Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
27th Feb 2014 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WrittenINMyOWNHeartsBLOOD #Book8 #OutJUNE10th #bedsidemanner
I folded the cloth into a tidy square and used the tongs to dip it in the steaming caldron, then stood waving it gently to and fro until the compress should cool enough for me to wring it out and use it. Joanie sighed, fidgeting on her stool.
“Don’t rub your eye,” I said automatically, seeing her curled fist steal toward the large pink stye on her right eyelid. “Don’t fret; it won’t take long.”
“Yes, it does take long,” she said crossly. “It takes _forever_!”
“Dinna be giving your grannie sauce,” Marsali told her, pausing in her stride on the way from kitchen to print-shop, a cheese-roll for Fergus in her hand. “Hauld your wheesht and be grateful.”
Joanie groaned and writhed, and stuck her tongue out after her departing mother, but whipped it back into her mouth again and looked rather shame-faced when she caught sight of my raised brow.
“I know,” I said, with some sympathy. Holding a warm compress on a stye for ten minutes did feel like forever. Particularly if you’d been doing it six times a day for the last two days. “Maybe you can think of something to pass the time. You could recite me the multiplication tables while I grind valerian root.”
“Oh, _Grannie_!” she said, exasperated, and I laughed.
“Here you go,” I said, handing her the warm poultice. “Do you know any good songs?”
She exhaled moodily, small nostrils flaring.
“I wish Grand-da was here,” she said. “_He_ could tell me a story.” The note of comparative accusation was clear in her voice.
“Spell ‘hordeolum’ for me and I’ll tell you the one about the waterhorse’s wife,” I suggested. That made her unaffected eye fly open with interest.
“What’s a hordeolum?”
“That’s the scientific name for a stye.”
“Oh.” She seemed unimpressed by this, but her forehead creased a little in concentration, and I could see her lips move as she sounded out the syllables. Both Joanie and Felicitè were good spellers; they’d been playing with lead type since they were toddlers and loved stumping each other with new words.