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.