Seven Stones to Stand or Fall

by Diana Gabaldon

  Perhaps that was why trees changed the color of their leaves in autumn? The green slipped away somehow, leaving them to fade into a brownish death. But why, then, did they have that momentary blaze of red and yellow?

  Such concerns were far from the plants surrounding her; it was midsummer, and everything was so verdant that, far from being conspicuous, had she stopped moving in the midst of all this burgeoning flora, she would have been almost invisible.

  She found the glasshouses without difficulty. There were five of them, all in a row, glittering like diamonds in the afternoon sun, each one linked to its fellow by a short covered passageway. She was a bit early, but that shouldn’t matter. She furled the parasol and joined the people passing in.

  Inside, the air was heavy and damp, luscious with the smell of ripening fruit and heady blossom. She’d seen the king’s Orangerie at Versailles once; this was much less impressive but much more appealing. Oranges and lemons and limes, plums, peaches and apricots, pears…and the intoxicating scent of citrus blossom floating over everything.

  She sighed happily and drifted down the graveled pathways that led among the rows, murmuring apology or acknowledgment as she brushed someone in passing, never meeting anyone’s eyes, and, finding herself momentarily alone beneath a canopy of quince trees, stopped to breathe the perfume of the solid yellow fruits overhead, the size of cricket balls.

  A flash of red caught her own eye through the trees, and for an instant she thought it was an exotic bird, lured by the astonishing abundance of peculiar fruits. Then she heard male voices above the well-bred hum of the largely female guests, and a moment later her red bird stepped out into the wide graveled patch where the pathways intersected. A soldier, in full-dress uniform—a blaze of scarlet and gold, with shining black boots to the knee and a sword at his belt.

  He wasn’t tall; in fact, he was rather slight, with a fine-boned face seen in profile as he turned to say something to his companion. He stood very straight, though, shoulders square and head up, and there was something about him that reminded her of a bantam cock—something deeply fierce, innately proud, and completely unaware of its relative size. Ready to take on all comers, spurs first.

  The thought entertained her so much that it was a moment before she noticed his interlocutor. The companion wasn’t dressed as a soldier but was certainly very fine, too, in ocher velvet with a blue satin sash and some large medallion pinned to his chest—the Order of Something-or-Other, she supposed. He did, however, strongly resemble a frog, wide-lipped and pale, with rather big, staring eyes.

  The sight of the two of them, rooster and frog, engaged in convivial conversation, made her smile behind her fan, and she didn’t notice the gentleman who had come up behind her until he spoke.

  “Are you fond of opuntioid cacti…madam?”

  “I might be, if I knew what they were,” she replied, swinging round to see a youngish gentleman in a plum-colored suit gazing at her intently. He cleared his throat and cocked an eyebrow.

  “Um…actually, I prefer succulents,” she said, giving the agreed-upon countersign. She cleared her throat, as well, hoping she remembered the word. “Particularly the, um, euphorbias.”

  The question in his eyes vanished, replaced by amusement. He looked her up and down in a manner that might in other circumstances have been insulting. She flushed but held his gaze and raised her brows.

  “Mr. Bloomer, I presume?”

  “If you like,” he said, smiling, and offered her his arm. “Do let me show you the euphorbias, Miss…?”

  A moment of panic: who should she be, or admit to being?

  “Houghton,” she said, seizing Rafe’s mocking nickname. “Lady Bedelia Houghton.”

  “Of course you are,” he said, straight-faced. “Charmed to make your acquaintance, Lady Bedelia.”

  He bowed slightly, she took his arm, and together they walked slowly into the wilderness.

  They passed through minor jungles of philodendrons—but philodendrons that had never graced anything so plebeian as a parlor, with ragged leaves each half as large as Minnie herself, and a thing with great veined leaves the color of green ink and the look of watered silk.

  “They’re rather poisonous, philodendrons,” Mr. Bloomer said, with a casual nod. “All of them. Did you know?”

  “I shall make a note of it.”

  And then trees—ficus, Mr. Bloomer informed her (perhaps he hadn’t chosen his nom de guerre at random, after all), with twisted stems and thick leaves and a sweet, musty smell, some of them with vines climbing their trunks with convulsive force, sturdy root-like hairs clinging to the thin bark.

  And then, sure enough: the bloody euphorbias, in person.

  She hadn’t known things like that existed. Many of them didn’t even look like proper plants, and some that did were strange perversions of the plant kingdom, with thick bare stems studded with cruel thorns, things that resembled lettuce—but a ruffled white lettuce with dark-red edgings that made it look as though someone had used it to mop up blood—

  “They’re rather poisonous, too, the euphorbias, but it’s more the sap. Won’t kill you, but you don’t want to get it in your eyes.”

  “I’m sure I don’t.” Minnie took a better grip on her parasol, ready to unfurl it in case any of the plants should take it into mind to spit at her; several of them looked as though they’d like nothing better.

  “They call that one ‘crown of thorns,’ ” Mr. Bloomer said, nodding at one particularly horrid thing with long black spikes sticking out in all directions. “Apt.” He noticed her expression at this point and smiled, tilting his head toward the next house. “Come along; you’ll like the next collection better.”

  “Oh,” she said, in a small voice. Then, “Oh!” much louder. The new glasshouse was much bigger than the others, with a high, vaulted roof that filled the air with sun and lit the thousand—at least!—orchids that sprang from tables and spilled from trees in cascades of white and gold and purple and red and…

  “Oh, my.” She sighed in bliss, and Mr. Bloomer laughed.

  They weren’t alone in their appreciation. All of the glasshouses were popular—there had been a fair number of people exclaiming at the spiny, the grotesque, and the poisonous—but the orchid house was packed with guests, and the air was filled with a hum of amazement and delight.

  Minnie inhaled as much as she could, sniffing. The air was scented with a variety of fragrances, enough to make her head swim.

  “You don’t want to smell that one.” Mr. Bloomer, guiding her from one delight to the next, put out a shielding hand toward a large pot of rather dull green orchids with thick petals. “Rotting meat.”

  She took a cautious sniff and recoiled.

  “And why on earth would an orchid want to smell like rotting meat?” she demanded.

  He gave her a slightly queer look but smiled.

  “Flowers put on the color and scent they require to attract the insects that pollinate them. Our friend the Satyrium there”—he nodded at the green things—“depends upon the services of carrion flies. Come, this one smells of coconut—have you ever smelt a coconut?”

  They took their time in the orchid house—they could hardly do otherwise, given the slow-moving crowd—and despite Minnie’s regret at leaving the exotic loveliness, she was relieved to pass into the last glasshouse in the row and find it nearly deserted. It was also cool, by contrast with the tropical heat created by so many bodies, and she breathed deep. The scents in here were subtle and modest by contrast, the plants small and ordinary-seeming, and quite suddenly she realized Mr. Bloomer’s strategy.

  The orchid house served as a sieve or barrier. Here they were quite alone, though standing in the open, where they could easily see anyone coming in time to alter their conversation to innocuous chat.

  “To business, then?” she said, and Mr. Bloomer smiled again.

  “Just so. You first or me?”

  “You.” It would be an exchange rather than a sale, but he
r half of the bargain was concrete, and his was not. “Tell it to me,” she said, focusing her concentration on his face—rather narrow but not displeasing; she could see humor in the creases near his mouth.

  “You’re quite sure you can remember?” he said dubiously.

  “Certainly.”

  He drew breath, gave a short nod of his own, and began to talk.

  Once more she took his arm, and they paced the aisles of the glasshouse, walking through patches of sun and shadow, while he told her various bits of information. She memorized these, repeating them back to him, now and again asking for clarification or repetition.

  Most of the information had to do with financial matters, banking and the Exchange, the movement of money—between persons and between countries. A few tidbits of political gossip, but not many.

  That surprised her; the information he was dealing for was all political in nature, and quite specific. Mr. Bloomer was hunting Jacobites. Particularly in England and Paris.

  I can’t think why, her father had remarked in the margin of his list. It’s true, Charles Stuart has come to Paris, but that’s common Knowledge, and besides, everyone knows he’ll never get anywhere; the Man’s an Idiot. Still, you don’t make Money by refusing to sell People what they want….

  She was relieved when Mr. Bloomer finished. It hadn’t been a long nor yet a complicated account, and she was sure that she had all the names and the necessary numbers securely fixed in mind.

  “All right,” she said, and took her own list—sealed—from the secret pocket sewn inside her jacket. She handed it over, making sure to meet his eyes as she did so. Her heart was beating fast and her palm was slightly moist, but he didn’t appear suspicious.

  Not that there was really anything wrong with what she’d done—she wasn’t cheating Mr. Bloomer. Not exactly. Everything on her list was just as her father had specified…save that when she’d written it out fair, she’d left out James Fraser’s name and the bits of information regarding his movements and interactions with Charles Stuart and his followers. She felt rather possessive, not to say protective, of Mr. Fraser.

  Mr. Bloomer wasn’t a fool; he opened the document and read it through, at least twice. Then he folded it up and smiled at her.

  “Thank you, my dear. A pleasure to—”

  He stopped suddenly and drew back a little. She turned to see what had struck him and saw the soldier, the bantam cock, coming in from the passage that led from the orchid house. He was alone, but his scarlet and gold made him glow like a tropical parrot as he stepped through a patch of sun.

  “Someone you know?” she asked, low-voiced. And someone you don’t want to meet, I daresay.

  “Yes,” Mr. Bloomer replied, and retired into the shadows of a tree fern. “Will you do me a service, my dear? Go engage His Grace there in conversation for a few moments, while I take my leave.”

  He nodded encouragingly toward the advancing soldier, and as she took a hesitant step in that direction, he blew her a kiss and stepped round behind the tree fern.

  There wasn’t time to think what to say.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, smiling and bowing to the officer. “Isn’t it pleasant in here, after all that crush?”

  “Crush?” he said, looking faintly puzzled, and then his eyes cleared, focusing on her for the first time, and she realized that he hadn’t actually seen her until she spoke to him.

  “In the orchid house,” she said, nodding toward the doorway he’d just come through. “I thought perhaps you’d come in here as I did, for refuge from the Turkish bath.”

  He was in fact sweating visibly in his heavy uniform, a bead of perspiration rolling down his temple. He wore his own hair—dark, she saw, in spite of the remnants of rice powder clinging to it. He seemed to realize that he’d been socially remiss, for he made her a deep bow, hand to his heart.

  “Your servant, ma’am. I beg your pardon; I was…” Straightening, he trailed off with a vague gesture at the plants around them. “It is cooler here, is it not?”

  Mr. Bloomer was still visible, near the door leading to the orchid house. He’d stopped, to her surprise, and she was somewhat displeased to realize that he was listening to her conversation—insipid as it was. She narrowed her eyes at him; he saw, and one corner of his long mouth turned up.

  She moved closer to the soldier and touched his arm. He stiffened slightly, but there was no sign of repulsion on his face—quite the opposite, which was reassuring—and she said chattily, “Do you know what any of these plants are? Beyond orchids and roses, I’m afraid I’m a complete ignoramus.”

  “I know…some of them,” he said. He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I actually came in here to see a particular flower that His Highness recommended to me just now.”

  “Oh, indeed?” she said, impressed. Her recollections of the frog in the ocher coat were undergoing a rapid readjustment, and she felt slightly faint at the thought that she’d been that close to the Prince of Wales. “Er…which flower was that, do you mind telling me?”

  “Not at all. Pray let me show it to you. If I can find it.” He smiled quite unexpectedly, bowed again, and gave her his arm, which she took with a small thrill, turning her back on the distant Mr. Bloomer.

  “Go engage His Grace…” That’s what he’d said: “His Grace.” It had been a long time since she’d lived in London, and she’d rarely had occasion to use English titles, but she was almost sure that you said “Your Grace” only to a duke.

  She stole a quick sideways look at him; he wasn’t tall but had a good six inches on her. Young, though…She’d always thought of dukes (when she thought of them at all) as gouty old men with paunches and dewlaps. This one couldn’t be more than five-and-twenty. He was slender, though he still radiated that rooster-like fierceness, and he had a very striking face, but there were deep shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks had lines and hollows that made him seem older than she thought he probably was.

  She felt suddenly sorry for him, and her hand squeezed his arm, quite without her meaning to do it.

  He glanced down at her, surprised, and she snatched her hand back, diving into her pocket for a handkerchief that she pressed to her lips, feigning a coughing fit.

  “Are you all right, madam?” he asked, concerned. “Shall I fetch you—” He turned to look toward the door that led back through the line of glasshouses, then turned back, courteously straight-faced. “I fear that were I to go and fetch you an ice, you’d be dead long before I returned. Shall I thump you on the back instead?”

  “You shall not,” she managed to say, and giving one or two small, ladylike hacks, dabbed her lips with the handkerchief and tucked it away. “Thank you, anyway.”

  “Not at all.” He bowed but didn’t offer her his arm again, instead nodding her to precede him toward a low table filled with an assortment of beautiful chinoiserie. One more amazement, she thought, seeing the array of delicate blue and white and gilded porcelain. Any one of these delicately painted bowls would cost a fortune, and here they were, filled with dirt, and used to display quite unremarkable flowers.

  “These?” she said, turning to look at His Grace—ought she to ask his name? Offer hers?

  “Yes,” he said, though his voice now seemed hesitant, and she saw him very briefly clench his fists before advancing to the edge of the table. “They were brought from China—very…very rare.”

  She glanced at him, surprised at the catch in his voice.

  “What are they, do you know?”

  “They have a Chinese name…I don’t recall it. I know a botanist, a Swedish fellow…he calls them chrysanthemum. Chrystos—gold, that is—and anth, anthemon. Means…flower.”

  She saw his throat bob above the edge of his leather stock as he swallowed and noticed with alarm that he was very pale.

  “Sir?” she said, reaching tentatively for his arm. “Are you quite—are you well?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, but his breath was coming fast, and the sweat was
trickling down his neck. “I’m…I’ll be…quite all ri—” He stopped suddenly, gasping, and leaned heavily on the table. The pots shifted a little and two of them chimed together, a high-pitched ringing that set her teeth on edge and made her skin jump.

  “Perhaps you’d best sit down,” she said, seizing him by the elbow and trying to lead him back a step, lest he fall face-first into hundreds of pounds of priceless porcelain and rare flowers. He stumbled back and sank to his knees in the gravel, clutching her arms, a heavy weight. She looked wildly about for help, but there was no one in the glasshouse. Mr. Bloomer had disappeared.

  “I—” He choked, coughed, coughed harder, gulped air. His lips were slightly blue, which scared her. His eyes were open, but she thought he couldn’t see; he let go of her and fumbled blindly at the skirts of his coat. “Need—”

  “What is it? Is it in your pocket?” She stooped, pushed his hand away, groped through the folds of fabric, and felt something hard. There was a small pocket in the tail of his coat, and she thought for an instant that she hadn’t expected it to be quite this way the first time she touched a man’s buttocks, but she found her way into the pocket and extracted a blue enameled snuffbox.

  “Is this what you want?” she asked dubiously, holding it out. Snuff seemed the very last thing likely to be helpful to a man in his state, surely….

  He took it from her, hands shaking, and tried to open the box. She took it back and opened it for him, only to find a tiny corked vial inside. With no idea what to do—she glanced wildly toward the entrance again, but no help appeared—she took the vial in hand, pulled the cork, and gasped, recoiling as the stinging fumes of ammonia rushed out.

  She held the vial to his nose, and he gasped in turn, sneezed—all over her hand—then grabbed her hand and held the vial closer, taking one heroic breath before he dropped it.