JOHN GREY WOKE feverish and heavy-limbed, with a pounding headache, and a stabbing pain in his left eye when he tried to open it. Both his eyes were crusted and gummy. He’d been dreaming in vivid, fractured swaths, a confusion of images, voices, emotions . . . Jamie Fraser had been shouting at him, face dark with passion, but then something changed, some sort of pursuit began, and he fell back into queasy nightmare. They were running together through a bog, a sucking quagmire that pulled at his steps, and Fraser was struggling just ahead of him, trapped, shouting at him to go back, but he couldn’t, his feet were mired fast and he was sinking, flailing madly but unable to get a purchase on anything . . .
“Gaah!” A hand shook him by the shoulder, startling him out of the morass. He pried his good eye open and saw the wavering form of a neat young man in a dark coat and spectacles, peering down at him in an oddly familiar way.
“John Grey?” said the young man.
“I am,” he said. He swallowed painfully. “Have I—the honor of your acquaintance, sir?”
The young man flushed a bit.
“Thee has, Friend Grey,” he said, low-voiced. “I am—”
“Oh!” Grey said, sitting up in a rush. “Of course, you—oh. Oh, Jesus.” His head, disturbed by the abrupt change of posture, had apparently decided to fly off his shoulders and thump into the nearest wall. The young man . . . Hunter, he thought, finding the name turn up with an odd neatness among the chaos inside his skull. Dr. Hunter. Dottie’s Quaker.
“I think thee had best lie down, Friend.”
“I think I had best vomit first.”
Hunter snatched the pot out from under the cot just in time. By the time he had administered water—“Drink slowly, Friend, if thee wishes to keep it”—and eased Grey back down on the cot, Colonel Smith was looming up behind him.
“What do you say, Doctor?” Smith was frowning and seemed worried. “Is he in his right mind? He was singing last night, now he’s been moaning and saying odd things, and the look of him . . .” Smith grimaced in a fashion that made Grey wonder what the devil he did look like.
“He’s badly fevered,” Hunter said, with a piercing look through his spectacles as he bent to take hold of Grey’s wrist. “And thee sees the condition of his eye. It would be dangerous to move him. A further extravasation of blood into the brain . . .”
Smith made a discontented noise and compressed his lips. He nudged Hunter aside and bent over Grey.
“Can you hear me, Colonel?” he asked, speaking in the slow, distinct manner one used with idiots and foreigners.
“Ich bin ein Fisch . . .” Grey murmured beatifically, and closed his eyes.
“His pulse is much disordered,” Hunter said warningly, his thumb pressing Grey’s wrist. His hand was cool and firm; Grey found the touch comforting. “I really cannot answer for the consequences should he be moved abruptly.”
“I see.” Smith stood still for a moment; Grey could hear his heavy breathing but forbore opening his eyes. “Very well, then.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “If Mohammed cannot go to the mountain, then the mountain will jolly well have to come here. I’ll send a note to General Wayne. Do what you can, please, to see that he’s coherent, Doctor?”
HE COULD SEE Denzell Hunter out of his damaged eye; that was reassuring: he wasn’t blind. Yet. Hunter had removed his spectacles in order to peer more closely into the injured organ; he had very nice eyes himself, Grey thought—the iris just the light-brown color of the flesh of a ripe olive, with tiny streaks of deep green.
“Look up, please,” Hunter murmured.
Grey tried to oblige.
“Ow!”
“No? Look down.” This attempt was no more successful, nor could he move the eye to the right or left. It seemed to have solidified in its socket, like a hard-boiled egg. He put this theory to Hunter, who smiled, though in a rather worried way.
“There is a great deal of swelling, to be sure. Whatever struck thee did so with a good deal of force.” Hunter’s fingers moved gently over Grey’s face, prodding here and there in a questioning manner. “Does this—”
“Yes, he did. Don’t keep asking if it hurts; everything from my scalp to my chin hurts, including my left ear. What you said regarding extravasation of blood into the brain—did you mean it?”
“It’s possible.” Hunter did smile at that, though. “But since thee has shown no disposition to seizure or unconsciousness—save that due to alcohol—and thee apparently walked for several hours following the injury, I think perhaps the probability is lower. There is bleeding beneath the sclera, though.” His cool fingertips brushed the puffy lid. “Thy eyeball is crimson, as is the lining of thy eyelid. It’s rather . . . dramatic.” There was a distinct tone of amusement in this, which Grey found reassuring.
“Oh, good,” he said dryly. “How long will it take to go away?”
That made the Quaker grimace and shake his head.
“The blood will take a week to a month to clear; it’s essentially the same as mere bruising—the bursting of small blood vessels under the skin. What worries me is thy inability to move the eye. I think thee has a fracture of the bony orbit, which is somehow trapping the orbicularis muscle. I do wish thy wife was here; she has a much greater—”
“My wife,” Grey said blankly. “Oh!” Memory and realization collided, and he felt a sudden leap of spirit. “She isn’t my wife! Not anymore,” he added, and found himself grinning. He leaned forward to whisper into Hunter’s astonished ear, “Jamie Fraser isn’t dead!”