Dawn on a Distant Shore (10 page)

"I understand the
king is verra partial to bananas, when he can get them," said Moncrieff,
leaning in closer to peer at them.

Johnson grunted
suspiciously as Pickering held up a single example. "Looks like that
dev'lish surgeon of yours lopped 'em off some poor bugger when he wasn't paying
attention."

Quinn raised his
glass. "If that's all a man has to lose, perhaps he's better off on t'other
side of the fence!"

There was a moment of
frozen silence, but Giselle's smile set the room at ease. "Please,
gentlemen, sit down. James, I believe Captain Quinn would do well with some coffee,
but do serve Major Johnson more of the candied quince, that seems more to his
liking. Horace, tell me, where does one begin with your lovely ti-nains?"

Johnson looked on in
sour disapproval, as if he expected to hear the snap of bone as Pickering
peeled away the dark brown outer shell. The flesh inside was a pinkish tan, and
the sweet smell was clear to them even behind the carved wooden panel.

"They are best
eaten directly from the tree," Pickering said, putting the fruit on a small
plate and presenting it to Giselle. "But I believe you will still find
them very tasty."

As she leaned over to
draw in the scent, the serving men quickly peeled and distributed the fruits to
the rest of the table.

Giselle said, "We
will all sample something so rare, will we not, gentlemen? And perhaps a glass of
Madeira or champagne, and then it's time we roused ourselves a bit. Shall we
have music, or games? What do you think, Mr. Bonner?"

"Suit
yourselves," said Hawkeye, his arms crossed across his chest and the plate
of banana untouched before him. "I'll watch."

She brought up her
gaze slowly. "Really? In my experience, the men of your family are all very
energetic sorts."

"Oh, I don't
doubt they can be distracted from the work at hand, on occasion," Hawkeye
said easily. "It's something a man grows out of, though. For the most
part."

Giselle let out a
small laugh of surprise at this challenge, but a young lieutenant broke in
before she could respond.

"This cannot
surprise you, Miss Somerville," he said, waving a hand. "Surely you
know that Americans are not good sportsmen."

"Not by English
rules we ain't, that's true enough," Hawkeye agreed.

Giselle interrupted
the young man's sputtering reply. "Lieutenant Lytton, what I have in mind
is not an English game, but a Scottish one, directly from Carryckcastle--Mr. Moncrieff
tells me it used to be played there regularly, when the earl had guests."

"Hmmpf."
Robbie sat up straighter, looking interested.

As Giselle explained
the fine points, grins began to appear around the table.

"Ah," said
MacDermott. "Razzored Harries is what we called it when I was young. In
the end you're all packed together like herrings in a dish of cream."

Johnson pushed away
his untouched banana. "It's just the reverse of hide-and-seek. It's played
in Shropshire, as well. We called it pickle packing."

"Do I understand
correctly?" interrupted Quinn, trying to make sense of the game through a fog
brought on by Portuguese sherry. "Should I find the hiding place instead
of announcing that fact, I simply ... join the group already there."

"Yes, and try to
keep quiet," Giselle confirmed.

"Quite good
sport." Pickering rubbed his hands in anticipation.

"Miss Somerville,
may I assume you will be the first to hide?" asked a young merchant.

"But of course,
Mr. Gray," said Giselle. "What fun would it be otherwise?"

"Grown men,
runnin' aboot and playin' at children's games," muttered Robbie as they
made their way back down to the kitchen. "There's nae dignity in it."

Above them there was a
shout of laughter and the sound of breaking glass.

"It's not dignity
that brings them here," Nathaniel noted dryly.

Robbie pulled up
short. "Ye dinna mean --she couldna, no' wi' aa those men--"

"No,"
Nathaniel said. "I ain't supposing she would. But one of them won't be
going straight home. As long as it ain't Otter, that's all that concerns
us."

They paused at the
door into the kitchen, where two young girls were coping, bleary eyed and short
tempered, with great piles of dirty china and crystal. For the moment there was
no sign of Fink.

"I wasna cut oot
for this kind o' warfare," Robbie announced with a sigh. "A musket
wad suit me far better than parlor games wi' a crowd o' nut-hooks."

"Then we'd best
get gone," said Hawkeye from the stairs behind them. Nathaniel pivoted.
His father was there, with Moncrieff just behind. Hawkeye's grip on his
shoulder was still like iron, and the hazel eyes blazed at him with a furious
joy.

"Da," he
said, hearing the break in his own voice. "High time."

"I cain't say I
ain't glad to see you, son. Rab, it's been too long."

Nathaniel said,
"Fink will be looking for us."

"Nivver mind
about him," said Moncrieff. "He's too drunk tae remember where he put
his own nose, and he willna be thinking o' us while he's got a card game with
the guards in the upstairs pantry. I'll go fetch Otter." And he ran back
up the stairs.

They were itching to
be gone, but they could only hope Moncrieff would be fast in cutting Otter loose
from the game. Hawkeye was as tense as Nathaniel had ever seen him, but he
didn't wonder at that after a few weeks in the garrison gaol. He caught
Nathaniel's gaze, and produced a weary grin. "I want the news from home,
but first we're best shut of this place, and Moncrieff. I don't trust the
man."

Robbie bent in closer.
"Wi'oot Moncrieff ye wad still be in gaol, Dan'l."

"I'm not free and
clear yet," Hawkeye pointed out. From overhead there was the sound of
running feet, a door opening and slamming. A lot of swearing followed, and the
footsteps ran off again.

"Moncrieff went
to some trouble," Nathaniel said, meeting his father's eye. "He got
us in here. I promised in return that you'd listen to what he has to say."

"I ain't hanging
around, son. Not for anybody. What is it that he wants?"

Nathaniel glanced up
the stairs, and lowered his voice. "You won't believe it when he tells you,
Da. But I'd rather he do it himself. We can let him come along as far as
Chambly, that will give him opportunity enough."

Hawkeye grunted.
"If he can keep up, aye. But first there's the matter of pulling the boy out
of her damn game--ah." He nodded, clearly relieved, as Otter appeared at
the head of the stairs and started down, with Moncrieff at his heels. Otter
came directly to Nathaniel to grasp him by both lower arms.

"Raktsi'a,"
he murmured.
Older brother
. This was the traditional greeting for the husband
of his oldest sister, but it struck Nathaniel that Otter had outgrown it. He
was a man now, broad of shoulder and almost tall enough to look Nathaniel in
the eye. There was an earne/s in his expression that was new since they had
last seen each other.

"How did you get
away?" Hawkeye asked.

Otter shrugged.
"Maybe I ain't so good at finding her as she wants me to be." He
looked away, his expression guarded.

Robbie picked up his
pack and his weapons. "We're awa', then, lads."

It had clouded over;
there was a spattering of snow, and the wind was bitter. When Nathaniel was sure
they wouldn't run into any guards he signaled and the others came out into the
open.

Against the far corner
of the house nearest the stables, Treenie came to her feet silently, tail
wagging.

Otter hissed, "A
light!"

The five of them slid
deeper into the shadow of the house. Nathaniel forced his breathing to slow,
throwing his senses outward into the dark.

It was Captain Quinn,
stumbling over the path and laughing to himself. He carried a pierced tin lantern
that seesawed an arc of jagged light over his face. He stopped, peered at the
house owlishly, and then tried to fight his way through the bushes one-handed.
At first Nathaniel could not make sense of it, and then he realized that Quinn was
drunk enough to be searching for the hidden door on the wrong wall of the
house.

"Come on,
Giselle," he called. "You can't hide from me. I've got your drag, I do.
Pickle packing, eh? All tied up in a knot with your savage, but I'll put an end
to that."

He drew his short
sword and thrashed at the bushes, grunting with the effort. Nathaniel edged backward,
just out of his reach. They continued like this for ten yards, until Quinn took
a holly branch across the face and pulled up short.

"Moved your
little door, have you? Won't do you a bit of good, lovey, I'll find you out in
the end. Ask any man jack in the Sixtieth if Jonathan Quinn don't have a way
with a woman's doors." He snickered at his own wit, threw back his head
and bellowed in earnest. "Giselle!"

Nathaniel swore to
himself. The idiot would have the guards here.

A window opened above
their heads. "She's not outside, you bloody great booby, Quinn. Come in
from the cold." The window shut again.

"Have to piss
first," Quinn called back. "Then I shall find her. You shan't have
'er, do you mind me, Johnson?" Muttering, he turned, and shuffled off a
few steps, pulling at his breeks as he went.

The five of them
started in the opposite direction, crouched low and moving fast. Once around
the corner, they bent their heads together.

Hawkeye said,
"We'll have to split up and meet at the start of the ice road."

"If I may--"
began Moncrieff, and Hawkeye cut him off with a hand on the shoulder.

"If you want to
talk to me, you'll have to do it on the run. If you're up to that."

"Giselle!"
shouted Quinn, closer now. "Giselle!" Overhead the cloud cover was breaking
up so that Nathaniel could see his father's face.

"Giselle!"

The sound of boots in
the snow, from the opposite direction. The guards came trotting, finally roused
from the warm house and their card game. The hidden staircase was risky, but
anything was better than standing exposed in the garden. Otter sprinted for the
bushes, with the other men close behind.

Once inside they
waited, completely still, for the voices in the garden to fade away, but
instead they grew louder. Nathaniel felt the blood thrumming in his hands, his
leg muscles twitching with the need to be away. Otter's chest was heaving as if
he had run a hot mile, and Moncrieff stood tensed and ready to bolt.
More
than he bargained for
, Nathaniel thought. Robbie and Hawkeye kept their
calm: old soldiers, they had lived through far worse.

Treenie shifted
uneasily in the total dark.

"Wheest,"
Robbie breathed, and she settled down.

Nathaniel focused on
the regular ebb and flow of his father's breathing, ordered his thoughts, and lined
up their few options. There was no help for it, so he took the stairs three at
a time to listen at Giselle's door. Nothing.

From the courtyard
came the sound of horses' hooves on the cobblestones.

At Nathaniel's signal
they came up the stairs and into the bedchamber. The smells hung in the air
like smoke from a wet-wood fire: beeswax, lavender, crushed roses, musk. Otter
stood paralyzed at the door and had to be pushed forward. Nathaniel knew what
he was feeling
. I didn't have any intention of ever setting foot in this
room again, either.

More bad news at the
window: the courtyard was full of redcoats, horses, servants, a sea of bobbing
lanterns and torches. Guards milled below the window, poking in the bushes.
Nathaniel caught a glimpse of Pickering and a few of the others, walking away
as if they had nothing to do with any of it.

"They're looking
for you," he said, turning. Some part of his mind registered the strange
sight they made, rough backwoodsmen in the gilt and velvet and silk of
Giselle's chamber. Moncrieff had collapsed into a spindle-backed chair; Robbie
peered over the top of the canopied bed. The red dog rested her mucky rear
quarters on an embroidered footstool, sniffed at the perfumed draperies and sneezed.

Hawkeye came to look
through lace panels for himself. "I'd call this a tangle, all right."

Robbie was prowling,
opening wardrobes and closing them again in disgust. "Nae place tae hide."

Otter still stood in
the middle of the room, frowning into the banked fire in the hearth. Then he turned
and walked to a full-length mirror on the wall opposite the bed, and punched at
the belly of a gilded angel on the upper right corner. The mirror levered away
from the wall with a sigh.

"That's a new one
on me," Nathaniel said.

Hawkeye rubbed a hand
over his mouth, peering into the cubbyhole. "She's fond of hiding games,
ain't she? Does Pink George know about it?"

Otter made a negative
sound in his throat.