“Martha,” the man had whispered, the weight of him pressing me into the leaves.

“Bloody, bloody hell,” I said very quietly. I spread my hands out flat on the table, trying to think.

“Martha.” And the stale smell of him, the meaty press of damp bare thighs, rasping with hair—

“No!” My legs and buttocks pressed together so tightly in revulsion that I rose an inch or two on the bench.

“You might—” Jamie began stubbornly.

“I’m not,” I repeated, just as stubbornly. “But even if—you can’t, Jamie.”

He looked at me, and I caught the flicker of fear in his eyes. That, I realized with a jolt, was exactly what he was afraid of. Or one of the things.

“I mean we can’t,” I said quickly. “I’m almost sure that I’m not pregnant—but I’m not at all sure that I haven’t been exposed to some disgusting disease.” That was something else I hadn’t thought of until now, and the goose bumps were back in full force. Pregnancy was unlikely; gonorrhea or syphilis weren’t. “We—we can’t. Not until I’ve had a course of penicillin.”

I was rising from the bench even as I spoke.

“Where are ye going?” he asked, startled.

“The surgery!”

The hallway was dark, and the fire out in my surgery, but that didn’t stop me. I flung open the door of the cupboard, and began groping hastily about. A light fell over my shoulder, illuminating the shimmering row of bottles. Jamie had lit a taper and come after me.

“What in the name of God are ye doing, Sassenach?”

“Penicillin,” I said, seizing one of the bottles and the leather pouch in which I kept my snake-fang syringes.

“Now?”

“Yes, bloody now! Light the candle, will you?”

He did, and the light wavered and grew into a globe of warm yellow, gleaming off the leather tubes of my homemade syringes. I had a good bit of penicillin mixture to hand, luckily. The liquid in the bottle was pink; many of the Penicillium colonies from this batch had been grown in stale wine.

“Are ye sure it will work?” Jamie asked quietly, from the shadows.

“No,” I said, tight-lipped. “But it’s what I have.” The thought of spirochetes, multiplying silently in my bloodstream, second by second, was making my hand shake. I choked down the fear that the penicillin might be defective. It had worked miracles on gross superficial infections. There was no reason why—

“Let me do it, Sassenach.” Jamie took the syringe from my hand; my fingers were slippery and fumbling. His were steady, his face calm in candlelight as he filled the syringe.

“Do me first, then,” he said, handing it back.

“What—you? But you don’t need to—I mean—you hate injections,” I ended feebly.

He snorted briefly and lowered his brows at me.

“Listen, Sassenach. If I mean to fight my own fears, and yours—and I do—then I shallna boggle at pinpricks, aye? Do it!” He turned his side to me and bent over, one elbow braced on the counter, and hitched up the side of his kilt, baring one muscular buttock.

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I might have argued further with him, but a glance at him, standing there bare-arsed and stubborn as Black Mountain, decided me of the futility of that. He’d made up his mind, and we were both going to live with the consequences.

Feeling suddenly and oddly calm, I lifted the syringe, squeezing gently to remove any air bubbles.

“Shift your weight, then,” I said, nudging him rudely. “Relax this side; I don’t want to break the needle.”

He drew in his breath with a hiss; the needle was thick, and there was enough alcohol from the wine to make it sting badly, as I discovered when I took my own injection a minute later.

“Ouch! Ow! Oh, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” I exclaimed, gritting my teeth as I withdrew the needle from my thigh. “Christ, that hurts!”

Jamie gave me a lopsided smile, still rubbing his backside.

“Aye, well. The rest of it won’t be worse than this, I expect.”

The rest of it. I felt suddenly hollow, and light-headed with it, as though I hadn’t eaten for a week.

“You—you’re sure?” I asked, putting down the syringe.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.” He took a deep breath then, and looked at me, his face uncertain in the wavering candlelight. “But I mean to try. I must.”

I smoothed the linen night rail down over my punctured thigh, looking at him as I did it. He’d dropped all his masks long since; the doubt, the anger, and the fear were all there, etched plain in the desperate lines of his face. For once, I thought, my own countenance was less easy to read, masked behind its bruises.

Something soft brushed past my leg with a small mirp! and I looked down to see that Adso had brought me a dead vole, no doubt by way of sympathy. I started to smile, felt my lip tingle, and then looked up at Jamie and let it split as I did smile, the taste of blood warm silver on my tongue.

“Well … you’ve come whenever I’ve needed you; I rather think you’ll do it this time, too.”

He looked completely blank for an instant, not grasping the feeble joke. Then it struck him, and blood rushed to his face. His lip twitched, and twitched again, unable to decide between shock and laughter.

I thought he turned his back then to hide his face, but in fact, he had only turned to search the cupboard. He found what he was looking for, and turned round again with a bottle of my best muscat wine in his hand, shining dark. He held it to his body with his elbow, and took down another.

“Aye, I will,” he said, reaching out his free hand to me. “But if ye think either one of us is going to do this sober, Sassenach, ye’re verra much mistaken.”



A GUST OF WIND from the open door roused Roger from uneasy sleep. He had fallen asleep on the settle, his legs trailing on the floor, Jemmy snuggled warmly heavy on his chest.

He looked up, blinking and disoriented, as Brianna stooped to take the little boy from his arms.

“Is it raining out?” he said, catching a whiff of damp and ozone from her cloak. He sat up and rubbed a hand over his face to rouse himself, feeling the scruff of a four-day beard.

“No, but it’s going to.” She laid Jemmy back in his trundle, covered him, and hung up the cloak before coming to Roger. She smelled of the night, and her hand was cold on his flushed cheek. He put his arms round her waist and leaned his head against her, sighing.

He would have been happy to stay that way forever—or at least the next hour or two. She stroked his head gently for a moment, though, then moved away, stooping to light the candle from the hearth.

“You must be starved. Shall I fix you something?”

“No. I mean … yes. Please.” As the last remnants of grogginess fell away, he realized that he was, in fact, starving. After their stop at the stream in the morning, they hadn’t stopped again, Jamie anxious to get home. He couldn’t recall when he’d last eaten, but hadn’t felt any sense of hunger at all until this minute.

He fell on the bread and butter and jam she brought him, ravenous. He ate single-mindedly, and it was several minutes before he thought to ask, swallowing a final thick, buttery, sweet bite, “How’s your mother?”

“Fine,” she said, with an excellent imitation of Claire with her stiffest English upper lip. “Perfectly fine.” She grimaced at him, and he laughed, though quietly, with an automatic glance at the trundle.

“Is she, then?”

Bree raised an eyebrow at him.

“Do you think so?”

“No,” he admitted, sobering. “But I don’t think she’s going to tell you if she’s not. She’ll not want ye worrying.”

She made a rather rude glottal noise in response to this notion, and turned her back on him, lifting the long veil of hair off her neck.

“Will you do my laces?”

“You sound just like your father when ye make that noise—only higher-pitched. Have ye been practicing?” He stood up and pulled the laces loose. Undid her stays as well, then on impulse, slid his hands inside the opened gown, resting them on the warm swell of her hips.