The trail narrowed. Roger’s shoulder brushed Jamie’s, close, and he fell back a step, following his father-in-law. The moon was late in rising tonight, and sliver-thin. It was dark and the air had a bite in it now.
“I’ll help you protect them,” he said to Jamie’s back. His voice was gruff.
“I ken that,” Jamie said, softly. There was a short pause, as though Jamie was waiting for him to speak further, and he realized that he should.
“With my body,” Roger said quietly, into the night. “And with my soul, if that should be necessary.”
He saw Jamie in brief silhouette, saw him a draw a deep breath and his shoulders relax as he let it out. They walked more briskly now; the trail was dark, and they strayed now and then, the brush catching at their bare legs.
At the edge of their own clearing, Jamie paused to let Roger come up with him, and laid a hand on his arm.
“The things that happen in a war—the things that ye do … they mark ye,” he said quietly. “I dinna think bein’ a priest will spare you, is what I’m sayin’， and I’m sorry for it.”
They mark ye. And I’m sorry for it. But he said nothing; only touched Jamie’s hand lightly where it lay upon his arm. Then Jamie took his hand away and they walked home together, silent.
24
Alarms by Night
ADSO, DRAPED LANGUIDLY AS a scarf over the table, opened his eyes and gave a small inquisitive “mowp” at the scraping noise.
“Not edible,” I said to him, tapping the last glob of gentian ointment off the spoon. The big celadon eyes went back to slits. Not all the way closed, though—and the tip of his tail began to stir. He was watching something, and I swung around to find Jemmy in the doorway, swathed in his father’s ratty old blue calico shirt. It nearly touched his feet and was falling off one bony little shoulder, but that clearly didn’t matter; he was wide-awake and urgent.
“Grannie! Fanny’s took bad!”
“Taken,” I said automatically, corking the jar of grease to keep Adso out. “What’s the matter?”
“She’s rolled up like a sow bug and grunting like she’s got the bellyache—but, Grannie, there’s blood on her night rail!”
“Oh,” I said, taking my hand off the jar of peppermint leaves I’d been reaching for and reaching instead for a small gauze package on the highest shelf. I’d had it made up for the last two months, in readiness. “I think she’s fine, sweetheart. Or will be. Where’s Mandy?” The children all shared a room—and often enough, a single bed; it was common to come in late at night and find a mattress ticking on the floor, and all four of them sprawled in a sweetly moist tangle of limbs and clothes on top of it. Germain had gone hunting with Bobby Higgins and Aidan—Jemmy being prevented because he’d cut his foot yesterday—but Mandy was here, and I didn’t think her insistent curiosity and voluble opinions would be of help in the present situation.
“Asleep,” Jem answered, watching me drop the gauze packet of herbs into a clay teapot and pour boiling water over it. “What’s that potion for, Grannie?”
“It’s just a tea made with ginger-root and rosemary,” I said. “And a bit of yarrow. It’s an emmenagogue.” I spelled that for him, adding, “It’s to help with a woman’s courses. You’ve heard about courses?”
Jemmy’s eyes went quite round.
“You mean Fanny’s on heat?” he blurted. “Who’s going to breed her?”
“Well, it doesn’t work quite that way with people,” I said, adding craftily, “Ask your mother to explain it all to you in the morning. Right now, why don’t you go and crawl in with Grandpa, and I’ll take this up to Fanny.”
Before leaving the surgery, though, I pulled the box of river stones out from under the table and picked out my favorite: a weathered chunk of gray calcite the size of Jamie’s fist, with a thin, vivid green line of embedded emerald showing on one side, reminding me of the emerald I’d picked up by the creek. I’d added that one to my medicine bag—my amulet. I laid the stone in the hearth and shoveled hot embers on top of it, just in case heat should be required.
The candle was lit in the children’s room and Fanny was on her own narrow bed, uncovered and curled up tight as a hedgehog, her back to the door. She didn’t look round at the sound of my footsteps, but her shoulders rose up higher round her ears.
“Fanny?” I said softly. “Are you all right, sweetheart?” From Jemmy’s obvious concern about the blood, I’d been a bit worried—but I could see only a single small streak of blood and one or two spots on the muslin of her night rail, the rusty brown of first menstruation.