Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [168]
“Then why aren’t you locked up in the Bastille?” I asked.
“Monsieur Duverney the elder offered security for me,” Jamie replied, pulling me down onto the sofa beside him. “He sat rolled up in the corner like a hedgehog, all through the clishmaclaver. Then when the judge made his decision, he stood up and said that, having had the opportunity to play chess with me on several occasions, he didna feel that I was of a moral character so dissolute as to permit of my having conspired in the commission of an act so depraved—” He broke off and shrugged.
“Well, ye ken what he talks like, once he’s got going. The general idea was that a man who could take him at chess six times in seven wouldna lure innocent young lasses to his house to be defiled.”
“Very logical,” I said dryly. “I imagine what he really meant was, if they locked you up, you wouldn’t be able to play with him anymore.”
“I expect so,” he agreed. He stretched, yawned, and blinked at me, smiling.
“But I’m home, and right now, I don’t greatly care why. Come here to me, Sassenach.” Grasping my waist with both hands, he boosted me onto his lap, wrapped his arms around me, and sighed with pleasure.
“All I want to do,” he murmured in my ear, “is to shed these filthy clouts, and lie wi’ you on the hearthrug, go to sleep straight after, with my head on your shoulder, and stay that way ’til tomorrow.”
“Rather an inconvenience to the servants,” I remarked. “They’ll have to sweep round us.”
“Damn the servants,” he said comfortably. “What are doors for?”
“To be knocked on, evidently,” I said as a soft rap sounded outside.
Jamie paused a moment, nose buried in my hair, then sighed, and raised his head, sliding me off his lap onto the sofa.
“Thirty seconds,” he promised me in an undertone, then said, “Entrez!” in a louder voice.
The door swung open and Murtagh stepped into the room. I had rather overlooked Murtagh in the bustles and confusion of the night before, and now thought to myself that his appearance had not been improved by neglect.
He lacked as much sleep as Jamie; the one eye that was open was red-rimmed and bloodshot. The other had darkened to the color of a rotten banana, a slit of glittering black visible in the puffed flesh. The knot on his forehead had now achieved full prominence: a purple goose-egg just over one brow, with a nasty split through it.
The little clansman had said barely a word since his release from the bag the night before. Beyond a brief inquiry as to the whereabouts of his knives—retrieved by Fergus, who, questing in his usual rat-terrier fashion, had found both dirk and sgian dhu behind a pile of rubbish—he had preserved a grim silence through the exigencies of our getaway, guarding the rear as we hurried on foot through the dim Paris alleys. And once arrived at the house, a piercing glance from his operating eye had been sufficient to quell any injudicious questions from the kitchen servants.
I supposed he must have said something at the commissariat de police if only to bear witness to the good character of his employer—though I did wonder just how much credibility I would be inclined to place in Murtagh, were I a French judge. But now he was silent as the gargoyles on Notre Dame, one of which he strongly resembled.
However disreputable his appearance, though, Murtagh never seemed to lack for dignity, nor did he now. Back straight as a ramrod, he advanced across the carpet, and knelt formally before Jamie, who looked nonplussed at this behavior.
The wiry little man drew the dirk from his belt, without flourishes, but with a good deal of deliberateness, and held it out, haft first. The bony, seamed face was expressionless, but the one black eye rested unwaveringly on Jamie’s face.
“I’ve failed ye,” the little man said quietly. “And I’ll ask