“Two flats means you must take every second letter, starting from the beginning of the section,” I said, frantically scribbling down the results. “And three sharps means to take every third letter, beginning at the end of the section. I suppose he used German both for concealment and because it’s so bloody wordy; it takes nearly twice as many words to say the same thing as it would in English.”

“You have got ink on your nose,” Mother Hildegarde observed. She peered over my shoulder. “Does it make sense?”

“Yes,” I said, my mouth gone suddenly dry. “Yes, it makes sense.”

Deciphered, the message was brief and simple. Also deeply disturbing.

“His Majesty’s loyal subjects of England await his lawful restoration. The sum of fifty thousand pounds is at your disposal. As an earnest of good faith, this will be paid only in person, upon His Highness’s arrival on the soil of England,” I read. “And there’s a letter left over, an ‘S.’ I don’t know if that’s a signature of sorts, or only something the maker needed to make the German word come out right.”

“Hmph.” Mother Hildegarde glanced curiously at the scribbled message, then at me. “You will know already, of course,” she said, with a nod, “but you may assure your husband that I will keep this in confidence.”

“He wouldn’t have asked your help if he didn’t trust you,” I protested.

The sketchy brows rose to the edge of her wimple, and she tapped the scribbled paper firmly.

“If this is the sort of endeavor in which your husband engages, he takes considerable risk in trusting anyone. Assure him that I am sensible of the honor,” she added dryly.

“I’ll do that,” I said, smiling.

“Why, chère Madame,” she said, catching sight of me, “you are looking quite pale! I myself often stay awake far into the night when I am working on a new piece, so I tend to pay little attention to the hour, but it must be late for you.” She glanced at the hour-candle burning on the little table near the door.

“Gracious! It is growing late. Shall I summon Sister Madeleine to take you to your chamber?” Jamie had agreed, reluctantly, with Mother Hildegarde’s suggestion that I spend the night at the Couvent des Anges, so that I need not return home through the dark streets late at night.

I shook my head. I was tired, and my back ached from sitting on the stool, but I didn’t want to go to bed. The implications of the musical message were too disturbing to permit me to sleep right away, in any case.

“Well, then, let us take a little refreshment, in celebration of your accomplishment.” Mother Hildegarde rose and went to the outer room, where I heard the ringing of a bell. Shortly one of the serving sisters came, bearing a tray of hot milk and small, iced cakes, and followed by Bouton. The serving sister placed a cake on a small china plate and set it on the floor before him as a matter of course, laying beside it a bowl of milk.

While I sipped my own hot milk, Mother Hildegarde set aside the source of our labors, laying it on the secretary, and instead placed a loose sheaf of music manuscript on the rack of the harpsichord.

“I shall play for you,” she announced. “It will help to compose your mind for sleep.”

The music was light and soothing, with a singing melody that wove back and forth from treble voice to bass in a pattern of pleasing complexity, but without the driving force of Bach.

“Is that yours?” I asked, choosing a pause as she lifted her hands at the conclusion of the piece.

She shook her head without turning around.

“No. A friend of mine, Jean Philippe Rameau. A good theorist, but he does not write with great passion.”

I must have dozed, the music lulling my senses, for I woke suddenly to the murmur of Sister Madeleine’s voice in my ear, and her warm, firm grip under my arm, lifting me to my feet and leading me away.

Looking back, I could see the broad span of Mother Hildegarde’s black-swathed back, and the flex of powerful shoulders beneath the drape of her veil as she played, oblivious now to the world beyond the sanctum of her chamber. On the boards near her feet lay Bouton, nose on his paws, small body laid straight as the needle of a compass.

“So,” Jamie said, “it’s gone a little further than talk – maybe.”

“Maybe?” I echoed. “An offer of fifty thousand pounds sounds fairly definite.” Fifty thousand pounds, by current standards, was the yearly income of a good-sized duchy.

He raised one eyebrow cynically at the musical manuscript I had brought back with me from the convent.

“Aye, well. An offer like that is fairly safe, it it’s contingent on either Charles or James setting foot in England. If Charles is in England, it means he’s gotten sufficient backing from other places to get him to Scotland, first. No,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “what’s interesting about this offer is that it’s the first definite sign we’ve seen that the Stuarts – or one of them, at least – are actually making an effort at mounting a restoration attempt.”

“One of them?” I caught the emphasis. “You mean you think James isn’t in on this?” I looked at the coded message with even more interest.

“The message came to Charles,” Jamie reminded me, “and it came from England – not through Rome. Fergus got it from a regular messenger, in a packet marked with English seals; not from a papal messenger. And everything I’ve seen in James’s letters-” He shook his head, frowning. He hadn’t yet shaved, and the morning light caught random sparks of copper among the auburn stubble of his beard.

“The packet had been opened; Charles has seen this manuscript. There was no date on it, so I dinna ken how long ago it came to him. And of course, we don’t have the letters Charles has sent to his father. But there’s no reference in any of James’s letters to anyone who could possibly be the composer, let alone to any definite promises of support from England.”

I could see the direction in which he was heading.

“And Louise de La Tour was babbling about how Charles meant to have her marriage annulled and claim her as his wife, once he was king. So you think perhaps Charles wasn’t just talking through his hat to impress her?”

“Maybe not,” he said. He poured water from the bedroom ewer into the basin and laved his face with water, preparatory to shaving.

“So it’s possible that Charles is acting on his own?” I said, horrified and intrigued by the possibility. “That James has set him up for a masquerade of pretending to start a restoration attempt, in order to keep Louis impressed with the Stuarts’ potential value, but-”

“But Charles isn’t pretending?” Jamie interrupted. “Aye, that’s how it seems. Is there a towel there, Sassenach?” Eyes screwed shut and face dripping, he was patting about on the surface of the table. I moved the manuscript to safety and found the towel, draped over the foot of the bed.

He examined his razor critically, decided it would do, and leaned over my dressing table to look in the mirror as he applied shaving soap to his cheeks.

“Why is it barbaric of me to take the hair off my legs and armpits, and it isn’t barbaric for you to take it off your face?” I asked, watching him draw his upper lip down over his teeth as he scraped under his nose with tiny, delicate strokes.

“It is,” he replied, squinting at himself in the mirror. “But it itches like a fiend if I don’t.”

“Have you ever grown a beard?” I asked curiously.

“Not on purpose,” he replied, half-smiling as he scraped one cheek, “but I’ve had one now and then when I couldna help it – when I lived as an outlaw in Scotland. When it came to a choice between shaving in a cold burn with a dull razor every morning or itching, I chose to itch.”

I laughed, watching him draw the razor along the edge of his jawbone with one long sweep.