Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [155]
“Good.” He raised my hand, and bent over to kiss my knuckles in farewell. “Go back to sleep, mo duinne,” he repeated.
He closed the door gently behind him, as though I were already sleeping, leaving me to the early morning silence of the chamber, with the small busy noises of the household safely barred by paneled oak.
Squares of pale sunlight from the casement window lay bright on the opposite wall. It would be a beautiful day, I could tell, the spring air ripening with warmth, and the plum blossoms bursting pink and white and bee-rich in the gardens of Versailles. The courtiers would be outside in the gardens today, rejoicing in the weather as much as the barrowmen who wheeled their wares through the streets.
So did I rejoice, alone and not alone, in my peaceful cocoon of warmth and quiet.
“Hello,” I said softly, one hand over the butterfly wings that beat inside me.
PART THREE
Malchance
18
RAPE IN PARIS
There was an explosion at the Royal Armory, near the beginning of May. I heard later that a careless porter had put down a torch in the wrong place, and a minute later, the largest assortment of gunpowder and firearms in Paris had gone up with a noise that startled the pigeons off Notre Dame.
At work in L’Hôpital des Anges, I didn’t hear the explosion itself, but I certainly noticed the echoes. Though the Hôpital was on the opposite side of the city from the Armory, there were sufficient victims of the explosion that a good many of them overflowed the other hospitals and were brought to us, mangled, burned, and moaning in the backs of wagons, or supported on pallets by friends who carried them through the streets.
It was full dark before the last of the victims had been attended to, and the last bandage-swathed body laid gently down among the grubby, anonymous ranks of the Hôpital’s patients.
I had dispatched Fergus home with word that I would be late, when I saw the magnitude of the task awaiting the sisters of des Anges. He had come back with Murtagh, and the two of them were lounging on the steps outside, waiting to escort us home.
Mary and I emerged wearily from the double doors, to find Murtagh demonstrating the art of knife-throwing to Fergus.
“Go on then,” he was saying, back turned to us. “Straight as ye can, on the count of three. One…two…three!” At “three,” Fergus bowled the large white onion he was holding, letting it bounce and hop over the uneven ground.
Murtagh stood relaxed, arm drawn back at a negligent cock, dirk held by the tip between his fingers. As the onion spun past, his wrist flicked once, quick and sharp. Nothing else moved, not so much as a stir of his kilts, but the onion leaped sideways, transfixed by the dirk, and fell mortally wounded, rolling feebly in the dirt at his feet.
“B-bravo, Mr. Murtagh!” Mary called, smiling. Startled, Murtagh turned, and I could see the flush rising on his lean cheeks in the light from the double doors behind us.
“Mmmphm,” he said.
“Sorry to take so long,” I said apologetically. “It took rather a time to get everyone squared away.”
“Och, aye,” the little clansman answered laconically. He turned to Fergus. “We’ll do best to find a coach, lad; it’s late for the ladies to be walking.”
“There aren’t any here,” Fergus said, shrugging. “I’ve been up and down the street for the last hour; every spare coach in the Cité has gone to the Armory. We might get something in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, though.” He pointed down the street, at a dark, narrow gap between buildings that betrayed the presence of a passageway through to the next street. “It’s quick through there.”
After a short, frowning pause for thought, Murtagh nodded agreement. “All right, lad. Let’s go, then.”
It was cold in the alleyway, and I could see my breath in small white puffs, despite the moonless night. No matter how dark