Jamie looked at me for a moment, then smiled in wry realization.
“Ye still think they’re honorable men, don’t ye, Sassenach? The British army?”
“I—well, some of them are, aren’t they?” I said, rather taken aback by this question. “Lord John? His brother?”
“Mmphm.” It was a grudging acquiescence that stopped well short of full agreement. “Did I ever tell ye what His Grace did to me twenty years ago?”
“Actually, no, I don’t think so.” I wasn’t surprised that he should still carry a grudge about it, whatever it was, but that could wait. “As for the army in general … well, I suppose you have some small point. But I fought with the British army, you know—”
“Aye, I do,” he said. “But—”
“Just listen. I lived with them, I fought with them, I mended them and nursed them and held them when they died. Just—just as I did when we fought—” I had to stop and clear my throat. “When we fought for the Stuarts. And …” My voice faltered.
“And what?” He stood very still, leaning on his fists on the kitchen table, eyes fixed on my face.
“And a good officer would never leave his men.”
The big room was silent save for the murmur of the fire and the bumping of the kettle, about to boil. I closed my eyes, thinking, Beauchamp, you idiot … Because he’d done that. Abandoned his men at Monmouth, in order to save my life. It didn’t matter that the battle was over, the enemy in retreat, that there was no danger to the men at that point, that nearly all of them were militia on temporary enlistment, whose service would be legally up by the next day’s dawn. Many had left already. But it didn’t matter. He’d left his men.
“Aye,” he said softly, and I opened my eyes. He straightened up slowly, stretching his back. “Well, then. D’ye think Ulysses is that kind of officer? Will he come back for his corporal?”
“I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “What will you do if he does?”
He looked down at the tabletop, frowning as though the scrubbed oak planks might be a scrying-glass that would show him the future.
“No,” he said at last, and shook himself. “Nay, he won’t come himself, but he likely will send someone else. He won’t come within my grasp, and me warned, but he’ll not leave the man.” He thought for another moment and nodded, to himself as much as me.
“Can ye mend him so that he can travel, Sassenach?”
“Yes, within limits. That’s why I asked you.”
“Do that, then, if ye will. When it’s over, I’ll talk to Corporal Jackson and make out what to do.”
“Jamie.” He’d turned to go, but stopped and turned round to face me.
“Aye?”
“You’re honorable. I know it, and so do you.” He smiled a little at that.
“I try to be. But war’s war, Sassenach. Honor only makes it a bit easier to live wi’ yourself, afterward.”
I WAS MORE than a little perturbed by that “and make out what to do,” but I wasn’t personally equipped to do more than reduce Corporal Jackson’s fracture, stop the bleeding, and relieve his pain, so far as possible.
“Right,” I said to Jamie. “I’m going to need you, though, for a few minutes. Someone’s got to hold on to him while I pull his leg straight, and Fanny’s nowhere near tall or strong enough.”
Jamie looked less than enthused at this prospect, but followed me back to the surgery, where I explained things to the corporal.
“You haven’t got to do a thing but lie still and relax as much as you can.”
“I will do my best, madam.” He was sweating and clammy and his lips were nearly white. I hesitated for a moment, but then reached for my ether bottle. The possible strain on his heart versus the advantages of his leg being completely limp … no contest.
“I’m going to make you fall asleep,” I said, showing him the wickerwork mask and the dropping bottle. “I’ll put this mask on your face, and then put a few drops of this liquid onto it. It smells a little … odd, but if you just breathe normally, you’ll go to sleep and it won’t hurt when I set your leg.”
The corporal looked more than dubious about this, but before he could protest, Jamie squeezed his shoulder.
“If I wanted to kill ye, I’d just have drowned you in the creek or shot ye,” he said, “rather than lug ye all the way uphill so my wife could poison ye. Now lie down.” He pressed Jackson’s shoulders firmly down and the man gave way, reluctantly.
His eyes above the mask were wild, glancing to and fro as though bidding a final farewell to his surroundings.
“It will be all right,” I said, as reassuringly as possible.
He made a sudden, urgent sound and, reaching up, took hold of the dangling small leather bag that had slipped out from its place between my breasts when I bent over him.
“What is this?” he demanded, pushing the wicker mask aside with his other hand. He looked shocked. “What is in it?”
“Ahh … to be honest, I don’t know, exactly,” I said, and took it gingerly from his fingers. “It’s a … um … I suppose you’d call it a medicine bag—a sort of … amulet? An Indian healer gave it to me, some years ago, and once in a long while, I add something to it—a stone, perhaps, or a bit of herb. But … it didn’t seem right to pour out what she’d put in.”
His look of shock had faded into one of intense interest, tinged with what looked like respect. He put out a tentative forefinger and, raising one brow to ask my permission, touched the worn leather. And I felt it. A faint pulse that throbbed once, against the palm of my hand.
He saw me feel it and his face changed. It was still gray with pain and cold and blood loss, but he was no longer scared—of me, Jamie, or anything else.
“It is your moco,” he said softly and nodded, certain.
“Moco?” I said, not certain at all, but having some notion what he meant. Surely he hadn’t said mojo …
“Yes.” He nodded again and took a long, deep breath, his eyes still fixed on the bag. “My great-grandmama, she is Gullah. She is a hoodoo. I think you are one, too, madam.”
He turned his head abruptly to Jamie.
“Will you help me, sir? In my sack—a piece of red flannel cloth, with a pin stuck through.”
Jamie looked at me in question, but I nodded, and shaking his head he went to pick up a ragged rucksack, dumped in the corner of the room. In a moment, he came back, a small red bundle in his hand.
Jackson nodded his thanks and, rolling onto one elbow, carefully pulled the pin, unfolded the cloth, and stirred the contents with a careful forefinger. A moment later, he picked something from the rubble of stones and feathers and seeds, dried leaves and scraps of wood and iron, and beckoned to me to put my hand out, then deposited something dark and hard in my palm.
“This is High John the Conqueror,” he said. “My great-grandmama gives him to me, and says to me it is man’s medicine and will heal me if I am hurt or sick. You put this into your moco before you put your hands on me, please.”
It was a dried nodular root, so dark a brown as to be almost black, but a very peculiar one. I could see why his great-grandmother said it was man’s medicine, though: it looked exactly like a tiny pair of testicles.