The Blooding of Jack Absolute (38 page)

‘The war cry?’ Jack smiled. Over the winter, Até had tried to teach Jack the full-blooded yell that the Mohawk gave in battle,
the one that his Mohocks in London had so singularly failed to render. He had not got it yet.

Até shook his head. ‘You have not gone to war as one of them.’

‘I know. And that’s why I have been thinking about my destiny. If I went to Quebec alone, or south to General Amherst with
you, I would have again to become Jack Absolute, the King’s officer. A rather strange-looking one, for a while, perhaps.’
He gestured to himself. ‘But there is another path I could take, one where all this,’ he waved again to the world outside,
‘that has happened to me would make more sense.’

‘A war path?’

‘Aye.’ Jack leaned towards the Mohawk. ‘This war will be decided by which way the French march, which army they choose to
fight, and neither your musket nor mine will affect that. But what if we went to Montréal and discovered the truth, then took
that news north or south? Is that not … destiny?’

Até rose. It was rare for him to show an emotion but he was flushed with one now. ‘What are we waiting for, Daganoweda? You
have chosen for us a warrior’s title: he who goes ahead
and warns of the enemy’s approach so that the warriors can gather and destroy them. In your tongue I think you call this man
a scout.’

Jack rose too. ‘In my tongue we also call it by another name. So I will go to war as a Mohawk … but I will call myself a spy.’

‘There is a universal law,’ declared Jack, as they walked down the Rue St Joseph toward the wharfs, ‘and thus it applies as
well in Montréal as in London. If you want a horse shod, you go to a farrier. To clear your bowels, you seek your emetic tartar
from an apothecary. And if you want information,’ he stopped before a set of wooden doors, ‘you go to a tavern.’

Até grunted. It was not unusual for him to say little but his taciturnity had deepened ever since they’d first entered the
city. He affected to look unimpressed, but Jack would sometimes catch his companion’s wide-eyed regard for all about him.
He knew that Até had visited nothing larger than a village before and though Jack could – and did – assure him that this young,
provincial burgh was a shabby country cousin of his own glorious London, still the stone houses and flag-stoned courts, the
Seminary Gardens, the walls and bastions, the heaving port with its thousands of civilians and soldiers, all intimidated the
Mohawk. It pleased the Englishman; for no matter how advanced Jack’s forest skills had become, Até was always the leader there.
In the city, it was clearly the reverse.

Yet even Jack baulked at the tavern doors. For near six months the only humanity he’d seen – aside from the men he’d killed
– was a single Mohawk, the loudest noises the crackle of a fire and the odd piece of shouted Shakespeare.
Here, those doors opening transformed a drone into a roar. Scores, possibly hundreds of men – and some women – shoved and
jostled around barrels set upon planks. In one corner flames heated cooking pots; in another, two fiddlers sawed, the space
before them cleared by the abandoned leaping of drunken men. For months, the main scents in his nostrils had been bear fat
and wood smoke. Here he was assaulted by waves of intense and varied odour, chicken stew, perfumed bodies a season beyond
a bath, heady shag tobacco, the monstrous sweetness of warmed rum. It was almost overpowering, even for a Mohock of Covent
Garden; Jack hesitated, half-heartedly seeking some passage through the mob, until a shove in his back propelled him to a
space barely there and he and Até became the head of a wedge of Canadian Militia in their distinctive knitted blue caps, all
baying for booze, all shoving straight for the central table.

A silver coin secured them some rum and a plate of the stew. Prices were high in a city running low of everything after a
long winter. Yet he had two more coins in his pocket, Até having shot a doe on their march in. The animal was the start of
their fortune, sold to a harried army cook who had pointed them toward this wharf-side tavern; for while most in Montréal
were reserved for townsmen,
habitants
and soldiers, and did not admit France’s Indian allies, here the landlord was part Abenaki and wholly commercial. He’d let
in anyone, the cook had told them, so long as they had silver and throw ’em out as soon as it was spent.

A portion of bench cleared as two men rolled onto the ground in the harmless fight of the very drunk. Jack and Até won the
race to the hard wood and sat, laying their muskets and sacks at their feet. The first sip of rum, howsoever sickly sweet,
was still like elixir to Jack. He closed his eyes, imagining himself back in London; opening them again, it took an effort
to realize he was not indeed at Derry’s Cyder House on Maiden Lane where, a lifetime before, he had fallen foul of Craster
Absolute’s schemes and too much arrack punch.
Fiddles whined, laughter brayed, men fought for women, for booze, for the hell of it. But the differences were clear: in the
white uniforms of the regular French soldiers; in the caps of the Militia; in the top-knot bouncing over the plate of stew
as Até slurped it back; in his own as he flicked it aside and bent to his eating. And there was a larger contrast between
the taverns with an ocean between them, for here he had purpose beyond pleasure. It was this purpose that made him shake his
head when Até indicated for another rum. One had made him lightheaded enough after his winter of enforced sobriety.

Their brief time in the Iroquois camp outside the city’s ramparts had yielded no more than conflicting speculation voiced
as fact: the army was marching north against Quebec before the snows melted; it was marching south against General Amherst
when they did; it was staying where it was. So Jack had gained little, except confidence. With his natural Cornish darkness,
his tattoos, his clothes and a berry stain Até had concocted and rubbed over his head, neck and shoulders, Jack had successfully
passed himself off as Mohawk. His accent was credible, apparently; even with its tendency to slip into iambic pentameter.

But it was his French he needed now. Somewhere in this crowd had to be someone who knew more or knew someone who did. Até
moved off among the small groups of Natives with a jug of tongue-loosening rum, Jack taking its twin to some white-clad soldiers,
who were both surprised at his speaking and contemptuous of his person.
Les Canadiens
were less prejudiced, many faces showing nearly as much Native ancestry as European. He was accepted among them, not least
for the free liquor he dispensed. And once he’d listened to the inevitable stories of soldiers anywhere – the stupidity of
officers, the poverty of equipment, the heartlessness of whores – he at last found someone happy to talk of other things.
Indeed, boast of them.

In one corner sat a Frenchman who had obviously not spent the winter in a cave or under canvas. Corpulent and
pink-skinned, his civilian clothes had been washed at least once in the last months and sported the odd dandified embellishment
– a handkerchief protruding from a pocket, a silk collar. A horsehair wig sat atop a jowly and pockmarked face. Among the
soberly clad and grimy
habitants,
he was a peacock among pigeons.

And he could talk. Not converse, just lecture, in an accent that was clearer to Jack than the guttural patois of the provincials;
he was from the Old Country. And while he dispensed rations from the large jug sat before him, men were content to receive
the words along with the rum. Jack was all set to pass the braggart by when a name, repeatedly flourished, drew him in. He
was rewarded with a particularly large smile, a wink and a tot of rum, which he surreptitiously tipped to the floor. Then
he just listened.

‘You see, messieurs, while I would agree with you about most generals, the Chevalier de Lévis is different. He will listen
to men of experience, men of intellect … well, men much like myself. Only yesterday he deferred to me over a matter of artillery.
For you know, messieurs, that that was my branch. Before I received my wound.’

With a sigh of a martyr, he patted at his shoulder, stirring up a cloud of fine white powder there. He then tipped the dregs
of the jug into his own pewter, raised it to the company. ‘To the nobleman who has paid for our conviviality this night: my
employer and, may I say, my friend – the Chevalier de Lévis!’

The audience barely joined in the toast to their commander before, sensing an end to hospitality, they went to seek it elsewhere.
The dandy sighed as the crowd dispersed, reached to place his empty vessel on the table … where Jack intercepted it, slopping
in some rum.

‘Why, thank you, my lad.’ He slurped, belched and refocused on Jack. ‘My,’ he said, his voice lowering to a whisper, ‘but
you’re a handsome brute. Where do you come from?’

He spoke as an adult does to an especially dense yet
favoured child. Jack responded tersely to cue. ‘Oswegatchie,’ he replied, naming one of the main settlements of Canadian Iroquois
who fought for France, then went on in a French he was careful to break up, ‘I come to kill Englishman. Many kill I yesterday!’

The fat man gave an indulgent smile. ‘I am sure you did. And the Great Father Lévis has paid you well for the scalps so you
can buy rum, eh?’ He nudged his tankard against the jug, and Jack nodded and duly poured a hefty tot, which was duly drained.
The next words that came were still slower and more slurred. ‘And may I be honoured with your name?’

‘Daganoweda.’

‘Hubert.’ He inclined his head, shedding more powder. ‘And who taught you such excellent French,
mon brave
?’

For a moment Jack was tempted to say, in his finest accent, ‘A young lady above a goldsmith’s shop in old London Town,’ just
to see the shock it caused. Instead, he replied, ‘Black Robe, at village. Me, altar boy.’

‘Altar boy, eh?’ A gleam came into eyes already fired by rum. Then Hubert dropped a hand onto Jack’s thigh, squeezed gently
and spoke a phrase not directly translatable but understandable nonetheless.

Jack was not unacquainted with such advances. He doubted there was a Westminster boy who was. And though there had been the
usual boarding house fumblings of youths stumbling into manhood, as soon as he was offered the alternative, Jack had wholeheartedly
chosen women. Yet though the resting hand began moving up his deerhide breeches, Jack was careful to keep his face neutral.
And when the hand reached his upper thigh, Jack dropped his own upon it.

‘No?’ The word came out on a purr. Jack shrugged, looked around. ‘Yes,’ the Frenchman continued, ‘it is a little crowded here.’
He gestured with his eyes to the door and Jack immediately got up and started to push through towards it. Até was moving to
intercept him but, at the slight shake of Jack’s head, merged again into the mob.

From fetid warmth they were plunged into a damp chill. It did not seem to affect Hubert. As soon as the door closed, he slid
into Jack, his hand reaching to the place it had sought before. Jack’s closed over his wrist, held him firmly a few inches
away.

‘My, but you’re a strong one,’ Hubert breathed. ‘Shall we slip into that alley?’

‘Too cold.’

The Frenchman looked annoyed. ‘I thought you savages never felt the cold?’

Jack guided the hand to his upper thigh. ‘Need present, too.’

‘Present? Ah, of course.’ Hubert reached into one pocket, then another, then sighed. ‘Present later. Tomorrow.’

‘Now,’ Jack said, letting the hand slip up a little.

Hubert swayed there, caught. It was obvious he had spent all he had inside. ‘Very well,’ he said suddenly, straightening.
‘You come with me, my handsome lad. But you’ll be silent, yes?’ He reached out, stubbed a grimy finger onto Jack’s lips.

Jack followed the stumbling figure away from the tavern, aware that the doors opened and closed behind him. Até? The sky had
cleared, a half-moon and starlight reflecting off the snow-packed street. As they advanced away from the wharf towards the
Seminary, the houses began to get gradually grander. Soon, there were especially high walls, some impressive, ornate gates;
they halted before a small postern. ‘Quiet!’ Hubert ordered, before knocking softly. After a moment, there was a shuffling
from within. The lock screeched, the door opened, a lantern was swung out.

‘Hubert?’

‘It’s me.’

Two soldiers in greatcoats stood there. The one in front yawned, stepped aside. ‘Come in, then, and let me get back to my
fire.’

‘Is the chevalier still with his colonels?’

‘Yes, gabbing away. And until he finishes we can’t get any
sleep.’ He yawned again then, as Hubert moved past, saw Jack. ‘Shit! Who’s that?’

‘Just a friend.’

The lantern was raised and Jack squinted into a light that moved up and down him. ‘What’s the matter, Hubert? Navy not in
town?’

The other soldier sniggered and Hubert came and drew Jack in. ‘You know how the chevalier says we must reach out to all our
Native children. I am merely obeying his commands.’

The hitherto silent soldier muttered, ‘And our commands say no one comes in tonight.’

‘Not even a friend?’ Hubert reached inside his coat. Jack hadn’t seem him secrete the jug of rum he now handed over. The soldiers
only hesitated a moment. Taking it, the gruff one said, ‘Twenty minutes, Hubert. That’s all. Just make sure you bring him
out to us then.’

A huge key was turned in the massive lock and the soldiers returned to a little hut beside the door. ‘Come then,’ said Hubert.

Jack, finding that he’d stopped breathing, started again. This was beyond anything he could have hoped for! Hubert, who had
taken his arm, was drawing him up a path towards the side of a large stone house. From the talk at the gate, within that house
lived the commander of the French army.

The side door opened onto a large kitchen, unpeopled, yet probably only recently so, for chickens dripped on a spit and something
bubbled in cauldrons. Tugging still, Hubert led him up three flights of narrow stairs and into a low-roofed room that was
well furnished with an armoire and a wood-framed bed. Hubert was obviously quite a senior household servant.