Dragonfly In Amber

The Pretenders

Le Havre, France

February 1744

6 MAKING WAVES

“Bread,” I muttered feebly, keeping my eyes tightly closed. There was no response from the large, warm object next to me, other than the faint sigh of his breathing.

“Bread!” I said, a little louder. There was a sudden startled heave of the bedclothes, and I grasped the edge of the mattress and tightened all my muscles, hoping to stabilize the pitch and yaw of my internal organs.

Fumbling noises came from the far side of the bed, followed by the sliding of a drawer, a muffled exclamation in Gaelic, the soft thud of a bare foot stamping planks, and then the sinking of the mattress under the weight of a heavy body.

“Here, Sassenach,” said an anxious voice, and I felt the touch of a dry bread crust against my lower lip. Groping blindly without opening my eyes, I grasped it and began to chew gingerly, forcing each choking bite down a parched throat. I knew better than to ask for water.

The dessicated wads of bread crumbs gradually made their way down my throat and took up residence in my stomach, where they lay like small heaps of ballast. The nauseating roll of my inner waves slowly calmed, and at last my innards lay at anchor. I opened my eyes, to see the anxious face of Jamie Fraser hovering a few inches above me.

“Ak!” I said, startled.

“All right, then?” he asked. When I nodded and feebly began to sit up, he put an arm around my back to help me. Sitting down beside me on the rough inn bed, he pulled me gently against him and stroked my sleep-tousled hair.

“Poor love,” he said. “Would a bit of wine help? There’s a flask of hock in my saddlebag.”

“No. No, thank you.” I shuddered briefly at the thought of drinking hock – I seemed to smell the dark, fruity fumes, just at the mention of it – and pushed myself upright.

“I’ll be fine in a moment,” I said, with forced cheerfulness. “Don’t worry, it’s quite normal for pregnant women to feel sick in the morning.”

With a dubious look at me, Jamie rose and went to retrieve his clothes from the stool near the window. France in February is cold as hell frozen over, and the bubbled-glass panes of the window were coated thick with frost.

He was naked, and a ripple of gooseflesh brushed his shoulders and raised the red-gold hairs on his arms and legs. Accustomed to cold, though, he neither shivered nor hurried as he pulled on stockings and shirt. Pausing in his dressing, he came back to the bed and hugged me briefly.

“Go back to bed,” he suggested. “I’ll send up the chambermaid to light the fire. Perhaps ye can rest a bit, now you’ve eaten. You won’t be sick now?” I wasn’t entirely sure, but nodded reassuringly.

“I don’t think so.” I cast an eye back at the bed; the quilts, like most coverings supplied by public inns, were none too clean. Still, the silver in Jamie’s purse had procured us the best room in the inn, and the narrow bed was stuffed with goose feathers rather than with chaff or wool.

“Um, perhaps I will just lie down a moment,” I murmured, pulling my feet off the freezing floor and thrusting them under the quilts, in search of the last remnants of warmth. My stomach seemed to have settled sufficiently to risk a sip of water, and I poured a cupful from the cracked bedroom ewer.

“What were you stamping on?” I asked, sipping carefully. “There aren’t spiders up here, are there?”

Fastening his kilt about his waist, Jamie shook his head.

“Och, no,” he said. Hands busy, he tilted his head toward the table. “Just a rat. After the bread, I expect.”

Glancing down, I saw the limp gray form on the floor, a small pearl of blood glistening on the snout. I made it out of bed just in time.

“It’s all right,” I said faintly, a bit later. “There isn’t anything left to throw up.”

“Rinse your mouth, Sassenach, but don’t swallow, for God’s sake.” Jamie held the cup for me, wiped my mouth with a cloth as though I were a small and messy child, then lifted me and laid me carefully back in the bed. He frowned worriedly down at me.

“Perhaps I’d better stay here,” he said. “I could send word.”

“No, no, I’m all right,” I said. And I was. Fight as I would to keep from vomiting in the mornings, I could hold nothing down for long. Yet once the bout was over, I felt entirely restored. Aside from a sour taste in my mouth, and a slight soreness in the abdominal muscles, I felt quite my normal self. I threw back the covers and stood up, to demonstrate.

“See? I’ll be fine. And you have to go; it wouldn’t do to keep your cousin waiting, after all.”

I was beginning to feel cheerful again, despite the chilly air rushing under the door and beneath the folds of my nightgown. Jamie was still hesitating, reluctant to leave me, and I went to him and hugged him tightly, both in reassurance and because he was delightfully warm.

“Brrr,” I said. “How on earth can you be warm as toast, dressed in nothing but a kilt?”

“I’ve a shirt on as well,” he protested, smiling down at me.

We clung together for a bit, enjoying each other’s warmth in the quiet cold of the early French morning. In the corridor, the clash and shuffle of the chambermaid with her scuttle of kindling grew nearer.

Jamie shifted a bit, pressing against me. Because of the difficulties of traveling in the winter, we had been nearly a week on the road from Ste. Anne to Le Havre. And between the late arrivals at dismal inns, wet, filthy, and shivering with fatigue and cold, and the increasingly unsettled wakenings as my morning sickness got worse, we had scarcely touched each other since our last night at the Abbey.

“Come to bed with me?” I invited, softly.

He hesitated. The strength of his desire was obvious through the fabric of his kilt, and his hands were warm on the cool flesh of my own, but he didn’t move to take me in his arms.

“Well…” he said doubtfully.

“You want to, don’t you?” I said, sliding a chilly hand under his kilt to make sure.

“Oh! er… aye. Aye, I do.” The evidence at hand bore out this statement. He groaned faintly as I cupped my hand between his legs. “Oh, Lord. Don’t do that, Sassenach; I canna keep my hands from ye.”

He did hug me then, wrapping long arms about me and pulling my face into the snowy tucks of his shirt, smelling faintly of the laundry starch Brother Alfonse used at the Abbey.

“Why should you?” I said, muffled in his linen. “You’ve a bit of time to spare, surely? It’s only a short ride to the docks.”

“It isna that,” he said, smoothing my riotous hair.

“Oh, I’m too fat?” In fact, my stomach was still nearly flat, and I was thinner than usual because of the sickness. “Or is it…?”

“No,” he said, smiling. “Ye talk too much.” He bent and kissed me, then scooped me up and sat down on the bed, holding me on his lap. I lay down and pulled him determinedly down on top of me.

“Claire, no!” he protested as I started unbuckling his kilt.

I stared at him. “Whyever not?”

“Well,” he said awkwardly, blushing a bit. “The child… I mean, I dinna want to hurt it.”

I laughed.

“Jamie, you can’t hurt it. It’s no bigger than the tip of my finger yet.” I held up a finger in illustration, then used it to trace the full, curving line of his lower lip. He seized my hand and bent to kiss me abruptly, as though to erase the tickle of my touch.

“You’re sure?” he asked. “I mean… I keep thinking he wouldna like being jounced about…”

“He’ll never notice,” I assured him, hands once more busy with the buckle of his kilt.

“Well… if you’re sure of it.”

There was a peremptory rap at the door, and with impeccable Gallic timing, the chambermaid pushed her way in backward, carelessly gouging the door with a billet of wood as she turned. From the scarred surfaces of door and jamb, it appeared that this was her usual method of operations.

“Bonjour, Monsieur, Madame,” she muttered, with a curt nod toward the bed as she shuffled toward the hearth. All right for some people, said her attitude, louder than words. Used by this time to the matter-of-factness with which servants treated the sight of inn patrons in any form of dishabille, I merely murmured “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” in return and let it go at that. I also let go of Jamie’s kilt, and slid under the covers, pulling the quilt up to hide my scarlet cheeks.

Possessed of somewhat greater sang-froid, Jamie placed one of the bolsters strategically across his lap, parked his elbows on it, rested his chin on upturned palms, and made pleasant conversation with the maid, praising the cuisine of the house.

“And from where do you procure the wine, Mademoiselle?” he asked politely.

“From here, from there.” She shrugged, stuffing kindling rapidly under the sticks with a practiced hand. “Wherever it’s cheapest.” The woman’s plump face creased slightly as she gave Jamie a sidelong look from the hearth.

“I gathered as much,” he said, grinning at her, and she gave a brief snort of amusement.

“I’ll wager I can match the price you’re getting, and double the quality,” he offered. “Tell your mistress.”

One eyebrow rose skeptically. “And what’s your own price, Monsieur?”

He made an altogether Gallic gesture of self-abnegation. “Nothing, Mademoiselle. I go to call upon a kinsman who sells wine. Perhaps I can bring him some new business to ensure my welcome, no?”

She nodded, seeing the wisdom of this, and grunted as she rose from her knees.

“Well enough, Monsieur. I’ll speak to the patronne.”

The door thumped to behind the maid, aided by a skillful swing of her hip in passing. Putting the bolster aside, Jamie stood up and began to rebuckle his kilt.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I protested.

He glanced down at me, and a reluctant smile curved the wide mouth.

“Oh. Well… you’re sure you’re up to it, Sassenach?”

“I am if you are,” I said, unable to resist.

He eyed me austerely.

“Just for that, I should go at once,” he said. “Still, I’ve heard that ye ought to humor expectant mothers.” He let the kilt fall to the floor and sat down beside me in his shirt, the bed creaking beneath his weight.

His breath rose in a faint cloud as he turned back the quilt and spread the front of the nightdress to expose my breasts. Bending his head, he kissed each one, touching the nipple delicately with his tongue, so it rose as though by magic, a swelling dark pink against the white skin of my breast.

“God, they’re so lovely,” he murmured, repeating the process on the other side. He cupped both breasts, admiring them.

“They’re heavier,” he said, “just a bit. And the nipples are darker, too.” One forefinger traced the springing curve of a single fine hair that rose near the dark areola, silver in the frosted light of the morning.

Lifting the quilt, he rolled next to me and I turned into his arms, clasping the solid curves of his back, letting my hands cup the firm rounds of his buttocks. His bare flesh was chilled by the morning air, but the goose bumps smoothed away under the warmth of my touch.

I tried to bring him to me at once, but he resisted me gently, forcing me down onto the pillow as he nibbled the edges of neck and ear. One hand slid up my thigh, the thin material of the nightgown gliding in waves before it.

His head dipped lower, and his hands gently spread my thighs apart. I shivered momentarily as the cold air hit the bare skin of my legs, then relaxed completely into the warm demand of his mouth.

His hair was loose, not yet laced back for the day, and the soft red tickle of it brushed my thighs. The solid weight of his body rested comfortably between my legs, broad hands cupped on the roundness of my hips.

“Mmmm?” came a interrogative sound from below.

I arched my hips slightly in response, and a brief chuckle grazed my skin with warmth.

The hands slid beneath my hips and raised me, and I relaxed into deliquescence as the tiny shudder grew and spread, rising in seconds to a fulfillment that left me limp and gasping, Jamie’s head resting on my thigh. He waited a moment for me to recover, caressing the slope of my leg, before returning to his self-appointed task.

I smoothed the tumbled hair back, caressing those ears, so incongruously small and neat for such a large, blunt man. The upper curve glowed with a faint, translucent pink, and I ran my thumb along the edge of the curve.

“They’re pointed at the tips,” I said. “Just a bit. Like a faun’s.”

“Oh, aye?” he said, interrupting his labors for a moment. “Like a small deer, ye mean, or the things ye see in classical paintings wi’ goat’s legs, chasing naked women?”

I lifted my head and peered down across the roil of bedclothes, nightgown, and naked flesh, to the deep blue cat-eyes, gleaming above damp curls of brown hair.

“If the shoe fits,” I said, “wear it.” And let my head fall back on the pillow as the resultant muffled laugh vibrated against my all too sensitive flesh.

“Oh,” I said, straining upward. “Oh, my. Jamie, come here.”

“Not yet,” he said, doing something with the tip of his tongue that made me squirm uncontrollably.

“Now,” I said.

He didn’t bother to reply, and I had no more breath to speak with.

“Oh,” I said, a bit later. “That’s…”

“Mmmm?”

“Good,” I murmured. “Come here.”

“No, I’ll do,” he said, face invisible behind the tangle of roan and cinnamon. “Would ye like it if I…”

“Jamie,” I said. “I want you. Come here.”

Sighing in resignation, he rose to his knees and let me pull him upward, settling at last with his weight balanced on his elbows, but comfortingly solid on top of me, belly to belly and lips to lips. He opened his mouth to protest further, but I promptly kissed him, and he slid between my thighs before he could stop himself. He moaned slightly in involuntary pleasure as he entered me, muscles tensing as he gripped my shoulders.

He was gentle and slow, pausing now and then to kiss me deeply, moving again only at my silent urging. I ran my hands softly down the slope of his back, careful not to press on the healing ridges of the fresh scars. The long muscles of his thigh trembled briefly against my own, but he held back, unwilling to move as quickly as he needed to.

I moved my hips against him, to bring him deeper.

He closed his eyes, and his brow furrowed slightly in concentration. His mouth was open, and his breath came hard.

“I can’t…” he said. “Oh, God, I canna help it.” His buttocks clenched suddenly, taut beneath my hands.

I sighed with deep satisfaction, and pulled him hard against me.

“You’re all right?” he asked, a few moments later.

“I won’t break, you know,” I said, smiling into his eyes.

He laughed huskily. “Maybe not, Sassenach, but I may.” He gathered me close against him, his cheek pressed against my hair. I flipped the quilt up and tucked it around his shoulders, sealing us in a pocket of warmth. The heat of the fire had not yet reached the bed, but the ice on the window was thawing, the crusted edge of the rime melted into glowing diamonds.

We lay quiet for a time, listening to the occasional crack of the burning applewood in the hearth and the faint sounds of the inn as the guests stirred to life. There were callings to and fro from the balconies across the courtyard, the swish and clop of hooves on the slushy stones outside, and the odd squeal now and then from below, from the piglets the landlady was raising in the kitchen behind the stove.

“Très français, n’est-ce pas?” I said, smiling at the sounds of an altercation drifting up through the floorboards, an amiable settling of accounts between the innkeeper’s wife and the local vintner.

“Diseased son of a pox-ridden whore,” the female voice remarked. “The brandy from last week tasted like horse-piss.”

I didn’t need to see the reply to imagine the one-shouldered shrug that went with it.

“How would you know, Madame? After the sixth glass, it all tastes the same, is it not so?”

The bed shook slightly as Jamie laughed with me. He lifted his head from the pillow and sniffed appreciatively at the scent of frying ham that filtered through the drafty chinks of the floorboards.

“Aye, it’s France,” he agreed. “Food, and drink – and love.” He patted my bare hip before tugging the wrinkled gown down over it.

“Jamie,” I said softly, “are you happy about it? About the baby?” Outlawed in Scotland, barred from his own home, and with only vague prospects in France, he could pardonably have been less than enthused about acquiring an additional obligation.

He was silent for a moment, only hugging me harder, then sighed briefly before answering.

“Aye, Sassenach.” His hand strayed downward, gently rubbing my belly. “I’m happy. And proud as a stallion. But I am most awfully afraid, too.”

“About the birth? I’ll be all right.” I could hardly blame him for apprehension; his own mother had died in childbirth, and birth and its complications were the leading cause of death for women in these times. Still, I knew a thing or two myself, and I had no intention whatever of exposing myself to what passed for medical care here.

“Aye, that – and everything,” he said softly. “I want to protect ye, Sassenach – spread myself over ye like a cloak and shield you and the child wi’ my body.” His voice was soft and husky, with a slight catch in it. “I would do anything for ye… and yet… there’s nothing I can do. It doesna matter how strong I am, or how willing; I canna go with you where ye must go… nor even help ye at all. And to think of the things that might happen, and me helpless to stop them… aye, I’m afraid, Sassenach.

“And yet” – he turned me toward him, hand closing gently over one breast – “yet when I think of you wi’ my child at your breast… then I feel as though I’ve gone hollow as a soap bubble, and perhaps I shall burst with joy.”

He pressed me tight against his chest, and I hugged him with all my might.

“Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi’ loving you.”

I slept for some time, and woke slowly, hearing the clang of a church bell ringing in the nearby square. Fresh from the Abbey of Ste. Anne, where all the day’s activities took place to the rhythm of bells, I automatically glanced at the window, to gauge the intensity of the light and guess the time of day. Bright, clear light, and a window free of ice. The bells rang for the Angelus then, and it was noon.

I stretched, enjoying the blissful knowledge that I needn’t get up at once. Early pregnancy made me tired, and the strain of travel had added to my fatigue, making the long rest doubly welcome.

It had rained and snowed unceasingly on the journey as the winter storms battered the French coast. Still, it could have been worse. We had originally intended to go to Rome, not Le Havre. That would have been three or four weeks’ travel, in this weather.

Faced with the prospect of earning a living abroad, Jamie had obtained a recommendation as a translator to James Francis Edward Stuart, exiled King of Scotland – or merely the Chevalier St. George, Pretender to the Throne, depending on your loyalties – and we had determined to join the Pretender’s court near Rome.

It had been a near thing, at that; we had been on the point of leaving for Italy, when Jamie’s uncle Alexander, Abbot of Ste. Anne’s, had summoned us to his study.

“I have heard from His Majesty,” he announced without preamble.

“Which one?” Jamie asked. The slight family resemblance between the two men was exaggerated by their posture – both sat bolt upright in their chairs, shoulders squared. On the abbot’s part, the posture was due to natural asceticism; on Jamie’s, to reluctance to let the newly healed scars on his back contact the wood of the chair.

“His Majesty King James,” his uncle replied, frowning slightly at me. I was careful to keep my face blank; my presence in Abbot Alexander’s study was a mark of trust, and I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it. He had known me a bare six weeks, since the day after Christmas, when I had appeared at his gate with Jamie, who was near death from torture and imprisonment. Subsequent acquaintance had presumably given the abbot some confidence in me. On the other hand, I was still English. And the English King’s name was George, not James.

“Aye? Is he not in need of a translator, then?” Jamie was still thin, but he had been working outdoors with the Brothers who minded the stables and fields of the Abbey, and his face was regaining tinges of its normal healthy color.

“He is in need of a loyal servant – and a friend.” Abbot Alexander tapped his fingers on a folded letter that lay on his desk, the crested seal broken. He pursed his lips, glancing from me to his nephew and back.

“What I tell you now must not be repeated,” he said sternly. “It will be common knowledge soon, but for now-” I had tried to look trustworthy and close-mouthed; Jamie merely nodded, with a touch of impatience.

“His Highness, Prince Charles Edward, has left Rome, and will arrive in France within the week,” the Abbot said, leaning slightly forward as though to emphasize the importance of what he was saying.

And it was important. James Stuart had mounted an abortive attempt to regain his throne in 1715 – an ill-considered military operation that had failed almost immediately for lack of support. Since then – according to Alexander – the exiled James of Scotland had worked tirelessly, writing ceaselessly to his fellow monarchs, and particularly to his cousin, Louis of France, reiterating the legitimacy of his claim to the throne of Scotland and England, and the position of his son, Prince Charles, as heir to that throne.

“His royal cousin Louis has been distressingly deaf to these entirely proper claims,” the Abbot had said, frowning at the letter as though it were Louis. “If he’s now come to a realization of his responsibilities in the matter, it’s cause for great rejoicing among those who hold dear the sacred right of kingship.”

Among the Jacobites, that was, James’s supporters. Of whom Abbot Alexander of the Abbey of Ste. Anne – born Alexander Fraser of Scotland – was one. Jamie had told me that Alexander was one of the exiled King’s most frequent correspondents, in touch with all that touched the Stuart cause.

“He’s well placed for it,” Jamie had explained to me, discussing the endeavor on which we were about to embark. “The papal messenger system crosses Italy, France, and Spain faster than almost any other. And the papal messengers canna be interfered with by government customs officers, so the letters they carry are less likely to be intercepted.”

James of Scotland, exiled in Rome, was supported in large part by the Pope, in whose interest it very much was to have a Catholic monarchy restored to England and Scotland. Therefore, the largest part of James’s private mail was carried by papal messenger – and passed through the hands of loyal supporters within the Church hierarchy, like Abbot Alexander of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, who could be depended on to communicate with the King’s supporters in Scotland, with less risk than sending letters openly from Rome to Edinburgh and the Highlands.

I watched Alexander with interest, as he expounded the importance of Prince Charles’s visit to France. A stocky man of about my own height, he was dark, and considerably shorter than his nephew, but shared with him the faintly slanted eyes, the sharp intelligence, and the talent for discerning hidden motive that seemed to characterize the Frasers I had met.

“So,” he finished, stroking his full, dark-brown beard, “I cannot say whether His Highness is in France at Louis’s invitation, or has come uninvited, on behalf of his father.”

“It makes a wee bit of difference,” Jamie remarked, raising one eyebrow skeptically.

His uncle nodded, and a wry smile showed briefly in the thicket of his beard.

“True, lad,” he said, letting a faint hint of his native Scots emerge from his usual formal English. “Very true. And that’s where you and your wife may be of service, if ye will.”

The proposal was simple; His Majesty King James would provide travel expenses and a small stipend, if the nephew of his most loyal and most esteemed friend Alexander would agree to travel to Paris, there to assist his son, His Highness Prince Charles Edward, in whatever ways the latter might require.

I was stunned. We had meant originally to go to Rome because that seemed the best place to embark on our quest: the prevention of the second Jacobite Rising – the ’45. From my own knowledge of history, I knew that the Rising, financed from France and carried out by Charles Edward Stuart, would go much farther than had his father’s attempt in 1715 – but not nearly far enough. If matters progressed as I thought they would, then the troops under Bonnie Prince Charlie would meet with disastrous defeat at Culloden in 1746, and the people of the Highlands would suffer the repercussions of defeat for two centuries thereafter.

Now, in 1744, apparently Charles himself was just beginning his search for support in France. Where better to try to stop a rebellion, than at the side of its leader?

I glanced at Jamie, who was looking over his uncle’s shoulder at a small shrine set into the wall. His eyes rested on the gilded figure of Ste. Anne herself and the small sheaf of hothouse flowers laid at her feet, while his thoughts worked behind an expressionless face. At last he blinked once, and smiled at his uncle.

“Whatever assistance His Highness might require? Aye,” he said quietly, “I think I can do that. We’ll go.”

And we had. Instead of proceeding directly to Paris, though, we had come down the coast from Ste. Anne to Le Havre, to meet first with Jamie’s cousin, Jared Fraser.

A prosperous Scottish émigré, Jared was an importer of wines and spirits, with a small warehouse and large town house in Paris, and a very large warehouse indeed here in Le Havre, where he had asked Jamie to meet him, when Jamie had written to say we were en route to Paris.

Sufficiently rested by now, I was beginning to feel hungry. There was food on the table; Jamie must have told the chambermaid to bring it while I slept.

I had no dressing gown, but my heavy velvet traveling cloak was handy; I sat up and pulled the warm weight of it over my shoulders before rising to relieve myself, add another stick of wood to the fire, and sit down to my late breakfast.

I chewed hard rolls and baked ham contentedly, washing them down with the jug of milk provided. I hoped Jamie was being adequately fed as well; he insisted that Jared was a good friend, but I had my doubts about the hospitality of some of Jamie’s relatives, having met a few of them by now. True, Abbot Alexander had welcomed us – insofar as a man in the abbot’s position could be said to welcome having an outlaw nephew with a suspect wife descend upon him unexpectedly. But our sojourn with Jamie’s mother’s people, the MacKenzies of Leoch, had come within inches of killing me the autumn before, when I had been arrested and tried as a witch.

“Granted,” I’d said, “this Jared’s a Fraser, and they seem a trifle safer than your MacKenzie relatives. But have you actually met him before?”

“I lived with him for a time when I was eighteen,” he told me, dribbling candle-wax onto his reply and pressing his father’s wedding ring on the resultant greenish-gray puddle. A small cabochon ruby, its mount was engraved with the Fraser clan motto, je suis prest: “I am ready.”

“He had me to stay with him when I came to Paris to finish my schooling, and learn a bit of the world. He was verra kind to me; a good friend of my father’s. And there’s no one knows more about Parisian society than the man who sells it drink,” he added, cracking the ring loose from the hardened wax. “I want to talk to Jared before I walk into Louis’s court by the side of Charles Stuart; I should like to feel that I have some chance of getting out again,” he finished wryly.

“Why? Do you think there’ll be trouble?” I asked. “Whatever assistance His Highness might require” seemed to offer quite a bit of latitude.

He smiled at my worried look.

“No, I dinna expect any difficulty. But what is it the Bible says, Sassenach? ‘Put not your trust in princes’?” He rose and kissed me quickly on the brow, tucking the ring back in his sporran. “Who am I to ignore the word of God, eh?”

I spent the afternoon in reading one of the herbals that my friend Brother Ambrose had pressed upon me as a parting gift, then in necessary repairs with needle and thread. Neither of us owned many clothes, and while there were advantages in traveling light, it meant that holey socks and undone hems demanded immediate attention. My needlecase was nearly as precious to me as the small chest in which I carried herbs and medicines.

The needle dipped in and out of the fabric, winking in the light from the window. I wondered how Jamie’s visit with Jared was going. I wondered still more what Prince Charles would be like. He would be the first historically famous person I had met, and while I knew better than to believe all the legends that had (not had, would, I reminded myself) sprung up around him, the reality of the man was a mystery. The Rising of the ’45 would depend almost entirely on the personality of this one young man – its failure or success. Whether it took place at all might depend upon the efforts of another young man – Jamie Fraser. And me.

I was still absorbed in my mending and my thoughts, when heavy footsteps in the corridor aroused me to the realization that it was late in the day; the drip of water from the eaves had slowed as the temperature dropped, and the flames of the sinking sun glowed in the ice spears hanging from the roof. The door opened, and Jamie came in.

He smiled vaguely in my direction, then stopped dead by the table, face absorbed as though he were trying to remember something. He took his cloak off, folded it, and hung it neatly over the foot of the bed, straightened, marched over to the other stool, sat down on it with great precision, and closed his eyes.

I sat still, my mending forgotten in my lap, watching this performance with considerable interest. After a moment, he opened his eyes and smiled at me, but didn’t say anything. He leaned forward, studying my face with great attention, as though he hadn’t seen me in weeks. At last, an expression of profound revelation passed over his face, and he relaxed, shoulders slumping as he rested his elbows on his knees.

“Whisky,” he said, with immense satisfaction.

“I see,” I said cautiously. “A lot of it?”

He shook his head slowly from side to side, as though it were very heavy. I could almost hear the contents sloshing.

“Not me,” he said, very distinctly. “You.”

“Me?” I said indignantly.

“Your eyes,” he said. He smiled beatifically. His own eyes were soft and dreamy, cloudy as a trout pool in the rain.

“My eyes? What have my eyes got to do with…”

“They’re the color of verra fine whisky, wi’ the sun shining through them from behind. I thought this morning they looked like sherry, but I was wrong. Not sherry. Not brandy. It’s whisky. That’s what it is.” He looked so gratified as he said this that I couldn’t help laughing.

“Jamie, you’re terribly drunk. What have you been doing?”

His expression altered to a slight frown.

“I’m not drunk.”

“Oh, no?” I laid the mending aside and came over to lay a hand on his forehead. It was cool and damp, though his face was flushed. He at once put his arms about my waist and pulled me close, nuzzling affectionately at my bosom. The smell of mingled spirits rose from him like a fog, so thick as almost to be visible.

“Come here to me, Sassenach,” he murmured. “My whisky-eyed lass, my love. Let me take ye to bed.”

I thought it a debatable point as to who was likely to be taking whom to bed, but didn’t argue. It didn’t matter why he thought he was going to bed, after all, provided he got there. I bent and got a shoulder under his armpit to help him up, but he leaned away, rising slowly and majestically under his own power.

“I dinna need help,” he said, reaching for the cord at the neck of his shirt. “I told ye, I’m not drunk.”

“You’re right,” I said. “ ‘Drunk’ isn’t anywhere near sufficient to describe your current state. Jamie, you’re completely pissed.”

His eyes traveled down the front of his kilt, across the floor, and up the front of my gown.

“No, I’m not,” he said, with great dignity. “I did that outside.” He took a step toward me, glowing with ardor. “Come here to me, Sassenach; I’m ready.”

I thought “ready” was a bit of an overstatement in one regard; he’d gotten his buttons half undone, and his shirt hung askew on his shoulders, but that was as far as he was likely to make it unaided.

In other respects, though… the broad expanse of his chest was exposed, showing the small hollow in the center where I was accustomed to rest my chin, and the small curly hairs sprang up joyous around his nipples. He saw me looking at him, and reached for one of my hands, clasping it to his breast. He was startlingly warm, and I moved instinctively toward him. The other arm swept round me and he bent to kiss me. He made such a thorough job of it that I felt mildly intoxicated, merely from sharing his breath.

“All right,” I said, laughing. “If you’re ready, so am I. Let me undress you first, though – I’ve had enough mending today.”

He stood still as I stripped him, scarcely moving. He didn’t move, either, as I attended to my own clothes and turned down the bed.

I climbed in and turned to look at him, ruddy and magnificent in the sunset glow. He was finely made as a Greek statue, long-nosed and high-cheeked as a profile on a Roman coin. The wide, soft mouth was set in a dreamy smile, and the slanted eyes looked far away. He was perfectly immobile.

I viewed him with some concern.

“Jamie,” I said, “how, exactly, do you decide whether you’re drunk?”

Aroused by my voice, he swayed alarmingly to one side, but caught himself on the edge of the mantelpiece. His eyes drifted around the room, then fixed on my face. For an instant, they blazed clear and pellucid with intelligence.

“Och, easy, Sassenach. If ye can stand up, you’re not drunk.” He let go of the mantelpiece, took a step toward me, and crumpled slowly onto the hearth, eyes blank, and a wide, sweet smile on his dreaming face.

“Oh,” I said.

The yodeling of roosters outside and the clashing of pots below woke me just after dawn the next morning. The figure next to me jerked, waking abruptly, then froze as the sudden movement jarred his head.

I raised up on one elbow to examine the remains. Not too bad, I thought critically. His eyes were screwed tightly shut against stray beams of sunlight, and his hair stuck out in all directions like a hedgehog’s spines, but his skin was pale and clear, and the hands clutching the coverlet were steady.

I pried up one eyelid, peered within, and said playfully, “Anybody home?”

The twin to the eye I was looking at opened slowly, to add its baleful glare to the first. I dropped my hand and smiled charmingly at him.

“Good morning.”

“That, Sassenach, is entirely a matter of opinion,” he said, and closed both eyes again.

“Have you got any idea how much you weigh?” I asked conversationally.

“No.”

The abruptness of the reply suggested that he not only didn’t know, he didn’t care, but I persisted in my efforts.

“Something around fifteen stone, I make it. About as much as a good-sized boar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any beaters to hang you upside down from a spear and carry you home to the smoking shed.”

One eye opened again, and looked consideringly at me, then at the hearthstone on the far side of the room. One corner of his mouth lifted in a reluctant smile.

“How did you get me in bed?”

“I didn’t. I couldn’t budge you, so I just laid a quilt over you and left you on the hearth. You came to life and crawled in under your own power, somewhere in the middle of the night.”

He seemed surprised, and opened the other eye again.

“I did?”

I nodded and tried to smooth down the hair that spiked out over his left ear.

“Oh, yes. Very single-minded, you were.”

“Single-minded?” He frowned, thinking, and stretched, thrusting his arms up over his head. Then he looked startled.

“No. I couldn’t have.”

“Yes, you could. Twice.”

He squinted down his chest, as though looking for confirmation of this improbable statement, then looked back at me.

“Really? Well, that’s hardly fair; I dinna remember a thing about it.” He hesitated for a moment, looking shy. “Was it all right, then? I didna do anything foolish?”

I flopped down next to him and snuggled my head into the curve of his shoulder.

“No, I wouldn’t call it foolish. You weren’t very conversational, though.”

“Thank the Lord for small blessings,” he said, and a small chuckle rumbled through his chest.

“Mm. You’d forgotten how to say anything except ‘I love you,’ but you said that a lot.”

The chuckle came back, louder this time. “Oh, aye? Well, could have been worse, I suppose.”

He drew in his breath, then paused. He turned his head and sniffed suspiciously at the soft tuft of cinnamon under his raised arm.

“Christ!” he said. He tried to push me away. “Ye dinna want to put your head near my oxter, Sassenach. I smell like a boar that’s been dead a week.”

“And pickled in brandy after,” I agreed, snuggling closer. “How on earth did you get so – ahem – stinking drunk, anyway?”

“Jared’s hospitality.” He settled himself in the pillows with a deep sigh, arm round my shoulder.

“He took me down to show me his warehouse at the docks. And the storeroom there where he keeps the rare vintages and the Portuguese brandy and the Jamaican rum.” He grimaced slightly, recalling. “The wine wasna so bad, for that you just taste, and spit it on the floor when you’ve done wi’ a mouthful. But neither of us could see wasting the brandy that way. Besides, Jared said ye need to let it trickle down the back of your throat, to appreciate it fully.”

“How much of it did you appreciate?” I asked curiously.

“I lost count in the middle of the second bottle.” Just then, a church bell started to ring nearby; the summons to early Mass. Jamie sat bolt upright, staring at the windowpane, bright with sun.

“Christ, Sassenach! What time is it?”

“About six, I suppose,” I said, puzzled. “Why?”

He relaxed slightly, though he stayed sitting up.

“Oh, that’s all right, then. I was afraid it was the Angelus bell. I’d lost all track of time.”

“I’d say so. Does it matter?”

In a burst of energy, he threw back the quilts and stood up. He staggered a moment, but kept his balance, though both hands went to his head, to make sure it was still attached.

“Aye,” he said, gasping a bit. “We’ve an appointment this morning down at the docks, at Jared’s warehouse. The two of us.”

“Really?” I clambered out of bed myself, and groped for the chamber pot under the bed. “If he’s planning to finish the job, I shouldn’t think he’d want witnesses.”

Jamie’s head popped through the neck of his shirt, eyebrows raised.

“Finish the job?”

“Well, most of your other relatives seem to want to kill you or me; why not Jared? He’s made a good start at poisoning you, seems to me.”

“Verra funny, Sassenach,” he said dryly. “Have ye something decent to wear?”

I had been wearing a serviceable gray serge gown on our travels, acquired through the good offices of the almoner at the Abbey of Ste. Anne, but I did also have the gown in which I had escaped from Scotland, a gift from Lady Annabelle MacRannoch. A pretty leaf-green velvet, it made me look rather pale, but was stylish enough.

“I think so, if there aren’t too many saltwater stains on it.”

I knelt by the small traveling chest, unfolding the green velvet. Kneeling next to me, Jamie flipped back the lid of my medicine box, studying the layers of bottles and boxes and bits of gauze-wrapped herbs.

“Have ye got anything in here for a verra vicious headache, Sassenach?”

I peered over his shoulder, then reached in and touched one bottle.

“Horehound might help, though it’s not the best. And willow-bark tea with sow fennel works fairly well, but it takes some time to brew. Tell you what – why don’t I make you up a recipe for hobnailed liver? Wonderful hangover cure.”

He bent a suspicious blue eye on me.

“That sounds nasty.”

“It is,” I said cheerfully. “But you’ll feel lots better after you throw up.”

“Mphm.” He stood up and nudged the chamber pot toward me with one toe.

“Vomiting in the morning is your job, Sassenach,” he said. “Get it over with and get dressed. I’ll stand the headache.”

Jared Munro Fraser was a small, spare, black-eyed man, who bore more than a passing resemblance to his distant cousin Murtagh, the Fraser clansman who had accompanied us to Le Havre. When I first saw Jared, standing majestically in the gaping doors of his warehouse, so that streams of longshoremen carrying casks were forced to go around him, the resemblance was strong enough that I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Murtagh, so far as I knew, was still at the inn, attending a lame horse.

Jared had the same lank, dark hair and piercing eyes; the same sinewy, monkey-like frame. But there all resemblance stopped, and as we drew closer, Jamie gallantly clearing a path for me through the mob with elbows and shoulders, I could see the differences as well. Jared’s face was oblong, rather than hatchet-shaped, with a cheerful snub nose that effectively ruined the dignified air conferred at a distance by his excellent tailoring and upright carriage.

A successful merchant rather than a cattle-raider, he also knew how to smile – unlike Murtagh, whose natural expression was one of unrelieved dourness – and a broad grin of welcome broke out on his face as we were jostled and shoved up the ramp into his presence.

“My dear!” he exclaimed, clutching me by the arm and yanking me deftly out of the way of two burly stevedores rolling a gigantic cask through the huge door. “So pleased to see you at last!” The cask bumped noisily on the boards of the ramp, and I could hear the rolling slosh of its contents as it passed me.

“You can treat rum like that,” Jared observed, watching the ungainly progress of the enormous barrel through the obstructions of the warehouse, “but not port. I always fetch that up myself, along with the bottled wines. In fact, I was just setting off to see to a new shipment of Belle Rouge port. Would you perhaps be interested in accompanying me?”

I glanced at Jamie, who nodded, and we set off at once in Jared’s wake, sidestepping the rumbling traffic of casks and hogsheads, carts and barrows, and men and boys of all descriptions carrying bolts of fabric, boxes of grain and foodstuffs, rolls of hammered copper, sacks of flour, and anything else that could be transported by ship.

Le Havre was an important center of shipping traffic, and the docks were the heart of the city. A long, solid wharf ran nearly a quarter-mile round the edge of the harbor, with smaller docks protruding from it, along which were anchored three-masted barks and brigantines, dories and small galleys; a full range of the ships that provisioned France.

Jamie kept a firm hold on my elbow, the better to yank me out of the way of oncoming handcarts, rolling casks, and careless merchants and seamen, who were inclined not to look where they were going but rather to depend on sheer momentum to see them through the scrum of the docks.

As we made our way down the quay, Jared shouted genteelly into my ear on the other side, pointing out objects of interest as we passed, and explaining the history and ownership of the various ships in a staccato, disjointed manner. The Arianna, which we were on our way to see, was in fact one of Jared’s own ships. Ships, I gathered, might belong to a single owner, more often to a company of merchants who owned them collectively, or, occasionally, to a captain who contracted his vessel, crew, and services for a voyage. Seeing the number of company-owned vessels, compared to the relatively few owned by individuals, I began to form a very respectful idea of Jared’s worth.

The Arianna was in the middle of the anchored row, near a large warehouse with the name FRASER painted on it in sloping, whitewashed letters. Seeing the name gave me an odd little thrill, a sudden feeling of alliance and belonging, with the realization that I shared that name, and with it, an acknowledged kinship with those who bore it.

The Arianna was a three-masted ship, perhaps sixty feet long, with a wide bow. There were two cannon on the side of the ship that faced the dock; in case of robbery on the high seas, I supposed. Men were swarming all over the deck with what I assumed was some purpose, though it looked like nothing so much as an ant’s nest under attack.

All sails were reefed and tied, but the rising tide shifted the vessel slightly, swinging the bowsprit toward us. It was decorated with a rather grim-visaged figurehead; with her formidable bare bosom and tangled curls all spangled with salt, the lady looked as though she didn’t enjoy sea air all that much.

“Sweet little beauty, is she not?” Jared asked, waving a hand expansively. I assumed he meant the ship, not the figurehead.

“Verra nice,” said Jamie politely. I caught his uneasy glance at the boat’s waterline, where the small waves lapped dark gray against the hull. I could see that he was hoping we would not be obliged to go on board. A gallant warrior, brilliant, bold, and courageous in battle, Jamie Fraser was also a landlubber.

Definitely not one of the hardy, seafaring Scots who hunted whales from Tarwathie or voyaged the world in search of wealth, he suffered from a seasickness so acute that our journey across the Channel in December had nearly killed him, weakened as he then was by the effects of torture and imprisonment. And while yesterday’s drinking orgy with Jared wasn’t in the same league, it wasn’t likely to have made him any more seaworthy.

I could see dark memories crossing his face as he listened to his cousin extolling the sturdiness and speed of the Arianna, and drew near enough to whisper to him.

“Surely not while it’s at anchor?”

“I don’t know, Sassenach,” he replied, with a look at the ship in which loathing and resignation were nicely mingled. “But I suppose we’ll find out.” Jared was already halfway up the gangplank, greeting the captain with loud cries of welcome. “If I turn green, can ye pretend to faint or something? It will make a poor impression if I vomit on Jared’s shoes.”

I patted his arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I have faith in you.”

“It isna me,” he said, with a last, lingering glance at terra firma, “it’s my stomach.”

The ship stayed comfortingly level under our shoes, however, and both Jamie and his stomach acquitted themselves nobly – assisted, perhaps, by the brandy poured out for us by the captain.

“A nice make,” Jamie said, passing the glass briefly under his nose and closing his eyes in approval of the rich, aromatic fumes. “Portuguese, isn’t it?”

Jared laughed delightedly and nudged the captain.

“You see, Portis? I told you he had a natural palate! He’s only tasted it once before!”

I bit the inside of my cheek and avoided Jamie’s eye. The captain, a large, scruffy-looking specimen, looked bored, but grimaced politely in Jamie’s direction, exhibiting three gold teeth. A man who liked to keep his wealth portable.

“Ung,” he said. “This the lad’s going to keep your bilges dry, is it?”

Jared looked suddenly embarrassed, a slight flush rising under the leathery skin of his face. I noticed with fascination that one ear was pierced for an earring, and wondered just what sort of background had led to his present success.

“Aye, well,” he said, betraying for the first time a hint of Scots accent, “that’s to be seen yet. But I think-” He glanced through the port at the activity taking place on the dock, then back at the captain’s glass, drained in three gulps while the rest of us were sipping. “Um, I say, Portis, would you allow me to use your cabin for a moment? I should like to confer with my nephew and his wife – and I see that the aft hold seems to be having a bit of trouble with the cargo nets, from the sound of it.” This craftily added observation was enough to send Captain Portis out of the cabin like a charging boar, hoarse voice uplifted in a Spanish-French patois that I luckily didn’t understand.

Jared stepped delicately to the door and closed it firmly after the captain’s bulky form, cutting down the noise level substantially. He returned to the tiny captain’s table and ceremoniously refilled all our glasses before speaking. Then he looked from Jamie to me and smiled once more, in charming deprecation.

“It’s a bit more precipitous than I’d meant to make such a request,” he said. “But I see the good captain has rather given away my hand. The truth of the matter is” – he raised his glass so the watery reflections from the port shivered through the brandy, striking patches of wavering light from the brass fittings of the cabin – “I need a man.” He tipped the cup in Jamie’s direction, then brought it to his lips and drank.

“A good man,” he amplified, lowering the glass. “You see, my dear,” bowing to me, “I have the opportunity of making an exceptional investment in a new winery in the Moselle region. But the evaluation of it is not one I should feel comfortable in entrusting to a subordinate; I should need to see the facilities myself, and advise in their development. The undertaking would require several months.”

He gazed thoughtfully into his glass, gently swirling the fragrant brown liquid so its perfume filled the tiny cabin. I had drunk no more than a few sips from my own glass, but began to feel slightly giddy, more from a rising excitement than from drink.

“It’s too good a chance to be missed,” Jared said. “And there’s the chance of making several good contracts with the wineries along the Rhône; the products there are excellent, but relatively rare in Paris. God, they’d sell among the nobility like snow in summer!” His shrewd black eyes gleamed momentarily with visions of avarice, then sparkled with humor as he looked at me.

“But-” he said.

“But,” I finished for him, “you can’t leave your business here without a guiding hand.”

“Intelligence as well as beauty and charm. I congratulate you, Cousin.” He tilted a well-groomed head toward Jamie, one eyebrow cocked in humorous approval.

“I confess that I was at something of a loss to see how I was to proceed,” he said, setting the glass down on the small table with the air of a man putting aside social frivolity for the sake of serious business. “But when you wrote from Ste. Anne, saying you intended to visit Paris…” He hesitated a moment, then smiled at Jamie, with an odd little flutter of the hands.

“Knowing that you, my lad” – he nodded to Jamie – “have a head for figures, I was strongly inclined to consider your arrival an answer to prayer. Still, I thought that perhaps we should meet and become reacquainted before I took the step of making you a definite proposal.”

You mean you thought you’d better see how presentable I was, I thought cynically, but smiled at him nonetheless. I caught Jamie’s eye, and one of his brows twitched upward. This was our week for proposals, evidently. For a dispossessed outlaw and a suspected English spy, our services seemed to be rather in demand.

Jared’s proposal was more than generous; in return for Jamie’s running the French end of the business during the next six months, Jared would not only pay him a salary but would leave his Paris town house, complete with staff, at our disposal.

“Not at all, not at all,” he said, when Jamie tried to protest this provision. He pressed a finger on the end of his nose, grinning charmingly at me. “A pretty woman to host dinner parties is a great asset in the wine business, Cousin. You have no idea how much wine you can sell, if you let the customers taste it first.” He shook his head decidedly. “No, it will be a great service to me, if your wife would allow herself to be troubled by entertaining.”

The thought of hosting supper parties for Parisian society was in fact a trifle daunting. Jamie looked at me, eyebrows raised in question, but I swallowed hard and smiled, nodding. It was a good offer; if he felt competent to take over the running of an importing business, the least I could do was order dinner and brush up my sprightly conversational French.

“Not at all,” I murmured, but Jared had taken my agreement for granted, and was going on, intent black eyes fixed on Jamie.

“And then, I thought perhaps you’d be needing an establishment of sorts – for the benefit of the other interests which bring you to Paris.”

Jamie smiled noncommittally, at which Jared uttered a short laugh and picked up his brandy glass. We had each been provided a glass of water as well, for cleansing the palate between sips, and he pulled one of these close with the other hand.

“Well, a toast!” he exclaimed. “To our association, Cousin – and to His Majesty!” He lifted the brandy glass in salute, then passed it ostentatiously over the glass of water and brought it to his lips.

I watched this odd behavior in surprise, but it apparently meant something to Jamie, for he smiled at Jared, picked up his own glass and passed it over the water.

“To His Majesty,” he repeated. Then, seeing me staring at him in bewilderment, he smiled and explained, “To His Majesty – over the water, Sassenach.”

“Oh?” I said, then, realization dawning, “oh!” The king over the water – King James. Which did a bit to explain this sudden urge on the part of everyone to see Jamie and myself established in Paris, which would otherwise have seemed an improbable coincidence.

If Jared were also a Jacobite, then his correspondence with Abbot Alexander was very likely more than coincidental; chances were that Jamie’s letter announcing our arrival had come together with one from Alexander, explaining the commission from King James. And if our presence in Paris fitted in with Jared’s own plans – then so much the better. With a sudden appreciation for the complexities of the Jacobite network, I raised my own glass, and drank to His Majesty across the water – and our new partnership with Jared.

Jared and Jamie then settled down to a discussion of the business, and were soon head to head, bent over inky sheets of paper, evidently manifests and bills of lading. The tiny cabin reeked of tobacco, brandy fumes, and unwashed sailor, and I began to feel a trifle queasy again. Seeing that I wouldn’t be needed for a while, I stood up quietly and found my way out on deck.

I was careful to avoid the altercation still going on around the rear cargo hatch, and picked my way through coils of rope, objects which I assumed to be belaying pins, and tumbled piles of sail fabric, to a quiet spot in the bow. From here, I had an unobstructed view over the harbor.

I sat on a chest against the taffrail, enjoying the salty breeze and the tarry, fishy smells of ships and harbor. It was still cold, but with my cloak pulled tight around me, I was warm enough. The ship rocked slowly, rising on the incoming tide; I could see the beards of algae on nearby dock pilings lifting and swirling, obscuring the shiny black patches of mussels between them.

The thought of mussels reminded me of the steamed mussels with butter I had had for dinner the night before, and I was suddenly starving. The absurd contrasts of pregnancy seemed to keep me always conscious of my digestion; if I wasn’t vomiting, I was ravenously hungry. The thought of food led me to the thought of menus, which led back to a contemplation of the entertaining Jared had mentioned. Dinner parties, hm? It seemed an odd way to begin the job of saving Scotland, but then, I couldn’t really think of anything better.

At least if I had Charles Stuart across a dinner table from me, I could keep an eye on him, I thought, smiling to myself at the joke. If he showed signs of hopping a ship for Scotland, maybe I could slip something into his soup.

Perhaps that wasn’t so funny, after all. The thought reminded me of Geillis Duncan, and my smile faded. Wife of the procurator fiscal in Cranesmuir, she had murdered her husband by dropping powdered cyanide into his food at a banquet. Accused as a witch soon afterward, she had been arrested while I was with her, and I had been taken to trial myself; a trial from which Jamie had rescued me. The memories of several days spent in the cold dark of the thieves’ hole at Cranesmuir were all too fresh, and the wind seemed suddenly very cold.

I shivered, but not altogether from chill. I could not think of Geillis Duncan without that cold finger down my spine. Not so much because of what she had done, but because of who she had been. A Jacobite, too; one whose support of the Stuart cause had been more than slightly tinged with madness. Worse than that, she was what I was – a traveler through the standing stones.

I didn’t know whether she had come to the past as I had, by accident, or whether her journey had been deliberate. Neither did I know precisely where she had come from. But my last vision of her, screaming defiance at the judges who would condemn her to burn, was of a tall, fair woman, arms stretched high, showing on one arm the telltale round of a vaccination scar. I felt automatically for the small patch of roughened skin on my own upper arm, beneath the comforting folds of my cloak, and shuddered when I found it.

I was distracted from these unhappy memories by a growing commotion on the next quay. A large knot of men had gathered by a ship’s gangway, and there was considerable shouting and pushing going on. Not a fight; I peered over at the altercation, shading my eyes with my hand, but could see no blows exchanged. Instead, an effort seemed to be under way to clear a pathway through the milling crowd to the doors of a large warehouse on the upper end of the quay. The crowd was stubbornly resisting all such efforts, surging back like the tide after each push.

Jamie suddenly appeared behind me, closely followed by Jared, who squinted at the mob scene below. Absorbed by the shouting, I hadn’t heard them come up.

“What is it?” I stood and leaned back into Jamie, bracing myself against the increasing sway of the ship underfoot. I was aware at close quarters of his scent; he had bathed at the inn and he smelled clean and warm, with a faint hint of sun and dust. A sharpening of the sense of smell was another effect of pregnancy, apparently; I could smell him even among the myriad stenches and scents of the seaport, much as you can hear a low-pitched voice close by in a noisy crowd.

“I don’t know. Some trouble with the other ship, looks like.” He reached down and put a hand on my elbow, to steady me. Jared turned and barked an order in gutteral French to one of the sailors nearby. The man promptly hopped over the rail and slid down one of the ropes to the quay, tarred pigtail dangling toward the water. We watched from the deck as he joined the crowd, prodded another seaman in the ribs, and received an answer, complete with expressive gesticulations.

Jared was frowning, as the pigtailed man scrambled back up the crowded gangplank. The sailor said something to him in that same thick-sounding French, too fast for me to follow it. After a few more words’ conversation, Jared swung abruptly around and came to stand next to me, lean hands gripping the rail.

“He says there’s sickness aboard the Patagonia.”

“What sort of sickness?” I hadn’t thought of bringing my medicine box with me, so there was little I could do in any case, but I was curious. Jared looked worried and unhappy.

“They’re afraid it might be smallpox, but they don’t know. The port’s inspector and the harbor master have been called.”

“Would you like me to have a look?” I offered. “I might at least be able to tell you whether it’s a contagious disease or not.”

Jared’s sketchy eyebrows disappeared under the lank black fringe of his hair. Jamie looked mildly embarrassed.

“My wife’s well known as a healer, Cousin,” he explained, but then turned and shook his head at me.

“No, Sassenach. It wouldna be safe.”

I could see the Patagonia’s gangway easily; now the gathered crowd moved suddenly back, jostling and stepping on each other’s toes. Two seamen stepped down from the deck, a length of canvas slung between them as a stretcher. The white sail-fabric sagged heavily under the weight of the man they carried, and a bare, sun-darkened arm lolled from the makeshift hammock.

The seamen wore strips of cloth tied round their noses and mouths, and kept their faces turned away from the stretcher, jerking their heads as they growled at each other, maneuvering their burden over the splintered planks. The pair passed under the fascinated noses of the crowd and disappeared into a nearby warehouse.

Making a quick decision, I turned and headed for the rear gangplank of the Arianna.

“Don’t worry,” I called to Jamie over one shoulder, “if it is smallpox, I can’t get that.” One of the seamen, hearing me, paused and gaped, but I just smiled at him and brushed past.

The crowd was still now, no longer surging to and fro, and it was not so difficult to make my way between the muttering clusters of seamen, many of whom frowned or looked startled as I ducked past them. The warehouse was disused; no bales or casks filled the echoing shadows of the huge room, but the scents of sawn lumber, smoked meat, and fish lingered, easily distinguishable from the host of other smells.

The sick man had been hastily dumped near the door, on a pile of discarded straw packing. His attendants pushed past me as I entered, eager to get away.

I approached him cautiously, stopping a few feet away. He was flushed with fever, his skin a queer dark red, scabbed thick with white pustules. He moaned and tossed his head restlessly from side to side, cracked mouth working as though in search of water.

“Get me some water,” I said to one of the sailors standing nearby. The man, a short, muscular fellow with his beard tarred into ornamental spikes, merely stared as though he had found himself suddenly addressed by a fish.

Turning my back on him impatiently, I sank to my knees by the sick man and opened his filthy shirt. He stank abominably; probably none too clean to start with, he had been left to lie in his own filth, his fellows afraid to touch him. His arms were relatively clear, but the pustules clustered thickly down his chest and stomach, and his skin was burning to the touch.

Jamie had come in while I made my examination, accompanied by Jared. With them was a small, pear-shaped man in a gold-swagged official’s coat and two other men, one a nobleman or a rich bourgeois by his dress; the other a tall, lean individual, clearly a seafarer from his complexion. Probably the captain of the plague ship, if that’s what it was.

And that’s what it appeared to be. I had seen smallpox many times before, in the uncivilized parts of the world to which my uncle Lamb, an eminent archaeologist, had taken me during my early years. This fellow wasn’t pissing blood, as sometimes happened when the disease attacked the kidneys, but otherwise he had every classic symptom.

“I’m afraid it is smallpox,” I said.

The Patagonia’s captain gave a sudden howl of anguish, and stepped toward me, face contorted, raising his hand as though to strike me.

“No!” he shouted. “Fool of a woman! Salope! Femme sans cervelle! Do you want to ruin me?”

The last word was cut off in a gurgle as Jamie’s hand closed on his throat. The other hand twisted hard in the man’s shirtfront, lifting him onto his toes.

“I should prefer you to address my wife with respect, Monsieur,” Jamie said, rather mildly. The captain, face turning purple, managed a short, jerky nod, and Jamie dropped him. He took a step back, wheezing, and sidled behind his companion as though for refuge, rubbing his throat.

The tubby little official was bending cautiously over the sick man, holding a large silver pomander on a chain close to his nose as he did so. Outside, the level of noise dropped suddenly as the crowd pulled back from the warehouse doors to admit another canvas stretcher.

The man before us sat up suddenly, startling the little official so that he nearly fell over. The man stared wildly around the warehouse, then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell back onto the straw as though he’d been poleaxed. He hadn’t, but the end result was much the same.

“He’s dead,” I said, unnecessarily.

The official, recovering his dignity along with his pomander, stepped in once more, looked closely at the body, straightened up and announced, “Smallpox. The lady is correct. I’m sorry, Monsieur le Comte, but you know the law as well as anyone.”

The man he addressed sighed impatiently. He glanced at me, frowning, then jerked his head at the official.

“I’m sure this can be arranged, Monsieur Pamplemousse. Please, a moment’s private conversation…” He motioned toward the deserted foreman’s hut that stood some distance away, a small derelict structure inside the larger building. A nobleman by dress as well as by title, Monsieur le Comte was a slender, elegant sort, with heavy brows and thin lips. His entire attitude proclaimed that he was used to getting his way.

But the little official was backing away, hands held out before him as though in self-defense.

“Non, Monsieur le Comte,” he said, “Je le regrette, mais c’est impossible… It cannot be done. Too many people know about it already. The news will be all over the docks by now.” He glanced helplessly at Jamie and Jared, then waved vaguely at the warehouse door, where the featureless heads of spectators showed in silhouette, the late afternoon sun rimming them with gold halos.

“No,” he said again, his pudgy features hardening with resolve. “You will excuse me, Monsieur – and Madame,” he added belatedly, as though noticing me for the first time. “I must go and institute proceedings for the destruction of the ship.”

The captain uttered another choked howl at this, and clutched at his sleeve, but he pulled away, and hurried out of the building.

The atmosphere following his departure was a trifle strained, what with Monsieur le Comte and his captain both glaring at me, Jamie glowering menacingly at them, and the dead man staring sightlessly up at the ceiling forty feet above.

The Comte took a step toward me, eyes glittering. “Have you any notion what you have done?” he snarled. “Be warned, Madame; you will pay for this day’s work!”

Jamie moved suddenly in the Comte’s direction, but Jared was even faster, tugging at Jamie’s sleeve, pushing me gently in the direction of the door, and murmuring something unintelligible to the stricken captain, who merely shook his head dumbly in response.

“Poor bugger,” Jared said outside, shaking his head. “Phew!” It was chilly on the quay, with a cold gray wind that rocked the ships at anchor, but Jared mopped his face and neck with a large, incongruous red sailcloth handkerchief pulled from the pocket of his coat. “Come on, laddie, let’s find a tavern. I’m needing a drink.”

Safely ensconced in the upper room of one of the quayside taverns, with a pitcher of wine on the table, Jared collapsed into a chair, fanning himself, and exhaled noisily.

“God, what luck!” He poured a large dollop of wine into his cup, tossed it off, and poured another. Seeing me staring at him, he grinned and pushed the pitcher in my direction.

“Well, there’s wine, lassie,” he explained, “and then there’s stuff you drink to wash the dust away. Toss it back quick, before you have time to taste it, and it does the job handily.” Taking his own advice, he drained the cup and reached for the pitcher again. I began to see exactly what had happened to Jamie the day before.

“Good luck or bad?” I asked Jared curiously. I would have assumed the answer to be “bad,” but the little merchant’s air of jovial exhilaration seemed much too pronounced to be due to the red wine, which strongly resembled battery acid. I set down my own cup, hoping the enamel on my molars was intact.

“Bad for St. Germain, good for me,” he said succinctly. He rose from his chair and peered out the window.

“Good,” he said, sitting down again with a satisfied air. “They’ll have the wine off and into the warehouse by sunset. Safe and sound.”

Jamie leaned back in his chair, surveying his cousin with one eyebrow raised, a smile on his lips.

“Do we take it that Monsieur le Comte St. Germain’s ship also carried spirits, Cousin?”

An ear-to-ear grin in reply displayed two gold teeth in the lower jaw, which made Jared look still more piratical.

“The best aged port from Pinhão,” he said happily. “Cost him a fortune. Half the vintage from the Noval vineyards, and no more available for a year.”

“And I suppose the other half of the Noval port is what’s being unloaded into your warehouse?” I began to understand his delight.

“Right, my lassie, right as rain!” Jared chortled, almost hugging himself at the thought. “D’ye know what that will sell for in Paris?” he demanded, rocking forward and banging his cup down on the table. “A limited supply, and me with the monopoly? God, my profit’s made for the year!”

I rose and looked out the window myself. The Arianna rode at anchor, already noticeably higher in the water, as the huge cargo nets swung down from the boom mounted on the rear deck, to be carefully unloaded, bottle by bottle, into handcarts for the trip to the warehouse.

“Not to impair the general rejoicing,” I said, a little diffidently, “but did you say that your port came from the same place as St. Germain’s shipment?”

“Aye, I did.” Jared came to stand next to me, squinting down at the procession of loaders below. “Noval makes the best port in the whole of Spain and Portugal; I’d have liked to take the whole bottling, but hadn’t the capital. What of it?”

“Only that if the ships are coming from the same port, there’s a chance that some of your seamen might have smallpox too,” I said.

The thought blanched the wine flush from Jared’s lean cheeks, and he reached for a restorative gulp.

“God, what a thought!” he said, gasping as he set the cup down. “But I think it’s all right,” he said, reassuring himself. “The port’s half unloaded already. But I’d best speak to the captain, anyway,” he added, frowning. “I’ll have him pay the men off as soon as the loading’s finished – and if anyone looks ill, they can have their wages and leave at once.” He turned decisively and shot out of the room, pausing at the door just long enough to call over his shoulder, “Order some supper!” before disappearing down the stair with a clatter like a small herd of elephants.

I turned to Jamie, who was staring bemusedly into his undrunk cup of wine.

“He shouldn’t do that!” I exclaimed. “If he has got smallpox on board, he could spread it all over the city by sending men off with it.”

Jamie nodded slowly.

“Then I suppose we’ll hope he hasna got it,” he observed mildly.

I turned uncertainly toward the door. “But… shouldn’t we do something? I could at least go have a look at his men. And tell them what to do with the bodies of the men from the other ship…”

“Sassenach.” The deep voice was still mild, but held an unmistakable note of warning.

“What?” I turned back to find him leaning forward, regarding me levelly over the rim of his cup. He looked at me thoughtfully for a minute before speaking.

“D’ye think what we’ve set ourselves to do is important, Sassenach?”

My hand dropped from the door handle.

“Stopping the Stuarts from starting a rising in Scotland? Yes, of course I do. Why do you ask?”

He nodded, patient as an instructor with a slow pupil.

“Aye, well. If ye do, then you’ll come here, sit yourself down, and drink wine wi’ me until Jared comes back. And if ye don’t…” He paused and blew out a long breath that stirred the ruddy wave of hair above his forehead.

“If ye don’t, then you’ll go down to a quay full of seamen and merchants who think women near ships are the height of ill luck, who are already spreading gossip that you’ve put a curse on St. Germain’s ship, and you’ll tell them what they must do. With luck, they’ll be too afraid of ye to rape you before they cut your throat and toss you in the harbor, and me after you. If St. Germain himself doesna strangle you first. Did ye no see the look on his face?”

I came back to the table and sat down, a little abruptly. My knees were a trifle wobbly.

“I saw it,” I said. “But could he… he wouldn’t…”

Jamie raised his brows and pushed a cup of wine across the table to me.

“He could, and he would if he thought it could be managed inconspicuously. For the Lord’s sake, Sassenach, you’ve cost the man close on a year’s income! And he doesna look the sort to take such a loss philosophically. Had ye not told the harbor master it was smallpox, out loud in front of witnesses, a few discreet bribes would have taken care of the matter. As it is, why do ye think Jared brought us up here so fast? For the quality of the drink?”

My lips felt stiff, as though I’d actually drunk a good bit of the vitriol from the pitcher.

“You mean… we’re in danger?”

He sat back, nodding.

“Now you’ve got it,” he said kindly. “I dinna suppose Jared wanted to alarm you. I expect he’s gone to arrange a guard of some kind for us, as well as to see to his crew. He’ll likely be safe enough – everyone knows him, and his crew and loaders are right outside.”

I rubbed my hands over the gooseflesh that rippled up my forearms. There was a cheerful fire in the hearth, and the room was warm and smoky, but I felt cold.

“How do you know so much about what the Comte St. Germain might do?” I didn’t doubt Jamie at all – I remembered all too well the malevolent black glare the Comte had shot at me in the warehouse – but I did wonder how he knew the man.

Jamie took a small sip of the wine, made a face and put it down.

“For the one thing, he’s some reputation for ruthlessness – and other things. I heard a bit about him when I lived in Paris before, though I had the luck never to run afoul of the man then. For another, Jared spent some time yesterday warning me about him; he’s Jared’s chief business rival in Paris.”

I rested my elbows on the battered table, and parked my chin on my folded hands.

“I’ve made rather a mess of things, haven’t I?” I said ruefully. “Got you off on a fine footing in business.”

He smiled, then got up and came behind me, bending to put his arms around me. I was still rather unnerved from his sudden revelations, but felt much better to feel the strength and the bulk of him behind me. He kissed me lightly on top of the head.

“Dinna worry, Sassenach,” he said. “I can take care of myself. And I can take care of you, too – and you’ll let me.” There was a smile in his voice, but a question as well, and I nodded, letting my head fall back against his chest.

“I’ll let you,” I said. “The citizens of Le Havre will just have to take their chances with the pox.”

It was nearly an hour before Jared came back, ears reddened with cold, but throat unslit, and apparently none the worse for wear. I was happy to see him.

“It’s all right,” he announced, beaming. “Nothing but scurvy and the usual fluxes and chills aboard. No pox.” He looked around the room, rubbing his hands together. “Where’s supper?”

His cheeks were wind-reddened and he looked cheerful and capable. Apparently dealing with business rivals who settled contentions by assassination was all in a day’s work to this merchant. And why not? I thought cynically. He was a bloody Scot, after all.

As if to confirm this view, Jared ordered the meal, acquired an excellent wine to go with it by the simple expedient of sending to his own warehouse for it, and sat down to a genial postprandial discussion with Jamie on ways and means of dealing with French merchants.

“Bandits,” he said. “Every man jack o’ them would stab ye in the back as soon as look at ye. Filthy thieves. Don’t trust them an inch. Half on deposit, half on delivery, and never let a nobleman pay on credit.”

Despite Jared’s assurances that he had left two men below on watch, I was still a bit nervous, and after supper, I placed myself near the window, where I could see the comings and goings along the pier. Not that my watching out was likely to do a lot of good, I thought; every second man on the dock looked like an assassin to me.

The clouds were closing in over the harbor; it was going to snow again tonight. The reefed sails fluttered wildly in the rising wind, rattling against the spars with a noise that nearly overwhelmed the shouts of the loaders. The harbor glowed with a moment of dull green light as the setting sun was driven into the water by the pressing clouds.

As it grew darker, the bustle to and fro died down, the loaders with their handcarts disappearing up the streets into the town, and the sailors disappearing into the lighted doors of establishments like the one in which I sat. Still, the place was far from deserted; in particular, there was a small crowd still gathered near the ill-fated Patagonia. Men in some sort of uniform formed a cordon at the foot of the gangplank; no doubt to prevent anyone going aboard or bringing the cargo off. Jared had explained that the healthy members of the crew would be allowed to come ashore, but not permitted to bring anything off the ship save the clothes that they wore.

“Better than they’d do under the Dutch,” he said, scratching the rough black stubble that was beginning to emerge along his jaw. “If a ship’s coming in from a port known to have plague of some kind, the damned Hollanders make the sailors swim ashore naked.”

“What do they do for clothes once they get ashore?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” said Jared absently, “but since they’ll find a brothel within moments of stepping on land, I don’t suppose they’d need any – begging your pardon, m’dear,” he added hastily, suddenly remembering that he was talking to a lady.

Covering his momentary confusion with heartiness, he rose and came to peer out of the window beside me.

“Ah,” he said. “They’re getting ready to fire the ship. Given what she’s carrying, they’d best tow it a good way out into the harbor first.”

Towropes had been attached to the doomed Patagonia, and a number of small boats manned by oarsmen were standing ready, waiting for a signal. This was given by the harbor master, whose gold braid was barely visible as a gleam in the dying light of the day. He shouted, waving both hands slowly back and forth above his head like a semaphore.

His shout was echoed by the captains of the rowboats and galleys, and the towropes slowly lifted from the water as they tautened, water sluicing down the heavy hemp spirals with a splash audible in the sudden silence that struck the docks. The shouts from the towboats were the only sound as the dark hulk of the condemned ship creaked, quivered, and turned into the wind, shrouds groaning as she set out on her last brief voyage.

They left her in the middle of the harbor, a safe distance away from the other ships. Her decks had been soaked with oil, and as the towropes were cast off and the galleys pulled away, the small round figure of the harbor master rose from the seat of the dinghy that had rowed him out. He bent down, head close to one of the seated figures, then rose with the bright sudden flame of a torch in one hand.

The rower behind him leaned away as he drew back his arm and threw the torch. A heavy club wrapped with oil-soaked rags, it turned end over end, the fire shrinking to a blue glow, and landed out of sight behind the railing. The harbor master didn’t wait to see the effects of his action; he sat down at once, gesturing madly to the rower, who heaved on the oars, and the small boat shot away across the dark water.

For long moments, nothing happened, but the crowd on the dock stood still, murmuring quietly. I could see the pale reflection of Jamie’s face, floating above my own in the dark glass of the window. The glass was cold, and misted over quickly with our breath; I rubbed it clear with the edge of my cloak.

“There,” Jamie said softly. The flame ran suddenly behind the railing, a small blue glowing line. Then a flicker, and the forward shrouds sprang out, orange-red lines against the sky. A silent leap, and the tongues of fire danced along the oil-drenched rails, and one furled sail sparked and burst into flame.

In less than a minute, the shrouds of the mizzen had caught, and the mainsail unfurled, its moorings burnt through, a falling sheet of flame. The fire spread too rapidly then to watch its progress; everything seemed alight at once.

“Now,” Jared said suddenly. “Come downstairs. The hold will catch in a minute, and that will be the best time to make away. No one will notice us.”

He was right; as we crept cautiously out of the tavern door, two men materialized beside Jared – his own seamen, armed with pistols and marlinspikes – but no one else noticed our appearance. Everyone was turned toward the harbor, where the superstructure of the Patagonia was visible now as a black skeleton inside a body of rippling flame. There was a series of pops, so close together they sounded like machine-gun fire, and then an almighty explosion that rose from the center of the ship in a fountain of sparks and burning timbers.

“Let’s go.” Jamie’s hand was firm on my arm, and I made no protest. Following Jared, guarded by the sailors, we stole away from the quay, surreptitious as though we had started the fire.

7 ROYAL AUDIENCE

Jared’s house in Paris stood in the Rue Tremoulins. It was a wealthy district, with stone-faced houses of three, four, and five stories crowded cheek by jowl together. Here and there a very large house stood alone in its own park, but for the most part, a reasonably athletic burglar could have leaped from rooftop to rooftop with no difficulty.

“Mmphm” was Murtagh’s solitary observation, upon beholding Jared’s house. “I’ll find my own lodging.”

“And it makes ye nervous to have a decent roof above your head, man, ye can sleep in the stables,” Jamie suggested. He grinned down at his small, dour godfather. “We’ll ha’ the footman bring ye out your parritch on a silver tray.”

Inside, the house was furnished with comfortable elegance, though as I was later to realize, it was Spartan by comparison with most of the houses of the nobility and the wealthy bourgeois. I supposed that this was at least in part because the house had no lady; Jared had never married, though he showed no signs of feeling the lack of a wife.

“Well, he has a mistress, of course,” Jamie had explained when I speculated about his cousin’s private life.

“Oh, of course,” I murmured.

“But she’s married. Jared told me once that a man of business should never form entanglements with unmarried ladies – he said they demand too much in terms of expense and time. And if ye marry them, they’ll run through your money and you’ll end up a pauper.”

“Fine opinion he’s got of wives,” I said. “What does he think of your marrying, in spite of all this helpful advice?”

Jamie laughed. “Well, I havena got any money to start with, so I can hardly be worse off. He thinks you’re verra decorative; he says I must buy ye a new gown, though.”

I spread the skirt of the apple-green velvet, more than a little the worse for wear.

“I suppose so,” I agreed. “Or I’ll go round wrapped in a bedsheet after a while; this is already tight in the waist.”

“Elsewhere, too,” he said, grinning as he looked me over. “Got your appetite back, have ye, Sassenach?”

“Oaf,” I said coldly. “You know perfectly well that Annabelle MacRannoch is the general size and shape of a shovel handle, whereas I am not.”

“You are not,” he agreed, eyeing me with appreciation. “Thank God.” He patted me familiarly on the bottom.

“I’m to join Jared at the warehouse this morning to go over the ledgers, then we’re going to call on some of his clients, to introduce me. Will ye be all right by yourself?”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “I’ll explore the house a bit, and get acquainted with the servants.” I had met the servants en masse when we had arrived late in the previous afternoon, but since we had dined simply in our room, I had seen no one since but the footman who brought the food, and the maid who had come in early in the morning to put back the curtains, lay and light the fire, and carry away the chamber pot. I quailed a bit at the thought of suddenly being in charge of a “staff,” but reassured myself by thinking that it couldn’t be much different from directing orderlies and junior nurses, and I’d done that before, as a senior nurse at a French field station in 1943.

After Jamie’s departure, I took my time in making what toilette could be made with a comb and water, which were the only grooming implements available. If Jared was serious about my holding dinner parties, I could see that a new gown was going to be merely the start of it.

I did have, in the side pocket of my medicine chest, the frayed willow twigs with which I cleaned my teeth, and I got one of these and set to work, thinking over the amazing fortune which had brought us here.

Essentially barred from Scotland, we would have had to find a place to make our future, either in Europe or by emigrating to America. And given what I now knew about Jamie’s attitude toward ships, I wasn’t at all surprised that he should have looked to France from the start.

The Frasers had strong ties with France; many of them, like Abbot Alexander and Jared Fraser, had made lives here, seldom if ever returning to their native Scotland. And there were many Jacobites as well, Jamie had told me, those who had followed their king into exile, and now lived as best they could in France or Italy while awaiting his restoration.

“There’s always talk of it,” he had said. “In the houses, mostly, not the taverns. And that’s why nothing’s come of it. When it gets to the taverns, you’ll know it’s serious.”

“Tell me,” I said, watching him brush the dust from his coat, “are all Scots born knowing about politics, or is it just you?”

He laughed, but quickly sobered as he opened the huge armoire and hung up the coat. It looked worn and rather pathetic, hanging by itself in the enormous, cedar-scented space.

“Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach, I’d as soon not know. But born as I was, between the MacKenzies and the Frasers, I’d little choice in the matter. And ye don’t spend a year in French society and two years in an army without learning how to listen to what’s being said, and what’s being meant, and how to tell the difference between the two. Given these times, though, it isna just me; there’s neither laird nor cottar in the Highlands who can stand aside from what’s to come.”

“What’s to come.” What was to come? I wondered. What would come, if we were not successful in our efforts here, was an armed rebellion, an attempt at restoration of the Stuart monarchy, led by the son of the exiled king, Prince Charles Edward (Casimir Maria Sylvester) Stuart.

“Bonnie Prince Charlie,” I said softly to myself, looking over my reflection in the large pier glass. He was here, now, in the same city, perhaps not too far away. What would he be like? I could think of him only in terms of his usual historical portrait, which showed a handsome, slightly effeminate youth of sixteen or so, with soft pink lips and powdered hair, in the fashion of the times. Or the imagined paintings, showing a more robust version of the same thing, brandishing a broadsword as he stepped out of a boat onto the shore of Scotland.

A Scotland he would ruin and lay waste in the effort to reclaim it for his father and himself. Doomed to failure, he would attract enough support to cleave the country, and lead his followers through civil war to a bloody end on the field of Culloden. Then he would flee back to safety in France, but the retribution of his enemies would be exacted upon those he left behind.

It was to prevent such a disaster that we had come. It seemed incredible, thinking about it in the peace and luxury of Jared’s house. How did one stop a rebellion? Well, if risings were fomented in taverns, perhaps they could be stopped over dinner tables. I shrugged at myself in the mirror, blew an errant curl out of one eye, and went down to cozen the cook.

The staff, at first inclined to view me with frightened suspicion, soon realized that I had no intention of interfering with their work, and relaxed into a mood of wary obligingness. I had thought at first, in my blur of fatigue, that there were at least a dozen servants lined up in the hallway for my inspection. In fact, there were sixteen of them, counting the groom, the stable-lad and the knife-boy, whom I hadn’t noticed in the general scrum. I was still more impressed at Jared’s success in business, until I realized just how little the servants were paid: a new pair of shoes and two livres per year for the footmen, a trifle less for the housemaids and kitchenmaids, a little more for such exalted personages as Madame Vionnet, the cook, and the butler, Magnus.

While I explored the mechanics of the household and stored up what information I could glean at home from the gossip of the parlormaids, Jamie was out with Jared every day, calling upon customers, meeting people, preparing himself to “assist His Highness” by making those social connections that might prove of value to an exiled prince. It was among the dinner guests that we might find allies – or enemies.

“St. Germain?” I said, suddenly catching a familiar name in the midst of Marguerite’s chatter as she polished the parquet floor. “The Comte St. Germain?”

“Oui, Madame.” She was a small, fat girl, with an oddly flattened face and popeyes that made her look like a turbot, but she was friendly and eager to please. Now she pursed her mouth up into a tiny circle, portending the imparting of some really scandalous tidbit. I looked as encouraging as possible.

“The Comte, Madame, has a very bad reputation,” she said portentously.

Since this was true – according to Marguerite – of virtually everyone who came to dinner, I arched my brows and waited for further details.

“He has sold his soul to the Devil, you know,” she confided, lowering her voice and glancing around as though that gentleman might be lurking behind the chimney breast. “He celebrates the Black Mass, at which the blood and flesh of innocent children are shared amongst the wicked!”

A fine specimen you picked to make an enemy of, I thought to myself.

“Oh, everyone knows, Madame,” Marguerite assured me. “But it does not matter; the women are mad for him, anyway; wherever he goes, they throw themselves at his head. But then, he is rich.” Plainly this last qualification was at least sufficient to balance, if not to outweigh, the blood-drinking and flesh-eating.

“How interesting,” I said. “But I thought that Monsieur le Comte was a competitor of Monsieur Jared; doesn’t he also import wines? Why does Monsieur Jared invite him here, then?”

Marguerite looked up from her floor-polishing and laughed.

“Why, Madame! It is so that Monsieur Jared can serve the best Beaune at dinner, tell Monsieur le Comte that he has just acquired ten cases, and at the conclusion of the meal, generously offer him a bottle to take home!”

“I see,” I said, grinning. “And is Monsieur Jared similarly invited to dine with Monsieur le Comte?”

She nodded, white kerchief bobbing over her oil-bottle and rag. “Oh, yes, Madame. But not as often!”

The Comte St. Germain was fortunately not invited for this evening. We dined simply en famille, so that Jared could rehearse Jamie in the few details left to be arranged before his departure. Of these, the most important was the King’s lever at Versailles.

Being invited to attend the King’s lever was a considerable mark of favor, Jared explained over dinner.

“Not to you, lad,” he said kindly, waving a fork at Jamie. “To me. The King wants to make sure I’m coming back from Germany – or Duverney, the Minister of Finance, does, at least. The latest wave of taxes hit the merchants hard, and a good many of the foreigners left – with the ill effects on the Royal Treasury you can imagine.” He grimaced at the thought of taxes, scowling at the baby eel on his fork.

“I mean to be gone by Monday-week. I’m waiting only for word that the Wilhelmina’s come in safe to Calais; then I’m off.” Jared took another bite of eel and nodded at Jamie, talking around the mouthful of food. “I’m leaving the business in good hands, lad; I’ve no worry on that score. We might talk a bit before I go about other matters, though. I’ve arranged with the Earl Marischal that we’ll go with him to Montmartre two days hence, for you to pay your respects to His Highness, Prince Charles Edward.”

I felt a sudden thump of excitement in the pit of my stomach, and exchanged a quick glance with Jamie. He nodded at Jared, as though this were nothing startling, but his eyes sparkled with anticipation as he looked at me. So this was the start of it.

“His Highness lives a very retired life in Paris,” Jared was saying as he chased the last eels, slick with butter, around the edge of the plate. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for him to appear in society, until and unless the King receives him officially. So His Highness seldom leaves his house, and sees few people, save those supporters of his father who come to pay their respects.”

“That isn’t what I’ve heard,” I interjected.

“What?” Two pairs of startled eyes turned in my direction, and Jared laid down his fork, abandoning the final eel to its fate.

Jamie arched an eyebrow at me. “What have ye heard, Sassenach, and from whom?”

“From the servants,” I said, concentrating on my own eels. Seeing Jared’s frown, it occurred to me for the first time that it might not be considered quite the thing for the lady of the house to be gossiping with parlormaids. Well, the hell with it, I thought rebelliously. There wasn’t much else for me to do.

“The parlormaid says that His Highness Prince Charles has been paying calls on the Princesse Louise de La Tour de Rohan,” I said, plucking a single eel off the fork and chewing slowly. They were delicious, but felt rather disconcerting if swallowed whole, as though the creature were still alive. I swallowed carefully. So far, so good.

“In the absence of the lady’s husband,” I added delicately.

Jamie looked amused, Jared horrified.

“The Princesse de Rohan?” Jared said. “Marie-Louise-Henriette-Jeanne de La Tour d’Auvergne? Her husband’s family are very close to the King.” He rubbed his fingers across his lips, leaving a buttery shine around his mouth. “That could be very dangerous,” he muttered, as though to himself. “I wonder if the wee fool… but no. Surely he’s more sense than that. It must be only inexperience; he’s not been so much in society, and things are different in Rome. Still…” He left off muttering and turned to Jamie with decision.

“That will be your first task, lad, in the service of His Majesty. You’re much of an age with His Highness, but you have the experience and the judgment of your time in Paris – and my training, I flatter myself.” He smiled briefly at Jamie. “You can befriend his Highness; smooth his path as much as may be with those men that will be of use to him; you’ve met most of them by now. And explain to His Highness – as tactfully as ye can – that gallantry in the wrong direction may do considerable damage to the aims of his father.”

Jamie nodded absently, plainly thinking of something else.

“How does our parlormaid come to know about His Highness’s vists, Sassenach?” he asked. “She doesna leave the house more than once a week, to go to Mass, does she?”

I shook my head, and swallowed the next mouthful in order to reply.

“So far as I’ve worked it out, our kitchenmaid heard it from the knife-boy, who heard it from the stable-lad, who got it from the groom next door. I don’t know how many people there are in between, but the Rohan house is three doors down the street. I’d imagine the Princesse knows all about us, too,” I added cheerfully. “At least she does, if she talks to her kitchenmaid.”

“Ladies do not gossip with their kitchenmaids,” Jared said coldly. He narrowed his eyes at Jamie in a silent adjuration to keep his wife in better order.

I could see the corner of Jamie’s mouth twitching, but he merely sipped his Montrachet and changed the subject to a discussion of Jared’s latest venture; a shipment of rum, on its way from Jamaica.

When Jared rang the bell for the dishes to be cleared and the brandy brought out, I excused myself. One of Jared’s idiosyncrasies was the enjoyment of long black cheroots with his brandy, and I had the distinct feeling that, carefully chewed or not, the eels I had eaten wouldn’t benefit from being smoked.

I lay on my bed and tried, with limited success, not to think about eels. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Jamaica – pleasant white beaches under tropical sun. But thoughts of Jamaica led to thoughts of the Wilhelmina and thought of ships made me think of the sea, which led directly back to images of giant eels, coiling and writhing through the heaving green waves. I greeted the distraction of Jamie’s appearance with relief, sitting up as he came in.

“Phew!” He leaned against the closed door, fanning himself with the loose end of his jabot. “I feel like a smoked sausage. I’m fond of Jared, but I shall be verra pleased when he’s taken his damned cheroots to Germany.”

“Well, don’t come near me, if you smell like a cheroot,” I said. “The eels don’t like smoke.”

“I dinna blame them a bit.” He took off his coat and unbuttoned his shirt. “I think it’s a plan, ye ken,” he confided, tossing his head toward the door as he took his shirt off. “Like the bees.”

“Bees?”

“How ye move a hive of bees,” he explained, opening the window and hanging his shirt outside from the crank of the casement. “You get a pipe full of the strongest tobacco ye can find, stick it into the hive and blow smoke up into the combs. The bees all fall down stunned, and you can take them where ye like. I think that’s what Jared does to his customers; he smokes them into insensibility, and they’ve signed orders for three times more wine than they meant to before they recover their senses.”

I giggled and he grinned, putting a finger to his lips as the sound of Jared’s light footsteps came down the corridor, passing our door on his way to his own room.

Danger of discovery past, he came and stretched out beside me, wearing only his kilt and stockings.

“Not too bad?” he asked. “I can sleep in the dressing room, if it is. Or put my head out of the window for airing.”

I sniffed his hair, where the scent of tobacco lingered among the ruddy waves. The candlelight shot the red with strands of gold, and I ruffled my fingers through it, enjoying the thick softness of it, and the hard, solid feel of the bone beneath.

“No, it’s not too bad. You’re not worried about Jared leaving so soon, then?”

He kissed my forehead and lay down, head on the bolster. He smiled up at me, shaking his head.

“No. I’ve met all the chief customers and the captains, I know all the warehousemen and the officials, I’ve the price lists and the inventories committed to memory. What’s left to learn about the business I must just learn by trying; Jared canna teach me more.”

“And Prince Charles?”

He half-closed his eyes and gave a small grunt of resignation. “Aye, well. For that, I must trust to the mercy of God, not Jared. And I daresay it will be easier if Jared isn’t here to see what I’m doing.”

I lay down beside him, and he turned toward me, sliding an arm around my waist so that we lay close together.

“What shall we do?” I asked. “Have you any idea, Jamie?”

His breath was warm on my face, scented with brandy, and I tilted my head up to kiss him. His soft, wide mouth opened on mine, and he lingered in the kiss for a moment before answering.

“Oh, I’ve ideas,” he said, drawing back with a sigh. “God knows what they’ll amount to, but I’ve ideas.”

“Tell me.”

“Mmphm.” He settled himself more comfortably, turning on his back and cradling me in one arm, head on his shoulder.

“Well,” he began, “as I see it, it’s a matter of money, Sassenach.”

“Money? I should have thought it was a matter of politics. Don’t the French want James restored because it will cause the English trouble? From the little I recall, Louis wanted – will want” – I corrected myself – “Charles Stuart to distract King George from what Louis is up to in Brussels.”

“I daresay he does,” he said, “but restoring kings takes money. And Louis hasna got so much himself that he can be using it on the one hand to fight wars in Brussels, and on the other to finance invasions of England. You heard what Jared said about the Royal Treasury and the taxes?”

“Yes, but…”

“No, it isna Louis that will make it happen,” he said, instructing me. “Though he’s something to say about it, of course. No, there are other sources of money that James and Charles will be trying as well, and those are the French banking families, the Vatican, and the Spanish Court.”

“James covering the Vatican and the Spanish, and Charles the French bankers, you think?” I asked, interested.

He nodded, staring up at the carved panels of the ceiling. The walnut panels were a soft, light brown in the flickering candle-glow, darker rosettes and ribbons twining from each corner.

“Aye, I do. Uncle Alex showed me correspondence from His Majesty King James, and I should say the Spanish are his best opportunity, judging from that. The Pope’s compelled to support him, ye ken, as a Catholic monarch; Pope Clement supported James for a good many years, and now Clement’s dead, Benedict continues it, but not at such a high level. But both Philip of Spain and Louis are James’s cousins; it’s the obligation of Bourbon blood he calls on there.” He smiled wryly at me, sidelong. “And from the things I’ve seen, I can tell ye that Royal blood runs damn thin when it comes to money, Sassenach.”

Lifting one foot at a time, he stripped off his stockings one handed and tossed them onto the bedroom stool.

“James got some money from Spain thirty years ago,” he observed. “A small fleet of ships, and some men as well. That was the Rising in 1715. But he had ill luck, and James’s forces were defeated at Sheriffsmuir – before James himself even arrived. So I’d say the Spanish are maybe none too eager to finance a second try at the Stuart restoration – not without a verra good idea that it might succeed.”

“So Charles has come to France to work on Louis and the bankers,” I mused. “And according to what I know of history, he’ll succeed. Which leaves us where?”

Jamie’s arm left my shoulders as he stretched, the shift of his weight tilting the mattress under me.

“It leaves me selling wine to bankers, Sassenach,” he said, yawning. “And you talking to parlormaids. And if we blow enough smoke, perhaps we’ll stun the bees.”

Just before Jared’s departure, he took Jamie to the small house in Montmartre where His Highness, Prince Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir, etc. Stuart was residing, biding his time while waiting to see what Louis would or would not do for an impecunious cousin with aspirations to a throne.

I had seen them off, both dressed in their best, and spent the time while they were gone picturing the encounter in my mind, wondering how it had gone.

“How did it go?” I asked Jamie, the moment I got him alone upon his return. “What was he like?”

He scratched his head, thinking.

“Well,” he said at last, “he had a toothache.”

“What?”

“He said so. And it looked verra painful; he kept his face screwed up to one side with his jaw puffed a bit. I canna say whether he’s stiff in his manner usually, or if it was only that it hurt him to talk, but he didna say much.”

After the formal introductions, in fact, the older men, Jared, the Earl Marischal, and a rather seedy-looking specimen referred to casually as “Balhaldy,” had gravitated together and begun talking Scottish politics, leaving Jamie and His Highness more or less to themselves.

“We had a cup of brandywine each,” Jamie obediently reported, under my goading. “And I asked him how he found Paris, and he said he was finding it rather tiresomely confining, as he couldna get any hunting. And so then we talked of hunting. He prefers hunting wi’ dogs to hunting with beaters, and I said I did, too. Then he told me how many pheasants he’d shot on one hunting trip in Italy. He talked about Italy until he said the cold air coming in through the window was hurting his tooth – it’s no a verra well-built house; just a small villa. Then he drank some more brandywine for his tooth, and I told him about stag-hunting in the Highlands, and he said he’d like to try that sometime, and was I a good shot with a bow? And I said I was, and he said he hoped he would have the opportunity to invite me to hunt with him in Scotland. And then Jared said he needed to stop at the warehouse on the way back, so His Highness gave me his hand and I kissed it and we left.”

“Hmm,” I said. While reason asserted that naturally the famous – or about-to-be-famous, or possibly-famous, at any rate – were bound to be much like everyone else in their daily behavior, I had to admit that I found this report of the Bonnie Prince a bit of a letdown. Still, Jamie had been invited back. The important thing, as he pointed out, was to become acquainted with His Highness, in order to keep an eye on his plans as any developed. I wondered whether the King of France would be a trifle more impressive in person.

We were not long in finding out. A week later, Jamie rose in the cold, black dark and dressed himself for the long ride to Versailles, to attend the King’s lever. Louis awoke punctually at six o’clock every morning. At this hour, the favored few chosen to attend the King’s toilette should be assembled in the antechamber, ready to join the procession of nobles and attendants who were necessary to assist the monarch in greeting the new day.

Wakened in the small hours by Magnus the butler, Jamie stumbled sleepily out of bed and made ready, yawning and muttering. At this hour, my insides were tranquil, and I luxuriated in that delightful feeling that comes when we observe someone having to do something unpleasant that we are not required to do ourselves.

“Watch carefully,” I said, my voice husky with sleep. “So you can tell me everything.”

With a sleepy grunt of assent, he leaned over to kiss me, then shuffled off, candle in hand, to see to the saddling of his horse. The last I heard before sinking back under the surface of sleep was Jamie’s voice downstairs, suddenly clear and alert in the crisp night air, exchanging farewells with the groom in the street outside.

Given the distance to Versailles, and the chance – of which Jared had warned – of being invited to lunch, I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t return before noon, but I couldn’t help being curious, and waited in increasing impatience until his arrival – finally – near teatime.

“And how was the King’s lever?” I asked, coming to help Jamie remove his coat. Wearing the tight pigskin gloves de rigueur at Court, he couldn’t manage the crested silver buttons on the slippery velvet.

“Oh, that feels better,” he said, flexing his broad shoulders in relief as the buttons sprang free. The coat was much too tight in the shoulders; peeling him out of it was like shelling an egg.

“Interesting, Sassenach,” he said, in answer to my question, “at least for the first hour or so.”

As the procession of nobles came into the Royal Bedchamber, each bearing his ceremonial implement – towel, razor, alecup, royal seal, etc. – the gentlemen of the bedchamber drew back the heavy curtains that kept out the dawn, unveiled the draperies of the great bed of state, and exposed the face of le roi Louis to the interested eye of the rising sun.

Assisted to a sitting position on the edge of his bed, the King had sat yawning and scratching his stubbled chin while his attendants pulled a silk robe, heavy with embroidery of silver and gold, over the royal shoulders, and knelt to strip off the heavy felt stockings in which the King slept, to be replaced with hose of lighter silk, and soft slippers lined with rabbit fur.

One by one, the nobles of the court came to kneel at the feet of their sovereign, to greet him respectfully and ask how His Majesty had passed the night?

“Not verra well, I should say,” Jamie broke off to observe here. “He looked like he’d slept little more than an hour or two, and bad dreams with it.”

Despite bloodshot eyes and drooping jowls, His Majesty had nodded graciously to his courtiers, then risen slowly to his feet and bowed to those favored guests hovering in the back of the chamber. A dispirited wave of the hand summoned a gentleman of the bedchamber, who led His Majesty to the waiting chair, where he sat with closed eyes, enjoying the ministrations of his attendants, while the visitors were led forward one at a time by the Duc d’Orléans, to kneel before the King and offer a few words of greeting. Formal petitions would be offered a little later, when there was a chance of Louis being awake enough to hear them.

“I wasna there for petitioning, but only as a mark of favor,” Jamie explained, “so I just knelt and said, ‘Good morning, Your Majesty,’ while the Duc told the King who I was.”

“Did the King say anything to you?” I asked.

Jamie grinned, hands linked behind his head as he stretched. “Oh, aye. He opened one eye and looked at me as though he didna believe it.”

One eye still open, Louis had surveyed his visitor with a sort of dim interest, then remarked, “Big, aren’t you?”

“I said, ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ ” Jamie said. “Then he said, ‘Can you dance?’ and I said I could. Then he shut his eye again, and the Duc motioned me back.”

Introductions complete, the gentlemen of the bedchamber, ceremoniously assisted by the chief nobles, had then proceeded to make the King’s toilette. As they did so, the various petitioners came forward at the beckoning of the Duc d’Orléans, to murmur into the King’s ear as he twisted his head to accommodate the razor, or bent his neck to have his wig adjusted.

“Oh? And were you honored by being allowed to blow His Majesty’s nose for him?” I asked.

Jamie grinned, stretching his linked hands until the knuckles cracked.

“No, thank God. I skulked about against the wardrobe, trying to look like part of the furniture, wi’ the bitty wee comtes and ducs all glancing at me out of the sides of their eyes as though Scottishness were catching.”

“Well, at least you were tall enough to see everything?”

“Oh, aye. That I did, even when he eased himself on his chaise percée.”

“He really did that? In front of everyone?” I was fascinated. I’d read about it, of course, but found it difficult to believe.

“Oh, aye, and everyone behaving just as they did when he washed his face and blew his nose. The Duc de Neve had the unspeakable honor,” he added ironically, “of wiping His Majesty’s arse for him. I didna notice what they did wi’ the towel; took it out and had it gilded, no doubt.

“A verra wearisome business it was, too,” he added, bending over and setting his hands on the floor to stretch the muscles of his legs. “Took forever; the man’s tight as an owl.”

“Tight as an owl?” I asked, amused at the simile. “Constipated, do you mean?”

“Aye, costive. And no wonder, the things they eat at Court,” he added censoriously, stretching backward. “Terrible diet, all cream and butter. He should eat parritch every morning for breakfast – that’d take care of it. Verra good for the bowels, ye ken.”

If Scotsmen were stubborn about anything – and, in fact, they tended to be stubborn about quite a number of things, truth be known – it was the virtues of oatmeal parritch for breakfast. Through eons of living in a land so poor there was little to eat but oats, they had as usual converted necessity into a virtue, and insisted that they liked the stuff.

Jamie had by now thrown himself on the floor and was doing the Royal Air Force exercises I had recommended to strengthen the muscles of his back.

Returning to his earlier remark, I said, “Why did you say ‘tight as an owl’? I’ve heard that before, to mean drunk, but not costive. Are owls constipated, then?”

Completing his course, he flipped over and lay on the rug, panting.

“Oh, aye.” He blew out a long sigh, and caught his breath. He sat up and pushed the hair out of his eyes. “Or not really, but that’s the story ye hear. Folk will tell ye that owls havena got an arsehole, so they canna pass the things they eat – like mice, aye? So the bones and the hairs and such are all made up into a ball, and the owl vomits them out, not bein’ able to get rid of them out the other end.”

“Really?”

“Oh, aye, that’s true enough, they do. That’s how ye find an owl-tree; look underneath for the pellets on the ground. Make a terrible mess, owls do,” he added, pulling his collar away from his neck to let air in.

“But they have got arseholes,” he informed me. “I knocked one out of a tree once wi’ a slingshot and looked.”

“A lad with an inquiring mind, eh?” I said, laughing.

“To be sure, Sassenach.” He grinned. “And they do pass things that way, too. I spent a whole day sitting under an owl-tree with Ian, once, just to make sure.”

“Christ, you must have been curious,” I remarked.

“Well, I wanted to know. Ian didna want to sit still so long, and I had to pound on him a bit to make him stop fidgeting.” Jamie laughed, remembering. “So he sat still wi’ me until it happened, and then he snatched up a handful of owl pellets, jammed them down the neck of my shirt, and was off like a shot. God, he could run like the wind.” A tinge of sadness crossed his face, his memory of the fleet-footed friend of his youth clashing with more recent memories of his brother-in-law, hobbling stiffly, if good-naturedly, on the wooden leg a round of grapeshot taken in a foreign battle had left him with.

“That sounds an awful way to live,” I remarked, wanting to distract him. “Not watching owls, I don’t mean – the King. No privacy, ever, not even in the loo.”

“I wouldna care for it myself,” Jamie agreed. “But then he’s the King.”

“Mmm. And I suppose all the power and luxury and so forth makes up for a lot.”

He shrugged. “Well, if it does or no, it’s the bargain God’s made for him, and he’s little choice but to make the best of it.” He picked up his plaid and drew the tail of it through his belt and up to his shoulder.

“Here, let me.” I took the silver ring-brooch from him and fastened the flaming fabric at the crest of his shoulder. He arranged the drape, smoothing the vivid wool between his fingers.

“I’ve a bargain like that myself, Sassenach,” he said quietly, looking down at me. He smiled briefly. “Though thank God it doesna mean inviting Ian to wipe my arse for me. But I was born laird. I’m the steward of that land and the people on it, and I must make the best of my own bargain wi’ them.”

He reached out and touched my hair lightly.

“That’s why I was glad when ye said we’d come, to try and see what we might do. For there’s a part of me would like no better than to take you and the bairn and go far away, to spend the rest of my life working the fields and the beasts, to come in in the evenings and lie beside ye, quiet through the night.”

The deep blue eyes were hooded in thought, as his hand returned to the folds of his plaid, stroking the bright checks of the Fraser tartan, with the faint white stripe that distinguished Lallybroch from the other septs and families.

“But if I did,” he went on, as though speaking more to himself than to me, “there’s a part of my soul would feel forsworn, and I think – I think I would always hear the voices of the people that are mine, calling out behind me.”

I laid a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up, a faint lopsided smile on the wide mouth.

“I think you would, too,” I said. “Jamie… whatever happens, whatever we’re able to do…” I stopped, looking for words. As so often before, the sheer enormity of the task we had taken on staggered me and left me speechless. Who were we, to alter the course of history, to change the course of events not for ourselves, but for princes and peasants, for the entire country of Scotland?

Jamie laid his hand over mine and squeezed it reassuringly.

“No one can ask more of us than our best, Sassenach. Nay, if there’s blood shed, it wilna lie on our hands at least, and pray God it may not come to that.”

I thought of the lonely gray clanstones on Culloden Moor, and the Highland men who might lie under them, if we were unsuccessful.

“Pray God,” I echoed.

8 UNLAID GHOSTS AND CROCODILES

Between Royal audiences and the daily demands of Jared’s business, Jamie seemed to be finding life full. He disappeared with Murtagh soon after breakfast each morning, to check new deliveries to the warehouse, make inventories, visit the docks on the Seine, and conduct tours of what sounded from his description to be extremely unsavory taverns.

“Well, at least you’ve got Murtagh with you,” I remarked, taking comfort from the fact, “and the two of you can’t get in too much trouble in broad daylight.” The wiry little clansman was unimpressive to look at, his attire varying from that of the ne’er-do-wells on the docks only by the fact that the lower half was tartan plaid, but I had ridden through half of Scotland with Murtagh to rescue Jamie from Wentworth Prison, and there was no one in the world whom I would sooner have trusted with his welfare.

After luncheon, Jamie would make his rounds of calls – social and business, and an increasing number of both – and then retire into his study for an hour or two with the ledgers and account books before dinner. He was busy.

I was not. A few days of polite skirmishing with Madame Vionnet, the head-cook, had left it clear who was in charge of the household, and it wasn’t me. Madame came to my sitting room each morning, to consult me on the menu for the day, and to present me with the list of expenditures deemed necessary for the provisioning of the kitchen-fruit, vegetables, butter, and milk from a farm just outside the city, delivered fresh each morning, fish caught from the Seine and sold from a barrow in the street, along with fresh mussels that poked their sealed black curves from heaps of wilting waterweed. I looked over the lists for form’s sake, approved everything, praised the dinner of the night before, and that was that. Aside from the occasional call to open the linen cupboard, the wine cellar, the root cellar, or the pantry with a key from my bunch, my time was then my own, until the hour came to dress for dinner.

The social life of Jared’s establishment continued much as it had when he was in residence. I was still cautious about entertaining on a large scale, but we held small dinners every night, to which came nobles, chevaliers, and ladies, poor Jacobites in exile, wealthy merchants and their wives.

However, I found that eating and drinking and preparing to eat and drink was not really sufficient occupation. I fidgeted to the point that Jamie at last suggested I come and copy ledger entries for him.

“Better do that than be gnawin’ yourself,” he said, looking critically at my bitten nails. “Beside, ye write a fairer hand than the warehouse clerks.”

So it was that I was in the study, crouched industriously over the enormous ledger books, when Mr. Silas Hawkins came late one afternoon, with an order for two tuns of Flemish brandy. Mr. Hawkins was stout and prosperous; an émigré like Jared, he was an Englishman who specialized in the export of French brandies to his homeland.

I supposed that a merchant who looked like a teetotaler would find it rather difficult to sell people wines and spirits in quantity. Mr. Hawkins was fortunate in this regard, in that he had the permanently flushed cheeks and jolly smile of a reveler, though Jamie had told me that the man never tasted his own wares, and in fact seldom drank anything beyond rough ale, though his appetite for food was a legend in the taverns he visited. An expression of alert calculation lurked at the back of his bright brown eyes, behind the smooth bonhomie that oiled his transactions.

“My best suppliers, I do declare,” he declared, signing a large order with a flourish. “Always dependable, always of the first quality. I shall miss your cousin sorely in his absence,” he said, bowing to Jamie, “but he’s done well in his choice of a substitute. Trust a Scotsman to keep the business in the family.”

The small, bright eyes lingered on Jamie’s kilt, the Fraser red of it bright against the dark wood paneling of the drawing room.

“Just over from Scotland recently?” Mr. Hawkins asked casually, feeling inside his coat.

“Nay, I’ve been in France for a time.” Jamie smiled, turning the question away. He took the quill pen from Mr. Hawkins, but finding it too blunted for his taste, tossed it aside, pulling a fresh one from the bouquet of goose feathers that sprouted from a small glass jug on the sideboard.

“Ah. I see from your dress that you are a Highland Scot; I had thought perhaps you would be able to advise me as to the current sentiments prevailing in that part of the country. One hears such rumors, you know.” Mr. Hawkins subsided into a chair at the wave of Jamie’s hand, his round, rosy face apparently intent on the fat leather purse he had drawn from his pocket.

“As for rumors – well, that’s the normal state of affairs in Scotland, no?” Jamie said, studiously sharpening the fresh quill. “But sentiments? Nay, if ye mean politics, I’m afraid I’ve little attention for such things myself.” The small penknife made a sharp snicking sound as the horny slivers shaved off the thick stem of the quill.

Mr. Hawkins brought out several silver pieces from his purse, stacking them neatly in a tidy column between the two men.

“ ’Strewth?” he said, almost absently. “If so, you’re the first Highlander I’ve met who hadn’t.”

Jamie finished his sharpening and held the point of the quill up, squinting to judge its angle.

“Mm?” he said vaguely. “Aye, well, I’ve other matters that concern me; the running of a business such as this is time-consuming, as you’ll know yourself, I imagine.”

“So it is.” Mr. Hawkins counted over the coins in his column once more and removed one, replacing it with two smaller ones. “I’ve heard that Charles Stuart has recently arrived in Paris,” he said. His round tippler’s face showed no more than mild interest, but the eyes were alert in their pockets of fat.

“Oh, aye,” Jamie muttered, his tone of voice leaving it open whether this was acknowledgment of fact, or merely an expression of polite indifference. He had the order before him, and was signing each page with excessive care, crafting the letters rather than scribbling them, as was his usual habit. A left-handed man forced as a boy to write right-handed, he always found letters difficult, but he seldom made such a fuss of it.

“You do not share your cousin’s sympathies in that direction, then?” Hawkins sat back a little, watching the crown of Jamie’s bent head, which was naturally rather noncommital.

“Is that any concern of yours, sir?” Jamie raised his head, and fixed Mr. Hawkins with a mild blue stare. The plump merchant returned the look for a moment, then waved a podgy hand in airy dismissal.

“Not at all,” he said smoothly. “Still, I am familiar with your cousin’s Jacobite leanings – he makes no secret of them. I wondered only whether all Scots were of one mind on this matter of the Stuart pretensions to the throne.”

“If you’ve had much to do wi’ Highland Scots,” Jamie said dryly, handing across a copy of the order, “then ye’ll know that it’s rare to find two of them in agreement on anything much beyond the color of the sky – and even that is open to question from time to time.”

Mr. Hawkins laughed, his comfortable paunch shaking under his waistcoat, and tucked the folded paper away in his coat. Seeing that Jamie was not eager to have this line of inquiry pursued, I stepped in at this point with a hospitable offer of Madeira and biscuits.

Mr. Hawkins looked tempted for a moment, but then shook his head regretfully, pushing back his chair to rise.

“No, no, I thank you, milady, but no. The Arabella docks this Thursday, and I must be at Calais to meet her. And the devil of a lot there is to do before I set foot in the carriage to leave.” He grimaced at a large sheaf of orders and receipts he had pulled from his pocket, added Jamie’s receipt to the heap, and stuffed them back into a large leather traveling wallet.

“Still,” he said, brightening, “I can do a bit of business on the way; I shall call in at the inns and public houses between here and Calais.”

“If ye call in at all the taverns ’twixt here and the coast, you’ll no reach Calais ’til next month,” observed Jamie. He fished his own purse from his sporran and scooped the small column of silver into it.

“Too true, milord,” Mr. Hawkins said, frowning ruefully. “I suppose I must give one or two the miss, and catch them up on my way back.”

“Surely you could send someone to Calais in your place, if your time is so valuable?” I suggested.

He rolled his eyes expressively, pursing his jolly little mouth into something as close to mournfulness as could be managed within the limitations of its shape.

“Would that I could, milady. But the shipment the Arabella carries is, alas, nothing I can consign to the good offices of a functionary. My niece Mary is aboard,” he confided, “bound even as we speak for the French coast. She is but fifteen, and has never been away from her home before. I am afraid I could scarce leave her to find her way to Paris alone.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” I agreed politely. The name seemed familiar, but I couldn’t think why. Mary Hawkins. Undistinguished enough; I couldn’t connect it with anything in particular. I was still musing over it when Jamie rose to see Mr. Hawkins to the door.

“I trust your niece’s journey will be pleasant,” he said politely. “Does she come for schooling, then? Or to visit relatives?”

“For marriage,” said her uncle with satisfaction. “My brother has been fortunate in securing a most advantageous match for her, with a member of the French nobility.” He seemed to expand with pride at this, the plain gold buttons straining the fabric of his waistcoat. “My elder brother is a baronet, you know.”

“She’s fifteen?” I said, uneasily. I knew that early marriages were not uncommon, but fifteen? Still, I had been married at nineteen – and again at twenty-seven. I knew the hell of a lot more at twenty-seven.

“Er, has your niece been acquainted with her fiancé for very long?” I asked cautiously.

“Never met him. In fact” – Mr. Hawkins leaned close, laying a finger next to his lips and lowering his voice – “she doesn’t yet know about the marriage. The negotiations are not quite complete, you see.”

I was appalled at this, and opened my mouth to say something, but Jamie clutched my elbow tightly in warning.

“Well, if the gentleman is of the nobility, perhaps we shall see your niece at Court, then,” he suggested, shoving me firmly toward the door like the blade of a bulldozer. Mr. Hawkins, moving perforce to avoid my stepping on him, backed away, still talking.

“Indeed you may, milord Broch Tuarach. Indeed, I should deem it a great honor for yourself and your lady to meet my niece. I am sure she would derive great comfort from the society of a countrywoman,” he added with a smarmy smile at me. “Not that I would presume upon what is merely a business acquaintance, to be sure.”

The hell you wouldn’t presume, I thought indignantly. You’d do anything you could to squeeze your family into the French nobility, including marrying your niece to… to…

“Er, who is your niece’s fiancé?” I asked bluntly.

Mr. Hawkins’s face grew cunning, and he leaned close enough to whisper hoarsely into my ear.

“I really should not say until the contracts have been signed, but seeing as it is your ladyship… I can tell you that it is a member of the House of Gascogne. And a very high-ranking member indeed!”

“Indeed,” I said.

Mr. Hawkins went off rubbing his hands together in a perfect frenzy of anticipation, and I turned at once to Jamie.

“Gascogne! He must mean… but he can’t, can he? That revolting old beast with the snuff stains on his chin who came to dinner last week?”

“The Vicomte Marigny?” Jamie said, smiling at my description. “I suppose so; he’s a widower, and the only single male of that house, so far as I know. I dinna think it’s snuff, though; it’s only the way his beard grows. A bit moth-eaten,” he admitted, “but it’s bound to be a hellish shave, wi’ all those warts.”

“He can’t marry a fifteen-year-old girl to… to… that! And without even asking her!”

“Oh, I expect he can,” Jamie said, with infuriating calmness. “In any case, Sassenach, it isna your affair.” He took me firmly by both arms and gave me a little shake.

“D’ye hear me? I know it’s strange to ye, but that’s how matters are. After all” – the long mouth curled up at one corner – “you, were made to wed against your will. Reconciled yourself to it yet, have ye?”

“Sometimes I wonder!” I yanked, trying to pull my arms free, but he merely gathered me in, laughing, and kissed me. After a moment, I gave up fighting. I relaxed into his embrace, admitting surrender, if only temporarily. I would meet with Mary Hawkins, I thought, and we’d see just what she thought about this proposed marriage. If she didn’t want to see her name on a marriage contract, linked with the Vicomte Marigny, then… Suddenly I stiffened, pushing away from Jamie’s embrace.

“What is it?” he looked alarmed. “Are ye ill, lass? You’ve gone all white!”

And little wonder if I had. For I had suddenly remembered where I had seen the name of Mary Hawkins. Jamie was wrong. This was my affair. For I had seen the name, written in a copperplate hand at the top of a genealogy chart, the ink old and faded by time to a sepia brown. Mary Hawkins was not meant to be the wife of the decrepit Vicomte Marigny. She was to marry Jonathan Randall, in the year of our Lord 1745.

“Well, she can’t, can she?” Jamie said. “Jack Randall is dead.” He finished pouring the glass of brandy, and held it out to me. His hand was steady on the crystal stem, but the line of his mouth was set and his voice clipped the word “dead,” giving it a vicious finality.

“Put your feet up, Sassenach,” he said. “You’re still pale.” At his motion, I obediently pulled up my feet and stretched out on the sofa. Jamie sat down near my head, and absently rested a hand on my shoulder. His fingers felt warm and strong, gently massaging the small hollow of the joint.

“Marcus MacRannoch told me he’d seen Randall trampled to death by cattle in the dungeons of Wentworth Prison,” he said again, as though seeking to reassure himself by repetition. “A ‘rag doll, rolled in blood.’ That’s what Sir Marcus said. He was verra sure about it.”

“Yes.” I sipped my brandy, feeling the warmth come back into my cheeks. “He told me that, too. No, you’re right, Captain Randall is dead. It just gave me a turn, suddenly remembering about Mary Hawkins. Because of Frank.” I glanced down at my left hand, resting on my stomach. There was a small fire burning on the hearth, and the light of it caught the smooth gold band of my first wedding ring. Jamie’s ring, of Scottish silver, circled the fourth finger of my other hand.

“Ah.” Jamie’s touch on my shoulder stilled. His head was bent, but he glanced up to meet my gaze. We had not spoken of Frank since I had rescued Jamie from Wentworth, nor had Jonathan Randall’s death been mentioned between us. At the time it had seemed of little importance, except insofar as it meant that no more danger menaced us from that direction. And since then, I had been reluctant to bring back any memory of Wentworth to Jamie.

“You know he is dead, do ye not, mo duinne?” Jamie spoke softly, his fingers resting on my wrist, and I knew he spoke of Frank, not Jonathan.

“Maybe not,” I said, my eyes still fixed on the ring. I raised my hand, so the metal gleamed in the fading afternoon light. “If he’s dead, Jamie – if he won’t exist, because Jonathan is dead – then why do I still have the ring he gave me?”

He stared at the ring, and I saw a small muscle twitch near his mouth. His face was pale, too, I saw. I didn’t know whether it would do him harm to think of Jonathan Randall now, but there seemed little choice.

“You’re sure that Randall had no children before he died?” he asked. “That would be an answer.”

“It would,” I said, “but no, I’m sure not. Frank” – my voice trembled a bit on the name, and Jamie’s grip on my wrist tightened – “Frank made quite a bit of the tragic circumstances of Jonathan Randall’s death. He said that he – Jack Randall – had died at Culloden Field, in the last battle of the Rising, and his son – that would be Frank’s five-times great-grandfather – was born a few months after his father’s death. His widow married again, a few years later. Even if there were an illegitimate child, it wouldn’t be in Frank’s line of descent.”

Jamie’s forehead was creased, and a thin vertical line ran between his brows. “Could it be a mistake, then – that the child was not Randall’s at all? Frank may come only of Mary Hawkins’s line – for we know she still lives.”

I shook my head helplessly.

“I don’t see how. If you’d known Frank – but no, I suppose I’ve never told you. When I first met Jonathan Randall, I thought for the first moment that he was Frank – they weren’t the same, of course, but the resemblance was… startling. No, Jack Randall was Frank’s ancestor, all right.”

“I see.” Jamie’s fingers had grown damp; he took them away and wiped them absently on his kilt.

“Then… perhaps the ring means nothing, mo duinne,” he suggested gently.

“Perhaps not.” I touched the metal, warm as my own flesh, then dropped my hand helplessly. “Oh, Jamie, I don’t know! I don’t know anything!”

He rubbed his knuckles tiredly on the crease between his eyes. “Neither do I, Sassenach.” He dropped his hand and tried to smile at me.

“There’s the one thing,” he said. “You said that Frank told you Jonathan Randall would die at Culloden?”

“Yes. In fact, I told Jack Randall that myself, to scare him – at Wentworth, when he put me out in the snow, before… before going back to you.” His eyes and mouth clamped shut in sudden spasm, and I swung my feet down, alarmed.

“Jamie! Are you all right?” I tried to put a hand on his head, but he pulled away from my touch, rising and going to the window.

“No. Yes. It’s all right, Sassenach. I’ve been writing letters all the morning, and my head’s fit to burst. Dinna worry yourself.” He waved me away, pressing his forehead against the cold pane of the window, eyes tight closed. He went on speaking, as though to distract himself from the pain.

“Then, if you – and Frank – knew that Jack Randall would die at Culloden, but we know that he shall not… then it can be done, Claire.”

“What can be done?” I hovered anxiously, wanting to help, but not knowing what to do. Clearly he didn’t want to be touched.

“What you know will happen can be changed.” He raised his head from the window and smiled tiredly at me. His face was still white, but the traces of that momentary spasm were gone. “Jack Randall died before he ought, and Mary Hawkins will wed another man. Even if that means that your Frank wilna be born – or perhaps will be born some other way,” he added, to be comforting, “then it also means that we have a chance of succeeding in what we’ve set ourselves to do. Perhaps Jack Randall didna die at Culloden Field, because the battle there will never happen.”

I could see him make the effort to stir himself, to come to me and put his arms around me. I held him about the waist, lightly, not moving. He bent his head, resting his forehead on my hair.

“I know it must grieve ye, mo duinne. But may it not ease ye, to know that good may come of it?”

“Yes,” I whispered at last, into the folds of his shirt. I disengaged myself gently from his arms and laid my hand along his cheek. The line between his eyes was deeper, and his eyes slightly unfocused, but he smiled at me.

“Jamie,” I said, “go and lie down. I’ll send a note to the d’Arbanvilles, to say we can’t come tonight.”

“Och, no,” he protested. “I’ll be fine. I know this kind of headache, Sassenach; it’s only from the writing, and an hour’s sleep will cure it. I’ll go up now.” He turned toward the door, then hesitated and turned back, half-smiling.

“And if I should call out in my sleep, Sassenach, just lay your hand upon me, and say to me, ‘Jack Randall’s dead.’ And it will aye be well wi’ me.”

Both food and company at the d’Arbanvilles were good. We came home late, and I fell into a sound sleep the instant my head hit the pillow. I slept dreamlessly, but waked suddenly in the middle of the night, knowing something was wrong.

The night was cold, and the down quilt had slithered off onto the floor, as was its sneaky habit, leaving only the thin woolen blanket over me. I rolled over, half-asleep, reaching for Jamie’s warmth. He was gone.

I sat up in bed, looking for him, and saw him almost at once, sitting on the window seat, head in his hands.

“Jamie! What is it? Have you got headache again?” I groped for the candle, meaning to find my medicine box, but something in the way he sat made me abandon the search and go to him at once.

He was breathing hard, as though he had been running, and cold as it was, his body was drenched with sweat. I touched his shoulder and found it hard and cold as a metal statue.

He jerked back at my touch and sprang to his feet, eyes wide and black in the night-filled room.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said. “Are you all right?”

I wondered briefly if he were sleepwalking, for his expression didn’t change; he looked straight through me, and whatever he saw, he didn’t like it.

“Jamie!” I said sharply. “Jamie, wake up!”

He blinked then, and saw me, though his expression stayed fixed in the desperate lines of a hunted beast.

“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m awake.” He spoke as though wanting to convince himself of the fact.

“What is it? Did you have a nightmare?”

“A dream. Aye. It was a dream.”

I stepped forward and put a hand on his arm.

“Tell me. It will go away if you tell me about it.”

He grasped me hard by the forearms, as much to keep me from touching him as for support. The moon was full, and I could see that every muscle of his body was tensed, hard and motionless as stone, but pulsing with furious energy, ready to explode into action.

“No,” he said, still sounding dazed.

“Yes,” I said. “Jamie, talk to me. Tell me. Tell me what you see.”

“I canna… see anything. Nothing. I can’t see.”

I pulled, turning him from the shadows of the room to face the bright moonlight from the window. The light seemed to help, for his breathing slowed, and in halting, painful bits, the words came out.

It was the stones of Wentworth Prison that he dreamed of. And as he spoke, the shape of Jonathan Randall walked the room. And lay naked in my bed, atop the woolen blanket.

There had been the sound of hoarse breathing close behind him, and the feel of sweat-drenched skin, sliding against his own. He gritted his teeth in an agony of frustration. The man behind him sensed the small movement and laughed.

“Oh, we’ve some time yet before they hang you, my boy,” he whispered. “Plenty of time to enjoy it.” Randall moved suddenly, hard and abrupt, and he made a small involuntary sound.

Randall’s hand stroked back the hair from his brow and smoothed it around his ear. The hot breath was close to his ear and he turned his head to escape, but it followed him, breathing words.

“Have you ever seen a man hanged, Fraser?” The words went on, not waiting for him to reply, and a long, slim hand came around his waist, gently stroking the slope of his belly, teasing its way lower with each word.

“Yes, of course you have; you were in France, you’ll have seen deserters hanged now and then. A hanged man looses his bowels, doesn’t he? As the rope tightens fast round his neck.” The hand was gripping him, lightly, firmly, rubbing and stroking. He clenched his good hand tight around the edge of the bed and turned his face hard into the scratchy blanket, but the words pursued him.

“That will happen to you, Fraser. Just a few more hours, and you’ll feel the noose.” The voice laughed, pleased with itself. “You’ll go to your death with your arse burning from my pleasure, and when you lose your bowels, it will be my spunk running down your legs and dripping on the ground below the gallows.”

He made no sound. He could smell himself, crusted with filth from his imprisonment, acrid with the sweat of fear and anger. And the man behind him, the rank stench of the animal breaking through the delicate scent of the lavender toilet water.

“The blanket,” he said. His eyes were closed, face strained in the moonlight. “It was rough under my face, and all I could see were the stones of the wall before me. There was nothing there to fix my mind to… nothing I could see. So I kept my eyes closed and thought of the blanket under my cheek. It was all I could feel besides the pain… and him. I… held to it.”

“Jamie. Let me hold you.” I spoke quietly, trying to calm the frenzy I could feel running through his blood. His grip on my arms was tight enough to numb them. But he wouldn’t let me move closer; he held me away as surely as he clung to me.

Suddenly he freed me, jerking away and turning toward the moon-filled window. He stood tense and quivering as a bowstring just fired, but his voice was calm.

“No. I willna use ye that way, lassie. Ye shallna be part of it.”

I took a step toward him, but he stopped me with a quick motion. He turned his face back to the window, calm now, and blank as the glass he looked through.

“Get ye to bed, lassie. Leave me to myself a bit; I’ll be well enough presently. There’s naught to worry ye now.”

He stretched his arms out, grasping the window frame, blotting out the light with his body. His shoulders swelled with effort, and I could tell that he was pushing against the wood with all his might.

“It was only a dream. Jack Randall is dead.”

I had at length fallen asleep, with Jamie still poised at the window, staring out into the face of the moon. When I woke at dawn, though, he was asleep, curled in the window seat, wrapped in his plaid, with my cloak dragged over his legs for warmth.

He woke to my stirring, and seemed his normal, irritatingly cheerful morning self. But I was not likely to forget the happenings of the night, and went to my medicine box after breakfast.

To my annoyance, I lacked several of the herbs I needed for the sleeping tonic I had in mind. But then I remembered the man Marguerite had told me about. Raymond the herb-seller, in the Rue de Varennes. A wizard, she had said. A place worth seeing. Well, then. Jamie would be at the warehouse all the morning. I had a coach and a footman at my disposal; I would go and see it.

A clean wooden counter ran the length of the shop on both sides, with shelves twice the height of a man extending from floor to ceiling behind it. Some of the shelves were enclosed with folding glass doors, protecting the rarer and more expensive substances, I supposed. Fat gilded cupids sprawled abandonedly above the cupboards, tooting horns, waving their draperies, and generally looking as though they had been imbibing some of the more alcoholic wares of the shop.

“Monsieur Raymond?” I inquired politely of the young woman behind the counter.

“Maître Raymond,” she corrected. She wiped a red nose inelegantly on her sleeve and gestured toward the end of the shop, where sinister clouds of a brownish smoke floated out over the transom of a half-door.

Wizard or not, Raymond had the right setting for it. Smoke drifted up from a black slate hearth to coil beneath the low black beams of the roof. Above the fire, a stone table pierced with holes held glass alembics, copper “pelicans” – metal cans with long noses from which sinister substances dripped into cups – and what appeared to be a small but serviceable still. I sniffed cautiously. Among the other strong odors in the shop, a heady alcoholic note was clearly distinguishable from the direction of the fire. A neat lineup of clean bottles along the sideboard reinforced my original suspicions. Whatever his trade in charms and potions, Master Raymond plainly did a roaring business in high-quality cherry brandy.

The distiller himself was crouched over the fire, poking errant bits of charcoal back into the grate. Hearing me come in, he straightened up and turned to greet me with a pleasant smile.

“How do you do?” I said politely to the top of his head. So strong was the impression that I had stepped into an enchanter’s den that I would not have been surprised to hear a croak in reply.

For Master Raymond resembled nothing so, much as a large, genial frog. A touch over four feet tall, barrel-chested and bandy-legged, he had the thick, clammy skin of a swamp dweller, and slightly bulbous, friendly black eyes. Aside from the minor fact that he wasn’t green, all he lacked was warts.

“Madonna!” he said, beaming expansively. “What may I have the pleasure of doing for you?” He lacked teeth altogether, enhancing the froggy impression still more, and I stared at him in fascination.

“Madonna?” he said, peering up at me questioningly.

Snapped abruptly to a realization of how rudely I had been staring, I blushed and said without thinking, “I was just wondering whether you’d ever been kissed by a beautiful young girl.”

I went still redder as he shouted with laughter. With a broad grin, he said “Many times, madonna. But alas, it does not help. As you see. Ribbit.”

We dissolved in helpless laughter, attracting the notice of the shopgirl, who peered over the half-door in alarm. Master Raymond waved her away, then hobbled to the window, coughing and clutching his sides, to open the leaded panes and allow some of the smoke to escape.

“Oh, that’s better!” he said, inhaling deeply as the cold spring air rushed in. He turned to me, smoothing back the long silver hair that brushed his shoulders. “Now, madonna. Since we are friends, perhaps you will wait a moment while I attend to something?”

Still blushing, I agreed at once, and he turned to his firing shelf, still hiccupping with laughter as he refilled the canister of the still. Taking the opportunity to restore my poise, I strolled about the workroom, looking at the amazing array of clutter.

A fairly good-sized crocodile, presumably stuffed, hung from the ceiling. I gazed up at the yellow belly-scutes, hard and shiny as pressed wax.

“Real, is it?” I asked, taking a seat at the scarred oak table.

Master Raymond glanced upward, smiling.

“My crocodile? Oh, to be sure, madonna. Gives the customers confidence.” He jerked his head toward the shelf that ran along the wall just above eye height. It was lined with white fired-porcelain jars, each ornamented with gilded curlicues, painted flowers and beasts, and a label, written in elaborate black script. Three of the jars closest to me were labeled in Latin, which I translated with some difficulty – crocodile’s blood, and the liver and bile of the same beast, presumably the one swinging sinisterly overhead in the draft from the main shop.

I picked up one of the jars, removed the stopper and sniffed delicately.

“Mustard,” I said, wrinkling my nose, “and thyme. In walnut oil, I think, but what did you use to make it nasty?” I tilted the jar, critically examining the sludgy black liquid within.

“Ah, so your nose is not purely decorative, madonna!” A wide grin split the toadlike face, revealing hard blue gums.

“The black stuff is the rotted pulp of a gourd,” he confided, leaning closer and lowering his voice. “As for the smell… well, that actually is blood.”

“Not from a crocodile,” I said, glancing upward.

“Such cynicism in one so young,” Raymond mourned. “The ladies and gentlemen of the Court are fortunately more trusting in nature, not that trust is the emotion that springs immediately to mind when one thinks of an aristocrat. No, in fact it is pig’s blood, madonna. Pigs being so much more available than crocodiles.”

“Mm, yes,” I agreed. “That one must have cost you a pretty penny.”

“Fortunately, I inherited it, along with much of my present stock, from the previous owner.” I thought I saw a faint flicker of unease in the depths of the soft black eyes, but I had become oversensitive to nuances of expression of late, from watching the faces at parties for tiny clues that might be useful to Jamie in his manipulations.

The stocky little proprietor leaned still closer, laying a hand confidentially on mine.

“A professional, are you?” he said. “I must say, you don’t look it.”

My first impulse was to jerk my hand away, but his touch was oddly comfortable; quite impersonal, but unexpectedly warm and soothing. I glanced at the frost riming the edge of the leaded-glass panes, and thought that that was it; his ungloved hands were warm, a highly unusual condition for anyone’s hands at this time of year.

“That depends entirely upon what you mean by the term ‘professional,’ ” I said primly. “I’m a healer.”

“Ah, a healer?” He tilted back in his chair, looking me over with interest. “Yes, I thought so. Anything else, though? No fortune-telling, no love philtres?”

I felt a twinge of conscience, recalling my days on the road with Murtagh, when we had sought Jamie through the Highlands of Scotland, telling fortunes and singing for our suppers like a couple of Gypsies.

“Nothing like that,” I said, blushing only slightly.

“Not a professional liar, at any rate,” he said, eyeing me in amusement. “Rather a pity. Still, how may I have the pleasure of serving you, madonna?”

I explained my needs, and he nodded sagely as he listened, the thick gray hair swinging forward over his shoulders. He wore no wig within the sanctum of his shop, nor did he powder his hair. It was brushed back from a high, wide forehead, and fell straight as a stick to his shoulders, where it ended abruptly, as though cut with a blunt pair of scissors.

He was easy to talk to, and very knowledgeable indeed about the uses of herbs and botanicals. He took down small jars of this and that, shaking bits out and crushing the leaves in his palm for me to smell or taste.

Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of raised voices in the shop. A nattily-dressed footman was leaning across the counter, saying something to the shopgirl. Or rather, trying to say something. His feeble attempts were being thrown back in his teeth by a gale of withering Provençale from the other side of the counter. It was too idiomatic for me to follow entirely, but I caught the general drift of her remarks. Something involving cabbages and sausages, none of it complimentary.

I was musing on the odd tendency of the French to bring food into virtually any kind of discussion, when the shop door banged suddenly open. Reinforcements swept in behind the footman, in the guise of a rouged and flounced Personage of some sort.

“Ah,” murmured Raymond, peering interestedly beneath my arm at the drama unfolding in his shop. “ La Vicomtesse de Rambeau.”

“You know her?” The shopgirl evidently did, for she abandoned her attack on the footman and shrank back against the cabinet of purges.

“Yes, madonna,” said Raymond, nodding. “She’s rather expensive.”

I saw what he meant, as the lady in question picked up the evident source of altercation, a small jar containing a pickled plant of some kind, took aim, and flung it with considerable force and accuracy into the glass front of the cabinet.

The crash silenced the commotion at once. The Vicomtesse pointed one long, bony finger at the girl.

“You,” she said, in a voice like metal shavings, “fetch me the black potion. At once.”

The girl opened her mouth as though to protest, then, seeing the Vicomtesse reaching for another missile, shut it and fled for the back room.

Anticipating her entrance, Raymond reached resignedly above his head and thrust a bottle into her hand as she came through the door.

“Give it to her,” he said, shrugging. “Before she breaks something else.”

As the shopgirl timidly returned to deliver the bottle, he turned to me, pulling a wry face.

“Poison for a rival,” he said. “Or at least she thinks so.”

“Oh?” I said. “And what is it really? Bitter cascara?”

He looked at me in pleased surprise.

“You’re very good at this,” he said. “A natural talent, or were you taught? Well, no matter.” He waved a broad palm, dismissing the matter. “Yes, that’s right, cascara. The rival will fall sick tomorrow, suffer visibly in order to satisfy the Vicomtesse’s desire for revenge and convince her that her purchase was a good one, and then she will recover, with no permanent harm done, and the Vicomtesse will attribute the recovery to the intervention of the priest or a counterspell done by a sorcerer employed by the victim.”

“Mm,” I said. “And the damage to your shop?” The late-afternoon sun glinted on the shards of glass on the counter, and on the single silver écu that the Vicomtesse had flung down in payment.

Raymond tilted a palm from side to side, in the immemorial custom of a man indicating equivocation.

“It evens out,” he said calmly. “When she comes in next month for an abortifacient, I shall charge her enough not only to repair the damage but to build three new cases. And she’ll pay without argument.” He smiled briefly, but without the humor he had previously shown. “It’s all in the timing, you know.”

I was conscious of the black eyes flickering knowledgeably over my figure. I didn’t show at all yet, but I was quite sure he knew.

“And does the medicine you’ll give the Vicomtesse next month work?” I asked.

“It’s all in the timing,” he replied again, tilting his head quizzically to one side. “Early enough, and all is well. But it is dangerous to wait too long.”

The note of warning in his voice was clear, and I smiled at him.

“Not for me,” I said. “For reference only.”

He relaxed again.

“Ah. I didn’t think so.”

A rumble from the street below proclaimed the passing of the Vicomtesse’s blue-and-silver carriage. The footman waved and shouted from behind as pedestrians were forced to scramble for the shelter of doors and alleyways to avoid being crushed.

“A la lanterne,” I murmured under my breath. It was rare that my unusual perspective on current affairs afforded me much satisfaction, but this was certainly one occasion when it did.

“Ask not for whom the tumbril calls,” I remarked, turning to Raymond. “It calls for thee.”

He looked mildly bewildered.

“Oh? Well, in any case, you were saying that black betony is what you use for purging? I would use the white, myself.”

“Really? Why is that?”

And with no further reference to the recent Vicomtesse, we sat down to complete our business.

9 THE SPLENDORS OF VERSAILLES

I closed the door of the drawing room quietly behind me and stood still a moment, gathering courage. I essayed a restorative deep breath, but the tightness of the whalebone corseting made it come out as a strangled gasp.

Jamie, immersed in a handful of shipping orders, glanced up at the sound and froze, eyes wide. His mouth opened, but he made no sound.

“How do you like it?” Handling the train a bit gingerly, I stepped down into the room, swaying gently as the seamstress had instructed, to show off the filmy gussets of silk plissé let into the overskirt.

Jamie shut his mouth and blinked several times.

“It’s… ah… red, isn’t it?” he observed.

“Rather.” Sang-du-Christ, to be exact. Christ’s blood, the most fashionable color of the season, or so I had been given to understand.

“Not every woman could wear it, Madame,” the seamstress had declared, speech unhampered by a mouthful of pins. “But you, with that skin! Mother of God, you’ll have men crawling under your skirt all night!”

“If one tries, I’ll stamp on his fingers,” I said. That, after all, was not at all the intended effect. But I did mean to be visible. Jamie had urged me to have something made that would make me stand out in the crowd. Early-morning fog notwithstanding, the King had evidently remembered him from his appearance at the lever, and we had been invited to a ball at Versailles.

“I’ll need to get the ears of the men with the money,” Jamie had said, making plans with me earlier. “And as I’ve neither great position nor power myself, it will have to be managed by making them seek my company.” He heaved a sigh, looking at me, decidedly unglamorous in my woolen bedgown.

“And I’m afraid in Paris that means we’ll have to go out a bit in society; appear at Court, if it can be managed. They’ll know I’m a Scot; it will be natural for folk to ask me about Prince Charles, and whether Scotland is eagerly awaiting the return of the Stuarts. Then I can assure them discreetly that most Scots would pay a good price not to have the Stuarts back again – though it goes against the grain a bit to say so.”

“Yes, you’d better be discreet,” I agreed. “Or the Bonnie Prince may set the dogs on you next time you go to visit.” In accordance with his plan to keep abreast of Charles’s activities, Jamie had been paying weekly duty calls on the small house at Montmartre.

Jamie smiled briefly. “Aye. Well, so far as His Highness, and the Jacobite supporters are concerned, I’m a loyal upholder of the Stuart cause. And so long as Charles Stuart is not received at Court and I am, the chances of his finding out what I’m saying there are not great. The Jacobites in Paris keep to themselves, as a rule. For the one thing, they haven’t the money to appear in fashionable circles. But we have, thanks to Jared.”

Jared had concurred – for entirely different reasons – in Jamie’s proposal that we widen the scope of Jared’s usual business entertaining, so that the French nobility and the heads of the wealthy banking families might beat a path to our door, there to be seduced and cozened with Rhenish wine, good talk, fine entertainment, and large quantities of the good Scotch whisky that Murtagh had spent the last two weeks shepherding across the Channel and overland to our cellars.

“It’s entertainment of one kind or another that draws them, ye ken,” Jamie had said, sketching out plans on the back of a broadsheet poem describing the scurrilous affair between the Comte de Sévigny and the wife of the Minister of Agriculture. “All the nobility care about is appearances. So to start with, we must offer them something interesting to look at.”

Judging from the stunned look on his face now, I had made a good beginning. I sashayed a bit, making the huge overskirt swing like a bell.

“Not bad, is it?” I asked. “Very visible, at any rate.”

He found his voice at last.

“Visible?” he croaked. “Visible? God, I can see every inch of ye, down to the third rib!”

I peered downward.

“No, you can’t. That isn’t me under the lace, it’s a fining of white charmeuse.”

“Aye well, it looks like you!” He came closer, bending to inspect the bodice of the dress. He peered into my cleavage.

“Christ, I can see down to your navel! Surely ye dinna mean to go out in public like that!”

I bristled a bit at this. I had been feeling a trifle nervous myself over the general revealingness of the dress, the fashionable sketches the seamstress had shown me notwithstanding. But Jamie’s reaction was making me feel defensive, and thus rebellious.

“You told me to be visible,” I reminded him. “And this is absolutely nothing, compared to the latest Court fashions. Believe me, I shall be modesty personified, in comparison with Madame de Pérignon and the Duchesse de Rouen.” I put my hands on my hips and surveyed him coldly. “Or do you want me to appear at Court in my green velvet?”

Jamie averted his eyes from my décolletage and tightened his lips.

“Mphm,” he said, looking as Scotch as possible.

Trying to be conciliatory, I came closer and laid a hand on his arm.

“Come now,” I said. “You’ve been at Court before; surely you know what ladies dress like. You know this isn’t terribly extreme by those standards.”

He glanced down at me and smiled, a trifle shamefaced.

“Aye,” he said. “Aye, that’s true. It’s only… well, you’re my wife, Sassenach. I dinna want other men to look at you the way I’ve looked at those ladies.”

I laughed and put my hands behind his neck, pulling him down to kiss me. He held me around the waist, his thumbs unconsciously stroking the softness of the red silk where it sheathed my torso. His touch traveled upward, sliding across the slipperiness of the fabric to the nape of my neck. His other hand grasped the soft roundness of my breast, swelling up above the tethering grip of the corsets, voluptuously free under a single layer of sheer silk. He let go at last and straightened up, shaking his head doubtfully.

“I suppose ye’ll have to wear it, Sassenach, but for Christ’s sake be careful.”

“Careful? Of what?”

His mouth twisted in a rueful smile.

“Lord, woman, have ye no notion what ye look like in that gown? It makes me want to commit rape on the spot. And these damned frog-eaters havena got my restraint.” He frowned slightly. “You couldna… cover it up at bit at the top?” He waved a large hand vaguely in the direction of his own lace jabot, secured with a ruby stickpin. “A… ruffle or something? A handkerchief?”

“Men,” I told him, “have no notion of fashion. But not to worry. The seamstress says that’s what the fan is for.” I flipped the matching lace-trimmed fan open with a gesture that had taken fifteen minutes’ practice to perfect, and fluttered it enticingly over my bosom.

Jamie blinked meditatively at this performance, then turned to take my cloak from the wardrobe.

“Do me the one favor, Sassenach,” he said, draping the heavy velvet over my shoulders. “Take a larger fan.”

In terms of attracting notice, the dress was an unqualified success. In terms of the effects on Jamie’s blood pressure, it was somewhat more equivocal.

He hovered protectively at my elbow, glaring ferociously at any male who glanced in my direction, until Annalise de Marillac, spotting us from across the room, came floating in our direction, her delicate features wreathed in a welcoming smile. I felt the smile freezing on my own face. Annalise de Marillac was an “acquaintance” – he said – of Jamie’s, from his former residence in Paris. She was also beautiful, charming, and exquisitely tiny.

“Mon petit sauvage!” she greeted Jamie. “I have someone you must meet. Several someones, in fact.” She tilted a head like a china doll in the direction of a group of men, gathered around a chess table in the corner, arguing heatedly about something. I recognized the Duc d’Orléans, and Gérard Gobelin, a prominent banker. An influential group, then.

“Come and play chess for them,” Annalise urged, placing a mothlike hand on Jamie’s arm. “It will be a good place for His Majesty to meet you, later.”

The King was expected to appear after the supper he was attending, sometime in the next hour or two. In the meantime, the guests wandered to and fro, conversing, admiring the paintings on the walls, flirting behind fans, consuming confits, tartlets, and wine, and disappearing at more or less discreet intervals into the odd little curtained alcoves. These were cleverly fitted into the paneling of the rooms, so that you scarcely noticed them, unless you got close enough to hear the sounds inside.

Jamie hesitated, and Annalise pulled a bit harder.

“Come along,” she urged. “Have no fear for your lady” – she cast an appreciative glance at my gown – “she won’t be alone long.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jamie muttered under his breath. “All right, then, in a moment.” He disengaged himself momentarily from Annalise’s grasp and bent to whisper in my ear.

“If I find ye in one of those alcoves, Sassenach, the man you’re with is dead. And as for you…” His hands twitched unconsciously in the direction of his swordbelt.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You swore on your dirk you’d never beat me again. What price the Holy Iron, eh?”

A reluctant grin tugged at his mouth.

“No, I wilna beat ye, much as I’d like to.”

“Good. What do you mean to do, then?” I asked, teasing.

“I’ll think of something,” he replied, with a certain grimness. “I dinna ken what, but ye wilna like it.”

And with a final glare round and a proprietary squeeze of my shoulder, he allowed Annalise to lead him away, like a small but enthusiastic tug towing a reluctant barge.

Annalise was right. No longer deterred by Jamie’s glowering presence, the gentlemen of the Court descended upon me like a flock of parrots on a ripe passion fruit.

My hand was kissed repeatedly and held lingeringly, dozens of flowery compliments were paid me, and cups of spiced wine were brought me in endless procession. After half an hour of this, my feet began to hurt. So did my face, from smiling. And my hand, from fan-wielding.

I had to admit some gratitude to Jamie for his intransigence in the matter of the fan. Bowing to his sensibilities, I had brought the largest I possessed, a foot-long whopper painted with what purported to be Scottish stags leaping through the heather. Jamie had been critical of the artistry, but approving of the size. Graciously fanning away the attentions of an ardent young man in purple, I then spread the thing inconspicuously beneath my chin to deflect crumbs while I nibbled at a piece of toast with salmon on it.

And not only toast crumbs. While Jamie, from his vantage point a foot above me, had claimed to be able to see my navel, my umbilicus was by and large safe from scrutiny by the French courtiers, most of whom were shorter than I was. On the other hand…

I had often enjoyed snuggling into Jamie’s chest, my nose fitting comfortably into the small hollow in the center. A few of the shorter and bolder souls among my admirers seemed bent on enjoying a similar experience, and I was kept busy, flapping my fan hard enough to blow their curls back from their faces, or if that didn’t suffice to discourage them, snapping the fan shut and rapping them smartly on the head with it.

It came as a considerable relief to hear the footman at the door suddenly draw himself up and intone, “Sa Majesté, Le Roi Louis!”

While the King might rise at dawn, apparently he blossomed at night. Not much taller than my own five feet six, Louis entered with the carriage of a much taller man, glancing left and right, nodding in gracious acknowledgment of his bowing subjects.

Now this, I thought, looking him over, was a good deal more in line with my ideas of what a king ought to look like. Not particularly handsome, he acted as though he were; an impression enhanced not only by the richness of his clothes, but by the attitude of those around him. He wore the latest backswept wig, and his coat was cut velvet, embroidered all over with hundreds of frivolous silk butterflies. It was cut away at the middle to display a waistcoat of voluptuous cream-colored silk with diamond buttons, matching the wide, butterfly-shaped buckles on his shoes.

The dark, hooded eyes swept restlessly over the crowd, and the haughty Bourbon nose lifted as though smelling out any item of interest.

Dressed in kilt and plaid, but with a coat and waistcoat of stiffened yellow silk, and with his flaming hair loose to his shoulders, a single small braid down one side in ancient Scots fashion, Jamie definitely qualified. At least I thought it was Jamie who had attracted the King’s attention, as Le Roi Louis purposefully changed direction and swerved toward us, parting the crowd before him like the waves of the Red Sea. Madame Nesle de La Tourelle, whom I recognized from a previous party, followed close behind him like a dinghy in his wake.

I had forgotten the red dress; His Majesty halted directly in front of me and bowed extravagantly, hand over his waist.

“Chère Madame!” he said. “We are enchanted!”

I heard a deep intake of breath from Jamie, and then he stepped forward and bowed to the King.

“May I present my wife, Your Majesty – my lady Broch Tuarach.” He rose and stepped back. Attracted by a quick flutter of Jamie’s fingers, I stared at him for a moment of incomprehension, before suddenly realizing that he was signaling me to curtsy.

I dipped automatically, struggling to keep my eyes on the floor and wondering where I would look when I bobbed up again. Madame Nesle de la Tourelle was standing just behind Louis, watching the introduction with a slightly bored look on her face. Gossip said that “Nesle” was Louis’s current favorite. She was, in current vogue, wearing a gown cut below both breasts, with a bit of supercedent gauze which was clearly meant for the sake of fashion, as it couldn’t possibly function for either warmth or concealment.

It was neither the gown nor the prospect it revealed that had rattled me, though. The breasts of “Nesle,” while reasonably adequate in size, pleasant in proportion, and tipped with large brownish areolae, were further adorned with a pair of nipple jewels that caused their settings to recede into insignificance. A pair of diamond-encrusted swans with ruby eyes stretched their necks toward each other, swinging precariously in their gold-hooped perches. The workmanship was superb and the materials stunning, but it was the fact that each gold hoop passed through her nipple that made me feel rather faint. The nipples themselves were rather seriously inverted, but this fact was disguised by the large pearl that covered each one, dangling on a thin gold chain that looped from side to side of the main hoop.

I rose, red-faced and coughing, and managed to excuse myself, hacking politely into a handkerchief as I backed away. I felt a presence in my rear and stopped just in time to avoid backing into Jamie, who was watching the King’s mistress with no pretense whatever of tactful obliviousness.

“She told Marie d’Arbanville that Master Raymond did the piercing for her,” I remarked under my breath. His fascinated gaze didn’t waver.

“Shall I make an appointment?” I asked. “I imagine he’d do it for me if I gave him the recipe for caraway tonic.”

Jamie glanced down at me at last. Taking my elbow, he steered me toward a refreshment alcove.

“If you so much as speak to Master Raymond again,” he said, out of the corner of his mouth, “I’ll pierce them for ye myself – wi’ my teeth.”

The King had by now wandered off toward the Salon of Apollo, the space left by his passage quickly filled by others coming from the supper room. Seeing Jamie distracted into conversation with a Monsieur Genet, head of a wealthy shipping family, I looked surreptitiously about for a place in which to remove my shoes for a moment.

One of the alcoves was at hand and, from the sounds of it, unoccupied. I sent a lingering admirer off to fetch some more wine, then, with a quick glance round, slid into the alcove.

It was furnished rather suggestively with a couch, a small table, and a pair of chairs – more suitable for laying aside garments than for sitting upon, I thought critically. I sat down nonetheless, pried my shoes off, and with a sigh of relief, propped my feet up on the other chair.

A faint jingling of curtain rings behind me announced the fact that my departure had not been unnoticed after all.

“Madame! At last we are alone!”

“Yes, more’s the pity,” I said, sighing. It was one of the countless Comtes, I thought. Or no, this one was a Vicomte; someone had introduced him to me earlier as the Vicomte de Rambeau. One of the short ones. I seemed to recall his beady little eyes gleaming up at me in appreciation from below the edge of my fan.

Wasting no time, he slid adroitly onto the other chair, lifting my feet into his lap. He clasped my silk-stockinged toes fervently against his crotch.

“Ah, ma petite! Such delicacy! Your beauty distracts me!”

I thought it must, if he was under the delusion that my feet were particularly delicate. Raising one to his lips, he nibbled at my toes.

“C’est un cochon qui vit dans la ville, c’est un cochon qui vit…”

I jerked my foot from his grasp and stood up hastily, rather impeded by my voluminous petticoats.

“Speaking of cochons who live in the city,” I said, rather nervously, “I don’t think my husband would be at all pleased to find you here.”

“Your husband? Pah!” He dismissed Jamie with an airy wave of the hand. “He will be occupied for some time, I am sure. And while the cat’s away… come to me, ma petite souris; let me hear you squeak a bit.”

Presumably intending to fortify himself for the fray, the Vicomte produced an enameled snuffbox from his pocket, deftly sprinkled a line of dark grains along the back of his hand, and wiped it delicately against his nostrils.

He took a deep breath, eyes glistening in anticipation, then jerked his head as the curtain was suddenly thrust aside with a jangling of brass rings. His aim distracted by the intrusion, the Vicomte sneezed directly into my bosom with considerable vigor.

I shrieked.

“You disgusting man!” I said, and walloped him across the face with my closed fan.

The Vicomte staggered back, eyes watering. He tripped over my size-nine shoes, which lay on the floor, and fell headfirst into the arms of Jamie, who was standing in the doorway.

“Well, you did attract a certain amount of notice,” I said at last.

“Bah,” he said. “The salaud’s lucky I didna tear off his head and make him swallow it.”

“Well, that would have provided an interesting spectacle,” I agreed dryly. “Sousing him in the fountain was nearly as good, though.”

He looked up, his frown replaced with a reluctant grin.

“Aye, well. I didna drown the man, after all.”

“I trust the Vicomte appreciates your restraint.”

He snorted again. He was standing in the center of a sitting room, part of a small appartement in the palace, to which the King, once he had stopped laughing, had assigned us, insisting that we should not undertake the return journey to Paris tonight.

“After all, mon chevalier,” he had said, eyeing Jamie’s large, dripping form on the terrace, “we should dislike exceedingly for you to take a chill. I feel sure that the Court would be deprived of a great deal of entertainment in such a case, and Madame would never forgive me. Would you, sweetheart?” He reached out and pinched Madame de La Tourelle playfully on one nipple.

His mistress looked mildly annoyed, but smiled obediently. I noticed, though, that once the King’s attention had been distracted, it was Jamie on whom her gaze lingered. Well, he was impressive, I had to admit, standing dripping in the torchlight with his clothes plastered to his body. That didn’t mean I liked her doing it.

He peeled his wet shirt off and dropped it in a sodden heap. He looked even better without it.

“As for you,” he said, eyeing me in a sinister manner, “did I not tell ye to stay away from those alcoves?”

“Yes. But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?” I asked politely.

“What?” He stared at me as though I had lost my mind on the spot.

“Never mind; it’s a bit out of your frame of reference. I only meant, did you meet anyone useful before you came to defend your marital rights?”

He rubbed his hair vigorously with a towel plucked from the washstand. “Oh, aye. I played a game of chess with Monsieur Duverney. Beat him, too, and made him angry.”

“Oh, that sounds promising. And who’s Monsieur Duverney?”

He tossed me the towel, grinning. “The French Minister of Finance, Sassenach.”

“Oh. And you’re pleased because you made him angry?”

“He was angry at himself for losing, Sassenach,” Jamie explained. “Now he won’t rest until he’s beaten me. He’s coming round to the house on Sunday to play again.”

“Oh, well done!” I said. “And in the process, you can assure him that the Stuarts’ prospects are exceedingly dim, and convince him that Louis doesn’t want to assist them financially, blood kin or not.”

He nodded, combing back his wet hair with both hands. The fire had not yet been lit, and he shivered slightly.

“Where did you learn to play chess?” I asked curiously. “I didn’t know you knew how.”

“Colum MacKenzie taught me,” he said. “When I was sixteen, and spent a year at Castle Leoch. I had tutors for French and German and mathematics and such, but I’d go up to Colum’s room for an hour every evening to play chess. Not that it usually took him an hour to beat me,” he added ruefully.

“No wonder you’re good,” I said. Jamie’s uncle Colum, the victim of a deforming disease that had deprived him of most of his mobility, made up for it with a mind that would have put Machiavelli to shame.

Jamie stood up and unbuckled his swordbelt, narrowing his eyes at me. “Dinna think I don’t know what you’re up to, Sassenach. Changing the subject and flattering me like a courtesan. Did I not tell ye about those alcoves?”

“You said you didn’t mean to beat me,” I reminded him, sitting a bit farther back in my chair, just to be on the safe side.

He snorted again, tossing the swordbelt onto the chest of drawers and dropping his kilt next to the sodden shirt.

“Do I look the sort of man would beat a woman who’s with child?” he demanded.

I eyed him doubtfully. Stark naked, with his hair in damp red snarls and the white scars still visible on his body, he looked as though he had just leaped off a Viking ship, rape and pillage on his mind.

“Actually, you look capable of just about anything,” I told him. “As for the alcoves, yes, you told me. I suppose I should have gone outside to take my shoes off, but how was I to know that idiot would follow me in and begin nibbling on my toes? And if you don’t mean to beat me, just what did you have in mind?” I took a firm grip on the arms of my chair.

He lay down on the bed and grinned at me.

“Take off that whore’s dress, Sassenach, and come to bed.”

“Why?”

“Well, I canna wallop you, or drench ye in the fountain.” He shrugged. “I meant to give ye a terrible scolding, but I dinna think I can keep my eyes open long enough.” He gave a terrific yawn, then blinked and grinned at me again. “Remind me to do it in the morning, eh?”

“Better, is it?” Jamie’s dark-blue eyes were clouded with worry. “Is it right for ye to be sick so much, Sassenach?”

I pushed the hair back from my sweaty temples and dabbed a damp towel over my face.

“I don’t know whether it’s right,” I said weakly, “but at least I believe it’s normal. Some women are sick all through.” Not a pleasant thought at the moment.

Jamie glanced, not at the gaily painted clock on the table, but as usual, out the window at the sun.

“Do ye feel well enough to go down to breakfast, Sassenach, or ought I to tell the chambermaid to bring up something on a tray?”

“No. I’m quite all right now.” And I was. In the odd way of morning sickness, once the inexorable nausea had had its way with me, I felt perfectly fine within a moment or two. “Let me just rinse my mouth.”

As I bent over the basin, sluicing cool water over my face, there was a rap at the door of the appartement. Likely the servant who had been dispatched to the house in Paris to bring us fresh clothes, I thought.

To my surprise, though, it was a courtier, with a written invitation to lunch.

“His Majesty is dining today with an English nobleman,” the courtier explained, “newly arrived in Paris. His Majesty has summoned several of the prominent English merchants from the Cité to lunch, for the purpose of providing His Grace the Duke with the company of some of his countrymen. And someone pointed out to His Majesty that Madame your wife is an English lady, too, and thus should be invited to attend.”

“All right,” Jamie said, after a quick glance at me. “You may tell His Majesty that we will be honored to remain.”

Soon thereafter, Murtagh had arrived, dour as ever, bearing a large bundle of fresh clothes, and my medicine box, which I had asked for. Jamie took him into the sitting room to give him instructions for the day, while I hastily struggled into my fresh gown, for the first time rather regretting my refusal to employ a lady’s maid. Always unruly, the state of my hair had not been improved by sleeping in close embrace with a large, damp Scot; wild tangles shot off in several directions, resisting all attempts to tame them with brush and comb.

At length I emerged, pink and cross with effort, but with my hair in some semblance of order. Jamie looked at me and murmured something about hedgehogs under his breath, but caught a searing glance in return and had the good sense to shut up.

A stroll among the parterres and fountains of the palace gardens did a good bit to restore my equanimity. Most of the trees were still leafless, but the day was unexpectedly warm for late March, and the smell of the swelling buds on the twigs was green and pungent. You could almost feel the sap rising in the towering chestnuts and poplars that edged the paths and sheltered the hundreds of white marble statues.

I paused beside a statue of a half-draped man with grapes in his hair and a flute at his lips. A large, silky goat nibbled hungrily at more grapes that were cascading from the marble folds of the draperies.

“Who’s this?” I asked, “Pan?”

Jamie shook his head, smiling. He was dressed in his old kilt and a worn, if comfortable coat, but he looked much better to me than did the luxuriously clad courtiers who passed us in chattering groups.

“No, I think there is a statue of Pan about, but it isna that one. That’s one of the Four Humors of Man.”

“Well, he looks fairly humorous,” I said, glancing up at the goat’s smiling friend.

Jamie laughed.

“And you a physician, Sassenach! Not that sort of humor. Do ye not know the four humors that make up the human body? That one’s Blood” – he motioned at the flute-player, then pointed down the path – “and there’s Melancholy.” This was a tall man in a sort of toga, holding an open book.

Jamie pointed across the path. “And over there is Choler” – a nude and muscular young man, who certainly was scowling ferociously, without regard to the marble lion that was about to bite him smartly in the leg – “and that’s Phlegm.”

“Is it, by Jove?” Phlegm, a bearded gent with a folded hat, had both arms crossed on his chest, and a tortoise at his feet.

“Hum,” I remarked.

“Do physicians not learn about humors in your time?” Jamie asked curiously.

“No,” I said. “We have germs, instead.”

“Really? Germs,” he said to himself, trying the word over, rolling it on his tongue with a Scottish burr, which made it sound sinister in the extreme. “Gerrrms. And what do germs look like?”

I glanced up at a representation of “America,” a nubile young maiden in a feathered skirt and headdress, with a crocodile at her feet.

“Well, they wouldn’t make nearly such picturesque statues,” I said.

The crocodile at America’s feet reminded me of Master Raymond’s shop.

“Did you mean it about not wanting me to go to Master Raymond’s?” I asked. “Or do you just not want me to pierce my nipples?”

“I most definitely dinna want ye to pierce your nipples,” he said firmly, taking me by the elbow and hurrying me onward, lest I derive any untoward inspiration from America’s bare breasts. “But no, I dinna want ye to go to Master Raymond’s, either. There are rumors about the man.”

“There are rumors about everyone in Paris,” I observed, “and I’d be willing to bet that Master Raymond knows all of them.”

Jamie nodded, hair glinting in the pale spring sunshine.

“Oh, aye, I expect so. But I think I can learn what’s needful in the taverns and drawing rooms. Master Raymond’s said to be at the center of a particular circle, but it isna Jacobite sympathizers.”

“Really? Who, then?”

“Cabalists and occultists. Witches, maybe.”

“Jamie, you aren’t seriously worried about witches and demons, are you?”

We had arrived at the part of the gardens known as the “Green Carpet.” This early in the spring, the green of the huge lawn was only a faint tinge, but people were lounging on it, taking advantage of the rare balmy day.

“Not witches, no,” he said at last, finding a place near a hedge of forsythia and sitting down on the grass. “The Comte St. Germain, possibly.”

I remembered the look in the Comte St. Germain’s dark eyes at Le Havre, and shivered, in spite of the sunshine and the woolen shawl I wore.

“You think he’s associated with Master Raymond?”

Jamie shrugged. “I don’t know. But it was you told me the rumors about St. Germain, no? And if Master Raymond is part of that circle – then I think you should keep the hell away from him, Sassenach.” He gave me a wry half-smile. “After all, I’d as soon not have to save ye from burning again.”

The shadows under the trees reminded me of the cold gloom of the thieves’ hole in Cranesmuir, and I shivered and moved closer to Jamie, farther into the sunlight.

“I’d as soon you didn’t, either.”

The pigeons were courting on the grass below a flowering forsythia bush. The ladies and gentlemen of the Court were performing similar activities on the paths that led through the sculpture gardens. The major difference was that the pigeons were quieter about it.

A vision in watered aqua silk hove abaft our resting place, in loud raptures over the divinity of the play the night before. The three ladies with him, while not so spectacular, echoed his opinions faithfully.

“Superb! Quite superb, the voice of La Couelle!”

“Oh, superb! Yes, wonderful!”

“Delightful, delightful! Superb is the only word for it!”

“Oh, yes, superb!”

The voices – all four of them – were shrill as nails being pulled from wood. By contrast, the gentleman pigeon doing his turn a few feet from my nose had a low and mellifluous coo, rising from a deep, amatory rumble to a breathy whistle as he puffed his breast and bowed repeatedly, laying his heart at the feet of his ladylove, who looked rather unimpressed so far.

I looked beyond the pigeon toward the aqua-satined courtier, who had hastened back to snatch up a lace-trimmed handkerchief, coyly dropped as bait by one of his erstwhile companions.

“The ladies call that one ‘L’Andouille,’ ” I remarked. “I wonder why?”

Jamie grunted sleepily, and opened one eye to look after the departing courtier.

“Mm? Oh, ‘The Sausage.’ It means he canna keep his roger in his breeches. You know the sort… ladies, footmen, courtesans, pageboys. Lapdogs, too, if rumor is right,” he added, squinting in the direction of the vanished aqua silk, where a lady of the court was now approaching, a fluffy white bundle clasped protectively to her ample bosom. “Reckless, that. I wouldna risk mine anywhere near one o’ those wee yapping hairballs.”

“Your roger?” I said, amused. “I used to hear it called peter, now and again. And the Yanks, for some peculiar reason, used to call theirs a dick. I once called a patient who was teasing me a ‘Clever Dick,’ and he nearly burst his stitches laughing.”

Jamie laughed himself, stretching luxuriously in the warming spring sun. He blinked once or twice and rolled over, grinning at me upside down.

“You have much the same effect on me, Sassenach,” he said. I stroked back the hair from his forehead, kissing him between the eyes.

“Why do men call it names?” I asked. “John Thomas, I mean. Or Roger, for that matter. Women don’t do that.”

“They don’t?” Jamie asked, interested.

“No, of course not. I’d as soon call my nose Jane.”

His chest moved up and down as he laughed. I rolled on top of him, enjoying the solid feel of him beneath me. I pressed my hips downward, but the layers of intervening petticoats rendered it more of a gesture than anything else.

“Well,” Jamie said logically, “yours doesna go up and down by itself, after all, nor go carryin’ on regardless of your own wishes in the matter. So far as I know, anyway,” he added, cocking one eyebrow questioningly.

“No, it doesn’t, thank God. I wonder if Frenchmen call theirs ‘Pierre,’ ” I said, glancing at a passing dandy in green velvet-faced moiré.

Jamie burst into a laugh that startled the pigeons out of the forsythia bush. They flapped off in a ruffle of indignation, scattering wisps of gray down in their wake. The fluffy white lapdog, hitherto content to loll in its mistress’s arms like a bundle of rags, awoke at once to an awareness of its responsibilities. It popped out of its warm nest like a Ping-Pong ball and galloped off in enthusiastic pursuit of the pigeons, barking dementedly, its mistress in similar cry behind it.

“I dinna ken, Sassenach,” he said, recovering enough to wipe the tears from his eyes. “The only Frenchman I ever heard call it a name called his ‘Georges.’ ”

“Georges!” I said, loudly enough to attract the attention of a small knot of passing courtiers. One, a short but vivacious specimen in dramatic black slashed with white satin, stopped alongside and bowed deeply, sweeping the ground at my feet with his hat. One eye was still swelled shut, and a livid welt showed across the bridge of his nose, but his style was unimpaired.

“A votre service, Madame,” he said.

I might have managed if it weren’t for the bloody nightingales. The dining salon was hot and crowded with courtiers and onlookers, one of the stays in my dress frame had come loose and was stabbing me viciously beneath the left kidney each time I drew breath, and I was suffering from that most ubiquitous plague of pregnancy, the urge to urinate every few minutes. Still, I might have managed. It was, after all, a serious breach of manners to leave the table before the King, even though luncheon was a casual affair, in comparison with the formal dinners customary at Versailles – or so I was given to understand. “Casual,” however, is a relative term.

True, there were only three varieties of spiced pickle, not eight. And one soup, clear, not thick. The venison was merely roasted, not presented en brochette, and the fish, while tastily poached in wine, was served fileted, not whole and riding on a sea of aspic filled with shrimp.

As though frustrated by so much rustic simplicity, though, one of the chefs had provided a charming hors d’oeuvre – a nest, cunningly built from strips of pastry, ornamented with real sprigs of flowering apple, on the edge of which perched two nightingales, skinned and roasted, stuffed with apple and cinnamon, then redressed in their feathers. And in the nest was the entire family of baby birds, tiny stubs of outstretched wings brown and crispy, tender bare skins glazed with honey, blackened mouths agape to show the merest hint of the almond-paste stuffing within.

After a triumphal tour of the table to show it off – to the accompaniment of murmurs of admiration all round – the dainty dish was set before the King, who turned from his conversation with Madame de La Tourelle long enough to pluck one of the nestlings from its place and pop it into his mouth.

Crunch, crunch, crunch went Louis’s teeth. Mesmerized, I watched the muscles of his throat ripple, and felt the rubble of small bones slide down my own gullet. Brown fingers reached casually for another baby.

At this point, I concluded that there were probably worse things than insulting His Majesty by leaving the table, and bolted.

Rising from my knees amid the shrubbery a few minutes later, I heard a sound behind me. Expecting to meet the eye of a justifiably irate gardener, I turned guiltily to meet the eye of an irate husband.

“Damn it, Claire, d’ye have to do this all the time?” he demanded.

“In a word – yes,” I said, sinking exhaustedly onto the rim of an ornamental fountain. My hands were damp, and I smoothed them over my skirt. “Did you think I did it for fun?” I felt light-headed, and closed my eyes, trying to regain my internal balance before I fell into the fountain.

Suddenly there was a hand at the small of my back, and I half-leaned, half-fell into his arms as he sat beside me and gathered me in.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry, mo duinne. Are ye all right, Claire?”

I pushed away enough to look up at him and smile.

“I’m all right. Just a bit light-headed, is all.” I reached up and tried to smooth away the deep line of concern on his forehead. He smiled back, but the line stayed, a thin vertical crease between the thick sandy curves of his eye-brows. He swished a hand in the fountain and smoothed it over my cheeks. I must have looked rather pale.

“I’m sorry,” I added. “Really, Jamie, I couldn’t help it.”

His damp hand squeezed the back of my neck reassuringly, strong and steady. A fine spray of droplets from the mouth of a bug-eyed dolphin misted my hair.

“Och, dinna mind me, Sassenach. I didna mean to snap at ye. It’s only…” He made a helpless gesture with one hand. “…only that I feel such a thick-heided clot. I see ye in a misery, and I know I’ve done it to ye, and there isna the slightest thing I can do to aid you. So I blame ye for it instead, and act cross and growl at you… why do ye no just tell me to go to the devil, Sassenach?” he burst out.

I laughed until my sides hurt under the tight corseting, holding on to his arm.

“Go to hell, Jamie,” I said at last, wiping my eyes. “Go directly to hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. There. Do you feel better now?”

“Aye, I do,” he said, his expression lightening. “When ye start to talk daft, I know you’re all right. Do you feel better, Sassenach?”

“Yes,” I said, sitting up and beginning to take notice of my surroundings. The grounds of Versailles were open to the public, and small groups of merchants and laborers mingled oddly with the brightly colored nobles, all enjoying the good weather.

Suddenly the nearby door onto the terrace burst open, spilling the King’s guests out into the garden in a tide of chatter. The exodus from luncheon had been augmented by a new deputation, apparently just decanted from the two large coaches I could see driving past the edge of the garden toward distant stables.

It was a large group of people, men and women, soberly clad by comparison with the bright colors of the courtiers around them. It was the sound of them, though, rather than the appearance, that had caught my attention. French, spoken by a number of people at a distance, strongly resembles the quacking conversation of ducks and geese, with its nasal elements. English, on the other hand, has a slower pace, and much less rise and fall in its intonations. Spoken at a distance where individual voices are impossible to distinguish, it has the gruff, friendly monotony of a sheepdog’s barking. And the general effect of the mass exodus presently coming in our direction was of a gaggle of geese being driven to market by a pack of dogs.

The English party had arrived, somewhat belatedly. No doubt they were being tactfully shooed into the garden while the kitchen staff hastily prepared another dinner and reset the massive table for them.

I scanned the group curiously. The Duke of Sandringham I knew, of course, having met him once before in Scotland at Castle Leoch. His barrelchested figure was easy to pick out, walking side by side with Louis, modish wig tilted in polite attention.

Most of the other people were strangers, though I thought the stylish lady of middle age just coming through the doors must be the Duchess of Claymore, whom I had heard was expected. The Queen, normally left behind at some country house to amuse herself as best she could, had been trotted out for the occasion. She was talking to the visitor, her sweet, anxious face flushed with the unaccustomed excitement of the occasion.

The young girl just behind the Duchess caught my eye. Quite plainly dressed, she had the sort of beauty that would make her stand out in any crowd. She was small, fine-boned but nicely rounded in figure, with dark, shiny, unpowdered hair and the most extraordinary white skin, flushed across the cheeks with a clear deep pink that made her look exactly like a flower petal.

Her coloring reminded me of a dress I’d once had in my own time, a light cotton frock decorated with red poppies. The thought for some reason struck me with a sudden unexpected wave of homesickness, and I gripped the edge of the marble bench, eyelids prickling with longing. It must be hearing plain bluff English spoken, I thought, after so many months among the lilt of Scotland and the quacking of France. The visitors sounded like home.

Then I saw him. I could feel all of the blood draining from my head as my eye traced disbelievingly over the elegant curve of the skull, dark-haired and bold amid the powdered wigs around it. Alarms rang in my head like air-raid sirens, as I fought to accept and repel the impressions that assaulted me. My subconscious saw the line of the nose, thought “Frank,” and turned my body to fly toward him in welcome. “Not-Frank,” came the slightly higher, rational center of my brain, freezing me in my tracks as I saw the familiar curve of a half-smiling mouth, repeating, “You know it’s not Frank” as the muscles of my calves knotted. And then the lurch into panic and the clenching of hands and stomach, as the slower processes of logical thought came doggedly on the trail of instinct and knowledge, seeing the high brow and the arrogant tilt of the head, assuring me of the unthinkable. It could not be Frank. And if it were not, then it could only be…

“Jack Randall.” It wasn’t my voice that spoke, but Jamie’s, sounding oddly calm and detached. Attention attracted by my peculiar behavior, he had looked where I was looking, and had seen what I had seen.

He didn’t move. So far as I could tell through the increasing haze of panic, he didn’t breathe. I was dimly aware of a nearby servant peering curiously upward at the towering form of the frozen Scottish warrior next to me, silent as a statue of Mars. But all my concern was for Jamie.

He was entirely still. Still as a lion is still, part of the grass of the plain, its stare hot and unblinking as the sun that burns the veldt. And I saw something move in the depths of his eyes. The telltale twitch of the stalking cat, the tiny jerk of the tuft at the end of the tail, precursor to carnage.

To draw arms in the presence of the King was death. Murtagh was on the far side of the garden, much too far away to help. Two more paces would bring Randall within hearing distance. Within sword’s reach. I laid a hand on his arm. It was rigid as the steel of the swordhilt under his hand. The blood roared in my ears.

“Jamie,” I said. “Jamie!” And fainted.

10 A LADY, WITH BROWN HAIR CURLING LUXURIANTLY

I swam up out of a flickering yellow haze composed of sunlight, dust, and fragmented memories, feeling completely disoriented.

Frank was leaning over me, face creased in concern. He was holding my hand, except that he wasn’t. The hand I held was much larger than Frank’s, and my fingers brushed the wiriness of coarse hairs on the wrist. Frank’s hands were smooth as a girl’s.

“Are you all right?” The voice was Frank’s, low and cultured.

“Claire!” That voice, deeper and rougher, wasn’t Frank’s at all. Neither was it cultured. It was full of fright and anguish.

“Jamie.” I found the name at last to match the mental image for which I had been seeking. “Jamie! Don’t…” I sat bolt upright, staring wildly from one face to the other. I was surrounded by a circle of curious faces, courtiers two and three deep around me, with a small clear space left for His Majesty, who was leaning over, peering down at me with an expression of sympathetic interest.

Two men knelt in the dust beside me. Jamie on the right, eyes wide and face pale as the hawthorn blossoms above him. And on my left…

“Are you all right, Madame?” The light hazel eyes held only respectful concern, the fine dark brows arched over them in inquiry. It wasn’t Frank, of course. Neither was it Jonathan Randall. This man was younger than the Captain by a good ten years, perhaps close to my own age, his face pale and unlined by exposure to weather. His lips had the same chiseled lines, but lacked the marks of ruthlessness that bracketed the Captain’s mouth.

“You…” I croaked, leaning away from him. “You’re…”

“Alexander Randall, Esquire, Madame,” he answered quickly, making an abortive gesture toward his head, as though to doff a hat he wasn’t wearing. “I don’t believe we have met?” he said, with a hint of doubt.

“I, er, that is, no, we haven’t,” I said, sagging back against Jamie’s arm. The arm was steady as an iron railing, but the hand holding mine was trembling, and I pulled our clasped hands into the fold of my skirt to hide it.

“Rather an informal introduction, Mrs., er, no… it’s Lady Broch Tuarach, is it not?” The high, piping voice pulled my attention back above me, to the flushed, cherubic countenance of the Duke of Sandringham peering interestedly over the shoulders of the Comte de Sévigny and the Duc d’Orléans. He pushed his ungainly body through the narrow opening afforded, and extended a hand to help me to my feet. Still holding my sweaty palm in his own, he bowed in the direction of Alexander Randall, Esquire, who was frowning in a puzzled sort of way.

“Mr. Randall is in my employ as secretary, Lady Broch Tuarach. Holy Orders is a noble calling, but unfortunately nobility of purpose does not pay the cobbler’s bill, does it, Alex?” The young man flushed slightly at this barb, but he inclined his head civilly toward me, acknowledging his employer’s introduction. Only then did I notice the sober dark suit and high white stock that marked him as a junior cleric of some sort.

“His Grace is correct, my lady. And that being so, I must hold his offer of employment in the deepest gratitude.” A faint tightening of the lips at this speech seemed to indicate that the gratitude felt might not perhaps go so deep as all that, pleasant words notwithstanding. I glanced at the Duke, to find his small blue eyes creased against the sun, his expression blandly impenetrable.

This little tableau was broken by a clap of the King’s hands summoning two footmen, who, at Louis’s direction, grasped me by both arms and lifted me forcibly into a sedan chair, despite my protests.

“Certainly not, Madame,” he said, graciously dismissing both protests and thanks. “Go home and rest; we do not wish you to be indisposed for the ball tomorrow, non?” His large brown eyes twinkled at me as he raised my hand to his lips. Not taking his eyes from my face, he bowed formally toward Jamie, who had gathered his wits sufficiently to be making a gracious speech of thanks, and said, “I shall perhaps accept your thanks, my lord, in the form of your permission to request a dance from your lovely wife.”

Jamie’s lips tightened at this, but he bowed in return and said, “My wife shares my honor at your attention, Your Majesty.” He glanced in my direction. “If she is well enough to attend the ball tomorrow evening, I am sure she will look forward to dancing with Your Majesty.” He turned without waiting for formal dismissal, and jerked his head toward the chair-bearers.

“Home,” he said.

Home at last after a hot, jolting ride through streets that smelled of flowers and open sewers, I shed my heavy dress and its uncomfortable frame in favor of a silk dressing gown.

I found Jamie sitting by the empty hearth, eyes closed, hands on his knees as though thinking. He was pale as his linen shirt, glimmering in the shadow of the mantelpiece like a ghost.

“Holy Mother,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Dear God and saints, so close. I came within a hairsbreadth of murdering that man. Do ye realize, Claire, if ye hadna fainted… Jesus, I meant to kill him, with every last morsel of will I had.” He broke off, shuddering again with reaction.

“Here, you’d better put your feet up,” I urged, tugging at a heavy carved footstool.

“No, I’m all right now,” he said, waving it away. “He’s… Jack Randall’s brother, then?”

“I should think it likely in the extreme,” I said dryly. “He could scarcely be anyone else, after all.”

“Mm. Did ye know he worked for Sandringham?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t – don’t – know anything about him other than his name and the fact that he’s a curate. F-Frank wasn’t particularly interested in him, as he wasn’t a direct ancestor of his.” The slight quaver of my voice as I spoke Frank’s name gave me away.

Jamie put down the flask and came toward me. Stooping purposefully, he picked me up and cradled me against his chest. The smell of the gardens of Versailles rose sharp and fresh from the folds of his shirt. He kissed the top of my head and turned toward the bed.

“Come lay your head, Claire,” he said quietly. “It’s been a long day for us both.”

I had been afraid that the encounter with Alexander Randall would set Jamie dreaming again. It did not happen often, but now and again, I would feel him wake beside me, body tensed in sudden battle. He would lurch out of bed then, and spend the night by the window as though it offered escape, refusing any form of solace or interference. And by the morning, Jack Randall and the other demons of the dark hours had been forced back into their box, battened down and held fast by the steel bands of Jamie’s will, and all was well again.

But Jamie fell asleep quickly, and the stresses of the day had already fled from his face, leaving it peaceful and smooth by the time I put out the candle.

It was bliss to lie unmoving, with the warmth growing about my cold limbs, the myriad small aches of back and neck and knees fading into the softness of oncoming sleep. But my mind, released from watchfulness, replayed a thousand times that scene outside the palace – a quick glimpse of a dark head and a high brow, close-set ears and a fine-edged jaw – that first harsh flash of mistaken recognition, which struck my heart with a blow of joy and anguish. Frank, I had thought. Frank. And it was Frank’s face I saw as I sank into sleep.

The lecture room was one of those at London University; ancient timbered ceiling and modern floors, lino scuffed by restless feet. The seats were the old smooth benches; new desks were saved for the science lectures. History could make do with sixty-year-old scarred wood; after all, the subject was fixed and would not change – why should its accommodation?

“Objects of vertu,” Frank’s voice said, “and objects of use.” His long fingers touched the rim of a silver candlestick, and the sun from the window sparked from the metal, as though his touch were electric.

The objects, all borrowed from the collections of the British Museum, were lined up along the edge of the table, close enough for the students in the front row to see the tiny cracks in the yellowed ivory of the French counterbox, and the stains of tobacco smoked long ago that browned the edges of the white clay pipe. An English gold-mounted scent bottle, a gilt-bronze inkstand with gadrooned lid, a cracked horn spoon, and a small marble clock topped with two swans drinking.

And behind the row of objects, a row of painted miniatures, laid flat on the table, features obscured by the light reflecting off their surfaces.

Frank’s dark head bent over the objects, absorbed. The afternoon sun picked up a stray reddish gleam in his hair. He lifted the clay pipe, cupped onehanded like an eggshell.

“For some periods of history,” he said, “we have history itself; the written testimony of the people who lived then. For others, we have only the objects of the period, to show us how men lived.”

He put the pipe to his mouth and pursed his lips around the stem, puffing out his cheeks, brows raised comically. There was a muffled giggle from the audience, and he smiled and laid the pipe down.

“The art, and the objects of vertu” – he waved a hand over the glittering array – “these are what we most often see, the decorations of a society. And why not?” He picked an intelligent-looking brown-haired boy to address. An accomplished lecturer’s trick; pick one member of the audience to talk to as though you were alone with him. A moment later, shift to another. And everyone in the room will feel the focus of your remarks.

“These are pretty things, after all.” A finger’s touch set the swans on the clock revolving, curved necks stately in twofold procession. “Worth preserving. But who’d bother keeping an old, patched tea cozy, or a worn-out automobile-tire?” A pretty blonde in glasses this time, who smiled and tittered briefly in response.

“But it’s the useful objects, the things that aren’t noted in documents, which are used and broken and discarded without a second thought, that tell you how the common man lived. The numbers of these pipes, for example, tell us something about the frequency and types of tobacco use among the classes of society, from high” – a finger tap on the lid of the enameled snuffbox – “to low.” The finger moved to stroke the long, straight pipestem with affectionate familiarity.

Now a middle-aged woman, scribbling frantically to catch every word, hardly aware of the singular regard upon her. The lines creased beside smiling hazel eyes.

“You needn’t take down everything, Miss Smith,” he chided. “It’s an hour’s lecture, after all – your pencil will never last.”

The woman blushed and dropped her pencil, but smiled shyly in answer to the friendly grin on Frank’s lean, dark face. He had them now, everyone warmed by the glow of good humor, attention attracted by the small flashes of gilt and glitter. Now they would follow him without flagging or complaint, along the path of logic and into the thickets of discussion. A certain tenseness left his neck as he felt the students’ attention settle and fix on him.

“The best witness to history is the man – or woman” – a nod to the pretty blonde – “who’s lived it, right?” He smiled and picked up the cracked horn spoon. “Well, perhaps. After all, it’s human nature to put the best face on things when you know someone will read what you’ve written. People tend to concentrate on the things they think important, and often enough, they tidy it up a bit for public consumption. It’s rare to find a Pepys who records with equal interest the details of a Royal procession, and the number of times each night that he’s obliged to use his chamber pot.”

The laugh this time was general, and he relaxed, leaning casually back against the table, gesturing with the spoon.

“Similarly, the lovely objects, the artful artifacts, are the ones most often preserved. But the chamber pots and the spoons and the cheap clay pipes can tell us as much or more about the people who used them.

“And what about those people? We think of historical persons as something different than ourselves, sometimes halfway mythological. But someone played games with this” – the slender index finger stroked the counter-box – “a lady used this” – nudged the scent bottle – “dabbing scent behind her ears, on her wrists… where else do you ladies dab scent?” Lifting his head suddenly, he smiled at the plump blond girl in the front row, who blushed, giggled, and touched herself demurely just above the V of her blouse.

“Ah, yes. Just there. Well, so did the lady who owned this.”

Still smiling at the girl, he unstoppered the scent bottle and passed it gently under his nose.

“What is it, Professor? Arpège?” Not so shy, this student; dark-haired, like Frank, with gray eyes that held more than a hint of flirtation.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring over the mouth of the bottle.

“No. It’s L’Heure Bleu. My favorite.”

He turned back to the table, hair falling over his brow in concentration as his hand hovered over the row of miniatures.

“And then there’s a special class of objects – portraits. A bit of art, and at the same time, as much as we can see of the people themselves. But how real are they to us?”

He lifted a tiny oval and turned it to face the class, reading from the small gummed label affixed to its back.

“A Lady, by Nathaniel Plimer, signed with initials and dated 1786, with curled brown hair piled high, wearing a pink dress and a ruffle-collared chemise, cloud and sky background.” He held up a square beside it.

“A Gentleman, by Horace Hone, signed with monogram and dated 1780, with powdered hair en queue, wearing a brown coat, blue waistcoat, lawn jabot, and an Order, possibly the Most Honorable Order of the Bath.”

The miniature showed a round-faced man, mouth rosily pursed in the formal pose of eighteenth-century portraits.

“The artists we know,” he said, laying the portrait down. “They signed their work, or they left clues to their identity in the techniques and the subjects they used. But the people they painted? We see them, and yet we know nothing of them. The strange hairstyles, the odd clothes – they don’t seem people that you’d know, do they? And the way so many artists painted them, the faces are all alike; pudding-faced and pale, most of them, and not a lot more you can say about them. Here and there, one stands out…” Hand hovering over the row, he selected another oval.

“A Gentleman…”

He held up the miniature, and Jamie’s blue eyes blazed out under the fiery thatch of his hair, combed for once, braided and ribboned into an unaccustomed formal order. The knife-edged nose was bold above the lace of his stock, and the long mouth seemed about to speak, half-curled at one corner.

“But they were real people,” Frank’s voice insisted. “They did much the same things you do – give or take a few small details like going to the pictures or driving down the motorway” – there were appreciative titters amongst the class – “but they cared about their children, they loved their husbands or wives… well, sometimes they did…” More laughter.

“A Lady,” he said softly, cradling the last of the portraits in his palm, shielding it for the moment. “With brown hair curling luxuriantly to her shoulders, and a necklace of pearls. Undated. The artist unknown.”

It was a mirror, not a miniature. My cheeks were flushed, and my lips trembled as Frank’s finger gently traced the edge of my jaw, the graceful line of my neck. The tears welled in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks as I heard his voice, still lecturing, as he laid down the miniature, and I stared upward at the timbered ceiling.

“Undated. Unknown. But once… once, she was real.”

I was having trouble breathing, and thought at first that I was being smothered by the glass over the miniature. But the material pressing on my nose was soft and damp, and I twisted my head away and came awake, feeling the linen pillow wet with tears beneath my cheek. Jamie’s hand was large and warm on my shoulder, gently shaking me.

“Hush, lassie. Hush! You’re but dreaming – I’m here.”

I turned my face into the warmth of his naked shoulder, feeling the tears slick between cheek and skin. I clung tightly to his solidness, and the small night sounds of the Paris house came slowly to my ears, bringing me back to the life that was mine.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I was dreaming about… about…”

He patted my back, and reached under the pillow for a handkerchief.

“I know. Ye were calling his name.” He sounded resigned.

I laid my head back on his shoulder. He smelled warm and rumpled, his own sleepy scent blending with the smell of the down-filled quilt and the clean linen sheets.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

He snorted briefly, not quite a laugh.

“Well, I’ll no say I’m not wicked jealous of the man,” he said ruefully, “because I am. But I can hardly grudge him your dreams. Or your tears.” His finger gently traced the wet track down one cheek, then blotted it with the handkerchief.

“You don’t?”

His smile in the dimness was lopsided.

“No. Ye loved him. I canna hold it against either of you that ye mourn him. And it gives me some comfort to know…” He hesitated, and I reached up to smooth the rumpled hair off his face.

“To know what?”

“That should the need come, you might mourn for me that way,” he said softly.

I pressed my face fiercely into his chest, so my words were muffled.

“I won’t mourn you, because I won’t have to. I won’t lose you, I won’t!” A thought struck me, and I looked up at him, the faint roughness of his beard stubble a shadow on his face.

“You aren’t afraid I would go back, are you? You don’t think that because I… think of Frank…”

“No.” His voice was quick and soft, a response fast as the possessive tightening of his arms around me.

“No,” he said again, more softly. “We are bound, you and I, and nothing on this earth shall part me from you.” One large hand rose to stroke my hair. “D’ye mind the blood vow that I swore ye when we wed?”

“Yes, I think so. ‘Blood of my blood, bone of my bone…’ ”

“I give ye my body, that we may be one,” he finished. “Aye, and I have kept that vow, Sassenach, and so have you.” He turned me slightly, and one hand cupped itself gently over the tiny swell of my stomach.

“Blood of my blood,” he whispered, “and bone of my bone. You carry me within ye, Claire, and ye canna leave me now, no matter what happens. You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I wilna let ye go.”

I put a hand over his, pressing it against me.

“No,” I said softly, “nor can you leave me.”

“No,” he said, half-smiling. “For I have kept the last of the vow as well.” He clasped both hands about me, and bowed his head on my shoulder, so I could feel the warm breath of the words upon my ear, whispered to the dark.

“For I give ye my spirit, ’til our life shall be done.”

11 USEFUL OCCUPATIONS

“Who is that peculiar little man?” I asked Jamie curiously. The man in question was making his way slowly through the groups of guests gathered in the main salon of the de Rohans’ house. He would pause a moment, scanning the group with a critical eye, then either shrug a bony shoulder and pass on, or suddenly step in close to a man or woman, hold something to their face and issue some sort of command. Whatever he was doing, his actions appeared to be the occasion of considerable hilarity.

Before Jamie could answer, the man, a small, wizened specimen in gray serge, spotted us, and his face lit up. He swooped down on Jamie like a tiny bird of prey suddenly descending upon a large and startled rabbit.

“Sing,” he commanded.

“Eh?” Jamie blinked down at the little figure in astonishment.

“I said ‘Sing,’ ” answered the man, patiently. He prodded Jamie admiringly in the chest. “With a resonating cavity like that, you should have a wonderful volume.”

“Oh, he has volume,” I said, amused. “You can hear him across three squares of the city when he’s roused.”

Jamie shot me a dirty look. The little man was circling him, measuring the breadth of his back and tapping on him like a woodpecker sampling a prime tree.

“I can’t sing,” he protested.

“Nonsense, nonsense. Of course you can. A nice, deep baritone, too,” the little man murmured approvingly. “Excellent. Just what we need. Here, a bit of help for you. Try to match this tone.”

Deftly whipping a small tuning fork from his pocket, he struck it smartly against a pillar and held it next to Jamie’s left ear.

Jamie rolled his eyes heavenward, but shrugged and obligingly sang a note. The little man jerked back as though he’d been shot.

“No,” he said disbelievingly.

“I’m afraid so,” I said sympathetically. “He’s right, you know. He really can’t sing.”

The little man squinted accusingly at Jamie, then struck his fork once more and held it out invitingly.

“Once more,” he coaxed. “Just listen to it, and let the same sound come out.”

Patient as ever, Jamie listened carefully to the “A” of the fork, and sang again, producing a sound wedged somewhere in the crack between E-flat and D-sharp.

“Not possible,” said the little man, looking thoroughly disillusioned. “No one could be that dissonant even on purpose.”

“I can,” said Jamie cheerfully, and bowed politely to the little man. We had by now begun to collect a small crowd of interested onlookers. Louise de Rohan was a great hostess, and her salons attracted the cream of Parisian society.

“Yes, he can,” I assured our visitor. “He’s tone-deaf, you see.”

“Yes, I do see,” the little man said, looking thoroughly depressed. Then he began to eye me speculatively.

“Not me!” I said, laughing.

“You surely aren’t tone-deaf as well, Madame?” Eyes glittering like a snake slithering toward a paralyzed bird, the little man began to move toward me, tuning fork twitching like the flicking tongue of a viper.

“Wait a minute,” I said, holding out a repressive hand. “Just who are you?”

“This is Herr Johannes Gerstmann, Sassenach.” Looking amused, Jamie bowed again to the little man. “The King’s singing-master. May I present you to my wife, Lady Broch Tuarach, Herr Gerstmann?” Trust Jamie to know every last member of the Court, no matter how insignificant.

Johannes Gerstmann. Well, that accounted for the faint accent I had detected under the formality of Court French. German, I wondered, or Austrian?

“I am assembling a small impromptu chorus,” the little singing-master explained. “The voices need not be trained, but they must be strong and true.” He cast a glance of disillusionment at Jamie, who merely grinned in response. He took the tuning fork from Herr Gerstmann and held it inquiringly in my direction.

“Oh, all right,” I said, and sang.

Whatever he heard appeared to encourage Herr Gerstmann, for he put away the tuning fork and peered at me interestedly. His wig was a trifle too big, and tended to slide forward when he nodded. He did so now, then pushed the wig carelessly back, and said “Excellent tone, Madame! Really very nice, very nice indeed. Are you acquainted perhaps with Le Papillon?” He hummed a few bars.

“Well, I’ve heard it at least,” I replied cautiously. “Um, the melody, I mean; I don’t know the words.”

“Ah! No difficulty, Madame. The chorus is simplicity; like this…”

My arm trapped in the singing-master’s grip, I found myself being ineluctably drawn away toward the sound of harpsichord music in a distant room, Herr Gerstmann humming in my ear like a demented bumblebee.

I cast a helpless glance back at Jamie, who merely grinned and raised his cup of sorbet in a farewell salute before turning to take up a conversation with Monsieur Duverney the younger, the son of the Minister of Finance.

The Rohans’ house – if you could use a mere word like “house” in description of such a place – was alight with lanterns strung through the back garden and edging the terrace. As Herr Gerstmann towed me through the corridors, I could see servants hurrying in and out of the supper rooms, laying linen and silver for the dining that would take place later. Most “salons” were small, intimate affairs, but the Princesse Louise de La Tour de Rohan was an expansive personality.

I had met the Princesse a week before, at another evening party, and had found her something of a surprise. Plump and rather plain, she had a round face with a small round chin, pale lashless blue eyes, and a star-shaped false beauty mark that did very little to fulfill its function in life. So this was the lady who enticed Prince Charles into ignoring the dictates of propriety? I thought, curtsying in the receiving line.

Still, she had an air of lively animation about her that was quite attractive, and a lovely soft pink mouth. Her mouth was the most animated part of her, in fact.

“But I am charmed!” she had exclaimed, grabbing my hand as I was presented to her. “How wonderful to meet you at last! My husband and my father have both sung the praises of milord Broch Tuarach unendingly, but of his delightful wife they have said nothing. I am enchanted beyond measure by your coming, my dear, sweet lady – must I really say Broch Tuarach, or won’t it do if I only say Lady Tuarach? I’m not sure I could remember all of it, but one word, surely, even if such a strange-sounding word – is it Scottish? How enchanting!”

In fact, Broch Tuarach meant “the north-facing tower,” but if she wanted to call me “Lady North-facing,” it was all right with me. In the event, she quickly gave up trying to remember “Tuarach,” and had since called me only “ma chère Claire.”

Louise herself was with the group of singers in the music room, fluttering plumply from one to another, talking and laughing. When she saw me, she dashed across the room as fast as her draperies would allow, her plain face alight with animation.

“Ma chère Claire!” she exclaimed, ruthlessly commandeering me from Herr Gerstmann. “You are just in time! Come, you must talk to this silly English child for me.”

The “silly English child” was in fact very young; a girl of not more than fifteen, with dark, shiny ringlets, and cheeks flushed so hotly with embarrassment that she reminded me of a brilliant poppy. In fact, it was the cheeks that recalled her to me; the girl I had glimpsed in the garden at Versailles, just before the unsettling appearance of Alexander Randall.

“Madame Fraser is English, too,” Louise was explaining to the girl. “She will soon make you feel at home. She’s shy,” Louise explained, turning to me without pausing to draw breath. “Talk to her; persuade her to sing with us. She has a delightful voice, I am assured. There, mes enfants, enjoy yourselves!” And with a pat of benediction, she was off to the other side of the room, exclaiming, cajoling, marveling at a new arrival’s gown, pausing to fondle the overweight youth who sat at the harpsichord, twisting ringlets of his hair around her finger as she chattered to the Duc di Castellotti.

“Makes you rather tired just to watch her, doesn’t it?” I said in English, smiling at the girl. A tiny smile appeared on her own lips and she bobbed her head briefly, but didn’t speak. I thought this must all be rather overwhelming; Louise’s parties tended to make my own head spin, and the little poppy girl could scarcely be out of the schoolroom.

“I’m Claire Fraser,” I said, “but Louise didn’t remember to tell me your name.” I paused invitingly, but she didn’t reply. Her face got redder and redder, lips pressed tight together, and her fists clenched at her sides. I was a trifle alarmed at her appearance, but she finally summoned the will to speak. She took a deep breath, and raised her chin like one about to mount the scaffold.

“M-m-my-name is… M-M-M,” she began, and at once I understood her silence and her painful shyness. She closed her eyes, biting her lip savagely, then opened her eyes and gamely had another try. “M-M-Mary Hawkins,” she managed at last. “I d-d-don’t sing,” she added defiantly.

If I had found her interesting before, I was fascinated now. So this was Silas Hawkins’s niece, the baronet’s daughter, the intended fiancée of the Vicomte Marigny! It seemed a considerable weight of male expectation for such a young girl to bear. I glanced around to see whether the Vicomte was in evidence, and was relieved to find that he wasn’t.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, stepping in front of her, to shield her from the waves of people now filling the music room. “You needn’t talk if you don’t want to. Though perhaps you should try to sing,” I said, struck by a thought. “I knew a physician once who specialized in the treatment of stammering; he said that people who stammer don’t do it when they sing.”

Mary Hawkins’s eyes grew wide with astonishment at this. I looked around and saw a nearby alcove, curtained to hide a cozy bench.

“Here,” I said, taking her by the hand. “You can sit in here, so you don’t have to talk to people. If you want to sing, you can come out when we start; if not, just stay in here ’til the party’s over.” She stared at me for a minute, then gave me a sudden blinding smile of gratitude, and ducked into the alcove.

I loitered outside, to prevent any nosy servants from disturbing her hiding place, chatting with passersby.

“How lovely you look tonight, ma chère!” It was Madame de Ramage, one of the Queen’s ladies. An older, dignified woman, she had come to supper in the Rue Tremoulins once or twice. She embraced me warmly, then looked around to be sure that we were unobserved.

“I had hoped to see you here, my dear,” she said, leaning a bit closer and lowering her voice. “I wished to advise you to take care concerning the Comte St. Germain.”

Half-turning in the direction of her gaze, I saw the lean-faced man from the docks of Le Havre, entering the music room with a younger, elegantly dressed woman on his arm. He hadn’t seen me, apparently, and I hastily turned back to Madame de Remage.

“What… has he… I mean…” I could feel myself flushing still more deeply, rattled by the appearance of the saturnine Comte.

“Well, yes, he has been heard to speak of you,” Madame de Ramage said, kindly helping me out of my confusion. “I gather that there was some small difficulty in Le Havre?”

“Something of the kind,” I said. “All I did was to recognize a case of smallpox, but it resulted in the destruction of his ship, and… he wasn’t pleased about it,” I concluded weakly.

“Ah, so that was it.” Madame de Ramage looked pleased. I imagined having the inside story, so to speak, would give her an advantage in the trade of gossip and information that was the commerce of Parisian social life.

“He has been going about telling people that he believes you to be a witch,” she said, smiling and waving at a friend across the room. “A fine story! Oh, no one believes it,” she assured me. “Everyone knows that if anyone is mixed up in such matters, it is Monsieur le Comte himself.”

“Really?” I wanted to ask just what she meant by this, but just then Herr Gerstmann bustled up, clapping his hands as though shooing a flock of hens.

“Come, come, mesdames!” he said. “We are all complete; the singing commences!”

As the chorale hastily assembled near the harpsichord, I looked back toward the alcove where I had left Mary Hawkins. I thought I saw the curtain twitch, but wasn’t sure. And as the music began, and the joined voices rose, I thought I heard a clear, high soprano from the direction of the alcove – but again, I wasn’t sure.

“Verra nice, Sassenach,” Jamie said when I rejoined him, flushed and breathless, after the singing. He grinned down at me and patted my shoulder.

“How would you know?” I said, accepting a glass of wine-punch from a passing servant. “You can’t tell one song from another.”

“Well, ye were loud, anyway,” he said, unperturbed. “I could hear every word.” I felt him stiffen slightly beside me, and turned to see what – or whom – he was looking at.

The woman who had just entered was tiny, scarcely as high as Jamie’s lowest rib, with hands and feet like a doll’s, and brows delicate as Chinese tracery, over eyes the deep black of sloes. She advanced with a step that mocked its own lightness, so she looked as though she were dancing just above the ground.

“There’s Annalise de Marillac,” I said, admiring her. “Doesn’t she look lovely?”

“Oh, aye.” Something in his voice made me glance sharply upward. A faint pink tinged the tips of his ears.

“And here I thought you spent your years in France fighting, not making romantic conquests,” I said tartly.

To my surprise, he laughed at this. Catching the sound, the woman turned toward us. A brilliant smile lit her face as she saw Jamie looming among the crowd. She turned as though to come in our direction, but was distracted by a gentleman, wigged and resplendent in lavender satin, who laid an importuning hand on her fragile arm. She flicked her fan charmingly at Jamie in a gesture of regretful coquetry before devoting her attention to her new companion.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, seeing him still grinning broadly after the lady’s gently oscillating lace skirts.

He snapped suddenly back to an awareness of my presence, and smiled down at me.

“Oh, nothing, Sassenach. Only what ye said about fighting. I fought my first duel – well, the only one, in fact – over Annalise de Marillac. When I was eighteen.”

His tone was mildly dreamy, watching the sleek, dark head bob away through the crowd, surrounded wherever it went by white clusters of wigs and powdered hair, with here and there a fashionably pink-tinged peruke for variety.

“A duel? With whom?” I asked, glancing around warily for any male attachments to the China doll who might feel inclined to follow up an old quarrel.

“Och, he isna here,” Jamie said, catching and correctly interpreting my glance. “He’s dead.”

“You killed him?” Agitated, I spoke rather louder than intended. As a few nearby heads turned curiously in our direction, Jamie took me by the elbow and steered me hastily toward the nearest French doors.

“Mind your voice, Sassenach,” he said, mildly enough. “No, I didna kill him. Wanted to,” he added ruefully, “but didn’t. He died two years ago, of the morbid sore throat. Jared told me.”

He guided me down one of the garden paths, lit by lantern-bearing servants, who stood like bollards at five-yard intervals from the terrace to the fountain at the bottom of the path. In the midst of a big reflecting pool, four dolphins sprayed sheets of water over an annoyed-looking Triton in the center, who brandished a trident rather ineffectually at them.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” I urged as we passed out of hearing of the groups on the terrace. “What happened?”

“All right, then,” he said, resigned. “Well, ye will have observed that Annalise is rather pretty?”

“Oh, really? Well, perhaps, now that you mention it, I can see something of the kind,” I answered sweetly, provoking a sudden sharp look, followed by a lopsided smile.

“Aye. Well, I wasna the only young gallant in Paris to be of the same opinion, nor the only one to lose his head over her, either. Went about in a daze, tripping over my feet. Waited in the street, in hopes of seeing her come out of her house to the carriage. Forgot to eat, even; Jared said my coat hung on me like a scarecrow’s, and the state of my hair didna much help the resemblance.” His hand went absently to his head, patting the immaculate queue that lay clubbed tight against his neck, bound with blue ribbon.

“Forgot to eat? Christ, you did have it bad,” I remarked.

He chuckled. “Oh, aye. And still worse when she began to flirt wi’ Charles Gauloise. Mind ye,” he added fairly, “she flirted with everyone – that was all right – but she chose him for her supper partner ower-often for my taste, and danced with him too much at the parties, and… well, the long and the short of it, Sassenach, is that I caught him kissing her in the moonlight on her father’s terrace one night, and challenged him.”

By this time, we had reached the fountain in our promenade. Jamie drew to a stop and we sat on the rim of the fountain, upwind of the spray from the puff-lipped dolphins. Jamie drew a hand through the dark water and lifted it dripping, abstractedly watching the silver drops run down his fingers.

“Dueling was illegal in Paris then – as it is now. But there were places; there always are. It was his to choose, and he picked a spot in the Bois de Boulogne. Close by the road of the Seven Saints, but hidden by a screen of oaks. The choice of weapon was his, too. I expected pistols, but he chose swords.”

“Why would he do that? You must have had a six-inch reach on him – or more.” I was no expert, but was perforce learning a small bit about the strategy and tactics of swordfighting; Jamie and Murtagh took each other on every two or three days to keep in practice, clashing and parrying and lunging up and down the garden, to the untrammeled delight of the servants, male and female alike, who all surged out onto the balconies to watch.

“Why did he choose smallswords? Because he was bloody good with one. Also, I suspected he thought I might kill him accidentally with a pistol, while he knew I’d be satisfied only to draw blood with a blade. I didna mean to kill him, ye ken,” he explained. “Only to humiliate him. And he knew it. No fool, was our Charles,” he said, ruefully shaking his head.

The mist from the fountain was making ringlets escape from my coiffure, to curl around my face. I brushed back a wisp of hair, asking, “And did you humiliate him?”

“Well, I wounded him, at least.” I was surprised to hear a small note of satisfaction in his voice, and raised an eyebrow at him. “He’d learnt his craft from LeJeune, one of the best swordmasters in France.” Jamie explained. “Like fighting a damn flea, it was, and I fought him right-handed, too.” He pushed a hand through his hair once more, as though checking the binding.

“My hair came loose, midway through,” he said. “The thong holding it broke, and the wind was blowing it into my eyes, so all I could see was the wee white shape of Charles in his shirt, darting to and fro like a minnow. And that’s how I got him, finally – the way ye spear a fish with a dirk.” He snorted through his nose.

“He let out a skelloch as though I’d run him through, though I knew I’d but pinked him in one arm. I got the hair out of my face at last and looked beyond him to see Annalise standing there at the edge of the clearing, wi’ her eyes wide and dark as yon pool.” He gestured out over the silver-black surface beside us.

“So I sheathed my blade and smoothed back my hair, and stood there – half-expectin’ her to come and throw herself into my arms, I suppose.”

“Um,” I said, delicately. “I gather she didn’t?”

“Well, I didna ken anything about women then, did I?” he demanded. “No, she came and threw herself on him, of course.” He made a Scottish noise deep in his throat, one of self-derision and humorous disgust. “Married him a month later, I heard.”

“Aye, well.” He shrugged suddenly, with a rueful smile. “So my heart was broken. Went home to Scotland and moped about for weeks, until my father lost patience wi’ me.” He laughed. “I even thought of turning monk over it. Said to my father over supper one night as I thought perhaps in the spring I’d go across to the Abbey and become a novice.”

I laughed at the thought. “Well, you’d have no difficulty with the vow of poverty; chastity and obedience might come a bit harder. What did your father say?”

He grinned, teeth white in a dark face. “He was eating brose. He laid down the spoon and looked at me for a moment. Then he sighed and shook his head, and said, ‘It’s been a long day, Jamie.’ Then he picked up the spoon again and went back to his supper, and I never said another word about it.”

He looked up the slope to the terrace, where those not dancing strolled to and fro, cooling off between dances, sipping wine and flirting behind fans. He sighed nostalgically.

“Aye, a verra pretty lass, Annalise de Marillac. Graceful as the wind, and so small that ye wanted to tuck her inside your shirt and carry her like a kitten.”

I was silent, listening to the faint music from the open doors above, as I contemplated the gleaming satin slipper that encased my size-nine foot.

After a moment, Jamie became aware of my silence.

“What is it, Sassenach?” he asked, laying a hand on my arm.

“Oh, nothing,” I said with a sigh. “Only thinking that I rather doubt anyone will ever describe me as ‘graceful as the wind.’ ”

“Ah.” His head was half-turned, the long, straight nose and firm chin lighted from behind by the glow of the nearest lantern. I could see the half-smile on his lips as he turned back toward me.

“Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach, ‘graceful’ is possibly not the first word that springs to mind at thought of you.” He slipped an arm behind me, one hand large and warm around my silk-clad shoulder.

“But I talk to you as I talk to my own soul,” he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple.

“And, Sassenach,” he whispered, “your face is my heart.”

It was the shifting of the wind, several minutes later, that parted us at last with a fine spray from the fountain. We broke apart and rose hastily, laughing at the sudden chill of the water. Jamie inclined his head inquiringly toward the terrace, and I took his arm, nodding.

“So,” I observed, as we made our way slowly up the wide steps to the ballroom, “you’ve learnt a bit more about women now, I see.”

He laughed, low and deep, tightening his grasp on my waist.

“The most important thing I’ve learned about women, Sassenach, is which one to choose.” He stepped away, bowing to me, and gesturing through the open doors to the brilliant scene inside. “May I have this dance, milady?”

I spent the next afternoon at the d’Arbanvilles’, where I met the King’s singing-master once again. This time, we found time for a conversation, which I recounted to Jamie after supper.

“You what?” Jamie squinted at me, as though he suspected me of pulling some practical joke.

“I said, Herr Gerstmann suggested that I might be interested in meeting a friend of his. Mother Hildegarde is in charge of L’Hôpital des Anges – you know, the charity hospital down near the cathedral.”

“I know where it is.” His voice was marked by a general lack of enthusiasm.

“He had a sore throat, and that led to me telling him what to take for it, and a bit about medicines in general, and how I was interested in diseases and, well, you know how one thing leads to another.”

“With you, it customarily does,” he agreed, sounding distinctly cynical. I ignored his tone and went on.

“So, I’m going to go to the hospital tomorrow.” I stretched on tiptoe to reach down my medicine box from its shelf. “Maybe I won’t take it along with me the first time,” I said, scanning the contents meditatively. “It might seem too pushing. Do you think?”

“Pushing?” He sounded stunned. “Are ye meaning to visit the place, or move into it?”

“Er, well,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I, er, thought perhaps I could work there regularly. Herr Gerstmann says that all the physicians and healers who go there donate their time. Most of them don’t turn up every day, but I have plenty of time, and I could-”

“Plenty of time?”

“Stop repeating everything I say,” I said. “Yes, plenty of time. I know it’s important to go to salons and supper parties and all that, but it doesn’t take all day – at least it needn’t. I could-”

“Sassenach, you’re with child! Ye dinna mean to go out to nurse beggars and criminals?” He sounded rather helpless now, as though wondering how to deal with someone who had suddenly gone mad in front of him.

“I hadn’t forgotten,” I assured him. I pressed my hands against my belly, squinting down.

“It isn’t really noticeable yet; with a loose gown I can get away with it for a time. And there’s nothing wrong with me except the morning sickness; no reason why I shouldn’t work for some months yet.”

“No reason, except I wilna have ye doing it!” Expecting no company this evening, he had taken off his stock and opened his collar when he came home. I could see the tide of dusky red advancing up his throat.

“Jamie,” I said, striving for reasonableness. “You know what I am.”

“You’re my wife!”

“Well, that, too.” I flicked the idea aside with my fingers. “I’m a nurse, Jamie. A healer. You have reason to know it.”

He flushed hotly. “Aye, I do. And because ye’ve mended me when I’m wounded, I should think it right for ye to tend beggars and prostitutes? Sassenach, do ye no ken the sort of people that L’Hôpital des Anges takes in?” He looked pleadingly at me, as though expecting me to return to my senses any minute.

“What difference does that make?”

He looked wildly around the room, imploring witness from the portrait over the mantelpiece as to my unreasonableness.

“You could catch a filthy disease, for God’s sake! D’ye have no regard for your child, even if ye have none for me?”

Reasonableness was seeming a less desirable goal by the moment.

“Of course I have! What kind of careless, irresponsible person do you think I am?”

“The kind who would abandon her husband to go and play with scum in the gutter!” he snapped. “Since you ask.” He ran a big hand through his hair, making it stick up at the crown.

“Abandon you? Since when is it abandoning you to suggest really doing something, instead of rotting away in the d’Arbanvilles’ salon, watching Louise de Rohan stuff herself with pastry, and listening to bad poetry and worse music? I want to be useful!”

“Taking care of your own household isna useful? Being married to me isna useful?” The lacing round his hair broke under the stress, and the thick locks fluffed out like a flaming halo. He glared down his nose at me like an avenging angel.

“Sauce for the gander,” I retorted coldly. “Is being married to me sufficient occupation for you? I don’t notice you hanging round the house all day, adoring me. And as for the household, bosh.”

“Bosh? What’s bosh?” he demanded.

“Stuff and nonsense. Rot. Horsefeathers. In other words, don’t be ridiculous. Madame Vionnet does everything, and does it several dozen times better than I could.”

This was so patently true that it stopped him for a moment. He glared down at me, jaw working.

“Oh, aye? And if I forbid ye to go?”

This stopped me for a moment. I drew myself up and looked him up and down. His eyes were the color of rain-dark slate, the wide, generous mouth clamped in a straight line. Shoulders broad and back erect, arms folded across his chest like a cast-iron statue, “forbidding” was precisely the word that best described him.

“Do you forbid me?” The tension crackled between us. I wanted to blink, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of breaking off my own steely gaze. What would I do if he forbade me to go? Alternatives raced through my mind, everything from planting the ivory letter-opener between his ribs to burning down the house with him in it. The only idea I rejected absolutely was that of giving in.

He paused, and drew a deep breath before speaking. His hands were curled into fists at his sides, and he uncurled them with conscious effort.

“No,” he said. “No, I dinna forbid ye.” His voice shook slightly with the effort to control it. “But if I asked you?”

I looked down then, and stared at his reflection in the polished tabletop. At first, the idea of visiting L’Hôpital des Anges had seemed merely an interesting idea, an attractive alternative to the endless gossip and petty intrigues of Parisian society. But now… I could feel the muscles of my arms swell as I clenched my own fists. I didn’t just want to work again; I needed to.

“I don’t know,” I said at last.

He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“Will ye think about it, Claire?” I could feel his eyes on me. After what seemed a long time, I nodded.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” His tension broken, he turned restlessly away. He wandered round the drawing room, picking up small objects and putting them down at random, finally coming to roost by the bookshelf, where he leaned, staring unseeingly at the leather-bound titles. I came tentatively up beside him, and laid a hand on his arm.

“Jamie, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

He glanced down at me and gave me a sidelong smile.

“Aye, well. I didna mean to fight wi’ you, either, Sassenach. I’m short-tempered and over-touchy, I expect.” He patted my hand in apology, then moved aside, to stand looking down at his desk.

“You’ve been working hard,” I said soothingly, following him.

“It’s not that.” He shook his head, and reached out to flip open the pages of the huge ledger that lay in the center of the desk.

“The wine business; that’s all right. It’s a great deal of work, aye, but I dinna mind it. It’s the other.” He gestured at a small stack of letters, held down by an alabaster paperweight. One of Jared’s, it was carved in the shape of a white rose – the Stuarts’ emblem. The letters it secured were from Abbot Alexander, from the Earl of Mar, from other prominent Jacobites. All filled with veiled inquiry, misty promises, contradictory expectations.

“I feel as though I’m fighting feathers!” Jamie said, violently. “A real fight, something I could get my hands on, that I could do. But this…” He snatched up the handful of letters from the desk, and tossed them into the air. The room was drafty, and the papers zigzagged wildly, sliding under furniture and fluttering on the carpet.

“There’s nothing to get hold of,” he said helplessly. “I can talk to a thousand people, write a hundred letters, drink wi’ Charles ’til I’m blind, and never know if I’m getting on or not.”

I let the scattered letters lie; one of the maids could retrieve them later.

“Jamie,” I said softly. “We can’t do anything but try.”

He smiled faintly, hands braced on the desk. “Aye. I’m glad you said ‘we,’ Sassenach. I do feel verra much alone with it all sometimes.”

I put my arms around his waist and laid my face against his back.

“You know I wouldn’t leave you alone with it,” I said. “I got you into it in the first place, after all.”

I could feel the small vibration of a laugh under my cheek.

“Aye, you did. I wilna hold it against ye, Sassenach.” He turned, leaned down, and kissed me lightly on the forehead. “You look tired, mo duinne. Go up to bed, now. I’ve a bit more work to do, but I’ll join ye soon.”

“All right.” I was tired tonight, though the chronic sleepiness of early pregnancy was giving way to new energy; I was beginning to feel alert in the daytime, brimming with the urge to be active.

I paused at the door on my way out. He was still standing by the desk, staring down into the pages of the open ledger.

“Jamie?” I said.

“Aye?”

“The hospital – I said I’d think about it. You think, too, hm?”

He turned his head, one brow sharply arched. Then he smiled, and nodded briefly.

“I’ll come to ye soon, Sassenach,” he said.

It was still sleeting, and tiny particles of frozen rain rattled against the windows and hissed into the fire when the night wind turned to drive them down the flue. The wind was high, and it moaned and grumbled among the chimneys, making the bedroom seem all the cozier by contrast. The bed itself was an oasis of warmth and comfort, equipped with goose-down quilts, huge fluffy pillows, and Jamie, faithfully putting out British Thermal Units like an electric storage heater.

His large hand stroked lightly across my stomach, warm through the thin silk of my nightdress.

“No, there. You have to press a little harder.” I took his hand and pressed the fingers downward, just above my pubic bone, where the uterus had begun to make itself obvious, a round, hard swelling a little larger than a grapefruit.

“Aye, I feel it,” he murmured. “He’s really there.” A tiny smile of awed delight tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he looked up at me, eyes sparkling. “Can ye feel him move, yet?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. Another month or so, I think, from what your sister Jenny said.”

“Mmm,” he said, kissing the tiny bulge. “What d’ye think of ‘Dalhousie,’ Sassenach?”

“What do I think of ‘Dalhousie’ as what?” I inquired.

“Well, as a name,” he said. He patted my stomach. “He’ll need a name.”

“True,” I said. “Though what makes you think it’s a boy? It might just as easily be a girl.”

“Oh? Oh, aye, that’s true,” he admitted, as though the possibility had just occurred to him. “Still, why not start with the boys’ names? We could name him for your uncle who raised you.”

“Umm.” I frowned at my midsection. Dearly as I had loved my uncle Lamb, I didn’t know that I wanted to inflict either “Lambert” or “Quentin” on a helpless infant. “No, I don’t think so. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d want to name him for one of your uncles, either.”

Jamie stroked my stomach absently, thinking.

“What was your father’s name, Sassenach?” he asked.

I had to think for a moment to remember.

“Henry,” I said. “Henry Montmorency Beauchamp. Jamie, I am not having a child named ‘Montmorency Fraser,’ no matter what. I’m not so keen on ‘Henry,’ either, though it’s better than Lambert. How about William?” I suggested. “For your brother?” His older brother, William, had died in late childhood, but had lived long enough for Jamie to remember him with great affection.

His brow was furrowed in thought. “Hmm,” he said. “Aye, maybe. Or we could call him…”

“James,” said a hollow, sepulchral voice from the flue.

“What?” I said, sitting straight up in bed.

“James,” said the fireplace, impatiently. “James, James!”

“Sweet bleeding Jesus,” said Jamie, staring at the leaping flames on the hearth. I could feel the hair standing up on his forearm, stiff as wire. He sat frozen for a moment; then, a thought occurring to him, he jumped to his feet and went to the dormer window, not bothering to put anything on over his shirt.

He flung up the sash, admitting a blast of frigid air, and thrust his head out into the night. I heard a muffled shout, and then a scrabbling sound across the slates of the roof. Jamie leaned far out, rising on his toes to reach, then backed slowly into the room, rain-dampened and grunting with effort. He dragged with him, arms clasped about his neck, the form of a handsome boy in dark clothing, thoroughly soaked, with a bloodstained cloth wrapped around one hand.

The visitor caught his foot on the sill and landed clumsily, sprawling on the floor. He scrambled up at once, though, and bowed to me, snatching off his slouch hat.

“Madame,” he said, in thickly accented French. “I must beg your pardon, I arrive so without ceremony. I intrude, but it is of necessity that I call upon my friend James at such an unsocial hour.”

He was a sturdy, good-looking lad, with thick, light-brown hair curling loose upon his shoulders, and a fair face, cheeks flushed red with cold and exertion. His nose was running slightly, and he wiped it with the back of his wrapped hand, wincing slightly as he did so.

Jamie, both eyebrows raised, bowed politely to the visitor.

“My house is at your service, Your Highness,” he said, with a glance that took in the general disorder of the visitor’s attire. His stock was undone and hung loosely around his neck, half his buttons were done up awry, and the flies of his breeches flopped partially open. I saw Jamie frown slightly at this, and he moved unobtrusively in front of the boy, to screen me from the indelicate sight.

“If I may present my wife, Your Highness?” he said. “Claire, my lady Broch Tuarach. Claire, this is His Highness, Prince Charles, son of King James of Scotland.”

“Um, yes,” I said. “I’d rather gathered that. Er, good evening, Your Highness.” I nodded graciously, pulling the bedclothes up around me. I supposed that under the circumstances, I could dispense with the usual curtsy.

The Prince had taken advantage of Jamie’s long-winded introduction to fumble his trousers into better order, and now nodded back at me, full of Royal dignity.

“It is my pleasure, Madame,” he said, and bowed once more, making a much more elegant production of it. He straightened and stood turning his hat in his hands, obviously trying to think what to say next. Jamie, standing bare-legged in his shirt alongside, glanced from me to Charles, seemingly at an equal loss for words.

“Er…” I said, to break the silence. “Have you had an accident, Your Highness?” I nodded at the handkerchief wrapped around his hand, and he glanced down as though noticing it for the first time.

“Yes,” he said, “ah… no. I mean… it is nothing, my lady.” He flushed redder, staring at his hand. His manner was odd; something between embarrassment and anger. I could see the stain on the cloth spreading, though, and put my feet out of bed, groping for my dressing gown.

“You’d better let me have a look at it,” I said.

The injury, exposed with some reluctance by the Prince, was not serious, but it was unusual.

“That looks like an animal bite,” I said incredulously, dabbing at the small semicircle of puncture wounds in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Prince Charles winced as I squeezed the flesh around it, meaning to cleanse the wound by bleeding before binding it.

“Yes,” he said. “A monkey bite. Disgusting, flea-ridden beast!” he burst out. “I told her she must dispose of it. Undoubtedly the animal is diseased!”

I had found my medicine box, and now applied a thin layer of gentian ointment. “I don’t think you need worry,” I said, intent on my work. “So long as it isn’t rabid, that is.”

“Rabid?” The Prince went quite pale. “Do you think it could be?” Plainly he had no idea what “rabid” might mean, but wanted no part of it.

“Anything’s possible,” I said cheerfully. Surprised by his sudden appearance, it was just beginning to dawn on me that it would save everyone a great deal of trouble in the long run, if this young man would succumb gracefully to some quick and deadly disease. Still, I couldn’t quite find it in my heart to wish him gangrene or rabies, and I tied up his hand neatly in a fresh linen bandage.

He smiled, bowed again, and thanked me very prettily in a mixture of French and Italian. Still apologizing effusively for his untimely visit, he was towed away by Jamie, now respectably kilted, for a drink downstairs.

Feeling the chill of the room seep through gown and robe, I crawled back into bed and drew the quilts up under my chin. So this was Prince Charles! Bonnie enough, to be sure; at least to look at. He seemed very young – much younger than Jamie, though I knew Jamie was only a year or two older. His Highness did have considerable charm of manner, though, and quite a bit of self-important dignity, despite his disordered dress. Was that really enough to take him to Scotland, at the head of an army of restoration? As I drifted off, I wondered exactly what the heir to the throne of Scotland had been doing, wandering over the Paris rooftops in the middle of the night, with a monkey bite on one hand.

The question was still on my mind when Jamie woke me sometime later by sliding into bed and planting his large, ice-cold feet directly behind my knees.

“Don’t scream like that,” he said, “you’ll wake the servants.”

“What in hell was Charles Stuart doing running about the rooftops with monkeys?” I demanded, taking evasive action. “Take those bloody ice cubes off me.”

“Visiting his mistress,” said Jamie succinctly. “All right, then; stop kicking me.” He removed the feet and embraced me, shivering, as I turned to him.

“He has a mistress? Who?” Stimulated by whiffs of cold and scandal, I was quickly waking up.

It’s Louise de La Tour,” Jamie explained reluctantly, in response to my prodding. His nose looked longer and sharper than usual, with the thick brows drawn together above it. Having a mistress was bad enough, in his Scottish Catholic view, but it was well known that royalty had certain privileges in this regard. The Princesse Louise de La Tour was married, however. And royalty or not, taking a married woman as one’s mistress was positively immoral, his cousin Jared’s example notwithstanding.

“Ha,” I said with satisfaction. “I knew it!”

“He says he’s in love with her,” he reported tersely, yanking the quilts up over his shoulders. “He insists she loves him too; says she’s been faithful only to him for the last three months. Tcha!”

“Well, it’s been known to happen,” I said, amused. “So he was visiting her? How did he get out on the roof, though? Did he tell you that?”

“Oh, aye. He told me.”

Charles, fortified against the night with several glasses of Jared’s best aged port, had been quite forthcoming. The strength of true love had been tried severely this evening, according to Charles, by his inamorata’s devotion to her pet, a rather ill-tempered monkey that reciprocated His Highness’s dislike and had more concrete means of demonstrating its opinions. Snapping his fingers under the monkey’s nose in derision, His Highness had suffered first a sharp bite in the hand, and then the sharper bite of his mistress’s tongue, exercised in bitter reproach. The couple had quarreled hotly, to the point that Louise, Princesse de Rohan, had ordered Charles from her presence. He had expressed himself only too willing to go – never, he emphasized dramatically, to return.

The Prince’s departure, however, had been considerably hampered by the discovery that the Princesse’s husband had returned early from his evening of gaming, and was comfortably ensconced in the anteroom with a bottle of brandy.

“So,” said Jamie, smiling despite himself at the thought, “he wouldna stay with the lassie, but he couldna go out of the door – so he threw up the sash and jumped out on the roof. He got down almost to the street, he said, along the drainage pipes; but then the City guard came along, and he had to scramble back up to stay out of their sight. He had a rare time of it, he said, dodging about the chimneys and slipping on the wet slates, until it occurred to him that our house was only three houses down the row, and the rooftops close enough to hop them like lily pads.”

“Mm,” I said, feeling warmth reestablish itself around my toes. “Did you send him home in the coach?”

“No, he took one of the horses from the stable.”

“If he’s been drinking Jared’s port, I hope they both make it to Montmartre,” I remarked. “It’s a good long way.”

“Well, it will be a cold, wet journey, no doubt,” said Jamie, with the smugness of a man virtuously tucked up in a warm bed with his lawfully wedded wife. He blew out the candle and pulled me close against his chest, spoon-fashion.

“Serve him right,” he murmured. “A man ought to be married.”

The servants were up before dawn, polishing and cleaning in preparation for entertaining Monsieur Duverney at a small, private supper in the evening.

“I don’t know why they bother,” I told Jamie, lying in bed with my eyes closed, listening to the bustle downstairs. “All they need do is dust off the chess set and put out a bottle of brandy; he won’t notice anything else.”

He laughed and bent to kiss me goodbye. “That’s all right; I’ll need a good supper if I’m to go on beating him.” He patted my shoulder in farewell. “I’m going to the warehouse, Sassenach; I’ll be home in time to dress, though.”

In search of something to do that would take me out of the servants’ way, I finally decided to have a footman escort me down to the Rohans’. Perhaps Louise could use a bit of solace, I thought, after her quarrel of the night before. Vulgar curiosity, I told myself primly, had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

When I returned in the late afternoon, I found Jamie slouched in a chair near the bedroom window with his feet propped on the table, collar undone and hair rumpled as he pored over a sheaf of scribbled papers. He looked up at the sound of the door closing, and the absorbed expression melted into a broad grin.

“Sassenach! There you are!” He swung his long legs down and came across to embrace me. He buried his face in my hair, nuzzling, then drew back and sneezed. He sneezed again, and let go of me to grope in his sleeve for the handkerchief he carried there, military style.

“What do ye smell like, Sassenach?” he demanded, pressing the linen square to his nose just in time to muffle the results of another explosive sneeze.

I reached into the bosom of my dress and plucked the small sachet from between my breasts.

“Jasmine, roses, hyacinth, and lily of the valley… ragweed, too, apparently,” I added as he snorted and wheezed into the capacious depths of the handkerchief. “Are you all right?” I looked around for some means of disposal, and settled for dropping the sachet into a stationery box on my desk at the far side of the room.

“Aye, I’ll do. It’s the hya… hya… hyaCHOO!”

“Goodness!” I hastily flung the window open, and motioned to him. He obligingly stuck his head and shoulders out into the wet drizzle of the morning, breathing in gusts of fresh, hyacinth-free air.

“Och, that’s better,” he said with relief, pulling in his head a few minutes later. His eyes widened. “What are ye doing now, Sassenach?”

“Washing,” I explained, struggling with the back laces of my gown. “Or getting ready to, at least. I’m covered with oil of hyacinth,” I explained, as he blinked. “If I don’t wash it off, you’re liable to explode.”

He dabbed meditatively at his nose and nodded.

“You’ve a point there, Sassenach. Shall I have the footman fetch up some hot water?”

“No, don’t bother. A quick rinse should take most of it off,” I assured him, unbuttoning and unlacing as quickly as possible. I raised my arms, reaching behind my head to gather my hair into a bun. Suddenly Jamie leaned forward and grasped my wrist, pulling my arm into the air.

“What are you doing?” I said, startled.

“What have you done, Sassenach?” he demanded. He was staring under my arm.

“Shaved,” I said proudly. “Or rather, waxed. Louise had her servante aux petits soins – you know, her personal groomer? – there this morning, and she did me, too.”

“Waxed?” Jamie looked rather wildly at the candlestick by the ewer, then back at me. “You put wax in your oxters?”

“Not that kind of wax,” I assured him. “Scented beeswax. The grooming lady heated it, then spread the warm wax on. Once it’s cooled, you just jerk it off,” I winced momentarily in recollection, “and Bob’s your uncle.”

“My uncle Bob wouldna countenance any such goings-on,” said Jamie severely. “What in hell would ye do that for?” He peered closely at the site, still holding my wrist up. “Didn’t it hur… hurt… choof!” He dropped my hand and backed up rapidly.

“Didn’t it hurt?” he asked, handkerchief to nose once more.

“Well, a bit,” I admitted. “Worth it, though, don’t you think?” I asked, raising both arms like a ballerina and turning slightly to and fro. “First time I’ve felt entirely clean in months.”

“Worth it?” he said, sounding a little dazed. “What’s it to do wi’ clean, that you’ve pulled all of the hairs out from under your arms?”

A little belatedly, I realized that none of the Scottish women I had encountered employed any form of depilation. Furthermore, Jamie had almost certainly never been in sufficiently close contact with an upper-class Parisienne to know that many of them did. “Well,” I said, suddenly realizing the difficulty an anthropologist faces in trying to interpret the more singular customs of a primitive tribe. “It smells much less,” I offered.

“And what’s wrong wi’ the way ye smell?” he said heatedly. “At least ye smelt like a woman, not a damn flower garden. What d’ye think I am, a man or a bumblebee? Would ye wash yourself, Sassenach, so I can get within less than ten feet of ye?”

I picked up a cloth and began sponging my torso. Madame Laserre, Louise’s groomer, had applied scented oil all over my body; I rather hoped it would come off easily. It was disconcerting to have him hovering just outside sniffing range, glaring at me like a wolf circling its prey.

I turned my back to dip the cloth into the bowl, and said offhandedly over my shoulder, “Er, I did my legs, too.”

I stole a quick glance over my shoulder. The original shock was fading into a look of total bewilderment.

“Your legs dinna smell like anything,” he said. “Unless you’ve been walkin’ knee-deep in the cow-byre.”

I turned around and pulled my skirt up to my knees, pointing one toe forward to display the delicate curves of calf and shin.

“But they look so much nicer,” I pointed out. “All nice and smooth; not like Harry the hairy ape.”

He glanced down at his own fuzzy knees, offended.

“An ape, am I?”

“Not you, me!” I said, getting exasperated.

“My legs are any amount hairier than yours ever were!”

“Well, they’re supposed to be; you’re a man!”

He drew in breath as though about to reply, then let it out again, shaking his head and muttering something to himself in Gaelic. He flung himself back into the chair and sat back, watching me through narrowed eyes, every now and then muttering to himself again. I decided not to ask for a translation.

After most of my bath had been accomplished in what might best be described as a charged atmosphere, I decided to attempt conciliation.

“It might have been worse, you know,” I said, sponging the inside of one thigh. “Louise had all her body hair removed.”

That startled him back into English, at least temporarily.

“What, she’s taken the hairs off her honeypot?” he said, horrified into uncharacteristic vulgarity.

“Mm-hm,” I replied, pleased that this vision had at least distracted him from my own distressingly hairless condition. “Every hair. Madame Laserre plucked out the stray ones.”

“Mary, Michael, and Bride!” He closed his eyes tightly, either in avoidance, or the better to contemplate the prospect I had described.

Evidently the latter, for he opened his eyes again and glared at me, demanding, “She’s goin’ about now bare as a wee lassie?”

“She says,” I replied delicately, “that men find it erotic.”

His eyebrows nearly met his hairline, a neat trick for someone with such a classically high brow.

“I do wish you would stop that muttering,” I remarked, hanging the cloth over a chairback to dry. “I can’t understand a word you say.”

“On the whole, Sassenach,” he replied, “that’s as well.”

12 L’HôPITAL DES ANGES

“All right,” Jamie said resignedly over breakfast. He pointed a spoon at me in warning. “Go ahead, then. But you’ll take Murtagh as escort, besides the footman; it’s a poor neighborhood near the cathedral.”

“Escort?” I sat up straight, pushing back the bowl of parritch which I had been eyeing with something less than enthusiasm. “Jamie! Do you mean you don’t mind if I visit. L’Hôpital des Anges?”

“I don’t know if I mean that, exactly,” he said, spooning in his own parritch in a businesslike way. “But I expect I’ll mind a lot more if ye don’t. And if ye work at the Hôpital, at least it will keep ye from spending all your time with Louise de Rohan. I suppose there are worse things than associating wi’ beggars and criminals,” he said darkly. “At least I don’t expect you’ll come home from a hospital wi’ your privates plucked bare.”

“I’ll try not,” I assured him.

I had seen a number of good hospital matrons in my time, and a few of the really excellent ones, who had exalted a job into a vocation. With Mother Hildegarde, the process had been reversed, with impressive results.

Hildegarde de Gascogne was the most suitable person I could imagine to be in charge of a place like L’Hôpital des Anges. Nearly six feet tall, her gaunt, rawboned frame swathed in yards of black wool, she loomed over her nursing sisters like a broomstick scarecrow guarding a field of pumpkins. Porters, patients, sisters, orderlies, novices, visitors, apothecaries, all were swept up by the force of her presence, to be tidied away into neat heaps, wherever Mother Hildegarde might decree.

With that height, plus a face of an ugliness so transcendant as to be grotesquely beautiful, it was obvious why she had embraced a religious life – Christ was the only man from whom she might expect embrace in return.

Her voice was deep and resonant; with its nasal Gascony accent, it bonged through the corridors of the hospital like the echo of the church bells next door. I could hear her sometime before I saw her, the powerful voice increasing in volume as she came down the hall toward the office where six ladies of the Court and I huddled behind Herr Gerstmann, like island dwellers awaiting the arrival of a hurricane behind a flimsy barricade.

She filled the narrow doorway with a swoosh of batwings, and descended upon Herr Gerstmann with a cry of rapture, kissing him soundly on both cheeks.

“Mon cher ami! How unexpected a pleasure – and so much the more sweet for its unexpectedness. What brings you to me?”

Straightening, she turned a wide smile on the rest of us. The smile remained wide as Herr Gerstmann explained our mission, though a less experienced fortune-teller than I could have seen the tightening cheek muscles that turned it from a social grace to a rictus of necessity.

“We are most appreciative of your thoughts and your generosity, mesdames.” The deep, bell-like voice went on with a gracious speech of gratitude. Meanwhile, I could see the small, intelligent eyes, set deep beneath bony brow ridges, darting back and forth, deciding how best to dispose of this nuisance in short order, while still extracting such money as these pious ladies might be induced to part with for the good of their souls.

Having come to a decision, she clapped her hands sharply. A short nun, on the general order of Cock-Robin, popped up in the doorway like a jack-in-the-box.

“Sister Angelique, be so kind as to take these ladies to the dispensary,” she ordered. “Give them some suitable garments and then show them the wards. They may assist with the distribution of food to the patients – if they are so inclined.” A slight twitch of the wide, thin mouth made it evident that Mother Hildegarde did not expect the ladies’ pious inclination to survive the tour of the wards.

Mother Hildegarde was a shrewd judge of human nature. Three of the ladies made it through the first ward, with its cases of scrofula, scabies, eczema, defluxions, and stinking pyemia, before deciding that their charitable inclinations could be entirely satisfied by a donation to L’Hôpital, and fleeing back to the dispensary to shed the rough hopsacking gowns with which we had been furnished.

In the center of the next ward, a tall, gangly man in a dark frock coat was carrying out what appeared to be the skillful amputation of a leg; particularly skillful in that the patient was not sedated in any visible way, and was being restrained at the moment by the efforts of two husky orderlies and a solidly built nun who was sitting upon the patient’s chest, her flowing draperies fortunately obscuring the man’s face.

One of the ladies behind me made a small gagging sound; when I looked round, all I saw was the rather wide rear aspect of two of the would-be Samaritans, jammed hip to hip in the narrow doorway leading toward the dispensary and freedom. With a last desperate tug and the rending of silk, they burst through and fled precipitately down the dark hallway, nearly knocking over an orderly coming on the trot with a tray piled high with linens and surgical instruments.

I glanced to the side, and was amused to find Mary Hawkins still there. Somewhat whiter than the surgical linens – which were quite a disgraceful shade of gray, truth be told – and a bit green about the gills, but still there.

“Vite! Dépêchez-vous!” the surgeon uttered a peremptory shout, aimed presumably at the shaken orderly, who hastily reassembled his tray and came on the gallop to the spot where the tall, dark man was poised, bone saw in hand, ready to sever an exposed thigh bone. The orderly bent to tie a second tourniquet above the site of operation, the saw descended with an indescribable grating sound, and I took pity on Mary Hawkins, turning her in the other direction. Her arm trembled under my hand, and the peony lips were blanched and pinched as a frostbitten flower.

“Would you like to leave?” I asked politely. “I’m sure Mother Hildegarde could summon a carriage for you.” I glanced over one shoulder to the vacant darkness of the hallway. “I’m afraid the Comtesse and Madame Lambert have left already.”

Mary gulped audibly, but tightened an already firm jaw in determination.

“N-no,” she said. “If you stay, I’ll stay.”

I definitely intended staying; curiosity and the urge to worm my way into the operations of L’Hôpital des Anges were much too strong to weigh against any pity I might feel for Mary’s sensibilities.

Sister Angelique had gone some distance before noticing that we had stopped. Returning, she stood patiently waiting, a small smile on her plump face, as though expecting that we, too, would turn and run. I bent over a pallet at the edge of the floor. A very thin woman lay listlessly under a single blanket, her eyes drifting dully over us without interest. It wasn’t the woman who had attracted my attention, so much as the oddly shaped glass vessel standing on the floor alongside her pallet.

The vessel was brimming with a yellow fluid – urine, undoubtedly. I was mildly surprised; without chemical tests, or even litmus paper, what conceivable use could a urine sample be? Thinking over the various things one tested urine for, though, I had an idea.

I picked up the vessel carefully, ignoring Sister Angelique’s exclamation of alarmed protest. I sniffed carefully. Sure enough; half-obscured by sour ammoniac fumes, the fluid smelled sickly sweet – rather like soured honey. I hesitated, but there was only one way to make sure. With a moue of distaste, I gingerly dipped the tip of one finger into the liquid and touched it delicately to my tongue.

Mary, watching bug-eyed at my side, choked slightly, but Sister Angelique was watching with sudden interest. I placed a hand on the woman’s forehead; it was cool – no fever to account for the wasting.

“Are you thirsty, Madame?” I asked the patient. I knew the answer before she spoke, seeing the empty carafe near her head.

“Always, Madame,” she replied. “And always hungry, as well. Yet no flesh gathers on my bones, no matter how much I eat.” She raised a stick-thin arm, displaying a bony wrist, then let it fall as though the effort had exhausted her.

I patted the skinny hand gently, and murmured something in farewell, my exhilaration at having made a correct diagnosis substantially quenched by the knowledge that there was no possible cure for diabetes mellitus in this day; the woman before me was doomed.

In subdued spirits, I rose to follow Sister Angelique, who slowed her bustling steps to walk next to me.

“Could you tell from what she suffers, Madame?” the nun asked curiously. “Only from the urine?”

“Not only from that,” I answered. “But yes, I know. She has-” Drat. What would they have called it now? “She has… um, sugar sickness. She gets no nourishment from the food she eats, and has a tremendous thirst. Consequently, she produces large quantities of urine.”

Sister Angelique was nodding, a look of intense curiosity stamped on her pudgy features.

“And can you tell whether she will recover, Madame?”

“No, she won’t,” I said bluntly. “She’s far gone already; she may not last out the month.”

“Ah.” The fair brows lifted, and the look of curiosity was replaced by one of respect. “That’s what Monsieur Parnelle said.”

“And who’s he, when he’s at home?” I asked flippantly.

The plump nun frowned in bewilderment. “Well, at his own establishment, I believe he is a maker of trusses, and a jeweler. When he comes here, though, he acts usually as a urinoscopist.”

I felt my own brows rising. “A urinoscopist?” I said unbelievingly. “There actually are such things?”

“Oui, Madame. And he said just what you said, about the poor thin lady. I have never seen a woman who knew about the science of urinoscopy,” Sister Angelique said, staring at me in frank fascination.

“Well, there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Sister,” I said graciously. She nodded seriously, making me feel rather ashamed of my facetiousness.

“That is true, Madame. Will you have a look at the gentleman in the end bed? He has a complaint of the liver, we believe.”

We continued, from one bed to another, making the complete circuit of the enormous hall. We saw examples of diseases I had seen only in textbooks, and every kind of traumatic injury, from head wounds inflicted in drunken brawls to a carter whose chest had been crushed by a rolling wine barrel.

I paused by some beds, asking questions of those patients who seemed able to answer. I could hear Mary breathing through her mouth behind my shoulder, but didn’t check to see whether she was in fact holding her nose.

At the conclusion of the tour, Sister Angelique turned to me with an ironic smile.

“Well, Madame? Do you still desire to serve the Lord by helping his unfortunates?”

I was already rolling up the sleeves of my gown.

“Bring me a basin of hot water, Sister,” I said, “and some soap.”

“How was it, Sassenach?” Jamie asked.

“Horrible!” I answered, beaming broadly.

He raised one eyebrow, smiling down at me as I lay sprawled on the chaise.

“Oh, enjoyed yourself, did ye?”

“Oh, Jamie, it was so nice to be useful again! I mopped floors and I fed people gruel, and when Sister Angelique wasn’t looking, I managed to change a couple of filthy dressings and lance an abscess.”

“Oh, good,” he said. “Did ye remember to eat, in the midst of all this frivolity?”

“Er, no, as a matter of fact, I didn’t,” I said guiltily. “On the other hand, I forgot to be sick, too.” As though reminded of delinquency, the walls of my stomach took a sudden lurch inward. I pressed a fist under my breastbone. “Perhaps I should have a bite.”

“Perhaps ye should,” he agreed, a little grimly, reaching for the bell.

He watched as I obediently downed meat pie and cheese, describing L’Hôpital des Anges and its inmates in enthusiastic detail between bites as I ate.

“It’s very crowded in some of the wards – two or three to a bed, which is awful, but – don’t you want some of this?” I broke off to ask. “It’s very good.”

He eyed the piece of pastry I was holding out to him.

“If ye think ye can keep from telling me about gangrenous toenails long enough for a bite to make it from my gullet to my stomach, then yes.”

Belatedly, I noticed the slight pallor on his cheeks, and the faint pinching of his nostrils. I poured a cup of wine and handed it to him before picking up my own plate again.

“And how was your day, my dear?” I asked demurely.

L’Hôpital des Anges became a refuge for me. The blunt and unsophisticated directness of nuns and patients was a wonderful refreshment from the continual chattering intrigues of the Court ladies and gentlemen. I was also positive that without the relief of allowing my facial muscles to relax into their normal expressions at the Hôpital, my face would quickly have frozen into an expression of permanent simpering vapidity.

Seeing that I appeared to know what I was doing, and required nothing of them beyond a few bandages and linens, the nuns quickly accepted my presence. And after an initial shock at my accent and title, so did the patients. Social prejudice is a strong force, but no match for simple competence when skill is in urgent demand and short supply.

Mother Hildegarde, busy as she was, took somewhat more time to make her own assessment of me. She never spoke to me at first, beyond a simple “Bonjour, Madame,” in passing, but I often felt the weight of those small, shrewd eyes boring into my back as I stooped over the bed of an elderly man with shingles, or smeared aloe ointment on the blisters of a child burned in one of the frequent house fires that beset the poorer quarters of the city.

She never gave the appearance of hurrying, but covered an immense amount of ground during the day, pacing the flat gray stones of the Hôpital wards with a stride that covered a yard at a time, her small white dog Bouton hurrying at her heels to keep up.

A far cry from the fluffy lapdogs so popular with the ladies of the Court, he looked vaguely like a cross between a poodle and a dachshund, with a rough, kinky coat whose fringes fluttered along the edges of a wide belly and stumpy, bowed legs. His feet, splay-toed and black-nailed, clicked frantically over the stones of the floor as he trotted after Mother Hildegarde, pointed muzzle almost touching the sweeping black folds of her habit.

“Is that a dog?” I had asked one of the orderlies in amazement, when I first beheld Bouton, passing through the Hôpital at the heels of his mistress.

He paused in his floor-sweeping to look after the curly, plumed tail, disappearing into the next ward.

“Well,” he said doubtfully, “Mother Hildegarde says he’s a dog. I wouldn’t like to be the one to say he isn’t.”

As I became more friendly with the nuns, orderlies, and visiting physicians of the Hôpital, I heard various other opinions of Bouton, ranging from the tolerant to the superstitious. No one knew quite where Mother Hildegarde had got him, nor why. He had been a member of the Hôpital staff for several years, with a rank – in Mother Hildegarde’s opinion, which was the only one that counted – well above that of the nursing sisters, and equal to that of most of the visiting physicians and apothecaries.

Some of the latter regarded him with suspicious aversion, others with jocular affability. One chirurgeon referred to him routinely – out of Mother’s hearing – as “that revolting rat,” another as “the smelly rabbit,” and one small, tubby truss-maker greeted him quite openly as “Monsieur le Dishcloth.” The nuns considered him something between a mascot and a totem, while the junior priest from the cathedral next door, who had been bitten in the leg when he came to administer the sacraments to the patients, confided to me his own opinion that Bouton was one of the lesser demons, disguised as a dog for his own fell purposes.

In spite of the unflattering tone of the priest’s remarks, I thought that he had perhaps come the closest to the truth. For after several weeks of observing the pair, I had come to the conclusion that Bouton was in fact Mother Hildegarde’s familiar.

She spoke to him often, not in the tone one generally uses for dogs, but as one discussing important matters with an equal. As she paused beside this bed or that, often Bouton would spring onto the mattress, nuzzling and sniffing at the startled patient. He would sit down, often on the patient’s legs, bark once, and glance up inquiringly at Mother, wagging his silky plumed tail as though asking her opinion of his diagnosis – which she always gave.

Though I was rather curious about this behavior, I had had no opportunity of closely observing the odd pair at work until one dark, rainy morning in March. I was standing by the bed of a middle-aged carter, making casual conversation with him while I tried to figure out what in bloody hell was wrong with the man.

It was a case that had come in the week before. He had had his lower leg caught in the wheel of a cart when he carelessly dismounted before the vehicle had stopped moving. It was a compound fracture, but a fairly uncomplicated one. I had reset the bone, and the wound seemed to be healing nicely. The tissue was a healthy pink, with good granulation, no bad smell, no telltale red streaks, no extreme tenderness, nothing at all to explain why the man still smoldered with fever and produced the dark, odorous urine of a lingering infection.

“Bonjour, Madame.” The deep, rich voice spoke above me, and I glanced up at the towering form of Mother Hildegarde. There was a whish past my elbow, and Bouton landed on the mattress with a thump that made the patient groan slightly.

“What do you think?” said Mother Hildegarde. I wasn’t at all sure whether she was addressing me or Bouton, but took the benefit of the doubt and explained my observations.

“So, there must be a secondary source of infection,” I concluded, “but I can’t find it. I’m wondering now whether perhaps he has an internal infection that’s not related to the leg wound. A mild appendicitis, or a bladder infection, perhaps, though I don’t find any abdominal tenderness, either.”

Mother Hildegarde nodded. “A possibility, certainly. Bouton!” The dog cocked his head toward his mistress, who jerked an oblong chin in the direction of the patient. “A la bouche, Bouton,” she ordered. With a mincing step, the dog pushed the round black nose that presumably gave him his name into the carter’s face. The man’s eyes, heavy-lidded with fever, sprang open at this intrusion, but a glance at the imposing presence of Mother Hildegarde stopped whatever complaint he might have been forming.

“Open your mouth,” Mother Hildegarde instructed, and such was her force of character that he did so, even though his lips twitched at the nearness of Bouton’s. Dog-kissing plainly wasn’t on his agenda of desirable activities.

“No,” said Mother Hildegarde thoughtfully, watching Bouton. “That isn’t it. Have a look elsewhere, Bouton, but carefully. The man has a broken leg, remember.”

As though he had in fact understood every word, the dog began to sniff curiously at the patient, nosing into his armpits, putting stubby feet on his chest in order to investigate, nudging gently along the crease of the groin. When it came to the injured leg, he stepped carefully over the limb before putting his nose to the surface of the bandages round it.

He returned to the groin area – well, what else, I thought impatiently, he’s a dog, after all – nudged at the top of the thigh, then sat down and barked once, wagging triumphantly.

“There it is,” said Mother Hildegarde, pointing to a small brown scab just below the inguinal crease.

“But that’s almost healed,” I protested. “It isn’t infected.”

“No?” The tall nun placed a hand on the man’s thigh and pressed hard. Her muscular fingers dented the pale, clammy flesh, and the carter screamed like a banshee.

“Ah,” she said in satisfaction, observing the deep prints left by her touch. “A pocket of putrefaction.”

It was; the scab had loosened at one edge, and a thick ooze of yellow pus showed under it. A little probing, with Mother Hildegarde holding the man by leg and shoulder, revealed the problem. A long sliver of wood, flying free of the splintered cartwheel, had driven upward, deep into the thigh. Disregarded because of the apparently insignificant entrance wound, it had gone unnoticed by the patient himself, to whom the whole leg was one giant pain. While the tiny entrance wound had healed cleanly, the deeper wound had festered and formed a pocket of pus around the intrusion, buried in the muscle tissue where no surface symptoms were visible – to human senses, at least.

A little scalpel work to enlarge the entrance wound, a quick grip with a pair of long-nosed forceps, a smooth, forceful pull – and I held up a three-inch sliver of wood, coated with blood and slime.

“Not bad, Bouton,” I said, with a nod of acknowledgment. A long pink tongue lolled happily, and the black nostrils sniffed in my direction.

“Yes, she’s a good one,” said Mother Hildegarde, and this time there was no doubt which of us she was speaking to, Bouton being male. Bouton leaned forward and sniffed politely at my hand, then licked my knuckles once in reciprocal acknowledgment of a fellow professional. I repressed the urge to wipe my hand on my gown.

“Amazing,” I said, meaning it.

“Yes,” said Mother Hildegarde, casually, but with an unmistakable note of pride. “He’s very good at locating tumors beneath the skin, as well. And while I cannot always tell what he finds in the odors of breath and urine, he has a certain tone of bark that indicates unmistakably the presence of a derangement of the stomach.”

Under the circumstances, I saw no reason to doubt it. I bowed to Bouton, and picked up a vial of powdered St.-John’s-wort to dress the infection.

“Pleased to have your assistance, Bouton. You can work with me anytime.”

“Very sensible of you,” said Mother Hildegarde, with a flash of strong teeth. “Many of the physicians and chirurgiens who work here are less inclined to take advantage of his skills.”

“Er, well…” I didn’t want to disparage anyone’s reputation, but my glance across the hall at Monsieur Voleru must have been transparent.

Mother Hildegarde laughed. “Well, we take what God sends us, though occasionally I wonder whether He sends them to us only in order to keep them out of greater trouble elsewhere. Still, the bulk of our physicians are better than nothing – even if only marginally so. You” – and the teeth flashed once more, reminding me of a genial draft horse – “are a great deal better than nothing, Madame.”

“Thanks.”

“I have wondered, though,” Mother Hildegarde went on, watching as I applied the medicated dressing, “why you see only the patients with wounds and broken bones? You avoid those with spots and coughs and fevers, yet it is more common for les maîtresses to deal with such things. I don’t think I have ever seen a female chirurgien before.” Les maîtresses were the unlicensed healers, mostly from the provinces, who dealt in herbals, poultices, and charms. Les maîtresses sage-femme were the midwives, the top of the heap so far as popular healers were concerned. Many were accorded more respect than the licensed practitioners, and were much preferred by the lower-class patients, as they were likely to be both more capable and much less expensive.

I wasn’t surprised that she had observed my proclivities; I had gathered long since that very little about her Hôpital escaped Mother Hildegarde’s notice.

“It isn’t lack of interest,” I assured her. “It’s only that I’m with child, so I can’t expose myself to anything contagious, for the child’s sake. Broken bones aren’t catching.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” said Mother Hildegarde, with a glance at an incoming stretcher. “We’re having a plague of them this week. No, don’t go.” She motioned me back. “Sister Cecile will see to it. She’ll call you if there’s need.”

The nun’s small gray eyes regarded me with curiosity, mingled with appraisal.

“So, you are not only a milady, you are with child, but your husband does not object to your coming here? He must be a most unusual man.”

“Well, he’s Scottish,” I said, by way of explanation, not wishing to go into the subject of my husband’s objections.

“Oh, Scottish.” Mother Hildegarde nodded understandingly. “Just so.”

The bed trembled against my thigh as Bouton leaped off and trotted toward the door.

“He smells a stranger,” Mother Hildegarde remarked. “Bouton assists the doorkeeper as well as the physicians – with no more gratitude for his efforts, I fear.”

The sounds of peremptory barks and a high voice raised in terror came through the double doors of the entryway.

“Oh, it’s Father Balmain again! Curse the man, can’t he learn to stand still and let Bouton smell him?” Mother Hildegarde turned in haste to the succor of her companion, turning back at the last moment to smile engagingly at me. “Perhaps I will send him to assist you with your tasks, Madame, while I soothe Father Balmain. While no doubt a most holy man, he lacks true appreciation for the work of an artist.”

She strode toward the doors with her long, unhurried stride, and with a last word for the carter, I turned to Sister Cecile and the latest stretcher case.

Jamie was lying on the carpet in the sitting room when I came back to the house, with a small boy sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him. Jamie was holding a bilboquet in one hand, and had the other poised over one eye.

“Of course I can,” he was saying. “Anyday and twice on Sundays. Watch.”

Placing the hand over his eye, he fixed the other piercingly on the bilboquet and gave the ivory cup a toss. The tethered ball leaped from its socket into an arc, and dropped as though guided by radar, landing back in its cup with a snug little plop.

“See?” he said, removing the hand from his eye. He sat up and handed the cup to the boy. “Here, you try it.” He grinned at me, and slid a hand under the hem of my skirt, clasping my green silk ankle in greeting.

“Having fun?” I inquired.

“Not yet,” he replied, giving the ankle a squeeze. “I was waiting for you, Sassenach.” The long, warm fingers curled around my ankle slid higher, playfully stroking the curve of my calf, as a pair of limpid blue eyes gazed up at me, all innocence. His face had a streak of dried mud down one side, and there were dirty blotches on his shirt and kilt.

“Is that so?” I said, trying to pull my leg free of his grasp inconspicuously. “I should have thought your little playmate would have been all the company you needed.”

The boy, understanding none of the English in which these exchanges were conducted, ignored them, intent on trying to work the bilboquet with one eye closed. The first two attempts having failed, he opened the second eye and glared at the toy, as though daring it not to work. The second eye closed again, but not all the way; a small slit remained, gleaming alertly below the thick fringe of dark lashes.

Jamie clicked his tongue disapprovingly, and the eye hastily snapped tight shut.

“Nah, then, Fergus, we’ll have nay cheatin’, if ye please,” he said. “Fair’s fair.” The boy obviously caught the meaning, if not the words; he grinned sheepishly, displaying a pair of large, white, gleamingly perfect front teeth, square as a squirrel’s.

Jamie’s hand exerted an invisible pull, obliging me to move closer to him to avoid being toppled off my moroccan heels.

“Ah,” he said. “Well, Fergus here is a man of many talents, and a boon companion for the idle hours when a man’s wife has deserted him and left him to seek his own pursuits amidst the wickedness of the city” – the long fingers curled delicately into the hollow behind my knee, tickling suggestively – “but he isna qualified as a partner for the pastime I had in mind.”

“Fergus?” I said, eyeing the boy, and trying to ignore the goings-on below. The lad was possibly nine or ten, but small for his age, and fine-boned as a ferret. Clad in clean, worn clothes several sizes too big for him, he was also as French as they come, with the pale, sallow skin and big, dark eyes of a Parisian street child.

“Well, his name is really Claudel, but we decided that didna sound verra manly, so he’s to be called Fergus instead. A suitable warrior’s name, that.” Catching the sound of his name – or names – the boy glanced up and grinned shyly at me.

“This is Madame,” Jamie explained to the boy, gesturing to me with his free hand. “You may call her milady. I dinna think he could manage ‘Broch Tuarach,’ ” he added to me, “or even Fraser, for that matter.”

“ ‘Milady’ will be fine,” I said, smiling. I wriggled my leg harder, trying to shake off the leechlike grip. “Er, why, if I may ask?”

“Why what? Oh, why Fergus, ye mean?”

“That’s what I mean, all right.” I wasn’t sure just how far his arm would reach, but the hand was creeping slowly up the back of my thigh. “Jamie, take your hand away this minute!”

The fingers darted to one side, and deftly pulled loose the ribbon garter that held up my stocking. The stocking slithered down my leg to puddle round my ankle.

“You beast!” I kicked at him, but he dodged aside, laughing.

“Oh, beast, is it? What kind?”

“A cur!” I snapped, trying to bend over to pull up my stocking without falling off my heels. The child Fergus, after a brief, incurious glance at us, had resumed his trials with the bilboquet.

“As for the lad,” he continued blithely, “Fergus is now in my employ.”

“To do what?” I asked. “We already have a boy who cleans the knives and boots, and a stable-lad.”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, that’s true. We havena got a pickpocket, though. Or rather, we hadn’t; we have, now.”

I drew in my breath and blew it out again slowly.

“I see. I suppose it would be dense of me to ask exactly why we need to add a pickpocket to the household?”

“To steal letters, Sassenach,” Jamie said calmly.

“Oh,” I said, light beginning to dawn.

“I canna get anything sensible out of His Highness; when he’s with me, he wilna do anything but moan about Louise de La Tour, or grind his teeth and curse because they’ve been quarreling again. In either case, all he wants to do is to get drunk as quickly as possible. Mar is losing all patience with him, for he’s haughty and sullen by turns. And I canna get anything out of Sheridan.”

The Earl of Mar was the most respected of the exiled Scottish Jacobites in Paris. A man whose long and illustrious prime was only now beginning to edge into elderliness, he had been the primary supporter of King James at the abortive Rising in 1715, and had followed his king into exile after the defeat at Sheriffsmuir. I had met the Earl and liked him; an elderly, courtly man with a personality as straight as his backbone. He was now doing his best – with little reward, it seemed – for his lord’s son. I had met Thomas Sheridan, too; the Prince’s tutor – an elderly man who handled His Highness’s correspondence, translating impatience and illiteracy into courtly French and English.

I sat down and pulled my stocking back up. Fergus, apparently hardened to the sight of female limbs, ignored me altogether, concentrating grimly on the bilboquet.

“Letters, Sassenach,” he said. “I need the letters. Letters from Rome, sealed with the Stuart crest. Letters from France, letters from England, letters from Spain. We can get them either from the Prince’s house – Fergus can go with me, as a page – or possibly from the papal messenger who brings them; that would be a bit better, as we’d have the information in advance.”

“So, we’ve made the bargain,” Jamie said, nodding at his new servant. “Fergus will do his best to get what I need, and I will provide him with clothes and lodging and thirty écus a year. If he’s caught while doing my service, I’ll do my best to buy him off. If it canna be done, and he loses a hand or an ear, then I maintain him for the rest of his life, as he wilna be able to pursue his profession. And if he’s hanged, then I guarantee to have Masses said for his soul for the space of a year. I think that’s fair, no?”

I felt a cold hand pass down my spine.

“Jesus Christ, Jamie” was all I could find to say.

He shook his head, and reached out a hand for the bilboquet. “Not our Lord, Sassenach. Pray to St. Dismas. The patron saint of thieves and traitors.”

Jamie reached over and took the bilboquet from the boy. He flicked his wrist sharply and the ivory ball rose in a perfect parabola, to descend into its cup with an inevitable plop.

“I see,” I said. I eyed the new employee with interest as he took the toy Jamie offered him and started in on it once more, dark eyes gleaming with concentration. “Where did you get him?” I asked curiously.

“I found him in a brothel.”

“Oh, of course,” I said. “To be sure.” I eyed the dirt and smears on his clothes. “Which you were visiting for some really excellent reason, I expect?”

“Oh, aye,” he said. He sat back, arms wrapped about his knees, grinning as he watched me make repairs to my garter. “I thought you’d prefer me to be found in such an establishment, to the alternative of bein’ found in a dark alleyway, wi’ my head bashed in.”

I saw the boy Fergus’s eyes focus at a spot somewhat past the bilboquet, where a tray of iced cakes stood on a table near the wall. A small, pointed pink tongue darted out across his lower lip.

“I think your protégé is hungry,” I said. “Why don’t you feed him, and then you can tell me just what in bloody hell happened this afternoon.”

“Well, I was on my way to the docks,” he began, obediently rising to his feet, “and just past the Rue Eglantine, I began to have a queer feeling up the back of my neck.”

Jamie Fraser had spent two years in the army of France, fought and stolen with a gang of Scottish “broken men,” and been hunted as an outlaw through the moors and mountains of his native land. All of which had left him with an extreme sensitivity to the sensation of being followed.

He couldn’t have said whether it was the sound of a footfall, too close behind, or the sight of a shadow that shouldn’t be there, or something less tangible – the scent of evil on the air, perhaps – but he had learned that the prickle of warning among the short hairs of his neck was something to be ignored at his peril.

Promptly obeying the dictates of his cervical vertebrae, he turned left instead of right at the next corner, ducked around a whelk-seller’s stall, cut between a barrow filled with steamed puddings and another of fresh vegetable marrows, and into a small charcuterie.

Pressed against the wall near the doorway, he peered out through a screen of hanging duck carcasses. Two men entered the street no more than a second later, walking close together, glancing quickly from side to side.

Every workingman in Paris carried the marks of his trade upon his person, and it didn’t take much of a nose to detect the whiff of sea-salt on these two. If the small gold hoop in the shorter man’s ear had not been a dead giveaway, the deep reddish-brown of their faces would have made it clear they were deep-water sailors.

Accustomed to the cramped quarters of shipboard and quay taverns, seamen seldom walked in a straight line. These two slid through the crowded alley like eels through rocks, eyes flicking past beggars, servingmaids, housewives, merchants; sea wolves assessing potential prey.

“I let them get well past the shop,” Jamie explained, “and I was just about to step out and go back the other way, when I saw another of them at the mouth of the alley.”

This man wore the same uniform as the other two; sidelocks heavily coated with grease, a fish knife at his side and a marlinspike the length of a man’s forearm thrust through his belt. Short and thickset, the man stood still at the end of the alley, holding his ground against the buffeting waves of commerce that ebbed and flowed through the narrow passage. Clearly he had been left on guard, while his fellows quested ahead.

“So I was left wondering what best to do,” Jamie said, rubbing his nose. “I was safe enough where I was, but there was no back way from the shop, and the moment I stepped from the doorway, I’d be seen.” He glanced down reflectively, smoothing the crimson fabric of his kilt across his thigh. An enormous red barbarian was going to be conspicuous, no matter how thick the crowd.

“So what did you do?” I asked. Fergus, ignoring the conversation, was stuffing his pockets methodically with cakes, pausing for a hasty bite every so often in the process. Jamie caught my glance at the boy and shrugged.

“He’ll not have been in the habit of eating regularly,” he said. “Let him be.”

“All right,” I said. “But go on – what did you do?”

“Bought a sausage,” he said promptly.

A Dunedin, to be exact. Made of spiced duck, ham and venison, boiled, stuffed and sun-dried, a Dunedin sausage measured eighteen inches from end to end and was as hard as seasoned oakwood.

“I couldna step out wi’ my sword drawn,” Jamie explained, “but I didna like the idea of stepping past the fellow in the alleyway wi’ no one at my back, and empty hands.”

Bearing the Dunedin at port arms, and keeping a weather eye on the passing crowd, Jamie had stepped boldly down the alley, toward the watcher at its mouth.

The man had met his gaze quite calmly, showing no sign of any malign intent. Jamie might have thought his original premonition mistaken, had he not seen the watcher’s eyes flick briefly to something over Jamie’s shoulder. Obeying the instincts that had kept him alive thus far, he had dived forward, knocking the watcher down and sliding on his face across the filthy cobbles of the street.

The crowd scattered before him with shrieks of alarm, and he rolled to his feet to see the flung knife that had missed him, quivering in the boards of a ribbon stall.

“If I’d had a bit of doubt it was me they wanted, I didna fret about it longer,” he said dryly.

He had kept hold of the sausage, and now found use for it, swinging it smartly across the face of one attacker.

“I broke his nose, I think,” he said meditatively. “Anyway, he reeled back, and I shoved past and took off running, down the Rue Pelletier.”

The inhabitants of the street scattered before him like geese, startled by the sight of a hurtling Scotsman, kilts flying around his churning knees. He didn’t stop to look behind; by the shouts of indignant passersby, he could tell that the assailants were still in pursuit.

This part of the city was seldom patrolled by the King’s Guard, and the crowd itself offered little protection other than a simple obstruction that might slow his pursuers. No one was likely to interfere in a matter of violence on a foreigner’s behalf.

“There are no alleys off the Rue Pelletier. I needed at least to get to a place where I could draw my sword and have a wall at my back,” Jamie explained. “So I pushed at the doors as I passed, ’til I hit one that opened.”

Dashing into a gloomy hallway, past a startled porter, and through a hanging drape, he had shot into the center of a large, well-lighted room, and come to a screeching halt in the middle of one Madame Elise’s salon, the scent of perfume heavy in his nostrils.

“I see,” I said, biting my lip. “I, um, trust you didn’t draw your sword in there?”

Jamie narrowed his eyes at me, but didn’t deign to reply directly.

“I’ll leave it to you, Sassenach,” he said dryly, “to imagine what it feels like to arrive unexpectedly in the midst of a brothel, in possession of a verra large sausage.”

My imagination proved fully equal to this task, and I burst out laughing.

“God, I wish I could have seen you!” I said.

“Thank God ye didn’t!” he said fervently. A furious blush glowed on his cheekbones.

Ignoring remarks from the fascinated inmates, Jamie had made his way awkwardly through what he described, shuddering, as “tangles o’ bare limbs,” until he had spotted Fergus against one wall, regarding the intruder with a round-eyed astonishment.

Seizing upon this unexpected manifestation of maleness, Jamie had gripped the lad by the shoulder, and fervently implored him to show the way to the nearest exit, without loss of a moment.

“I could hear a hurly-burly breakin’ out in the hallway,” he explained, “and I kent they were in after me. I didna want to be having to fight for my life wi’ a lot of naked women getting in the way.”

“I can see that the prospect might be daunting,” I agreed, rubbing my upper lip. “But obviously he got you out.”

“Aye. He didna hesitate a moment, the dear lad. ‘This way, Monsieur!’ he says, and it was up the stair, and through a room, and out a window onto the roof, and awa’ wi’ us both.” Jamie cast a fond glance at his new employee.

“You know,” I observed, “there are some wives who wouldn’t believe one word of a story like that.”

Jamie’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.

“They wouldna? Whyever not?”

“Possibly,” I said dryly, “because they aren’t married to you. I’m pleased that you escaped with your virtue intact, but for the moment, I’m rather more interested in the chaps who chased you in there.”

“I didna have a great deal of leisure to think about it at the time,” Jamie replied. “And now that I have, I still couldna say who they were, or why they were hunting me.”

“Robbery, do you think?” The cash receipts of the wine business were conveyed between the Fraser warehouse, the Rue Tremoulins, and Jared’s bank by strongbox, under heavy guard. Still, Jamie was very visible among the crowds near the river docks, and was undoubtedly known to be a wealthy foreign merchant – wealthy by contrast with most of the denizens of that neighborhood, at any rate.

He shook his head, flicking crumbs of dried mud off his shirtfront.

“It might be, I suppose. But they didna try to accost me; it was straightout murder they meant.”

His tone was quite matter-of-fact, but it gave me rather a wobbly feeling in the knees, and I sank down onto a settee. I licked my lips, gone suddenly dry.

“Who – who do you think…?”

He shrugged, frowning as he scooped up a dab of icing from the plate and licked it off his finger.

“The only man I could think of who’s threatened me is the Comte St. Germain. But I canna think what he’d gain from having me killed.”

“He’s Jared’s business rival, you said.”

“Oh, aye. But the Comte’s no interest in German wines, and I canna see him going to the trouble of killing me, only to ruin Jared’s new enterprise by bringing him back to Paris. That seems a trifle extreme,” he said dryly, “even for a man wi’ the Comte’s temper.”

“Well, do you think…” The idea made me mildly ill, and I swallowed twice before going on. “Do you think it might have been… revenge? For the Patagonia being burned?”

Jamie shook his head, baffled.

“I suppose it could be, but it seems a long time to wait. And why me, come to that?” he added. “It’s you annoyed him, Sassenach. Why not kill you, if that’s what he meant?”

The sick feeling got slightly worse.

“Do you have to be so bloody logical?” I said.

He saw the look on my face, and smiled suddenly, putting an arm around me for comfort.

“Nay, mo duinne. The Comte’s a quick temper, but I canna see him going to the trouble and expense of killing either of us, only for revenge. If it might get him his ship back, then yes,” he added, “but as it is, I expect he’d only think the price of three hired assassins throwing good money after bad.”

He patted my shoulder and stood up.

“Nay, I expect it was only a try at robbery, after all. Dinna trouble yourself about it. I’ll take Murtagh with me to the docks from now on, to be safe.”

He stretched himself, and brushed the last of the crumbling dirt from his kilt. “Am I decent to go in to supper?” he asked, looking critically down his chest. “It must be nearly ready by now.”

“What’s ready?”

He opened the door, and a rich, spicy scent wafted up at once from the dining room below.

“Why, the sausage, of course,” he said, with a grin over one shoulder. “Ye dinna think I’d let it go to waste?”

13 DECEPTIONS

“Barberry leaves, three handfuls in a decoction, steeped overnight, poured over half a handful of black hellebore.” I laid the list of… ingredients down on the inlaid table as though it were slightly slimy to the touch. “I got it from Madame Rouleaux. She’s the best of the angel-makers, but even she says it’s dangerous. Louise, are you sure you want to do this?”

Her round pink face was blotched, and the plump lower lip had a tendency to quiver.

“What choice do I have?” She picked up the recipe for the abortifacient and gazed at it in repulsed fascination.

“Black hellebore,” she said, and shuddered. “The very name of it sounds evil!”

“Well, it’s bloody nasty stuff,” I said bluntly. “It will make you feel as though your insides are coming out. But the baby may come, too. It doesn’t always work.” I remembered Master Raymond’s warning – It is dangerous to wait too long – and wondered how far gone she might be. Surely no more than six weeks or so; she had told me the instant she suspected.

She glanced at me, startled, with red-rimmed eyes.

“You have used it yourself?”

“God, no!” I startled myself with the vehemence of my exclamation, and took a deep breath.

“No. I’ve seen women who have, though – at L’Hôpital des Anges.” The abortionists – the angel-makers – practiced largely in the privacy of homes, their own or their clients’. Their successes were not the ones that came to the hospital. I laid a hand unobtrusively over my own abdomen, as though for protection of its helpless occupant. Louise caught the gesture and hurled herself into the sofa, burying her head in her hands.

“Oh, I wish I were dead!” she moaned. “Why, why couldn’t I be as fortunate as you – to be bearing the child of a husband I loved?” She clutched her own plump stomach with both hands, staring down at it as though expecting the child to peek out between her fingers.

There were any number of answers to that particular question, but I didn’t think she really wanted to hear any of them. I took a deep breath and sat down beside her, patting a heaving damask shoulder.

“Louise,” I said. “Do you want the child?”

She lifted her head and stared at me in astonishment.

“But of course I want it!” she exclaimed. “It’s his – it’s Charles’s! It’s…” Her face crumpled, and she bowed her head once more over her hands, clasped so tightly over her belly. “It’s mine,” she whispered. After a long moment, she raised her streaming face, and with a pathetic attempt to pull herself together, wiped her nose on a trailing sleeve.

“But it’s no good,” she said. “If I don’t…” She glanced at the recipe on the table and swallowed heavily. “Then Jules will divorce me – he’ll cast me out. There would be the most terrible scandal. I might be excommunicated! Not even Father could protect me.”

“Yes,” I said. “But…” I hesitated, then cast caution to the winds. “Is there any chance Jules might be convinced the child is his?” I asked bluntly.

She looked blank for a moment, and I wanted to shake her.

“I don’t see how, unless – oh!” Light dawned, and she looked at me, horrified.

“Sleep with Jules, you mean? But Charles would be furious!”

“Charles,” I said through my teeth, “is not pregnant!”

“Well, but he’s… that is… I couldn’t!” The look of horror was fading, though, being slowly replaced with the growing realization of possibility.

I didn’t want to push her; still, I saw no good reason for her to risk her life for the sake of Charles Stuart’s pride, either.

“Do you suppose Charles would want you to endanger yourself?” I said. “For that matter – does he know about the child?”

She nodded, mouth slightly open as she thought about it, hands still clenched together over her stomach.

“Yes. That’s what we quarreled about last time.” She sniffed. “He was angry; he said it was all my fault, that I should have waited until he had reclaimed his father’s throne. Then he would be king someday, and he could come and take me away from Jules, and have the Pope annul my marriage, and his sons could be heirs to England and Scotlan…” She gave way once more, sniveling and wailing incoherently into a fold of her skirt.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation.

“Oh, do be quiet, Louise!” I snapped. It shocked her enough to make her stop weeping, at least momentarily, and I took advantage of the hiatus to press my point.

“Look,” I said, as persuasively as possible, “you don’t suppose Charles would want you to sacrifice his son, do you? Legitimate or not?” Actually, I rather thought Charles would be in favor of any step that removed inconvenience from his own path, regardless of the effects on Louise or his putative offspring. On the other hand, the Prince did have a marked streak of romanticism; perhaps he could be induced to view this as the sort of temporary adversity common to exiled monarchs. Obviously, I was going to need Jamie’s help. I grimaced at the thought of what he was likely to say about it.

“Well…” Louise was wavering, wanting desperately to be convinced. I had a momentary pang of pity for Jules, Prince de Rohan, but the vision of a young servant-girl, dying in protracted, blood-smeared agony on a pallet spread in the stone hallway of L’Hôpital des Anges was brutally clear in my mind.

It was nearly sunset when I left the de Rohans’, footsteps dragging. Louise, palpitating with nervousness, was upstairs in her boudoir, her maid putting up her hair and arraying her in her most daring gown before she went down to a private supper with her husband. I felt completely drained, and hoped that Jamie hadn’t brought anyone home for supper; I could use a spot of privacy, too.

He hadn’t; when I entered the study, he was seated at the desk, poring over three or four sheets of close-written paper.

“Do you think ‘the fur merchant’ is more likely to be Louis of France, or his minister Duverney?” he asked, without looking up.

“Fine, thank you, darling, and how are you?” I said.

“All right,” he said absently. The cowlicks on the top of his head were sticking up straight; he massaged his scalp vigorously as I watched, scowling down his long nose at the paper.

“I’m sure ‘the tailor from Vendôme’ must be Monsieur Geyer,” he said, running a finger along the lines of the letter, “and ‘our mutual friend’ – that could be either the Earl of Mar, or possibly the papal envoy. I think the Earl, from the rest of it, but the-”

“What on earth is that?” I peered over his shoulder, and gasped when I saw the signature at the foot of the letter. James Stuart, by the grace of God King of England and Scotland.

“Bloody Christ! It worked, then!” Swinging around, I spotted Fergus, crouched on a stool in front of the fire, industriously stuffing pastries into his face. “Good lad,” I said, smiling at him. He grinned back at me, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk’s with chestnut tart.

“We got it from the papal messenger,” Jamie explained, coming to the surface long enough to realize I was there. “Fergus took it from the bag while he was eating supper in a tavern. He’ll spend the night there, so we’ll have to put this back before morning. No difficulties there, Fergus?”

The boy swallowed and shook his head. “No, milord. He sleeps alone – not trusting his bedmates not to steal the contents of his bag.” He grinned derisively at this. “The second window on the left, above the stables.” He waved an airy hand, the deft, grubby fingers reaching for another pie. “It is nothing, milord.”

I had a sudden vision of that fine-boned hand held squirming on a block, with an executioner’s blade raised above the broomstick wrist. I gulped, forcing down the sudden lurch of my stomach. Fergus wore a small greenish copper medal on a string about his neck; the image of St. Dismas, I hoped.

“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath to steady myself, “what’s all this about fur merchants?”

There was no time then for leisurely inspection. In the end, I made a quick fair copy of the letter, and the original was carefully refolded and its original seal replaced with the aid of a knife blade heated in a candle flame.

Watching this operation critically, Fergus shook his head at Jamie. “You have the touch, milord. It is a pity that the one hand is crippled.”

Jamie glanced dispassionately at his right hand. It really wasn’t too bad; a couple of fingers set slightly askew, a thick scar down the length of the middle finger. The only major damage had been to the fourth finger, which stuck out stiffly, its second joint so badly crushed that the healing had fused two fingerbones together. The hand had been broken in Wentworth Prison, less than four months ago, by Jack Randall.

“Never mind,” he said, smiling. He flexed the hand and flicked the fingers playfully at Fergus. “My great paws are too big to make a living picking pockets, anyway.” He had regained an astounding degree of movement, I thought. He still carried the soft ball of rags I had made for him, squeezing it unobtrusively hundreds of times a day as he went about his business. And if the knitting bones hurt him, he never complained.

“Off with ye, then,” he told Fergus. “Come and find me when you’re safe back, so I’ll know ye havena been taken up by the police or the landlord of the tavern.”

Fergus wrinkled his nose scornfully at such an idea, but nodded, tucking the letter carefully inside his smock before disappearing down the back stair toward the night that was both natural element and protection for him.

Jamie looked after him for a long minute, then turned to me. He truly looked at me for the first time, and his brows flew up.

“Christ, Sassenach!” he said. “You’re pale as my sark! Are ye all right?”

“Just hungry,” I said.

He rang at once for supper, and we ate it before the fire, while I told him about Louise. Rather to my surprise, while he knit his brows over the situation and muttered uncomplimentary things under his breath in Gaelic about both Louise and Charles Stuart, he agreed with my solution to the problem.

“I thought you’d be upset,” I said, scooping up a mouthful of succulent cassoulet with a bit of bread. The warm, bacon-spiced beans soothed me, filling me with a sense of peaceful well-being. It was cold and dark outside, and loud with the rushing of the wind, but it was warm and quiet here by the fire together.

“Oh, about Louise de La Tour foisting a bastard on her husband?” Jamie frowned at his own dish, running a finger around the edge to pick up the last of the juice.

“Well, I’m no verra much in favor of it, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach. It’s a filthy trick to play on a man, but what’s the poor bloody woman to do otherwise?” He shook his head, then glanced at the desk across the room and smiled wryly.

“Besides, it doesna become me to be takin’ a high moral stand about other people’s behavior. Stealing letters and spying and trying generally to subvert a man my family holds as King? I shouldna like to have someone judging me on the grounds of the things I’m doing, Sassenach.”

“You have a damn good reason for what you’re doing!” I objected.

He shrugged. The firelight flickering on his face hollowed his cheeks and threw shadows into the orbits of his eyes. It made him look older than he was; I tended to forget that he was not quite twenty-four.

“Aye, well. And Louise de La Tour has a reason, too,” he said. “She wants to save one life, I want ten thousand. Does that excuse my risking wee Fergus – and Jared’s business – and you?” He turned his head and smiled at me, the light gleaming from the long, straight bridge of his nose, glowing like sapphire in the one eye turned toward the fire.

“Nay, I think I wilna lose my sleep over the need for opening another man’s letters,” he said. “It may come to much worse than that before we’ve done, Claire, and I canna say ahead of time what my conscience will stand; it’s best not to test it too soon.”

There was nothing to be said to that; it was all true. I reached out and laid my hand against his cheek. He laid his own hand over mine, cradling it for a moment, then turned his head and gently kissed my palm.

“Well,” he said, drawing a deep breath and returning to business. “Now that we’ve eaten, shall we have a look at this letter?”

The letter was coded; that much was obvious. To foil possible interceptors, Jamie explained.

“Who would want to intercept His Highness’s mail?” I asked. “Besides us, I mean.”

Jamie snorted with amusement at my naiveté.

“Almost anyone, Sassenach. Louis’s spies, Duverney’s spies, Philip of Spain’s spies. The Jacobite lords and the ones who think they might turn Jacobite if the wind sets right. Dealers in information, who dinna care a fart in a breeze who lives or dies by it. The Pope himself; the Holy See’s been supporting the Stuarts in exile for fifty years – I imagine he keeps an eye on what they’re doing.” He tapped a finger on the copy I’d made of James’s letter to his son.

“The seal on this letter had been removed maybe three times before I took it off myself,” he said.

“I see,” I said. “No wonder James codes his letters. Do you think you can make out what he says?”

Jamie picked up the sheets, frowning.

“I don’t know; some, yes. Some other things, I’ve no idea. I think perhaps I can work it out, though, if I can see some other letters King James has sent. I’ll see what Fergus can do for me there.” He folded the copy and put it carefully away in a drawer, which he locked.

“Ye canna trust anyone, Sassenach,” he explained, seeing my eyes widen. “We might easily have spies among the servants.” He dropped the small key in the pocket of his coat, and held out his arm to me.

I took the candle in one hand and his arm in the other, and we turned toward the stairs. The rest of the house was dark, the servants – all but Fergus – virtuously asleep. I felt a trifle creepy, with the realization that one or more of the silent sleepers below or above might not be what they seemed.

“Doesn’t it make you feel a bit nervous?” I asked as we went up the stairs. “Never being able to trust anyone?”

He laughed softly. “Well, I wouldna say anyone, Sassenach. There’s you – and Murtagh, and my sister Jenny and her husband Ian. I’d trust the four of you wi’ my life – I have, for that matter, more than once.”

I shivered as he pulled back the drapes of the big bed. The fire had been banked for the night, and the room was growing cold.

“Four people you can trust doesn’t seem like all that many,” I said, unlacing my gown.

He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the chair. The scars on his back shone silver in the faint light from the night sky outside.

“Aye, well,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s four more than Charles Stuart has.”

There was a bird singing outside, though it was long before first light. A mockingbird, practicing his trills and runs over and over, perched on a rain gutter somewhere in the dark nearby.

Moving sleepily, Jamie rubbed his cheek against the smooth skin of my freshly waxed underarm, then turned his head and planted a soft kiss in the warm hollow that sent a small, delicious shudder down my side.

“Mm,” he murmured, running a light hand over my ribs. “I like it when ye come out all gooseflesh like that, Sassenach.”

“Like this?” I answered, running the nails of my right hand gently over the skin of his back, which obligingly rippled into goose bumps under the teasing of the touch.

“Ah.”

“Ah, yourself, then,” I answered softly, doing it some more.

“Mmmm.” With a luxurious groan, he rolled to the side, wrapping his arms around me as I followed, enjoying the sudden contact of every inch of our naked skins, all down the front from head to toe. He was warm as a smothered fire, the heat of him safely banked for the night, to kindle again to a blaze in the black cold of dawn.

His lips fastened gently on one nipple, and I groaned myself, arching slightly to encourage him to take it deeper into the warmth of his mouth. My breasts were growing fuller, and more sensitive by the day; my nipples ached and tingled sometimes under the tight binding of my gowns, wanting to be suckled.

“Will ye let me do this later?” he murmured, with a soft bite. “When the child’s come, and your breasts fill wi’ milk? Will ye feed me, too, then, next to your heart?”

I clasped his head and cradled it, fingers deep in the baby-soft hair that grew thick at the base of his skull.

“Always,” I whispered.

14 MEDITATIONS ON THE FLESH

Fergus was more than adept at his profession, and nearly every day brought in a new selection of His Highness’s correspondence; sometimes I was hard pressed to copy everything before Fergus’s next expedition, when he would replace the items abstracted, before stealing the new letters.

Some of these were further coded communications from King James in Rome; Jamie put aside the copies of these, to puzzle over at leisure. The bulk of His Highness’s correspondence was innocuous – notes from friends in Italy, an increasing number of bills from local merchants – Charles had a taste for gaudy clothing and fine boots, as well as for brandywine – and the occasional note from Louise de La Tour de Rohan. These were fairly easy to pick out; aside from the tiny, mannered handwriting she employed, that made her letters look as though a small bird had been making tracks on them, she invariably saturated the paper with her trademark hyacinth scent. Jamie resolutely refused to read these.

“I willna be reading the man’s love letters,” he said firmly. “Even a plotter must scruple at something.” He sneezed, and dropped the latest missive back into Fergus’s pocket. “Besides,” he added more practically, “Louise tells ye everything, anyway.”

This was true; Louise had become a close friend, and spent nearly as much time in my drawing room as she did in her own, wringing her hands over Charles, then forgetting him in the fascination of discussing the marvels of pregnancy – she never had morning sickness, curse her! Scatterbrained as she was, I liked her very much; still, it was a great relief to escape from her company to L’Hôpital des Anges every afternoon.

While Louise was unlikely ever to set foot within L’Hôpital des Anges, I was not without company when I went there. Undaunted by her first exposure to the Hôpital, Mary Hawkins summoned up the courage to accompany me again. And yet again. While she couldn’t quite bring herself to look directly at a wound yet, she was useful at spooning gruel into people and sweeping floors. Apparently she considered these activities a welcome change from either the gatherings of the Court or the life at her uncle’s house.

While she was frequently shocked at some of the behavior she saw at Court – not that she saw much, but she was easily shocked – she didn’t betray any particular distaste or horror at the sight of the Vicomte Marigny, which led me to conclude that her wretched family had not yet completed the negotiations for her marriage – and therefore hadn’t told her about it.

This conclusion was borne out one day in late April, when, en route to L’Hôpital des Anges, she blushingly confided to me that she was in love.

“Oh, he’s so handsome!” she enthused, her stammer entirely forgotten. “And so… well, so spiritual, as well.”

“Spiritual?” I said. “Mm, yes, very nice.” Privately I thought that that particular quality was not one which would have topped my own list of desirable attributes in a lover, but then tastes differed.

“And who is the favored gentleman, then?” I teased gently. “Anyone I know?”

The rosy blush deepened. “No, I shouldn’t think so.” She looked up then, eyes sparkling. “But – oh, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I can’t help myself. He wrote to my father. He’s coming back to Paris next week!”

“Really?” This was interesting news. “I’d heard that the Comte de Palles is expected at Court next week,” I said. “Is your, um, intended, one of his party?”

Mary looked aghast at the suggestion.

“A Frenchman! Oh, no, Claire; really, how could I marry a Frenchman?”

“Is there something wrong with Frenchmen?” I asked, rather surprised at her vehemence. “You do speak French, after all.” Perhaps that was the trouble, though; while Mary did speak French very nicely, her shyness made her stammer even worse in that language than in English. I had come across a couple of kitchen-boys only the day before, entertaining each other with cruel imitations of “la petite Anglaise maladroite.”

“You don’t know about Frenchmen?” she whispered, eyes wide and horrified. “Oh, but of course, you wouldn’t. Your husband is so gentle and so kind… he wouldn’t, I m-mean I know he d-doesn’t trouble you that way…” Her face was suffused with a rich peony that reached from chin to hairline, and the stammer was about to strangle her.

“Do you mean…” I began, trying to think of some tactful way of extricating her without entangling myself in speculations about the habits of Frenchmen. However, considering what Mr. Hawkins had told me about Mary’s father and his plans for her marriage, I rather thought perhaps I should try to disabuse her of the notions that she had clearly picked up from the gossip of salon and dressing room. I didn’t want her to die of fright if she did end up married to a Frenchman.

“What they d-do… in… in bed!” she whispered hoarsely.

“Well,” I said matter-of-factly, “there are only so many things you can do in bed with a man, after all. And since I see quite a large number of children about the city, I’d assume that even Frenchmen are fairly well versed in the orthodox methods.”

“Oh! Children… well, yes, of course,” she said vaguely, as though not seeing much connection. “B-b-but they said” – she cast her eyes down, embarrassed, and her voice sank even lower – “th-that he… a Frenchm-man’s thing, you know…”

“Yes, I know,” I said, striving for patience. “So far as I know, they’re much like any other man’s. Englishmen and Scotsmen are quite similarly endowed.”

“Yes, but they, they… p-p-put it between a lady’s l-l-legs! I mean, right up inside her!” This bit of stop-press news finally out, she took a deep breath, which seemed to steady her, for the violent crimson of her face receded slightly. “An Englishman, or even a Scot… oh, I didn’t m-mean it that way…” Her hand flew to her mouth in embarrassment. “But a decent man like your husband; surely he would n-never dream of forcing a wife to endure s-something like that!”

I placed a hand on my slightly bloated stomach and regarded her thoughtfully. I began to see why spirituality ranked so highly in Mary Hawkins’s catalog of manly virtues.

“Mary,” I said, “I think we must have a small talk.”

I was still smiling privately to myself when I walked out into the Great Hall of the Hôpital, my own dress covered with the drab, sturdy fabric of a novice’s habit.

A good many of the chirurgiens, urinoscopists, bonesetters, physicians, and other healers were donating their time and services as a charity; others came to learn or refine their skills. The hapless patients of L’Hôpital des Anges were in no position to protest being the subjects of assorted medical experiments.

Aside from the nuns themselves, the medical staff changed almost daily, depending upon who found themselves without paying patients that day, or who had a new technique that needed trial. Still, most of the free-lance medicos came often enough that I learned to recognize the regulars in short order.

One of the most interesting was the tall, gaunt man whom I had seen amputating a leg on my first visit to the Hôpital. Upon inquiry, I determined that his name was Monsieur Forez. Primarily a bonesetter, occasionally he would attempt the trickier types of amputation, particularly when a whole limb, rather than a joint, was involved. The nuns and orderlies seemed a bit in awe of Monsieur Forez; they never chaffed him or exchanged rude jokes, as they did with most of the other volunteer medical help.

Monsieur Forez was at work today. I approached quietly, to see what he was doing. The patient, a young workman, lay white-faced and gasping on a pallet. He had fallen from the scaffolding on the cathedral – always under construction – and broken both an arm and a leg. I could see that the arm was no particular challenge to a professional bonesetter – only a simple fracture of the radius. The leg, though, was something else; an impressive double compound fracture, involving both the mid-femur and the tibia. Sharp bone fragments protruded through the skin of both thigh and shin, and the lacerated flesh was blue with traumatic bruising over most of the upper aspect of the leg.

I didn’t wish to distract the bonesetter’s attention to his case, but Monsieur Forez appeared sunk in thought, slowly circling the patient, sidling back and forth like a large carrion crow, cautious lest the victim not be really dead yet. He did look rather like a crow, I thought, with that prominent beak of a nose, and the smooth black hair that he wore unpowdered, slicked back to a wispy knot at the nape of his neck. His clothes, too, were black and somber, though of good quality – evidently he had a profitable practice outside the Hôpital.

At last deciding on his course of action, Monsieur Forez lifted his chin from his hand and glanced around for assistance. His eye lighted on me, and he beckoned me forward. I was dressed in a coarse linen novice’s gown, and lost in his concentration, he did not notice that I didn’t wear the wimple and veil of a nursing sister.

“Here, ma soeur,” he directed, taking hold of the patient’s ankle. “Grasp it tightly just behind the heel. Do not apply pressure until I tell you, but when I give the word, draw the foot directly toward you. Pull very slowly, but with force – it will take considerable strength, you understand.”

“I understand.” I grasped the foot as directed, while Monsieur Forez made his slow and gangling way toward the other end of the pallet, glancing contemplatively at the fractured leg.

“I have a stimulant here to assist,” he said, drawing a small vial out of his coat pocket and setting it beside the patient’s head. “It constricts the blood vessels of the surface skin, and drives the blood inward, where it may be of more use to our young friend.” So speaking, he grasped the patient by the hair and thrust the vial into the young man’s mouth, skillfully decanting the medicine down his throat without spilling a drop.

“Ah,” he said approvingly as the man gulped and breathed deeply. “That will help. Now, as to the pain – yes, it is better if we can numb the leg, so he will be less inclined to resist our efforts as we straighten it.”

He reached into his capacious pocket once more, this time coming out with a small brass pin, some three inches in length, with a wide, flat head. One bony, thick-jointed hand tenderly explored the inside of the patient’s thigh near the groin, following the thin blue line of a large vein beneath the skin. The groping fingers hesitated, paused, palpated in a small circle, then settled on a point. Digging a sharp forefinger into the skin as though to mark his place, Monsieur Forez brought the point of the brass pin to bear in the same place. Another quick reach into the pocket of marvels produced a small brass hammer, with which he drove the pin straight into the leg with one blow.

The leg twitched violently, then seemed to relax into limpness. The vaso-constrictor administered earlier did in fact seem to be working; the ooze of blood from the severed tissues was markedly less.

“That’s amazing!” I exclaimed. “What did you do?”

Monsieur Forez smiled shyly, a faint rosiness staining his blue-shadowed cheeks with pleasure at my admiration.

“Well, it does not always work quite so well,” he admitted modestly. “Luck was with me this time.” He pointed at the brass pin, explaining, “There is a large bundle of nerve endings there, Sister, what I have heard the anatomists call a plexus. If you are fortunate enough to pierce it directly, it numbs a great deal of the sensations in the lower extremity.” He straightened abruptly, realizing that he was wasting time in talk that might better be spent in action.

“Come, ma soeur,” he ordered. “Back to your post! The action of the stimulant is not long-lasting; we must work now, while the bleeding is suppressed.”

Almost limp, the leg straightened easily, the splintered ends of bone drawing back through the skin. Following Monsieur Forez’s orders, I now grasped the young man about the torso, while he maneuvered the foot and lower leg, so that we applied a constant traction while the final small adjustments were made.

“That will do, Sister. Now, if you will but hold the foot steady for a moment.” A shout summoned an orderly with a couple of stout sticks and some rags for binding, and in no time we had the limb neatly splinted and the open wounds firmly dressed with pressure bandages.

Monsieur Forez and I exchanged a broad smile of congratulation over the body of our patient.

“Lovely work, that,” I praised, shoving back a lock of hair that had come unbound during our exertions. I saw Monsieur Forez’s face change suddenly, as he realized that I wore no veil, and just then the loud bonging of the Vespers bell rang from the adjacent church. I glanced openmouthed at the tall window at the end of the ward, left unglassed to allow unwholesome vapors to pass out. Sure enough, the oblong of sky was the deep half-indigo of early evening.

“Excuse me,” I said, starting to wriggle out of the covering gown. “I must go at once; my husband will be worried about me coming home so late. I’m so glad to have had the chance of assisting you, Monsieur Forez.” The tall bonesetter watched this disrobing act in patent astonishment.

“But you… well, no, of course you are not a nun, I should have realized that before… but you… who are you?” he asked curiously.

“My name’s Fraser,” I told him briefly. “Look, I must go, or my husband…”

He drew himself up to his full gawky height, and bowed with deep seriousness.

“I should esteem it a privilege if you would allow me to see you home, Madame Fraser.”

“Oh… why, thank you,” I said, touched at his thoughtfulness. “I have an escort, though,” I said, looking vaguely around the hall for Fergus, who had taken over escort duty from Murtagh, when he was not needed to steal something. He was there, leaning against the doorjamb, twitching with impatience. I wondered how long he had been there – the sisters wouldn’t allow him into the main hall or the wards, always insisting that he wait for me by the door.

Monsieur Forez eyed my escort dubiously, then took me firmly by the elbow.

“I will see you to your door, Madame,” he declared. “This section of the city is much too dangerous in the evening hours for you to be abroad with no more than a child for protection.”

I could see Fergus swelling with indignation at being called a child, and hastened to protest that he was an excellent escort, always taking care to guide me by the safest streets. Monsieur Forez paid no attention to either of us, merely nodding in a stately manner to Sister Angelique as he steered me through the huge double doors of the Hôpital.

Fergus trotted at my heels, plucking at my sleeve. “Madame!” he said in a urgent whisper. “Madame! I promised the master that I would see you safely home each day, that I would not allow you to associate with undesirable-”

“Ah, here we are. Madame, you sit here; your boy may have the other seat.” Ignoring Fergus’s yapping, Monsieur Forez picked him up and tossed him casually into the waiting carriage.

The carriage was a small open one, but elegantly equipped, with deep blue velvet seats and a small canopy to protect the passengers from sudden inclemencies of weather or slops flung from above. There was no coat of arms or other decoration on the equipage’s door; Monsieur Forez was not of the nobility – must be a rich bourgeois, I thought.

We made polite conversation on the way home, discussing medical matters, while Fergus sulked in the corner, glowering under the ragged thatch of his hair. When we pulled up in the Rue Tremoulins, he leaped over the side without waiting for the coachman to open the door, and sprinted inside. I stared after him, wondering what ailed him, then turned to take my farewell of Monsieur Forez.

“Really, it is nothing,” he assured me graciously, in response to my profuse thanks. “Your residence lies along the path I take to my own house, in any case. And I could not have trusted the person of such a gracious lady to the Paris streets at this hour.” He handed me down from the carriage, and was opening his mouth to say more, when the gate slammed open behind us.

I turned in time to see Jamie’s expression change from mild annoyance to startled surprise.

“Oh!” he said. “Good evening, Monsieur.” He bowed to Monsieur Forez, who returned the salute with great solemnity.

“Your wife has allowed me the great pleasure of delivering her safely to your door, milord. As for her late arrival, I beg you will lay the blame for that on my own shoulders; she was most nobly assisting me in a small endeavor at L’Hôpital des Anges.”

“I expect she was,” said Jamie in a resigned tone. “After all,” he added in English, raising an eyebrow at me, “ye couldna expect a mere husband to hold the same sort of appeal as an inflamed bowel or a case of bilious spots, could ye?” The corner of his mouth twitched, though, and I knew he wasn’t really annoyed, only concerned that I hadn’t come home; I felt a twinge of regret at having worried him.

Bowing once more to Monsieur Forez, he grasped me by the upper arm and hustled me through the gate.

“Where’s Fergus?” I asked, as soon as the gate was closed behind us. Jamie snorted.

“In the kitchen, awaiting retribution, I expect.”

“Retribution? What do you mean by that?” I demanded. Unexpectedly, he laughed.

“Well,” he said, “I was sittin’ in the study, wondering where in bloody hell you’d got to, and on the verge of going down to the Hôpital myself, when the door flew open, and young Fergus shot in and threw himself on the floor at my feet, begging me to kill him on the spot.”

“Kill him? Whatever for?”

“Well, that’s what I asked him myself, Sassenach. I thought perhaps you and he had been waylaid by footpads along the way – there are dangerous gangs of ruffians about the streets, ye ken, and I thought losin’ you that way would be the only thing would make him behave so. But he said you were at the gate, so I came tearing along to see were ye all right, with Fergus at my heels, babbling about betraying my trust and being unworthy to call me master, and begging me to beat him to death. I found it a bit difficult to think, what wi’ all that going on, so I told him I’d attend to him later, and sent him to the kitchen.”

“Oh, bloody hell!” I said. “Does he really think he’s betrayed your trust, just because I’ve come home a bit late?”

Jamie glanced aside at me.

“Aye, he does. And so he did, for that matter, letting ye ride in company with a stranger. He swears that he would ha’ thrown himself in front of the horses before he would let ye enter the carriage, save that you,” he added pointedly, “seemed on good terms wi’ the man.”

“Well, of course I was on good terms with him,” I said indignantly. “I’d just been helping him set a leg.”

“Mphm.” This line of argument appeared to strike him as unconvincing.

“Oh, all right,” I agreed reluctantly. “Perhaps it was a bit unwise. But he really did seem entirely respectable, and I was in a hurry to get home – I knew you’d be worried.” Still, I was now wishing I had paid a little more attention to Fergus’s frantic mumblings and pluckings at my sleeve. At the time, I had been concerned only to reach home as soon as possible.

“You aren’t really going to beat him, are you?” I asked in some alarm. “It wasn’t his fault in the slightest – I insisted on going with Monsieur. Forez. I mean, if anyone deserves beating, it’s me.”

Turning in the direction of the kitchen, Jamie cocked a sardonic eyebrow at me.

“Aye, it is,” he agreed. “Having sworn to refrain from any such actions, though, I may have to settle for Fergus.”

“Jamie! You wouldn’t!” I stopped dead, yanking on his arm. “Jamie! Please!” Then I saw the smile hidden in the corner of his mouth, and sighed in relief.

“No,” he said, letting the smile become visible. “I dinna mean to kill him – or even beat him, for that matter. I may have to go clout him over the ear a time or two, though, if only to save his honor,” he added. “He thinks he’s committed a major crime by not following my orders to guard ye – I can hardly let it pass without some sign of official displeasure.”

He paused outside the baize door to the kitchens to fasten his cuffs and rewind the stock about his throat.

“Am I decent?” he inquired, smoothing back his thick, unruly hair. “Perhaps I should go and fetch my coat – I’m not sure what’s proper for administering rebukes.”

“You look fine,” I said, suppressing a smile. “Very severe.”

“Oh, that’s good,” he said, straightening his shoulders and compressing his lips. “I hope I don’t laugh, that wouldna do at all,” he muttered, pushing open the door to the kitchen stair.

The atmosphere in the kitchen was far from hilarious, though. At our entrance, the customary gabble ceased at once, and there was a hasty drawing up of the staff at one side of the room. Everyone stood stock-still for a moment, then there was a small stir between two kitchenmaids, and Fergus stepped out into the open space before us.

The boy’s face was white and tracked with tears, but he was not weeping now. With considerable dignity, he bowed, first to me and then Jamie, in turn.

“Madame, Monsieur, I am ashamed,” he said, low-voiced but distinct. “I am unworthy to be in your employment, but still I beg that you will not dismiss me.” His high-pitched voice quavered a little at the thought, and I bit my lip. Fergus glanced aside at the ranks of the servants, as though for moral support, and received a nod of encouragement from Fernand the coachman. Drawing a deep breath for courage, he straightened up and addressed Jamie directly.

“I am ready to suffer my punishment now, milord,” he said. As though this had been the signal, one of the footmen stepped out of the rigid crowd, led the boy to the scrubbed plank table, and passing on the other side, took hold of the lad’s hands, pulling him half across the surface of the table and holding him so extended.

“But…” Jamie began, taken aback by the speed of events. He got no further before Magnus, the elderly butler, stepped gravely up and presented him with the leather strop used for sharpening the kitchen knives, laid ceremonially atop the meat platter.

“Er,” Jamie said, looking helplessly at me.

“Um,” I said, and took one step back. Eyes narrowed, he grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly.

“No, ye don’t, Sassenach,” he muttered in English. “If I have to do it, you have to watch it!”

Glancing desperately back and forth between his would-be victim and the proffered instrument of execution, he hesitated for a moment longer, then gave up.

“Oh, bloody fucking hell,” he muttered under his breath in English, grabbing the strop from Magnus. He flexed the broad strap dubiously between his hands; three inches wide and a quarter-inch thick, it was a formidable weapon. Clearly wishing himself anywhere else, he advanced upon the prone body of Fergus.

“All right, then,” he said, glaring ferociously round the room. “Ten strokes, and I don’t wish to hear a fuss about it.” Several of the female servants blanched visibly at this, and clung to each other for support, but there was dead silence in the big room as he raised the strap.

The resultant crack at impact made me jump, and there were small squeaks of alarm from the kitchenmaids, but no sound from Fergus. The small body quivered, and Jamie closed his eyes briefly, then set his lips and proceeded to inflict the remainder of the sentence, strokes evenly spaced. I felt sick, and surreptitiously wiped my damp palms on my skirt. At the same time, I felt an unhinged urge to laugh at the terrible farce of the situation.

Fergus endured everything in total silence, and when Jamie had finished and stepped back, pale and sweating, the small body lay so still that I was afraid for a moment that he had died – of shock, if not from the actual effects of the beating. But then a deep shudder seemed to run over the small frame, and the boy slid backward and raised himself stiffly off the table.

Jamie leaped forward to grasp him by an arm, anxiously smoothing back the sweat-drenched hair from his forehead.

“Are ye all right, man?” he asked. “God, Fergus, tell me you’re all right!”

The boy was white to the lips, and his eyes were the size of saucers, but he smiled at this evidence of goodwill on the part of his employer, buck teeth gleaming in the lamplight.

“Oh yes, milord,” he gasped. “Am I forgiven?”

“Jesus Christ,” Jamie muttered, and clasped the boy tightly against his chest. “Yes, of course ye are, fool.” He held the boy at arm’s length and shook him slightly. “I dinna want to do that ever again, d’ye hear me?”

Fergus nodded, eyes glowing, then broke away and fell to his knees before me.

“Do you forgive me also, Madame?” he asked, folding his hands formally in front of him, and looking trustfully up, like a chipmunk begging for nuts.

I thought I would expire on the spot of mortification, but mustered sufficient self-possession to reach down and raise the boy to his feet.

“There is nothing to forgive,” I told him firmly, my cheeks burning. “You’re a very courageous lad, Fergus. Why… er, why don’t you go and have some supper now?”

At this, the atmosphere of the kitchen relaxed, as though everyone had drawn a massive sigh of relief at once. The other servants pushed forward, babbling concern and congratulations, and Fergus was swept off to a hero’s reception, while Jamie and I beat a precipitous retreat back to our quarters abovestairs.

“Oh, God,” Jamie said, collapsing into his chair as though completely drained. “Sweet bleeding Jesus. Mary, Michael, and Bride. Lord, I need a drink. Don’t ring!” he exclaimed in alarm, though I hadn’t made a move toward the bell rope. “I couldna bear to face one of the servants just now.”

He got up and rummaged in the cupboard. “I think I’ve a bottle in here, though.”

He had indeed, a nice aged Scotch. Removing the cork unceremoniously with his teeth, he lowered the level of the spirit by an inch or so, then handed the bottle to me. I followed his example without hesitation.

“Jesus Christ,” I said, when I had recovered breath enough to speak.

“Yes,” he said, taking the bottle back and taking another gulp. Setting the bottle down, he clutched his head, running his fingers through his hair until it stood on end in wild disarray. He laughed weakly.

“I’ve never felt so foolish in my entire life. God, I felt a clot-heid!”

“So did I,” I said, taking my turn at the bottle. “Even more than you, I imagine. After all, it was all my fault. Jamie, I can’t tell you how sorry I am; I never imagined…”

“Ah, dinna worry yourself.” The tension of the last half-hour released, he squeezed my shoulder affectionately. “You couldna have any idea. Neither did I, for that matter,” he added reflectively. “I suppose he thought I’d dismiss him, and he’d be back in the streets… poor little bugger. No wonder he thought himself lucky to take a beating instead.”

I shuddered briefly, remembering the streets through which Monsieur Forez’s carriage had traveled. Beggars dressed in rags and sores clung stubbornly to their territories, sleeping on the ground even on the coldest nights, lest some rival steal a profitable corner from them. Children much smaller than Fergus darted through the market crowds like hungry mice, eyes always watching for the dropped crumb, the unguarded pocket. And for those too unhealthy to work, too unattractive to sell to the brothels, or simply too unlucky – it would be a short life indeed, and far from merry. Little wonder if the prospect of being thrust from the luxury of three meals a day and clean clothes back into that sordid stew had been sufficient to send Fergus into paroxysms of needless guilt.

“I suppose so,” I said. My manner of intake had declined from gulps to a more genteel sipping by this time. I sipped genteelly, then handed the bottle back, noting in a rather detached manner that it was more than half empty. “Still, I hope you didn’t hurt him.”

“Weel, nay doubt he’ll be a bit sore.” His Scots accent, usually faint, always grew more pronounced when he drank a lot. He shook his head, squinting through the bottle to judge the level of spirit remaining. “D’ye know, Sassenach, I never ’til tonight realized just how difficult it must ha’ been for my father to beat me? I always thought it was me had the hardest part of that particular transaction.” He tilted his head back and drank again, then set down the bottle and stared owl-eyed into the fire. “Being a father might be a bit more complicated than I’d thought. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Well, don’t think too hard,” I said. “You’ve had a lot to drink.”

“Och, don’t worry,” he said cheerfully. “There’s another bottle in the cupboard.”

15 IN WHICH MUSIC PLAYS A PART

We stayed up late with the second bottle, going over and over the latest of the abstracted letters from the Chevalier de St. George – otherwise known as His Majesty, James III – and the letters to Prince Charles from Jacobite supporters.

“Fergus got a large packet, bound for His Highness,” Jamie explained. “There was a lot of stuff in it, and we couldna copy it all quickly enough, so I kept some to go back the next time.”

“See,” he said, extracting one sheet from the pile and laying it on my knee, “the majority of the letters are in code, like this one – ‘I hear that the prospects for grouse seem most favorable this year in the hills above Salerno; hunters in that region should find themselves successful.’ That’s easy; it’s a reference to Manzetti, the Italian banker; he’s from Salerno. I found that Charles had been dining with him, and managed to borrow fifteen thousand livres – apparently James’s advice was good. But here-” He shuffled through the stack, pulling out another sheet.

“Look at this,” Jamie said, handing me a sheet covered with his lopsided scrawls.

I squinted obediently at the paper, from which I could pick out single letters, connected with a network of arrows and question marks.

“What language is that?” I asked, peering at it. “Polish?” Charles Stuart’s mother, the late Clementina Sobieski, had been Polish, after all.

“No, it’s in English,” Jamie said, grinning. “You canna read it?”

“You can?”

“Oh, aye,” he said smugly. “It’s a cipher, Sassenach, and no a verra complicated one. See, all ye must do is break the letters up into groups of five, to start – only ye don’t count the letters Q or X. The X’s are meant as breaks between sentences, and the Q’s are only stuck in here and there to make it more confusing.”

“If you say so,” I said, looking from the extremely confusing-looking letter, which began “Mrti ocruti dlopro qahstmin…” to the sheet in Jamie’s hand, with a series of five-letter groups written on one line, single letters printed in carefully above them, one at a time.

“So, one letter is only substituted for another, but in the same order,” Jamie was explaining, “so if you have a fair amount of text to work from, and you can guess a word here or there, then all ye need do is to translate from one alphabet to the other – see?” He waved a long strip of paper under my nose, with two alphabets printed one above the other, slightly offset.

“Well, more or less,” I said. “I gather you do, though, which is what’s important. What does it say?”

The expression of lively interest with which Jamie greeted all manner of puzzles faded a bit, and he let the sheet of paper fall to his knee. He looked at me, lower lip caught between his teeth in introspection.

“Well,” he said, “that’s what’s odd. And yet I dinna see how I can be mistaken. The tone of James’s letters overall tend one way, and this ciphered one spells it out clearly.”

Blue eyes met mine under thick, ruddy brows.

“James wants Charles to find favor with Louis,” he said slowly, “but he isna looking for support for an invasion of Scotland. James has no interest in seeking restoration to the throne.”

“What?” I snatched the sheaf of letters from his hand, my eyes feverishly scanning the scribbled text.

Jamie was right; while the letters from supporters spoke hopefully of the impending restoration, James’s letters to his son mentioned no such thing, but were all concerned with Charles’s making a good impression upon Louis. Even the loan from Manzetti of Salerno had been sought to enable Charles to live with the appearance of a gentleman in Paris; not to support any military end.

“Well, I’m thinking James is a canny wee man,” Jamie had said, tapping one of the letters. “For see, Sassenach, he’s verra little money of his own; his wife had a great deal, but Uncle Alex told me that she left it all to the church when she died. The Pope has been maintaining James’s establishment – after all, he’s a Catholic monarch, and the Pope is bound to uphold his interests against those of the Elector of Hanover.”

He clasped his hands around one knee, gazing meditatively at the pile of papers now laid between us on the sofa.

“Philip of Spain and Louis – the Old King, I mean – gave him a small number of troops and a few ships, thirty years ago, with which to try to regain his throne. But it all went wrong; bad weather sank some of the ships, and the rest had no pilots and landed in the wrong place – everything went awry, and in the end, the French simply sailed off again, with James not even setting foot upon the soil of Scotland. So perhaps in the years since, he gave up any thought of getting back his throne. But still, he had two sons coming to manhood, and no way to see them properly settled in life.

“So I ask myself, Sassenach” – he rocked backward a bit – “what would I do, in such a situation? The answer being, that I might try and see if my good cousin Louis – who’s King of France, after all – might maybe see one son established in a good position; given a military appointment, maybe, and men to lead. A General of France is no bad position in life.”

“Mm.” I nodded, thinking. “Yes, but if I were a very smart man, I might not just come to Louis and beg, as a poor relation. I might send my son to Paris, and try to shame Louis into accepting him at Court. And meanwhile keep alive the illusion that I was actively seeking restoration.”

“For once James admits openly that the Stuarts will never rule Scotland again,” Jamie added softly, “then he has no more value to Louis.”

And without the possibility of an armed Jacobite invasion to occupy the English, Louis would have little reason to give his young cousin Charles anything beyond the pittance that decency and public opinion would force him to provide.

It wasn’t certain; the letters Jamie had been able to get, a few at a time, went back only as far as last January, when Charles had arrived in France. And, couched in code, cipher, and guarded language generally, the situation was far from clear. But taken all in all, the evidence did point in that direction.

And if Jamie’s guess as to the Chevalier’s motives was correct – then our task was accomplished already; had never in fact existed at all.

Thinking over the events of the night before, I was abstracted all the next day, through a visit to Marie d’Arbanville’s morning salon to hear a Hungarian poet, through a visit to a neighborhood herbalist’s to pick up some valerian and orris root, and through my rounds at L’Hôpital des Anges in the afternoon.

Finally, I abandoned my work, afraid that I might accidentally damage someone while wool-gathering. Neither Murtagh nor Fergus had yet arrived to escort me home, so I changed out of my covering gown and sat down in Mother Hildegarde’s vacant office to wait, just inside the vestibule of the Hôpital.

I had been there for perhaps half an hour, idly pleating the stuff of my gown between my fingers, when I heard the dog outside.

The porter was absent, as he often was. Gone to buy food, no doubt, or run an errand for one of the nuns. As usual in his absence, the guardianship of the Hôpital’s portals was given into the capable paws – and teeth – of Bouton.

The first warning yip was followed by a low, burring growl that warned the intruder to stay where he was, on pain of instant dismemberment. I rose and stuck my head out of the office door, to see whether Father Balmain might be braving the peril of the demon once more, in pursuit of his sacramental duties. But the figure outlined against the huge stained-glass window of the entry hall was not the spare form of the junior priest. It was a tall figure, whose silhouetted kilts swayed gracefully around his legs as he drew back from the small, toothed animal at his feet.

Jamie blinked, brought up short by the assault. Shading his eyes against the dazzle from the window, he peered down into the shadows.

“Oh, hallo there, wee dog,” he said politely, and took a step forward, knuckles stretched out. Bouton raised the growl a few decibels, and he took a step back.

“Oh, like that, is it?” Jamie said. He eyed the dog narrowly.

“Think it over, laddie,” he advised, squinting down his long, straight nose. “I’m a damn sight bigger than you. I wouldna undertake any rash ventures, if I were you.”

Bouton shifted his ground slightly, still making a noise like a distant Fokker.

“Faster, too,” said Jamie, making a feint to one side. Bouton’s teeth snapped together a few inches from Jamie’s calf, and he stepped back hastily. Leaning back against the wall, he folded his arms and nodded down at the dog.

“Well, you’ve a point there, I’ll admit. When it comes to teeth, ye’ve the edge on me, and no mistake.” Bouton cocked an ear suspiciously at this gracious speech, but went back to the low-pitched growl.

Jamie hooked one foot over the other, like one prepared to pass the time of day indefinitely. The multicolored light from the window washed his face with blue, making him look like one of the chilly marble statues in the cathedral next door.

“Surely you’ve better things to do than harry innocent visitors?” he asked, conversationally. “I’ve heard of you – you’re the famous fellow that sniffs out sickness, no? Weel, then, why are they wastin’ ye on silly things like door-guarding, when ye might be makin’ yourself useful smelling gouty toes and pustulant arseholes? Answer me that, if ye will!”

A sharp bark in response to his uncrossing his feet was the only answer.

There was a stir of robes behind me as Mother Hildegarde entered from the inner office.

“What is it?” she asked, seeing me peering round the corner. “Have we visitors?”

“Bouton seems to be having a difference of opinion with my husband,” I said.

“I don’t have to put up wi’ this, ye ken,” Jamie was threatening. One hand was stealing toward the brooch that held his plaid at the shoulder. “One quick spring wi’ my plaid, and I’ll have ye trussed like a – oh, bonjour, Madame!” he said, changing swiftly to French at sight of Mother Hildegarde.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Fraser.” She inclined her veil gracefully, more to hide the broad smile on her face than in greeting, I thought. “I see you have made the acquaintance of Bouton. Are you perhaps in search of your wife?”

This seeming to be my cue, I sidled out of the office behind her. My devoted spouse glanced from Bouton to the office door, plainly drawing conclusions.

“And just how long have ye been standin’ there, Sassenach?” he asked dryly.

“Long enough,” I said, with the smug self-assurance of one in Bouton’s good books. “What would you have done with him, once you’d got him wrapped up in your plaid?”

“Thrown him out the window and run like hell,” he answered, with a brief glance of awe at Mother Hildegarde’s imposing form. “Does she by chance speak English?”

“No, luckily for you,” I answered. I switched to French for the introductions. “Ma mère, je vous présente mon mari, le seigneur de Broch Tuarach.”

“Milord.” Mother Hildegarde had by now mastered her sense of humor, and greeted him with her usual expression of formidable geniality. “We shall miss your wife, but if you require her, of course-”

“I didn’t come for my wife,” Jamie interrupted. “I came to see you, ma mère.”

Seated in Mother Hildegarde’s office, Jamie laid the bundle of papers he carried on the shining wood of her desk. Bouton, keeping a wary eye on the intruder, lay down at his mistress’s feet. He laid his nose upon his feet, but kept his ears cocked, lip raised over one eyetooth in case he should be called upon to rend the visitor limb from limb.

Jamie narrowed his eyes at Bouton, pointedly pulling his feet away from the twitching black nose. “Herr Gerstmann recommended that I consult you, Mother, about these documents,” he said, unrolling the thick sheaf and flattening it beneath his palms.

Mother Hildegarde regarded Jamie for a moment, one heavy brow raised quizzically. Then she turned her attention to the sheaf of papers, with that administrator’s trick of seeming to focus entirely on the matter at hand, while still keeping her sensitive antennae tuned to catch the faintest vibration of emergency from the far-off reaches of the Hôpital.

“Yes?” she said. One blunt finger ran lightly over the lines of scribbled music, one by one, as though she heard the notes by touching them. A flick of the finger, and the sheet slid aside, half-exposing the next.

“What is it that you wish to know, Monsieur Fraser?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Mother.” Jamie was leaning forward, intent. He touched the black lines himself, dabbing gently at the smear where the writer’s hand had carelessly brushed the staves before the ink had dried.

“There is something odd about this music, Mother.”

The nun’s wide mouth moved slightly in what might have been a smile.

“Really, Monsieur Fraser? And yet I understand – you will not be offended, I trust – that to you, music is… a lock to which you have no key?”

Jamie laughed, and a sister passing in the hallways turned, startled by such a sound in the confines of the Hôpital. It was a noisy place, but laughter was unusual.

“That is a very tactful description of my disability, Mother. And altogether true. Were you to sing one of these pieces” – his finger, longer and more slender, but nearly the same size as Mother Hildegarde’s, tapped the parchment with a soft rustling noise – “I could not tell it from the Kyrie Eleison or from ‘ La Dame fait bien’ – except by the words,” he added, with a grin.

Now it was Mother Hildegarde’s turn to laugh.

“Indeed, Monsieur Fraser,” she said. “Well, at least you listen to the words!” She took the sheaf of papers into her hands, riffling the tops. I could see the faint swelling of her throat above the tight band of her wimple as she read, as though she was singing silently to herself, and one large foot twitched slightly, keeping time.

Jamie sat very still upon his stool, good hand folded over the crooked one on his knee, watching her. The slanted blue eyes were intent, and he paid no attention to the ongoing noise from the depths of the Hôpital behind him. Patients cried out, orderlies and nuns shouted back and forth, family members shrieked in sorrow or dismay, and the muted clang of metal instruments echoed off the ancient stones of the building, but neither Jamie nor Mother Hildegarde moved.

At last she lowered the pages, peering at him over the tops. Her eyes were sparkling, and she looked suddenly like a young girl.

“I think you are right!” she said. “I cannot take time to think it over carefully just now” – she glanced toward the doorway, momentarily darkened by the form of an orderly dashing past with a large sack of lint – “but there is something odd here.” She tapped the pages on the desk, straightening them into an orderly stack.

“How extraordinary,” she said.

“Be that as it may, Mother – can you, with your gift, discern what this particular pattern is? It would be difficult; I have reason to suppose that it is a cipher, and that the language of the message is English, though the text of the songs is in German.”

Mother Hildegarde uttered a small grunt of surprise.

“English? You are sure?”

Jamie shook his head. “Not sure, no, but I think so. For one reason, there is the country of origin; the songs were sent from England.”

“Well, Monsieur,” she said, arching one eyebrow. “Your wife speaks English, does she not? And I imagine that you would be willing to sacrifice her company to assist me in performing this endeavor for you?”

Jamie eyed her, the half-smile on his face the mirror image of hers. He glanced down at his feet, where Bouton’s whiskers quivered with the ghost of a growl.

“I’ll make ye a bargain, Mother,” he said. “If your wee dog doesna bite me in the arse on the way out, you can have my wife.”

And so, that evening, instead of returning home to Jared’s house in the Rue Tremoulins, I took supper with the sisters of the Couvent des Anges at their long refectory table, and then retired for the evening’s work to Mother Hildegarde’s private rooms.

There were three rooms in the Superior’s suite. The outer one was furnished as a sitting room, with a fair degree of richness. This, after all, was where she must often receive official visitors. The second room was something of a shock, simply because I wasn’t expecting it. At first, I had the impression that there was nothing in the small room but a large harpsichord, made of gleaming, polished walnut, and decorated with small, hand-painted flowers sprouting from a twisting vine that ran along the sounding board above glowing ebony keys.

On second look, I saw a few other bits of furniture in the room, including a set of bookshelves that ran the length of one wall, stuffed with works on musicology and hand-stitched manuscripts much like the one Mother Hildegarde now laid on the harpsichord’s rack.

She motioned me to a chair placed before a small secretary against one wall.

“You will find blank paper and ink there, milady. Now, let us see what this little piece of music may tell us.”

The music was written on heavy parchment, the lines of the staves cleanly ruled across the page. The notes themselves, the clef signs, rests, and accidentals, were all drawn with considerable care; this was plainly a final clean copy, not a draft or a hastily scribbled tune. Across the top of the page was the title “Lied des Landes.” A Song of the Country.

“The title, you see, suggests something simple, like a volkslied,” Mother Hildegarde said, pointing one long, bony forefinger at the page. “And yet the form of the composition is something quite different. Can you read music at sight?” The big right hand, large-knuckled and short-nailed, descended on the keys with an impossibly delicate touch.

Leaning over Mother Hildegarde’s black-clad shoulder, I sang the first three lines of the piece, making the best I could of the German pronunciation. Then she stopped playing, and twisted to look up at me.

“That is the basic melody. It then repeats itself in variations – but such variations! You know, I have seen some things reminiscent of this. By a little old German named Bach; he sends me things now and again-” She waved carelessly at the shelf of manuscripts. “He calls them ‘Inventions,’ and they’re really quite clever; playing off the variations in two or three melodic lines simultaneously. This” – she pursed her lips at the ‘Lied’ before us – “is like a clumsy imitation of one of his things. In fact, I would swear that…” Muttering to herself, she pushed back the walnut bench and went to the shelf, running a finger rapidly down the rows of manuscripts.

She found what she was looking for, and returned to the bench with three bound pieces of music.

“Here are the Bach pieces. They’re fairly old, I haven’t looked at them in several years. Still, I’m almost sure…” She lapsed into silence, flipping quickly through the pages of the Bach scripts on her knee, one at a time, glancing back now and then at the “Lied” on the rack.

“Ha!” she let out a cry of triumph, and held out one of the Bach pieces to me. “See there?”

The paper was titled “Goldberg Variations,” in a crabbed, smeared hand. I touched the paper with some awe, swallowed hard, and looked back at the “Lied.” It took only a moment’s comparison to see what she meant.

“You’re right, it’s the same!” I said. “A note different here and there, but basically it’s exactly the same as the original theme of the Bach piece. How very peculiar!”

“Isn’t it?” she said, in tones of deep satisfaction. “Now, why is this anonymous composer stealing melodies and treating them in such an odd fashion?”

This was clearly a rhetorical question, and I didn’t bother with an answer, but asked one of my own.

“Is Bach’s music much in vogue these days, Mother?” I certainly hadn’t heard any at the musical salons I attended.

“No,” she said, shaking her head as she peered at the music. “Herr Bach is not well known in France; I believe he had some small popularity in Germany and in Austria fifteen or twenty years ago, but even there his music is not performed much publicly. I am afraid his music is not the sort to endure; clever, but no heart. Hmph. Now, see here?” The blunt forefinger tapped here, and here, and here, turning pages rapidly.

“He has repeated the same melody – almost – but changed the key each time. I think this is perhaps what attracted your husband’s notice; it is obvious even to someone who doesn’t read music, because of the changing signatures – the note tonique.”

It was; each key change was marked by a double vertical line followed by a new treble clef sign and the signature of sharps or flats.

“Five key changes in such a short piece,” she said, tapping the last one again for emphasis. “And changes that make no sense at all, in terms of music. Look, the basic line is precisely the same, yet we move from the key of two flats, which is B-flat major, to A-major, with three sharps. Stranger yet, now he goes to a signature of two sharps, and yet he uses the G-sharp accidental!”

“How very peculiar,” I said. Adding a G-sharp accidental to the section in D-major had the effect of making the musical line identical with the A-major section. In other words, there was no reason whatsoever to have changed the key signature.

“I don’t know German,” I said. “Can you read the words, Mother?”

She nodded, the folds of her black veil rustling with the movement, small eyes intent on the manuscript.

“What truly execrable lyrics!” she murmured to herself. “Not that one expects great poetry from Germans in general, but really… still-” She broke off with a shake of her veil. “We must assume that if your husband is correct in assuming this to be a cipher of some sort, that the message lies embedded in these words. They may therefore not be of great import in themselves.”

“What does it say?” I asked.

“ ‘My shepherdess frolics with her lambs among the verdant hills,’ ” she read. “Horrible grammar, though of course liberties are often taken in writing songs, if the lyricist insists upon the lines rhyming, which they nearly always do if it is a love song.”

“You know a lot about love songs?” I asked curiously. Full of surprises tonight, was Mother Hildegarde.

“Any piece of good music is in essence a love song,” she replied matter-of-factly. “But as for what you mean – yes, I have seen a great many. When I was a young girl” – she flashed her large white teeth in a smile, acknowledging the difficulty of imagining her as a child – “I was something of a prodigy, you understand. I could play from memory anything I heard, and I wrote my first composition at the age of seven.” She gestured at the harpsichord, the rich veneer shining with polish.

“My family has wealth; had I been a man, no doubt I would have been a musician.” She spoke simply, with no trace of regret.

“Surely you could still have composed music, if you’d married?” I asked curiously.

Mother Hildegarde spread her hands, grotesque in the lamplight. I had seen those hands wrench loose a dagger embedded in bone, guide a displaced joint back into alignment, cup the blood-smeared head of a child emerging from between its mother’s thighs. And I had seen those fingers linger on the ebony keys with the delicacy of moths’ feet.

“Well,” she said, after a moment’s contemplation, “it is the fault of St. Anselm.”

“It is?”

She grinned at my expression, her ugly face quite transformed from its stern public facade.

“Oh, yes. My godfather – the Old Sun King,” she added casually, “gave to me a book of the Lives of the Saints for my own Saint’s Day when I was eight. It was a beautiful book,” she said reminiscently, “with gilded pages and a jeweled cover; intended more as a work of art than a work of literature. Still, I read it. And while I enjoyed all of the stories – particularly those of the martyrs – still there was one phrase in the story of St. Anselm that seemed to strike a response in my soul.”

She closed her eyes and tilted back her head, recalling.

“St. Anselm was a man of great wisdom and great learning, a Doctor of the Church. But also a bishop, a man who cared for the people of his flock, and looked after their temporal needs as well as those of the spirit. The story detailed all of his works, and then concluded in these words – ‘And so he died, at the conclusion of an eminently useful life, and thus obtained his crown in Paradise.’ ” She paused, flexing her hands lightly on her knees.

“There was something about that that appealed most strongly to me. ‘An eminently useful life.’ ” She smiled at me. “I could think of many worse epitaphs than that, milady.” She spread her hands suddenly and shrugged, an oddly graceful gesture.

“I wished to be useful,” she said. Then, dismissing idle conversation, she turned abruptly back to the music on the rack.

“So,” she said. “Plainly the change in the key signatures – the note tonique – that is the oddity. Where can we go with that?”

My mouth dropped open with a small exclamation. Speaking in French as we had been, I hadn’t noticed before. But observing Mother Hildegarde as she told her story, I had been thinking in English, and when I glanced back at the music it hit me.

“What is it?” the nun asked. “You have thought of something?”

“The key!” I said, half-laughing. “In French, a musical key is the note tonique, but the word for an object that unlocks…” I pointed to the large bunch of keys – normally carried on her girdle – that Mother Hildegarde had laid aside on the bookshelf when we came in. “That is a passe-partout, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said, watching me in puzzlement. She touched the skeleton key in turn. “Une passe-partout. That one,” she said, pointing to a key with barrel and wards, “is more likely called a clef.”

“A clef!” I exclaimed joyously. “Perfect!” I stabbed a finger at the sheet of music before us. “See, ma mère, in English, the words are the same. A ‘key’ gives the basis of a piece of music, and a ‘key’ unlocks. In French, the clef is a key, and in English, the ‘clef’ is also part of the musical signature. And the key of the music is also the key to the cipher. Jamie said he thought it was an English cipher! Made by an Englishman with a really diabolical sense of humor, too,” I added.

With that small insight, the cipher proved not too difficult to unravel. If the maker was English, the ciphered message likely was in English, too, which meant that the German words were provided only as a source of letters. And having seen Jamie’s earlier efforts with alphabets and shifting letters, it took only a few tries to determine the pattern of the cipher.

“Two flats means you must take every second letter, starting from the beginning of the section,” I said, frantically scribbling down the results. “And three sharps means to take every third letter, beginning at the end of the section. I suppose he used German both for concealment and because it’s so bloody wordy; it takes nearly twice as many words to say the same thing as it would in English.”

“You have got ink on your nose,” Mother Hildegarde observed. She peered over my shoulder. “Does it make sense?”

“Yes,” I said, my mouth gone suddenly dry. “Yes, it makes sense.”

Deciphered, the message was brief and simple. Also deeply disturbing.

“His Majesty’s loyal subjects of England await his lawful restoration. The sum of fifty thousand pounds is at your disposal. As an earnest of good faith, this will be paid only in person, upon His Highness’s arrival on the soil of England,” I read. “And there’s a letter left over, an ‘S.’ I don’t know if that’s a signature of sorts, or only something the maker needed to make the German word come out right.”

“Hmph.” Mother Hildegarde glanced curiously at the scribbled message, then at me. “You will know already, of course,” she said, with a nod, “but you may assure your husband that I will keep this in confidence.”

“He wouldn’t have asked your help if he didn’t trust you,” I protested.

The sketchy brows rose to the edge of her wimple, and she tapped the scribbled paper firmly.

“If this is the sort of endeavor in which your husband engages, he takes considerable risk in trusting anyone. Assure him that I am sensible of the honor,” she added dryly.

“I’ll do that,” I said, smiling.

“Why, chère Madame,” she said, catching sight of me, “you are looking quite pale! I myself often stay awake far into the night when I am working on a new piece, so I tend to pay little attention to the hour, but it must be late for you.” She glanced at the hour-candle burning on the little table near the door.

“Gracious! It is growing late. Shall I summon Sister Madeleine to take you to your chamber?” Jamie had agreed, reluctantly, with Mother Hildegarde’s suggestion that I spend the night at the Couvent des Anges, so that I need not return home through the dark streets late at night.

I shook my head. I was tired, and my back ached from sitting on the stool, but I didn’t want to go to bed. The implications of the musical message were too disturbing to permit me to sleep right away, in any case.

“Well, then, let us take a little refreshment, in celebration of your accomplishment.” Mother Hildegarde rose and went to the outer room, where I heard the ringing of a bell. Shortly one of the serving sisters came, bearing a tray of hot milk and small, iced cakes, and followed by Bouton. The serving sister placed a cake on a small china plate and set it on the floor before him as a matter of course, laying beside it a bowl of milk.

While I sipped my own hot milk, Mother Hildegarde set aside the source of our labors, laying it on the secretary, and instead placed a loose sheaf of music manuscript on the rack of the harpsichord.

“I shall play for you,” she announced. “It will help to compose your mind for sleep.”

The music was light and soothing, with a singing melody that wove back and forth from treble voice to bass in a pattern of pleasing complexity, but without the driving force of Bach.

“Is that yours?” I asked, choosing a pause as she lifted her hands at the conclusion of the piece.

She shook her head without turning around.

“No. A friend of mine, Jean Philippe Rameau. A good theorist, but he does not write with great passion.”

I must have dozed, the music lulling my senses, for I woke suddenly to the murmur of Sister Madeleine’s voice in my ear, and her warm, firm grip under my arm, lifting me to my feet and leading me away.

Looking back, I could see the broad span of Mother Hildegarde’s black-swathed back, and the flex of powerful shoulders beneath the drape of her veil as she played, oblivious now to the world beyond the sanctum of her chamber. On the boards near her feet lay Bouton, nose on his paws, small body laid straight as the needle of a compass.

“So,” Jamie said, “it’s gone a little further than talk – maybe.”

“Maybe?” I echoed. “An offer of fifty thousand pounds sounds fairly definite.” Fifty thousand pounds, by current standards, was the yearly income of a good-sized duchy.

He raised one eyebrow cynically at the musical manuscript I had brought back with me from the convent.

“Aye, well. An offer like that is fairly safe, it it’s contingent on either Charles or James setting foot in England. If Charles is in England, it means he’s gotten sufficient backing from other places to get him to Scotland, first. No,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “what’s interesting about this offer is that it’s the first definite sign we’ve seen that the Stuarts – or one of them, at least – are actually making an effort at mounting a restoration attempt.”

“One of them?” I caught the emphasis. “You mean you think James isn’t in on this?” I looked at the coded message with even more interest.

“The message came to Charles,” Jamie reminded me, “and it came from England – not through Rome. Fergus got it from a regular messenger, in a packet marked with English seals; not from a papal messenger. And everything I’ve seen in James’s letters-” He shook his head, frowning. He hadn’t yet shaved, and the morning light caught random sparks of copper among the auburn stubble of his beard.

“The packet had been opened; Charles has seen this manuscript. There was no date on it, so I dinna ken how long ago it came to him. And of course, we don’t have the letters Charles has sent to his father. But there’s no reference in any of James’s letters to anyone who could possibly be the composer, let alone to any definite promises of support from England.”

I could see the direction in which he was heading.

“And Louise de La Tour was babbling about how Charles meant to have her marriage annulled and claim her as his wife, once he was king. So you think perhaps Charles wasn’t just talking through his hat to impress her?”

“Maybe not,” he said. He poured water from the bedroom ewer into the basin and laved his face with water, preparatory to shaving.

“So it’s possible that Charles is acting on his own?” I said, horrified and intrigued by the possibility. “That James has set him up for a masquerade of pretending to start a restoration attempt, in order to keep Louis impressed with the Stuarts’ potential value, but-”

“But Charles isn’t pretending?” Jamie interrupted. “Aye, that’s how it seems. Is there a towel there, Sassenach?” Eyes screwed shut and face dripping, he was patting about on the surface of the table. I moved the manuscript to safety and found the towel, draped over the foot of the bed.

He examined his razor critically, decided it would do, and leaned over my dressing table to look in the mirror as he applied shaving soap to his cheeks.

“Why is it barbaric of me to take the hair off my legs and armpits, and it isn’t barbaric for you to take it off your face?” I asked, watching him draw his upper lip down over his teeth as he scraped under his nose with tiny, delicate strokes.

“It is,” he replied, squinting at himself in the mirror. “But it itches like a fiend if I don’t.”

“Have you ever grown a beard?” I asked curiously.

“Not on purpose,” he replied, half-smiling as he scraped one cheek, “but I’ve had one now and then when I couldna help it – when I lived as an outlaw in Scotland. When it came to a choice between shaving in a cold burn with a dull razor every morning or itching, I chose to itch.”

I laughed, watching him draw the razor along the edge of his jawbone with one long sweep.

“I can’t imagine what you’d look like with a full beard. I’ve only seen you in the stubbly stage.”

He smiled on one side of his mouth, drawing the other up as he scraped under the high, broad cheekbone on that side.

“Next time we’re invited to Versailles, Sassenach, I’ll ask if we may visit the Royal zoo. Louis has a creature there that one of his sea-captains brought him from Borneo, called an orang-utan. Ever seen one?”

“Yes,” I said, “the zoo in London had a pair before the war.”

“Then you’ll know what I look like in a beard,” he said, smiling at me as he finished his shave with a careful negotiation of the curve of his chin. “Scraggly and moth-eaten. Rather like the Vicomte Marigny,” he added, “only red.”

As though the name had reminded him, he returned to the main topic of discussion, wiping the remains of soap off his face with the linen towel.

“So I suppose what we must do now, Sassenach,” he said, “is to keep a sharp eye out for Englishmen in Paris.” He picked up the manuscript off the bed and riffled the pages thoughtfully. “If anyone is actually willing to contemplate support on this scale, I think they might be sending an envoy to Charles. If I were risking fifty thousand pounds, I might like to see what I was getting for my money, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would,” I answered. “And speaking of Englishmen – does His Highness patriotically buy his brandywine from you and Jared, or does he by chance patronize the services of Mr. Silas Hawkins?”

“Mr. Silas Hawkins, who is so eager to know what the political climate is like in the Scottish Highlands?” Jamie shook his head at me admiringly. “And here I thought I married you because ye had a fair face and a fine fat arse. To think you’ve a brain as well!” He neatly dodged the blow I aimed at his ear, and grinned at me.

“I don’t know, Sassenach, but I will before the day is out.”

16 THE NATURE OF SULFUR

Prince Charles did purchase his brandywine from Mr. Hawkins. Beyond that discovery, though, we made little progress over the course of the next four weeks. Things continued much as before. Louis of France continued to ignore Charles Stuart. Jamie continued to run the wine business and to visit Prince Charles. Fergus continued to steal letters. Louise, Princesse de Rohan, appeared in public on the arm of her husband, looking doleful, but blooming. I continued to throw up in the mornings, work at the Hôpital in the afternoons, and smile graciously over the supper table in the evenings.

Two things happened, though, that looked like being progress toward our goal. Charles, bored at confinement, began to invite Jamie to go to taverns with him in the evenings – often without the restraining and discretionary presence of his tutor, Mr. Sheridan, who professed himself much too old for such revels.

“God, the man drinks like a fish!” Jamie had exclaimed, returning from one of these jaunts reeking of cheap wine. He examined a large stain on the front of his shirt critically.

“I’ll have to order a new shirt,” he said.

“Worth it,” I said, “if he tells you anything while he’s drinking. What does he talk about?”

“Hunting and women,” Jamie said succinctly, and declined firmly to elaborate further. Either politics did not weigh as heavily on Charles’s mind as did Louise de La Tour, or else he was capable of discretion, even in the absence of his tutor Mr. Sheridan.

The second thing that happened was that Monsieur Duverney, the Minister of Finance, lost at chess to Jamie. Not once, but repeatedly. As Jamie had foreseen, the effect of losing was merely to make Monsieur Duverney more determined to win, and we were invited frequently to Versailles, where I circulated, collecting gossip and avoiding alcoves, and Jamie played chess, generally collecting an admiring crowd to watch, though I didn’t myself consider it much of a spectator sport.

Jamie and the Minister of Finance, a small, round man with stooped shoulders, were bent over the chessboard, both apparently so intent on the game as to be oblivious to their surroundings, despite the murmur of voices and the clink of glasses just beyond their shoulders.

“I have seldom seen anything so wearisome as chess,” murmured one of the ladies to another. “Amusement, they call it! I should be more amused watching my maid pick fleas off the black pageboys. At least they squeal and giggle a bit.”

“I shouldn’t mind making the red-haired lad squeal and giggle a bit,” said her companion, smiling charmingly at Jamie, who had lifted his head and was gazing absently past Monsieur Duverney. Her companion caught sight of me, and dug the lady, a luscious blonde, in the ribs.

I smiled pleasantly at her, rather nastily enjoying the deep flush that rose from her low neckline, leaving her complexion in rosy blotches. As for Jamie, she could have twined her plump fingers in his hair for all the notice he would have paid, so abstracted did he seem.

I wondered just what was occupying his concentration. Surely it wasn’t the game; Monsieur Duverney played a dogged game of cautious positioning, but used the same gambits repeatedly. The middle two fingers of Jamie’s right hand moved slightly against his thigh, a brief flutter of quickly masked impatience, and I knew that whatever he was thinking of, it wasn’t the game. It might take another half-hour, but he held Monsieur Duverney’s king in the palm of his hand.

The Duc de Neve was standing next to me. I saw his dark little eyes fix on Jamie’s fingers, then flick away. He paused meditatively for a moment, surveying the board, then glided away to increase his wager.

A footman paused by my shoulder and dipped obsequiously, offering me yet another glass of wine. I waved him away; I had had enough during the evening that my head was feeling light and my feet dangerously far away.

Turning to look for a place to sit down, I caught sight of the Comte St. Germain across the room. Perhaps he was what Jamie had been looking at. The Comte in turn was looking at me; staring at me, in fact, with a smile on his face. It wasn’t his normal expression, and it didn’t suit him. I didn’t care for it at all, in fact, but bowed as graciously as I could in his direction, and then pushed off into the throng of ladies, chatting of this and that, but trying wherever possible to lead the conversation in the direction of Scotland and its exiled king.

By and large, the prospects for a Stuart restoration did not seem to be preoccupying the aristocracy of France. When I mentioned Charles Stuart now and then, the usual response was a rolling of the eyes or a shrug of dismissal. Despite the good offices of the Earl of Mar and the other Paris Jacobites, Louis was stubbornly refusing to receive Charles at Court. And a penniless exile who was not in the King’s favor was not going to find himself invited out in society to make the acquaintance of wealthy bankers.

“The King is not particularly pleased that his cousin should have arrived in France without seeking his permission,” the Comtesse de Brabant told me when I had introduced the topic. “He has been heard to say that England can stay Protestant, so far as he himself is concerned,” she confided. “And if the English burn in hell with George of Hanover, so much the better.” She pursed her lips in sympathy; she was a kindly sort. “I am sorry,” she said. “I know that must be disappointing to you and your husband, but really…” She shrugged.

I thought we might be able to accommodate this sort of disappointment, and scouted eagerly for further bits of gossip along these lines, but met with little success this evening. Jacobites, I was given to understand, were a bore.

“Rook to queen’s pawn five,” Jamie mumbled later that evening as we prepared for bed. We were staying as guests in the palace once more. As the chess game had lasted well past midnight, and the Minister would not hear of our undertaking the journey back to Paris at such an hour, we had been accommodated in a small appartement – this one a notch or two above the first, I noted. It had a featherbed, and a window overlooking the south parterre.

“Rooks, eh?” I said, sliding into the bed and stretching out with a groan. “Are you going to dream about chess tonight?”

Jamie nodded, with a jaw-cracking yawn that made his eyes water.

“Aye, I’m sure I will. I hope it willna disturb ye, Sassenach, if I castle in my sleep.”

My feet curled in the sheer joy of being unfettered and relieved of my increasing weight, and my lower spine sent out sharp jolts of a mildly pleasant pain as it readjusted to lying down.

“You can stand on your head in your sleep if you want,” I said, yawning myself. “Nothing will bother me tonight.”

I have seldom been more wrong.

I was dreaming of the baby. Grown almost to the birthing, it kicked and heaved in my swollen belly. My hands went to the mound, massaging the stretched skin, trying to quiet the turmoil within. But the squirming went on, and in the unexcited fashion of dreams, I realized that it was not a baby, but a snake that writhed in my belly. I doubled, drawing up my knees as I wrestled the serpent, my hands groping and pummeling, searching for the head of the beast that darted and thrust under my skin. My skin was hot to the touch, and my intestines coiled, turning into snakes themselves, biting and thrashing as they twined together.

“Claire! Wake up, lass! What’s amiss?” The shaking and calling roused me at last to a fuzzy apprehension of my surroundings. I was in bed, and it was Jamie’s hand on my shoulder, and the linen sheets over me. But the snakes continued to writhe in my belly, and I moaned loudly, the sound alarming me almost as much as it did Jamie.

He flung back the sheets and rolled me onto my back, trying to push my knees down. I stayed stubbornly rolled into a ball, clutching my stomach, trying to contain the pangs of sharp agony that stabbed through me.

He yanked the quilt back over me and rushed out of the room, barely pausing to snatch his kilt from the stool.

I had little attention to spare for anything other than my inner turmoil. My ears were ringing, and a cold sweat soaked my face.

“Madame? Madame!”

I opened my eyes enough to see the maid assigned to our appartement, eyes frantic and hair awry, bending over the bed. Jamie, half-naked and still more frantic, was behind her. I shut my eyes, groaning, but not before I saw him grab the maid by the shoulder, hard enough to shake her curls loose from her nightcap.

“Is she losing the child? Is she?”

It seemed extremely likely. I twisted on the bed, grunting, and doubled tighter, as though to protect the burden of pain I contained.

There was an increasing babble of voices in the room, mostly female, and a number of hands poked and prodded at me. I heard a male voice speaking amid the babble; not Jamie, someone French. At the voice’s direction, a number of hands fastened themselves to my ankles and shoulders and stretched me flat upon the bed.

A hand reached under my nightdress and probed my belly. I opened my eyes, panting, and saw Monsieur Flèche, the Royal Physician, kneeling by the bed as he frowned in concentration. I should have felt flattered at this evidence of the King’s favor, but had little attention to spare for it. The character of the pain seemed to be changing; while it grew stronger in spasms, it was more or less constant, and yet it seemed to be almost moving, traveling from somewhere high up in my abdomen to a lower spot.

“Not a miscarriage,” Monsieur Flèche was assuring Jamie, who hovered anxiously over his shoulder. “There is no bleeding.” I saw one of the attending ladies staring in rapt horror at the scars on his back. She grasped a companion by the sleeve, calling her attention to them.

“Perhaps an inflammation of the gallbladder,” Monsieur Flèche was saying. “Or a sudden chill of the liver.”

“Idiot,” I said through clenched teeth.

Monsieur Flèche stared haughtily down his rather large nose at me, belatedly adding his gold-rimmed pince-nez to increase the effect. He laid a hand upon my clammy brow, incidentally covering my eyes so that I could no longer glare at him.

“Most likely the liver,” he was saying to Jamie. “Impaction of the gallbladder causes this accumulation of bilious humors in the blood, which cause pain – and temporary derangement,” he added authoritatively, pressing down harder as I thrashed to and fro. “She should be bled at once. Plato, the basin!”

I yanked one hand free and batted the restraining hand off my head.

“Get away from me, you bloody quack! Jamie! Don’t let them touch me with that!” Plato, Monsieur Flèche’s assistant, was advancing upon me with lancet and basin, while the ladies in the background gasped and fanned each other, lest they be overcome with excitement at this drama.

Jamie, white-faced, glanced helplessly between me and Monsieur Flèche. Coming to a sudden decision, he grabbed the hapless Plato and pulled him back from the bed, turned him and propelled him toward the door, lancet stabbing the air. The maids and ladies fell back shrieking before him.

“Monsieur! Monsieur le chevalier!” The physician was expostulating. He had clapped his wig professionally upon his head when called, but had not taken time to dress, and the sleeves of his bedgown flapped like wings as he followed Jamie across the room, waving his arms like a demented scarecrow.

The pain increased once more, a vise squeezing my insides, and I gasped and doubled up once more. As it eased a bit, I opened my eyes and saw one of the ladies, her eyes fixed alertly on my face. A look of dawning realization passed over her features, and still looking at me, she leaned over to whisper to one of her companions. There was too much noise in the room to hear, but I read her lips clearly.

“Poison,” she said.

The pain shifted abruptly lower with an ominous interior gurgle, and I realized finally what it was. Not a miscarriage. Not appendicitis, still less a chilled liver. Nor was it poison, precisely. It was bitter cascara.

“You,” I said, advancing menacingly on Master Raymond, crouched defensively behind his worktable, beneath the protective aegis of his stuffed crocodile. “You! You bloody frog-faced little worm!”

“Me, madonna? I have done you no harm, have I?”

“Aside from causing me to have violent diarrhea in the presence of thirty-odd people, making me think I was having a miscarriage, and scaring my husband out of his skin, no harm at all!”

“Oh, your husband was present?” Master Raymond looked uneasy.

“He was,” I assured him. It was in fact with considerable difficulty that I had succeeded in preventing Jamie from coming up to the apothecary’s shop and extracting, by force, such information as Master Raymond possessed. I had finally persuaded him to wait with the coach outside, while I talked to the amphibious proprietor.

“But you aren’t dead, madonna,” the little herbalist pointed out. He had no brows to speak of, but one side of his wide, heavy forehead crinkled upward. “You could have been, you know.”

In the stress of the evening and the physical shakiness that followed, I had rather overlooked this fact.

“So it wasn’t just a practical joke?” I said, a little weakly. “Someone really meant to poison me, and I’m not dead only because you have scruples?”

“Perhaps my scruples are not entirely responsible for your survival, madonna; it is possible that it was a joke – I imagine there are other purveyors from whom one might obtain bitter cascara. But I have sold that substance to two persons within the last month – and neither of them asked for it.”

“I see.” I drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from my brow with my glove. So we had two potential poisoners loose; just what I needed.

“Will you tell me who?” I asked bluntly. “They might buy from someone else, next time. Someone without your scruples.”

He nodded, his wide, froggy mouth twitching in thought.

“It is a possibility, madonna. As for the actual purchasers, I doubt that information would help you. They were servants; plainly acting on the orders of a master. One was maid to the Vicomtesse de Rambeau; the other a man I did not recognize.”

I drummed my fingers on the counter. The only person who had made threats against me was the Comte St. Germain. Could he have hired an anonymous servant to procure what he thought was poison, and then slipped it into my glass himself? Casting my mind back to the gathering at Versailles, I thought it certainly possible. The goblets of wine had been passed around on trays by servants; while the Comte had not come within arm’s length of me himself, it would have been no great problem to bribe a servant to give me a particular glass.

Raymond was eyeing me curiously. “I would ask you, madonna, have you done something to antagonize la Vicomtesse? She is a very jealous woman; this would not be the first time she has sought my aid in disposing of a rival, though fortunately her jealousies are short-lived. The Vicomte has a roving eye, you understand – there is always a new rival to displace her thoughts of the last one.”

I sat down, uninvited.

“Rambeau?” I said, trying to attach the name to a face. Then the mists of memory cleared, revealing a stylishly dressed body and a homely round face, both liberally splashed with snuff.

“Rambeau!” I exclaimed. “Well, yes, I’ve met the man, but all I did was to smack him across the face with my fan when he bit my toes.”

“In some moods, that would be sufficient provocation for la Vicomtesse,” Master Raymond observed. “And if so, then I believe you are likely safe from further attacks.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “And if it wasn’t the Vicomtesse?”

The little apothecary hesitated for a moment, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the morning sun that shone through the lozenged panes behind me. Then he made up his mind, and turned toward the stone table where his alembics simmered, jerking his head at me to follow.

“Come with me, madonna. I have something for you.”

To my surprise, he ducked beneath the table and disappeared. As he didn’t come back, I bent down and peered under the table myself. A bed of charcoal was glowing on the hearth, but there was space to either side of it. And in the wall beneath the table, concealed by the shadows, was the darker space of an opening.

With only a little hesitation, I kilted up my skirts and waddled under the table after him.

On the other side of the wall, there was room to stand up, though the room was quite small. The building’s outer structure gave no hint of it.

Two walls of the hidden room were taken up by a honeycomb of shelves, each cell dustless and immaculate, each displaying the skull of a beast. The impact of the wall was enough to make me take a step backward; all the empty eyes seemed trained on me, teeth bared in gleaming welcome.

I blinked several times before I was able to locate Raymond, crouched cautiously at the foot of this ossuary like the resident acolyte. He held his arms raised nervously before him, eying me rather as though he expected me either to scream or to throw myself upon him. But I had seen sights a good deal more grisly than a mere rank of polished bone, and walked forward calmly to examine them more closely.

He had everything, it seemed. Tiny skulls, of bat, mouse and shrew, the bones transparent, little teeth spiked in pinpoints of carnivorous ferocity. Horses, from the huge Percherons, with massive scimitar-shaped jaws looking eminently suitable for flattening platoons of Philistines, down to the skulls of donkeys, as stubbornly enduring in their miniature curves as those of the enormous draft horses.

They had a certain appeal, so still and so beautiful, as though each object held still the essence of its owner, as if the lines of bone held the ghost of the flesh and fur that once they had borne.

I reached out and touched one of the skulls, the bone not cold as I would have expected, but strangely inert, as though the vanished warmth, long gone, hovered not far off.

I had seen human remains treated with far less reverence; the skulls of early Christian martyrs jammed cheek by bony jowl together in heaps in the catacombs, thigh bones tossed in a pile like jackstraws underneath.

“A bear?” I said, speaking softly. A big skull, this one, the canine teeth curved for ripping, but the molars oddly flattened.

“Yes, madonna.” Seeing that I was not afraid, Raymond relaxed. His hand floated out, barely skimming the curves of the blunt, solid skull. “You see the teeth? An eater of fish, of meat” – a small finger traced the long, wicked curve of the canine, the flat serrations of molar – “but a grinder of berries, of grubs. They seldom starve, because they will eat anything.”

I turned slowly from side to side, admiring, touching one here and there.

“They’re lovely,” I said. We spoke in quiet tones, as though to speak loudly might rouse the silent sleepers.

“Yes.” Raymond’s fingers touched them as mine did, stroking the long frontal bones, tracing the delicate squamosal arch of the cheek. “They hold the character of the animal, you see. You can tell much about what was, only from what is left.”

He turned over one of the smaller skulls, pointing out the swelling bulges on the underside, like small, thin-walled balloons.

“Here – the canal of the ear enters into these, so that the sounds echo within the skull. Hence the sharp ears of the rat, madonna.”

“Tympanic bullae,” I said, nodding.

“Ah? I have but little Latin. My names for such things are… my own.”

“Those…” I gestured upward. “Those are special, aren’t they?”

“Ah. Yes, madonna. They are wolves. Very old wolves.” He lifted down one of the skulls, handling it with reverent care. The snout was long and canid, with heavy canines and broad carnassial teeth. The sagittal crest rose stark and commanding from the back of the skull, testimony to the heavy muscles of the brawny neck that had once supported it.

Not a soft dull white like the other skulls, these were stained and streaked with brown, and shone glossy with much polishing.

“Such beasts are no more, madonna.”

“No more? Extinct, you mean?” I touched it once more, fascinated. “Where on earth did you get them?”

“Not on the earth, madonna. Under it. They came from a peat bog, buried many feet down.”

Looking closely, I could see the differences between these skulls and the newer, whiter ones on the opposite wall. These animals had been larger than ordinary wolves, with jaws that might have cracked the leg bones of a running elk or torn the throat from a fallen deer.

I shuddered slightly at the touch, reminded of the wolf I had killed outside Wentworth Prison, and its pack-mates who had stalked me in the icy twilight, barely six months ago.

“You do not care for wolves, madonna?” Raymond asked. “Yet the bears and the foxes do not trouble you? They also are hunters, eaters of flesh.”

“Yes, but not mine,” I said wryly, handing him back the age-dark skull. “I feel a good deal more sympathy with our friend the elk.” I patted the high jutting nose with some affection.

“Sympathy?” The soft black eyes regarded me curiously. “It is an unusual emotion to feel for a bone, madonna.”

“Well… yes,” I said, slightly embarrassed, “but they don’t really seem like just bones, you know. I mean, you can tell something about them, and get a feeling for what the animal was like, looking at these. They aren’t just inanimate objects.”

Raymond’s toothless mouth stretched wide, as though I had inadvertently said something that pleased him, but he said nothing in reply.

“Why do you have all these?” I asked abruptly, suddenly realizing that racks of animal skulls were hardly the usual appurtenances of an apothecary’s shop. Stuffed crocodiles, possibly, but not all this lot.

He shrugged good-naturedly.

“Well, they are company, of a sort, while I pursue my work.” He gestured toward a cluttered workbench in one corner. “And while they may talk to me of many things, they are not so noisy as to attract the attention of the neighbors. Come here,” he said, changing subjects abruptly. “I have something for you.”

I followed him toward a tall cabinet at the end of the room, wondering.

He was not a naturalist, certainly not a scientist, as I understood the term. He kept no notes, made no drawings, no records that others might consult and learn from. And yet I had the odd conviction that he wanted very much to teach me the things that he knew – a sympathy for bones, perhaps?

The cabinet was painted with a number of odd signs, tailed and whorled, among what appeared to be pentagons and circles; Cabbalistic symbols. I recognized one or two, from some of Uncle Lamb’s historical references.

“Interested in the Cabbala, are you?” I asked, eyeing the symbols with some amusement. That would account for the hidden workroom. While there was a strong interest in occult matters among some of the French literati and the aristocracy, it was an interest kept highly clandestine, for fear of the Church’s cleansing wrath.

To my surprise, Raymond laughed. His blunt, short-nailed fingers pressed here and there on the front of the cabinet, touching the center of one symbol, the tail of another.

“Well, no, madonna. Most Cabbalists tend to be rather poor, so I do not seek their company often. But the symbols do keep curious people out of my cabinet. Which, if you think of it, is no small power for a bit of paint to exercise. So perhaps the Cabbalists are right, after all, when they say these signs hold power?”

He smiled mischievously at me, as the cabinet door swung open. I could see that it was in fact a double cabinet; if a nosy person ignored the warning of the symbols and merely opened the door, he or she would no doubt see only the harmless contents of an apothecary’s closet. But if the proper sequence of hidden catches was pressed, then the inner shelves swung out as well, revealing a deep cavity behind them.

He pulled out one of the small drawers that lined the cavity, and upended it into his hand. Stirring the contents, he plucked out a single large white crystalline stone and handed it to me.

“For you,” he said. “For protection.”

“What? Magic?” I asked cynically, tilting the crystal from side to side in my palm.

Raymond laughed. He held his hand over the desk and let a handful of small colored stones trickle through his fingers, to bounce on the stained felt blotting-pad.

“I suppose you can call it so, madonna. Certainly I can charge more for it when I do.” One fingertip nudged a pale greenish crystal free from the pile of colored stones.

“They have no more – and surely no less – magic than the skulls. Call them the bones of the earth. They hold the essence of the matrix in which they grew, and whatever powers that held, you may find here as well.” He flicked a small yellowish nodule in my direction.

“Sulfur. Grind it with a few other small things, touch it with a match, and it will explode. Gunpowder. Is that magic? Or is it only the nature of sulfur?”

“I suppose it depends who you’re talking to,” I observed, and his face split in a delighted grin.

“If you ever seek to leave your husband, madonna,” he said, chuckling, “be assured that you won’t starve. I said you were a professional, did I not?”

“My husband!” I exclaimed, paling. My mind suddenly made sense of the muffled noises coming from the distant shop. There was a loud thump, as of a large fist brought down with considerable force on a countertop, and the deep rumble of a voice inclined to brook no interference made itself heard amid the babble of other sounds.

“Bloody Christ! I forgot Jamie!”

“Your husband is here?” Raymond’s eyes went wider even than usual, and had he not already been so pale, I imagine he would have gone white, too.

“I left him outside,” I explained, stooping to cross back through the secret opening. “He must have got tired of waiting.”

“Wait, madonna!” Raymond’s hand gripped my elbow, stopping me. He put his other hand over mine, the one that held the white crystal.

“That crystal, madonna. I said it is for your protection.”

“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently, hearing my name being shouted outside with increasing volume. “What does it do, then?”

“It is sensitive to poison, madonna. It will change color, in the presence of several harmful compounds.”

That stopped me. I straightened up and stared at him.

“Poison?” I said, slowly. “Then…”

“Yes, madonna. You may be still in some danger.” Raymond’s froglike face was grim. “I cannot say for sure, or from which direction, for I do not know. If I find out, be assured I will tell you.” His eyes flicked uneasily toward the entrance through the hearth. A thunder of blows sounded on the outer wall. “Assure your husband as well, please, madonna.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him, ducking under the low lintel. “Jamie doesn’t bite – I don’t think.”

“I was not worried about his teeth, madonna” came from behind me as I walked duckfooted over the ashes of the hearth.

Jamie, in the act of raising his dagger-hilt to hammer again on the paneling, caught sight of me emerging from the fireplace and lowered it.

“Och, there ye are,” he observed mildly. He tilted his head to one side, watching me brush soot and ashes from the hem of my gown, then scowled at the sight of Raymond peeping cautiously out from under the drying table.

“Ah, and there’s our wee toadling, as well. Has he some explanation, Sassenach, or had I best pin him up wi’ the rest?” Not taking his eyes off Raymond, he nodded toward the wall of the outer workshop, where a number of dried toads and frogs were pinned to a long strip of hanging felt.

“No, no,” I said hastily as Raymond made to duck back into his sanctuary. “He’s told me everything. In fact, he’s been most helpful.”

With some reluctance, Jamie put up his dirk, and I reached down a hand to draw Raymond out of hiding. He flinched slightly at the sight of Jamie.

“This man is your husband, madonna?” he asked, in the tones of someone hoping the answer would be “no.”

“Yes, of course,” I answered. “My husband, James Fraser, my lord Broch Tuarach,” I said, waving at Jamie, though I could scarcely have been referring to anyone else. I waved in the other direction. “Master Raymond.”

“So I gathered,” said Jamie dryly. He bowed and extended a hand toward Raymond, whose head reached a few inches past Jamie’s waist. Raymond touched the outstretched hand briefly and yanked his own back, unable to repress a mild shiver. I stared at him in amazement.

Jamie merely raised one eyebrow, then leaned back and settled himself against the edge of the table. He crossed his arms across his chest.

“All right, then,” he said. “What about it?”

I made most of the explanations, Raymond contributing only monosyllables of confirmation from time to time. The little apothecary seemed deprived of all his normal sly wit, and huddled on a stool near the fire, shoulders hunched in wariness. Only when I had finished with an explanation of the white crystal – and the presumed need for it – did he stir and seem to take on a little life once more.

“It is true, milord,” he assured Jamie. “I do not know, in fact, whether it is your wife or yourself that may be in danger, or perhaps the two of you together. I have heard nothing specific; only the name ‘Fraser,’ spoken in a place where names are seldom named in blessing.”

Jamie glanced sharply at him. “Aye? And you frequent such places, do you, Master Raymond? Are the people you speak of associates of yours?”

Raymond smiled, a little wanly. “I should be inclined to describe them more as a business rivals, milord.”

Jamie grunted. “Mmmphm. Aye, well, and anyone who tries something may get a bit more of a blessing than he’s bargained for.” He touched the dirk at his belt, and straightened up.

“Still, I thank ye for the warning, Master Raymond.” He bowed to the apothecary, but didn’t offer his hand again. “As for the other” – he cocked an eyebrow at me – “if my wife is disposed to forgive your actions, then it isna my place to say more about it. Not,” he added, “that I wouldna advise ye to pop back in your wee hole, the next time the Vicomtesse comes into your shop. Come along then, Sassenach.”

As we rattled toward the Rue Tremoulins, Jamie was silent, staring out the window of the coach as the stiff fingers of his right hand tapped against his thigh.

“A place where names are seldom named in blessing,” he murmured as the coach turned into the Rue Gamboge. “What might that be, I wonder?”

I remembered the Cabbalistic signs on Raymond’s cabinet, and a small shiver raised the hairs on my forearms. I remembered Marguerite’s gossip about the Comte St. Germain, and Madame de Ramage’s warning. I told Jamie about them, and what Raymond had said.

“He may regard it as paint and window dressing,” I finished, “but plainly he knows people who don’t, or who is he looking to keep out of his cabinet?”

Jamie nodded. “Aye. I’ve heard a bit – only a bit – about such goings-on around the Court. I paid no attention at the time, thinking it only silliness, but now I’ll find out a bit more.” He laughed, suddenly, and drew me close to his side. “I’ll set Murtagh to follow the Comte St. Germain. That’ll give the Comte a real demon to play with.”

17 POSSESSION

Murtagh was duly set to watch the comings and goings of the Comte St. Germain, but beyond reporting that the Comte entertained a remarkable number of persons in his home – of both sexes and all classes – detected nothing particularly mysterious. The Comte did have one visitor of note, though – Charles Stuart, who came one afternoon, stayed for an hour, and left.

Charles had begun to require Jamie’s company more frequently on his expeditions through the taverns and low places of the city. I personally thought this had more to do with Jules de La Tour de Rohan’s party, held to celebrate the announcement of his wife’s pregnancy, than it did with any sinister influence of the Comte’s.

These expeditions sometimes lasted well into the night, and I became accustomed to going to bed without Jamie, waking when he crawled in beside me, his body chilled with walking through the evening fog, and the smell of tobacco smoke and liquor clinging to his hair and skin.

“He’s so distraught about that woman that I dinna think he even remembers he’s the heir to the thrones of Scotland and England,” Jamie said, returning from one of these expeditions.

“Goodness, he must be upset,” I said, sarcastically. “Let’s hope he stays that way.”

A week later, though, I woke to the cold gray light of dawn to find the bed beside me still vacant, the coverlet flat and undisturbed.

“Is milord Broch Tuarach in his study?” I leaned over the banister in my nightgown, startling Magnus, who was passing through the lower hall. Perhaps Jamie had chosen to sleep on the sofa in the study, so as not to disturb me.

“No, milady,” he answered, staring up at me. “I came to unbolt the front door, and found that it had never been bolted. Milord did not come home last night.”

I sat down heavily on the top step. I must have looked rather alarming, because the elderly butler nearly sprinted up the stairs to me.

“Madame,” he said, anxiously chafing one of my hands. “Madame, are you all right?”

“I’ve been better, but it isn’t important. Magnus, send one of the footmen to Prince Charles’s house in Montmartre at once. Have him see if my husband is there.”

“At once, milady. And I will send Marguerite up to attend you, as well.” He turned and hurried down the stairs, the soft felt slippers he wore for his morning duties making a soft, shushing noise on the polished wood.

“And Murtagh!” I called after Magnus’s departing back. “My husband’s kinsman. Bring him to me, please!” The first thought that had sprung into my mind was that Jamie had perhaps stayed the night at Charles’s villa; the second, that something had happened to him, whether by accident or by someone’s deliberate intent.

“Where is he?” Murtagh’s cracked voice spoke at the foot of the stair. He had obviously just awakened; his face was creased from whatever he had been lying on, and there were bits of straw in the folds of his ratty shirt.

“How should I know?” I snapped. Murtagh always looked as though he suspected everyone of something, and being rudely wakened had not improved his habitual scowl. The sight of him was nonetheless reassuring; if anything rough was in the offing, Murtagh looked the person to be dealing with it.

“He went out with Prince Charles last night, and didn’t come back. That’s all I know.” I pulled myself up by the banister railing and smoothed down the silk folds of my nightgown. The fires had been lit, but hadn’t had time to warm the house, and I was shivering.

Murtagh rubbed a hand over his face to assist thought.

“Mphm. Has someone gone to Montmartre?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll wait ’til they come back with word. If Jamie’s there, well and good. If he isn’t, mayhap they’ll know when he parted company with His Highness, and where.”

“And what if they’re both gone? What if the Prince didn’t come home either?” I asked. If there were Jacobites in Paris, there were also those who opposed the restoration of the Stuart line. And while assassinating Charles Stuart might not assure the failure of a potential Scottish Rising – he did, after all, have a younger brother, Henry – it might go some way toward damping James’s enthusiasm for such a venture – if he had any to start with, I thought distractedly.

I remembered vividly the story Jamie had told me, of the attempt on his life during which he had met Fergus. Street assassinations were far from uncommon, and there were gangs of ruffians who hunted the Paris streets after dark.

“You’d best go dress yourself, lassie,” Murtagh remarked. “I can see the gooseflesh from here.”

“Oh! Yes, I suppose so.” I glanced down at my arms; I had been hugging myself as suppositions raced through my mind, but to little effect; my teeth were beginning to chatter.

“Madame! You will give yourself a chill, surely!” Marguerite came stumping rapidly up the stairs, and I allowed her to shoo me into the bedroom, glancing back to see Murtagh below, carefully examining the point of his dirk before ramming it home in its sheath.

“You should be in bed, Madame!” Marguerite scolded. “It isn’t good for the child, for you to let yourself be chilled like that. I will fetch a warming pan at once; where is your nightrobe? Get into it at once, yes, that’s right…” I shrugged the heavy woolen nightrobe over the thin silk of my nightgown, but ignored Marguerite’s clucking to go to the window and open the shutters.

The street outside was beginning to glow as the rising sun struck the upper facades of the stone houses along the Rue Tremoulins. There was a good deal of activity on the street, early as it was; maids and footmen engaged in scrubbing steps or polishing brass gate-fittings, barrowmen selling fruit, vegetables, and fresh seafood, crying their wares along the street, and the cooks of the great houses popping up from their basement doors like so many jinni, summoned by the cries of the barrowmen. A delivery cart loaded with coal clopped slowly along the street, pulled by an elderly horse who looked as though he would much rather be in his stable. But no sign of Jamie.

I at last allowed an anxious Marguerite to persuade me into bed, for the sake of warmth, but couldn’t go back to sleep. Every sound from below brought me to the alert, hoping that each footstep on the pavement outside would be followed by Jamie’s voice in the hall below. The face of the Comte St. Germain kept coming between me and sleep. Alone among the French nobility, he had some connection with Charles Stuart. He had, in all likelihood, been behind the earlier attempt on Jamie’s life… and on mine. He was known to have unsavory associations. Was it possible that he had arranged to have both Charles and Jamie removed? Whether his purposes were political or personal made little difference, at this point.

When at last the sound of steps below did come, I was so occupied with visions of Jamie lying in a gutter with his throat cut, that I didn’t realize he was home until the bedroom door opened.

“Jamie!” I sat up in bed with a cry of joy.

He smiled at me, then yawned immensely, making no effort to cover his mouth. I could see a goodly distance down his throat, and observed with relief that it wasn’t cut. On the other hand, he looked distinctly the worse for wear. He lay down on the bed next to me and stretched, long and rackingly, then settled with a half-contented groan.

“What,” I demanded, “happened to you?”

He opened one red-rimmed eye.

“I need a bath,” he said, and closed it again.

I leaned toward him and sniffed delicately. The nose detected the usual smoky smell of closed rooms and damp wool, underlying a truly remarkable combination of alcoholic stenches – ale, wine, whisky, and brandy – which matched the variety of stains on his shirt. And forming a high note to the mixture, a horrible cheap cologne, of a particularly penetrating and noxious pungency.

“You do,” I agreed. I scrambled out of bed and leaning out into the corridor, shouted for Marguerite, sending her on arrival for a hip bath and sufficient water to fill it. As a parting gift from Brother Ambrose, I had several cakes of a fine-milled hard soap, made with attar of roses, and told her to fetch those, as well.

As the maid set about the tedious business of bringing up the huge copper bath-cans, I turned my attention to the hulk on the bed.

I stripped off his shoes and stockings, then loosening the buckle of his kilt, I flipped it open. His hands went reflexively to his crotch, but my eyes were focused elsewhere.

“What,” I said again, “happened to you?”

Several long scratches marked his thighs, angry red welts against the pale skin. And high on the inside of one leg was what could be nothing other than a bite; the toothmarks were plainly visible.

The maid, pouring hot water, cast an interested eye at the evidence and thought fit to put in her tuppence at this delicate moment.

“Un petit chien?” she asked. A little dog? Or something else. While I was far from fluent in the idiom of the times, I had learned that les petits chiens often walked the street on two legs with painted faces.

“Out,” I said briefly in French, with a Head Matron intonation. The maid picked up the cans and left the room, pouting slightly. I turned back to Jamie, who opened one eye, and after a glance at my face, closed it again.

“Well?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he shuddered. After a moment, he sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, the stubble making a rasping noise. He cocked one ruddy eyebrow interrogatively. “I wouldna suppose a gently reared young lady such as yourself would be familiar wi’ an alternate meaning for the term soixante-neuf?”

“I’ve heard the term,” I said, folding my arms across my chest and regarding him with a certain amount of suspicion. “And may I ask just where you encountered that particular interesting number?”

“It was suggested to me – with some force – as a desirable activity by a lady I happened to meet last night.”

“Was that by any chance the lady who bit you in the thigh?”

He glanced down and rubbed the mark meditatively.

“Mm, no. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. That lady seemed preoccupied wi’ rather lower numbers. I think she meant to settle for the six, and the nine could go hang.”

“Jamie,” I said, tapping my foot in a marked manner, “where have you been all night?”

He scooped up a handful of water from the basin and splashed it over his face, letting the rivulets run down among the dark red hairs on his chest.

“Mm,” he said, blinking drops from his thick lashes, “well, let me see. First there was supper at a tavern. We met Glengarry and Millefleurs there.” Monsieur Millefleurs was a Parisian banker, while Glengarry was one of the younger Jacobites, chief of one sept of the MacDonell clan. A visitor in Paris, rather than a resident, he had been much in Charles’s company lately, by Jamie’s report. “And after supper, we went to the Duc di Castellotti’s, for cards.”

“And then?” I asked.

A tavern, apparently. And then another tavern. And then an establishment which appeared to share some of the characteristics of a tavern, but was embellished by the addition of several ladies of interesting appearance and even more interesting talents.

“Talents, eh?” I said, with a glance at the marks on his leg.

“God, they did it in public,” he said, with a reminiscent shudder. “Two of them, on the table. Right between the saddle of mutton and the boiled potatoes. With the quince jelly.”

“Mon dieu,” said the newly returned maid, setting down the fresh bathcan long enough to cross herself.

“You be quiet,” I said, scowling at her. I turned my attention back to my husband. “And then what?”

Then, apparently, the action had become somewhat more general, though still accomplished in fairly public fashion. With due regard to Marguerite’s sensibilities, Jamie waited until she had left for another round of water before elaborating further.

“…and then Castellotti took the fat one with red hair and the small blond one off to a corner, and-”

“And what were you doing all this time?” I broke in on the fascinating recitative.

“Watching,” he said, as though surprised. “It didna seem decent, but there wasna much choice about it, under the circumstances.”

I had been groping in his sporran as he talked, and now fished out not only a small purse, but a wide metal ring, embellished with a coat of arms. I tried it curiously on a finger; it was much larger than any normal ring, and hung like a quoit on a stick.

“Whoever does this belong to?” I asked, holding it out. “It looks like the Duc di Castellotti’s coat of arms, but whoever it belongs to must have fingers like sausages.” Castellotti was an etiolated Italian stringbean, with the pinched face of a man with chronic dyspepsia – no wonder, judging from Jamie’s story. Quince jelly, forsooth!

I glanced up to find Jamie blushing from navel to hairline.

“Er,” he said, taking an exaggerated interest in a mud stain on one knee, “it… doesna go on a man’s finger.”

“Then what… oh.” I looked at the circular object with renewed interest. “Goodness. I’ve heard of them before…”

“You have?” said Jamie, thoroughly scandalized.

“But I’ve never seen one. Does it fit you?” I reached out to try it. He clasped his hands reflexively over his private parts.

Marguerite, arriving with more water, assured him, “Ne vous en faîtes pas, Monsieur. J’en ai déjà vu un.” Don’t worry yourself, monsieur; I’ve already seen one.

Dividing a glare between me and the maid, he pulled a quilt across his lap.

“Bad enough to spend all night defending my virtue,” he remarked with some asperity, “without havin’ it subjected to comment in the morning.”

“Defending your virtue, hm?” I tossed the ring idly from hand to hand, catching it on opposing index fingers. “A gift, was it?” I asked, “or a loan?”

“A gift. Don’t do that, Sassenach,” he said, wincing. “It brings back memories.”

“Ah yes,” I said, eying him. “Now about those memories…”

“Not me!” he protested. “Surely ye dinna think I’d do such things? I’m a married man!”

“Monsieur Millefleurs isn’t married?”

“He’s not only married, he has two mistresses,” Jamie said. “But he’s French – that’s different.”

“The Duc di Castellotti isn’t French – he’s Italian.”

“But he’s a duke. That’s different, too.”

“Oh, it is, is it? I wonder if the Duchess thinks so.”

“Considering a few things the Duc claimed he learnt from the Duchess, I would imagine so. Isn’t that bath ready yet?”

Clutching the quilt about him, he lumbered from the bed to the steaming tub and stepped in. He dropped the quilt and lowered himself quickly, but not quite quickly enough.

“Enorme!” said the maid, crossing herself.

“C’est tout,” I said repressively. “Merci bien.” She dropped her eyes, blushed, and scuttled out.

As the door closed behind the maid, Jamie relaxed into the tub, high at the back to allow for lounging; the feeling of the times seemed to be that once having gone to the trouble of filling a bath, one might as well enjoy it. His stubbled face assumed an expression of bliss as he sank gradually lower into the steaming water, a flush of heat reddening his fair skin. His eyes were closed, and a faint mist of moisture gleamed across the high, broad cheekbones and shone in the hollows beneath his eyesockets.

“Soap?” he asked hopefully, opening his eyes.

“Yes, indeed.” I fetched a cake and handed it to him, then sat down on a stool alongside the bath. I watched for some time as he scrubbed industriously, fetching him a cloth and a pumice stone, with which he painstakingly rasped the soles of his feet and his elbows.

“Jamie,” I said at last.

“Aye?”

“I don’t mean to quarrel with your methods,” I said, “and we agreed that you might have to go to some lengths, but… did you really have to…”

“To what, Sassenach?” He had stopped washing and was watching me intently, head on one side.

“To… to…” To my annoyance, I was flushing as deeply as he was, but without the excuse of hot water.

A large hand rose dripping out of the water and rested on my arm. The wet heat burned through the thin fabric of my sleeve.

“Sassenach,” he said, “what do ye think I’ve been doing?”

“Er, well,” I said, trying and failing to keep my eyes away from the marks on his thigh. He laughed, though he didn’t sound truly amused.

“O ye of little faith!” he said sardonically.

I withdrew beyond his reach.

“Well,” I said, “when one’s husband comes home covered with bites and scratches and reeking with perfume, admits he’s spent the night in a bawdy house, and…”

“And tells ye flat-out he’s spent the night watching, not doing?”

“You didn’t get those marks on your leg from watching!” I snapped suddenly, then clamped my lips together. I felt like a jealous biddy, and I didn’t care for it. I had vowed to take it all calmly, like a woman of the world, telling myself that I had complete faith in Jamie and – just in case – that you can’t make omelets without breaking eggs. Even if something had happened…

I smoothed the wet spot on my sleeve, feeling the air chill through the cooling silk. I struggled to regain my former light tone.

“Or are those the scars of honorable combat, gained in defending your virtue?” Somehow the light tone didn’t quite come off. Listening to myself, I had to admit that the overall tone was really quite nasty. I was rapidly ceasing to care.

No slouch at reading tones of voice, Jamie narrowed his eyes at me and seemed about to reply. He drew in his breath, then apparently thought better of whatever he had been going to say and let it out again.

“Yes,” he said calmly. He fished about in the tub between his legs, coming up at length with the cake of soap, a roughly shaped ball of white slickness. He held it out on his palm.

“Will ye help me to wash my hair? His Highness vomited on me in the coach coming home, and I reek a bit, all things considered.”

I hesitated a moment, but accepted the olive branch, temporarily at least.

I could feel the solid curve of his skull under the thick, soapy hair, and the welt of the healed scar across the back of his head. I dug my thumbs firmly into his neck muscles, and he relaxed slightly under my hands.

The soap bubbles ran down across the wet, gleaming curves of his shoulders, and my hands followed them, spreading the slickness so that my fingers seemed to float on the surface of his skin.

He was big, I thought. Near him so much, I tended to forget his size, until I saw him suddenly from a distance, towering among smaller men, and I would be struck anew by his grace and the beauty of his body. But he sat now with his knees nearly underneath his chin, and his shoulders filled the tub from one side to the other. He leaned forward slightly to assist my ministrations, exposing the hideous scars on his back. The thick red welts of Jack Randall’s Christmas gift lay heavily over the thin white lines of the earlier floggings.

I touched the scars gently, my heart squeezed by the sight. I had seen those wounds when they were fresh, seen him driven to the edge of madness by torture and abuse. But I had healed him, and he had fought with all the power of a gallant heart to be whole once more, to come back to me. Moved by tenderness, I brushed the trailing ends of his hair aside, and bent to kiss the back of his neck.

I straightened abruptly. He felt my movement and turned his head slightly.

“What is it, Sassenach?” he asked, voice slow with drowsy contentment.

“Not a thing,” I said, staring at the dark-red blotches on the side of his neck. The nurses in the quarters at Pembroke used to conceal them with jaunty scarves tied about their necks the morning after their dates with soldiers from the nearby base. I always thought the scarves were really meant as a means of advertisement, rather than concealment.

“No, not a thing,” I said again, reaching for the ewer on the stand. Placed near the window, it was ice-cold to the touch. I stepped behind Jamie and upended it on his head.

I lifted the silk skirts of my nightdress to avoid the sudden wave that spilled over the side of the bath. He was sputtering from the cold, but too shocked yet to form any of the words I could see gathering force on his lips. I beat him to it.

“Just watched, did you?” I asked coldly. “I wouldn’t suppose you enjoyed it a bit, did you, poor thing?”

He thrust himself back in the tub with a violence that made the water slosh over the sides, splattering on the stone floor, and twisted around to look up at me.

“What d’ye want me to say?” he demanded. “Did I want to rut with them? Aye, I did! Enough to make my balls ache with not doing it. And enough to make me feel sick wi’ the thought of touching one of the sluts.”

He shoved the sopping mass of his hair out of his eyes, glaring at me.

“Is that what ye wanted to know? Are ye satisfied now?”

“Not really,” I said. My face was hot, and I pressed my cheek against the icy pane of the window, hands clenched on the sill.

“Who looks on a woman with lust in his heart hath committed adultery with her already. Is that how ye see it?”

“Is it how you see it?”

“No,” he said shortly. “I don’t. And what would ye do if I had lain wi’ a whore, Sassenach? Slap my face? Order me out of your chamber? Keep yourself from my bed?”

I turned and looked at him.

“I’d kill you,” I said through my teeth.

Both eyebrows shot up, and his mouth dropped slightly with incredulity.

“Kill me? God, if I found you wi’ another man, I’d kill him.” He paused, and one corner of his mouth quirked wryly.

“Mind ye,” he said, “I’d no be verra pleased wi’ you, either, but still, it’s him I’d kill.”

“Typical man,” I said. “Always missing the point.”

He snorted with a bitter humor.

“Am I, then? So you dinna believe me. Want me to prove it to ye, Sassenach, that I’ve lain wi’ no one in the last few hours?” He stood up, water cascading down the stretches of his long legs. The light from the window highlighted the reddish-gold hairs of his body and the steam rose off his flesh in wisps. He looked like a figure of freshly molten gold. I glanced briefly down.

“Ha,” I said, with the maximum of scorn it was possible to infuse into one syllable.

“Hot water,” he said briefly, stepping out of the tub. “Dinna worry yourself, it won’t take long.”

“That,” I said, with delicate precision, “is what you think.”

His face flushed still more deeply, and his hands curled involuntarily into fists.

“No reasoning wi’ you, is there?” he demanded. “God, I spend the night torn between disgust and agony, bein’ tormented by my companions for being unmanly, then come home to be tormented for being unchaste! Mallaichte bàs!”

Looking wildly about, he spotted his discarded clothing on the floor near the bed and lunged for it.

“Here, then!” he said, scrabbling for his belt. “Here! If lusting is adultery and you’ll kill me for adultery, then ye’d best do it, hadn’t ye!” He came up with his dirk, a ten-inch piece of dark steel, and thrust it at me, haft first. He squared his shoulders, presenting the broad expanse of his chest to me, and glared belligerently.

“Go ahead,” he insisted. “Ye dinna mean to be forsworn, I hope? Being so sensitive to your honor as a wife and all?”

It was a real temptation. My clenched hands quivered at my sides with the longing to take the dagger and plant it firmly between his ribs. Only the knowledge that, all his dramatizing aside, he certainly wouldn’t allow me to stab him, stopped me from trying. I felt sufficiently ridiculous, without humiliating myself further. I whirled away from him in a flurry of silk.

After a moment, I heard the clank of the dirk on the floorboards. I stood without moving, staring out of the window at the back courtyard below. I heard faint rustling sounds behind me, and glanced into the faint reflections of the window. My face showed in the windowpane as a smudged oval in a nimbus of sleep-snarled brown hair. Jamie’s naked figure moved dimly in the glass like someone seen underwater, searching for a towel.

“The towel is on the bottom shelf of the ewer-stand,” I said, turning around.

“Thank you.” He dropped the dirty shirt with which he had begun gingerly dabbing himself and reached for the towel, not looking at me.

He wiped his face, then seemed to make some decision. He lowered the towel and looked directly at me. I could see the emotions struggling for mastery on his face, and felt as though I were still looking into the mirror of the window. Sense triumphed in both of us at once.

“I’m sorry,” we said, in unison. And laughed.

The damp of his skin soaked through the thin silk, but I didn’t care.

Minutes later, he mumbled something into my hair.

“What?”

“Too close,” he repeated, moving back a bit. “It was too damn close, Sassenach, and it scared me.”

I glanced down at the dirk, lying forgotten on the floor.

“Scared? I’ve never seen anyone less scared in my life. You knew damned well I wouldn’t do it.”

“Oh, that.” He grinned. “No, I didna think you’d kill me, much as ye might like to.” He sobered quickly. “No, it was… well, those women. What I felt like with them. I didna want them, truly not…”

“Yes, I know,” I said, reaching for him, but he wasn’t stopping there. He held back from me, looking troubled.

“But the… the lusting, I suppose ye’d call it… that was… too close to what I feel sometimes for you, and it… well, it doesna seem right to me.”

He turned away, rubbing at his hair with the linen towel, so his voice came half-muffled.

“I always thought it would be a simple matter to lie wi’ a woman,” he said softly. “And yet… I want to fall on my face at your feet and worship you” – he dropped the towel and reached out, taking me by the shoulders – “and still I want to force ye to your knees before me, and hold ye there wi’ my hands tangled in your hair, and your mouth at my service… and I want both things at the same time, Sassenach.” He ran his hands up under my hair and gripped my face between them, hard.

“I dinna understand myself at all, Sassenach! Or maybe I do.” He released me and turned away. His face had long since dried, but he picked up the fallen towel and wiped the skin of his jaw with it, over and over. The stubble made a faint rasping sound against the fine linen. His voice was still quiet, barely audible from a few feet away.

“Such things – the knowledge of them, I mean – it came to me soon after… after Wentworth.” Wentworth. Where he had given his soul to save my life, and suffered the tortures of the damned in retrieving it.

“I thought at the first that Jack Randall had stolen a bit of my soul, and then I knew it was worse than that. All of it was my own, and had been all along; it was only he’d shown it to me, and made me know it for myself. That’s what he did that I canna forgive, and may his own soul rot for it!”

He lowered the towel and looked at me, face worn with the strains of the night, but eyes bright with urgency.

“Claire. To feel the small bones of your neck beneath my hands, and that fine, thin skin on your breasts and your arms… Lord, you are my wife, whom I cherish and I love wi’ all my life, and still I want to kiss ye hard enough to bruise your tender lips, and see the marks of my fingers on your skin.”

He dropped the towel. He raised his hands and held them trembling in the air before his face, then very slowly brought them down to rest on my head as though in benediction.

“I want to hold you like a kitten in my shirt, mo duinne, and still I want to spread your thighs and plow ye like a rutting bull.” His fingers tightened in my hair. “I dinna understand myself!”

I pulled my head back, freeing myself, and took a half-step backward. The blood seemed all to be on the surface of my skin, and a chill ran down my body at the brief separation.

“Do you think it’s different for me? Do you think I don’t feel the same?” I demanded. “That I don’t sometimes want to bite you hard enough to taste blood, or claw you ’til you cry out?”

I reached out slowly to touch him. The skin of his breast was damp and warm. Only the nail of my forefinger touched him, just below the nipple. Lightly, barely touching, I drew the nail upward, downward, circling round, watching the tiny nub rise hard amid the curling ruddy hairs.

The nail pressed slightly harder, sliding down, leaving a faint red streak on the fair skin of his chest. I was trembling all over by this time, but did not turn away.

“Sometimes I want to ride you like a wild horse, and bring you to the taming – did you know that? I can do it, you know I can. Drag you over the edge and drain you to a gasping husk. I can drive you to the edge of collapse and sometimes I delight in it, Jamie, I do! And yet so often I want” – my voice broke suddenly and I had to swallow hard before continuing – “I want… to hold your head against my breast and cradle you like a child and comfort you to sleep.”

My eyes were so full of tears that I couldn’t see his face clearly; couldn’t see if he wept as well. His arms went tight around me and the damp heat of him engulfed me like the breath of a monsoon.

“Claire, ye do kill me, knife or no,” he whispered, face buried in my hair. He bent and picked me up, carrying me to the bed. He sank to his knees, laying me amid the rumpled quilts.

“You’ll lie wi’ me now,” he said quietly. “And I shall use ye as I must. And if you’ll have your revenge for it, then take it and welcome, for my soul is yours, in all the black corners of it.”

The skin of his shoulders was warm with the heat of the bath, but he shivered as with cold as my hands traveled up to his neck, and I pulled him down to me.

And when I had at length taken my last revenge of him, I did cradle him, stroking back the roughened, half-dry locks.

“And sometimes,” I whispered to him, “I wish it could be you inside me. That I could take you into me and keep you safe always.”

His hand, large and warm, lifted slowly from the bed and cupped the small round swell of my belly, sheltering and caressing.

“You do, my own,” he said. “You do.”

I felt it for the first time while lying in bed the next morning, watching Jamie dress for the day. A tiny fluttering sensation, at once entirely familiar and completely new. Jamie had his back turned to me, as he wriggled into his knee-length shirt and stretched his arms, settling the folds of white linen across the breadth of his shoulders.

I lay quite still, waiting, hoping for it to come again. It did, this time as a series of infinitesimal quick movements, like the bursting of bubbles rising to the surface of a carbonated liquid.

I had a sudden memory of Coca-Cola; that odd, dark, fizzy American drink. I had tasted it once, while having supper with an American colonel, who served it as a delicacy – which it was, in wartime. It came in thick greenish bottles, smooth-ribbed and tapered, with a high-waisted nip to the glass, so that the bottle was roughly woman-shaped, with a rounded bulge just below the neck, swelling to a broader one farther down.

I remembered how the millions of tiny bubbles had rushed into the narrow neck when the bottle was opened, smaller and finer than the bubbles of champagne, bursting joyous in the air. I laid one hand very gently on my abdomen, just above the womb.

There it was. There was no sense of him, or her, as I had thought there might be – but there was certainly a sense of Someone. I wondered whether perhaps babies had no gender – physical characteristics aside – until birth, when the act of exposure to the outside world set them forever as one or the other.

“Jamie,” I said. He was tying back his hair, gathering it into a thick handful at the base of his neck and winding a leather lace about it. Head bent in the task, he looked up at me from under his brows and smiled.

“Awake, are ye? It’s early yet, mo duinne. Go back to sleep for a bit.”

I had been going to tell him, but something stopped me. He couldn’t feel it, of course, not yet. It wasn’t that I thought he wouldn’t care, but there was something about that first awareness that seemed suddenly private; the second shared secret between me and the child – the first being our knowledge of its existence, mine a conscious knowing, the embryo’s a simple being. The sharing of that knowledge linked us close as did the blood that passed through both of us.

“Do you want me to braid your hair for you?” I asked. When he went to the docks, sometimes he would ask me to plait his ruddy mane in a tight queue, proof against the tugging winds on deck and quay. He always teased that he would have it dipped in tar, as the sailors did, to solve the problem permanently.

He shook his head, and reached for his kilt.

“No, I’m going to call on His Highness Prince Charles today. And drafty as his house is, I think it wilna be blowing my hair in my eyes.” He smiled at me, coming to stand by the bed. He saw my hand lying on my stomach, and put his own lightly over it.

“Feeling all right, are ye, Sassenach? The sickness is better?”

“Much.” The morning sickness had in fact abated, though waves of nausea still assailed me at odd moments. I found I could not bear the smell of frying tripe with onions, and had had to ban this popular dish from the servants’ menu, since the smell crept from the basement kitchen like a ghost up the back stairs, to pop out at me unexpectedly when I opened the door of my sitting room.

“Good.” He raised my hand, and bent over to kiss my knuckles in farewell. “Go back to sleep, mo duinne,” he repeated.

He closed the door gently behind him, as though I were already sleeping, leaving me to the early morning silence of the chamber, with the small busy noises of the household safely barred by paneled oak.

Squares of pale sunlight from the casement window lay bright on the opposite wall. It would be a beautiful day, I could tell, the spring air ripening with warmth, and the plum blossoms bursting pink and white and bee-rich in the gardens of Versailles. The courtiers would be outside in the gardens today, rejoicing in the weather as much as the barrowmen who wheeled their wares through the streets.

So did I rejoice, alone and not alone, in my peaceful cocoon of warmth and quiet.

“Hello,” I said softly, one hand over the butterfly wings that beat inside me.