Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
2nd Jan 2014 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutJUNE10th #housecall
I looked at the rather grubby sedan chair, inhaled the scent of several dozen previous users, and exhaled briskly.
“I can walk,” I said. “It’s not that far.”
“Ye’re not walking,” Jamie replied equably.
“You think you can stop me?”
“Aye, I do,” he said, still mildly. “I canna stop ye going—and I wouldna try—but I can, by God, make sure ye dinna fall on your face in the street on your way. Get in, Sassenach. Go slow,” he added to the chairmen, opening the door of the sedan and gesturing to me. “I’m coming, and I dinna mean to run so soon after supper.”
There being no reasonable alternative, I gathered the remnants of my dignity and got in. And with my basket of supplies settled at my feet and the window slid open as far as it would go—the memories of my last claustrophobic ride in a sedan chair were still vivid—we set off at a stately jog through the quiet night-time streets of Philadelphia.
The curfew had been eased of late, owing to protests from tavern owners—and, likely, their patrons—but the overall sense of the city was still edgy, and there were no respectable women on the street, no gangs of rowdy apprentices or any of the slaves who worked for their masters but lived elsewhere. I saw one whore, standing by the mouth of an alley; she whistled at Jamie and called out an invitation, but half-heartedly.
“Her pimp’ll be a-hiding in the alley with a cosh, lay you three to one,” the chairman behind me remarked. “Ain’t as safe as when the army was here.”
“Think not?” His partner grunted, then found breath to reply. “Army was here when that officer got his throat cut in a whorehouse. Reckon ‘s why that drab’s out here in her shift.” He gulped air and went on. “How you mean to settle the bet, then? Go with her yourself?”
“May be as this gentleman’d do us the service,” the other said, a laugh in his voice.
“It may be that he won’t,” I said, sticking my head out the window and turning to speak backward. “But I’ll go and look, if you like.”