When I heard steps behind me on the path, I turned to find François, the second footman, but he carried nothing. He looked oddly hesitant, peering as though to make sure I was the person he was looking for.
"Madame," he said, "there is a visitor for you."
I sighed internally; I didn't want to be bothered with the effort of rousing myself to be civil to company.
"Tell them I'm indisposed, please," I said, turning to continue my walk. "And when they've gone, bring me my cloak."
"But Madame," he said behind me, "it is le seigneur Broch Tuarach—your husband."
Startled, I whirled to look at the house. It was true; I could see Jamie's tall figure, already coming around the corner of the house. I turned, pretending I hadn't seen him, and walked off toward the arbor. The shrubbery was thick down there; perhaps I could hide.
"Claire!" Pretending was useless; he had seen me as well, and was coming down the path after me. I walked faster, but I was no match for those long legs. I was puffing before I had covered half the distance to the arbor, and had to slow down; I was in no condition for strenuous exercise.
"Wait, Claire!"
I half-turned; he was almost upon me. The soft gray numbness around me quivered, and I felt a sort of frozen panic at the thought that the sight of him might rip it away from me. If it did, I would die, I thought, like a grub dug up from the soil and tossed onto a rock to shrivel, naked and defenseless in the sun.
"No!" I said. "I don't want to talk to you. Go away." He hesitated for a moment, and I turned away from him and began to walk rapidly down the path toward the arbor. I heard his steps on the gravel of the path behind me, but kept my back turned, and walked faster, almost running.
As I paused to duck under the arbor, he made a sudden lunge forward and grasped my wrist. I tried to pull away from him, but he held on tight.
"Claire!" he said again. I struggled, but kept my face turned away; if I didn't look at him, I could pretend he wasn't there. I could stay safe.
He let go of my wrist, but grabbed me by both shoulders instead, so that I had to lift my head to keep my balance. His face was sunburned and thin, with harsh lines cut beside his mouth, and his eyes above were dark with pain. "Claire," he said more softly, now that he could see me looking at him. "Claire—it was my child, too."
"Yes, it was—and you killed it!" I ripped away from him, flinging myself through the narrow arch. I stopped inside, panting like a terrified dog. I hadn't realized that the arch led into a tiny vine-covered folly. Latticed walls surrounded me on all sides—I was trapped. The light behind me failed as his body blocked the arch.
"Don't touch me." I backed away, staring at the ground. Go away! I thought frantically. Please, for God's sake, leave me in peace! I could feel my gray wrappings being inexorably stripped away, and small, bright streaks of pain shot through me like lightning bolts piercing cloud.
He stopped, a few feet away. I stumbled blindly toward the latticed wall and half-sat, half-fell onto a wooden bench. I closed my eyes and sat shivering. While it was no longer raining, there was a cold, damp wind coming through the lattice to chill my neck.
He didn't come closer. I could feel him, standing there, looking down at me. I could hear the raggedness of his breathing.
"Claire," he said once more, with something like despair in his voice, "Claire, do ye not see…Claire, you must speak to me! For God's sake, Claire, I don't know even was it a girl or a boy!"
I sat frozen, hands gripping the rough wood of the bench. After a moment, there was a heavy, crunching noise on the ground in front of me. I cracked my eyes open, and saw that he had sat down, just as he was, on the wet gravel at my feet. He sat with bowed head, and the rain had left spangles in his damp-darkened hair.
"Will ye make me beg?" he said.
"It was a girl," I said after a moment. My voice sounded funny; hoarse and husky. "Mother Hildegarde baptized her. Faith. Faith Fraser. Mother Hildegarde has a very odd sense of humor."
The bowed head didn't move. After a moment, he said quietly, "Did you see the child?"
My eyes were open all the way now. I stared at my knees, where blown drops of water from the vines behind me were making wet spots on the silk.
"Yes. The mâitresse sage-femme said I ought, so they made me." I could hear in memory the low, matter-of-fact tones of Madame Bonheur, most senior and respected of the midwives who gave of their time at L'Hôpital des Anges.
"Give her the child; it's always better if they see. Then they don't imagine things."
So I didn't imagine. I remembered.
"She was perfect," I said softly, as though to myself. "So small. I could cup her head in the palm of my hand. Her ears stuck out just a little—I could see the light shine through them.
The light had shone through her skin as well, glowing in the roundness of cheek and buttock with the light that pearls have; still and cool, with the strange touch of the water world still on them.
"Mother Hildegarde wrapped her in a length of white satin," I said, looking down at my fists, clenched in my lap. "Her eyes were closed. She hadn't any lashes yet, but her eyes were slanted. I said they were like yours, but they said all babies' eyes are like that."
Ten fingers, and ten toes. No nails, but the gleam of tiny joints, kneecaps and fingerbones like opals, like the jeweled bones of the earth itself. Remember man, that thou art dust.…
I remembered the far-off clatter of the Hôpital, where life still went on, and the subdued murmur of Mother Hildegarde and Madame Bonheur, closer by, talking of the priest who would say a special Mass at Mother Hildegarde's request. I remembered the look of calm appraisal in Madame Bonheur's eyes as she turned to look me over, seeing my weakness. Perhaps she saw also the telltale brightness of the approaching fever; she had turned again to Mother Hildegarde and her voice had dropped further—perhaps suggesting that they wait; two funerals might be needed.
And unto dust thou shalt return.
But I had come back from the dead. Only Jamie's hold on my body had been strong enough to pull me back from that final barrier, and Master Raymond had known it. I knew that only Jamie himself could pull me back the rest of the way, into the land of the living. That was why I had run from him, done all I could to keep him away, to make sure he would never come near me again. I had no wish to come back, no desire to feel again. I didn't want to know love, only to have it ripped away once more.
But it was too late. I knew that, even as I fought to hold the gray shroud around me. Fighting only hastened its dissolution; it was like grasping shreds of cloud, that vanished in cold mist between my fingers. I could feel the light coming, blinding and searing.
He had risen, was standing over me. His shadow fell across my knees; surely that meant the cloud had broken; a shadow doesn't fall without light.
"Claire," he whispered. "Please. Let me give ye comfort."
"Comfort?" I said. "And how will you do that? Can you give me back my child?"
He sank to his knees before me, but I kept my head down, staring into my upturned hands, laid empty on my lap. I felt his movement as he reached to touch me, hesitated, drew back, reached again.
"No," he said, his voice scarcely audible. "No, I canna do that. But…with the grace of God…I might give ye another?"
His hand hovered over mine, close enough that I felt the warmth of his skin. I felt other things as well: the grief that he held tight under rein, the anger and the fear that choked him, and the courage that made him speak in spite of it. I gathered my own courage around me, a flimsy substitute for the thick gray shroud. Then I took his hand and lifted my head, and looked full into the face of the sun.
We sat, hands clasped and pressed together on the bench, unmoving, unspeaking, for what seemed like hours, with the cool rain-breeze whispering our thoughts in the grape leaves above. Water drops scattered over us with the passing of the wind, weeping for loss and separation.
"You're cold," Jamie murmured at last, and pulled a fold of his cloak around me, bringing with it the warmth of his skin. I came slowly against him under its shelter, shivering more at the startling solidness, the sudden heat of him, than from the cold.
I laid my hand on his chest, tentative as though the touch of him might burn me in truth, and so we sat for a good while longer, letting the grape leaves talk for us.
"Jamie," I said softly, at last. "Oh, Jamie. Where were you?"
His arm tightened about me, but it was some time before he answered.
"I thought ye were dead, mo duinne," he said, so softly I could hardly hear him above the rustling of the arbor.
"I saw ye there—on the ground, at the last. God! Ye were so white, and your skirts all soaked wi' blood…I tried to go to ye, Claire, so soon as I saw—I ran to ye, but it was then the Guard took me."
He swallowed hard; I could feel the tremor pass down him, through the long curve of his backbone.
"I fought them…I fought, and aye I pleaded…but they wouldna stay, and they carried me awa' wi' them. And they put me in a cell, and left me there…thinking ye were dead, Claire; knowing that I'd killed you."
The fine tremor went on, and I knew he was weeping, though I could not see his face above me. How long had he sat alone in the dark of the Bastille, alone but for the scent of blood and the empty husk of vengeance?