I landed clumsily, with a thump that made Jamie straighten up and open his eyes. The look of relief in them pulled me the few feet to him. I felt better, with the warm solid flesh of his shoulder under my hand.
“Are you all right?” I said, leaning over him to look.
“Aye, it’s no more than a wee dunt,” he said, smiling up at me. There was a small gash at his hairline, where something like a pistol butt had caught him, but the blood had clotted already. There were stains of dark, drying blood on the front of his shirt, but the sleeve of his shirt was also bloody. In fact, it was nearly soaked, with fresh bright red.
“Jamie!” I clutched at his shoulder, my vision going white at the edges. “You aren’t all right—look, you’re bleeding!”
My hands and feet were numb, and I only half-felt his hands grasp my arms as he rose from the cask in sudden alarm. The last thing I saw, amid flashes of light, was his face, gone white beneath the tan.
“My God!” said his frightened voice, out of the whirling blackness. “It’s no my blood, Sassenach, it’s yours!”
* * *
“I am not going to die,” I said crossly, “unless it’s from heat exhaustion. Take some of this bloody stuff off me!”
Marsali, who had been tearfully pleading with me not to expire, looked rather relieved at this outburst. She stopped crying and sniffed hopefully, but made no move to remove any of the cloaks, coats, blankets, and other impedimenta in which I was swaddled.
“Oh, I canna do that, Mother Claire!” she said. “Da says ye must be kept warm!”
“Warm? I’m being boiled alive!” I was in the captain’s cabin, and even with the stern windows wide open, the atmosphere belowdecks was stifling, hot with sun and acrid with the fumes of the cargo.
I tried to struggle out from under my wrappings, but got no more than a few inches before a bolt of lightning struck me in the right arm. The world went dark, with small bright flashes zigging through my vision.
“Lie still,” said a stern Scots voice, through a wave of giddy sickness. An arm was under my shoulders, a large hand cradling my head. “Aye, that’s right, lie back on my arm. All right now, Sassenach?”
“No,” I said, looking at the colored pinwheels inside my eyelids. “I’m going to be sick.”
I was, and a most unpleasant process it was, too, with fiery knives being jabbed into my right arm with each spasm.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I said at last, gasping.
“Finished, are ye?” Jamie lowered me carefully and eased my head back onto the pillow.
“If you mean am I dead, the answer is unfortunately no.” I cracked one eyelid open. He was kneeling by my berth, looking no end piratical himself, with a bloodstained strip of cloth bound round his head, and still wearing his blood-soaked shirt.
He stayed still, and so did the cabin, so I cautiously opened the other eye. He smiled faintly at me.
“No, you’re no dead; Fergus will be glad to hear it.”
As though this had been a signal, the Frenchman’s head poked anxiously into the cabin. Seeing me awake, his face broke into a dazzling smile and disappeared. I could hear his voice overhead, loudly informing the crew of my survival. To my profound embarrassment, the news was greeted with a rousing cheer from the upper deck.
“What happened?” I asked.
“What happened?” Jamie, pouring water into a cup, stopped and stared over the rim at me. He knelt down again beside me, snorting, and raised my head for a sip of water.
“What happened, she says! Aye, what indeed? I tell ye to stay all snug below wi’ Marsali, and next thing I ken, ye’ve dropped out of the sky and landed at my feet, sopping wi’ blood!”
He shoved his face into the berth and glared at me. Sufficiently impressive when clean-shaven and unhurt, he was considerably more ferocious when viewed, stubbled, bloodstained, and angry, at a distance of six inches. I promptly shut my eyes again.
“Look at me!” he said peremptorily, and I did, against my better judgment.
Blue eyes bored into mine, narrowed with fury.
“D’ye ken ye came damn close to dying?” he demanded. “Ye’ve a bone-deep slash down your arm from oxter to elbow, and had I not got a cloth round it in time, ye’d be feeding the sharks this minute!”
One big fist crashed down on the side of the berth next to me, making me start. The movement hurt my arm, but I didn’t make a sound.
“Damn ye, woman! Will ye never do as you’re told?”
“Probably not,” I said meekly.
He turned a black scowl on me, but I could see the corner of his mouth twitching under the copper stubble.
“God,” he said longingly. “What I wouldna give to have ye tied facedown over a gun, and me wi’ a rope’s end in my hand.” He snorted again, and pulled his face out of the berth.
“Willoughby!” he bellowed. In short order, Mr. Willoughby trotted in, beaming, with a steaming pot of tea and a bottle of brandy on a tray.
“Tea!” I breathed, struggling to sit up. “Ambrosia.” In spite of the stifling atmosphere of the cabin, the hot tea was just what I needed. The delightful, brandy-laced stuff slid down my throat and glowed peacefully in the pit of my quivering stomach.
“Nobody makes tea better than the English,” I said, inhaling the aroma, “except the Chinese.”
Mr. Willoughby beamed in gratification and bowed ceremoniously. Jamie snorted again, bringing his total up to three for the afternoon.
“Aye? Well, enjoy it while ye can.”
This sounded more or less sinister, and I stared at him over the rim of the cup. “And just what do you mean by that?” I demanded.
“I’m going to doctor your arm when you’re finished,” he informed me. He picked up the pot and peered into it.
“How much blood did ye tell me a person has in his body?” he asked.
“About eight quarts,” I said, bewildered. “Why?”
He lowered the pot and glared at me.
“Because,” he said precisely, “judging from the amount ye left on the deck, you’ve maybe four of them left. Here, have some more.” He refilled the cup, set down the pot, and stalked out.
“I’m afraid Jamie’s rather annoyed with me,” I observed ruefully to Mr. Willoughby.
“Not angry,” he said comfortingly. “Tsei-mi scared very bad.” The little Chinaman laid a hand on my right shoulder, delicate as a resting butterfly.
“This hurts?”
I sighed. “To be perfectly honest,” I said, “yes, it does.”
Mr. Willoughby smiled and patted me gently. “I help,” he said consolingly. “Later.”
In spite of the throbbing in my arm, I was feeling sufficiently restored to inquire about the rest of the crew, whose injuries, as reported by Mr. Willoughby, were limited to cuts and bruises, plus one concussion and a minor arm fracture.
A clatter in the passage heralded Jamie’s return, accompanied by Fergus, who carried my medicine box under one arm, and yet another bottle of brandy in his hand.
“All right,” I said, resigned. “Let’s have a look at it.”
I was no stranger to horrible wounds, and this one—technically speaking—was not all that bad. On the other hand, it was my own personal flesh involved here, and I was not disposed to be technical.