A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [229]
He looked down at his hand, the long, delicate fingers moving restlessly, pleating the cloth of his breeches.
“The streets,” he repeated. “Those who escaped the brothels—they were beggars. I knew one of them quite well—Luc, he was called. We would sometimes assist each other—” The shadow of a smile touched his mouth, and he waved his intact hand in the deft gesture of one picking pockets.
“But he was alone, Luc,” he continued matter-of-factly. “He had no protector. I found him one day in the alley, with his throat cut. I told the madame, and she sent the doorkeep out at once to seize the body, and sold it to a doctor in the next arondissement.”
I didn’t ask what the doctor had wanted with Luc’s body. I’d seen the broad, dried hands of dwarves, sold for divination and protection. And other parts.
“I begin to see why a brothel might seem safe,” I said, swallowing heavily. “But still . . .”
Fergus had been sitting with his head braced on his hand, staring at the straw. At this, he looked up at me.
“I have parted my buttocks for money, milady,” he said simply. “And thought nothing of it, save when it hurt. But then I met milord, and found a world beyond the brothel and the streets. That my son might return to such places . . .” He stopped abruptly, unable to speak. He closed his eyes again, and shook his head, slowly.
“Fergus. Fergus, dear. You can’t think that Jamie—that we—would ever let such a thing happen,” I said, distressed beyond measure.
He drew a deep, trembling breath, and thumbed away the tears that hung on his lashes. He opened his eyes and gave me a smile of infinite sadness.
“No, you would not, milady. But you will not live forever, nor will milord. Nor I. But the child will be a dwarf forever. And les petits, they cannot well defend themselves. They will be plucked up by those who seek them, taken and consumed.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and sat up a little.
“If, that is, they should be so fortunate,” he added, his voice hardening. “They are not valued, outside the cities. Peasants, they believe the birth of such a child is at best a judgment on the sins of his parents.” A deeper shadow crossed his face, his lips drawing tight. “It may be so. My sins—” But he broke off abruptly, turning away.
“At worst—” His voice was soft, head turned away, as though he whispered secrets to the shadows of the cave. “At worst, they are seen as monstrous, children born of some demon who has lain with the woman. People stone them, burn them—sometimes the woman, too. In the mountain villages of France, a dwarf child would be left for the wolves. But do you not know these things, milady?” he asked, suddenly turning back to face me.
“I—I suppose so,” I said, and put out a hand to the wall, suddenly feeling the need of some support. I had known such things, in the abstract way one thinks of the customs of aborigines and savages—people whom one will never meet, safely distant in the pages of geography books, of ancient histories.
He was right; I knew it. Mrs. Bug had crossed herself, seeing the child, and then made the sign of the horns as protection from evil, pale horror on her face.
Shocked as we had all been, and then concerned with Marsali, and with Fergus’s absence, I hadn’t been away from the house for a week or more. I had no idea what people might be saying, on the Ridge. Fergus plainly did.
“They’ll . . . get used to him,” I said as bravely as I could. “People will see that he isn’t a monster. It may take some time, but I promise you, they’ll see.”
“Will they? And if they let him live, what then will he do?” He rose to his feet quite suddenly. He stretched out his left arm, and with a jerk, freed the leather strip that held his hook. It fell with a soft thump into the straw, and left the narrow stump of his wrist bare, the pale skin creased