by Sara Donati
Simon brought the sleigh to a standstill and sat for a moment, contemplating the reins in his hands.
She said, “Why? Why are we here? I have to get home, my father must be told—”
“Wait,” Simon said. He put a hand under her elbow and urged her out of the sleigh. “Go inside, I'll be as quick as I can.”
He had found a branch to serve as a crutch. With it propped under her arm Lily hopped, awkwardly, into the cabin while he pulled the team and sleigh around to the stable.
Inside she closed the door behind herself and was glad of the cold dark, for that moment when she did not know if she could keep herself from screaming. In time she found her way to the stool that still stood before the hearth, cold now, and sat. The room smelled of the quail they had roasted for their supper and the men who had slept here last night, crowded shoulder to shoulder, laughing and telling their jokes by the glow of the banked coals.
When the door opened to frame a bloody dusk-red sky it was Sawatis who stood there, with Spotted-Fox and Simon just behind him.
Stripped of mantles and furs and weapons, Sawatis was much more the boy she had grown up with. He crouched before the fire and poked at it, and Lily saw the scar on his arm and remembered how he had come by it falling out of the boys' fort, one summer when he had been four or five. Her brother and his had brought him back to Lake in the Clouds where Many-Doves had stanched the bleeding with yarrow leaves and tied the wound shut with corn husks and then sent him out to play again.
Lily said, “Tell me.”
It was quickly done, as they did not know very many of the details. The news came to them as all news did: a Mohawk who scouted for the British at Nut Island had seen Blue-Jay and Daniel among a group of prisoners brought to the fort just five days ago. He told another Mohawk, who carried the news to the next, who took it with him to Good Pasture and delivered it to the longhouse of the Wolf, where Blue-Jay's brother lived with the rest of the clan.
The news arrived at Good Pasture at an awkward time. For days the war council had been sitting in deliberation on where they would fight in this new war, or if they would fight at all. Some of the men, not many, wanted to travel over the border to fight for the Americans; most thought that fighting for the British would serve them better. Some of the older men, Spotted-Fox among them, were not interested in yet another white man's war.
The news from Nut Island had taken Sawatis and Spotted-Fox away from the council fire. Together they set out immediately for the garrison on Nut Island, to see what might be done. Spotted-Fox had connections to the militia and he was respected by the British, who wanted all the Mohawk support they could muster; it was even possible that Blue-Jay would be released to him. Together with Red-Wing and Three-Horns, Mohawks who had been fighting for the British since the war broke out, Spotted-Fox had gone to make an appeal to the commander. And come away empty-handed.
He did not say so, but Lily saw that this single fact disturbed Spotted-Fox a great deal. She knew, too, that questions would do no good; he would not reveal what he meant to keep to himself.
“But did you see them?” Lily asked, knowing how rude it was to interrupt the flow of the story as it needed to be told, and still unable to control her anxiety and worry.
Spotted-Fox blinked at her. She ducked her head in apology and asked the question again.
“We have seen my brother,” answered Sawatis. “But not yours.”
“But why not?” Lily demanded. “Is he so badly injured? Have they locked him away by himself?”
“We have seen Blue-Jay, but we could not speak to him or ask questions,” said Spotted-Fox. “What we know of your brother we know from Red-Wing and the women in the followers' camp.”
Lily folded her hands together in her lap and forced herself to think it through, step by step. “I don't understand. They were supposed to be on the St. Lawrence. They wrote from Oswegatchie not six weeks ago.”
They had been speaking English for Simon's sake, and now he joined the conversation for the first time.
“Jim Booke wouldn't like the kind of hair-pulling MacLeod was telling us about last night,” Simon said. “Raids back and forth, like ill-tempered boys arguing over playthings. I'm not surprised to hear he moved his men.”
“What of Jim Booke?” Lily asked. “Is he there too, in the stockade?”
He was not in the stockade, Spotted-Fox assured her, but not far off either.
“His sign is all around, but we didn't have time to go looking for him.”
“Those garrison stockades are full of disease,” Lily said, mostly to herself. “A healthy man is in danger, and Daniel is wounded.”
Simon drew in a breath, and she rounded on him as if he had struck her.
“We can't leave them there,” she said. “We have to get them out. My father would get them out. My mother would get them out. How can I do any less?”
“This is Nut Island we're talking about,” Simon said. “The fortifications alone—”
She would have said things to him then that she could never have made right, but Spotted-Fox stopped her with a raised hand. He said, “He is right. No one man could get them out, not even your father. It would take an army.”
Lily felt the panic rise up from her belly into her throat, but she forced herself to swallow it.
“What then?” she said. “You must have a plan. You were traveling with the King's Rangers and on your way there. Can you get close to them? Can you get me close to them? I could join the camp, you said there are women—”
Her voice spiraled up and broke, and for a moment there was only the sound of harsh breathing and the hiss of the fire. She was proposing to join the ranks of the camp followers, the ones who washed for the soldiers and gave them the other things they required of women, in exchange for food and a place to sleep in a tent. In exchange for the chance to save her brother, Lily would have done that and more.
But Simon was looking at her, his expression guarded. He would never allow her to do such a thing, even if Sawatis and Spotted-Fox could be convinced. In that moment she hated this man she had bound herself to, for standing between herself and her twin.
Sawatis said, “We can be close enough to see that they get extra food and blankets. But there is something more important for you to do.”
“You want me to go home,” Lily said dully. “And tell my father, what? To raise an army?”
“No,” said Spotted-Fox. “There is something your people can do. Something your sister Walks-Ahead can do.”
On the back of her neck Lily's skin prickled, and a wave of nausea rose into her throat. The men took no note, and Spotted-Fox went on.
“There are only two doctors in the garrison, and they have no time for American prisoners. Walks-Ahead is a Kahnyen'kehàka healer, and she has experience on the battlefield. The British will be glad of her help as long as they don't know who her people are.”
“A well-thought-out plan,” Lily said, and Simon threw her a sharp look.
Sawatis said, “One of us would have gone to Lake in the Clouds to fetch her, if we hadn't come across you.”
“One of you will still go fetch her, if you must,” Lily said. “I'm not leaving Canada until my brother and Blue-Jay are free.”
She was being childish and selfish and eventually she must give in; Lily knew that, and still she turned her face away when Simon tried to talk to her.
They were back in the narrow bed behind the blanket, in the cold dark. Lying on her back with her hands crossed over her stomach Lily tried to make out Gabriel Oak's drawing on the wall and could not. She was so determined not to listen to any more arguments that it was a moment before she realized the latest thing Simon had said.
He was so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek, but she would not look at him.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“I did.”
“And?”
“You would do that. You would go on to Lake in the Clouds without me.”
<
br /> “Aye, if you will promise to stay with Sawatis and Spotted-Fox and not do anything foolish.”
“And you would bring my sister back.”
Maybe it was her tone that warned him, for he turned away to stare at his own bit of the ceiling. After a moment he said, “Do you have another plan?”
“You mean, there is nothing for me to do here. You mean that I will only be in the way and cannot help my brother.”
“I said none of that.” Simon's tone was edgy now; it was late in the night, and the day had been long and difficult and maybe, Lily thought, maybe she had finally found the limits of his patience.
“And yet it's true. Daniel needs Hannah but he doesn't need me.”
She heard herself, full of self-pity and bitterness; her mother would be ashamed. She was ashamed. It should have been enough to stop her, but Lily found she was no longer master of her own tongue.
“It's nothing new,” she continued. “I've heard it my whole life, you know.”
Simon said, “Your brother has need of your sister, aye. And your mother will have need of you. Or had ye no thought of that?”
Before Lily could turn to bury her face in the bedding a moan escaped her, and on its heels came the tears she had been holding back.
Simon got up from the bed and disappeared behind the blanket, into the darkness. For a moment Lily was satisfied: it had taken a great deal of work, but finally she had driven him away.
He was back before she could turn her head on the folded blanket that served as a pillow. His weight pulled down the edge of the bed and she shifted toward him against her will.
“Sit up,” he said in a firm voice.
She gave him no answer, and did not move. After a moment he leaned over her and took her by the shoulders, pulled her up until she was sitting, and then she felt his fingers in her hair.
“What are you doing?”
He worked her plait until her hair hung free to the waist and then Lily felt the brush at the crown of her head; it caught and held and began the long journey down and down, pulling nerves to life as it went. In the dark Simon brushed her hair from scalp to waist: ten strokes, fifty, a hundred. Her hair, too curly, too thick, too everything for fashion, resisted. He pressed on.
As her father brushed her mother's hair, every night. Lily tried to remember if she had ever told Simon about that, but she was so weary that her memories slid away. A shudder ran through her, and then another. Her head felt too heavy to hold up and still the brush continued on and on.
When he stopped, finally, she lay down. Her face was wet with tears, but she fell asleep before she could wipe them away.
In the morning Lily found that her courses had begun, after all. The evidence was impossible to deny, or hide. She wondered if she had been mistaken altogether, or if this was another loss to mourn.
Simon's expression was carefully blank. He asked what he could do for her and what she might need; if they should stay another day here in the cabin. He said this as if it were a possibility; as if there were endless fodder in the little stable; as if there were no reason to hurry.
All the anger had drained out of Lily; she pressed his hand and thanked him and saw how relieved he was to be released.
Simon went out to see to the horses and the sleigh. Lily wondered what he was thinking, really; if he was sad, as she found herself to be. Oddly sad and relieved at the same time. He had never used the child as an argument for her to go home, an act of generosity, it seemed to her now, and kindness.
It seemed a strange dream she had had, the idea of rescuing her brother. She would go home with Simon, to her mother and father and the rest of her people, and she would stay there with them until there was word of Daniel and Blue-Jay.
While she made ready Sawatis gave her news from Good Pasture to carry back to Lake in the Clouds, and she committed it all to memory. It was something to think about, and she was thankful.
At the door her cousin took her free hand in both his own and looked at her face. He looked so much like his father that for a moment Lily found it impossible to speak. Many-Doves and Runs-from-Bears did not know about their eldest son; it would be up to her to give them the news. Better news than she had for her own parents.
She said, “Do what you can for them. I will send my sister.”
His lips were cold where he pressed them to her forehead. Spotted-Fox blinked his eyes, not in disapproval this time but because the sun on the snow was so bright that even his eyes must tear. They helped her to the sleigh and saw her settled.
Lily turned to wave goodbye but they had already disappeared into the forests.
Chapter 24
“Ain't no music in the world so fine as little girls laughing,” said Curiosity.
Ethan looked up from the box of books he was packing. “They are having a high time. Elizabeth, take this copy of Cicero, there are two.”
Elizabeth accepted the small leather-bound book from her nephew and looked at it more closely. “He never even cut the pages.”
At that Curiosity made a gruff sound in her throat. “Unless it was something about medicine, Richard didn't care much about books. He bought them because he thought a fine gentleman should have them on his shelf.”
Ethan's face clouded, and it was not lost on Curiosity. “You think I'm speaking bad of him, but I ain't. What I'm saying is, the man spent his whole life trying to be something he wasn't, and didn't really want anyway. Don't you make the same mistake, you hear me?”
Elizabeth hissed softly. “As if he were even in danger of such a thing.” It earned her a sharp glance from Curiosity and an amused one from Ethan.
He said, “I appreciate your faith in me, Aunt Bonner—”
“Then say nothing more on the subject,” she interrupted him. “The only promise I care to hear from you is that you will make the most of your travels, and then, when you are ready, that you will come home to us again.”
With a very pointed look, Curiosity stopped Elizabeth before she could say more. She said, “Don't matter that they never got read before,” she said. “These books sure will look fine in the new schoolhouse.”
“If you insist on changing the subject,” Elizabeth said, “please change it in another direction.”
“You are reluctant to talk about the new schoolhouse, Aunt.” Ethan put another small pile of books in her lap. “But I saw you yesterday, inspecting the lumber.”
It was true that she had selected a spot for the new school, and it was also true that she had paid Peter Dubonnet to cut and haul the lumber that must wait until spring before building could begin. But still she chafed at the whole business, and could not even tell why except in terms that she did not like to admit. The whole venture seemed to her somehow a challenge to fate, and fate was too nebulous and irrational a concept for her comfort.
It had to do with the war, of course. With the fact that her children were away, and that she couldn't see to their welfare; it had to do with getting older. It had to do most of all with the fact that she had hoped that Ethan would take over the school, and that now he could not. Because Richard had willed it so.
Curiosity said, “Now look, here's old Mr. Shakespeare who went missing some weeks ago right while we was in the middle of reading about that foolish child Juliet and her Romeo, just as bad. I'll ask Jennet to read some more to us tonight, though I expect it'll take a bad end, the whole sorry business. Don't know what the girl's folks was thinking, letting things get out of hand the way they did.”
Elizabeth and Ethan exchanged smiles.
“Don't you be laughing, you two. You know I'm right.”
“Curiosity,” Ethan said. “You know that these stories are pure invention but you always talk as if the characters might show up at your door for advice.”
The older woman put both hands on her head kerchief to right it. “If only they would,” she said. “I'd send that Romeo into the bush with Joshua. Let him chop a few trees, raise a few blisters. You tire a boy out good, h
e won't get such foolish ideas in his head. Climbing up walls in the middle of the night.” She sniffed.
“No doubt you're right,” Elizabeth said. “Though I doubt Shakespeare would have come up with such a novel solution.”
“He don't like happy endings, ain't no secret in that,” Curiosity agreed. “But the words sound pretty, the way he wrote them down. If you got the right person reading, that is.”
“I imagine that Jennet must read these characters very well,” Elizabeth said. “She has just the right dramatic flair.”
At that the door flew open so abruptly that it cracked against the wall. Callie and Martha burst into the room, pursued by Jennet. All three of them were flushed with high color and almost breathless with laughter and running.
Callie had one arm extended up over her head, and in her fist, a sheet of paper. Jennet lunged, and Callie hopped backward just out of her reach. Together the two younger girls backed around a wing chair while Jennet advanced.
“Now!” Curiosity said. “What is all this thundering and shouting?”
They spared her not a glance.
“You said we might!” Martha squeaked. “You said we could!”
“I'll pluck ye bald, ye wee de'ils,” Jennet crooned in a sweet voice. “And use your hair tae stuff ma pillow.” Her fingers wiggled before her.
“You did say so!” Callie echoed, as Jennet snatched and the girls jumped.
“Och, I said nae sic thing.” Jennet circled to the other side and the girls pivoted with her. “I said I'd share the tale wi' ye, but no the letter! That's for ma brither.”
Curiosity marched forward and inserted herself between Jennet and her prey. She held out her hand, palm up. “You two girls know better than to go reading somebody else's private mail. What are you thinking?”
Callie looked at Martha and Martha at Callie. With a bob of the head, the stolen letter was put into Curiosity's hand.