Children perhaps, I thought; several balls of thread had been pulled out, too, and lay scattered on the parquet floor, trailing their colors. I hesitated—but instinct was too much for me, and I hastily scooped up the balls of thread and dropped them back into the workbasket. I stuffed the knitting in on top, but jerked my hand back with an exclamation.

A small gash on the side of my thumb was welling blood. I put it in my mouth and sucked hard to apply pressure to the wound; meanwhile, I groped more cautiously in the depths of the basket with my other hand, to see what had cut me.

A knife, small but businesslike. Likely used to cut embroidery threads; there was a tooled-leather sheath for it, loose in the bottom of the basket. I slipped the knife back into its sheath, seized the needle case I’d come for, and closed the folding tabletop of the workbasket before hurrying for the stairs.

Allan MacDonald had finished his brief speech; there was a loud clatter of applause outside, with shouts and whoops of Gaelic approval.

“Bloody Scots,” I muttered under my breath. “Don’t they ever learn?”

But I hadn’t time to consider the implications of the MacDonalds’ rabble-rousing. By the time I reached the top of the stair, one slave was close behind me, puffing under the weight of my medicine box, and another was at the bottom, starting more cautiously up with a pan of hot water from the kitchen.

Jocasta was bent double in her big chair, moaning, lips pressed into invisibility. Her cap had come off and both hands moved restlessly to and fro through her disordered hair, as though looking helplessly for something to seize. Jamie was stroking her back, murmuring to her in Gaelic; he looked up with obvious relief as I came in.

I had long suspected that the cause of Jocasta’s blindness was glaucoma—rising pressure inside the eyeball that if untreated eventually damages the optic nerve. Now I was quite sure of it. More than that, I knew what form of the disease she had; she was plainly having an acute attack of closed-angle glaucoma, the most dangerous type.

There was no treatment for glaucoma now; the condition itself wouldn’t be recognized for some time. Even if there had been, it was far too late; her blindness was permanent. There was, however, something I could do about the immediate situation—and I was afraid I’d have to.

“Put some of this to steep,” I said to Angelina, grabbing the jar of goldenseal from my box and thrusting it into her hands. “And you”—I turned to the other slave, a man whose name I didn’t know—“set the water to boil again, fetch me some clean rags, and put them in the water.”

Even as I talked, I’d got out the tiny spirit lamp I carried in my case. The fire had been allowed to burn down on the hearth, but there were still live coals; I bent and lit the wick, then opened the needle case I’d taken from the sitting room and abstracted the largest needle in it, a three-inch length of steel, used for mending carpets.

“You aren’t …” Jamie began, then broke off, swallowing.

“I have to,” I said briefly. “There’s nothing else. Hold her hands.”

He was nearly as pale as Jocasta, but he nodded and took hold of the clutching fingers, pulling her hands gently away from her head.

I lifted away the linen bandage. The left eye bulged noticeably beneath its lid, vividly bloodshot. Tears welled up round it and overflowed in a constant stream. I could feel the pressure inside the eyeball, even without touching it, and clenched my teeth in revulsion.

No help for it. With a quick prayer to Saint Clare—who was, after all, patroness of sore eyes, as well as my own patron saint—I ran the needle through the flame of the lamp, poured pure alcohol onto a rag, and wiped the soot from the needle.

Swallowing a sudden excess of saliva, I spread the eyelids of the affected eye apart with one hand, commended my soul to God, and shoved the needle hard into the sclera of the eye, near the edge of the iris.

There was a cough and a splattering on the floor nearby, and the stink of vomit, but I had no attention to spare. I withdrew the needle carefully, though as fast as I could. Jocasta had stiffened abruptly, frozen stiff, hands clawed over Jamie’s. She didn’t move at all, but made small, shocked panting sounds, as though afraid to move enough even to breathe.

There was a trickle of fluid from the eye, vitreous humor, faintly cloudy, just thick enough to be distinguishable as it flowed sluggishly across the wet surface of the sclera. I was still holding the eyelids apart; I plucked a rag from the goldenseal tea with my free hand, squeezed out the excess liquid, careless of where it went, and touched it gently to her face. Jocasta gasped at the touch of the warmth on her skin, pulled her hands free, and grasped at it.

I let go then, and allowed her to seize the warm rag, pressing it against her closed left eye, the heat of it some relief.

Light feet pounded up the stairs again, and down the hall; Angelina, panting, a handful of salt clutched to her bosom, a spoon in her other hand. I brushed the salt from her damp palm into the pan of warm water, and set her to stir it while it dissolved.

“Did you bring laudanum?” I asked her quietly. Jocasta was lying back in her chair, eyes closed—but rigid as a statue, her eyelids squeezing tight, fists clenched in knots on her knees.

“I couldna find the laudanum, missus,” Angelina murmured to me, with a frightened glance at Jocasta. “I dinna ken who could be takin’ it—hain’t nobody got the key but Mr. Ulysses and Miz Cameron herself.”

“Ulysses let you into the simples closet, then—so he knows that Mrs. Cameron is ill?”

She nodded vigorously, setting the ribbon on her cap a-flutter.

“Oh, yes, missus! He be bleezin’, if he find out and I hain’t told him. He say come fetch him quick, she want him—otherwise, I tell Miz Cameron she hain’t to worry none, he take care every single thing.”

Jocasta let out a long sigh at this, her clenched fists relaxing a little.

“God bless the man,” she murmured, eyes closed. “He will take care of everything. I should be lost without him. Lost.”

Her white hair was soaked at the temples, and sweat dripped from the ends of the tendrils that lay over her shoulder, making spots on the dark blue silk of her gown.

Angelina unlaced Jocasta’s gown and stays and got them off. Then I had Jamie lay her down on the bed in her shift, with a thick layer of towels tucked round her head. I filled one of my rattlesnake syringes with the warm salt water, and with Jamie gingerly holding the lids of her eye apart, I was able to gently irrigate the eye, in hopes of perhaps preventing infection to the puncture wound. The wound itself showed as a tiny scarlet spot on the sclera, a small conjunctival bleb above it. Jamie couldn’t look at it without blinking, I saw, and smiled at him.

“She’ll be all right,” I said. “You can go, if you like.”

Jamie nodded, turning to go, but Jocasta’s hand shot out to stop him.

“No, be staying, a chuisle—if ye will.” This last was strictly for form’s sake; she had him clutched by the sleeve, hard enough to turn her fingers white.

“Aye, Auntie, of course,” he said mildly, and put his hand over hers, squeezing in reassurance. Still, she didn’t let go until he had sat down beside her.

“Who else is there?” she asked, turning her head fretfully from side to side, trying to hear the telltale sounds of breathing and movement that would inform her. “Have the slaves gone?”

“Yes, they’ve gone back to help with the serving,” I told her. “It’s only me and Jamie left.”

She closed her eyes and drew a deep, shuddering breath, only then beginning to relax a little.

“Good. I must tell ye a thing, Nephew, and no one else must hear. Niece”—she lifted a long white hand toward me—“go and be seeing as we’re truly alone.”