“Maybe you did,” I said. “Not him. Not the Bishop, either, I don’t think.” I was wondering whether this excursion had been a good idea, at least on my part. Jamie was in his element with the giant Percherons, and the Duke was clearly impressed with him, which was all to the good. On the other hand, my back ached miserably from the carriage ride, and my feet felt hot and swollen, pressing painfully against the tight leather of my shoes.
Jamie looked down at me and smiled, pressing my hand where it lay on his arm.
“None so long now, Sassenach. The guide wants to show us the breeding sheds, and then you and the other ladies can go and sit down wi’ the food, while the men stand about makin’ crude jests about the size of each other’s cock.”
“Is that the general effect of watching horses bred?” I asked, fascinated.
“Well, on men it is; I dinna ken what it does to ladies. Keep an ear out, and ye can tell me later.”
There was in fact an air of suppressed excitement among the members of the party as we all pressed into the rather cramped quarters of a breeding shed. Stone, like the other buildings, this one was equipped not with partitioned stalls down both sides, but with a small fenced pen, with holding stalls at either side, and a sort of chute or runway along the back, with several gates that could be opened or closed to control a horse’s movement.
The building itself was light and airy, owing to huge, unglazed windows that opened at either end, giving a view of a grassy paddock outside. I could see several of the enormous Percheron mares grazing near the edge of this; one or two seemed restless, breaking into a rocking gallop for a few paces, then dropping back to a trot or a walk, shaking heads and manes with a high, whinnying noise. Once, when this happened, there was a loud, nasal scream from one of the holding stalls at the end of the shed, and the paneling shook with the thud of a mighty kick from its inhabitant.
“He’s ready,” a voice murmured appreciatively behind me. “I wonder which is the lucky mademoiselle?”
“The one nearest the gate,” the Duchesse suggested, always ready to wager. “Five livres on that one.”
“Ah, no! You’re wrong, Madame, she’s too calm. It will be the little one, under the apple tree, rolling her eyes like a coquette. See how she tosses her head? That one’s my choice.”
The mares had all stopped at the sound of the stallion’s cry, lifting inquiring noses and flicking their ears nervously. The restless ones tossed their heads and whickered; one stretched her neck and let out a long, high call.
“That one,” Jamie said quietly, nodding at her. “Hear her call him?”
“And what is she saying, my lord?” the Bishop asked, a glint in his eye.
Jamie shook his head solemnly.
“It is a song, my lord, but one that a man of the cloth is deaf to—or should be,” he added, to gales of laughter.
Sure enough, it was the mare who had called who was chosen. Once inside, she stopped dead, head up, and stood testing the air with flaring nostrils. The stallion could smell her; his cries echoed eerily off the timbered roof, so loud that conversation was impossible.
No one wanted to talk now, anyway. Uncomfortable as I was, I could feel the quick tingle of arousal through my breasts, and a tightening of my swollen belly as the mare once more answered the stallion’s call.
Percherons are very large horses. A big one stands over five feet at the shoulder, and the rump of a well-fed mare is almost a yard across, a pale, dappled gray or shining black, adorned with a waterfall of black hair, thick as my arm at the root of it.
The stallion burst from his stall toward the tethered mare with a suddenness that made everyone fall back from the fence. Puffs of dust flew up in clouds as the huge hooves struck the packed dirt of the pen, and drops of saliva flew from his open mouth. The groom who had opened his stall door jumped aside, tiny and insignificant next to the magnicent fury let loose in the pen.
The mare curvetted and squealed in alarm, but then he was on her, and his teeth closed on the sturdy arch of her neck, forcing her head down into submission. The great swathe of her tail swept high, leaving her naked, exposed to his lust.
“Jésus,” whispered Monsieur Prudhomme.
It took very little time, but it seemed a lot longer, watching the heaving of sweat-darkened flanks, and the play of light on swirling hair and the sheen of great muscles, tense and straining in the flexible agony of mating.
Everyone was very quiet as we left the shed. Finally the Duke laughed, nudged Jamie, and said, “You are accustomed to such sights, my lord Broch Tuarach?”
“Aye,” Jamie answered. “I’ve seen it a good many times.”
“Ah?” the Duke said. “And tell me, my lord, how does the sight make you feel, after so many times?”
One corner of Jamie’s mouth twitched as he replied, but he remained otherwise straight-faced.
“Verra modest, Your Grace,” he said.
* * *
“What a sight!” the Duchesse de Neve said. She broke a biscuit, dreamy-eyed, and munched it slowly. “So arousing, was it not?”
“What a prick, you mean,” said Madame Prudhomme, rather coarsely. “I wish Philibert had one like that. As it is …” She cocked an eyebrow toward a plate of tiny sausages, each perhaps two inches long, and the ladies seated on the picnic cloth broke into giggles.
“A bit of chicken, please, Paul,” said the Comtesse St. Germain to her pageboy. She was young, and the bawdy conversation of the older ladies was making her blush. I wondered just what sort of marriage she had with St. Germain; he never took her out in public, save on occasions like this, where the presence of the Bishop prevented his appearing with one of his mistresses.
“Bah,” said Madame Montresor, one of the ladies-in-waiting, whose husband was a friend of the Bishop’s. “Size isn’t everything. What difference if it’s the size of a stallion’s, if he lasts no longer than one? Less than two minutes? I ask you, what good is that?” She held up a cornichon between two fingers and delicately licked the tiny pale-green pickle, the pink tip of her tongue pointed and dainty. “It isn’t what they have in their breeches, I say; it’s what they do with it.”
Madame Prudhomme snorted. “Well, if you find one who knows how to do anything with it but poke it into the nearest hole, tell me. I would be interested to see what else can be done with a thing like that.”
“At least you have one who’s interested,” broke in the Duchesse de Neve. She cast a glance of disgust at her husband, huddled with the other men near one of the paddocks, watching a harnessed mare being put through her paces.
“Not tonight, my dearest,” she imitated the sonorous, nasal tones of her husband to perfection. “I am fatigued.” She put a hand to her brow and rolled her eyes up. “The press of business is so wearing.” Encouraged by the giggles, she went on with her imitation, now widening her eyes in horror and crossing her hands protectively over her lap. “What, again? Do you not know that to expend the male essence gratuitously is to court ill-health? Is it not enough that your demands have worn me to a nubbin, Mathilde? Do you wish me to have an attack?”
The ladies cackled and screeched with laughter, loud enough to attract the attention of the Bishop, who waved at us and smiled indulgently, provoking further gales of hilarity.
“Well, at least he is not expending all his male essence in brothels—or elsewhere,” said Madame Prudhomme, with an eloquently pitying glance at the Comtesse St. Germain.
“No,” said Mathilde gloomily. “He hoards it as though it were gold. You’d think there was no more to be had, the way he … oh, Your Grace! Will you not have a cup of wine?” She smiled charmingly up at the Duke, who had approached quietly from behind. He stood smiling at the ladies, one fair brow slightly arched. If he had heard the subject of our conversation, he gave no sign of it.
Seating himself beside me on the cloth, His Grace made casual, witty conversation with the ladies, his oddly high-pitched voice forming no contrast to theirs. While he seemed to pay cl
ose attention to the conversation, I noticed that his eyes strayed periodically to the small cluster of men who stood by the paddock fence. Jamie’s kilt was bright even amid the gorgeous cut velvets and stiffened silk.
I had had some hesitation in meeting the Duke again. After all, our last visit had ended in the arrest of Jonathan Randall, upon my accusation of attempted rape. But the Duke had been all charming urbanity on this outing, with no mention of either of the Randall brothers. Neither had there been any public mention of the arrest; whatever the Duke’s diplomatic activities, they seemed to rank highly enough to merit a Royal seal of silence.
On the whole, I welcomed the Duke’s appearance at the picnic cloth. For one thing, his presence kept the ladies from asking me—as some bold souls did every so often, at parties—whether it was true about what Scotsmen wore beneath their kilts. Given the mood of the present party, I didn’t think my customary reply of “Oh, the usual” would suffice.
“Your husband has a fine eye for horses,” the Duke observed to me, freed for a moment when the Duchesse de Neve, on his other side, leaned across the cloth to talk to Madame Prudhomme. “He tells me that both his father and his uncle kept small but quite fine stables in the Highlands.”
“Yes, that’s true.” I sipped my wine. “But you’ve visited Colum MacKenzie at Castle Leoch; surely you’ve seen his stable for yourself.” I had in fact first met the Duke at Leoch the year before, though the meeting had been brief; he had left on a hunting expedition shortly before I was arrested for witchcraft. I thought surely he must have known about that, but if so, he gave no sign of it.
“Of course.” The Duke’s small, shrewd blue eyes darted left, then right, to see whether he was observed, then shifted into English. “At the time, your husband informed me that he did not reside upon his own estates, owing to an unfortunate—and mistaken—charge of murder laid against him by the English Crown. I wondered, my lady, whether that charge of outlawry still holds?”
“There’s still a price on his head,” I said bluntly.
The Duke’s expression of polite interest didn’t change. He reached absently for one of the small sausages on the platter.
“That is not an irremediable matter,” he said quietly. “After my encounter with your husband at Leoch, I made some inquiries—oh, suitably discreet, I assure you, my dear lady. And I think that the matter might be arranged without undue difficulty, given a word in the right ear—from the right sources.”
This was interesting. Jamie had first told the Duke of Sandringham about his outlawry at Colum MacKenzie’s suggestion, in the hopes that the Duke might be persuaded to intervene in the case. As Jamie had not in fact committed the crime in question, there could be little evidence against him; it was quite possible that the Duke, a powerful voice among the nobles of England, could indeed arrange to have the charges dismissed.
“Why?” I said. “What do you want in return?”
The sketchy blond brows shot upward, and he smiled, showing small white even teeth.
“My word, you are direct, are you not? Might it not be only that I appreciate your husband’s expertise and assistance in the selection of horses, and would like to see him restored to a place where that skill might once again be profitably exercised?”
“It might be, but it isn’t,” I said. I caught Madame Prudhomme’s sharp eyes on us, and smiled pleasantly at him. “Why?”
He popped the sausage whole into his mouth and chewed it slowly, his bland round face reflecting nothing more than enjoyment of the day and the meal. At last he swallowed and patted his mouth delicately with one of the linen napkins.
“Well,” he said, “as a matter of supposition only, you understand—”
I nodded, and he went on. “As a matter of supposition, then, perhaps we may suppose that your husband’s recent friendship with—a certain personage recently arrived from Rome? Ah, I see you understand me. Yes. Let us suppose that that friendship has become a matter of some concern to certain parties who would prefer this personage to return peaceably to Rome—or alternatively, to settle in France, though Rome would be better—safer, you know?”
“I see.” I took a sausage myself. They were richly spiced, and little bursts of garlic wafted up my nose at each bite. “And these parties take a sufficiently serious view of this friendship to offer a dismissal of the charges against my husband in return for its severance? Again, why? My husband is no one of great importance.”
“Not now,” the Duke agreed. “But he may be in future. He has linkages to several powerful interests among the French banking families, and more among the merchants. He is also received at Court, and has some access to Louis’s ear. In short, if he does not at present hold the power to command substantial sums of money and influence, he is likely to do so soon. He is also a member of not one but two of the more powerful Highland clans. And the parties who wish the personage in question to return to Rome harbor a not unreasonable fear that this influence might be exerted in undesirable directions. So much better if your husband were to return—his good name restored—to his lands in Scotland, do you not think?”
“It’s a thought,” I said. It was also a bribe, and an attractive one. Sever all connection with Charles Stuart, and be free to return to Scotland and Lallybroch, without the risk of being hanged. The removal of a possibly troublesome supporter of the Stuarts, at no expense to the Crown, was an attractive proposition from the English side, too.
I eyed the Duke, trying to figure out just where he fitted into the scheme of things. Ostensibly an envoy from George II, Elector of Hanover and King—so long as James Stuart remained in Rome—of England, he could well have a dual purpose in his visit to France. To engage with Louis in the delicate exchange of civility and threat that constituted diplomacy, and simultaneously to quash the specter of a fresh Jacobite rising? Several of Charles’s usual coterie had disappeared of late, pleading the press of urgent business abroad. Bought off or scared away? I wondered.
The bland countenance gave no clue to his thoughts. He pushed back the wig from a balding brow and scratched his head unselfconsciously.
“Do think about it, my dear,” he urged. “And when you have thought—speak to your husband.”
“Why don’t you speak to him yourself?”
He shrugged and took more sausages, three this time. “I find that so often men are more amenable to a word spoken from the home quarter, from one they trust, rather than to what they may perceive as pressure from an outside source.” He smiled. “There is the matter of pride to be considered; that must be handled delicately. And for delicate handling—well, they do talk of ‘the woman’s touch,’ do they not?”
I hadn’t time to respond to this, when a shout from the main stable jerked all heads in that direction.
A horse was coming toward us, up the narrow alley between the main stable and the long, open shed that held the forge. A Percheron colt, and a young one, no more than two or three, judging from the dappling of his hide. Even young Percherons are big, and the colt seemed huge, as he blundered to and fro at a slow trot, tail lashing from side to side. Plainly the colt was not yet broken to a saddle; the massive shoulders twitched in an effort to dislodge the small form that straddled his neck, both hands buried deep in the thick black mane.
“Bloody hell, it’s Fergus!” The ladies, disturbed by the shouting, had all gotten to their feet by now, and were peering interestedly at the sight.
I didn’t realize that the men had joined us until one woman said, “But how dangerous it seems! Surely the boy will be injured if he falls!”
“Well, if he doesna hurt himself falling off, I’ll attend to it directly, once I’ve got my hands on the wee bugger,” said a grim voice behind me. I turned to see Jamie peering over my head at the rapidly approaching horse.
“Should you get him off?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, let the horse take care of it.”
In fact, the horse seemed more bewildered than frightened by the s
trange weight on his back. The dappled gray skin twitched and shivered as though beset by hordes of flies, and the colt shook its head confusedly, as though wondering what was going on.
As for Fergus, his legs were stretched nearly at right angles across the Percheron’s broad back; clearly the only hold he had on the horse was his death-grip on the mane. At that, he might have managed to slide down or at least tumble off unscathed, had the victims of the manure fight not completed their plan to exact a measure of revenge.
Two or three grooms were following the horse at a cautious distance, blocking the alleyway behind it. Another had succeeded in running ahead, and opening the gate to an empty paddock that stood near us. The gate was between the group of visiting picnickers and the end of the alleyway between the buildings; clearly the intention was to nudge the horse quietly into the paddock, where it could trample Fergus or not as it chose, but at least would itself be safe from escape or injury.
Before this could be accomplished, though, a lithe form popped its head through a small loft window, high above the alleyway. The spectators intent on the horse, no one noticed but me. The boy in the loft observed, withdrew, and reappeared almost at once, holding a large flake of hay in both hands. Judging the moment to a nicety, he dropped it as Fergus and his mount passed directly beneath.
The effect was much like a bomb going off. There was an explosion of hay where Fergus had been, and the colt gave a panicked whinny, got its hindquarters under it, and took off like a Derby winner, heading straight for the little knot of courtiers, who scattered to the four winds, screeching like geese.
Jamie had flung himself on me, pushing me out of the way and knocking me to the ground in the process. Now he rose off my supine form, cursing fluently in Gaelic. Without pausing to inquire after my welfare, he raced off in the direction taken by Fergus.
The horse was rearing and twisting, altogether spooked, churning forelegs keeping at bay a small gang of grooms and stable-lads, all of whom were rapidly losing their professional calm at the thought of one of the King’s valuable horses damaging itself before their eyes.
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