Outlander 03 - Voyager

Captain Leonard?” and dragged me bodily out of the cabin, down the passage to the afterhold.

“Are ye daft?” he hissed, still clutching me by one arm. “Ye canna be thinking of setting foot on a ship wi’ the plague! Risk your life and the crew and Young Ian, all for the sake of a pack of Englishmen?”

“It isn’t plague,” I said, struggling to get free. “And I wouldn’t be risking my life. Let go of my arm, you bloody Scot!”

He let go, but stood blocking the ladder, glowering at me.

“Listen,” I said, striving for patience. “It isn’t plague; I’m almost sure it’s typhoid fever—the rash sounds like it. I can’t catch that, I’ve been vaccinated for it.”

Momentary doubt flitted across his face. Despite my explanations, he was still inclined to consider germs and vaccines in the same league with black magic.

“Aye?” he said skeptically. “Well, perhaps that’s so, but still…”

“Look,” I said, groping for words. “I’m a doctor. They’re sick, and I can do something about it. I…it’s…well, I have to, that’s all!”

Judging from its effect, this statement appeared to lack something in eloquence. Jamie raised one eyebrow, inviting me to go on.

I took a deep breath. How should I explain it—the need to touch, the compulsion to heal? In his own way, Frank had understood. Surely there was a way to make it clear to Jamie.

“I took an oath,” I said. “When I became a physician.”

Both eyebrows went up. “An oath?” he echoed. “What sort of oath?”

I had said it aloud only the one time. Still, I had had a framed copy in my office; Frank had given it to me, a gift when I graduated from medical school. I swallowed a small thickening in my throat, closed my eyes, and read what I could remember from the scroll before my mind’s eye.

“I swear by Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment the following Oath:

I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug, nor give advice which may cause his death. But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art. In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction, and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves. All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or outside of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal. If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”

I opened my eyes, to find him looking down at me thoughtfully. “Er…parts of it are just for tradition,” I explained.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “I see,” he said. “Well, the first part sounds a wee bit pagan, but I like the part about how ye willna seduce anyone.”

“I thought you’d like that one,” I said dryly. “Captain Leonard’s virtue is safe with me.”

He gave a small snort and leaned back against the ladder, running one hand slowly through his hair.

“Is that how it’s done, then, in the company of physicians?” he asked. “Ye hold yourself bound to help whoever calls for it, even an enemy?”

“It doesn’t make a great difference, you know, if they’re ill or hurt.” I looked up, searching his face for understanding.

“Aye, well,” he said slowly. “I’ve taken an oath now and then, myself—and none of them lightly.” He reached out and took my right hand, his fingers resting on my silver ring. “Some weigh heavier than others, though,” he said, watching my face in turn.

He was very close to me, the sun from the hatchway overhead striping the linen of his sleeve, the skin of his hand a deep ruddy bronze where it cradled my own white fingers, and the glinting silver of my wedding ring.

“It does,” I said softly, speaking to his thought. “You know it does.” I laid my other hand against his chest, its gold ring glowing in a bar of sunlight. “But where one vow can be kept, without damage to another…?”

He sighed, deeply enough to move the hand on my chest, then bent and kissed me, very gently.

“Aye, well, I wouldna have ye be forsworn,” he said, straightening up with a wry twist to his mouth. “You’re sure of this vaccination of yours? It does work?”

“It works,” I assured him.

“Perhaps I should go with ye,” he said, frowning slightly.

“You can’t—you haven’t been vaccinated, and typhoid’s awfully contagious.”

“You’re only thinking it’s typhoid, from what Leonard says,” he pointed out. “Ye dinna ken for sure that it’s that.”

“No,” I admitted. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

I was assisted up onto the deck of the Porpoise by means of a bosun’s chair, a terrorizing swing over empty air and frothing sea. I landed ignominiously in a sprawl on the deck. Once I regained my feet, I was astonished to find how solid the deck of the man-of-war felt, compared to the tiny, pitching quarterdeck of the Artemis, far below. It was like standing on the Rock of Gibraltar.

My hair had blown loose during the trip between the ships; I twisted it up and repinned it as best I could, then reached to take the medicine box I had brought from the midshipman who held it.

“You’d best show me where they are,” I said. The wind was brisk, and I was aware that it was taking a certain amount of work on the part of both crews to keep the two ships close together, even as both drifted leeward.