* * *
“Lavender, perhaps?” Raymond stood on tiptoe to take a jar from the shelf. “Not for application, but the aroma is soothing; it calms the nerves.”
“Well, that depends on whose nerves are involved,” I said, recalling Jamie’s reaction to the scent of lavender. It was the scent Jack Randall had favored, and Jamie found exposure to the herb’s perfume anything but soothing. “In this case, though, it might help. Do no harm, at any rate.”
“Do no harm,” he quoted thoughtfully. “A very sound principle.”
“That’s the first bit of the Hippocratic Oath, you know,” I said, watching him as he bent to rummage in his drawers and bins. “The oath a physician swears. ‘First, do no harm.’ ”
“Ah? And have you sworn this oath yourself, madonna?” The bright, amphibious eyes blinked at me over the edge of the high counter.
I felt myself flushing before that unblinking gaze.
“Er, well, no. Not actually. I’m not a real physician. Not yet.” I couldn’t have said what made me add that last sentence.
“No? Yet you are seeking to mend that which a ‘real’ physician would never try, knowing that a lost maidenhead is not restorable.” His irony was evident.
“Oh, isn’t it?” I answered dryly. Fergus had, with encouragement, told me quite a bit about the “ladies” at Madame Elise’s house. “What’s that bit with the shoat’s bladder full of chicken blood, hm? Or do you claim that things like that fall into an apothecary’s realm of competence, but not a physician’s?”
He had no eyebrows to speak of, but the heavy shelf of his forehead lifted slightly when he was amused.
“And who is harmed by that, madonna? Surely not the seller. Not the buyer, either—he is likely to get more enjoyment for his money than the purchaser of the genuine article. Not even the maidenhead itself is harmed! Surely a very moral and Hippocratic endeavor, which any physician might be pleased to assist?”
I laughed. “And I expect you know more than a few who do?” I said. “I’ll take the matter up with the next Medical Review Board I see. In the meantime, short of manufactured miracles, what can we do in the present case?”
“Mm.” He laid out a gauze square on the counter and poured a handful of finely shredded dried leaves into the center of it. A sharp, pleasant tang rose from the small heap of grayish-green vegetation.
“This is Saracen’s consound,” he said, skilfully folding the gauze into a tidy square with the ends tucked in. “Good for soothing irritated skin, minor lacerations, and sores of the privy parts. Useful, I think?”
“Yes, indeed,” I said, a little grimly. “As an infusion or a decoction?”
“Infusion. Warm, probably, under the circumstances.” He turned to another shelf and abstracted one of the large white jars of painted porcelain. This one said CHELIDONIUM on the side.
“For the inducement of sleep,” he explained. His lipless mouth stretched back at the corners. “I think perhaps you had better avoid the use of the opium-poppy derivatives; this particular patient appears to have an unpredictable response to them.”
“Heard all about it already, have you?” I said resignedly. I could hardly have hoped he hadn’t. I was well aware that information was one of the more important commodities he sold; consequently the little shop was a nexus for gossip from dozens of sources, from street vendors to gentlemen of the Royal Bedchamber.
“From three separate sources,” Raymond replied. He glanced out the window, craning his neck to see the huge horloge that hung from the wall of the building near the corner. “And it’s barely two o’clock. I expect I will hear several more versions of the events at your dinner before nightfall.” The wide, gummy mouth opened, and a soft chuckle emerged. “I particularly liked the version in which your husband challenged General d’Arbanville to a duel in the street, while you more pragmatically offered Monsieur le Comte the enjoyment of the unconscious girl’s body, if he would refrain from calling the King’s Guard.”
“Mmphm,” I said, sounding self-consciously Scottish. “Have you any particular interest in knowing what actually did happen?”
The horned-poppy tonic, a pale amber in the afternoon sunlight, sparkled as he poured it into a small vial.
“The truth is always of use, madonna,” he answered, eyes fixed on the slender stream. “It has the value of rarity, you know.” He set the porcelain jar on the counter with a soft thump. “And thus is worth a fair price in exchange,” he added. The money for the medicines I had bought was lying on the counter, the coins gleaming in the sun. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he merely smiled blandly, as though he had never heard of froglegs in garlic butter.
The horloge outside struck two. I calculated the distance to the Hawkins’s house in Rue Malory. Barely half an hour, if I could get a carriage. Plenty of time.
“In that case,” I said, “shall we step into your private room for a bit?”