Dragonfly In Amber - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 31

Turning my back on him impatiently, I sank to my knees by the sick man and opened his filthy shirt. He stank abominably; probably none too clean to start with, he had been left to lie in his own filth, his fellows afraid to touch him. His arms were relatively clear, but the pustules clustered thickly down his chest and stomach, and his skin was burning to the touch.

Jamie had come in while I made my examination, accompanied by Jared. With them was a small, pear-shaped man in a gold-swagged official’s coat and two other men, one a nobleman or a rich bourgeois by his dress; the other a tall, lean individual, clearly a seafarer from his complexion. Probably the captain of the plague ship, if that’s what it was.

And that’s what it appeared to be. I had seen smallpox many times before, in the uncivilized parts of the world to which my uncle Lamb, an eminent archaeologist, had taken me during my early years. This fellow wasn’t pissing blood, as sometimes happened when the disease attacked the kidneys, but otherwise he had every classic symptom.

“I’m afraid it is smallpox,” I said.

The Patagonia’s captain gave a sudden howl of anguish, and stepped toward me, face contorted, raising his hand as though to strike me.

“No!” he shouted. “Fool of a woman! Salope! Femme sans cervelle! Do you want to ruin me?”

The last word was cut off in a gurgle as Jamie’s hand closed on his throat. The other hand twisted hard in the man’s shirtfront, lifting him onto his toes.

“I should prefer you to address my wife with respect, Monsieur,” Jamie said, rather mildly. The captain, face turning purple, managed a short, jerky nod, and Jamie dropped him. He took a step back, wheezing, and sidled behind his companion as though for refuge, rubbing his throat.

The tubby little official was bending cautiously over the sick man, holding a large silver pomander on a chain close to his nose as he did so. Outside, the level of noise dropped suddenly as the crowd pulled back from the warehouse doors to admit another canvas stretcher.

The man before us sat up suddenly, startling the little official so that he nearly fell over. The man stared wildly around the warehouse, then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell back onto the straw as though he’d been poleaxed. He hadn’t, but the end result was much the same.

“He’s dead,” I said, unnecessarily.

The official, recovering his dignity along with his pomander, stepped in once more, looked closely at the body, straightened up and announced, “Smallpox. The lady is correct. I’m sorry, Monsieur le Comte, but you know the law as well as anyone.”

The man he addressed sighed impatiently. He glanced at me, frowning, then jerked his head at the official.

“I’m sure this can be arranged, Monsieur Pamplemousse. Please, a moment’s private conversation…” He motioned toward the deserted foreman’s hut that stood some distance away, a small derelict structure inside the larger building. A nobleman by dress as well as by title, Monsieur le Comte was a slender, elegant sort, with heavy brows and thin lips. His entire attitude proclaimed that he was used to getting his way.

But the little official was backing away, hands held out before him as though in self-defense.

“Non, Monsieur le Comte,” he said, “Je le regrette, mais c’est impossible… It cannot be done. Too many people know about it already. The news will be all over the docks by now.” He glanced helplessly at Jamie and Jared, then waved vaguely at the warehouse door, where the featureless heads of spectators showed in silhouette, the late afternoon sun rimming them with gold halos.

“No,” he said again, his pudgy features hardening with resolve. “You will excuse me, Monsieur – and Madame,” he added belatedly, as though noticing me for the first time. “I must go and institute proceedings for the destruction of the ship.”

The captain uttered another choked howl at this, and clutched at his sleeve, but he pulled away, and hurried out of the building.

The atmosphere following his departure was a trifle strained, what with Monsieur le Comte and his captain both glaring at me, Jamie glowering menacingly at them, and the dead man staring sightlessly up at the ceiling forty feet above.

The Comte took a step toward me, eyes glittering. “Have you any notion what you have done?” he snarled. “Be warned, Madame; you will pay for this day’s work!”

Jamie moved suddenly in the Comte’s direction, but Jared was even faster, tugging at Jamie’s sleeve, pushing me gently in the direction of the door, and murmuring something unintelligible to the stricken captain, who merely shook his head dumbly in response.

“Poor bugger,” Jared said outside, shaking his head. “Phew!” It was chilly on the quay, with a cold gray wind that rocked the ships at anchor, but Jared mopped his face and neck with a large, incongruous red sailcloth handkerchief pulled from the pocket of his coat. “Come on, laddie, let’s find a tavern. I’m needing a drink.”

Safely ensconced in the upper room of one of the quayside taverns, with a pitcher of wine on the table, Jared collapsed into a chair, fanning himself, and exhaled noisily.

“God, what luck!” He poured a large dollop of wine into his cup, tossed it off, and poured another. Seeing me staring at him, he grinned and pushed the pitcher in my direction.

“Well, there’s wine, lassie,” he explained, “and then there’s stuff you drink to wash the dust away. Toss it back quick, before you have time to taste it, and it does the job handily.” Taking his own advice, he drained the cup and reached for the pitcher again. I began to see exactly what had happened to Jamie the day before.

“Good luck or bad?” I asked Jared curiously. I would have assumed the answer to be “bad,” but the little merchant’s air of jovial exhilaration seemed much too pronounced to be due to the red wine, which strongly resembled battery acid. I set down my own cup, hoping the enamel on my molars was intact.

“Bad for St. Germain, good for me,” he said succinctly. He rose from his chair and peered out the window.

“Good,” he said, sitting down again with a satisfied air. “They’ll have the wine off and into the warehouse by sunset. Safe and sound.”

Jamie leaned back in his chair, surveying his cousin with one eyebrow raised, a smile on his lips.

“Do we take it that Monsieur le Comte St. Germain’s ship also carried spirits, Cousin?”

An ear-to-ear grin in reply displayed two gold teeth in the lower jaw, which made Jared look still more piratical.

“The best aged port from Pinhao,” he said happily. “Cost him a fortune. Half the vintage from the Noval vineyards, and no more available for a year.”

“And I suppose the other half of the Noval port is what’s being unloaded into your warehouse?” I began to understand his delight.

“Right, my lassie, right as rain!” Jared chortled, almost hugging himself at the thought. “D’ye know what that will sell for in Paris?” he demanded, rocking forward and banging his cup down on the table. “A limited supply, and me with the monopoly? God, my profit’s made for the year!”

I rose and looked out the window myself. The Arianna rode at anchor, already noticeably higher in the water, as the huge cargo nets swung down from the boom mounted on the rear deck, to be carefully unloaded, bottle by bottle, into handcarts for the trip to the warehouse.

“Not to impair the general rejoicing,” I said, a little diffidently, “but did you say that your port came from the same place as St. Germain’s shipment?”

“Aye, I did.” Jared came to stand next to me, squinting down at the procession of loaders below. “Noval makes the best port in the whole of Spain and Portugal; I’d have liked to take the whole bottling, but hadn’t the capital. What of it?”

“Only that if the ships are coming from the same port, there’s a chance that some of your seamen might have smallpox too,” I said.