonight, I thought, if the drizzle kept up.

  The gentleman with the hangover disposed of, there was a short lull, and I was able to give my attention to Murray MacLeod, who had set up shop a short