Outlander 03 - Voyager полностью

I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug, nor give advice which may cause his death. But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art. In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction, and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves. All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or outside of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal. If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”

I opened my eyes, to find him looking down at me thoughtfully. “Er…parts of it are just for tradition,” I explained.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “I see,” he said. “Well, the first part sounds a wee bit pagan, but I like the part about how ye willna seduce anyone.”

“I thought you’d like that one,” I said dryly. “Captain Leonard’s virtue is safe with me.”

He gave a small snort and leaned back against the ladder, running one hand slowly through his hair.

“Is that how it’s done, then, in the company of physicians?” he asked. “Ye hold yourself bound to help whoever calls for it, even an enemy?”

“It doesn’t make a great difference, you know, if they’re ill or hurt.” I looked up, searching his face for understanding.

“Aye, well,” he said slowly. “I’ve taken an oath now and then, myself—and none of them lightly.” He reached out and took my right hand, his fingers resting on my silver ring. “Some weigh heavier than others, though,” he said, watching my face in turn.

He was very close to me, the sun from the hatchway overhead striping the linen of his sleeve, the skin of his hand a deep ruddy bronze where it cradled my own white fingers, and the glinting silver of my wedding ring.

“It does,” I said softly, speaking to his thought. “You know it does.” I laid my other hand against his chest, its gold ring glowing in a bar of sunlight. “But where one vow can be kept, without damage to another…?”

He sighed, deeply enough to move the hand on my chest, then bent and kissed me, very gently.

“Aye, well, I wouldna have ye be forsworn,” he said, straightening up with a wry twist to his mouth. “You’re sure of this vaccination of yours? It does work?”

“It works,” I assured him.

“Perhaps I should go with ye,” he said, frowning slightly.

“You can’t—you haven’t been vaccinated, and typhoid’s awfully contagious.”

“You’re only thinking it’s typhoid, from what Leonard says,” he pointed out. “Ye dinna ken for sure that it’s that.”

“No,” I admitted. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

I was assisted up onto the deck of the Porpoise by means of a bosun’s chair, a terrorizing swing over empty air and frothing sea. I landed ignominiously in a sprawl on the deck. Once I regained my feet, I was astonished to find how solid the deck of the man-of-war felt, compared to the tiny, pitching quarterdeck of the Artemis, far below. It was like standing on the Rock of Gibraltar.

My hair had blown loose during the trip between the ships; I twisted it up and repinned it as best I could, then reached to take the medicine box I had brought from the midshipman who held it.

“You’d best show me where they are,” I said. The wind was brisk, and I was aware that it was taking a certain amount of work on the part of both crews to keep the two ships close together, even as both drifted leeward.

It was dark in the tween-decks, the confined space lit by small oil lamps that hung from the ceiling, swaying gently with the rise and fall of the ship, so that the ranks of hammocked men lay in deep shadow, blotched with dim patches of light from above. They looked like pods of whales, or sleeping sea beasts, lying humped and black, side by side, swaying with the movement of the sea beneath.