19

AN OATH IS SWORN

The clock on the mantelpiece had an annoyingly loud tick. It was the only sound in the house, other than the creakings of the boards, and the far-off thumps of servants working late in the kitchens below. I had had enough noise to last me some time, though, and wanted only silence to mend my frazzled nerves. I opened the clock’s case and removed the counterweight, and the tick ceased at once.

It had undeniably been the dinner party of the season. People not fortunate enough to have been present would be claiming for months that they had been, bolstering their case with bits of repeated gossip and distorted description.

I had finally got my hands on Mary long enough to force another strong dose of poppy juice down her throat. She collapsed in a pitiful heap of bloodstained clothes, leaving me free to turn my attention to the three-sided argument going on among Jamie, the General, and Mr. Hawkins. Alex had the good sense to stay unconscious, and I arranged his limp form neatly alongside Mary’s on the landing, like a couple of dead mackerel. They looked like Romeo and Juliet laid out in the public square as a reproach to their relatives, but the resemblance was lost on Mr. Hawkins.

“Ruined!” he kept shrieking. “You’ve ruined my niece! The Vicomte will never have her now! Filthy Scottish prick! You and your strumpet”—he swung on me—“whore! Procuress! Seducing innocent young girls into your vile clutches for the pleasure of bastardly scum! You—” Jamie, with a certain long-suffering grimness, put a hand on Mr. Hawkins’s shoulders, turned him about, and hit him, just under the fleshy jaw. Then he stood abstractedly rubbing his abused knuckles, watching as the stout wine merchant’s eyes rolled upward. Mr. Hawkins fell back against the paneling and slid gently down the wall into a sitting position.

Jamie turned a cold blue gaze on General d’Arbanville, who, observing the fate of the fallen, wisely put down the wine bottle he had been waving, and took a step back.

“Oh, go ahead,” urged a voice behind my shoulder. “Why stop now, Tuarach? Hit all three of them! Make a clean sweep of it!” The General and Jamie focused a glance of united dislike on the dapper form behind me.

“Go away, St. Germain,” Jamie said. “This is none of your affair.” He sounded weary, but raised his voice in order to be heard above the uproar below. The shoulder seams of his coat had been split, and folds of his linen shirt showed white through the rents.

St. Germain’s thin lips curved upward in a charming smile. Plainly the Comte was having the time of his life.

“Not my affair? How can such happenings not be the affair of every public-spirited man?” His amused gaze swept the landing, littered with bodies. “After all, if a guest of His Majesty has so perverted the meaning of hospitality as to maintain a brothel in his house, is that not the—no, you don’t!” he said, as Jamie took a step toward him. A blade gleamed suddenly in his hand, appearing as though by magic from the ruffled lace cascading over his wrist. I saw Jamie’s lip curl slightly, and he shifted his shoulders inside the ruins of his coat, settling himself for battle.

“Stop it at once!” said an imperious voice, and the two Duverneys, older and younger, pushed their way onto the already overcrowded landing. Duverney the younger turned and waved his arms commandingly at the herd of people on the stairs, who were sufficiently cowed by his scowl to move back a step.

“You,” said the elder Duverney, pointing at St. Germain. “If you have any feeling of public spirit, as you suggest, you will employ yourself usefully in removing some of those below.”

St. Germain locked eyes with the banker, but after a moment, the noble shrugged, and the dagger disappeared. St. Germain turned without comment and made his way downstairs, pushing those before him and loudly urging them to leave.

Despite his exhortations, and those of Gérard, the younger Duverney, behind him, the bulk of the dinner guests departed, brimming with scandal, only upon the arrival of the King’s Guard.

Mr. Hawkins, recovered by this time, at once lodged a charge of kidnapping and pandering against Jamie. For a moment, I really thought Jamie was going to hit him again; his muscles bunched under the azure velvet, but then relaxed as he thought better of it.

After a considerable amount of confused argument and explanation, Jamie agreed to go to the Guard’s headquarters in the Bastille, there—perhaps—to explain himself.

Alex Randall, white-faced, sweating, and clearly having no idea what was going on, was taken, too—the Duke had not waited to see the fate of his secretary, but had discreetly summoned his coach and left before the arrival of the Guard. Whatever his diplomatic mission, being involved in a scandal wouldn’t help it. Mary Hawkins, still insensible, was removed to her uncle’s house, wrapped in a blanket.

I had narrowly avoided being included in the roundup when Jamie flatly refused to allow it, insisting that I was in a delicate condition and could on no account be removed to a prison. At last, seeing that Jamie was more than willing to start hitting people again in order to prove his point, the Guard Captain relented, on condition that I agreed not to leave the city. While the thought of fleeing Paris had its attractions, I could hardly leave without Jamie, and gave my parole d’honneur with no reservations.

As the group milled confusedly about the foyer, lighting lanterns and gathering hats and cloaks, I saw Murtagh, bruised face set grimly, hovering on the outskirts of the mob. Plainly he intended to accompany Jamie, wherever he was going, and I felt a quick stab of relief. At least my husband wouldn’t be alone.

“Dinna worry yourself, Sassenach.” He hugged me briefly, whispering in my ear. “I’ll be back in no time. If anything goes wrong…” He hesitated, then said firmly, “It wilna be necessary, but if ye need a friend, go to Louise de La Tour.”

“I will.” I had no time for more than a glancing kiss, before the Guardsmen closed in about him.

The doors of the house swung open, and I saw Jamie glance behind him, catch sight of Murtagh, and open his mouth as though to say something. Murtagh, setting hands to his swordbelt, glared fiercely and pushed his way toward Jamie, nearly shoving the younger Duverney into the street. A short, silent battle of wills ensued, conducted entirely by means of ferocious glares, and then Jamie shrugged and tossed up his hands in resignation.

He stepped out into the street, ignoring the Guardsmen who pressed close on all sides, but stopped at sight of a small figure standing near the gate. He stooped and said something, then straightened, turned toward the house and gave me a smile, clearly visible in the lanternlight. Then, with a nod to the elder Monsieur Duverney, he stepped into the waiting coach and was borne away, Murtagh clinging to the rear of the carriage.

Fergus stood in the street, looking after the coach as long as it was in sight. Then, mounting the steps with a firm tread, he took me by the hand and led me inside.

“Come, milady,” he said. “Milord has said I am to care for you, ’til his return.”

Now Fergus slipped into the salon, the door closing silently behind him.

“I have made the rounds of the house, milady,” he whispered. “All buttoned up.” Despite the worry, I smiled at his tone, so obviously an imitation of Jamie’s. His idol had entrusted him with a responsibility, and he plainly took his duties seriously.

Having escorted me to the sitting room, he had gone to make the rounds of the house as Jamie did each night, checking the fastenings of the shutters, the bars on the outer doors—which I knew he could barely lift—and the banking of the fires. He had a smudge of soot from forehead to cheekbone on one side, but had rubbed his eye with a fist at one point, so his eye blinked out of a clear white ring, like a small raccoon.

“You should rest, milady,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be here.”

I didn’t laugh, but smiled at him. “I couldn’t sleep, Fergus. I’ll just sit here for a bit. Perhaps you should go to bed, though; you’ve had an awfully long night of it.” I was reluctant to order him to bed, not wanting to impair his new dignity as temporary man of the house, but he was clearly exhausted. The small, bony shoulders drooped, and dark smudges showed beneath his eyes, darker even than the coating of soot.

He yawned unashamedly, but shook his head.

“No, milady. I will stay with you…if you do not mind?” he added hastily.

“I don’t mind.” In fact, he was too tired either to talk or to fidget in his usual manner, and his sleepy presence on the hassock was comforting, like that of a cat or a dog.

I sat gazing into the low-burning flames, trying to conjure up some semblance of serenity. I tried summoning images of still pools, forest glades, even the dark peace of the Abbey chapel, but nothing seemed to be working; over all the images of peace lay those of the evening: hard hands and gleaming teeth, coming out of a darkness filled with fear; Mary’s white and stricken face, a twin to Alex Randall’s; the flare of hatred in Mr. Hawkins’s piggy eyes; the sudden mistrust on the faces of the General and the Duverneys; St. Germain’s ill-concealed delight in scandal, shimmering with malice like the crystal drops of the chandeliers. And last of all, Jamie’s smile, reassurance and uncertainty mingled in the shifting light of jostling lanterns.

What if he didn’t come back? That was the thought I had been trying to suppress, ever since they took him away. If he was unable to clear himself of the charge? If the magistrate was one of those suspicious of foreigners—well, more suspicious than usual, I amended—he could easily be imprisoned indefinitely. And above and beyond the fear that this unlooked- for crisis could undo all the careful work of the last weeks, was the image of Jamie in a cell like the one where I had found him at Wentworth. In light of the present crisis, the news that Charles Stuart was investing in wine seemed trivial.

Left alone, I now had plenty of time to think, but my thoughts didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. Who or what was “La Dame Blanche”? What sort of “white lady,” and why had the mention of that name made the attackers run off?

Thinking back over the subsequent events of the dinner party, I remembered the General’s remarks about the criminal gangs that roamed the streets of Paris, and how some of them included members of the nobility. That was consistent with the speech and the dress of the leader of the men who had attacked me and Mary, though his companions seemed a good deal rougher in aspect. I tried to think whether the man reminded me of anyone I knew, but the memory of him was indistinct, clouded by darkness and the receding haze of shock.

In general form, he had been not unlike the Comte St. Germain, though surely the voice was different. But then, if the Comte was involved, surely he would take pains to disguise his voice as well as his face? At the same time, I found it almost impossible to believe that the Comte could have taken part in such an attack, and then sat calmly across the table from me two hours later, sipping soup.

I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. There was nothing that could be done before morning. If morning came, and Jamie didn’t, then I could begin to make the rounds of acquaintances and presumed friends, one of whom might have news or help to offer. But for the hours of the night, I was helpless; powerless to move as a dragonfly in amber.

My fingers jammed against one of the decorated hairpins, and I yanked at it impatiently. Tangled in my hair, it stuck.

“Ouch!”

“Here, milady. I’ll get it.”

I hadn’t heard him pass behind me, but I felt Fergus’s small, clever fingers in my hair, disentangling the tiny ornament. He laid it aside, then, hesitating, said, “The others, milady?”

“Oh, thank you, Fergus,” I said, grateful. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

His pickpocket’s touch was light and sure, and the thick locks began to fall around my face, released from their moorings. Little by little, my breathing slowed as my hair came down.

“You are worried, milady?” said the small, soft voice behind me.

“Yes,” I said, too tired to keep up a false bravado.

“Me, too,” he said simply.

The last of the hairpins clinked on the table, and I slumped in the chair, eyes closed. Then I felt a touch again, and realized that he was brushing my hair, gently combing out the tangles.

“You permit, milady?” he said, feeling it as I tensed in surprise. “The ladies used to say it helped them, if they were feeling worried or upset.”

I relaxed again under the soothing touch.

“I permit,” I said. “Thank you.” After a moment, I said, “What ladies, Fergus?”

There was a momentary hesitation, as of a spider disturbed in the building of a web, and then the delicate ordering of strands resumed.

“At the place where I used to sleep, milady. I couldn’t come out because of the customers, but Madame Elise would let me sleep in a closet under the stairs, if I was quiet. And after all the men had gone, near morning, then I would come out and sometimes the ladies would share their breakfast with me. I would help them with the fastening of their underthings—they said I had the best touch of anyone,” he added, with some pride, “and I would comb their hair, if they liked.”

“Mm.” The soft whisper of the brush through my hair was hypnotic. Without the clock on the mantel, there was no telling time, but the silence of the street outside meant it was very late indeed.

“How did you come to sleep at Madame Elise’s, Fergus?” I asked, barely suppressing a yawn.

“I was born there, milady,” he answered. The strokes of the brush grew slower, and his voice was growing drowsy. “I used to wonder which of the ladies was my mother, but I never found out.”

The opening of the sitting-room door woke me. Jamie stood there, red-eyed and white-faced with fatigue, but smiling in the first gray light of the day.

“I was afraid you weren’t coming back,” I said, a moment later, into the top of his head. His hair had the faint acrid scent of stale smoke and tallow, and his coat had completed its descent into total disreputability, but he was warm and solid, and I wasn’t disposed to be critical about the smell of the head I was cradling next my bosom.

“So was I,” he said, somewhat muffled, and I could feel his smile. The arms around my waist tightened and released, and he sat back, smoothing my hair out of my eyes.

“God, you are so beautiful,” he said softly. “Unkempt and unslept, wi’ the waves of your hair all about your face. Bonny love. Have ye sat here all night long, then?”

“I wasn’t the only one.” I motioned toward the floor, where Fergus lay curled up on the carpet, head on a cushion by my feet. He shifted slightly in his sleep, mouth open a bit, soft pink and full-lipped as the baby he so nearly was.

Jamie laid a big hand gently on his shoulder.

“Come on, then, laddie. Ye’ve done well to guard your mistress.” He scooped the boy up and laid him against his shoulder, mumbling and sleepy-eyed. “You’re a good man, Fergus, and ye’ve earned your rest. Come on to your bed.” I saw Fergus’s eyes flare wide in surprise, then half-close as he relaxed, nodding in Jamie’s arms.

I had opened the shutters and rekindled the fire by the time Jamie returned to the sitting room. He had shed his ruined coat, but still wore the rest of last night’s finery.

“Here.” I handed him a glass of wine, and he drank it standing, in three gulps, shuddered, then collapsed onto the small sofa, and held out the cup for more.

“Not a drop,” I said, “until you tell me what’s going on. You aren’t in prison, so I assume everything’s all right, but—”

“Not all right, Sassenach,” he interrupted, “but it could be worse.”

After a great deal of argument to and fro—a good deal of it Mr. Hawkins’s reiterations of his original impressions—the judge-magistrate who had been hustled out of his cozy bed to preside over this impromptu investigation had ruled grumpily that since Alex Randall was one of the accused, he could hardly be considered an impartial witness. Nor could I, as the wife and possible accomplice of the other accused. Murtagh had been, by his own testimony, insensible during the alleged attack, and the child Claudel was not legally capable of bearing witness.

Clearly, Monsieur le Juge had said, aiming a vicious glare at the Guard Captain, the only person capable of providing the truth of the matter was Mary Hawkins, who was by all accounts incapable of doing so at the present time. Therefore, all the accused should be locked up in the Bastille until such time as Mademoiselle Hawkins could be interviewed, and surely Monsieur le Capitaine should have been able to think that out for himself?

“Then why aren’t you locked up in the Bastille?” I asked.

“Monsieur Duverney the elder offered security for me,” Jamie replied, pulling me down onto the sofa beside him. “He sat rolled up in the corner like a hedgehog, all through the clishmaclaver. Then when the judge made his decision, he stood up and said that, having had the opportunity to play chess with me on several occasions, he didna feel that I was of a moral character so dissolute as to permit of my having conspired in the commission of an act so depraved—” He broke off and shrugged.

“Well, ye ken what he talks like, once he’s got going. The general idea was that a man who could take him at chess six times in seven wouldna lure innocent young lasses to his house to be defiled.”

“Very logical,” I said dryly. “I imagine what he really meant was, if they locked you up, you wouldn’t be able to play with him anymore.”

“I expect so,” he agreed. He stretched, yawned, and blinked at me, smiling.

“But I’m home, and right now, I don’t greatly care why. Come here to me, Sassenach.” Grasping my waist with both hands, he boosted me onto his lap, wrapped his arms around me, and sighed with pleasure.

“All I want to do,” he murmured in my ear, “is to shed these filthy clouts, and lie wi’ you on the hearthrug, go to sleep straight after, with my head on your shoulder, and stay that way ’til tomorrow.”

“Rather an inconvenience to the servants,” I remarked. “They’ll have to sweep round us.”

“Damn the servants,” he said comfortably. “What are doors for?”

“To be knocked on, evidently,” I said as a soft rap sounded outside.

Jamie paused a moment, nose buried in my hair, then sighed, and raised his head, sliding me off his lap onto the sofa.

“Thirty seconds,” he promised me in an undertone, then said, “Entrez!” in a louder voice.

The door swung open and Murtagh stepped into the room. I had rather overlooked Murtagh in the bustles and confusion of the night before, and now thought to myself that his appearance had not been improved by neglect.

He lacked as much sleep as Jamie; the one eye that was open was red-rimmed and bloodshot. The other had darkened to the color of a rotten banana, a slit of glittering black visible in the puffed flesh. The knot on his forehead had now achieved full prominence: a purple goose-egg just over one brow, with a nasty split through it.

The little clansman had said barely a word since his release from the bag the night before. Beyond a brief inquiry as to the whereabouts of his knives—retrieved by Fergus, who, questing in his usual rat-terrier fashion, had found both dirk and sgian dhu behind a pile of rubbish—he had preserved a grim silence through the exigencies of our getaway, guarding the rear as we hurried on foot through the dim Paris alleys. And once arrived at the house, a piercing glance from his operating eye had been sufficient to quell any injudicious questions from the kitchen servants.

I supposed he must have said something at the commissariat de police if only to bear witness to the good character of his employer—though I did wonder just how much credibility I would be inclined to place in Murtagh, were I a French judge. But now he was silent as the gargoyles on Notre Dame, one of which he strongly resembled.

However disreputable his appearance, though, Murtagh never seemed to lack for dignity, nor did he now. Back straight as a ramrod, he advanced across the carpet, and knelt formally before Jamie, who looked nonplussed at this behavior.

The wiry little man drew the dirk from his belt, without flourishes, but with a good deal of deliberateness, and held it out, haft first. The bony, seamed face was expressionless, but the one black eye rested unwaveringly on Jamie’s face.

“I’ve failed ye,” the little man said quietly. “And I’ll ask ye, as my chief, to take my life now, so I needna live longer wi’ the shame of it.”

Jamie drew himself slowly upright, and I felt him push away his own tiredness as he brought his gaze to bear on his retainer. He was quite still for a moment, hands resting on his knees. Then he reached out and placed one hand gently over the purple knot on Murtagh’s head.

“There’s nay shame to ha’ fallen in battle, mo caraidh,” he said softly. “The greatest of warriors may be overcome.”

But the little man shook his head stubbornly, black eye unwinking.

“Nay,” he said. “I didna fall in battle. Ye gave me your trust; your own lady and your child unborn to guard, and the wee English lassie as well. And I gave the task sae little heed that I had nay chance to strike a blow when the danger came. Truth to tell, I didna even see the hand that struck me down.” He did blink then, once.

“Treachery—” Jamie began.

“And now see what’s come of it,” Murtagh interrupted. I had never heard him speak so many words in a row in all the time I had known him. “Your good name smirched, your wife attacked, and the wee lass…” The thin line of his mouth clamped tight for a moment, and his stringy throat bobbed once as he swallowed. “For that alone, the bitter sorrow chokes me.”

“Aye.” Jamie spoke softly, nodding. “Aye, I do see, man. I feel it, too.” He touched his chest briefly, over his heart. The two men might have been alone together, their heads inches apart as Jamie bent toward the older man. Hands folded in my lap, I neither moved nor spoke; it was not my affair.

“But I’m no your chief, man,” Jamie went on, in a firmer tone. “Ye’ve sworn me no vow, and I hold nay power ower ye.”

“Aye, that ye do.” Murtagh’s voice was firm as well, and the haft of the dirk never trembled.

“But—”

“I swore ye my oath, Jamie Fraser, when ye were no more than a week old, and a bonny lad at your mother’s breast.”

I could feel the tiny start of astonishment as Jamie’s eyes opened wide.

“I knelt at Ellen’s feet, as I kneel now by yours,” the little clansman went on, narrow chin held high. “And I swore to her by the name o’ the threefold God, that I would follow ye always, to do your bidding, and guard your back, when ye became a man grown, and needing such service.” The harsh voice softened then, and the eyelid drooped over the one tired eye.

“Aye, lad. I do cherish ye as the son of my own loins. But I have betrayed your service.”

“That ye havena and never could.” Jamie’s hands rested on Murtagh’s shoulders, squeezing firmly. “Nay, I wilna have your life from ye, for I’ve need of ye still. But I will lay an oath on ye, and you’ll take it.”

There was a long moment’s hesitation, then the spiky black head nodded imperceptibly.

Jamie’s voice dropped still further, but it was not a whisper. Holding the middle three fingers of his right hand stiff, he laid them together over the hilt of the dirk, at the juncture of haft and tang.

“I charge ye, then, by your oath to me and your word to my mother—find the men. Hunt them, and when they be found, I do charge ye wi’ the vengeance due my wife’s honor—and the blood of Mary Hawkins’s innocence.”

He paused a moment, then took his hand from the knife. The clansman raised it, holding it upright by the blade. Acknowledging my presence for the first time, he bowed his head toward me and said, “As the laird has spoken, lady, so I will do. I will lay vengeance at your feet.”

I licked dry lips, not knowing what to say. No response seemed necessary, though; he brought the dirk to his lips and kissed it, then straightened with decision and thrust it home in its sheath.