New droughtlander homework

[broughps]

This droughtlander is lasting toooooooooooooooooo long. So more homework and since no one came up with ideas you're stuck with mine.

I've always been interested in natural and herbal healing. Not only am I a massage therapist, but I'm also certified in aromatherapy. So with that in mind let's delve into the natural remedies Claire or anyone uses. You can also include any herbal stuff like collecting or talking about herbs. When you put something up please put the book and the chapter so we don't repeat ourselves. I'll go in order, because, me, but you can put any healing/herbal stuff up from any book as you're reading and you can put as long a passage as you'd like. 

So I'll start.

Outlander

Chapter 1

I met Frank at the crossing of the High Street and the Gereside Road and
we turned up it together. He raised his eyebrows at my purchases.

“Vases?” He smiled. “Wonderful. Perhaps now you’ll stop putting
flowers in my books.”

“They aren’t flowers, they’re specimens. And it was you who suggested
I take up botany. To occupy my mind, now that I’ve not got nursing to
do,” I reminded him.

“True.” He nodded good-humoredly. “But I didn’t realize I’d have bits
of greenery dropping out into my lap every time I opened a reference.
What was that horrible crumbly brown stuff you put in Tuscum and
Banks?”

“Groutweed. Good for hemorrhoids.”

“Preparing for my imminent old age, are you? Well, how very
thoughtful of you, Claire.”

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter one

I found Mrs. Baird on a deep bench near the window, sharing a
companionable pint of bitter with an elderly man whom she introduced to
me as Mr. Crook.

“This is the man I tell’t ye about, Mrs. Randall,” she said, eyes bright
with the stimulation of alcohol and company. “The one as knows about
plants of all sorts.

“Mrs. Randall’s verra much interested in the wee plants,” she confided
to her companion, who inclined his head in a combination of politeness
and deafness. “Presses them in books and such.”

“Do ye, indeed?” Mr. Crook asked, one tufted white brow raised in
interest. “I’ve some presses—the real ones, mind—for plants and such.
Had them from my nephew, when he come up from university over his
holiday. He brought them for me, and I’d not the heart to tell him I never
uses such things. Hangin’s what’s wanted for herbs, ye ken, or maybe to
be dried on a frame and put in a bit o’ gauze bag or a jar, but whyever
you’d be after squashing the wee things flat, I’ve no idea.”

“Well, to look at, maybe,” Mrs. Baird interjected kindly. “Mrs.
Randall’s made some lovely bits out of mallow blossoms, and violets,
same as you could put in a frame and hang on the wall, like.”

“Mmmphm.” Mr. Crook’s seamed face seemed to be admitting a
dubious possibility to this suggestion. “Weel, if they’re of any use to ye,
Missus, you can have the presses, and welcome. I didna wish to be
throwing them awa’, but I must say I’ve no use for them.”

I assured Mr. Crook that I would be delighted to make use of the plant
presses, and still more delighted if he would show me where some of the
rarer plants in the area could be found. He eyed me sharply for a moment,
head to one side like an elderly kestrel, but appeared finally to decide that
my interest was genuine, and we fixed it up that I should meet him in the
morning for a tour of the local shrubbery. Frank, I knew, meant to go into
Inverness for the day to consult some records in the town hall there, and I
was pleased to have an excuse not to accompany him. One record was
much like another, so far as I was concerned.

[broughps]

I wonder if Claire thought about how she should thank Frank for pushing her to take up botany.

[Bunny]

I’m gonna let my mean out and say probably not until much later would it cross her mind. I can picture Frank getting annoyed with Claire itching for something useful to do after the war instead of being happy to be “the little woman”. I can see him making the offhand comment, “ why don’t you get a hobby”, with the response being, “like what”, to which he would reply, “I don’t know... ... botany.” And the rest is history.

[broughps]

Maybe he tried to get her interested in genealogy first and when that didn't pan out he came up with botany.

[Bunny]

Good one!!

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter two

Mr. Crook called for me, as arranged, promptly at seven the next
morning.

“So as we’ll catch the dew on the buttercups, eh, lass?” he said,
twinkling with elderly gallantry. He had brought a motorcycle of his own
approximate vintage, on which to transport us into the countryside. The
plant presses were tidily strapped to the sides of this enormous machine,
like bumpers on a tugboat. It was a leisurely ramble through the quiet
countryside, made all the more quiet by contrast with the thunderous roar
of Mr. Crook’s cycle, suddenly throttled into silence. The old man did
indeed know a lot about the local plants, I discovered. Not only where they
were to be found but their medicinal uses, and how to prepare them. I
wished I had brought a notebook to get it all down, but listened intently to
the cracked old voice, and did my best to commit the information to
memory as I stowed our specimens in the heavy plant presses.

We stopped for a packed luncheon near the base of a curious flat-topped
hill. Green as most of its neighbors, with the same rocky juts and crags, it
had something different: a well-worn path leading up one side and
disappearing abruptly behind a granite outcrop.

“What’s up there?” I asked, gesturing with a ham sandwich. “It seems a
difficult place for picnicking.”

“Ah.” Mr. Crook glanced at the hill. “That’s Craigh na Dun, lass. I’d
meant to show ye after our meal.”

“Really? Is there something special about it?”

“Oh, aye,” he answered, but refused to elaborate further, merely saying
that I’d see when I saw.

[Bunny]

Just wondering now if Mr Crook might be related to Mrs Crook, the housekeeper, in the long ago and far away of Lallybroch. And how interesting that he, learned as he is in plants and their uses, should take Claire to Craig na Dun. Fate or happenstance? (Am I being a conspiracy theorist?)

[broughps]

You know I didn't even think of the Crook connection. Hmmm think Mrs. Crook handed down the story of a woman who was an Auld one?

[Bunny]

Why not? Everything’s interconnected in some way or another in the entire story. It makes for interesting speculation. 🤔😉

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 3

Not herbal but Claire's first "healing" in the past.

I shrank back into the shadows near the fireplace, hoping to avoid
notice. The man called Murtagh had untied my hands before leading me in
here. Perhaps I could slip away while they were busy elsewhere. The
men’s attention had shifted to a young man crouched on a stool in the
corner. He had barely looked up through my appearance and interrogation,
but kept his head bent, hand clutching the opposite shoulder, rocking
slightly back and forth in pain.

Dougal gently pushed the clutching hand away. One of the men pulled
back the young man’s plaid, revealing a dirt-smeared linen shirt blotched
with blood. A small man with a thick mustache came up behind the lad
with a single-bladed knife, and holding the shirt at the collar, slit it across
the breast and down the sleeve, so that it fell away from the shoulder.
I gasped, as did several of the men. The shoulder had been wounded;
there was a deep ragged furrow across the top, and blood was running
freely down the young man’s breast. But more shocking was the shoulder
joint itself. A dreadful hump rose on that side, and the arm hung at an
impossible angle.

Dougal grunted. “Mmph. Out o’ joint, poor bugger.” The young man
looked up for the first time. Though drawn with pain and stubbled with red
beard, it was a strong, good-humored face.

“Fell wi’ my hand out, when the musket ball knocked me off my saddle.
I landed with all my weight on the hand, and crunch!, there it went.”

“Crunch is right.” The mustached man, a Scot, and educated, to judge
by his accent, was probing the shoulder, making the lad grimace in pain.

“The wound’s no trouble. The ball went right through, and it’s clean—the
blood’s runnin’ free enough.” The man picked up a wad of grimy cloth
from the table and used it to blot the blood. “I don’t know quite what to do
about the disjointure, though. We’d need a chirurgeon to put it back in
place properly. You canna ride with it that way, can you, Jamie lad?”

Musket ball? I thought blankly. Chirurgeon?

The young man shook his head, white-faced. “Hurts bad enough sitting
still. I couldna manage a horse.” He squeezed his eyes shut and set his
teeth hard in his lower lip.

Murtagh spoke impatiently. “Well, we canna leave him behind noo, can
we? The lobsterbacks are no great shakes trackin’ in the dark, but they’ll
find this place sooner or later, shutters or no. And Jamie can hardly pass
for an innocent cottar, wi’ yon great hole in ’im.”

“Dinna worrit yourself,” Dougal said shortly. “I don’t mean to be
leaving him behind.”

The mustached man sighed. “No help for it, then. We’ll have to try and
force the joint back. Murtagh, you and Rupert hold him; I’ll give it a try.”

I watched in sympathy as he picked up the young man’s arm by wrist
and elbow and began forcing it upward. The angle was quite wrong; it
must be causing agonizing pain. Sweat poured down the young man’s
face, but he made no sound beyond a soft groan. Suddenly he slumped
forward, kept from falling on the floor only by the grip of the men holding
him.

One unstoppered a leather flask and pressed it to his lips. The reek of
the raw spirit reached me where I stood. The young man coughed and
gagged, but swallowed nonetheless, dribbling the amber liquid onto the
remains of his shirt.

“All right for another go, lad?” the bald man asked. “Or maybe Rupert
should have a try,” he suggested, turning to the squat, black-bearded
ruffian.

Rupert, so invited, flexed his hands as though about to toss a caber, and
picked up the young man’s wrist, plainly intending to put the joint back by
main force; an operation, it was clear, which was likely to snap the arm
like a broomstick.

“Don’t you dare to do that!” All thought of escape submerged in
professional outrage, I started forward, oblivious to the startled looks of
the men around me.

“What do you mean?” snapped the bald man, clearly irritated by my
intrusion.

“I mean that you’ll break his arm if you do it like that,” I snapped back.
“Stand out of the way, please.” I elbowed Rupert back and took hold of the
patient’s wrist myself. The patient looked as surprised as the rest, but
didn’t resist. His skin was very warm, but not feverish, I judged.

“You have to get the bone of the upper arm at the proper angle before it
will slip back into its joint,” I said, grunting as I pulled the wrist up and the
elbow in. The young man was sizable; his arm was heavy as lead.

“This is the worst part,” I warned the patient. I cupped the elbow, ready
to whip it upward and in.

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “It canna hurt much worse than it
does. Get on wi’ it.” Sweat was popping out on my own face by now.
Resetting a shoulder joint is hard work at the best of times. Done on a
large man who had gone hours since the dislocation, his muscles now
swollen and pulling on the joint, the job was taking all the strength I had.
The fire was dangerously close; I hoped we wouldn’t both topple in, if the
joint went back with a jerk.

Suddenly the shoulder gave a soft crunching pop! and the joint was back
in place. The patient looked amazed. He put an unbelieving hand up to
explore.

“It doesna hurt anymore!” A broad grin of delighted relief spread across
his face, and the men broke out in exclamations and applause.

“It will.” I was sweating from the exertion, but smugly pleased with the
results. “It will be tender for several days. You mustn’t extend the joint at
all for two or three days; when you do use it again, go very slowly at first.
Stop at once if it begins to hurt, and use warm compresses on it daily.”
I became aware, in the midst of this advice, that while the patient was
listening respectfully, the other men were eyeing me with looks ranging
from wonder to outright suspicion.

“I’m a nurse, you see,” I explained, feeling somehow defensive.

Dougal’s eyes, and Rupert’s as well, dropped to my bosom and fastened
there with a sort of horrified fascination. They exchanged glances, then
Dougal looked back at my face.

“Be that as it may,” he said, raising his brows at me. “For a wetnurse,
you’d seem to have some skill at healing. Can ye stanch the lad’s wound,
well enough for him to sit a horse?”

“I can dress the wound, yes,” I said with considerable asperity.
“Provided you’ve anything to dress it with. But just what do you mean
‘wetnurse’? And why do you suppose I’d want to help you, anyway?”

I was ignored as Dougal turned and spoke in a tongue I dimly
recognized as Gaelic to a woman who cowered in the corner. Surrounded
by the mass of men, I had not noticed her before. She was dressed oddly, I
thought, in a long, ragged skirt and a long-sleeved blouse half-covered by
a sort of bodice or jerkin. Everything was rather on the grubby side,
including her face. Glancing around, though, I could see that the cottage
lacked not only electrification but also indoor plumbing; perhaps there was
some excuse for the dirt.

The woman bobbed a quick curtsy, and scuttling past Rupert and
Murtagh, she began digging in a painted wooden chest by the hearth,
emerging finally with a pile of ratty cloths.

“No, that won’t do,” I said, fingering them gingerly. “The wound needs
to be disinfected first, then bandaged with a clean cloth, if there are no
sterile bandages.”

Eyebrows rose all around. “Disinfected?” said the small man, carefully.

“Yes, indeed,” I said firmly, thinking him a bit simpleminded, in spite of
his educated accent. “All dirt must be removed from the wound and it must
be treated with a compound to discourage germs and promote healing.”

“Such as?”

“Such as iodine,” I said. Seeing no comprehension on the faces before
me, I tried again. “Merthiolate? Dilute carbolic?” I suggested. “Or perhaps
even just alcohol?” Looks of relief. At last I had found a word they
appeared to recognize. Murtagh thrust the leather flask into my hands. I
sighed with impatience. I knew the Highlands were primitive, but this was
nearly unbelievable.

“Look,” I said, as patiently as I could. “Why don’t you just take him
down into the town? It can’t be far, and I’m sure there’s a doctor there who
could see to him.”

<snip>

“Besides,” Dougal added, interrupting, “she may be useful on the way;
she seems to know a bit about doctoring. But we’ve no time for that now.
I’m afraid ye’ll have to go without bein’ ‘disinfected,’ Jamie,” he said,
clapping the younger man on the back. “Can ye ride one-handed?”

“Aye.”

“Good lad. Here,” he said, tossing the greasy rag at me. “Bind up his
wound, quickly. We’ll be leaving directly. Do you two get the horses,” he
said, turning to weasel-face and the fat one called Rupert.

I turned the rag around distastefully.

“I can’t use this,” I complained. “It’s filthy.”

Without seeing him move, I found the big man gripping my shoulder,
his dark eyes an inch from mine. “Do it,” he said.

Freeing me with a push, he strode to the door and disappeared after his
two henchmen. Feeling more than a little shaken, I turned to the task of
bandaging the bullet wound as best I could. The thought of using the grimy
neckrag was something my medical training wouldn’t let me contemplate.
I tried to bury my confusion and terror in the task of trying to find
something more suitable, and, after a quick and futile search through the
pile of rags, finally settled on strips of rayon torn from the hem of my slip.
While hardly sterile, it was by far the cleanest material at hand.

The linen of my patient’s shirt was old and worn, but still surprisingly
tough. With a bit of a struggle, I ripped the rest of the sleeve open and used
it to improvise a sling. I stepped back to survey the results of my
impromptu field dressing, and backed straight into the big man, who had
come in quietly to watch.

He looked approvingly at my handiwork. “Good job, lass. Come on,
we’re ready.”

[broughps]

This is when Jamie started to want Claire. Isn't there a name for when a patient falls for their doctor?

[Bunny]

I think there is, but can’t remember what it’s called...what good am I?🤔

[broughps]

And really Claire fell in love with Jamie because of Stockholm Syndrome.

[Bunny]

No...don’t say that. It makes it sound as if they wouldn’t have fallen in love if she hadn’t fixed his arm and he hadn’t been made to keep track of her. I like to think, whatever the circumstances, they would have ended up together because that was what they were meant to do. There has to be some reward for no hot showers.

[broughps]

Had it really been Stockholm syndrome she would have snapped out of it once she went back to Frank. Don't worry all is well.

[Bunny]

😅👏🏻😉

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 3

“Stop! Help!” I yelled. “He’s going over!” I remembered my last
unrehearsed descent and had no inclination to repeat it.

Dark shapes swirled and crowded around us, with a confused muttering
of voices. Jamie slid off headfirst like a sack of stones, luckily landing in
someone’s arms. The rest of the men were off their horses and had him
laid in a field by the time I had scrambled down.

“He’s breathin’,” said one.

“Well, how very helpful,” I snapped, groping frantically for a pulse in
the blackness. I found one at last, rapid but fairly strong. Putting a hand on
his chest and an ear to his mouth, I could feel a regular rise and fall, with
less of that gasping note. I straightened up.

“I think he’s just fainted,” I said. “Put a saddle-bag under his feet and if
there’s water, bring me some.” I was surprised to find that my orders were
instantly obeyed. Apparently the young man was important to them. He
groaned and opened his eyes, black holes in the starlight. In the faint, light
his face looked like a skull, white skin stretched tight over the angled
bones around the orbits.

“I’m all right,” he said, trying to sit up. “Just a bit dizzy is all.” I put a
hand on his chest and pushed him flat.

“Lie still,” I ordered. I carried out a rapid inspection by touch, then rose
on my knees and turned to a looming shape that I deduced from its size to
be the leader, Dougal.

“The gunshot wound has been bleeding again, and the idiot’s been
knifed as well. I think it’s not serious, but he’s lost quite a lot of blood. His
shirt is soaked through, but I don’t know how much of it is his. He needs
rest and quiet; we should camp here at least until morning.” The shape
made a negative motion.

“Nay. We’re farther than the garrison will venture, but there’s still the
Watch to be mindful of. We’ve a good fifteen miles yet to go.” The
featureless head tilted back, gauging the movement of the stars.

“Five hours, at the least, and more likely seven. We can stay long
enough for ye to stop the bleeding and dress the wound again; no much
more than that.”

I set to work, muttering to myself, while Dougal, with a soft word,
dispatched one of the other shadows to stand guard with the horses by the
road. The other men relaxed for the moment, drinking from flasks and
chatting in low voices. The ferret-faced Murtagh helped me, tearing strips
of linen, fetching more water, and lifting the patient up to have the
dressing tied on, Jamie being strictly forbidden to move himself, despite
his grumbling that he was perfectly all right.

“You are not all right, and it’s no wonder,” I snapped, venting my fear
and irritation. “What sort of idiot gets himself knifed and doesn’t even stop
to take care of it? Couldn’t you tell how badly you were bleeding? You’re
lucky you’re not dead, tearing around the countryside all night, brawling
and fighting and throwing yourself off horses…hold still, you bloody
fool.” The rayon and linen strips I was working with were irritatingly
elusive in the dark. They slipped away, eluding my grasp, like fish darting
away into the depths with a mocking flash of white bellies. Despite the
chill, sweat sprang out on my neck. I finally finished tying one end and
reached for another, which persisted in slithering away behind the patient’s
back. “Come back here, you…oh, you goddamned bloody bastard!” Jamie
had moved and the original end had come untied.

There was a moment of shocked silence. “Christ,” said the fat man
named Rupert. “I’ve ne’er heard a woman use such language in me life.”

“Then ye’ve ne’er met my auntie Grisel,” said another voice, to
laughter.

“Your husband should tan ye, woman,” said an austere voice from the
blackness under a tree. “St. Paul says ‘Let a woman be silent, and—’ ”

“You can mind your own bloody business,” I snarled, sweat dripping
behind my ears, “and so can St. Paul.” I wiped my forehead with my
sleeve. “Turn him to the left. And if you,” addressing my patient, “move
so much as one single muscle while I’m tying this bandage, I’ll throttle
you.”

“Och, aye,” he answered meekly.

I pulled too hard on the last bandage, and the entire dressing scooted off.

“Goddamn it all to hell!” I bellowed, striking my hand on the ground in
frustration. There was a moment of shocked silence, then, as I fumbled in
the dark for the loose ends of the bandages, further comment on my
unwomanly language.

“Perhaps we should send her to Ste. Anne, Dougal,” offered one of the
blank-faced figures squatting by the road. “I’ve not heard Jamie swear
once since we left the coast, and he used to have a mouth on him would
put a sailor to shame. Four months in a monastery must have had some
effect. You do not even take the name of the Lord in vain anymore, do ye,
lad?”

“You wouldna do so either, if you’d been made to do penance for it by
lying for three hours at midnight on the stone floor of a chapel in February,
wearing nothin’ but your shirt,” answered my patient.

The men all laughed, as he continued. “The penance was only for two
hours, but it took another to get myself up off the floor afterward; I
thought my…er, I thought I’d frozen to the flags, but it turned out just to
be stiffness.”

Apparently he was feeling better. I smiled, despite myself, but spoke
firmly nonetheless. “You be quiet,” I said, “or I’ll hurt you.” He gingerly
touched the dressing, and I slapped his hand away.

“Oh, threats, is it?” he asked impudently. “And after I shared my drink
with ye too!”

The flask completed the circle of men. Kneeling down next to me,
Dougal tilted it carefully for the patient to drink. The pungent, burnt smell
of very raw whisky floated up, and I put a restraining hand on the flask.

“No more spirits,” I said. “He needs tea, or at worst, water. Not
alcohol.”

Dougal pulled the flask from my hand, completely disregarding me, and
poured a sizable slug of the hot-smelling liquid down the throat of my
patient, making him cough. Waiting only long enough for the man on the
ground to catch his breath, he reapplied the flask.

“Stop that!” I reached for the whisky again. “Do you want him so drunk
he can’t stand up?”

I was rudely elbowed aside.

“Feisty wee bitch, is she no?” said my patient, sounding amused.
“Tend to your business, woman,” Dougal ordered. “We’ve a good way
to go yet tonight, and he’ll need whatever strength the drink can give him.”

The instant the bandages were tied, the patient tried to sit up. I pushed
him flat and put a knee on his chest to keep him there. “You are not to
move,” I said fiercely. I grabbed the hem of Dougal’s kilt and jerked it
roughly, urging him back down on his knees next to me.

“Look at that,” I ordered, in my best ward-sister voice. I plopped the
sopping mass of the discarded shirt into his hand. He dropped it with an
exclamation of disgust.

I took his hand and put it on the patient’s shoulder. “And look there.
He’s had a blade of some kind right through the trapezius muscle.”

“A bayonet,” put in the patient helpfully.

“A bayonet!” I exclaimed. “And why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged, and stopped short with a mild grunt of pain. “I felt it go in,
but I couldna tell how bad it was; it didna hurt that much.”

“Is it hurting now?”

“It is,” he said, shortly.

“Good,” I said, completely provoked. “You deserve it. Maybe that will
teach you to go haring round the countryside kidnapping young women
and k-killing people, and.…” I felt myself ridiculously close to tears and
stopped, fighting for control.

Dougal was growing impatient with this conversation. “Well, can ye
keep one foot on each side of the horse, man?”

“He can’t go anywhere!” I protested indignantly. “He ought to be in
hospital! Certainly he can’t—”

My protests, as usual, went completely ignored.

“Can ye ride?” Dougal repeated.

“Aye, if ye’ll take the lassie off my chest and fetch me a clean shirt.”

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 4

Mistress FitzGibbons was surprised. “Why, Jamie can fend for himself.
He knows where to get food and someone will find him a bed.”

“But he’s hurt. He was shot yesterday and stabbed last night. I bandaged
the wound for riding, but I didn’t have time to clean or dress it properly. I
must care for it now, before it gets infected.”

“Infected?”

“Yes, that is, I mean, inflamed, you know, with pus and swelling and
fever.”

“Oh, aye, I know what ye mean. But do ye mean to say as ye know what
to do for that? Are ye a charmer then? A Beaton?”

“Something like that.” I had no notion what a Beaton might be, nor any
wish to go into my medical qualifications, standing out in the chilly drizzle
that had set in. Mistress FitzGibbons seemed of a like mind, for she called
back Jamie, who was making off in the opposite direction, and taking him
also by an arm, towed us both into the castle.

After a long trip through cold narrow corridors, dimly lit by slitted
windows, we came to a fairly large room furnished with a bed, a couple of
stools, and most importantly, a fire.

I ignored my patient temporarily in favor of thawing my hands. Mistress
FitzGibbons, presumably immune to cold, sat Jamie on a stool by the fire
and gently got the remains of his tattered shirt off, replacing it with a warm
quilt from the bed. She clucked at the shoulder, which was bruised and
swollen, and poked at my clumsy dressing.

I turned from the fire. “I think it will need to be soaked off, and then the
wound cleansed with a solution for…for preventing fevers.”

Mistress FitzGibbons would have made an admirable nurse. “What will
ye be needin’?” she asked simply.

I thought hard. What in the name of God had people used for preventing
infection before the advent of antibiotics? And of those limited
compounds, which might be available to me in a primitive Scottish castle
just after dawn?

“Garlic!” I said in triumph. “Garlic, and if you have it, witch hazel. Also
I’ll need several clean rags and a kettle of water for boiling.”

“Aye, well, I think we can manage that; perhaps a bit of comfrey as
well. What about a bit o’ boneset tea, or chamomile? T’lad looks as though
it’s been a long night.”

The young man was in fact swaying with weariness, too tired to protest
our discussing him as though he were an inanimate object.

Mrs. FitzGibbons was soon back, with an apron full of garlic bulbs,
gauze bags of dried herbs, and torn strips of old linen. A small black iron
kettle hung from one meaty arm, and she held a large demijohn of water as
though it were so much goosedown.

“Now then, m’ dear, what would ye have me do?” she said cheerfully. I
set her to boiling water and peeling the cloves of garlic while I inspected
the contents of the herb packets. There was the witch hazel I had asked for,
boneset and comfrey for tea, and something I tentatively identified as
cherry bark.

“Painkiller,” I muttered happily, recollecting Mr. Crook explaining the
uses of the barks and herbs we found. Good, we’d need that.

I threw several cloves of peeled garlic into the boiling water with some
of the witch hazel, then added the cloth strips to the mixture. The boneset,
comfrey, and cherry bark were steeping in a small pan of hot water set by
the fire. The preparations had steadied me a bit. If I didn’t know for certain
where I was, or why I was there, at least I knew what to do for the next
quarter of an hour.

“Thank you…ah, Mrs. FitzGibbons,” I said respectfully. “I can manage
now, if you have things to do.” The giant dame laughed, breasts heaving.
“Ah, lass! There aye be things for me to do! I’ll send a bit o’ broth up
for ye. Do ye call oot if ye need anything else.” She waddled to the door
with surprising speed and disappeared on her rounds.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 6

“Och, now, there’s always somethin’, always somethin’ that can be
done,” she said comfortably. “That eye, now, lad, let’s have a look at that.”

Jamie sat obligingly on the edge of the well, turning his face toward her.
Pudgy fingers pressed gently on the purple swelling, leaving white
depressions that faded quickly.

“Still bleedin’ under the skin. Leeches will help, then.” She lifted the
cover from the bowl, revealing several small dark sluglike objects, an inch
or two long, covered with a disagreeable-looking liquid. Scooping out two
of them, she pressed one to the flesh just under the brow bone and the
other just below the eye.

“See,” she explained to me, “once a bruise is set, like, leeches do ye no
good. But where ye ha’ a swellin’ like this, as is still comin’ up, that means
the blood is flowin’ under the skin, and leeches can pull it out.”

I watched, fascinated and disgusted. “Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked Jamie.
He shook his head, making the leeches bounce obscenely.

“No. Feels a bit cold, is all.” Mrs. Fitz was busy with her jars and
bottles.

“Too many folk misuses leeches,” she instructed me. “They’re verra
helpful sometimes, but ye must understand how. When ye use ’em on an
old bruise, they just take healthy blood, and it does the bruise no good.
Also ye must be careful not to use too many at a time; they’ll weaken
someone as is verra ill or has lost blood already.”

I listened respectfully, absorbing all this information, though I sincerely
hoped I would never be asked to make use of it.

“Now, lad, rinse your mouth wi’ this; ’twill cleanse the cuts and ease the
pain. Willow-bark tea,” she explained in an aside to me, “wi’ a bit of
ground orrisroot.” I nodded; I recalled vaguely from a long-ago botany
lecture hearing that willow bark in fact contained salicylic acid, the active
ingredient in aspirin.

“Won’t the willow bark increase the chance of bleeding?” I asked. Mrs.
Fitz nodded approvingly.

“Aye. It do sometimes. That’s why ye follow it wi’ a good handful of
St. John’s wort soaked in vinegar; that stops bleedin’, if it’s gathered under
a full moon and ground up well.” Jamie obediently swilled his mouth with
the astringent solution, eyes watering at the sting of the aromatic vinegar.

The leeches were fully engorged by now, swollen to four times their
original size. The dark wrinkled skins were now stretched and shiny; they
looked like rounded, polished stones. One leech dropped suddenly off,
bouncing to the ground at my feet. Mrs. Fitz scooped it up deftly, bending
easily despite her bulk, and dropped it back in the bowl. Grasping the other
leech delicately just behind the jaws, she pulled gently, making the head
stretch.

“Ye don’t want to pull too hard, lass,” she said. “Sometimes they burst.”

I shuddered involuntarily at the idea. “But if they’re nearly full, sometimes
they’ll come off easy. If they don’t, just leave ’em be and they’ll fall off by
themselves.” The leech did, in fact, let go easily, leaving a trickle of blood
where it had been attached. I blotted the tiny wound with the corner of a
towel dipped in the vinegar solution. To my surprise, the leeches had
worked; the swelling was substantially reduced, and the eye was at least
partially open, though the lid was still puffy. Mrs. Fitz examined it
critically and decided against the use of another leech.

“Ye’ll be a sight tomorrow, lad, and no mistake,” she said, shaking her
head, “but at least ye’ll be able to see oot o’ that eye. What ye want now is
a wee bit o’ raw meat on it, and a drop o’ broth wi’ ale in it, for
strengthenin’ purposes. Come along to the kitchen in a bit, and I’ll find
some for ye.” She scooped up her tray, pausing for a moment.

“What ye did was kindly meant, lad. Laoghaire is my granddaughter, ye
ken; I’ll thank ye for her. Though she had better thank ye herself, if she’s
any manners at all.” She patted Jamie’s cheek, and padded heavily off.

I examined him carefully; the archaic medical treatment had been
surprisingly effective. The eye was still somewhat swollen, but only
slightly discolored, and the cut through the lip was now a clean, bloodless
line, only slightly darker than the surrounding tissue.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Fine.” I must have looked askance at this, because he smiled, still
careful of his mouth. “It’s only bruises, ye know. I’ll have to thank ye
again, it seems; this makes three times in three days you’ve doctored me.
Ye’ll be thinking I’m fair clumsy.”

I touched a purple mark on his jaw. “Not clumsy. A little reckless,
perhaps.” A flutter of movement at the courtyard entrance caught my eye;
a flash of yellow and blue. The girl named Laoghaire hung back shyly,
seeing me.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 6

“It will take a while yet before they’re back. Would ye care for a look at
the herb gardens? It would seem ye’ve some knowledge of plants, and if
you’ve a mind to, ye might lend a hand there in your spare moments.”

The herb garden, valuable repository of healing and flavors that it was,
was cradled in an inner courtyard, large enough to allow for sun, but
sheltered from spring winds, with its own wellhead. Rosemary bushes
bordered the garden to the west, chamomile to the south, and a row of
amaranth marked the north border, with the castle wall itself forming the
eastern edge, an additional shelter from the prevailing winds. I correctly
identified the green spikes of late crocus and soft-leaved French sorrel
springing out of the rich dark earth. Mrs. Fitz pointed out foxglove,
purslane, and betony, along with a few I did not recognize.

Late spring was planting time. The basket on Mrs. Fitz’s arm carried a
profusion of garlic cloves, the source of the summer’s crop. The plump
dame handed me the basket, along with a digging stick for planting.
Apparently I had lazed about the castle long enough; until Colum found
some use for me, Mrs. Fitz could always find work for an idle hand.

“Here, m’dear. Do ye set ’em here along the south side, between the
thyme and foxglove.” She showed me how to divide the heads into
individual buds without disturbing the tough casing, then how to plant
them. It was simple enough, just poke each clove into the ground, blunt
end down, buried about an inch and a half below the surface. She got up,
dusting her voluminous skirts.

“Keep back a few heads,” she advised me. “Divide ’em and plant the
buds single, one here and one there, all round the garden. Garlic keeps the
wee bugs awa’ from the other plants. Onions and yarrow will do the same.
And pinch the dead marigold heads, but keep them, they’re useful.”

Numerous marigolds were scattered throughout the garden, bursting into
golden flower. Just then the small lad she had sent in search of Jamie came
up, out of breath from the run. He reported that the patient refused to leave
his work.

“He says,” panted the boy, “as ’e doesna hurt bad enough to need
doctorin’, but thank ye for yer consairn.” Mrs. Fitz shrugged at this not
altogether reassuring message.

“Weel, if he won’t come, he won’t. Ye might go out to the paddock near
noontide, though, lass, if ye’ve a mind to. He may not stop to be doctored,
but he’ll stop for food, if I ken young men. Young Alec here will come
back for ye at noontide and guide ye to the paddock.” Leaving me to plant
the rest of the garlic, Mrs. Fitz sailed away like a galleon, young Alec
bobbing in her wake.

I worked contentedly through the morning, planting garlic, pinching
back dead flower heads, digging out weeds and carrying on the gardener’s
never-ending battle against snails, slugs, and similar pests. Here, though,
the battle was waged bare-handed, with no assistance from chemical
antipest compounds. I was so absorbed in my work that I didn’t notice the
reappearance of young Alec until he coughed politely to attract my
attention. Not one to waste words, he waited barely long enough for me to
rise and dust my skirt before vanishing through the courtyard gate.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 7

The surgery of the late Beaton proved to be in a remote corner of the
castle, tucked out of sight behind the kitchens. It was in close proximity to
nothing save the graveyard, in which its late proprietor now rested. In the
outer wall of the castle, the narrow, dark room boasted only one of the tiny
slit windows, set high in the wall so that a flat plane of sunlight knifed
through the air, separating the darkness of the high vaulted ceiling from
the deeper gloom of the floor below.

Peering past Colum into the dim recesses of the room, I made out a tall
cabinet, equipped with dozens of tiny drawers, each with a label in
curlicue script. Jars, boxes, and vials of all shapes and sizes were neatly
stacked on the shelves above a counter where the late Beaton evidently had
been in the habit of mixing medicines, judging from the residue of stains
and a crusted mortar that rested there.

Colum went ahead of me into the room. Shimmering motes disturbed by
his entry swirled upward into the bar of sunlight like dust raised from the
breaking of a tomb. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes grow used to
the dimness, then walked forward slowly, looking from side to side. I
thought perhaps it was the first time he had ever been in this room.

Watching his halting progress, as he traversed the narrow room, I said,
“You know, massage can help a bit. With the pain, I mean.” I caught a
flash from the grey eyes, and wished for a moment that I hadn’t spoken,
but the spark disappeared almost at once, replaced by his usual expression
of courteous attention.

“It needs to be done forcefully,” I said, “at the base of the spine,
especially.”

“I know,” he said. “Angus Mhor does it for me, at night.” He paused,
fingering one of the vials. “It would seem you do know a bit about healing,
then.”

“A bit.” I was cautious, hoping he didn’t mean to test me by asking what
the assorted medicaments were used for. The label on the vial he was
holding said PURLES OVIS. Anyone’s guess what that was. Luckily, he put
the vial back, and drew a finger gingerly through the dust on a large chest
near the wall.

“Been some time since anyone’s been here,” he said. “I’ll have Mrs.
Fitz send some of her wee lassies along to clean up a bit, shall I?”

I opened a cupboard door and coughed at the resulting cloud of dust.

“Perhaps you’d better,” I agreed. There was a book on the lower shelf of
the cupboard, a fat volume bound in blue leather. Lifting it, I discovered a
smaller book beneath, this one bound cheaply in black cloth, much worn
along the edges.

This second book proved to be Beaton’s daily log book, in which he had
tidily recorded the names of his patients, details of their ailments, and the
course of treatment prescribed. A methodical man, I thought with
approval. One entry read: “2nd February, A.D. 1741. Sarah Graham
MacKenzie, injury to thumb by reason of catching the appendage on edge
of spinning reel. Application of boiled pennyroyal, followed by poultice
of: one part each yarrow, St. John’s-wort, ground slaters, and mouse-ear,
mixed in a base of fine clay.” Slaters? Mouse-ear? Some of the herbs on
the shelves, no doubt.

<snip>

I wandered up and down the narrow little room, looking at everything.
Likely most of it was rubbish, but there might be a few useful things to be
salvaged. I pulled out one of the tiny drawers in the apothecary’s chest,
letting loose a gust of camphor. Well, that was useful, right enough. I
pushed the drawer in again, and rubbed my dusty fingers on my skirt.
Perhaps I should wait until Mrs. Fitz’s merry maids had had a chance to
clean the place before I continued my investigations.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 7

Leaving the picnic basket in the kitchens, I returned to the late Beaton’s
surgery, now dustless and pristine after a visitation by Mrs. Fitz’s
energetic assistants. Even the dozens of glass vials in the cupboard
gleamed in the dim light from the window.

The cupboard seemed a good place to start, with an inventory of the
herbs and medicaments already on hand. I had spent a few moments the
night before, before sleep overcame me, thumbing through the blue
leather-bound book I had taken from the surgery. This proved to be The
Physician’s Guide and Handbook, a listing of recipes for the treatment of
assorted symptoms and diseases, the ingredients for which were apparently
displayed before me.

The book was divided into several sections: “Centauries, Vomitories,
and Electuaries,” “Troches and Lodochs,” “Assorted Plasters and Their
Virtus,” “Decoctions and Theriacs,” and a quite extensive section
ominously headed with the single word “Purges.”

Reading through a few of the recipes, the reason for the late Davie
Beaton’s lack of success with his patients became apparent. “For
headache,” read one entry, “take ye one ball of horse dunge, this to be
carefully dried, pounded to powder, and the whole drunk, stirred into hot
ale.” “For convulsions in children, five leeches to be applied behind the
ear.” And a few pages later, “decoctions made of the roots of celandine,
turmeric, and juice of 200 slaters cannot but be of great service in a case of
jaundice.” I closed the book, marveling at the large number of the late
doctor’s patients who, according to his meticulous log, had not only
survived the treatment meted out to them but actually recovered from their
original ailments.

There was a large brown glass jar in the front containing several
suspicious-looking balls, and in view of Beaton’s recipes, I had a good
idea what it might be. Turning it around, I triumphantly read the handlettered
label: DUNGE OF HORSES. Reflecting that such a substance likely
didn’t improve much with keeping, I gingerly set the jar aside without
opening it.

Subsequent investigation proved PURLES OVIS to be a latinate version of a
similar substance, this time from sheep. MOUSE-EAR also proved to be
animal in nature, rather than herbal; I pushed aside the vial of tiny pinkish
dried ears with a small shudder.

I had been wondering about the “slaters,” spelt variously as “slatters,”
“sclaters,” and “slatears,” which seemed to be an important ingredient in a
number of medicines, so I was pleased to see a clear cork-stoppered vial
with this name on the label. The vial was about half-full of what appeared
to be small grey pills. These were no more than a quarter-inch in diameter,
and so perfectly round that I marveled at Beaton’s dispensing skill. I
brought the vial up close to my face, wondering at its lightness. Then I saw
the fine striations across each “pill” and the microscopic legs, folded into
the central crease. I hastily set the vial down, wiping my hand on my
apron, and made another entry in the mental list I had been compiling. For
“slaters,” read “woodlice.”

There were a number of more or less harmless substances in Beaton’s
jars, as well as several containing dried herbs or extractions that might
actually be helpful. I found some of the orrisroot powder and aromatic
vinegar that Mrs. Fitz had used to treat Jamie MacTavish’s injuries. Also
angelica, wormwood, rosemary, and something labeled STINKING ARAG. I
opened this one cautiously, but it proved to be nothing more than the
tender tips of fir branches, and a pleasant balsamic fragrance floated out of
the unsealed bottle. I left the bottle open and set it on the table to perfume
the air in the dark little room as I went on with my inventory.

I discarded jars of dried snails; OIL OF EARTHWORMS—which appeared to
be exactly that; VINUM MILLEPEDATUM—millipedes, these crushed to pieces
and soaked in wine; POWDER OF EYGYPTIANE MUMMIE—an indeterminate looking
dust, whose origin I thought more likely a silty stream bank than a
pharaoh’s tomb; PIGEONS BLOOD, ant eggs, a number of dried toads
painstakingly packed in moss, and HUMAN SKULL, POWDERED. Whose? I
wondered.

It took most of the afternoon to finish my inspections of the cupboard
and multidrawered cabinet. When I had finished, there was a great heap of
discarded bottles, boxes, and flasks set outside the door of the surgery for
disposal, and a much smaller collection of possibly useful items stowed
back into the cupboard.

I had considered a large packet of cobwebs for some time, hesitating
between the piles. Both Beaton’s Guide and my own dim memories of folk
medicine held that spider’s web was efficacious in dressing wounds. While
my own inclination was to consider such usage unhygienic in the extreme,
my experience with linen bandages by the roadside had shown me the
desirability of having something with adhesive as well as absorbent
properties for dressings. At last, I set the cobwebs back in the cupboard,
resolving to see whether there might be a way of sterilizing them. Not
boiling, I thought. Maybe steam would cleanse them without destroying
the stickiness?

I rubbed my hands against my apron, considering. I had inventoried
almost everything now—except the wooden chest against the wall. I flung
back the lid, and recoiled at once from the stench that gusted out.

The chest was the repository of the surgical side of Beaton’s practice.
Within were a number of sinister-looking saws, knives, chisels, and other
tools looking more suited to building construction than to use on delicate
human tissues. The stench apparently derived from the fact that Davie
Beaton had seen no particular benefit to cleaning his instruments between
uses. I grimaced in distaste at the sight of the dark stains on some of the
blades, and slammed shut the lid.

I dragged the chest toward the door, intending to tell Mrs. Fitz that the
instruments, once safely boiled, should be distributed to the castle
carpenter, if there were such a personage.

A stir behind alerted me, in time to avoid crashing into the person who
had just come in. I turned to see two young men, one supporting the other,
who was hopping on one foot. The lame foot was bound up in an untidy
bundle of rags, stained with fresh blood.

I glanced around, then gestured at the chest, for lack of anything else.
“Sit down,” I said. Apparently the new physician of Castle Leoch was now
in practice.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 9

It was on one of the fruit-picking expeditions to the orchard that I first
met Geillis Duncan. Finding a small patch of Ascaria beneath the roots of
an alder, I was hunting for more. The scarlet caps grew in tiny clumps,
only four or five mushrooms in a group, but there were several clumps
scattered through the long grass in this part of the orchard. The voices of
the women picking fruit grew fainter as I worked my way toward the edge
of the orchard, stooping or dropping on hands and knees to gather the
fragile stalks.

“Those kind are poison,” said a voice from behind me. I straightened up
from the patch of Ascaria I had been bending over, thumping my head
smartly on a branch of the pine they were growing under.

As my vision cleared, I could see that the peals of laughter were coming
from a tall young woman, perhaps a few years older than myself, fair of
hair and skin, with the loveliest green eyes I had ever seen.

“I am sorry to be laughing at you,” she said, dimpling as she stepped
down into the hollow where I stood. “I could not help it.”

“I imagine I looked funny,” I said rather ungraciously, rubbing the sore
spot on top of my head. “And thank you for the warning, but I know those
mushrooms are poisonous.”

“Och, you know? And who is it you’re planning to do away with, then?
Your husband, perhaps? Tell me if it works, and I’ll try it on mine.” Her
smile was infectious, and I found myself smiling back.

I explained that though the raw mushroom caps were indeed poisonous,
you could prepare a powdered preparation from the dried fungi that was
very efficacious in stopping bleeding when applied topically. Or so Mrs.
Fitz said; I was more inclined to trust her than Davie Beaton’s Physician’s
Guide.

“Fancy that!” she said, still smiling. “And did you know that these”—
she stooped and came up with a handful of tiny blue flowers with heartshaped
leaves—“will start bleeding?”

“No,” I said, startled. “Why would anyone want to start bleeding?”
She looked at me with an expression of exasperated patience. “To get
rid of a child ye don’t want, I mean. It brings on your flux, but only if ye
use it early. Too late, and it can kill you as well as the child.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” I remarked, still stung by having
appeared stupid.

“A bit. The girls in the village come to me now and again for such
things, and sometimes the married women too. They say I’m a witch,” she
said, widening her brilliant eyes in feigned astonishment. She grinned.
“But my husband’s the procurator fiscal for the district, so they don’t say it
too loud.”

“Now the young lad ye brought with ye,” she went on, nodding in
approval, “there’s one that’s had a few love-philtres bought on his behalf.
Is he yours?”

“Mine? Who? You mean, er, Jamie?” I was startled.

The young woman looked amused. She sat down on a log, twirling a
lock of fair hair idly around her index finger.

“Och, aye. There’s quite a few would settle for a fellow wi’ eyes and
hair like that, no matter the price on his head or whether he’s any money.
Their fathers may think differently, o’ course.

“Now, me,” she went on, looking off into the distance, “I’m a practical
sort. I married a man with a fair house, a bit o’ money put away, and a
good position. As for hair, he hasn’t any, and as for eyes, I never noticed,
but he doesna trouble me much.” She held out the basket she carried for
my inspection. Four bulbous roots lay in the bottom.

“Mallow root,” she explained. “My husband suffers from a chill on the
stomach now and again. Farts like an ox.”

I thought it best to stop this line of conversation before things got out of
hand. “I haven’t introduced myself,” I said, extending a hand to help her
up from the log. “My name is Claire. Claire Beauchamp.”

The hand that took mine was slender, with long, tapering white fingers,
though I noticed the tips were stained, probably with the juices of the
plants and berries resting alongside the mallow roots in her basket.

“I know who ye are,” she said. “The village has been humming with talk
of ye, since ye came to the castle. My name is Geillis, Geillis Duncan.”
She peered into my basket. “If it’s balgan-buachrach you’re looking for, I
can show you where they grow best.”

I accepted her offer, and we wandered for some time through the small
glens near the orchard, poking under rotted logs and crawling around the
rim of the sparkling tarns, where the tiny toadstools grew in profusion.
Geillis was very knowledgeable about the local plants and their medicinal
uses, though she suggested a few usages I thought questionable, to say the
least. I thought it very unlikely, for instance, that bloodwort would be
effective in making warts grow on a rival’s nose, and I strongly doubted
whether wood betony was useful in transforming toads into pigeons. She
made these explanations with a mischievous glance that suggested she was
testing my own knowledge, or perhaps the local suspicion of witchcraft.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 9

I turned, eyes watering, to see Dougal MacKenzie looming through the
clouds of oakwood smoke.

“Supervising the butchering as well as the physicking, are ye now,
mistress?” he asked mockingly. “Soon ye’ll have the whole castle under
your thumb, and Mrs. Fitz will be seeking employment elsewhere.”

“I have no desire to have anything to do with your filthy castle,” I
snapped, wiping my streaming eyes and coming away with charcoal
streaks on my handkerchief. “All I want is to get out of here, as fast as
possible.”

He inclined his head courteously, still grinning. “Well, I might be in a
position to gratify that wish, mistress,” he said. “At least temporarily.”

I dropped the handkerchief and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He coughed and waved a hand at the smoke, now drifting in his
direction. He drew me outside the shed and turned in the direction of the
stables.

“You were saying yesterday to Colum that ye needed betony and some
odd bits of herbs?”

“Yes, to make up some medicines for the people with food poisoning.
What of it?” I demanded, still suspicious.

He shrugged good-naturedly. “Only that I’m going down to the smith’s
in the village, taking three horses to be shod. The fiscal’s wife is
something of an herb-woman, and has stocks to hand. Doubtless she has
the simples that you’re needing. And if it please ye, lady, you’re welcome
to ride one of the horses down wi’ me to the village.”

“The fiscal’s wife? Mrs. Duncan?” I immediately felt happier. The
prospect of escaping the castle altogether, even if only for a short time,
was irresistible.

I mopped my face hurriedly and tucked the soiled kerchief in my belt.

“Let’s go,” I said.

<snip>

Geilie greeted us with delight, pleased to have company on such a
dreary day.

“How splendid!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting an excuse to go
through the stillroom and sort out some things. Anne!”

A short, middle-aged serving woman with a face like a winter apple
popped out of a door I hadn’t noticed, concealed as it was in the bend of
the chimney.

“Take Mistress Claire up to the stillroom,” Geilie ordered, “and then go
and fetch us a bucket of spring water. From the spring, mind, not the well
in the square!” She turned to Dougal. “I’ve the tonic put by that I promised
your brother. If you’ll come out to the kitchen with me for a moment?”

I followed the serving woman’s pumpkin-shaped rear up a set of narrow
wooden stairs, emerging unexpectedly into a long, airy loft. Unlike the rest
of the house, this room was furnished with casement windows, shut now
against the damp, but still providing a great deal more light than had been
available in the fashionably gloomy parlor downstairs.

It was clear that Geilie knew her business as an herbalist. The room was
equipped with long drying frames netted with gauze, hooks above the
small fireplace for heat-drying, and open shelves along the walls, drilled
with holes to allow for air circulation. The air was thick with the delicious,
spicy scent of drying basil, rosemary, and lavender. A surprisingly modern
long counter ran along one side of the room, displaying a remarkable
assortment of mortars, pestles, mixing bowls, and spoons, all immaculately
clean.

It was some time before Geilie appeared, flushed from climbing the
stairs, but smiling in anticipation of a long afternoon of herb-pounding and
gossip.

It began to rain lightly, drops spattering the long casements, but a small
fire was burning on the stillroom hearth, and it was very cozy. I enjoyed
Geilie’s company immensely; she had a wry-tongued, cynical viewpoint
that was a refreshing contrast to the sweet, shy clanswomen at the castle,
and clearly she had been well educated, for a woman in a small village.

<snip>

“Anything to oblige a friend,” she said, rolling her eyes. She scanned
her shelves and selected a bottle of greenish stuff, labeled, in fine cursive
script, EXTRACT OF PEPPERMINT.

“I’ll go and dose Arthur, and whilst I’m about it, I’ll see if aught can be
done for the lad. It may be too late, mind,” she warned. “And if that poxy
priest’s got a hand in, he’ll want the stiffest sentence he can get. Still, I’ll
try. You keep after the pounding; rosemary takes forever.”

I took up the pestle as she left, and pounded and ground automatically,
paying little heed to the results. The shut window blocked the sound both
of the rain and the crowd below; the two blended in a soft, pattering
susurrus of menace. Like any schoolchild, I had read Dickens. And earlier
authors, as well, with their descriptions of the pitiless justice of these
times, meted out to all illdoers, regardless of age or circumstance. But to
read, from a cozy distance of one or two hundred years, accounts of child
hangings and judicial mutilation, was a far different thing than to sit
quietly pounding herbs a few feet above such an occurrence.

<snip>

It seemed forever before the door opened and Geilie stepped in, looking
cool and unperturbed as usual, a small stick of charcoal in her hand.

“We’ll need to filter it after it’s boiled,” she remarked, as though going
on with our previous conversation. “I think we’ll run it through charcoal in
muslin; that’s best.”

<snip>

“Wait a bit,” she said to me. “Since you’ve a big, strong lad like yon to
see ye home, I’ve a chest of dried marsh cabbage and other simples as I’ve
promised to Mrs. FitzGibbons up at the Castle. Perhaps Mr. MacTavish
would be so kind?”

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 24

The morning was spent alone in the garden and fields with my basket
and digging stick. I was running short of some of the most popular herbs.
Generally the village people went to Geillis Duncan for help, but there had
been several patients from the village turning up of late in my dispensary,
and the traffic in nostrums had been heavy. Maybe her husband’s illness
was keeping her too busy to care for her regular customers.

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.

[Bunny]

Before all this time travel kurfuffle happened, do we ever get a sense that Claire is content in her life after the war? I would think before the war, she would be happy as her new life being a married woman began. Afterwards, after the war and when she and Frank reunite, I got the feeling that she was restless. Is that just me, or has anyone else noticed that...

[lyn 💚 🍀 💚]

No
she would of been bored silly.after her adventure with the war. She got to see what life outside the home was like. . .. at least in Boston she had Bree to occupy her time...

I think she would of been a happy lil housewife if the war and time travel never happened. She wouldn't of known any different .. well until they failed to get pregnant!!! Why was it always the woman's fault if they couldn't get pregnant? ?

[broughps]

Claire might have been content for a short while after war. She and Frank getting used to each other - sort of like a new marriage all over again. But I think that as Lyn says she would have grown discontent fairly quickly especially if Frank put pressure on her to get pregnant and nothing happening in that area because of him. Claire was useful to Uncle Lamb, but she's never really been useful to Frank other than as housekeeper (and did she even do that or did they have a char woman? Can't remember). Other than talking about his precious family tree I doubt he talked to her about his work. I'm very willing to bet Uncle Lamb talked over his finds with Claire. Claire was window dressing for Frank and he didn't value her mind. That is what would have lead ultimately to her discontent. She would have wanted to be useful and mentally engaged and not Frank's personal Barbie Doll.

[lyn 💚 🍀 💚]

If it wasn't uncle lamb claire probably wouldn't of married frank... if I remember correctly. Frank was helping lamb with something and that's how they met.

[broughps]

Frank wanted Uncle Lamb's help with some text iirc and went to wherever Uncle Lamb was at the time. That's when Frank and Claire met.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 24

We took a different way down, crossing the roof to an outer stairway
that led down to the kitchen gardens, where I wanted to pull a bit of
borage, if the downpour would let me. We sheltered under the wall of the
Castle, one of the jutting window ledges diverting the rain above.

“What do ye do wi’ borage, Sassenach?” Jamie asked with interest,
looking out at the straggly vines and plants, beaten to the earth by the rain.
“When it’s green, nothing. First you dry it, and then—”

I was interrupted by a terrific noise of barking and shouting, coming
from outside the garden wall. I raced through the downpour toward the
wall, followed more slowly by Jamie, limping.

<snip>

After lunch, I sent my patient back to bed to rest—alone, this time, in spite
of his protestations—and went down to the surgery. The heavy rain
seemed to have made business slack; people tended to stay safely inside,
rather than running over their feet with ploughshares or falling off roofs.

I passed the time pleasantly enough, bringing the records in Davie
Beaton’s book up to date. Just as I finished, though, a visitor darkened my
door.

He literally darkened it, his bulk filling it from side to side. Squinting in
the semidarkness, I made out the form of Alec MacMahon, swathed in an
extraordinary get-up of coats, shawls, and odd bits of horse-blanket.
He advanced with a slowness that reminded me of Colum’s first visit to
the surgery with me, and gave me a clue to his problem.

“Rheumatism, is it?” I asked with sympathy, as he subsided stiffly into
my single chair with a stifled groan.

“Aye. The damp settles in my bones,” he said. “Aught to be done about
it?” He laid his huge, gnarled hands on the table, letting the fingers relax.
The hands opened slowly, like a night-blooming flower, to show the
callused palms within. I picked up one of the knotted appendages and
turned it gently to and fro, stretching the fingers and massaging the horny
palm. The seamed old face above the hand contorted for a moment as I did
it, but then relaxed as the first twinges passed.

“Like wood,” I said. “A good slug of whisky and a deep massage is the
best I can recommend. Tansy tea will do only so much.”

He laughed, shawls slipping off his shoulder.

“Whisky, eh? I had my doubts, lassie, but I see ye’ve the makings of a
fine physician.”

I reached into the back of my medicine cupboard and pulled out the
anonymous brown bottle that held my supply from the Leoch distillery. I
plunked it on the table before him, with a horn cup.

“Drink up,” I said, “then get stripped off as far as you think decent and
lie on the table. I’ll make up the fire so it will be warm enough.”

The blue eye surveyed the bottle with appreciation, and a crooked hand
reached slowly for the neck.

“Best have a nip yourself, lassie,” he advised. “It’ll be a big job.”

He groaned, with a cross between pain and contentment, as I leaned
hard on his left shoulder to loosen it, then lifted from underneath and
rotated the whole quarter of his body.

“My wife used to iron my back for me,” he remarked, “for the lumbago.
But this is even better. Ye’ve a good strong pair of hands, lassie. Make a
good stable-lad, ye would.”

“I’ll assume that’s a compliment,” I said dryly, pouring more of the
heated oil-and-tallow mixture into my palm and spreading it over the
broad white expanse of his back. There was a sharp line of demarcation
between the weathered, mottled brown skin of his arms, where the rolledup
sleeves of his shirt stopped, and the milk-white skin of his shoulders
and back.

“Well, you were a fine, fair laddie at one time,” I remarked. “The skin
of your back’s as white as mine.”

A deep chuckle shook the flesh under my hands.

“Never know now, would ye? Aye, Ellen MacKenzie once saw me wi’
my sark off, birthin’ a foal, and told me it looked like the good Lord had
put the wrong head to my body—should have had a bag of milk-pudding
on my shoulders, instead of a face from the altar-piece.”

I gathered he was referring to the rood screen in the chapel, which
featured a number of extremely unattractive demons, engaged in torturing
sinners.

“Ellen MacKenzie sounds as though she were rather free with her
opinions,” I observed. I was more than slightly curious about Jamie’s
mother. From the small things he said now and then, I had some picture of
his father Brian, but he had never mentioned his mother, and I knew
nothing about her, other than that she had died young, in childbed.

“Oh, she had a tongue on her, did Ellen, and a mind of her own to go
wi’ it.” Untying the garters of his trews, I tucked them up out of the way
and began operations on the muscular calves of his legs. “But enough
sweetness with it that no one minded much, other than her brothers. And
she wasna one to pay much heed to Colum or Dougal.”

<snip>

“You talk as though you knew them well,” I said. Finishing my
ministrations, I wiped the slippery ointment off my hands with a towel.

“Oh, a bit,” Alec said, drowsy with warmth. The lid drooped over his
single eye, and the lines of his old face had relaxed from the expression of
mild discomfort that normally made him look so fierce.

“I kent Ellen weel, of course. Then Brian I met years later, when he
brought the lad to stay—we got on. A good man wi’ a horse.” His voice
trailed off, and the lid fell shut.

I drew a blanket up over the old man’s prostrate form, and tiptoed away,
leaving him dreaming by the fire.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 24

He drained the mug and set it down. “But, no,” he said, wiping his
mouth, “in this case, I didna feel that family duty required quite that much
of me. I went to the Duke’s rooms, because you told me to, but that was
all.”

“And ye came out again wi’ yer arse-hole unstretched?” Rupert sounded
skeptical.

Jamie grinned. “Aye, I did. Ye see, directly I heard about it, I went to
Mrs. Fitz, and told her I was in desperate need of a dose of syrup of figs.
When she gave it to me, I saw where she put the bottle, and I came back
quiet a bit later, and drank the whole lot.”

The room rocked with laughter, including Mrs. Fitz, who turned so red
in the face I thought she might have a seizure. She rose ceremoniously
from her place, waddled round the table and cuffed Jamie good-naturedly
on the ear.

“So that’s what became of my good physick, ye young wretch!” Hands
on her hips, she wagged her head, making the green ear-bobbles wink like
dragonflies. “The best lot I ever made too!”

“Oh, it was most effective,” he assured her, laughing up at the massive
dame.

“I should think so! When I think what that much physick must have
done to your innards, lad, I hope it was worth it to ye. Ye canna have been
much good to yourself for days after.”

He shook his head, still laughing.

“I wasn’t, but then, I wasna much good for what His Grace had in mind,
either. He did not seem to mind at all when I begged leave to remove
myself from his presence. But I knew I couldna do it twice, so as soon as
the cramps eased up, I got a horse from the stables and lit out. It took a
long time to get home, since I had to stop every ten minutes or so, but I
made it by supper next day.”

Dougal beckoned for a new jug of ale, which he passed down the board
hand-to-hand to Jamie.

“Aye, your father sent word he thought perhaps you’d learned enough of
castle life for the present,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I thought there was a
tone to his letter I did not quite understand at the time.”

“Weel, I hope ye’ve laid up a new batch of fig syrup, Mrs. Fitz,” Rupert
interrupted, poking her familiarly in the ribs. “His Grace is like to be here
in a day or two. Or are ye counting on your new wife to guard ye this time,
Jamie?” He leered at me. “From all accounts, ye may need to guard her. I
hear the Duke’s servant does not share His Grace’s preferences, though
he’s every bit as active.”

Jamie pushed back the bench and rose from the table, handing me out.
He put an arm around my shoulders and smiled back at Rupert.

“Well, then, I suppose the two of us will just have to fight it out back-toback.”
Rupert’s eyes flew open in horrified dismay.

“Back to back!?” he exclaimed. “I knew we’d forgot to tell ye
something before your wedding, lad! No wonder you’ve not got her with
child yet!”

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 24

"I came to bring Mrs. Fitz some saffron from Spain; she was wanting it
against the Duke’s coming.”

“More spices?” I said, beginning to recover my good humor. “If the man
eats half the things she’s fixing for him, they’ll need to roll him home.”

“They could do that now. He’s a wee round ball of a fellow, I’ve heard.”

Dismissing the Duke and his physique, she asked whether I’d like to join
her for an expedition to the nearby foothills.

“I’m needing a bit of moss,” she explained. She waved her long,
boneless hands gracefully to and fro. “Makes a wonderful lotion for the
hands, boiled in milk with a bit of sheep’s wool.”

I cast a look up at my slit window, where the dust motes were going
mad in the golden light. A faint scent of ripe fruit and fresh-cut hay floated
on the breeze.

“Why not?”

Waiting as I gathered my baskets and bottles together, Geilie strolled
about my surgery, picking things up and putting them down at random.
She stopped at a small table and picked up the object that lay there,
frowning.

“What’s this?”

I stopped what I was doing, and came to stand beside her. She was
holding a small bundle of dried plants, tied with three twisted threads;
black, white, and red.

“Jamie says it’s an ill-wish.”

“He’s right. Where did ye come to get it?”

I told her about the finding of the small bundle in my bed.

“I went and found it under the window next day, where Jamie threw it. I
meant to bring it round to your house and ask if you knew anything about
it, but I forgot.”

She stood tapping a fingernail thoughtfully against her front teeth,
shaking her head.

“No, I canna say that I do. But there might be a way of finding out who
left it for ye.”

“Really?”

“Aye. Come to my house in the morning tomorrow, and I’ll tell ye
then.”

Refusing to say more, she whirled about in a swirl of green cloak,
leaving me to follow as I would.

She led me well up into the foothills, galloping when there was road
enough to do so, walking when there wasn’t. An hour’s ride from the
village, she stopped near a small brook, overhung by willows.

We forded the brook and wandered up into the foothills, gathering such
late summer plants as still lingered, together with the ripening berries of
early autumn and the thick yellow shelf fungus that sprouted from the
trunks of trees in the small shady glens.

Geilie’s figure disappeared into the bracken above me, as I paused to
scrape a bit of aspen bark into my basket. The globules of dried sap on the
papery bark looked like frozen drops of blood, the deep crimson refulgent
with trapped sunlight.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 25

Jamie disappeared for a few minutes. He came back with a handful of
dark green oblate leaves, chewing something. He spat a glob of macerated
green into the palm of his hand, stuffed another wad of leaves into his
mouth and turned me away from him. He rubbed the chewed leaves gently
over my back, and the stinging eased considerably.

“What is that?” I asked, making an effort to control myself. I was still
shaky and snuffling, but the helpless tears were beginning to ebb.

“Watercress,” he answered, voice slightly muffled by the leaves in his
mouth. He spat them out and applied them to my back. “You’re no the
only one knows a bit about grass-cures, Sassenach,” he said, a bit clearer.
“How—how does it taste?” I asked, gulping back the sobs.

“Fair nasty,” he replied laconically. He finished his application and laid
the plaid softly back across my shoulders.

“It won’t—” he began, then hesitated, “I mean, the cuts are not deep. I
—I think you’ll no be…marked.” He spoke gruffly, but his touch was very
gentle, and reduced me to tears once more.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, dabbling my nose on a corner of the plaid. “I—
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I can’t stop
crying.”

He shrugged. “I dinna suppose anyone’s tried to hurt ye on purpose
before, Sassenach,” he said. “It’s likely the shock of that, so much as the
pain.” He paused, picking up a plaid-end.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 26

“Hard to miss, is it no?” Ian answered with a grin, and we both laughed.
“Makes her frachetty,” he explained, “not that I’d blame her. But it would
take a braver man than me to cross words wi’ a woman in her ninth
month.” He leaned back, stretching his wooden leg out in front of him.

“Lost it at Daumier with Fergus nic Leodhas,” he explained. “Grape
shot. Aches a wee bit toward the end of the day.” He rubbed the flesh just
above the leather cuff that attached the peg to his stump.

“Have you tried rubbing it with Balm of Gilead?” I asked. “Waterpepper
or stewed rue might help too.”

“I’ve not tried the water-pepper,” he answered, interested. “I’ll ask
Jenny does she know how to make it.”

“Oh, I’d be glad to make it for you,” I said, liking him. I looked toward
the house again. “If we stay long enough,” I added doubtfully. We chatted
inconsequentially for a little, both listening with one ear to the
confrontation going on beyond the window, until Ian hitched forward,
carefully settling his artificial limb under him before rising.

“I imagine we should go in now. If either of them stops shouting long
enough to hear the other, they’ll be hurting each other’s feelings.”

“I hope that’s all they hurt.”

Ian chuckled. “Oh, I dinna think Jamie would strike her. He’s used to
forbearance in the face of provocation. As for Jenny, she might slap his
face, but that’s all.”

“She already did that.”

“Weel, the guns are locked up, and all the knives are in the kitchen,
except what Jamie’s wearing. And I don’t suppose he’ll let her close
enough to get his dirk away from him. Nay, they’re safe enough.” He
paused at the door. “Now, as for you and me…” He winked solemnly.
“That’s a different matter.”

[Bunny]

It amazed me how Ian took to Claire immediately, while Jenny took a bit of time to warm up. Two strong women finding a way to exist in the same space?

[broughps]

 I wonder if it was over protectiveness on Jenny's part for Jamie or not getting too attached right away because a. she knew Jamie and Claire couldn't stay long or b. life was fragile back then and if Claire got pregnant and died it would just be one more person for Jenny to lose. Might have been some jealousy too. Jenny had had Jamie's affections for all of his life and now this interloper had come in and stolen his heart.

[Bunny]

She does act like his mother, sometimes. Wonder how Ellen would have reacted to Jamie’s choice of wife....and now am wondering, had she been alive, would have Ellen have interfered like Jenny did in the L’heery debacle? I’d like to think she would have found another way other than what amounted to an unsuitable marriage. And by unsuitable, I mean that L’heery got sold a romantic bill of goods thinking she’s getting her heart’s desire and Jamie’s going into the arrangement for something to do to get his mind off of all he’s lost. Not fair to either party. But then we wouldn’t have our story, so...never mind!

[broughps]

Well Ellen was a rebel so I have no doubt that she would have liked Claire. Especially if she saw Claire giving Jamie a hard time. I doubt Ellen was a passive wife. Pretty sure she gave as good as she got.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 28

I gradually found my own place in the running of the estate. As Jenny
could no longer manage the long walk to the tenants’ cottages, I took to
visiting them myself, accompanied sometimes by a stable lad, sometimes
by Jamie or Ian. I took food and medicines with me, treated the sick as
best I could, and made suggestions as to the improvement of health and
hygiene, which were received with varying degrees of grace.

At Lallybroch itself, I poked about the house and grounds, making
myself useful wherever I could, mostly in the gardens. Besides the lovely
little ornamental garden, the manor had a small herb garden and an
immense kitchen garden or kailyard that supplied turnips, cabbages, and
vegetable marrows.

Jamie was everywhere; in the study with the account books, in the fields
with the tenants, in the horse barn with Ian, making up for lost time. There
was something more than duty or interest in it, too, I thought. We would
have to leave soon; he wanted to set things running in a path that would
continue while he was gone, until he—until we—could return for good.

<snip>

It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue
you could drown in it. We walked slowly so that I could keep an eye out
for late-blooming eglantine and teasel heads, chatting casually.

“It’s Quarter Day next week,” Jamie remarked. “Will your new gown be
ready then?”

“I expect so. Why, is it an occasion?”

He smiled down at me, taking the basket while I stooped to pull up a
stalk of tansy.

“Oh, in a way. Nothing like Colum’s great affairs, to be sure, but all the
Lallybroch tenants will come to pay their rents—and their respects to the
new Lady Lallybroch.”

“I expect they’ll be surprised you’ve married an Englishwoman.”

“I reckon there are a few fathers might be disappointed at that; I’d
courted a lass or two hereabouts before I got arrested and taken to Fort
William.”

“Sorry you didn’t wed a local girl?” I asked coquettishly.

“If ye think I’m going to say ‘yes,’ and you standin’ there holding a
pruning knife,” he remarked, “you’ve less opinion of my good sense than I
thought.”

I dropped the pruning knife, which I’d taken to dig with, stretched my
arms out, and stood waiting. When he released me at last, I stooped to pick
up the knife again, saying teasingly, “I always wondered how it was you
stayed a virgin so long. Are the girls in Lallybroch all plain, then?”

<snip>

“Ye’ll be the new lady, o’ course. I’m Mrs. MacNab—Grannie
MacNab, they call me, along o’ my daughters-in-law all bein’ Mrs.
MacNabs as weel.” She reached out a skinny hand and pulled my basket
toward her, peering into it.

“Mallow root—ah, that’s good for cough. But ye dinna want to use that
one, lassie.” She poked at a small brownish tuber. “Looks like lily root, but
it isna that.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Adder’s-tongue. Eat that one, lassie, and ye’ll be rollin’ round the room
wi’ your heels behind yer head.” She plucked the tuber from the basket
and threw it into the pond with a splash. She pulled the basket onto her lap
and pawed expertly through the remaining plants, while I watched with a
mixture of amusement and irritation. At last, satisfied, she handed it back.

“Weel, you’re none sae foolish, for a Sassenach lassie,” she remarked.
“Ye ken betony from lamb’s-quarters, at least.” She cast a glance toward
the pond, where Jamie’s head appeared briefly, sleek as a seal, before
disappearing once again beneath the millhouse. “I see his lairdship didna
wed ye for your face alone.”

“Thank you,” I said, choosing to construe this as a compliment. The old
lady’s eyes, sharp as needles, were fastened on my midsection.

“Not wi’ child yet?” she demanded. “Raspberry leaves, that’s the thing.
Steep a handful wi’ rosehips and drink it when the moon’s waxing, from
the quarter to the full. Then when it wanes from the full to the half, take a
bit o’ barberry to purge your womb.”

“Oh,” I said, “well—”

<snip>

“Raspberry leaves,” she said, laying a confiding hand on my knee.
“Mark me, lassie, raspberry leaves will do it. And if not, come to see me,
and I’ll make ye a bittie drink o’ coneflower and marrow seed, wi’ a raw
egg beaten up in it. That’ll draw yer man’s seed straight up into the womb,
ye ken, and you’ll be swellin’ like a pumpkin by Easter.”

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 30

Whatever rift Jenny’s revelations had caused between her and Ian, it
seemed to have healed. We sat for a short time after dinner in the parlor
next evening, Ian and Jamie talking over the farm’s business in the corner,
accompanied by a decanter of elderberry wine, while Jenny relaxed at last
with her swollen ankles propped on a hassock. I tried to write down some
of the receipts she had tossed over her shoulder at me as we whizzed
through the day’s work, consulting her for details as I scribbled.

TO TREAT CARBUNCLES, I headed one sheet.
Three iron nails, to be soaked for one week in sour ale. Add one
handful of cedarwood shavings, allow to set. When shavings have
sunk to the bottom, mixture is ready. Apply three times daily,
beginning on the first day of a quarter moon.

Chapter 31

“What is—it isn’t, is it? Jamie, why on earth are you carrying a dried
mole’s foot in your sporran?”

“Against rheumatism, of course.” He snatched the object from under my
nose and stuffed it back in the badger skin.

“Oh, of course,” I agreed, surveying him with interest. His face was
mildly flushed with embarrassment. “It must work; you don’t creak
anywhere.” I picked a small Bible out of the remaining rubble and
thumbed through it, while he stowed away the rest of his valuable
equipment.

<snip>

“I brought your wee bits of plant and such as well,” he said, with a jerk
of the head at the window. “Out in the yard, in my saddlebags.”

“You’ve brought my medicine box? That’s wonderful!” I was delighted.
Some of the medicinal plants were rare, and had taken no little trouble to
find and prepare properly.

“But how did you manage?” I asked. Once I had recovered from the
horror of the witchcraft trial, I often wondered how the occupants of the
Castle had taken my sudden arrest and escape. “I hope you didn’t have any
difficulty.”

“Och, no.” He took another healthy bite, but waited until it had made its
leisurely way down his throat before replying further.

“Mrs. Fitz had them put away, like, packed up in a box already. I went
to her at the first, ye ken, for I wasna sure what reception I’d get.”

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 36

Lady Annabelle had hung back during my examination, watching
interestedly. When I set the hand down, she stepped forward and opened
the small chest of medical supplies.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting the boneset, and perhaps the cherry bark. I
don’t know…” She eyed Jamie doubtfully. “Leeches, do you think?” Her
well-kept hand hovered over a small lidded jar filled with murky liquid.

I shuddered and shook my head. “No, I don’t think so; not just now.
What I could really use…do you by chance have any sort of opiate?” I
sank to my knees beside her to pore over the contents of the box.

“Oh, yes!” Her hand went unerringly to a small green flask. “Flowers of
laudanum,” she read from the label. “Will that do?”

“Perfect.” I accepted the flask gratefully.

“All right, then,” I said briskly to Jamie, pouring a small amount of the
odorous liquid into a glass, “you’ll need to sit up just long enough to
swallow this. Then you’ll go to sleep and stay that way for a good long
time.” In fact, I had some doubts as to the advisability of administering
laudanum on top of such a quantity of whisky, but the alternative—
reconstructing that hand while he was conscious—was unthinkable. I
tipped the bottle to pour a bit more.

Jamie’s good hand on my arm stopped me.

“I don’t want drugs,” he said firmly. “Just perhaps a wee drop more of
whisky”—he hesitated, tongue touching the bitten lip—“and maybe
something to bite down on.”

Sir Marcus, hearing this, crossed to the lovely glowing Sheraton desk in
the corner and began to rummage. He returned in a moment with a small
piece of well-worn leather. Looking more closely, I could see the dozens
of overlapping semicircular indentations in the thick leather—toothmarks,

I realized with a shock.

“Here,” Sir Marcus said helpfully. “I used this myself at St. Simone; got
me through it while I had a musket ball dug out of my leg.”

I looked on, open-mouthed, as Jamie took the leather with a nod of
thanks, smoothing his thumb over the marks. I spoke slowly, stunned.

“You actually expect me to set nine broken bones while you’re awake?”

“Yes,” he said briefly, placing the leather between his teeth and biting
down experimentally. He shifted it back and forth, seeking a comfortable
grip.

Overcome by the sheer theatricality of it, the precarious control I had
been hoarding suddenly snapped.

“Will you stop being such a goddamned frigging hero!” I blazed at
Jamie. “We all know what you’ve done, you don’t have to prove how
much you can stand! Or do you think we’ll all fall apart if you’re not in
charge, telling everyone what to do every minute? Who in bloody hell do
you think you are, frigging John Wayne!?”

There was an awkward silence. Jamie looked at me, openmouthed.
Finally he spoke.

“Claire,” he said softly, “we’re perhaps two miles from Wentworth
prison. I’m meant to hang in the morning. No matter what’s happened to
Randall, the English are going to notice I’m gone soon.”

I bit my lip. What he said was true. My inadvertent release of the other
prisoners might confuse the issue for a time, but eventually a tally would
be made, and a search begun. And thanks to the flamboyant method of
escape I had chosen, attention was bound to be focused on Eldridge Manor
in short order.

“If we’re lucky,” the quiet voice continued, “the snow will delay a
search ’til we’ve gone. If not…” He shrugged, staring into the flames.
“Claire, I’ll not let them take me back. And to be drugged, to lie here
helpless if they come, and maybe wake up chained in a cell again.…Claire,
I couldna bear it.”

There were tears blurring on my lower lashes. I stared wide-eyed at him,
not wanting to blink and let them run down my cheeks.

He closed his eyes against the fire’s heat. The glow lent a spurious look
of ruddy health to the white cheeks. I could see the long muscles in his
throat work as he swallowed.

“Don’t cry, Sassenach,” he said, so softly I could hardly hear him. He
reached out and patted my leg with his good hand, trying to be reassuring.
“I imagine we’re safe enough, lass. If I thought likely we’d be captured,
I’d certainly no waste one of my last hours having you mend a hand I’d
not be going to need. Go and fetch Murtagh for me. Then bring me a drink
and we’ll get on wi’ it.”

Busy at the table with the medical preparations, I couldn’t hear what he
said to Murtagh, but I saw the two heads close together for a moment, then
Murtagh’s sinewy hand gently touch the younger man’s ear—one of the
few uninjured spots available.

<snip>

Preparations complete, I probed as gently as possible, assessing harm,
deciding what must be done. Jamie drew in his breath sharply when I
touched an especially bad spot, but kept his eyes closed as I felt my way
slowly along each separate bone and joint, noting the position of each
fracture and dislocation. “Sorry,” I murmured.

I took his good hand as well, and felt carefully down each finger of both
the good hand and the injured, making comparisons. With neither X rays
nor experience to guide me, I would have to depend on my own sensitivity
to find and realign the smashed bones.

The first joint was all right, but the second phalange was cracked, I
thought. I pressed harder to determine the length and direction of the
crack. The damaged hand stayed motionless in my fingers, but the good
one made a small, involuntary clenching gesture.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured once more.

The good hand pulled suddenly out of my grasp as Jamie raised himself
on one elbow. Spitting out the leather gag, he regarded me with an
expression between amusement and exasperation.

“Sassenach,” he said, “if you apologize each time ye hurt me, it’s going
to be a verra long night—and it’s lasted some time already.”

I must have looked stricken, because he started to reach toward me, then
stopped, wincing at the movement. He controlled the pain, though, and
spoke firmly. “I know you dinna wish to hurt me. But you’ve no more
choice about it than I have, and there’s no need for more than one of us to
suffer for it. You do what’s needed, and I’ll scream if I have to.”

Replacing the leather strip, he bared his clenched teeth ferociously at
me, then slowly and deliberately crossed his eyes. This made him look so
like an addlepated tiger that I burst into half-hysterical laughter before I
could stop myself.

I clapped my hands over my mouth, cheeks flaming as I saw the
astonished looks on the faces of Lady Annabelle and the servants, who,
standing behind Jamie, naturally could see nothing of his face. Sir Marcus,
who had caught a brief glimpse from his seat at the bedside, grinned in his
spade-shaped beard.

“Besides,” said Jamie, spitting out the leather once more, “if the English
turn up after this, I expect I’ll beg them to take me back.”

I picked up the leather, put it between his teeth and pushed his head
down again.

“Clown,” I said. “Know-all. Sodding hero.” But he had relieved me of a
burden, and I worked more calmly. If I still noticed every twitch and
grimace, at least I no longer felt it as badly.

I began to lose myself in the concentration of the job, directing all my
awareness to my fingertips, assessing each point of damage and deciding
how best to draw the smashed bones back into alignment. Luckily the
thumb had suffered least; only a simple fracture of the first joint. That
would heal clean. The second knuckle on the fourth finger was completely
gone; I felt only a pulpy grating of bone chips when I rolled it gently
between my own thumb and forefinger, making Jamie groan. Nothing
could be done about that, save splint the joint and hope for the best.

The compound fracture of the middle finger was the worst to
contemplate. The finger would have to be pulled straight, drawing the
protruding bone back through the torn flesh. I had seen this done before—
under general anesthesia, with the guidance of X rays.

To this point, it had been more a mechanical problem than a real one,
deciding how to reconstruct a smashed, disembodied hand. I was now
smack up against the reason that physicians seldom treat members of their
own families. Some jobs in medicine require a certain ruthlessness to
complete successfully; detachment is necessary to inflict pain in the
process of effecting a healing.

Quietly, Sir Marcus had brought up a stool by the side of the bed. He
settled his bulk comfortably as I finished the strapping, and gripped
Jamie’s good hand with his own.

“Squeeze all ye like, lad,” he said.

<snip>

It was a long, horrible, nerve-wracking job, though not without its
fascination. Some parts, such as the splinting of the two fingers with
simple fractures, went quite easily. Others did not. Jamie did scream—
loudly—when I set his middle finger, exerting the considerable force
necessary to draw the ends of splintered bone back through the skin. I
hesitated for an instant, unnerved, but “Go on, lass!” Sir Marcus said with
quiet urgency.

I remembered suddenly what Jamie had said to me, the night Jenny’s
baby was born: I can bear pain, myself, but I could not bear yours. That
would take more strength than I have. He was right; it did take strength; I
hoped that each of us had enough.

Jamie’s face was turned away from me, but I could see the jaw muscles
bunch as he clenched his teeth harder on the leather strip. I clenched my
own teeth and did go on; the sharp bone end slowly disappeared back
through the skin and the finger straightened with agonizing reluctance,
leaving us both trembling.

As I worked, I began to lose consciousness of anything outside the job I
was doing. Jamie groaned occasionally, and we had to stop twice briefly in
order for him to be sick, retching up mostly whisky, as he had taken little
food in prison. For the most part, though, he kept up a low, constant
muttering in Gaelic, forehead pressed hard against Sir Marcus’s knees. I
couldn’t tell through the leather gag whether he was cursing or praying.

All five fingers eventually lay straight as new pins, stiff as sticks in their
bandaged splints. I was afraid of infection, particularly from the torn
middle finger, but otherwise was fairly sure they would heal well. By good
luck, only the one joint had been badly damaged. It would likely leave him
with a stiff ring finger, but the others might function normally—in time.

There was nothing I could do about the cracked metacarpal bones or the
puncture wound except apply an antiseptic wash and a poultice and pray
against a tetanus infection. I stepped back, shaking in every limb from the
strain of the night, my bodice soaked with sweat from the fire’s heat at my
back.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 38

The trembling did begin to ease within a minute or two, and Jamie
opened his eyes with a sigh.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Claire, I’m all right, now. But for God’s sake,
get rid of that stink!”

It was only then that I consciously noticed the scent in the room—a
light, spicy, floral smell, so common a perfume that I had thought nothing
of it. Lavender. A scent for soaps and toilet waters. I had last smelled it in
the dungeons of Wentworth Prison, where it anointed the linen or the
person of Captain Jonathan Randall.

The source of the scent was a small metal cup filled with herb-scented
oil, suspended from a heavy, rose-bossed iron base and hung over a candle
flame.

Meant to soothe the mind, its effects were plainly not as intended. Jamie
was breathing more easily, sitting up by himself and holding the cup of
water the monk had given him. But his face was still white, and the corner
of his mouth twitched uneasily.

<snip>

He yanked his hand away, scowling. I turned away without speaking
and went to busy myself with tidying the small pots and packets of
medicines on the side table. I arranged them into small groups, sorted by
function: marigold ointment and poplar balm for soothing, willowbark,
cherry bark and chamomile for teas, St. John’s wort, garlic, and yarrow for
disinfection.

“Claire.” I turned back, to find him sitting on the bed, looking at me
with a shamefaced smile.

“I’m sorry, Sassenach. My bowels are griping, and I’ve a damn evil
temper this morning. But I’ve no call to snarl at ye. D’ye forgive me?”

I crossed to him swiftly and hugged him lightly.

“You know there’s nothing to forgive. But what do you mean, your
bowels are griping?” Not for the first time, I reflected that intimacy and
romance are not synonymous.

He grimaced, bending forward slightly and folding his arms over his
abdomen. “It means,” he said, “that I’d like ye to leave me to myself for a
bit. If ye dinna mind?” I hastily complied with his request, and went to
find my own breakfast.

<snip>

“He seems to be able to make anything grow,” I said. “He’s got all the
normal herbs there, and a greenhouse so tiny that he can’t even stand up
straight inside it, with things that shouldn’t grow at this season, or
shouldn’t grow in this part of the world, or just shouldn’t grow. Not to
mention the imported spices and drugs.”

The mention of drugs reminded me of the night before, and I glanced
out the window. The winter twilight set in early, and it was already full
dark outside, the lanterns of the monks who tended the stables and outdoor
work bobbing to and fro as they passed on their rounds.

“It’s getting dark. Do you think you can sleep by yourself? Brother
Ambrose has a few things that might help.”

His eyes were smudged with tiredness, but he shook his head.
“No, Sassenach. I dinna want anything. If I fall asleep…no, I think I’ll
read for a bit.” Anselm had brought him a selection of philosophical and
historical works from the library, and he stretched out a hand for a copy of
Tacitus that lay on the table.

<snip>

Not wishing to hover over him, even if he would have allowed it, I spent
much of my time in the herbarium or the drying shed with Brother
Ambrose, or wandering idly through the Abbey’s grounds, engaged in
conversation with Father Anselm. He took the opportunity to engage in a
gentle catechism, trying to instruct me in the basics of Catholicism, though
I had assured him over and over of my basic agnosticism.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 39

“How long has he been like this?” I asked, laying a practiced hand on
brow and back, armpit and groin. No trace of relieving sweat; only the dry
stretched skin of persistent parching, fiery with heat. He was awake, but
heavy-eyed and groggy. The source of the fever was plain. The shattered
right hand was puffy, with a foul-smelling ooze soaking the bandages.
Ominous red streaks ran up the wrist. A bloody infection, I thought to
myself. A filthy, suppurating, blood poisoning, life-threatening infection.

“I found him so when I came to look in on him after Matins,” replied the
serving brother who had come to fetch me. “I gave him water, but he
began to vomit just after dawn.”

“You should have fetched me at once,” I said. “Still, never mind. Bring
me hot water, raspberry leaves, and Brother Polydore, as quickly as
possible.” He left with the assurance that he would see some breakfast was
brought for me as well, but I waved such amenities aside, reaching for the
pewter jug of water.

By the time Brother Polydore appeared, I had tried the internal
application of water, only to have it violently rejected, and was applying it
externally instead, soaking the sheets and wrapping them loosely over the
hot skin.

Simultaneously, I set the infected hand to soak in fresh-boiled water, as
hot as could be stood without burning the skin. Lacking sulfa drugs or
modern antibiotics, heat was the only defense against a bacterial infection.
The patient’s body was doing its best to supply that heat by means of high
fever, but the fever itself posed a serious danger, wasting muscle and
damaging brain cells. The trick was to apply sufficient local heat to
destroy the infection, while keeping the rest of the body cool enough to
prevent damage, and sufficiently hydrated to maintain its normal
functions. A bloody three-tier balancing act, I thought bleakly.

Neither Jamie’s state of mind nor his physical discomfort were relevant
any longer. It was a straightforward struggle to keep him alive until the
infection and the fever ran their course; nothing else mattered.

In the afternoon of the second day, he began to hallucinate. We tied him
to the bed with soft rags to prevent his hurling himself to the floor. Finally,
as a desperate measure to break the fever, I sent one of the lay brothers out
to bring in a bushel basket of snow, which we packed around him. This
resulted in a violent shivering fit that left him drained and exhausted, but
did briefly bring his temperature down.

Unfortunately, the treatment had to be repeated at hourly intervals. By
sunset, the room looked like a swamp, with puddles of melted snow
standing on the floor, tussocks of sodden sheeting mounded among them,
and steam like marsh gas rising from the brazier in the corner. Brother
Polydore and myself were sodden, too, soaked with sweat, chilled with
snow water, and near to exhaustion, in spite of the helpful assistance of
Anselm and the lay brothers. Febrifuges such as coneflower, goldenseal,
catnip, and hyssop had been tried, without effect. Willowbark tea, which
might have helped with its content of salicylic acid, could not be
consumed in amounts large enough to matter.

In one of his increasingly rare lucid intervals, Jamie asked me to let him
die. I answered curtly, as I had the night before, “Damned if I will,” and
went on with what I was doing.

<snip>

At last I rose, and took up the jug and basin from the table by the door. I
set the heavy pottery dish in the center of the floor and filled it carefully,
letting the water swell up over the thickened rim into a trembling bubble.

I had made a short detour to Brother Ambrose’s stillroom on the way to
my chamber. I undid the small packets of herbs and scattered the contents
into my brazier, where the myrrh leaves gave off a fragrant smoke, and the
crumbs of camphor flamed with tiny blue tongues between the red glow of
the charcoal sticks.

I set the candlestick behind my reflecting pool, took my place before it,
and sat down to summon a ghost.

<snip>

I brought my hand out of the folds of my robe and laid on the table the
objects I had collected in a surreptitious visit to Brother Ambrose’s
darkened workshop. A vial of spirits of ammonia. A packet of dried
lavender. Another of valerian. A small metal incense burner, shaped like
an open blossom. Two pellets of opium, sweet scented and sticky with
resin. And a knife.

<snip>

There was not much time. I must finish my preparations quickly, before
the opium smoke drove him too far under to be roused.
I unlaced the front of my robe and rubbed my body quickly with
handfuls of the lavender and valerian. It was a pleasant, spicy smell,
distinctive and richly evocative. A smell that, to me, conjured the shade of
the man who wore its perfume, and the shade of the man behind him;
shades that evoked confusing images of present terror and lost love. A
smell that, to Jamie, must recall the hours of pain and rage spent wrapped
in its waves. I rubbed the last of it vigorously between my palms and
dropped the fragrant shreds on the floor.

With a deep breath for courage, I picked up the vial of ammoniacal
spirits. I stood by the bed a moment holding it, looking down at the gaunt,
stubbled face. At most he might last a day; at the least, only a few more
hours.

“All right, you bloody Scottish bastard,” I said softly. “Let’s see how
stubborn you really are.” I lifted the injured hand, dripping, from the water
and set the soaking dish aside.

I opened the vial and waved it closely under his nose. He snorted and
tried to turn his head away, but didn’t open his eyes. I dug my fingers into
the hair on the back of his head to prevent his turning away, and brought
the vial back to his face. He shook his head slowly, swinging it from side
to side like an ox roused from slumber, and his eyes came open just a
crack.

“Not done yet, Fraser,” I whispered in his ear, trying as best I could to
catch the rhythm of Randall’s clipped consonants.

Jamie moaned and hunched his shoulders. I grasped him by both
shoulders and shook him roughly. His skin was so hot I nearly let go.

“Wake up, you Scottish bastard! I’m not done with you yet!” He began
to struggle up onto his elbows with a pitiful effort at obedience that nearly
broke my heart. His head was still shaking back and forth, and the cracked
lips were muttering something that sounded like “please not yet” over and
over again.

Strength failing, he rolled to one side and collapsed facedown on the
pillow again. The room was beginning to fill with opium smoke and I felt
mildly dizzy.

[broughps]

Outlander

Chapter 40

I recognized the symptoms of returning health, and was glad of them,
but was prepared to put up with only so much of this. I opened the
window, changed his sheets, applied marigold salve to his back and rubbed
his legs with aloe juice. Then I summoned a serving brother and ordered
more broth.

“I don’t want any more of this slop! I need food!” He pushed the tray
irritably away, making the broth splash onto the napkin cradling the bowl.

I folded my arms and stared down at him. Imperious blue eyes stared
right back. He was thin as a rail, the lines of jaw and cheekbone bold
against the skin. Though he was mending well, the raw nerves of his
stomach would take a little longer to heal. He still could not always keep
down the broth and milk.

“You’ll get food when I say you can have it,” I informed him, “and not
before.”

“I’ll have it now! D’ye think you can tell me what I’m to eat?”

“Yes, I bloody well do! I’m the doctor here, if you’ve forgotten.”

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed, clearly intending to take
steps. I put a hand on his chest and shoved him back.

“Your job is to stay in that bed and do as you’re told, for once in your
life,” I snapped. “You’re not fit to be up, and you’re not fit for solid foot
yet. Brother Roger said you vomited again this morning.”

“Brother Roger can mind his own business, and so can you,” he said
through his teeth, struggling back up. He reached out and got a hold on the
table edge. With considerable effort, he made it to his feet, and stood there,
swaying.

“Get back in bed! You’re going to fall down!” He was alarmingly pale,
and even the small effort of standing had made him break out in a cold
sweat.

“I’ll not,” he said. “And if I do, it’s my own concern.”

I was really angry by this time.

“Oh, is it! And who do you think saved your miserable life for you,
anyway? Did it all by yourself, did you?” I grabbed his arm to steer him
back to bed, but he jerked it away.

“I didna ask ye to, did I? I told ye to leave me, no? And I canna see why
ye bothered to save my life, anyway, if it’s only to starve me to death—
unless ye enjoy watching it!”

This was altogether too much.

“Bloody ingrate!”

“Shrew!”

I drew myself to my full height, and pointed menacingly at the cot. With
all the authority learned in years of nursing, I said, “Get back in that bed
this instant, you stubborn, mulish, idiotic—”

“Scot,” he finished for me, succinctly. He took a step toward the door,
and would have fallen, had he not caught hold of a stool. He plumped
heavily down on it and sat swaying, his eyes a little unfocused with
dizziness. I clenched my fists and glared at him.

“Fine,” I said. “Bloody fine! I’ll order bread and meat for you, and after
you vomit on the floor, you can just get down on your hands and knees and
clean it up yourself! I won’t do it, and if Brother Roger does, I’ll skin him
alive!”

I stormed into the hall and slammed the door behind me, just before the
porcelain washbasin crashed into it from the other side. I turned to find an
interested audience, no doubt attracted by the racket, standing in the hall.
Brother Roger and Murtagh stood side by side, staring at my flushed face
and heaving bosom. Roger looked disconcerted, but a slow smile spread
over Murtagh’s craggy countenance as he listened to the string of Gaelic
obscenities going on behind the door.

“He’s feeling better, then,” he said contentedly. I leaned against the
corridor wall, and felt an answering smile spread slowly across my own
face.

“Well, yes,” I said, “he is.”

[Bunny]

Men.

[broughps]

Most men won't even admit they're sick or they turn into complete babies and want to be waited on hand and foot.

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 6

I spent the afternoon in reading one of the herbals that my friend Brother
Ambrose had pressed upon me as a parting gift, then in necessary repairs
with needle and thread. Neither of us owned many clothes, and while there
were advantages in traveling light, it meant that holey socks and undone
hems demanded immediate attention. My needlecase was nearly as
precious to me as the small chest in which I carried herbs and medicines.

<snip>

I knelt by the small traveling chest, unfolding the green velvet. Kneeling
next to me, Jamie flipped back the lid of my medicine box, studying the
layers of bottles and boxes and bits of gauze-wrapped herbs.

“Have ye got anything in here for a verra vicious headache, Sassenach?”

I peered over his shoulder, then reached in and touched one bottle.

“Horehound might help, though it’s not the best. And willow-bark tea
with sow fennel works fairly well, but it takes some time to brew. Tell you
what—why don’t I make you up a recipe for hobnailed liver? Wonderful
hangover cure.”

He bent a suspicious blue eye on me.

“That sounds nasty.”

“It is,” I said cheerfully. “But you’ll feel lots better after you throw up.”

“Mphm.” He stood up and nudged the chamber pot toward me with one
toe.

“Vomiting in the morning is your job, Sassenach,” he said. “Get it over
with and get dressed. I’ll stand the headache.”

[Krish728]

or they turn into complete babies and want to be waited on hand and foot. 

Yep. That's me. 

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 8

To my annoyance, I lacked several of the herbs I needed for the sleeping
tonic I had in mind. But then I remembered the man Marguerite had told
me about. Raymond the herb-seller, in the Rue de Varennes. A wizard, she
had said. A place worth seeing. Well, then. Jamie would be at the
warehouse all the morning. I had a coach and a footman at my disposal; I
would go and see it.

A clean wooden counter ran the length of the shop on both sides, with
shelves twice the height of a man extending from floor to ceiling behind it.
Some of the shelves were enclosed with folding glass doors, protecting the
rarer and more expensive substances, I supposed. Fat gilded cupids
sprawled abandonedly above the cupboards, tooting horns, waving their
draperies, and generally looking as though they had been imbibing some of
the more alcoholic wares of the shop.

“Monsieur Raymond?” I inquired politely of the young woman behind
the counter.

“Maître Raymond,” she corrected. She wiped a red nose inelegantly on
her sleeve and gestured toward the end of the shop, where sinister clouds
of a brownish smoke floated out over the transom of a half-door.
Wizard or not, Raymond had the right setting for it. Smoke drifted up
from a black slate hearth to coil beneath the low black beams of the roof.

Above the fire, a stone table pierced with holes held glass alembics, copper
“pelicans”—metal cans with long noses from which sinister substances
dripped into cups—and what appeared to be a small but serviceable still. I
sniffed cautiously. Among the other strong odors in the shop, a heady
alcoholic note was clearly distinguishable from the direction of the fire. A
neat lineup of clean bottles along the sideboard reinforced my original
suspicions. Whatever his trade in charms and potions, Master Raymond
plainly did a roaring business in high-quality cherry brandy.

The distiller himself was crouched over the fire, poking errant bits of
charcoal back into the grate. Hearing me come in, he straightened up and
turned to greet me with a pleasant smile.

“How do you do?” I said politely to the top of his head. So strong was
the impression that I had stepped into an enchanter’s den that I would not
have been surprised to hear a croak in reply.

For Master Raymond resembled nothing so, much as a large, genial
frog. A touch over four feet tall, barrel-chested and bandy-legged, he had
the thick, clammy skin of a swamp dweller, and slightly bulbous, friendly
black eyes. Aside from the minor fact that he wasn’t green, all he lacked
was warts.

“Madonna!” he said, beaming expansively. “What may I have the
pleasure of doing for you?” He lacked teeth altogether, enhancing the
froggy impression still more, and I stared at him in fascination.

“Madonna?” he said, peering up at me questioningly.

Snapped abruptly to a realization of how rudely I had been staring, I
blushed and said without thinking, “I was just wondering whether you’d
ever been kissed by a beautiful young girl.”

I went still redder as he shouted with laughter. With a broad grin, he
said “Many times, madonna. But alas, it does not help. As you see.
Ribbit.”

We dissolved in helpless laughter, attracting the notice of the shopgirl,
who peered over the half-door in alarm. Master Raymond waved her away,
then hobbled to the window, coughing and clutching his sides, to open the
leaded panes and allow some of the smoke to escape.

“Oh, that’s better!” he said, inhaling deeply as the cold spring air rushed
in. He turned to me, smoothing back the long silver hair that brushed his
shoulders. “Now, madonna. Since we are friends, perhaps you will wait a
moment while I attend to something?”

Still blushing, I agreed at once, and he turned to his firing shelf, still
hiccupping with laughter as he refilled the canister of the still. Taking the
opportunity to restore my poise, I strolled about the workroom, looking at
the amazing array of clutter.

A fairly good-sized crocodile, presumably stuffed, hung from the
ceiling. I gazed up at the yellow belly-scutes, hard and shiny as pressed
wax.

“Real, is it?” I asked, taking a seat at the scarred oak table.
Master Raymond glanced upward, smiling.

“My crocodile? Oh, to be sure, madonna. Gives the customers
confidence.” He jerked his head toward the shelf that ran along the wall
just above eye height. It was lined with white fired-porcelain jars, each
ornamented with gilded curlicues, painted flowers and beasts, and a label,
written in elaborate black script. Three of the jars closest to me were
labeled in Latin, which I translated with some difficulty—crocodile’s
blood, and the liver and bile of the same beast, presumably the one
swinging sinisterly overhead in the draft from the main shop.

I picked up one of the jars, removed the stopper and sniffed delicately.

“Mustard,” I said, wrinkling my nose, “and thyme. In walnut oil, I think,
but what did you use to make it nasty?” I tilted the jar, critically examining
the sludgy black liquid within.

“Ah, so your nose is not purely decorative, madonna!” A wide grin split
the toadlike face, revealing hard blue gums.

“The black stuff is the rotted pulp of a gourd,” he confided, leaning
closer and lowering his voice. “As for the smell…well, that actually is
blood.”

“Not from a crocodile,” I said, glancing upward.

“Such cynicism in one so young,” Raymond mourned. “The ladies and
gentlemen of the Court are fortunately more trusting in nature, not that
trust is the emotion that springs immediately to mind when one thinks of
an aristocrat. No, in fact it is pig’s blood, madonna. Pigs being so much
more available than crocodiles.”

“Mm, yes,” I agreed. “That one must have cost you a pretty penny.”

“Fortunately, I inherited it, along with much of my present stock, from
the previous owner.” I thought I saw a faint flicker of unease in the depths
of the soft black eyes, but I had become oversensitive to nuances of
expression of late, from watching the faces at parties for tiny clues that
might be useful to Jamie in his manipulations.

The stocky little proprietor leaned still closer, laying a hand
confidentially on mine.

“A professional, are you?” he said. “I must say, you don’t look it.”

My first impulse was to jerk my hand away, but his touch was oddly
comfortable; quite impersonal, but unexpectedly warm and soothing. I
glanced at the frost riming the edge of the leaded-glass panes, and thought
that that was it; his ungloved hands were warm, a highly unusual condition
for anyone’s hands at this time of year.

“That depends entirely upon what you mean by the term ‘professional,’
” I said primly. “I’m a healer.”

“Ah, a healer?” He tilted back in his chair, looking me over with
interest. “Yes, I thought so. Anything else, though? No fortune-telling, no
love philtres?”

I felt a twinge of conscience, recalling my days on the road with
Murtagh, when we had sought Jamie through the Highlands of Scotland,
telling fortunes and singing for our suppers like a couple of Gypsies.

“Nothing like that,” I said, blushing only slightly.

“Not a professional liar, at any rate,” he said, eyeing me in amusement.
“Rather a pity. Still, how may I have the pleasure of serving you,
madonna?”

I explained my needs, and he nodded sagely as he listened, the thick
gray hair swinging forward over his shoulders. He wore no wig within the
sanctum of his shop, nor did he powder his hair. It was brushed back from
a high, wide forehead, and fell straight as a stick to his shoulders, where it
ended abruptly, as though cut with a blunt pair of scissors.

He was easy to talk to, and very knowledgeable indeed about the uses of
herbs and botanicals. He took down small jars of this and that, shaking bits
out and crushing the leaves in his palm for me to smell or taste.

Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of raised voices in the
shop. A nattily-dressed footman was leaning across the counter, saying
something to the shopgirl. Or rather, trying to say something. His feeble
attempts were being thrown back in his teeth by a gale of withering
Provençale from the other side of the counter. It was too idiomatic for me
to follow entirely, but I caught the general drift of her remarks. Something
involving cabbages and sausages, none of it complimentary.

I was musing on the odd tendency of the French to bring food into
virtually any kind of discussion, when the shop door banged suddenly
open. Reinforcements swept in behind the footman, in the guise of a
rouged and flounced Personage of some sort.

“Ah,” murmured Raymond, peering interestedly beneath my arm at the
drama unfolding in his shop. “La Vicomtesse de Rambeau.”

“You know her?” The shopgirl evidently did, for she abandoned her
attack on the footman and shrank back against the cabinet of purges.

“Yes, madonna,” said Raymond, nodding. “She’s rather expensive.”

I saw what he meant, as the lady in question picked up the evident
source of altercation, a small jar containing a pickled plant of some kind,
took aim, and flung it with considerable force and accuracy into the glass
front of the cabinet.

The crash silenced the commotion at once. The Vicomtesse pointed one
long, bony finger at the girl.

“You,” she said, in a voice like metal shavings, “fetch me the black
potion. At once.”

The girl opened her mouth as though to protest, then, seeing the
Vicomtesse reaching for another missile, shut it and fled for the back
room.

Anticipating her entrance, Raymond reached resignedly above his head
and thrust a bottle into her hand as she came through the door.

“Give it to her,” he said, shrugging. “Before she breaks something else.”

As the shopgirl timidly returned to deliver the bottle, he turned to me,
pulling a wry face.

“Poison for a rival,” he said. “Or at least she thinks so.”

“Oh?” I said. “And what is it really? Bitter cascara?”

He looked at me in pleased surprise.

“You’re very good at this,” he said. “A natural talent, or were you
taught? Well, no matter.” He waved a broad palm, dismissing the matter.

“Yes, that’s right, cascara. The rival will fall sick tomorrow, suffer visibly
in order to satisfy the Vicomtesse’s desire for revenge and convince her
that her purchase was a good one, and then she will recover, with no
permanent harm done, and the Vicomtesse will attribute the recovery to
the intervention of the priest or a counterspell done by a sorcerer employed
by the victim.”

“Mm,” I said. “And the damage to your shop?” The late-afternoon sun
glinted on the shards of glass on the counter, and on the single silver écu
that the Vicomtesse had flung down in payment.

Raymond tilted a palm from side to side, in the immemorial custom of a
man indicating equivocation.

“It evens out,” he said calmly. “When she comes in next month for an
abortifacient, I shall charge her enough not only to repair the damage but
to build three new cases. And she’ll pay without argument.” He smiled
briefly, but without the humor he had previously shown. “It’s all in the
timing, you know.”

I was conscious of the black eyes flickering knowledgeably over my
figure. I didn’t show at all yet, but I was quite sure he knew.

“And does the medicine you’ll give the Vicomtesse next month work?”
I asked.

“It’s all in the timing,” he replied again, tilting his head quizzically to
one side. “Early enough, and all is well. But it is dangerous to wait too
long.”

The note of warning in his voice was clear, and I smiled at him.

“Not for me,” I said. “For reference only.”

He relaxed again.

“Ah. I didn’t think so.”

A rumble from the street below proclaimed the passing of the
Vicomtesse’s blue-and-silver carriage. The footman waved and shouted
from behind as pedestrians were forced to scramble for the shelter of doors
and alleyways to avoid being crushed.

“A la lanterne,” I murmured under my breath. It was rare that my
unusual perspective on current affairs afforded me much satisfaction, but
this was certainly one occasion when it did.

“Ask not for whom the tumbril calls,” I remarked, turning to Raymond.
“It calls for thee.”

He looked mildly bewildered.

“Oh? Well, in any case, you were saying that black betony is what you
use for purging? I would use the white, myself.”

“Really? Why is that?”

And with no further reference to the recent Vicomtesse, we sat down to
complete our business.

[broughps]

DIA  - Chapter 9

I rose, red-faced and coughing, and managed to excuse myself, hacking
politely into a handkerchief as I backed away. I felt a presence in my rear
and stopped just in time to avoid backing into Jamie, who was watching
the King’s mistress with no pretense whatever of tactful obliviousness.

“She told Marie d’Arbanville that Master Raymond did the piercing for
her,” I remarked under my breath. His fascinated gaze didn’t waver.

“Shall I make an appointment?” I asked. “I imagine he’d do it for me if I
gave him the recipe for caraway tonic.”

Jamie glanced down at me at last. Taking my elbow, he steered me
toward a refreshment alcove.

“If you so much as speak to Master Raymond again,” he said, out of the
corner of his mouth, “I’ll pierce them for ye myself—wi’ my teeth.”

Chapter 11

“He had a sore throat, and that led to me telling him what to take for it,
and a bit about medicines in general, and how I was interested in diseases
and, well, you know how one thing leads to another.”

“With you, it customarily does,” he agreed, sounding distinctly cynical.
I ignored his tone and went on.

“So, I’m going to go to the hospital tomorrow.” I stretched on tiptoe to
reach down my medicine box from its shelf. “Maybe I won’t take it along
with me the first time,” I said, scanning the contents meditatively. “It
might seem too pushing. Do you think?”

<snip>

“That looks like an animal bite,” I said incredulously, dabbing at the
small semicircle of puncture wounds in the webbing between thumb and
forefinger. Prince Charles winced as I squeezed the flesh around it,
meaning to cleanse the wound by bleeding before binding it.

“Yes,” he said. “A monkey bite. Disgusting, flea-ridden beast!” he burst
out. “I told her she must dispose of it. Undoubtedly the animal is
diseased!”

I had found my medicine box, and now applied a thin layer of gentian
ointment. “I don’t think you need worry,” I said, intent on my work. “So
long as it isn’t rabid, that is.”

Chapter 12

A little scalpel work to enlarge the entrance wound, a quick grip with a
pair of long-nosed forceps, a smooth, forceful pull—and I held up a threeinch
sliver of wood, coated with blood and slime.

“Not bad, Bouton,” I said, with a nod of acknowledgment. A long pink
tongue lolled happily, and the black nostrils sniffed in my direction.

“Yes, she’s a good one,” said Mother Hildegarde, and this time there
was no doubt which of us she was speaking to, Bouton being male. Bouton
leaned forward and sniffed politely at my hand, then licked my knuckles
once in reciprocal acknowledgment of a fellow professional. I repressed
the urge to wipe my hand on my gown.

“Amazing,” I said, meaning it.

“Yes,” said Mother Hildegarde, casually, but with an unmistakable note
of pride. “He’s very good at locating tumors beneath the skin, as well. And
while I cannot always tell what he finds in the odors of breath and urine,
he has a certain tone of bark that indicates unmistakably the presence of a
derangement of the stomach.”

Under the circumstances, I saw no reason to doubt it. I bowed to
Bouton, and picked up a vial of powdered St.-John’s-wort to dress the
infection.

“Pleased to have your assistance, Bouton. You can work with me
anytime.”

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 13

Barberry leaves, three handfuls in a decoction, steeped overnight, poured
over half a handful of black hellebore.” I laid the list of…ingredients down
on the inlaid table as though it were slightly slimy to the touch. “I got it
from Madame Rouleaux. She’s the best of the angel-makers, but even she
says it’s dangerous. Louise, are you sure you want to do this?”

Her round pink face was blotched, and the plump lower lip had a
tendency to quiver.

“What choice do I have?” She picked up the recipe for the abortifacient
and gazed at it in repulsed fascination.

“Black hellebore,” she said, and shuddered. “The very name of it sounds
evil!”

“Well, it’s bloody nasty stuff,” I said bluntly. “It will make you feel as
though your insides are coming out. But the baby may come, too. It
doesn’t always work.” I remembered Master Raymond’s warning—It is
dangerous to wait too long—and wondered how far gone she might be.
Surely no more than six weeks or so; she had told me the instant she
suspected.

She glanced at me, startled, with red-rimmed eyes.

“You have used it yourself?”

“God, no!” I startled myself with the vehemence of my exclamation,
and took a deep breath.

“No. I’ve seen women who have, though—at L’Hôpital des Anges.”

The abortionists—the angel-makers—practiced largely in the privacy of
homes, their own or their clients’. Their successes were not the ones that
came to the hospital. I laid a hand unobtrusively over my own abdomen, as
though for protection of its helpless occupant. Louise caught the gesture
and hurled herself into the sofa, burying her head in her hands.

Chapter 16

The pain increased once more, a vise squeezing my insides, and I
gasped and doubled up once more. As it eased a bit, I opened my eyes and
saw one of the ladies, her eyes fixed alertly on my face. A look of dawning
realization passed over her features, and still looking at me, she leaned
over to whisper to one of her companions. There was too much noise in
the room to hear, but I read her lips clearly.

“Poison,” she said.

The pain shifted abruptly lower with an ominous interior gurgle, and I
realized finally what it was. Not a miscarriage. Not appendicitis, still less a
chilled liver. Nor was it poison, precisely. It was bitter cascara.

“You,” I said, advancing menacingly on Master Raymond, crouched
defensively behind his worktable, beneath the protective aegis of his
stuffed crocodile. “You! You bloody frog-faced little worm!”

“Me, madonna? I have done you no harm, have I?”

“Aside from causing me to have violent diarrhea in the presence of
thirty-odd people, making me think I was having a miscarriage, and
scaring my husband out of his skin, no harm at all!”

“Oh, your husband was present?” Master Raymond looked uneasy.

“He was,” I assured him. It was in fact with considerable difficulty that I
had succeeded in preventing Jamie from coming up to the apothecary’s
shop and extracting, by force, such information as Master Raymond
possessed. I had finally persuaded him to wait with the coach outside,
while I talked to the amphibious proprietor.

“But you aren’t dead, madonna,” the little herbalist pointed out. He had
no brows to speak of, but one side of his wide, heavy forehead crinkled
upward. “You could have been, you know.”

Chapter 18

“Aye, I have. But it takes me in the belly, not the hands. Have ye some
of that stuff for cramp?”

“Over there.” I waved at the medicine box on the table, left open from
my dosing of Mary. “The little green bottle. One spoonful.”

Ignoring the spoon, he tilted the bottle and took several healthy gulps.
He lowered it and squinted at the liquid within.

“God, that’s foul stuff! Are ye nearly ready, Sassenach? The guests will
be here any minute.”

Mary was concealed for the moment in a spare room on the second
floor. I had checked her carefully for injuries, which seemed limited to
bruises and shock, then dosed her quickly with as large a slug of poppy
syrup as seemed feasible.

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 20

“Lavender, perhaps?” Raymond stood on tiptoe to take a jar from the shelf.

“Not for application, but the aroma is soothing; it calms the nerves.”

“Well, that depends on whose nerves are involved,” I said, recalling
Jamie’s reaction to the scent of lavender. It was the scent Jack Randall had
favored, and Jamie found exposure to the herb’s perfume anything but
soothing. “In this case, though, it might help. Do no harm, at any rate.”

“Do no harm,” he quoted thoughtfully. “A very sound principle.”

“That’s the first bit of the Hippocratic Oath, you know,” I said,
watching him as he bent to rummage in his drawers and bins. “The oath a
physician swears. ‘First, do no harm.’ ”

“Ah? And have you sworn this oath yourself, madonna?” The bright,
amphibious eyes blinked at me over the edge of the high counter.

I felt myself flushing before that unblinking gaze.

“Er, well, no. Not actually. I’m not a real physician. Not yet.” I couldn’t
have said what made me add that last sentence.

“No? Yet you are seeking to mend that which a ‘real’ physician would
never try, knowing that a lost maidenhead is not restorable.” His irony was
evident.

“Oh, isn’t it?” I answered dryly. Fergus had, with encouragement, told
me quite a bit about the “ladies” at Madame Elise’s house. “What’s that bit
with the shoat’s bladder full of chicken blood, hm? Or do you claim that
things like that fall into an apothecary’s realm of competence, but not a
physician’s?”

He had no eyebrows to speak of, but the heavy shelf of his forehead
lifted slightly when he was amused.

“And who is harmed by that, madonna? Surely not the seller. Not the
buyer, either—he is likely to get more enjoyment for his money than the
purchaser of the genuine article. Not even the maidenhead itself is harmed!
Surely a very moral and Hippocratic endeavor, which any physician might
be pleased to assist?”

I laughed. “And I expect you know more than a few who do?” I said.
“I’ll take the matter up with the next Medical Review Board I see. In the
meantime, short of manufactured miracles, what can we do in the present
case?”

“Mm.” He laid out a gauze square on the counter and poured a handful
of finely shredded dried leaves into the center of it. A sharp, pleasant tang
rose from the small heap of grayish-green vegetation.

“This is Saracen’s consound,” he said, skilfully folding the gauze into a
tidy square with the ends tucked in. “Good for soothing irritated skin,
minor lacerations, and sores of the privy parts. Useful, I think?”

“Yes, indeed,” I said, a little grimly. “As an infusion or a decoction?”

“Infusion. Warm, probably, under the circumstances.” He turned to
another shelf and abstracted one of the large white jars of painted
porcelain. This one said CHELIDONIUM on the side.

“For the inducement of sleep,” he explained. His lipless mouth stretched
back at the corners. “I think perhaps you had better avoid the use of the
opium-poppy derivatives; this particular patient appears to have an
unpredictable response to them.”

“Heard all about it already, have you?” I said resignedly. I could hardly
have hoped he hadn’t. I was well aware that information was one of the
more important commodities he sold; consequently the little shop was a
nexus for gossip from dozens of sources, from street vendors to gentlemen
of the Royal Bedchamber.

“From three separate sources,” Raymond replied. He glanced out the
window, craning his neck to see the huge horloge that hung from the wall
of the building near the corner. “And it’s barely two o’clock. I expect I
will hear several more versions of the events at your dinner before
nightfall.” The wide, gummy mouth opened, and a soft chuckle emerged.

“I particularly liked the version in which your husband challenged General
d’Arbanville to a duel in the street, while you more pragmatically offered
Monsieur le Comte the enjoyment of the unconscious girl’s body, if he
would refrain from calling the King’s Guard.”

“Mmphm,” I said, sounding self-consciously Scottish. “Have you any
particular interest in knowing what actually did happen?”

The horned-poppy tonic, a pale amber in the afternoon sunlight,
sparkled as he poured it into a small vial.

“The truth is always of use, madonna,” he answered, eyes fixed on the
slender stream. “It has the value of rarity, you know.” He set the porcelain
jar on the counter with a soft thump. “And thus is worth a fair price in
exchange,” he added. The money for the medicines I had bought was lying
on the counter, the coins gleaming in the sun. I narrowed my eyes at him,
but he merely smiled blandly, as though he had never heard of froglegs in
garlic butter.

The horloge outside struck two. I calculated the distance to the
Hawkins’s house in Rue Malory. Barely half an hour, if I could get a
carriage. Plenty of time.

“In that case,” I said, “shall we step into your private room for a bit?”

<snip>

He reached into an open jar on the table, withdrew a pinch of white
powder, and dropped it into his goblet. The deep amber of the brandy
immediately turned the color of blood, and began to boil.

“Dragon’s blood,” he remarked, casually waving at the bubbling liquid.
“It only works in a vessel lined with silver. It ruins the cup, of course, but
it’s most effective, done under the proper circumstances.”

I made a small, gurgling noise.

“Oh, the patient’s center,” he said, as though recalling something we
had talked about many days ago. “Yes, of course. All healing is done
essentially by reaching the…what shall we call it? the soul? the essence?
say, the center. By reaching the patient’s center, from which they can heal
themselves. Surely you have seen it, madonna. The cases so ill or so
wounded that plainly they will die—but they don’t. Or those who suffer
from something so slight that surely they must recover, with the proper
care. But they slip away, despite all you can do for them.”

“Everyone who minds the sick has seen things like that,” I replied
cautiously.

<snip>

“Yes, it does,” I said gently. “I brought some herbs for you. They’re to
be brewed in hot water, and as the infusion cools, you can apply it with a
cloth, or sit in it in a tub, if one’s handy. It will help.” I got the bundles of
herbs from my reticule and laid them on her side table.

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 22

Jamie had pulled a muscle in his thigh during the rescue at Argentan, and
was limping badly by the time we returned to Paris. He sent Fergus—none
the worse either for the escapade or the scolding that followed it—down to
the kitchen to seek his supper, and sank into a chair by the hearth, rubbing
the swollen leg.

“Hurt much?” I asked sympathetically.

“A bit. All it needs is rest, though.” He stood up and stretched
luxuriously, long arms nearly reaching the blackened oak beams above the
mantel. “Cramped in that coach; I’d’ve sooner ridden.”

“Mmm. So would I.” I rubbed the small of my back, aching with the
strain of the trip. The ache seemed to press downward through my pelvis
to my legs—joints loosening from pregnancy, I supposed.

I ran an exploratory hand over Jamie’s leg, then gestured to the chaise.

“Come and lie on your side. I’ve some nice ointment I can rub your leg
with; it might ease the ache a bit.”

“Well, if ye dinna mind.” He rose stiffly and lay down on his left side,
kilt pulled above his knee.

I opened my medicine box and rummaged through the boxes and jars.
Agrimony, slippery elm, pellitory-of-the-wall…ah, there it was. I pulled
out the small blue glass jar Monsieur Forez had given me and unscrewed
the lid. I sniffed cautiously; salves went rancid easily, but this one
appeared to have a good proportion of salt mixed in for preservation. It had
a nice mellow scent, and was a beautiful color—the rich yellow-white of
fresh cream.

Chapter 23

The bleeding had stopped by the morning. I rose very cautiously, but all
remained well. Still, it was obvious that the time had come for me to stop
working at L’Hôpital des Anges, and I sent Fergus with a note of
explanation and apology to Mother Hildegarde. He returned with her
prayers and good wishes, and a bottle of a brownish elixir much esteemed
—according to the accompanying note—by les maîtresses sage-femme for
the prevention of miscarriage. After Monsieur Forez’s salve, I was more
than a little dubious about using any medication I hadn’t prepared myself,
but a careful sniff reassured me that at least the ingredients were purely
botanical.

After considerable hesitation, I drank a spoonful. The liquid was bitter
and left a nasty taste in my mouth, but the simple act of doing something
—even something I thought likely to be useless—made me feel better. I
spent the greater part of each day now lying on the chaise longue in my
room, reading, dozing, sewing, or simply staring into space with my hands
over my belly.

<snip>

The plan took several days of discussion and research to refine, but was
at last settled. Cascara to cause flux had been rejected as being too
debilitating in action. However, I’d found some good substitutes in one of
the herbals Master Raymond had lent me.

Murtagh, armed with a pouch full of rosemary essence, nettle juice, and
madder root, would set out at the end of the week for Lisbon, where he
would gossip among the sailors’ taverns, find out the ship chartered by the
Comte St. Germain, and arrange to take passage on it, meanwhile sending
back word of the ship’s name and sailing date to Paris.

“No, that’s common,” said Jamie, in answer to my question as to
whether the captain might not find this behavior fishy. “Almost all cargo
ships carry a few passengers; however many they can squeeze between
decks. And Murtagh will have enough money to make him a welcome
addition, even if they have to give him the captain’s cabin.” He wagged an
admonitory finger at Murtagh.

“And get a cabin, d’ye hear? I don’t care what it costs; ye’ll need
privacy for taking the herbs, and we dinna want the chance of someone
seeing ye, if you’ve naught but a hammock slung in the bilges.” He
surveyed his godfather with a critical eye. “Have ye a decent coat? If you
go aboard looking like a beggar, they’re like to hurl ye off into the harbor
before they find out what ye’ve got in your sporran.”

“Mmphm,” said Murtagh. The little clansman usually contributed little
to the discussion, but what he did say was cogent and to the point. “And
when do I take the stuff?” he asked.

I pulled out the sheet of paper on which I had written the instructions
and dosages.

“Two spoonfuls of the rose madder—that’s this one”—I tapped the
small clear-glass bottle, filled with a dark pinkish fluid—“to be taken four
hours before you plan to demonstrate your symptoms. Take another
spoonful every two hours after the first dose—we don’t know how long
you’ll have to keep it up.”

I handed him the second bottle, this one of green glass filled with a
purplish-black liquor. “This is concentrated essence of rosemary leaves.
This one acts faster. Drink about one-quarter of the bottle half an hour
before you mean to show yourself; you should start flushing within half an
hour. It wears off quickly, so you’ll need to take more when you can
manage inconspicuously.” I took another, smaller vial from my medicine
box. “And once you’re well advanced with the ‘fever,’ then you can rub
the nettle juice on your arms and face, to raise blisters. Do you want to
keep these instructions?”

He shook his head decidedly. “Nay, I’ll remember. There’s more risk to
being found wi’ the paper than there is to forgetting how much to take.”
He turned to Jamie.

“And you’ll meet the ship at Orvieto, lad?”

Jamie nodded. “Aye. She’s bound to make port there; all the wine
haulers do, to take on fresh water. If by chance she doesna do so, then—”
He shrugged. “I shall hire a boat and try to catch her up. So long as I board
her before we reach Le Havre, it should be all right, but best if we can do it
while we’re still close off the coast of Spain. I dinna mean to spend longer
at sea than I must.” He pointed with his chin at the bottle in Murtagh’s
hand.

“Ye’d best wait to take the stuff ’til ye see me come on board. With no
witnesses, the captain might take the easy way out and just put ye astern in
the night.”

<snip>

The impersonation of a smallpox victim was the crucial role in this
masquerade. Jamie had volunteered to be the guinea pig for testing the
herbs, and they had worked magnificently on him. His fair skin had
flushed dark red within minutes, and the nettle juice raised immediate
blisters that could easily be mistaken for those of pox by a ship’s doctor or
a panicked captain. And should any doubt remain, the madder-stained
urine gave an absolutely perfect illusion of a man pissing blood as the
smallpox attacked his kidneys.

“Christ!” Jamie had exclaimed, startled despite himself at the first
demonstration of the herb’s efficacy.

“Oh, jolly good!” I said, peering over his shoulder at the white porcelain
chamber pot and its crimson contents. “That’s better than I expected.”

“Oh, aye? How long does it take to wear off, then?” Jamie had asked,
looking down rather nervously.

“A few hours, I think,” I told him. “Why? Does it feel odd?”

“Not odd, exactly,” he said, rubbing. “It itches a bit.”

“That’s no the herb,” Murtagh interjected dourly. “It’s just the natural
condition for a lad of your age.”

Jamie grinned at his godfather. “Remember back that far, do ye?”

“Farther back than you were born or thought of, laddie,” Murtagh had
said, shaking his head.

The little clansman now stowed the vials in his sporran, methodically
wrapping each one in a bit of soft leather to prevent breakage.

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 36

“I was busy wi’ the beasts,” he answered. “One of the ponies has a
cracked hoof and I had to bind it with a poultice. Not that I’ve so much
appetite, what wi’ all this talk of eating lice.”

“What sort of poultice do you use on a horse’s hoof?” I asked, ignoring
this remark.

“Different things; fresh dung will do in a pinch. I used chewed vetch
leaves mixed wi’ honey this time.”

<snip>

“Ladies!” I said. “We’ve done a lot, but there’s a lot more to do. We
shall be needing boiling water. Cauldrons for boiling, cream pans for
soaking. Parritch for those who can eat; milk for those who can’t. Tallow
and garlic for dressings. Wood laths for splints. Bottles and jugs, cups and
spoons. Sewing needles and stout thread. Mrs. MacPherson, if you would
be so kind…”

<snip>

“Alcohol and water,” I said. “Disinfectant solution. If he’s not to have
fever or pustulence or something worse, the wound will have to be washed
out.” MacBeth had plainly walked some way from where the injury had
occurred, and there were smears of dirt as well as blood near the wound.
Grain alcohol was a harsh disinfectant, even cut 50/50 with distilled sterile
water as I used it. Still, it was the single most effective tool I had against
infection, and I was adamant about its usage, in spite of complaints from
the aides and screams of anguish from the patients who were subjected to
it.

<snip>

I hated the thought of it. Life was sufficiently hard for a man with all his
limbs in good working order. Hoping for the best, I coated the new
dressing with a light sprinkling of alum and sulfur. If it didn’t help, it
wouldn’t hinder. Likely it would hurt, but that couldn’t be helped.

“It will burn a bit,” I murmured to the man, as I wrapped his leg in the
layers of cloth.

“Dinna worry yourself, Mistress,” he whispered. He smiled at me, in
spite of the sweat that ran down his cheeks, shiny in the light of my candle.
“I’ll stand it.”

“Good.” I patted his shoulder, smoothed the hair off his brow, and gave
him a drink of water. “I’ll check again in an hour, if you can bear it that
long.”

“I’ll stand it,” he said again.

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 37

Buoyed by early success, Charles talked freely of taking Stirling, then
Carlyle, and then, perhaps, of advancing south, even to London itself. I
spent my spare time counting suture needles, hoarded willow bark, and
stole every spare ounce of alcohol I could find, to be brewed into
disinfectant.

<snip>

“Ah.” So that was why I had been asked to bring my medicine box. I
reached for it, where I had set it on the floor.

“If you’re needing that much brandy, there isn’t much that will help you
besides some form of opium,” I said, flicking through my assortment of
vials and jars. “I think I have some laudanum here, but I can get you some
—”

“That isn’t what I want from you.” The tone of authority in his voice
stopped me, and I looked up. If he could keep his thoughts to himself, he
could also let them show when he chose.

“I could get laudanum easily enough,” he said. “I imagine there’s an
apothecarist in the city who sells it—or poppy syrup, or undiluted opium,
for that matter.”

I let the lid of the small chest fall shut and rested my hands on top of it.
So he didn’t mean to waste away in a drugged state, leaving the leadership
of the clan uncertain. And if it were not a temporary oblivion he sought
from me, what else? A permanent one, perhaps. I knew Colum
MacKenzie. And the clear, ruthless mind that had planned Geillis
Duncan’s destruction would not hesitate over his own.

Now it was clear. He had come to see Charles Stuart, to make the final
decision whether to commit the MacKenzies of Leoch to the Jacobite
cause. Once committed, it would be Dougal who led the clan. And then…

“I was under the impression that suicide was considered a mortal sin,” I
said.

“I imagine it is,” he said, undisturbed. “A sin of pride, at least, that I
should choose a clean death at the time of my own devising, as best suits
my purpose. I don’t, however, expect to suffer unduly for my sin, having
put no credence in the existence of God since I was nineteen or so.”

It was quiet in the room, beyond the crackle of the fire and the muffled
shouts of mock battle from below. I could hear his breathing, a slow and
steady sigh.

“Why ask me?” I said. “You’re right, you could get laudanum where
you liked, so long as you have money—and you do. Surely you know that
enough of it will kill you. It’s an easy death, at that.”

“Too easy.” He shook his head. “I have had little to depend on in life,
save my wits. I would keep them, even to meet death. As for ease…” He
shifted slightly on the sofa, making no effort to hide his discomfort. “I
shall have enough, presently.”

He nodded toward my box. “You shared Mrs. Duncan’s knowledge of
medicines. I thought it possible that you knew what she used to kill her
husband. That seemed quick and certain. And appropriate,” he added
wryly.

“She used witchcraft, according to the verdict of the court.” The court
that condemned her to death, in accordance with your plan, I thought. “Or
do you not believe in witchcraft?” I asked.

He laughed, a pure, carefree sound in the sunlit room. “A man who
doesn’t believe in God can scarce credit power to Satan, can he?”

I still hesitated, but he was a man who judged others as shrewdly as he
did himself. He had asked my pardon before asking my favor, and satisfied
himself that I had a sense of justice—or of mercy. And it was, as he said,
appropriate. I opened the box and took out the small vial of cyanide that I
kept to kill rats.

<snip>

In fact, what I was hunting would make as little—or as much—sense to
them as caterpillars, I reflected, shoving one boulder a few inches to the
side to expose the orange-brown lichen on its surface. A delicate scraping
with the small penknife, and several flakes of the odd symbiont fell into
my palm, to be transferred with due care to the cheap tin snuffbox that
held my painfully acquired hoard.

[broughps]

DIA - Chapter 38

I eyed the faint glow over the Canongate kirk, estimating how much
time remained ’til dark. With luck, I might have time to stop at Mr.
Haugh’s apothecary’s shop. While boasting nothing of the variety to be
found in Raymond’s Paris emporium, Mr. Haugh did a sound trade in
horse chestnuts and slippery-elm bark, and usually was able to provide me
with peppermint and barberry, as well. At this time of year, his chief
income was derived from the sale of camphor balls, considered a sovereign
remedy for colds, catarrh, and consumption. If it was no more effective
than modern cold remedies, I reflected, it was no worse, and at least
smelled invigoratingly healthy.

Despite the prevalence of red noses and white faces, parties were held at
the palace several nights a week, as the noblesse of Edinburgh welcomed
their Prince with enthusiasm. Another two hours, and the lanterns of
servants accompanying ball-goers would start to flicker in the High Street.
I sighed at the thought of another ball, attended by sneezing gallants,
paying compliments in phlegm-thickened voices. Perhaps I’d better add
some garlic to the list; worn in a silver pomander-locket about the neck, it
was supposed to ward off disease. What it actually did do, I supposed, was
to keep disease-ridden companions at a safe distance—equally
satisfactory, from my point of view.

The city was occupied by Charles’s troops, and the English, while not
besieged, were at least sequestered in the Castle above. Still, news—of
dubious veracity—tended to leak in both directions. According to Mr.
Haugh, the most recent rumor held that the Duke of Cumberland was
gathering troops south of Perth, with the intent of marching north almost
immediately. I hadn’t any idea whether this was true; I doubted it, in fact,
recalling no mention of Cumberland’s activities much before the spring of
1746, which hadn’t arrived. Still, I could hardly ignore the rumor.

The sentry at the gate nodded me in, coughing. The sound was taken up
by the guards stationed down the hallways and on the landings. Resisting
the impulse to wave my basket of garlic at them like a censer as I passed, I
made my way upstairs to the afternoon drawing room, where I was
admitted without question.

<snip>

The chill was hard but brief, and he lay still again by the time I had set a
pan of water to steep with a handful of peppermint and black currant.

“What’s that?” he asked, suspiciously, sniffing the air as I opened
another jar from my basket. “Ye dinna mean me to drink it, I hope? It
smells like a duck that’s been hung ower-long.”

“You’re close,” I said. “It’s goose grease mixed with camphor. I’m
going to rub your chest with it.”

“No!” He snatched the covers protectively up beneath his chin.

“Yes,” I said firmly, advancing with purpose.

In the midst of my labors, I became aware that we had an audience.
Fergus stood on the far side of the bed, watching the proceedings with
fascination, his nose running freely. I removed my knee from Jamie’s
abdomen and reached for a handkerchief.

“And what are you doing here?” Jamie demanded, trying to yank the
front of his nightshirt back into place.

Not noticeably disconcerted by the unfriendly tone of this greeting,
Fergus ignored the proffered handkerchief and wiped his nose on his
sleeve, meanwhile staring with round-eyed admiration at the broad
expanse of muscular, gleaming chest on display.

“The skinny milord sent me to fetch a packet he says you have for him.
Do all Scotsmen have such quantities of hair upon their chests, milord?”

“Christ! I forgot all about the dispatches. Wait, I’ll take them to
Cameron myself.” Jamie began to struggle up in bed, a process that
brought his nose close to the site of my recent endeavors.

“Phew!” He flapped the nightshirt in an effort to dispel the penetrating
aroma, and glared accusingly at me. “How am I to get this reek off me?
D’ye expect me to go out in company smellin’ like a dead goose,
Sassenach?”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “I expect you to lie quietly in bed and rest, or
you’ll be a dead goose.” I uncorked a fairly high-caliber glare of my own.

“I can carry the package, milord,” Fergus was assuring him.

“You will do nothing of the kind,” I said, noting the boy’s flushed
cheeks and overbright eyes. I put a hand to his forehead.

“Don’t tell me,” said Jamie sarcastically. “He’s got a fever?”

“Yes, he has.”

“Ha,” he said to Fergus with gloomy satisfaction. “Now you’re for it.
See how you like bein’ basted.”

A short period of intense effort saw Fergus tucked up in his pallet by the
fire, goose grease and medicinal hot tea administered lavishly all round,
and a clean handkerchief deposited beneath the chin of each sufferer.

“There,” I said, fastidiously rinsing my hands in the basin. “Now, I will
take this precious packet of dispatches across to Mr. Cameron. You will
both rest, drink hot tea, rest, blow your nose, and rest, in that order. Got it,
troops?”

The tip of a long, reddened nose was barely visible above the
bedclothes. It oscillated slowly back and forth as Jamie shook his head.

“Drunk wi’ power,” he remarked disapprovingly to the ceiling. “Verra
unwomanly attitude, that.”

I dropped a kiss on his hot forehead and swung my cloak down from its
hook.

“How little you know of women, my love,” I said.

[broughps]

DIA  - Chapter 39

“Can you…stop the coughing?”

I reached for my kit. “Yes. I can help it, at least. And the heart
palpitations; I can make you a digitalin extract that will help.” I found the
small packet of dried foxglove leaves; it would take a little time to brew
them.

Chapter 42

And among the other activities of my days, I made time to see Alex
Randall once a day. I took pains to come in the mornings, so as not to use
up his time with Mary. Alex slept little, and that little, ill; consequently, he
tended to be tired and drooping in the morning, not wanting to talk, but
always smiling in welcome when I arrived. I would give him a light
mixture of mint and lavender, with a few drops of poppy syrup stirred in;
this would generally allow him a few hours of sleep, so that he could be
alert when Mary arrived in the afternoon.

Chapter 45

I had seen death often enough before, in all its forms, but this was
always the worst—and the best; a man who met death with knowledge and
courage, while the healer’s futile arts fell aside. Futile or not, I rummaged
through the contents of my case for the digitalin I had made for him. I had
several infusions, in varying strengths, a spectrum of brown liquids in
glass vials. I chose the darkest vial without hesitation; I could hear his
breath bubbling through the water in his lungs.

It wasn’t digitalin, but his purpose that sustained him now, lighting him
with a glow as though a candle burned behind the waxy skin of his face. I
had seen that a few times before, too; the man—or woman—whose will
was strong enough to override for a time the imperatives of the body.

I thought that was perhaps how some ghosts were made; where a will
and a purpose had survived, heedless of the frail flesh that fell by the
wayside, unable to sustain life long enough. I didn’t much want to be
haunted by Alex Randall; that, among other reasons, was why I had made
Jamie come with me today.

<snip>

While we waited, I did what I could for Alex Randall, which under the
circumstances was not much. The foxglove infusion again, and a bit of
camphor to help ease his breathing. He seemed a little better after the
administration of such medicine as I had, but placing my homemade
stethoscope against the sunken chest, I could hear the labored thud of his
heart, interrupted by such frequent flutters and palpitations that I expected
it to stop at any moment.

Mary held his hand throughout, and he kept his eyes fixed on her, as
though memorizing every line of her face. It seemed almost an intrusion to
be in the same room with them.

Chapter 46

I was loath to surrender any of my precious supply of rose hips and
dried berries, but had offered, reluctantly, to make the Prince a tea of them.
The offer had been rejected, with a minimum of courtesy, and I understood
that Archie Cameron had been summoned, with his bowl of leeches and
his lancet, to see whether a letting of the Royal blood would relieve the
Royal itch.

[broughps]

Voyager - chapter 24

Mr. Graham, a small and vivacious gentleman of advanced years who
was seated next to me, was wearing a bag of camphor and asafoetida about
his neck, to the eyewatering discomfort of the rest of the coach.

“Capital for dispelling the evil humors of influenza,” he explained to
me, waving the bag gently under my nose like a censer. “I have worn this
daily through the autumn and winter months, and haven’t been sick a day
in nearly thirty years!”

“Amazing!” I said politely, trying to hold my breath. I didn’t doubt it;
the fumes probably kept everyone at such a distance that germs couldn’t
reach him.

Chapter 27

I found my way to the kitchen with no difficulty, and obtained the
necessary supplies. I hoped Jamie and Ian would give the boy a few
minutes’ respite; not only for his own sake, but so that I would miss
nothing of his story.

I had clearly missed something; when I returned to the small sitting
room, an air of constraint hung over the room like a cloud, and Young Ian
glanced up and then quickly away to avoid my eye. Jamie was his usual
imperturbable self, but the elder Ian looked almost as flushed and uneasy
as his son. He hurried forward to take the tray from me, murmuring thanks,
but would not meet my eye.

I raised one eyebrow at Jamie, who gave me a slight smile and a shrug. I
shrugged back and picked up one of the bowls on the tray.

“Bread and milk,” I said, handing it to Young Ian, who at once looked
happier.

“Hot tea,” I said, handing the pot to his father.

“Whisky,” I said, handing the bottle to Jamie, “and cold tea for the
burns.” I whisked the lid off the last bowl, in which a number of napkins
were soaking in cold tea.

“Cold tea?” Jamie’s ruddy brows lifted. “Did the cook have no butter?”

“You don’t put butter on burns,” I told him. “Aloe juice, or the juice of a
plantain or plantago, but the cook didn’t have any of that. Cold tea is the
best we could manage.”

I poulticed Young Ian’s blistered hands and forearms and blotted his
scarlet face gently with the tea-soaked napkins while Jamie and Ian did the
honors with teapot and whisky bottle, after which we all sat down,
somewhat restored, to hear the rest of Ian’s story.

[broughps]

Voyager - Chapter 29

In the morning, I saw Jamie and Ian off on their pious errand, and then set
off myself, stopping to purchase a large wicker basket from a vendor in the
street. It was time I began to equip myself again, with whatever I could
find in the way of medical supplies. After the events of the preceding day,
I was beginning to fear I would have need of them before long.

Haugh’s apothecary shop hadn’t changed at all, through English
occupation, Scottish Rising, and the Stuart’s fall, and my heart rose in
delight as I stepped through the door into the rich, familiar smells of
hartshorn, peppermint, almond oil, and anise.

The man behind the counter was Haugh, but a much younger Haugh
than the middle-aged man I had dealt with twenty years before, when I had
patronized this shop for tidbits of military intelligence, as well as for
nostrums and herbs.

The younger Haugh did not know me, of course, but went courteously
about the business of finding the herbs I wanted, among the neatly ranged
jars on his shelves. A good many were common—rosemary, tansy,
marigold—but a few on my list made the young Haugh’s ginger eyebrows
rise, and his lips purse in thoughtfulness as he looked over the jars.

There was another customer in the shop, hovering near the counter,
where tonics were dispensed and compounds ground to order. He strode
back and forth, hands clasped behind his back, obviously impatient. After
a moment, he came up to the counter.

“How long?” he snapped at Mr. Haugh’s back.

“I canna just say, Reverend,” the apothecary’s voice was apologetic.
“Louisa did say as ’twould need to be boiled.”

The only reply to this was a snort, and the man, tall and narrowshouldered
in black, resumed his pacing, glancing from time to time at the
doorway to the back room, where the invisible Louisa was presumably at
work. The man looked slightly familiar, but I had no time to think where I
had seen him before.

Mr. Haugh was squinting dubiously at the list I had given him.

“Aconite, now,” he muttered. “Aconite. And what might that be, I
wonder?”

“Well, it’s poison, for one thing,” I said. Mr. Haugh’s mouth dropped
open momentarily.

“It’s a medicine, too,” I assured him. “But you have to be careful in the
use of it. Externally, it’s good for rheumatism, but a very tiny amount
taken by mouth will lower the rate of the pulse. Good for some kinds of
heart trouble.”

“Really,” Mr. Haugh said, blinking. He turned to his shelves, looking
rather helpless. “Er, do ye ken what it smells like, maybe?”

Taking this for invitation, I came round the counter and began to sort
through the jars. They were all carefully labeled, but the labels of some
were clearly old, the ink faded, and the paper peeling at the edges.

“I’m afraid I’m none so canny wi’ the medicines as my Da yet,” young
Mr. Haugh was saying at my elbow. “He’d taught me a good bit, but then
he passed on a year ago, and there’s things here as I dinna ken the use of,
I’m afraid.”

“Well, that one’s good for cough,” I said, taking down a jar of
elecampane with a glance at the impatient Reverend, who had taken out a
handkerchief and was wheezing asthmatically into it. “Particularly stickysounding
coughs.”

I frowned at the crowded shelves. Everything was dusted and
immaculate, but evidently not filed according either to alphabetical or
botanical order. Had old Mr. Haugh merely remembered where things
were, or had he a system of some kind? I closed my eyes and tried to
remember the last time I had been in the shop.

To my surprise, the image came back easily. I had come for foxglove
then, to make the infusions for Alex Randall, younger brother of Black
Jack Randall—and Frank’s six-times great-grandfather. Poor boy, he had
been dead now twenty years, though he had lived long enough to sire a
son. I felt a twinge of curiosity at the thought of that son, and of his
mother, who had been my friend, but I forced my mind away from them,
back to the image of Mr. Haugh, standing on tiptoe to reach up to his
shelves, over near the right-hand side…

“There.” Sure enough, my hand rested near the jar labeled FOXGLOVE.
To one side of it was a jar labeled HORSETAIL, to the other, LILY OF THE
VALLEY ROOT. I hesitated, looking at them, running over in my mind the
possible uses of those herbs. Cardiac herbs, all of them. If aconite was to
be found, it would be close by, then.

It was. I found it quickly, in a jar labeled AULD WIVES HUID.

“Be careful with it.” I handed the jar gingerly to Mr. Haugh. “Even a bit
of it will make your skin go numb. Perhaps I’d better have a glass bottle
for it.” Most of the herbs I’d bought had been wrapped up in squares of
gauze or twisted in screws of paper, but the young Mr. Haugh nodded and
carried the jar of aconite into the back room, held at arm’s length, as
though he expected it to explode in his face.

“Ye’d seem to know a good deal more about the medicines than the
lad,” said a deep, hoarse voice behind me.

<snip>

If they didn’t help, they couldn’t hurt, I reflected, as I copied down the
short lists of ingredients. Chamomile, hops, rue, tansy, and verbena, with a
strong pinch of peppermint, for a soothing tonic. Tea of rose hips, to help
correct the slight nutritional deficiency I had noted—spongy, bleeding
gums, and a pale, bloated look about the face.

“Once you reach the Indies,” I said, handing Miss Cowden the paper,
“you must see that she eats a great deal of fruit—oranges, grapefruit, and
lemons, particularly. You should do the same,” I added, causing a look of
profound suspicion to flit across the maid’s wide face. I doubted she ate
any vegetable matter beyond the occasional onion or potato, save her daily
parritch.

[broughps]

Voyager - Chapter 37

I didn’t say anything, but went on holding his hand, putting a finger on
his pulse to check it. His heartbeat was reassuringly slow and steady.

He shifted slightly in the bed, moving his shoulders and making a
grimace of discomfort as he did so.

“Arm hurt a lot?” I asked.

“A bit.”

I bent over him, feeling his brow. He was very warm, but not feverish.
There was a line between the thick ruddy brows, and I smoothed it with a
knuckle.

“Head ache?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go and make you some willow-bark tea.” I made to rise, but his

hand on my arm stopped me.

“I dinna need tea,” he said. “It would ease me, though, if maybe I could
lay my head in your lap, and have ye rub my temples a bit?” Blue eyes
looked up at me, limpid as a spring sky.

“You don’t fool me a bit, Jamie Fraser,” I said. “I’m not going to forget
about your next shot.” Nonetheless, I was already moving the chair out of
the way, and sitting down beside him on the bed.

He made a small grunting sound of content as I moved his head into my
lap and began to stroke it, rubbing his temples, smoothing back the thick
wavy mass of his hair. The back of his neck was damp; I lifted the hair
away and blew softly on it, seeing the smooth fair skin prickle into
gooseflesh at the nape of his neck.

“Oh, that feels good,” he murmured. Despite my resolve not to touch
him beyond the demands of caretaking until everything between us was
resolved, I found my hands molding themselves to the clean, bold lines of
his neck and shoulders, seeking the hard knobs of his vertebrae and the
broad, flat planes of his shoulder blades.

He was firm and solid under my hands, his breath a warm caress on my
thigh, and it was with some reluctance that I at last eased him back onto
the pillow and reached for the ampule of penicillin.

“All right,” I said, turning back the sheet and reaching for the hem of his
shirt. “A quick stick, and you’ll—” My hand brushed over the front of his
nightshirt, and I broke off, startled.

“Jamie!” I said, amused. “You can’t possibly!”

“I dinna suppose I can,” he agreed comfortably. He curled up on his side
like a shrimp, his lashes dark against his cheek. “But a man can dream,
no?”

Chapter 38

As I had predicted, eighteenth-century germs were no match for a modern
antibiotic. Jamie’s fever had virtually disappeared within twenty-four
hours, and within the next two days the inflammation in his arm began to
subside as well, leaving no more than a reddening about the wound itself
and a very slight oozing of pus when pressed.

On the fourth day, after satisfying myself that he was mending nicely, I
dressed the wound lightly with coneflower salve, bandaged it again, and
left to dress and make my own toilet upstairs.

[broughps]

Voyager - Chapter 40

“Well, I suppose there’s no help for it,” Jared said with a sigh, echoing
my thought. “And at least you’ll have a physician to hand,” he added, with
a smile at me. “That is, I suppose you intend accompanying him, my
dear?”

“Yes indeed,” I assured him. “How long will it be before the ship is
ready? I’d like to find a good apothecary’s, to stock my medicine chest
before the voyage.”

<snip>

I pushed my feet farther toward the crackling fire, and dipped my quill
into the inkwell. I was making up a list of all the things I thought might be
needed in the medical way for a two-month voyage. Distilled alcohol was
both the most important and the easiest to obtain; Jared had promised to
get me a cask in Paris.

“We’d best label it something else, though,” he’d told me. “Or the
sailors will have drunk it before you’ve left port.”

Purified lard, I wrote slowly, St.-John’s-wort; garlic, ten pounds;
yarrow. I wrote borage, then shook my head and crossed it out, replacing
it with the older name by which it was more likely known now, bugloss.
It was slow work. At one time, I had known the medicinal uses of all the
common herbs, and not a few uncommon ones. I had had to; they were all
that was available.

At that, many of them were surprisingly effective. Despite the
skepticism—and outspoken horror—of my supervisors and colleagues at
the hospital in Boston, I had used them occasionally on my modern
patients to good effect. (“Did you see what Dr. Randall did?” a shocked
intern’s cry echoed in memory, making me smile as I wrote. “She fed the
stomach in 134B boiled flowers!”)

The fact remained that one wouldn’t use yarrow and comfrey on a
wound if iodine were available, nor treat a systemic infection with
bladderwort in preference to penicillin.

I had forgotten a lot, but as I wrote the names of the herbs, the look and
the smell of each one began to come back to me—the dark, bituminous
look and pleasant light smell of birch oil, the sharp tang of the mint family,
the dusty sweet smell of chamomile and the astringency of bistort.

Across the table, Jamie was struggling with his own lists. A poor
penman, he wrote laboriously with his crippled right hand, pausing now
and then to rub the healing wound above his left elbow and mutter curses
under his breath.

“Have ye lime juice on your list, Sassenach?” he inquired, looking up.

“No. Ought I to have?”

He brushed a strand of hair out of his face and frowned at the sheet of
paper in front of him.

“It depends. Customarily, it would be the ship’s surgeon who provides
the lime juice, but in a ship the size of the Artemis, there generally isn’t a
surgeon, and the provision of foodstuffs falls to the purser. But there isn’t
a purser, either; there’s no time to find a dependable man, so I shall fill
that office, too.”

“Well, if you’ll be purser and supercargo, I expect I’ll be the closest
thing to a ship’s surgeon,” I said, smiling slightly. “I’ll get the lime juice.”

<snip>

Mr. Willoughby had attracted relatively little attention in Le Havre, a
port city teeming with foreigners of every description. On the streets of
Paris, wearing a padded jacket over his blue-silk pajamas, and with his
queue wrapped several times around his head for convenience, he caused
considerable comment. He did, however, prove surprisingly
knowledgeable about herbs and medicinal substances.

“Bai jei ai,” he told me, picking up a pinch of mustard seed from an
open box in Krasner’s emporium. “Good for shen-yen—kidneys.”

“Yes, it is,” I said, surprised. “How did you know?”

He allowed his head to roll slightly from side to side, as I had learned
was his habit when pleased at being able to astonish someone.

“I know healers one time,” was all he said, though, before turning to
point at a basket containing what looked like balls of dried mud.

“Shan-yü,” he said authoritatively. “Good—very good—cleanse blood,
liver he work good, no dry skin, help see. You buy.”

I stepped closer to examine the objects in question and found them to be
a particularly homely sort of dried eel, rolled into balls and liberally coated
with mud. The price was quite reasonable, though, so to please him, I
added two of the nasty things to the basket over my arm.

[broughps]

Voyager - Chapter 41

“That’s verra strong-smelling stuff, Sassenach,” Jamie observed, during
one of his brief visits to the taproom. “What is it?”

“Fresh ginger,” I answered, holding up the remains of the root I was
grating. “It’s the thing most of my herbals say is best for nausea.”

“Oh, aye?” He picked up the bowl, sniffed at the contents, and sneezed
explosively, to the vast amusement of the onlookers. I snatched back the
bowl before he could spill it.

“You don’t take it like snuff,” I said. “You drink it in tea. And I hope to
heaven it works, because if it doesn’t, we’ll be scooping you out of the
bilges, if bilges are what I think they are.”

<snip>

Evidently the crew of the Artemis did not subsist entirely upon salt pork
and hardtack, then. I began to understand the reasons for Captain Raines’s
rather pear-shaped physique. I poked my head back through the door,
taking care to stand outside.

“Cardamom,” I said firmly. “Nutmeg, whole. Dried this year. Fresh
extract of anise. Ginger root, two large ones, with no blemishes.” I paused.
Mr. Murphy had stopped chopping, cleaver poised motionless above the
block.

“And,” I added, “half a dozen whole vanilla beans. From Ceylon.”
He turned slowly, wiping his hands upon his leather apron. Unlike his
surroundings, neither the apron nor his other apparel was spotless.
He had a broad, florid face, edged with stiff sandy whiskers like a
scrubbing brush, which quivered slightly as he looked at me, like the
antennae of some large insect. His tongue darted out to lick pursed lips.

“Saffron?” he asked hoarsely.

“Half an ounce,” I said promptly, taking care to conceal any trace of
triumph in my manner.

He breathed in deeply, lust gleaming bright in his small blue eyes.

“Ye’ll find a mat just outside, ma’am, should ye care to wipe yer boots
and come in.”

<snip>

For my part, I spent the days in exploring the ship, attending to such
small medical emergencies as arose from the daily business of sailing—a
smashed finger, a cracked rib, bleeding gums and an abscessed tooth—and
pounding herbs and making medicines in a corner of the galley, allowed to
work there by Murphy’s grace.

[broughps]

Voyager - chapter 43

While listening to this outpouring of woe, I had been selecting assorted
herbs from my box—anise and angelica, two large pinches of horehound,
and a few sprigs of peppermint. Tying these into a square of gauze, I
closed the box and handed Innes his shirt, into which he burrowed at once,
in search of refuge.

“I’ll speak to Mr. Murphy,” I promised the Scots. “Meanwhile,” I said
to Innes, handing him the gauze bundle, “brew you a good pot of tea from
that, and drink a cupful at every watch change. If we’ve had no results by
tomorrow, we’ll try stronger measures.”

As if in answer to this, a high, squeaking fart emerged from under Innes,
to an ironic cheer from his colleagues.

<snip>

“What have ye done to Innes, Sassenach?” he said, grinning. “He’s
hiding in the starboard head, and says ye told him he mustna come out at
all until he’d shit.”

“I didn’t tell him that, exactly,” I explained. “I just said if he hadn’t
moved his bowels by tonight, I’d give him an enema of slippery elm.”

Jamie glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the head.

“Well, I suppose we will hope that Innes’s bowels cooperate, or I doubt
but he’ll spend the rest of the voyage in the head, wi’ a threat like that
hangin’ ower him.”

“Well, I shouldn’t worry; now that he and the others have their parritch
back, their bowels ought to take care of themselves without undue
interference from me.”

<snip>

Mr. Willoughby shook his head, lacking words, and burrowed in my
medicine box. He came up with the bottle of dried hot peppers, and
shaking out a careful handful, put it into a small dish.

“Have fire?” he inquired. I had a flint and steel, and with these he
succeeded in kindling a spark to ignite the dried herb. The pungent smell
filled the cabin, and we all watched as a small plume of white rose up from
the dish and formed a small, hovering cloud over the dish.

“Send smoke of fan jiao messenger to ghost world, speak arm,” Mr.
Willoughby explained. Inflating his lungs and puffing out his cheeks like a
blowfish, he blew lustily at the cloud, dispersing it. Then, without pausing,
he turned and spat copiously on Innes’s stump.

“Why, ye heathen bugger!” Innes cried, eyes bulging with fury. “D’ye
dare spit on me?”

“Spit on ghost,” Mr. Willoughby explained, taking three quick steps
backward, toward the door. “Ghost afraid spittle. Not come back now right
away.”

I laid a restraining hand on Innes’s remaining arm.

“Does your missing arm hurt now?” I asked.

The rage began to fade from his face as he thought about it.

“Well…no,” he admitted. Then he scowled at Mr. Willoughby. “But
that doesna mean I’ll have ye spit on me whenever the fancy takes ye, ye
wee poutworm!”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Willoughby said, quite cool. “I not spit. You spit now.
Scare you own ghost.”

Innes scratched his head, not sure whether to be angry or amused.

“Well, I will be damned,” he said finally. He shook his head, and
picking up his shirt, pulled it on. “Still,” he said, “I think perhaps next
time, I’ll try your tea, Mistress Fraser.”

[broughps]

Voyager - Chapter 46

“That,” I said firmly, putting the cup down, “is definitely none of your
business. As to whether childbirth makes a difference, possibly it does to
some women, but not all of them. But whether it does or not, there are
good reasons why you might not want to have a child right away.”

She withdrew the pouting underlip and sat up straight, interested.

“So there is a way?”

“There are a lot of ways, and unfortunately most of them don’t work,” I
told her, with a pang of regret for my prescription pad and the reliability of
contraceptive pills. Still, I remembered well enough the advice of the
maîtresses sage-femme, the experienced midwives of the Hôpital des
Anges, where I had worked in Paris twenty years before.

“Hand me the small box in the cupboard over there,” I said, pointing to
the doors above her head. “Yes, that one.

“Some of the French midwives make a tea of bayberry and valerian,” I
said, rummaging in my medicine box. “But it’s rather dangerous, and not
all that dependable, I don’t think.”

“D’ye miss her?” Marsali asked abruptly. I glanced up, startled. “Your,
daughter?” Her face was abnormally expressionless, and I suspected the
question had more to do with Laoghaire than with me.

“Yes,” I said simply. “But she’s grown; she has her own life.” The lump
in my throat was back, and I bent my head over the medicine box, hiding
my face. The chances of Laoghaire ever seeing Marsali again were just
about as good as the chances that I would ever see Brianna; it wasn’t a
thought I wanted to dwell on.

“Here,” I said, pulling out a large chunk of cleaned sponge. I took one
of the thin surgical knives from the fitted slots in the lid of the box and
carefully sliced off several thin pieces, about three inches square. I
searched through the box again and found the small bottle of tansy oil,
with which I carefully saturated one square under Marsali’s fascinated
gaze.

“All right,” I said. “That’s about how much oil to use. If you haven’t
any oil, you can dip the sponge in vinegar—even wine will work, in a
pinch. You put the bit of sponge well up inside you before you go to bed
with a man—mind you do it even the first time; you can get with child
from even once.”

Marsali nodded, her eyes wide, and touched the sponge gently with a
forefinger. “Aye? And—and after? Do I take it out again, or—”

An urgent shout from above, coupled with a sudden heeling of the
Artemis as she backed her mainsails, put an abrupt end to the conversation.
Something was happening up above.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, pushing the sponge and bottle toward her, and
headed for the passage.

<snip>

My hair had blown loose during the trip between the ships; I twisted it
up and repinned it as best I could, then reached to take the medicine box I
had brought from the midshipman who held it.

[broughps]

Voyager - Chapter 47

Mr. Overholt had taken to avoiding me and my insatiable demands,
locking himself in his cabin with a pomander of dried sage and hyssop tied
round his neck to ward off plague. The able-bodied crewmen assigned to
the work of cleaning and shifting had been lethargic and dubious at first,
but I had chivvied and scolded, glared and shouted, stamped my foot and
shrieked, and got them gradually moving. I felt more like a sheepdog than
a doctor—snapping and growling at their heels, and hoarse now with the
effort.

Chapter 50

It was the same; the same sweet, throat-rasping taste, and I suffered the
momentary illusion that I was back at the party where I had first tasted it,
in company with a marijuana-smoking graduate student and a professor of
botany.

This illusion was fostered by Stern’s conversation, which dealt with his
collections, and by Father Fogden’s behavior. After several cups of
sangria, he had risen, rummaged through the sideboard, and emerged with
a large clay pipe. This he packed full of a strong-smelling herb shaken out
of a paper twist, and proceeded to smoke.

“Hemp?” Stern asked, seeing this. “Tell me, do you find it settling to the
digestive processes? I have heard it is so, but the herb is unobtainable in
most European cities, and I have no firsthand observations of its effect.”

“Oh, it is most genial and comforting to the stomach,” Father Fogden
assured him. He drew in a huge breath, held it, then exhaled long and
dreamily, blowing a stream of soft white smoke that floated in streamers of
haze near the room’s low ceiling. “I shall send a packet home with you,
dear fellow. Do say, now, what do you mean doing, you and this
shipwrecked lady you have rescued?”

Chapter 52

“Will you go down to the galley and ask Mr. Murphy to send up a bottle
of his strongest vinegar? And then find where the men have put some of
my medicines, and fetch them as well?”

His narrow forehead creased in puzzlement, but he nodded obligingly.

“Oh, yes, mum. This directly minute.”

“Just what d’ye mean to do wi’ the vinegar Sassenach?” Jamie observed
me narrowly, as Maitland vanished into the corridor.

“Souse you in it to kill the lice,” I said. “I don’t intend to sleep with a
seething nest of vermin.”

Chapter 55

“I was looking for your medicine box,” he replied, wincing as he felt the
crown of his head. “Damn, I’ve caved in my skull. Look at that!” He thrust
two fingers, slightly smeared with blood, under my nose. I dropped the
vinegar-soaked cloth over the fingers and collapsed back on my pillow.

“Why do you need the medicine box, and why didn’t you ask me in the
first place, instead of bumping around like a bee in a bottle?” I said
irritably.

“I didna want to wake ye from your sleep,” he said, sheepishly enough
that I laughed, despite the various throbbings going on in my anatomy.

“That’s all right; I wasn’t enjoying it,” I assured him. “Why do you need
the box? Is someone hurt?”

“Aye. I am,” he said, dabbing gingerly at the top of his head with the
cloth and scowling at the result. “Ye dinna want to look at my head?”

The answer to this was “Not especially,” but I obligingly motioned to
him to bend over, presenting the top of his head for inspection. There was
a reasonably impressive lump under the thick hair, with a small cut from
the edge of the shelf, but the damage seemed a bit short of concussion.

“It’s not fractured,” I assured him. “You have the thickest skull I’ve
ever seen.” Moved by an instinct as old as motherhood, I leaned forward
and kissed the bump gently. He lifted his head, eyes wide with surprise.

“That’s supposed to make it feel better,” I explained. A smile tugged at
the corner of his mouth.

“Oh. Well, then.” He bent down and gently kissed the bandage on my
wounded arm.

“Better?” he inquired, straightening up.

“Lots.”

He laughed, and reaching for the decanter, poured out a tot of whisky,
which he handed to me.

“I wanted that stuff ye use to wash out scrapes and such,” he explained,
pouring another for himself.

“Hawthorn lotion. I haven’t got any ready-made, because it doesn’t
keep,” I said, pushing myself upright. “If it’s urgent, though, I can brew
some; it doesn’t take long.” The thought of getting up and walking to the
galley was daunting, but perhaps I’d feel better once I was moving.

“Not urgent,” he assured me. “It’s only there’s a prisoner in the hold
who’s a bit bashed about.”

<snip>

There were deep bands of rawness on ankles and wrists, where he had
pulled against the thongs. I hadn’t made any of the hawthorn lotion, but I
had brought the jar of gentian salve. I eased myself down on the deck next
to him, but he took no more notice of me than of the deck beneath his feet,
even when I began to spread the cool blue cream on his wounds.

[broughps]

DOA - Chapter 6

“Well, I’m surely obliged to hear that. Wouldn’t care to have a chunk
taken out my leg, so early in the day.” He removed a disreputable slouch
hat with a ragged turkey feather thrust through the brim, and bowed to me,
loose snaky black locks falling forward on his shoulders. “John Quincy
Myers, your servant, ma’am.”

“Claire Fraser,” I said, offering him a hand in fascination. He squinted
at it a moment, brought my fingers to his nose and sniffed them, then
looked up and broke into a broad smile, nonetheless charming for missing
half its teeth.

“Why, you’ll maybe be a yarb-woman, won’t you?”

“I will?”

He turned my hand gently over, tracing the chlorophyll stains around
my cuticles.

“A green-fingered lady might just be tendin’ her roses, but a lady whose
hands smell of sassafras root and Jesuit bark is like to know more than
how to make flowers bloom. Don’t you reckon that’s so?” he asked,
turning a friendly gaze on Ian, who was viewing Mr. Myers with
unconcealed interest.

“Oh, aye,” Ian assured him. “Auntie Claire’s a famous healer. A wisewoman!”

He glanced proudly at me.

“That so, boy? Well, now.” Mr. Myers’s eyes went round with interest,
and swiveled back to focus on me. “Smite me if this ain’t Lucifer’s own
luck! And me thinkin’ I’d have to wait till I come to the mountains and
find me a shaman to take care of it.”

Chapter 11

River Run boasted a “simples” room, essentially a small closet in which
dried herbs and medicines were kept. There was not much there—no more
than a few jars of dandelion root and willow bark, and a few patent
poultices, dusty from disuse. Jocasta professed herself delighted that I
should want to use the space—she had herself no talent for medicinals, she
said with a shrug, nor had any of the slaves.

<snip>

I reached back to touch the wooden case strapped on behind my saddle,
trying to avoid thinking of what might lie ahead, by making mental
preparations for the only role I might reasonably play in this incipient
disaster. I likely could not prevent damage; but I could try to repair what
had happened already. Disinfection and cleansing—I had a bottle of
distilled alcohol, and a wash made from pressed garlic juice and mint.
Then dress the wound—yes, I had linen bandages—but surely it would
need stitching first?

<snip>

“Give me the third bottle from the left, top row,” I said, with a nod at
the lid of the box, where three rows of clear glass bottles, firmly corked,
held a variety of medicines.

I had two bottles of pure alcohol, another of brandy. I poured a good
dose of the brownish powdered root into the brandy, and shook it briskly,
then crawled to the man’s head and pressed it to his lips.

His eyes were glazed; I tried to look into them, to make him see me.
Why? I wondered, even as I leaned close and called his name. I couldn’t
ask if this would be his choice—I had made it for him. And having made
it, could not ask for either approval or forgiveness.

He swallowed. Once. Twice. The muscles near his blanched mouth
quivered; drops of brandy ran across his skin. Once more a deep
convulsive gulp, and then his straining neck relaxed, his head heavy on my
arm.

I sat with my eyes closed, supporting his head, my fingers on the pulse
under his ear. It jumped; skipped a beat and resumed. A shiver ran over his
body, the blotched skin twitching as though a thousand ants ran over it.

The textbook description ran through my mind:
Numbness. Tingling. A sensation of the skin crawling, as though
affected by insects. Nausea, epigastric pain. Labored breathing, skin cold
and clammy, features bloodless. Pulse feeble and irregular, yet the mind
remains clear.

None of the visible symptoms were discernible from those he already
showed. Epigastric pain, forsooth.

One-fiftieth grain will kill a sparrow in a few seconds. One-tenth grain,
a rabbit in five minutes. Aconite was said to be the poison in the cup
Medea prepared for Theseus.

I think this might be from the scene we see in the season 4 trailer with the mob.

[broughps]

DOA - Chapter 14

“Here’s a wee one,” Jamie said, bending over and pushing his own hair
aside so I could reach the small dark bleb behind his ear. I was engaged in
gently maneuvering the creature out, when I became aware of a presence
near my elbow.

I had been too tired to take much notice of our fugitive when we made
camp, rightly assuming that she wasn’t going to wander off into the
wilderness by herself. She had wandered as far as a nearby stream, though,
returning with a bucket of water.

She set this on the ground, dipped up a handful of water and funneled it
into her mouth. She chewed vigorously for a moment, cheeks puffed out.
Then she motioned me aside and, lifting a surprised Jamie’s arm, spat
forcefully and profusely into his armpit.

She reached into the dripping hollow, and with delicate fingers appeared
to tickle the parasite. She certainly tickled Jamie, who was very sensitive
in that particular region. He turned pink in the face and flinched at her
touch, all the muscles in his torso quivering.

She held tight to his wrist, though, and within seconds, the bulging tick
dropped off into the palm of her hand. She flicked it disdainfully away,
and turned to me, with a small air of satisfaction.

I had thought she resembled a ball, muffled in her cloak. Seen without
it, she still did. She was very short, no more than four feet, and nearly as
wide, with a close-cropped head like a cannonball, her cheeks so round
that her eyes were slanted above them.

She looked like nothing so much as one of the carved African fertility
images I had seen in the Indies; massive of bosom, heavy of haunch, and
the rich, burnt-coffee color of a Congolese, with skin so flawless that it
looked like polished stone under its thin layer of sweat. She held out her
hand to me, showing me a few small objects in her palm, the general size
and shape of dried lima beans.

“Paw-paw,” she said, in a voice so deep that even Myers turned his head
toward her, startled. It was a huge, rich voice, reverberant as a drum.
Seeing my reaction to it, she smiled a little shyly, and said something I
didn’t quite understand, though I knew it was Gaelic.

“She says ye must not swallow the seeds, for they’re poison,” Jamie
translated, eyeing her rather warily as he wiped his armpit with the end of
his plaid.

“Hau,” Pollyanne agreed, nodding vigorously. “Poi-zin.” She stooped
over the bucket for another handful of water, washed it round her mouth,
and spat it at a rock with a noise like a gunshot.

“You could be dangerous with that,” I told her. I didn’t know whether
she understood me, but she gathered from my smile that I meant to be
cordial; she smiled back, popped two more of the paw-paw seeds into her
mouth, and beckoned to Myers, already chewing, the seeds making little
crunching pops as she pulverized them between her teeth.

[broughps]

DOA - Chapter 15

“Well, it’s no as though my back was much to look at, anyway,” he
joked feebly. “Really, is it bad?” He twisted around, trying to see, then
stopped, grunting as the movement strained his bruised ribs.

“No. Dirty, though; I’ll need to wash it out.” The blood had already
begun to clot; the wounds would need to be cleansed at once. I put the
plaid back and set on a pan of water to boil, thinking what else I might use.

“I saw some arrowhead plant down near the stream,” I said. “I think I
can find it again from memory.” I handed him the bottle of ale I’d brought
from the saddlebags, and took his dirk.

“Will you be all right?” I paused and looked at him; he was very pale,
and still shivering. The fire glimmered red on his brows, throwing the lines
of his face into strong relief.

“Aye, I will.” He mustered a faint grin. “Dinna worry, Sassenach; the
thought of dyin’ asleep in my bed seems even better to me now than it did
an hour ago.”

A sickle-moon was rising, bright over the trees, and I had little trouble
finding the place I remembered. The stream ran cold and silver in the
moonlight, chilling my hands and feet as I stood calf-deep in the water,
groping for tubers of the arrowhead plant.

<snip>

The Indian’s brows rose higher. Then he ducked his head, hands spread
in a gesture of respect. He beckoned to one of the younger men, who came
over, untying a pouch from his belt.

Shoving me unceremoniously to one side, the younger man ripped open
the throat of Jamie’s shirt, pulled it off his shoulder, and squinted at the
injury. He poured a handful of a lumpy, half-powdery substance into his
hand, spat copiously into it, stirred it into a foul-smelling paste, and
smeared it liberally over the wounds.

“Now I really am going to puke,” Jamie murmured, wincing under the
ungentle ministrations. “What is that stuff?”

“At a guess, it’s dried trillium mixed with very rancid bear grease,” I
said, trying not to inhale the pungent fumes. “I don’t suppose it will kill
you; at least I hope not.”

“That’s two of us, then,” he said under his breath. “No, I’ll do now,
thank ye kindly.” He waved away further ministrations, smiling politely at
his would-be doctor.

Chapter 16

We reached the top of a ridge, only to find another before us, and
another beyond. I did not know what we might be looking for, or how we
would know if we found it. Jamie covered miles with his tireless hillwalker’s
stride, taking in everything. I tagged behind, enjoying the
scenery, pausing now and then to gather some fascinating plant or root,
stowing my treasures in the bag at my belt.

Chapter 20

While I talked with Gabrielle and Berthe, augmenting the conversation
by means of hand-waving, I slowly became conscious that another sort of
communication was taking place, with the old lady.

She said nothing to me directly—though she murmured now and then to
Berthe, plainly demanding to know what I had said—but her bright dark
eyes stayed fixed on me, and I was peculiarly aware of her regard. I had
the odd feeling that she was talking to me—and I to her—without the
exchange of a single spoken word.

I saw Jamie, across the clearing, offering Nacognaweto the rest of the
bottle of brandy; clearly it was time to offer gifts in return. I gave
Gabrielle the embroidered kerchief, and Berthe, a hairpin ornamented with
paste brilliants, over which gifts they exclaimed in pleasure. For
Nayawenne, though, I had something different.

I had been fortunate enough to find four large ginseng roots the week
before. I fetched all four from my medicine chest and pressed them into
her hands, smiling. She looked back at me, then grinned, and untying the
cloth bag from her belt, thrust it at me. I didn’t have to open it; I could feel
the four long, lumpy shapes through the cloth.

I laughed in return; yes, we definitely spoke the same language!

<snip>

My face must have shown my startlement, for the old lady doubled up
laughing. She held out her hand and I gave her back the amulet, with a fair
amount of haste. Gabrielle conveyed politely that her husband’s
grandmother would be pleased to show me the useful plants that grew
nearby, if I would like to walk with her?

I accepted this invitation with alacrity, and the old lady set off up the
path with a sure-footed spryness that belied her years. I watched her feet,
tiny in soft leather boots, and hoped that when I was her age, I might be
capable of walking for two days through the woods, and then wanting to
go exploring.

We wandered along the stream for some way, followed at a respectful
distance by Gabrielle and Berthe, who came up beside us only if
summoned to interpret.

“Each of the plants holds the cure to a sickness,” the old lady explained
through Gabrielle. She plucked a twig from a bush by the path and handed
it to me with a wry look. “If we only knew what they all were!”

[broughps]

DOA - Chapter 23

My fame—if that’s the word—as a healer soon spread outside our tiny
settlement, and I found myself called farther and farther afield, to tend the
ills of folk on isolated hill farms scattered over thirty miles of wild
mountain terrain. In addition, I made rare visits with Ian to Anna Ooka to
see Nayawenne, returning with baskets and jars of useful herbs.

<snip>

“Find the green bottle, please,” I said, nibbling at the dry oatcake. “I’ll
need to wash my hair.”

“Mmphm.” More clinking, and he emerged at last with his hands full of
things, including a towel and the bottle full of the shampoo I had made—
not wishing to wash my hair with lye soap—from soaproot, lupin oil,
walnut leaves and calendula flowers. He set these on the table, along with
my largest mixing bowl, and carefully filled it with hot water from the
cauldron.

<snip>

“Good.” The sharp smell of camphor stung my nose, and before I could
move, one large hand had seized my shoulder, holding me in place, while
the other rubbed slippery oil firmly into my chest.

“Stop! That tickles! Stop, I say!”

He didn’t stop. I squirmed madly, trying to escape, but he was a lot
bigger than I was.

“Be still,” he said, inexorable fingers rubbing deep between my ticklish
ribs, under my collarbone, around and under my tender breasts, greasing
me as thoroughly as a suckling pig bound for the spit.

“You bastard!” I said when he let me go, breathless from struggling and
giggling. I reeked of peppermint and camphor, and my skin glowed with
heat from chin to belly.

He grinned at me, revenged and thoroughly unrepentant.

[broughps]

DOA - chapter 25

“There are, but I’m taking them up to our guest at the corncrib.” I added
two slices of bread to the small basket I was packing, and took up the
bottle of infusion I had left steeping overnight. The brew of goldenrod,
bee-balm, and wild bergamot was a blackish green, and smelled like burnt
fields, but it might help. It couldn’t hurt. On impulse, I picked up the tiedfeather
amulet old Nayawenne had given me; perhaps it would reassure the
sick man. Like the medicine, it couldn’t hurt.

<snip>

He did take a few mouthfuls, but then stopped swallowing, merely
allowing the greenish-black liquid to run out of the corners of his mouth. I
tried coaxing in French, but he was having none of it; he didn’t even
acknowledge my presence, just stared past my shoulder at the morning
sky.

<snip>

I held up the raven’s-feather amulet, turned my face skyward; and
solemnly intoned the most sonorous thing I could remember, which
happened to be Dr. Rawlings’s receipt for the treatment of syphilis,
rendered in Latin.

I poured a small bit of lavender oil into my hand, dipped the feather in
it, and anointed his temples and throat, while singing “Blow the Man
Down,” in a low, sinister voice. It might help the headache. His eyes were
following the feather’s movements; I felt rather like a rattlesnake charming
away in its “Quoil,” waiting for a squirrel to run down my throat.

I picked up his hand, laid the oil-drabbled amulet across his palm, and
closed his fingers round it. Then I took the jar of mentholated bear grease
and painted mystic patterns on his chest, being careful to rub it well in
with the balls of my thumbs. The reek cleared my sinuses; I could only
hope it would help the patient’s thick congestion.

I completed my ritual by solemnly blessing the bottle of infusion with
“In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritu Sancti, Amen.” and presenting it to my
patient’s lips. Looking mildly hypnotized, he opened his mouth and
obediently drank the rest.

I drew the blanket up around his shoulders, put the food I had brought
down beside him, and left him, with mixed feelings of hope and
fraudulence.

I walked slowly beside the stream, eyes alert as always for anything useful.
It was too early in the year for most medicinals; for medicine, the older
and tougher the plant, the better; several seasons of fighting off insects
ensured a higher concentration of the active principles in their roots and
stems.

Also, with many plants, it was the flower, fruit, or seed that yielded a
useful substance, and while I’d spotted clumps of turtlehead and lobelia
sprouting in the mud along the path, those had long since gone to seed. I
marked the locations carefully in my mind for future reference, and went
on hunting.

Watercress was abundant; patches of it floated among the rocks all
along the margin of the stream, and a huge mat of the spicy dark green
leaves lay temptingly just ahead. A nice patch of scouring rushes, too! I
had come down barefoot, knowing I’d be wading before long; I tucked up
my skirts and ventured cautiously out into the stream, cutting knife in hand
and basket over my arm, breath sucked in against the freezing chill.

My feet lost all feeling within moments—but I didn’t care. I quite forgot
the snake in the privy, the pig in the pantry, and the Indian in the corncrib,
absorbed in the rush of water past my legs, the wet, cold touch of stems
and the breath of aromatic leaves.

<snip>

“Here, let me take care of the bites.” Tiny streams of blood ran down his
legs; I dabbed them with a clean cloth, then washed the small wounds with
vinegar and St.-John’s-wort to stop the bleeding.

I wonder how much of this we'll get.

[broughps]

DOA - Chapter 27

“A griping in your guts, is it?” he said pleasantly, kneeling and putting
the kettle to boil.

“Mm-hm.” Willie’s voice was muffled in the blanket over his knees.

“That passes soon enough,” he said. He reached for his sporran, and
sorted through the proliferation of small items in it, coming up eventually
with the small cloth bag that held the dried mixture of leaves and flowers
Claire had given him. He didn’t know how she’d known it would be
needed, but he was long past the point of questioning anything she did in
the way of healing—whether of heart or of body.

He felt a moment’s passionate gratitude to her. He’d seen her look at the
boy, and knew how she must feel. She’d known about the lad, of course,
but seeing the flesh-and-blood proof that her husband had shared another
woman’s bed wasn’t something a wife should be asked to put up with.
Little wonder if she was inclined to stick pins in John, him pushing the lad
under her nose as he had.

“It willna take more than a moment to brew up,” he assured the boy,
rubbing the fragrant mixture between his hands into a wooden cup, as he’d
seen Claire do.

<snip>

The water was beginning to rumble in the kettle. He poured it carefully
over the herb mixture, and a sweet fragrance rose up in the steam.
Valerian, she’d said, and catmint. The root of a passionflower, soaked in
honey and finely ground. And the sweet, half-musky smell of lavender,
coming as an afterscent.

“Don’t drink it yourself,” she’d said, casual in giving it to him. “There’s
lavender in it.”

In fact, it didn’t trouble him, if he was warned of it. It was only that now
and then a whiff of lavender took him unawares, and sent a sudden surge
of sickness through his wame. Claire had seen the effects on him once too
often to be unwary of it.

“Here.” He leaned forward and handed the cup to the boy, wondering
whether forever after, the lad too would feel troubled by the scent of
lavender, or if he would find in it a memory of comfort. That, he supposed,
might well depend on whether John Grey lived or died.

The respite had given Willie back his outward composure, but his face
was still marked with grief. Jamie smiled at the boy, hiding his own
concern. Knowing both John and Claire as he did, he was less fearful than
the boy—but the dread was still there, persistent as a thorn in the sole of
his foot.

“That will ease ye,” he said, nodding at the cup. “My wife made it; she’s
a verra fine healer.”

Chapter 28

The willow-bark brew I had left steeping was dark and aromatic; ready
to drink. I poured it off carefully into a cup, glancing as I did so at Lord
John.

<snip>

I rose and went to the cupboard. I took down three jars: catmint,
valerian, and wild ginger. I took down the marble mortar and tipped the
dried leaves and root chunks into it. A drop of water fell from the kettle,
hissing into steam.

“What are you doing?” Lord John asked.

“Making an infusion for Ian,” I said, with a nod toward the trundle.
“The same I gave you four days ago.”

<snip>

I poured the green and yellow powder into a small square of cotton
gauze and tied it neatly into a tiny bag.

“No, he won’t, you’re right about that.”

“Will you?”

I looked up, startled.

“You really think I would?” He studied my face carefully for a moment,
then smiled.

“No,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

I snorted briefly and dropped the medicine bag into the teapot. I put
back the jars of herbs, and sat down with my blasted wool again.

<snip>

There was plenty of the infusion left. I poured another cup and held it
out to Lord John. Surprised, he sat upright and took it from me.

<snip>

Rollo ignored this advice, though, and instead sat patiently watching as I
wrung out a rag in cool water and bathed Ian. I nudged him half awake,
brushed his hair, gave him the chamber pot, and coaxed bee-balm syrup
into him—all the time listening for the sound of hooves, and Clarence’s
joyful announcement that company was coming.

[broughps]

DOA - Chapter 41

I took down the bottles from the cupboard, one by one, uncorking one now
and then to sniff at the contents. If not thoroughly dry before storage,
fleshy-leaved herbs would rot in the bottle; seeds would grow exotic
molds.

The thought of molds made me think once more of my penicillin
plantation. Or what I hoped might one day be one, were I lucky enough,
and observant enough to know my luck. Of the hundreds of molds that
grew easily on stale, damp bread, Penicillium was only one. What were the
odds of a stray spore of that one precious mold taking root on the slices of
bread I laid out weekly? What were the odds of an exposed slice of bread
surviving long enough for any spores to find it? And lastly, what were the
odds that I would recognize it if I saw it?

I had been trying for more than a year, with no success so far.

Even with the marigolds and yarrow I scattered for repellency, it was
impossible to keep the vermin away. Mice and rats, ants and cockroaches;
one day I had even found a party of burglarious squirrels in the pantry,
holding riot over scattered corn and the gnawed ruins of half my seed
potatoes.

The only recourse was to lock all edibles in the big hutch Jamie had
built—that, or keep them in thick wooden casks or lidded jars, resistent to
the efforts of tooth and claw. But to seal food away from four-footed
thieves was also to seal it away from the air—and the air was the only
messenger that might one day bring me a real weapon against disease.

Each of the plants carries an antidote to some illness—if we only knew
what it was. I felt a renewed pang of loss when I thought of Nayawenne;
not only for herself but for her knowledge. She had taught me only a
fraction of the things she knew, and I regretted that most bitterly—though
not as bitterly as the loss of my friend.

Still, I knew one thing she had not—the manifold virtues of that
smallest of plants, the lowly bread mold. To find it would be difficult, to
recognize it, and to use it, even more so. But I never doubted it was worth
the search.

Chapter 45

I drew in my skirts to keep them away from a big elderberry bush, and
stooped to look at the fruit. It was dark red, but not yet showing the
blackish tinge of true ripeness.

“Two more days,” I said. “If we were going to use them for medicine,
we’d pick them now. I want them for wine, though, and to dry like raisins
—and for that, you want them to have a lot of sugar, so you wait until
they’re nearly ready to drop from their stems.”

“Right. What landmark is it?” Brianna glanced around, and smiled. “No,
don’t tell me—it’s that big rock that looks like an Easter Island head.”

“Very good,” I said approvingly. “Right, because it won’t change with
the seasons.”

Reaching the edge of a small stream, we separated, working our way
slowly down the banks. I had set Brianna to collect cress, while I poked
about the trees in search of wood ears and other edible fungi.

<snip>

By the time I had my basket half filled with thick, fleshy orange wood
ears, Brianna had emerged dripping from the stream, her own basket
overflowing with clumps of wet green cress and bunches of jointed
horsetail reeds to make into tapers.

[broughps]

DOA - Chapter 47

I splinted Jamie’s finger while Brianna sat down beside him and dabbed
gentian ointment onto the abraded knuckles of his other hand. Her face
was quite calm; no one would ever guess what was going on behind it.

Chapter 49

I opened Daniel Rawlings’s box, and stared at the rows of bottles filled
with the soft greens and browns of powdered root and leaf, the clear gold
of distillations. There was nothing among the bottles to help. Very slowly,
I lifted the covering that lay over the top compartment, over the blades.

I lifted out the scalpel with the curved edge, tasting cold metal in the
back of my throat. It was a beautiful tool, sharp and sturdy, well balanced,
part of my hand when I chose it to be. I balanced it on the end of my
finger, letting it tilt gently back and forth.

I set it down, and picked up the long, thick root that lay on the table.
Part of the stem was still attached, the remnants of leaves hanging limp
and yellow. Only one. I had searched the woods for nearly two weeks, but
it was so late in the year that the leaves of the smaller herbs had yellowed
and fallen; it was impossible to recognize plants that were no more than
brown sticks. I had found this one in a sheltered spot, a few of the
distinctive fruits still clinging to its stalk. Blue cohosh, I was sure. But
only one. It wasn’t enough.

I had none of the European herbs, no hellebore, no wormwood. I could
perhaps get wormwood, though with some difficulty; it was used to flavor
absinthe.

“And who makes absinthe in the backwoods of North Carolina?” I said
aloud, picking up the scalpel again.

<snip>

I opened Daniel Rawlings’s box, and stared at the rows of bottles filled
with the soft greens and browns of powdered root and leaf, the clear gold
of distillations. There was nothing among the bottles to help. Very slowly,
I lifted the covering that lay over the top compartment, over the blades.
I lifted out the scalpel with the curved edge, tasting cold metal in the
back of my throat. It was a beautiful tool, sharp and sturdy, well balanced,
part of my hand when I chose it to be. I balanced it on the end of my
finger, letting it tilt gently back and forth.

I set it down, and picked up the long, thick root that lay on the table.
Part of the stem was still attached, the remnants of leaves hanging limp
and yellow. Only one. I had searched the woods for nearly two weeks, but
it was so late in the year that the leaves of the smaller herbs had yellowed
and fallen; it was impossible to recognize plants that were no more than
brown sticks. I had found this one in a sheltered spot, a few of the
distinctive fruits still clinging to its stalk. Blue cohosh, I was sure. But
only one. It wasn’t enough.

I had none of the European herbs, no hellebore, no wormwood. I could
perhaps get wormwood, though with some difficulty; it was used to flavor
absinthe.

“And who makes absinthe in the backwoods of North Carolina?” I said
aloud, picking up the scalpel again.

<snip>

“It would have to be surgical,” I said, unable to keep quiet. “I don’t have
the right herbs—and they aren’t always reliable, in any case. At least
surgery is…certain.” I laid the scalpel on the table; she should not be under
any illusions as to what I was suggesting. She nodded at my words, but
didn’t stop her pacing. Like Jamie, she always thought better while
moving.

Chapter 50

He closed his eyes briefly and sighed, then opened them and lifted one
eyebrow at me. I smiled faintly and turned back to my work, pounding
fennel seeds in the mortar.

Chapter 70

“When you make bashed neeps,” I said, “be sure to boil the tops along
with the turnips. Then save the pot liquor and give it to the children; you
take some too—it’s good for your milk.”

Maisri Buchanan pressed her smallest child to her breast and nodded
solemnly, committing my advice to memory. I could not persuade most of
the new immigrants either to eat fresh greens or to feed them to their
families, but now and then I found opportunity to introduce a bit of
vitamin C surreptitiously into their usual diet—which consisted for the
most part of oatmeal and venison.

I had tried the expedient of making Jamie eat a plate of sliced tomatoes
in public view, in hopes that the sight of him would ease some of the new
immigrants’ fears. This had not been successful; most of them regarded
him with a half-superstitious awe, and I was given to understand that
Himself could naturally survive the eating of things that would kill a
normal person dead on the spot.

I dismissed Maisri, and welcomed the next visitor to my impromptu
clinic, a woman with two little girls, covered with an eczematous rash that
I at first thought evidence of more nutritional deficiency, but which
fortunately proved to be only poison ivy.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 2

A little later, pleasantly full of breakfast, and with a third cup of coffee
to hand, I went and threw back the canvas covering what I thought of as
my medical supply dump. It was time to begin the business of organizing
for the morning’s surgery; looking at jars of sutures, restocking the herb
jars in my chest, refilling the large alcohol bottle, and brewing up the
medicines that must be made fresh.

Somewhat depleted of the commoner herbs I had brought with me, my
stock had been augmented by the good offices of Myers, who had brought
me several rare and useful things from the Indian villages to the north, and
by judicious trading with Murray MacLeod, an ambitious young
apothecary who had made his way inland and set up shop in Cross Creek.

I bit the inside of my cheek, considering young Murray. He harbored the
usual sort of nasty notions that passed for medical wisdom nowadays—and
was not shy about asserting the superiority of such scientific methods as
bleeding and blistering over the old-fashioned herbcraft that such ignorant
crones as myself were prone to practice!

Still, he was a Scot, and thus possessed of a strong streak of
pragmatism. He had given Jamie’s powerful frame one look and hastily
swallowed the more insulting of his opinions. I had six ounces of
wormwood and a jar of wild ginger root, and he wanted them. He was also
shrewd enough to have observed that many more of the folk on the
mountain who ailed with anything came to me than to him—and that most
who accepted my cures were improved. If I had secrets, he wanted those,
too—and I was more than happy to oblige.

Good, I had plenty of willow bark still left. I hesitated over the small
rank of bottles in the upper right tray of the chest. I had several very strong
emmenagogues—blue cohosh, ergot, and pennyroyal—but picked instead
the gentler tansy and rue, setting a handful into a bowl and pouring boiling
water on them to steep. Beyond its effects in easing menstruation, tansy
had a reputation for calming nerves—and a more naturally nervous person
than Lizzie Wemyss it would be difficult to imagine.

I glanced back at the fire, where Lizzie was shoveling the last of the
strawberry preserves into Private Ogilvie, who appeared to be dividing his
attention among Lizzie, Jamie, and his slice of toast—the greater
proportion going to the toast.

Rue was quite a good anthelmintic, to boot. I didn’t know that Lizzie
suffered from worms, but a good many people in the mountains did, and a
dose would certainly do her no harm.

I eyed Abel MacLennan covertly, wondering whether to slip a quick
slug of hellbrew into his coffee as well—he had the pinched, anemic look
of one with intestinal parasites, in spite of his stocky build. Perhaps,
though, the look of pale disquiet on his features was due more to his
knowledge of thief-takers in the vicinity.

Baby Joan was wailing with hunger again. Marsali sat down, reached
under her arisaid to unfasten her bodice, and set the baby to her breast, her
lip clenched between her teeth with trepidation. She winced, gasped in
pain, then relaxed a little, as the milk began to flow.

Cracked nipples. I frowned and returned to a perusal of the medicine
chest. Had I brought any sheep’s-wool ointment? Drat, no. I didn’t want to
use bear grease, with Joan suckling; perhaps sunflower oil . . .

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 3

“The most common thing is some sort of barrier. A piece of silk or a
sponge, soaked with anything from vinegar to brandy—though 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.

<snip>

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?”

I laughed.

“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.

<snip>

“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.

<snip>

“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.

<snip>

“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.”

Chapter 5

BY THE END OF THE FIRST HOUR, I had a substantial crowd of
patients waiting, despite the intermittent drizzle. It was the final day of the
Gathering, and people who had stood the pain of a toothache or the doubt
of a rash had suddenly decided that they must seize the chance of having it
seen to.

I dismissed a young woman with incipient goiter, admonishing her to
procure a quantity of dried fish, as she lived too far inland to be sure of
getting fresh each day, and eat some daily for its iodine content.

<snip>

“Bree, find me a decent splint, will you?” I asked. Bree nodded silently
and vanished, leaving me to anoint Mr. Goodwin’s lesser contusions with
cajeput ointment.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 10

THE LAST OF MY PATIENTS seen to, I stood on my toes and stretched
luxuriously, feeling a pleasant glow of accomplishment. For all the
conditions that I couldn’t really treat, all the illnesses I couldn’t cure . . .
still, I had done what I could, and had done it well.

I closed the lid of my medical chest and picked it up in my arms;
Murray had graciously volunteered to bring back the rest of my
impedimenta—in return for a bag of dried senna leaves and my spare pillrolling
tile. Murray himself was still attending his last patient, frowning as
he prodded the abdomen of a little old lady in bonnet and shawl. I waved
in farewell at him, and he gave me an abstracted nod, turning to pick up
his fleam. At least he did remember to dip it into the boiling water; I saw
his lips move as he spoke Brianna’s charm under his breath.

My feet were numb from standing on the cold ground, and my back and
shoulders ached, but I wasn’t really tired. There were people who would
sleep tonight, their pain relieved. Others who would heal well now,
wounds dressed cleanly and limbs set straight. A few whom I could
truthfully say I had saved from the possibility of serious infection or even
death.

And I had given yet another version of my own Sermon on the Mount,
preaching the gospel of nutrition and hygiene to the assembled multitudes.

“Blessed are those who eat greens, for they shall keep their teeth,” I
murmured to a red-cedar tree. I paused to pull off a few of the fragrant
berries, and crushed one with my thumbnail, enjoying the sharp, clean
scent.

“Blessed are those who wash their hands after wiping their arses,” I
added, pointing a monitory finger at a blue jay who had settled on a nearby
branch. “For they shall not sicken.”

The camp was in sight now, and with it, the delightful prospect of a cup
of hot tea.

“Blessed are those who boil water,” I said to the jay, seeing a plume of
steam rising from the small kettle hung over our fire. “For they shall be
called saviors of mankind.”

<snip>

“Mrs. Fraser.” Polly Bacon’s face was flushed a delicate rose color—no
doubt from the chill of the day. She had her lips pressed tight together, but
her eyes danced under the ruffle of her own very proper cap.

“The girls wanted to give ye the cap,” she said, tactfully averting her
gaze from it, “but my mother-in-law did send ye another wee gift. I
thought perhaps I’d best bring that myself, though.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with any more of Grannie Bacon’s
gifts, but took the proffered parcel with as much grace as I could manage.
It was a small bag of oiled silk, plumply stuffed with something, with a
faintly sweet, slightly oily botanical scent about it. A crude picture of a
plant had been drawn on the front in brownish ink; something with an
upright stalk and what looked like umbels. It looked faintly familiar, but I
could put no name to it. I undid the string, and poured a small quantity of
tiny dark-brown seeds out into my palm.

“What are these?” I asked, looking up at Polly in puzzlement.

“I don’t know what they’re called in English,” she said. “The Indians
call them dauco. Grannie Bacon’s own grannie was a Catawba medicine
woman, aye? That’s where she learnt the use of them.”

“Was she really?” I was more than interested now. No wonder the
drawing seemed familiar; this must be the plant that Nayawenne had once
shown me—the women’s plant. To be sure of it, though, I asked.
“What is the use of them?”

The color rose higher in Polly’s cheeks, and she glanced round the
clearing to be sure no one was close enough to hear before leaning forward
to whisper to me.

“They stop a woman from getting wi’ child. Ye take a teaspoonful each
day, in a glass of water. Each day, mind, and a man’s seed canna take hold
in the womb.” Her eyes met mine, and while the light of amusement still
lingered at the backs of them, something more serious was there as well.

“Grannie said ye were a conjure-woman, she could tell. And that bein’
so, ye’d have cause often to help women. And when it is a matter of
miscarriage, stillbirth, or childbed fever, let alone the misery of losing a
live babe—she said I must tell ye that an ounce o’ prevention is worth a
pound o’ cure.”

“Tell your mother-in-law thank you,” I said sincerely. The average
woman of Polly’s age might have five or six children; she had the two
girls, and lacked the drained look of a woman worn with ill-timed bearing.
Evidently, the seeds worked.

Polly nodded, the smile breaking out on her face.

“Aye, I’ll tell her. Oh—she said as how her grannie told her it was
women’s magic; ye dinna mention it to men.”

I glanced thoughtfully across the clearing, to where Jamie stood in
conversation with Archie Hayes, Jemmy blinking sleepily in the crook of
his arm. Yes, I could well see that some men might take exception to old
Grannie Bacon’s medicine. Was Roger one of them?

Bidding farewell to Polly Bacon, I took my chest across to our lean-to,
and tucked the bag of seeds carefully away in it. A very useful addition to
my pharmacopeia, if Nayawenne and Mrs. Bacon’s grannie were correct.
It was also a singularly well-timed gift, considering my earlier
conversation with Bree.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 12

But the longing for home was strong: my spacious hearth, with its huge
cauldron and its roasting jack, the light-filled peace of my surgery, with
the fragrant bunches of nettle and dried lavender overhead, dusty gold in
the afternoon sun. My feather bed, soft and clean, linen sheets smelling of
rosemary and yarrow.

<snip>

“That kind of frazzled,” I agreed. I poked at the kettle with one toe. “I’d
better take that back; I need to boil water so I can steep some willow bark.
It takes a long time.” It did; it would take an hour or more, by which time
the cramps would be considerably worse.

“The hell with willow bark,” he said, producing a silver flask from the
recesses of his shirt. “Try this. At least ye dinna need to boil it first.”
I unscrewed the stopper and inhaled. Whisky, and very good whisky,
too.

“I love you,” I said sincerely, and he laughed.

“I love ye too, Sassenach,” he said, and gently touched my foot.

Chapter 18

Jamie found himself more in sympathy with the horse than not; eager to
be home and working hard to get there, irritated by anything that
threatened to hold him back. At the moment, the main impediment to
progress was Claire, who had—blast the woman—halted her mare in front
of him and slid off in order to gather yet another bit of herbage from the
trailside. As though the entire house was not filled from doorstep to
rooftree with plants already, and her saddlebags a-bulge with more!

Gideon, picking up his rider’s mood with alacrity, stretched out his neck
and nipped the mare’s rump. The mare bucked, squealed, and shot off up
the trail, loose reins dangling. Gideon made a deep rumbling noise of
satisfaction and started off after her, only to be jerked unceremoniously to
a halt.

Claire had whirled round at the noise, eyes wide. She looked up at
Jamie, up the trail after her vanished horse, then back at him. She shrugged
apologetically, hands full of tattered leaves and mangy roots.

<snip>

I bent my head and kissed his knuckles, then reached across to the small
box where I kept my personal bits and pieces, and took out the jar of skin
balm. Made of walnut oil, beeswax, and purified lanolin from boiled
sheep’s wool, it was pleasantly soothing, green-scented with the essences
of chamomile, comfrey, yarrow, and elderflowers.

I scooped out a bit with my thumbnail, and rubbed it between my hands;
it was nearly solid to begin with, but liquefied nicely when warmed.

“Here,” I said, and took one of his hands between my own, rubbing the
ointment into the creases of his knuckles, massaging his callused palms.
Slowly, he relaxed, letting me stretch each finger as I worked my way
down the joints and rubbed more ointment into the tiny scrapes and cuts.
There were still marks on his hands where he had kept the leather reins
wrapped tightly.

“The posy’s lovely, Jamie,” I said, nodding at the little bouquet in its
cup. “Whatever made you do it, though?” While in his own way quite
romantic, Jamie was thoroughly practical as well; I didn’t think he had
ever given me a completely frivolous present, and he was not a man to see
value in any vegetation that could not be eaten, taken medicinally, or
brewed into beer.

He shifted a bit, clearly uncomfortable.

“Aye, well,” he said, looking away. “I just—I mean—well, I had a wee
thing I meant to give ye, only I lost it, but then you seemed to think it a
sweet thing that wee Roger had plucked a few gowans for Brianna, and I
—” He broke off, muttering something that sounded like “Ifrinn!” under
his breath.

I wanted very much to laugh. Instead, I lifted his hand and kissed his
knuckles, lightly. He looked embarrassed, but pleased. His thumb traced
the edge of a half-healed blister on my palm, left by a hot kettle.

“Here, Sassenach, ye need a bit of this, too. Let me,” he said, and leaned
to take a dab of the green ointment. He engulfed my hand in his, warm and
still slippery with the oil and beeswax mixture.

I resisted for a moment, but then let him take my hand, making deep
slow circles on my palm that made me want to close my eyes and melt
quietly. I gave a small sigh of pleasure, and must have closed my eyes
after all, because I didn’t see him move in close to kiss me; just felt the
brief soft touch of his mouth.

I raised my other hand, lazily, and he took it, too, his fingers smoothing
mine. I let my fingers twine with his, thumbs jousting gently, the heels of
our hands lightly rubbing. He stood close enough that I felt the warmth of
him, and the delicate brush of the sun-bleached hairs on his arm as he
reached past my hip for more of the ointment.

He paused, kissing me lightly once more in passing. Flames hissed on
the hearth like shifting tides, and the firelight flickered dimly on the
whitewashed walls, like light dancing on the surface of water far above.
We might have been alone together at the bottom of the sea.

“Roger wasn’t being strictly romantic, you know,” I said. “Or maybe he
was—depending how one wants to look at it.”

Jamie looked quizzical, as he took my hand again. Our fingers locked
and twined, moving slowly, and I sighed with pleasure.

“Aye?”

“Bree asked me about birth control, and I told her what methods there
are now—which are frankly not all that good, though better than nothing.
But old Grannie Bacon gave me some seeds that she says the Indians use
for contraception; supposed to be very effective.”

Jamie’s face underwent the most comical change, from drowsy pleasure
to wide-eyed astonishment.

“Birth con—what? She—ye mean he—those clatty weeds—”

“Well, yes. Or at least I think they may help prevent pregnancy.”

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 26

There wasn’t a great deal to do for the injury, save apply a little gentian
ointment and bandage the thumb with a clean, dry cloth. I was conscious
of Jamie as I worked; he had sheathed his dirk and risen quietly, to go and
rummage among the packs and saddlebags. By the time I had finished my
brief job, he was back, with a small bundle of food wrapped in a kerchief,
and a spare blanket tied in a roll. Over his arm were my discarded
breeches.

Chapter 29

Jamie laughed, then broke off to cough, his shoulders shaking with the
spasm. He was curled at one side of the depression in the bank, head

pillowed on his folded coat.

“And as for you,” I said, eyeing him, “I wasn’t joking about that goose

grease. Open your cloak, lift your shirt, and do it now.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, and shot a quick glance in Mrs. Beardsley’s
direction. I hid a smile at his modesty, but gave Mrs. Beardsley the small
kettle from my saddlebag and sent her off to fetch water and more

firewood, then dug out the gourd of mentholated ointment.

Jamie’s appearance alarmed me slightly, now that I had a good look at
him. He was pale and white-lipped, red-rimmed round the nostrils, and his
eyes were bruised with fatigue. He looked very sick, and sounded worse,
the breath wheezing in his chest with each respiration.

“Well, I suppose if Hiram wouldn’t die in front of his nannies, you
won’t die in front of me, either,” I said dubiously, scooping out a thumbful
of the fragrant grease.

“I am not dying in the least degree,” he said, rather crossly. “I’m only a
wee bit tired. I shall be entirely myself in the morn—oh, Christ, I hate
this!”

His chest was quite warm, but I thought he wasn’t fevered; it was hard
to tell, my own fingers being very cold.

He jerked, made a high-pitched “eee” noise, and tried to squirm away. I
seized him firmly by the neck, put a knee in his belly, and proceeded to
have my way with him, all protests notwithstanding. At length, he gave up
struggling and submitted, only giggling intermittently, sneezing, and
uttering an occasional small yelp when I reached a particularly ticklish
spot. The goats found it all very entertaining.

In a few minutes, I had him well-greased and gasping on the ground, the
skin of his chest and throat red from rubbing and shiny with grease, a
strong aroma of peppermint and camphor in the air. I patted a thick flannel
into place on his chest, pulled down his shirt, drew the folds of his cloak
around him, and tucked a blanket up snugly under his chin.

“Now, then,” I said with satisfaction, wiping my hands on a cloth. “As
soon as I have hot water, we’ll have a nice cup of horehound tea.”
He opened one eye suspiciously.

“We will?”

“Well, you will. I’d rather drink hot horse piss, myself.”

“So would I.”

“Too bad; it hasn’t any medicinal effects that I know of.”

He groaned and shut the eye. He breathed heavily for a moment,
sounding like a diseased bellows. Then he raised his head a few inches,
opening his eyes.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 34

“Wonderful,” I murmured. My own immediate plans for the goose
grease involved a salve of wild sarsaparilla and bittersweet for burns and
abrasions, a mentholated ointment for stuffy noses and chest congestion,
and something soothing and pleasantly scented for diaper rash—perhaps a
lavender infusion, with the juice of crushed jewelweed leaves.

I glanced down in search of Jemmy; he had learned to crawl only a few
days before, but was already capable of an astonishing rate of speed,
particularly when no one was looking. He was sitting peaceably enough in
the corner, though, gnawing intently at the wooden horse Jamie had carved
for him as a Christmas present.

Catholic as many of them were—and nominally Christian as they all
were—Highland Scots regarded Christmas primarily as a religious
observance, rather than a major festive occasion. Lacking priest or
minister, the day was spent much like a Sunday, though with a particularly
lavish meal to mark the occasion, and the exchange of small gifts. My own
gift from Jamie had been the wooden ladle I was presently using, its
handle carved with the image of a mint leaf; I had given him a new shirt
with a ruffle at the throat for ceremonial occasions, his old one having
worn quite away at the seams.

Hogmanay was a different kettle of fish, though. God knew what
feverish pagan roots the Scottish New Year’s celebration sprang from, but
there was a reason why I wanted to have a good lot of medicinal
preparations made up in advance—the same reason Jamie was now up at
the whisky spring, deciding which barrels were sufficiently aged as not to
poison anyone.

Chapter 36

THERE THEY WERE. Dark stalks, topped with clublike spores, dense
against the pale bright ground of the microscope’s field of view.
Confirmation.

“Got them.” I straightened up, slowly rubbing the small of my back as I
looked over my preparations.

A series of slides lay in a neat fan beside the microscope, each bearing a
dark smear in the middle, a code written on the end of each slide with a bit
of wax from a candle stub. Samples of mold, taken from damp corn bread,
from spoiled biscuit, and a bit of discarded pastry crust from the
Hogmanay venison pie. The crust had yielded the best growth by far; no
doubt it was the goose grease.

Of the various test substrates I had tried, those were the three resultant
batches of mold that had contained the highest proportion of Penicillium—
or what I could be fairly sure was Penicillium. There were a dismaying
number of molds that would grow on damp bread, in addition to several
dozen different strains of Penicillium, but the samples I had chosen
contained the best matches for the textbook pictures of Penicillium
sporophytes that I had committed to memory, years ago, in another life.

I could only hope that my memory wasn’t faulty—and that the strains of
mold I had here were among those species that produced a large quantity
of penicillin, that I had not inadvertently introduced any virulent bacteria
into the meat-broth mixture, and that—well, I could hope for a lot of
things, but there came a point when one abandoned hope for faith, and
trusted fate for charity.

A line of broth-filled bowls sat at the back of the countertop, each
covered with a square of muslin to prevent things—insects, airborne
particles, and mouse droppings, to say nothing of mice—from falling in. I
had strained the broth and boiled it, then rinsed each bowl with boiling
water before filling it with the steaming brown liquid. That was as close as
I could come to a sterile medium.

I had then taken scrapings from each of my best mold samples, and
swished the knife blade gently through the cooled broth, dissipating the
clumps of soft blue as best I could before covering the bowl with its cloth
and leaving it to incubate for several days.

Some of the cultures had thrived; others had died. A couple of bowls
showed hairy dark green clumps that floated beneath the surface like
submerged sea beasts, dark and sinister. Some intruder—mold, bacterium,
or perhaps a colonial alga—but not the precious Penicillium.

Some anonymous child had spilled one bowl; Adso had knocked
another onto the floor, maddened by the scent of goose broth, and had
lapped up the contents, mold and all, with every evidence of enjoyment.
There obviously hadn’t been anything toxic in that one; I glanced down at
the little cat, curled up in a pool of sunshine on the floor, the picture of
somnolent well-being.

In three of the remaining bowls, though, spongy velvet mats of mottled
blue covered the surface, and my examination of a sample taken from one
of them had just confirmed that I did indeed have what I sought. It wasn’t
the mold itself that was antibiotic—it was a clear substance secreted by the
mold, as a means of protecting itself from attack by bacteria. That
substance was penicillin, and that was what I wanted.

I had explained as much to Jamie, who sat on a stool watching me as I
poured the broth from each live culture through another bit of gauze to
strain it.

“So what ye’ve got there is broth that the mold has pissed in, is that
right?”

“Well, if you insist on putting it that way, yes.” I gave him an austere
glance, then took up the strained solution and began distributing it into
several small stoneware jars.

He nodded, pleased to have got it right.

“And the mold piss is what cures sickness, aye? That’s sensible.”

“It is?”

“Well, ye use other sorts of piss for medicine, so why not that?”

He lifted the big black casebook in illustration. I had left it open on the
counter after recording the latest batch of experiments, and he had been
amusing himself by reading some of the earlier pages, those recorded by
the book’s previous owner, Dr. Daniel Rawlings.

“Possibly Daniel Rawlings did—I don’t.” Hands busy, I lifted my chin
at the entry on the open page. “What was he using it for?”

“Electuary for the Treatment of Scurvy,” he read, finger following the
neat small lines of Rawlings’s script. “Two Heads of Garlic, crushed with
six Radishes, to which are added Peru Balsam and ten drops of Myrrh,
this Compound mixed with the Water of a Man-child so as to be
conveniently drunk.”

“Bar the last, it sounds like a rather exotic condiment,” I said, amused.

“What would it go with best, do you think? Jugged hare? Ragout of veal?”

“Nay, veal’s too mild-flavored for radish. Hodgepodge of mutton,
maybe,” he replied. “Mutton will stand anything.” His tongue flicked
absentmindedly across his upper lip in contemplation.

“Why a man-child, d’ye think, Sassenach? I’ve seen the mention of it in
such receipts before—Aristotle has it so, and so have some of the other
ancient philosophers.”

I gave him a look, as I began tidying up my slides.

“Well, it’s certainly easier to collect urine from a male child than from a
little girl; just try it, sometime. Oddly enough, though, urine from baby
boys is very clean, if not entirely sterile; it may be that the ancient
philosophers noticed they had better results with it in their formulae,
because it was cleaner than the usual drinking water, if they were getting
that from public aqueducts and wells and the like.”

“Sterile meaning that it hasna got the germs in it, not that it doesna
breed?” He gave my microscope a rather wary glance.

“Yes. Or rather—it doesn’t breed germs, because there aren’t any
there.”

With the countertop cleared, save for the microscope and the jars of
penicillin-containing broth—or at least I hoped that’s what they were—I
began the preparations for surgery, taking down my small case of surgical
instruments, and fetching a large bottle of grain alcohol out of the
cupboard.

I handed this to Jamie, along with the small alcohol burner I had
contrived—an empty ink bottle, with a twisted wick of waxed flax drawn
up through a cork stuck into the neck.

“Fill that up for me, will you? Where are the boys?”

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 47

Bree was crouched on a stool, Jemmy on her lap, a big white puddingbasin
full of steaming water at her feet. A swath of light from the hearth
fell momentarily across her face, and Roger smiled at her, trying to look
reassuring, before the quilt dropped back into place.

“Where’s Mama? Did she leave?”

“Aye, there was some sort of emergency. It’ll be fine, though,” he said
firmly. “She gave me the stuff to put in the water; said just to keep him in
the steam until the coughing stops.”

He sat down on the floor beside the basin of water. It was very dim in
the tent, but not totally dark. As his eyes adjusted, he could see well
enough. Bree still looked worried, but not nearly so frightened as she’d
been upstairs. He felt better, too; at least he knew what to be doing, and
Claire hadn’t seemed too bothered about leaving her grandson; obviously
she thought he wasn’t going to choke on the spot.

The vial contained pine oil, sharp and reeking of resin. He wasn’t sure
how much to use, but poured a generous dollop into the water. Then he
pried the cork out of the jar, and the pungent scent of camphor rose up like
a genie from the bottle. Not really crystals, he saw; lumps of some sort of
dried resin, grainy and slightly sticky. He poured some into the palm of his
hand, then rubbed them hard between his hands before dropping them into
the water, wondering even as he did so at the instinctive familiarity of the
gesture.

“Oh, that’s it,” he said, realizing.

“What’s it?”

“This.” He waved a hand round the snug sanctuary, rapidly filling with
pungent steam. “I remember being in my cot, with a blanket over my head.
My mother put this stuff in hot water—smelled just like this. That’s why it
seemed familiar.”

“Oh.” The thought seemed to reassure her. “Did you have croup when
you were little?”

“I suppose so, though I don’t remember it. Just the smell.” Steam had
quite filled the little tent by now, moist and pungent. He drew a deep
breath, pulling in a penetrating lungful, then patted Brianna’s leg.

“Don’t worry; this’ll do the trick,” he said.

Jemmy promptly started coughing his guts out with more seal noises,
but they seemed less alarming now. Whether it was the darkness, the
smell, or simply the homely racket of the renewed kitchen noises outside
the tent, things seemed calmer. He heard Bree take in a deep breath, too,
and let it out, and felt rather than saw the subtle shift of her body as she
relaxed a little, patting Jemmy’s back.

They sat quietly for a bit, listening to Jemmy cough, wheeze, gasp,
cough, and finally catch his breath, hiccupping slightly. He’d stopped
whimpering, seeming soothed by the proximity of his parents.
Roger had dropped the cork to the camphor jar; he patted round on the
floor until he found it, then pushed it firmly back in.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 50

“Yes. I could have sworn she was on the mend last night, after I bled
her.” He rubbed his face with both hands, and emerged blinking, eyes very
bloodshot. “The butler roused me just before dawn, and I found her once
again complaining of griping in the guts. I bled her again, and then
administered a clyster, but to no avail.”

“A clyster?” I murmured. Clysters were enemas; a favorite remedy of
the time. Some were fairly harmless; others were positively corrosive.

“A tincture of nicotiana,” he explained, “which I find answers capitally
in most cases of dyspepsia.”

I made a noncommittal noise in response. Nicotiana was tobacco; I
supposed a strong solution of that, administered rectally, would probably
dispose promptly of a case of pinworms, but I didn’t think it would do
much for indigestion. Still, it wouldn’t make anyone bleed like that, either.

“Extraordinary amount of bleeding,” I said, putting my elbows on my
knees and resting my chin in my hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen
anything like it.” That was true. I was curious, turning over various
possibilities in my mind, but no diagnosis quite fit.

“No.” Doctor Fentiman’s sallow cheeks began to show spots of red. “I
—if I had thought . . .”

I leaned toward him, and laid a consoling hand on his arm.

“I’m sure you did all that anyone could possibly do,” I said. “She wasn’t
bleeding at all from the mouth when you saw her last night, was she?”

He shook his head, hunching deeper into his cloak.

“No. Still, I blame myself, I really do.”

“One does,” I said ruefully. “There’s always that sense that one should
have been able to do something more.”

He caught the depth of feeling in my voice and turned toward me,
looking surprised. The tension in him relaxed a little, and the red color
began to fade from his cheeks.

“You have . . . a most remarkably sympathetic understanding, Mrs.
Fraser.”

I smiled at him, not speaking. He might be a quack, he might be
ignorant, arrogant, and intemperate—but he had come at once when
called, and had fought for his patient to the best of his ability. That made
him a physician, in my book, and deserving of sympathy.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 63

Everyone stood rooted, waiting. I felt an overwhelming urge to move, to
break that spell, and turned abruptly, my hands flexing with the need to
stir, to do something. The kettle had boiled, the water sat ready, covered
with a piece of clean linen. I had set up my medicine chest on a stump; I
put back the lid and began to go mindlessly through its contents yet again,
though I knew all was in order.

I touched the gleaming bottles one by one, their names a soothing litany.
Atropine, Belladonna, Laudanum, Paregoric, Oil of Lavender, Oil of
Juniper, Pennyroyal, Lady’s-vetch, . . . and the squat brown-glass bottle of
alcohol. Always alcohol. I had a keg of it, still on the wagon.

<snip>

“Hillsborough,” she said. “Someone who came to dinner at the
Sherstons’ last night told us that the militia was camped here—so I came. I
brought some food”— she waved at the bulging saddlebags on her horse
—“and some herbs from the Sherstons’ garden I thought you might use.”

“Oh? Oh, yes. Lovely.” I was uneasily aware of Jamie’s glowering
presence somewhere behind me, but didn’t look around. “Ah . . . I don’t
mean to sound as though I’m not pleased to see you, darling, but there is
just possibly going to be a fight here before too long, and . . . .”

<snip>

It was catching. I found myself running my fingers over the rows of
glass bottles in the chest yet again, the names murmuring and blurring in
my mind like the words of someone telling rosary beads, sense lost in the
fervor of petition. Rosemary, atropine, lavender, oil of cloves . . .

Chapter 76

I SAT IN THE VISITOR’S CHAIR in Jamie’s study, companionably
grating bloodroots while he wrestled with the quarterly accounts. Both
were slow and tedious businesses, but we could share the light of a single
candle and enjoy each other’s company—and I found enjoyable distraction
in listening to the highly inventive remarks he addressed to the paper under
his quill.

<snip>

I finished grating a root and dropped the stub into a jar on the desk.
Bloodroot is aptly named; the scientific name is Sanguinaria, and the juice
is red, acrid, and sticky. The bowl in my lap was full of oozy, moist
shavings, and my hands looked as though I had been disemboweling small
animals.

“I have six dozen bottles of cherry cordial made,” I offered, picking up
another root. As though he didn’t know that; the whole house had smelled
like cough syrup for a week. “Fergus can take those over to Salem and sell
them.”

Chapter 78

Bunches of dried rosemary, yarrow, and thyme had been pulled out of
the drying rack and shredded. One of the gauze shelves of the rack itself
had been pulled loose, the fabric ripped and hanging. Bottles and jars from
the cupboards lay tipped and rolling; some of the corks had fallen out,
spilling multi-colored powders and liquids. A big linen bag of coarse
ground salt had been rifled, handsful of the crystals tossed around with
abandon.

Worst of all, her mother’s amulet lay on the floor, the little leather
pouch torn open, flat and empty. Scattered bits of dried plants, a few tiny
bones, and other debris lay strewn round it.

<snip>

“Nayawenne—the woman who gave me the pouch.” Crouching, Claire
swept up the crumbled bits of leaf—at least Brianna hoped they were real
leaves—into her hand, and sniffed them. There were so many odors in the
air of the surgery that she herself couldn’t distinguish anything beyond the
overwhelming sweetness of honey, but evidently her mother’s sensitive
nose had no trouble in making out individual scents.

“Bayberry, balsam fir, wild ginger, and Arsesmart,” she said, sniffing
like a truffle-hound. “Bit of sage, too, I think.”

“Arsesmart? Is that a comment on what she thought of you?” In spite of
her distress, Brianna laughed.

“Ha bloody ha,” he mother replied tartly, dusting the little heap of dried
plant matter onto the table with the bones. “Otherwise known as waterpepper.
It’s a rather irritating little thing that grows near brooks—gives
you blisters and smarts the eyes—or other things, I imagine, if you happen
to carelessly sit on it.”

<snip>

CASTOR OIL MIGHT BE EFFECTIVE, but it took a while. Keeping a
close eye on Jemmy, who was set down to play with his basket of wooden
blocks after being dosed, Brianna and Claire used the waiting time to tidy
the surgery, and then turned to the peaceful, but time-consuming, job of
compounding medicines. It was some time since Claire had had time to do
this, and there was a staggering profusion of leaves and roots and seeds to
be shredded, grated, pounded, boiled in water, steeped in oil, extracted
with alcohol, strained through gauze, stirred into melted beeswax or bear
grease, mixed with ground talc or rolled into pills, then jarred or bottled or
bagged for preservation.

<snip>

Claire nodded, rubbing the shredded bark between her hands into a
small round jar full of alcohol.

“Yes. Still, I think it’s as well they wait a bit—Lizzie and Manfred, I
mean—and get used to each other.” It had been agreed that the marriage
would take place the next summer, after Manfred had finished setting up
his shop in Woolam’s Creek. “I hope this will work.”

“What?”

“The dogwood bark.” Claire stoppered the bottle and put it in the
cupboard. “Dr. Rawlings’ casebook says it can be used as a substitute for
cinchona bark—for quinine, you know. And it’s certainly easier to get, to
say nothing of less expensive.”

“Great—I hope it does work.” Lizzie’s malaria had stayed in abeyance
for several months—but there was always the threat of recurrence, and
cinchona bark was hideously expensive.

The subject of their earlier conversation lingered in her mind, and she
returned to it, as she took a fresh handful of sage leaves for her mortar,
bruising them carefully before putting them to steep.

“You didn’t plan to be a doctor when you were young, you said. But
you seemed pretty single-minded about it, later on.” She had scattered, but
vivid, memories of Claire’s medical training; she could still smell the
hospital smells caught in her mother’s hair and clothing, and feel the soft
cool touch of the green scrubs her mother sometimes wore, coming in to
kiss her goodnight when she came in late from work.

Claire didn’t answer at once, concentrating on the dried corn silk she
was cleaning, plucking out rotted bits and flicking them through the open
window.

<snip>

“Yes,” she said. “Jamie’s part of me. So are you.” She touched Bree’s
face, quick and light, then turned half away, reaching to take down a tied
bundle of marjoram from the array of hanging herbs on the beam above
the hearth. “But neither of you is all of me,” she said softly, back turned. “I
am . . . what I am. Doctor, nurse, healer, witch—whatever folk call it, the
name doesn’t matter. I was born to be that; I will be that ’til I die. If I
should lose you—or Jamie—I wouldn’t be quite a whole person any
longer, but I would still have that left. For a little time,” she went on, so
softly that Brianna had to strain to hear her, “after I went . . . back . . .
before you came . . . that was all I had. Just the knowing.”

Claire crumbled the dried marjoram into the mortar, and took up the
pestle to grind it. The sound of clumping boots came from outside, and
then Jamie’s voice, a friendly remark to a chicken that crossed his path.

And was loving Roger, loving Jemmy, not enough for her? Surely it
should be. She had a dreadful, hollow feeling that perhaps it was not, and
spoke quickly, before the thought should find words.

“What about Da?”

“What about him?”

“Does he—is he one who knows what he is, do you think?”

Claire’s hands stilled, the clanking pestle falling silent.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “He knows.”

“A laird? Is that what you’d call it?”

Her mother hesitated, thinking.

“No,” she said at last. She took up the pestle and began to grind again.
The fragrance of dried marjoram filled the room like incense. “He’s a
man,” she said, “and that’s no small thing to be.”

[Bunny]

The last paragraph...yes. Who you are may change with time, but what you are is eternal.

[broughps]

Do you mean your inner essence?

[Bunny]

I think so...

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 82

I had brought twenty-five gallons of honey with me, as well as some of
the imported European herbs and seeds from Wilmington. Trade was brisk,
and by the evening, I had exchanged my stocks for quantities of wild
ginseng, cohosh, and—a real rarity—a chaga. This item, a huge warty
fungus that grows from ancient birch trees, had a reputation—or so I was
told—for the cure of cancer, tuberculosis, and ulcers. A useful item for any
physician to have on hand, I thought.

As for the honey, I had traded that straight across, for twenty-five
gallons of sunflower oil. This was provided in bulging skin bags, which
were piled up under the eaves of the house where we were staying, like a
small heap of cannon balls. I paused to look at them with satisfaction
whenever I went outside, envisioning the soft, fragrant soap to be made
from the oil—no more hands reeking of dead pig fat! And with luck, I
could sell the bulk of it for a high enough price to make up the next chunk
of Laoghaire’s blood money, damn her eyes.

The next day was spent in the orchards with my hostess, another of
Tsatsa’wi’s sisters, named Sungi. A tall, sweet-faced woman of thirty or
so, she had a few words of English, but some of her friends had slightly
more—and a good thing, my own Cherokee being so far limited to
“Hello,” “Good,” and “More.”

In spite of the Indian ladies’ increased fluency, I had some difficulty in
making out exactly what “Sungi” meant—depending upon whom I was
talking to, it seemed to mean either “onion,” “mint,” or—confusingly
—“mink.” After a certain amount of cross talk and sorting out, I got it
established that the word seemed to mean none of these things precisely,
but rather to indicate a strong scent of some kind.

The apple trees in the orchard were young, still slender, but bearing
decently, providing a small yellowish-green fruit that wouldn’t have
impressed Luther Burbank, but which did have a nice crunchy texture and
a tart flavor—an excellent antidote to the greasy taste of pigeon livers. It
was a dry year, Sungi said, frowning critically at the trees; not so much
fruit as the year before, and the corn was not so good, either.

Chapter 91

“Yes, I think he’ll be fine. I’m just going to make an onion poultice and
clean out the wound a bit. Go and see him, why don’t you, while I fetch
the onions?”

Luckily there were plenty of onions; I had pulled them two weeks
before, when the first frost came, and dozens of knobbly braided strings
hung in the pantry, fragrant and crackling when I brushed against them. I
broke off six large onions and brought them into the kitchen to slice. My
fingers were tingling, half-burned and stiff from handling the boiling
clothes, and I worked slowly, not wanting to slice off a finger accidentally.

“Here, I’ll do that, a leannan.” Mrs. Bug took the knife out of my hand
and dealt briskly with the onions. “Is it a poultice? Aye, that’ll be the
thing. A good onion poultice will mend anything.” Still, a worried frown
puckered her forehead as she glanced toward the surgery.

“Can I help, Mama?” Bree came in from the hallway, also looking
worried. “Da looks awful; is he all right?”

<snip>

“Yes, can you try to find me some maggots? I’ll need them for Jamie’s
leg.” I frowned, glancing out the window at the bright autumn day. “I’m
afraid the frost has killed all the flies; I haven’t seen one in days. Try the

paddock, though; they’ll lay eggs in the warm dung.”

She made a brief face of distaste, but nodded, setting Jemmy down on

the floor.

“Come on, pal, let’s go find ickies for Grannie.”

“Icky-icky-icky-icky!” Jemmy scampered after her, enchanted at the

prospect.

I dropped the sliced onions into a bowl made from a hollowed gourd
and scooped a little of the hot water from the cauldron into it. Then I left
the onions to stew, and went back to the surgery. In the center of the room
was a sturdy pine table, serving as examination table, dentist’s chair, drug
preparation surface, or auxiliary dining table, depending on medical
exigencies and the number of dinner guests. At the moment, it was
supporting the supine form of Jamie, scarcely visible under his heap of
quilts and blankets. Marsali stood close to the table, head bent toward him

as she held a cup of water for him to sip.

<snip>

Coarse gauze for the onion poultice, the corked bottle with its mixture
of alcohol and sterile water, the stoneware jars of dried goldenseal,
coneflower, and comfrey. And the bottle of penicillin broth. I cursed
silently, looking at the label on it. It was nearly a month old; caught up in
the bear hunt and the autumn chores upon our return, I had not made a
fresh batch for weeks.

It would have to do. Pressing my lips together, I rubbed the herbs
between my hands, into the beechwood brewing cup, and with no more
than a faint sense of self-consciousness, silently said the blessing of Bride
over it. I’d take all the help I could get.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 92

“Done,” I said, a moment later, and gently replaced the poultice. Stewed
onion and garlic wrapped in muslin and soaked with penicillin broth would
keep the wounds moist and draining. Renewed every hour or so, I hoped
that the warmth of the poultices would also encourage circulation in the
leg. And then a dressing of honey, to prevent any further bacterial
invasions.

Concentration alone had kept my hands steady. Now it was done, and
there was nothing more to do but wait. The saucer of wet leaves rattled
against the counter as I set it down.

I didn’t think I had ever been so tired before.

Chapter 93

I pulled open the cupboard door, threw open the top of my medicine
chest, and fetched a sheet of paper, quill, and ink from Jamie’s study.

A jar of dried red wintergreen berries. Extract of pipsissewa. Slippery
elm bark. Willow bark, cherry bark, fleabane, yarrow. Penicillin was by far
the most effective of the antibiotics available, but it wasn’t the only one.
People had been waging war on germs for thousands of years, without any
notion what they were fighting. I knew; that was some slight advantage.

I began to make a list of the herbs I had on hand, and under each name,
all the uses that I knew for that herb—whether I had ever made such use of
it or not. Any herb used to treat a septic condition was a possibility—
cleansing lacerations, treating mouth sores, treatment of diarrhea and
dysentery . . . I heard footsteps in the kitchen, and called to Mrs. Bug,
wanting her to bring me a kettle of boiling water, so I could set things to
steeping at once.

<snip>

Lizzie and Marsali had been faithfully applying fresh, hot onion and
flaxseed poultices to it all day, and wisps of steam rose from the wrappings
as I put them aside. The flesh of his leg was bright red to the knee, at least
in those parts that weren’t black or seeping with pus. We had removed the
maggots temporarily, afraid the heat would kill them; they were presently
downstairs on a plate in my surgery, happily occupied with some of the
nastier bits of the Bugs’ gleanings. If I succeeded in saving the leg, they
could help with the tidying-up, later.

<snip>

Meanwhile, I had made a selection of those herbs with a reputation for
the internal treatment of suppurative conditions, and made a stiff decoction
of them, steeped in boiling water for several hours. I poured a cup of this
highly aromatic solution, and handed it to Roger, carefully averting my
nose.

“Make him drink it,” I said. “All of it,” I added pointedly, fixing Jamie
with a look.

<snip>

It didn’t take a long time. When it was done, I spread honey carefully
over all the open wounds, and rubbed oil of wintergreen into the skin of
foot and calf.

[broughps]

TFC - Chapter 106

“Was called from churning to attend Rosamund Lindsay, who arrived in
late afternoon with a severe laceration to the left hand, sustained with an
axe while girdling trees. Wound was extensive, having nearly severed the
left thumb; laceration extended from base of index finger to two inches
above the styloid process of the radius, which was superficially damaged.

Injury had been sustained approximately three days prior, treated with
rough binding and bacon grease. Extensive sepsis apparent, with
suppuration, gross swelling of hand and forearm. Thumb blackened;
gangrene apparent; characteristic pungent odor. Subcutaneous red
streaks, indicative of blood poisoning, extended from site of injury nearly
to antecubital fossa.

Patient presented with high fever (est. 104 degrees F., by hand),
symptoms of dehydration, mild disorientation. Tachycardia evident.
In view of the seriousness of patient’s condition, recommended
immediate amputation of limb at elbow. Patient refused to consider this,
insisting instead upon application of pigeon poultice, consisting of the split
body of a freshly-killed pigeon, applied to wound (patient’s husband had
brought pigeon, neck freshly wrung). Removed thumb at base of
metacarpal, ligated remains of radial artery (crushed in original injury)
and superficialis volae. Debrided and drained wound, applied
approximately 1/2 oz. crude penicillin powder (source: rotted casaba rind,
batch #23, prep. 15/4/72) topically, followed by application of mashed raw
garlic (three cloves), barberry salve—and pigeon poultice, at insistence of
husband applied over dressing. Administered fluids by mouth; febrifuge
mixture of red centaury, bloodroot, and hops; water ad lib. Injected liquid
penicillin mixture (batch # 23), IV, dosage 1/4 oz in suspension in sterile
water.

Patient’s condition deteriorated rapidly, with increasing symptoms of
disorientation and delirium, high fever. Extensive urticaria appeared on
arm and upper torso. Attempted to relieve fever by repeated applications
of cold water, to no avail. Patient being incoherent, requested permission
to amputate from husband; permission denied on grounds that death
appeared imminent, and patient “would not want to be buried in pieces.”

Repeated penicillin injection. Patient lapsed into unconsciousness
shortly thereafter, and expired just before dawn.

Chapter 110

I CRUMBLED DRY SAGE LEAVES in my hands, letting the gray-green
flakes fall into the burning coals. The sun hung low in the sky above the
chestnut trees, but the small burying-ground lay already in shadow, and the
fire was bright.

The five of us stood in a circle around the chunk of granite with which
Jamie had marked the stranger’s grave. There were five of us, and so we
laid the circle with five points. By common consent, this was not only for
the man with the silver fillings, but for his four unknown companions—
and for Daniel Rawlings, whose fresh and final grave lay under a
mountain-ash, nearby.

The smoke rose up from the small iron fire-pot, pale and fragrant. I had
brought other herbs as well, but I knew that for the Tuscarora, for the
Cherokee, and for the Mohawk, sage was holy, the smoke of it cleansing.
I rubbed juniper needles between my hands into the fire, and followed
them with rue, called herb-of-grace, and rosemary—that’s for
remembrance, after all.

The leaves of the trees nearby rustled gently in the evening breeze, and
the twilight lit the drifting smoke, turning it from gray to gold as it rose up
and up into heaven’s vault, where the faint stars waited.

[broughps]

ABOSAA - Chapter 9

“Beauchamp,” I said to myself, laying out trillium roots to dry, “you have a very suspicious mind.”

“Aye, ye have,” said a voice behind me, sounding amused. “Whom do ye suspect of doing what?”
I jerked in startlement and sent trilliums flying in all directions.

“Oh, it’s you,” I said crossly. “Why must you sneak up on me like that?”

“Practice,” Jamie said, kissing me on the forehead. “I shouldna like to lose my touch at stalking game. Why
d’ye talk to yourself?”

“It assures me of a good listener,” I said tartly, and he laughed, bending to help me pick up the roots from the
floor.

“Who are ye suspecting, Sassenach?”

I hesitated, but was unable to come up with anything but the truth.

“I was wondering whether John Grey’s buggering our Mr. Higgins,” I said baldly. “Or intends to.”

He blinked slightly, but didn’t look shocked—which in itself suggested to me that he’d considered the same
possibility.

“What makes ye think so?”

“He’s a very pretty young man, for the one thing,” I said, taking a handful of the roots from him and beginning
to spread them out on a sheet of gauze. “And he’s got the worst case of piles I’ve ever seen in a man of his age, for
another.”

<snip>

“Take her up to her bed, cover her, get a hot stone for her feet,” I said, rising and addressing Bobby and Mr.
Wemyss briskly in turn. “I’ll start some medicine brewing.”

Jamie followed me down to the surgery, glancing back over his shoulder to be sure that the others were out of
earshot before speaking.

“I thought ye were out of the Jesuit bark?” he asked, low-voiced.

“I am. Damn it.” Malaria was a chronic disease, but for the most part, I had been able to keep it under control
with small, regular doses of cinchona bark. But I had run out of cinchona during the winter, and no one had yet
been able to travel down to the coast for more.

“So, then?”

“I’m thinking.”

I pulled open the door of the cupboard, and gazed at the neat ranks of glass bottles therein—many of them empty,
or with no more than a few scattered crumbs of leaf or root inside. Everything was depleted, after a cold, wet
winter of grippe, influenza, chilblains, and hunting accidents.

Febrifuges. I had a number of things that would help a normal fever; malaria was something else. There was
plenty of dogwood root and bark, at least; I had collected immense quantities during the fall, foreseeing the need. I
took that down, and after a moment’s thought, added the
jar containing a sort of gentian known locally as “agueweed.”

“Put on the kettle, will you?” I asked Jamie, frowning to myself as I crumbled roots, bark, and weed into my
mortar. All I could do was to treat the superficial symptoms of fever and chill. And shock, I thought, better
treat for that, too.

“And bring me a little honey, too, please!” I called after him, as he had already reached the door. He nodded and
went hurriedly toward the kitchen, his footsteps quick and solid on the oak floorboards.

I began to pound the mixture, still turning over additional possibilities. Some small part of my mind was
half-glad of the emergency; I could put off for a little while the necessity of hearing about the Browns and their
beastly committee.

I had a most uneasy feeling. Whatever they wanted, it didn’t portend anything good, I was sure; they certainly
hadn’t left on friendly terms. As for what Jamie might feel obliged to do in response to them—

Horse chestnut. That was sometimes used for the tertian ague, as Dr. Rawlings called it. Did I have any
left? Glancing quickly over the jars and bottles in the medicine chest, I stopped, seeing one with an inch or so
of dried black globules left at the bottom. Gallberries, the
label read. Not mine; it was one of Rawlings’s jars. I’d never used them for anything. But something niggled at
my memory. I’d heard or read something about gallberries; what was it?

Half-unconsciously, I picked up the jar and opened it, sniffing. A sharp, astringent smell rose from the berries,
slightly bitter. And slightly familiar.

Still holding the jar, I went to the table where my big black casebook lay, and flipped hastily to the early pages,
those notes left by the man who had first owned both book and medicine chest, Daniel Rawlings. Where had it
been?

I was still flipping pages, scanning for the shape of a half-remembered note, when Jamie came back, a jug of
hot water and a dish of honey in hand—and the Beardsley twins dogging his steps.

I glanced at them, but said nothing; they tended to pop up unexpectedly, like a pair of jack-in-the boxes.
“Is Miss Lizzie fearfully sick?” Jo asked anxiously, peering around Jamie to see what I was doing.

“Yes,” I said briefly, only half paying attention to him. “Don’t worry, though; I’m fixing her some medicine.”

There it was. A brief notation, added as an obvious afterthought to the account of treatment of a patient whose
symptoms seemed clearly malarial—and who had, I noticed with an unpleasant twinge, died.

I am told by the Trader from whom I procured Jesuit Bark that the Indians use a Plant called Gallberry, which
rivals the Bark of Cinchona for bitterness and is thought capital for Use in tertian and quartan Fevers. I have
collected some for Experiment and propose to try an Infusion so soon as the Opportunity presents itself.

I picked out one of the dried berries and bit into it. The pungent taste of quinine at once flooded my mouth—
accompanied by a copious flood of saliva, as my mouth puckered at the eye-watering bitterness. Gallberry,
indeed!

I dived for the open window, spat into the herb bed beneath and went on spitting, to the accompaniment of
giggles and snorts from the Beardsleys, who were most diverted at the unexpected entertainment.

“Are ye all right, Sassenach?” Amusement was fighting with worry for dominance of Jamie’s face. He poured a
bit of water from the jug into a clay beaker, added a dollop of honey as an afterthought, and handed it to me.

“Fine,” I croaked. “Don’t drop that!” Kezzie Beardsley had picked up the jar of gallberries and was sniffing
cautiously at it. He nodded at my admonition, but didn’t put the jar down, instead handing it off to his brother.
I took a good mouthful of hot, honeyed water, and swallowed. “Those—they have something like quinine in
them.”

Jamie’s face changed at once, the worry lessening.

“So they’ll help the lass?”

“I hope so. There aren’t many, though.”

“D’ye mean you need more o’ these things for Miss Lizzie, Mrs. Fraser?” Jo glanced up at me, dark eyes
sharp over the little jar.

“Yes,” I said, surprised. “You don’t mean you know where to get any, surely?”

“Aye, ma’am,” Kezzie said, his voice a little loud, as usual. “Indians got ’em.”

“Which Indians?” Jamie asked, his gaze sharpening.

“Them Cherokee,” Jo said, waving vaguely over one shoulder. “By the mountain.”

[broughps]

ABOSAA - Chapter 13

"She couldn’t keep it down,” I said. “The gallberry
medicine. Not that I blame her,” I added, cautiously
licking my lower lip. After she’d thrown it up the first
time, I’d tasted it myself. My tastebuds were still in a state
of revolt; I’d never met a more aptly named plant, and
being boiled into syrup had merely concentrated the
flavor.

Jamie sniffed deeply as I turned.

“Did she vomit on ye?”

“No, that was Bobby Higgins,” I said. “He’s got
hookworms.”

He raised his brows.

“Do I want to hear about them whilst I’m eating?”

“Definitely not,” I said, sitting down with the loaf, a
knife, and a crock of soft butter. I tore off a piece,
buttered it thickly, and gave it to him, then took one for
myself. My tastebuds hesitated, but wavered on the edge
of forgiving me for the gallberry syrup.

“What have you been doing?” I asked, beginning to
wake up enough to take notice. He seemed tired, but more
cheerful than he had been when he’d left the house.

“Talking to Roger Mac about Indians and Protestants.”

He frowned at the half-eaten chunk of bread in his hand.

“Is there something amiss wi’ the bread, Sassenach? It
tastes odd.”

I waved a hand apologetically.

“Sorry, that’s me. I washed several times, but I couldn’t
get it off completely. Perhaps you’d better do the
buttering.” I pushed the loaf toward him with my elbow,
gesturing at the crock.

“Couldna get what off?”

“Well, we tried and tried with the syrup, but no good;
Lizzie simply couldn’t hold it down, poor thing. But I
remembered that quinine can be absorbed through the
skin. So I mixed the syrup into some goose grease, and
rubbed it all over her. Oh, yes, thanks.” I leaned forward
and took a delicate bite of the buttered bit of bread he held
out for me. My tastebuds gave in gracefully, and I
realized that I hadn’t eaten all day.

“And it worked?” He glanced up at the ceiling. Mr.
Wemyss and Lizzie shared the smaller room upstairs, but
all was quiet above.

“I think so,” I said, swallowing. “The fever finally
broke, at least, and she’s asleep. We’ll keep using it; if the
fever doesn’t come back in two days, we’ll know it
works.”

“That’s good, then.”

“Well, and then there was Bobby and his hookworms.
Fortunately, I have some ipecacuanha and turpentine.”

“Fortunately for the worms, or for Bobby?”

“Well, neither, really,” I said, and yawned. “It will
probably work, though.”

Chapter 23

“That, my dear Mrs. Bug, is ether.” The swimming
sensation in my head had almost disappeared, replaced by
euphoria.

“Ether?” She looked at the distilling apparatus on my
counter in fascination, the alcohol bath bubbling gently
away in its great glass bubble over a low flame and the oil
of vitriol—later to be known as sulfuric acid—slicking its
slow way down the slanted tubing, its malign hot scent
lurking below the usual surgery smells of roots and herbs.

“Fancy! And what’s ether, then?”

“It puts people asleep, so they won’t feel pain when
you cut them,” I explained, thrilled by my success. “And I
know exactly who I’m going to use it on first!”

[broughps]

ABOSAA - Chapter 24

CHRISTIE’S PULSE WAS a little rapid, but strong. I set
down the wrist I had been holding, and put the back of my
hand against his forehead.

“You’re a bit feverish,” I said. “Here, swallow this.” I
put a hand behind his back to help him sit up in bed,
which alarmed him. He sat up in a flurry of bedclothes,
drawing in his breath sharply as he jostled the injured
hand.

I tactfully affected not to notice his discomposure,
which I put down to the fact that he was clad in his shirt
and I in my nightclothes. These were modest enough, to
be sure, with a light shawl covering my linen night rail,
but I was reasonably sure that he hadn’t been anywhere
near a woman in dishabille since his wife died—if then.
I murmured something meaningless, holding the cup of
comfrey tea for him as he drank, and then settled his
pillows in comfortable but impersonal fashion.

Rather than send him back to his own cabin, I had
insisted that he stay the night, so I could keep an eye on
him in case of postoperative infection. Intransigent as he
was by nature, I didn’t by any means trust him to follow
instructions and not to be slopping hogs, cutting wood, or
wiping his backside with the wounded hand. I wasn’t
letting him out of sight until the incision had begun to
granulate—which it should do by the next day, if all went
well.

Still shaky from the shock of surgery, he had made no
demur, and Mrs. Bug and I had put him to bed in the
Wemysses’ room, Mr. Wemyss and Lizzie having gone to
the McGillivrays’.

I had no laudanum, but had slipped Christie a strong
infusion of valerian and St. John’s wort, and he had slept
most of the afternoon. He had declined any supper, but
Mrs. Bug, who approved of Mr. Christie, had been plying
him through the evening with toddies, syllabubs, and
other nourishing elixirs—all containing a high percentage
of alcohol. Consequently, he seemed rather dazed, as well
as flushed, and made no protest as I picked up the
bandaged hand and brought the candle close to examine
it.

The hand was swollen, which was to be expected, but
not excessively so. Still, the bandage was tight, and
cutting uncomfortably into the flesh. I snipped it, and
holding the honeyed dressing that covered the wound
carefully in place, lifted the hand and sniffed at it.

I could smell honey, blood, herbs, and the faintly
metallic scent of fresh-severed flesh—but no sweet whiff
of pus. Good. I pressed carefully near the dressing,
watching for signs of sharp pain or streaks of vivid red in
the skin, but bar a reasonable tenderness, I saw only a
small degree of inflammation.

Chapter 30

He made a much more successful snorting noise, but
didn’t reply. He tilted his head to one side, watching as I
laid out a square of gauze and began to rub dried leaves of
comfrey into it. I didn’t know how to say what was
troubling me, but he plainly saw that something was.

“Will you kill him?” I asked baldly, keeping my eyes
on the jar of honey. It was made of brown glass, and the
light glowed through it as though it were a huge ball of
clear amber.

<snip>

I looked round the ordered world of my surgery—ranks
of shining jars and bottles, linen screens laden with drying
arrowroot and masses of lavender, bunches of nettle and
yarrow and rosemary hanging overhead. The bottle of
ether, sunlight glowing on it. Adso curled on the
countertop, tail neatly tucked around his feet, eyes halfclosed
in purring contemplation.

Home. A small shiver ran down my spine. I wanted
nothing more than to be alone, safe and alone, in my own
home.

Safe. I had a day, perhaps two, in which home would
still be safe. And then . . .

I realized that I had been standing still for some
moments, staring blankly into a box of yellow nightshade
berries, round and shiny as marbles. Very poisonous, and
a slow and painful death. My eyes rose to the ether—
quick and merciful. If Jamie did decide to kill Lionel
Brown . . . But no. In the open, he’d said, standing on his
feet before witnesses. Slowly, I closed the box and put it
back on the shelf.

[broughps]

ABOSAA - Chapter 33

I sipped whisky, dabbed cold sweat from my temples,
and looked round for something useful to do. Malva and I
had started some fresh penicillin the day before, and had
made up fresh tinctures of boneset and troutlilly, and
some fresh gentian salve, as well. I ended up thumbing
slowly through my big black casebook, sipping whisky
and dwelling on pages recounting various horrible
complications of childbirth.

<snip>

At this point, Malva hurried in, a beaker of hot water in
one hand, the whisky jug in the other.

“What shall I do?” she asked breathlessly.

“Er . . . in the cupboard,” I said, trying to focus my
mind. “Do you know what comfrey looks like—boneset?”
I had hold of Brown’s wrist, automatically checking his
pulse. It was galloping.

“Aye, ma’am. Shall I put some to steep, then?” She had
set down the jug and beaker and was already hunting
through the cupboard.

Chapter 45

I glanced up at the sun; still above the chestnut trees.
Time enough then before supper for a last chore or two. I
stood up and surveyed my small kingdom, debating where
best to spend my remaining time. Rooting up the catmint
and lemon balm that threatened to engulf the far corner of
the garden? Carting baskets of nicely rotted manure up
from the heap behind the barn? No, that was man’s work.

Herbs? My three French lavender bushes stood kneehigh,
thick with deep blue swabs on slender stalks, and
the yarrow was well in bloom, with lacy umbels of white
and pink and yellow. I rubbed a finger under my itching
nose, trying to recall whether this was the proper phase of
the moon in which to cut yarrow. Lavender and rosemary
should be cut in the morning, though, when the volatile
oils had risen with the sun; it wasn’t as potent if taken
later in the day.

Down with the mint, then. I reached for the hoe I had
left leaning against the fence, saw a face leering through
the palisades, and started back, my heart leaping into my
throat.

<snip>

“Lizzie! What’s the matter? Here, put her on the table.”
I could see at once what the matter was: a return of the
malarial fever. She was limp, but shivered nonetheless
with chill, the contracting muscles shaking her like jelly.

“I found her in the dairy shed,” Ian said, laying her
gently on the table. “The deaf Beardsley came rushin’ out
as though the devil was chasing him, saw me, and
dragged me in. She was on the floor, wi’ the churn
overturned beside her.”

This was very worrying—she hadn’t had an attack for
some time, but for a second time, the attack had come
upon her too suddenly for her to go for help, causing
almost immediate collapse.

“Top shelf of the cupboard,” I said to Ian, hastily
rolling Lizzie on her side and undoing her laces. “That
bluish jar—no, the big one.”

He grabbed it without question, removing the lid as he
brought it to me.

“Jesus, Auntie! What’s that?” He wrinkled his nose at
the smell from the ointment.

“Gallberries and cinchona bark in goose grease, among
other things. Take some and start rubbing it into her feet.”

Looking bemused, he gingerly scooped up a dollop of
the purplish-gray cream and did as I said, Lizzie’s small
bare foot nearly disappearing between the large palms of
his hands.

“Will she be all right, d’ye think, Auntie?” He glanced
at her face, looking troubled. The look of her was enough
to trouble anyone—the clammy color of whey, and the
flesh gone slack so that her delicate cheeks juddered with
the chills.

“Probably. Close your eyes, Ian.” I’d got her clothes
loosened, and now pulled off her gown, petticoats, pocket,
and stays. I threw a ratty blanket over her before working
the shift off over her head—she owned only two, and
wouldn’t want one spoiled with the reek of the ointment.

Ian had obediently closed his eyes, but was still rubbing
the ointment methodically into her feet, a small frown
drawing his brows together, the look of concern lending
him for a moment a brief but startling resemblance to
Jamie.

I drew the jar toward me, scooped up some ointment,
and, reaching under the blanket, began to rub it into the
thinner skin beneath her armpits, then over her back and
belly. I could feel the outlines of her liver distinctly, a
large, firm mass beneath her ribs. Swollen, and tender
from the way she grimaced at my touch; there was some
ongoing damage there, certainly.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“Oh—yes, of course. Rub more up her legs, please,
Ian.” Shoving the jar back in his direction, I caught a
glimpse of movement in the doorway. One of the
Beardsley twins stood there, clinging to the jamb, dark
eyes fixed on Lizzie. Kezzie, it must be; Ian had said “the
deaf Beardsley” had come to fetch help.

“She’ll be all right,” I said to him, raising my voice,
and he nodded once, then disappeared, with a single
burning glance at Ian.

“Who was it ye were shouting at, Auntie Claire?” Ian
looked up at me, clearly as much to preserve Lizzie’s
modesty as from courtesy to me; the blanket was turned
back and his big hands were smoothing ointment into the
skin above her knee, thumbs gently circling the small
rounded curves of her patella, her skin so thin that the
pearly bone seemed almost visible through it.

[broughps]

ABOSAA - Chapter 54

But I hadn’t time to consider the implications of the
MacDonalds’ rabble-rousing. By the time I reached the
top of the stair, one slave was close behind me, puffing
under the weight of my medicine box, and another was at
the bottom, starting more cautiously up with a pan of hot
water from the kitchen.

<snip>

“Put some of this to steep,” I said to Angelina, grabbing
the jar of goldenseal from my box and thrusting it into her
hands. “And you”—I turned to the other slave, a man
whose name I didn’t know—“set the water to boil again,
fetch me some clean rags, and put them in the water.”

<snip>

There was a trickle of fluid from the eye, vitreous
humor, faintly cloudy, just thick enough to be
distinguishable as it flowed sluggishly across the wet
surface of the sclera. I was still holding the eyelids apart; I
plucked a rag from the goldenseal tea with my free hand,
squeezed out the excess liquid, careless of where it went,
and touched it gently to her face. Jocasta gasped at the
touch of the warmth on her skin, pulled her hands free,
and grasped at it.

Chapter 56

IN THE EVENT, I let Jamie go alone to the gaol to make
arrangements for seeing Donner. He had assured me that
this would be simpler without my presence, and I had
several errands in Cross Creek. Besides the usual salt,
sugar, pins, and other household goods needing
replenishment, I urgently needed more cinchona bark for
Lizzie. The gallberry ointment worked to treat malarial
attacks, but was not nearly so effective as Jesuit bark in
preventing them.

<snip>

“Mrs. Fraser! D’you want some horehound? We’ve
nearly a pound of that left—and it’s cheap, only three
farthings the ounce.”

“I’ll have an ounce,” I said, though in fact I had plenty
growing in my own garden. “Where are your parents?”

<snip>

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” she said earnestly. “Papa says I read
and write better than he ever did when he was my age.
And in Latin. He taught me to read all the names of the
simples, so I could fetch him what he wanted—see that
one?” She pointed with some pride to a large china
apothecary’s jar, elegantly decorated with blue and gold
scrolls. “Electuary Limonensis. And that one is
Ipecacuanha!”

<snip>

IAN AND FERGUS HAD gone off with the majority of
the rioters, no doubt to commit mayhem elsewhere. Jamie
and I retired to the Sycamore, an inn on River Street, to
seek refreshment and make repairs. Jamie’s hilarity
gradually subsided as I picked tar and feathers off him,
but was significantly quenched by hearing an account of
my visit to Dr. Fentiman.

“Ye do what with it?” Jamie had flinched slightly
during my recounting of the tale of Stephen Bonnet’s
testicle. When I reached a description of the penis
syringes, he crossed his legs involuntarily.

“Well, you work the needlelike bit down in, of course,
and then flush a solution of something like mercuric
chloride through the urethra, I suppose.”

[broughps]

ABOSAA - Chapter 61

“It could be worse.” I gave him a smile of gratitude,
though it was interrupted by a yawn. I didn’t need to tell
him that Padraic and his elder daughter still lived; he
would have known at once by my face if anything dire
had happened. In fact, bar any complications, I thought
both would recover; I had stayed with them all night,
rousing them hourly to drink a concoction of honeyed
water, mixed with a little salt, alternating with a strong
infusion of peppermint leaf and dogwood bark to calm the
bowels.

I lifted the mug—goosefoot tea—closing my eyes as I
inhaled the faint, bitter perfume, and feeling the tight
muscles of my neck and shoulders relax in anticipation.

Chapter 64

“No.” He spoke gently, and guided the rim of the cup
to my lips. What was it? I wondered vaguely. Water, but
with something in it—mint and something stronger, more
bitter . . . angelica?

Chapter 110

I SQUEEZED OUT the poultice of witch hazel and
Carolina allspice, and laid it gently over Jocasta’s eyes.
I’d already given her willow-bark tea for the pain, and the
poultice would do nothing for the underlying glaucoma—
but it would be soothing, at least, and it was a relief to
both patient and physician to be able to offer something,
even though that might be the merest palliative.

“Will ye have a keek in my saddlebags, lass?” she
asked, stretching a little to ease herself on the bed.

“There’s a bittie parcel in there of an herb ye might find
of interest.”

I found it immediately—by smell.

“Where on earth did you get that?” I asked, halfway
amused.

“Farquard Campbell,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“When ye told me what the difficulty was with my eyes, I
asked Fentiman if he kent anything that might be of help,
and he told me that he’d heard somewhere that hemp
might be of use. Farquard Campbell has a field of it under
cultivation, so I thought I might as well try it. It does
seem to help. Would ye put it in my hand, please, niece?”

Fascinated, I put the parcel of hemp and the little stack
of papers down on the table beside her, and guided her
hand to it. Rolling carefully onto her side to prevent the
poultice falling off, she took a good pinch of aromatic
herb, sprinkled it down the center of the paper, and rolled
as tidy a joint as I had ever seen in Boston.

Without comment, I held the candle flame for her to
light it, and she eased herself back on the pillow, nostrils
flaring as she took a deep lungful of smoke.

She smoked in silence for some time, and I busied
myself in putting things away, not wanting to leave her
lest she fall asleep and set the bed on fire—she was
clearly exhausted, and relaxing further by the moment.

The pungent, heady smell of the smoke brought back
instant, though fragmentary memories. Several of the
younger medical students had smoked it on weekends,
and would come to the hospital with the scent of it in their
clothes. Some of the people brought into the emergency
room had reeked of it. Now and then, I’d smelled the
faintest hint of it on Brianna—but never inquired.

I hadn’t ever tried it, myself, but now found the smell
of the fragrant smoke rather soothing. Rather too
soothing, and I went and sat down by the window, open a
crack to admit fresh air.

[broughps]

ECHO - Chapter 8

My medical kit was nearly as simple to pack. With a regretful sigh for
the ashes of my beautiful apothecary’s chest, with its elegant tools and
numerous bottles, I turned over the pile of salvaged remnants from my
surgery. The dented barrel of my microscope. Three singed ceramic jars,
one missing its lid, one cracked. A large tin of goose grease mixed with
camphor—now nearly empty after a winter of catarrhs and coughs. A
handful of singed pages, ripped from the casebook started by Daniel
Rawlings and continued by myself—though my spirits were lifted a bit by
the discovery that the salvaged pages included one bearing Dr. Rawlings’s
special receipt for Bowel-Bind.

It was the only one of his receipts I’d found effective, and while I’d long
since committed the actual formula to memory, having it to hand kept my
sense of him alive. I’d never met Daniel Rawlings in life, but he’d been
my friend since the day Jamie gave me his chest and casebook. I folded the
paper carefully and tucked it into my pocket.

Most of my herbs and compounded medications had perished in the
flames, along with the earthenware jars, the glass vials, the large bowls in
which I incubated penicillin broth, and my surgical saws. I still had one
scalpel and the darkened blade of a small amputation saw; the handle had
been charred, but Jamie could make me a new one.

The residents of the Ridge had been generous—as generous as people
who had virtually nothing themselves could be at the tail end of winter.
We had food for the journey, and many of the women had brought me bits
of their household simples; I had small jars of lavender, rosemary,
comfrey, and mustard seed, two precious steel needles, a small skein of
silk thread to use for sutures and dental floss (though I didn’t mention that
last use to the ladies, who would have been deeply affronted by the
notion), and a very small stock of bandages and gauze for dressings.

<snip>

SPRING HAD SPRUNG, and the creek was rising. Swelled by
melting snow and fed by hundreds of tiny waterfalls that trickled and leapt
down the mountain’s face, it roared past my feet, exuberant with spray. I
could feel it cold on my face, and knew that I’d be wet to the knees within
minutes, but it didn’t matter. The fresh green of arrowhead and
pickerelweed rimmed the banks, some plants dragged out of the soil by the
rising water and whirled downstream, more hanging on by their roots for
dear life, leaves trailing in the racing wash. Dark mats of cress swirled
under the water, close by the sheltering banks. And fresh greens were what
I wanted.

My gathering basket was half full of fiddleheads and ramp shoots. A
nice big lot of tender new cress, crisp and cold from the stream, would top
off the winter’s vitamin C deficiency very well. I took off my shoes and
stockings, and after a moment’s hesitation, took off my gown and shawl as
well and hung them over a tree branch. The air was chilly in the shade of
the silver birches that overhung the creek here, and I shivered a bit but
ignored the cold, kirtling up my shift before wading into the stream.

Chapter 57

I glanced at my knapsack again, calculating what I had left and how I
might use it. A fair amount of bandages and lint. A pot of gentian
ointment, good for scrapes and minor wounds, which occurred in
abundance. A small stock of the most useful herbs for tincture and
compress: lavender, comfrey, peppermint, mustard seed. By some miracle,
I still had the box of cinchona bark I had acquired in New Bern—I thought
of Tom Christie and crossed myself, but dismissed him from mind; there
was nothing I could do about him and much too much to think of here.
Two scalpels I had taken from Lieutenant Stactoe’s body—he had
succumbed to a fever on the road—and my silver surgical scissors. Jamie’s
gold acupuncture needles; those might be used to treat others, save that I
had no idea how to place them for anything other than seasickness.

<snip>

“I did. But the stew seems not inclined to lie quiet,” he said, with a
small, pained laugh. He bent forward, arms folded over his stomach. “I—
um, don’t s’pose that thee might have a bit of barley water or peppermint
to hand, Friend Claire?”

“I do,” I said, unspeakably relieved that I still had the remnants in my
sack. I hadn’t much left, but I did have peppermint. There was no hot
water; I gave him a handful to chew, washed down with water from a
canteen. He drank thirstily, burped, and then stopped, breathing in a way
that told me just what was happening. I guided him hastily to the side and
held his head while he vomited, losing peppermint and stew together.

[broughps]

ECHO - Chapter 61

JAMIE LIFTED THE LID of my small iron pot, with an expression
somewhere between caution and hope.

“Not food,” I informed him, rather unnecessarily, as he was wheezing in
the manner of one who has inadvertently inhaled horseradish into the
sinuses.

“I should hope not,” he said, coughing and wiping his eyes. “Christ,
Sassenach, that’s worse than usual. D’ye mean to poison someone?”

“Yes, Plasmodium vivax. Put the lid back on.” I was simmering a
decoction of cinchona bark and gallberries, for the treatment of malarial
cases.

Chapter 62

The rest was quick. Forceps to pluck out the tiny pieces of shattered
bone. I debrided the wound as best I could, removing bits of grass and dirt,
even a tiny swatch of fabric that had been driven into the flesh. Then no
more than a matter of cleaning the ragged edge of the wound, snipping a
small excess of skin, and suturing the incisions. A paste of garlic and
white-oak leaves, mixed with alcohol and spread thickly over the hand, a
padding of lint and gauze, and a tight bandage of linen and adhesive
plasters, to reduce the swelling and encourage the third and fifth fingers to
draw close together.

Chapter 64

“Oh, no,” he assured me, though casting an interested look at the table
behind me, where I had several large jars in which I was growing what I
hoped was penicillin. “I’m told, though, that you possess a stock of
cinchona bark. Is that so?”

“Well, yes. Please, sit.” I waved him to my patient stool and sat down
myself, knee to knee. “Do you suffer from malaria?” I didn’t think so—the
whites of his eyes were clear; he wasn’t jaundiced.

“No, may the Lord be thanked for His mercy. I have a gentleman in my
command—a particular friend—who does, though, very badly, and our
surgeon has no Jesuit bark. I hoped that you might be induced, perhaps, to
make a trade … ?”

He had laid the box on the table beside us, and at this flipped it open. It
was divided into small compartments and contained a remarkable
assortment of things: lace edging, silk ribbon, a pair of tortoiseshell hair
combs, a small bag of salt, a pepperbox, an enameled snuffbox, a pewter
brooch in the shape of a lily, several bright hanks of embroidery silk, a
bundle of cinnamon sticks, and a number of small jars filled apparently
with herbs. And a glass bottle, whose label read…

“Laudanum!” I exclaimed, reaching for it involuntarily. I stopped
myself, but the officer gestured to me to go ahead, and I pulled it carefully
from its resting place, drew the cork, and moved the bottle warily past my
nose. The pungent, sickly-sweet scent of opium drifted out, a genie in a
bottle. I cleared my throat and put the cork back in.

He was watching me with interest.

“I was not sure what might best suit you,” he said, waving at the box’s
contents. “I used to run a store, you see—a great deal of apothecary’s stuff,
but luxurious dry goods in general. I learnt in the course of my business
that it is always best to give the ladies a good deal of choice; they tend to
be much more discriminating than do the gentlemen.”

I gave him a sharp glance, but it wasn’t flummery; he smiled at me
again, and I thought that he was one of those unusual men—like Jamie—
who actually liked women, beyond the obvious.

“I imagine we can accommodate each other, then,” I said, returning the
smile. “I ought not to ask, I suppose—I don’t intend to hold you up; I’ll
give you what you need for your friend—but with thought of possible
future trade, have you got more laudanum?”

He continued to smile, but his gaze sharpened—he had rather unusual
eyes, that pale gray often described as “spit-colored.”

“Why, yes,” he said slowly. “I have quite a bit. Do you… require it
regularly?”

It occurred to me that he was wondering whether I was an addict; it
wasn’t at all uncommon, in circles where laudanum was easily obtainable.

“I don’t use it myself, no,” I replied equably. “And I administer it to
those in need with considerable caution. But relief of pain is one of the
more important things I can offer some of the people who come to me—
God knows I can’t offer many of them cure.”

<snip>

“I will,” I assured him, turning to open one of my boxes. “Let me get the
Jesuit bark for you… er…” I hesitated, not knowing his rank, and he
noticed, clapping a hand to his forehead in apology.

“My apologies, Mrs. Fraser! What can you think of a man who bursts
into your presence, rudely demanding medicaments and failing even to
introduce himself properly?”

He took the small package of shredded bark from my hand, retaining the
hand itself, and bowed low over it, gently kissing my knuckles.

“Major General Benedict Arnold. Your servant, ma’am.”

[broughps]

ECHO - Chapter 67

Nothing very bad, but I had some concern for Corporal Jebediah
Shoreditch, who had suffered three separate bayonet wounds during the
storming of the great redoubt. By some miracle, none had hit any vital
organs, and while the corporal was rather uncomfortable—one thrust
having plowed upward through his left buttock—he wasn’t displaying any
major signs of fever. There was some sign of infection in the buttock
wound, though.

“I’m going to irrigate this,” I told him, eyeing my half-full bottle of
tincture of gentian. This was nearly the last of it, but with luck, there
shouldn’t be great need again until I was in a position to make more.

“Wash it out, I mean, to rid you of the pus. How did it happen?” The
irrigation wasn’t going to be comfortable; better if he could be distracted a
little by telling me the details.

<snip>

I raised a brow at this, but nodded and poured him a cup of ale; there
was plenty now that the supply lines from the south had caught up, and it
would do him no harm.

I did the same for his friend, a man from Pennsylvania named Neph
Brewster, who was suffering from dysentery, though I added a small
handful of Dr. Rawling’s Bowel-Bind mixture before handing over the
cup.

<snip>

“Have you got any goose or bear grease?”

Denny settled his spectacles more firmly on his nose, giving me a
quizzical look.

“Friend Jebediah is not constipated, is he? I understood his difficulty to
be more one of engineering than of physiology.”

I laughed, and explained.

“Oh. Well. I do have some ointment,” he said doubtfully. “But it is
mentholated—for the treatment of grippe and pleurisy, thee knows. I fear
that will do Friend Brewster’s arse no favors.”

“I fear not,” I agreed. “Why don’t you go and help Mr. Shoreditch, and
I’ll find a bit of plain grease and bring it along?”

Grease—any kind of grease—was a staple of cooking, and it took only
two inquiries at campfires to procure a cup of it. It was, the donor
informed me, rendered possum fat. “Greasier than grease,” the lady
assured me. “Tasty, too.” This last characteristic was unlikely to be of
much interest to Mr. Brewster—or at least I hoped not—but I thanked her
effusively and set off through the darkness, back toward the small hospital
tent.

Chapter 74

“And I’ve been paying the wee bugger all these years, to keep it for
me!” he muttered. He straightened up, looking balefully at the press. I had
in the meantime been poking about the tables near the front wall, which
held books and pamphlets for sale, and picked up one of the latter, which
was titled at the top Encyclopedia Britannica, and below this,
“Laudanum.”

Tincture of opium, or liquid laudanum, otherwise called the thebaic
tincture, is made as follows: take of prepared opium two ounces, of
cinnamon and cloves, each one drachm, of white wine one pint, infuse
them a week without heat, and then filter it through paper.

Opium at present is in great esteem, and is one of the most valuable of
all the simple medicines. Applied externally, it is emollient, relaxing, and
discutient, and greatly promotes suppuration: if long kept upon the skin, it
takes off hair, and always occasions an itching; sometimes it exulcerates
it, and raises little blisters, if applied to a tender part: sometimes, on
external application, it allays pain, and even occasions sleep: but it must
by no means be applied to the head, especially to the sutures of the skull;
for it has been known to have the most terrible effects in this application,
and even bring death itself. Opium taken internally removes melancholy,
eases pain, and disposes of sleep; in many cases removes hemorrhages,
provokes sweating.

A moderate dose is commonly under a grain…

“Do you know what ‘discutient’ means?” I asked Jamie, who was
reading the type set up in the form on the press, frowning as he did so.

“I do. It means whatever ye’re talking about can dissolve something.
Why?”

“Ah. Perhaps that’s why applying laudanum to the sutures of the skull is
a bad idea.”

Chapter 79

USEFUL HERBS, I wrote, and paused—as usual—to consider.
Writing with a quill caused one to be both more deliberate and more
economical in writing than doing it with ballpoint or typewriter. Still, I
thought, I’d best just make a list here and jot down notes regarding each
herb as they came to me, then make a clean draft when I’d got it all
straight and made sure to include everything, rather than try to do it all in a
single run.

Lavender, peppermint, comfrey, I wrote without hesitation. Calendula,
feverfew, foxglove, meadow-sweet. Then went back to add a large asterisk
beside foxglove to remind me to add strong cautions about the use, as all
parts of the plant were extremely poisonous in any but very small doses. I
twiddled the quill, biting my lip in indecision. Ought it to mention that one
at all, given that this was meant to be a useful medical guide for the
common man, not for medical practitioners with experience in various
medicaments? Because, really, you ought not dose anyone with foxglove
unless you’d been trained… Best not. I crossed it out but then had second
thoughts. Perhaps I’d better mention it, with a drawing, but also with a
severe warning that it should be used only by a physician, in case someone
had the bright idea of remedying Uncle Tophiger’s dropsy permanently….

[broughps]

MOBY - Chapter 8

“. . . three . . . four—joint fir, Jenny—one . . . two . .
. blow out, two . . . three . . . four—a good handful in
each cup—two, yes, that’s it . . . blow . . .” Still
holding his gaze, willing him to blow—it was all that
was keeping his airways open. If he lost his rhythm,
he’d lose what little air pressure he had, the airways
would collapse, and then—I shoved the thought
aside, squeezing his hand as hard as I could, and
gave disjoint directions between chanting the
rhythm. Joint fir . . . what the bloody hell else did I
have?

Not much, was the answer. Bowman’s root,
jimsonweed—much too dangerously toxic, and not
fast enough. “Spikenard, Jenny,” I said abruptly.
“The root—grind it.” I pointed at the second cup,
then the third. “. . . two . . . three . . . four . . .” A large
handful of crumbled joint fir (aptly named; it looked
like a pile of miniature sticks) had been placed in
each cup and was already steeping. I’d give him the
first as soon as it had cooled enough to drink, but it
took a good half hour of steeping to get a truly
effective concentration. “More cups, please, Mrs.
Figg—in, one . . . two . . . that’s good . . .”

“You aren’t going to die,” I said to him, quietly but
as forcefully as I could. “I won’t let you.” The flicker
of something much too faint to be a smile passed
behind those winter-sharp blue eyes, but he hadn’t
enough breath even to think of speaking. His lips
were still blue and his face paper-white, in spite of
the temperature.

The first cup of joint-fir tea helped briefly, the heat
and moisture doing as much as the herb; joint fir did
contain epinephrine and was the only really good
treatment for asthma I had available—but there
wasn’t enough of the active principle in a cup of the
stuff after only ten minutes’ brewing. Even the
momentary sense of relief steadied him, though. His
hand turned, fingers linking with mine, and he
squeezed back.

A fighter. I knew one when I saw one and smiled
involuntarily.

“Start three more cups, please, Jenny?” If he drank
them slowly—and he couldn’t do more than sip
briefly between gasps—and continuously, we should
have got a decent amount of stimulant into him by
the end of the sixth, most-concentrated cup. “And,
Mrs. Figg, if you would boil three handfuls of the
joint fir and half that of spikenard in a pint of coffee
for a quarter hour, then let it steep?” If he wasn’t
going to die, I wanted a concentrated tincture of
Ephedra easily on hand; this obviously wasn’t his
first attack, and—if it wasn’t his last—there’d be
another sometime. And quite possibly sometime
soon.

Chapter 12

A small brazier burned near the bed under a tented
wet cloth, casting a flickering red glow on Pardloe’s
sharp-cut features. He was breathing with an audible
rasp and I could hear his lungs rattle with each
exhalation, but it was a deep breathing, and regular.
It occurred to me that I might not have been able to
smell the smoke of a fire outside, had there been
one: the atmosphere in the room was thick with oil
of peppermint, eucalyptus . . . and cannabis. Despite
the wet cloth, enough smoke had escaped the brazier
to form a hanging cloud of purling wisps, moving
pale as ghosts in the darkened air.

I sprinkled more water on the muslin tent and sat
down in the small armchair beside the bed,
breathing the saturated atmosphere in cautiously but
with an agreeable small sense of illicit pleasure. Hal
had told me that he was in the habit of smoking
hemp to relax his lungs and that it seemed to be
effective. He’d said “hemp,” and that was
undoubtedly what he’d been smoking; the
psychoactive form of the plant didn’t grow in
England and wasn’t commonly imported.

I hadn’t any hemp leaves in my medical supply but
did have a good bit of ganja, which John had
acquired from a Philadelphia merchant who had two
Indiamen. It was useful in the treatment of
glaucoma, as I’d learned when treating Jamie’s aunt
Jocasta, it relieved nausea and anxiety—and it had
occasional non-medicinal uses, as John had
informed me, to my private amusement.

<snip>

I laughed, and darted a glance at the brazier. I
hadn’t thought the active principle in ganja would be
very strong, burned as an atmospheric rather than
smoked directly. Still, it was obviously having a
beneficial effect on Hal’s mood as well as his asthma,
and I was conscious of a slight feeling of well-being
beginning to creep into my own outlook. I was still
worried about Jamie—and John—but the worry had
lifted from my shoulders and seemed to be floating a
little way above my head: still visible, and a dull
purple-gray in color, but floating. Like a lead
balloon, I thought, and gave a small, amused snort.