Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
7th Jul 2013 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutMarch25th #YOUguyscanargueaboutJamie #Igotabooktowrite
The single bed was fairly large, though Jamie’s feet would still stick out by a good six inches. There was a wash-basin and ewer full of fresh water; I picked this up carefully and drank from it; my throat was dry from too much French wine. I replaced the ewer and sat down on the bed, feeling rather strange.
Possibly it was the wine. Possibly it was the fact that the room had no windows, and Mrs. [ ] had thoughtfully closed the door behind her. It was a small room; perhaps ten feet by eight. The air was still and the candle’s flame burned high and steady, pure against the bricks of the wall. Perhaps it was the candle that brought Uncle Lamb to mind, and the day he’d told me about Vestal Virgins, showing me a chalcedony carving from the temple of Vesta.
“Should a virgin betray her vows,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at me, “she’d be whipped, then sealed up alive in a small underground tomb, equipped with a table and chair, some water, and a single candle. And there she would die, when the air ran out.”
I’d considered that with a sort of morbid relish—I might have been ten—and then asked with interest just _how_ a Vestal might betray her vows. Which is how I learned what used to be called the Facts of Life, Uncle Lamb not being one to shirk any fact that wandered across his path, or mine. And while Uncle Lamb had assured me that the cult of Vesta had long since ceased operations, I had at that point resolved not to be a virgin, just in case. On the whole, a good resolution, though sleeping with men did have the most peculiar side effects.