Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(36)

She blinked, then looked amused.

“You’re looking for the frog?”

“Yes. Is that funny?” He reached into the sack, fishing for a rat.

“Somewhat. I should perhaps not tell you, but since you are so accommodating”—she glanced complacently at the purse he had put beside her teabowl, a generous deposit on account—“Ma?tre Grenouille is looking for you.”

He stopped dead, hand clutching a furry body.

“What? You’ve seen him?”

She shook her head and, sniffing distastefully at her cold tea, rang the bell for her maid.

“No, but I’ve heard the same from two people.”

“Asking for me by name?” Rakoczy’s heart beat faster.

“Monsieur le Comte St. Germain. That is you?” She asked with no more than mild interest; false names were common in her business.

He nodded, mouth suddenly too dry to speak, and pulled the rat from the sack. It squirmed suddenly in his hand, and a piercing pain in his thumb made him hurl the rodent away.

“Sacrebleu! It bit me!”

The rat, dazed by impact, staggered drunkenly across the floor toward Leopold, whose tongue began to flicker faster. Fabienne, though, uttered a sound of disgust and threw a silver-backed hairbrush at the rat. Startled by the clatter, the rat leapt convulsively into the air, landed on and raced directly over the snake’s astonished head, disappearing through the door into the foyer, where—by the resultant scream—it evidently encountered the maid before making its ultimate escape into the street.

“Jésus Marie,” Madame Fabienne said, piously crossing herself. “A miraculous resurrection. Two weeks before Easter, too.”



IT WAS A SMOOTH passage; the shore of France came into sight just after dawn the next day. Joan saw it, a low smudge of dark green on the horizon, and felt a little thrill at the sight, in spite of her tiredness.

She hadn’t slept, though she’d reluctantly gone below after nightfall, there to wrap herself in her cloak and shawl, trying not to look at the young man with the shadow on his face. She’d lain all night, listening to the snores and groans of her fellow passengers, praying doggedly and wondering in despair whether prayer was all she could do.

She often wondered whether it was because of her name. She’d been proud of her name when she was small; it was a heroic name, a saint’s name, but also a warrior’s name. Her mother’d told her that, often and often. She didn’t think her mother had considered that the name might also be haunted.

Surely it didn’t happen to everyone named Joan, though, did it? She wished she knew another Joan to ask. Because if it did happen to them all, the others would be keeping it quiet, just as she did.

You didn’t go round telling people that you heard voices that weren’t there. Still less that you saw things that weren’t there, either. You just didn’t.

She’d heard of a seer, of course; everyone in the Highlands had. And nearly everyone she knew at least claimed to have seen the odd fetch or had a premonition that Angus MacWheen was dead when he didn’t come home that time last winter. The fact that Angus MacWheen was a filthy auld drunkard and so yellow and crazed that it was heads or tails whether he’d die on any particular day, let alone when it got cold enough that the loch froze, didn’t come into it.

But she’d never met a seer—there was the rub. How did you get into the way of it? Did you just tell folk, “Here’s a thing…I’m a seer,” and they’d nod and say, “Oh, aye, of course; what’s like to happen to me next Tuesday?” More important, though, how the devil—

“Ow!” She’d bitten her tongue fiercely as penance for the inadvertent blasphemy, and clapped a hand to her mouth.

“What is it?” said a concerned voice behind her. “Are ye hurt, Miss MacKimmie? Er…Sister Gregory, I mean?”

“Mm! No. No, I jutht…bit my tongue.” She turned to Michael Murray, gingerly touching the injured tongue to the roof of her mouth.

“Well, that happens when ye talk to yourself.” He took the cork from a bottle he was carrying and held the bottle out to her. “Here, wash your mouth wi’ that; it’ll help.”

She took a large mouthful and swirled it round; it burned the bitten place, but not badly, and she swallowed, as slowly as possible, to make it last.

“Jesus, Mary, and Bride,” she breathed. “Is that wine?” The taste in her mouth bore some faint kinship with the liquid she knew as wine—just as apples bore some resemblance to horse turds.

“Aye, it is pretty good,” he said modestly. “German. Umm…have a wee nip more?”

She didn’t argue and sipped happily, barely listening to his talk, telling about the wine, what it was called, how they made it in Germany, where he got it…on and on. Finally she came to herself enough to remember her manners, though, and reluctantly handed back the bottle, now half empty.

“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.