“Fergus!” I was so shocked at the sight that I stopped my attempts to stanch the exciseman’s wound with my shawl. “What—what—” I said incoherently.
“What?” he said, glancing at me. Then, following the direction of my gaze, said, “Oh, that,” and shrugged. “The English. Don’t worry about it, milady, we haven’t time. You, canaille, get downstairs!” He jerked Mr. Willoughby off the stairs, dragged him to the cellar door and shoved him through it, with a callous disregard for safety. I could hear a series of bumps, suggesting that the Chinese was rolling downstairs, his acrobatic skills having temporarily deserted him, but had no time to worry about it.
Fergus squatted next to me, and lifted the exciseman’s head by the hair. “How many companions are with you?” he demanded. “Tell me quickly, cochon, or I slit your throat!”
From the evident signs, this was a superfluous threat. The man’s eyes were already glazing over. With considerable effort, the corners of his mouth drew back in a smile.
“I’ll see…you…burn…in…hell,” he whispered, and with a last convulsion that fixed the smile in a hideous rictus upon his face, he coughed up a startling quantity of bright red foamy blood, and died in my lap.
More feet were coming up the stairs at a high rate of speed. Jamie charged through the cellar door and barely stopped himself before stepping on the excise officer’s trailing legs. His eyes traveled up the body’s length and rested on my face with horrified amazement.
“What have ye done, Sassenach?” he demanded.
“Not her—the yellow pox,” Fergus put in, saving me the trouble. He thrust the pistol into his belt and offered me his real hand. “Come, milady, you must get downstairs!”
Jamie forestalled him, bending over me as he jerked his head in the direction of the front hall.
“I’ll manage here,” he said. “Guard the front, Fergus. The usual signal, and keep your pistol hidden unless there’s need.”
Fergus nodded and vanished at once through the door to the hall.
Jamie had succeeded in bundling the corpse awkwardly in the shawl; he lifted it off me, and I scrambled to my feet, greatly relieved to be rid of it, in spite of the blood and other objectionable substances soaking the front of my shift.
“Ooh! I think he’s dead!” An awestruck voice floated down from above, and I looked up to see a dozen prostitutes peering down like cherubim from on high.
“Get back to your rooms!” Jamie barked. There was a chorus of frightened squeals, and they scattered like pigeons.
Jamie glanced around the landing for traces of the incident, but luckily there were none—the shawl and I had caught everything.
“Come on,” he said.
The stairs were dim and the cellar at the foot pitch-black. I stopped at the bottom, waiting for Jamie. The exciseman had not been lightly built, and Jamie was breathing hard when he reached me.
“Across to the far side,” he said, gasping. “A false wall. Hold my arm.”
With the door above shut, I couldn’t see a thing; luckily Jamie seemed able to steer by radar. He led me unerringly past large objects that I bumped in passing, and finally came to a halt. I could smell damp stone, and putting out a hand, felt a rough wall before me.
Jamie said something loudly in Gaelic. Apparently it was the Celtic equivalent of “Open Sesame,” for there was a short silence, then a grating noise, and a faint glowing line appeared in the darkness before me. The line widened into a slit, and a section of the wall swung out, revealing a small doorway, made of a wooden framework, upon which cut stones were mounted so as to look like part of the wall.
The concealed cellar was a large room, at least thirty feet long. Several figures were moving about, and the air was ripely suffocating with the smell of brandy. Jamie dumped the body unceremoniously in a corner, then turned to me.
“God, Sassenach, are ye all right?” The cellar seemed to be lighted with candles, dotted here and there in the dimness. I could just see his face, skin drawn tight across his cheekbones.
“I’m a little cold,” I said, trying not to let my teeth chatter. “My shift is soaked with blood. Otherwise I’m all right. I think.”
“Jeanne!” He turned and called toward the far end of the cellar, and one of the figures came toward us, resolving itself into a very worried-looking madam. He explained the situation in a few words, causing the worried expression to grow considerably worse.
“Horreur!” she said. “Killed? On my premises? With witnesses?”
“Aye, I’m afraid so.” Jamie sounded calm. “I’ll manage about it. But in the meantime, ye must go up. He might not have been alone. You’ll know what to do.”
His voice held a tone of calm assurance, and he squeezed her arm. The touch seemed to calm her—I hoped that was why he had done it—and she turned to leave.
“Oh, and Jeanne,” Jamie called after her. “When ye come back, can ye bring down some clothes for my wife? If her gown’s not ready, I think Daphne is maybe the right size.”
“Clothes?” Madame Jeanne squinted into the shadows where I stood. I helpfully stepped out into the light, displaying the results of my encounter with the exciseman.
Madame Jeanne blinked once or twice, crossed herself, and turned without a word, to disappear through the concealed doorway, which swung to behind her with a muffled thud.
I was beginning to shake, as much with reaction as with the cold. Accustomed as I was to emergency, blood, and even sudden death, the events of the morning had been more than a little harrowing. It was like a bad Saturday night in the emergency room.
“Come along, Sassenach,” Jamie said, putting a hand gently on the small of my back. “We’ll get ye washed.” His touch worked on me as well as it had on Madame Jeanne; I felt instantly better, if still apprehensive.
“Washed? In what? Brandy?”
He gave a slight laugh at that. “No, water. I can offer ye a bathtub, but I’m afraid it will be cold.”
It was extremely cold.
“Wh-wh-where did this water come from?” I asked, shivering. “Off a glacier?” The water gushed out of a pipe set in the wall, normally kept plugged with an insanitary-looking wad of rags, wrapped to form a rough seal around the chunk of wood that served as a plug.
I pulled my hand out of the chilly stream and wiped it on the shift, which was too far gone for anything to make much difference. Jamie shook his head as he maneuvered the big wooden tub closer to the spout.
“Off the roof,” he answered. “There’s a rainwater cistern up there. The guttering pipe runs down the side of the building, and the cistern pipe is hidden inside it.” He looked absurdly proud of himself, and I laughed.
“Quite an arrangement,” I said. “What do you use the water for?”
“To cut the liquor,” he explained. He gestured at the far side of the room, where the shadowy figures were working with notable industry among a large array of casks and tubs. “It comes in a hundred and eighty degrees above proof. We mix it here wi’ pure water, and recask it for sale to the taverns.”
He shoved the rough plug back into the pipe, and bent to pull the big tub across the stone floor. “Here, we’ll take it out of the way; they’ll be needing the water.” One of the men was in fact standing by with a small cask clasped in his arms; with no more than a curious glance at me, he nodded to Jamie and thrust the cask beneath the stream of water.