kills germs, though. You get another shot every four hours ’til this time tomorrow, and then we’ll see how you’re doing.”
I paused. Jamie was staring at me, shaking his head.
“Do you understand?” I asked. He nodded slowly.
“Aye, I do. I should ha’ let them burn ye, twenty years ago.”
37
WHAT’S IN A NAME
After giving him a shot and settling him comfortably, I sat watching until he fell asleep again, allowing him to hold my hand until his own grip relaxed in sleep and the big hand dropped slack by his side.
I sat by his bed for the rest of the night, dozing sometimes, and rousing myself by means of the internal clock all doctors have, geared to the rhythms of a hospital’s shift changes. Two more shots, the last at daybreak, and by then the fever had loosed its hold perceptibly. He was still very warm to the touch, but his flesh no longer burned, and he rested easier, falling asleep after the last shot with no more than a few grumbles and a faint moan as his arm twinged.
“Bloody eighteenth-century germs are no match for penicillin,” I told his sleeping form. “No resistance. Even if you had syphilis, I’d have it cleaned up in no time.”
And what then? I wondered, as I staggered off to the kitchen in search of hot tea and food. A strange woman, presumably the cook or the housemaid, was firing up the brick oven, ready to receive the daily loaves that lay rising in their pans on the table. She didn’t seem surprised to see me, but cleared away a small space for me to sit down, and brought me tea and fresh girdle-cakes with no more than a quick “Good mornin’ to ye, mum” before returning to her work.
Evidently, Jenny had informed the household of my presence. Did that mean she accepted it herself? I doubted it. Clearly, she had wanted me to go, and wasn’t best pleased to have me back. If I was going to stay, there was plainly going to be a certain amount of explanation about Laoghaire, from both Jenny and Jamie. And I
“Thank you,” I said politely to the cook, and taking a fresh cup of tea with me, went back to the parlor to wait until Jamie saw fit to wake up again.
People passed by the door during the morning, pausing now and then to peep through, but always went on hurriedly when I looked up. At last, Jamie showed signs of waking, just before noon; he stirred, sighed, groaned as the movement jarred his arm, and subsided once more.
I gave him a few moments to realize that I was there, but his eyes stayed shut. He wasn’t asleep, though; the lines of his body were slightly tensed, not relaxed in slumber. I had watched him sleep all night; I knew the difference.
“All right,” I said. I leaned back in the chair, settling myself comfortably, well out of his reach. “Let’s hear it, then.”
A small slit of blue showed under the long auburn lashes, then disappeared again.
“Mmmm?” he said, pretending to wake slowly. The lashes fluttered against his cheeks.
“Don’t stall,” I said crisply. “I know perfectly well you’re awake. Open your eyes and tell me about Laoghaire.”
The blue eyes opened and rested on me with an expression of some disfavor.
“You’re no afraid of giving me a relapse?” he inquired. “I’ve always heard sick folk shouldna be troubled owermuch. It sets them back.”
“You have a doctor right here,” I assured him. “If you pass out from the strain, I’ll know what to do about it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” His narrowed gaze flicked to the little case of drugs and hypodermics on the table, then back to me. “My arse feels like I’ve sat in a gorse bush wi’ no breeks on.”
“Good,” I said pleasantly. “You’ll get another one in an hour. Right now, you’re going to talk.”
His lips pressed tight together, but then relaxed as he sighed. He pushed himself laboriously upright against the pillows, one-handed. I didn’t help him.
“All right,” he said at last. He didn’t look at me, but down at the quilt, where his finger traced the edge of the starred design.
“Well, it was when I’d come back from England.”
He had come up from the Lake District and over the Carter’s Bar, that great ridge of high ground that divides England from Scotland, on whose broad back the ancient courts and markets of the Borders had been held.
“There’s a stone there to mark the border, maybe you’ll know; it looks the sort of stone to last a while.” He glanced at me, questioning, and I nodded. I did know it; a huge menhir, some ten feet tall. In my time, someone had carved on its one face ENGLAND, and on the other, SCOTLAND.
There he stopped to rest, as thousands of travelers had stopped over the years, his exiled past behind him, the future—and home—below and beyond, past the hazy green hollows of the Lowlands, up into the gray crags of the Highlands, hidden by fog.
His good hand ran back and forth through his hair, as it always did when he thought, leaving the cowlicks on top standing up in small, bright whorls.
“You’ll not know how it is, to live among strangers for so long.”
“Won’t I?” I said, with some sharpness. He glanced up at me, startled, then smiled faintly, looking down at the coverlet.
