Seven Stones to Stand or Fall

by Diana Gabaldon

  Ian sat on the floor, bent over, holding his eye and breathing through his mouth in short gasps. After a minute, he straightened up. His eye was puffing already, leaking tears down his lean cheek. He got up, shaking his head slowly, and put the bench back in place. Then he sat down, picked up his cup and took a deep gulp, put it down and blew out his breath. He took the snot-rag Jamie was holding out to him and dabbed at his eye.

  “Sorry,” Jamie managed. The agony in his hand was beginning to subside, but the anguish in his heart wasn’t.

  “Aye,” Ian said quietly, not meeting his eye. “I wish we’d done something, too. Ye want to share a bowl o’ stew?”

  TWO DAYS LATER, they set off for Paris. After some thought, D’Eglise had decided that Rebekah and her maid, Marie, would travel by coach, escorted by Jamie and Ian. D’Eglise and the rest of the troop would take the money, with some men sent ahead in small groups to wait, both to check the road and so that they could ride in shifts, not stopping anywhere along the way. The women obviously would have to stop, but if they had nothing valuable with them, they’d be in no danger.

  It was only when they went to collect the women at Dr. Hasdi’s residence that they learned the Torah scroll and its custodian, a sober-looking man of middle age introduced to them as Monsieur Peretz, would be traveling with Rebekah. “I trust my greatest treasures to you, gentlemen,” the doctor told them, through his granddaughter, and gave them a formal little bow.

  “May you find us worthy of trust, lord,” Jamie managed in halting Hebrew, and Ian bowed with great solemnity, hand on his heart. Dr. Hasdi looked from one to the other, gave a small nod, and then stepped forward to kiss Rebekah on the forehead.

  “Go with God, child,” he whispered, in something close enough to Spanish that Jamie understood it.

  ALL WENT WELL for the first day and the first night. The autumn weather held fine, with no more than a pleasant tang of chill in the air, and the horses were sound. Dr. Hasdi had provided Jamie with a purse to cover the expenses of the journey, and they all ate decently and slept at a very respectable inn—Ian being sent in first to inspect the premises and insure against any nasty surprises.

  The next day dawned cloudy, but the wind came up and blew the clouds away before noon, leaving the sky clean and brilliant as a sapphire overhead. Jamie was riding in the van, Ian post, and the coach was making good time, in spite of a rutted, winding road.

  As they reached the top of a small rise, though, Jamie brought his horse to a sudden stop, raising a hand to halt the coach, and Ian reined up alongside him. A small stream had run through the roadbed in the dip below, making a bog some ten feet across.

  “What—” Jamie began, but was interrupted. The driver had pulled his team up for an instant, but at a peremptory shout from inside the coach, now snapped the reins over the horses’ backs and the coach lunged forward, narrowly missing Jamie’s horse, which shied violently, flinging its rider off into the bushes.

  “Jamie! Are ye all right?” Torn between concern for his friend and for his duty, Ian held his horse, glancing to and fro.

  “Stop them! Get them! Ifrinn!” Jamie scuttled crabwise out of the weeds, face scratched and bright red with fury. Ian didn’t wait but kicked his horse and lit out in pursuit of the heavy coach, this now lurching from side to side as it ran down into the boggy bottom. Shrill feminine cries of protest from inside were drowned by the driver’s exclamation of “Ladrones!”

  That was one word he kent in Spanish—“thieves.” One of the ladrones was already skittering up the side of the coach like an eight-legged cob, and the driver promptly dived off the box, hit the ground, and ran for it.

  “Coward!” Ian bellowed, and gave out with a Hieland screech that set the coach horses dancing, flinging their heads to and fro, and giving the would-be kidnapper fits with the reins. He forced his own horse—which hadn’t liked the screeching any better than the coach horses did—through the narrow gap between the brush and the coach and, as he came even with the driver, had his pistol out. He drew down on the fellow—a young chap with long yellow hair—and shouted at him to pull up.

  The man glanced at him, crouched low, and slapped the reins on the horses’ backs, shouting at them in a voice like iron. Ian fired and missed—but the delay had let Jamie catch them up; he saw Jamie’s red head poke up as he climbed the back of the coach, and there were more screams from inside as Jamie pounded across the roof and launched himself at the yellow-haired driver.

  Leaving that bit of trouble to Jamie to deal with, Ian kicked his horse forward, meaning to get ahead and seize the reins, but another of the thieves had beat him to it and was hauling down on one horse’s head. Aye, well, it worked once. Ian inflated his lungs as far as they’d go and let rip.

  The coach horses bolted in a spray of mud. Jamie and the yellow-haired driver fell off the box, and the whoreson in the road disappeared, possibly trampled into the mire. Ian hoped so. Blood in his eye, he reined up his own agitated mount, drew his broadsword, and charged across the road, shrieking like a ban-sidhe and slashing wildly. Two thieves stared up at him openmouthed, then broke and ran for it.

  He chased them a wee bit into the brush, but the going was too thick for his horse, and he turned back to find Jamie rolling about in the road, earnestly hammering the yellow-haired laddie. Ian hesitated—help him, or see to the coach? A loud crash and horrible screams decided him at once, and he charged down the road.

  The coach, driver-less, had run off the road, hit the bog, and fallen sideways into a ditch. From the clishmaclaver coming from inside, he thought the women were likely all right and, swinging off his horse, wrapped the reins hastily round a tree and went to take care of the coach horses before they killed themselves.

  It took no little while to disentangle the mess single-handed—luckily the horses had not managed to damage themselves significantly—and his efforts were not aided by the emergence from the coach of two agitated and very disheveled women carrying on in an incomprehensible mix of French and Ladino.

  Just as well, he thought, giving them a vague wave of a hand he could ill spare at the moment. It wouldna help to hear what they’re saying. Then he picked up the word “dead” and changed his mind. Monsieur Peretz was normally so silent that Ian had in fact forgotten his presence, in the confusion of the moment. He was even more silent now, Ian learned, having broken his neck when the coach overturned.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said, running to look. But the man was undeniably dead, and the horses were still creating a ruckus, slipping and stamping in the mud of the ditch. He was too busy for a bit to worry about how Jamie was faring, but as he got the second horse detached from the coach and safely tethered to a tree, he did begin to wonder where the wean was.

  He didn’t think it safe to leave the women; the banditti might come back, and a right numpty he’d look if they did. There was no sign of their driver, who had evidently abandoned them out of fright. He told the ladies to sit down under a sycamore tree and gave them his canteen to drink from, and, after a bit, they stopped talking quite so fast.

  “Where is Diego?” Rebekah said, quite intelligibly.

  “Och, he’ll be along presently,” Ian said, hoping it was true. He was beginning to be worrit himself.

  “Perhaps he’s been killed, too,” said the maidservant, who shot an ill-tempered glare at her mistress. “How would you feel then?”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t—I mean, he’s not. I’m sure,” Rebekah repeated, not sounding all that sure.

  She was right, though; no sooner had Ian decided to march the women back along the road to have a keek when Jamie came shambling around the bend and sank down in the dry grass, closing his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Rebekah asked, bending down anxiously to look at him from under the brim of her straw traveling hat. He didn’t look very peart, Ian thought.

  “Aye, fine.” He touched the back of his head, wincing slightly. “Just a wee dunt on the heid. The fellow who fell down in the roa
d,” he explained to Ian, closing his eyes again. “He got up again and hit me from behind. Didna knock me clean out, but it distracted me for a wee bit, and when I got my wits back, they’d both gone—the fellow that hit me, and the one I was hittin’.”

  “Mmphm,” said Ian, and, squatting in front of his friend, thumbed up one of Jamie’s eyelids and peered intently into the bloodshot blue eye behind it. He had no idea what to look for, but he’d seen Père Renault do that, after which he usually applied leeches somewhere. As it was, both that eye and the other one looked fine to him; just as well, as he hadn’t any leeches. He handed Jamie the canteen and went to look the horses over.

  “Two of them are sound enough,” he reported, coming back. “The light bay’s lame. Did the bandits take your horse? And what about the driver?”

  Jamie looked surprised.

  “I forgot I had a horse,” he confessed. “I dinna ken about the driver—didna see him lyin’ in the road, at least.” He glanced vaguely round. “Where’s Monsieur Pickle?”

  “Dead. Stay there, aye?”

  Ian sighed, got up, and loped back down the road, where there was no sign of the driver, though he walked to and fro calling for a while. Fortunately, he did come across Jamie’s horse peaceably cropping grass by the verge. He rode it back and found the women on their feet, discussing something in low voices, now and then looking down the road or standing on their toes in a vain attempt to see through the trees.

  Jamie was still sitting on the ground, eyes closed—but at least upright.

  “Can ye ride, man?” Ian asked softly, squatting down by his friend. To his relief, Jamie opened his eyes at once.

  “Oh, aye. Ye’re thinkin’ we should ride into Saint-Aulaye and send someone back to do something about the coach and Peretz?”

  “What else is there to do?”

  “Nothing I can think of. I dinna suppose we can take him with us.” Jamie got to his feet, swaying a little but without needing to hold on to the tree. “Can the women ride, d’ye think?”

  Marie could, it turned out—at least a little. Rebekah had never been on a horse. After more discussion than Ian would have believed possible on the subject, he got the late M. Peretz decently laid out on the coach’s seat with a handkerchief over his face against flies, and the rest of them finally mounted: Jamie on his horse with the Torah scroll in its canvas wrappings bound behind his saddle—between the profanation of its being touched by a Gentile and the prospect of its being left in the coach for anyone happening by to find, the women had reluctantly allowed the former—the maid on one of the coach horses, with a pair of saddlebags fashioned from the covers of the coach’s seats, these filled with as much of the women’s luggage as they could cram in, and Ian with Rebekah on the saddle before him.

  Rebekah looked like a wee dolly, but she was surprisingly solid, as he found when she put her foot in his hands and he tossed her up into the saddle. She didn’t manage to swing her leg over and instead lay across the saddle like a dead deer, waving her arms and legs in agitation. Wrestling her into an upright position and getting himself set behind her left him red-faced and sweating, far more than dealing with the horses had.

  Jamie gave him a raised eyebrow, as much jealousy as amusement in it, and he gave Jamie a squinted eye in return and put his arm round Rebekah’s waist to settle her against him, hoping that he didn’t stink too badly.

  IT WAS DARK by the time they made it into Saint-Aulaye and found an inn that could provide them with two rooms. Ian talked to the landlord and arranged that someone should go in the morning to retrieve M. Peretz’s body and bury it; the women weren’t happy about the lack of proper preparation of the body, but as they insisted he must be buried before the next sundown, there wasn’t much else to be done. Then he inspected the women’s room, looked under the beds, rattled the shutters in a confident manner, and bade them good night. They looked that wee bit frazzled.

  Going back to the other room, he heard a sweet chiming sound and found Jamie on his knees, pushing the bundle that contained the Torah scroll under the single bed.

  “That’ll do,” he said, sitting back on his heels with a sigh. He looked nearly as done up as the women, Ian thought, but didn’t say so.

  “I’ll go and have some supper sent up,” he said. “I smelled a joint roasting. Some of that, and maybe—”

  “Whatever they’ve got,” Jamie said fervently. “Bring it all.”

  THEY ATE HEARTILY, and separately, in their rooms. Jamie was beginning to feel that the second helping of tarte tatin with clotted cream had been a mistake, when Rebekah came into the men’s room, followed by her maid carrying a small tray with a jug on it, wisping aromatic steam. Jamie sat up straight, restraining a small cry as pain flashed through his head. Rebekah frowned at him, gull-winged brows lowering in concern.

  “Your head hurts very much, Diego?”

  “No, it’s fine. No but a wee bang on the heid.” He was sweating and his wame was wobbly, but he pressed his hands flat on the table and was sure he looked steady. She appeared not to agree and came close, bending down to gaze searchingly into his eyes.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You look…clammy.”

  “Oh. Aye?” he said, rather feebly.

  “If she means ye resemble a fresh-shucked clam, then, aye, ye do,” Ian informed him. “Shocked, ken? All pale and wet and—”

  “I ken what clammy means, aye?” He glowered at Ian, who gave him half a grin—damn, he must look awful; Ian was actually worried. He swallowed, groping for something witty to say in reassurance, but his gorge rose suddenly and he was obliged to shut both mouth and eyes tightly, concentrating fiercely to make it go back down.

  “Tea,” Rebekah was saying firmly. She took the jug from her maid and poured a cup, then folded Jamie’s hands about it and, holding his hands with her own, guided the cup to his mouth. “Drink. It will help.”

  He drank, and it did. At least he felt less queasy at once. He recognized the taste of the tea, though he thought this cup had a few other things in it, too.

  “Again.” Another cup was presented; he managed to drink this one alone, and by the time it was down, he felt a good bit better. His head still throbbed with his heartbeat, but the pain seemed to be standing a little apart from him, somehow.

  “You shouldn’t be left alone for a while,” Rebekah informed him, and sat down, sweeping her skirts elegantly around her ankles. He opened his mouth to say that he wasn’t alone, Ian was there—but caught Ian’s eye in time and stopped.

  “The bandits,” she was saying to Ian, her pretty brow creased, “who do you think that they were?”

  “Ah…well, depends. If they kent who ye were and wanted to abduct ye, that’s one thing. But could be they were no but random thieves and saw the coach and thought they’d chance it for what they might get. Ye didna recognize any of them, did ye?”

  Her eyes sprang wide. They weren’t quite the color of Annalise’s, Jamie thought hazily. A softer brown…like the breast feathers on a grouse.

  “Know who I was?” she whispered. “Wanted to abduct me?” She swallowed. “You…think that’s possible?” She gave a little shudder.

  “Well, I dinna ken, of course. Here, a nighean, ye ought to have a wee nip of that tea, I’m thinkin’.” Ian stretched out a long arm for the jug, but she moved it back, shaking her head.

  “No, it’s medicine—and Diego needs it. Don’t you?” she said, leaning forward to peer earnestly into Jamie’s eyes. She’d taken off the hat but had her hair tucked up—mostly—in a lacy white cap with pink ribbon. He nodded obediently.

  “Marie—bring some brandy, please. The shock…” She swallowed again and wrapped her arms briefly around herself. Jamie noticed the way it pushed her breasts up, so they swelled just a little above her stays. There was a bit of tea left in his cup; he drank it automatically.

  Marie came with the brandy and poured a glass for Rebekah—then one for Ian, at Rebekah’s gesture, and when Jamie made a smal
l polite noise in his throat, half-filled his cup, pouring in more tea on top of it. The taste was peculiar, but he didn’t really mind. The pain had gone off to the far side of the room; he could see it sitting over there, a wee glowering sort of purple thing with a bad-tempered expression on its face. He laughed at it, and Ian frowned at him.

  “What are ye giggling at?”

  Jamie couldn’t think how to describe the pain beastie, so he just shook his head, which proved a mistake—the pain looked suddenly gleeful and shot back into his head with a noise like tearing cloth. The room spun and he clutched the table with both hands.

  “Diego!” Chairs scraped and there was a good bit of clishmaclaver that he paid no attention to. Next thing he knew, he was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling beams. One of them seemed to be twining slowly, like a vine growing.

  “…and he told the captain that there was someone among the Jews who kent about…” Ian’s voice was soothing, earnest and slow so Rebekah would understand him—though Jamie thought she maybe understood more than she said. The twining beam was slowly sprouting small green leaves, and he had the faint thought that this was unusual, but a great sense of tranquillity had come over him and he didn’t mind it a bit.

  Rebekah was saying something now, her voice soft and worried, and with some effort he turned his head to look. She was leaning over the table toward Ian, and he had both big hands wrapped round hers, reassuring her that he and Jamie would let no harm come to her.

  A different face came suddenly into his view: the maid, Marie, frowning down at him. She rudely pulled back his eyelid and peered into his eye, so close he could smell the garlic on her breath. He blinked hard, and she let go with a small “hmph!” then turned to say something to Rebekah, who replied in quick Ladino. The maid shook her head dubiously but left the room.