Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 38 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
We start with Claire thinking about the months since Prestonpans. It’s now winter, and she needs to help everyone who has a common cold. In this time, the cold could lead to far more serious problems.
She’s most concerned about Jamie and Fergus. They are burning up. So, she makes sure they’re put to bed and tells everyone that they are staying there. Doctor’s orders!
Charles is not one to argue with Claire. We still get this sense that he’s terrified of her, despite being around her for months now.
There is a part of the chapter that involves Claire thinking about how she hadn’t contracted a simple cold or the flu during her time in the past. Her only illness has been childbed fever, which isn’t really an illness but due to a number of factors. She thinks about how colds are adapted strains. Children get ill a lot, but the elderly will barely have colds. It’s all linked to the development of the immune system.
Claire considers whether immunity can be passed one. Something I wondered was whether the strains of the past are all those she’s already development immunity to due to the adapted strains in the future. Or does it have something to do with her own healing powers?
While Jamie and Fergus sleep off their illnesses, Claire gets a visit from an unlikely person. Black Jack Randall needs her help. He’s willing to make a bargain for her help, too, betraying his own people to make sure his brother is taken care of.
It turns out Alexander Randall returned to England with no hope of employment and a dangerous illness. Alex and Jonathan’s brother, William, decided not to help. That may have been William’s wife’s doing, but either way, Alex had to turn to Jonathan.
Fortunately, Black Jack Randall was willing to help. The downside is that he didn’t have much money. So, he’s managed to house Alex in a poor part of Edinburgh and he checks on him routinely. However, he can’t hire anyone to help, and it sounds like Alex is in a bad state. He must be if Black Jack Randall is turning to Claire for help.
Of course, while they talk, Black Jack Randall can’t help but taunt Claire about Wentworth Prison. He shares how they are connected because of Jamie. However, Claire makes it clear that he has her husband back. Jamie is hers.
Randall also points out that he’s not afraid of Claire. One of the downsides of Claire giving him his date of death is that he knows he won’t die before then. However, it seems he certainly believes that she is some sort of witch if he believes in the date of death.
Claire won’t let an innocent man go sick, though. She agrees to help Alex with the information about the British Army’s location. It could be just what they need, and at this point, Claire needs to make sure things don’t go south for the Jacobite Army.