A Breath of Snow and Ashes (110 page)

“No, I ken what
you
mean by that—Roger Mac showed me the wee picture ye drew for Jem, all tiny things like dragonflies, prinking in the flowers. . . .” He made an uncouth noise in the back of his throat. “Nay. These things are . . .” He made a helpless gesture with one big hand, frowning at the grass.

“Vitamins,” he said suddenly, looking up.

“Vitamins,” she said, and rubbed a hand between her brows. It had been a long day; they had likely walked fifteen or twenty miles and fatigue had settled like water in her legs and back. The bruises from her battle with the beavers were beginning to throb.

“I see. Ian . . . are you sure that your head isn’t still a bit cracked?” She said it lightly, but her real anxiety lest it be true must have shown in her voice, for he gave a low, rueful chuckle.

“No. Or at least—I dinna think so. I was only—well, d’ye see, it’s like that. Ye canna see the vitamins, but you and Auntie Claire ken weel that they’re there, and Uncle Jamie and I must take it on faith that ye’re right about it. I ken as much about the—the Old Ones. Can ye no believe me about
that
?”

“Well, I—” She had begun to agree, for the sake of peace between them—but a feeling swept over her, sudden and cold as a cloud-shadow, that she wished to say nothing to acknowledge the notion. Not out loud. And not here.

“Oh,” he said, catching sight of her face. “So ye
do
know.”

“I don’t
know,
no,” she said. “But I don’t know it’s not, either. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about things like that, in a wood at night, a million miles away from civilization. All right?”

He smiled a little at that, and nodded in acceptance.

“Aye. And it’s no what I meant to say, really. It’s more . . .” His feathery brows knitted in concentration. “When I was a bairn, I’d wake in my bed, and I’d ken at once where I was, aye? There was the window”—he flung out a hand—“and there was the basin and ewer on the table, wi’ a blue band round the top, and
there
”—he pointed toward a laurel bush—“was the big bed where Janet and Michael were sleepin’, and Jocky the dog at the bed fit, farting like a beetle, and the smell of peat smoke from the fire and . . . well, even if I should wake at midnight and the house all still around me, I should ken at once where I was.”

She nodded, the memory of her own old room in the house on Furey Street rising around her, vivid as a vision in the smoke. The striped wool blanket, itchy under her chin, and the mattress with the indentation of her body in the middle, cupping her like a huge, warm hand. Angus, the stuffed Scottie with the ragged tam-o-shanter who shared her bed, and the comforting hum of her parents’ conversation from the living room below, punctuated by the baritone sax of the theme music from
Perry Mason.

Most of all, the sense of absolute security.

She had to close her eyes, and swallow twice before answering.

“Yes. I know what you mean.”

“Aye. Well. For some time after I left home, I might find myself sleeping rough, wi’ Uncle Jamie in the heather, or here and there in inns and pothouses. I’d wake wi’ no notion where I was—and still, I’d ken I was in Scotland. It was all right.” He paused, lower lip caught between his teeth as he struggled to find the right words.

“Then . . . things happened. I wasna in Scotland any longer, and home was . . . gone.” His voice was soft, but she could hear the echo of loss in it.

“I would wake, with no idea where I might be—or who.”

He was hunched over now, big hands hanging loose between his thighs as he gazed into the fire.

“But when I lay wi’ Emily—from the first time. I knew. Kent who I was again.” He looked up at her then, eyes dark and shadowed by loss. “My soul didna wander while I slept—when I slept wi’ her.”

“And now it does?” she asked quietly, after a moment.

He nodded, wordless. The wind whispered in the trees above. She tried to ignore it, obscurely afraid that if she listened closely, she might hear words.

“Ian,” she said, and touched his arm, very lightly. “Is Emily dead?”

He sat quite still for a minute, then took a deep, shuddering breath, and shook his head.

“I dinna think so.” He sounded very doubtful, though, and she could see the trouble in his face.

“Ian,” she said very softly. “Come here.”

He didn’t move, but when she scooted close and put her arms around him, he didn’t resist. She pulled him down with her, insisting that he lie beside her, his head pillowed in the curve between shoulder and breast, her arm around him.

Mother instinct, she thought, wryly amused. Whatever’s wrong, the first thing you do is pick them up and cuddle them. And if they’re too big to lift . . . and if his warm weight and the sound of his breathing in her ear kept the voices in the wind at bay, so much the better.

She had a fragmentary memory, a brief vivid image of her mother standing behind her father in the kitchen of their house in Boston. He lay back in a straight chair, his head against her mother’s stomach, eyes closed in pain or exhaustion, as she rubbed his temples. What had it been? A headache? But her mother’s face had been gentle, the lines of her own day’s stress smoothed away by what she was doing.

“I feel a fool,” Ian said, sounding shy—but didn’t pull away.

“No, you don’t.”

He took a deep breath, squirmed a little, and settled cautiously into the grass, his body barely touching hers.

“Aye, well. I suppose not, then,” he murmured. He relaxed by wary degrees, his head growing heavier on her shoulder, the muscles of his back yielding slowly, their tension subsiding under her hand. Very tentatively, as though expecting her to slap him away, he lifted one arm and laid it over her.

It seemed the wind had died. The firelight shone on his face, the dark dotted lines of his tattoos standing out against the young skin. His hair smelled of woodsmoke and dust, soft against her cheek.

“Tell me,” she said.

He sighed, deeply.

“Not yet,” he said. “When we get there, aye?”

He would not say more, and they lay together, quiet in the grass, and safe.

Brianna felt sleep come, the waves of it gentle, lifting her toward peace, and did not resist. The last thing she recalled was Ian’s face, cheek heavy on her shoulder, his eyes still open, watching the fire.

WALKING ELK WAS
telling a story. It was one of his best stories, but Ian wasn’t paying proper attention. He sat across the fire from Walking Elk, but it was the flames he was watching, not his friend’s face.

Very odd, he thought. He’d been watching fires all his life, and never seen the woman in them, until these winter months. Of course, peat fires had no great flame to speak of, though they had a good heat and a lovely smell . .
.
oh. Aye, so she
was
there, after all, the woman. He nodded slightly, smiling. Walking Elk took this as an expression of approval at his performance and became even more dramatic in his gestures, scowling horrendously and lurching to and fro with bared teeth, growling in illustration of the glutton he had carefully tracked to its lair.

The noise distracted Ian from the fire, drawing his attention to the story again. Just in time, for Walking Elk had reached the climax, and the young men nudged each other in anticipation. Walking Elk was short and heavily built—not so much unlike a glutton himself, which made his imitations that much more entertaining.

He turned his head, wrinkling up his nose and growling through his teeth, as the glutton caught the hunter’s scent. Then he changed in a flash, became the hunter, creeping carefully through the brush, pausing, squatting low—and springing upward with a sharp yelp, as his buttock encountered a thorny plant.

The men around the fire whooped as Walking Elk became the glutton, who looked at first astonished at the noise, and then thrilled to have seen its prey. It leaped from its lair, uttering growls and sharp yips of rage. The hunter fell back, horrified, and turned to run. Walking Elk’s stubby legs churned the pounded earth of the longhouse, running in place. Then he threw up his arms and sprawled forward with a despairing “Ay-YIIIIII!” as the glutton struck him in the back.

The men shouted encouragement, slapping their palms on their thighs, as the beleaguered hunter managed to roll onto his back, thrashing and cursing, grappling with the glutton that sought to tear out his throat.

The firelight gleamed on the scars that decorated Walking Elk’s chest and shoulders—thick white gouges that showed briefly at the gaping neck of his shirt as he writhed picturesquely, arms straining upward against his invisible enemy. Ian found himself leaning forward, his breath short and his own shoulders knotted with effort, though he knew what was coming next.

Walking Elk had done it many times, but it never failed. Ian had tried it himself, but couldn’t do it at all. The hunter dug his heels and shoulders into the dirt, his body arched like a bow at full stretch. His legs trembled, his arms shook—surely they would give way at any moment. The men by the fire held their breath.

Then it came: a soft, sudden
click.
Distinct and somehow muffled, it was exactly the sound made by the breaking of a neck. The snap of bone and ligament, muffled in flesh and fur. The hunter stayed arched a moment, unbelieving, and then slowly, slowly, lowered himself to the ground and sat up, staring at the body of his enemy, clutched limp in his hands.

He cast up his eyes in prayerful thanks, then stopped, wrinkling his nose. He glanced down, face screwed into a grimace, and rubbed fastidiously at his leggings, soiled by the odorous voidings of the glutton. The hearth rocked with laughter.

A small bucket of spruce beer was making the rounds; Walking Elk beamed, his face shining with sweat, and accepted it. His short, thick throat worked industriously, sucking the sharp drink down as though it was water. He lowered the bucket at last and looked about in dreamy satisfaction.

“You, Wolf’s Brother. Tell us a story!” He threw the half-empty bucket across the fire; Ian caught it, only sloshing a little over his wrist. He sucked the liquid from his sleeve, laughed, and shook his head. He took a quick mouthful of beer and passed the bucket to Sleeps with Snakes, beside him.

Eats Turtles, on his other side, poked Ian in the ribs, wanting him to talk, but he shook his head again and shrugged, jerking his chin toward Snake.

Snake, nothing loath, set the bucket neatly before him and leaned forward, the firelight dancing on his face as he began to talk. He was no actor like Walking Elk, but he was an older man—perhaps thirty—and had traveled much in his youth. He had lived with the Assiniboin and the Cayuga, and had many stories from them, which he told with great skill—if less sweat.

“Will you talk later, then?” Turtle said in Ian’s ear. “I want to hear more tales of the great sea and the woman with green eyes.”

Ian nodded, a little reluctant. He had been very drunk the first time, or he would never have spoken of Geillis Abernathy. It was only that they had been drinking trader’s rum, and the spinning sensation it caused in his head was very like that caused by the stuff
she’d
given him to drink, though the taste was different. That caused a giddiness that made his eyes blur, so candle flames streaked and ran like water, and the flames of the fire seemed to overflow and leap the hearthstones, glimmering all round her lavish room, small separate blazes springing up in all the rounded surfaces of silver and glass, gems and polished wood—flickering brightest behind green eyes.

He glanced around. There were no shining surfaces here. Clay pots, rough firewood, and the smooth poles of bed frames, grinding stones and woven baskets; even the cloth and furs of their clothes were soft dull colors that drowned the light. It must have been only the memory of those times of light-glazed dizziness that had brought her to mind.

He seldom thought of the Mistress—that was how the slaves and the other boys spoke of her; she needed no more name than that, for no one could imagine another of her sort. He did not value his memories of her, but Uncle Jamie had told him not to hide from them, and he obeyed, finding it good counsel.

He stared intently into the fire, only half-hearing Snake’s recounting of the story about Goose and how he had outwitted the Evil One to bring tobacco to the People and save Old Man’s life. Was it her, then, the witch Geillis, that he saw in the fire?

He thought it was not. The woman in the fire gave him a warm feeling when he saw her that ran from his heated face down through his chest and curled up low and hot in his belly. The woman in the fire had no face; he saw her limbs, her curving back, a sweep of long, smooth hair, twisting toward him, gone in a flicker; he heard her laugh, soft and breathy, far away—and it was not Geillis Abernathy’s laugh.

Still, Turtle’s words had brought her to his mind, and he could see her there. He sighed to himself and thought what story he might tell, when it came his turn. Perhaps he would tell about Mrs. Abernathy’s twin slaves, the huge black men who did her every bidding; he had once seen them kill a crocodile, and carry it up from the river between them to lay it at her feet.