The man had met his gaze quite calmly, showing no sign of any malign intent. Jamie might have thought his original premonition mistaken, had he not seen the watcher’s eyes flick briefly to something over Jamie’s shoulder. Obeying the instincts that had kept him alive thus far, he had dived forward, knocking the watcher down and sliding on his face across the filthy cobbles of the street.

The crowd scattered before him with shrieks of alarm, and he rolled to his feet to see the flung knife that had missed him, quivering in the boards of a ribbon stall.

“If I’d had a bit of doubt it was me they wanted, I didna fret about it longer,” he said dryly.

He had kept hold of the sausage, and now found use for it, swinging it smartly across the face of one attacker.

“I broke his nose, I think,” he said meditatively. “Anyway, he reeled back, and I shoved past and took off running, down the Rue Pelletier.”

The inhabitants of the street scattered before him like geese, startled by the sight of a hurtling Scotsman, kilts flying around his churning knees. He didn’t stop to look behind; by the shouts of indignant passersby, he could tell that the assailants were still in pursuit.

This part of the city was seldom patrolled by the King’s Guard, and the crowd itself offered little protection other than a simple obstruction that might slow his pursuers. No one was likely to interfere in a matter of violence on a foreigner’s behalf.

“There are no alleys off the Rue Pelletier. I needed at least to get to a place where I could draw my sword and have a wall at my back,” Jamie explained. “So I pushed at the doors as I passed, ’til I hit one that opened.”

Dashing into a gloomy hallway, past a startled porter, and through a hanging drape, he had shot into the center of a large, well-lighted room, and come to a screeching halt in the middle of one Madame Elise’s salon, the scent of perfume heavy in his nostrils.

“I see,” I said, biting my lip. “I, um, trust you didn’t draw your sword in there?”

Jamie narrowed his eyes at me, but didn’t deign to reply directly.

“I’ll leave it to you, Sassenach,” he said dryly, “to imagine what it feels like to arrive unexpectedly in the midst of a brothel, in possession of a verra large sausage.”

My imagination proved fully equal to this task, and I burst out laughing.

“God, I wish I could have seen you!” I said.

“Thank God ye didn’t!” he said fervently. A furious blush glowed on his cheekbones.

Ignoring remarks from the fascinated inmates, Jamie had made his way awkwardly through what he described, shuddering, as “tangles o’ bare limbs,” until he had spotted Fergus against one wall, regarding the intruder with a round-eyed astonishment.

Seizing upon this unexpected manifestation of maleness, Jamie had gripped the lad by the shoulder, and fervently implored him to show the way to the nearest exit, without loss of a moment.

“I could hear a hurly-burly breakin’ out in the hallway,” he explained, “and I kent they were in after me. I didna want to be having to fight for my life wi’ a lot of naked women getting in the way.”

“I can see that the prospect might be daunting,” I agreed, rubbing my upper lip. “But obviously he got you out.”

“Aye. He didna hesitate a moment, the dear lad. ‘This way, Monsieur!’ he says, and it was up the stair, and through a room, and out a window onto the roof, and awa’ wi’ us both.” Jamie cast a fond glance at his new employee.

“You know,” I observed, “there are some wives who wouldn’t believe one word of a story like that.”

Jamie’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.

“They wouldna? Whyever not?”

“Possibly,” I said dryly, “because they aren’t married to you. I’m pleased that you escaped with your virtue intact, but for the moment, I’m rather more interested in the chaps who chased you in there.”

“I didna have a great deal of leisure to think about it at the time,” Jamie replied. “And now that I have, I still couldna say who they were, or why they were hunting me.”

“Robbery, do you think?” The cash receipts of the wine business were conveyed between the Fraser warehouse, the Rue Tremoulins, and Jared’s bank by strongbox, under heavy guard. Still, Jamie was very visible among the crowds near the river docks, and was undoubtedly known to be a wealthy foreign merchant – wealthy by contrast with most of the denizens of that neighborhood, at any rate.

He shook his head, flicking crumbs of dried mud off his shirtfront.

“It might be, I suppose. But they didna try to accost me; it was straightout murder they meant.”

His tone was quite matter-of-fact, but it gave me rather a wobbly feeling in the knees, and I sank down onto a settee. I licked my lips, gone suddenly dry.

“Who – who do you think…?”

He shrugged, frowning as he scooped up a dab of icing from the plate and licked it off his finger.

“The only man I could think of who’s threatened me is the Comte St. Germain. But I canna think what he’d gain from having me killed.”

“He’s Jared’s business rival, you said.”

“Oh, aye. But the Comte’s no interest in German wines, and I canna see him going to the trouble of killing me, only to ruin Jared’s new enterprise by bringing him back to Paris. That seems a trifle extreme,” he said dryly, “even for a man wi’ the Comte’s temper.”

“Well, do you think…” The idea made me mildly ill, and I swallowed twice before going on. “Do you think it might have been… revenge? For the Patagonia being burned?”

Jamie shook his head, baffled.

“I suppose it could be, but it seems a long time to wait. And why me, come to that?” he added. “It’s you annoyed him, Sassenach. Why not kill you, if that’s what he meant?”

The sick feeling got slightly worse.

“Do you have to be so bloody logical?” I said.

He saw the look on my face, and smiled suddenly, putting an arm around me for comfort.

“Nay, mo duinne. The Comte’s a quick temper, but I canna see him going to the trouble and expense of killing either of us, only for revenge. If it might get him his ship back, then yes,” he added, “but as it is, I expect he’d only think the price of three hired assassins throwing good money after bad.”

He patted my shoulder and stood up.

“Nay, I expect it was only a try at robbery, after all. Dinna trouble yourself about it. I’ll take Murtagh with me to the docks from now on, to be safe.”

He stretched himself, and brushed the last of the crumbling dirt from his kilt. “Am I decent to go in to supper?” he asked, looking critically down his chest. “It must be nearly ready by now.”

“What’s ready?”

He opened the door, and a rich, spicy scent wafted up at once from the dining room below.

“Why, the sausage, of course,” he said, with a grin over one shoulder. “Ye dinna think I’d let it go to waste?”

13 DECEPTIONS

“Barberry leaves, three handfuls in a decoction, steeped overnight, poured over half a handful of black hellebore.” I laid the list of… ingredients down on the inlaid table as though it were slightly slimy to the touch. “I got it from Madame Rouleaux. She’s the best of the angel-makers, but even she says it’s dangerous. Louise, are you sure you want to do this?”

Her round pink face was blotched, and the plump lower lip had a tendency to quiver.

“What choice do I have?” She picked up the recipe for the abortifacient and gazed at it in repulsed fascination.

“Black hellebore,” she said, and shuddered. “The very name of it sounds evil!”

“Well, it’s bloody nasty stuff,” I said bluntly. “It will make you feel as though your insides are coming out. But the baby may come, too. It doesn’t always work.” I remembered Master Raymond’s warning – It is dangerous to wait too long – and wondered how far gone she might be. Surely no more than six weeks or so; she had told me the instant she suspected.