Dragonfly In Amber - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 60

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.”

“Very sensible of you,” said Mother Hildegarde, with a flash of strong teeth. “Many of the physicians and chirurgiens who work here are less inclined to take advantage of his skills.”

“Er, well…” I didn’t want to disparage anyone’s reputation, but my glance across the hall at Monsieur Voleru must have been transparent.

Mother Hildegarde laughed. “Well, we take what God sends us, though occasionally I wonder whether He sends them to us only in order to keep them out of greater trouble elsewhere. Still, the bulk of our physicians are better than nothing – even if only marginally so. You” – and the teeth flashed once more, reminding me of a genial draft horse – “are a great deal better than nothing, Madame.”

“Thanks.”

“I have wondered, though,” Mother Hildegarde went on, watching as I applied the medicated dressing, “why you see only the patients with wounds and broken bones? You avoid those with spots and coughs and fevers, yet it is more common for les maitresses to deal with such things. I don’t think I have ever seen a female chirurgien before.” Les maitresses were the unlicensed healers, mostly from the provinces, who dealt in herbals, poultices, and charms. Les maitresses sage-femme were the midwives, the top of the heap so far as popular healers were concerned. Many were accorded more respect than the licensed practitioners, and were much preferred by the lower-class patients, as they were likely to be both more capable and much less expensive.

I wasn’t surprised that she had observed my proclivities; I had gathered long since that very little about her Hopital escaped Mother Hildegarde’s notice.

“It isn’t lack of interest,” I assured her. “It’s only that I’m with child, so I can’t expose myself to anything contagious, for the child’s sake. Broken bones aren’t catching.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” said Mother Hildegarde, with a glance at an incoming stretcher. “We’re having a plague of them this week. No, don’t go.” She motioned me back. “Sister Cecile will see to it. She’ll call you if there’s need.”

The nun’s small gray eyes regarded me with curiosity, mingled with appraisal.

“So, you are not only a milady, you are with child, but your husband does not object to your coming here? He must be a most unusual man.”

“Well, he’s Scottish,” I said, by way of explanation, not wishing to go into the subject of my husband’s objections.

“Oh, Scottish.” Mother Hildegarde nodded understandingly. “Just so.”

The bed trembled against my thigh as Bouton leaped off and trotted toward the door.

“He smells a stranger,” Mother Hildegarde remarked. “Bouton assists the doorkeeper as well as the physicians – with no more gratitude for his efforts, I fear.”

The sounds of peremptory barks and a high voice raised in terror came through the double doors of the entryway.

“Oh, it’s Father Balmain again! Curse the man, can’t he learn to stand still and let Bouton smell him?” Mother Hildegarde turned in haste to the succor of her companion, turning back at the last moment to smile engagingly at me. “Perhaps I will send him to assist you with your tasks, Madame, while I soothe Father Balmain. While no doubt a most holy man, he lacks true appreciation for the work of an artist.”

She strode toward the doors with her long, unhurried stride, and with a last word for the carter, I turned to Sister Cecile and the latest stretcher case.

Jamie was lying on the carpet in the sitting room when I came back to the house, with a small boy sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him. Jamie was holding a bilboquet in one hand, and had the other poised over one eye.

“Of course I can,” he was saying. “Anyday and twice on Sundays. Watch.”

Placing the hand over his eye, he fixed the other piercingly on the bilboquet and gave the ivory cup a toss. The tethered ball leaped from its socket into an arc, and dropped as though guided by radar, landing back in its cup with a snug little plop.

“See?” he said, removing the hand from his eye. He sat up and handed the cup to the boy. “Here, you try it.” He grinned at me, and slid a hand under the hem of my skirt, clasping my green silk ankle in greeting.

“Having fun?” I inquired.

“Not yet,” he replied, giving the ankle a squeeze. “I was waiting for you, Sassenach.” The long, warm fingers curled around my ankle slid higher, playfully stroking the curve of my calf, as a pair of limpid blue eyes gazed up at me, all innocence. His face had a streak of dried mud down one side, and there were dirty blotches on his shirt and kilt.

“Is that so?” I said, trying to pull my leg free of his grasp inconspicuously. “I should have thought your little playmate would have been all the company you needed.”

The boy, understanding none of the English in which these exchanges were conducted, ignored them, intent on trying to work the bilboquet with one eye closed. The first two attempts having failed, he opened the second eye and glared at the toy, as though daring it not to work. The second eye closed again, but not all the way; a small slit remained, gleaming alertly below the thick fringe of dark lashes.

Jamie clicked his tongue disapprovingly, and the eye hastily snapped tight shut.

“Nah, then, Fergus, we’ll have nay cheatin’, if ye please,” he said. “Fair’s fair.” The boy obviously caught the meaning, if not the words; he grinned sheepishly, displaying a pair of large, white, gleamingly perfect front teeth, square as a squirrel’s.

Jamie’s hand exerted an invisible pull, obliging me to move closer to him to avoid being toppled off my moroccan heels.

“Ah,” he said. “Well, Fergus here is a man of many talents, and a boon companion for the idle hours when a man’s wife has deserted him and left him to seek his own pursuits amidst the wickedness of the city” – the long fingers curled delicately into the hollow behind my knee, tickling suggestively – “but he isna qualified as a partner for the pastime I had in mind.”

“Fergus?” I said, eyeing the boy, and trying to ignore the goings-on below. The lad was possibly nine or ten, but small for his age, and fine-boned as a ferret. Clad in clean, worn clothes several sizes too big for him, he was also as French as they come, with the pale, sallow skin and big, dark eyes of a Parisian street child.

“Well, his name is really Claudel, but we decided that didna sound verra manly, so he’s to be called Fergus instead. A suitable warrior’s name, that.” Catching the sound of his name – or names – the boy glanced up and grinned shyly at me.

“This is Madame,” Jamie explained to the boy, gesturing to me with his free hand. “You may call her milady. I dinna think he could manage ‘Broch Tuarach,’ ” he added to me, “or even Fraser, for that matter.”

“ ‘Milady’ will be fine,” I said, smiling. I wriggled my leg harder, trying to shake off the leechlike grip. “Er, why, if I may ask?”

“Why what? Oh, why Fergus, ye mean?”

“That’s what I mean, all right.” I wasn’t sure just how far his arm would reach, but the hand was creeping slowly up the back of my thigh. “Jamie, take your hand away this minute!”

The fingers darted to one side, and deftly pulled loose the ribbon garter that held up my stocking. The stocking slithered down my leg to puddle round my ankle.

“You beast!” I kicked at him, but he dodged aside, laughing.

“Oh, beast, is it? What kind?”

“A cur!” I snapped, trying to bend over to pull up my stocking without falling off my heels. The child Fergus, after a brief, incurious glance at us, had resumed his trials with the bilboquet.