Outlander Novella [01] The Space Between Read online

  The old nun gave him a look that revised his opinion of her state of health instantly.

  “We did,” she said dryly. “It happens. However”—she raised a sticklike finger—“one: there were signs of a considerable struggle in the cowshed. A full bucket of milk not merely spilt but apparently thrown at something, the manger overturned, the door left open, and two of the cows escaped into the herb garden.” Another finger. “Two: had Sister Gregory experienced doubt regarding her vocation, she was quite free to leave the convent after speaking with me, and she knew that.”

  One more finger, and the old nun’s black eyes bored into his. “And three: had she felt it necessary to leave suddenly and without informing us, where would she go? To you, Monsieur Murray. She knows no one else in Paris, does she?”

  “I—well, no, not really.” He was flustered, almost stammering, confusion and a burgeoning alarm for Joan making it difficult to think.

  “But you have not seen her since you brought us the chalice and paten—and I thank you and your cousin with the deepest sentiments of gratitude, monsieur—which would be yesterday afternoon?”

  “No.” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “No, Mother.”

  Mother Hildegarde nodded, her lips nearly invisible, pressed together amid the lines of her face.

  “Did she say anything to you on that occasion? Anything that might assist us in discovering her?”

  “I—well …” Jesus, should he tell her what Joan had said about the voices she heard? It couldn’t have anything to do with this, surely, and it wasna his secret to share. On the other hand, Joan had said she meant to tell Mother Hildegarde about them …

  “You’d better tell me, my son.” The reverend mother’s voice was somewhere between resignation and command. “I see she told you something.”

  “Well, she did, then, Mother,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face in distraction. “But I canna see how it has anything to do—she hears voices,” he blurted, seeing Mother Hildegarde’s eyes narrow dangerously.

  The eyes went round.

  “She what?”

  “Voices,” he said helplessly. “They come and say things to her. She thinks maybe they’re angels, but she doesn’t know. And she can see when folk are going to die. Sometimes,” he added dubiously. “I don’t know whether she can always say.”

  “Par le sang sacré de Jésus Christ,” the old nun said, sitting up straight as an oak sapling. “Why did she not—well, never mind about that. Does anyone else know this?”

  He shook his head. “She was afraid to tell anyone. That’s why—well, one reason why—she came to the convent. She thought you might believe her.”

  “I might,” Mother Hildegarde said dryly. She shook her head rapidly, making her veil flap. “Nom de Dieu! Why did her mother not tell me this?”

  “Her mother?” Michael said stupidly.

  “Yes! She brought me a letter from her mother, very kind, asking after my health and recommending Joan to me—but surely her mother would have known!”

  “I don’t think she—wait.” He remembered Joan fishing out the carefully folded note from her pocket. “The letter she brought—it was from Claire Fraser. That’s the one you mean?”

  “Of course!”

  He took a deep breath, a dozen disconnected pieces falling suddenly into a pattern. He cleared his throat and raised a tentative finger.

  “One, Mother: Claire Fraser is the wife of Joan’s stepfather. But she’s not Joan’s mother.”

  The sharp black eyes blinked once.

  “And two: my cousin Jared tells me that Claire Fraser was known as a—a White Lady, when she lived in Paris many years ago.”

  Mother Hildegarde clicked her tongue angrily.

  “She was no such thing. Stuff! But it is true that there was a common rumor to that effect,” she admitted grudgingly. She drummed her fingers on the desk; they were knobbed with age but surprisingly nimble, and he remembered that Mother Hildegarde was a musician.

  “Mother …”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know if it has anything to do—do you know of a man called the Comte St. Germain?”

  The old nun was already the color of parchment; at this, she went white as bone and her fingers gripped the edge of the desk.

  “I do,” she said. “Tell me—and quickly—what he has to do with Sister Gregory.”

  * * *

  Joan gave the very solid door one last kick, for form’s sake, then turned and collapsed with her back against it, panting. The room was huge, extending across the entire top floor of the house, though pillars and joists here and there showed where walls had been knocked down. It smelled peculiar and looked even more peculiar.

  “Blessed Michael, protect me,” she whispered to herself, reverting to the Gaelic in her agitation. There was a very fancy bed in one corner, piled with feather pillows and bolsters, with writhing corner posts and heavy swags and curtains of cloth embroidered in what looked like gold and silver thread. Did the comte—he’d told her his name, or at least his title, when she asked—haul young women up here for wicked ends on a regular basis? For surely he hadn’t set up this establishment solely in anticipation of her arrival—the area near the bed was equipped with all kinds of solid, shiny furniture with marble tops and alarming gilt feet that looked like they’d come off some kind of beast or bird with great curving claws.

  He’d told her in the most matter-of-fact way that he was a sorcerer, too, and not to touch anything. She crossed herself and averted her gaze from the table with the nastiest-looking feet; maybe he’d charmed the furniture, and it came to life and walked round after dark. The thought made her move hastily off to the farther end of the room, rosary clutched tight in one hand.

  This side of the room was scarcely less alarming, but at least it didn’t look as though any of the big colored glass balls and jars and tubes could move on their own. It was where the worst smells were coming from, though: something that smelled like burnt hair and treacle, and something else very sharp that curled the hairs in your nose, like it did when someone dug out a jakes for the saltpeter. But there was a window near the long table where all this sinister stuff was laid out, and she went to this at once.

  The big river—the Seine, Michael had called it—was right there, and the sight of boats and people made her feel a bit steadier. She put a hand on the table to lean closer but set it on something sticky and jerked it back. She swallowed and leaned in more gingerly. The window was barred on the inside. Glancing round, she saw that all the others were, too.

  What in the name of the Blessed Virgin did that man expect would try to get in? Gooseflesh raced right up the curve of her spine and spread down her arms, her imagination instantly conjuring a vision of flying demons hovering over the street in the night, beating leathery wings against the window. Or—dear Lord in heaven!—was it to keep the furniture in?

  There was a fairly normal-looking stool; she sank down on this and, closing her eyes, prayed with great fervor. After a bit, she remembered to breathe, and after a further bit, began to be able to think again, shuddering only occasionally.

  He hadn’t threatened her. Nor had he hurt her, really, just put a hand over her mouth and his other arm round her body and pulled her along, then boosted her into his coach with a shockingly familiar hand under her bottom, though it hadn’t been done with any sense that he was wanting to interfere with her.

  In the coach, he’d introduced himself, apologized briefly for the inconvenience—inconvenience? The cheek of him—and then had grasped both her hands in his, staring intently into her face as he clasped them tighter and tighter. He’d raised her hands to his face, so close she’d thought he meant to smell them or kiss them, but then had let go, his brow deeply furrowed.

  He’d ignored all her questions and her insistence upon being returned to the convent. In fact, he almost seemed to forget she was there, leaving her huddled in the corner of the seat while he thought intently about something, lips p
ursing in and out. And then he had lugged her up here, told her briefly that she wouldn’t be hurt, added the bit about being a sorcerer in a very offhand sort of a way, and locked her in!

  She was terrified, and indignant, too. But now that she’d calmed down a wee bit, she thought that she wasn’t really afraid of him, and that seemed odd. Surely she should be?

  But she’d believed him when he said he meant her no harm. He hadn’t threatened her or tried to frighten her. But if that was true … what did he want of her?

  He likely wants to know what ye meant by rushing up to him in the market and telling him not to do it, her common sense—lamentably absent to this point—remarked.

  “Oh,” she said aloud. That made some sense. Naturally, he’d be curious about that.

  She got up again and explored the room, thinking. She couldn’t tell him any more than she had, though; that was the thing. Would he believe her, about the voices? Even if so, he’d try to find out more, and there wasn’t any more to find out. What then?

  Don’t wait about to see, advised her common sense.

  Having already come to this conclusion, she didn’t bother replying. She’d found a heavy marble mortar and pestle; that might do. Wrapping the mortar in her apron, she went to the window that overlooked the street. She’d break the glass, then shriek ’til she got someone’s attention. Even so high up, she thought, someone would hear. Pity it was a quiet street. But—

  She stiffened like a bird dog. A coach was stopped outside one of the houses opposite, and Michael Murray was getting out of it! He was just putting on his hat—no mistaking that flaming red hair.

  “Michael!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. But he didn’t look up; the sound wouldn’t pierce glass. She swung the cloth-wrapped mortar at the window, but it bounced off the bars with a ringing clang! She took a deep breath and a better aim; this time, she hit one of the panes and cracked it. Encouraged, she tried again, with all the strength of muscular arms and shoulders, and was rewarded with a small crash, a shower of glass, and a rush of mud-scented air from the river.

  “Michael!” But he had disappeared. A servant’s face showed briefly in the open door of the house opposite, then vanished as the door closed. Through a red haze of frustration, she noticed the swag of black crepe hanging from the knob. Who was dead?

  * * *

  Charles’s wife, Eulalie, was in the small parlor, surrounded by a huddle of women. All of them turned to see who had come, many of them lifting their handkerchiefs automatically in preparation for a fresh outbreak of tears. All of them blinked at Michael, then turned to Eulalie, as though for an explanation.

  Eulalie’s eyes were red but dry. She looked as though she had been dried in an oven, all the moisture and color sucked out of her, her face paper-white and drawn tight over her bones. She, too, looked at Michael, but without much interest. He thought she was too much shocked for anything to matter much. He knew how she felt.

  “Monsieur Murray,” she said tonelessly, as he bowed over her hand. “How kind of you to call.”

  “I … offer my condolences, madame, mine and my cousin’s. I hadn’t … heard. Of your grievous loss.” He was almost stuttering, trying to grasp the reality of the situation. What the devil had happened to Charles?

  Eulalie’s mouth twisted.

  “Grievous loss,” she repeated. “Yes. Thank you.” Then her dull self-absorption cracked a little and she looked at him more sharply. “You hadn’t heard. You mean—you didn’t know? You came to see Charles?”

  “Er … yes, madame,” he said awkwardly. A couple of the women gasped, but Eulalie was already on her feet.

  “Well, you might as well see him, then,” she said, and walked out of the room, leaving him with no choice but to follow her.

  “They’ve cleaned him up,” she remarked, opening the door to the large parlor across the hall. She might have been talking about a messy domestic incident in the kitchen.

  Michael thought it must in fact have been very messy. Charles lay on the large dining table, this adorned with a cloth and wreaths of greenery and flowers. A woman clad in gray was sitting by the table, weaving more wreaths from a basket of leaves and grasses; she glanced up, her eyes going from Eulalie to Michael and back.

  “Leave,” said Eulalie with a flip of the hand, and the woman got up at once and went out. Michael saw that she’d been making a wreath of laurel leaves and had the sudden absurd thought that she meant to crown Charles with it, in the manner of a Greek hero.

  “He cut his throat,” Eulalie said. “The coward.” She spoke with an eerie calmness, and Michael wondered what might happen when the shock that surrounded her began to dissipate.

  He made a respectful sort of noise in his throat and, touching her arm gently, went past her to look down at his friend.

  “Tell him not to do it.”

  The dead man didn’t look peaceful. There were lines of stress in his countenance that hadn’t yet smoothed out, and he appeared to be frowning. The undertaker’s people had cleaned the body and dressed him in a slightly worn suit of dark blue; Michael thought that it was probably the only thing he’d owned that was in any way appropriate in which to appear dead, and suddenly missed his friend’s frivolity with a surge that brought unexpected tears to his eyes.

  “Tell him not to do it.” He hadn’t come in time. If I’d come right away, when she told me—would it have stopped him?

  He could smell the blood, a rusty, sickly smell that seeped through the freshness of the flowers and leaves. The undertaker had tied a white neckcloth for Charles—he’d used an old-fashioned knot, nothing that Charles himself would have worn for a moment. The black stitches showed above it, though, the wound harsh against the dead man’s livid skin.

  His own shock was beginning to fray, and stabs of guilt and anger poked through it like needles.

  “Coward?” he said softly. He didn’t mean it as a question, but it seemed more courteous to say it that way. Eulalie snorted, and, looking up, Michael met the full charge of her eyes. No, not shocked any longer.

  “You’d know, wouldn’t you,” she said, and it wasn’t at all a question, the way she said it. “You knew about your slut of a sister-in-law, didn’t you? And Babette?” Her lips curled away from the name. “His other mistress?”

  “I—no. I mean … Léonie told me yesterday. That was why I came to talk to Charles.” Well, he would certainly have mentioned Léonie. And he wasn’t going anywhere near the mention of Babette, whom he’d known about for quite some time. But, Jesus, what did the woman think he could have done about it?

  “Coward,” she said, looking down at Charles’s body with contempt. “He made a mess of everything—everything!—and then couldn’t deal with it, so he runs off and leaves me alone, with children, penniless!”

  “Tell him not to do it.”

  Michael looked to see if this was an exaggeration, but it wasn’t. She was burning now, but with fear as much as anger, her frozen calm quite vanished.

  “The … house …?” he began, with a rather vague wave around the expensive, stylish room. He knew it was her family house; she’d brought it to the marriage.

  She snorted.

  “He lost it in a card game last week,” she said bitterly. “If I’m lucky, the new owner will let me bury him before we have to leave.”

  “Ah.” The mention of card games jolted him back to an awareness of his reason for coming here. “I wonder, madame, do you know an acquaintance of Charles’s—the Comte St. Germain?” It was crude, but he hadn’t time to think of a graceful way to come to it.

  Eugenia blinked, nonplussed.

  “The comte? Why do you want to know about him?” Her expression sharpened into eagerness. “Do you think he owes Charles money?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll certainly find out for you,” Michael promised her. “If you can tell me where to find Monsieur le Comte.”

  She didn’t laugh, but her mouth quirked in what might in another mood have been humo
r.

  “He lives across the street.” She pointed toward the window. “In that big pile of—where are you going?”

  But Michael was already through the door and into the hallway, bootheels clattering on the parquet in his haste.

  * * *

  There were footsteps coming up the stairs; Joan started away from the window but then craned back, desperately willing the door across the street to open and let Michael out. What was he doing there?

  That door didn’t open, but a key rattled in the lock of the door to the room. In desperation, she tore the rosary from her belt and pushed it through the hole in the window, then dashed across the room and threw herself into one of the repulsive chairs.

  It was the comte. He glanced round, worried for an instant, and then his face relaxed when he saw her. He came toward her, holding out his hand.

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, mademoiselle,” he said, very courtly. “Come, please. I have something to show you.”

  “I don’t want to see it.” She stiffened a little and tucked her feet under her, to make it harder for him to pick her up. If she could just delay him until Michael came out! But he might well not see her rosary or, even if he did, know it was hers. Why should he? All nuns’ rosaries looked the same!

  She strained her ears, hoping to hear the sounds of departure on the other side of the street—she’d scream her lungs out. In fact …

  The comte sighed a little but bent and took her by the elbows, lifting her straight up, her knees still absurdly bent. He was really very strong. She put her feet down, and there she was, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, being led across the room toward the door, docile as a cow on its way to be milked! She made her mind up in an instant, yanked free, and ran to the smashed window.

  “HELP!” she bellowed through the broken pane. “Help me, help me! Au secours, I mean! AU SECOU—” The comte’s hand clapped across her mouth, and he said something in French that she was sure must be bad language. He scooped her up, so fast that the wind was knocked out of her, and had her through the door before she could make another sound.