“Aye?” Ian sounded startled. “Aye, I suppose so—I hadna thought o’ that.”
“Well, ye dinna think of Him bein’ a Jew, do ye? But He was, to start.”
There was a momentary, meditative silence before Ian spoke again.
“D’ye think Jesus ever did it? Wi’ a lass, I mean, before he went to preachin’？”
“I think Père Renault’s goin’ to have ye for blasphemy, next thing.”
Ian twitched, as though worried that the priest might be lurking in the shadows.
“Père Renault’s nowhere near here, thank God.”
“Aye, but ye’ll need to confess yourself to him, won’t ye?”
Ian shot upright, clutching his plaid around him.
“What?”
“Ye’ll go to hell, else, if ye get killed,” Jamie pointed out, feeling rather smug. There was moonlight through the window and he could see Ian’s face drawn in anxious thought, his deep-set eyes darting right and left from Scylla to Charybdis. Suddenly Ian turned his head toward Jamie, having spotted the possibility of an open channel between the threats of hell and Père Renault.
“I’d only go to hell if it was a mortal sin,” he said. “If it’s no but venial, I’d only have to spend a thousand years or so in purgatory. That wouldna be so bad.”
“Of course it’s a mortal sin,” Jamie said, cross. “Anybody kens fornication’s a mortal sin, ye numpty.”
“Aye, but…” Ian made a “wait a bit” gesture with one hand, deep in thought. “To be a mortal sin, though, ye’ve got the three things. Requirements, like.” He put up an index finger. “It’s got to be seriously wrong.” Middle finger. “Ye’ve got to know it’s seriously wrong.” Ring finger. “And ye’ve got to give full consent to it. That’s the way of it, aye?” He put his hand down and looked at Jamie, brows raised.
“Aye, and which part of that did ye not do? The full consent? Did she rape ye?” He was chaffing, but Ian turned his face away in a manner that gave him a sudden doubt. “Ian?”
“Noo…” his friend said, but it sounded doubtful, too. “It wasna like that—exactly. I meant more the seriously wrong part. I dinna think it was…” His voice trailed off.
Jamie flung himself over, raised on one elbow.
“Ian,” he said, steel in his voice. “What did ye do to the lass? If ye took her maidenheid, it’s seriously wrong. Especially with her betrothed. Oh—” A thought occurred to him, and he leaned a little closer, lowering his voice. “Was she no a virgin? Maybe that’s different.” If the lass was an out-and-out wanton, perhaps…she probably did write poetry, come to think…
Ian had now folded his arms on his knees and was resting his forehead on them, his voice muffled in the folds of his plaid. “…dinna ken…” emerged in a strangled croak.
Jamie reached out and dug his fingers hard into Ian’s calf. His friend unfolded with a startled cry that made someone in a distant chamber shift and grunt in their sleep.
“What d’ye mean ye dinna ken? How could ye not notice?” he gibed.
“Ah…well…she…erm…she did me wi’ her hand,” Ian blurted. “Before I could…well.”
“Oh.” Jamie rolled onto his back, somewhat deflated in spirit, if not in flesh. His cock seemed still to want to hear the details.
“Is that seriously wrong?” Ian asked, turning his face toward Jamie again. “Or—well, I canna say I really gave full consent to it, because that wasna what I had in mind doing at all, but…”
“I think ye’re headed for the Bad Place,” Jamie assured him. “Ye meant to do it, whether ye managed or not. And how did it happen, come to that? Did she just…take hold?”
Ian let out a long, long sigh and sank his head in his hands. He looked as though it hurt.
“Well, we kissed for a bit, and there was more brandy—lots more. She…er…she’d take a mouthful and kiss me and, er…put it into my mouth, and—”
“Ifrinn!”
“Will ye not say, ‘Hell!’ like that, please? I dinna want to think about it.”
“Sorry. Go on. Did she let ye feel her breasts?”
“Just a bit. She wouldna take her stays off, but I could feel her nipples through her shift—did ye say something?”
“No,” Jamie said with an effort. “What then?”
“Well, she put her hand under my kilt and then pulled it out again like she’d touched a snake.”
“And had she?”
“She had, aye. She was shocked. Will ye no snort like that?” he said, annoyed. “Ye’ll wake the whole house. It was because it wasna circumcised.”
“Oh. Is that why she wouldna…er…the regular way?”
“She didna say so, but maybe. After a bit, though, she wanted to look at it, and that’s when…well.”
“Mmphm.” Naked demons versus the chance of damnation or not, Jamie thought Ian had had well the best of it this evening. A thought occurred to him. “Why did ye ask if being circumcised hurts? Ye werena thinking of doing it, were ye? For her, I mean?”
“I wouldna say the thought hadna occurred to me,” Ian admitted. “I mean…I thought I should maybe marry her, under the circumstances. But I suppose I couldna become a Jew, even if I got up the nerve to be circumcised—my mam would tear my heid off if I did.”
“No, ye’re right,” Jamie agreed. “She would. And ye’d go to hell.” The thought of the rare and delicate Rebekah churning butter in the yard of a Highland croft or waulking urine-soaked wool with her bare feet was slightly more ludicrous than the vision of Ian in a skullcap and whiskers—but not by much. “Besides, ye havena got any money, have ye?”
“A bit,” Ian said thoughtfully. “Not enough to go and live in Timbuktu, though, and I’d have to go at least that far.”
Jamie sighed and stretched, easing himself. A meditative silence fell—Ian no doubt contemplating perdition, Jamie reliving the better bits of his opium dreams but with Rebekah’s face on the snake lady. Finally he broke the silence, turning to his friend.
“So…was it worth the chance of goin’ to hell?”
Ian sighed long and deep once more, but it was the sigh of a man at peace with himself.
“Oh, aye.”
—
Jamie woke at dawn, feeling altogether well and in a much better frame of mind. Some kindly soul had brought a jug of sour ale and some bread and cheese. He refreshed himself with these as he dressed, pondering the day’s work.
He’d have to collect a few men to go back and deal with the coach.
He thought the coach wasn’t badly damaged; they might get it back up on the road again by noon…How far might it be to Bonnes? That was the next town with an inn. If it was too far, or the coach too badly hurt, or he couldn’t find a Jew to dispose decently of M. Peretz, they’d need to stay the night here again. He fingered his purse but thought he had enough for another night and the hire of men; the doctor had been generous.