by Unknown
“He said it would be a sham conversion and the moment I had her, I would become a Christian again, and force Rebekah to be Christian, too. Like her father,” he added darkly.
Despite the situation, Ian was beginning to have some sympathy for the wee popinjay. It was a very romantic tale, and he was partial to those. Jamie, however, was still reserving judgment. He gestured at the rug beneath their feet.
“Her dowry, ye said?”
“Yes,” said the Vicomte, but sounded much less certain. “She says it belonged to her mother. She had some men bring it here last week, along with a chest and a few other things. Anyway,” he said, resuming his self-confidence and glowering at them, “when the old beast arranged her marriage to that fellow in Paris, I made up my mind to—to—”
“To abduct her. By arrangement, aye? Mmphm,” Jamie said, making a noise indicating his opinion of the Vicomte’s skills as a highwayman. He raised one red brow at Pierre’s black eye, but forbore to make any more remarks, thank God. It hadn’t escaped Ian that they were prisoners, though it maybe had Jamie.
“May we speak with Mademoiselle Hauberger?” Ian asked politely. “Just to make sure she’s come of her own free will, aye?”
“Rather plainly, she did, since you followed her here.” The Vicomte hadn’t liked Jamie’s noise. “No, you may not. She’s busy.” He raised his hands and clapped them sharply, and the rough fellows came back in, along with a half-dozen or so male servants as reinforcement, led by a tall, severe-looking butler, armed with a stout walking-stick.
“Go with Ecrivisse, gentlemen. He’ll see to your comfort.”
“Comfort” proved to be the chateau’s wine cellar, which was fragrant, but cold. Also dark. The Vicomte’s hospitality did not extend so far as a candle.
“If he meant to kill us, he’d have done it already,” Ian reasoned.
“Mmphm.” Jamie sat on the stairs, the fold of his plaid pulled up around his shoulders against the chill. There was music coming from somewhere outside: the faint sound of a fiddle and the tap of a little hand drum. It started, then stopped, then started again.
Ian wandered restlessly to and fro; it wasn’t a very large cellar. If he didn’t mean to kill them, what did the Vicomte mean to do with them?
“He’s waiting for something to happen,” Jamie said suddenly, answering the thought. “Something to do wi’ the lass, I expect.”
“Aye, reckon.” Ian sat down on the stairs, nudging Jamie over. “A Dhia, that’s cold!”
“Mm,” said Jamie absently. “Maybe they mean to run. If so, I hope he leaves someone behind to let us out, and doesna mean to leave us here to starve.”
“We wouldna starve,” Ian pointed out logically. “We could live on wine for a good long time. Someone would come, before it ran out.” He paused a moment, trying to imagine what it would be like to stay drunk for several weeks.
“That’s a thought.” Jamie got up, a little stiff from the cold, and went off to rummage the racks. There was no light to speak of, save what seeped through the crack at the bottom of the door to the cellar, but Ian could hear Jamie pulling out bottles and sniffing the corks.
He came back in a bit with a bottle and, sitting down again, drew the cork with his teeth and spat it to one side. He took a sip, then another, then tilted back the bottle for a generous swig, and handed it to Ian.
“No bad,” he said.
It wasn’t, and there wasn’t much conversation for the next little while. Eventually, though, Jamie set the empty bottle down, belched gently, and said, “It’s her.”
“What’s her? Rebekah, ye mean. I daresay.” Then after a moment, “What’s her?”
“It’s her,” Jamie repeated. “Ken what the Jew said—Ephraim bar-Sefer? About how his gang knew where to strike, because they got information from some outside source? It’s her. She told them.”
Jamie spoke with such certainty that Ian was staggered for a moment, but then marshaled his wits.
“That wee lass? Granted, she put one over on us—and I suppose she at least kent about Pierre’s abduction, but …”
Jamie snorted.
“Aye, Pierre. Does the mannie strike ye either as a criminal or a great schemer?”
“No, but—”
“Does she?”
“Well …”
“Exactly.”
Jamie got up and wandered off into the racks again, this time returning with what smelled to Ian like one of the very good local red wines. It was like drinking his mam’s strawberry preserves on toast with a cup of strong tea, he thought approvingly.
“Besides,” Jamie went on, as though there’d been no interruption in his train of thought, “d’ye recall what the maid said to her? When I got my heid half-stove in? ‘Perhaps he’s been killed. How would you feel then?’ Nay, she’d planned the whole thing—to have Pierre and his lads stop the coach and make away with the women and the scroll, and doubtless Monsieur Pickle, too. But—” he added, sticking up a finger in front of Ian’s face to stop him interrupting, “then Josef-from-Alsace tells ye that thieves—and the same thieves as before, or some of them—attacked the band wi’ the dowry money. Ye ken well, that canna have been Pierre. It had to be her who told them.”
Ian was forced to admit the logic of this. Pierre had enthusiasm, but couldn’t possibly be considered a professional highwayman.
“But a lass …” he said, helplessly. “How could she—”
Jamie grunted.
“D’Eglise said Doctor Hasdi’s a man much respected among the Jews of Bordeaux. And plainly he’s kent as far as Paris, or how else did he make the match for his granddaughter? But he doesna speak French. Want to bet me that she didna manage his correspondence?”
“No,” Ian said, and took another swallow. “Mmphm.”
Some minutes later, he said, “That rug. And the other things Monsieur le Vicomte mentioned—her dowry.”
Jamie made an approving noise.
“Aye. Her percentage of the take, more like. Ye can see our lad Pierre hasna got much money, and he’d lose all his property when he converted. She was feathering their nest, like—makin’ sure they’d have enough to live on. Enough to live well on.”
“Well, then,” Ian said, after a moment’s silence. “There ye are.”
The afternoon dragged on. After the second bottle, they agreed to drink no more for the time being, in case a clear head should be necessary if or when the door at last opened, and aside from going off now and then to have a pee behind the farthest wine racks, they stayed huddled on the stairs.
Jamie was singing softly along to the fiddle’s distant tune when the door finally did open. He stopped abruptly, and lunged awkwardly to his feet, nearly falling, his knees stiff with cold.
“Monsieurs?” said the butler, peering down at them. “If you will be so kind as to follow me, please?”
To their surprise, the butler led them straight out of the house, and down a small path, in the direction of the distant music. The air outside was fresh and wonderful after the must of the cellar, and Jamie filled his lungs with it, wondering what the devil …?
Then they rounded a bend in the path and saw a garden court before them, lit by torches driven into the ground. Somewhat overgrown, but with a fountain tinkling away in the center—and just by the fountain, a sort of canopy, its cloth glimmering pale in the dusk. There was a little knot of people standing near it, talking, and as the butler paused, holding them back with one hand, Vicomte Pierre broke away from the group and came toward them, smiling.
“My apologies for the inconvenience, gentlemen,” he said, a huge smile splitting his face. He looked drunk, but Jamie thought he wasn’t—no smell of spirits. “Rebekah had to prepare herself. And we wanted to wait for nightfall.”
“To do what?” Ian asked suspiciously, and the Vicomte giggled. Jamie didn’t mean to wrong the man, but it was a giggle. He gave Ian an eye and Ian gave it back. Aye, it was a giggle.
“To be married,” Pierre said, a
nd while his voice was still full of joie de vivre, he said the words with a sense of deep reverence that struck Jamie somewhere in the chest. Pierre turned and waved a hand toward the darkening sky, where the stars were beginning to prick and sparkle. “For luck, you know—that our descendants may be as numerous as the stars.”
“Mmphm,” Jamie said politely.
“But come with me, if you will.” Pierre was already striding back to the knot of … well, Jamie supposed they must be wedding guests … beckoning to the Scots to follow.
Marie the maid was there, along with a few other women; she gave Jamie and Ian a wary look. But it was the men with whom the Vicomte was concerned. He spoke a few words to his guests, and three men came back with him, all dressed formally, if somewhat oddly, with little velvet skullcaps decorated with beads, and enormous beards.
“May I present Monsieur Gershom Ackerman, and Monsieur Levi Champfleur. Our witnesses. And Reb Cohen, who will officiate.”
The men shook hands, murmuring politeness. Jamie and Ian exchanged looks. Why were they here?
The Vicomte caught the look and interpreted it correctly.
“I wish you to return to Doctor Hasdi,” he said, the effervescence in his voice momentarily supplanted by a note of steel. “And tell him that everything—everything!—was done in accordance with proper custom and according to the Law. This marriage will not be undone. By anyone.”
“Mmphm,” said Ian, less politely.
And so it was that a few minutes later they found themselves standing among the male wedding guests—the women stood on the other side of the canopy—watching as Rebekah came down the path, jingling faintly. She wore a dress of deep red silk; Jamie could see the torchlight shift and shimmer through its folds as she moved. There were gold bracelets on both wrists, and she had a veil over her head and face, with a little headdress sort of thing made of gold chains that dipped across her forehead, strung with little medallions and bells—it was this that made the jingling sound. It reminded him of the Torah scroll, and he stiffened a little at the thought.
Pierre stood with the rabbi under the canopy; as she approached, he stepped apart, and she came to him. She didn’t touch him, though, but proceeded to walk round him. And round him, and round him. Seven times she circled him, and the hairs rose a little on the back of Jamie’s neck; it had the faint sense of magic about it—or witchcraft. Something she did, binding the man.
She came face-to-face with Jamie as she made each turn and plainly could see him in the light of the torches, but her eyes were fixed straight ahead; she made no acknowledgment of anyone—not even Pierre.
But then the circling was done and she came to stand by his side. The rabbi said a few words of welcome to the guests, and then, turning to the bride and groom, poured out a cup of wine and said what appeared to be a Hebrew blessing over it. Jamie made out the beginning, “Blessed are you, Adonai our God …” but then lost the thread.
Pierre reached into his pocket when Reb Cohen stopped speaking, took out a small object—clearly a ring—and, taking Rebekah’s hand in his, put it on the forefinger of her right hand, smiling down into her face with a tenderness that, despite everything, rather caught at Jamie’s heart. Then Pierre lifted her veil, and he caught a glimpse of the answering tenderness on Rebekah’s face in the instant before her husband kissed her.
The congregation sighed as one.
The rabbi picked up a sheet of parchment from a little table nearby. The thing Pierre had called a ketubah, Jamie saw—the wedding contract.
The rabbi read the thing out, first in a language Jamie didn’t recognize, and then again in French. It wasn’t so different from the few marriage contracts he’d seen, laying out the disposition of property and what was due to the bride and all … though he noted with disapproval that it provided for the possibility of divorce. His attention wandered a bit then; Rebekah’s face glowed in the torchlight like pearl and ivory, and the roundness of her bosom showed clearly as she breathed. In spite of everything he thought he now knew about her, he experienced a brief wave of envy toward Pierre.
The contract read and carefully laid aside, the rabbi recited a string of blessings; he kent it was blessings because he caught the words “Blessed are you, Adonai …” over and over, though the subject of the blessings seemed to be everything from the congregation to Jerusalem, so far as he could tell. The bride and groom had another sip of wine.
A pause then, and Jamie expected some official word from the rabbi, uniting husband and wife, but it didn’t come. Instead, one of the witnesses took the wineglass, wrapped it in a linen napkin, and placed it on the ground in front of Pierre. To the Scots’ astonishment, he promptly stamped on the thing—and the crowd burst into applause.
For a few moments, everything seemed quite like a country wedding, with everyone crowding round, wanting to congratulate the happy couple. But within moments, the happy couple was moving off toward the house, while the guests all streamed toward tables that had been set up at the far side of the garden, laden with food and drink.
“Come on,” Jamie muttered, and caught Ian by the arm. They hastened after the newly wedded pair, Ian demanding to know what the devil Jamie thought he was doing.
“I want to talk to her—alone. You stop him, keep him talking for as long as ye can.”
“I—how?”
“How would I know? Ye’ll think of something.” They had reached the house and, ducking in close upon Pierre’s heels, Jamie saw that, by good luck, the man had stopped to say something to a servant. Rebekah was just vanishing down a long hallway; he saw her put her hand to a door.
“The best of luck to ye, man!” he said, clapping Pierre so heartily on the shoulder that the groom staggered. Before he could recover, Ian, very obviously commending his soul to God, stepped up and seized him by the hand, which he wrang vigorously, meanwhile giving Jamie a private Hurry the bloody hell up! sort of look.
Grinning, Jamie ran down the short hallway to the door where he’d seen Rebekah disappear. The grin disappeared as his hand touched the doorknob, though, and the face he presented to her as he entered was as grim as he could make it.
Her eyes widened in shock and indignation at sight of him.
“What are you doing here? No one is supposed to come in here but me and my husband!”
“He’s on his way,” Jamie assured her. “The question is—will he get here?”
Her little fist curled up in a way that would have been comical, if he didn’t know as much about her as he did.
“Is that a threat?” she said, in a tone as incredulous as it was menacing. “Here? You dare threaten me here?”
“Aye, I do. I want that scroll.”
“Well, you’re not getting it,” she snapped. He saw her glance flicker over the table, probably in search either of a bell to summon help, or something to bash him on the head with, but the table held nothing but a platter of stuffed rolls and exotic sweeties. There was a bottle of wine, and he saw her eyes light on that with calculation, but he stretched out a long arm and got hold of it before she could.
“I dinna want it for myself,” he said. “I mean to take it back to your grandfather.”
“Him?” Her face hardened. “No. It’s worth more to him than I am,” she added bitterly, “but at least that means I can use it for protection. As long as I have it, he won’t try to hurt Pierre or drag me back, for fear I might damage it. I’m keeping it.”
“I think he’d be a great deal better off without ye, and doubtless he kens that fine,” Jamie informed her, and had to harden himself against the sudden look of hurt in her eyes. He supposed even spiders might have feelings, but that was neither here nor there.
“Where’s Pierre?” she demanded, rising to her feet. “If you’ve harmed a hair on his head, I’ll—”
“I wouldna touch the poor gomerel and neither would Ian—Juan, I mean. When I said the question was whether he got to ye or not, I meant whether he thinks better of his bargain.”
“You give me the scroll to take back to your grandfather—a wee letter of apology to go with it wouldna come amiss, but I willna insist on that—or Ian and I take Pierre out back and have a frank word regarding his new wife.”
“Tell him what you like!” she snapped. “He wouldn’t believe any of your made-up tales!”
“Oh, aye? And if I tell him exactly what happened to Ephraim bar-Sefer? And why?”
“Who?” she said, but now she really had gone pale to the lips, and put out a hand to the table to steady herself.
“Do ye ken yourself what happened to him? No? Well, I’ll tell ye, lass.” And he did so, with a terse brutality that made her sit down suddenly, tiny pearls of sweat appearing round the gold medallions that hung across her forehead.
“Pierre already kens at least a bit about your wee gang, I think—but maybe not what a ruthless, grasping wee besom ye really are.”
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t kill him!”
“If not for you, he’d no be dead, and I reckon Pierre would see that. I can tell him where the body is,” he added, more delicately. “I buried the man myself.”
Her lips were pressed so hard together that nothing showed but a straight white line.
“Ye havena got long,” he said, quietly now, but keeping his eyes on hers. “Ian canna hold him off much longer, and if he comes in—then I tell him everything, in front of you, and ye do what ye can then to persuade him I’m a liar.”
She stood up abruptly, her chains and bracelets all a-jangle, and stamped to the door of the inner room. She flung it open, and Marie jerked back, shocked.
Rebekah said something to her in Ladino, sharp, and with a small gasp, the maid scurried off.
“All right,” Rebekah said through gritted teeth, turning back to him. “Take it and be damned, you dog.”
