Seven Stones to Stand or Fall Read online

  “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 for 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 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 realized 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 realized 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 appeared to sway a little; he’d finished the rest of the wine, she saw, and she took the empty bottle from his hand, tossing it overboard.

  “The influenza. They said it was quick. Didn’t feel 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.”

  He swallowed. “She—she was…” The words “with child” came so quietly that she barely heard them.

  “Oh,” Joan said softly, very moved. “Oh, a chuisle.” “Heart’s blood,” it meant, and what she meant was that his wife had been that to him—dear Lord, she hoped he hadn’t thought she meant—no, he hadn’t, and the tight-wound spring in her backbone relaxed a little, seeing the look of gratitude on his face. He did know what she’d meant and seemed glad that she’d understood.

  Blinking, she looked away—and caught sight of the young man with the shadow on him, leaning against the railing a little way down. The breath caught in her throat at sight of him.

  The shadow was darker in the morning light. The sun was beginning to warm the deck, frail white clouds swam in the blue of clear French skies, and yet the mist now swirled and thickened, obscuring the young man’s face, wrapping round his shoulders like a shawl.

  Dear Lord, tell me what to do! Her body jerked, wanting to go to the young man, speak to him. But to say what? “You’re in danger, be careful”? He’d think she was mad. And if the danger was a thing he couldn’t help, like with wee Ronnie and the ox, what difference might her speaking make?

  She was dimly aware of Michael staring at her, curious. He said something to her, but she wasn’t listening, listening hard instead inside her head. Where were the damned voices when you bloody needed one?

  But the voices were stubbornly silent, and she turned to Michael, the muscles of her arm jumping, she’d held so tight to the ship’s rigging.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasna listening properly. I just—thought of something.”

  “If it’s a thing I can help ye with, Sister, ye’ve only to ask,” he said, smiling faintly. “Oh! And speak of that, I meant to say—I said to your mam, if she liked to write to you in care of Fraser et Cie, I’d see to it that ye got the letters.” He shrugged, one-shouldered. “I dinna ken what the rules are at the convent, aye? About getting letters from outside.”

  Joan didn’t know that, either, and had worried about it. She was so relieved to hear this that a huge smile split her face.

  “Oh, it’s that kind of ye!” she said. “And if I could—maybe write back…?”

  His smile grew wider, the marks of grief easing in his pleasure at doing her a service.

  “Anytime,” he assured her. “I’ll see to it. Perhaps I could—”

  A ragged shriek cut through the air, and Joan glanced up, startled, thinking it one of the seabirds that had come out from shore to wheel round the ship, but it wasn’t. The young man was standing on the rail, one hand on the rigging, and before she could so much as draw breath, he let go and was gone.

  Paris

  MICHAEL WAS WORRIED for Joan; she sat slumped in the coach, not bothering to look out of the window, until a faint waft of the cool breeze touched her face. The smell was so astonishing that it drew her out of the shell of shocked misery in which she had traveled from the docks.

  “Mother o’ God!” she said, clapping a hand to her nose. “What is that?”

  Michael dug in his pocket and pulled out the grubby rag of his handkerchief, looking dubiously at it.

  “It’s the public cemeteries. I’m sorry, I didna think—”

  “Moran taing.” She seized the damp cloth from him and held it over her face, not caring. “Do the French not bury folk in their cemeteries?” Because, judging from the smell, a thousand corpses had been thrown out on wet ground and left to rot, and the sight of darting, squabbling flocks of black corbies in the distance did nothing to correct this impression.

  “They do.” Michael felt exhausted—it had been a terrible morning—but struggled to pull himself together. “It’s all marshland over there, though; even coffins buried deep—and most of them aren’t—work their way through the ground in a few months. When there’s a flood—and there’s a flood whenever it rains—what’s left of the coffins falls apart, and…” He swallowed, just as pleased that he’d not eaten any breakfast.

  “There’s talk of maybe moving the bones at least, putting them in an ossuary, they call it. There are mine workings, old ones, outside the city—over there”—he pointed with his chin—“and perhaps…but they havena done anything about it yet,” he added in a rush, pinching his nose fast to get a breath in through his mouth. It didn’t matter whether you breathed through your nose or your mouth, though; the air was thick enough to taste.

  She looked as ill as he felt, or maybe worse, her face the color of spoilt custard. She’d vomited when the crew had finally pulled the suicide aboard, pouring gray water and slimed with the seaweed that had wrapped round his legs and drowned him. There were still traces of sick down her front, and her dark hair was lank and damp, straggling out from under her cap. She hadn’t slept at all, of course—neither had he.

  He couldn’t take her to the convent in this condition. The nuns
maybe wouldn’t mind, but she would. He stretched up and rapped on the ceiling of the carriage.

  “Monsieur?”

  “Au château, vite!”

  He’d take her to his house first. It wasn’t much out of the way, and the convent wasn’t expecting her at any particular day or hour. She could wash, have something to eat, and put herself to rights. And if it saved him from walking into his house alone, well, they did say a kind deed carried its own reward.

  BY THE TIME they’d reached the Rue Trémoulins, Joan had forgotten—partly—her various reasons for distress, in the sheer excitement of being in Paris. She had never seen so many people in one place at the same time—and that was only the folk coming out of Mass at a parish church! Round the corner, a pavement of fitted stones stretched wider than the whole River Ness, and those stones covered from one side to the other in barrows and wagons and stalls, rioting with fruit and vegetables and flowers and fish and meat…She’d given Michael back his filthy handkerchief and was panting like a dog, turning her face to and fro, trying to draw all the wonderful smells into herself at once.

  “Ye look a bit better,” Michael said, smiling at her. He was still pale himself, but he, too, seemed happier. “Are ye hungry yet?”

  “I’m famished!” She cast a starved look at the edge of the market. “Could we stop, maybe, and buy an apple? I’ve a bit of money….” She fumbled for the coins in her stocking top, but he stopped her.

  “Nay, there’ll be food a-plenty at the house. They were expecting me this week, so everything will be ready.”

  She stared longingly at the market for a brief moment, then turned obligingly in the direction he pointed, craning out the carriage window to see his house as they approached.

  “That’s the biggest house I’ve ever seen!” she exclaimed.

  “Och, no,” he said, laughing. “Lallybroch’s bigger than that.”

  “Well…this one’s taller,” she replied. And it was—a good four stories, and a huge roof of lead slates and green-coppered seams, with what must be more than a score of glass windows set in, and…

  She was still trying to count the windows when Michael helped her down from the carriage and offered her his arm to walk up to the door. She was goggling at the big yew trees set in brass pots and wondering how much trouble it must be to keep those polished, when she felt his arm go suddenly rigid as wood.

  She glanced at Michael, startled, then looked where he was looking—toward the door of his house. The door had swung open, and three people were coming down the marble steps, smiling and waving, calling out.

  “Who’s that?” Joan whispered, leaning close to Michael. The one short fellow in the striped apron must be a butler; she’d read about butlers. But the other man was a gentleman, limber as a willow tree and wearing a coat and waistcoat striped in lemon and pink—with a hat decorated with…well, she supposed it must be a feather, but she’d pay money to see the bird it came off. By comparison, she had hardly noticed the woman, who was dressed in black. But now she saw that Michael had eyes only for the woman.

  “Lé—” he began, and choked it back. “Lé—Léonie. Léonie is her name. My wife’s sister.”

  Joan looked sharp then, because from the look of Michael Murray, he’d just seen his wife’s ghost. But Léonie seemed flesh and blood, slender and pretty, though her own face bore the same marks of sorrow as did Michael’s, and her face was pale under a small, neat black tricorne with a tiny curled blue feather.

  “Michel,” she said. “Oh, Michel!” And with tears brimming from eyes shaped like almonds, she threw herself into his arms.

  Feeling extremely superfluous, Joan stood back a little and glanced at the gentleman in the lemon-striped waistcoat—the butler had tactfully withdrawn into the house.

  “Charles Pépin, mademoiselle,” he said, sweeping off his hat. Taking her hand, he bowed low over it, and now she saw the band of black mourning he wore around his bright sleeve. “A votre service.”

  “Oh,” she said, a little flustered. “Um. Joan MacKimmie. Je suis…er…um…”

  “Tell him not to do it,” said a sudden small, calm voice inside her head, and she jerked her own hand away as though he’d bitten her.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she gasped. “Excuse me.” And, turning, threw up into one of the bronze yew pots.

  JOAN HAD BEEN afraid it would be awkward, coming to Michael’s bereaved and empty house, but had steeled herself to offer comfort and support, as became a distant kinswoman and a daughter of God. She might have been miffed, therefore, to find herself entirely supplanted in the department of comfort and support—quite relegated to the negligible position of guest, in fact, served politely and asked periodically if she wished more wine, a slice of ham, some gherkins…but otherwise ignored, while Michael’s servants, sister-in-law, and…she wasn’t quite sure of the position of M. Pépin, though he seemed to have something personal to do with Léonie—perhaps someone had said he was her cousin?—all swirled round Michael like perfumed bathwater, warm and buoyant, touching him, kissing him—well, all right, she’d heard of men kissing one another in France, but she couldn’t help staring when M. Pépin gave Michael a big wet one on both cheeks—and generally making a fuss over him.

  She was more than relieved, though, not to have to make conversation in French, beyond a simple merci or s’il vous plaît from time to time. It gave her a chance to settle her nerves—and her stomach, and she would say the wine was a wonder for that—and to keep a close eye on Monsieur Charles Pépin.

  “Tell him not to do it.” And just what d’ye mean by that? she demanded of the voice. She didn’t get an answer, which didn’t surprise her. The voices weren’t much for details.

  She couldn’t tell whether the voices were male or female; they didn’t seem either one, and she wondered whether they might maybe be angels—angels didn’t have a sex, and doubtless that saved them a lot of trouble. Joan of Arc’s voices had had the decency to introduce themselves, but not hers, oh, no. On the other hand, if they were angels and told her their names, she wouldn’t recognize them anyway, so perhaps that’s why they didn’t bother.

  Well, so. Did this particular voice mean that Charles Pépin was a villain? She squinted closely at him. He didn’t look it. He had a strong, good-looking face, and Michael seemed to like him—after all, Michael must be a fair judge of character, she thought, and him in the wine business.

  What was it Monsieur Charles Pépin oughtn’t to do, though? Did he have some wicked crime in mind? Or might he be bent on doing away with himself, like that poor wee gomerel on the boat? There was still a trace of slime on her hand, from the seaweed.

  She rubbed her hand inconspicuously against the skirt of her dress, frustrated. She hoped the voices would stop once she was in the convent. That was her nightly prayer. But if they didn’t, at least she might be able to tell someone there about them without fear of being packed off to a madhouse or stoned in the street. She’d have a confessor, she knew that much. Maybe he could help her discover what God had meant, landing her with a gift like this, and no explanation what she was to do with it.

  In the meantime, Monsieur Pépin would bear watching; she should maybe say something to Michael before she left. Aye, what? she thought, helpless.

  Still, she was glad to see that Michael grew less pale as they all carried on, vying to feed him tidbits, refill his glass, tell him bits of gossip. She was also pleased to find that she mostly understood what they were saying, as she relaxed. Jared—that would be Jared Fraser, Michael’s elderly cousin, who’d founded the wine company, and whose house this was—was still in Germany, they said, but was expected at any moment. He had sent a letter for Michael, too; where was it? No matter, it would turn up…and Madame Nesle de La Tourelle had had a fit, a veritable fit, at court last Wednesday, when she came face-to-face with Mademoiselle de Perpignan wearing a confection in the particular shade of pea green that was de La Tourelle’s alone, and God alone knew why, because she always looked
like a cheese in it, and had slapped her own maid so hard for pointing this out that the poor girl flew across the rushes and cracked her head on one of the mirrored walls—and cracked the mirror, too, very bad luck that, but no one could agree whether the bad luck was de La Tourelle’s, the maid’s, or de Perpignan’s.

  Birds, Joan thought dreamily, sipping her wine. They sound just like cheerful wee birds in a tree, all chattering away together.

  “The bad luck belongs to the seamstress who made the dress for de Perpignan,” Michael said, a faint smile touching his mouth. “Once de La Tourelle finds out who it is.” His eye lighted on Joan then, sitting there with a fork—an actual fork, and silver, too!—in her hand, her mouth half open in the effort of concentration required to follow the conversation.

  “Sister Joan—Sister Gregory, I mean—I’m that sorry, I was forgetting. If ye’ve had enough to eat, will ye have a bit of a wash, maybe, before I deliver ye to the convent?”

  He was already rising, reaching for a bell, and before she knew where she was, a maidservant had whisked her off upstairs, deftly undressed her, and, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the discarded garments, wrapped Joan in a robe of the most amazing green silk, light as air, and ushered her into a small stone room with a copper bath in it, then disappeared, saying something in which Joan caught the word “eau.”

  She sat on the wooden stool provided, clutching the robe about her nakedness, head spinning with more than wine. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to put herself in the way of praying. God was everywhere, she assured herself, embarrassing as it was to contemplate him being with her in a bathroom in Paris. She shut her eyes harder and firmly began the rosary, starting with the Joyful Mysteries.

  She’d got through the Visitation before she began to feel steady again. This wasn’t quite how she’d expected her first day in Paris to be. Still, she’d have something to write home to Mam about, that was for sure. If they let her write letters in the convent.