Dawn on a Distant Shore (57 page)

Elizabeth saw
Nathaniel tense, as she herself tensed. "I cannot deny that you would be
safer at home," she said. "But you belong with us, and I am glad that
you are here, just the same."

What Elizabeth wanted
most in the world was to bathe in privacy and then to climb into the feather
bed to sleep tucked up against her husband. It had been so many months since
they had shared such a large and comfortable bed, and this half-day journey from
the firth had been more difficult than the last few weeks on the
Isis
.

But it was an idle
wish. The twins needed bathing, and more desperately than she did; the servants
came again to remove the trunks, clear the tables, lay fires, empty cold
bathwater and bring in new. Curiosity insisted on sorting through all their
clothing, separating out those things that needed immediate laundering, and
Hannah determined that one of the maids had an inflamed eye that must be treated
with a particular herb the Hakim had given her, which required a long search
through all her parcels.

Nathaniel stayed clear
of all of this by keeping watch at the window. Dumfries celebrated its delight
with the Royal Navy by having every man of consequence climb up onto a platform
and give a speech, and Nathaniel reported now and then on particularly absurd
or witless turns of phrase, of which there were not a few. At one point a very
drunk old man leaped up into the group of men on the stage and began to sing so
loudly that for a moment the crowd stilled to listen for a few wobbling notes.

"Mick Schiell! Ye
can sing nane!" The shout was accompanied by a well-aimed apple, and the
old man gave in to the crowd and climbed down again so that the speech-making
could continue.

Hannah was listening
closely. At one point she looked up from her basket of herbs with a confused
expression. "How can a frog be papist?"

""Frog"
is a disrespectful term for the French," Elizabeth explained. "Most
of France is Catholic."

Curiosity made her own
disrespectful sound. "I don' know why it is folks are always stirrin'
things up. Always lookin' for a way to get bloody."

Hannah pursed her
mouth thoughtfully. "It's not much different from home."

"True enough. We
got enough trouble of our own, don't need to go lookin' for any fresh foolery."

But she met
Elizabeth's eye when she said this, and there was a ghost of a smile there, a
kind of weary acceptance. She got up, and spread her skirt smooth with her
hands. "I'm tired," she announced. "And I cain't deny, that bed
looks mighty sweet. I'll wish you all a good rest."

But even with the
twins settled and Curiosity and Hannah in the next room, Elizabeth did not have
Nathaniel's full attention. And how could she, when he finally lowered himself
into hot water laced with soap? And so she took a turn at the window, her own
attention divided between Nathaniel and the scene below in the square. Thomas
Paine, or what was left of him, twirled at the end of a rope while boys pelted
him with rocks and dung.

"Dumfries doesn't
suit you, Boots."

She laughed. "Did
you think it might?"

Nathaniel slid down
deeper into the tub in a futile attempt to submerge his shoulders and knees at
the same time. "I can't figure out if it's Scotland or that crowd in the
square that has you out of sorts."

"Both," she
said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. "And I am worried
about this outing of yours."

He met her gaze
directly. "If you don't want me to go, you'd best just say so."

Elizabeth considered.
She could ask him to stay, and in such terms that he would give up this scheme
of a nighttime ride to an unfamiliar tavern frequented by rough trade. But then
she would have accomplished very little: her own poor mood exchanged for his
sleeplessness, and this she could not justify to herself.

Nathaniel bent his
head to pour a dipper of water over his soapy hair. The twilight was deepening
now, and it gilded the wet skin at the back of his neck. A neck like any other.
He was blood and bone; he was strong, and clever, and quick. He would go out into
this curious Scottish dusk, a sky streaked the color of gilded roses and ash
and ocher, and when he had done what he must do, he would find his way back to
her again. She must trust him, as he had once trusted her to undertake a
perilous journey.

She said, "They
will light the bonfire soon, and that will be a great distraction. I suppose
that will be the best time for you to go."

He blinked the water
out of his eyes. "That's not what I asked you, Boots."

"I know what you
asked me." She came to kneel beside the copper tub and take the dipper
from him. While she rinsed his hair she said, "Last night you said
something to me, I cannot quite get it out of my mind. You said you might as
well be in chains for all the good you are to me."

He started to speak,
and she hushed him.

"I will not have
you in chains, not even of my own making. But promise me you'll be careful, and
that you'll be back by dawn."

Nathaniel caught her
wrist and pressed his mouth to her palm, his beard stubble rough against her skin.
"I promise. Maybe I'll scratch at your window like the Green Man, come
dawn."

"More likely you
will come to wake me with cold feet," she said, surprised and disquieted
by the shudder that ran up her spine. Come dawn, come dusk.
Superstition
,
she reminded herself.
Nothing more. Nothing less.

The bonfire came to
life against the darkening sky with a roar that drowned out the crowd.
Nathaniel watched from the lane beside the King's Arms while he planned his
route to the livery through the mass of people, young and old, faces shining
with excitement and their voices hoarse with liquor. Mr. Thornburn capered
around the fire with the rest of them, and Nathaniel wondered if he had any
idea how much Dumfries looked like any Kahnyen'kehâka village after a battle well
fought.

He pulled his
preacher's hat down over his brow and skirted the edge of the open area,
staying out of the fire's light. And here he found there was another Dumfries,
one that watched silently from the shadows.

Just beyond the tiled
roofs of the inn and the red-sandstone assembly hall was a sea of small cottages.
On every one of those thatched roofs, a man or boy sat perched with a bucket
between his knees and a broom soaking, at the ready, wary eyes following sparks
up into the deepening night sky. In doorways mothers stood with babies on their
hips and silent husbands at their backs. An old man with cropped gray hair,
hard faced and remote, sat straight spined on a mule and the fire reflected red
in his eyes. In the near dark he put Nathaniel in mind of Sky-Wound-Round, his
first wife's grandfather, the man who had first led him into battle. Homesickness
rose in him, but he put it away.

I dreamt my lady came
and found me dead ...

And breathed such life
with kisses in my lips

that I revived, and
was an emperor.

Nathaniel looked back
over the square and saw a single candle flame at the window. Elizabeth was
watching still, the pale heart shape of her face floating in the dusk. She was
waiting for him already, though he was hardly gone.

There was a light in
the livery, and the ringing of hammer on metal. He went in, a sack of thick
five-guinea pieces in his fist. The Tory gold had been nothing but trouble
since Chingachgook brought it out of the bush almost forty years ago, but now
he would put it to good use.

He did not offer his
name, but he did not need to: the sight of the coins in the light of the fire did
their work. The blacksmith put down his hammer and went to get the best horse
he had.

It was a smithy like
any other; it smelled of hot metal and manure and sweat. A tankard sat on a
rough table next to the remains of an oat cake and a bit of dry cheese. On a nail
next to the door hung a woolen cloak with well-worn boots standing beneath it,
from the size of them the blacksmith's own.

He brought the roan
fully saddled. A fine animal, no longer young but with strong legs and an intelligent
look about her. Nathaniel offered him twice what she would have fetched in New-York,
and the blacksmith sold her without hesitation.

"The boots and
cape. What do ye want for them?"

The blacksmith watched
him from the corner of his eye. "I've had yon boots a guid ten year. Broke
in just richt, they are."

Nathaniel put another
gold piece down and the man grunted in surprise. The coin disappeared into his
fist.

"Anythin' else,
Dominie?"

Dominie
. In an hour the whole
town would hear about a preacher with a pocket full of gold coin, foolish
enough to spend five guineas on old boots and a worn cloak. A stranger whose Scots
had an odd feel to it, like a Hielander who had learned it secondhand. It would
not take Moncrieff long to put it all together, and Nathaniel did not want
Moncrieff with him on this errand.

"Aye," he
said. He put five more coins on the barrel. "Guns. And your silence."

The dark head swung
around and the blacksmith looked straight at him for the first time. Sweaty hair
plastered his temples; the left side of his face smooth and slack, the mouth
dragged down at the corner. The right eye squinted. Nathaniel was glad of the
shadows and his hat's broad brim.

From the tavern next
door came the sound of a man singing, a strong voice, clear and true.

Does haughty Gaul
invasion threat?

Then let the loons
beware, sir,

There's wooden walls
upon our seas,

And volunteers on
shore, sir:

The Nith shall rin to
Corsincon,

And Criffel sink in
Solway,

Ere we permit a
foreign foe

On British ground to
rally.

O! let us not, like
snarling curs,

In wrangling be
divided,

Till slap come in an
unco loon

And wi' a rung decide
it.

Be Britain still to
Britain true,

Amang ourselves
united;

But never but by
British hands

Maun British wrangs be
righted.

The blacksmith's mouth
twisted as he looked at the gold. As much money as he would make in two years
of pounding out horseshoes. Without a word he went to a cabinet in the corner
and selected a ring from the clutch at his waist to turn the lock.

What Nathaniel wanted
was a rifle; the best he expected was an old musket. But when the blacksmith
put the bundle on the barreltop and unwrapped it, he got more than he had hoped
for: a pair of holster pistols, well balanced and easy in the hand. Long brass
barrels and walnut stocks, etched silver lockplates. Weapons made for a rich
man and rarely fired.

Outside the noise of
the crowd rose and fell like an ill wind.

"How'd you come
by these?" He wanted the pistols, but he wouldn't spend even an hour in
the Dumfries tollbooth for thievery.

The man shrugged.
"They're no' stolen." He dropped a sack of powder and another of
bullets onto the barrel and swept the coins away into the front pocket of his
apron. Then he touched his temple with two fingers, a salute of kinds for Nathaniel
or his coin, and turned back to the forge.

Nathaniel strapped the
holster across his chest and wrapped the cloak around himself. It smelled of cheap
tobacco and wet sheep, but it was thick and the wide collar stood to the brim
of his hat. It would keep him warm, and with any luck it would give him some
degree of anonymity.

He left Dumfries
behind at a trot, glad of the night wind in his face. The road was empty and
the roan was surefooted and eager. Nathaniel gave her her head, and she skirted
mudholes he wouldn't have seen in the dark.

By his reckoning
Mump's Hall was six miles south on the road that went down to the sea. He kept
an eye out for the markers he had found during the long coach ride: a collapsed
stone wall, a wooden footbridge arched like a cat's back. In the light of the
moon crofters' cottages seemed to spring directly out of the ground: piles of
stones stacked together without mortar, more like caves than a home a man would
build for himself.

An acre of wheat, and
one of oats. A hill to the west with cows as shaggy as dogs grazing by
moonlight. Sheep in a huddle against a fence, hayricks, more oats. A few poor
trees marked a stream running noisily into the sea, just to the east now. The
smell of it was in his nose: salt and sand and marsh. He went over another bridge
and at a turn in the road the tavern, finally, with a lantern burning at the
door.

Nathaniel tied the
horse to the hitching post and paused to take his bearings. The building itself
smelled of spilled ale and roasting mutton, and with every step the boggy
ground gave out a soft belch and the stench of rotting greenery.