The Wilde Flower Saga: A Contrary Wind (Historical Adventure Series)

by Schulz, Marilyn M

  “Captain?” Dr. Llewellyn said.

  Sir Edward gave him the note.

  “The Earl requests we take him back to England,” Dr. Llewellyn said.

  “He requests, meaning he requires,” Sir Edward said. “He has the ear of the Admiralty, I’ll wager. What do you know of this?”

  Kate was taken aback. It was a sassy Irish wench who replied, “I’ll not be privy to the Earl’s great plans, sir. And even so, I’d promptly be forgettin’ the lot on principle’s sake. The idea . . .”

  “So we must deprive you of your guests,” the captain said. “Tell me, Miss Senlis, would you also like a pleasure cruise home?”

  “It seems my ship will be taking the pleasure much more slowly than yours, sir. Serves me right for not staying with good American timbers. Are you taking the Frenchmen too?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his chin. Then he nodded. Once. It seems that he didn’t have much choice in the matter. She didn’t blame him for being surly. But she had already suffered her guests long enough, and she was having trouble hiding her joy at their early departure.

  “I will not go,” she said. “I will take my chances with the pirates and the storms at sea. There are no sharks in these waters, are there? I do not like to swim with sharks about the place. Still, better that than the Marquis and his unfriendly relation.”

  Mr. Whayles called from the rigging somewhere up above them, “I say good riddance to the lot of them.”

  Kate turned to hide her snicker.

  Dr. Llewellyn laughed too, but it strangled off as the captain glared his way.

  “Since you are here, see to the transfer of their luggage, Doctor. Good evening,” Sir Edward said, and he was over the side and gone.

  The doctor thought to say a proper goodbye, then thought better of it. He left in a hurry as well.

  In less than an hour, both ships were quiet as both crews were mostly down for the night and the passengers, for once, were not playing cards, but that was only a matter of time.

  But Kate was restless in her sleep. The dreams came again, and she couldn’t shake free. The sound was muffled, but the vision was clear in her sleeping mind’s eye. She was a child again, on the frontier of the New York colony:

  * * * * *

  Spring, 1774,

  Senlis Family Compound, New York colony

  Katie blinked at her own pain—in her chest, in her arms and legs. How long had she been here, barely breathing, holding tight to the trunk of Friendly Joe?

  She closed her eyes, certain that she had heard it again, that horrible noise. Yes, someone was laughing.

  Who? Why? How could they?

  It didn’t last long, but Katie decided the lack of it was even worse. It let in all the other sounds again: triumphant whoops, surprised last cries, choked-off grunts that meant some person would never make any other sound ever again.

  There was some sort of banging too; crashing and clattering came from inside some of the buildings now. The homes were being looted.

  From a distance into the woods, more screams came faintly now as the raiders found their fleeing prey. Katie had no way of knowing who was killed at that moment, but she found morbid relief in not having to see it so close.

  And there was no doubt what was happening here. She had seen death before: from accident, illness, even attack. But it was nothing so near as this, nothing so quick and ruthless—not so much, not all at once.

  From her perch in the tree, Katie tried to look around without too much movement or sound. She was as high as some of the roofs, at least, and perched on the far side of the tree with the trunk between her and the settlement clearing. She hoped Friendly Joe was enough to keep her from being seen from down below.

  Especially by the Redskins—that’s what Ambrose called them. Where was he now? She hoped he got away. Below, several natives milled around, as if trying to decide what atrocity came next.

  Could they hear her breathing?

  Surely her heart beat too loud.

  Their bare skin was painted with interesting patterns; she had seen some copied in one of her mother’s books. Katie turned her head to the side to study them more.

  Pretty, in their own way, she wondered how they were made. How did they make the colors? Did they draw the patterns with a brush or a finger?

  A song played in her head, one of her own. It didn’t make any sense as she gently swayed back and forth. She traced the same patterns with her finger on the trunk of Friendly Joe.

  Then she froze, her finger held just an inch away from the rough bark. Rougher than skin, she was thinking.

  She could smell something familiar as some of them passed near below. It was their dark, glossy hair—long, but not dirty like the trappers that often came through. Some natives mixed ferns, flowers, or plants like sweet flag in warm water, then used it to rinse their hair after cleansing with a strong tonic of soapwort.

  She had always liked it before, but now the smell made her queasy. She swallowed down the bitter burning that came into her throat.

  The raiders’ weapons glistened in the morning sun with the fresh red wetness of blood. The handles were of strong worn wood; the blades were dull steel worn down from sharpening over the years. Probably used to be someone’s axe, she decided, either traded for game or furs or stolen long ago in some other raid.

  Other braves had clubs with wooden handles notched roughly with their coups. The wood there was now dark-soaked with blood. One brave was already marking another notch there.

  Then Katie saw them again. They were gathered together, haphazardly stacked back to back on the ground, as if they had fallen there trying to fend off the surrounding attack.

  One of her brothers, the oldest, wasn’t moving at all. Another broke for the woods, but a brave, part of his face painted yellow and part painted red, chased him close behind. He caught her brother with a stifled whoop. The brave didn’t strike, merely picked up her brother and dashed him to the ground.

  The two younger boys huddled near the prone body of the oldest. Katie could tell from her perch that they were sobbing quite hard. The brave brought her other brother back and tossed him hard against the others. She heard his dull grunt of pain.

  Or she thought she heard it, prayed she heard it, for her ears were still buzzing with the overwhelming shock of it all. Then to her great relief, her oldest brother stirred. One of the younger put the older boy’s head on his lap.

  In the din, she now made out the voices of the raiders. She knew some of the words. Her mother often spoke to other natives with such phrases—not killing-natives. Katie didn’t know what they meant, not really.

  Other terms she knew from the Standish trading post, though not the tribe they came from or the full meaning of the words. Standish would point to things in the post in explanation, which was as much as he’d bother during the transactions:

  One blanket traded for five pelts of beaver . . . three cups of sugar for a hindquarter of a deer . . . whiskey for—

  Words came then that she knew well enough, but they weren’t native at all. These phrases were spoken with excitement from the men in buckskin pants. Several more of them were now coming from the woods. They were not natives, but French. Their words came much cruder, much harsher, than the soft voice of her mother.

  “Mama.”It came out a whisper as the men headed toward the house.

  They kicked in the door. Inside, Katie heard them break her Mama’s large jars. They would be in trouble for that—this she knew for sure.

  Then the warriors started heading for the house as well. Katie tried to warn her mother and cried out desperately, “Mama must run! They come with the French!”She screamed it again and again.

  * * * * *

  Captain Lindsay froze at the sound of the words as they drifted across the water between the ships. He was still on the deck though it was long past midnight. Dr. Llewellyn was restless as well. He was also strolling up top, but they didn’t walk together. Nor had they spok
en.

  The childish wail choked off. A woman’s voice cried out in frantic French. Sir Edward turned to the surgeon.

  “What did she say?”

  Dr. Llewellyn answered quite low. “She said something about children, where are the children? And someone must be ashamed, or should be. I didn’t catch the rest of it.”

  Then there was silence, almost. Sir Edward didn’t know which tugged at him worse: The cries of the frightened child, or the sorrowful weeping of the woman.

  On the Wilde, Ambrose Standish paused at the sound, wondering if it was real. His head swung back and forth in rough denial as his fists pressed tightly into his temples.

  Had he imagined it? He blinked into the darkness, but heard no more of her cries.

  Katherine.

  He smirked, and then got on about his business of searching the Earl’s quarters. The nobleman was elsewhere playing cards and would be distracted for some time. It was their habit, Standish knew, because he had observed them for many days. So was the liquor. The Earl had a fine stash of Brandy. To that, Standish also helped himself.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 15 - Doubtful Shelter

  It was very early morning or still late at night, depending on how you look at such things. The guests didn’t seem to distinguish anymore. They drank when they were awake. Now they were not. In fact, they weren’t really sleeping, they had passed out from their revels. But they had only been out for a short time, at least, it seemed so from the lack of noise.

  Kate was busy making a copy of Louis Dumars’ map and rhyme. The real thing would stay hidden; for she didn’t want to lose it if worse came to worse. But looking at something written in Louis’s blood was a gruesome reminder that she did not need.

  The words began to blur, and again she wiped at her tears. Louis’s face in such pain was still too fresh in her mind. She knew there was no way she could understand the depth of that suffering, but she felt she had to try.

  Kate closed her eyes for a moment, remembering his last grasp on her arm. It was as weak as the hold of a child. His hands had been mutilated. His wounds had filled with gangrene. She had nothing to help him. No salve or tinctures for the pain, no decent bandages or splints.

  The only way she could help him in the end was to promise the thing that he asked.

  Louis Dumars had been a merry man when she first met him. He was overjoyed to see her, but had thought she was her mother at first. That lasted only a moment, and it wasn’t unusual to be told she very much like her mother.

  They had been in Sunday school together, he claimed. But Kate suspected the association was exaggerated in his mind. Not for harm’s sake, but Louis Dumars was just another man who had fallen in love with Katherine St. John and had never quite gotten over it.

  He was younger than her father, and not as tall as her father had been. Louis was definitely a little bit rounder too, but he stood up straight, not hunched in the shoulders like her father. But that had only been after the raid. Katherine St. John had not been taken from Louis Dumars the way she had been ripped from the life of Kate’s father. There were still happy memories for Louis, and the contrast had been striking.

  Louis reminded Kate of how her father had been before that horrible day, that hole in her memory.

  Louis joked and sang and laughed. He drank a good deal too, but she had never seen him drunk. Kate couldn’t remember her father’s laugh. Her father didn’t enjoy much of anything: not food or wine, not friends, not places. Sometimes Kate would find him looking at her with deep sadness in his eyes.

  He would hold her then, but nothing was said between them. She knew if he could have, her father would have died for her mother instead. And when he looked at her that way, Kate sometimes wondered if he would have traded her own life for her mother’s as well.

  But her father had been dead for many months—and now Louis too. It felt like the same pain all over again. Louis was a trader, like her father, but not a traveler. He exported wine for his friends whose vineyards he knew so well. Louis had tales to tell about each vineyard, the history of the land and the family, and how it all effected what he called the ‘personality’ of the wine.

  His friends. Co-conspirators. Royalist sympathizers. Where had they been? Where were they now, also dead?

  Years earlier, things might have been different. Louis might have helped heal her father. It was not to be. Now France had troubles of her own. America, which Kate thought of as her country, but not as her home, was growing and now full of hope. She expected the same to be happening here. Kate had no idea the struggle was still so bloody in France, else she might have not come.

  Nor was she prepared for the zeal in such cruelty. The jailers had no passion, no anger left. They were deliberate in their purpose, having much practice in the art of torture by then. It still made her queasy to think about how one person could do that to another.

  Only her own anger got her through it, she was sure.

  Kate heard something on the deck above. Things were thumping. Mr. Whayles, one and two, were seeing to the transfer of baggage from the Wilde to the Stalwart. Sir Edward wanted to leave at dawn. Mr. Whayles had declared that he would oblige if he had to carry the late-night revelers there himself.

  Kate finished the map, and then slipped the original into the lining of one of her mother’s journals for safekeeping. She studied the journal pages for a bit, just to be sure she remembered the details correctly. Once stored in their oilskin pouch for travel, she wouldn’t take them out as the pages were getting too thin and dear for her to let the sea air and splash of salt water erode them away.

  Louis had been inordinately interested in her mother’s books and had spent long evening hours studying them. Kate figured he must have known them by heart by the time they became of such use. Perhaps it was a way for Louis to reacquaint himself with Katherine St. John. Perhaps it was why Louis Dumars had used her mother’s rhymes as a key to his code.

  Katherine Sention, Louis had called her, for it was his French pronunciation, and sometimes Kate found that the British said it that way too. Louis knew all about their family. He even added a few details on early birthdays and birthplaces. Maiden names and dead children, first wives and younger sons, it was all part of Louis’s final code, a requiem for family lost.

  It was his family too.

  His map and his rhymes were a means that others might be saved, including other relations.

  If she did as she promised.

  Kate felt a chill and a sense of foreboding. She wished she could see Edward Lindsay again, but didn’t like the notion that it might be the last time.

  She sat back with the journal open on her lap. Perhaps they were all together now: her mother, her father, Louis Dumars. Would there be jealousy or only love? Kate tried to picture them together, but not even a semblance of the faces of her parents came out clear in her mind.

  She sat up straight. The book slipped from her lap.

  When was the last time she remembered her father’s face . . . or her mother’s, for that matter?

  There was a resemblance in Louis that Kate noticed right away. The eyes were like her own eyes: green and gold. Not her mother’s eyes, she was told. Louis had laugh lines at the corners; did her mother have her own back then? Do my own, Kate wondered and touched them lightly.

  Edward Lindsay had some lines there, but she suspected his was more from scowling than from laughing.

  “You should laugh more,” she said softly. She had not trouble with his face coming to mind.

  Someone knocked.

  “Come in.”

  It was Mr. Whayles, one and two.

  “Gentlemen?”

  “The Stalwart is off, do you want to say goodbye?”

  She swallowed and shook her head no.

  They both grunted and left together as if they had practiced the motion, time and again. Too much time together in the remote Scottish Highlands, she decided. It seemed to breed a camaraderie that was the same as
on a long voyage.

  Kate busied herself with preparing for her own journey. It took over an hour. Then she decided there had been avoidance enough and went up on deck. Mr. Whayles pointed to the far distant sails and handed her the spyglass.

  She shook her head. Kate didn’t like goodbyes.

  Mr. Whayles studied her a moment, then he spat and walked away. She called him back. “Has anyone told Ambrose Standish that his friends have all gone away?”

  Mr. Whayles, both one and two, exchanged glances. The second Mr. Whayles tipped his hat. “Miss Mattie,” he said, then shinnied up the rigging and out of the way.

  The first Mr. Whayles just smiled very wide. He looked like a drunk who had just found a cask full of best Brandy. She took that as confirmation, but asked him anyway, “You didn’t haul him over as well?”

  “That I did and good riddance too.”

  She grinned. “He will be angry.”

  “Even better.”

  So would Sir Edward. Her mouth went very tight, and he could see the grinding in her jaw. It was not anger, it was deep thought, he knew.

  He put a hand to her shoulder. “Life is not all bad, Mattie Little.”

  “How so, Mr. Whayles?”

  “I kept their stores, and I kept their French chef to cook them too.”

  Kate started laughing, but stopped abruptly. “You didn’t knock him in the head, Mr. Whayles?”

  “No, not when Brandy will do.”

  “The Earl’s Brandy?”

  “That would be the same. Mr. Standish had his share too, though I doubt his was from invitation.”

  This was good news for Kate. Though she would be leaving very soon too, the French chef had several clay pots brought aboard when he came on the ship. They were filled with live plants, culinary herbs from which she had already filched. But this would give her time to get more before her journey.

  She said, mostly to herself, “In a pinch, with a pinch, just a pinch. I can trim a few more sprigs before I go.”