Dragonfly In Amber - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений txt) 📗

“I charge ye, then, by your oath to me and your word to my mother – find the men. Hunt them, and when they be found, I do charge ye wi’ the vengeance due my wife’s honor – and the blood of Mary Hawkins’s innocence.”

He paused a moment, then took his hand from the knife. The clansman raised it, holding it upright by the blade. Acknowledging my presence for the first time, he bowed his head toward me and said, “As the laird has spoken, lady, so I will do. I will lay vengeance at your feet.”

I licked dry lips, not knowing what to say. No response seemed necessary, though; he brought the dirk to his lips and kissed it, then straightened with decision and thrust it home in its sheath.

20 LA DAME BLANCHE

The dawn had broadened into day by the time we had changed our clothes, and breakfast was on its way up the stairs from the kitchen.

“What I want to know,” I said, pouring out the chocolate, “is who in bloody hell is La Dame Blanche?”

“ La Dame Blanche?” Magnus, leaning over my shoulder with a basket of hot bread, started so abruptly that one of the rolls fell out of the basket. I fielded it neatly and turned round to look up at the butler, who was looking rather shaken.

“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “You’ve heard the name, Magnus?”

“Why, yes, milady,” the old man answered. “ La Dame Blanche is une sorciere.”

“A sorceress?” I said incredulously.

Magnus shrugged, tucking in the napkin around the rolls with excessive care, not looking at me.

“The White Lady,” he murmured. “She is called a wisewoman, a healer. And yet… she sees to the center of a man, and can turn his soul to ashes, if evil be found there.” He bobbed his head, turned, and shuffled off hastily in the direction of the kitchen. I saw his elbow bob, and realized that he was crossing himself as he went.

“Jesus H. Christ,” I said, turning back to Jamie. “Did you ever hear of La Dame Blanche?”

“Um? Oh? Oh, aye, I’ve… heard the stories.” Jamie’s eyes were hidden by long auburn lashes as he buried his nose in his cup of chocolate, but the blush on his cheeks was too deep to be put down to the heat of the rising steam.

I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms, and regarded him narrowly.

“Oh, you have?” I said. “Would it surprise you to hear that the men who attacked Mary and me last night referred to me as La Dame Blanche?”

“They did?” He looked up quickly at that, startled.

I nodded. “They took one look at me in the light, shouted ‘ La Dame Blanche,’ and then ran off as though they’d just noticed I had plague.”

Jamie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The red color was fading from his face, leaving it pale as the white china plate before him.

“God in heaven,” he said, half to himself. “God… in… heaven!”

I leaned across the table and took the cup from his hand.

“Would you like to tell me just what you know about La Dame Blanche?” I suggested gently.

“Well…” He hesitated, but then looked at me sheepishly. “It’s only… I told Glengarry that you were La Dame Blanche.”

“You told Glengarry what?” I choked on the bite of roll I had taken. Jamie pounded me helpfully on the back.

“Well, it was Glengarry and Castellotti, was what it was,” he said defensively. “I mean, playing at cards and dice is one thing, but they wouldna leave it at that. And they thought it verra funny that I’d wish to be faithful to my wife. They said… well, they said a number of things, and I… I got rather tired of it.” He looked away, the tips of his ears burning.

“Mm,” I said, sipping tea. Having heard Castellotti’s tongue in action, I could imagine the sort of merciless teasing Jamie had taken.

He drained his own cup at one swallow, then occupied himself with carefully refilling it, keeping his eyes fixed on the pot to avoid meeting mine. “But I couldna just walk out and leave them, either, could I?” he demanded. “I had to stay with His Highness through the evening, and it would do no good to have him thinkin’ me unmanly.”

“So you told them I was La Dame Blanche,” I said, trying hard to keep any hint of laughter out of my voice. “And if you tried any funny business with ladies of the evening, I’d shrivel your private parts.”

“Er, well…”

“My God, they believed it?” I could feel my own face flushing as hotly as Jamie’s, with the effort to control myself.

“I was verra convincing about it,” he said, one corner of his mouth beginning to twitch. “Swore them all to secrecy on their mothers’ lives.”

“And how much did you all have to drink before this?”

“Oh, a fair bit. I waited ’til the fourth bottle.”

I gave up the struggle and burst out laughing.

“Oh, Jamie!” I said. “You darling!” I leaned over and kissed his furiously blushing cheek.

“Well,” he said awkwardly, slathering butter over a chunk of bread. “It was the best I could think of. And they did stop pushing trollops into my arms.”

“Good,” I said. I took the bread from him, added honey, and gave it back.

“I can hardly complain about it,” I observed. “Since in addition to guarding your virtue, it seems to have kept me from being raped.”

“Aye, thank God.” He set down the roll and grasped my hand. “Christ, if anything had happened to you, Sassenach, I’d-”

“Yes,” I interrupted, “but if the men who attacked us knew I was supposed to be La Dame Blanche…”

“Aye, Sassenach.” He nodded down at me. “It canna have been either Glengarry nor Castellotti, for they were with me at the house where Fergus came to fetch me when you were attacked. But it must have been someone they told of it.”

I couldn’t repress a slight shiver at the memory of the white mask and the mocking voice behind it.

With a sigh, he let go of my hand. “Which means, I suppose, that I’d best go and see Glengarry, and find out just how many people he’s been regaling wi’ tales of my married life.” He rubbed a hand through his hair in exasperation. “And then I must go call on His Highness, and find out what in hell he means by this arrangement with the Comte St. Germain.”

“I suppose so,” I said thoughtfully, “though knowing Glengarry, he’s probably told half of Paris by now. I have some calls to make this afternoon, myself.”

“Oh, aye? And who are you going to call upon, Sassenach?” he asked, eyeing me narrowly. I took a deep breath, bracing myself at the thought of the ordeal that lay ahead.

“First, on Master Raymond,” I said. “And then, on Mary Hawkins.”

“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?”