An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги TXT) 📗

“Aye, I’m sure,” Jamie said dryly. “Put myself and my wife in the power of a man I dinna ken and whose motives are suspect, in a wee boat on a wide sea? Even a man who didna suffer from seasickness might boggle at that prospect, no?”

Fergus’s face split in a grin.

“Milady proposes to stick you full of needles again?”

“She does,” Jamie replied, rather crossly. He hated being stabbed repeatedly, and disliked being obliged to appear in public—even within the limited confines of a ship—bristling with spines like some outlandish porcupine. The only thing that would make him do it was the sure knowledge that if he didn’t, he’d be puking his guts out for days on end.

Fergus didn’t notice his discontent, though; he was leaning into the window again.

“Nom d’nom …” he said softly, with such an expression of apprehension that Jamie turned on the bench at once to look.

Beauchamp had proceeded some way down the street, but was still in sight. He had come to a stop, though, and appeared to be executing a sort of ungainly jig. This was sufficiently odd, but what was more disturbing was that Fergus’s son Germain was crouched in the street directly in front of the man, and seemed to be hopping to and fro in the manner of an agitated toad.

These peculiar gyrations continued for a few seconds longer and then came to an end, Beauchamp now standing still, but waving his arms in expostulation, while Germain seemed to be groveling in front of the man. The boy stood up, though, tucking something into his shirt, and after a few moments’ conversation, Beauchamp laughed and put out his hand. They exchanged a brief bow and handshake, and Germain came down the street toward the Whinbush while Beauchamp continued on his course.

Germain came in and, spotting them, slid onto the bench beside his father, looking pleased with himself.

“I’ve met that man,” he said without preamble. “The man who wants Papa.”

“Aye, we saw,” Jamie said, brows raised. “What the devil were ye doing with him?”

“Well, I saw him coming, but I did not think he would stop and talk to me if I only shouted at him. So I tossed Simon and Peter into his path.”

“Who—” Jamie began, but Germain was already groping within the depths of his shirt. Before Jamie could finish the sentence, the boy had produced two sizable frogs, one green and one a sort of vile yellow color, who huddled together on the bare boards of the table, goggling in a nervous manner.

Fergus cuffed Germain round the ear.

“Take those accursed creatures off the table, before we are thrown out of here. No wonder you are covered in warts, consorting with les grenouilles!”

“Grandmere told me to,” Germain protested, nonetheless scooping up his pets and returning them to captivity.

“She did?” Jamie was not usually startled anymore by his wife’s cures, but this seemed odd, even by her standards.

“Well, she said there was nothing to do for the wart on my elbow except rub it with a dead frog and bury it—the frog, I mean—at a crossroads at midnight.”

“Oh. I think she might possibly have been being facetious. What did the Frenchman say to ye, then?”

Germain looked up, wide-eyed and interested.

“Oh, he’s not a Frenchman, Grandpere.”

A brief pulse of astonishment went through him.

“He’s not? Ye’re sure?”

“Oh, aye. He cursed most blasphemous when Simon landed on his shoe—but not the way Papa does.” Germain aimed a bland look at his father, who looked disposed to cuff him again, but desisted at Jamie’s gesture. “He is an Englishman. I’m sure.”

“He cursed in English?” Jamie asked. It was true; Frenchmen often invoked vegetables when cursing, not infrequently mingled with sacred references. English cursing generally had nothing to do with saints, sacraments, or cucumbers, but dealt with God, whores, or excrement.

“He did. But I cannot say what he said, or Papa will be offended. He has very pure ears, Papa,” Germain added, with a smirk at his father.

“Leave off deviling your father and tell me what else the man said.”

“Aye, well,” Germain said obligingly. “When he saw it was no but a pair o’ wee froggies, he laughed and asked me was I taking them home for my dinner. I said no, they were my pets, and asked him was it his ship out there, because everyone said so and it was a bonny thing, no? I was making out to be simple, aye?” he explained, in case his grandfather might not have grasped the stratagem.

Jamie suppressed a smile.

“Verra clever,” he said dryly. “What else?”

“He said no, the ship is not his but belongs to a great nobleman in France. And I of course said, oh, who was that? And he said it is the Baron Amandine.”

Jamie exchanged looks with Fergus, who looked surprised and raised one shoulder in a shrug.

“I asked then how long he might remain, for I should like to bring my brother down to see the ship. And he says he will sail tomorrow on the evening tide, and asked me—but he was joking, I could tell—if I wished to come and be a cabin boy on the voyage. I told him no, my frogs suffer from seasickness—like my grandfather.” He turned the smirk on Jamie, who eyed him severely.

“Has your father taught ye ‘Ne petez pas plus haute que votre cul’?”

“Mama will wash your mouth out with soap if you say things like that,” Germain informed him virtuously. “Do you want me to pick his pocket? I saw him go into the inn on Cherry Street. I could—”

“You could not,” Fergus said hastily. “And do not say such things where people can hear. Your mother will assassinate both of us.”

Jamie felt a cold prickle at the back of his neck, and glanced hastily round to make sure that no one had heard.

“Ye’ve been teaching him to—”

Fergus looked mildly shifty.

“I thought it a pity that the skills should be lost. It is a family legacy, you might say. I do not let him steal things, of course. We put them back.”

“We’ll have a word in private later, I think,” Jamie said, giving the pair of them a look full of menace. Christ, if Germain had been caught at it … He’d best put the fear of God into the two of them before they both ended up pilloried, if not hanged from a tree outright for theft.

“What about the man you were actually sent to find?” Fergus asked his son, seizing the chance of deflecting Jamie’s ire.

“I found him,” Germain said, and nodded toward the door. “There he is.”

DELANCEY HALL WAS a small, neat man, with the quiet, nose-twitching manner of a church mouse. Anything less like a smuggler to look at could scarcely have been imagined—which, Jamie thought, was likely a valuable attribute in that line of business.

“A shipper of dry goods” was the way Hall discreetly described his business. “I facilitate the finding of ships for specific cargoes. Which is no easy matter these days, gentlemen, as you may well suppose.”

“I do indeed.” Jamie smiled at the man. “I have nay cargo to ship, but I am in hopes that ye might know of a situation that would suit. Myself, my wife, and my nephew seek passage to Edinburgh.” His hand was under the table, in his sporran. He had taken some of the gold spheres and flattened them with a hammer, into irregular disks. He took three of these and, moving only slightly, placed them on Hall’s lap.

The man didn’t change expression in the slightest, but Jamie felt the hand dart out and seize the disks, weigh them for an instant, and then vanish into his pocket.

“I think that might be possible,” he said blandly. “I know a captain departing from Wilmington in about two weeks’ time, who might be induced to carry passengers—for a consideration.”

Sometime later, they walked back toward the printshop, Jamie and Fergus together, discussing the probabilities of Hall’s being able to produce a ship. Germain wandered dreamily in front of them, zigzagging to and fro in response to whatever was going on inside his remarkably fertile brain.