Dangerous Women

by Unknown

“Just a bit. She wouldna take her stays off, but I could feel her nipples through her shift—did ye say something?”

  “No,” Jamie said with an effort. “What then?”

  “Well, she put her hand under my kilt and then pulled it out again like she’d touched a snake.”

  “And had she?”

  “She had, aye. She was shocked. Will ye no snort like that?” he said, annoyed. “Ye’ll wake the whole house. It was because it wasna circumcised.”

  “Oh. Is that why she wouldna … er … the regular way?”

  “She didna say so, but maybe. After a bit, though, she wanted to look at it, and that’s when … well.”

  “Mmphm.” Naked demons versus the chance of damnation or not, Jamie thought Ian had had well the best of it this evening. A thought occurred to him. “Why did ye ask if being circumcised hurts? Ye werena thinking of doing it, were ye? For her, I mean?”

  “I wouldna say the thought hadna occurred to me,” Ian admitted. “I mean … I thought I should maybe marry her, under the circumstances. But I suppose I couldna become a Jew, even if I got up the nerve to be circumcised—my mam would tear my heid off if I did.”

  “No, ye’re right,” Jamie agreed. “She would. And ye’d go to Hell.” The thought of the rare and delicate Rebekah churning butter in the yard of a Highland croft or waulking urine-soaked wool with her bare feet was slightly more ludicrous than the vision of Ian in a skullcap and whiskers—but not by much. “Besides, ye havena got any money, have ye?”

  “A bit,” Ian said thoughtfully. “Not enough to go and live in Timbuktoo, though, and I’d have to go at least that far.”

  Jamie sighed and stretched, easing himself. A meditative silence fell, Ian no doubt contemplating perdition, Jamie reliving the better bits of his opium dreams, but with Rebekah’s face on the snake-lady. Finally he broke the silence, turning to his friend.

  “So … was it worth the chance of goin’ to Hell?”

  Ian sighed long and deep once more, but it was the sigh of a man at peace with himself.

  “Oh, aye.”

  Jamie woke at dawn, feeling altogether well, and in a much better frame of mind. Some kindly soul had brought a jug of sour ale and some bread and cheese. He refreshed himself with these as he dressed, pondering the day’s work.

  He’d have to collect a few men to go back and deal with the coach. He supposed the best thing to do with M. Peretz was to fetch him here in the coach, and then see if there were any Jews in the vicinity who might be prevailed upon to bury him—the women insisted that he ought to be buried before sundown. If not … well, he’d cross that road when he came to it.

  He thought the coach wasn’t badly damaged; they might get it back upon the road again by noon … How far might it be to Bonnes? That was the next town with an inn. If it was too far, or the coach too badly hurt, or he couldn’t dispose decently of M. Peretz, they’d need to stay the night here again. He fingered his purse, but thought he had enough for another night and the hire of men; the Doctor had been generous.

  He was beginning to wonder what was keeping Ian and the women. Though he kent women took more time to do anything than a man would, let alone getting dressed—well, they had stays and the like to fret with, after all … He sipped ale, contemplating a vision of Rebekah’s stays, and the very vivid images his mind had been conjuring ever since Ian’s description of his encounter with the lass. He could all but see her nipples through the thin fabric of her shift, smooth and round as pebbles …

  Ian burst through the door, wild-eyed, his hair standing on end.

  “They’re gone!”

  Jamie choked on his ale.

  “What? How?”

  Ian understood what he meant, and was already heading for the bed.

  “No one took them. There’s nay sign of a struggle, and their things are gone. The window’s open, and the shutters aren’t broken.”

  Jamie was on his knees alongside Ian, thrusting first his hands and then his head and shoulders under the bed. There was a canvas-wrapped bundle there, and he was flooded with a momentary relief—which disappeared the instant Ian dragged it into the light. It made a noise, but not the gentle chime of golden bells. It rattled, and when Jamie seized the corner of the canvas and unrolled it, the contents were shown to be nought but sticks and stones, these hastily wrapped in a woman’s petticoat to give the bundle the appropriate bulk.

  “Cramouille!” he said, this being the worst word he could think of on short notice. And very appropriate, too, if what he thought had happened really had. He turned on Ian.

  “She drugged me and seduced you, and her bloody maid stole in here and took the thing whilst ye had your fat heid buried in her … er …”

  “Charms,” Ian said succinctly, and flashed him a brief, evil grin. “Ye’re only jealous. Where d’ye think they’ve gone?”

  It was the truth, and Jamie abandoned any further recriminations, rising and strapping on his belt, hastily arranging dirk, sword, and ax in the process.

  “Not to Paris, would be my guess. Come on, we’ll ask the ostler.”

  The ostler confessed himself at a loss; he’d been the worse for drink in the hay shed, he said, and if someone had taken two horses from the shelter, he hadn’t waked to see it.

  “Aye, right,” said Jamie, impatient, and, grabbing the man’s shirtfront, lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the inn’s stone wall. The man’s head bounced once off the stones and he sagged in Jamie’s grip, still conscious but dazed. Jamie drew his dirk left-handed and pressed the edge of it against the man’s weathered throat.

  “Try again,” he suggested pleasantly. “I dinna care about the money they gave ye—keep it. I want to know which way they went, and when they left.”

  The man tried to swallow, and abandoned the attempt when his Adam’s apple hit the edge of the dirk.

  “About three hours past moonrise,” he croaked. “They went toward Bonnes. There’s a crossroads no more than three miles from here,” he added, now trying urgently to be helpful.

  Jamie dropped him with a grunt.

  “Aye, fine,” he said in disgust. “Ian—oh, ye’ve got them.” For Ian had gone straight for their own horses while he dealt with the ostler, and was already leading one out, bridled, the saddle over his arm. “I’ll settle the bill, then.”

  The women hadn’t made off with his purse, that was something. Either Rebekah bat-Leah Hauberger had some vestige of conscience—which he doubted very much—or she just hadn’t thought of it.

  It was just past dawn; the women had perhaps six hours’ lead.

  “Do we believe the ostler?” Ian asked, settling himself in the saddle.

  Jamie dug in his purse, pulled out a copper penny and flipped it, catching it on the back of his hand.

  “Tails we do, heads we don’t?” He took his hand away and peered at the coin. “Heads.”

  “Aye, but the road back is straight all the way through Yvrac,” Ian pointed out. “And it’s nay more than three miles to the crossroads, he said. Whatever ye want to say about the lass, she’s no a fool.”

  Jamie considered that one for a moment, then nodded. Rebekah couldn’t have been sure how much lead she’d have—and unless she’d been lying about her ability to ride (which he wouldn’t put past her, but such things weren’t easy to fake and she was gey clumsy in the saddle), she’d want to reach a place where the trail could be lost before her pursuers could catch up with her. Besides, the ground was still damp with dew; there might be a chance …

  “Aye, come on, then.”

  Luck was with them. No one had passed the inn during the late night watches, and while the roadbed was trampled with hoof marks, the recent prints of the women’s horses showed clear, edges still crumbling in the damp earth. Once sure they’d got upon the track, the men galloped for the crossroads, hoping to reach it before other travelers obscured the marks.

  No such luck. Farm wagons were already on the move, loaded with produce headed for Parcoul
or La Roche-Chalais, and the crossroads was a maze of ruts and hoofprints. But Jamie had the bright thought of sending Ian down the road that lay toward Parcoul, while he took the one toward La Roche-Chalais, catching up the incoming wagons and questioning the drivers. Within an hour, Ian came pelting back with the news that the women had been seen, riding slowly and cursing volubly at each other, toward Parcoul.

  “And that,” he said, panting for breath, “is not all.”

  “Aye? Well, tell me while we ride.”

  Ian did. He’d been hurrying back to find Jamie, when he’d met Josef-from-Alsace just short of the crossroads, come in search of them.

  “D’Eglise was held up near Poitiers,” Ian reported in a shout. “The same band of men that attacked us at Marmande—Alexandre and Raoul both recognized some of them. Jewish bandits.”

  Jamie was shocked, and slowed for a moment to let Ian catch him up.

  “Did they get the dowry money?”

  “No, but they had a hard fight. Three men wounded badly enough to need a surgeon, and Paul Martan lost two fingers of his left hand. D’Eglise pulled them into Poitiers, and sent Josef to see if all was well wi’ us.”

  Jamie’s heart bounced into his throat. “Jesus. Did ye tell him what happened?”

  “I did not,” Ian said tersely. “I told him we’d had an accident wi’ the coach, and ye’d gone ahead with the women; I was comin’ back to fetch something left behind.”

  “Aye, good.” Jamie’s heart dropped back into his chest. The last thing he wanted was to have to tell the Captain that they’d lost the girl and the Torah scroll. And he’d be damned if he would.

  They traveled fast, stopping only to ask questions now and then, and by the time they pounded into the village of Aubeterre-sur-Dronne, were sure that their quarry lay no more than an hour ahead of them—if the women had passed on through the village.

  “Oh, those two?” said a woman, pausing in the act of scrubbing her steps. She stood up slowly, stretching her back. “I saw them, yes. They rode right by me, and went down the lane there.” She pointed.

  “I thank you, madame,” Jamie said, in his best Parisian French. “What lies down that lane, please?”

  She looked surprised that they didn’t know, and frowned a little at such ignorance.

  “Why, the chateau of the Vicomte Beaumont, to be sure!”

  “To be sure,” Jamie repeated, smiling at her, and Ian saw a dimple appear in her cheek in reply. “Merci beaucoup, madame!”

  “What the devil …?” Ian murmured. Jamie reined up beside him, pausing to look at the place. It was a small manor house, somewhat run-down, but pretty in its bones. And the last place anyone would think to look for a runaway Jewess, he’d say that for it.

  “What shall we do now, d’ye think?” he asked, and Jamie shrugged and kicked his horse.

  “Go knock on the door and ask, I suppose.”

  Ian followed his friend up to the door, feeling intensely conscious of his grubby clothes, sprouting beard, and general state of uncouthness. Such concerns vanished, though, when Jamie’s forceful knock was answered.

  “Good day, gentlemen!” said the yellow-haired bugger he’d last seen locked in combat in the roadbed with Jamie the day before. The man smiled broadly at them, cheerful despite an obvious black eye and a freshly split lip. He was dressed in the height of fashion, in a plum velvet suit, his hair was curled and powdered, and his yellow beard was neatly trimmed. “I hoped we would see you again. Welcome to my home!” he said, stepping back and raising his hand in a gesture of invitation.

  “I thank you, Monsieur …?” Jamie said slowly, giving Ian a sidelong glance. Ian lifted one shoulder in the ghost of a shrug. Did they have a choice?

  The yellow-haired bugger bowed. “Pierre Robert Heriveaux d’Anton, Vicomte Beaumont, by the grace of the Almighty, for one more day. And you, gentlemen?”

  “James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser,” Jamie said, with a good attempt at matching the other’s grand manner. Only Ian would have noticed the faint hesitation, or the slight tremor in his voice when he added, “Laird of Broch Tuarach.”

  “Ian Alastair Robert MacLeod Murray,” Ian said, with a curt nod, and straightened his shoulders. “His … er … the laird’s … tacksman.”

  “Come in, please, gentlemen.” The yellow-haired bugger’s eyes shifted just a little, and Ian heard the crunch of gravel behind them, an instant before he felt the prick of a dagger in the small of his back. No, they didn’t have a choice.

  Inside, they were relieved of their weapons, then escorted down a wide hallway and into a commodious parlor. The wallpaper was faded, and the furniture was good but shabby. By contrast, the big Turkey carpet on the floor glowed like it was woven from jewels. A big roundish thing in the middle was green and gold and red, and concentric circles with wiggly edges surrounded it in waves of blue and red and cream, bordered in a soft, deep red, and the whole of it so ornamented with unusual shapes it would take you a day to look at them all. He’d been so taken with it the first time he saw it he’d spent a quarter of an hour looking at the shapes before Big Georges caught him at it and shouted at him to roll the thing up, they hadn’t all day.

  “Where did ye get this?” Ian asked abruptly, interrupting something the Vicomte was saying to the two rough-clad men who’d taken their weapons.

  “What? Oh, the carpet! Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” The Vicomte beamed at him, quite unself-conscious, and gestured the two roughs away toward the wall. “It’s part of my wife’s dowry.”

  “Your wife,” Jamie repeated carefully. He darted a sideways glance at Ian, who took the cue.

  “That would be Mademoiselle Hauberger, would it?” he asked. The Vicomte blushed—actually blushed—and Ian realized that the man was no older than he and Jamie were.

  “Well. It—we—we have been betrothed for some time, and in Jewish custom, that is almost like being married.”

  “Betrothed,” Jamie echoed again. “Since … when, exactly?”

  The Vicomte sucked in his lower lip, contemplating them. But whatever caution he might have had was overwhelmed in what were plainly very high spirits.

  “Four years,” he said. And unable to contain himself, he beckoned them to a table near the window, and proudly showed them a fancy document, covered with colored scrolly sorts of things and written in some very odd language that was all slashes and tilted lines.

  “This is our ketubah,” he said, pronouncing the word very carefully. “Our marriage contract.”

  Jamie bent over to peer closely at it.

  “Aye, verra nice,” he said politely. “I see it’s no been signed yet. The marriage hasna taken place, then?” Ian saw Jamie’s eyes flick over the desk, and could see him passing the possibilities through his mind: Grab the letter opener off the desk and take the Vicomte hostage? Then find the sly wee bitch, roll her up in one of the smaller rugs, and carry her to Paris? That would doubtless be Ian’s job, he thought.

  A slight movement as one of the roughs shifted his weight caught Ian’s eye and he thought, Don’t do it, eejit! at Jamie, as hard as he could. For once, the message seemed to get through; Jamie’s shoulders relaxed a little and he straightened up.

  “Ye do ken the lass is meant to be marrying someone else?” he asked baldly. “I wouldna put it past her not to tell ye.”

  The Vicomte’s color became higher.

  “Certainly I know!” he snapped. “She was promised to me first, by her father!”

  “How long have ye been a Jew?” Jamie asked carefully, edging round the table. “I dinna think ye were born to it. I mean—ye are a Jew, now, aye? For I kent one or two, in Paris, and it’s my understanding that they dinna marry people who aren’t Jewish.” His eyes flicked round the solid, handsome room. “It’s my understanding that they mostly aren’t aristocrats, either.”

  The Vicomte was quite red in the face by now. With a sharp word, he sent the roughs out—though they were disposed to argue. While the brief discussio
n was going on, Ian edged closer to Jamie and whispered rapidly to him about the rug in Gàidhlig.

  “Holy God,” Jamie muttered in the same language. “I didna see him or either of those two at Marmande, did you?”

  Ian had no time to reply and merely shook his head, as the roughs reluctantly acquiesced to Vicomte Pierre’s imperious orders and shuffled out with narrowed eyes aimed at Ian and Jamie. One of them had Jamie’s dirk in his hand, and drew this slowly across his neck in a meaningful gesture as he left.

  Aye, they might manage in a fight, he thought, returning the slit-eyed glare, but not that wee velvet gomerel. Captain D’Eglise wouldn’t have taken on the Vicomte, and neither would a band of professional highwaymen, Jewish or not.

  “All right,” the Vicomte said abruptly, leaning his fists on the desk. “I’ll tell you.”

  And he did. Rebekah’s mother, the daughter of Dr. Hasdi, had fallen in love with a Christian man, and run away with him. The Doctor had declared his daughter dead, as was the usual way in such a situation, and done formal mourning for her. But she was his only child, and he had not been able to forget her. He had arranged to have information brought to him, and knew about Rebekah’s birth.

  “Then her mother died. That’s when I met her—about that time, I mean. Her father was a judge, and my father knew him. She was fourteen and I sixteen; I fell in love with her. And she with me,” he added, giving the Scots a hard eye, as though daring them to disbelieve it. “We were betrothed, with her father’s blessing. But then her father caught a flux and died in two days. And—”

  “And her grandfather took her back,” Jamie finished. “And she became a Jew?”

  “By Jewish belief, she was born Jewish; it descends through the mother’s line. And … her mother had told her, privately, about her lost heritage. She embraced it, once she went to live with her grandfather.”

  Ian stirred, and cocked a cynical eyebrow. “Aye? Why did ye not convert then, if ye’re willing to do it now?”

  “I said I would!” The Vicomte had one fist curled round his letter opener as though he would strangle it. “The miserable old wretch said he did not believe me. He thought I would not give up my—my—this life.” He waved a hand dismissively around the room, encompassing, presumably, his title and property, both of which would be confiscated by the government the moment his conversion became known.