“Terrible chore, isn’t it? Dragging about like a mud-caked sow, and then being ripped apart for the sake of something looks like a drowned rat.” She shook her head, making a low noise of disgust in her throat. “The beauty o’ motherhood, is it? Still, I should not complain, I suppose-the wee ratling saved my life for me. And wretched as childbirth is, it’s better than being burnt at the stake.”
“I’d suppose so,” I said, “though not having tried the latter, I couldn’t say for sure.”
Geillis choked in her tea, spraying brown droplets over the front of her dress. She mopped at them carelessly, eyeing me with amusement.
“Well, I’ve not done it either, but I’ve seen them burn, poppet. And I think perhaps even lyin’ in a muddy hole watching your belly grow is better than that.”
“They kept you in the thieves’ hole all the time?” The silver spoon was cool in my hand, but my palm grew sweaty at the memory of the thieves’ hole in Cranesmuir. I had spent three days there with Geillis Duncan, accused as a witch. How long had she stayed there?
“Three months,” she said, staring meditatively into her tea. “Three mortal months of frozen feet and crawling vermin, stinking scraps of food and the grave-smell clinging to my skin day and night.”
She looked up then, mouth twisting in bitter amusement. “But I bore the child in style, at the end. When my pains began, they took me from the hole—little chance I’d run then, aye?—and the babe was born in my own old bedroom; in the fiscal’s house.”
Her eyes were slightly clouded, and I wondered whether the liquid in her glass was entirely tea.
“I had diamond-paned windows, do ye recall? All in shades of purple and green and white—the finest house in the village.” She smiled reminiscently. “They gave me the bairn to hold, and the green light fell over his face. He looked as though he was drowned indeed. I thought he should be cold to the touch, like a corpse, but he wasn’t; he was warm. Warm as his father’s balls.” She laughed suddenly, an ugly sound.
“Why are men such fools? Ye can lead them anywhere by the cock—for a while. Then give them a son and ye have them by the balls again. But it’s all ye are to them, whether they’re coming in or going out—a cunt.”
She was leaning back in her chair. At this, she spread her thighs wide, and hoisted her glass in ironic toast above her pubic bone, squinting down across the swelling bulge of belly.
“Well, here’s to it, I say! Most powerful thing in the world. The niggers know that, at least.” She took a deep, careless swig of her drink. “They carve wee idols, all belly and cunt and breasts. Same as men do where we came from—you and I.” She squinted at me, teeth bared in amusement. “Seen the dirty mags men buy under the counters then, aye?”
The bloodshot green eyes swiveled to Jamie. “And you’ll know the pictures and the books the men pass about among themselves in Paris now, won’t ye, fox? It’s all the same.” She waved a hand and drank again, deeply. “The only difference is the niggers have the decency to worship it.”
“Verra perceptive of them,” Jamie said calmly. He was sitting back in his chair, long legs stretched out in apparent relaxation, but I could see the tension in the fingers of the hand that gripped his own cup. “And how d’ye ken the pictures men look at in Paris, Mistress—Abernathy, is it now?”
She might be tipsy, but was by no means fuddled. She looked up sharply at the tone of his voice, and gave him a twisted smile.
“Oh, Mistress Abernathy will do well enough. When I lived in Paris, I had another name—Madame Melisande Robicheaux. Like that one? I thought it a bit grand, but your uncle Dougal gave it me, so I kept it—out of sentiment.”
My free hand curled into a fist, out of sight in the folds of my skirt. I had heard of Madame Melisande, when we lived in Paris. Not a part of society, she had had some fame as a seer of the future; ladies of the court consulted her in deepest secrecy, for advice on their love lives, their investments, and their pregnancies.
“I imagine you could have told the ladies some interesting things,” I said dryly.
Her laugh this time was truly amused. “Oh, I could, indeed! Seldom did, though. Folk don’t usually pay for the truth, ye know. Sometimes, though—did ye ken that Jean-Paul Marat’s mother meant to name her bairn Rudolphe? I told her I thought Rudolphe was ill-omened. I wondered now and then about that—would he grow up a revolutionary with a name like Rudolphe, or would he take it all out in writing poems, instead? Ever think that, fox—that a name might make a difference?” Her eyes were fixed on Jamie, green glass.
“Often,” he said, and set down his cup. “It was Dougal got ye away from Cranesmuir, then?”
