Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

“I have not,” she said, as starchily as she could. “I havena seen God or the Blessed Virgin, either, but I believe in them, too.”


Much to her annoyance, he burst out laughing. Seeing the annoyance, though, he stopped at once, though she could see the urge still trembling there behind his assumed gravity.

“I do beg your pardon, Miss MacKimmie,” he said. “I wasna questioning the existence of nuns. I’ve seen quite a number of the creatures with my own eyes.” His lips were twitching, and she glared at him.

“Creatures, is it?”

“A figure of speech, nay more, I swear it! Forgive me, Sister—I ken not what I do!” He held up a hand, cowering in mock terror. The urge to laugh made her that much more cross, but she contented herself with a simple “mmphm” of disapproval.

Curiosity got the better of her, though, and after a few moments spent inspecting the foaming wake of the ship, she asked, not looking at him, “When ye saw the nuns, then—what were they doing?”

He’d got control of himself by now and answered her seriously.

“Well, I see the Sisters of Notre Dame, who work among the poor all the time in the streets. They always go out by twos, ken, and both nuns will be carrying great huge baskets, filled with food, I suppose—maybe medicines? They’re covered, though—the baskets—so I canna say for sure what’s in them. Perhaps they’re smuggling brandy and lace down to the docks—” He dodged aside from her upraised hand, laughing.

“Oh, ye’ll be a rare nun, Sister Joan! Terror daemonum, solatium miserorum…”

She pressed her lips tight together, not to laugh. Terror of demons—the cheek of him!

“Not Sister Joan,” she said. “They’ll give me a new name, likely, at the convent.”

“Oh, aye?” He wiped hair out of his eyes, interested. “D’ye get to choose the name yourself?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Well, though—what name would ye pick, if ye had the choosing?”

“Er…well…” She hadn’t told anyone, but, after all, what harm could it do? She wouldn’t see Michael Murray again once they reached Paris. “Sister Gregory,” she blurted.

Rather to her relief, he didn’t laugh.

“Oh, that’s a good name,” he said. “After St. Gregory the Great, is it?”

“Well…aye. Ye don’t think it’s presumptuous?” she asked, a little anxious.

“Oh, no!” he said, surprised. “I mean, how many nuns are named Mary? If it’s not presumptuous to be named after the mother o’ God, how can it be highfalutin to call yourself after a mere pope?” He smiled at that, so merrily that she smiled back.

“How many nuns are named Mary?” she asked, out of curiosity. “It’s common, is it?”

“Oh, aye, ye said ye’d not seen a nun.” He’d stopped making fun of her, though, and answered seriously. “About half the nuns I’ve met seem to be called Sister Mary Something—ye ken, Sister Mary Polycarp, Sister Mary Joseph…like that.”

“And ye meet a great many nuns in the course o’ your business, do ye?” Michael Murray was a wine merchant, the junior partner of Fraser et Cie—and, judging from the cut of his clothes, did well enough at it.

His mouth twitched, but he answered seriously.

“Well, I do, really. Not every day, I mean, but the sisters come round to my office quite often—or I go to them. Fraser et Cie supplies wine to most o’ the monasteries and convents in Paris, and some will send a pair of nuns to place an order or to take away something special—otherwise, we deliver it, of course. And even the orders who dinna take wine themselves—and most of the Parisian houses do, they bein’ French, aye?—need sacramental wine for their chapels. And the begging orders come round like clockwork to ask alms.”

“Really.” She was fascinated: sufficiently so as to put aside her reluctance to look ignorant. “I didna ken…I mean…so the different orders do quite different things, is that what ye’re saying? What other kinds are there?”

He shot her a brief glance but then turned back, narrowing his eyes against the wind as he thought.

“Well…there’s the sort of nun that prays all the time—contemplative, I think they’re called. I see them in the cathedral all hours of the day and night. There’s more than one order of that sort, though; one kind wears gray habits and prays in the chapel of St. Joseph, and another wears black; ye see them mostly in the chapel of Our Lady of the Sea.” He glanced at her, curious. “Will it be that sort of nun that you’ll be?”

She shook her head, glad that the wind-chafing hid her blushes.

“No,” she said, with some regret. “That’s maybe the holiest sort of nun, but I’ve spent a good bit o’ my life being contemplative on the moors, and I didna like it much. I think I havena got the right sort of soul to do it verra well, even in a chapel.”

“Aye,” he said, and wiped back flying strands of hair from his face. “I ken the moors. The wind gets into your head after a bit.” He hesitated for a moment. “When my uncle Jamie—your da, I mean—ye ken he hid in a cave after Culloden?”

“For seven years,” she said, a little impatient. “Aye, everyone kens that story. Why?”

He shrugged.

“Only thinking. I was no but a wee bairn at the time, but I went now and then wi’ my mam, to take him food there. He’d be glad to see us, but he wouldna talk much. And it scared me to see his eyes.”

Joan felt a small shiver pass down her back, nothing to do with the stiff breeze. She saw—suddenly saw, in her head—a thin, dirty man, the bones starting in his face, crouched in the dank, frozen shadows of the cave.

“Da?” she scoffed, to hide the shiver that crawled up her arms. “How could anyone be scairt of him? He’s a dear, kind man.”

Michael’s wide mouth twitched at the corners.

“I suppose it would depend whether ye’d ever seen him in a fight. But—”

“Have you?” she interrupted, curious. “Seen him in a fight?”

“I have, aye. BUT—” he said, not willing to be distracted, “I didna mean he scared me. It was that I thought he was haunted. By the voices in the wind.”

That dried up the spit in her mouth, and she worked her tongue a little, hoping it didn’t show. She needn’t have worried; he wasn’t looking at her.

“My own da said it was because Jamie spent so much time alone, that the voices got into his head and he couldna stop hearing them. When he’d feel safe enough to come to the house, it would take hours sometimes before he could start to hear us again—Mam wouldna let us talk to him until he’d had something to eat and was warmed through.” He smiled, a little ruefully. “She said he wasna human ’til then—and, looking back, I dinna think she meant that as a figure of speech.”

“Well,” she said, but stopped, not knowing how to go on. She wished fervently that she’d known this earlier. Her da and his sister were coming on to France later, but she might not see him. She could maybe have talked to Da, asked him just what the voices in his head were like—what they said. Whether they were anything like the ones she heard.