A Breath of Snow and Ashes (111 page)

He didn’t mind so much. He had found—after that first drunken telling—that to speak of her in such a way caused him to think of her in the same way—as though she was a story, interesting but unreal. Perhaps she had happened, as perhaps Goose had brought tobacco to Old Man—but it did not seem so much as though she had happened to
him.

And after all, he had no scars, like Walking Elk’s, that would remind either his hearers or himself that he spoke truth.

In truth, he was growing bored with drinking and stories. The real truth was that he longed to escape to the furs and cool darkness of his bed platform, shed his clothes, and curl his hot nakedness around his wife. Her name meant “Works with Her Hands,” but in the privacy of bed, he called her Emily.

Their time was growing short; in two moons more, she would leave, to go to the women’s house, and he would not see her. Another moon before the child came, one more after that for cleansing . . . The thought of two months spent cold and alone, without her next to him at night, was enough to make him reach for the beer as it came around, and drink deep.

Only the bucket was empty. His friends giggled as he held it upside down above his open mouth, a single amber drop splattering on his surprised nose.

A small hand reached over his shoulder and took the bucket from his grasp, as its partner reached over his other shoulder, holding a full one.

He took the bucket and twisted, smiling up at her. Works with Her Hands smiled smugly back; it gave her great pleasure to anticipate his wants. She knelt behind him, the curve of her belly pressing warm against his back, and swatted away Turtle’s hand as he reached for the beer.

“No, let my husband have it! He tells much better stories when he’s drunk.”

Turtle closed one eye, fixing her with the other. He was swaying slightly.

“Is it that he tells better stories when he’s drunk?” he asked. “Or do we just
think
they’re better, because
we’re
drunk?”

Works with Her Hands ignored this philosophical inquiry and proceeded to make room for herself at the hearth, swinging her solid little bum deftly back and forth like a battering ram. She settled comfortably next to Ian, folding her arms atop her mound.

Other young women had come in with her, bringing more beer. They nudged their way in among the young men, murmuring, poking, and laughing. He’d been wrong, Ian thought, watching them. The firelight shone on their faces, glanced from their teeth, caught the moist shine of eyes and the soft dark flesh inside their mouths as they laughed. The fire gleamed on their faces more than it had ever shone from the crystal and silver of Rose Hall.

“So, husband,” Emily said, lowering her eyelids demurely. “Tell us about this woman with green eyes.”

He took a thoughtful swallow of beer, then another.

“Oh,” he said. “She was a witch, and a very wicked woman—but she did make good beer.”

Emily’s eyes flew open wide, and everyone laughed. He looked into her eyes and saw it, clearly; the image of the fire behind him, tiny and perfect—welcoming him in.

“But not as good as yours,” he said. He lifted the bucket in salute, and drank deep.

70

EMILY

B
RIANNA WOKE IN THE MORNING stiff and sore, but with one clear thought in mind.
Okay. I know who I am.
She had no clear idea
where
she was, but that didn’t matter. She lay still for a moment, feeling oddly peaceful, despite the urge to get up and pee.

How long had it been, she wondered, since she
had
wakened alone and peaceful, with no company but her own thoughts? Really, not since she had stepped through the stones, she thought, in search of her family. And found them.

“In spades,” she murmured, stretching gingerly. She groaned, staggered to her feet, and shuffled into the brush to pee and change back into her own clothes before returning to the blackened fire ring.

She unplaited her draggled hair, and began groggily combing her fingers through it. There was no sign of Ian or the dog nearby, but she wasn’t concerned. The wood around her was filled with the racket of birds, but not alarm calls, just the daily business of flutter and feeding, a cheerful chatter that didn’t alter when she rose. The birds had been watching her for hours; they weren’t concerned, either.

She never woke easily, but the simple pleasure of not being dragged from sleep by the insistent demands of those who did made the morning air seem particularly sweet, in spite of the bitter tang of ashes from the dead fire.

Mostly awake, she wiped a handful of dew-wet poplar leaves over her face by way of a morning toilette, then squatted by the fire ring and began the chore of fire-starting. They had no coffee to boil, but Ian would be hunting. With luck, there’d be something to cook; they’d eaten everything in the knapsack, save a heel of bread.

“Heck with this,” she muttered, whacking flint and steel together for the dozenth time, and seeing the spatter of sparks wink out without catching. If Ian had only told her they were camping, she would have brought her fire-striker, or some matches—though on second thought, she was not sure that would be safe. The things could easily burst into flame in her pocket.

“How did the Greeks do it?” she said aloud, scowling at the tiny mat of charred cloth on which she was attempting to catch a spark. “They must have had a way.”

“The Greeks had what?”

Ian and Rollo were back, having captured, respectively, half a dozen yams and a blue-gray waterbird of some kind—a small heron? Rollo refused to allow her to look at it, and took his prey off to devour under a bush, its long, limp yellow legs dragging on the ground.

“The Greeks had what?” Ian repeated, turning out a pocket full of chestnuts, red-brown skins gleaming from the remnants of their prickly hulls.

“Had stuff called phosphorus. You ever heard of it?”

Ian looked blank, and shook his head.

“No. What is it?”

“Stuff,” she said, finding no better word to hand. “Lord John sent me some, so I could make matches.”

“Matches between whom?” Ian inquired, regarding her warily.

She stared at him for a moment, her morning-sodden mind making slow sense of the conversation.

“Oh,” she said, having at last discovered the difficulty. “Not that kind of match. Those fire-starters I made. Phosphorus burns by itself. I’ll show you, when we get home.” She yawned, and gestured vaguely at the small pile of unlit kindling in the fire ring.

Ian made a tolerant Scottish noise and took up the flint and steel himself.

“I’ll do it. Do the nuts, aye?”

“Okay. Here, you should put your shirt back on.” Her own clothes had dried, and while she missed the comfort of Ian’s buckskin, the worn thick wool of her fringed hunting shirt was warm and soft on her skin. It was a bright day, but chilly so early in the morning. Ian had discarded his blanket while starting the fire, and his bare shoulders were pebbled with gooseflesh.

He shook his head slightly, though, indicating that he’d put on his shirt in a bit. For now . . . his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he struck flint and steel again, then disappeared as he muttered something under his breath.

“What did you say?” She paused, a half-hulled nut in her fingers.

“Oh, it’s no but a—” He’d struck once more and caught a spark, glowing like a tiny star on the square of char. Hastily, he touched a wisp of dry grass to it, then another, and as a tendril of smoke rose up, added a bark chip, more grass, a handful of chips, and finally a careful crisscross of pine twigs.

“No but a fire charm,” he finished, grinning at her over the infant blaze that had sprung up before him.

She applauded briefly, then proceeded to cut the skin of the chestnut she was holding, crosswise, so it wouldn’t burst in the fire.

“I haven’t heard that one,” she said. “Tell me the words.”

“Oh.” He didn’t blush easily, but the skin of his throat darkened a little. “It’s . . . it’s no the Gaelic, that one. It’s the Kahnyen’kehaka.”

Her brows went up, as much at the easy sound of the word on his tongue as at what he’d said.

“Do you ever think in Mohawk, Ian?” she asked curiously.

He shot her a glance of surprise, almost, she thought, of fright.

“No,” he said tersely, and rose off his heels. “I’ll fetch a bit of wood.”

“I have some,” she said, holding him with a stare. She reached behind her and thrust a fallen pine bough into the kindling fire. The dry needles burst in a puff of sparks and were gone, but the ragged bark began to catch and burn at the edges.

“What is it?” she said. “What I said, about thinking in Mohawk?”

His lips pressed tight together, not wanting to answer.

“You asked me to come,” she said, not sharp with him, but firm.

“So I did.” He took a deep breath, then looked down at the yams he was burying in the heating ashes to bake.

She worked on the nuts slowly, watching him make up his mind. Loud chewing sounds and intermittent puffs of blue-gray feathers drifted out from under Rollo’s bush, behind him.

“Did ye dream last night, Brianna?” he asked suddenly, his eyes still on what he was doing.

She wished he had brought something coffeelike to boil, but still, she was sufficiently awake by now as to be able to think and respond coherently.

“Yes,” she said. “I dream a lot.”

“Aye, I ken that. Roger Mac told me ye write them down sometimes.”

“He did?” That was a jolt, and one bigger than a cup of coffee. She’d never
hidden
her dreambook from Roger, but they didn’t really discuss it, either. How much of it had he read?

“He didna tell me anything about them,” Ian assured her, catching the tone of her voice. “Only that ye wrote things down, sometimes. So I thought, maybe, those would be important.”

“Only to me,” she said, but cautiously. “Why . . . ?”

“Well, d’ye see—the Kahnyen’kehaka set great store by dreams. More even than Highlanders.” He glanced up with a brief smile, then back at the ashes where he had buried the yams. “What did ye dream of last night, then?”

“Birds,” she said, trying to recall. “Lots of birds.” Reasonable enough, she thought. The forest around her had been live with birdsong since well before dawn; of course it would seep into her dreams.

“Aye?” Ian seemed interested. “Were the birds alive, then?”

“Yes,” she said, puzzled. “Why?”

He nodded, and picked up a chestnut to help her.

“That’s good, to dream of live birds, especially if they sing. Dead birds are a bad thing, in a dream.”

“They were definitely alive, and singing,” she assured him, with a glance up at the branch above him, where some bird with a bright yellow breast and black wings had lighted, viewing their breakfast preparations with interest.

“Did any of them talk to ye?”

She stared at him, but he was clearly serious. And after all, she thought, why
wouldn’t
a bird talk to you, in a dream?

She shook her head, though.

“No. They were—oh.” She laughed, unexpectedly recalling. “They were building a nest out of toilet paper. I dream about toilet paper all the time. That’s a thin, soft kind of paper that you use to wipe your, er, behind with,” she explained, seeing his incomprehension.

“Ye wipe your arse with
paper
?” He stared at her, jaw dropped in horror. “Jesus God, Brianna!”

“Well.” She rubbed a hand under her nose, trying not to laugh at his expression. He might well be horrified; there were no paper mills in the Colonies, and aside from tiny amounts of handmade paper such as she made herself, every sheet had to be imported from England. Paper was hoarded and treasured; her father, who wrote frequently to his sister in Scotland, would write a letter in the normal fashion—but then would turn the paper sideways, and write additional lines perpendicularly, to save space. Little wonder that Ian was shocked!

“It’s very cheap then,” she assured him. “Really.”

“Not as cheap as a cob o’ maize, I’ll warrant,” he said, narrow-eyed with suspicion.

“Believe it or not, most people then won’t have cornfields to hand,” she said, still amused. “And I tell you what, Ian—toilet paper is
much
nicer than a dry corncob.”

“‘Nicer,’” he muttered, obviously still shaken to the core. “Nicer. Jesus, Mary, and Bride!”

“You were asking me about dreams,” she reminded him. “Did you dream last night?”

“Oh. Ah . . . no.” He turned his attention from the scandalous notion of toilet paper with some difficulty. “Or at least if I did, I dinna recall it.”

It came to her suddenly, looking at his hollowed face, that one reason for his sleeplessness might be that he was afraid of what dreams might come to him.

In fact, he seemed afraid now that she might press him on the subject. Not meeting her eye, he picked up the empty beer jug and clicked his tongue for Rollo, who followed him, blue-gray feathers sticking to his jaws.

She had cut the last of the chestnut skins and buried the gleaming marrons in the ashes to bake with the yams, by the time he came back.

“Just in time,” she called, seeing him. “The yams are ready.”

“Just in time, forbye,” he answered, smiling. “See what I’ve got?”

What he had was a chunk of honeycomb, thieved from a bee tree and still chilled enough that the honey ran slow and thick, drizzled over the hot yams in glorious blobs of gold sweetness. Garnished with roasted, peeled, sweet chestnuts and washed down with cold creek water, she thought it was possibly the best breakfast she’d eaten since leaving her own time.

She said as much, and Ian lifted one feathery brow in derision.

“Oh, aye? And what would ye eat then that’s better?”

“Oooh . . . chocolate donuts, maybe. Or hot chocolate, with marshmallows in it. I really miss chocolate.” Though it was hard to miss it much at the moment, licking honey off her fingers.

“Och, get on wi’ ye! I’ve had chocolate.” He squinched his eyes and pinched his lips in exaggerated distaste. “Bitter, nasty stuff. Though they did charge a terrible lot of money just for a wee cup of it, in Edinburgh,” he added practically, unsquinching.

She laughed.

“They put sugar in it, where I come from,” she assured him. “It’s sweet.”

“Sugar in your chocolate? That’s the most decadent thing I’ve ever heard of,” he said severely. “Even worse than the arse-wiping paper, aye?” She saw the teasing glint in his eye, though, and merely snorted, nibbling the last shreds of orange yam flesh from the blackened skin.

“Someday I’ll get hold of some chocolate, Ian,” she said, discarding the limp peel and licking her fingers like a cat. “I’ll put sugar in it and feed it to you, and see what you think then!”

It was his turn to snort, good-naturedly, but he made no further remarks, concentrating instead on licking his own hands clean.

Rollo had appropriated the remnants of honeycomb, and was noisily gnawing and slurping at the wax, with complete enjoyment.

“That dog must have the digestion of a crocodile,” Brianna said, shaking her head. “Is there anything he won’t eat?”

“Well, I’ve no tried him on nails, yet.” Ian smiled briefly, but didn’t take up the conversation. The unease that had lain upon him when he talked of dreams had disappeared over breakfast, but seemed now to have returned. The sun was well up, but he made no move to rise. He merely sat, arms wrapped about his knees, gazing thoughtfully into the fire as the rising sun stole the light from the flames.

In no great hurry to start moving herself, Brianna waited patiently, eyes fixed on him.

“And what would you eat for breakfast when you lived with the Mohawk, Ian?”

He looked at her then, and his mouth tucked in at one corner. Not a smile, but a wry acknowledgment. He sighed, and laid his head on his knees, face hidden. He sat slumped that way for a bit, then slowly straightened up.

“Well,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. “It was to do wi’ my brother-in-law. At least to start.”