Dragonfly in Amber (65 page)

"Who?" The distraction worked; she blinked, and remembering the shock to her système, pulled out a bottle of ammoniac spirits and took a hearty sniff that made her sneeze in reflex.

"Hugue…choo! Huguenots," she got out, snorting and wheezing. "Protestant heretics. That's what the coachman says."

"They hang them? Still?" Somehow, I had thought such religious persecution a relic of earlier times.

"Well, not just for being Protestants usually, though that's enough," Louise said, sniffing. She dabbed her nose delicately with an embroidered handkerchief, examined the results critically, then reapplied the cloth to her nose and blew it with a satisfying honk.

"Ah, that's better." She tucked the handkerchief back in her pocket and leaned back with a sigh. "Now I am restored. What a shock! If they have to hang them, that's all well, but must they do so by a public thoroughfare, where ladies must be exposed to such disgustingness? Did you smell them? Pheew! This is the Comte Medard's land; I'll send him a very nasty letter about it, see if I don't."

"But why did they hang these people?" I asked, interrupting in the brutal manner that was the only possible way of actually conversing with Louise.

"Oh, witchcraft, most likely. There was a woman, you saw. Usually it's witchcraft when the women are involved. If it's only men, most often it's just preaching sedition and heresy, but the women don't preach. Did you see the ugly dark clothes she had on? Horrible! So depressing only to wear dark colors all the time; what kind of religion would make its followers wear such plain clothes all the time? Obviously the Devil's work, anyone can see that. They are afraid of women, that's what it is, so they…"

I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat. I hoped it wasn't very far to Louise's country house.

In addition to the monkey, from whom she would not be parted, Louise's country house contained a number of other decorations of dubious taste. In Paris, her husband's taste and her father's must be consulted, and the rooms of the house there were consequently done richly, but in subdued tones. But Jules seldom came to the country house, being too busy in the city, and so Louise's taste was allowed free rein.

"This is my newest toy; is it not lovely?" she cooed, running her hand lovingly over the carved dark wood of a tiny house that sprouted incongruously from the wall next to a gilt-bronze sconce in the shape of Eurydice.

"That looks like a cuckoo clock," I said disbelievingly.

"You have seen one before? I didn't think there were any to be found anywhere in Paris!" Louise pouted slightly at the thought that her toy might not be unique, but brightened as she twisted the hands of the clock to the next hour. She stood back, beaming proudly as the tiny clockwork bird stuck its head out and emitted several shrill Cuckoo!s in succession.

"Isn't it precious?" She touched the bird's head briefly as it disappeared back into its hidey-hole. "Berta, the housekeeper here, got it for me; her brother brought it all the way from Switzerland. Whatever you want to say about the Swiss, they are clever woodcarvers, no?"

I wanted to say no, but instead merely murmured something tactfully admiring.

Louise's grasshopper mind leaped nimbly to a new topic, possibly triggered by thoughts of Swiss servants.

"You know, Claire," she said, with a touch of reproof, "you ought really to come to Mass in the chapel each morning."

"Why?"

She tossed her head in the direction of the doorway, where one of the maids was passing with a tray.

"I don't care at all, myself, but the servants—they're very superstitious out here in the countryside, you know. And one of the footmen from the Paris house was foolish enough to tell the cook all about that silly story of your being La Dame Blanche. I have told them that's all nonsense, of course, and threatened to dismiss anyone I catch spreading such gossip, but…well, it might help if you came to Mass. Or at least prayed out loud now and then, so they could hear you."

Unbeliever that I was, I thought daily Mass in the house's chapel might be going a bit far, but with vague amusement, agreed to do what I could to allay the servants' fears; consequently, Louise and I spent the next hour reading psalms aloud to each other, and reciting the Lord's Prayer in unison—loudly. I had no idea what effect this performance might have on the servants, but it did at least exhaust me sufficiently that I went up to my room for a nap, and slept without dreaming until the next morning.

I often had difficulty sleeping, possibly because my waking state was little different from an uneasy doze. I lay awake at night, gazing at the white-gesso ceiling with its furbishes of fruit and flowers. It hung above me like a dim gray shape in the darkness, the personification of the depression that clouded my mind by day. When I did close my eyes at night, I dreamed. I couldn't block the dreams with grayness; they came in vivid colors to assault me in the dark. And so I seldom slept.

There was no word from Jamie—or of him. Whether it was guilt or injury that had kept him from coming to me at the Hôpital, I didn't know. But he hadn't come, nor did he come to Fontainebleau. By now he likely had left for Orvieto.

Sometimes I found myself wondering when—or whether—I would see him again, and what—if anything—we might say to each other. But for the most part, I preferred not to think about it, letting the days come and go, one by one, avoiding thoughts of both the future and the past by living only in the present.

Deprived of his idol, Fergus drooped. Again and again, I saw him from my window, sitting disconsolately beneath a hawthorn bush in the garden, hugging his knees and looking down the road toward Paris. At last, I stirred myself to go out to him, making my way heavily downstairs and down the garden path.

"Can't you find anything to do, Fergus?" I asked him. "Surely one of the stable-lads could use a hand, or something."

"Yes, milady," he agreed doubtfully. He scratched absentmindedly at his buttocks. I observed this behavior with deep suspicion.

"Fergus," I said, folding my arms, "have you got lice?" He snatched his hand back as though burned.

"Oh, no, milady!"

I reached down and pulled him to his feet, sniffed delicately in his general vicinity, and put a finger inside his collar, far enough to reveal the grimy ring around his neck.

"Bath," I said succinctly.

"No!" He jerked away, but I grabbed him by the shoulder. I was surprised by his vehemence; while no fonder of bathing than the normal Parisian—who regarded the prospect of immersion with a repugnance akin to horror—still, I could scarcely reconcile the usually obliging child I knew with the little fury that suddenly squirmed and twisted under my hand.

There was a ripping noise, and he was free, bounding through the black-berry bushes like a rabbit pursued by a weasel. There was a rustle of leaves and a scrabble of stones, and he was gone, over the wall and headed for the outbuildings at the back of the estate.

I made my way through the maze of rickety outbuildings behind the château, cursing under my breath as I skirted mud puddles and heaps of filth. Suddenly, there was a high-pitched whining buzz and a cloud of flies rose from the pile a few feet ahead of me, bodies sparking blue in the sunlight.

I wasn't close enough to have disturbed them; there must have been some movement from the darkened doorway beside the dungheap.

"Aha!" I said out loud. "Got you, you filthy little son of a whatnot! Come out of there this instant!"

No one emerged, but there was an audible stir inside the shed, and I thought I caught a glimpse of white in the shadowed interior. Holding my nose, I stepped over the manure pile into the shed.

There were two gasps of horror; mine, at beholding something that looked like the Wild Man of Borneo flattened against the back wall, and his, at beholding me.

The sunlight trickled through the cracks between the boards, giving enough light for us to see each other clearly, once my eyes had adapted to the relative dark. He wasn't, after all, quite as awful-looking as I'd thought at first, but he wasn't a lot better, either. His beard was as filthy and matted as his hair, flowing past his shoulders onto a shirt ragged as any beggar's. He was barefoot, and if the term sans-culottes wasn't yet in common use, it wasn't for lack of trying on his part.

I wasn't afraid of him, because he was so obviously afraid of me. He was pressing himself against the wall as though trying to get through it by osmosis.

"It's all right," I said soothingly. "I won't hurt you."

Instead of being soothed, he drew himself abruptly upright, reached into the bosom of his shirt and pulled out a wooden crucifix on a leather thong. He held this out toward me and started praying, in a voice shaking with terror.

"Oh, bother," I said crossly. "Not another one!" I took a deep breath. "Pater-Noster-qui-es-in-coeliset-in-terra…" His eyes bugged out, and he kept holding the crucifix, but at least he stopped his own praying in response to this performance.

"…Amen!" I concluded with a gasp. I held up both hands and waggled them in front of his face. "See? Not a word backward, not a single quotidianus da nobis hodie out of place, right? Didn't even have my fingers crossed. So I can't be a witch, can I?"

The man slowly lowered his crucifix and stood gaping at me. "A witch?" he said. He looked as though he thought I were crazy, which I felt was a bit thick under the circumstances.

"You didn't think I was a witch?" I said, beginning to feel a trifle foolish.

Something that looked like a smile twitched into existence and out again among the tangles of his beard.

"No, Madame," he said. "I am accustomed to people saying such things of me."

"You are?" I eyed him closely. Besides the rags and filth, the man was obviously starving; the wrists that stuck out of his shirt were scrawny as a child's. At the same time, his French was graceful and educated, if oddly accented.

"If you're a witch," I said, "you aren't very successful at it. Who the hell are you?"

At this, the fright came back into his eyes again. He looked from side to side, seeking escape, but the shed was solidly built, if old, with no entrance other than the one in which I was standing. At last, calling on some hidden reserve of courage, he drew himself up to his full height—some three inches below my own—and with great dignity, said "I am the Reverend Walter Laurent, of Geneva."

"You're a priest?" I was thunderstruck. I couldn't imagine what might have brought a priest—Swiss or not—to this state.

Father Laurent looked nearly as horror-struck as I.

"A priest?" he echoed. "A papist? Never!"

Suddenly the truth struck me.

"A Huguenot!" I said. "That's it—you're a Protestant, aren't you?" I remembered the bodies I had seen hanging in the forest. That, I thought, explained rather a lot.

His lips quivered, but he pressed them tightly together for a moment before opening them to reply.

"Yes, Madame. I am a pastor; I have been preaching in this district for a month." He licked his lips briefly, eyeing me. "Your pardon, Madame—I think you are not French?"

"I'm English," I said, and he relaxed suddenly, as though someone had taken all the stiffening out of his spine.

"Great Father in Heaven," he said, prayerfully. "You are then a Protestant also?"

"No, I'm a Catholic," I answered. "But I'm not at all vicious about it," I added hastily, seeing the look of alarm spring back into his light-brown eyes. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you're here. I suppose you came to try to steal a little food?" I asked sympathetically.

"To steal is a sin!" he said, horrified. "No, Madame. But…" He clamped his lips shut, but his glance in the direction of the château gave him away.

"So one of the servants brings you food," I said. "So you let them do the stealing for you. But then I suppose you can absolve them from the sin, so it all works out. Rather thin moral ice you're on, if you ask me," I said reprovingly, "but then it isn't any of my business, I suppose."

A light of hope shone in his eyes. "You mean—you will not have me arrested, Madame?"

"No, of course not. I've a sort of fellow-feeling for fugitives from the law, having come rather close to being burnt at the stake once myself." I didn't know quite why I was being so chatty; the relief of meeting someone who seemed intelligent, I supposed. Louise was sweet, devoted and kind, and had precisely as much brain as the cuckoo clock in her drawing room. Thinking of the Swiss clock, I suddenly realized who Pastor Laurent's secret parishioners must be.

"Look," I said, "if you want to stay here, I'll go up to the château and tell Berta or Maurice that you're here."

The poor man was nothing but skin, bones, and eyes. Everything he thought was reflected in those large, gentle brown orbs. Right now, he was plainly thinking that whoever had tried to burn me at the stake had been on the right track.

"I have heard," he began slowly, reaching for a fresh grip on his crucifix, "of an Englishwoman whom the Parisians call ‘La Dame Blanche.' An associate of Raymond the Heretic."

I sighed. "That's me. Though I'm not an associate of Master Raymond's, I don't think. He's just a friend." Seeing him squint doubtfully at me, I inhaled again. "Pater Noster…"

"No, no, Madame, please." To my surprise, he had lowered the crucifix, and was smiling.

"I also am an acquaintance of Master Raymond's, whom I knew in Geneva. There he was a reputable physician and herbalist. Now, alas, I fear that he has turned to darker pursuits, though of course nothing was proved."

"Proved? About what? And what's all this about Raymond the Heretic?"

"You did not know?" Thin brows lifted over the brown eyes. "Ah. Then you are not associated with Master Raymond's…activities." He relaxed noticeably.

"Activity" seemed like a poor description for the way in which Raymond had healed me, so I shook my head.

"No, but I wish you'd tell me. Oh, but I shouldn't be standing here talking; I should go and send Berta with food."

He waved a hand, with some dignity.

"It is of no urgency, Madame. The appetites of the body are of no importance when weighed against the appetites of the soul. And Catholic or not, you have been kind to me. If you are not now associated with Master Raymond's occult activities, then it is right that you should be warned in time."