by D. J. Butler
“Kinta Jane!” Dockery tried to grab her arm to stop her, but she was already past him and entering the grove.
The dogs stopped barking just as they came into Kinta Jane’s view.
Only they weren’t dogs. They looked like dogs, of a breed that had a significant amount of wolf in its ancestry, but their shoulders were as high off the ground as Kinta Jane’s waist. As Kinta Jane stepped forward, they strained on their chains and opened their mouths…
And then looked at each other, puzzled.
“Good boys,” Kinta Jane said. She held out her hands for the dogs to smell her, but they slunk away in shame and defeat.
“That’s quite a trick,” Dockery said.
“They’re not boys,” Mesh said. “‘Chak’ means flower and ‘’Uutz’ is a kind of poetic stanza.”
“You have a bitch the size of a pony and mean as hell,” Dockery said. “And you named her flower.”
Mesh laughed, flashing his teeth at the trees. “What should I name her? Fang? Wolf? Dog? Rex? Dockery?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have said we were friends, but I admit that hurts a mite.”
“Be careful around my dogs,” Mesh said. “Don’t try to pet them or feed them, and if you’re bleeding, stay out of their way. We use only bitches for our fighting animals. Our trainers make them mean and angry by being cruel to their puppies. Then they are taught to trust only one person, who will be their master. In the case of these dogs, that’s me.”
The giant reached into a leather satchel hanging from one of the trees and pulled out several strips of red, raw meat. He flung these to the beasts, who shrank away from Kinta Jane, eyeing her resentfully as they settled down to eat.
The camp consisted of a snow cave with two entrances, at one of which was a small fireplace, a sheltered spot within reach of their tethers where the dogs lay on a pile of tattered wool blankets. There was also a large backpack, propped up against a tree. Standing up in the snow were multiple oval frames, some three feet long and others closer to five, with hide and thongs stretched within the frame. Kinta Jane stared at them for a minute before she managed to puzzle them out.
“Those are for walking on snow,” she said to Dockery. “Like you were talking about.”
The giant looked at Dockery with curiosity in his eyes. “You know the art of walking with the aagimag?”
Dockery shrugged. “I walked in snowshoes before. I expect I could use a little practice, if we’re planning to walk much in this snow.”
“We may do some walking,” Mesh said. “We will also ride beasts. It’s hard to pass unnoticed on the river.”
“Beasts?” Dockery asked.
Mesh ignored him.
“Why do you have to be so cruel to the dogs?” Kinta Jane asked.
“I’m not cruel to them. I’m loving. The trainer was cruel.”
“But why? Why do you need such a large dog to be so ferocious?”
“We keep these dogs to fight bear,” Mesh said. “And hunt elk. And warn us of strangers. And chase away the wiindigoo and beastkind that have strayed too far to the north. And we take the dogs to war. They would serve us nothing if they were not ferocious and also ferociously loyal. What did you do to them? Why are they sad?”
Kinta Jane shrugged. “Dogs react that way to me.” It wasn’t a lie, but something about the way Dockery was acting made her uncomfortable around the giant. There was no need to tell the whole truth this early in their relationship.
“You have beastkind blood?”
Kinta Jane was startled. “Is that a possibility?”
Mesh shrugged. “It happens. Sometimes people with such ancestry don’t even know it. Some beastkind have only very subtle features. And really, who can ever know for sure whether their grandmother has a cat’s tail, or not? And dogs sometimes react badly to beastkind.”
“I don’t think that’s it, though,” Kinta Jane said.
Mesh shrugged. “Well, unless you like your meat raw, we need food. Why don’t you stay here, and I’ll go find us a nice bit of elk? I am a terrible hunter, loud as a herd of bison in heat when I tromp through the woods, but this land is so thick with game, even a fool as I will be able to bring back a deer.”
“Or a bear.” Dockery nodded. “Bear chops are worth eating.”
Mesh nodded. “Maybe you get a nice fire started. It will keep you warm until I get back, and then we can roast the meat.”
By the time Mesh had strung his bow and strapped his feet into two of the longer snowshoes, the dogs had finished gulping down their meat. He stooped to disconnect the chains that held them from their collars—which Kinta Jane now saw were of broad, thick leather, with iron spikes studding them. Mesh rubbed both animals behind the ears, and then barked several syllables of his guttural language at them.
Smiling at Kinta Jane and Dockery as if he’d made a hilarious joke and they should be laughing, Mesh shuffled out of camp.
The dogs followed him. The shadows were getting long.
Dockery stepped close to Kinta Jane to whisper. “We need to get out of here.”
“Why?”
“Look at his snowshoes. Notice anything about them that makes you nervous?”
“That he has a whole bunch of snowshoes?”
Dockery nodded. “Yeah, that’s one thing. Also, look at them. Those big ones are Misaabe make, you can tell by their long, tapering, pointed heels.”
“The smaller ones are different,” Kinta Jane said. “More rounded. Who made those?”
“Algonks of some kind, I expect.”
“He was waiting for us, so he bought snowshoes.”
“You don’t buy snowshoes, Kinta Jane,” Dockery said. “You make ’em. He might have made those three big pairs, but it seems a hell of a thing to do for the sake of boredom. But he didn’t make the smaller ones.”
“You think he killed someone,” Kinta Jane said.
“I think it’s a distinct possibility that whoever Brother Odishkwa is, or was…our man Mesh killed him. I think maybe he even killed Brother Anak, too. And I might be wrong, but I want to get out of this camp right now, and figure out later just who Mesh is and what he wants.”
Kinta Jane didn’t wait for more. She turned and trudged out of camp, heading back to Montreal. There she could get a room in an inn, under an assumed name if she had to. Maybe she could even seek help from La Fayette or Champlain. She regretted they hadn’t gone to the Acadian Electors in the first place.
At the edge of the camp, the dogs waited for her. They bared their teeth, snarling in all but the actual emission of sound.
Their eyes were full of hate and vengeance.
“That thing you do with dogs,” Dockery said. “Any chance it will stop them from biting both of us?”
“I don’t think it will even stop them from biting me.”
“Then we got two choices. We kill the dogs right now and run. Or we wait for a better opportunity.”
“Mesh can’t be a hundred yards away,” Kinta Jane said. “With those long legs, and him wearing the snowshoes, he’d catch us for sure.”
“Dammit,” Dockery said, “but I think you’re right.”
Kinta Jane eased back from the edge of camp several steps. “In that case, I think we should probably start a fire.”
“Keep your weapons handy.” Dockery took sticks from a small pile of wood near the fire and began to build them into a pyramid. “It might not be an elk he’s bringing back.”
* * *
“Ye’ve changed staff somewhat, Your Grace.” Eoin Kennedie smiled at the form of address, but it wasn’t a hostile smile. “Was your old bodyguard eaten by lions, or borne into heaven on a chariot of fire?”
Etienne, Onyinye, and Eoin sat in the corner room above a tavern called Grissot’s in the Vieux Carré. The room had windows facing in two directions, and each of them had a pair of companions to stand on the iron-railed balcony outside and watch the drizzle-soaked streets. Eoin had his two jackanapes brothers, Roibeard and Teodoir;
Onyinye had a pair of burly men Etienne vaguely thought might be her cousins; and Etienne himself had Monsieur Bondí and the wrestler Achebe.
Bondí was the only one of the six companions to sit at the table with the principals.
Etienne himself had cast quick looks down both directions before joining his allies at their table. He’d seen three gendarme deserters whipped bloody and hugging the posts to which they were chained, but otherwise none of the chevalier’s men.
“The thing about lions,” Etienne said, “is that once they’ve eaten a Christian or two, they become convinced they’re kings. But at the end of the day, they’re still just beasts in the bottom of a pit.”
“You’ve stopped the lion’s meat,” Onyinye said. “Now what? Throw in more Christians? See if they can overwhelm the hungry cat?”
Etienne laughed. “Let’s drop the allegory to avoid confusion. The chevalier recruited huge numbers of men. We hurt his income in a few different ways, so paying his large army has caused him to run out of wealth. Now he can no longer pay them. This results in desertions, punishments, low morale, poor behavior, lawlessness, and unhappy citizens even less willing to collect and pay their taxes.”
“The lawless citizens are my favorite part.” Eoin picked at something in his teeth with a long fingernail. “I must tell ye, my business is booming.”
“And all the while,” Etienne continued, “I appear from time to time on a street corner, or in a house meeting, or even at a Vodun congregation, to preach disobedience to the unrighteous chevalier.”
“You are making the city ungovernable.” Onyinye smiled.
“That is the goal.” Etienne touched his mother’s locket with thumb and forefinger. Well done, my son.
“I admire the ruthlessness of a man who was seeking to replace his father as bishop while his father yet lived,” Onyinye said.
“I admire a woman who will kill her own cousin to get what she wants,” Etienne answered.
“Well, you both bloody well scare the shit out of me.” Eoin chuckled.
“I didn’t kill him.” Onyinye’s face had an unusual softness to it. “The mameluke fought back and killed my cousin. We made his death appear to be at the hand of the same assassin, to throw the prince-capitaine off the track.”
“And I was not seeking to replace my father. I was seeking to succeed him, and I was doing it because my mother bid it.”
“Your gede loa. Your personal goddess.”
Etienne hesitated, but nodded. “One of them.”
“Ain’t that sweet?” Eoin Kennedie chuckled. “I’d tell ye both my sentimental secrets, cement our alliance and our friendship, only I don’t have any.”
“Keep your secrets.” Etienne cleared his throat. “Monsieur Bondí has been working with all the pawnbrokers within the walls of New Orleans on a related project.”
“That’s a terrible business, if you do it honestly.” Eoin grinned. Pawnbroker was a euphemism and sometimes a cover for Eoin’s very business, which was fencing stolen goods.
“It is indeed a hard business,” Bondí agreed. “Low margins, slow turnover. It turns out that if you’re willing to buy a few items, pawnbrokers will talk to you.”
Etienne feigned displeasure. “Monsieur Bondí, please tell me you’re not storing all this junk in my tent.”
Bondí shook his head. “I throw it all into the Pontchartrain. And it’s not junk, it’s good swords men inherited from their grandfathers, fathers’ pistols, antique powder horns. Soldiers’ things. The sorts of things a successful soldier fallen on hard times—say, an officer who hasn’t been paid in weeks—might pawn.”
“Or a gendarme,” Eoin said.
“You devious bastard.” Onyinye smiled at Etienne. Was that respect in her face?
“It isn’t me,” Etienne admitted. “Monsieur Bondí would have made an excellent lawyer, or judge, or witchfinder.”
Bondí shrugged. “I think through the consequences. I like to ask myself, if this were true, what sort of evidence would I see for it? It’s all forensic accounting, really.”
“I don’t know what forensic accounting is,” Eoin admitted, “but if ye ever want a job, Bondí, ye’ve only to say the word.”
“I won’t trade him for Roibeard, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Etienne said. “Or for him and Teodoir both.”
“No, you don’t trade away your kin. I’d just have to pay my new forensic accountant an ungodly excellent wage.”
“I can certainly match ungodly.” Etienne smiled. “I’ll have to let him speak to the excellence of the wages.”
“This is very flattering,” Bondí said, “But I’d like to tell you more about what I’ve been up to. I’ve been looking for gendarme officers who are dissatisfied. Frustrated ambition, poverty rather than wealth.”
“The ones complaining the loudest,” Eoin said.
“No,” Bondí said.
“Not the loudest,” Onyinye explained. “They’re the most likely to be planted by the chevalier himself as spies.”
“Correct,” Etienne said.
“Or else the most likely to just be useless loudmouths,” Bondí added. “No, I wanted men of honor unhappy with the current situation. Men with a history of decisive action. Veterans of a war, preferably. The Spanish War, or Jackson’s invasion, more likely. Men of resolution.”
“If you’ve brought us here, it’s because you’ve found such a man.” Eoin spoke to Bondí, but he looked closely at Etienne.
“Three such men,” Bondí said. “They’ll be arriving momentarily.”
Etienne passed out the simple black hoods he’d brought. “The men know they’re coming to meet me. They’ve been given hoods like these, as well. But there’s no reason to expose your identities.”
Onyinye promptly pulled on the mask. Eoin shrugged as if indifferent, but then put his on as well. Etienne lit the oil lantern sitting on the table and Monsieur Bondí closed the shutters to discreetly conceal the faces of the men on the balcony.
“I trust we’re all armed,” Etienne said. “Just in case any of the three has second thoughts and wants to become the chevalier’s darling?”
“Of course,” Onyinye said.
Eoin only snorted and rapped a knuckle against one of the plates sewn into his leather coat.
There came a knock at the door. “I shall play Papa Legba,” Etienne said, “and admit those who are to be admitted. Or at least, my man shall do so.”
Bondí whispered at the door while Etienne smiled reassurance at his two partners. It was a little disconcerting not to be able to read their facial expressions in return.
A man came in and sat. He was tall and heavy, and the skin of his hands was dark brown. “Nous attendons des autres?” he asked.
“Oui,” Etienne said. “Moi, je suis l’évêque.”
“Monseigneur.” The man nodded his head. “Je connaissais votre père.”
Etienne was caught by surprise, though given Monsieur Bondí’s description of the sort of men he’d been looking for, he shouldn’t have been. He merely nodded, fighting a surprising flood of emotion.
He reached into his waistcoat and rubbed his thumb on the edge of his mother’s locket.
Bondí admitted a second man, as tall as the first, but with paler-skinned hands and a long black queue of hair that fell down out of his mask and between his shoulderblades. The man wore his gendarme’s uniform, and his boots and belt were highly polished. He clicked his heels together and bowed toward the entire table.
“Bonjour,” Etienne said.
“Thank you,” the man said in English.
“Ah, a rarity,” Etienne said. “An English-speaking gendarme. And was that a Pennslander accent I heard?”
The man with the queue coughed as if embarrassed. “It may be, Your Grace. I’ve never paid all that much attention to accents.”
The third man followed close on the second’s heels. This man was shorter than the other two, broad-shouldered and stocky. He dressed as if he were a
sailor, in a white blouse and blue canvas pants, with rope sandals on his feet.
Nodding to the rest, he sat down.
Monsieur Bondí took up a position to the side of the table. “Allow me to make introductions,” he said. “This is my master, the Bishop of New Orleans.”
The first gendarme chuckled. “And devotee of Maitre Carrefour, and gangster.”
Etienne arched an eyebrow.
“I knew your father,” the gendarme said. “And your brother, Chigozie. And I know you as well, Etienne Ukwu.”
Etienne decided not to respond.
“Your Grace.” The other two gendarmes bobbed their heads.
“You’re all here for the same reason,” Bondí said. “The chevalier is failing the city.”
The second gendarme, the man with his hair in a queue, cleared his throat as if in alarm. “Perhaps we can speak in more general terms than that.”
“You were rather specific when you and I were alone,” Bondí said.
“We’re not alone now,” the gendarme said. “And I have heard of the Bishop here, but I don’t know who his companions are, and I don’t know these gentlemen.”
“Think of us as the bishop’s angel choir,” Onyinye said.
“Or altar boys,” Eoin added. “Or deacons. Or—what do ye call ’em—suffragans.”
Queue laughed, but uneasily. “I appreciate the humor. But I feel that I’ve gone very quickly from a casual conversation in which things were said that I might not have said if I had been a little less drunk, and that I might not really have meant, to an invitation that I commit myself to revolt in front of masked strangers.”
“Cold feet, eh?” The first gendarme chuckled softly. “That’s not what they call you around the barracks, is it? Cold Feet Hollings?”
“Cold Heart,” Queue snarled, then hesitated. “You know me.”
“Everyone knows you, Hollings. Don’t you recognize me?”
Hollings tore off his mask and stared at the other man. “Yes!”
The first gendarme chuckled. “Liar. You never had an eye for anyone who wasn’t a superior officer or a lady. Preferably the wife or daughter of a superior officer.”
“The time has come to take off your masks, gentlemen,” Etienne said. “If we’re going to work together, we must know each other.”