The Space Between (Outlander, #7.5)(30)
Sister Eustacia was now standing by the door, emanating an intent to come and tell them it was time for Michael to leave.
“I will,” he said. He couldn’t touch her, he knew that, so bowed instead and bowed deeply to Sister Eustacia, who came toward them, looking benevolent.
“I’ll come to Mass at the chapel on Sundays, how’s that?” he said rapidly. “If I’ve a letter from your mam, or ye have to speak to me, gie me a wee roll of the eyes or something—I’ll figure something out.”
* * *
Twenty-four hours later, Sister Gregory, postulant in the Convent of Angels, regarded the bum of a large cow. The cow in question was named Mirabeau and was of uncertain temper, as evidenced by the nervously lashing tail.
“She’s kicked three of us this week,” said Sister Anne-Joseph, eyeing the cow resentfully. “And spilt the milk twice. Sister Jeanne-Marie was most upset.”
“Well, we canna have that, now, can we?” Joan murmured in English. “N’inquiétez-vous pas,” she added in French, hoping that was at least somewhat grammatical. “Let me do it.”
“Better you than me,” Sister Anne-Joseph said, crossing herself, and vanished before Sister Joan might think better of the offer.
A week spent working in the cowshed was intended as punishment for her flighty behavior in the marketplace, but Joan was grateful for it. There was nothing better for steadying the nerves than cows.
Granted, the convent’s cows were not quite like her mother’s sweet-tempered, shaggy red Hieland coos, but if you came right down to it, a cow was a cow, and even a French-speaking wee besom like the present Mirabeau was no match for Joan MacKimmie, who’d driven kine to and from the shielings for years and fed her mother’s kine in the byre beside the house with sweet hay and the leavings from supper.
With that in mind, she circled Mirabeau thoughtfully, eyeing the steadily champing jaws and the long slick of blackish-green drool that hung down from slack pink lips. She nodded once, slipped out of the cowshed, and made her way down the allée behind it, picking what she could find. Mirabeau, presented with a bouquet of fresh grasses, tiny daisies, and—delicacy of all delicacies—fresh sorrel, bulged her eyes half out of her head, opened her massive jaw, and inhaled the sweet stuff. The ominous tail ceased its lashing and the massive creature stood as if turned to stone, aside from the ecstatically grinding jaws.
Joan sighed in satisfaction, sat down, and, resting her head on Mirabeau’s monstrous flank, got down to business. Her mind, released, took up the next worry of the day.
Had Michael spoken to his friend Pépin? And if so, had he told him what she’d said, or just asked whether he kent the Comte St. Germain? Because if “tell him not to do it” referred to the same thing, then plainly the two men must be acquent with each other.
She had got thus far in her own ruminations when Mirabeau’s tail began to switch again. She hurriedly stripped the last of the milk from Mirabeau’s teats and snatched the bucket out of the way, standing up in a hurry. Then she saw what had disturbed the cow.
The man in the dove-gray coat was standing in the door to the shed, watching her. She hadn’t noticed before, in the market, but he had a handsome dark face, though rather hard about the eyes, and with a chin that brooked no opposition. He smiled pleasantly at her, though, and bowed.
“Mademoiselle. I must ask you, please, to come with me.”
* * *
Michael was in the warehouse, stripped to his shirtsleeves and sweating in the hot, wine-heady atmosphere, when Jared appeared, looking disturbed.
“What is it, cousin?” Michael wiped his face on a towel, leaving black streaks; the crew was clearing the racks on the southeast wall, and there were years of filth and cobwebs behind the most ancient casks.
“Ye haven’t got that wee nun in your bed, have ye, Michael?” Jared lifted a beetling gray brow at him.
“Have I what?”
“I’ve just had a message from the Mother Superior of le Couvent des Anges, saying that one Sister Gregory appears to have been abducted from their cowshed, and wanting to know whether you might possibly have anything to do with the matter.”
Michael stared at his cousin for a moment, unable to take this in.
“Abducted?” he said stupidly. “Who would be kidnapping a nun? What for?”
“Well, now, there ye have me.” Jared was carrying Michael’s coat over his arm and at this point handed it to him. “But maybe best ye go to the convent and find out.”
* * *
“Forgive me, Mother,” Michael said carefully. Mother Hildegarde looked as though a breath would make her roll across the floor, wizened as a winter apple. “Did ye think … is it possible that Sister J—Sister Gregory might have … left of her own accord?”
The old nun gave him a look that revised his opinion of her state of health instantly.
“We did,” she said dryly. “It happens. However”—she raised a sticklike finger—“one: there were signs of a considerable struggle in the cowshed. A full bucket of milk not merely spilt but apparently thrown at something, the manger overturned, the door left open, and two of the cows escaped into the herb garden.” Another finger. “Two: had Sister Gregory experienced doubt regarding her vocation, she was quite free to leave the convent after speaking with me, and she knew that.”