Dragonfly in Amber Page 14

  Jared stepped delicately to the door and closed it firmly after the captain’s bulky form, cutting down the noise level substantially. He returned to the tiny captain’s table and ceremoniously refilled all our glasses before speaking. Then he looked from Jamie to me and smiled once more, in charming deprecation.

  “It’s a bit more precipitous than I’d meant to make such a request,” he said. “But I see the good captain has rather given away my hand. The truth of the matter is”—he raised his glass so the watery reflections from the port shivered through the brandy, striking patches of wavering light from the brass fittings of the cabin—“I need a man.” He tipped the cup in Jamie’s direction, then brought it to his lips and drank.

  “A good man,” he amplified, lowering the glass. “You see, my dear,” bowing to me, “I have the opportunity of making an exceptional investment in a new winery in the Moselle region. But the evaluation of it is not one I should feel comfortable in entrusting to a subordinate; I should need to see the facilities myself, and advise in their development. The undertaking would require several months.”

  He gazed thoughtfully into his glass, gently swirling the fragrant brown liquid so its perfume filled the tiny cabin. I had drunk no more than a few sips from my own glass, but began to feel slightly giddy, more from a rising excitement than from drink.

  “It’s too good a chance to be missed,” Jared said. “And there’s the chance of making several good contracts with the wineries along the Rhône; the products there are excellent, but relatively rare in Paris. God, they’d sell among the nobility like snow in summer!” His shrewd black eyes gleamed momentarily with visions of avarice, then sparkled with humor as he looked at me.

  “But—” he said.

  “But,” I finished for him, “you can’t leave your business here without a guiding hand.”

  “Intelligence as well as beauty and charm. I congratulate you, Cousin.” He tilted a well-groomed head toward Jamie, one eyebrow cocked in humorous approval.

  “I confess that I was at something of a loss to see how I was to proceed,” he said, setting the glass down on the small table with the air of a man putting aside social frivolity for the sake of serious business. “But when you wrote from Ste. Anne, saying you intended to visit Paris…” He hesitated a moment, then smiled at Jamie, with an odd little flutter of the hands.

  “Knowing that you, my lad”—he nodded to Jamie—“have a head for figures, I was strongly inclined to consider your arrival an answer to prayer. Still, I thought that perhaps we should meet and become reacquainted before I took the step of making you a definite proposal.”

  You mean you thought you’d better see how presentable I was, I thought cynically, but smiled at him nonetheless. I caught Jamie’s eye, and one of his brows twitched upward. This was our week for proposals, evidently. For a dispossessed outlaw and a suspected English spy, our services seemed to be rather in demand.

  Jared’s proposal was more than generous; in return for Jamie’s running the French end of the business during the next six months, Jared would not only pay him a salary but would leave his Paris town house, complete with staff, at our disposal.

  “Not at all, not at all,” he said, when Jamie tried to protest this provision. He pressed a finger on the end of his nose, grinning charmingly at me. “A pretty woman to host dinner parties is a great asset in the wine business, Cousin. You have no idea how much wine you can sell, if you let the customers taste it first.” He shook his head decidedly. “No, it will be a great service to me, if your wife would allow herself to be troubled by entertaining.”

  The thought of hosting supper parties for Parisian society was in fact a trifle daunting. Jamie looked at me, eyebrows raised in question, but I swallowed hard and smiled, nodding. It was a good offer; if he felt competent to take over the running of an importing business, the least I could do was order dinner and brush up my sprightly conversational French.

  “Not at all,” I murmured, but Jared had taken my agreement for granted, and was going on, intent black eyes fixed on Jamie.

  “And then, I thought perhaps you’d be needing an establishment of sorts—for the benefit of the other interests which bring you to Paris.”

  Jamie smiled noncommittally, at which Jared uttered a short laugh and picked up his brandy glass. We had each been provided a glass of water as well, for cleansing the palate between sips, and he pulled one of these close with the other hand.

  “Well, a toast!” he exclaimed. “To our association, Cousin—and to His Majesty!” He lifted the brandy glass in salute, then passed it ostentatiously over the glass of water and brought it to his lips.

  I watched this odd behavior in surprise, but it apparently meant something to Jamie, for he smiled at Jared, picked up his own glass and passed it over the water.

  “To His Majesty,” he repeated. Then, seeing me staring at him in bewilderment, he smiled and explained, “To His Majesty—over the water, Sassenach.”

  “Oh?” I said, then, realization dawning, “oh!” The king over the water—King James. Which did a bit to explain this sudden urge on the part of everyone to see Jamie and myself established in Paris, which would otherwise have seemed an improbable coincidence.

  If Jared were also a Jacobite, then his correspondence with Abbot Alexander was very likely more than coincidental; chances were that Jamie’s letter announcing our arrival had come together with one from Alexander, explaining the commission from King James. And if our presence in Paris fitted in with Jared’s own plans—then so much the better. With a sudden appreciation for the complexities of the Jacobite network, I raised my own glass, and drank to His Majesty across the water—and our new partnership with Jared.

  Jared and Jamie then settled down to a discussion of the business, and were soon head to head, bent over inky sheets of paper, evidently manifests and bills of lading. The tiny cabin reeked of tobacco, brandy fumes, and unwashed sailor, and I began to feel a trifle queasy again. Seeing that I wouldn’t be needed for a while, I stood up quietly and found my way out on deck.

  I was careful to avoid the altercation still going on around the rear cargo hatch, and picked my way through coils of rope, objects which I assumed to be belaying pins, and tumbled piles of sail fabric, to a quiet spot in the bow. From here, I had an unobstructed view over the harbor.

  I sat on a chest against the taffrail, enjoying the salty breeze and the tarry, fishy smells of ships and harbor. It was still cold, but with my cloak pulled tight around me, I was warm enough. The ship rocked slowly, rising on the incoming tide; I could see the beards of algae on nearby dock pilings lifting and swirling, obscuring the shiny black patches of mussels between them.

  The thought of mussels reminded me of the steamed mussels with butter I had had for dinner the night before, and I was suddenly starving. The absurd contrasts of pregnancy seemed to keep me always conscious of my digestion; if I wasn’t vomiting, I was ravenously hungry. The thought of food led me to the thought of menus, which led back to a contemplation of the entertaining Jared had mentioned. Dinner parties, hm? It seemed an odd way to begin the job of saving Scotland, but then, I couldn’t really think of anything better.

  At least if I had Charles Stuart across a dinner table from me, I could keep an eye on him, I thought, smiling to myself at the joke. If he showed signs of hopping a ship for Scotland, maybe I could slip something into his soup.

  Perhaps that wasn’t so funny, after all. The thought reminded me of Geillis Duncan, and my smile faded. Wife of the procurator fiscal in Cranesmuir, she had murdered her husband by dropping powdered cyanide into his food at a banquet. Accused as a witch soon afterward, she had been arrested while I was with her, and I had been taken to trial myself; a trial from which Jamie had rescued me. The memories of several days spent in the cold dark of the thieves’ hole at Cranesmuir were all too fresh, and the wind seemed suddenly very cold.

  I shivered, but not altogether from chill. I could not think of Geillis Duncan without that
cold finger down my spine. Not so much because of what she had done, but because of who she had been. A Jacobite, too; one whose support of the Stuart cause had been more than slightly tinged with madness. Worse than that, she was what I was—a traveler through the standing stones.

  I didn’t know whether she had come to the past as I had, by accident, or whether her journey had been deliberate. Neither did I know precisely where she had come from. But my last vision of her, screaming defiance at the judges who would condemn her to burn, was of a tall, fair woman, arms stretched high, showing on one arm the telltale round of a vaccination scar. I felt automatically for the small patch of roughened skin on my own upper arm, beneath the comforting folds of my cloak, and shuddered when I found it.

  I was distracted from these unhappy memories by a growing commotion on the next quay. A large knot of men had gathered by a ship’s gangway, and there was considerable shouting and pushing going on. Not a fight; I peered over at the altercation, shading my eyes with my hand, but could see no blows exchanged. Instead, an effort seemed to be under way to clear a pathway through the milling crowd to the doors of a large warehouse on the upper end of the quay. The crowd was stubbornly resisting all such efforts, surging back like the tide after each push.

  Jamie suddenly appeared behind me, closely followed by Jared, who squinted at the mob scene below. Absorbed by the shouting, I hadn’t heard them come up.

  “What is it?” I stood and leaned back into Jamie, bracing myself against the increasing sway of the ship underfoot. I was aware at close quarters of his scent; he had bathed at the inn and he smelled clean and warm, with a faint hint of sun and dust. A sharpening of the sense of smell was another effect of pregnancy, apparently; I could smell him even among the myriad stenches and scents of the seaport, much as you can hear a low-pitched voice close by in a noisy crowd.

  “I don’t know. Some trouble with the other ship, looks like.” He reached down and put a hand on my elbow, to steady me. Jared turned and barked an order in gutteral French to one of the sailors nearby. The man promptly hopped over the rail and slid down one of the ropes to the quay, tarred pigtail dangling toward the water. We watched from the deck as he joined the crowd, prodded another seaman in the ribs, and received an answer, complete with expressive gesticulations.

  Jared was frowning, as the pigtailed man scrambled back up the crowded gangplank. The sailor said something to him in that same thick-sounding French, too fast for me to follow it. After a few more words’ conversation, Jared swung abruptly around and came to stand next to me, lean hands gripping the rail.

  “He says there’s sickness aboard the Patagonia.”

  “What sort of sickness?” I hadn’t thought of bringing my medicine box with me, so there was little I could do in any case, but I was curious. Jared looked worried and unhappy.

  “They’re afraid it might be smallpox, but they don’t know. The port’s inspector and the harbor master have been called.”

  “Would you like me to have a look?” I offered. “I might at least be able to tell you whether it’s a contagious disease or not.”

  Jared’s sketchy eyebrows disappeared under the lank black fringe of his hair. Jamie looked mildly embarrassed.

  “My wife’s well known as a healer, Cousin,” he explained, but then turned and shook his head at me.

  “No, Sassenach. It wouldna be safe.”

  I could see the Patagonia’s gangway easily; now the gathered crowd moved suddenly back, jostling and stepping on each other’s toes. Two seamen stepped down from the deck, a length of canvas slung between them as a stretcher. The white sail-fabric sagged heavily under the weight of the man they carried, and a bare, sun-darkened arm lolled from the makeshift hammock.

  The seamen wore strips of cloth tied round their noses and mouths, and kept their faces turned away from the stretcher, jerking their heads as they growled at each other, maneuvering their burden over the splintered planks. The pair passed under the fascinated noses of the crowd and disappeared into a nearby warehouse.

  Making a quick decision, I turned and headed for the rear gangplank of the Arianna.

  “Don’t worry,” I called to Jamie over one shoulder, “if it is smallpox, I can’t get that.” One of the seamen, hearing me, paused and gaped, but I just smiled at him and brushed past.

  The crowd was still now, no longer surging to and fro, and it was not so difficult to make my way between the muttering clusters of seamen, many of whom frowned or looked startled as I ducked past them. The warehouse was disused; no bales or casks filled the echoing shadows of the huge room, but the scents of sawn lumber, smoked meat, and fish lingered, easily distinguishable from the host of other smells.

  The sick man had been hastily dumped near the door, on a pile of discarded straw packing. His attendants pushed past me as I entered, eager to get away.

  I approached him cautiously, stopping a few feet away. He was flushed with fever, his skin a queer dark red, scabbed thick with white pustules. He moaned and tossed his head restlessly from side to side, cracked mouth working as though in search of water.

  “Get me some water,” I said to one of the sailors standing nearby. The man, a short, muscular fellow with his beard tarred into ornamental spikes, merely stared as though he had found himself suddenly addressed by a fish.

  Turning my back on him impatiently, I sank to my knees by the sick man and opened his filthy shirt. He stank abominably; probably none too clean to start with, he had been left to lie in his own filth, his fellows afraid to touch him. His arms were relatively clear, but the pustules clustered thickly down his chest and stomach, and his skin was burning to the touch.

  Jamie had come in while I made my examination, accompanied by Jared. With them was a small, pear-shaped man in a gold-swagged official’s coat and two other men, one a nobleman or a rich bourgeois by his dress; the other a tall, lean individual, clearly a seafarer from his complexion. Probably the captain of the plague ship, if that’s what it was.

  And that’s what it appeared to be. I had seen smallpox many times before, in the uncivilized parts of the world to which my uncle Lamb, an eminent archaeologist, had taken me during my early years. This fellow wasn’t pissing blood, as sometimes happened when the disease attacked the kidneys, but otherwise he had every classic symptom.

  “I’m afraid it is smallpox,” I said.

  The Patagonia’s captain gave a sudden howl of anguish, and stepped toward me, face contorted, raising his hand as though to strike me.

  “No!” he shouted. “Fool of a woman! Salope! Femme sans cervelle! Do you want to ruin me?”

  The last word was cut off in a gurgle as Jamie’s hand closed on his throat. The other hand twisted hard in the man’s shirtfront, lifting him onto his toes.

  “I should prefer you to address my wife with respect, Monsieur,” Jamie said, rather mildly. The captain, face turning purple, managed a short, jerky nod, and Jamie dropped him. He took a step back, wheezing, and sidled behind his companion as though for refuge, rubbing his throat.

  The tubby little official was bending cautiously over the sick man, holding a large silver pomander on a chain close to his nose as he did so. Outside, the level of noise dropped suddenly as the crowd pulled back from the warehouse doors to admit another canvas stretcher.

  The man before us sat up suddenly, startling the little official so that he nearly fell over. The man stared wildly around the warehouse, then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell back onto the straw as though he’d been poleaxed. He hadn’t, but the end result was much the same.

  “He’s dead,” I said, unnecessarily.

  The official, recovering his dignity along with his pomander, stepped in once more, looked closely at the body, straightened up and announced, “Smallpox. The lady is correct. I’m sorry, Monsieur le Comte, but you know the law as well as anyone.”

  The man he addressed sighed impatiently. He glanced at me, frowning, then jerked his head at the official.

  “I’
m sure this can be arranged, Monsieur Pamplemousse. Please, a moment’s private conversation…” He motioned toward the deserted foreman’s hut that stood some distance away, a small derelict structure inside the larger building. A nobleman by dress as well as by title, Monsieur le Comte was a slender, elegant sort, with heavy brows and thin lips. His entire attitude proclaimed that he was used to getting his way.

  But the little official was backing away, hands held out before him as though in self-defense.

  “Non, Monsieur le Comte,” he said, “Je le regrette, mais c’est impossible.…It cannot be done. Too many people know about it already. The news will be all over the docks by now.” He glanced helplessly at Jamie and Jared, then waved vaguely at the warehouse door, where the featureless heads of spectators showed in silhouette, the late afternoon sun rimming them with gold halos.