A Trail of Fire (Lord John Grey #3.5)(40)
Author: Diana Gabaldon

‘He is beautiful, no?’ Fabienne saw his admiration, and basked a little in it. ‘Did I ever tell you where I got him?’

‘Yes, more than once. And more than one story, too.’ She looked startled, and he compressed his lips. He’d been patronising her establishment for no more than a few weeks, this time. He’d known her fifteen years before – though only a couple of months, that time. He hadn’t given his name then, and a madam saw so many men that there was little chance of her recalling him. On the other hand, he also thought it unlikely that she troubled to recall to whom she’d told which story, and this seemed to be the case, for she lifted one shoulder in a surprisingly graceful shrug, and laughed.

‘Yes, but this one is true.’

‘Oh, well, then.’ He smiled, and reaching into the bag, tossed Leopold another rat. The snake moved more slowly this time, and didn’t bother to constrict its motionless prey, merely unhinging its jaw and engulfing it in a single-minded way.

‘He is an old friend, Leopold,’ she said, gazing affectionately at the snake. ‘I brought him with me from the West Indies, many years ago. He is a Mystère, you know.’

‘I didn’t, no.’ Rakoczy drank more wine; he had sat long enough that he was beginning to feel almost sober again. ‘And what is that?’ He was interested – not so much in the snake, but in Fabienne’s mention of the West Indies. He’d forgotten that she claimed to have come from there, many years ago, long before he’d known her the first time.

The afile powder had been waiting in his laboratory when he’d come back; no telling how many years it had sat there – the servants couldn’t recall. Mélisande’s brief note – ‘Try this. It may be what the frog used.’ – had not been dated, but there was a brief scrawl at the top of the sheet, saying ‘Rose Hall, Jamaica.’ If Fabienne retained any connections in the West Indies, perhaps . . .

‘Some call them loa,’ her wrinkled lips pursed as she kissed the word, ‘but those are the Africans. A Mystère is a spirit, one who is an intermediary between the Bondye and us. Bondye is le bon Dieu, of course,’ she explained to him. ‘The African slaves speak very bad French. Give him another rat; he’s still hungry, and it scares the girls if I let him hunt in the house.’

The third rat had made another bulge; the snake was beginning to look like a fat string of pearls, and was showing an inclination to lie still, digesting. The tongue still flickered, tasting the air, but lazily now.

Rakoczy picked up the bag again, weighing the risks – but after all, if news came from the Court of Miracles, his name would soon be known in any case.

‘I wonder, madame – as you know everyone in Paris – ’ he gave her a small bow, which she graciously returned, ‘are you acquainted with a certain man known as Maître Raymond? Some call him “the frog”,’ he added.

She blinked, then looked amused.

‘You’re looking for the frog?’

‘Yes. Is that funny?’ He reached into the sack, fishing for a rat.

‘Somewhat. I should perhaps not tell you, but since you are so accommodating . . .’ she glanced complacently at the purse he had put beside her tea-bowl, a generous deposit on account, ‘Maître Grenouille is looking for you.’

He stopped dead, hand clutching a furry body.

‘What? You’ve seen him?’

She shook her head, and setting down her empty glass, rang the bell for her maid.

‘No, but I’ve heard the same from two people.’

‘Asking for me by name?’ Rakoczy’s heart beat faster.

‘Monsieur le Comte St Germain. That is you?’ She asked with no more than mild interest; false names were common in her business.

He nodded, mouth suddenly too dry to speak, and pulled the rat from the sack. It squirmed suddenly in his hand, and a piercing pain in his thumb made him hurl the rodent away.

‘Sacrebleu! It bit me!’

The rat, dazed by impact, staggered drunkenly across the floor toward Leopold, whose tongue began to flicker faster. Fabienne, though, uttered a sound of disgust and threw a silver-backed hairbrush at the rat. Startled by the sudden clatter, the rat leapt convulsively into the air, landed on and raced directly over the snake’s astonished head, disappearing through the door into the foyer, where – by the resultant scream – it evidently encountered the maid before making its ultimate escape into the street.

‘Jésus Marie,’ Madame Fabienne said, piously crossing herself. ‘A miraculous resurrection. Two months past Easter, too.’

It was a smooth passage; the shore of France came into sight just after dawn next day. Joan saw it, a low smudge of dark green on the horizon, and felt a little thrill at the sight, in spite of her tiredness.

She hadn’t slept, though she’d reluctantly gone below after nightfall, there to wrap herself in her cloak and shawl, trying not to look at the young man with the shadow on his face. She’d lain all night, listening to the snores and groans of her fellow-passengers, praying doggedly and wondering in despair whether prayer was the only thing she could do to help.

She often wondered whether it was because of her name. She’d been proud of her name when she was small; it was a heroic name, a saint’s name, but also a warrior’s name. Her mother’d told her that, often and often. She didn’t think her mother had considered that the name might also be haunted.

Surely it didn’t happen to everyone named Joan, though, did it? She wished she knew another Joan to ask. Because if it did happen to them all, the others would be keeping it quiet, just like she did.

You just didn’t go round telling people that you heard voices that weren’t there. Still less, that you saw things that weren’t there, either. You just didn’t.

She’d heard of a seer, of course; everyone in the Highlands had. And nearly everyone she knew at least claimed to have seen the odd fetch or had a premonition that Angus MacWheen was dead when he didn’t come home that time last winter. The fact that Angus MacWheen was a filthy auld drunkard and so yellow and crazed that it was heads or tails whether he’d die on any particular day, let alone when it got cold enough that the loch froze, didn’t come into it.

But she’d never met a seer; there was the rub. How did you get into the way of it? Did you just tell folk, ‘Here’s a thing . . . I’m a seer,’ and they’d nod and say, ‘Oh, aye, of course; what’s like to happen to me next Tuesday?’ More important, though, how the devil—

‘Ow!’ She’d bitten her tongue fiercely as penance for the inadvertent blasphemy, and clapped a hand to her mouth.

‘What is it?’ said a concerned voice behind her. ‘Are ye hurt, Miss MacKimmie? Er . . . Sister Gregory, I mean?’

‘Mm! No. No, I justh . . . bit my tongue.’ She turned to Michael Murray, gingerly touching the injured tongue to the roof of her mouth.

‘Well, that happens when ye talk to yourself.’ He took the cork from a bottle he was carrying and held the bottle out to her. ‘Here, wash your mouth wi’ that; it’ll help.’

She took a large mouthful and swirled it round; it burned the bitten place, but not badly, and she swallowed, as slowly as possible, to make it last.

‘Jesus, Mary, and Bride,’ she breathed. ‘Is that wine?’ The taste in her mouth bore some faint kinship with the liquid she knew as wine – just like apples bore some resemblance to horse turds.

‘Aye, it is pretty good,’ he said modestly. ‘German. Umm . . . have a wee nip more?’

She didn’t argue, and sipped happily, barely listening to his talk, telling about the wine, what it was called, how they made it in Germany, where he got it . . . on and on. Finally she came to herself enough to remember her manners, though, and reluctantly handed back the bottle, now half-empty.

‘I thank ye, sir,’ she said primly. ‘’Twas kind of ye. Ye needna waste your time in bearing me company, though; I shall be well enough alone.’

‘Aye, well . . . it’s no really for your sake,’ he said, and took a reasonable swallow himself. ‘It’s mine.’

She blinked against the wind. He was flushed, but not from drink or wind, she thought.

She managed a faint interrogative, ‘Ah . . . ?’

‘Well, what I want to ask,’ he blurted, and looked away, cheekbones burning red. ‘Will ye pray for me? Sister? And my— my wife. The repose of— of—’

‘Oh!’ she said, mortified that she’d been so taken up with her own worries as not to have seen his distress. Think you’re a seer, dear Lord, ye dinna see what’s under your neb; you’re no but a fool, and a selfish fool at that. She put her hand over his where it lay on the rail and squeezed tight, trying to channel some sense of God’s goodness into his flesh.

‘To be sure I will!’ she said. ‘I’ll remember ye at every Mass, I swear it!’ She wondered briefly whether it was proper to swear to something like that, but after all . . . ‘And your poor wife’s soul, of course I will! What . . . er . . . what was her name? So as I’ll know what to say when I pray for her,’ she explained hurriedly, seeing his eyes narrow with pain.

‘Lilliane,’ he said, so softly that she barely heard him over the wind. ‘I called her Lillie.’

‘Lilliane,’ she repeated carefully, trying to form the syllables like he did. It was a soft, lovely name, she thought, slipping like water over the rocks at the top of a burn. You’ll never see a burn again, she thought with a sudden pang, but dismissed this, turning her face toward the growing shore of France. ‘I’ll remember.’

He nodded in mute thanks, and they stood for some little while, until she realised that her hand was still resting on his, and drew it back with a jerk. He looked startled, and she blurted – because it was the thing on the top of her mind – ‘What was she like? Your wife?’

The most extraordinary mix of emotions flooded over his face. She couldn’t have said what was uppermost, grief, laughter, or sheer bewilderment, and she realised suddenly just how little of his true mind she’d seen before.

‘She was . . .’ He shrugged, and swallowed. ‘She was my wife,’ he said, very softly. ‘She was my life.’

She should know something comforting to say to him, but she didn’t.

She’s with God? That was the truth, she hoped, and yet clearly to this young man, the only thing that mattered was that his wife was not with him.

‘What happened to her?’ she asked instead, baldly, only because it seemed necessary to say something.

He took a deep breath and seemed to sway a little; he’d finished the rest of the wine, she saw, and took the empty bottle from his hand, tossing it overboard.

‘The influenza. They said it was quick. Didn’t seem quick to me – and yet, it was, I suppose it was. It took two days, and God kens well that I recall every second of those days – yet it seems that I lost her between one heartbeat and the next. And I— I keep lookin’ for her there, in that space between.’