Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [87]
“All right,” Jamie said, after a quick glance at me. “You may tell His Majesty that we will be honored to remain.”
Soon thereafter, Murtagh had arrived, dour as ever, bearing a large bundle of fresh clothes, and my medicine box, which I had asked for. Jamie took him into the sitting room to give him instructions for the day, while I hastily struggled into my fresh gown, for the first time rather regretting my refusal to employ a lady’s maid. Always unruly, the state of my hair had not been improved by sleeping in close embrace with a large, damp Scot; wild tangles shot off in several directions, resisting all attempts to tame them with brush and comb.
At length I emerged, pink and cross with effort, but with my hair in some semblance of order. Jamie looked at me and murmured something about hedgehogs under his breath, but caught a searing glance in return and had the good sense to shut up.
A stroll among the parterres and fountains of the palace gardens did a good bit to restore my equanimity. Most of the trees were still leafless, but the day was unexpectedly warm for late March, and the smell of the swelling buds on the twigs was green and pungent. You could almost feel the sap rising in the towering chestnuts and poplars that edged the paths and sheltered the hundreds of white marble statues.
I paused beside a statue of a half-draped man with grapes in his hair and a flute at his lips. A large, silky goat nibbled hungrily at more grapes that were cascading from the marble folds of the draperies.
“Who’s this?” I asked, “Pan?”
Jamie shook his head, smiling. He was dressed in his old kilt and a worn, if comfortable coat, but he looked much better to me than did the luxuriously clad courtiers who passed us in chattering groups.
“No, I think there is a statue of Pan about, but it isna that one. That’s one of the Four Humors of Man.”
“Well, he looks fairly humorous,” I said, glancing up at the goat’s smiling friend.
Jamie laughed.
“And you a physician, Sassenach! Not that sort of humor. Do ye not know the four humors that make up the human body? That one’s Blood”—he motioned at the flute-player, then pointed down the path—“and there’s Melancholy.” This was a tall man in a sort of toga, holding an open book.
Jamie pointed across the path. “And over there is Choler”—a nude and muscular young man, who certainly was scowling ferociously, without regard to the marble lion that was about to bite him smartly in the leg—“and that’s Phlegm.”
“Is it, by Jove?” Phlegm, a bearded gent with a folded hat, had both arms crossed on his chest, and a tortoise at his feet.
“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 nipples?”
“I most definitely dinna want ye to pierce your nipples,” he said firmly, taking me by the elbow and hurrying me onward, lest I derive any untoward inspiration from America’s bare breasts. “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.