Dragonfly In Amber - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений txt) 📗
My mind went blank, then blazed with the reassuring vision of his small-sword, hung by its belt from a hook on the wardrobe, sun glowing on the enameled hilt. But he still had his dirk, of course, and the small knife he habitually carried in his stocking. Come to that, I was entirely sure that in a pinch, he would consider his bare hands perfectly adequate. And if you cared to describe my present situation, standing between the two of them, as a pinch… I swallowed once and slowly turned around.
He was standing quite still, no more than a yard behind me. One of the tall, paned casements opened near him, and the dark shadows of the cypress needles rippled over him like water over a sunken rock. He showed no more expression than a rock, either. Whatever lived behind those eyes was hidden; they were wide and blank as windowpanes, as though the soul they mirrored were long since flown.
He didn’t speak, but after a moment, reached out one hand to me. It floated open in the air, and I finally summoned the presence of mind to take it. It was cool and hard, and I clung to it like the wood of a raft.
He drew me in, close to his side, took my arm and turned me, all without speaking or changing expression. As we reached the turning of the hall, Randall spoke behind us.
“Jamie,” he said. The voice was hoarse with shock, and held a note halfway between disbelief and pleading.
Jamie stopped then, and turned to look at him. Randall’s face was a ghastly white, with a small red patch livid on each cheekbone. He had taken off his wig, clenched in his hands, and sweat pasted the fine dark hair to his temples.
“No.” The voice that spoke above me was soft, almost expressionless. Looking up, I could see that the face still matched it, but a quick, hot pulse beat in his neck, and the small, triangular scar above his collar flushed red with heat.
“I am called Lord Broch Tuarach for formality’s sake,” the soft Scottish voice above me said. “And beyond the requirements of formality, you will never speak to me again – until you beg for your life at the point of my sword. Then, you may use my name, for it will be the last word you ever speak.”
With sudden violence, he swept around, and his flaring plaid swung wide, blocking my view of Randall as we turned the corner of the hall.
The carriage was still waiting by the gate. Afraid to look at Jamie, I climbed in and absorbed myself in tucking the folds of yellow silk around my legs. The click of the carriage door shutting made me look up abruptly, but before I could reach the handle, the carriage started with a jerk that threw me back in my seat.
Struggling and swearing, I fought my way to my knees and peered out of the back window. He was gone. Nothing moved on the drive but the swaying shadows of cypress and poplar.
I hammered frenziedly on the roof of the carriage, but the coachman merely shouted to the horses and urged them on faster. There was little traffic at this hour, and we hurtled through the narrow streets as though the devil were after us.
When we drew up in the Rue Tremoulins, I sprang out of the coach, at once panicked and furious.
“Why didn’t you stop?” I demanded of the coachman. He shrugged, safely impervious atop his perch.
“The master ordered me to drive you home without delay, Madame.” He picked up the whip and touched it lightly to the off-horse’s rump.
“Wait!” I shouted. “I want to go back!” But he only hunched himself turtle-like into his shoulders, pretending not to hear me, as the coach rattled off.
Fuming with impotence, I turned toward the door, where the small figure of Fergus appeared, thin brows raised questioningly at my appearance.
“Where’s Murtagh?” I snapped. The little clansman was the only person I could think of who might be able first, to find Jamie, and secondly, to stop him.
“I don’t know, Madame. Maybe down there.” The boy nodded in the direction of the Rue Gamboge, where there were several taverns, ranging in respectability from those where a traveling lady might dine with her husband, to the dens near the river, which even an armed man might hesitate to enter alone.
I laid a hand on Fergus’s shoulder, as much for support as in exhortation.
“Run and find him, Fergus. Quickly as you can!”
Alarmed by my tone, he leaped off the step and was gone, before I could add “Be careful!” Still, he knew the lower levels of Paris life much better than I did; no one was better adapted to eeling through a tavern crowd than an ex-pickpocket. At least I hoped he was an ex-pickpocket.
But I could worry effectively about only one thing at a time, and visions of Fergus being captured and hanged for his activities receded before the vision Jamie’s final words to Randall had evoked.
Surely, surely he would not have gone back into the Duke’s house? No, I reassured myself. He had no sword. Whatever he might be feeling – and my soul sank within me to think of what he felt – he wouldn’t act precipitously. I had seen him in battle before, mind working in an icy calm, severed from the emotions that could cloud his judgment. And for this, above all things, surely he would adhere to the formalities. He would seek the rigid prescriptions, the formulae for the satisfaction of honor, as a refuge – something to cling to against the tides that shook him, the bone-deep surge of bloodlust and revenge.
I stopped in the hallway, mechanically shedding my cloak and pausing by the mirror to straighten my hair. Think, Beauchamp, I silently urged my pale reflection. If he’s going to fight a duel, what’s the first thing he’ll need?
A sword? No, couldn’t be. His own was upstairs, hanging on the armoire. While he might easily borrow one, I couldn’t imagine his setting out to fight the most important duel of his life armed with any but his own. His uncle, Dougal MacKenzie, had given it to him at seventeen, seen him schooled in its use, taught him the tricks and the strengths of a left-handed swordsman, using that sword. Dougal had made him practice, left hand against left hand, for hours on end, until, he told me, he felt the length of Spanish metal come alive, an extension of his arm, hilt welded to his palm. Jamie had said he felt naked without it. And this was not a fight to which he would go naked.
No, if he had needed the sword at once, he would have come home to fetch it. I ran my hand impatiently through my hair, trying to think. Damn it, what was the protocol of dueling? Before it came to swords, what happened? A challenge, of course. Had Jamie’s words in the hallway constituted that? I had vague ideas of people being slapped across the face with gloves, but had no idea whether that was really the custom, or merely an artifact of memory, born of a film-maker’s imagination.
Then it came to me. First the challenge, then a place must be arranged – a suitably circumspect place, unlikely to come to the notice of the police or the King’s Guard. And to deliver the challenge, to arrange the place, a second was required. Ah. That was where he had gone, then; to find his second. Murtagh.
Even if Jamie found Murtagh before Fergus did, still there would be the formalities to arrange. I began to breathe a little easier, though my heart was still pounding, and my laces still seemed too tight. None of the servants was visible; I yanked the laces loose and drew a deep, expanding breath.
“I didna know ye were in the habit of undressing in the hallways, or I would ha’ stayed in the drawing room,” said an ironic Scots voice behind me.
I whirled, my heart leaping high enough to choke me. The man standing stretched in the drawing room doorway, arms outspread to brace him casually against the frame, was big, nearly as large as Jamie, with the same taut grace of movement, the same air of cool self-possession. The hair was dark, though, and the deep-set eyes a cloudy green. Dougal MacKenzie, appearing suddenly in my home as though called by my thought. Speak of the devil.
