"Hum," I remarked.
"Do physicians not learn about humors in your time?" Jamie asked curiously.
"No," I said. "We have germs, instead."
"Really? Germs," he said to himself, trying the word over, rolling it on his tongue with a Scottish burr, which made it sound sinister in the extreme. "Gerrrms. And what do germs look like?"
I glanced up at a representation of "America," a nubile young maiden in a feathered skirt and headdress, with a crocodile at her feet.
"Well, they wouldn't make nearly such picturesque statues," I said.
The crocodile at America's feet reminded me of Master Raymond's shop.
"Did you mean it about not wanting me to go to Master Raymond's?" I asked. "Or do you just not want me to pierce my ni**les?"
"I most definitely dinna want ye to pierce your ni**les," he said firmly, taking me by the elbow and hurrying me onward, lest I derive any untoward inspiration from America's bare br**sts. "But no, I dinna want ye to go to Master Raymond's, either. There are rumors about the man."
"There are rumors about everyone in Paris," I observed, "and I'd be willing to bet that Master Raymond knows all of them."
Jamie nodded, hair glinting in the pale spring sunshine.
"Oh, aye, I expect so. But I think I can learn what's needful in the taverns and drawing rooms. Master Raymond's said to be at the center of a particular circle, but it isna Jacobite sympathizers."
"Really? Who, then?"
"Cabalists and occultists. Witches, maybe."
"Jamie, you aren't seriously worried about witches and demons, are you?"
We had arrived at the part of the gardens known as the "Green Carpet." This early in the spring, the green of the huge lawn was only a faint tinge, but people were lounging on it, taking advantage of the rare balmy day.
"Not witches, no," he said at last, finding a place near a hedge of forsythia and sitting down on the grass. "The Comte St. Germain, possibly."
I remembered the look in the Comte St. Germain's dark eyes at Le Havre, and shivered, in spite of the sunshine and the woolen shawl I wore.
"You think he's associated with Master Raymond?"
Jamie shrugged. "I don't know. But it was you told me the rumors about St. Germain, no? And if Master Raymond is part of that circle—then I think you should keep the hell away from him, Sassenach." He gave me a wry half-smile. "After all, I'd as soon not have to save ye from burning again."
The shadows under the trees reminded me of the cold gloom of the thieves' hole in Cranesmuir, and I shivered and moved closer to Jamie, farther into the sunlight.
"I'd as soon you didn't, either."
The pigeons were courting on the grass below a flowering forsythia bush. The ladies and gentlemen of the Court were performing similar activities on the paths that led through the sculpture gardens. The major difference was that the pigeons were quieter about it.
A vision in watered aqua silk hove abaft our resting place, in loud raptures over the divinity of the play the night before. The three ladies with him, while not so spectacular, echoed his opinions faithfully.
"Superb! Quite superb, the voice of La Couelle!"
"Oh, superb! Yes, wonderful!"
"Delightful, delightful! Superb is the only word for it!"
"Oh, yes, superb!"
The voices—all four of them—were shrill as nails being pulled from wood. By contrast, the gentleman pigeon doing his turn a few feet from my nose had a low and mellifluous coo, rising from a deep, amatory rumble to a breathy whistle as he puffed his breast and bowed repeatedly, laying his heart at the feet of his ladylove, who looked rather unimpressed so far.
I looked beyond the pigeon toward the aqua-satined courtier, who had hastened back to snatch up a lace-trimmed handkerchief, coyly dropped as bait by one of his erstwhile companions.
"The ladies call that one ‘L'Andouille,' " I remarked. "I wonder why?"
Jamie grunted sleepily, and opened one eye to look after the departing courtier.
"Mm? Oh, ‘The Sausage.' It means he canna keep his roger in his breeches. You know the sort…ladies, footmen, courtesans, pageboys. Lapdogs, too, if rumor is right," he added, squinting in the direction of the vanished aqua silk, where a lady of the court was now approaching, a fluffy white bundle clasped protectively to her ample bosom. "Reckless, that. I wouldna risk mine anywhere near one o' those wee yapping hairballs."
"Your roger?" I said, amused. "I used to hear it called peter, now and again. And the Yanks, for some peculiar reason, used to call theirs a dick. I once called a patient who was teasing me a ‘Clever Dick,' and he nearly burst his stitches laughing."
Jamie laughed himself, stretching luxuriously in the warming spring sun. He blinked once or twice and rolled over, grinning at me upside down.
"You have much the same effect on me, Sassenach," he said. I stroked back the hair from his forehead, kissing him between the eyes.
"Why do men call it names?" I asked. "John Thomas, I mean. Or Roger, for that matter. Women don't do that."
"They don't?" Jamie asked, interested.
"No, of course not. I'd as soon call my nose Jane."
His chest moved up and down as he laughed. I rolled on top of him, enjoying the solid feel of him beneath me. I pressed my hips downward, but the layers of intervening petticoats rendered it more of a gesture than anything else.
"Well," Jamie said logically, "yours doesna go up and down by itself, after all, nor go carryin' on regardless of your own wishes in the matter. So far as I know, anyway," he added, cocking one eyebrow questioningly.
"No, it doesn't, thank God. I wonder if Frenchmen call theirs ‘Pierre,' " I said, glancing at a passing dandy in green velvet-faced moiré.
Jamie burst into a laugh that startled the pigeons out of the forsythia bush. They flapped off in a ruffle of indignation, scattering wisps of gray down in their wake. The fluffy white lapdog, hitherto content to loll in its mistress's arms like a bundle of rags, awoke at once to an awareness of its responsibilities. It popped out of its warm nest like a Ping-Pong ball and galloped off in enthusiastic pursuit of the pigeons, barking dementedly, its mistress in similar cry behind it.
"I dinna ken, Sassenach," he said, recovering enough to wipe the tears from his eyes. "The only Frenchman I ever heard call it a name called his ‘Georges.' "
"Georges!" I said, loudly enough to attract the attention of a small knot of passing courtiers. One, a short but vivacious specimen in dramatic black slashed with white satin, stopped alongside and bowed deeply, sweeping the ground at my feet with his hat. One eye was still swelled shut, and a livid welt showed across the bridge of his nose, but his style was unimpaired.
"A votre service, Madame," he said.
I might have managed if it weren't for the bloody nightingales. The dining salon was hot and crowded with courtiers and onlookers, one of the stays in my dress frame had come loose and was stabbing me viciously beneath the left kidney each time I drew breath, and I was suffering from that most ubiquitous plague of pregnancy, the urge to urinate every few minutes. Still, I might have managed. It was, after all, a serious breach of manners to leave the table before the King, even though luncheon was a casual affair, in comparison with the formal dinners customary at Versailles—or so I was given to understand. "Casual," however, is a relative term.
True, there were only three varieties of spiced pickle, not eight. And one soup, clear, not thick. The venison was merely roasted, not presented en brochette, and the fish, while tastily poached in wine, was served fileted, not whole and riding on a sea of aspic filled with shrimp.
As though frustrated by so much rustic simplicity, though, one of the chefs had provided a charming hors d'oeuvre—a nest, cunningly built from strips of pastry, ornamented with real sprigs of flowering apple, on the edge of which perched two nightingales, skinned and roasted, stuffed with apple and cinnamon, then redressed in their feathers. And in the nest was the entire family of baby birds, tiny stubs of outstretched wings brown and crispy, tender bare skins glazed with honey, blackened mouths agape to show the merest hint of the almond-paste stuffing within.
After a triumphal tour of the table to show it off—to the accompaniment of murmurs of admiration all round—the dainty dish was set before the King, who turned from his conversation with Madame de La Tourelle long enough to pluck one of the nestlings from its place and pop it into his mouth.
Crunch, crunch, crunch went Louis's teeth. Mesmerized, I watched the muscles of his throat ripple, and felt the rubble of small bones slide down my own gullet. Brown fingers reached casually for another baby.
At this point, I concluded that there were probably worse things than insulting His Majesty by leaving the table, and bolted.
Rising from my knees amid the shrubbery a few minutes later, I heard a sound behind me. Expecting to meet the eye of a justifiably irate gardener, I turned guiltily to meet the eye of an irate husband.
"Damn it, Claire, d'ye have to do this all the time?" he demanded.
"In a word—yes," I said, sinking exhaustedly onto the rim of an ornamental fountain. My hands were damp, and I smoothed them over my skirt. "Did you think I did it for fun?" I felt light-headed, and closed my eyes, trying to regain my internal balance before I fell into the fountain.