by Sara Donati
“Mally, m’leddy.”
She bit back a smile. “You bestow a rank on me that is not my own. I am Mrs. Bonner.”
“Aye, mem. Pardon me, mem.”
“If there is any tea to be had, a cup would be very welcome.”
“Och, aye, mem. There’s coffee and hot chocolate, as weel.”
“Tea is all I require.” And Nathaniel, she might have added. In good health.
“Is there aught else, mem?”
Elizabeth said, “Yes. Tell me, whose chamber is this?”
“It was the laird’s mither’s, Appalina she was, the auld Leddy Carryck. But it’s stood empty these many years since she passed on. That’s her likeness, hanging there.” She pointed to the portrait that hung over the mantelpiece.
“The earl’s mother?” Elizabeth asked.
“Aye, she came ower fra’ Germany tae marry the auld laird.”
“And the earl’s wife, where is she?”
The girl’s brow lifted in astonishment. “Leddy Carryck’s been deid these fifteen years, mem. There’s a bonnie likeness o’ her hangin’ in His Lairdship’s own chamber, and anither in Elphinstone Tower. But those chambers are locked.”
“Elphinstone Tower?”
Mally nodded so that her white cap slid sideways and had to be righted.
“Aye, mem. The northeast tower, called Elphinstone for her faither. She was Marietta, a French leddy. Dauchter tae Lord Balmerinoch wha lost his heid after the Rising. Ye’ll ha’ heard o’ Lord Balmerinoch?”
But Elizabeth had not, and so Mally went away, no doubt to tell the entire staff how poorly informed these visitors were about their host, while Elizabeth leaned back to study Appalina, once of Germany. A dark-haired woman in yellow brocade with Valenciennes lace at her wrists. She wore no jewels at all, but her arms were filled with long-stemmed tulips of such rich deep colors that Elizabeth thought the artist must have taken some liberties. But he had done Appalina no favors, and perhaps she had wanted it that way, insisting that he paint her as she was, neither beautiful nor plain. The extravagance of flowers in her arms drew a strong contrast to the resolute expression in her eyes, a firm and unflinching gaze the color of good brandy.
The earl had inherited his eyes from his mother. But how was it that his father had taken a German bride?
Elizabeth had time now to look at her surroundings, and the answer was all around her. It was there in the fine molded plasterwork of the ceiling, in heavy mahogany furniture, in silver candle sconces and Turkish carpets, in Chinese vases and marble mantelpieces. This was not the home of a Scots earl impoverished by years of revolt and warfare. No doubt Appalina had brought her new husband a handsome fortune.
A breeze from the open windows made the embroidered silk of the bed hangings flutter, stirring the roses and lavender that stood in a vase on a small table and spreading their scent through the room. She wondered if Appalina had seen to the planting of the garden, and if it had been a comfort to her in those first years so far from her home. Sometime soon after she arrived as a new bride, the earl’s twin brother—Hawkeye’s father—had gone off to seek his own fortune. Leaving his home as she had left hers, to look for a new life, a farther shore.
“Your great-grandfather was most probably born in this very bed,” she whispered to her children. “But you were born in the endless forests, and that is where you will grow up.”
Lily yawned in agreement, and Daniel followed her example.
Mally brought her tea and a tray crowded with scones, jam and cream. And she brought a word from the housekeeper, Mrs. Hope.
“If it pleases ye, mem, she’ll be by shortly. Tae show ye the nursery.”
“Will she?” Elizabeth hid her face in her teacup while she considered. In a great house where the lord had lost his lady and remained unmarried, a housekeeper’s authority was likely to grow to formidable proportions; this one, Mrs. Hope by name, was testing her to see what she was made of. Aunt Merriweather would be gratified to know that all her training and counsel were finally to be put to good use.
She swallowed the last of her tea, and getting up from the little bow-backed chair, Elizabeth smoothed her rumpled skirt as best she could. She smelled of horse, but this was not the time to worry about such things.
“The children will sleep here with me, so I have no interest in the nursery. Right now I will go to see my husband, if you will stay and watch over the babies?”
Mally lowered her eyes and nodded her agreement, but not before Elizabeth saw something flash across her expression—pleasure, and perhaps a little apprehension.
“You need do nothing but make sure they do not roll from the bed in their sleep. I will return before they awake, or I will send my stepdaughter.”
The cheerful round face bobbed up toward her. “The red Indian, mem?”
Another truth she had forgotten: news spread among servants at an unthinkable speed.
“My stepdaughter is Miss Bonner,” Elizabeth said firmly. She thought for a moment, knowing that whatever information she passed on now would make its way to the entire household, and would influence Hannah’s stay here for better or worse. “I trust you will do all in your power to make her welcome, Mally. If she is unhappy at Carryckcastle, so will the rest of us be. Do you understand me?”
Mally’s cheeks, already ruddy, flushed even darker. “Oh, aye, mem. I meant no offense, mem.”
“I’m sure you did not. Now I must go see how my husband is faring.”
“And what shall I tell Mrs. Hope, mem?”
Elizabeth paused at the door. “Is there a chamber that connects to this one?”
Mally nodded eagerly. “Aye, mem.” She pointed to a closed door. “Through the dressing room.”
“Do you know who Mrs. Freeman is?”
“The Negress, mem? I saw her frae the window.”
Elizabeth said, “Give Mrs. Hope this message from me: Mrs. Freeman and my stepdaughter require that chamber for their own as long as we are here.”
The girl swallowed hard—Elizabeth could almost see the thoughts moving behind her eyes—but then she bobbed her head. “Aye, mem.”
“Otherwise I leave no message for her at all.”
Some of Carryck’s men were still milling about when Elizabeth found her way back to the hallway off the courtyard. As soon as they caught sight of her, their conversation faded away and they fell to studying the flagstones under their feet with great concentration and interest. They put her in mind of schoolboys, in spite of all their size and bulk.
“May I?” Elizabeth addressed the oldest of them, the man who had taken Hannah before him on his saddle. He ushered her through the men and then opened the door for her with an odd little bow.
“Thank you, Mr….?”
“Thomas Ballentyne, mem.” He was gruff, but his expression was intelligent, and not unkind. She would ask Hannah about him when there was an opportunity.
It was a small room, and by its smell one used primarily for the storing of coffee and spices and dried herbs, but given over now to the Hakim for his surgery. A long table stood beneath a bank of windows, and on this, Nathaniel lay stretched out, his wounded leg elevated on a bolster. Hakim Ibrahim was bent over his wounded shoulder; just opposite him, Hannah stood with her back to the door. Curiosity was at a workbench, grinding a pestle into a small stone bowl.
“Mrs. Bonner,” said the Hakim, glancing up only briefly. “Just a few more stitches, and then the leg must be attended to.”
“Boots,” Nathaniel said. His voice was very hoarse. “The babies?”
“Fed, and sleeping.” She came closer, but Nathaniel kept his gaze on the ceiling overhead. The muscles in his jaw jumped with every movement of the Hakim’s needle.
“How goes it here?”
“Very well,” said Hakim Ibrahim. “The bullet broke the bone, but there is no damage to the larger blood vessels.”
“He is not in danger,” Hannah translated.
Curiosity made a disapproving
noise. “Maybe the shoulder won’t kill him, but it wouldn’t be the first time I saw a man die of pure stubborn.”
“There is another scar here, well healed.” The Hakim’s tone was very calm, in spite of the speed with which he worked. “A battle injury?”
Nathaniel sent a sidelong glance toward Elizabeth. “You could call it that. My father-in-law shot me.”
“A hunting accident.” Elizabeth wiped the sweat that ran down his brow to his temple. “Will you tease me even now?”
“Especially now,” he said, and closed his eyes. His left arm twitched convulsively.
Behind her Curiosity said, “Don’ bother askin’, ’cause he won’t take no laudanum.”
She looked up in surprise. “He’s had nothing at all?”
Nathaniel squeezed her fingers so hard that she jumped. “No laudanum.”
“You see?” Curiosity raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth. “Stubborn.” There was a swipe of dried blood on her headcloth, dark brown against the sprigged yellow calico.
Elizabeth saw Hannah’s mouth settle in a strong line. There was an expression about her that she had not seen very often: defiance, and disdain. She was proud of her father’s ability to withstand this pain, and resentful of the idea that he might not be equal to it.
“He doesn’t want to sleep,” Hannah said.
“And why should he?” Curiosity snapped. “Up all night chasing around strange roads, gettin’ shot. Why sleep? Maybe the man got a bridge to build, or a war to fight.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes briefly and then opened them again. “Curiosity, if there’s a war that needs fighting, you go on ahead without me. They won’t stand a chance.”
Hannah ducked her head to hide her smile, but Curiosity sucked in one cheek and let it out again as she worked the pestle. “You better hope I don’t take up weapons while I’m so put out with you, Nathaniel Bonner. I’ll put a bullet in that other shoulder, fix you up proper.”
The Hakim put down his needle and took up a feather, which he dipped in a bowl filled with a liquid, exactly the same shade of red as his turban. It had a strange scent, sharp and green, the smell of marshes and growing things.
“This is the sap of a tree that is native to Brazil,” he told Elizabeth.
“It’s called dragon’s blood,” said Hannah.
“Brazil?” Elizabeth looked more closely at the bowl.
“The earl has a specimen in his conservatory,” said the Hakim. “Which is very fortunate.”
It was clear that this was not Nathaniel’s first encounter today with this feather, for he grasped Elizabeth’s hand hard even before it touched the skin. He jerked convulsively and hissed through his teeth but Hakim Ibrahim continued painting the wound with quick, even strokes. “It will prevent infection. It is not pleasant, however. Much like salt in a wound.”
“Too much like it,” Nathaniel said.
“The shoulder will swell but the break was clean. I expect that in two weeks you will be able to use your arm again.”
Curiosity sniffed. “I’d like to see you keep the man in bed for two weeks.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said the Hakim. “A few days’ rest to regain his strength at most. And you must wear a sling, to protect the arm.”
Nathaniel opened his eyes and looked straight at the Hakim. “I’m indebted to you for your help, but I can’t go to bed right now. Hannah, tell the men out in the hall I’m ready to see Carryck.”
Elizabeth held up her hand. “Nathaniel, please be reasonable. When the Hakim is finished dressing your leg, you will eat, and then you will rest for an hour, and then if you are sufficiently restored, you may speak to whomever you like. But right now Carryck can wait.”
He blinked at her. “Maybe the earl can wait, Boots, but I can’t. Whatever he knows about Hawkeye and Robbie, I need to hear it.”
Hannah’s expression went very still as she looked from Nathaniel to Elizabeth. “Are they dead?”
He raised a hand to touch her cheek. “I don’t know, Squirrel. Maybe.”
She made a little clicking sound deep in her throat, and Nathaniel’s grip tightened on her shoulder. “It’s a possibility, I can’t tell you that it ain’t. I managed to get a few words with Stoker’s first mate before the dragoons caught wind of me, and he told me that they were picked off the Jackdaw by a frigate headed for battle.”
Curiosity put down her bowl with a thump. “That don’t make much sense,” she said thoughtfully, all of her irritation suddenly gone. “Why take the two oldest men on board and leave the young ones? Maybe the man was lyin’ to protect his own skin.”
Elizabeth said, “I might come to the same conclusion, if the earl hadn’t told me the same story right before Nathaniel came back to the inn.”
“But how would the earl know about what happened on the Jackdaw?” asked Hannah. And then her face brightened. “Unless he has had word of the frigate?”
The Hakim had been strangely quiet as he dressed the wound on Nathaniel’s leg, but now Elizabeth felt his attention on her.
He said, “The earl knows of what happened on the Jackdaw because he has questioned her captain at some length.”
Nathaniel sat up with such suddenness that Elizabeth stepped back in surprise.
“Mac Stoker was here?”
Hakim Ibrahim nodded. “He is here still, and he will be for some time. I have been kept busy treating gunshot wounds just recently.”
Nathaniel lay down again.
“I want to see him before I see Carryck.”
“Good,” said Hannah. “Let’s go see him, then.”
There was a small silence, and then Nathaniel reached out a hand to Hannah. She came to stand just beside him.
“Squirrel,” he said, speaking Kahnyen’kehàka now to spare her embarrassment before the Hakim. “We need you to look after the babies.”
“But—”
“I don’t want you anywhere near Mac Stoker.” His jaw clenched and then relaxed again.
Hannah turned on her heel and held out her palms toward Elizabeth. A request, written in worry lines that were out of place on a young girl’s face. And Curiosity watching, wondering if she would give in this time, or do what was best for the child and send her away.
“Your father is right, Squirrel. I will bring you the news myself, if there is any.”
She held her head up straight, but her mouth trembled slightly. After a long pause, she nodded.
A servant showed Hannah the way. He wore a long-tailed coat of dark blue with gold facings, and he had a twitch in his left cheek that reminded her of a bird fluttering. She wondered if he had had it all his life, but she could not ask him about it: all the way through halls he watched her out of the corner of his eye as if he expected her to pull a tomahawk from beneath her skirt and take his scalp.
She had been sent away like a little child, and she was angry about it, and hurt. But even in her poor mood, Hannah could not ignore the castle. It was full of interesting things: bears and stags and dragons carved into wood paneling and even into the rafters. A stag’s head mounted on the wall. Paintings of dogs and horses and sailing ships in heavy golden frames. At the foot of a great stair two vases big enough for a girl to hide in, decorated with colorful birds.
There was a little man on the landing, made entirely of polished metal, and she could no more walk past him without stopping than she could have ignored a live monkey. He was barely taller than she was and cleverly made, down to the hinged fingers and the face, constructed of many small plates somehow held together to make a nose and cheeks and a chin. Behind grillwork the eye sockets were blank, and she found herself a little relieved.
“What is this?” she asked the servant.
He cleared his throat. “A suit of armor, miss. As the gentlemen wore tae joust in days lang syne.” And seeing her blank look, he added, “Twa men runnin’ at each ither on horseback wi’ lances, ye ken?”
Hannah did not quite understand why men would wrap t
hemselves in metal to get on a horse, but she sensed that the servant’s patience with her questions might not reach so far. She nodded.
The upstairs hall was lined with candle sconces and small carved tables, and on each of them stood a carving of an elephant, some bone white and others milky green. She would have paused to look, but the servant stopped in front of a door.
Hannah did not like to be impolite, so she waited with him. “What is your name?”
One eye blinked, and then the other; it was a good trick. “MacAdam, miss.”
“And what is it that you do here?”
“I’m one o’ the footmen, miss.”
She considered his feet, and saw nothing unusual about them.
“What is it that a footman does?”
“We look after the keeping o’ the house, miss. The fires and the lamps, and the rest o’ it. And servin’ at table, o’ course.”
“Then I’ll see you at supper?”
One corner of his mouth jerked upward before he could stop it. “Aye, miss.”
Hannah wondered if he was not allowed to smile, or if he did not like to smile. But he opened the door, and there was nothing to do but to leave him there in the hall and go in.
In the middle of the room was a canopied bed bigger than Hannah had ever seen before, and in the middle of the bed sat a little girl with Lily sleeping in her arms. Her eyes widened when she saw Hannah and she put Lily down, very gently. Then she leaped off the bed and landed with a soft thump.
Hannah had thought her to be young, but she saw now that the girl must be her own age. She was slight, and a full head shorter than Hannah, with a cap of short blond hair as curly as a goat’s and sea-green eyes. Her skirt was muddy at the hem, and her feet were bare. There was a smudge of jam on her chin.
She said, “Babies smell sae sweet, dinna ye think? Mally was called awa’, and she asked me tae bide wi’ them. I’m called Jennet. Was your mither an Indian princess?”
Her tone was curious and forthright and friendly, and it made something small and warm and unexpected blossom in Hannah’s chest, so that her throat closed and she had to swallow very hard. She said, “My mother was Sings-from-Books of the Kahnyen’kehàka people, and her mother is Falling-Day, and her mother is Made-of-Bones who is clan mother of the Wolf longhouse, and her mother Hawk-Woman was clan mother before her. She killed an English colonel and fed his heart to her sons.” She drew a breath and let it out again.
