A Breath of Snow and Ashes (12 page)

9

THE THRESHOLD OF WAR

April 1773

R
OBERT HIGGINS WAS a slight young man, so thin as to seem that his bones were barely held together by his clothes, and so pale that it was easy to imagine you could in fact see through him. He was, however, graced with large, candid blue eyes, a mass of wavy, light-brown hair, and a shy manner that caused Mrs. Bug to take him at once under her wing and declare a firm intent to “feed him up,” before he should depart back to Virginia.

I quite liked Mr. Higgins myself; he was a sweet-natured boy, with the soft accent of his native Dorset. I did rather wonder, though, whether Lord John Grey’s generosity toward him was as unselfish as it seemed.

I had come reluctantly to like John Grey, too, after our shared experience of the measles a few years earlier, and his friendship to Brianna while Roger was held captive by the Iroquois. Still, I remained acutely aware of the fact that Lord John did like men—specifically, Jamie, but certainly other men, as well.

“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.”

“He let ye
look
at them?” Jamie had flushed up himself at the mention of buggery; he disliked me being indelicate, but he’d asked, after all.

“Well, it took no little persuasion,” I said. “He told me about them readily enough, but he wasn’t keen to have me examine them.”

“I wouldna care for that prospect, either,” Jamie assured me, “and I’m wed to ye. Why on earth would ye want to look at such a thing, beyond morbid curiosity?” He cast a wary glance at my big black casebook, open on the table. “Ye’re no drawing pictures of poor Bobby Higgins’s backside in there, are ye?”

“No need. I can’t imagine a physician in any time who doesn’t know what piles look like. The ancient Israelites and Egyptians had them, after all.”

“They did?”

“It’s in the Bible. Ask Mr. Christie,” I advised.

He gave me a sidelong look.

“Ye’ve been discussing the Bible wi’ Tom Christie? Ye’re a braver man than I am, Sassenach.” Christie was a most devout Presbyterian, and never happier than when hitting someone over the head with a fistful of Sacred Scripture.

“Not me. Germain asked me last week what ‘emerods’ are.”

“What are they?”

“Piles.
Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines,
” I quoted, “or something of the sort. That’s as close as I can come from memory. Mr. Christie made Germain write out a verse from the Bible as punishment, and having an inquiring sort of mind, Germain wondered what it was he was writing.”

“And he wouldna ask Mr. Christie, of course.” Jamie frowned, rubbing a finger down the bridge of his nose. “Do I want to know what it was Germain did?”

“Almost certainly not.” Tom Christie earned the quitrent on his land by serving as the local schoolmaster, and seemed capable of keeping discipline on his own terms. My opinion was that having Germain Fraser as a pupil was probably worth the entire amount, in terms of labor.

“Gold emerods,” Jamie murmured. “Well, there’s a thought.” He had assumed the faintly dreamy air he often had just before coming up with some hair-raising notion involving the possibility of maiming, death, or life imprisonment. I found this expression mildly alarming, but whatever the train of thought triggered by golden hemorrhoids, he abandoned it for the moment, shaking his head.

“Well, so. We were speaking of Bobby’s backside?”

“Oh, yes. As for why I wanted to look at Mr. Higgins’s emerods,” I said, returning to the previous point of conversation, “I wanted to see whether the best treatment was amelioration, or removal.”

Jamie’s eyebrows went up at that.

“Remove them? How? Wi’ your wee knife?” He glanced at the case where I kept my surgical tools, and hunched his shoulders in aversion.

“I could, yes, though I imagine it would be rather painful without anesthesia. There was a much simpler method just coming into widespread use, though, when I . . . left.” Just for a moment, I felt a deep twinge of longing for my hospital. I could all but smell the disinfectant, hear the murmur and bustle of nurses and orderlies, touch the glossy covers of the research journals bulging with ideas and information.

Then it was gone, and I was estimating the desirability of leeches versus string, with reference to Mr. Higgins’s achieving ideal anal health.

“Dr. Rawlings advises the use of leeches,” I explained. “Twenty or thirty, he says, for a serious case.”

Jamie nodded, showing no particular revulsion at the idea. Of course, he’d been leeched a few times himself, and assured me that it didn’t hurt.

“Aye. Ye havena got that many on hand, do ye? Shall I collect the wee lads and set them to gathering?”

Jemmy and Germain would like nothing better than an excuse to go bogging through the creeks with their grandfather, coming back festooned with leeches and mud to the eyebrows, but I shook my head.

“No. Or I mean, yes,” I corrected. “At your convenience—but I don’t need them immediately. Using leeches would relieve the situation temporarily, but Bobby’s hemorrhoids are badly thrombosed—have clots of dried blood in them—” I emended, “and I think he really would be better off if I remove them entirely. I believe I can ligate them—tie a thread very tightly round the base of each hemorrhoid, I mean. That starves them of blood, and eventually, they just dry up and fall off. Very neat.”

“Verra neat,” Jamie murmured, in echo. He looked mildly apprehensive. “Have ye done it before?”

“Yes, once or twice.”

“Ah.” He pursed his lips, apparently envisioning the process. “How . . . er, I mean . . . can he shit, d’ye think, while this is going on? It must take a bit of time, surely.”

I frowned, tapping a finger on the countertop.

“His chief difficulty is that he
doesn’t
shit,” I said. “Not often enough, I mean, and not with the proper consistency. Horrible diet,” I said, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “He told me. Bread, meat, and ale. No vegetables, no fruit. Constipation is absolutely
rife
in the British army, I don’t doubt. I shouldn’t be surprised if every man jack of them has piles hanging out of his arse like grape clusters!”

Jamie nodded, one eyebrow raised.

“There are a great many things I admire about ye, Sassenach—especially the delicate manner of your conversation.” He coughed, glancing downward. “But if ye say it’s costiveness that causes piles—”

“It is.”

“Aye, well. It’s only—what ye were saying about John Grey. I mean, ye don’t think the state of Bobby’s arse is to do with . . . mmphm.”

“Oh. Well, no, not directly.” I paused. “It was more that Lord John said in his letter that he wanted me to—how did he put it?—
I might suggest treatment for his other ills.
I mean, he might possibly know about Bobby’s difficulty, without . . . er . . . personal inspection, shall we say? But as
I
say, piles are so commonplace an affliction, why ought he be concerned to the point of asking me to do something about them—unless he thought that they might hamper his own eventual . . . er . . . progress?”

Jamie’s face had resumed its normal hue during the discussion of leeches and constipation, but at this point, went red again.

“His—”

“I mean,” I said, folding my arms beneath my bosom, “I’m just a trifle put off . . . by the notion that he’s sent Mr. Higgins down for repair, you might say.” I had been suffering from a niggling feeling of unease regarding the matter of Bobby Higgins’s backside, but hadn’t put this notion into words before. Now that I had, I realized precisely what was bothering me.

“The thought that I’m meant to be fixing up poor little Bobby, and then sending him home to be—” I pressed my lips tight together, and turned abruptly back to my roots, needlessly turning them.

“I don’t like the thought,” I said, to the cupboard door. “I’ll do what I can for Mr. Higgins, mind. Bobby Higgins hasn’t many prospects; no doubt he’d do . . . whatever his Lordship required. But perhaps I’m wronging him. Lord John, I mean.”

“Perhaps ye are.”

I turned round, to find Jamie sitting on my stool, fiddling with a jar of goose grease that seemed to have his full attention.

“Well,” I said uncertainly. “You know him better than I do. If you think he isn’t . . .” My words trailed off. Outside, there was a sudden soft thump as a falling spruce cone struck the wooden stoop.

“I ken more about John Grey than I wish I did,” Jamie said finally, and glanced at me, a rueful smile in the corner of his mouth. “And he kens a great deal more about me than I like to think on. But”—he leaned forward, setting down the jar, then put his hands on his knees and looked at me—“I ken the one thing beyond doubt. He’s an honorable man. He wouldna take advantage of Higgins, nor any other man under his protection.”

He sounded very definite about it, and I felt reassured. I did like John Grey. And still . . . the appearance of his letters, regular as clockwork, always gave me a faint sense of unease, like the hearing of distant thunder. There was nothing about the letters themselves to evoke such a response; they were like the man himself—erudite, humorous, and sincere. And he had reason to write, of course. More than one.

“He does still love you, you know,” I said quietly.

He nodded, but didn’t look at me, his gaze still fixed somewhere beyond the trees that edged the dooryard.

“Would you rather he didn’t?”

He paused, then nodded again. This time, though, he did turn to look at me.

“I would, aye. For myself. For him, certainly. But for William?” He shook his head, uncertain.

“Oh, he may have taken William on for your sake,” I said, leaning back against the counter. “But I’ve seen the two of them, remember. I’ve no doubt he loves Willie for his own sake now.”

“No, I dinna doubt that, either.” He got up, restless, and beat imaginary dust from the pleats of his kilt. His face was closed, looking inward at something he didn’t wish to share with me.

“Do you—” I began, but stopped when he glanced up at me. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

“What?” He tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowing.

“Nothing.”

He didn’t move, merely intensified the stare.

“I can see from your face that it’s not, Sassenach. What?”

I breathed deeply through my nose, fists wrapped in my apron.

“It’s only—and I’m sure it isn’t true, it’s only a passing thought—”

He made a low Scottish noise, indicating that I had better stop blethering and cough it up. Having enough experience to realize that he wouldn’t leave the matter ’til I did, I coughed.

“Did you ever wonder whether Lord John might have taken him because . . . well, William does look terribly like you, and evidently did from an early age. Since Lord John finds you physically . . . attractive . . .” The words died, and I could have cut my throat for speaking them, seeing the look on his face.

He closed his eyes for a moment, to stop me looking in. His fists were curled up so tightly that the veins stood out from knuckle to forearm. Very slowly, he relaxed his hands. He opened his eyes.

“No,” he said, complete conviction in his voice. He gave me a straight, hard look. “And it’s no that I canna bear the thought of it, either. I know.”

“Of course,” I said hastily, eager to leave the subject.

“I know,” he repeated more sharply. His two stiff fingers tapped, once, against his leg, and then stilled. “I thought of it, too. When he first told me he meant to wed Isobel Dunsany.”

He turned away, staring out through the window. Adso was in the dooryard, stalking something in the grass.

“I offered him my body,” Jamie said abruptly, not looking round. The words were steady enough, but I could see from the knotted shoulders how much it cost him to speak them. “In thanks, I said. But it was—” He made an odd convulsive movement, as though trying to free himself from some constraint. “I meant to see, ken, what sort of man he might be, for sure. This man who would take my son for his own.”