He started to shrug, then stopped abruptly, groaning.
“A good time. It was just past noon when I jumped off a wee crop of rock. It wasna more than a few feet high, but when I landed on one foot, my back went click! and next I knew, I was on my face in the dirt, feelin’ as though someone had stabbed me in the spine wi’ a dirk.”
It wasn’t warm in our snug, by any means; the damp from the leaves was seeping in and the rock at my back seemed to radiate coldness, like some sort of reverse furnace. Still, it was noticeably less cold than it was outside. I began shivering again, for purely physical reasons.
Jamie felt me, and groped at his throat.
“Can ye get my cloak unfastened, Sassenach? Put it over ye.”
It took some maneuvering, and the cost of a few muffled oaths from Jamie as he tried to shift his weight, but I got it loose at last, and spread it over the two of us. I reached down and laid a cautious hand on his back, gently rucking up his shirt to put my hand on cool, bare flesh.
“Tell me where it hurts,” I said. I hoped to hell he hadn’t slipped a disc; hideous thoughts of his being permanently crippled raced through my mind, along with pragmatic considerations of how I was to get him off the mountain, even if he wasn’t. Would I have to leave him here, and fetch food up to him daily until he recovered?
“Right there,” he said, with a hiss of indrawn breath. “Aye, that’s it. A wicked stab just there, and if I move, it runs straight down the back o’ my leg, like a red-hot wire.”
I felt very carefully, with both hands now, probing and pressing, urging him to try to lift one leg, right, now the other knee…no?
“No,” he assured me. “Dinna be worrit, though, Sassenach. It’s the same as before. It gets better.”
“Yes, you said it happened before. When was that?”
He stirred briefly and settled, pressing back against my palms with a small groan.
“Och! Damn, that hurts. At the prison.”
“Pain in the same place?”
“Aye.”
I could feel a hard knot in the muscle on his right side, just below the kidney, and a bunching in the erector spinae, the long muscles near the spine. From his description of the prior occurrence, I was fairly sure it was only severe muscle spasm. For which the proper prescription was warmth, rest, and anti-inflammatory medication.
Couldn’t get much further away from those conditions, I thought with some grimness.
“I suppose I could try acupuncture,” I said, thinking aloud. “I’ve got Mr. Willoughby’s needles in my pouch, and—”
“Sassenach,” he said, in measured tones. “I can stand fine bein’ hurt, cold, and hungry. I wilna put up wi’ being stabbed in the back by my own wife. Can ye not offer a bit of sympathy and comfort instead?”
I laughed, and slid an arm around him, pressing close against his back. I let my hand slide down and rest in delicate suggestion, well below his navel.
“Er…what sort of comfort did you have in mind?”
He hastily grasped my hand, to prevent further intrusions.
“Not that,” he said.
“Might take your mind off the pain.” I wiggled my fingers invitingly, and he tightened his grip.
“I daresay,” he said dryly. “Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach; once we’ve got home, and I’ve a warm bed to lie in and a hot supper in my belly, that notion might have a good bit of appeal. As it is, the thought of—for Christ’s sake, have ye not the slightest idea how cold your hands are, woman?”
I laid my cheek against his back and laughed. I could feel the quiver of his own mirth, though he couldn’t laugh aloud without hurting his back.
At last we lay silent, listening to the whisper of falling snow. It was dark under the hemlock boughs, but my eyes were adapted enough to be able to see patches of the oddly glowing snow-light through the screen of needles overhead. Tiny flakes came through the open patches; I could see it in some places, as a thin cloud of white mist, and I could feel the cold tingle as it struck my face.
Jamie himself was no more than a humped dark shape in front of me, though as my eyes became accustomed to the murk, I could see the paler stalk where his neck emerged between his shirt and his queued hair. The queue itself lay cool and smooth against my face; by turning my head only a bit, I could brush it with my lips.
“What time do you think it is?” I asked. I had no idea, myself; I had left the house well after dark, and spent what seemed an eternity looking for him on the mountain.
“Late,” he said. “It will be a long time before the dawn, though,” he added, answering my real question. “It’s just past the solstice, aye? It’s one of the longest nights of the year.”
“Oh, lovely,” I said, in dismay. I wasn’t warm, by any means—I still couldn’t feel my toes—but I had stopped shivering. A dreadful lethargy was stealing over me, my muscles yielding to fatigue and cold. I had visions of the two of us freezing peacefully together, curled up like hedgehogs in the leaves. They did say it was a comfortable death, but that didn’t make the prospect any more appealing.
Jamie’s breathing was getting slower and deeper.
“Don’t go to sleep!” I said urgently, poking him in the armpit.
“Agh!” He pressed his arm tight to his side, recoiling. “Why not?”
“We mustn’t sleep; we’ll freeze to death.”
“No, we won’t,” he said crossly. “It’s snowing outside; we’ll be covered over soon.”
“I know that,” I said, rather cross in my turn. “What’s that got to do with it?”
He tried to turn his head to look at me, but couldn’t, quite.
“Snow’s cold if ye touch it,” he explained, striving for patience, “but it keeps the cold out, aye? Like a blanket. It’s a great deal warmer in a house that’s covered wi’ snow than one that’s standing clean in the wind. How d’ye think bears manage? They sleep in the winter, and they dinna freeze.”
“They have layers of fat,” I protested. “I thought that kept them warm.”
“Ha ha,” he said, and reaching back with some effort, grabbed me firmly by the bottom. “Well, then, ye needna worry a bit, eh?”
With great deliberation I pulled down his collar, stretched my head up, and licked the back of his neck, in a lingering swipe from nape to hairline.
“Aaah!” He shuddered violently, making a sprinkle of snow fall from the branches above us. He let go of my bottom to scrub at the back of his neck.
“That was a terrible thing to do!” he said, reproachful. “And me lyin’ here helpless as a log!”
“Bah, humbug,” I said. I nestled closer, feeling somewhat reassured. “You’re sure we aren’t going to freeze to death, then?”
“No,” he said. “But I shouldna think it likely.”
“Hm,” I said, feeling somewhat less reassured. “Well, perhaps we’d better stay awake for a bit, then, just in case?”
“I wilna wave my arms about anymore,” he said definitely. “There’s no room. And if ye stick your icy wee paws in my breeks, I swear I’ll throttle ye, bad back or no.”