Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

“Oh, it’s that kind of ye!” she said. “And if I could—maybe write back…?”


His smile grew wider, the marks of grief easing in his pleasure at doing her a service.

“Anytime,” he assured her. “I’ll see to it. Perhaps I could—”

A ragged shriek cut through the air, and Joan glanced up, startled, thinking it one of the seabirds that had come out from shore to wheel round the ship, but it wasn’t. The young man was standing on the rail, one hand on the rigging, and before she could so much as draw breath, he let go and was gone.





Paris

MICHAEL WAS WORRIED for Joan; she sat slumped in the coach, not bothering to look out of the window, until a faint waft of the cool breeze touched her face. The smell was so astonishing that it drew her out of the shell of shocked misery in which she had traveled from the docks.

“Mother o’ God!” she said, clapping a hand to her nose. “What is that?”

Michael dug in his pocket and pulled out the grubby rag of his handkerchief, looking dubiously at it.

“It’s the public cemeteries. I’m sorry, I didna think—”

“Moran taing.” She seized the damp cloth from him and held it over her face, not caring. “Do the French not bury folk in their cemeteries?” Because, judging from the smell, a thousand corpses had been thrown out on wet ground and left to rot, and the sight of darting, squabbling flocks of black corbies in the distance did nothing to correct this impression.

“They do.” Michael felt exhausted—it had been a terrible morning—but struggled to pull himself together. “It’s all marshland over there, though; even coffins buried deep—and most of them aren’t—work their way through the ground in a few months. When there’s a flood—and there’s a flood whenever it rains—what’s left of the coffins falls apart, and…” He swallowed, just as pleased that he’d not eaten any breakfast.

“There’s talk of maybe moving the bones at least, putting them in an ossuary, they call it. There are mine workings, old ones, outside the city—over there”—he pointed with his chin—“and perhaps…but they havena done anything about it yet,” he added in a rush, pinching his nose fast to get a breath in through his mouth. It didn’t matter whether you breathed through your nose or your mouth, though; the air was thick enough to taste.

She looked as ill as he felt, or maybe worse, her face the color of spoilt custard. She’d vomited when the crew had finally pulled the suicide aboard, pouring gray water and slimed with the seaweed that had wrapped round his legs and drowned him. There were still traces of sick down her front, and her dark hair was lank and damp, straggling out from under her cap. She hadn’t slept at all, of course—neither had he.

He couldn’t take her to the convent in this condition. The nuns maybe wouldn’t mind, but she would. He stretched up and rapped on the ceiling of the carriage.

“Monsieur?”

“Au chateau, vite!”

He’d take her to his house first. It wasn’t much out of the way, and the convent wasn’t expecting her at any particular day or hour. She could wash, have something to eat, and put herself to rights. And if it saved him from walking into his house alone, well, they did say a kind deed carried its own reward.



BY THE TIME they’d reached the Rue Trémoulins, Joan had forgotten—partly—her various reasons for distress, in the sheer excitement of being in Paris. She had never seen so many people in one place at the same time—and that was only the folk coming out of Mass at a parish church! Round the corner, a pavement of fitted stones stretched wider than the whole River Ness, and those stones covered from one side to the other in barrows and wagons and stalls, rioting with fruit and vegetables and flowers and fish and meat…She’d given Michael back his filthy handkerchief and was panting like a dog, turning her face to and fro, trying to draw all the wonderful smells into herself at once.

“Ye look a bit better,” Michael said, smiling at her. He was still pale himself, but he, too, seemed happier. “Are ye hungry yet?”

“I’m famished!” She cast a starved look at the edge of the market. “Could we stop, maybe, and buy an apple? I’ve a bit of money….” She fumbled for the coins in her stocking top, but he stopped her.

“Nay, there’ll be food a-plenty at the house. They were expecting me this week, so everything will be ready.”

She stared longingly at the market for a brief moment, then turned obligingly in the direction he pointed, craning out the carriage window to see his house as they approached.

“That’s the biggest house I’ve ever seen!” she exclaimed.

“Och, no,” he said, laughing. “Lallybroch’s bigger than that.”

“Well…this one’s taller,” she replied. And it was—a good four stories, and a huge roof of lead slates and green-coppered seams, with what must be more than a score of glass windows set in, and…

She was still trying to count the windows when Michael helped her down from the carriage and offered her his arm to walk up to the door. She was goggling at the big yew trees set in brass pots and wondering how much trouble it must be to keep those polished, when she felt his arm go suddenly rigid as wood.

She glanced at Michael, startled, then looked where he was looking—toward the door of his house. The door had swung open, and three people were coming down the marble steps, smiling and waving, calling out.

“Who’s that?” Joan whispered, leaning close to Michael. The one short fellow in the striped apron must be a butler; she’d read about butlers. But the other man was a gentleman, limber as a willow tree and wearing a coat and waistcoat striped in lemon and pink—with a hat decorated with…well, she supposed it must be a feather, but she’d pay money to see the bird it came off. By comparison, she had hardly noticed the woman, who was dressed in black. But now she saw that Michael had eyes only for the woman.

“Lé—” he began, and choked it back. “Lé—Léonie. Léonie is her name. My wife’s sister.”

Joan looked sharp then, because from the look of Michael Murray, he’d just seen his wife’s ghost. But Léonie seemed flesh and blood, slender and pretty, though her own face bore the same marks of sorrow as did Michael’s, and her face was pale under a small, neat black tricorne with a tiny curled blue feather.

“Michel,” she said. “Oh, Michel!” And with tears brimming from eyes shaped like almonds, she threw herself into his arms.

Feeling extremely superfluous, Joan stood back a little and glanced at the gentleman in the lemon-striped waistcoat—the butler had tactfully withdrawn into the house.

“Charles Pépin, mademoiselle,” he said, sweeping off his hat. Taking her hand, he bowed low over it, and now she saw the band of black mourning he wore around his bright sleeve. “A votre service.”