Outlander aka Cross Stitch - Gabaldon Diana (библиотека электронных книг txt) 📗

I spent the latter part of the afternoon in my dispensary. There were few patients to be seen; only a case of persistent eczema, a dislocated thumb, and a kitchen boy who had spilled a pot of hot soup down one leg. Having dispensed ointment of yawroot and blue flag and reset and bound the thumb, I settled down to the task of pounding some very aptly named stoneroot in one of the late Beaton’s smaller mortars.

It was tedious work, but well suited to this sort of lazy afternoon. The weather was fair, and I could see blue shadows lengthening under the elms to the west when I stood on my table to peer out.

Inside, the glass bottles gleamed in orderly ranks, neat stacks of bandages and compresses in the cupboards next to them. The apothecary’s cabinet had been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and now held stores of dried leaves, roots, and fungi, neatly packed in cotton-gauze bags. I took a deep breath of the sharp, spicy odors of my sanctum and let it out in a sigh of contentment.

Then I stopped pounding and set the pestle down. I was contented, I realized with a shock. Despite the myriad uncertainties of life here, despite the unpleasantness of the ill-wish, despite the small, constant ache of missing Frank, I was in fact not unhappy. Quite the contrary.

I felt immediately ashamed and disloyal. How could I bring myself to be happy, when Frank must be demented with worry? Assuming that time was in fact continuing without me – and I couldn’t see why it wouldn’t – I must have gone missing for upwards of four months. I imagined him searching the Scottish countryside, calling the police, waiting for some sign, some word of me. By now, he must nearly have given up hope and be waiting, instead, for word that my body had been found.

I set down the mortar and paced up and down the length of my narrow room, rubbing my hands on my apron in a spasm of guilty sorrow and regret. I should have got away sooner. I should have tried harder to return. But I had, I reminded myself. I had tried repeatedly. And look what had happened.

Yes, look. I was married to a Scottish outlaw, the both of us hunted by a sadistic captain of dragoons, and living with a lot of barbarians, who would as soon kill Jamie as look at him, if they thought him a threat to their precious clan succession. And the worst of it all was that I was happy.

I sat down, staring helplessly at the array of jars and bottles. I had been living day to day since our return to Leoch, deliberately suppressing the memories of my earlier life. Deep down, I knew that I must soon make some kind of decision, but I had delayed, putting off the necessity from day to day and hour to hour, burying my uncertainties in the pleasures of Jamie’s company – and his arms.

There was a sudden bumping and cursing out in the corridor, and I rose hastily and went to the door, just in time to see Jamie himself stumble in, supported by the bowed form of Old Alec McMahon on one side, and the earnest but spindly efforts of one of the stable lads on the other. He sank onto my stool, left foot outstretched, and grimaced unpleasantly at it. The grimace seemed to be more of annoyance than pain, so I knelt to examine the offending appendage with relatively little concern.

“Mild strain,” I said, after a cursory inspection. “What did you do?”

“Fell off,” Jamie said succinctly.

“Off the fence?” I asked, teasing. He glowered.

“No. Off Donas.”

“You were riding that thing?” I asked incredulously. “In that case, you’re lucky to get off with a strained ankle.” I fetched a length of bandage and began to wrap the joint.

“Weel, it wasna sae bad as a’ that,” said Old Alec judiciously. “In fact, lad, ye were doin’ quiet weel wi’ him for a bit.”

“I know I was,” snapped Jamie, gritting his teeth as I pulled the bandage tight. “A bee stung him.”

The bushy brows lifted. “Oh, that was it? Beast acted like he’d been struck wi’ an elf-dart,” he confided to me. “Went straight up in the air on all fours, and came down again, then went stark, staring mad – all over the pen like a bumble-bee in a jar. Yon wee laddie stuck on too,” he said, nodding at Jamie, who invented a new unpleasant expression in response, “until the big yellow fiend went ower the fence.”

“Over the fence? Where is he now?” I asked, standing up and dusting my hands.

“Halfway back to hell, I expect,” said Jamie, putting his foot down and trying his weight gingerly on it. “And welcome to stay there.” Wincing, he sat back.

“I doubt the de’ils got much use for a half-broke stallion,” observed Alec. “Bein’ able to turn himself into a horse when needed.”

“Perhaps that’s who Donas really is,” I suggested, amused.

“I wouldna doubt it,” said Jamie, still smarting, but beginning to recover his usual good humor. “The de’il’s customarily a black stallion, though, is he no?”

“Oh, aye,” said Alec. “A great black stallion, that travels as fast as the thought between a man and a maid.”

He grinned genially at Jamie and rose to go.

“And speakin’ of that,” he said, with a wink at me, “I’ll no expect ye in the stables tomorrow. Keep to your bed, laddie, and, er… rest.”

“Why is it,” I demanded, looking after the crusty old horsemaster, “that everyone seems to assume we’ve no more on our minds than to get into bed with each other?”

Jamie tried his weight on the foot again, bracing himself on the counter.

“For one thing, we’ve been married less than a month,” he observed. “For another-” He looked up and grinned, shaking his head. “I’ve told ye before, Sassenach. Everything ye think shows on your face.”

“Bloody hell,” I said.

Aside from a quick trip to the dispensary to check for emergencies, I spent the next morning ministering to the rather demanding needs of my solitary patient.

“You are supposed to be resting,” I said reprovingly, at one point.

“I am. Well, my ankle is resting, at least. See?”

A long, unstockinged shin thrust up into the air, and a bony, slender foot waggled back and forth. It stopped abruptly in mid-waggle with a muffled “ouch” from its owner. He lowered it and tenderly massaged the still-puffy ankle.

“That’ll teach you,” I said, swinging my own legs out from under the blankets. “Come along now. You’ve been frowsting in bed quite long enough. You need fresh air.”

He sat up, hair falling over his face.

“I thought ye said it was rest I needed.”

“You can rest in the fresh air. Get up. I’m making up the bed.”

Amid complaints about my general unfeelingness and lack of consideration for a gravely injured man, he got dressed and sat long enough for me to bind up the weak ankle before his natural exuberance asserted itself.

“It’s a bit saft out,” he said, with a glance through the casement, where the mild drizzle had just decided to buckle down to it and become a major downpour. “Let’s go up to the roof.”

“The roof? Oh, to be sure. I couldn’t think of a better prescription for a strained ankle than climbing six flights of stairs.”

“Five. Besides, I’ve a stick.” He produced the stick in question, an aged hawthorn club, from behind the door with a triumphant flourish.

“Wherever did you get that?” I inquired, examining it. At closer range, it was even more battered, a three-foot length of chipped hardwood, age-hardened as a diamond.

“Alec lent it me. He uses it on the mules; raps them twixt the eyes wi’ it to make them pay attention.”

“Sounds very effective,” I said, eyeing the scuffed wood. “I must try it sometime. On you.”

We emerged at last in a small sheltered spot, just under the overhang of the slate roof. A low parapet guarded the edge of this small lookout.

“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Despite the gusty rain, the view from the roof was magnificent; we could see the broad silver sweep of the loch and the towering crags beyond, thrusting into the solid grey of the sky like ridged black fists.