I stopped talking suddenly, and stared. It wasn't the disgraceful expanse of bare flesh that riveted me, but a small red mark that adorned it. About the size of a halfpenny piece, it was the dark, purplish-red color of a freshly healed burn. Disbelievingly, I touched it, making Fergus start in alarm. The edges of the mark were incised; whatever had made it had sunk into the flesh. I grabbed the boy by the arm to stop him running away, and bent to examine the mark more closely.
At a distance of six inches, the shape of the mark was clear; it was an oval, carrying within it smudged shapes that must have been letters.
"Who did this to you, Fergus?" I asked. My voice sounded queer to my own ears; preternaturally calm and detached.
Fergus yanked, trying to pull away, but I held on.
"Who, Fergus?" I demanded, giving him a little shake.
"It's nothing, Madame; I hurt myself sliding off the fence. It's just a splinter." His large black eyes darted to and fro, seeking a refuge.
"That's not a splinter. I know what it is, Fergus. But I want to know who did it." I had seen something like it only once before, and that wound freshly inflicted, while this had had some time to heal. But the mark of a brand is unmistakable.
Seeing that I meant it, he quit struggling. He licked his lips, hesitating, but his shoulders slumped, and I knew I had him now.
"It was…an Englishman, milady. With a ring."
"When?"
"A long time ago, Madame! In May."
I drew a deep breath, calculating. Three months. Three months earlier when Jamie had left the house to visit a brothel, in search of his warehouse foreman. In Fergus's company. Three months since Jamie had encountered Jack Randall in Madame Elise's establishment, and seen something that made all promises null and void, that had formed in him the determination to kill Jack Randall. Three months since he had left—never to return.
It took considerable patience, supplemented by a firm grip on Fergus's upper arm, but I succeeded at last in extracting the story from him.
When they arrived at Madame Elise's establishment, Jamie had told Fergus to wait for him while he went upstairs to make the financial arrangements. Judging from prior experience that this might take some time, Fergus had wandered into the large salon, where a number of young ladies that he knew were "resting," chattering together and fixing each other's hair in anticipation of customers.
"Business is sometimes slow in the mornings," he explained to me. "But on Tuesdays and Fridays, the fishermen come up the Seine to sell their catch at the morning market. Then they have money, and Madame Elise does a fine business, so les jeunes filles must be ready right after breakfast."
Most of the "girls" were in fact the older inhabitants of the establishment; fishermen were not considered the choicest of clients, and so went by default to the less desirable prostitutes. Among these were most of Fergus's former friends, though, and he passed an agreeable quarter of an hour in the salon, being petted and teased. A few early clients appeared, made their choice, and departed for the upstairs rooms—Madame Elise's house boasted four narrow stories—without disturbing the conversation of the remaining ladies.
"And then the Englishman came in, with Madame Elise." Fergus stopped and swallowed, the large Adam's apple bobbing uneasily in his skinny throat.
It was obvious to Fergus, who had seen men in every state of inebriation and arousal, that the Captain had been making a night of it. He was flushed and untidy, and his eyes were bloodshot. Ignoring Madame Elise's attempts to guide him toward one of the prostitutes, he had broken away and wandered through the room, restlessly scanning the wares on display. Then his eye had lighted on Fergus.
"He said, ‘You. Come along,' and took me by the arm. I held back, Madame—I told him my employer was above, and that I couldn't—but he wouldn't listen. Madame Elise whispered in my ear that I should go with him, and she would split the money with me afterward." Fergus shrugged, and looked at me helplessly. "I knew the ones who like little boys don't usually take very long; I thought he would be finished long before milord was ready to leave."
"Jesus bloody Christ," I said. My fingers relaxed their grip and slid nervelessly down his sleeve. "Do you mean—Fergus, had you done it before?"
He looked as though he wanted to cry. So did I.
"Not very often, Madame," he said, and it was almost a plea for understanding. "There are houses where that is the specialty, and usually the men who like that go there. But sometimes a customer would see me and take a fancy…" His nose was starting to run and he wiped it with the back of his hand.
I rummaged in my pocket for a handkerchief and gave it to him. He was beginning to sniffle as he recalled that Friday morning.
"He was much bigger than I thought. I asked him if I could take it in my mouth, but he…but he wanted to…"
I pulled him to me and pressed his head tight against my shoulder, muffling his voice in the cloth of my gown. The frail blades of his shoulder bones were like a bird's wings under my hand.
"Don't tell me any more," I said. "Don't. It's all right, Fergus; I'm not angry. But don't tell me any more."
This was a futile order; he couldn't stop talking, after so many days of fear and silence.
"But it's all my fault, Madame!" he burst out, pulling away. His lip was trembling, and tears welled in his eyes. "I should have kept quiet; I shouldn't have cried out! But I couldn't help it, and milord heard me, and…and he burst in…and…oh, Madame, I shouldn't have, but I was so glad to see him, and I ran to him, and he put me behind him and hit the Englishman in the face. And then the Englishman came up from the floor with the stool in his hand, and threw it, and I was so afraid, I ran out of the room and hid in the closet at the end of the hall. Then there was so much shouting and banging, and a terrible crash, and more shouting. And then it stopped, and soon milord opened the door of the closet and took me out. He had my clothes, and he dressed me himself, because I couldn't fasten the buttons—my fingers shook."
He grabbed my skirt with both hands, the necessity of making me believe him tightening his face into a monkey mask of grief.
"It's my fault, Madame, but I didn't know! I didn't know he would go to fight the Englishman. And now milord is gone, and he'll never come back, and it's all my fault!"
Wailing now, he fell facedown on the ground at my feet. He was crying so loudly that I didn't think he heard me as I bent to lift him up, but I said it anyway.
"It isn't your fault, Fergus. It isn't mine, either—but you're right; he's gone."
Following Fergus's revelation, I sank ever deeper into apathy. The gray cloud that had surrounded me since the miscarriage seemed to draw closer, wrapping me in swaddling folds that dimmed the light of the brightest day. Sounds seemed to reach me faintly, like the far-off ringing of a buoy through fog at sea.
Louise stood in front of me, frowning worriedly as she looked down at me.
"You're much too thin," she scolded. "And white as a plate of tripes. Yvonne said you didn't eat any breakfast again!"
I couldn't remember when I had last been hungry. It hardly seemed important. Long before the Bois de Boulogne, long before my trip to Paris. I fixed my gaze on the mantelpiece and drifted off into the curlicues of the rococo carving. Louise's voice went on, but I didn't pay attention; it was only a noise in the room, like the brushing of a tree branch against the stone wall of the château, or the humming of the flies that had been drawn in by the smell of my discarded breakfast.
I watched one of them, rising off the eggs in sudden motion as Louise clapped her hands. It buzzed in short, irritable circles before settling back to its feeding spot. The sound of hurrying footsteps came behind me, there was a sharp order from Louise, a submissive "Oui, Madame," and the sudden thwap! of a flywhisk as the maid set about removing the flies, one by one. She dropped each small black corpse into her pocket, plucking it off the table and polishing the smear left behind with a corner of her apron.
Louise bent down, thrusting her face suddenly into my field of view.
"I can see all the bones in your face! If you won't eat, at least go outside for a bit!" she said impatiently. "The rain's stopped; come along, and we'll see if there are any muscats left in the arbor. Maybe you'll eat some of those."
Outside or inside was much the same to me; the soft, numbing grayness was still with me, blurring outlines and making every place seem like every other. But it seemed to matter to Louise, so I rose obediently to go with her.
Near the garden door, though, she was waylaid by the cook, with a list of questions and complaints about the menu for dinner. Guests had been invited, with the intention of distracting me, and the bustle of preparation had been causing small explosions of domestic discord all morning.
Louise emitted a martyred sigh, then patted me on the back.
"You go on," she said, urging me toward the door. "I'll send a footman with your cloak."
It was a cool day for August because of the rain that had been coming down since the night before. Pools of water lay in the graveled paths, and the dripping from the drenched trees was nearly as incessant as the rain itself.
The sky was still filled with gray, but it had faded from the angry black of water-logged cloud. I folded my arms around my elbows; it looked as though the sun might come out soon, but it was still cold enough to want a cloak.