Virgins Read online

  "Ye think of me, Jamie, and Jenny and Lallybroch. Ye'll not see us, but we'll be here nonetheless and thinking of you. Look up at night, and see the stars, and ken we see them, too."

  He opened his eyes a slit, but the stars swam, their brightness blurred. He squeezed his eyes shut again and felt the warm glide of a single tear down his temple. He couldn't think about Jenny. Or Lallybroch. The homesickness at Dougal's had stopped. The strangeness when he went to Paris had eased. This wouldn't stop, but he'd have to go on living anyway.

  Where are ye, Da? He thought in anguish. Da, I'm sorry!

  --

  He prayed as he walked next day, making his way doggedly from one Hail Mary to the next, using his fingers to count the rosary. For a time, it kept him from thinking and gave him a little peace. But eventually the slippery thoughts came stealing back, memories in small flashes, quick as sun on water. Some he fought off--Captain Randall's voice, playful as he took the cat in hand--the fearful prickle of the hairs on his body in the cold wind when he took his shirt off--the surgeon's "I see he's made a mess of you, boy...."

  But some memories he seized, no matter how painful they were. The feel of his da's hands, hard on his arms, holding him steady. The guards had been taking him somewhere--he didn't recall and it didn't matter--when suddenly his da was there before him, in the yard of the prison, and he'd stepped forward fast when he saw Jamie, a look of joy and eagerness on his face, this blasted into shock the next moment, when he saw what they'd done to him.

  "Are ye bad hurt, Jamie?"

  "No, Da, I'll be all right."

  For a minute, he had been. So heartened by seeing his father, sure it would all come right--and then he'd remembered Jenny, taking yon crochaire into the house, sacrificing herself for--

  He cut that one off short, too, saying "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!" savagely out loud, to the startlement of Petit Philippe, who was scuttling along beside him on his short bandy legs.

  "Blessed art thou amongst women..." Philippe chimed in obligingly. "Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen!"

  "Hail Mary," said Pere Renault's deep voice behind him, taking it up, and within seconds seven or eight of them were saying it, marching solemnly to the rhythm, and then a few more...Jamie himself fell silent, unnoticed. But he found the wall of prayer a barricade between himself and the wicked sly thoughts and, closing his eyes briefly, felt his father walk beside him and Brian Fraser's last kiss soft as the wind on his cheek.

  --

  They reached Bordeaux just before sunset, and D'Eglise took the wagon off with a small guard, leaving the other men free to explore the delights of the city--though such exploration was somewhat constrained by the fact that they hadn't yet been paid. They'd get their money after the goods were delivered next day.

  Ian, who'd been in Bordeaux before, led the way to a large, noisy tavern with drinkable wine and large portions.

  "The barmaids are pretty, too," he observed, as he stood watching one of these creatures wend her way deftly through a crowd of groping hands.

  "Is it a brothel upstairs?" Jamie asked, out of curiosity, having heard a few stories.

  "I dinna ken," Ian said, with what sounded like regret, though Jamie was almost sure he'd never been to a brothel, out of a mixture of penury and fear of catching the pox. "D'ye want to go and find out later?"

  Jamie hesitated.

  "I--well. No, I dinna think so." He turned his face toward Ian and spoke very quietly. "I promised Da I wouldna go wi' whores, when I went to Paris. And now...I couldna do it without...thinkin' of him, ken?"

  Ian nodded, his face showing as much relief as disappointment.

  "Time enough another day," he said philosophically, and signaled for another jug. The barmaid didn't see him, though, and Jamie snaked out a long arm and tugged at her apron. She whirled, scowling, but seeing Jamie's face, wearing its best blue-eyed smile, chose to smile back and take the order.

  Several other men from D'Eglise's band were in the tavern, and this byplay didn't pass unnoticed.

  Juanito, at a nearby table, glanced at Jamie, raised a derisive eyebrow, then said something to Raoul in the Jewish sort of Spanish they called Ladino; both men laughed.

  "You know what causes warts, friend?" Jamie said pleasantly--in biblical Hebrew. "Demons inside a man, trying to emerge through the skin." He spoke slowly enough that Ian could follow this, and Ian in turn broke out laughing--as much at the looks on the two Jews' faces as at Jamie's remark.

  Juanito's lumpy face darkened, but Raoul looked sharply at Ian, first at his face, then, deliberately, at his crotch. Ian shook his head, still grinning, and Raoul shrugged but returned the smile, then took Juanito by the arm, tugging him off in the direction of the back room, where dicing was to be found.

  "What did you say to him?" the barmaid asked, glancing after the departing pair, then looking back wide-eyed at Jamie. "And what tongue did you say it in?"

  Jamie was glad to have the wide brown eyes to gaze into; it was causing his neck considerable strain to keep his head from tilting farther down in order to gaze into her decolletage. The charming hollow between her breasts drew the eye...

  "Oh, nothing but a little bonhomie," he said, grinning down at her. "I said it in Hebrew." He wanted to impress her, and he did, but not the way he'd meant to. Her half smile vanished, and she edged back a little.

  "Oh," she said. "Your pardon, sir, I'm needed..." and with a vaguely apologetic flip of the hand, she vanished into the throng of customers, pitcher in hand.

  "Eejit," Ian said. "What did ye tell her that for? Now she thinks ye're a Jew."

  Jamie's mouth fell open in shock. "What, me? How, then?" he demanded, looking down at himself. He'd meant his Highland dress, but Ian looked critically at him and shook his head.

  "Ye've got the lang neb and the red hair," he pointed out. "Half the Spanish Jews I've seen look like that, and some of them are a good size, too. For all yon lass kens, ye stole the plaid off somebody ye killed."

  Jamie felt more nonplussed than affronted. Rather hurt, too.

  "Well, what if I was a Jew?" he demanded. "Why should it matter? I wasna askin' for her hand in marriage, was I? I was only talkin' to her, for God's sake!"

  Ian gave him that annoyingly tolerant look. He shouldn't mind, he knew; he'd lorded it over Ian often enough about things he kent and Ian didn't. He did mind, though; the borrowed shirt was too small and chafed him under the arms, and his wrists stuck out, bony and raw-looking. He didn't look like a Jew, but he looked like a gowk and he knew it. It made him cross-grained.

  "Most o' the Frenchwomen--the Christian ones, I mean--dinna like to go wi' Jews. Not because they're Christ-killers, but because of their...um..." He glanced down, with a discreet gesture at Jamie's crotch. "They think it looks funny."

  "It doesna look that different."

  "It does."

  "Well, aye, when it's...but when it's--I mean, if it's in a state that a lassie would be lookin' at it, it isna..." He saw Ian opening his mouth to ask just how he happened to know what an erect circumcised cock looked like. "Forget it," he said brusquely, and pushed past his friend. "Let's be goin' down the street."

  --

  At dawn, the band gathered at the inn where D'Eglise and the wagon waited, ready to escort it through the streets to its destination--a warehouse on the banks of the Garonne. Jamie saw that the captain had changed into his finest clothes, plumed hat and all, and so had the four men--among the biggest in the band--who had guarded the wagon during the night. They were all armed to the teeth, and Jamie wondered whether this was only to make a good show or whether D'Eglise intended to have them stand behind him while he explained why the shipment was one rug short, to discourage complaint from the merchant receiving the shipment.

  Jamie was enjoying the walk through the city, though keeping a sharp eye out, as he'd been instructed, against the possibility of ambush from alleys or thieves dropping from a roof or balcony onto the wa
gon. He thought the latter possibility remote but dutifully looked up now and then. Upon lowering his eyes from one of these inspections, he found that the captain had dropped back and was now pacing beside him on his big gray gelding.

  "Juanito says you speak Hebrew," D'Eglise said, looking down at him as though he'd suddenly sprouted horns. "Is this true?"

  "Aye," he said cautiously. "Though it's more I can read the Bible in Hebrew--a bit--there not bein' so many Jews in the Highlands to converse with." There had been a few in Paris, but he knew better than to talk about the Universite and the study of philosophers like Maimonides. They'd scrag him before supper.

  The captain grunted but didn't look displeased. He rode for a time in silence but kept his horse to a walk, pacing at Jamie's side. This made Jamie nervous, and after a few moments, impulse made him jerk his head to the rear and say, "Ian can, too. Read Hebrew, I mean."

  D'Eglise looked down at him, startled, and glanced back. Ian was clearly visible, as he stood a head taller than the three men with whom he was conversing as he walked.

  "Will wonders never cease?" the captain said, as though to himself. But he nudged his horse into a trot and left Jamie in the dust.

  --

  It wasn't until the next afternoon that this conversation returned to bite Jamie in the arse. They'd delivered the rugs and the gold and silver to the warehouse on the river, D'Eglise had received his payment, and consequently the men were scattered down the length of an allee that boasted cheap eating and drinking establishments, many of these with a room above or behind where a man could spend his money in other ways.

  Neither Jamie nor Ian said anything further regarding the subject of brothels, but Jamie found his mind returning to the pretty barmaid. He had his own shirt on now and had half a mind to find his way back and tell her he wasn't a Jew.

  He had no idea what she might do with that information, though, and the tavern was clear on the other side of the city.

  "Think we'll have another job soon?" he asked idly, as much to break Ian's silence as to escape from his own thoughts. There had been talk around the fire about the prospects; evidently there were no good wars at the moment, though it was rumored that the King of Prussia was beginning to gather men in Silesia.

  "I hope so," Ian muttered. "Canna bear hangin' about." He drummed long fingers on the tabletop. "I need to be movin'."

  "That why ye left Scotland, is it?" He was only making conversation and was surprised to see Ian dart him a wary glance.

  "Didna want to farm, wasna much else to do. I make good money here. And I mostly send it home."

  "Still, I dinna imagine your da was pleased." Ian was the only son; Auld John was probably still livid, though he hadn't said much in Jamie's hearing during the brief time he'd been home, before the redcoats--

  "My sister's marrit. Her husband can manage, if..." Ian lapsed into a moody silence.

  Before Jamie could decide whether to prod Ian or not, the captain appeared beside their table, surprising them both.

  D'Eglise stood for a moment, considering them. Finally he sighed and said, "All right. The two of you, come with me."

  Ian shoved the rest of his bread and cheese into his mouth and rose, chewing. Jamie was about to do likewise when the captain frowned at him.

  "Is your shirt clean?"

  He felt the blood rise in his cheeks. It was the closest anyone had come to mentioning his back, and it was too close. Most of the wounds had crusted over long since, but the worst ones were still infected; they broke open with the chafing of the bandages or if he bent too suddenly. He'd had to rinse his shirt almost every night--it was constantly damp, and that didn't help--and he knew fine that the whole band knew but nobody'd spoken of it.

  "It is," he replied shortly, and drew himself up to his full height, staring down at D'Eglise, who merely said, "Good, then. Come on."

  --

  The new potential client was a physician named Dr. Hasdi, reputed to be a person of great influence among the Jews of Bordeaux. The last client had made the introduction, so apparently D'Eglise had managed to smooth over the matter of the missing rug.

  Dr. Hasdi's house was discreetly tucked away in a decent but modest side street, behind a stuccoed wall and locked gates. Ian rang the bell, and a man dressed like a gardener promptly appeared to let them in, gesturing them up the walk to the front door. Evidently, they were expected.

  "They don't flaunt their wealth, the Jews," D'Eglise murmured out of the side of his mouth to Jamie. "But they have it."

  Well, these did, Jamie thought. A manservant greeted them in a plain tiled foyer but then opened the door into a room that made the senses swim. It was lined with books in dark-wood cases, carpeted thickly underfoot, and what little of the walls was not covered with books was adorned with small tapestries and framed tiles that he thought might be Moorish. But above all, the scent! He breathed it in to the bottom of his lungs, feeling slightly intoxicated, and, looking for the source of it, finally spotted the owner of this earthly paradise sitting behind a desk and staring--at him. Or maybe him and Ian both; the man's eyes flicked back and forth between them, round as sucked toffees.

  He straightened up instinctively and bowed. "We greet thee, lord," Jamie said, in carefully rehearsed Hebrew. "Peace be on your house."

  The man's mouth fell open. Noticeably so; he had a large, bushy dark beard, going white near the mouth. An indefinable expression--surely it wasn't amusement?--ran over what could be seen of his face.

  A small sound that certainly was amusement drew Jamie's attention to one side. A small brass bowl sat on a round, tile-topped table, with smoke wandering lazily up from it through a bar of late-afternoon sun. Between the sun and the smoke, he could just make out the form of a woman standing in the shadows. She stepped forward, materializing out of the gloom, and his heart jumped.

  She inclined her head gravely to the soldiers, addressing them impartially.

  "I am Rebekah bat-Leah Hauberger. My grandfather bids me make you welcome to our home, gentlemen," she said, in perfect French, though the old gentleman hadn't spoken. Jamie drew in a great breath of relief; he wouldn't have to try to explain their business in Hebrew, after all. The breath was so deep, though, that it made him cough, the perfumed smoke tickling his chest.

  As he tried to strangle the cough, he could feel his face going red and Ian glancing sidelong at him. The girl--yes, she was young, maybe his own age--swiftly took up a cover and clapped it on the bowl, then rang a bell and told the servant something in what sounded like Spanish. Ladino? he thought.

  "Do please sit, sirs," she said, waving gracefully toward a chair in front of the desk, then turning to fetch another standing by the wall.

  "Allow me, mademoiselle!" Ian leapt forward to assist her. Jamie, still choking as quietly as possible, followed suit.

  She had dark hair, very wavy, bound back from her brow with a rose-colored ribbon but falling loose down her back, nearly to her waist. He had actually raised a hand to stroke it before catching hold of himself. Then she turned around. Pale skin, big dark eyes, and an oddly knowing look in those eyes when she met his own--which she did, very directly, when he set the third chair down before her.

  Annalise. He swallowed, hard, and cleared his throat. A wave of dizzy heat washed over him, and he wished suddenly that they'd open a window.

  D'Eglise, too, was visibly relieved at having a more reliable interpreter than Jamie and launched into a gallant speech of introduction, much decorated with French flowers, bowing repeatedly to the girl and her grandfather in turn.

  Jamie wasn't paying attention to the talk; he was still watching Rebekah. It was her passing resemblance to Annalise de Marillac, the girl he'd loved in Paris, that had drawn his attention--but now he came to look, she was quite different.

  Quite different. Annalise had been tiny and fluffy as a kitten. This girl was small--he'd seen that she came no higher than his elbow; her soft hair had brushed his wrist when she sat down--but there was noth
ing either fluffy or helpless about her. She'd noticed him watching her and was now watching him, with a faint curve to her red mouth that made the blood rise in his cheeks. He coughed and looked down.

  "What's amiss?" Ian muttered out of the side of his mouth. "Ye look like ye've got a cocklebur stuck betwixt your hurdies."

  Jamie gave an irritable twitch, then stiffened as he felt one of the rawer wounds on his back break open. He could feel the fast-cooling spot, the slow seep of pus or blood, and sat very straight, trying not to breathe deep, in hopes that the bandages would absorb the liquid before it got onto his shirt.

  This niggling concern had at least distracted his mind from Rebekah bat-Leah Hauberger, and to distract himself from the aggravation of his back, he returned to the three-way conversation between D'Eglise and the Jews.

  The captain was sweating freely, whether from the hot tea or the strain of persuasion, but he talked easily, gesturing now and then toward his matched pair of tall, Hebrew-speaking Scots, now and then toward the window and the outer world, where vast legions of similar warriors awaited, ready and eager to do Dr. Hasdi's bidding.

  The doctor watched D'Eglise intently, occasionally addressing a soft rumble of incomprehensible words to his granddaughter. It did sound like the Ladino that Juanito spoke, more than anything else; certainly it sounded nothing like the Hebrew that Jamie had been taught in Paris.

  Finally the old Jew glanced among the three mercenaries, pursed his lips thoughtfully, and nodded. He rose and went to a large blanket chest that stood under the window, where he knelt and carefully gathered up a long, heavy cylinder wrapped in oiled cloth. Jamie could see that it was remarkably heavy for its size, from the slow way the old man rose with it, and his first thought was that it must be a gold statue of some sort. His second thought was that Rebekah smelled like rose petals and vanilla pods. He breathed in, very gently, feeling the shirt stick to his back.

  The thing, whatever it was, jingled and chimed softly as it moved. Some sort of Jewish clock? Dr. Hasdi carried the cylinder to the desk and set it down, then curled a finger to invite the soldiers to step near.

  Unwrapped with a slow and solemn sense of ceremony, the object emerged from its layers of linen, canvas, and oiled cloth. It was gold, in part, and not unlike statuary but made of wood and shaped like a prism, with a sort of crown at one end. While Jamie was still wondering what the devil it might be, the doctor's arthritic fingers touched a small clasp and the box opened, revealing yet more layers of cloth, from which yet another delicate, spicy scent emerged. All three soldiers breathed deep, in unison, and Rebekah made that small sound of amusement again.