Dangerous Women

by Unknown

  “They don’t flaunt their wealth, the Jews,” D’Eglise murmured out of the side of his mouth to Jamie. “But they have it.”

  Well, these did, Jamie thought. A manservant greeted them in a plain tiled foyer, but then opened the door into a room that made the senses swim. It was lined with books in dark wood cases, carpeted thickly underfoot, and what little of the walls was not covered with books was adorned with small tapestries and framed tiles that he thought might be Moorish. But above all, the scent! He breathed it in to the bottom of his lungs, feeling slightly intoxicated, and looking for the source of it, finally spotted the owner of this earthly paradise, sitting behind a desk and staring … at him. Or maybe him and Ian both; the man’s eyes flicked back and forth between them, round as sucked toffees.

  He straightened up instinctively, and bowed.

  “We greet thee, Lord,” he said, in carefully rehearsed Hebrew. “Peace be on your house.” The man’s mouth fell open. Noticeably so; he had a large, bushy dark beard, going white near the mouth. An indefinable expression—surely it wasn’t amusement?—ran over what could be seen of his face.

  A small sound that certainly was amusement drew his attention to one side. A small brass bowl sat on a round, tile-topped table, with smoke wandering lazily up from it through a bar of late afternoon sun. Between the sun and the smoke, he could just make out the form of a woman standing in the shadows. She stepped forward, materializing out of the gloom, and his heart jumped.

  She inclined her head gravely to the soldiers, addressing them impartially.

  “I am Rebekah bat-Leah Hauberger. My grandfather bids me make you welcome to our home, gentlemen,” she said, in perfect French, though the old gentleman hadn’t spoken. Jamie drew in a great breath of relief; he wouldn’t have to try to explain their business in Hebrew, after all. The breath was so deep, though, that it made him cough, the perfumed smoke tickling his chest.

  He could feel his face going red as he tried to strangle the cough, and Ian glanced at him out of the sides of his eyes. The girl—yes, she was young, maybe his own age—swiftly took up a cover and clapped it on the bowl, then rang a bell and told the servant something in what sounded like Spanish. Ladino? he thought.

  “Do please sit, sirs,” she said, waving gracefully toward a chair in front of the desk, then turning to fetch another standing by the wall.

  “Allow me, Mademoiselle!” Ian leapt forward to assist her. Jamie, still choking as quietly as possible, followed suit.

  She had dark hair, very wavy, bound back from her brow with a rose-colored ribbon, but falling loose down her back, nearly to her waist. He had actually raised a hand to stroke it before catching hold of himself. Then she turned round. Pale skin, big, dark eyes, and an oddly knowing look in those eyes when she met his own—which she did, very directly, when he set the third chair down before her.

  Annalise. He swallowed, hard, and cleared his throat. A wave of dizzy heat washed over him, and he wished suddenly that they’d open a window.

  D’Eglise, too, was visibly relieved at having a more reliable interpreter than Jamie, and launched into a gallant speech of introduction, much decorated with French flowers, bowing repeatedly to the girl and her grandfather in turn.

  Jamie wasn’t paying attention to the talk; he was still watching Rebekah. It was her passing resemblance to Annalise de Marillac, the girl he’d loved in Paris, that had drawn his attention—but now he came to look, she was quite different.

  Quite different. Annalise had been tiny and fluffy as a kitten. This girl was small—he’d seen that she came no higher than his elbow; her soft hair had brushed his wrist when she sat down—but there was nothing either fluffy or helpless about her. She’d noticed him watching her, and was now watching him, with a faint curve to her red mouth that made the blood rise in his cheeks. He coughed and looked down.

  “What’s amiss?” Ian muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Ye look like ye’ve got a cocklebur stuck betwixt your hurdies.”

  Jamie gave an irritable twitch, then stiffened as he felt one of the rawer wounds on his back break open. He could feel the fast-cooling spot, the slow seep of pus or blood, and sat very straight, trying not to breathe deep, in hopes that the bandages would absorb the liquid before it got onto his shirt.

  This niggling concern had at least distracted his mind from Rebekah bat-Leah Hauberger, and to distract himself from the aggravation of his back, he returned to the three-way conversation between D’Eglise and the Jews.

  The Captain was sweating freely, whether from the hot tea or the strain of persuasion, but he talked easily, gesturing now and then toward his matched pair of tall, Hebrew-speaking Scots, now and then toward the window and the outer world, where vast legions of similar warriors awaited, ready and eager to do Dr. Hasdi’s bidding.

  The Doctor watched D’Eglise intently, occasionally addressing a soft rumble of incomprehensible words to his granddaughter. It did sound like the Ladino Juanito spoke, more than anything else; certainly it sounded nothing like the Hebrew Jamie had been taught in Paris.

  Finally the old Jew glanced among the three mercenaries, pursed his lips thoughtfully, and nodded. He rose and went to a large blanket chest that stood under the window, where he knelt and carefully gathered up a long, heavy cylinder wrapped in oiled cloth. Jamie could see that it was remarkably heavy for its size from the slow way the old man rose with it, and his first thought was that it must be a gold statue of some sort. His second thought was that Rebekah smelled like rose petals and vanilla pods. He breathed in, very gently, feeling his shirt stick to his back.

  The thing, whatever it was, jingled and chimed softly as it moved. Some sort of Jewish clock? Dr. Hasdi carried the cylinder to the desk and set it down, then curled a finger to invite the soldiers to step near.

  Unwrapped with a slow and solemn sense of ceremony, the object emerged from its layers of linen, canvas, and oilcloth. It was gold, in part, and not unlike statuary, but made of wood and shaped like a prism, with a sort of crown at one end. While Jamie was still wondering what the devil it might be, the Doctor’s arthritic fingers touched a small clasp and the box opened, revealing yet more layers of cloth, from which yet another delicate, spicy scent emerged. All three soldiers breathed deep, in unison, and Rebekah made that small sound of amusement again.

  “The case is cedarwood,” she said. “From Lebanon.”

  “Oh,” D’Eglise said respectfully. “Of course!”

  The bundle inside was dressed—there was no other word for it; it was wearing a sort of caped mantle and a belt—with a miniature buckle—in velvet and embroidered silk. From one end, two massive golden finials protruded like twin heads. They were pierced work, and looked like towers, adorned in the windows and along their lower edges with a number of tiny bells.

  “This is a very old Torah scroll,” Rebekah said, keeping a respectful distance. “From Spain.”

  “A priceless object, to be sure,” D’Eglise said, bending to peer closer.

  Dr. Hasdi grunted and said something to Rebekah, who translated:

  “Only to those whose Book it is. To anyone else, it has a very obvious and attractive price. If this were not so, I would not stand in need of your services.” The Doctor looked pointedly at Jamie and Ian. “A respectable man—a Jew—will carry the Torah. It may not be touched. But you will safeguard it—and my granddaughter.”

  “Quite so, Your Honor.” D’Eglise flushed slightly, but was too pleased to look abashed. “I am deeply honored by your trust, sir, and I assure you …” But Rebekah had rung her bell again, and the manservant came in with wine.

  The job offered was simple. Rebekah was to be married to the son of the chief rabbi of the Paris synagogue. The ancient Torah was part of her dowry, as was a sum of money that made D’Eglise’s eyes glisten. The Doctor wished to engage D’Eglise to deliver all three items—the girl, the scroll, and the money—safely to Paris; the Doctor himself would travel there for the wedding, but later in the month, as h
is business in Bordeaux detained him. The only things to be decided were the price for D’Eglise’s services, the time in which they were to be accomplished, and the guarantees D’Eglise was prepared to offer.

  The Doctor’s lips pursed over this last; his friend Ackerman, who had referred D’Eglise to him, had not been entirely pleased at having one of his valuable rugs stolen en route, and the Doctor wished to be assured that none of his valuable property—Jamie saw Rebekah’s soft mouth twitch as she translated this—would go missing between Bordeaux and Paris. The Captain gave Ian and Jamie a stern look, then altered this to earnest sincerity as he assured the Doctor that there would be no difficulty; his best men would take on the job, and he would offer whatever assurances the Doctor required. Small drops of sweat stood out on his upper lip.

  Between the warmth of the fire and the hot tea, Jamie was sweating, too, and could have used a glass of wine. But the old gentleman stood up abruptly and, with a courteous bow to D’Eglise, came out from behind his desk and took Jamie by the arm, pulling him up and tugging him gently toward a doorway.

  He ducked, just in time to avoid braining himself on a low archway, and found himself in a small, plain room with bunches of drying herbs hung from its beams. What—

  But before he could formulate any sort of question, the old man had got hold of his shirt and was pulling it free of his plaid. He tried to step back, but there was no room, and willy-nilly, he found himself set down on a stool, the old man’s horny fingers pulling loose the bandages. The Doctor made a deep sound of disapproval, then shouted something in which the words agua caliente were clearly discernible, back through the archway.

  He daren’t stand up and flee—not and risk D’Eglises’s new arrangement. And so he sat, burning with embarrassment, while the physician probed, prodded, and—a bowl of hot water having appeared—scrubbed at his back with something painfully rough. None of this bothered Jamie nearly as much as the appearance of Rebekah in the doorway, her dark eyebrows raised.

  “My grandfather says your back is a mess,” she told him, translating a remark from the old man.

  “Thank ye. I didna ken that,” he muttered in English, but then repeated the remark more politely in French. His cheeks burned with mortification, but a small, cold echo sounded in his heart. “He’s made a mess of you, boy.”

  The surgeon at Fort William had said it, when the soldiers had dragged Jamie to him after the flogging, legs too wabbly to stand by himself. The surgeon had been right, and so was Dr. Hasdi, but it didn’t mean Jamie wanted to hear it again.

  Rebekah, evidently interested to see what her grandfather meant, came round behind Jamie. He stiffened, and the Doctor poked him sharply in the back of the neck, making him bend forward again. The two Jews were discussing the spectacle in tones of detachment; he felt the girl’s small, soft fingers trace a line between his ribs and nearly shot off the stool, his flesh erupting in goose bumps.

  “Jamie?” Ian’s voice came from the hallway, sounding worried. “Are ye all right?”

  “Aye!” he managed, half-strangled. “Don’t—ye needn’t come in.”

  “Your name is Jamie?” Rebekah was now in front of him, leaning down to look into his face. Her own was alive with interest and concern. “James?”

  “Aye. James.” He clenched his teeth as the Doctor dug a little harder, clicking his tongue.

  “Diego,” she said, smiling at him. “That’s what it would be in Spanish—or Ladino. And your friend?”

  “He’s called Ian. That’s—” He groped for a moment and found the English equivalent. “John. That would be …”

  “Juan. Diego and Juan.” She touched him gently on the bare shoulder. “You’re friends? Brothers? I can see you come from the same place—where is that?”

  “Friends. From … Scotland. The—the—Highlands. A place called Lallybroch.” He’d spoken unwarily, and a pang shot through him at the name, sharper than whatever the Doctor was scraping his back with. He looked away; the girl’s face was too close; he didn’t want her to see.

  She didn’t move away. Instead, she crouched gracefully beside him and took his hand. Hers was very warm, and the hairs on his wrist rose in response, in spite of what the Doctor was doing to his back.

  “It will be done soon,” she promised. “He’s cleaning the infected parts; he says they will scab over cleanly now and stop draining.” A gruff question from the Doctor. “He asks, do you have fever at night? Bad dreams?”

  Startled, he looked back at her, but her face showed only compassion. Her hand tightened on his in reassurance.

  “I … yes. Sometimes.”

  A grunt from the Doctor, more words, and Rebekah let go his hand with a little pat, and went out, skirts a-rustle. He closed his eyes and tried to keep the scent of her in his mind—he couldn’t keep it in his nose, as the Doctor was now anointing him with something vile smelling. He could smell himself, too, and his jaw prickled with embarrassment; he reeked of stale sweat, campfire smoke, and fresh blood.

  He could hear D’Eglise and Ian talking in the parlor, low voiced, discussing whether to come and rescue him. He would have called out to them, save that he couldn’t bear the Captain to see … He pressed his lips together tight. Aye, well, it was nearly done; he could tell from the Doctor’s slower movements, almost gentle now.

  “Rebekah!” the Doctor called, impatient, and the girl appeared an instant later, a small cloth bundle in one hand. The Doctor let off a short burst of words, then pressed a thin cloth of some sort over Jamie’s back; it stuck to the nasty ointment.

  “Grandfather says the cloth will protect your shirt until the ointment is absorbed,” she told him. “By the time it falls off—don’t peel it off, let it come off by itself—the wounds will be scabbed, but the scabs should be soft and not crack.”

  The Doctor took his hand off Jamie’s shoulder, and Jamie shot to his feet, looking round for his shirt. Rebekah handed it to him. Her eyes were fastened on his naked chest, and he was—for the first time in his life—embarrassed by the fact that he possessed nipples. An extraordinary but not unpleasant tingle made the curly hairs on his body stand up.

  “Thank you—ah, I mean … gracias, Señor.” His face was flaming, but he bowed to the Doctor with as much grace as he could muster. “Muchas gracias.”

  “De nada,” the old man said gruffly, with a dismissive wave of one hand. He pointed at the small bundle in his granddaughter’s hand. “Drink. No fever. No dream.” And then, surprisingly, he smiled.

  “Shalom,” he said, and made a shooing gesture.

  D’Eglise, looking pleased with the new job, left Ian and Jamie at a large tavern called Le Poulet Gai, where some of the other mercenaries were enjoying themselves—in various ways. The Cheerful Chicken most assuredly did boast a brothel on the upper floor, and slatternly women in various degrees of undress wandered freely through the lower rooms, picking up new customers with whom they vanished upstairs.

  The two tall young Scots provoked a certain amount of interest from the women, but when Ian solemnly turned his empty purse inside out in front of them—having put his money inside his shirt for safety—they left the lads alone.

  “Couldna look at one of those,” Ian said, turning his back on the whores and devoting himself to his ale. “Not after seein’ the wee Jewess up close. Did ye ever seen anything like?”

  Jamie shook his head, deep in his own drink. It was sour and fresh and went down a treat, parched as he was from the ordeal in Dr. Hasdi’s surgery. He could still smell the ghost of Rebekah’s scent, vanilla and roses, a fugitive fragrance among the reeks of the tavern. He fumbled in his sporran, bringing out the little cloth bundle Rebekah had given him.

  “She said—well, the Doctor said—I was to drink this. How, d’ye think?” The bundle held a mixture of broken leaves, small sticks, and a coarse powder, and smelled strongly of something he’d never smelled before. Not bad; just odd. Ian frowned at it.

  “Well … ye’d brew a tea of it, I sup
pose,” he said. “How else?”

  “I havena got anything to brew it in,” Jamie said. “I was thinkin’ … maybe put it in the ale?”

  “Why not?”

  Ian wasn’t paying much attention; he was watching Mathieu Pig-face, who was standing against a wall, summoning whores as they passed by, looking them up and down and occasionally fingering the merchandise before sending each one on with a smack on the rear.

  He wasn’t really tempted—the women scairt him, to be honest—but he was curious. If he ever should … how did ye start? Just grab, like Mathieu was doing, or did ye need to ask about the price first, to be sure you could afford it? And was it proper to bargain, like ye did for a loaf of bread or a flitch of bacon, or would the woman kick ye in the privates and find someone less mean?

  He shot a glance at Jamie, who, after a bit of choking, had got his herbed ale down all right and was looking a little glazed. He didn’t think Jamie knew, either, but he didn’t want to ask, just in case he did.

  “I’m goin’ to the privy,” Jamie said abruptly and stood up. He looked pale.

  “Have ye got the shits?”

  “Not yet.” With this ominous remark, he was off, bumping into tables in his haste, and Ian followed, pausing long enough to thriftily drain the last of Jamie’s ale as well as his own.

  Mathieu had found one he liked; he leered at Ian and said something obnoxious as he ushered his choice toward the stairs. Ian smiled cordially and said something much worse in Gàidhlig.

  By the time he got to the yard at the back of the tavern, Jamie had disappeared. Figuring he’d be back as soon as he rid himself of his trouble, Ian leaned tranquilly against the back wall of the building, enjoying the cool night air and watching the folk in the yard.

  There were a couple of torches burning, stuck in the ground, and it looked a bit like a painting he’d seen of the Last Judgement, with angels on the one side blowing trumpets and sinners on the other, going down to Hell in a tangle of naked limbs and bad behavior. It was mostly sinners out here, though now and then he thought he saw an angel floating past the corner of his eye. He licked his lips thoughtfully, wondering what was in the stuff Dr. Hasdi had given Jamie.