The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  feelings made no such distinctions.

  "Feelings aren't truth," I murmured. Across the room, Brianna looked up from the bread she was slicing, but I bent my head over the page, and she returned to her whispered conversation with Marsali by the fire. It was no more than mid-afternoon, but dark and rainy outside. I had lit a candle by which to write, but the girls' hands flickered over the dim table like moths, lighting here and there among the plates and platters.

  The truth was that I didn't think Rosamund Lindsay had died of septicemia. I was fairly sure that she had died of an acute reaction to an unpurified peni-

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  cillin mixture--of the medicine I gave her, in short. Of course, the truth also was that the blood poisoning would certainly have killed her, left untreated. The truth also was that I had had no way of knowing what the effects of the

  'i, penicillin would be-but that was rather the point, wasn't it? To make sure

  1,

  someone else might know?

  I twiddled the quill, rolling it between thumb and forefinger. I had kept a faithful account of my experiments with penicillin-the growing of cultures on media ranging from bread to chewed pawpaw and rotted melon rind, painstaking descriptions of the microscopic and gross identification of the Penicillium molds, the effects of-to this point-very limited applications.

  Yes, certainly I must include a description of the effects. The real question, though, was-for whom was I keeping this careffil record?

  I bit my lip, thinking. If it was only for my own reference, it would be a simple matter; I could simply record the symptoms, timing and effects, without explicitly noting the cause of death; I was unlikely to forget the circumstances, after all. But if this record were ever to be usefiil to someone else ... someone who had no notion of the benefits and dangers of an antibiotic ...

  The ink was drying on the quill. I lowered the point to the page.

  Agc--44, I wrote slowly. In this day, casebook accounts like this often ended with a pious description of the deceased's last moments, marked-presurnablyby Christian resignation on the part of the holy, repentance by the sinful. Neither attitude had marked the passage of Rosamund Lindsay.

  I glanced at the coffin, sitting on its trestles under the rain-smeared window. The Lindsays' cabin was very small, not suited for a funeral in the pouring rain, where a large number of mourners were expected. The coffin was open, awaiting the evening wake, but the muslin shroud had been drawn up over her face.

  Rosamund had been a whore in Boston; growing too stout and too old to ply her trade with much profit, she had drifted south, looking for a husband. "I couldn't bide another of them winters," she had confided to me, soon after her arrival on the Ridge. "Nor yet another of them stinkin' fishermen."

  She had found the necessary refuge in Kenneth Lindsay, who was looking for a wife to share the work of homesteading. Not a match born of physical attraction-the Lindsays had had perhaps six sound teeth between them-or emotional compatibility, still it had seemed an amicable relationship.

  Shocked rather than grief-stricken, Kenny had been taken off by Jamie for medication with whisky-a somewhat more effective treatment than my own. At least I didn't think it would be lethal.

  Immediate cause of deatb-I wrote, and paused again. I doubted that Rosamund's response to approaching death would have found outlet in either prayer or philosophy, but she had had opportunity for neither. She had died blue-faced, congested and bulging-eyed, unable to force word or breath past the swollen tissues of her throat.

  My own throat felt tight at the memory, as though I were being choked. I picked up the cooling cup of catmint tea and took a sip, feeling the pungent liquid slide soothingly down. It was little comfort that the septicemia would have killed her more lingeringly. Suffocation was quicker, but not much more pleasant.

  I tapped the quill point on the blotter, leaving inky pinpoints that spread

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  through the rough fibers of the paper, forming a galaxy of tiny stars. As to that-there was another possibility. Death might conceivably have been due to a pulmonary embolism-a clot in the lung. That would be a not-impossible complication of the septicemia, and could have accounted for the symptoms.

  It was a hopeful thought, but not one I placed much credence in. It was the voice of experience, as much as the voice of conscience, that bade me dip the quill and write down "anaphylaxis," before I could think again.

  Was anaphylaxis a known medical term yet? I hadn't seen it in any of Rawlings' notes-but then, I hadn't read them all. Still, while death from the shock of allergic reaction was not unknown in any time, it wasn't common, and might not be known by name. Better describe it in detail, for whoever might read this.

  And that was the rub, of course. Who would read it? I thought it unlikely, but what if a stranger should read this and take my account for a confession of murder? That was far-fetched-but it could happen. I had come perilously close to being executed as a witch, in part because of my healing activities. Once almost burned, twice shy, I thought wryly.

  Extensive swelling in affected Umb, I wrote, and lifted the quill, the last word fading as the pen ran dry. I dipped it again and scratched doggedly on. Swelling extended to upper torso, face, and neck. Skin pate, marked with reddish blotches. Respiration increasingly rapid and shallow, heartbeat veryfast and light, tending to inaudibility. Palpitations evident. Lips and ears cyanotic. Pronounced exophtbalmia.

  I swallowed again, at the thought of Rosamund's eyes, bulging under the lids, rolling to and fro in uncomprehending terror. We had tried to shut them, when we cleansed the body and laid it out for burial. It was customary to uncover the corpse's face for the wake; I thought it unwise in this case.

  I didn't want to look at the coffin again, but did, with a small nod of acknowledgement and apology. Brianna's head turned toward me, then sharply away. The smell of the food laid out for the wake was filling the room, minglng with the scents of oak-wood fire and oak-gall ink-and the fresh-planed oak of the coffin's boards. I took another hasty gulp of tea, to stop my gorge rising.

  I knew damn well why the first line of Hippocrates' oath was, "First, do no harm." It was too bloody easy to do harm. What hubris it took to lay hands on a person, to interfere. How delicate and complex were bodies, how crude a physician's intrusions.

  I could have sought seclusion in surgery or study, to write these notes. I knew why I hadn't. The coarse muslin shroud glowed soft white in the rainy fight from theiAindow. I pinched the quill hard between thumb and forefinger, trying to forget the pop of the cricoid cartilage, when I had jabbed a penknife into Rosamund's throat in a final, fiitile attempt to let air into her straining lungs.

  And yet ... there was not one practicing physician, I thought, who had never faced this. I had had it happen a few times before-even in a modern hospital, equipped with every life-saving device known to man-then.

  Some future physician here would face the same dilemma; to undertake a possibly dangerous treatment, or to allow a patient to die who might have been

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  saved. And that was my own dilemma-to balance the unlikely possibility of prosecution for manslaughter against the unknown value of my records to ,someone who might seek knowledge in them.

  Who might that be? I ,viped the pen, thinking. There were as yet few medschools, and those few, mostly in Europe. Most physicians gained their owledge from apprenticeship and experience. I slipped a finger into the case-

  k, feeling blind between the early pages, kept by the book's original owner. Rawlings had not gone to a medical school. Though if he had, many of his techniques would still have been shocking by my standards. My mouth twisted at the thought of some of the treatments I had seen described in those closely written pages-infusions of liquid mercury to cure syphilis, cupping and blistering f

  or epileptic fits, lancing and bleeding for every disorder from indigestion to impotence.

  , And still, Dani
el Rawlings had been a doctor. Reading his case notes, I could kel his care for his patients, his curiosity regarding the mysteries of the body. Moved by impulse, I turned back to the pages containing Rawlings' notes.

  Perhaps I was only delaying to let my subconscious reach a decision--or perhaps I felt the need of communication, no matter how remote, with another physician, someone like me.

  Someone like me. I stared at the page, with its neat, small writing, its careful illustration, seeing none of the details. Who was there, like me?

  No one. I had thought of it before, but only vaguely, in the way of a problem acknowledged, but so distant as not to require any urgency. In the colony of North Carolina, so far as I knew, there was only one formally designated "doctor"-Fentiman. I snorted, and took another sip of tea. Better Murray MacLeod and his nostrums-most of those were harmless, at least.

  I sipped my tea, regarding Rosamund. The simple truth was that I wouldn't last forever, either. With luck, a good long time yet-but still, not forever. I needed to find someone to whom I could pass on at least the rudiments of what I knew.

  A stifled giggle from the table, the girls whispering over the pots of headcheese, the bowls of sauerkraut and boiled potatoes. No, I thought, with some regret. Not Brianna.

  She would be the logical choice; she knew what modem medicine was, at least. There would be no overcoming of ignorance and superstition, no need to convince of the virtues of asepsis, the dangers of germs. But she had no natural inclination, no instinct for healing. She was not squeamish or afraid of bloodshe had helped me with any number of childbirths and minor surgical procedures-and yet she lacked that peculiar mixture of empathy and ruthlessness a doctor needs.

  She was perhaps Jamie's child more than mine, I reflected, watching the firelight ripple in the falls of her hair as she moved. She had his courage, his great tenderness-but it was the courage of a warrior, the tenderness of a strength that could crush if it chose. I had not managed to give her my gift; the knowledge of blood and bone, the secret ways of the chambers of the heart.

  Brianna's head lifted sharply, turning toward the door. Marsali, slower, turned too, listening.

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  It was barely audible through the thrumming of the rain, but knowing it was there, I could pick it out-a male voice, raised high, chanting. A pause, and then a faint answering rumble that might have been distant thunder, but wasn't. The men were coming down from the shelter on the mountain.

  Kenny Lindsay had asked Roger to chant the caitbris for Rosamund; the formal Gaelic lament for the dead. "She wasna Scots," Kenny had said, wiping eyes bleared from tears and a long night's watching. "Nor even God-fearin'. But she was that fond o' singin', and she fair admired your way o' it, MacKenzie."

  Roger had never done a caithris before; I knew he had never heard one, "Dinna fash," Jamie had murmured to him, hand on his arm, "all ye need to be is loud." Roger had bent his head gravely in acquiescence, and went with Jamie and Kenneth, to drink whisky by the malting floor and learn what he could of Rosamund's life, the better to lament her passing.

  The hoarse chant vanished; the wind had shifted. It was a freak of the storm that we had heard them so soon-they would be headed down the Ridge now, to collect mourners from the outlying cabins, and then to lead them all in procession back up to the house, for the feasting and singing and storytelling that would go on all night.

  I yawned involuntarily, my jaw cracking at the thought of it. I'd never last, I thought in dismay. I had had a few hours' sleep in the morning, but not enough to sustain me through a full-blown Gaelic wake and funeral. The floors would be thick with bodies by dawn, all of them smelling of whisky and wet clothes.

  I yawned again, then blinked, my eyes swimming as I shook my head to clear it. Every bone in my body ached with fatigue, and I wanted nothing more than to go to bed for several days.

  Deep in thought, I hadn't noticed Brianna coming to stand behind me. Her hands came down on my shoulders, and she moved closer, so I felt the warmth of her touching me. Marsali had gone; we were alone. She began to massage my shoulders, long thumbs moving slowly up the cords of my neck.

  "Tired?" she asked.

  "Mm. I'll do," I said. I closed the book, and leaned back, relaxing momentarily in the sheer relief of her touch. I hadn't realized I was strung so tightly.

  THE BIG ROOM was quiet and orderly, ready for the wake. Mrs. Bug was tending the barbecue. The girls had lit a pair of candles, one at each end of the laden table, and shadows flickered over the whitewashed walls, the quiet coffin, as the candle flames bent in a sudden draft.

  "I think I killed her," I said suddenly, not meaning to say it at all. "It was the penicillin that killed her."

  The long fingers didn't stop their soothing movement.

  "Was it?" she murmured. "You couldn't have done any differently, though, could you?"

  "No. A small shudder of relief went over me, as much from the bald confession as from the gradual release of the painful tightness in my neck and shoulders.

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  "It's okay," she said softly, rubbing, stroking. "She would have died anyway, wouldn't she? It's sad, but you didn't do wrong. You know that."

  "I know that." To my surprise, a single tear slid down my cheek and -dropped on the page, puckering the paper. I blinked hard, struggling for control. I didn't want to distress Brianna.

  She wasn't distressed. Her hands left my shoulders, and I heard the scraping of stool legs. Then her arms came around me, and I let her draw me back, my head resting just under her chin. She simply held me, letting the rise and fA of her breathing calm me.

  "I went to dinner with Uncle Joe once, just after he'd lost a patient," she said finally. "He told me about it."

  "Did he?" I was a little surprised; I wouldn't have thought Joe would talk about such things with her.

  . "He didn't mean to. I could see something was bothering him, though, so I asked. And-he needed to talk, and I was there. Afterward, he said it was almost like having you there. I didn't know he called you Lady Jane."

  "Yes," I said. "Because of the way I talk, he said." I felt a breath of laughter against my ear, and smiled slightly in response. I closed my eyes, and could see my ffiend, gesturing in passionate conversation, face alight with the desire to tease.

  "He said-that when something like that happened, sometimes there would be a sort of formal inquiry, at the hospital. Not like a trial, not that-but a gathering of the other doctors, to hear exactly what happened, what went wrong. He said it was sort of like confession, to tell it to other doctors, who could understand-and it helped."

  "Mm-hm." She was swaying slightly, rocking me as she moved, as she rocked Jemmy, soothing.

  "Is that what's bothering you?" she asked quietly. "Not just Rosamundbut that you're alone? You don't have anybody who can really understand?" Her arms wrapped around my shoulders, her hands crossed, resting lightly

  on my chest. Young, broad, capable hands, the skin fresh and fair, smelling of fresh-baked bread and strawberry jam. I lifted one, and laid the warm palm against my cheek.

  "Apparently I do," I said.

  The hand curved, stroked my cheek and dropped away. The big young hand moved slowly, smoothing the hair behind my ear with soft affection.

  "It will be all right," she said. "Everything will be all right." "Yes," I said, and smiled, despite the tears blurring my eyes.

  I couldn't teach her to be a doctor. But evidently I had, without meaning to, somehow taught her to be a mother.

  "You should go lie down," she said, taking her hands away reluctantly. "It will be an hour at least, before they get here."

  I let my breath go out in a sigh, feeling the peace of the house around me. If Fraser's Ridge had been a short-lived haven for Rosamund Lindsay, still it had been a true home. We would see her safe, and honored in death.

  "In a minute," I said, wiping my nose. "I need to finish something, first."

  I sat up straight and opene
d my book. I dipped my pen, and began to write the lines that must be there, for the sake of the unknown physician who would follow me.

  ZUGUNRUHE

  September, 1772

  WOKE DRENCHED in sweat. The thin chemise in which I slept clung to me, transparent with wet; the darkness of my flesh showed in patches through the cloth, even in the dim light from the unshuttered window. I

  had kicked away sheet and quilt in my disordered sleep, and lay sprawled with the linen shift rucked up above my thighs

  -but still my skin pulsed with heat, waves of smothering warmth that flowed over me like melted candle wax.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and stood up, feeling dizzy and disembodied. My hair was soaked and my neck was slick with perspiration; a trickle of sweat ran down between my breasts and disappeared.

  Jamie was still asleep; I could see the humped mound of his upturned shoulder, and the spill of his hair, dark across the pillow. He shifted slightly and mumbled something, but then lapsed into the regular deep breaths of sleep. I needed air, but didn't want to wake him. I pushed away the gauze netting, stepped softly across to the door, and into the small box-room across the hall.

  It was a small room, but it had a large window, in order to balance the one in our bedroom. This one had no glass as yet; it was covered only by wooden shutters, and I could feel drafts of night air drifting through the slats, swirling across the floor, caressing my bare legs. Urgent for the coolness of it, I stripped off my wet shift and sighed in relief as the draft skimmed upward over hips and breasts and arms.

  The heat was still there, though, hot waves pulsing over my skin with each heartbeat. Fumbling in the dark, I unfastened the shutters and pushed them open, gasping for the great draughts of cool night that flooded in upon me.

  From here, I could see above the trees that screened the house, down the slope of the ridge, almost to the faint black line of the river far away. The wind stirred in the treetops, murmuring, and wafted over me with blessed coolness and the pungent green smell of leaves and summer sap. I closed my eyes and stood still; within a minute or two, the heat was gone, vanished like a quenched coal, leaving me damp but peaceful.

  I didn't want to go back to bed yet; my hair was damp, and the sheets where I had lain would still be clammy. I leaned naked on the sill, the down-hairs of my body prickling pleasantly as my skin cooled. The peaceful whooshing of the trees was interrupted by the thin sound of a child's wail, and I glanced toward the cabin.

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  It was a hundred yards from the house; the wind must be toward me, to have carried the sound. Sure enough, the wind changed as I leaned out of the I window, and the crying was lost in the flutter of leaves. The breeze passed on, though, and I could hear the screeching, louder now, in the silence.

  It was louder because it was getting closer. There was a creak and the groan of wood as the cabin door opened, and someone stepped out. There was no lamp or candle lit in the cabin, and the quick glimpse I had of the emerging figure showed me nothing but a tall form silhouetted against the dim glow of the banked hearth inside. It seemed to have long hair-but both Roger and Brianna slept with their hair untied and capless. It was pleasant to imagine Roger's glossy black locks mingling with the fire of Brianna's on the pillow--did they share a pillow? I wondered suddenly.

  The screeching hadn't abated. Fretful and cranky, but not agonized. Not belly-ache. A bad dream? I waited a moment, watching, to see whether whoever it was would bring the child to the house, in search of me, and put out a hand to my crumpled shift, just in case. No-the tall figure had vanished into the spruce grove; I could hear the receding wails. Not fever, then.

  I realized that my breasts had begun to tingle and stiffen in response to the crying, and smiled, a little ruefully. Strange, that instinct went so deep and lasted so long-would I come one day to a point when nothing in me stirred to the sound of a crying baby, to the scent of a man aroused, to the brush of my own long hair against the skin of my naked back? And if I did come to such a point-would I mourn the loss, I wondered, or find myself peacefill, left to contemplate existence without the intrusion of such animal sensations?

  It wasn't only the glories of the flesh that were the gifts of the world, after all; a doctor sees the plentiful miseries flesh is heir to, as well-and yet ... standing cool in the flood of late summer's air from the window, the boards smooth under my bare feet and the touch of wind on bare skin ... I could not wish to be a pure spirit-not yet.

  The crying grew louder, and I heard the low murmur of an adult's voice below it, trying unsuccessfully to soothe it. Roger, then.

  I cupped my breasts gently, liking the soft, filll weight of them. I remembered what they'd been like when I was very young; small hard swellings, so sensitive that the touch of a boy's hand made me weak in the knees. The touch of my own hand, come to that. They were different now-and yet peculiarly the same.

  This was not the discovery of a new and unimagined thing, but rather only a new awareness, the acknowledgment of something that had risen while my back was turned, like a shadow cast upon the wall, its presence unsuspected, seen only when I turned to look at it-but there all the time.

  Oh, I have a little shadow thatgoes in and out with me, And what can be the use ofbim, is more than I can see.

  And if I turned my back again, the shadow would not leave me. It was irrevocably attached to me, whether I chose to notice it or not, crouched always insubstantial, intangible but present, small to vanishing under my feet when the light of other preoccupations shone upon me, blown up to gigantic proportions in the glare of some sudden urge.

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  Resident demon, or guardian angel? Or only the shadow of the beast, constant reminder of the inescapability of the body and its hungers?