by Sara Donati
“Guid for your granny. The English sojers hung my grandda for—” She paused, and scratched her pointed chin thoughtfully. “Nae guid cause. What do they call ye, then?”
“My girl-name is Squirrel, but most everybody calls me Hannah. When the time is right Falling-Day will give me my woman-name.”
Jennet smiled so broadly that two deep dimples carved themselves into her cheeks. “I like Squirrel better than Hannah. I’ll call ye that.” She plucked an apple out of her apron pocket and tossed it in a quick flick of the wrist.
Hannah caught it, and in that moment she realized how very hungry she was.
“I’ll tell ye what I think, Squirrel. Ye can tell me tales o’ the Indians and the great wilderness, and I’ll show ye aa the best bits o’ Carryckcastle, aa the secret places.”
Hannah went up to the bed to check the twins. They were both sleeping soundly, but it would not be long before they woke. Then they would need new swaddling, and they might be afraid of this strange place.
Behind her Jennet said, “We’ll bide here a while, aye? Ye’ll want tae eat, and see tae the wee ones. I’ll help. Then we’ll gae explorin’. Wad ye like tae see the pit?”
“Is that where Mac Stoker is?” She spoke around a mouthful of apple, sweet and tart all at once.
“Och, ne,” said Jennet, helping herself to a spoonful of jam from the pot on the table. “They dinna want the pirate tae die, after aa. Wad ye like tae see him? He canna hurt ye—’Nezer Lun stands guard at the door, and he’s aye fierce.”
“I have seen Mac Stoker,” Hannah said. “I saw him shoot a man and kidnap a lady from the Isis. But I would like to see him again.”
The spoon paused on its way back toward the jam pot and Jennet turned to look at her. She produced a single dimple. “We’ll be fast friends, the twa o’ us. Wait and see.”
25
In all her time on the Jackdaw, Elizabeth realized, she had never seen Mac Stoker off his feet, but now he was abed. Under a few days’ growth of beard he had gone a peculiar ashen shade; even the scar around his neck had gone pale. His temple was swollen, the color of an overripe plum.
Then he opened his eyes—red rimmed and fever bright—and his mouth worked slowly, as if he didn’t quite have control over his tongue.
“Bonner,” he croaked. “Damn your eyes and liver, you’re alive. Have you come to pay me what you owe?”
Nathaniel limped to the chair next to the bed and sat down, sticking his injured leg out in front of him. He said, “We can talk about who owes what later. Now I want to hear what happened to my father.”
Stoker raised a hand and let it fall. “Sweet Jaysus, not that again. I’m wishin’ I never set eyes on the man, nor on any of youse.”
“You can’t blame the mess you’re in on him. You got that bullet in your gut on your own time,” Nathaniel said.
“Did I now?” Stoker grimaced. “I don’t recall you bein’ there. If you were, you’d know that it was Hawkeye the bastards were lookin’ for. Brained me proper with a musket when my back was turned and dragged me away, and now me men are sittin’ in gaol cursin’ me for a coward and a cur. Granny will eat me heart raw.”
“Hawkeye has never set foot on Scottish soil,” Elizabeth said. “What can he have had to do with this?”
“Sure and that may be true,” said Stoker, wheezing a little now. “But there’s plenty what are waitin’ for him when he does, and he better keep his wits about him.” He turned his head to look harder at Nathaniel, taking in the heavily wrapped shoulder and leg. “But maybe you’ve learned that for yourself already. Dragoons?”
“Aye.”
“A pair of them, I’ll wager. The bigger one with gray chin whiskers and as bald as a babby’s arse, the other with a scar down his right cheek, and missing two fingers on his left hand.”
Nathaniel glanced at Elizabeth, and his expression was not hard to read. Worry and anger, in equal measures. He said, “I never got close enough to see his hand, but that sounds about right. Why do you think they were looking for Hawkeye?”
Stoker let out a noisy breath. “They asked for him by name. Wanted to know where he was, and what happened to him. And failin’ that, they wanted to put their mitts on you. If you had told me how popular youse Bonners were in Scotland I would have drove a harder bargain.”
“Where is my father?”
He grimaced. “Damn me if I know. Last I saw of him and MacLachlan was when we got boxed in between the whole bloody Atlantic fleet and a frigate set on poundin’ us to kindling. They stopped just short of sinkin’ us and then boarded.”
His voice wavered and he paused to drink from the cup that the Hakim offered him.
“When they left again they took your father and MacLachlan wit’ them, and that’s the last I seen of their sorry mugs.” He shook his head wearily. “And don’t be askin’ why they took your father and nobody else. I’m puzzled meself. Unless you’ve friends in the Royal Navy and you kept it a secret.”
Nathaniel smiled grimly at the idea of it. “Aye, and tomorrow we’re taking tea with the king.”
Elizabeth said, “What was the frigate called?”
Both men turned to her, Nathaniel with a curious expression, and Stoker with a suspicious one.
“The Leopard. Tell me now, sweetings—does that name mean anything to you?”
“Nothing at all,” she said firmly, not meeting Nathaniel’s eye. “Was it because you couldn’t take them to Hawkeye that the dragoons shot you, or for the simple pleasure of it?”
“’Od’s bones, she’s got a gob on her. I don’t envy you, man.”
Nathaniel said, “You haven’t answered the question.”
Stoker’s mouth thinned. “Never did I say ’twas the dragoons that put the bullet in me. It’ll be a dry day in Ireland when a couple of lobsterbacks get the best of Mac Stoker. I was runnin’ goods under their noses when I was but thirteen.”
“Then who was it got to you if it wasn’t the dragoons?” asked Nathaniel. He glanced at the Hakim. “Carryck’s men?”
Stoker waved a hand dismissively. “No. If that crew hadn’t come along I’d be dead. It was Giselle what shot me, the ungrateful bitch. And me tryin’ to rescue her.” His fist opened and closed again. “But she hasn’t seen the last of Mac Stoker.” And he smiled.
By the time Nathaniel made his way to the top of the grand stair, he had forgotten all about the agony in his shoulder, simply because his leg throbbed like a war drum with every step. At his back two servants crept along, ready to catch him if he should fall but trying to look disinterested. He ignored them to lean on Elizabeth.
“It’s just ahead,” she said quietly. “There on the left.”
Another servant opened the door and then shut it behind them, and Nathaniel simply sat down on the carpet; it was that or land on his face. He wiped the sweat from his brow with what remained of his shirt, but it took a full minute for the thud of blood in his ears to subside.
“I can hear Lily laughing,” he said. “And Curiosity talking to her.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth put out a hand to help him to his feet. “There’s another bedchamber that connects to this one through the dressing room. I’ll check on them in just a moment. Here is the bed, Nathaniel.”
“Damn,” he muttered, considering the little flight of steps. “More steps. I suppose there’s a ladder to get to the pisspot.”
“Mac Stoker has a decidedly adverse effect on your vocabulary,” Elizabeth said. When he had fallen back against the pillows, she set out to undress him, but he caught her wrist to stop her.
“Boots.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m not so done in that I can’t get out of my own breeks.”
She nodded. “Perhaps we should wait until they bring our things from Dumfries anyway. I hope it is soon. We look like beggars, all of us.”
He ran a hand over her hair. “You look mighty fine to me, darlin’. Except for those dark circles under your eyes.”
She gave him a testy half-smile. “It has been an eventful night.”
“Come here to me for a minute.”
“If I lay myself down now, Nathaniel, I will most likely fall asleep.”
“I’ll keep you awake.”
She drew up, clutching a fist to her breast in surprise. “You cannot be serious, in your condition—”
“Relax, Boots. I ain’t got anything like that in mind. Not right now, any road. I just want to talk to you.”
She studied him with narrowed eyes for a moment, and then she climbed up to sit next to him. There was a look she got sometimes, her chin set hard and a line between her brows, when she was chewing on something that she couldn’t quite spit out. She could no more hide how she felt than she could change the color of her eyes. Right now they were storm gray.
“I should go check on the children.”
“They sound happy enough,” he said.
“Yes, well. I imagine Curiosity is tired, too. And I wonder where Hannah has got to—”
“Boots.”
“What?” Her eyes blazed at him, daring him on.
“You’re strung so tight, I can almost hear you humming.”
She frowned at him. “Am I? And I wonder why that might be. Do I need remind you that your father and Robbie have disappeared into the Royal Navy?”
He smoothed a curl away from her face. “I remember. On a ship called the Leopard.”
They stared at each other for a long minute, and then she said, “It’s not what you think.”
“Are you in the habit of reading my mind these days, Boots? What is it that I think?”
“That I know something about the Leopard that I’m hiding from you.”
“Do you?”
“That is what you’re thinking!” She pulled away from him and rolled off the bed in a flurry, pausing just out of reach to smooth her skirt. When she looked up at him again, she had regained some of her composure.
“I once knew the captain of the Leopard, but that was seven years ago. He must have been posted elsewhere by now.” And then, more slowly: “He was a friend of Will’s.”
Nathaniel sat up a little straighter. “Your cousin Will?”
She nodded. “But this must be simple coincidence, Nathaniel. It must be.”
“Maybe so. But if it ain’t—if you know the captain, and he knows you, is that good news for Hawkeye and Robbie, or bad?”
She let out a great sigh. “That’s why I was hesitant to say anything, because I knew you would ask me that very question. The truth is, I don’t know, Nathaniel. I truly don’t know.” And then: “If it is him, his name is Christian Fane.”
She was anxious and skittish, and it worried him. But before he could even think how to ask the right questions to get to the bottom of it, Curiosity appeared at the inside door with one baby balanced on each hip. “Any news?”
Elizabeth smiled in relief and took Lily from her while Nathaniel told Curiosity the little they had learned.
“And the earl ain’t got nothin’ to add to that pitiful story?”
“We haven’t seen him yet.”
“Hmpf.” Curiosity shook her head. “Is that scoundrel Stoker fixed on dying?”
Nathaniel said, “The Hakim got the bullet out of him. I expect he’s tough enough to live through it.”
“Good. Maybe he’s the man to sail us home again.”
“I don’t know what’s become of the Jackdaw,” Elizabeth said. “The excisemen may have burned it.”
Curiosity said, “Hawkeye will show up soon enough. There never was such a man for finding his way, and Robbie is cut from the same cloth. Don’t you forget that, now.”
Elizabeth sent her a thankful look. Curiosity might know of every tisane and poultice and healing tea, but she also understood that sometimes the right words were the most powerful medicine.
She stood over Nathaniel and touched a hand to his forehead. “Got to get some food into you,” she said. “I hope they bring us something more than that little bit of jam and bread that Hannah left behind.”
Elizabeth took some pillows from the bed to build a small fortress on the carpet. “I asked them to send up food,” she said, propping Lily there and gesturing for Daniel so she could sit him opposite his sister. “Perhaps these two will amuse themselves while we eat.”
“Where is Hannah?” Nathaniel asked.
“She went off with a little girl by the name of Jennet. Said they was goin’ to do some exploring.” Curiosity went to the windows and she stood there, leaning with one shoulder against the frame. “You see.” She pointed. “There they go now, barefoot the both of them.”
Elizabeth joined her at the window. Beyond the castle the mountains rose up, granite and heather against a smoke-blue sky. A beautiful day, but in the courtyard below, servants went about their business. Watermen at the well, a gardener with a muddy apron and a basket of greenery, a dairymaid arguing with a groom twice her size, jabbing her finger at him. And Hannah and the girl called Jennet were walking toward the stables just outside the gate, talking as they went.
“Who is she?”
“I don’ know exactly, but she’s a friendly little thing.”
The two of them made a strange pair—one tall with long blue-black braids; the other quick and small and white-blond—and still they looked like little girls anywhere on a summer’s day.
“Do you think it’s safe to let her wander off?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes I do,” Curiosity said firmly. “Let her be a child for once.”
There were men working young horses in the paddocks to the northwest corner of the castle, but what interested Hannah more was the woodland that began just beyond the stables and ran up to the top of the mountain called Aidan Rig. There were pines, juniper, birch and oak, and a stream winding through it all. Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of waterfalls. Hannah would have liked to see them, but Jennet had other ideas: she headed straight for a sprawling oak, threaded her skirt through the waistband of her apron to free her legs, and began to climb, talking to Hannah over her shoulder as she went.
“This is my favorite climbin’ tree. I fell frae that branch”—she paused to point—“and broke my arm. But I was much younger then, and Simon was chasin’ me at the time.” She hopped from limb to limb until she arrived at the offending branch, where she settled herself with one arm slung companionably around the trunk.
“Are ye no’ comin’?”
It had been many months since Hannah had climbed a tree and she wanted to follow Jennet very badly, but she cast a look back toward the gates.
“Ye needna fash yersel’,” Jennet said. “We can see intae the courtyard frae here, should someone come lookin’ for ye.”
This was encouragement enough. She launched herself at the tree and in a minute she landed, a little winded, beside Jennet on a wide, flat branch. She wiggled her toes in the breeze and sniffed: pine sap and musk roses, woodbine and wild thyme, and no trace of salt water. The air hummed with bees at work, and she had never heard anything so musical.
From here Carryckcastle loomed even larger: too many rooms to count, and servants at work everywhere. Around them the mountain valley seemed strangely empty and glowing with color—purple heathers touched with yellow, gorse, scrub evergreens clinging to rocky slopes. Shadows shifted with the wind.
“Why are there trees here and not on those other mountains?”
Jennet cocked her head to one side and shrugged. “Nae man, nae woman,” she sang very softly. “Nae creature wad dare take an axe tae even a single tree o’ the wood on Aidan Rig. The whole ben belongs tae the Guid Neighbors.” And then putting her mouth even closer to Hannah’s ear: “A fairy place, ye ken. They come at dusk, dancin’ and singin’. Simon tolt me that the fairy queen hersel’ comes at dawn, lookin’ for bairns tae steal awa’.”
Hannah considered. She had heard tales of the fairies from her grandmother, and she was curious, indeed. But Jennet’s unwillingness to speak about the
m within their hearing was something to be taken seriously. She nodded.
“Who is Simon?”
Jennet rubbed her cheek against the tree trunk. “Simon was ma brither. He died o’ the putrid sair throat.” She pulled a leaf to fan herself, and it was exactly the same color as her eyes. Then she threw out her free arm as if to take in the whole world.
“Ye can see forever frae this spot.”
“Is this your hiding place?”
Jennet fluttered her fingers. “Ach, nae. Every bairn in Carryck has been up this tree, and their mithers and faithers afore ’em. There’s aye better places tae hide in the castle. Secret passages and hidey-holes and such.” She looked over her shoulder as if she expected to find someone behind her, listening.
Hannah didn’t doubt that the castle would be a good place to explore—it was as big as a village, after all. But she was glad to be out-of-doors right now and in no hurry to go back. Jennet seemed to understand this without being told.
She pointed to the castle and in a prim tone she said: “There’s a tower on each corner, do ye see? Closest tae us is Elphinstone Tower, there. Then comes Forbes Tower, then Campbell, and on the far corner is Johnstone. The pit is in Campbell Tower, but Elphinstone is my favorite.”
“Why is that?”
Jennet grinned. “That would be tellin’ when I’d much rather show ye. But no’ straightawa’.” She pointed with her chin to the northwest corner, where Hannah could just make out the beginnings of a kitchen garden, and a few women at work among the green. “They’ll put me tae weedin’, should I show my face.” The small nose crinkled. “I dinna like weedin’.”
“At home I would be in the cornfield,” Hannah said. “I’m tall enough for the hoe now.” And homesickness blossomed up hot and sour in her mouth. On their ride here she had seen not a single cornstalk, but at Lake in the Clouds it would already be standing as high as her brow, with beans winding up to provide shade for the squash growing below. This year her grandmother and aunt would celebrate the Three Sisters without her.
