Seven Stones to Stand or Fall

  “I’ve nay appetite, cousin,” he managed to say, before turning away. “Excuse me.”

  He would have left, but he hesitated that moment too long, not wanting to go up to the room where Lillie no longer was but not wanting to look petulant by rushing out into the street. Jared rose and came round to him with a decided step.

  “I’m nay verra hungry myself, a charaid,” Jared said, taking him by the arm. “Come sit wi’ me for a bit and take a dram. It’ll settle your wame.”

  He didn’t much want to, but there was nothing else he could think of doing, and within a few moments he found himself in front of a fragrant applewood fire, with a glass of his father’s whisky in hand, the warmth of both easing the tightness of chest and throat. It wouldn’t cure his grief, he knew, but it made it possible to breathe.

  “Good stuff,” Jared said, sniffing cautiously but approvingly. “Even raw as it is. It’ll be wonderful aged a few years.”

  “Aye. Uncle Jamie kens what he’s about; he said he’d made whisky a good many times in America.”

  Jared chuckled.

  “Your uncle Jamie usually kens what he’s about,” he said. “Not that knowing it keeps him out o’ trouble.” He shifted, making himself more comfortable in his worn leather chair. “Had it not been for the Rising, he’d likely have stayed here wi’ me. Aye, well…” The old man sighed with regret and lifted his glass, examining the spirit. It was still nearly as pale as water—it hadn’t been casked above a few months—but had the slightly viscous look of a fine strong spirit, as if it might climb out of the glass if you took your eye off it.

  “And if he had, I suppose I’d not be here myself,” Michael said dryly.

  Jared glanced at him, surprised.

  “Och! I didna mean to say ye were but a poor substitute for Jamie, lad.” He smiled crookedly, and his hooded eyes grew moist. “Not at all. Ye’ve been the best thing ever to come to me. You and dear wee Lillie, and…” He cleared his throat. “I…well, I canna say anything that will help, I ken that. But…it won’t always be like this.”

  “Won’t it?” Michael said bleakly. “Aye, I’ll take your word for it.” A silence fell between them, broken only by the hissing and snap of the fire. The mention of Lillie was like an awl digging into his breastbone, and he took a deeper sip of the whisky to quell the ache. Maybe Jared was right to mention the drink to him. It helped, but not enough. And the help didn’t last. He was tired of waking to grief and headache both.

  Shying away from thoughts of Lillie, his mind fastened on Uncle Jamie instead. He’d lost his wife, too, and from what Michael had seen of the aftermath, it had torn his soul in two. Then she’d come back to him, and he was a man transformed. But in between…he’d managed. He’d found a way to be.

  Thinking of Auntie Claire gave him a slight feeling of comfort: as long as he didn’t think too much about what she’d told the family, who—or what—she was, and where she’d been while she was gone those twenty years. The brothers and sisters had talked among themselves about it afterward; Young Jamie and Kitty didn’t believe a word of it, Maggie and Janet weren’t sure—but Young Ian believed it, and that counted for a lot with Michael. And she’d looked at him—right at him—when she said what was going to happen in Paris. He felt the same small thrill of horror now, remembering. The Terror. That’s what it will be called, and that’s what it will be. People will be arrested for no cause and beheaded in the Place de la Concorde. The streets will run with blood, and no one—no one—will be safe.

  He looked at his cousin; Jared was an old man, though still hale enough. Michael knew there was no way he could persuade Jared to leave Paris and his wine business. But it would be some time yet—if Auntie Claire was right. No need to think about it now. But she’d seemed so sure, like a seer, talking from a vantage point after everything had happened, from a safer time.

  And yet she’d come back from that safe time, to be with Uncle Jamie again.

  For a moment, he entertained the wild fantasy that Lillie wasn’t dead but only swept away into a distant time. He couldn’t see or touch her, but the knowledge that she was doing things, was alive…maybe it was knowing that, thinking that, that had kept Uncle Jamie whole. He swallowed, hard.

  “Jared,” he said, clearing his own throat. “What did ye think of Auntie Claire? When she lived here?”

  Jared looked surprised but lowered his glass to his knee, pursing his lips in thought.

  “She was a bonny lass, I’ll tell ye that,” he said. “Verra bonny. A tongue like the rough side of a rasp, if she took against something, though—and decided opinions.” He nodded, twice, as though recalling a few, and grinned suddenly. “Verra decided indeed!”

  “Aye? The goldsmith—Rosenwald, ye ken?—mentioned her when I went to commission the chalice and he saw her name on the list. He called her La Dame Blanche.” This last was not phrased as a question, but he gave it a slight rising inflection, and Jared nodded, his smile widening into a grin.

  “Oh, aye, I mind that! ’Twas Jamie’s notion. She’d find herself now and then in dangerous places without him—ken how some folk are just the sort as things happen to—so he put it about that she was La Dame Blanche. Ken what a White Lady is, do ye?”

  Michael crossed himself, and Jared followed suit, nodding.

  “Aye, just so. Make any wicked sod with villainy in mind think twice. A White Lady can strike ye blind or shrivel a man’s balls, and likely a few more things than that, should she take the notion. And I’d be the last to say that Claire Fraser couldn’t, if she’d a mind to.” Jared raised the glass absently to his lips, took a bigger sip of the raw spirit than he’d meant to, and coughed, spraying droplets of memorial whisky halfway across the room.

  Rather to his own shock, Michael laughed.

  Jared wiped his mouth, still coughing, but then sat up straight and lifted his glass, which still held a few drops.

  “To your da. Slàinte mhath!”

  “Slàinte!” Michael echoed, and drained what remained in his own glass. He set it down with finality and rose. He’d drink nay more tonight.

  “Oidhche mhath, mo bràthair-athar no mathar.”

  “Good night, lad,” said Jared. The fire was burning low but still cast a warm ruddy glow on the old man’s face. “Fare ye well.”

  Next night

  MICHAEL DROPPED HIS key several times before finally managing to turn it in the old-fashioned lock. It wasn’t drink; he’d not had a drop since the wine at supper. Instead, he’d walked the length of the city and back, accompanied only by his thoughts; his whole body quivered and he felt mindless with exhaustion, but he was sure he would sleep. Jean-Baptiste had left the door unbarred, according to his orders, but one of the footmen was sprawled on a settle in the entryway, snoring. He smiled a little, though it was an effort to raise the corners of his mouth.

  “Bolt the door and go to bed, Alphonse,” he whispered, bending and shaking the man gently by the shoulder. The footman stirred and snorted, but Michael didn’t wait to see whether he woke entirely. There was a tiny oil lamp burning on the landing of the stairs, a little round glass globe in the gaudy colors of Murano. It had been there since the first day he came from Scotland to stay with Jared, years before, and the sight of it soothed him and drew his aching body up the wide, dark stair.

  The house creaked and talked to itself at night; all old houses did. Tonight, though, it was silent, the big copper-seamed roof gone cold and its massive timbers settled into somnolence.

  He flung off his clothes and crawled naked into bed, head spinning. Tired as he was, his flesh quivered and twitched, his legs jerking like a spitted frog’s, before he finally relaxed enough to fall headfirst into the seething cauldron of dreams that awaited him.

  She was there, of course. Laughing at him, playing with her ridiculous pug. Running a hand filled with desire across his face, down his neck, easing her body close, and closer. Then they were somehow in bed, with the wind blowing cool through gauzy curtains, too c
ool, he felt cold, but then her warmth came close, pressed against him. He felt a terrible desire but at the same time feared her. She felt utterly familiar, utterly strange—and the mixture thrilled him.

  He reached for her and realized that he couldn’t raise his arms, couldn’t move. And yet she was against him, writhing in a slow squirm of need, greedy and tantalizing. In the way of dreams, he was at the same time in front of her, behind her, touching, and seeing from a distance. Candle glow on naked breasts, the shadowed weight of solid buttocks, falling drapes of parting white, one round, firm leg protruding, a pointed toe rooting gently between his legs. Urgency.

  She was curled behind him then, kissing the back of his neck, and he reached back, groping, but his hands were heavy, drifting; they slid helpless over her. Hers on him were firm, more than firm—she had him by the cock, was working him. Working him hard, fast and hard. He bucked and heaved, suddenly released from the dream swamp of immobility. She loosed her grip, tried to pull away, but he folded his hand round hers and rubbed their folded hands hard up and down with joyous ferocity, spilling himself convulsively, hot wet spurts against his belly, running thick over their clenched knuckles.

  She made a sound of horrified disgust, and his eyes flew open. Staring into them were a pair of huge, bugging eyes, over a gargoyle’s mouth full of tiny, sharp teeth. He shrieked.

  Plonplon leaped off the bed and ran to and fro, barking hysterically. There was a body behind him. Michael flung himself off the bed, tangled in a winding sheet of damp, sticky bedclothes, then fell and rolled in panic.

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!”

  On his knees, he gaped, rubbed his hands hard over his face, shook his head. Could not make sense of it, couldn’t.

  “Lillie,” he gasped. “Lillie!”

  But the woman in his bed, tears running down her face, wasn’t Lillie; he realized it with a wrench that made him groan, doubling up in the desolation of fresh loss.

  “Oh, Jesus!”

  “Michel, Michel, please, please forgive me!”

  “You…what…for God’s sake…!”

  Léonie was weeping frantically, reaching out toward him.

  “I couldn’t help it. I’m so lonely, I wanted you so much!”

  Plonplon had ceased barking and now came up behind Michael, nosing his bare backside with a blast of hot, moist breath.

  “Va-t’en!”

  The pug backed up and started barking again, eyes bulging with offense.

  Unable to find any words suitable to the situation, he grabbed the dog and muffled it with a handful of sheet. He got unsteadily to his feet, still holding the squirming pug.

  “I—” he began. “You—I mean…oh, Jesus Christ!” He leaned over and put the dog carefully on the bed. Plonplon instantly wriggled free of the sheet and rushed to Léonie, licking her solicitously. Michael had thought of giving her the dog after Lillie’s death, but for some reason this had seemed a betrayal of the pug’s former mistress and brought Michael near to weeping.

  “I can’t,” he said simply. “I just can’t. You go to sleep now, lass. We’ll talk about it later, aye?”

  He went out, walking carefully, as though very drunk, and closed the door gently behind him. He got halfway down the main stair before realizing he was naked. He stood there, his mind blank, watching the colors of the Murano lamp fade as the daylight grew outside, until Paul saw him and ran up to wrap him in a cloak and lead him off to a bed in one of the guest rooms.

  RAKOCZY’S FAVORITE gaming club was the Golden Cockerel, and the wall in the main salon was covered by a tapestry featuring one of these creatures, worked in gold thread, wings spread, and throat swollen as it crowed in triumph at the winning hand of cards laid out before it. It was a cheerful place, catering to a mix of wealthy merchants and lesser nobility, and the air was spicy with the scents of candle wax, powder, perfume, and money.

  He’d thought of going to the offices of Fraser et Cie, making some excuse to speak to Michael Murray, and maneuvering his way into an inquiry about the whereabouts of the young man’s aunt. Upon consideration, though, he thought such a move might make Murray wary—and possibly lead to word getting back to the woman, if she was somewhere in Paris. That was the last thing he wanted to happen.

  Better, perhaps, to instigate his inquiries from a more discreet distance. He’d learned that Murray occasionally came to the Cockerel, though he himself had never seen him there. But if he was known…

  It took several evenings of play, wine, and conversation before he found Charles Pépin. Pépin was a popinjay, a reckless gambler, and a man who liked to talk. And to drink. He was also a good friend of the young wine merchant’s.

  “Oh, the nun!” he said, when Rakoczy had—after the second bottle—mentioned having heard that Murray had a young relative who had recently entered the convent. Pépin laughed, his handsome face flushed.

  “A less likely nun I’ve never seen—an arse that would make the archbishop of Paris forget his vows, and he’s eighty-six if he’s a day. Doesn’t speak any sort of French, poor thing—the girl, not the archbishop. Not that I for one would be wanting to carry on a lot of conversation if I had her to myself, you understand….She’s Scotch; terrible accent…”

  “Scotch, you say.” Rakoczy held a card consideringly, then put it down. “She is Murray’s cousin—would she perhaps be the daughter of his uncle James?”

  Pépin looked blank for a moment.

  “I don’t really—oh, yes, I do know!” He laughed heartily, and laid down his own losing hand. “Dear me. Yes, she did say her father’s name was Jay-mee, the way the Scotches do; that must be James.”

  Rakoczy felt a ripple of anticipation go up his spine. Yes! This sense of triumph was instantly succeeded by a breathless realization. The girl was the daughter of La Dame Blanche.

  “I see,” he said casually. “And which convent did you say the girl has gone to?”

  To his surprise, Pépin gave him a suddenly sharp look.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  Rakoczy shrugged, thinking fast.

  “A wager,” he said, with a grin. “If she is as luscious as you say…I’ll bet you five hundred louis that I can get her into bed before she takes her first vows.”

  Pépin scoffed.

  “Oh, never! She’s tasty, but she doesn’t know it. And she’s virtuous, I’d swear it. And if you think you can seduce her inside the convent…!”

  Rakoczy lounged back in his chair and motioned for another bottle.

  “In that case…what do you have to lose?”

  Next day

  SHE COULD SMELL the hôpital long before the small group of new postulants reached the door. They walked two by two, practicing custody of the eyes, but she couldn’t help a quick glance upward at the building, a three-story chateau, originally a noble house that had—rumor said—been given to Mother Hildegarde by her father, as part of her dowry when she joined the church. It had become a convent house and then gradually had been given over more and more to the care of the sick, the nuns moving to the new chateau built in the park.

  It was a lovely old house—on the outside. The odor of sickness, of urine and shit and vomit, hung about it like a cloying veil, though, and she hoped she wouldn’t vomit, too. The little postulant next to her, Sister Miséricorde de Dieu (known to all simply as Mercy), was as white as her veil, eyes fixed on the ground but obviously not seeing it: she stepped smack on a slug and gave a small cry of horror as it squished under her sandal.

  Joan looked hastily away; she would never master custody of the eyes, she was sure. Nor yet custody of thought.

  It wasn’t the notion of sick people that troubled her. She’d seen sick people before, and they wouldn’t be expecting her to do more than wash and feed them; she could manage that easily. It was fear of seeing those who were about to die—for surely there would be a great many of those in a hospital. And what might the voices tell her about them?

  As it was, the voices had nothing to
say. Not a word, and after a little she began to lose her nervousness. She could do this and in fact, to her surprise, quite enjoyed the sense of competence, the gratification of being able to ease someone’s pain, give them at least a little attention—and if her French made them laugh (and it did), that at least took their minds off pain and fear for a moment.

  There were those who lay under the veil of death. Only a few, though, and it seemed somehow much less shocking here than when she had seen it on Vhairi’s lad or the young man on the ship. Maybe it was resignation, perhaps the influence of the angels for whom the hôpital was named…Joan didn’t know, but she found that she wasn’t afraid to speak to or touch the ones she knew were going to die. For that matter, she observed that the other sisters, even the orderlies, behaved gently toward these people, and it occurred to her that no particular sight was needed to know that the man with the wasting sickness, whose bones poked through his skin, was not long for this world.

  Touch him, said a soft voice inside her head. Comfort him.

  All right, she said, taking a deep breath. She had no idea how to comfort anyone, but she bathed him, as gently as she could, and coaxed him to take a few spoonsful of porridge. Then she settled him in his bed, straightening his nightshirt and the thin blanket over him.

  “Thank you, Sister,” he said, and, taking her hand, kissed it. “Thank you for your sweet touch.”

  She went back to the postulants’ dormitory that evening feeling thoughtful, but with a strange sense of being on the verge of discovering something important.

  That night

  RAKOCZY LAY WITH his head on Madeleine’s bosom, eyes closed, breathing the scent of her body, feeling the whole of her between his palms, a slowly pulsing entity of light. She was a gentle gold, traced with veins of incandescent blue, her heart deep as lapis beneath his ear, a living stone. And, deep inside, her red womb, open, soft. Refuge and succor. Promise.