Virgins_ An Outlander Novella (Outlander #0.5) - Diana Gabaldon Page 0,17

choose from. I wish—ah, feckit. D’ye want something to eat?”

Ian shook his head. The barmaid brought them a jug of wine, glanced at them, and dismissed them as negligible. It was rough wine that took the skin off the insides of your mouth, but it had a decent taste to it, under the resin fumes, and wasn’t too much watered. Jamie drank deep, and faster than he generally did; he was uneasy in his skin, prickling and irritable, and wanted the feeling to go away.

There were a few women in the place, not many. Jamie had to think that whoring maybe wasn’t a profitable business, wretched as most of the poor creatures looked, raddled and half-toothless. Maybe it wore them down, having to … He turned away from the thought and finding the jug empty, waved to the barmaid for another.

Juanito gave a joyful whoop and said something in Ladino. Looking in that direction, Jamie saw one of the whores who’d been lurking in the shadows come gliding purposefully in, bending down to give Juanito a congratulatory kiss as he scooped in his winnings. Jamie snorted a little, trying to blow the smell of her out of his neb—she’d passed by close enough that he’d got a good whiff of her: a stink of rancid sweat and dead fish. Alexandre had told him that was from unclean privates, and he believed it.

He went back to the wine. Ian was matching him, cup for cup, and likely for the same reason. His friend wasn’t usually irritable or crankit, but if he was well put out, he’d often stay that way until the next dawn—a good sleep erased his bad temper, but ’til then you didn’t want to rile him.

He shot a sidelong glance at Ian. He couldn’t tell Ian about Jenny. He just … couldn’t. But neither could he think about her, left alone at Lallybroch … maybe with ch—

“Oh, God,” he said, under his breath. “No. Please. No.”

“Dinna come back,” Murtagh had said, and plainly meant it. Well, he would go back—but not yet awhile. It wouldn’t help his sister, him going back just now and bringing Randall and the redcoats straight to her like flies to a fresh-killed deer … He shoved that analogy hastily out of sight, horrified. The truth was, it made him sick with shame to think about Jenny, and he tried not to—and was the more ashamed because he mostly succeeded.

Ian’s gaze was fixed on another of the harlots. She was old, in her thirties at least, but had most of her teeth and was cleaner than most. She was flirting with Juanito and Raoul, too, and Jamie wondered whether she’d mind if she found out they were Jews. Maybe a whore couldn’t afford to be choosy.

His treacherous mind at once presented him with a picture of his sister, obliged to follow that walk of life to feed herself, made to take any man who … Blessed Mother, what would the folk, the tenants, the servants, do to her if they found out what had happened? The talk … He shut his eyes tight, hoping to block the vision.

“That one’s none sae bad,” Ian said meditatively, and Jamie opened his eyes. The better-looking whore had bent over Juanito, deliberately rubbing her breast against his warty ear. “If she doesna mislike a Jew, maybe she’d …”

The blood flamed up in Jamie’s face.

“If ye’ve got any thought to my sister, ye’re no going to—to—pollute yourself wi’ a French whore!”

Ian’s face went blank, but then flooded with color in turn.

“Oh, aye? And if I said your sister wasna worth it?”

Jamie’s fist caught him in the eye and he flew backward, overturning the bench and crashing into the next table. Jamie scarcely noticed, the agony in his hand shooting fire and brimstone from his crushed knuckles up his forearm. He rocked to and fro, injured hand clutched between his thighs, cursing freely in three languages.

Ian sat on the floor, bent over, holding his eye and breathing through his mouth in short gasps. After a minute, he straightened up. His eye was puffing already, leaking tears down his lean cheek. He got up, shaking his head slowly, and put the bench back in place. Then he sat down, picked up his cup and took a deep gulp, put it down and blew out his breath. He took the snot-rag Jamie was holding out to him and dabbed at his eye.

“Sorry,” Jamie managed. The agony in his hand was beginning to