The Space Between (Outlander, #7.5)(22)
Next day
She could smell the h?pital long before the small group of new postulants reached the door. They walked two by two, practicing custody of the eyes, but she couldn’t help a quick glance upward at the building, a three-story chateau, originally a noble house that had—rumor said—been given to Mother Hildegarde by her father, as part of her dowry when she joined the church. It had become a convent house and then gradually had been given over more and more to the care of the sick, the nuns moving to the new chateau built in the park.
It was a lovely old house—on the outside. The odor of sickness, of urine and shit and vomit, hung about it like a cloying veil, though, and she hoped she wouldn’t vomit, too. The little postulant next to her, Sister Miséricorde de Dieu (known to all simply as Mercy), was as white as her veil, eyes fixed on the ground but obviously not seeing it: she stepped smack on a slug and gave a small cry of horror as it squished under her sandal.
Joan looked hastily away; she would never master custody of the eyes, she was sure. Nor yet custody of thought.
It wasn’t the notion of sick people that troubled her. She’d seen sick people before, and they wouldn’t be expecting her to do more than wash and feed them; she could manage that easily. It was fear of seeing those who were about to die—for surely there would be a great many of those in a hospital. And what might the voices tell her about them?
As it was, the voices had nothing to say. Not a word, and after a little she began to lose her nervousness. She could do this and in fact, to her surprise, quite enjoyed the sense of competence, the gratification of being able to ease someone’s pain, give them at least a little attention—and if her French made them laugh (and it did), that at least took their minds off pain and fear for a moment.
There were those who lay under the veil of death. Only a few, though, and it seemed somehow much less shocking here than when she had seen it on Vhairi’s lad or the young man on the ship. Maybe it was resignation, perhaps the influence of the angels for whom the h?pital was named … Joan didn’t know, but she found that she wasn’t afraid to speak to or touch the ones she knew were going to die. For that matter, she observed that the other sisters, even the orderlies, behaved gently toward these people, and it occurred to her that no particular sight was needed to know that the man with the wasting sickness, whose bones poked through his skin, was not long for this world.
Touch him, said a soft voice inside her head. Comfort him.
All right, she said, taking a deep breath. She had no idea how to comfort anyone, but she bathed him, as gently as she could, and coaxed him to take a few spoonsful of porridge. Then she settled him in his bed, straightening his nightshirt and the thin blanket over him.
“Thank you, Sister,” he said, and, taking her hand, kissed it. “Thank you for your sweet touch.”
She went back to the postulants’ dormitory that evening feeling thoughtful, but with a strange sense of being on the verge of discovering something important.
That night
Rakoczy lay with his head on Madeleine’s bosom, eyes closed, breathing the scent of her body, feeling the whole of her between his palms, a slowly pulsing entity of light. She was a gentle gold, traced with veins of incandescent blue, her heart deep as lapis beneath his ear, a living stone. And, deep inside, her red womb, open, soft. Refuge and succor. Promise.
Mélisande had shown him the rudiments of sexual magic, and he’d read about it with great interest in some of the older alchemical texts. He’d never tried it with a whore, though—and, in fact, hadn’t been trying to do it this time. And yet it had happened. Was happening. He could see the miracle unfolding slowly before him, under his hands.
How odd, he thought dreamily, watching the tiny traces of green energy spread upward through her womb, slowly but inexorably. He’d thought it happened instantly, that a man’s seed found its root in the woman and there you were. But that wasn’t what was happening at all. There were two types of seed, he now saw. She had one; he felt it plainly, a brilliant speck of light, glowing like a fierce, tiny sun. His own—the tiny green animalcula—were being drawn toward it, bent on immolation.
“Happy, chéri?” she whispered, stroking his hair. “Did you have a good time?”
“Most happy, sweetheart.” He wished she wouldn’t talk, but an unexpected sense of tenderness toward her made him sit up and smile at her. She also began to sit up, reaching for the clean rag and douching syringe, and he put a hand on her shoulder, urging her to lie back down.
“Don’t douche this time, ma belle,” he said. “A favor to me.”
“But—” She was confused; usually he was insistent upon cleanliness. “Do you want me to get with child?” For he had stopped her using the wine-soaked sponge beforehand, too.
“Yes, of course,” he said, surprised. “Did Madame Fabienne not tell you?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“She did not. What—why, for God’s sake?” In agitation, she squirmed free of his restraining hand and swung her legs out of bed, reaching for her wrapper. “You aren’t—what do you mean to do with it?”
“Do with it?” he said, blinking. “What do you mean, do with it?”
She had the wrapper on, pulled crookedly round her shoulders, and had backed up against the wall, hands plastered against her stomach, regarding him with open fear.