The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (93 page)

The cold air laved us, whirling the unhealthy smoke away in a drift of snowflakes. I reached up and laid the palm of my hand along his cold cheek.

“Jamie, love,” I said, whispering through a bruised throat, “Come then, come lay your head, man.” The mask trembled then and broke, and I held the big body hard against me, the two of us shaking with the force of his sobbing.

It was, by considerable good luck, the unflappable Brother William who found us in the morning. I woke groggily to the sound of the door opening, and snapped to full consciousness when I heard him clear his throat emphatically before saying “Good morning to ye,” in his soft Yorkshire drawl.

The heavy weight on my chest was Jamie. His hair had dried in bronze streaks and whorled over my breasts like the petals of a Chinese chrysanthemum. The cheek pressed against my sternum was warm and slightly sticky with sweat, but the back and arms I could touch were as cold as my thighs, chilled by the winter air gusting in on us.

Daylight streaming through the uncurtained window revealed the full extent of the wreckage I had only dimly realized the night before; smashed furniture and crockery littered the room, and the massive paired candlesticks lay like fallen logs in the midst of a tangle of torn hangings and scattered bedclothes. From the pattern of indentations impressing itself painfully into my back, I thought I must be lying on the indifferently executed tapestry of St. Sebastian the Human Pincushion; no great loss to the monastery, if so.

Brother William stood motionless in the doorway, jug and basin in hand. With great precision, he fixed his eyes on Jamie’s left eyebrow and inquired, “And how do you feel this morning?”

There was a rather long pause, during which Jamie considerately remained in place, blanketing most of me from view. At last, in the hoarse tones of one to whom a revelation has been vouchsafed, he replied, “Hungry.”

“Oh, good,” said Brother William, still staring hard at the eyebrow, “I’ll go and tell Brother Josef.” The door closed soundlessly behind him.

“Nice of you not to move,” I remarked. “I shouldn’t like us to be responsible for giving Brother William impure thoughts.”

Dense blue eyes stared down at me. “Aye, well,” he said judiciously, “a view of
my
arse is no going to corrupt anyone’s Holy Orders; not in its present condition. Yours, though …” He paused to clear his throat.

“What
about
mine?” I demanded.

The bright head lowered slowly to plant a kiss on my shoulder. “Yours,” he said, “would compromise a bishop.”

“Mmmphm.” I was, I felt, getting rather good at Scottish noises myself. “Be that as it may, perhaps you should move now. I don’t suppose even Brother William’s tact is infinite.”

Jamie lowered his head next to mine with some care, laying it on a fold of tapestry, from which he peered sideways at me. “I dinna know how much of last night I dreamed and how much was real.” His hand unconsciously strayed to the scratch across his chest. “But if half what I thought happened really happened, I should be dead now.”

“You’re not. I looked.” With some hesitation, I asked, “Do you want to be?”

He smiled slowly, eyes half-closing. “No, Sassenach, I don’t.” His face was gaunt and shadowed with illness and fatigue, but peaceful, the lines around his mouth smoothed out and the blue eyes clear. “But I’m damned close to it, want to or not. The only reason I think I’m not dying now is that I’m hungry. I wouldna be hungry if I were about to die, do ye think? Seems a waste.” One eye closed altogether, but the other stayed half-open, fixed on my face with a quizzical expression.

“You can’t stand up?”

He considered carefully. “If my life depended on it, I might possibly lift my head again. But stand up? No.”

With a sigh, I wriggled out from under him and righted the bed before trying to lever him into a vertical position. He managed to stand for only a few seconds before his eyes rolled back and he fell across the bed. I groped frantically for the pulse in his neck, and found it, slow and strong, just below the three-cornered scar at the base of his throat. Simple exhaustion. After a month of imprisonment and a week of intense physical and mental stress, starvation, injury, sickness and high fever, even that vigorous frame had finally come to the end of its resources.

“The heart of a lion,” I said, shaking my head, “and the head of an ox. Too bad you haven’t also got the hide of a rhinoceros.” I touched a freshly bloodied weal on his shoulder.

He opened one eye. “What’s a rhinoceros?”

“I thought you were unconscious!”

“I was. I am. My head’s spinning like a top.”

I drew a blanket up over him. “What you need now are food and rest.”

“What
you
need now,” he said, “are clothes.” And shutting the eye again, he fell promptly asleep.

40

ABSOLUTION

I had no memory of finding my way to bed, but I must have done so, because I woke up there. Anselm was sitting by the window, reading. I sat bolt upright in bed.

“Jamie?” I croaked.

“Asleep,” he said, putting the book aside. He glanced at the hour-candle on the table. “Like you. You have been with the angels for the last thirty-six hours,
ma belle
.” He filled a cup from the earthenware jug and held it to my lips. At one time I would have considered drinking wine in bed before brushing one’s teeth to be the last word in decadence. Performed in a monastery, in company with a robed Franciscan, the act seemed somewhat less degenerate. And the wine did cut through the mossy feeling in my mouth.

I swung my feet over the side of the bed, and sat swaying. Anselm caught me by the arm and eased me back onto the pillow. He seemed suddenly to have four eyes, and altogether more noses and mouths than strictly necessary.

“I’m a bit dizzy,” I said, closing my eyes. I opened one. Somewhat better. At least there was only one of him, if a trifle blurry around the edges.

Anselm bent over me, concerned.

“Shall I fetch Brother Ambrose or Brother Polydore, Madame? I have little skill in medicine, unfortunately.”

“No, I don’t need anything. I just sat up too suddenly.” I tried again, more slowly. This time the room and its contents stayed relatively still. I became aware of numerous bruises and sore spots earlier submerged in the dizziness. I tried to clear my throat and discovered that it hurt. I grimaced.

“Really,
ma chère,
I think perhaps …” Anselm was poised by the door, ready to fetch assistance. He looked quite alarmed. I reached for the looking glass on the table and then changed my mind. I really wasn’t ready for that. I grasped the wine jug instead.

Anselm came slowly back into the room and stood watching me. Once convinced that I wasn’t going to collapse after all, he sat down again. I sipped the wine slowly as my head cleared, trying to shake off the aftereffects of opium-induced dreams. So we were alive, after all. Both of us.

My dreams had been chaotic, filled with violence and blood. I had dreamed over and over that Jamie was dead or dying. And somewhere in the fog had been the image of the boy in the snow, his surprised round face overlying the image of Jamie’s bruised and battered one. Sometimes the pathetic, fuzzy mustache seemed to appear on Frank’s face. I distinctly remembered killing all three of them. I felt as though I had spent the night in stabbing and butchery, and I ached in every muscle with a sort of dull depression.

Anselm was still there, patiently watching me, hands on his knees.

“There is something you could do for me, Father,” I said.

He rose at once, eager to help, reaching for the jug.

“Of course? More wine?”

I smiled wanly.

“Yes, but later. Right now, I want you to hear my confession.”

He was startled, but quickly gathered his professional self-possession around him like his robes.

“But of course,
chère madame,
if you wish it. But really, would it not be better to fetch Father Gerard? He is well known as a confessor, while I”—he gave a Gallic shrug—“I am allowed to hear confessions, of course, but in truth I seldom do so, being only a poor scholar.”

“I want you,” I said firmly. “And I want to do it now.”

He sighed in resignation and went to fetch his stola. Arranging it about his neck so that the purple silk lay straight and shimmering down the black front of his habit, he took a seat on the stool, blessed me briefly and sat back, waiting.

And I told him. Everything. Who I was and how I came there. About Frank, and about Jamie. And about the young English dragoon with the pale, spotty face, dying against the snow.

He showed no change of expression while I spoke, except that the round brown eyes grew rounder still. When I finished, he blinked once or twice, opened his mouth as though to speak, closed it again, and shook his head as though to clear it.

“No,” I said patiently. I cleared my throat again; I croaked like a bullfrog. “You haven’t been hearing things. And you’re not imagining it, either. Now you see why I wanted you to hear it under the seal of confession?”

He nodded, a bit abstractedly.

“Yes. Yes, to be sure. If … but yes. Of course, you wished me to tell no one. And also, since you tell it to me under the seal of the sacrament, then you expect that I must believe it. But …” He scratched his head, then looked up at me. A wide smile spread slowly across his countenance.

“But how marvelous!” he exclaimed softly. “How extraordinary, and how wonderful!”

“ ‘Wonderful’ isn’t precisely the word I would have chosen,” I said dryly, “but ‘extraordinary’ is all right.” I coughed and reached for more wine.

“But it is … a miracle,” he said, as though to himself.

“If you insist,” I said, sighing. “But what I want to know—what ought I to do? Am I guilty of murder? Or adultery, for that matter? Not that there’s much to be done about it in either case, but I’d like to know. And since I
am
here, how ought I to act? Can I—
should
I, I mean—use what I know to … change things? I don’t even know if such a thing is possible. But if it is, have I the right?”

He rocked back on his stool, considering. Slowly he raised both index fingers, placed them tip to tip and stared at them for a long time. Finally, he shook his head and smiled at me.

“I don’t know,
ma bonne amie
. It is not, you will appreciate, a situation one is prepared to encounter in the confessional. I will have to think, and to pray. Yes, assuredly to pray. Tonight I will contemplate your situation when I hold my watch before the Blessed Sacrament. And tomorrow perhaps I can advise you.”

He motioned me gently to kneel.

“But for now, my child, I will absolve you. Whatever your sins might be, have faith that they will be forgiven.”

He lifted one hand in blessing, placing the other on my head.
“Te absolvo, in nomine Patri, et Filii,…”

Rising, he lifted me to my feet.

“Thank you, Father,” I said. Unbeliever that I was, I had used confession only to force him to take me seriously, and was somewhat surprised to feel a lightening of the burden on my spirits. Perhaps it was only the relief of telling someone the truth.

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I will see you tomorrow,
chère madame
. For now, you should rest more, if you can.”

He headed for the door, winding his stola up neatly into a square. At the doorway, he paused for a moment, turning to smile at me. A childlike excitement lighted his eyes.

“And perhaps tomorrow …” he said, “perhaps you could … tell me what it is like?”

I smiled back.

“Yes, Father. I’ll tell you.”

After he left, I staggered down the hall to see Jamie. I had seen any number of corpses in much better condition, but his chest rose and fell regularly, and the sinister green tinge had faded from his skin.

“I’ve been waking him every few hours, just long enough to swallow a few spoonfuls of broth.” Brother Roger was at my elbow, speaking softly. He moved his gaze from the patient to me, and recoiled noticeably at my appearance. I should probably have combed my hair. “Er, perhaps you would … like some?”

“No, thank you. I think … I think perhaps I will sleep a bit more, after all.” I no longer felt weighed down by guilt and depression, but a drowsy, contented heaviness was spreading through my limbs. Whether it was due to the effects of confession or of wine, I found to my surprise that I was looking forward to bed and to oblivion.

I leaned forward to touch Jamie. He was warm, but with no trace of fever. I gently stroked his head, smoothing the tumbled red hair. The corner of his mouth stirred briefly and fell back into place. But it had turned up. I was sure of it.

The sky was cold and damp, filling the horizon with a grey blankness that blended into the grey mist of the hills and the grimy cover of last week’s snow, so that the abbey seemed wrapped inside a ball of dirty cotton. Even inside the cloister, the winter’s silence weighed on the inhabitants. The chanting from the Hours of Praise in the chapel was muted, and the thick stone walls seemed to absorb all sound, swaddling the bustle of daily activity.

Jamie slept for nearly two days, waking only to take a little broth or wine. Once awake, he began to heal in the usual fashion of a normally healthy young man, suddenly deprived of the strength and independence usually taken for granted. In other words, he enjoyed the cosseting for approximately twenty-four hours and then became in turn restive, restless, testy, irritable, cranky, fractious, and extremely bad tempered.

The cuts on his shoulders ached. The scars on his legs itched. He was sick of lying on his belly. The room was too hot. His hand hurt. The smoke from the brazier made his eyes burn so that he could not read. He was sick of broth, posset, and milk. He wanted meat.

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.”

On my way back to the main building from a morning spent in the herbary, I met Anselm coming from the cloister near the library. His face lighted when he saw me, and he hurried to join me in the courtyard. We walked together through the abbey grounds, talking.

“Yours is an interesting problem, to be sure,” he said, breaking a stick from a bush near the wall. He examined the winter-tight buds critically, then tossed it aside, and glanced up at the sky, where a feeble sun poked its way through the light cloud layer.

“Warmer, but a good way to go until the spring,” he observed. “Still, the carp should be lively today—let us go down to the fish pools.”

Far from being the delicate ornamental structures I had imagined them to be, the fish pools were little more than utilitarian rock-lined troughs, placed conveniently near to the kitchens. Stocked with carp, they provided the necessary food for Fridays and fast days, when the weather was too rough to permit ocean fishing for the more customary haddock, herring, and flounder.

True to Anselm’s word, the fish were lively, the fat fusiform bodies gliding past each other, white scales reflecting the clouds overhead, the vigor of their movements occasionally stirring up small waves that sloshed against the sides of their rocky prison. As our shadows fell on the water, the carp turned toward us like compass needles surging toward the north.

“They expect to be fed, when they see people,” Anselm explained. “It would be a shame to disappoint them. One moment,
chère madame
.”

He darted into the kitchens, returning shortly with two loaves of stale bread. We stood on the lip of the pool, tearing crumbs from the loaves and tossing them to the endlessly hungry mouths below.