A Trail of Fire (40 page)

He opened it and poured the contents into his palm, glittering and sparking in the dark hollow of his hand. Reds and blues and greens, the brilliant white of diamonds, the lavender and violet of amethyst, and the golden glow of topaz and citrine. Enough?

Enough to travel back, certainly. Enough to steer himself with some accuracy, to choose how far he went. But enough to go forward?

He weighed the glittering handful for a moment, then poured them carefully back. Not yet. But he had time to find more; he wasn’t going anywhere for at least four months. Not until he was sure that Madeleine was well and truly with child.

‘Joan.’ Michael put his hand on her arm, keeping her from leaping out of the carriage. ‘Ye’re
sure
, now? I mean, if ye didna feel quite ready, ye’re welcome to stay at my house until—’

‘I’m ready.’ She didn’t look at him, and her face was pale as a slab of lard. ‘Let me go, please.’

He reluctantly let go of her arm, but insisted upon getting down with her, and ringing the bell at the gate, stating their business to the portress. All the time, though, he could feel her shaking, quivering like a blancmange. Was it fear, though, or just understandable nerves? He’d feel a bit cattywumpus, himself, he thought with sympathy, was he making such a shift, beginning a new life so different from what had gone before.

The portress went away to fetch the mistress of postulants, leaving them in the little enclosure by the gate-house. From here, he could see across a sunny courtyard with a cloister walk on the far side, and what looked like extensive kitchen gardens to the right. To the left was the looming bulk of the hospital run by the order, and beyond that, the other buildings that belonged to the convent. It was a beautiful place, he thought – and hoped the sight of it would settle her fears.

She made an inarticulate noise, and he glanced at her, alarmed to see what looked like tears slicking her cheeks.

‘Joan,’ he said more quietly, and handed her his fresh handkerchief. ‘Dinna be afraid. If ye need me, send for me, anytime; I’ll come. And I meant it, about the letters.’

He would have said more, but just then the portress reappeared, with Sister Eustacia, the postulant mistress, who greeted Joan with a kind motherliness that seemed to comfort her, for the girl sniffed and straightened herself, and reaching into her pocket, pulled out a little folded square, obviously kept with care through her travels.

‘
J’ai une lettre
,’ she said, in halting French. ‘
Pour Madame le . . . pour
. . . Reverend Mother?’ she said, in a small voice. ‘Mother Hildegarde?’

‘
Oui
?’ Sister Eustacia took the note with the same care with which it was proffered.

‘It’s from . . . her,’ Joan said to Michael, having plainly run out of French. She still wouldn’t look at him. ‘Da’s . . . er . . . wife. You know. Claire.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Michael blurted, making both the portress and the postulant mistress stare reprovingly at him.

‘She said she was a friend of Mother Hildegarde. And if she was still alive . . .’ She stole a look at Sister Eustacia, who appeared to have followed this.

‘Oh, Mother Hildegarde is certainly alive,’ she assured Joan, in English. ‘And I’m sure she will be most interested to speak with you.’ She tucked the note into her own capacious pocket, and held out a hand. ‘Now, my dear child, if you are quite ready . . .’

‘
Je suis prête
,’ Joan said, shaky, but dignified. And so Joan MacKimmie of Balriggan passed through the gates of the convent of Our Lady Queen of Angels, still clutching Michael Murray’s clean handkerchief and smelling strongly of his dead wife’s scented soap.

Michael had dismissed his carriage, and wandered restlessly about the city after leaving Joan at the convent, not wanting to go home. He hoped they would be good to her, hoped that she’d made the right decision.

Of course, he comforted himself, she wouldn’t actually be a nun for some time. He didn’t know quite how long it took, from entering as a postulant to becoming a novice, to taking the final vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but at least a few years. There would be time for her to be sure. And at least she was in a place of safety; the look of terror and distress on her face as she’d shot through the gates of the convent still haunted him. He strolled toward the river, where the evening light glowed on the water like a bronze mirror. The deckhands were tired and the day’s shouting had died away. In this light, the reflections of the boats gliding homeward seemed more substantial than the boats themselves.

He’d been surprised at the letter, and wondered whether that had anything to do with Joan’s distress. He’d had no notion that his uncle’s wife had anything to do with the Convent des Anges – though now that he cast his mind back, he did recall Jared mentioning that Uncle Jamie had worked in Paris in the wine business for a short time, back before the Rising. He supposed Claire might have met Mother Hildegarde then . . . but it was all before he himself was born.

He felt an odd warmth at the thought of Claire; he couldn’t really think of her as his auntie, though she was. He’d not spent much time with her alone at Lallybroch – but he couldn’t forget the moment when she’d met him, alone at the door. Greeted him briefly and embraced him in impulse. And he’d felt an instant sense of relief, as though she’d taken a heavy burden from his heart. Or maybe lanced a boil on his spirit, as she might one on his bum.

That thought made him smile. He didn’t know what she was – the talk near Lallybroch painted her as everything from a witch to an angel, with most of the opinion hovering cautiously around ‘faery’ – for the Auld Ones were dangerous, and you didn’t talk too much about them – but he liked her. So did Da and Young Ian, and that counted for a lot. And Uncle Jamie, of course . . . though everyone said, very matter-of-fact, that Uncle Jamie was bewitched. He smiled wryly at that. Aye, if being mad in love with your wife was bewitchment.

If anyone outside the family kent what she’d told them – he cut that thought short. It wasn’t something he’d forget, but it wasn’t something he wanted to think about just yet, either. The gutters of Paris running with blood . . . he glanced down, involuntarily, but the gutters were full of the usual assortment of animal and human sewage, dead rats, and bits of rubbish too far gone to be salvaged for food even by the street beggars.

He got up and walked, making his way slowly through the crowded streets, past La Chapelle and Montmartre. If he walked enough, sometimes he could fall asleep without too much wine.

He sighed, elbowing his way through a group of buskers outside a tavern, turning back toward the Avenue Trémoulins. Some days, his head was like a bramble patch, thorns catching at him no matter which way he turned, and no path leading out of the tangle.

Paris wasn’t a large city, but it was a complicated one; there was always somewhere else to walk. He crossed the Place de la Concorde, thinking of what his uncle’s wife had told them, seeing there in his mind the tall shadow of a terrible machine.

Joan had had her dinner with Mother Hildegarde, a lady so ancient and holy that Joan had feared to breathe too heavily, lest Mother Hildegarde fragment like a stale croissant and go straight off to Heaven in front of her. Mother Hildegarde had been delighted with the letter Joan had brought, though; it brought a faint flush to her face.

‘From my— er . . .’ Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, what was the French word for stepmother? ‘Ahh . . . the wife of my . . .’ Fittens, she didn’t know the word for stepfather, either! ‘The wife of my father,’ she ended, weakly.

‘You are the daughter of my good friend Claire!’ Mother had exclaimed. ‘And how is she?’

‘Bonny, er . . .
bon
, I mean, last I saw her,’ said Joan, and then tried to explain, but there was a lot of French being talked very fast, and she gave up and accepted the glass of wine that Mother Hildegarde offered her. She was going to be a sot long before she took her vows, she thought, trying to hide her flushed face by bending down to pat Mother’s wee dog, a fluffy, friendly creature the colour of burnt sugar, named Bouton.

Whether it was the wine or Mother’s kindness, though, her wobbly spirit steadied. Mother had welcomed her to the community and kissed her forehead at the end of the meal, before sending her off in the charge of Sister Eustacia to see the convent.

Now she lay on her narrow cot in the dormitory, listening to the breathing of a dozen other postulants. It sounded like a byre full of cows, and had much the same warm, humid scent – bar the manure. Her eyes filled with tears, the vision of the homely stone byre at Balriggan sudden and vivid in her mind. She swallowed them back, though, pinching her lips together. A few of the girls sobbed quietly, missing home and family, but she wouldn’t be one of them. She was older than most – a few were nay more than fourteen – and she’d promised God to be brave.

It hadn’t been bad during the afternoon. Sister Eustacia had been very kind, taking her and a couple of other new postulants round the walled estate, showing them the big gardens where the convent grew medicinal herbs and fruit and vegetables for the table, the chapel where devotions were held six times a day, plus Mass in the mornings, the stables and kitchens, where they would take turns working – and the great Hôpital des Anges, the order’s main work. They had only seen the Hôpital from the outside, though; they would see the inside tomorrow, when Sister Marie-Amadeus would explain their duties.

It was strange, of course – she still understood only half what people said to her, and was sure from the looks on their faces that they understood much less of what she tried to say to
them
– but wonderful. She loved the idea of spiritual discipline, the hours of devotion, with the sense of peace and unity that came upon the Sisters as they chanted and prayed together. Loved the simple beauty of the chapel, amazing in its clean elegance, the solid lines of granite and the grace of carved wood, a faint smell of incense in the air, like the breath of angels.

The postulants prayed with the others, but did not yet sing. They would be trained in music, though, such excitement! Mother Hildegarde had been a famous musician in her youth, it was rumoured, and considered it one of the most important forms of devotion.

The thought of the new things she’d seen, and the new things to come, distracted her mind – a little – from thoughts of her mother’s voice, the wind off the moors . . . She shoved these hastily away, and reached for her new rosary, this a substantial thing with smooth wooden beads, lovely and comforting in the fingers.

Above all, there was peace. She hadn’t heard a word from the voices, hadn’t seen anything peculiar or alarming. She wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d escaped her dangerous gift, but at least there might be help at hand if – when – it came back.

And at least she already knew enough Latin to say her rosary properly; Da had taught her the proper words. ‘
Ave, Maria
,’ she whispered, ‘
gratia plena, Dominus tecum
,’ and closed her eyes, the sobs of the homesick fading in her ears as the beads moved slow and silent through her fingers.