The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  The fire had burned very low, but the hand in his burned hot as embers. A gust of wind knifed past, whipping strands of his hair against his cheek, sending up a spray of sudden sparks from the fire.

  He waited as long as he thought he dared, the cold night creeping past in lonely minutes. Then leaned close, so Fraser could hear him.

  "Claire?" he asked quietly. "Is there anything ye'd have me tell her?"

  He thought he'd waited too long; Fraser lay motionless for several minutes. Then the big hand stirred, half-closing swollen fingers; the ghost of a motion, grasping after time that slipped away.

  "Tell her ... I meant it."

  DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT

  e.11 I leaned VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING like that in my entire lif

  closer, peering. "That is absolutely bizarre,

  "And you a healer half your life,,, Jamie muttered crossly.

  me they've no got snakes in your time.' "ye canna tell "They haven't got many in downtown Boston they wouldWt call

  - Besides,

  out a surgeon to deal with a case of snakebite. Closest I came was whet, a keeper at the zoo was bitten by a king cobra-a ftiend of mine did the autopsy, and invited me to come and watch.'

  I refrained from saying that Jamie looked a lot worse at present than the subject of the autopsy had.

  I set a hand gingerly on his ankle. The skin was puffs hot and dry under my hand. It was also red. Bright red. The brilliant color extended from his feet up nearly to his rib cage; he looked as though he'd been dipped in boiling water.

  His face, cars, and neck were also flushed the color of a plum tomato; only the pale skin of his chest had escaped, and even that was dotted with pinpricks of red. Beyond the lobsterlike coloration, the skin was peeling from his feet and hands, hanging in wispy shreds like Spanish moss.

  I peered closely at his hip. Here, I could see that the redness was caused by a denser version of the rash on his chest; the stipple of tiny dots showed up clearly on the stretched skin over the ilial crest,

  "You took like you've been roasted over a slow fire," I said, rubbing a finger over the rash in fascination. "I've never seen anything so red in my life." Not raised; I couldn't feel the individual spots, though I could see them at close range. Not a rash as such; I thought it must be petechiae, pinpoint hemorrhages under the skin. But so many of them ...

  "I shouldna say ye've much room to criticize, Sassenach," he said, Too weak to nod, he cut his eyes at my fingers-stained with huge blotches of yellow' and blue.

  "Oh, damn!" I leaped to my feet, threw the quilts hastily on top of him, and ran for the door. Distracted by Jamie's dramatic arrival, I had left a vat full of dyeing to mind itself in the side yard-and the water had been low. Christ, if it boiled dry and burned the clothes ...

  The hot reek of urine and indigo hit me in the face as I shot out the door. In spite of that, I drew a deep breath of relief, as I saw Marsah, red in the face with the effort of levering a dripping mass from the pot with the big wooden clothes-fork. I went hastily to help her, snatching the steaming garments one by one from the sopping pile and flingiDg them onto the blackberry bushes to dry.

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  "Thank goodness," I said, waving my scalded fingers in the air to cool them. I was a ai I'd ruined the lot."

  "Weel, they'll be a bit dark, maybe." Marsali wiped a hand across her face, tering back the fine blond strands that escaped from her kerch. "If the ather keeps fine, though, ye can leave them in the sun to fade. Here, let's ove the pot before it scorches!"

  Crusts of indigo had already started to crackle and blacken in the bottom of pot as we tipped it off the fire, and clouds of acrid smoke rose up around us. "It's all right," Marsati said, coughing and fanning smoke from her face.

  1eave it, Mother Claire; I'll fetch up water so it can soak. Ye'll need to see to a, -aye? I came down at once when I heard; is he verra poorly?"

  you, dear." I was overwhelmed with gratitude; the last thing I -0h, thank

  had time to do just now was to haul several buckets of water from the

  ak the pot. I blew on my scalded fingers to c spring to splotches of dye was nearly as red as Jamie's. 001 them-, the skin under the "I think he'll be all right," I assured her, suppressing my own fears. "He worse-I've never seen anyone

  feels dreaciffil, and looks at in all my rn days but if the wound doesn't get infected lloorkolsiskeedthmy sore finin superstitious prophylaxis.

  ...gers t: "Ah, he'll do," Marsali said confidently. "Fergus said as they thought he was and Roger Mac, but by the time they crossed the

  4cad when they found him

  . terrible jokes about the snake, so they didna worry akin'

  thirty ridge, he was rn ;Inymore-"

  I wasn't quite so sanguine myself, having seen the state of his injured leg, but I smiled reassuringly. ake an onion poultice and clean ,y,,, I think he'll be fine. I'm just going to m

  6ut the wound a bit. Go and see him, why don't you, while I fetch the onions" Luckily there were plenty of onions; I had pulled them two weeks before, f knobbly braided strings hung in the

  when the first frost came, and dozens o i I broke off six Pantry, fragrant and crackling when I brushed aga. nst them.

  large onions and brought them into the kitchen to slice. My fingers were tingfing, half-burned and stiff from handling the boiling clothes, and I worked slowly, not wanting to slice off a finger accidentally. knife out of my hand and "Here, I'll do that, a leannan." Mrs- Bug took the

  dealt briskly with the onions. "is it a poultice? Aye, thaell be the thing. A good mend anything," Still, a worried frown puckered her foreonion poultice will

  oward the surgery.

  head as she glanced t allway, also looking worried. -Can I help, Mama?" Bree came in from the h

  -Da looks awful; is he all right?"

  "Ganda full?" Jern Popped into the kitchen after his mother, less worried sted in the knife Mrs. Bug was using. He about his grandfather than intere c purposeful under his coppery fringedragged his little stool toward her, fic

  "Me do!" eyes watering I brushed the hair out of my face with the back of my hand,

  fiercely from the onions.

  L61 think so.,, I sniffed and blotted my eyes. -How's Roger?" arnie had small note of pride in tier voice; J

  4&Roger's good." I could hear the just hoped it stayed saved.

  told her Roger had saved his life. possibly he had. I

  782 Diana Gabaldon

  "He's asleep," she added. Her mouth curved slightly as she Met my eyes, with complete understanding. If a man was in bed, at least you knew where he was. And that he was safe, for the moment.

  "Jem! You leave Mrs. Bug alone!" She scooped him off his stool and whirled him away f

  rom the chopping board, feet kicking in protest. "Do you need anything, Mama?"

  I rubbed a finger between my brows, considering.

  "Yes, can you try to find me some maggots? I'll need them for Jamie's leg." I frowned, glancing out the iNiridow at the bright autumn day. "I'm afraid the frost has killed all the flies; I haven't seen one in days. Try the paddock, though; they'll lay eggs in the warm dung."

  She made a brief face of distaste, but nodded, setting Jenuny down on the floor.

  "Come on, pal, let's go find ickies for Grannie."

  "Icky-icky-icky-icky!" Jemmy scampered after her, enchanted at the prospect.

  I dropped the sliced onions into a bowl made from a hollowed gourd and scooped a little of the hot water from the cauldron into it. Then I left the onions to stew, and went back to the surgery. In the center of the room was a sturdy pine table, serving as examination table, dentist's chair, drug preparation surface, or auxiliary dining table, depending on medical exigencies and the number of dinner guests. At the moment, it was supporting the supine form of Jamie, scarcely visible under his heap of quilts and blankets. Marsali stood close to the table, head bent toward him as she held a cup of water for him to sip.

  "You're sur
e you're all right, Da?" she said. One hand stole toward him, but she stopped, clearly afraid to touch him in his present condition.

  "Oh, aye, I'll do." I could hear the deep fatigue in his voice, but a big hand rose slowly out from under the quilts to touch her cheek.

  "Fergus did braw work," he said. "Kept the men together through the night, found me and Roger Mac in the morning, brought everyone home safe across the mountain. He's a fine sense of direction."

  Marsali's head was still bent, but I saw her cheek curve in a smile.

  "I did tell him so. He'll no give over berating himself for lettin' the beasts get away, though. Just one would ha' fed the whole Ridge for the winter, he said."

  Jamie gave a small grunt of dismissal. "Och, we'll manage."

  It was plainly an effort for him to speak, but I didn't try to send Mdrsali away. Roger told me Jamie had been vomiting blood as they brought him back;

  1 couldn't give him brandy or whisky to case the pain, and I hadn't any laudanurn. Marsali's presence might help to distract him from his wretchedness.

  I opened the cupboard quietly and brought out the big lidded bowl where I kept my leeches. The pottery was cold, soothing to my scalded hands. I had a dozen or so big ones; somnolent black blobs, half-floating in their murky brew of water and cattail roots. I scooped three into a smaller bowl fiffl of clear water, and set it by the brazier to warm.

  "Wake up, lads," I said. "Time to earn your keep."

  The Fiery Cross 783

  I laid out the other things I would need, listening to the murmured converlation behind me-Germain, baby loan, a porcupine in the trees near Marsali gad Fergus's cabin.

  Coarse gauze for the onion poultice, the corked bottle with its mixture of atf dried goldenseal, coneflower, and-

  0hol and sterile water, the stoneware jars 0

  looking at the ta mfrey. And the bottle- of penicillin broth. I cursed silently,

  I on it. It was nearly a month old; caught up in the bear hunt and the autumn , CID

  ad not made a fresh batch for weeks. res upon our return, I h lips together, I rubb

  it would have to do. Pressing my

  than a faint hands, into the beechwood brewing cup, and with endo tmheorheerbs between Vmse of self-consciousness f Bride over it. I'd take all silently said the blessing o

  help I could get. ye find on the g

  I,. "Are the cut pine-fans round verra fresh?" Jamie asked, I! 4_0, ell

  sounding slightly more interested in the porcupine than in Joan's new tooth"Aye, green and fresh. I ken weel enough he's up there, the wicked creature, , ies a great huge tree, and I canna spot him from the ground, let alone fire t,

  couldn't him." Marsali was no more than a middling shot, but since Fergus

  e a musket at all with his one hand, she did the family's hunting.

  "Mmphm." Jamie cleared his throat with an effort, and she hastily gave him Inore water. -Take a bit o' salted pork rind from the pantry and rub it ower a .k of wood. Set it on the ground, not too far from the trunk of the tree, and ,,Vkic

  'let Fergus sit up to watch. Porcupines are gey fond o' the salt, and of grease; let

  Once it's on the ground, ye needna they'll smell it and venture down after dark

  waste shot; just bat it ower the head. Fergus can do that fine."

  ,,, I opened the medical chest and frowned into the tray that held saws and scalpels. I took out the small, curve-bladed scalpel, its handle coot under my nd--clan away the dead tissue, the

  fingers. I would have to debride the wou tered his leg shreds of skin and bits of leaf and cloth and dirt; the men had plas, sprinkle the with mud and wrapped it with a filthy neckerchief. Then I could

  e exposed surfaces; I hoped that would help. penicillin solution over th I a little wistfully. "I've no had such a -That would be grand," Marsali saic, rra fat, and the quills good beast beffire, but Ian did tell me they were fine; ve

  for sewing and all manner 0, things." lades. The biggest was a folding saw, I bit my lip, looking at the other b

  nearly eight inches long; I hadn'tused meant for field amputation, with a blade

  it since Alarriance. The thought of using it now made cold sweat spring Out under my arms and inch down my sides-but I'd seen his leg. d abruptly -The meat's greasy," Jamie- said, "but that's good----" He stOPPe

  as he shifted his weight, with a muffled groan as he moved his leg.

  f the process of amputation, echoing in the muscles Of I could feel the steps 0

  d muscle, the grate of my hands and forearms; the tensile severing of skin an rting vessels, ery, rubbery, blood-squi

  bone, the snap of tendon, and the Stipp

  d flesh like . . . snakes

  sliding away into the severe o that. Surely not.

  I swallowed. No. it wouldn't come t a mumninn,11 Jamie said sofi:lY, behind "Ye need fat meat- You're verra thin,

  me. "Too thin, for a woman breeding." more. I'd thought so, but swearing silently to myself Once

  I turned round, I

  784 Diana Gabaldon

  had hoped I was wrong. Three babies in four years! And a one-handed husband, who couldn't manage the man's work of a homestead and wouldn't do the "women's work" of baby-minding and mash-breAing that he could handle, Marsali made a small sound, half-snort, half-sob.

  "How did you know? I havena even told Fergus yet." "Ye should-though he kens it already."

  "He told you?"

  "No-but I didna think it only the indigestion that troubled him, whilst we were hunting. Now I see ye, I ken what it is that's weighin' on him."

  I was biting my tongue hard enough to taste blood. Did the tansy oil and vinegar mixture I'd given her not work? Or the dauco seeds? Or, as I strongly suspected, had she just not bothered to use either one regularly? Well, too late for questions or reproaches. I caught her eye as she glanced up, and managedI hoped-to look encouraging.

  "Och," she said with a feeble smile. "We'll manage."

  The leeches were stirring, bodies stretching slowly like animated rubber bands. I turned back the quilt over Jamie's leg, and pressed the leeches gently onto the swollen flesh near the wound.

  "It looks nastier than it is," I said reassuringly, hearing Marsali's unguarded gasp at the sight. That was true, but the reality was nasty enough. The slashmarks were crusted black at the edges, but still gaped. Instead of the sealing and granulation of normal healing, they were beginning to erode, the exposed tissues oozing pus. The flesh around the wounds was hugely swollen, black and mottled with sinister reddish streaks.

  I bit my lip, frowning as I considered the situation. I didn't know what kind of snake had bitten him-not that it made much difference, with no antivenin for treatment-but it had plainly had a powerfiil hemolytic toxin. Tiny blood vessels had ruptured and bled all over his bodyinternally, as well as externallyand larger ones, near the site of the wound.

  The foot and ankle on the injured side were still warm and pink--or rather, red. That was a good sign, insofar as it meant the deeper circulation was intact. The problem was to improve circulation near the wound, enough to prevent a massive die-off and sloughing of tissue. The red streaks bothered me very much indeed, though; they could be only part of the hemorraghic process, but it was more likely that they were the early signs of septicemia-blood poisoning.

  Roger hadn't told me much of their night on the mountain, but he hadn't had to; I'd seen men before who'd sat through the dark with death beside them. If Jamie had lived a night and a day since then, chances were he would go on surviving-if I could control the infection. But in what condition?

  I hadn't treated snakebite injuries before, but I'd seen sufficient textbook illustrations. The poisoned tissue would die and rot; Jamie could easily lose most of the muscle of his calf, which would cripple him permanently--or worse, the wound could turn gangrenous.

  I stole a look at him under my lashes. He was covered with quilts and so ill he could barely move-and yet the lines of his body were drawn with grac
e and the promise of strength. I couldn't bear the thought of mutilating him-and yet I would do it if I must. To cripple Jamie ... to leave him halt and half-

  The Fiery Cross

  785

  limbed ... the thought made my stomach clench and sweat break out on my blue-blotched palms.

  Would he wish that hims,IP

  I reached for the cup of water by Jamie's head and drained it myself. I was his by right-but he was mine, and I had wouldn't ask him. The choice I had to do to keep made my choice. I wouldn,t give him up, no matter what

  him. "You're sure you're all right, Da?" Marsali had been watching my face. Her eyes darted from me to Jamie and back, looking scared. I hastily tried to rearrange my features into a took of competent assurance.

  Jamie had been watching me, too. One corner of his mouth turned up. Now I'm none so sure, though."

  "Aye, well, I did think so

  el worse?" I asked anxiously

  "What's the matter? Do you fe "It's only, when teeth. "No, I feel fine," he assured me-lying through his gpie-but if I'm des-

  i5ve hurt myself, but it's all rig ht, ye always scold like a ma

  perate bad, ye're tender as milk. Now, ye havena called me wicked names or uttered a word of reproach since I came home, Sassenach. Does that mean ye think I'm dyin5?15

  one eyebrow rose in irony, but I could see a true hint of worry in his eyes. There were no vipers in Scotland; he couldn't know what was happening to his leg.

  I took a deep breath and laid my hands lightly on his shoulders.

  "Bloody man. Stepping on a snakel Couldn't you have looked where you were going?"

  "Not whilst chasing a thousand-weight of meat downhill," he said, smiling. I felt a tiny relaxation in the muscles under my hands, and repressed the urge to smile back. I glared down at him instead.

  "You scared bloody hell out of me!" That at least was sincere. The eyebrow went up again.

  44 too)" Maybe ye think I wasna frightened, -

  "You're not allowed," I said firmly. ,Only one of us can be scared at a time, and it's my turn." ),h though the laughter was quickly succeeded by coughThat made him laug ,

  ing and a shaking chill. r his feet," I said to Marsali, quickly tucking in the "Fetch me a hot stone fo boiling water and bring that, too." quilts around him. "And fill the teapot with d the window, wonShe darted hastily toward the kitchen. I glanced towar

  dering whether Brianna was having any luck in finding maggots- They had thout damage to the healthy flesh no equal in cleaning pustul-ant wounds W' than Saint nearby. if I was to save his leg as well as his life, I needed more help

  Bride's. atron saint of maggots, I lifted the edge Wondering vaguely if there were a p other invertebrate assistants. Good; I of the quilt and stole a quick look at my were already swelling let out a small sigh of relief. The leeches worked fast; they s of his leg into plumpness; sucking away the blood that was flooding the tissue . t be

  healthy circulation mi9b from ruptured capillaries. Without that pressure,

  restored in time to keep skin and muscle alive.

  786 Diana Gabaldon

  1 could see his hand clenched on the edge of the table, and could feel the