Virgins: An Outlander Novella by Diana Gabaldon Read Free Book Online

closed his eyes and tried to keep the scent of her in his mind—he couldn’t keep it in his nose, as the doctor was now anointing him with something vile-smelling. He could smell himself, too, and his jaw prickled with embarrassment; he reeked of stale sweat, campfire smoke, and fresh blood.
    He could hear D’Eglise and Ian talking in the parlor, low-voiced, discussing whether to come and rescue him. He would have called out to them, save that he couldn’t bear the captain to see…He pressed his lips together tight. Aye, well, it was nearly done; he could tell from the doctor’s slower movements, almost gentle now.
    “Rebekah!” the doctor called, impatient, and the girl appeared an instant later, a small cloth bundle in one hand. The doctor let off a short burst of words, then pressed a thin cloth of some sort over Jamie’s back; it stuck to the nasty ointment.
    “Grandfather says the cloth will protect your shirt until the ointment is absorbed,” she told him. “By the time it falls off—don’t peel it off, let it come off by itself—the wounds will be scabbed, but the scabs should be soft and not crack.”
    The doctor took his hand off Jamie’s shoulder, and Jamie shot to his feet, looking round for his shirt. Rebekah handed it to him. Her eyes were fastened on his naked chest, and he was—for the first time in his life—embarrassed by the fact that he possessed nipples. An extraordinary but not unpleasant tingle made the curly hairs on his body stand up.
    “Thank you—ah, I mean…
gracias, señor.
” His face was flaming, but he bowed to the doctor with as much grace as he could muster.
“Muchas gracias.”
    “De nada,”
the old man said gruffly, with a dismissive wave of one hand. He pointed at the small bundle in his granddaughter’s hand. “Drink. No fever. No dream.” And then, surprisingly, he smiled.
    “Shalom,”
he said, and made a shooing gesture.
    —
    D’Eglise, looking pleased with the new job, left Ian and Jamie at a large tavern called
Le Poulet Gai,
where some of the other mercenaries were enjoying themselves—in various ways. The Cheerful Chicken most assuredly did boast a brothel on the upper floor, and slatternly women in various degrees of undress wandered freely through the lower rooms, picking up new customers with whom they vanished upstairs.
    The two tall young Scots provoked a certain amount of interest from the women, but when Ian solemnly turned his empty purse inside out in front of them—he having put his money inside his shirt for safety—they left the lads alone.
    “Couldna look at one of those,” Ian said, turning his back on the whores and devoting himself to his ale. “Not after seein’ the wee Jewess up close. Did ye ever seen anything like?”
    Jamie shook his head, deep in his own drink. It was sour and fresh and went down a treat, parched as he was from the ordeal in Dr. Hasdi’s surgery. He could still smell the ghost of Rebekah’s scent, vanilla and roses, a fugitive fragrance among the reeks of the tavern. He fumbled in his sporran, bringing out the little cloth bundle Rebekah had given him.
    “She said—well, the doctor said—I was to drink this. How, d’ye think?” The bundle held a mixture of broken leaves, small sticks, and a coarse powder, and smelled strongly of something he’d never smelled before. Not bad; just odd.
    Ian frowned at it. “Well…ye’d brew a tea of it, I suppose,” he said. “How else?”
    “I havena got anything to brew it in,” Jamie said. “I was thinkin’…maybe put it in the ale?”
    “Why not?”
    —
    Ian wasn’t paying much attention; he was watching Mathieu Pig-face, who was standing against a wall, summoning whores as they passed by, looking them up and down, and occasionally fingering the merchandise before sending each one on with a smack on the rear.
    He wasn’t really tempted—the women scairt him, to be honest—but he was curious. If he ever
should
…how did ye start? Just grab, like