Columbine (19 page)

Foregoing the small luxury of a fire, Kit contented himself again with cold food and water, and rolled his tired body in a blanket to sleep, his rifle and knife beside him. Then, with the sound of the river running soft in his ears, he let his thoughts run to Dianna:

the way she smiled, the husky way she called him her love, the way her lips parted so eagerly to welcome his.

She might not wish to think of the future, but he couldn’t help it. When he returned home, he meant to marry her. He frowned and quickly amended his thoughts. He would ask her to marry him and pray she agreed. For all his land and position in the colonies and for all she swore she loved him, he still remembered her grand family and hoTM his in England had been minor west-county gentry at best.

People like the Greys didn’t wed for love, and he could only hope she was different. She had to be.

By the time Kit saw the other man’s arm, bright in the moonlight over him, it was almost too late. He threw himself sideways, the knife already in his hand as he tossed off the blanket and clambered to his feet.

Attawan rested the butt of his musket on the ground and leaned nonchalantly on the barrel, his face all angles and planes in the moonlight.

“You grow careless, Sparhawk,” he said, shaking his head.

“I could have killed you ten times in your sleep.”

“And I might have slit you in two before I opened my eyes, Attawan,” Kit replied with a grin. He and Attawan had been friends since boyhood, when Kit’s parents had taken Attawan’s mother in after she had been wounded by an English scouting party.

“You’ve been a stranger to my home since I’ve returned, my friend.”

Attawan shrugged.

“This spring your English have been too quick with their muskets, Sparhawk.”

As always he ignored the clipped Yankee pronunciation of Kit’s name, emphasizing the “hawk” instead.

Kit’s smile vanished as he dropped down onto the ground with a sigh.

“I can’t fault them, not after Deerlield, and now Wickhamton, as well.”

“Abenakis and Mohegans,” sniffed Attawan scornfully.

“Not Pocumtucks.”

“A woman and two girls are gone, four men dead, and on my land,” said Kit with sharp impatience.

“I

can’t fault quick fingers after that.”

Attawan squatted down beside Kit, spreading his blanket out to dry after wading to the island.

“So you go by yourself to avenge this?” he asked.

“One man against ten times ten in Quebec?”

“I don’t think the men who attacked my people are the same ones who sacked Deerfield,” said Kit slowly.

“I think it was someone who’d like me to believe that. I think it was Robillard.”

Skeptically Attawan raised his eyebrows, waiting for Kit to explain.

“The trapper they scalped lived long enough to tell me Robillard was with the party. I’m guessing he hopes we’ll all flee, like they did at Deerfield, and leave everything to him. I plan to tell him how very wrong he is.”

Attawan stroked the barbs of the turkey feather in his hair, considering Kit’s words.

“You’re a man with more courage than wisdom to go alone,” he said at last.

Kit’s smile was tight-lipped.

“You’re not the first to tell me that,” he said softly, remembering the tears in Dianna’s eyes.

“But Robillard is a coward. He only fights when he’s sure others will stop him He’ll bluff and bluster, but he won’t risk doing me any real harm. He’s made his feelings about me too well known, and he’ll have all New England on his tail if I don’t return. Same way I don’t want all of New France on mine.”

“This man Robillard keeps many worthless Abenakis in brandy,” said Attawan.

“You’ve grown so soft, you’ll need someone to make sure the thieving curs don’t find your back.”

Kit reached out to grasp the Indian’s shoulder.

“I

was hoping, my friend, that you would feel that way.”

For a man who fancied himself a gentleman, Frangis Robillard’s home was an unkempt shambles.

Wary as Kit was as he and Attawan paddled up beside the makeshift dock, he couldn’t overlook the meanness of the place. The gossip said Robillard was French born, a wily veteran of the Turkish wars. But one glance at his house confirmed what Kit had always suspected, that Robillard was no more than a back-country trapper, a coureur de bois who’d made enough money from lucky trading to become a first-rate bully.

Sitting at the crest of a rocky hill overlooking the river, the large house was more of a stockade built of rough-hewn logs and chinked with dingy lime plaster. Oiled skins filled the narrow windows instead of glass, and the yard was bare, dry dirt. To the back was a lean-to used for storage, and a small stable.

Two mongrel dogs wrangled over a goose carcass before the house’s open doorway, while three Abenakis and a French soldier in haphazard uniform wagered on the outcome. When Kit and Attawan pulled their canoe onto the bank, the four men at once forgot the dogs, and their expressions turned hostile as they reached for their muskets. The French soldier barked an order to one of the Indians, who scurried into the house as the others trained their guns on the newcomers.

But Kit ignored them, nonchalantly taking his time as he took his own rifle from the canoe and swung it casually across his shoulders. Beside him Attawan had not taken his eyes from the men at the house.

Kit could sense his friend’s tension and disapproval.

When Kit began to whistle the little tune of Dianna’s, Attawan spoke so sharply in his own tongue that Kit smiled to himself, certain he was being soundly cursed. So far, everything was just as he had hoped.

Kit loped up the hillside, his boots crunching on the shale. He didn’t like those muskets aimed at him any more than Attawan did, but he’d be damned if he’d let Robillard know it. He was within twenty paces of the house before the soldier called to him.

“Faire halte!” he demanded. When Kit shrugged his incomprebension, the man switched to garbled English.

“What go there?” - -:

“Christopher Sparhawk. Your master will know the name.” The soldier scowled and did not move, and Kit sighed impatiently.

“I’d be obliged if you’d tell him I’m here.”

From the corner of his eye Kit caught the movement in the doorway, the sun glinting off the pistol’s long barrel.

“Bonjour, Sparhawk,” said Robillard.

He laughed, but the gun in his hand remained steady.

With a muted click he drew back the hammer.

“Or is it au revoir, eh?”

For one sickening moment, Kit wondered if he’d miscalculated. There were five of them, five guns, odds a coward like Robillard would favor. At point blank like this, he a’d Attawan wouldn’t have a breath of a chance.

But even as Kit was considering this, Robillarff laughed again, his big belly shaking. He uncocked the pistol and tipped it back against his shoulder.

“Even I would not kill you like this, Sparhawk,” he said scornfully.

“You are a fou gros to come here, eh? Did not your otherAnglais tell you I would shoot you, bang, bang?”

He waved the pistol at Kit, laughing again at his own wit. Kit wanted nothing more than to knock the foolish wind out of the man, but he knew how precarious his position remained; the others still had not lowered their guns.

“Aye, they warned me,” he said, swallowing his temper, “but I believed you would wish to talk first.”

Intrigued, Robillard scratched his jaw with the pistol’s barrel.

“Come, then, I would hear you talk.”

“Nay, Robillard, not here. Inside. And alone.

What I have to say needs reach no other ears than your own.” Confident that the Frenchman would agree, Kit began walking toward him.

“I’ll leave my own man here, as well.”

Robillard shrugged.

“Eh, if you wish it. Your life is in my fist anyway.”

Kit waited until the Abenakis and the soldier laid down their guns and reluctantly slumped back down beside the wall. He ignored Attawan’s scowl of disapproval as his friend chose to sit far from the others, his musket still cradled in his arms. Only then did Kit follow Robillard into his house, ducking his head beneath the low doorway.

The front room was probably the finest in the house. The tall-backed chairs had cushions of padded leather, and a bright Turkey carpet was draped over the massive walnut table. A costly crucifix, carved and painted, hung between the windows. But the pewter candlesticks were dull with dirt, and the prints of saints’ martyrdoms that were tacked to the log walls were fly-specked and yellowed.

Imperiously Robillard waved Kit toward a chair and dropped into an armchair that groaned beneath his weight. Kit ignored the seat the Frenchman had offered, choosing instead one that put his back to the wail and gave him a clear view of both the door and windows. Much like Attawan, he kept his rifle in his arms, although, he decided idly, indoors he’d likely do better with the knife.

“So you come to visit me in my home like a gentilhomme, Sparhawk?” asked Robillard jovially.

“It’s a fine holding, oui?”

Glad his visit had fed the man’s pride, Kit was nonetheless thankful Robillard had never visited

Plumstead.

“Aye, a fine holding,” he agreed.

“A

gentleman’s house. But the deeds I’ve come to discuss are not gentleman’s deeds, nor—” He broke off as a young Abenaki woman entered the room with two leather tankards of brandy. As she set them on the table, Robillard reached out to caress her bottom, and the woman smiled and moved wantonly against his hand. He pulled her, giggling, back into his lap, her legs splayed over his knees and her deerskin dress riding high over her thighs.

“You do not like squaws, do you, Anglais?” asked Robillard as he freely fondled the woman. Kit shook his head, disgusted. Reluctantly Robillard pushed the girl to her feeg smacking her hip as she scurried away.

“It is a pity you do not. She has a sister, that one, another plump beauty,” A sudden grin split the Frenchman’s face.

“But then I forget you will soon take a wife! Fdlicitations!”

‘ Kit frowned. Surely he could not mean Dianna.

No one knew that, not even her.

“You must be mistaken, Robillard.”

“Ah, but I have heard of this Lindsey girl, your fiancde, non?”

“Nay, she is not.” God’s blood, had Constance’s aspirations really spread this far?

“There is no betrothal between Mistress Lindsey and myself.”

“Then you shall have my chit’s sister. I swear it, she will do anything you wish with her mouth—” “Enough!” said Kit abruptly, striking the table with his fist hard enough to bounce the tankards, “You’ve killed four of my men and carried off three of my women. I want the women back, unharmed.

I’ll even pay their ransom, if I’m certain the gold goes to the Indians and not you. And I want you to swear you’ll never venture anywhere near my land again.”

Robillard’s face grew shuttered, and he tucked his jaw low against his chest.

“I know nothing of this.

What you say is the work of Indians. We all have such troubles with sauvages.”

“Nay, you forget, RobiHard,” said Kit, his voice rumbling with quiet menace.

“Your men struck one of your own, as well, lifted his scalp and left him to die. But he did not die at once, not before he told me you were there, too.”

“Do you not believe that Indians kill Fraris, as well?” Robillard blustered, but from the furtive panic in his eyes, Kit knew for certain he was bluffing, lying again.

“Like all men, I have my enemies.

This dead man must be one. Why would I have gone along to that Anglais farmer’s house, to his corn field, eh?”

“Why you went matters not. But that you did, I don’t doubt for a moment.” Kit’s eyes narrowed.

“I

didn’t tell you the man was a farmer or that he was murdered in a corn field. It seems, Robillard, that your memory is improving.”

Kit rose to his feet, towering over the other man.

“I don’t want war, Robillard, any more than you do.

At present this is between us alone. Do as I say, and I’ll leave you in peace. But cross me again, and so help me, I’ll be back with an army to burn your precious gentleman’s house and see you hang for murder.”

Kit’s voice had dropped to scarcely more than a whisper.

“Mark well what I say, Robillard. The three English women back and you off my land.”

He turned on his heel without waiting for the Frenchman to reply, and walked out the door and down the hill to the canoe. He heard Attawan hurry to join him, but he didn’t run, unwilling to give Rob-il lard anything more satisfying then the sight of his back. While a small part of him wondered how many French bullets might find their way into that same back, the larger part was confident not one would dare.

Finally Robillard roused himself, stalking to the doorway as Kit and Attawan pushed off into the current.

Swearing under his breath, he watched them go, all too conscious of the man who had come to stand behind him in the doorway.

“I told you Sparhawk was a fou, a trbs gros fou,” he blustered.

“I should have shot his head from his shoulders when I had the chance!”

“You are the only fool here, Robillard,” snapped Lieutenant Hertel de Rouville. Irritably he rapped his knuckles on the doorframe, his sword in its scabbard swinging back and forth from his hip. That he, the man who had destroyed that pitiful English village of Deerfield; he, Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, the special agent and friend of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the governor of all Canada—that he should be reduced to dealing with a fat peasant like this Robillard, was almost beyond bearing.

“You couldn’t have shot that man had he held the pistol for you.” ‘ His pride wounded, Robillard’s head jerked up and he sniffed loudly.

“Sparhawk is not worthy of my scorn, not him, nor his father, nor his father before im?

“He is worth ten of you,” said Hertel de Rouville with disgust.

“If you’d harmed him today, the forests would have been alive with English soldiers in a fortnight.

He wouldn’t have come here unless his governors knew of it. You cannot kill men like Sparhawk without consequences.”