Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

They said French things to her, which she didn’t understand, and held out peculiar-looking instruments to her in invitation. She recognized the small pot of soap and pointed at it, and one of them at once poured water on her head and began to wash her hair!

She had for months been bidding farewell to her hair whenever she combed it, quite resigned to its loss, for whether she must sacrifice it immediately, as a postulant, or later, as a novice, plainly it must go. The shock of knowing fingers rubbing her scalp, the sheer sensual delight of warm water coursing through her hair, the soft wet weight of it lying in ropes down over her breasts—was this God’s way of asking if she’d truly thought it through? Did she know what she was giving up?

Well, she did, then. And she had thought about it. On the other hand…she couldn’t make them stop, really; it wouldn’t be mannerly. The warmth of the water was making the wine she’d drunk course faster through her blood, and she felt as though she were being kneaded like toffee, stretched and pulled, all glossy and falling into languid loops. She closed her eyes and gave up trying to remember how many Hail Marys she had yet to go in the third decade.

It wasn’t until the maids had hauled her, pink and steaming, out of the bath and wrapped her in a most remarkable huge fuzzy kind of towel that she emerged abruptly from her sensual trance. The cold air coalesced in her stomach, reminding her that all this luxury was indeed a lure of the devil—for lost in gluttony and sinful bathing, she’d forgot entirely about the young man on the ship, the poor despairing sinner who had thrown himself into the sea.

The maids had gone for the moment. She dropped at once to her knees on the stone floor and threw off the coddling towels, exposing her bare skin to the full chill of the air in penance.

“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” she breathed, knocking a fist against her bosom in a paroxysm of sorrow and regret. The sight of the drowned young man was in her mind, soft brown hair fanned across his cheek, eyes half closed, seeing nothing—and what terrible thing was it that he’d seen, or thought of, before he jumped, that he’d screamed so?

She thought briefly of Michael, the look on his face when he spoke of his poor wife—perhaps the young brown-haired man had lost someone dear and couldn’t face his life alone?

She should have spoken to him. That was the undeniable, terrible truth. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know what to say. She should have trusted God to give her words, as he had when she’d spoken to Michael.

“Forgive me, Father!” she said urgently, out loud. “Please—forgive me, give me strength!”

She’d betrayed that poor young man. And herself. And God, who’d given her the terrible gift of sight for a reason. And the voices…

“Why did ye not tell me?” she cried. “Have ye nothing to say for yourselves?” Here she’d thought the voices those of angels, and they weren’t—just drifting bits of bog mist, getting into her head, pointless, useless…useless as she was, oh, Lord Jesus…

She didn’t know how long she knelt there, naked, half drunk, and in tears. She heard the muffled squeaks of dismay from the French maids, who poked their heads in and just as quickly withdrew them, but paid no attention. She didn’t know if it was right even to pray for the poor young man—for suicide was a mortal sin, and surely he’d gone straight to hell. But she couldn’t give him up; she couldn’t. She felt somehow that he’d been her charge, that she’d carelessly let him fall, and surely God would not hold the young man entirely responsible when it was she who should have been watching out for him.

And so she prayed, with all the energy of body and mind and spirit, asking mercy. Mercy for the young man, for wee Ronnie and wretched auld Angus—mercy for poor Michael, and for the soul of Lillie, his dear wife, and their babe unborn. And mercy for herself, this unworthy vessel of God’s service.

“I’ll do better!” she promised, sniffing and wiping her nose on the fluffy towel. “Truly, I will. I’ll be braver. I will.”



MICHAEL TOOK THE candlestick from the footman, said good night, and shut the door. He hoped Sister almost-Gregory was comfortable; he’d told the staff to put her in the main guest room. He was fairly sure she’d sleep well. He smiled wryly to himself; unaccustomed to wine, and obviously nervous in company, she’d sipped her way through most of a decanter of Jerez sherry before he noticed, and was sitting in the corner with unfocused eyes and a small inward smile that reminded him of a painting he had seen at Versailles, a thing the steward had called La Gioconda.

He couldn’t very well deliver her to the convent in such a condition and had gently escorted her upstairs and given her into the hands of the chambermaids, both of whom regarded her with some wariness, as though a tipsy nun were a particularly dangerous commodity.

He’d drunk a fair amount himself in the course of the afternoon and more at dinner. He and Charles had sat up late, talking and drinking rum punch. Not talking of anything in particular; he had just wanted not to be alone. Charles had invited him to go to the gaming rooms—Charles was an inveterate gambler—but was kind enough to accept his refusal and simply bear him company.

The candle flame blurred briefly at thought of Charles’s kindness. He blinked and shook his head, which proved a mistake; the contents shifted abruptly, and his stomach rose in protest at the sudden movement. He barely made it to the chamber pot in time and, once evacuated, lay numbly on the floor, cheek pressed to the cold boards.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t get up and go to bed. It was that he couldn’t face the thought of the cold white sheets, the pillows round and smooth, as though Lillie’s head had never dented them, the bed never known the heat of her body.

Tears ran sideways over the bridge of his nose and dripped on the floor. There was a snuffling noise, and Plonplon came squirming out from under the bed and licked his face, whining anxiously. After a little while, he sat up and, leaning against the side of the bed with the dog in one arm, reached for the decanter of port that the butler had left—by instruction—on the table beside it.



THE SMELL WAS appalling. Rakoczy had wrapped a woolen comforter about his lower face, but the odor seeped in, putrid and cloying, clinging to the back of the throat, so that even breathing through the mouth didn’t preserve you from the stench. He breathed as shallowly as he could, though, picking his way carefully past the edge of the cemetery by the narrow beam of a dark lantern. The mine lay well beyond it, but the stench carried amazingly when the wind blew from the east.