Fire Along the Sky (39 page)

“A weak spot then. You will not be walking on it for a week at least, mademoiselle. I will bind it for you.”

The watery brown eyes considered her from underneath a tangle of eyebrows. “The major is waiting to question you, you realize.” He jerked his head over his shoulder. The blanket had been hung again, hastily, to provide her with some privacy.

“I can put him off while you rest for a few hours, if you prefer.”

Lily thought of Simon being held in the stable, under guard. She thought of Sawatis and Spotted-Fox and their news. For a moment she thought she might faint, but then she pinched the skin between thumb and first finger until her vision cleared.

“I am quite happy to speak to the major,” she said, conjuring up a smile from some spot inside her that she hadn't known existed.

Simon had been very specific: if they fell into unfriendly hands, she was to let him do the talking. But now he was somewhere else, and in his place was this man called Wyndham, with his cold smile and colder eyes.

He waited until a junior officer had helped her to the only stool in the cabin, set before the hearth. Then the same man went to a small table he had set up in the corner, where he bent over paper and picked up a quill.

This was an official inquiry, then. Lily did not know what to make of that, but she managed to keep her curiosity to herself and not ask any of the many questions that came to her, most of them highly unsuited to the occasion.

The major stood before her with his hands crossed on his back; Lily thought of reminding this English-schooled gentleman that it was rude to stare. Instead she counted the silver buttons that marched from the scarlet sash around his waist up the dark green coat to disappear in a ruffle of silver lace that spilled over a black velvet collar and lapels. His epaulettes were silver too. Altogether this Major Christian Wyndham was a splendid example of his kind, and now Lily remembered something: her teacher Monsieur Duhaut had been engaged to paint this man's portrait as soon as he returned to Montreal from an assignment to the west. No doubt she herself had prepared the very canvas where his likeness would be preserved, in green and black and silver. Lily thought of telling him that he had chosen the right unit—a scarlet coat would not have suited his complexion half so well. Instead she gave him a narrow and impatient smile.

The major did not like her smile, it seemed; he turned his back on her.

“Where are you going, Miss Bonner, in the middle of winter, and why?”

In a situation such as this, Luke and Simon had told her, the truth is the only defense. And what else? She struggled to remember. It came to her then:
Say as little as possible, and volunteer nothing at all
.

“Mr. Ballentyne is taking me home to my mother and father,” she said. She meant her voice to sound as it would when she spoke to any well-bred gentleman she might have met in her brother's parlor. She feared it did not, but then hoped that her fall and injury would explain any agitation.

“In the middle of winter, by such a backwoods route?”

“It is the fastest way to travel, in a sleigh. Or so I understand it.”

“And what is the hurry?”

She could not read his thoughts from the straight back or the set of his shoulders, but his tone gave her the idea that he did not believe anything she said.

Lily said, “That is a very personal question, sir.”

“One that requires an answer nonetheless, Miss Bonner.” He stood at the window, looking at his troops. The shutters had been pried away and lay about his feet in splinters.

Lily took a very deep breath. She said, “I wanted to be married at home, with my parents' blessing.”

“Ah,” said the major. “The infamous Nathaniel Bonner.”

To that Lily could say nothing. Of course her father's reputation would be known to this man. He had caused the British army enough trouble over the years.

Major Wyndham said, “I know your mother, or I knew her.”

Lily tried to look politely disinterested. “In England?”

“Yes, in England. You are familiar with the Spencers of Manhattan?”

Uneasy, Lily shifted and remembered her ankle, too late; it began to throb more insistently. “I have an uncle Spencer—”

“Once Viscount Durbeyfield,” said the major. “A traitor, I am sorry to say, to king and country. This continent seems to breed them.”

“Sir,” Lily said. “Whatever quarrel you have with my uncle, it has nothing to do with me.”

He shot her a sharp look. “You are not in Canada at your uncle's request?”

Lily wondered if she looked as surprised as she felt. “I came to Montreal to study painting.”

“That is the story people tell, yes.” He studied her as though she were some odd insect, and Lily did not like it.

She said, “I am not a spy, I never have been.” She thought to say that she had not seen her uncle Spencer in two years. Then she remembered that she was not to volunteer anything.

It struck her suddenly as almost funny, that this man should really believe she might be a spy. She might have laughed, but for the way he was contemplating her; but for her brother and Blue-Jay.

“And your brother?”

She started to have her thoughts plucked from her head and presented in words, but the major didn't notice. He was gesturing to the ensign who stood at attention at the door. He was so young that Lily doubted he had to worry about a beard. The boy was well trained, at any rate; he brought the major the papers he wanted without even glancing at Lily.

What Wyndham held in his hand, Lily saw now, were her own papers. The letters from home in her mother's handwriting, her sister's, Curiosity's. She closed her eyes and fought her temper, concentrating on the throb in her head and ankle, on the vision of her brother in chains.

“Your brother serves in the American militia.” It was not a question, and so she did not answer it. He did not seem to know that Daniel had been taken prisoner, and she couldn't think what that might mean: was it good news, or bad?

After a while he said, “You have nothing more to say in your own defense?”

“If you are accusing me of spying, then I say very firmly that I am not, and have never been, a spy.”

“You speak Mohawk,” he said.

Lily pulled up in surprise. “I do, yes.”

“Fluently.”

“I learned it as a child.”

“And the Mohawk seem to consider you family.”

“We are family, by marriage.”

His gaze narrowed. “I should not pronounce such a thing so proudly, if I were you.”

“But of course,” Lily said, her anger pushing up again, harder to govern with every passing moment. “
You
would not. But I am proud of all my family.”

That earned her a sharp look. “Even the ones who fight for England?”

She said, “Even them. They have their own reasons.”

“You would be an asset to Montgomery's efforts here, Miss Bonner. I am tempted to take you with me.”

Her mouth snapped shut with a sound. She started to speak and then stopped herself. After a moment, during which he waited with something like curiosity in his expression, she said, “You would interfere with the business of a private citizen?”

He inclined his head, as if he might actually consider this line of reasoning. “In time of war, yes. Of course. Does that surprise you?”

“Sir, you are a stranger to me. How could anything you do surprise me?”

At that he laughed. A sharp, barking sound but a laugh nonetheless. Turning back to the window he rocked on his heels, his chin bedded on his chest while he thought.

“It is tempting,” he said finally. “But no. I don't care to bring the wrath of Carryck down on my head. There are more important things to attend to just now.”

Lily forced herself to take a deep breath, once and then again. She felt his eyes on her.

“You may go,” he said. “You and Mr. Ballentyne.”

She said, “I want my things returned to me. My letters, and whatever else you have taken from the sleigh.”

He tilted his head at her. “But of course, Miss Bonner. I am at your command.”

She saw him hesitate. A little color had come into his face now, and Lily realized that they were not done, after all.

He said, “I wish you a safe journey, Miss Bonner. It is a dangerous one, certainly.”

“I grew up in these forests,” Lily told him. “They do not frighten me.”

“It is not trees that you need fear,” said Major Wyndham. “But men.”

Once Simon had assured himself that Lily was well, and she had done the same, they set out. Neither of them was in the mood for talk, once the basic information had been exchanged, and so they traveled in silence. Lily, so agitated that she could have run the rest of the way to Lake in the Clouds, found herself pushing with her feet against the floorboards.

Mile by mile, Simon retreated behind a mask she could not quite read: fury, certainly, but also something of damaged pride. There was nothing to say to that; no matter how undeserved the guilt he was feeling—and Lily was not sure, to be honest, that he hadn't misjudged—anything she might say would only make it worse. Men did not like to be comforted in times like this, even if she had had any comfort to offer.

In the first fading light of the afternoon Lily looked up and saw that they had ended where they began, at Sorry Tom's cabin. The King's Rangers were gone; if not for the trampled snow and the leavings of the officers' horses, Lily thought, there would be no sign of them having been here at all.

Simon brought the sleigh to a standstill and sat for a moment, contemplating the reins in his hands.

She said, “Why? Why are we here? I have to get home, my father must be told—”

“Wait,” Simon said. He put a hand under her elbow and urged her out of the sleigh. “Go inside, I'll be as quick as I can.”

He had found a branch to serve as a crutch. With it propped under her arm Lily hopped, awkwardly, into the cabin while he pulled the team and sleigh around to the stable.

Inside she closed the door behind herself and was glad of the cold dark, for that moment when she did not know if she could keep herself from screaming. In time she found her way to the stool that still stood before the hearth, cold now, and sat. The room smelled of the quail they had roasted for their supper and the men who had slept here last night, crowded shoulder to shoulder, laughing and telling their jokes by the glow of the banked coals.

When the door opened to frame a bloody dusk-red sky it was Sawatis who stood there, with Spotted-Fox and Simon just behind him.

Stripped of mantles and furs and weapons, Sawatis was much more the boy she had grown up with. He crouched before the fire and poked at it, and Lily saw the scar on his arm and remembered how he had come by it falling out of the boys' fort, one summer when he had been four or five. Her brother and his had brought him back to Lake in the Clouds where Many-Doves had stanched the bleeding with yarrow leaves and tied the wound shut with corn husks and then sent him out to play again.

Lily said, “Tell me.”

It was quickly done, as they did not know very many of the details. The news came to them as all news did: a Mohawk who scouted for the British at Nut Island had seen Blue-Jay and Daniel among a group of prisoners brought to the fort just five days ago. He told another Mohawk, who carried the news to the next, who took it with him to Good Pasture and delivered it to the longhouse of the Wolf, where Blue-Jay's brother lived with the rest of the clan.

The news arrived at Good Pasture at an awkward time. For days the war council had been sitting in deliberation on where they would fight in this new war, or if they would fight at all. Some of the men, not many, wanted to travel over the border to fight for the Americans; most thought that fighting for the British would serve them better. Some of the older men, Spotted-Fox among them, were not interested in yet another white man's war.

The news from Nut Island had taken Sawatis and Spotted-Fox away from the council fire. Together they set out immediately for the garrison on Nut Island, to see what might be done. Spotted-Fox had connections to the militia and he was respected by the British, who wanted all the Mohawk support they could muster; it was even possible that Blue-Jay would be released to him. Together with Red-Wing and Three-Horns, Mohawks who had been fighting for the British since the war broke out, Spotted-Fox had gone to make an appeal to the commander. And come away empty-handed.

He did not say so, but Lily saw that this single fact disturbed Spotted-Fox a great deal. She knew, too, that questions would do no good; he would not reveal what he meant to keep to himself.

“But did you see them?” Lily asked, knowing how rude it was to interrupt the flow of the story as it needed to be told, and still unable to control her anxiety and worry.

Spotted-Fox blinked at her. She ducked her head in apology and asked the question again.

“We have seen my brother,” answered Sawatis. “But not yours.”

“But why not?” Lily demanded. “Is he so badly injured? Have they locked him away by himself?”

“We have seen Blue-Jay, but we could not speak to him or ask questions,” said Spotted-Fox. “What we know of your brother we know from Red-Wing and the women in the followers' camp.”

Lily folded her hands together in her lap and forced herself to think it through, step by step. “I don't understand. They were supposed to be on the St. Lawrence. They wrote from Oswegatchie not six weeks ago.”

They had been speaking English for Simon's sake, and now he joined the conversation for the first time.

“Jim Booke wouldn't like the kind of hair-pulling MacLeod was telling us about last night,” Simon said. “Raids back and forth, like ill-tempered boys arguing over playthings. I'm not surprised to hear he moved his men.”

“What of Jim Booke?” Lily asked. “Is he there too, in the stockade?”

He was not in the stockade, Spotted-Fox assured her, but not far off either.

“His sign is all around, but we didn't have time to go looking for him.”

“Those garrison stockades are full of disease,” Lily said, mostly to herself. “A healthy man is in danger, and Daniel is wounded.”