He had wrapped Abigail in her embroidered shroud, buried her by the side of their youngest child, and then walked two miles down the road, intending, he thought, to tell the Hobsons what had happened.
“But I came to the house, and found them all abuzzing like hornets—Hugh Fowles had had a visit from Travers, come for the tax, and no money to pay. Travers grinned like an ape and said it was all one to him—and sure enough, ten days later he came along wi’ a paper and three men, and put them oot.”
Hobson had scraped up the money to pay his own taxes, and the Fowleses were crowded in safely enough with the rest of the family—but Joe Hobson was foaming with wrath over the treatment of his son-in-law.
“He was a-rantin’, Joe, bleezin’ mad wi’ fury. Janet Hobson bid me come and sit, and offered me supper, and there was Joe shoutin’ that he’d take the price of the land out of Howard Travers’s hide, and Hugh slumped down like a trampled dog, and his wife greetin’, and the weans all squealin’ for their dinners like a brood o’ piglets, and... well, I thought of telling them, but then...” He shook his head, as though confused anew.
Sitting half-forgotten in the chimney-corner, he had been overcome by a strange sort of fatigue, one that made him so tired that his head nodded on his neck, lethargy stealing over him. It was warm, and he was overcome with a sense of unreality. If the crowded confines of the Hobsons’ one-roomed cabin were not real, neither was the quiet hillside and its fresh grave beneath the spruce tree.
He slept under the table, and woke before dawn, to find that the sense of unreality persisted. Everything around him seemed no more than a waking dream. MacLennan himself seemed to have ceased to exist; his body rose, washed itself, and ate, nodded and spoke without his cognizance. None of the outer world existed any longer. And so it was that when Joe Hobson had risen and announced that he and Hugh would go to Hillsborough, there to seek redress from the Court, that Abel MacLennan had found himself marching down the road along with them, nodding and speaking when spoken to, with no more will than a dead man.
“It did come to me, walkin’ doon the road, as we were all dead,” he said dreamily. “Me and Joe and Hugh and the rest. I might sae well be one place as anither; it was only moving ’til the time came to lay my bones beside Abby. I didna mind it.”
When they reached Hillsborough, he had paid no great mind to what Joe intended; only followed, obedient and unthinking. Followed, and walked the muddy streets sparkling with broken glass from shattered windows, seen the torchlight and mobs, heard the shouts and screams—all quite unmoved.
“It was no but dead men, a-rattling their bones against one anither,” he said with a shrug. He was still for a moment, then turned his face to Jamie, and looked long and earnestly up into his face.
“Is it so? Are ye dead, too?” One limp, callused hand floated up from the red kerchief, and rested lightly against the bone of Jamie’s cheek.
Jamie didn’t recoil from the touch, but took MacLennan’s hand and brought it down again, held tight between his own.
“No, a charaid,” he said softly. “Not yet.”
MacLennan nodded slowly.
“Aye. Give it time,” he said. He pulled his hands free and sat for a moment, smoothing his kerchief. His head kept bobbing, nodding slightly, as though the spring of his neck had stretched too far.
“Give it time,” he repeated. “It’s none sae bad.” He stood up then, and put the square of red cloth on his head. He turned to me and nodded politely, his eyes vague and troubled.
“I thank ye for the breakfast, ma’am,” he said, and walked away.
BILIOUS HUMOURS
ABEL MACLENNAN’S DEPARTURE put an abrupt end to breakfast. Private Ogilvie excused himself with thanks, Jamie and Fergus went off in search of scythes and astrolabes, and Lizzie, wilting in the absence of Private Ogilvie, declared that she felt unwell and subsided palely into one of the lean-to shelters, fortified with a large cup of tansy and rue decoction.
Fortunately, Brianna chose to reappear just then, sans Jemmy. She and Roger had breakfasted with Jocasta, she assured me. Jemmy had fallen asleep in Jocasta’s arms, and since both parties appeared content with that arrangement, she had left him there, and come back to help me with the morning’s clinic.
“Are you sure you want to help me this morning?” I eyed Bree dubiously. “It’s your wedding day, after all. I’m sure Lizzie or maybe Mrs. Martin could—”
“No, I’ll do it,” she assured me, swiping a cloth across the seat of the tall stool I used for my morning surgery. “Lizzie’s feeling better, but I don’t think she’s up to festering feet and putrid stomachs.” She gave a small shudder, closing her eyes at the memory of the elderly gentleman whose ulcerated heel I had debrided the day before. The pain had caused him to vomit copiously on his tattered breeches, which in turn had caused several of the people waiting for my attention to throw up too, in sympathetic reflex.
I felt a trifle queasy at the memory myself, but drowned it with a final gulp of bitter coffee.
“No, I suppose not,” I agreed reluctantly. “Still, your gown isn’t quite finished, is it? Perhaps you should go—”
“It’s fine,” she assured me. “Phaedre’s hemming my dress, and Ulysses is ordering all the servants around up there like a drill sergeant. I’d just be in the way.”
I gave way without further demur, though I wondered a little at her alacrity. While Bree wasn’t squeamish about the exigencies of normal life, like skinning animals and cleaning fish, I knew the proximity of people with disfiguring conditions or obvious illness bothered her, though she did her best to disguise it. It wasn’t distaste, I thought, but rather a crippling empathy.
I lifted the kettle and poured freshly boiled water into a large, half-full jar of distilled alcohol, narrowing my eyes against hot clouds of alcoholic steam.
It was difficult to see so many people suffering from things that could have been easily treated in a time of antiseptics, antibiotics, and anesthesia—but I had learned detachment in the field hospitals of a time when such medical innovations were not only new but rare, and I knew both the necessity and the value of it.
I could not help anyone, if my own feelings got in the way. And I must help. It was as simple as that. But Brianna had no such knowledge to use as a shield. Not yet.
She had finished wiping down the stools, boxes, and other impedimenta for the morning surgery, and straightened up, a small frown between her brows.
“Do you remember the woman you saw yesterday? The one with the retarded little boy?”
“Not something you’d forget,” I said, as lightly as possible. “Why? Here, can you deal with this?” I gestured at the folding table I used, which was stubbornly declining to fold up properly, its joints having swollen with the damp.
Brianna frowned slightly, studying it, then struck the offending joint sharply with the side of her hand. It gave way and collapsed obediently at once, recognizing superior force.
“There.” She rubbed the side of her hand absently, still frowning. “You were making a big thing of telling her to try not to have any more children. The little boy—was it an inheritable condition, then?”
“You might say that,” I replied dryly. “Congenital syphilis.”
She looked up, blanching.
“Syphilis? You’re sure?”
I nodded, rolling up a length of boiled linen for bandaging. It was still very damp, but no help for it.
“The mother wasn’t showing overt signs of the late stages—yet—but it’s quite unmistakable in a child.”
The mother had come simply to have a gumboil lanced, the little boy clinging to her skirts. He’d had the characteristic “saddle nose,” with its pushed-in bridge, as well as a jaw so malformed that I wasn’t surprised at his poor nutrition; he could barely chew. I couldn’t tell how much of his evident backwardness was due to brain damage and how much to deafness; he appeared to have both, but I hadn’t tested their extent—there being exactly nothing I could do to remedy either condition. I had advised the mother to give him pot liquor, which might help with the malnutrition, but there was little else to be done for him, poor mite.
“I don’t see it so often here as I did in Paris or Edinburgh, where there were a lot of prostitutes,” I told Bree, tossing the ball of bandages into the canvas bag she held open. “Now and then, though. Why? You don’t think Roger has syphilis, do you?”
She looked at me, openmouthed. Her look of shock was obliterated by an instant flood of angry red.
“I do not!” she said. “Mother!”
“Well, I didn’t really think so,” I said mildly. “Happens in the best of families, though—and you were asking.”
She snorted heavily.
“I was asking about contraception,” she said, through her teeth. “Or at least I meant to, before you started in with the Physician’s Guide to Venereal Disease. ”
“Oh, that.” I eyed her thoughtfully, taking in the dried milk stains on her bodice. “Well, breast-feeding is reasonably effective. Not absolute, by any means, but fairly effective. Less so, after the first six months”—Jemmy was now six months old—“but still effective.”
“Mmphm,” she said, sounding so like Jamie that I had to bite my lower lip in order not to laugh. “And exactly what else is effective?”
I hadn’t really discussed contraception—eighteenth-century style—with her. It hadn’t seemed necessary when she first appeared at Fraser’s Ridge, and then it really wasn’t necessary, she being already pregnant. So she thought it was now?
I frowned, slowly putting rolls of bandage and bundles of herbs into my bag.
“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.
“The only thing that always works is celibacy,” I said. “I suppose that isn’t a satisfactory option in the present case?”
She shook her head, her eyes fixed broodingly on a cluster of young men visible through the trees below, taking turns at pitching stones across the creek.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said, and bent to pick up the folding table and a pair of stools.
I looked round the clearing, considering. Anything else? No worry about leaving the campfire, even if Lizzie fell asleep; nothing on the mountainside would burn in this weather; even the kindling and firewood we had stored at the end of our lean-to the day before were damp. Something was missing, though... what? Oh, yes. I put down the box for a moment and knelt to crawl into the lean-to. I dug about in the jumble of quilts, coming out finally with my tiny leather medicine pouch.
I said a brief prayer to St. Bride and slipped it round my neck and down inside the bodice of my dress. I was so much in the habit of wearing the amulet when I set out to practice medicine that I had almost ceased to feel ridiculous about this small ritual—almost. Bree was watching me, a rather odd look on her face, but she said nothing.
I didn’t, either; merely picked up my things and followed her across the clearing, stepping carefully round the boggiest spots. It wasn’t raining now, but the clouds sat on the tops of the trees, promising more at any moment, and wisps of mist rose from fallen logs and dripping bushes.
Why was Bree worrying about contraception? I wondered. Not that I didn’t think it sensible—but why now? Perhaps it was to do with the imminence of her wedding to Roger. Even if they had been living as man and wife for the last several months—and they had—the formality of vows spoken before God and man was enough to bring a new sobriety to even the giddiest of young people. And neither Bree nor Roger was giddy.
“There is another possibility,” I said to the back of her neck, as she led the way down the slippery trail. “I haven’t tried it on anyone yet, so I can’t say how reliable it may be. Nayawenne—the old Tuscaroran lady who gave me my medicine bag—she said there were ‘women’s herbs.’ Different mixtures for different things—but one plant in particular for that; she said the seeds of it would keep a man’s spirit from overwhelming a woman’s.”
Bree paused, half-turning as I came up beside her.
“Is that how the Indians see pregnancy?” One corner of her mouth curled wryly. “The man wins?”
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.
She gave me an austere look that reminded me once more of Jamie, then turned to the side to let a small stream of Campbell women go by, clattering with empty kettles and pails, each one bobbing or bowing politely to us as they passed on their way down to the creek.
“Good day to ye, Mistress Fraser,” said one, a neat young woman that I recognized as one of Farquard Campbell’s younger daughters. “Is your man about? My faither would be glad of a word, he says.”
“No, he’s gone off, I’m afraid.” I gestured vaguely; Jamie could be anywhere. “I’ll tell him if I see him, though.”
She nodded and went on, each of the women behind her pausing to wish Brianna happiness on her wedding day, their woolen skirts and cloaks brushing small showers of rainwater from the bayberry bushes that lined the path here.
Brianna accepted their good wishes with gracious politeness, but I saw the small line that formed between her thick red brows. Something was definitely bothering her.
“What?” I said bluntly, as soon as the Campbells were out of earshot.
“What’s what?” she said, startled.
“What’s troubling you?” I asked. “And don’t say ‘nothing,’ because I see there is. Is it to do with Roger? Are you having second thoughts about the wedding?”
“Not exactly,” she replied, looking wary. “I want to marry Roger, I mean— that’s all right. It’s just... I just... thought of something...” She trailed off, and a slow flush rose in her cheeks.
“Oh?” I asked, feeling rather alarmed. “What’s that?”
“Venereal disease,” she blurted. “What if I have it? Not Roger, not him, but—from Stephen Bonnet?”
Her face was flaming so hotly that I was surprised not to see the raindrops sizzle into steam when they struck her skin. My own face felt cold, my heart tight in my chest. The possibility had occurred to me—vividly—at the time, but I hadn’t wanted even to suggest such a thing, if she hadn’t thought of it herself. I remembered the weeks of watching her covertly for any hint of malaise—but women often showed no symptoms of early infection. Jemmy’s healthy birth had been a relief in more ways than one.
“Oh,” I said softly. I reached out and squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry, lovey. You haven’t.”
She took a deep breath, and let it out in a pale misty cloud, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.
“You’re sure?” she said. “You can tell? I feel all right, but I thought—women don’t always have symptoms.”
“They don’t,” I said, “but men most certainly do. And if Roger had contracted anything nasty from you, I’d have heard about it long since.”
Her face had faded somewhat, but the pinkness came back at that. She coughed, mist rising from her breath.
“Well, that’s a relief. So Jemmy’s all right? You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” I assured her. I had put drops of silver nitrate—procured at considerable cost and difficulty—in his eyes at birth, just in case, but I was indeed sure. Aside from the lack of any specific signs of illness, Jemmy had an air of robust health about him that made the mere thought of infection incredible. He radiated well-being like a potful of stew.
“Is that why you asked about contraception?” I asked, waving a greeting as we passed the MacRaes’ campsite. “You were worried about having more children, in case...”
“Oh. No. I mean—I hadn’t even thought about venereal disease until you mentioned syphilis, and then it just struck me as a horrible realization—that he might have—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Er, no. I just wanted to know.”
A slippery patch of trail put paid to the conversation at that point, but not to my speculations.
It wasn’t that a young bride’s mind might not turn lightly to thoughts of contraception—but under the circumstances... what was it? I wondered. Fear for herself, or for a new baby? Childbirth could be dangerous, of course—and anyone who had seen the attendees at my surgery or heard the women’s conversations round the campfires in the evening could be in no doubt as to the dangers to infants and children; it was the rare family that had not lost at least one infant to fever, morbid sore throat, or “the squitters”—uncontrolled diarrhea. Many women had lost three, four, or more babies. I remembered Abel MacLennan’s story, and a small shiver ran down my spine.
Still, Brianna was very healthy, and while we did lack important things like antibiotics and sophisticated medical facilities, I had told her not to underestimate the power of simple hygiene and good nutrition.
No, I thought, watching the strong curve of her back as she lifted the heavy equipment over an entangling root that hunched across the trail. It wasn’t that. She might have reason to be concerned, but she wasn’t basically a fearful person.
Roger? On the face of it, it would seem that the best thing to do was to become pregnant again quickly, with a child that was definitely Roger’s. That would certainly help to cement their new marriage. On the other hand... what if she did? Roger would be more than pleased—but what about Jemmy?
Roger had sworn a blood oath, taking Jemmy as his own. But human nature was human nature, and while I was sure that Roger would never abandon or neglect Jemmy, it was quite possible that he would feel differently—and obviously differently—for a child he knew was his. Would Bree risk that?
On due consideration, I rather thought she was wise to wait—if she could. Give Roger time to feel a close bond with Jemmy, before complicating the family situation with another child. Yes, very sensible—and Bree was an eminently sensible person.
It wasn’t until we had arrived, finally, at the clearing where the morning surgeries were held that another possibility occurred to me.
“Can we be helpin’ ye at all, Missus Fraser?”
Two of the younger Chisholm boys hurried forward to help, relieving me and Brianna of our heavy loads, and without being told, started in at once to unfold tables, fetch clean water, kindle a fire, and generally make themselves useful. They were no more than eight and ten, and watching them work, I realized afresh that in this time, a lad of twelve or fourteen could be essentially a grown man.
Brianna knew that, too. She would never leave Jemmy, I knew—not while he needed her. But... later? What might happen when he left her?
I opened my chest and began slowly to lay out the necessary supplies for the morning’s work: scissors, probe, forceps, alcohol, scalpel, bandages, tooth pliers, suture needles, ointments, salves, washes, purges...
Brianna was twenty-three. She might be no more than in her mid-thirties by the time Jem was fully independent. And if he no longer needed her care—she and Roger might possibly go back. Back to her own time, to safety—to the interrupted life that had been hers by birth.
But only if she had no further children, whose helplessness would keep her here.
“Good morn to ye, ma’am.” A short, middle-aged gentleman stood before me, the morning’s first patient. He was bristling with a week’s worth of whiskers, but noticeably pallid round the gills, with a clammy look and bloodshot eyes so raw with smoke and whisky that his malady was instantly discernible. Hangover was endemic at the morning surgery.
“I’ve a wee gripin’ in my guts, ma’am,” he said, swallowing unhappily. “Would ye have anything like to settle ’em, maybe?”
“Just the thing,” I assured him, reaching for a cup. “Raw egg and a bit of ipecac. Have you a good vomit, and you’ll be a new man.”
THE SURGERY was held at the edge of the big clearing at the foot of the hill, where the great fire of the Gathering burned at night. The damp air smelled of soot and the acrid scent of wet ashes, but the blackened patch of earth—some ten feet across, at least—was already disappearing under a crisscross of fresh branches and kindling. They’d have a time starting it tonight, I thought, if the drizzle kept up.
The gentleman with the hangover disposed of, there was a short lull, and I was able to give my attention to Murray MacLeod, who had set up shop a short distance away.
Murray had gotten an early start, I saw; the ground by his feet was dark, the scattered ashes sodden and squishy with blood. He had an early patient in hand, too—a stout gentleman whose red, spongy nose and flabby jowls gave testimony to a life of alcoholic excess. He had the man stripped to his shirt despite the rain and cold, sleeve turned up and tourniquet in place, the bleeding bowl held across the patient’s knees.
I was a good ten feet from the stool where Murray plied his trade, but could see the man’s eyes, yellow as mustard even in the dim morning light.
“Liver disease,” I said to Brianna, taking no particular pains to lower my voice. “You can see the jaundice from here, can’t you?”
“Bilious humors,” MacLeod said loudly, snapping open his fleam. “An excess of the humors, clear as day.” Small, dark, and neat in his dress, Murray was not personally impressive, but he was opinionated.
“Cirrhosis due to drink, I daresay,” I said, coming closer and looking the patient over dispassionately.
“An impaction of the bile, owing to an imbalance of the phlegm!” Murray glowered at me, clearly thinking I intended to steal his thunder, if not his patient.
I ignored him and bent down to examine the patient, who looked alarmed at my scrutiny.
“You have a hard mass just under the ribs on the right, don’t you?” I said, kindly. “Your piss is dark, and when you shit, it’s black and bloody, am I right?”
The man nodded, mouth hanging open. We were beginning to attract attention.
“Mo-therr.” Brianna was standing behind me. She gave Murray a nod and bent to mutter in my ear. “What can you do for cirrhosis, Mother? Nothing!”
I stopped, biting my lip. She was right. In my urge to show off by making the diagnosis—and keep Murray from using his stained, rusty-looking fleam on the man—I had overlooked the minor point that I had no alternative treatment to offer.
The patient was glancing back and forth between us, plainly uneasy. With an effort, I smiled at him, and nodded to Murray.
“Mr. MacLeod has the right of it,” I said, forcing the words past my teeth. “Liver disease, surely—caused by an excess of humors.” I supposed one could consider alcohol a humor, after all; the folk drinking Jamie’s whisky last night had evidently found it hilarious.
Murray’s face had been tense with suspicion; at my capitulation, it went quite comically blank with astonishment. Stepping in front of me, Brianna seized advantage of the moment.
“There’s a charm,” she said, smiling charmingly at him. “It... er... sharpens the blade, and eases the flow of the humors. Let me show you.” Before he could tighten his grip, she snatched the fleam from his hand and turned to our small surgery fire, where a pot of water hung steaming from a tripod.
“In the name of Michael, wielder of swords, defender of souls,” she intoned. I trusted that taking the name of St. Michael in vain was not actual blasphemy—or if it was, that Michael would not object in a good cause. The men laying the fire had stopped to watch, as had a few people coming to the surgery.
She raised the fleam and made a large, slow sign of the cross with it, looking from side to side, to be sure she had the attention of all the onlookers. She did; they were agog. Towering over most of the gawkers, blue eyes narrowed in concentration, she reminded me strongly of Jamie in some of his more bravura performances. I could only hope she was as good at it as he was.
“Bless this blade, for the healing of your servant,” she said, casting her eyes up to heaven, and holding the fleam above the fire in the manner of a priest offering the Eucharist. Bubbles were rising through the water, but it hadn’t quite reached the boil.
“Bless its edge, for the drawing of blood, for the spilling of blood, for the... er... the letting of poison from the body of your most humble petitioner. Bless the blade... bless the blade... bless the blade in the hand of your humble servant.... Thanks be to God for the brightness of the metal.” Thanks be to God for the repetitious nature of Gaelic prayers, I thought cynically.
Thanks be to God, the water was boiling. She lowered the short, curved blade to the surface of the water, glowered significantly at the crowd, and declaimed, “Let the cleansing of the waters from the side of our Lord Jesus be upon this blade!”
She plunged the metal into the water and held it until the steam rising over the wooden casing reddened her fingers. She lifted the fleam and transferred it hastily to her other hand, raising it into the air as she surreptitiously waggled the scalded hand behind her.
“May the blessing of Michael, defender from demons, be on this blade and on the hand of its wielder, to the health of the body, to the health of the soul. Amen!”
She stepped forward and presented the fleam ceremoniously to Murray, handle first. Murray, no fool, gave me a look in which keen suspicion was mingled with a reluctant appreciation for my daughter’s theatrical abilities.
“Don’t touch the blade,” I said, smiling graciously. “It will break the charm. Oh—and you repeat the charm, each time you use the blade. It has to be done with the water boiling, mind.”
“Mmphm,” he said, but took the fleam carefully by the handle. With a short nod to Brianna, he turned away to his patient, and I to mine—a young girl with nettle rash. Brianna followed, wiping her hands on her skirt and looking pleased with herself. I heard the patient’s soft grunt behind me, and the ringing patter of blood running into the metal bowl.
I felt rather guilty about MacLeod’s patient, but Brianna had been quite right; there was absolutely nothing I could do for him under the circumstances. Careful long-term nursing, coupled with excellent nutrition and a complete abstinence from alcohol, might prolong his life; the chances of the first two were low, the third, nonexistent.
Brianna had brilliantly saved him from a potentially nasty blood infection—and seized the opportunity to provide a similar protection for all MacLeod’s future patients—but I couldn’t help a nagging sense of guilt that I could not do more myself. Still, the first medical principle I had learned as a nurse on the battlefields of France still held: treat the patient in front of you.
“Use this ointment,” I said sternly to the girl with nettle rash, “and don’t scratch. ”
WEDDING GIFTS
THE DAY HADN’T CLEARED, but the rain had ceased for the moment. Fires smoked like smudge pots, as people hastened to take advantage of the momentary cessation to feed their carefully hoarded coals, pushing damp wood into the kindling blazes in a hasty effort to dry damp clothes and blankets. The air was still restless, though, and clouds of woodsmoke billowed ghostlike through the trees.
