by Sara Donati
“You haven’t left me any say in it.” His own voice was thick in his ears.
Elizabeth leaned over him and her smell—milky sweet and summer flowers—came to him. At this moment he could think of nothing else in the world that he wanted except to pull her down beside him and keep her there. He could think of it, but his arms were suddenly too heavy to lift.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’ll stay with you.”
Hannah was disappointed to find her father asleep, and then immediately ashamed of herself when she stood beside his bed. His color was bad, and the sheen of sweat on his brow told her something she had not wanted to contemplate.
“Fever.”
“Yes. But he is very strong.” The Hakim sat beside the bed, and he gave her the kind of reassuring smile she had seen him give before, when there were no promises he could make.
“I should have been here.”
From her spot near the door Jennet said, “I shouldna ha’ kept ye sae lang.”
Hannah jerked in surprise as Elizabeth took her by the elbow and steered her away from the bed.
“Hannah Bonner,” she said in her primmest schoolmistress voice. There was a line between her brows that Hannah had not often seen, and did not care to see now. “What is this foolishness?”
In her surprise, Hannah glanced at Curiosity. But there was no help to be had from her; she looked quite in agreement with Elizabeth.
“But—”
“Do not interrupt me. Do you think that hand-wringing will help your father? When he wakes he will want to hear all about the castle. Will you be ready to answer his questions?”
Hannah blinked hard, and then she nodded. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
It was not like Elizabeth to be unfair, and Hannah felt herself flush with frustration. “We’ve only been here a few hours,” she said. “By tomorrow I’ll know more.”
“Aye,” volunteered Jennet, coming to her aid. “I’ll show her whatever she cares tae see.”
“Good,” said Elizabeth, more calmly. “Your father will be very glad of it.” She pushed out a long breath and Hannah saw suddenly how very worried Elizabeth was. She saw too that nothing she could say would help.
“The two of you might take the twins out into the garden for an hour. I will manage here well enough.”
Curiosity said, “That’s a fine idea. I’ll come along, too.”
There was a bit of sloping lawn that ran from the gardens down toward the dairy, and they settled there in the shifting shadows of a rowan tree.
“A pretty place,” Curiosity said, spreading her skirts out around herself. “Cain’t deny that.”
Jennet sat beside her with Daniel in her lap. She was studying Curiosity’s hand where it lay on the grass, palm up and fingers slightly curved. Hannah wondered what Jennet found so interesting, and so did Curiosity.
“Ain’t you ever seen an African before?”
Jennet leaned over to look more closely at Curiosity’s palm. “The Marquis o’ Montrose came tae call on the laird, last summer it was, and he had a Moor for a footman. But I dinna see him sae close,” she said. “Why are ye broon on one side and pale on the ither?”
Curiosity shrugged, and examined her own hand. “I have wondered that myself. When I get to the other side I’ll be sure to ask the Lord what He had in mind.”
Jennet propped Daniel on the ground beside Lily, and steadied him with one hand to see if he might sit on his own. He would not, but he found it a good game, and chuckled with great satisfaction each time she caught him and brought him back upright. She said, “I like your idea o’ heaven. Imagine, askin’ any question.”
“I guess you’d keep the Almighty busy talkin’ for a good while,” said Curiosity, but there was real affection in her tone. Then she looked over at Hannah.
“You mighty quiet, Squirrel. Worried about your daddy?”
“A little. And about Elizabeth.”
“No need,” Curiosity said, holding up her face to the sun. “She’ll settle, soon as his fever breaks.” And then, without turning her head, she said, “Jennet, child. Now tell me, ain’t that Mrs. Hope your mama?”
Hannah pulled up in surprise. It was true that Jennet had never mentioned her own family beyond her brother, Simon, and now she wondered why she would have been silent on that subject. Curiosity had come to the same question, and she was after something—Hannah had seen her at work too many times to mistake her tone.
“Aye.” Jennet was preoccupied with Daniel, and she did not seem to mind Curiosity’s questions.
“And she’s a widow woman?”
“Aye,” said Jennet. “Widowed young.”
“Now that’s too bad,” Curiosity said, ignoring Hannah’s pointed frown and moving right ahead to what she wanted to know.
“So it’s just you and your mama.”
“Granny Laidlaw’s doon the village,” said Jennet. “She’s like you.”
Curiosity drew up in surprise. “How is that?”
“Canny,” said Jennet.
“I thank you kindly for the compliment,” Curiosity said. “Now I suppose as young as you are, you wouldn’t remember nothing ’bout this Isabel I hear tell about.”
Jennet turned to look at Curiosity, and something much older than her years was there in her eyes. “Ye want tae hear how it is she ran off wi’ a Breadalbane?”
Hannah gave Curiosity a triumphant look. Jennet was too clever to be wheedled out of a story, and Curiosity had underestimated her. But she wasn’t displeased to have been outmaneuvered, and she gave Jennet a wide smile.
“Why, yes. I would.”
“They’d beat me for even sayin’ her name. The earl forbids it. Auld Nick was sent awa’ oot o’ service for talkin’ aboot her in MacQuiddy’s hearin’.”
“Then we won’t ask.” Hannah met Curiosity’s raised brow with a furrowed one of her own.
“Och, I’ll tell ye what I ken,” said Jennet with an easy shrug. “It’s no’ verra much. A summer’s night, it was. He was waitin’ for her below—” She pointed with her chin toward the village. “I dinna ken how it was that she ever came tae meet a Breadalbane. My mither could tell ye, but she willna speak o’ it.”
“Were they good friends, then?” Hannah asked, drawn into this story almost against her will.
“Aye,” said Jennet. “As close as sisters ever were. The earl sent his men oot tae bring her hame, but it was too late. Nae sign o’ the lady until the spring, when she sent word that she was wi’ child. The marriage couldna be undone, then, ye see.”
“And I suppose these Campbell-Breadalbane folk all got tails and horns,” Curiosity said.
Jennet fixed her with a serious expression. “Horns and tails, aye. I wadna doubt it. They like tae cut men’s throats and leave them for the corbies.”
“Bad blood,” said Hannah. “The kind that starts wars.”
“O’ course,” said Jennet, with a little bit of a smile. “We’re Scots, aye?”
There was the sound of cart wheels on the gravel path that came around the corner of the castle, and Jennet’s whole face broke into a smile. She jumped up so that Daniel tumbled over with an insulted squawk. In a quick swoop she grabbed him up and handed him to Hannah.
“It’s Monsieur Dupuis,” Jennet said, turning to wave. “And the Hakim.”
It was not a cart, as Hannah had thought, but a cross between a cushioned chair and a wheelbarrow. In it sat an old man hunched forward, his legs covered with a rug. The Hakim had been pushing, but he stopped to return Jennet’s greeting.
“He’s come out tae take the fresh air. Come along, I must introduce ye.” And she skipped off ahead.
By the time they had gathered up the babies and made their way to the little group, Jennet was deep in conversation. She broke off in mid-sentence to make the introductions.
Monsieur Dupuis was a friend of the earl’s and—if Hannah understood Jennet correctly—a permanent houseguest. But Hannah found it hard to concentrate on
what Jennet had to say, because she could not look away from the stranger. This must be the man Elizabeth had seen in the garden. She had spoken of him as a very old man, and Hannah had seen him that way, too, at first, but now she saw she had been mistaken. He was middle-aged, but worn thin by pain—a man bent close to breaking. He was the kind of pale O’seronni who suffered most in the sun, burning again and again. Now, between his eyes a nest of dark moles seethed like milling wasps. There was another cluster on his jaw, and a larger one wrapping around his neck and reaching down into his clothing. They were like nothing she had ever seen before: black as tar, ulcerated and ragged, and she understood somehow that they would be the death of him. A cancer, one that grew inward from the skin rather than beginning deep inside the body.
She saw the truth of it in Curiosity’s face, and in the Hakim’s; now Hannah understood why he had disappeared so quickly from the Isis—the earl had sent for him in the hope that he could do something for this friend. And Hakim Ibrahim had disappointed them, because Monsieur Dupuis was beyond helping. O’seronni did not sing death songs, but maybe they would listen to his stories from the shadowlands and give him comfort that way.
The Frenchman was holding out a hand toward her, fingers twitching, to draw her closer. Hannah came, and bent her head to his.
In Kahnyen’kehàka he said, “Little sister, you are very far from home.”
She jerked away as if he had snapped his teeth at her. “You speak my language,” she said. “Why do you speak my language?” She said it in English, to deny him what he was trying to claim for himself.
“Monsieur Dupuis lived for many years among your people,” said Jennet, her smile fading away into confusion.
Hannah sent Curiosity a pleading glance and saw the same unease and suspicion that she knew must be plain on her own face. “My people? Among my people?”
“I thought ye’d be pleased,” said Jennet sadly.
Curiosity shifted Lily and put a hand on Jennet’s shoulder, but she spoke to the Frenchman. “Now, that’s right interesting, monsieur. How’d you come to spend time with the Mohawk?”
But his gaze stayed on Hannah. In an English that was more Scots than French he said, “I knew your mother, Sings-from-Books. You are very like her. Your great-grandmother, Made-of-Bones. Is she still living?”
Hannah stepped back farther, clutching Daniel so that he squirmed in protest. “Did you tell him, Jennet? Did you tell him about my mother’s people?”
The Frenchman held up a pale hand, and it trembled slightly. “She told me nothing, child. There is no reason to fear. None at all. As soon as your father is well enough, he and I must talk.”
“You know my father.”
“Yes.”
Hannah felt the first flush of relief. Her father would know this man, or he would not. In either case, things would be made clear, and it would not fall to her to decide if Monsieur Dupuis was friend or enemy.
The Frenchman was watching her, and Hannah had the disturbing feeling that he read her thoughts. In Kahnyen’kehàka he said, “Tell Wolf-Running-Fast that I send my greetings. It has been many years, but he will remember me. As I remember him. Will you tell him?”
26
For a day and a night the mountain called Aidan Rig pulled a soft rain about itself. Carryckcastle was wrapped in mists, set apart from the rest of the world just as Elizabeth isolated herself in Lady Appalina’s bedchamber while she watched over Nathaniel and waited for his fever to break.
They roused him to take broth or the Hakim’s willow-bark tea; he seemed disoriented but always asked about his father and the children. Then he fell away again into dreams that made him twitch and flail. Elizabeth did not know how to reassure or comfort him, for his worries were real ones and they occupied her own dreams, when she could sleep at all.
The Hakim came every few hours. He brought tisanes, compresses soaking in bowls of scented water, and leeches for Nathaniel’s thigh, which was bruised from knee to hip. Together he and Curiosity cleaned and disinfected the shoulder wound once again and left it open to the air. Hannah watched, her dark eyes unreadable. Elizabeth held Nathaniel’s hand, flinching at the heat of him, like a fire laid too well, one that threatened to overwhelm the hearth that contained it.
The maids brought a steady stream of hot food, tea, and clean winding cloths for the babies. Elizabeth nursed them when they were hungry, handed them over to Curiosity or Hannah, and went back to Nathaniel’s bedside.
The second night, and still his fever would not break. Elizabeth made no pretense of sleeping.
Sitting beside him, she read through the little journal they had written together on the Isis, but no amount of examination turned up any word about this Frenchman whom Hannah and Curiosity had met in the garden. From their description it sounded as if it must be the same man she had seen with the Hakim. In her mind’s eye she watched him draw a cross in the air in front of the maid who had curtsied so deeply before him. The sign of the cross.
When the Hakim next came to see Nathaniel, she asked him about this Dupuis, and got little satisfaction.
“A business associate of the earl’s—a permanent guest,” he said. “Ill unto death.”
It should have put her vague uneasiness to rest—the earl’s business associates would be merchants like himself. But if the man was a permanent fixture, why had none of the sailors who came from Carryck or Carryckton ever mentioned him in Hannah’s hearing?
Neither was there any mention of Mrs. Hope, Elizabeth reminded herself. And still she could not help thinking of a summer night just a year ago at Lake in the Clouds. A night so calm and hot that they could not sleep, a moth fluttering in the light of a single candle, its shadow dancing frantically on the timbered ceiling. Nathaniel, stretched out on the bed in nothing more than a breechclout, telling her stories of the Kahnyen’kehàka at Good Pasture: There was a priest living in the village then, a Frenchman who went by the name Father Dupuis. We called him Iron-Dog.
Dupuis was a common name. Nathaniel’s Father Dupuis and the earl’s Monsieur Dupuis need have nothing to do with one another. Canada was full of French trappers who traded with the Kahnyen’kehàka. Nathaniel seemed to know every man who ever sold a fur from Québec to New-York, and this Monsieur Dupuis would be one of them. It made so much more sense than the idea of a French priest spending his last days at Carryckcastle.
When Nathaniel was himself again—tomorrow, she was sure of it—he would tell her exactly that, and she could put this Monsieur Dupuis away, another detail of the earl’s life to be set aside with his tulips and Lady Isabel’s unhappy alliance.
Somewhere in the depths of the house a clock chimed midnight. She checked on the babies, asleep in a cradle that had been put in the dressing room, and stood for a moment listening to them breathe before she wandered back through the bedchamber to the window.
The casement opened silently, and she wrapped her arms around herself in pleasure as the cool air touched her face. There was a waxing moon and a breeze that brought the scent of fresh hay with it. An imprudent whim, this fondness she had for the night air; she could hear Aunt Merriweather sniffing in disgust—but it was a comfort to her.
A lantern cast a puddle of light at the courtyard gate where a guard leaned up against the wall, supporting his weight with one hand. Elizabeth could not see the person in the shadows, but it must be a woman, to judge by the tilt of his head. A young woman, one he was hoping to bed, or perhaps they were both too much in a hurry to wait.
The earl was awake too. The windows of his chamber—Jennet had pointed them out to her—were still lit. It was almost a comfort, to know that he slept no more soundly than did his unwilling guests.
A figure passed the window, but one too small and finely made to be the earl. Elizabeth stilled her breath and watched. And again: a woman in white at the window, and there was something about her bearing that spoke of ease and familiarity.
And what does it matter if someone shares the earl’s bed? s
he asked herself sternly, and had no answer.
“Boots. What are you looking at?”
She pressed a fist to her heart to calm it. “Just the courtyard.”
“Come here.”
His eyes were clear, and when he took her hand his skin was cool to the touch.
“Your fever has broken,” she said, her knees buckling with relief.
“Did you think I was going to die on you?”
She climbed up to sit beside him. “Of course not.”
“Liar.” A drop of blood appeared on his lower lip, fever-cracked.
“You would not dare,” she said indignantly, wiping it away with her thumb.
It won her a weak smile. “You’re sounding more like yourself, Boots.”
“Peevish? Impatient?”
“Now you’re fishing for compliments.”
“But of course,” she said, making an effort to tidy the bedclothes. “For what else do I live and breathe?”
He squeezed her wrist. “I won’t die on you. Not for another forty years or so.”
She nodded, because she did not trust her voice.
Nathaniel flexed his arm gingerly, and made an attempt to bend his knee. “I feel like somebody took a war club to me. How long have I been out, anyway?” His fingers rasped over his beard stubble. “A while, I guess.”
“Almost two days.”
“That long. Any word?”
She shook her head. “None at all.”
“Don’t matter. They’re nearby.”
This brought her up short. “Who is nearby?”
“My father, and Robbie. The look on your face, Boots. You think I’m out of my head with the fever.”
“Are you?” She reached for his brow and found it damp, but still cool to the touch. “I expect you’ve been dreaming.”
He drew her hand down to press his mouth to her palm. “That I have.”
“Go back to sleep,” she said. “And dream us away from here.”
He tugged her closer. “I sleep better with you next to me.”
She did not argue, but leaned over to blow out the candle and then settled herself against the pillows.