She drew a long, quavering breath and nodded.

“Stay while I take the ball out,” I said, and reached to take her hand. “It won’t take long, and you’ll be sure he’s alive.”

111

Morning Has Broken

IT WAS STILL RAINING, but the day was near. I made my way slowly toward the dim glow of the kitchen, not quite leaning on the walls as I passed, but letting my fingertips touch them now and then, to make sure that I was where I thought I was. The house was still and smelled of blood and burnt things, but the air was cool and gray with coming dawn, the desk and chairs in Jamie’s study a monochrome still life painted on the wall—and yet my fingertips passed through empty air as I walked past the doorway, my footsteps inaudible to my own ears, as though I were the ghost who haunted this house.

Most of the men had left for their own homes, but there were a few bodies on the floor of the parlor. I had left Charles Cunningham sleeping on the table, under the influence of a lot of laudanum, and Elspeth dozing in my surgery chair, head nodding on her neck like a dandelion. I wasn’t going to wake her; the Loyalist wounded would have to see to themselves—or their wives would.

In the kitchen, Fanny was sound asleep, sprawled facedown on one of the wide benches, one leg dangling comically to the side. Bluebell was curled up below her, also sound asleep, and Jamie was on his back on the hearth rug, looking like a desecrated tomb effigy in the dying light of the fire. It was smoking and nearly out; no one had smoored it properly. He opened his eyes at the sound of my footsteps and looked up at me, heavy-lidded but alert.

“Come and sit down, Sassenach,” he murmured, and lifted a finger vaguely at a nearby stool. “Ye look worse than I do.”

“Not possible,” I said. But I did sit down. Tiredness flooded up from the aching soles of my feet, closing my eyes as it rose through my body like a spring tide—filled with churning sand and fragments of sharp shell and seaweed. A warm hand curled around my ankle and rested there.

“How do you feel?” I murmured. I did want to know, but was having trouble opening my eyes to look.

“I’ll do. Hand me the wee jar, Sassenach.” The hand left my ankle and rose up to my lap, where I was holding the small jar of alcohol and sutures. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll do what?” I opened my eyes and stared at him. “Stitch your own chest back together?”

“I thought that might wake ye up.” He dropped his arm. “Help me get up, a nighean. I’m stiff as parritch on the third day and I dinna want ye crouchin’ on the floor to stitch me. Besides, I might wake the wee lassie if ye make me howl.”