Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

“WHAT THE DEVIL…?” Ian murmured. Jamie reined up beside him, pausing to look at the place. It was a small manor house, somewhat run down but pretty in its bones. And the last place anyone would think to look for a runaway Jewess, he’d say that for it.

“What shall we do now, d’ye think?” he asked, and Jamie shrugged and kicked his horse.

“Go knock on the door and ask, I suppose.”

Ian followed his friend up to the door, feeling intensely conscious of his grubby clothes, sprouting beard, and general state of uncouthness. Such concerns vanished, though, when Jamie’s forceful knock was answered.

“Good day, gentlemen!” said the yellow-haired bugger Ian had last seen locked in combat in the roadbed with Jamie the day before. The man smiled broadly at them, cheerful despite an obvious black eye and a freshly split lip. He was dressed in the height of fashion, in a plum velvet suit; his hair was curled and powdered, and his yellow beard was neatly trimmed. “I hoped we would see you again. Welcome to my home!” he said, stepping back and raising his hand in a gesture of invitation.

“I thank you, monsieur…?” Jamie said slowly, giving Ian a sidelong glance. Ian lifted one shoulder in the ghost of a shrug. Did they have a choice?

The yellow-haired bugger bowed. “Pierre Robert Heriveaux d’Anton, Vicomte Beaumont, by the grace of the Almighty, for one more day. And you, gentlemen?”

“James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser,” Jamie said, with a good attempt at matching the other’s grand manner. Only Ian would have noticed the faint hesitation or the slight tremor in his voice when he added, “Laird of Broch Tuarach.”

“Ian Alastair Robert MacLeod Murray,” Ian said, with a curt nod, and straightened his shoulders. “His…er…the laird’s…tacksman.”

“Come in, please, gentlemen.” The yellow-haired bugger’s eyes shifted just a little, and Ian heard the crunch of gravel behind them, an instant before he felt the prick of a dagger in the small of his back. No, they didn’t have a choice.

Inside, they were relieved of their weapons, then escorted down a wide hallway and into a commodious parlor. The wallpaper was faded, and the furniture was good but shabby. By contrast, the big Turkey carpet on the floor glowed like it was woven from jewels. A big roundish thing in the middle was green and gold and red, and concentric circles with wiggly edges surrounded it in waves of blue and red and cream, bordered in a soft, deep red, and the whole of it so ornamented with unusual shapes it would take you a day to look at them all. He’d been so taken with it the first time he saw it, he’d spent a quarter of an hour looking at them, before Big Georges caught him at it and shouted at him to roll the thing up, they hadn’t all day.

“Where did ye get this?” Ian asked abruptly, interrupting something the vicomte was saying to the two rough-clad men who’d taken their weapons.

“What? Oh, the carpet! Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” The vicomte beamed at him, quite unself-conscious, and gestured the two roughs away toward the wall. “It’s part of my wife’s dowry.”

“Your wife,” Jamie repeated carefully. He darted a sideways glance at Ian, who took the cue.

“That would be Mademoiselle Hauberger, would it?” he asked. The vicomte blushed—actually blushed—and Ian realized that the man was no older than he and Jamie were.

“Well. It—we—we have been betrothed for some time, and in Jewish custom, that is almost like being married.”

“Betrothed,” Jamie echoed again. “Since…when, exactly?”

The vicomte sucked in his lower lip, contemplating them. But whatever caution he might have had was overwhelmed in what were plainly very high spirits.

“Four years,” he said. And, unable to contain himself, he beckoned them to a table near the window and proudly showed them a fancy document covered with colored scrolly sorts of things and written in some very odd language that was all slashes and tilted lines.

“This is our ketubah,” he said, pronouncing the word very carefully. “Our marriage contract.”

Jamie bent over to peer closely at it. “Aye, verra nice,” he said politely. “I see it’s no been signed yet. The marriage hasna taken place, then?”

Ian saw Jamie’s eyes flick over the desk and could sense him passing the possibilities through his mind: grab the letter opener off the desk and take the vicomte hostage? Then find the sly wee bitch, roll her up in one of the smaller rugs, and carry her to Paris? That would doubtless be his own job, Ian thought.

A slight movement as one of the roughs shifted his weight, catching Ian’s eye, and he thought, Don’t do it, eejit! at Jamie, as hard as he could. For once, the message seemed to get through; Jamie’s shoulders relaxed a little and he straightened up.

“Ye do ken the lass is meant to be marrying someone else?” he asked baldly. “I wouldna put it past her not to tell ye.”

The vicomte’s color became higher. “Certainly I know!” he snapped. “She was promised to me first, by her father!”

“How long have ye been a Jew?” Jamie asked carefully, edging round the table. “I dinna think ye were born to it. I mean—ye are a Jew now, aye? For I kent one or two, in Paris, and it’s my understanding that they dinna marry people who aren’t Jewish.” His eyes flicked round the solid, handsome room. “It’s my understanding that they mostly aren’t aristocrats, either.”

The vicomte was quite red in the face by now. With a sharp word, he sent the roughs out—though they were disposed to argue. While the brief discussion was going on, Ian edged closer to Jamie and whispered rapidly to him about the rug in Gàidhlig.

“Holy God,” Jamie muttered in the same language. “I didna see him or either of those two at Bèguey, did you?”

Ian had no time to reply and merely shook his head, as the roughs reluctantly acquiesced to Vicomte Beaumont’s imperious orders and shuffled out with narrowed eyes aimed at Ian and Jamie. One of them had Jamie’s dirk in his hand and drew this slowly across his neck in a meaningful gesture as he left.

Aye, they might manage in a fight, Ian thought, returning the slit-eyed glare, but not that wee velvet gomerel. Captain D’Eglise wouldn’t have taken on the vicomte, and neither would a band of professional highwaymen, Jewish or not.

“All right,” the vicomte said abruptly, leaning his fists on the desk. “I’ll tell you.”