Dawn on a Distant Shore (67 page)

She saw the truth of
it in Curiosity's face, and in the Hakim's; now Hannah understood why he had
disappeared so quickly from the
Isis
--the earl had sent for him in the
hope that he could do something for this friend. And Hakim Ibrahim had
disappointed them, because Monsieur Dupuis was beyond helping. O'seronni did
not sing death songs, but maybe they would listen to his stories from the
shadowlands and give him comfort that way.

The Frenchman was
holding out a hand toward her, fingers twitching, to draw her closer. Hannah came,
and bent her head to his.

In Kahnyen'kehâka he
said, "Little sister, you are very far from home."

She jerked away as if
he had snapped his teeth at her. "You speak my language," she said.
"Why do you speak my language?" She said it in English, to deny him
what he was trying to claim for himself.

"Monsieur Dupuis
lived for many years among your people," said Jennet, her smile fading away
inffconfusion.

Hannah sent Curiosity
a pleading glance and saw the same unease and suspicion that she knew must be
plain on her own face. "My people? Among my people?"

"I thought ye'd
be pleased," said Jennet sadly.

Curiosity shifted Lily
and put a hand on Jennet's shoulder, but she spoke to the Frenchman. "Now,
that's right interesting, monsieur. How'd you come to spend time with the Mohawk?"

But his gaze stayed on
Hannah. In an English that was more Scots than French he said, "I knew
your mother, Sings-from-Books. You are very like her. Your great-grandmother,
Made-of-Bones. Is she still living?"

Hannah stepped back
farther, clutching Daniel so that he squirmed in protest. "Did you tell
him, Jennet? Did you tell him about my mother's people?"

The Frenchman held up
a pale hand, and it trembled slightly. "She told me nothing, child. There
is no reason to fear. None at all. As soon as your father is well enough, he
and I must talk."

"You know my
father."

"Yes."

Hannah felt the first
flush of relief. Her father would know this man, or he would not. In either case,
things would be made clear, and it would not fall to her to decide if Monsieur
Dupuis was friend or enemy.

The Frenchman was
watching her, and Hannah had the disturbing feeling that he read her thoughts.
In Kahnyen'kehâka he said, "Tell Wolf-Running-Fast that I send my
greetings. It has been many years, but he will remember me. As I remember him.
Will you tell him?"

For a day and a night
the mountain called Aidan Rig pulled a soft rain about itself. Carryckcastle
was wrapped in mists, set apart from the rest of the world just as Elizabeth
isolated herself in Lady Appalina's bedchamber while she watched over Nathaniel
and waited for his fever to break.

They roused him to
take broth or the Hakim's willow-bark tea; he seemed disoriented but always asked
about his father and the children. Then he fell away again into dreams that
made him twitch and flail. Elizabeth did not know how to reassure or comfort him,
for his worries were real ones and they occupied her own dreams, when she could
sleep at all.

The Hakim came every
few hours. He brought tisanes, compresses soaking in bowls of scented water,
and leeches for Nathaniel's thigh, which was bruised from knee to hip. Together
he and Curiosity cleaned and disinfected the shoulder wound once again and left
it open to the air. Hannah watched, her dark eyes unreadable. Elizabeth held
Nathaniel's hand, flinching at the heat of him, like a fire laid too well, one
that threatened to overwhelm the hearth that contained it.

The maids brought a
steady stream of hot food, tea, and clean winding cloths for the babies. Elizabeth
nursed them when they were hungry, handed them over to Curiosity or Hannah, and
went back to Nathaniel's bedside.

The second night, and
still his fever would not break. Elizabeth made no pretense of sleeping.

Sitting beside him,
she read through the little journal they had written together on the
Isis
,
but no amount of examination turned up any word about this Frenchman whom
Hannah and Curiosity had met in the garden. From their description it sounded
as if it must be the same man she had seen with the Hakim. In her mind's eye
she watched him draw a cross in the air in front of the maid who had curtsied
so deeply before him. The sign of the cross.

When the Hakim next
came to see Nathaniel, she asked him about this Dupuis, and got little
satisfaction.

"A business
associate of the earl's--a permanent guest," he said. "Ill unto
death."

It should have put her
vague uneasiness to rest-- the earl's business associates would be merchants like
himself. But if the man was a permanent fixture, why had none of the sailors
who came from Carryck or Carryckton ever mentioned him in Hannah's hearing?

Neither was there any
mention of Mrs. Hope
,
Elizabeth reminded herself. And still she could not help thinking of a summer
night just a year ago at Lake in the Clouds. A night so calm and hot that they
could not sleep, a moth fluttering in the light of a single candle, its shadow
dancing frantically on the timbered ceiling. Nathaniel, stretched out on the
bed in nothing more than a breechclout, telling her stories of the Kahnyen'kehâka
at Good Pasture:
There was a priest living in the village then, a Frenchman
who went by the name Father Dupuis. We called him Iron-Dog.

Dupuis was a common
name. Nathaniel's Father Dupuis and the earl's Monsieur Dupuis need have
nothing to do with one another. Canada was full of French trappers who traded
with the Kahnyen'kehâka. Nathaniel seemed to know every man who ever sold a fur
from Québec to New-York, and this Monsieur Dupuis would be one of them. It made
so much more sense than the idea of a French priest spending his last days at Carryckcastle.

When Nathaniel was
himself again--tomorrow, she was sure of it--he would tell her exactly that,
and she could put this Monsieur Dupuis away, another detail of the earl's life
to be set aside with his tulips and Lady Isabel's unhappy alliance.

Somewhere in the
depths of the house a clock chimed midnight. She checked on the babies, asleep in
a cradle that had been put in the dressing room, and stood for a moment
listening to them breathe before she wandered back through the bedchamber to
the window.

The casement opened
silently, and she wrapped her arms around herself in pleasure as the cool air touched
her face. There was a waxing moon and a breeze that brought the scent of fresh
hay with it. An imprudent whim, this fondness she had for the night air; she
could hear Aunt Merriweather sniffing in disgust--but it was a comfort to her.

A lantern cast a
puddle of light at the courtyard gate where a guard leaned up against the wall,
supporting his weight with one hand. Elizabeth could not see the person in the
shadows, but it must be a woman, to judge by the tilt of his head. A young
woman, one he was hoping to bed, or perhaps they were both too much in a hurry
to wait.

The earl was awake
too. The windows of his chamber--Jennet had pointed them out to her--were still
lit. It was almost a comfort, to know that he slept no more soundly than did
his unwilling guests.

A figure passed the
window, but one too small and finely made to be the earl. Elizabeth stilled her
breath and watched. And again: a woman in white at the window, and there was something
about her bearing that spoke of ease and familiarity.

And what does it
matter if someone shares the earl's bed?
she asked herself sternly, and had no answer.

"Boots. What are
you looking at?"

She pressed a fist to
her heart to calm it. "Just the courtyard."

"Come here."

His eyes were clear,
and when he took her hand his skin was cool to the touch.

"Your fever has
broken," she said, her knees buckling with relief.

"Did you think I
was going to die on you?"

She climbed up to sit
beside him. "Of course not."

"Liar." A
drop of blood appeared on his lower lip, fever-cracked.

"You would not
dare," she said indignantly, wiping it away with her thumb.

It won her a weak
smile. "You're sounding more like yourself, Boots."

"Peevish?
Impatient?"

"Now you're
fishing for compliments."

"But of
course," she said, making an effort to tidy the bedclothes. "For what
else do I live and breathe?"

He squeezed her wrist.
"I won't die on you. Not for another forty years or so."

She nodded, because
she did not trust her voice.

Nathaniel flexed his
arm gingerly, and made an attempt to bend his knee. "I feel like somebody
took a war club to me. How long have I been out, anyway?" His fingers
rasped over his beard stubble. "A while, I guess."

"Almost two
days."

"That long. Any
word?"

She shook her head.
"None at all."

"Don't matter.
They're nearby."

This brought her up
short. "Who is nearby?"

"My father, and
Robbie. The look on your face, Boots. You think I'm out of my head with the
fever."

"Are you?"
She reached for his brow and found it damp, but still cool to the touch.
"I expect you've been dreaming."

He drew her hand down
to press his mouth to her palm. "That I have."

"Go back to
sleep," she said. "And dream us away from here."

He tugged her closer.
"I sleep better with you next to me."

She did not argue, but
leaned over to blow out the candle and then settled herself against the
pillows.

"Nathaniel,"
she said. She resisted the question pushing upward from her gut; afraid to put
it into words, afraid of what he might have to say.

"Hmmm?" He
was already half asleep.

"Do you remember
telling me about the Father Dupuis who lived at Good Pasture?"

If he found this
question strange, he hid his surprise in a yawn. "Iron-Dog. What brings
him to mind?"

A Catholic priest in
Protestant Scotland, and what that might mean about Carryck. About all of this.

"What happened to
him?"

She felt him trying to
come awake enough to answer. "He got killed trying to convert the Seneca,
I think it was. I suppose that's what he was looking for all along."

Elizabeth curled
toward him on her side, as close as she could come without disturbing his
wounds. She said, "Are you certain?"

But he had already
slipped back into his dreams, and she was left to her own.

"Please
come," Jennet said, hopping from one foot to the other and managing
somehow to eat a handful of berries at the same time. "Ye havena seen the
village, and there's a band o' players come, jugglers and aa. We'll be back
afore dusk."

Hannah considered. She
was curious about the village, and at the same time the thought was a little frightening,
to be so far away from her people. What if her grandfather should come? What if
her father should fall back into his fever?

"Yer da is ever
sae much better. He's said it hissel'," Jennet reminded her. "Are ye no'
curious tae see Gaw'n Hamilton ride the stang?"

It was a tempting
thought. A man whose wife had caused trouble in the village was to be punished
for his laxity, by the minister's decree. From Jennet's colorful descriptions,
it sounded to Hannah as if he would have to run a gauntlet of sorts, but one
where the townspeople used words rather than clubs to make their mark.

"I'll get my
shoes," Hannah said, suddenly resolved.

"Ach, dinna fash
yersel' aboot shoon," said Jennet, sticking out one dusty foot to wiggle her
toes. "We'll gang doon the brae i' the cart and come back the same road.
Come on then, or Geordie will be awa' wi'oot us."

"I should say
good-bye--"

"Ye've done that
already," Jennet said impatiently. "Come on!"

Geordie did not want
them crowding him on the driver's box, so they had to share the cart with a pair
of nanny goats that bleated so loud and long that there was little chance for
conversation. But Hannah did not mind; she was glad of this little time to
herself. She liked Jennet tremendously, but she had so many stories to tell and
so much information to share that sometimes it was hard to keep track of it
all. Now while the cart rocked and jolted down the mountainside Hannah stood
with a goat nosing her skirts, and watched to see what news she could take back
to her father.

A carriage passed them
where the mountain road broadened at the outskirts of the village. The liverymen
were in brown and gold, and one of them stared at her as they went by. Jennet
raised her voice. "Wha is that, Geordie?"

Geordie was a thick
young man with a blank look about him, but he provided information willingly enough.
He twisted a shoulder toward her. "A gentleman come tae see the laird,
says MacQuiddy."