Shadowbrook Part 14

Nicole was restless. The heat perhaps. And the fact that Quent had been gone four days. She wished she had gone with him, but that was impossible. While she remained a guest in the Hale household she couldn't march off on a trek to Albany with a man to whom she was not related. But when the time came to go north, she would no longer feel constrained by such mannerly concerns. Some obligations were more urgent than the requirement to, as Maman would have said, comport herself always as a lady.

Had Maman always been a lady? Alone with Papa, doing whatever it was married ladies did with their husbands, was she as reserved and elegant as usual, or did she fling herself at him the way the squaws did when the savage drums pounded out their blood rhythms? That day when she was little, when she saw her parents kiss, were they- "Ah, Nicole. There you are. Matilda Davidson's time has come. She's been huge these past few months. Twins, I'll warrant And her first birth. I'm afraid it won't be easy. I thought you might come with me to lend a hand down at the sawmill."

"But of course, Madame Hale." In this world, as in the one she had left behind, such an errand was a duty of the squire's wife. Nicole knew that she was, for whatever reason, being treated as a daughter of the house. "I would be glad to be of any a.s.sistance."

"Thank you, my dear. I'm getting some things together from Kitchen Hannah's stores. You've seen the little room where we keep the linens? Good. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to go there and fill this basket with some clean cloths. We'll be needing an ample supply."

She found the Indian things in a small chest in the linen room. Nicole had already filled the basket with cloths; when she opened the chest she was clearly prying. She knew it was wrong, but she had no shame. The chest was made of wood painted a dark, blackish green, and put carefully aside under a table beside the window where pins and thread and other sewing things were kept. It drew her like a magnet. She dropped to her knees, pulled it forward, and flipped up the cover with an excited sense that some of the questions she had been harboring since she arrived were about to be answered.

In a manner of speaking, they were. The clothes were folded neatly and she shook them out with eager hands. A tunic, leggings, a few headbands. Everything made of snow-white bearhide, beautifully cured and remarkably soft. No moccasins; she already had those.

"Mademoiselle Nicole, are you in there? Are you ready?" She shoved the clothes back in the chest and, picking up the basket of cloths, ran out to the hallway. "I am ready, madame."

They traveled in a wagon drawn by one horse. A stable boy called Little George helped them up to the high front bench and stowed their things behind them. When everything was ready, he handed the reins to his mistress and Lorene Hale expertly clucked the horse into motion. "No need to take any of the others away from their work just now," she said. "Harvest is coming, and there's much to do. And I can handle any wagon as well as a man. Does that shock you, my dear?"

Ah, a test. "Not at all, madame. Maman always said one of the marks of a true lady was to do whatever was required-but with as much grace and elegance as she could manage. You drive the wagon with great charm, Madame Hale. I hope you do not think me too forward for saying so."

"Not at all. I am flattered. And your maman sounds very wise. I'm sure she was beautiful as well."

"Oui, madame. Very, very beautiful." She had at least pa.s.sed the first part of the test. That emboldened her. They were out of sight of Shadowbrook now, moving along the wide road Quent had told her had been laid out by his grandfather before even the building of the big house began. "Please, Madame Hale, both Monsieur Quent and Monsieur Cormac have been so kind to me, protected me so well ..."

"Yes? You have a question, might as well ask it." Lorene held the reins effortlessly and the horse seemed to know his way with no guidance. She turned to the younger woman and her eyes smiled encouragement.

"Monsieur Cormac's mother, I believe she was called Pohantis, when did she die?"

The eyes of Quent's mother were the same pale blue as his own, but Nicole had never seen Quent's eyes go cold in that way. Not when he looked at her. Madame Hale only turned the icy glance on her for a moment, then she looked away. "Who talked to you about Pohantis?"

"Monsieur Quent. But he said only that she died. And that she was buried here in the cemetery of Shadowbrook. I wondered why-"

"She's been gone for almost twenty years, I think. C'mon, you old nag!" Lorene tightened her grip on the reins and became very busy urging the horse forward. "We do not wish to arrive at the sawmill too late to be of any use."

Matilda Kip Davidson-wife of Hank Davidson, who was the son of the sawyer Ely Davidson-produced a son shortly before the following dawn, after a labor that involved much blood and pain, but enormous courage and very few screams. "A boy, Madame Davidson," Nicole said, looking into the new mother's worried eyes. "A very big strong boy, which is why you had so much labor to bring him into the world."

"He is healthy? "He is perfect, wonderful. And so is his maman." Nicole sponged the new mother's face while Lorene swaddled the infant.

"And you," Lorene murmured, smiling fondly at Nicole. "You too are wonderful."

Eh bien, she had pa.s.sed another test. But what did it matter? She was going to Quebec to hide herself in the monastery of one of the strictest and most penitential orders of the Church. She had made a vow to G.o.d; there could be no turning back. Still, after making the faux pas about Pohantis and discovering how icy cold those blue eyes could be, she was glad to be again smiled upon by Madame Hale.

They left the sawmill after Nicole had been formally presented to the three other slaves who worked there, hauling logs and feeding them into the numerous water-powered saws that terrified Nicole the moment she saw them. The three were brothers, little more than boys, named Sampson, Westerly, and Josiah, and they looked so much alike Nicole knew she would never be able to tell them apart. But she did not need to. She would be at Shadowbrook another few weeks, perhaps less. Just until poor Monsieur Hale recovered, or most likely died.

Sitting in the wagon thinking of the impending death of Quent's father, Nicole made a furtive sign of the cross. She saw Madame Hale purposefully avert her eyes. Nicole being a Catholic-merci a le bon Dieu-was something the other woman chose to ignore. Since Nicole's refusal of her first invitation there had been no further request that she appear at madame's Sunday morning services. Of course Nicole would never partic.i.p.ate in heretic wors.h.i.+p. Madame Hale had to know that, but if it bothered her she did not show it. That was another part of the strange dance they were dancing. A step forward, a step back, and always, Nicole knew, Madame Hale calling the tune. Like the leaders of the Virginia Reel she had seen in Alexandria. Everyone dipping and twisting and turning, and winding up exactly where they were when the dance began.

It was mid-morning and a copper-colored sun burned in a cloudless blue sky. "You are tired, madame-perhaps I could drive the wagon."

"You have done it before?"

"Never, but-Mon Dieu, what is that?"

Lorene reined in the horse, clucking softly and murmuring approval when it stopped and patiently waited for her next command. There came the sound of a low singing in the windless air, a tune that rose and fell and rose again. "Sally Robin," Lorene said. "I thought that's what it had to be."

It had been an exhausting night, and Lorene was tired in her very bones-more weary inside herself than this girl-child, on whom she pinned so much of her hope for the future and her chance to redeem the past, could ever know. But she mustn't let that interfere with her grand scheme. All these years, so many mistakes, so much shame ... If she could leave the Patent in good hands, in Quentin's hands; if something of what they had been given charge of here could grow and go on and be protected, perhaps then it would not all have been for nothing. "You must meet Sally Robin, mademoiselle. She is one of the marvels of Shadowbrook."

They left the wagon where it was and the horse untethered in the middle of the road. "They're not going anywhere, and neither is anyone likely to be coming in the other direction," Lorene said, clambering down and leading Nicole into the bordering woods.

The song was all around them now. It filled the air and quivered in the trees and trembled in the leaves. The ground under their feet soaked it up and gave it back. Nicole wanted to say that she had never heard such music, but what she saw in the clearing they soon came to silenced even her wonder.

Nicole at once recognized the domed woven straw beehives known as skeps. When she was a child she and Maman had spent summers with Grandmere, at her country house outside Paris. There were skeps there as well, and a beekeeper to tend them and gather the honey. But when he worked with the bees, Grandmere's keeper wore heavy gloves and a wide-brimmed hat from which hung a long veil, and of necessity he destroyed the hive in the process. The black woman collecting honey from the skeps near the sawmill used her bare hands to reach inside the hive and detach the waxy combs laden with the golden treasure. She wore no protective clothing of any sort, and she didn't seem in any kind of hurry. She examined each comb to see if it was full of honey before putting it in her basket. Those not quite ready were returned to the hive. And all the while what seemed like thousands of bees surrounded her, circling lazily, buzzing softly in what seemed a counterpoint to her melody.

When Sally Robin was finished she picked up her basket and walked toward them, still surrounded by the cloud of bees. Nicole instinctively pulled back. The woman chuckled. "Don't you mind yourself, missy. Don't you never mind. These be my friends and they don't be fussing you none long as I'm here." She sang a few notes, different from the earlier tune, and the swarm veered off in the direction of the skeps.

"Incroyable. I have never seen such a thing."

"Nor, I think, has anyone else," Lorene murmured. "Sally Robin is unique."

The beekeeper was taller than any of the Shadowbrook blacks Nicole had met so far. She was a thin woman with skin the color of milky coffee and an unusually long neck, and prominent cheekbones that defined her face. Her hair was cut short, a cap of black fuzz that barely covered her scalp. It was impossible to tell her age. "Mr. Hale bought her at the slave market in New York City the morning of our wedding," Lorene said. "Sally Robin and I came to the Patent together, didn't we, Sally?"

"That be entirely true, mistress. Long time now."

"Nearly thirty-four years. And when he bought her, my husband had no idea of what she could do. We didn't know what a treasure we were getting, only that she was a seasoned slave from the Islands. But Mr. Hale, he looked in her eyes and said he thought she might be useful."

"Don't know about treasure, mistress. I do what I can. Long as ..."

Her words trailed off, and Nicole was conscious of a tension between the black woman and her mistress that neither seemed to want to address. It was almost as if Madame Hale were embarra.s.sed and the slave were angry.

"How's Solomon the Barrel Maker, Sally Robin?" Lorene asked finally. It seemed to Nicole that whatever had transpired between the two women, it was the mistress who had given in.

"He be bettering. I be looking after him."

It occurred to Nicole that she had not seen Sally Robin that day in the Frolic Ground. She'd have been bound to notice a woman so tall and extraordinary looking. But she remembered clearly the name of the man being whipped. Solomon the Barrel Maker. And she had not seen him since, though nearly a month had gone by.

"Solomon be bettering quickly in his skin," Sally Robin added. "It be his spirit that's still poorly. He never told no lie to Master John. He-"

"I'll send Master Quent to visit Solomon." Lorene cut off the complaint as soon as it got started. However much a fool John might be, she could not be put in the position of having to take sides between her son and a slave. "As soon as he gets back from Albany I'll ask Master Quent to ride down here for a visit."

"Solomon be liking that, mistress." Sally Robin appeared to have thought better about her audacity. "And I be looking after Mistress Matilda now that the birthing be done. Don't you worry your mind about her."

"I shan't, Sally Robin. Not for a moment."

Lorene and Nicole returned to the wagon and began the long journey back to Shadowbrook, and not until they neared the big house did Lorene break the weary silence she'd maintained for two hours. "As I said, Sally Robin came from the Islands. A seasoned slave."

"When you buy them, you know their history?" Like the pedigree of a horse or the breed of a cow, Nicole wanted to say, but thought better of it.

"Most folks try to find out something besides the auctioneer's patter. It was easy for us. My papa owned a piece of the slave market on Wall Street in New York City, and a fleet of Guinea s.h.i.+ps, the boats that sail to Africa and bring back the nigras. Will Devrey always knew everything about the merchandise going on the auction block. Sally Robin's a skilled healer as well as a beekeeper, makes all our unguents and lotions here on the Patent. But she never attends a birthing. Won't go near the new mother until it's over. Clemency the Washerwoman tells me it's because Sally Robin's barren. She's been with Solomon almost from the day she arrived at Shadowbrook, but she's never had a child. Clemency advised against my insisting on Sally Robin's attendance at childbirth. She's a very wise old woman, is Clemency. The other slaves look to her for guidance in many things. You'd do well always to-"

Dear G.o.d, what was she thinking of? She must not speak as if Nicole were already her daughter-in-law. Ephraim hadn't yet agreed, and as far as she knew, Quent and this young woman hadn't made any plans. But the girl was considering it. Dreaming of it, perhaps. Oh yes. Just look at how pink your cheeks are right now. You are thinking much the same things that I am thinking, little Mademoiselle Nicole. Oh yes.

The long gun with the maple stock felt right slung over his shoulder. Quent had not realized how naked he was without his weapon until he replaced it. Still, he was glad to have given the other gun to Corm. Crazy to go riding off looking for G.o.d knows what kind of enemy without one. Crazier still the way Corm's own gun had disappeared. Genevieve hadn't acted as if she had anything to hide. She'd even urged him to stay longer. Spend another night with us, Quent The children never tire of your stories. He'd begged off, using his father's ill health as an excuse, and left the Lydius house soon after noon. It still wasn't quite the dinner hour, but he didn't plan to set off on the trek to Shadowbrook with an empty belly.

The taproom at the Sign of the Nag's Head was about three-quarters full. It smelled of men and animals and old ale and nearly raw spirits, but above everything was the aroma of some kind of rich stew. Venison, Quent guessed. The notice over the ale barrels by the entrance proved him right. "TODAY ONLY," it read, "JENZY'S VENISON JAMBALAYA."

"Who's Jenzy and what's jambalaya?" Quent asked.

Old man Groesbeck was preparing to tap a keg. He paused with the mallet in his hand only long enough to identify the questioner. "Oh, it be you. Should have guessed. Don't be many folks around here not be knowing Jenzy. She be marrying my boy two years past. Found her down near New Orleans, he did. A jambalaya be what we call a stew. Only it be different when she makes it in the way of her people down there in the French country."

"The same but different, is that it?"

"Ja, pretty much. Got some squirrel pie, too, if you'd rather have that. Jenzy make that my old woman's way. Or oysters fresh this morning. Six wooden pennies for a dozen. Five if you pay with coppers."

Someone called out that he was peris.h.i.+ng with thirst and Groesbeck should stop talking and get on with tapping the keg. "Two dozen of the biggest oysters," Quent said. "And a gla.s.s of your best ale to wash them down. I'll be over there waiting." He took a seat on the bench that ran along the taproom's west wall. It gave him a good vantage point for surveying the scene.

The last time he'd been in here-when he'd brought Nicole because she was desperate for food and drink and a place to sit down out of the sun-it had been later in the day. The taproom had been too crowded for him to identify who was who in the throng. Now he could clearly see a pair of wh.o.r.es drinking at a table at the far end. The trappers with them looked as if they were already too drunk to be able to use the services they were paying for. There were a number of local craftsmen and laborers as well, and four or five tars in their distinctive short jackets and striped s.h.i.+rts and oiled breeches.

"Two dozen oysters," the barmaid said as she put the plate in front of him. "Opened 'em meself, I did. Seeing as how they were for Uko Nyakwai. Might open something else if you asked me nicely."

Quent laughed and flipped her a wooden s.h.i.+lling and she caught it expertly before it could fall to the sawdust-covered floor. "That one's for old man Groesbeck. There's another meant just for you if you tell me if you've seen any strangers around here in the past week or two."

"Always be strangers in Albany. What with them boats coming and going every day the way they do. Be even more now that it's almost harvest time."

"Yes, I know about the tars and the traders. I was thinking more about Indians."

"Old Groesbeck don't encourage Indians. They drink too much too fast, then they make trouble. Ain't too many slop shops or taverns in Albany as welcomes savages. Best if they come into town, do their trades, and get a jug to take with 'em."

"All right, what about just walking around the town, then. Someone you've not seen before. A Huron perhaps."

"Ain't never seen no-"

"Stop your jawing, girl!" Groesbeck's yell cut through the hum of voices in the taproom. "Ye be coming back to work sometime this day, or do I gotta be floggin' the skin off yer lazy back?"

The girl shot a quick look at the landlord. And thought of the s.h.i.+lling the Red Bear had promised. "Hold yer water, ye poxed old man! I be coming." Then, to Quent, "Only stranger like what you mean that I be seein' round here be the Scot what's living above the gristmill. The Widow Kreiger rented him a room nearly a year past, but he still talks like his tongue's got a knot in it. Can't hardly understand him meself. Though there be some as talk to him often as you like. Even giving up the chance of a few coppers out back in order to do it."

"One of the wh.o.r.es, you mean. A Scot comes in here and talks to one of the wh.o.r.es regularly. Is that it?"

"That's it. What about that s.h.i.+lling then?"

"Which one of the wh.o.r.es?"

"Annie." The girl turned and craned her neck to see over the heads of the crowd. "Don't see her just now. Not the Scot neither, but if you come back a bit later, I bet he'll be-"

"You be heading for a flogging, girl! Ain't bein' no doubt about it."

Quent flipped her the coin. "Here. And tell Groesbeck I kept you. And that if he takes a whip to you, I'll return the favor."

The girl caught the coin and opened her mouth wide in a burst of laughter so strong it jiggled her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Three of her top teeth were black with rot and most of the bottom row were missing. "Don't ye bother yerself none about that. The old fool's been promising to flog me since he bought me indenture. Never has and never will. Can't stand the sight of blood, old Groesbeck. Can't even stick a pig without weeping. You come back later, Uko Nyakwai. I'll point 'em both out, the Scot and Annie. And ye can have anything else ye likes while we're about it."

"I'll be looking forward to it." G.o.d protect him from ever being that desperate for a woman.

Quent ate and left the taproom, considering his options. He could look for the Scot over at the gristmill, or hang about and come back to the Nag's Head in hopes of finding him there later. But there was no Scot in any part of Corm's tale, and no reason to think this one-whoever he might be-had any role in the business of the sweat lodge and the Midewiwin priest and the dead Huron. Besides, he was anxious to return to Shadowbrook. His father's health, of course, as he-d said to Genevieve. But also, or perhaps first, Nicole.

SAt.u.r.dAY, AUGUST 15, 1754.

THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN-HUDSON RIVER CORRIDOR.

In the days when the Kahniankehaka, the Keepers of the Eastern Door, truly ruled these lands, a Huron war party would move with more stealth than Lantak and his eight braves practiced now. Before the white stink covered the land and the testides of red men shrank like those of boy children in a cold wind, Lantak would have been a mighty war chief, not an outlaw driven from the Longhouse by chiefs who had the hearts of squaws, and ran from their enemies like chattering squirrels fleeing a hawk.

In the past he would have been at the head of thousands of warriors, coming to engage other Haudenosaunee, the braves of the Five Nations who had bound themselves to observe the Kayanashakowa, the great law of the union that had set itself against the more ancient Huron Confederacy. Theirs would have been a war of red men against red men, true warriors against a worthy enemy. Instead he moved through a land of all but empty forests and rivers. He saw none of the wooden boats made by the whites, but no birch canoes either. Lantak and his braves were alone on the water they called Oswegatchie and that the French had named Lake Champlain. Their two canoes traveled in the sun-coming direction, in a world of silence broken only by the soft, slapping noises of their perfectly synchronized paddles.

The Haudenosaunee had been put on this land by the Great Spirit, but they had allowed the others to come and make them slaves and squaws. Their lands were infested by vermin and they did nothing. They had shriveled like dog t.u.r.ds in the sun, all their life juices dried up and gone. When he thought these things, the burning began inside Lantak, and the fire that would not die roared in his belly and he yearned for release.

The sun was dropping behind them, going into the center of the earth to rest Already the three-parts-round moon could be seen in the sky above the trees to their left Lantak smelled the approaching dark, and the stench of white men. The French were not far off. Fort St. Frederic, the place the English called Crown Point, was only three days' journey ahead. The French patrols might easily come this far. When the sun returned, he decided, the war party must leave the water and travel through the forest, take the long way to their destination to avoid the fort. So be it. A wise war sachem chose his battles; he did not allow them to choose him.

He raised his hand and pointed at a cove with a shallow beach, and both canoes turned effortlessly and headed for land. "We will camp here tonight," Lantak said when the canoes had been brought on land and carefully hidden. "Tomorrow we journey by foot. If we find horses we will take them. If we do not it does not matter. When the sun comes back no more than this many times," Lantak held up the ten fingers of his two hands, "we will be on the land of our enemy and there are horses there. We will take them, and many scalps, and some white captives to caress." Then the fire in his belly would be quieted. The screams would calm it and the blaze would leave him in peace for a time.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1754.

SHADOWBROOK.

"Look, Ephraim." Lorene spun the chair that Solomon the Barrel Maker had fas.h.i.+oned for his master when Ephraim first took ill. Where its rear legs should have been were big, barrel-stave wheels. If you tilted the chair slightly backward, it made moving Ephraim a thing of ease. She was adept at using the chair and she was able to quickly adjust his position so he was facing the window. "Quent. And the girl, Mademoiselle Crane. See how he lifts her into the wagon? I told you. He's smitten with her."

"Because he a.s.sists her up onto something too high for her to reach by herself? What does that mean?"

Dear G.o.d, but men were obtuse. And blind. "It's the way he does it, Ephraim. And look how he waits before driving off. Asking her if she's comfortable, I'm sure."

"So it's Quent's good manners I'm supposed to be impressed by. I don't think-"

"That's it exactly. You don't think. You're being a stubborn fool, Ephraim. And you're putting the Patent in harm's way."

He was mostly too ill to laugh. Not enough breath for it, and the belly pain that was always with him was worsened by laughter. This time he allowed himself a small chuckle. "How easy it is to tease you, Lorene. And after all these years you still blush at my words." It had been remarkable the way he'd burned for her the first time he'd seen her. Just a girl of sixteen, younger even than this little French half-breed that had turned his household around. Lorene had brought some suns.h.i.+ne to the place too, back then. And some hope. He'd made the decision he had to make and never let on how it pained him, but it had been a black and bitter thing to think of John taking over Shadowbrook. "Look," he repeated with another small laugh, "the flush is on you even now."

Lorene glanced down at the pink suffusing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s where the corset pushed them above her bodice, and felt the heat of it on her neck and cheeks. "We're not talking about me, Ephraim. I'm trying to tell you that-"