“Home, James,” I said, furling my parasol, “and don’t spare the horses.”
The recollection made me smile a little, but the smile faded at the thought that the louts who had accosted me certainly lived somewhere nearby. I mightn’t be as lucky a second time. And at that thought, a wave of cold terror washed over me and I felt a band of soreness across my middle, the chafing and bruising from hours spent tied facedown across a horse’s back, being carried helpless to—
“Stop that!” I said sharply to myself. “Stop it at once. I won’t have it.” They were teenaged boys. I wasn’t afraid of . . . But the first man to rape me had been about sixteen; he’d been apologetic about it. I stepped into a narrow alley between two buildings and threw up.
I’d managed to function. I got back to the Shippens’ house and collected my things, then returned to the printshop to eat lunch and pack up the rest of my herbs and medicines; Fergus and Germain would bring them to Chestnut Street on their afternoon delivery round.
No one had molested me on the way back to Chestnut Street. I could have asked Jenny to come with me, but pride prevented me. I would not let simple-minded fear stop me doing what needed to be done.
But how long can you keep doing it? And what’s the point?
“There’s always a point,” I muttered. “It’s someone’s life. That’s a point.”
A life that could be snatched away, thrown away, frittered on a battlefield . . . How many men had died that way? And it didn’t stop, it didn’t get better. . . . This was an early war, for God’s sake. An endless chain of wars lay between my lives: the Revolution here, the Great War at the other end—and constant slaughter in between.
The summer was dying; the air was beginning to have a hint of freshness in the mornings, but in midafternoon it still hung thick and heavy. Too heavy to draw a full breath.
I stood for a moment outside Number 17, feeling unequal to going in and dealing with things. After a moment, I turned down the path that led round the side of the house, out to the tiny garden at the back, and sat down on the bench there, among the roses, feeling most unwell.
I DON’T KNOW how long I had been sitting there, head in my hands, listening to the loud buzzing of bees. But I heard footsteps coming down the path and managed to lift my head.
“Are ye all right, Sassenach?” It was Jamie, the large box of medicines and bandages in his arms. And from the look of alarm on his face, it was reasonably obvious that I didn’t look all right. I couldn’t muster the energy to try to look all right.
“I just—thought I’d sit down,” I said, flapping a hand helplessly.
“I’m glad ye did.” He set down the box on the yellowing grass and came to crouch in front of me, examining my face. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said, and without warning began to cry. Or, rather, to leak. There was nothing of the sobbing, convulsive, racking nature of weeping; tears were just streaking down my cheeks without my approval.
Jamie nudged me over a little and sat down beside me, wrapping his arms around me. He was wearing his old kilt, and the smell of the dusty wool fabric, worn thin with age, made me utterly dissolve.
He tightened his grip and, sighing, pressed his cheek to my head and said small, tender things in Gaelic. And in a little time, the effort to understand them gave me a tenuous grip on myself. I drew a deep breath and he released me, though he kept an arm around me for support.
“Mo nighean donn,” he said softly, and smoothed hair out of my face. “Have ye got a hankie?”
That made me laugh. Or rather emit a sort of strangled giggle, but still . . .
“Yes. At least, I think so.” I groped in my bosom and withdrew a sturdy square of much-laundered linen, on which I blew my nose several times and then wiped my eyes, trying to think what on earth to offer as an explanation for my disordered state—of mind, as well as body. There wasn’t any good way to begin, so I just began.
“Do you ever—well, no. I know you do.”
“Likely,” he said, smiling a little. “What do I do?”
“See the . . . the void. The abyss.” Speaking the words reopened the rent in my soul, and the cold wind came through. A shudder ran through me, in spite of the warmth of the air and Jamie’s body. “I mean—it’s always there, always yawning at your feet, but most people manage to ignore it, not think about it. I’ve mostly been able to. You have to, to do medicine.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve, having dropped my handkerchief. Jamie pulled a crumpled hankie out of his sleeve and handed it to me.
“Ye dinna mean only death?” he asked. “Because I’ve seen that often enough. It hasna really scairt me since I was ten or so, though.” He glanced down at me and smiled. “And I doubt ye’re afraid of it, either. I’ve seen ye face it down a thousand times and more.”
“Facing something down doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid of it,” I said dryly. “Usually quite the opposite. And I know you know that.”
He made a small sound of agreement in his throat and hugged me gently. I would normally have found this comforting, and the fact that I didn’t merely added to my sense of despair.
“It’s—it’s just . . . nothing. And so much endless nothing . . . It’s as though nothing you do, nothing you are, can possibly matter, it’s all just swallowed up . . .” I closed my eyes, but the darkness behind my eyelids frightened me and I opened them again. “I—” I raised a hand, then let it fall.