The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle (935 page)

It was a hellish night. Some of the wounded still lay in the ravines and hollows, as did all the dead. The wolves that came silently out of the wood did not distinguish between them, judging from the distant screams.

It was nearly dawn before I came back to the tent where Jamie lay. I lifted the flap quietly, so as not to disturb him, but he was already awake, lying curled on his side facing the flap, head resting on a folded blanket.

He smiled faintly when he saw me.

“A hard night, Sassenach?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse from cold air and disuse. Mist seeped under the edge of the flap, tinted yellow by the lantern light.

“I’ve had worse.” I smoothed the hair off his face, looking him over carefully. He was pale but not clammy. His face was drawn with pain, but his skin was cool to the touch—no trace of fever. “You haven’t slept, have you? How do you feel?”

“A bit scairt,” he said. “And a bit sick. But better now you’re here.” He gave me a one-sided grimace that was almost a smile.

I put a hand under his jaw, fingers pressed against the pulse in his neck. His heart bumped steadily under my fingertips, and I shivered briefly, remembering the woman in the field.

“You’re chilled, Sassenach,” he said, feeling it. “And tired, too. Go and sleep, aye? I’ll do a bit longer.”

I
was
tired. The adrenaline of the battle and the night’s work was fading fast; fatigue was creeping down my spine and loosening my joints. But I had a good idea of what the hours of waiting had cost him already.

“It won’t take long,” I reassured him. “And it will be better to have it over. Then you can sleep easy.”

He nodded, though he didn’t look noticeably reassured. I unfolded the small worktable I had carried in from the operating tent and set it up in easy reach. Then I took out the precious bottle of laudanum and poured an inch of the dark, odorous liquid into a cup.

“Sip it slowly,” I said, putting it into his left hand. I began to lay out the instruments I would need, making sure that everything lay orderly and to hand. I had thought of asking Lester to come and assist me, but he had been
asleep on his feet, swaying drunkenly under the dim lanterns in the operating tent, and I had sent him off to find a blanket and a spot by the fire.

A small scalpel, freshly sharpened. The jar of alcohol, with the wet ligatures coiled inside like a nest of tiny vipers, each toothed with a small, curved needle. Another with the waxed dry ligatures for arterial compression. A bouquet of probes, their ends soaking in alcohol. Forceps. Long-handled retractors. The hooked tenaculum, for catching the ends of severed arteries.

The surgical scissors with their short, curved blades and the handles shaped to fit my grasp, made to my order by the silversmith Stephen Moray. Or almost to my order. I had insisted that the scissors be as plain as possible, to make them easy to clean and disinfect. Stephen had obliged with a chaste and elegant design, but had not been able to resist one small flourish—one handle boasted a hooklike extension against which I could brace my little finger in order to exert more force, and this extrusion formed a smooth, lithe curve, flowering at the tip into a slender rosebud against a spray of leaves. The contrast between the heavy, vicious blades at one end and this delicate conceit at the other always made me smile when I lifted the scissors from their case.

Strips of cotton gauze and heavy linen, pads of lint, adhesive plasters stained red with the dragon’s-blood juice that made them sticky. An open bowl of alcohol for disinfection as I worked, and the jars of cinchona bark, mashed garlic paste, and yarrow for dressing.

“There we are,” I said with satisfaction, checking the array one last time. Everything must be ready, since I was working by myself; if I forgot something, no one would be at hand to fetch it for me.

“It seems a great deal o’ preparation, for one measly finger,” Jamie observed behind me.

I swung around to find him leaning on one elbow, watching, the cup of laudanum undrunk in his hand.

“Could ye not just whack it off wi’ a wee knife and seal the wound with hot iron, like the regimental surgeons do?”

“I could, yes,” I said dryly. “But fortunately I don’t have to; we have enough time to do the job properly. That’s why I made you wait.”

“Mmphm.” He surveyed the row of gleaming instruments without enthusiasm, and it was clear that he would much rather have had the business over and done with as quickly as possible. I realized that to him this looked like slow and ritualized torture, rather than sophisticated surgery.

“I mean to leave you with a working hand,” I told him firmly. “No infection, no suppurating stump, no clumsy mutilation, and—God willing—no pain, once it heals.”

His eyebrows went up at that. He had never mentioned it, but I was well aware that his right hand and its troublesome fourth finger had caused him intermittent pain for years, ever since it had been crushed at Wentworth Prison, when he was held prisoner there in the days before the Stuart Rising.

“A bargain’s a bargain,” I said, with a nod at the cup in his hand. “Drink it.”

He lifted the cup and poked a long nose reluctantly over the rim, nostrils twitching at the sickly-sweet scent. He let the dark liquid touch the end of his tongue and made a face.

“It will make me sick.”

“It will make you sleep.”

“It gives me terrible dreams.”

“As long as you don’t chase rabbits in your sleep, it won’t matter,” I assured him. He laughed despite himself, but had one final try.

“It tastes like the stuff ye scrape out of horses’ hooves.”

“And when was the last time you licked a horse’s hoof?” I demanded, hands on my hips. I gave him a medium-intensity glare, suitable for the intimidation of petty bureaucrats and low-level army officials.

He sighed.

“Ye mean it, aye?”

“I do.”

“All right, then.” With a reproachful look of long-suffering resignation, he threw back his head and tossed the contents of the cup down in one gulp.

A convulsive shudder racked him, and he made small choking noises.

“I did say to sip it,” I observed mildly. “Vomit, and I’ll make you lick it up off the floor.”

Given the scuffled dirt and trampled grass underfoot, this was plainly an idle threat, but he pressed his lips and eyes tight shut and lay back on the pillow, breathing heavily and swallowing convulsively every few seconds. I brought up a low stool and sat down by the camp bed to wait.

“How do you feel?” I asked, a few minutes later.

“Dizzy,” he replied. He cracked one eye open and viewed me through the narrow blue slit, then groaned and closed it. “As if I’m falling off a cliff. It’s a verra unpleasant sensation, Sassenach.”

“Try to think of something else for a minute,” I suggested. “Something pleasant, to take your mind off it.”

His brow furrowed for a moment, then relaxed.

“Stand up a moment, will ye?” he said. I obligingly stood, wondering what he wanted. He opened his eyes, reached out with his good hand, and took a firm grip of my buttock.

“There,” he said. “That’s the best thing I can think of. Having a good hold on your arse always makes me feel steady.”

I laughed and moved a few inches closer to him, so his forehead pressed against my thighs.

“Well, it’s a portable remedy, at least.”

He closed his eyes then and held on tight, breathing slowly and deeply. The harsh lines of pain and exhaustion in his face began to soften as the drug took effect.

“Jamie,” I said softly, after a minute. “I’m sorry about it.”

He opened his eyes, looked upward, and smiled, giving me a slight squeeze.

“Aye, well,” he said. His pupils had begun to shrink; his eyes were sea-deep and fathomless, as though he looked into a great distance.

“Tell me, Sassenach,” he said, a moment later. “If someone stood a man before ye and told ye that if ye were to cut off your finger, the man would live, and if ye did not, he would die—would ye do it?”

“I don’t know,” I said, slightly startled. “If that was the choice, and no
doubt about it, and he was a good man … yes, I suppose I would. I wouldn’t like it a bit, though,” I added practically, and his mouth curved in a smile.

“No,” he said. His expression was growing soft and dreamy. “Did ye know,” he said after a moment, “a colonel came to see me, whilst ye were at work wi’ the wounded? Colonel Johnson; Micah Johnson, his name was.”

“No; what did he say?”

His grip on my bottom was beginning to slacken; I put my own hand over his, to hold it in place.

“It was his company—in the fight. Part of Morgan’s, and the rest of the regiment just over the hill, in the path of the British. If the charge had gone through, they’d ha’ lost the company surely, he said, and God knows what might have become o’ the rest.” His soft Highland burr was growing broader, his eyes fixed on my skirt.

“So you saved them,” I said gently. “How many men are there in a company?”

“Fifty,” he said. “Though they wouldna all have been killed, I dinna suppose.” His hand slipped; he caught it and took a fresh grip, chuckling slightly. I could feel his breath through my skirt, warm on my thighs.

“I was thinking it was like the Bible, aye?”

“Yes?” I pressed his hand against the curve of my hip, keeping it in place.

“That bit where Abraham is bargaining wi’ the Lord for the Cities of the Plain. ‘Wilt thou not destroy the city,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘for the sake of fifty just men?’ And then Abraham does Him down, a bit at a time, from fifty to forty, and then to thirty, and twenty and ten.”

His eyes were half closed, and his voice peaceful and unconcerned.

“I didna have time to inquire into the moral state of any o’ the men in that company. But ye’d think there might be ten just men among them—good men?”

“I’m sure there are.” His hand was heavy, his arm gone nearly limp.

“Or five. Or even one. One would be enough.”

“I’m sure there’s one.”

“The apple-faced laddie that helped ye wi’ the wounded—he’s one?”

“Yes, he’s one.”

He sighed deeply, his eyes nearly shut.

“Tell him I dinna grudge him the finger, then,” he said.

I held his good hand tightly for a minute. He was breathing slowly and deeply, his mouth gone slack in utter relaxation. I rolled him gently onto his back and laid the hand across his chest.

“Bloody man,” I whispered. “I knew you’d make me cry.”

The camp outside lay quiet, in the last moments of slumber before the rising sun should stir the men to movement. I could hear the occasional call of a picket and the murmur of conversation as two foragers passed close by my tent, bound for the woods to hunt. The campfires outside had burned to embers, but I had three lanterns, arranged to cast light without shadow.

I laid a thin square of soft pine across my lap as a working surface. Jamie lay facedown on the camp bed, head turned toward me so I could keep an eye on his color. He was solidly asleep; his breath came slow and he didn’t flinch when I pressed the sharp tip of a probe against the back of his hand. All ready.

The hand was swollen, puffy, and discolored, the sword wound a thick black line against the sun-gold skin. I closed my eyes for a moment, holding his wrist, counting his pulse.
One-and-two-and-three-and-four …

I seldom prayed consciously when preparing for surgery, but I did look for something—something I could not describe but always recognized: a certain quietness of soul, the detachment of mind in which I could balance on that knife-edge between ruthlessness and compassion, at once engaged in utmost intimacy with the body under my hands and capable of destroying what I touched in the name of healing.

One-and-two-and-three-and-four …

I realized with a start that my own heartbeat had slowed; the pulse in my fingertip matched that in Jamie’s wrist, beat for beat, slow and strong. If I was waiting for a sign, I supposed that would do.
Ready, steady, go
, I thought, and picked up the scalpel.

A short horizontal incision over the fourth and fifth knuckles, then down, cutting the skin nearly to the wrist. I undermined the skin carefully with the scissors’ tips, then pinned back the loose flap of skin with one of the long steel probes, digging it into the soft wood of the board.

I had a small bulb atomizer filled with a solution of distilled water and alcohol; sterility being impossible, I used this to lay a fine mist over the operating field and wash away the first welling of blood. Not too much; the vasoconstrictor I had given him was working, but the effect wouldn’t last long.

I gently nudged apart the muscle fibers—those that were still whole—to expose the bone and its overlying tendon, gleaming silver among the vivid colors of the body. The sword had cut the tendon nearly through, an inch above the carpal bones. I severed the few remaining fibers, and the hand twitched disconcertingly in reflex.

I bit my lip, but it was all right; aside from the hand, he hadn’t moved. He felt different; his flesh had more life than that of a man under ether or Pentothal. He was not anesthetized but only drugged into stupor; the feel of his flesh was resilient, not the pliant flaccidity I had been accustomed to in my days at the hospital in my own time. Still, it was a far cry—and an immeasurable relief—from the live and panicked convulsions that I had felt under my hands in the surgeon’s tent.