Part 27 (1/2)
”I think Pere Antoine may be in league with Lantak. And that together they are up to no good.” The cabin was not overly warm, but the Jesuit was soaked with sweat. ”I saw Lantak and his renegade once, with their hair cut into scalp locks and their faces painted for war. I was told they went south to attack-I do not know who or where-because the Franciscan paid them.”
”Lantak kills for pleasure. If he gets money as well he considers himself twice lucky. You think this Franciscan priest is some kind of spy?”
”I do not know.” Philippe leaned forward, bent beneath the weight of his earnestness. ”It makes no sense. I don't know what to think.”
”No sense at all,” Cormac agreed. ”Let us leave it for the moment. Tell me again about the French troops.”
An hour later Philippe Faucon had left the farm, and Cormac was preparing to do the same. ”Where will you go?” Marni demanded. ”Are you going to look for that renegade Huron?”
”Not immediately.”
”What are you doing there at the fireplace?”
”I'm taking something I put here.” He pried a stone loose and reclaimed the medicine bag of Suckauhock. ”As for Lantak ... the master is more important than the dog. The Jesuit said Lantak was controlled by the Franciscan. Pere Antoine. I go first to Quebec.”
”Bien! C'est parfait! Take me with you. I won't be any trouble. I know my way about the city. I can find a place to stay. There's a baker who will give me work and-”
”I can't take you with me. You'll slow me down too much. Besides, what about Mumu and Tutu? What about the pig and the chickens and-”
”You have been here all this time and you understand nothing.”
Her normally pale skin was flushed dark red, and her voice shook. The obvious pa.s.sion in her made the sap rise in him. It was all Corm could do not to grab her and have her right now on the floor in front of the fire. One last time before he left.
”I hate this place. It is my prison.” Her breath came hard, making her chest rise and fall beneath the homespun frock and pinafore. ”I should never have come back here. I do not care if the d.y.k.es break apart and this farm is washed out to sea.”
He was rock hard but it was not simply l.u.s.t. A great deal had already pa.s.sed between them, but standing here with her, knowing he had no choice but to leave her, Cormac understood that he didn't just want to possess her to put out the fire between his legs, he wanted her to be his for always. He slipped the medicine bag around his neck and hid the pouch beneath his s.h.i.+rt. Then he went to Marni and put his hands on her shoulders. ”I have to go. But I will come back. I give you my word.”
His touch burned her skin. Through the fabric of her clothes, through all the layers that hid who she truly was, she could feel Cormac Shea's fingers on her skin.
Marni had exposed herself to him in ways she had done with no one else, not even sweet Jean the baker who was to have been her husband and who smelled always of flour and yeast. She reached up and traced his scar with a single finger. He did not pull away. ”Je t'aime,” she said. ”Je t'aime, Cormac Shea.”
”Je t'aime, Marni Benoit.” He had not said those words before. Not to her, not to any woman. ”Je t'aime, but now I must go.”
”Very well. That I understand. Only I do not understand why you will not take me with you.”
”Because I must travel very fast, and to do that I must travel alone.”
”But why? If the black robe is correct and there are truly six thousand French troops on their way to Quebec, and G.o.d knows how many English s.h.i.+ps waiting to hunt them down, what can you do about it? Why should a war between the French and the English be a reason to separate us?”
”Because I am wabnum, the white wolf. It is my totem.”
”And the white wolf approached the bear that was near the little birds.” She had sat in this room with the Jesuit and Cormac and listened to her metis lover speak of his dream as if it were a thing as real as the table or the stools or the jug of spruce beer. As real and as important as she was. ”You are sure?”
”I am very sure.”
”Alors.” She pulled away from him. ”And I can't keep you here or go with you?”
”Not this time. But I will return, Marni Benoit. I will come back for you. You can rely on that.”
Chapter Sixteen.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1755.
THE OHIO COUNTRY.
TWENTY-TWO HUNDRED men, a hundred and fifty wagons, and five hundred packhorses carrying siege guns-monstrously heavy eight-inch howitzers and twelve-pound cannon-pushed their way through thickly wooded wilderness, over swampy mora.s.ses, and across rock-strewn mountains, cutting their own road as they went.
It was insanity.
”You have to tell him,” Quent said. ”He trusts you. You know it can't be done, not and come out the other end with men who are ready to fight.”
”I've tried,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”He won't listen. The plan was made while he was still in London. And General Braddock takes his own counsel as best.”
Was.h.i.+ngton stared straight ahead, his face grim. So you've learned something since the last time, Quent thought. Put that together with that insane courage of yours, you could be a formidable soldier one day. ”Braddock's going to fail. If there was some way to make him understand that, maybe-”
”He's like someone who thinks they've spoken to the Almighty. Nothing can change his mind or convince him there's another way.” Was.h.i.+ngton hesitated. ”The General,” he said at last, ”has conceived a four-p.r.o.nged attack. And this is only one part of it.”
They were walking together behind a group of provincials whose job was to roll out of the way the trees the axe wielders felled. They did the work in a constant had of cursing, sweating and groaning with the effort and the heat.
Quent drew Was.h.i.+ngton deep enough into the forest to m.u.f.fle the sounds of Braddocks army spending its lifeblood hacking a road through the woods. ”Exactly what are you trying to tell me?”
”When Braddock was back in Alexandria, he met with the governors: Dinwiddie of Virginia and s.h.i.+rley of Ma.s.sachusetts, and De Lancey of New York. But of course they have their various legislatures to contend with and-”
”Yes, very well. I don't want a lesson in politics. A four-p.r.o.nged attack, you said. If this is one, what are the others?”
”s.h.i.+rley of Ma.s.sachusetts is to take two regiments and seize Fort Niagara. William Johnson is to lead his Mohawks and some colonials to Lake Champlain where they're to take Fort St. Frederic at Crown Point.”
Quent's heart slammed in his chest By water Fort St. Frederic was a three-day journey from Shadowbrook, a straight run from Lake Champlain into Bright Fish Water. ”He is mad. There are settlements near both those objectives. Farms and homes and towns. It's-” He broke off. ”Sweet Jesus Christ. Duquesne, Frederic, and Niagara. That's three. And the fourth?”
There was a hint of bitterness in Was.h.i.+ngton's voice. ”The fourth a.s.sault's to be made on the two French forts that guard the Chignecto Isthmus up in Nova Scotia. Beausejour and Gaspareau. And there's something else. Apparently the French are sending reinforcements to Quebec and London has dispatched a fleet to intercept them.”
”They are all mad,” Quent said again. ”Look at what's happening right here. The column is so strung out it-”
”Gentleman, I take it you are both well? Not stopping here because of any illness, are you? If I can be of a.s.sistance ...”
The English doctor appeared, the one Braddock kept in tow to look after the wh.o.r.es and hopefully keep his men from being laid low by the various diseases that accompanied f.u.c.king. ”We're fine, Dr. Walton,” Was.h.i.+ngton replied. ”Thank you for your concern, but it's not warranted.”
”d.a.m.ned hot though, isn't it?” Xavier Walton mopped his face with a red bandanna that had been given him some months back by the first woman he'd treated. He'd painted her privates with a tincture of mercury and bled her from the thigh-all the while saying Paters in his head, reminding himself as well as the Lord that he was vowed to chast.i.ty, and trying to avert his eyes while still doing his duty. The bandanna was the brightest thing he'd ever owned. These days he wore a black jacket and black breeches. Had he been revealed as a Catholic priest, a Jesuit, no doubt Braddock would hang him as the spy he was. The thought was seductive.