"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 nak*d 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 br**sts were growing fuller, and more sensitive by the day; my n**ples 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 br**sts 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."