Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(121)
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 décolletage. 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 wagon. 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 Université 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.