“Do you miss her greatly—your wife?” I felt a bit hesitant about asking, but he didn’t seem to find the question intrusive. I might almost have thought that he had been asking it himself, for he answered readily, if thoughtfully.
“I don’t really know,” he said. He glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. “Does that sound unfeeling?”
“I couldn’t say,” I said, a little tartly. “Surely you’d know better than I whether you had feelings for her or not.”
“I did, yes.” He let his head fall back on the pillow, his thick fair hair loose about his shoulders. “Or I do, perhaps. That’s why I came, do you see?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
I heard Ian cough, and rose to look, but he had only turned over in his sleep; he lay on his stomach, one long arm drooping from the trundle bed. I picked up his hand—it was still hot, but not dangerously so—and put it on the pillow near his face. His hair had fallen in his eyes; I brushed it gently back.
“You are very good with him; have you children of your own?”
Startled, I looked up to see Lord John watching me, chin propped on his fist.
“I—we—have a daughter,” I said.
His eyes widened.
“We?” he said sharply. “The girl is Jamie’s?”
“Don’t call her ‘the girl,’ ” I said, unreasonably irritated. “Her name is Brianna, and yes, she’s Jamie’s.”
“My apologies,” he said, rather stiffly.
“I meant no offense,” he added a moment later, in a softer tone. “I was surprised.”
I looked at him directly. I was too tired to be tactful.
“And a bit jealous, perhaps?”
He had a diplomat’s face; almost anything could have been going on behind that facade of handsome amiability. I went on staring at him, though, and he let the mask drop—a flash of knowledge lit the light blue eyes, tinged with grudging humor.
“So. One more thing that we have in common.” I was startled by his acuity, though I shouldn’t have been. It’s always discomfiting to find that feelings you thought safely hidden are in fact sitting out in the open for anyone to look at.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that when you decided to come here.” The tea was finished; I set the cup aside and took up my skein of wool again.
He studied me for a moment, eyes narrowed.
“I thought of it, yes,” he said finally. He let his head fall back on the pillow, eyes fixed on the low beamed ceiling. “Still, if I was human enough—or petty enough—to consider that I might offend you by bringing William here, I would ask you to believe that such offense was not my motive in coming.”
I laid the finished ball of yarn in the basket and took up another skein, stretching it across the back of a split-willow chair.
“I believe you,” I said, my eyes fixed on the skein. “If only because it seems rather a lot of trouble to go to. What was your motive, though?”
I sensed the movement as he shrugged, rustling the sheets.
“The obvious—to allow Jamie to see the boy.”
“And the other obvious—to allow you to see Jamie.”
There was a marked silence from the bed. I kept my eyes on the yarn, turning the ball as I wrapped the strand, over and under, back and forth, an intricate crisscross that would in the end yield a perfect sphere.
“You are a rather remarkable woman,” he said at last, in a level tone.
“Indeed,” I said, not looking up. “In what way?”
He leaned back; I heard the rustle of his bedding.
“You are neither circumspect nor circuitous. In fact, I don’t believe I have ever met anyone more devastatingly straightforward—male or female.”
“Well, it’s not by choice,” I said. I came to the end of the thread and tucked it neatly into the ball. “I was born that way.”
“So was I,” he said, very softly.
I didn’t answer; I didn’t think he had spoken to be heard.
I rose and went to the cupboard. I took down three jars: catmint, valerian, and wild ginger. I took down the marble mortar and tipped the dried leaves and root chunks into it. A drop of water fell from the kettle, hissing into steam.
“What are you doing?” Lord John asked.
“Making an infusion for Ian,” I said, with a nod toward the trundle. “The same I gave you four days ago.”
“Ah. We heard of you as we traveled from Wilmington,” Grey said. His voice was casual now, making conversation. “You are well known in the countryside for your skills, it would appear.”
“Mm.” I pounded and ground, and the deep, musky smell of wild ginger filled the room.
“They say you are a conjure-woman. What is that, do you know?”
“Anything from a midwife to a physician to a caster of spells or a fortune-teller,” I said. “Depending on who’s talking.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh, and then was silent for a bit.
“You think they will be safe.” It was a statement, but he was asking.
“Yes. Jamie wouldn’t have taken the boy if he thought there’d be any danger. Surely you know that, if you know him at all?” I added, glancing at him.
“I know him,” he said.
“Do you indeed,” I said.
He was quiet for a moment, bar the sound of scratching.
“I know him well enough—or think I do—to risk sending William away with him, alone. And to be sure he will not tell William the truth.”
I poured the green and yellow powder into a small square of cotton gauze and tied it neatly into a tiny bag.
“No, he won’t, you’re right about that.”
“Will you?”
I looked up, startled.
“You really think I would?” He studied my face carefully for a moment, then smiled.
“No,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”
I snorted briefly and dropped the medicine bag into the teapot. I put back the jars of herbs, and sat down with my blasted wool again.
“It was generous of you—to let Willie go with Jamie. Rather brave,” I added, somewhat grudgingly. I looked up; he was staring at the dark oblong of the hide-covered window, as though he could look beyond it to see the two figures, side by side in the forest.
“Jamie has held my life in his hands for a good many years now,” he answered softly. “I will trust him with William’s.”
“And what if Willie remembers a groom named MacKenzie better than you think? Or happens to take a good look at his own face and Jamie’s?”
“Twelve-year-old boys are not remarkable for their acute perception,” Grey said dryly. “And I think that if a boy has lived all his life in the secure belief that he is the ninth Earl of Ellesmere, the notion that he might actually be the illegitimate offspring of a Scottish groom is not one that would enter his head—or be long entertained there, if it did.”
I wound wool in silence, listening to the crackle of the fire. Ian was coughing again, but didn’t wake. The dog had moved, and was now curled up by his legs, a dark heap of fur.
I finished the second ball of yarn and began another. One more, and the infusion would have finished steeping. If Ian didn’t need me yet, I would lie down then.
Grey had been silent for so long that I was surprised when he started to speak again. When I glanced at him, he wasn’t looking at me, but was staring upward, seeking visions once again among the smoke-stained beams.
“I told you I had feelings for my wife,” he said softly. “I did. Affection. Familiarity. Loyalty. We had known each other all her life; our fathers had been friends; I had known her brother. She might well have been my sister.”
“And was she satisfied with that—to be your sister?”
He gave me a glance somewhere between anger and interest.
“You cannot be at all a comfortable woman to live with.” He shut his mouth, but couldn’t leave it there. He shrugged impatiently. “Yes, I believe she was satisfied with
the life she led. She never said that she was not.”
I didn’t reply to this, though I exhaled rather strongly through my nose. He shrugged uncomfortably, and scratched his collarbone.
“I was an adequate husband to her,” he said defensively. “That we had no children of our own—that was not my—”
“I really don’t want to hear about it!”
“Oh, don’t you?” His voice was still low, not to wake Ian, but it had lost the smooth modulations of diplomacy; the anger was rough in it.
“You asked me why I came; you questioned my motives; you accused me of jealousy. Perhaps you don’t want to know, because if you did, you could not keep thinking of me as you choose to.”
“And how the hell do you know what I choose to think of you?”
His mouth twisted in an expression that might have been a sneer on a less handsome face.
“Don’t I?”
I looked him full in the face for a minute, not troubling to hide anything at all.
“You did mention jealousy,” he said quietly, after a moment.
“So I did. So did you.”
He turned his head away, but continued after a moment.
“When I heard that Isobel was dead … it meant nothing to me. We had lived together for years, though we had not seen each other for nearly two years. We shared a bed; we shared a life, I thought. I should have cared. But I didn’t.”
He took a deep breath; I saw the bedclothes stir as he settled himself.
“You mentioned generosity. It wasn’t that. I came to see … whether I can still feel,” he said. His head was still turned away, staring at the hide-covered window, grown dark with the night. “Whether it is my own feelings that have died, or only Isobel.”
“Only Isobel?” I echoed.
He lay quite still for a moment, facing away.
“I can still feel shame, at least,” he said, very softly.
I could tell by the feel of the night that it was very late; the fire had burned low, and the aching of my muscles told me that it was well past my bedtime.
Ian was getting restless; he stirred in his sleep, moaning, and Rollo got up and nuzzled him, making small whimpering noises. I went to him and wiped his face again, plumped his pillow and straightened his sheets, making comforting murmurs. He was no more than half awake; I held his head and fed him a cup of the warm infusion, sip by sip.
“You’ll feel better in the morning.” There were spots visible in the open neck of his shirt—only a few as yet—but the fever was less, and the line between his brows had eased.
I wiped his face once more and eased him back on his pillow, where he turned a cheek to the cool linen and fell asleep again at once.
There was plenty of the infusion left. I poured another cup and held it out to Lord John. Surprised, he sat upright and took it from me.
“And now that you’ve come, and seen him—do you still have feelings?” I said.
He stared at me for a moment, eyes unblinking in the candlelight.
“I do, yes.” Hand steady as a rock, he picked up the cup and drank. “God help me,” he added, so casual as almost to sound offhand.
* * *
Ian passed a bad night but dropped off into a fitful doze near dawn. I seized the chance of a little rest myself, and managed a few hours of delectable sleep on the floor before being roused by the the loud braying of Clarence the mule.
A sociable creature, Clarence was utterly delighted by the approach of anything he regarded as a friend—this category embracing virtually anything on four legs. He gave tongue to his joy in a voice that rang off the mountainside. Rollo, affronted at being thus upstaged in the watchdog department, leapt off Ian’s bed, soared over me, and out through the open window, baying like a werewolf.
Thus startled out of slumber, I staggered to my feet. Lord John, who was sitting in his shirt at the table, looked startled too, though whether at the racket or at my appearance, I couldn’t tell. I went outside, running my fingers hastily through my disheveled locks, heart beating faster in the hope that it might be Jamie returning.
My heart fell as I saw that it wasn’t Jamie and Willie, but my disappointment was quickly replaced by astonishment when I saw who the visitor was—Pastor Gottfried, leader of the Lutheran church in Salem. I had met the Pastor now and then, in the homes of parishioners where I had been paying medical calls, but I was more than surprised to find him so far afield.
It was nearly two days ride from Salem to the Ridge, and the nearest German Lutheran farm was at least fifteen miles away, over rough country. The Pastor was no natural horseman—I could see the mud and dust of repeated falls splashed over his black coat—and I thought that it must be a dire emergency indeed that brought him so far up the mountain.
“Down, wicked dog!” I said sharply to Rollo, who was baring his teeth and growling at the new arrival, much to the displeasure of the Pastor’s horse. “Be quiet, I say!”
Rollo gave me a yellow-eyed look and subsided with an air of offended dignity, as though to suggest that if I wished to welcome obvious malefactors onto the premises, he wouldn’t answer for the consequences.
The Pastor was a tubby little man with a huge, curly gray beard that surrounded his face like a storm cloud, through which his normally beaming face peered like the breaking sun. He wasn’t beaming this morning, though; his round cheeks were the color of suet, puffy lips pale, and his eyes red-rimmed with fatigue.
“Meine Dame,” he greeted me, doffing his broad-brimmed hat and bowing deeply from the waist. “Ist Euer Mann hier?”
I spoke no more than a few words of crude German, but could easily make out that he was looking for Jamie. I shook my head, gesturing vaguely toward the woods, to indicate Jamie’s absence.
The Pastor looked even more dismayed than before, nearly wringing his hands in his distress. He said several urgent things in German, then seeing that I didn’t understand him, repeated himself, speaking slower and louder, his stubby body straining for expression, trying by sheer force of will to make me understand.
I was still shaking my head helplessly when a voice spoke sharply from behind me.
“Was ist los?” demanded Lord John, emerging into the dooryard. “Was habt Ihr gesagt?” He had put on his breeches, I was glad to see, though he was still barefoot, with his fair hair streaming loose on his shoulders.
The Pastor gave me a scandalized look, plainly thinking The Worst, but this expression was wiped off his face at once by a further machine-gun rattle of German from Lord John. The Pastor bobbed in apology to me, then turned eagerly to the Englishman, waving his arms and stammering in his haste to tell his story.
“What?” I said, having failed to pluck more than a word or two from the Teutonic flood. “What on earth is he saying?”
Grey turned a grim face toward me.
“Do you know a family named Mueller?”
“Yes,” I said, immediate alarm flaring at the name. “I delivered a child to Petronella Mueller, three weeks ago.”
“Ah.” Grey licked dry lips and glanced at the ground; he didn’t want to tell me. “The—the child is dead, I am afraid. So is the mother.”
“Oh, no.” I sank down on the bench by the door, swept by a feeling of absolute denial. “No. They can’t be.”
Grey rubbed a hand over his mouth, nodding as the Pastor went on, waving his small, fat hands in agitation.
“He says it was Masern; I think that would be what we call the measle. Flecken, so ähnlich wie diese?” he demanded of the Pastor, pointing at the remnants of rash still visible on his face.
The Pastor nodded emphatically, repeating “Flecken, Masern, ja!” and patting his own cheeks.
“But what does he want Jamie for?” I asked, bewilderment added to distress.
“Apparently he believes Jamie might be able to reason with the man—with Herr Mueller. Are they friends?”
“Not exactly, no. Jamie hit Gerhard Mueller in the mouth and knocked him down in front of the mi
ll last spring.”
A muscle twitched in Lord John’s scabbed cheek.
“I see. I suppose he’s using the term ‘reason with’ rather loosely, then.”
“Mueller can’t be reasoned with by any means more sophisticated than an ax handle,” I said. “But what is he being unreasonable about?”
Grey frowned—he didn’t recognize my use of “sophisticated,” I realized, though he understood what I meant. He hesitated, then turned back to the small minister and asked something else, listening intently to the resulting torrent of Deutsch.
Little by little, with constant interruptions and much gesticulation, the story emerged in translation.
There was, as Lord John had told us earlier, an epidemic of measles in Cross Creek. This had evidently spread into the backcountry; several households in Salem were afflicted, but the Muellers, isolated as they were, had not suffered infection until recently.
However, the day before the first sign of measles appeared, a small band of Indians had stopped at the Mueller farm asking for food and drink. Mueller, with whose opinions of Indians I was thoroughly well acquainted, had driven them off with considerable abuse. The Indians, offended, had made—said Mueller—mysterious signs toward his house as they left.
When measles broke out among the family the next day, Mueller was positive that the disease had been brought upon them by means of a hex, placed on his house by the Indians he had rebuffed. He had at once painted antihexing symbols upon his walls, and summoned the Pastor from Salem to perform an exorcism … “I think that is what he said,” Lord John added doubtfully. “Though I am not sure whether he means by that …”
“Never mind,” I said impatiently. “Go on!”
None of these precautions availed Mueller, though, and when Petronella and the new baby succumbed to the disease, the old man had lost what little mind he had. Vowing revenge upon the savages who had brought such devastation to his household, he had forced his sons and sons-in-law to accompany him, and ridden off into the woods.
From this expedition they had returned three days ago, the sons whitefaced and silent, the old man burning with cold satisfaction.
“Ich war dort. Ich habe ihn geschen,” said Herr Gottfried, sweat trickling down his cheeks at the recollection. I was there. I saw.
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