Drums of Autumn (114 page)

56

CONFESSIONS OF THE FLESH

H
e woke a little before dawn. It was still black dark, but the air had changed; the embers had burned to staleness and the forest’s breath moved past his face.

Alexandre was gone. He lay alone under the tattered deerskin, very cold.

“Alexandre?” he whispered hoarsely. “Père Ferigault?”

“I am here.” The young priest’s voice was soft, somehow remote, though he sat no more than a yard away.

Roger rose up on one elbow, squinting. Once the sleep had left his eyes, he could see dimly. Alexandre was sitting cross-legged, his back very straight, his face turned up to the square of the smokehole overhead.

“Are you all right?” One side of the priest’s neck was stained dark with blood, though his face—what Roger could see of it—seemed serene.

“They will kill me soon. Perhaps today.”

Roger sat up, clutching the deerskin to his chest. He was already cold; the calm tone of this froze him.

“No,” he said, and had to cough to clear his throat of soot. “No, they won’t.”

Alexandre didn’t bother contradicting him. Didn’t move. He sat naked, oblivious of the cold morning air, looking up. At last he lowered his gaze, and turned his head toward Roger.

“Will you hear my confession?”

“I’m not a priest.” Roger scrambled to his knees and scuffled across the floor, the skin held awkwardly before him. “Here, you’ll freeze. Get under this.”

“It does not matter.”

Roger wasn’t sure whether he meant being cold didn’t matter, or whether Roger’s not being a priest didn’t matter. He laid a hand on Alexandre’s bare shoulder. Whether it mattered or not, the man was cold as ice.

Roger sat down next to Alexandre, as close as could be managed, and spread the skin over them both. Roger could feel his own skin ripple into gooseflesh where the other man’s icy skin touched him, but it didn’t trouble him; he leaned closer, wanting urgently to give Alexandre some of his own warmth.

“Your father,” Alexandre said. He had turned his head; his breath touched Roger’s face, and his eyes were dark holes in his face. “You told me he was a priest.”

“A minister. Yes, but I’m not.”

He sensed, rather than saw, the other’s small gesture of dismissal.

“In time of need, any man may do the office of a priest,” Alexandre said. Cold fingers touched Roger’s thigh, briefly. “Will you hear my confession?”

“If that’s—yes, if you like.” He felt awkward, but it couldn’t hurt, and if it helped the other at all…The hut, and the village outside, were quiet around them. There was no sound but the wind in the pine trees.

He cleared his throat. Did Alexandre mean to begin, or was he to say something first?

As though the sound had been a signal, the Frenchman turned to face him, bowing his head so the soft light smoothed the gold hair of his crown.

“Bless me, brother, for I have sinned,” Alexandre said in a low voice. And with his head bowed, hands folded in his lap, he made confession.

Sent out from Detroit with an escort of Hurons, he had ventured down the river as far as the settlement of Ste. Berthe de Ronvalle, to relieve the elderly priest in charge of the mission, whose health had broken down.

“I was happy there,” Alexandre said, in the half-dreaming voice that men use for events that have taken place decades ago. “It was a wild place, but I was very young, and ardent in my faith. I welcomed hardship.”

Young? The priest couldn’t be much older than himself.

Alexandre shrugged, dismissing the past.

“I spent two years with the Huron, and converted many. Then I went with a group of them to Ft. Stanwix, where there was a great gathering of the tribes of the region. There I met Kennyanisi-t’ago, a war chief of the Mohawk. He heard me preach, and being moved of the Holy Spirit, invited me to return with him to his village.”

The Mohawk were notoriously wary of conversion; it had seemed a heaven-sent chance. So Père Ferigault had traveled down the river by canoe, in company with Kennyanisi-t’ago and his warriors.

“That was my first sin,” he said quietly. “Pride.” He lifted one finger to Roger, as though suggesting that he keep count. “Still, God was with me.” The Mohawk had sided with the English during the recent French and Indian War, and were more than suspicious of the young French priest. He had persevered, learning the Mohawk language, that he might preach to them in their own tongue.

He had succeeded in converting a number of the village, though by no means all. However, among his converts was the war chief, so he was protected from interference. Unfortunately, the
sachem
of the village opposed his influence, and there was continued uneasiness between Christian and non-Christian in the village.

The priest licked dry lips, then picked up the water jar and drank.

“And then,” he said, taking a deep breath, “then I committed my second sin.”

He had fallen in love with one of his own converts.

“Had you had women, before—?” Roger choked off the question, but Alexandre answered quite simply, without hesitation.

“No, never.” There was a breath there, not quite a laugh, of bitter self-mockery. “I had thought I was immune to
that
temptation. But man is frail in the face of Satan’s fleshly lures.”

He had lived in the girl’s longhouse for some months. Then, one morning, he had risen early, and going to the stream to wash, had seen his own reflection in the water.

“There was a sudden disturbance in the water, and the surface broke. A huge and gaping mouth rose through the surface, shattering the reflection of my face.”

It had been no more than a rising trout, leaping for a dragonfly, but the priest, shaken by the experience, had seen it as a sign from God that his soul was in danger of being swallowed by the mouth of Hell. He had gone at once to the longhouse and removed his things, going to live alone in a small shelter outside the village. However, he had left his lover pregnant.

“Was that what caused the trouble that brought you here?” Roger asked.

“No, not in itself. They do not see matters of marriage and morality as we do,” Alexandre explained. “Women take men as they will, and marriage is an agreement that endures so long as the partners are in amity; if they should fall out, then the woman may expel the man from her house—or he may leave. The children, if there are children, stay with the mother.”

“But then—”

“The difficulty was that I had always, as a priest, refused to baptize infants unless both parents were Christian and in a state of grace. This is necessary, you understand, if the child is to be raised in faith—for the Indians are inclined otherwise to view the sacrament of baptism as no more than one of their pagan rituals.”

Alexandre drew a deep breath.

“And of course I could not baptize this child. This offended and horrified Kennyanisi-t’ago, who insisted that I must do so. Upon my refusing, he ordered me to be tortured. My—the girl—interceded for me, and was abetted in this by her mother and several other influential persons.”

Consequently the village had been torn by controversy and schism, and at last the
sachem
had decreed that they must take Père Alexandre to Onyarekenata, where an impartial council might judge what must be done to restore the harmony amongst them.

Roger scratched at his beard;perhaps the Indian dislike of hairy Europeans was the association with lice.

“I am afraid I don’t quite understand,” he said carefully. “You refused to baptize your own child because the mother was not a good Christian?”

Alexandre looked surprised.

“Ah,
non
! She retains her faith—though she would have every excuse if she did not,” he added ruefully. He sighed. “No. I cannot baptize the child, not because of its mother—but because its father is not in a state of grace.”

Roger rubbed his forehead, hoping his face didn’t betray his astonishment.

“Ah. Is this why you wished to make confession to me? That you might be restored to a state of grace, and thus able to—”

The priest stopped him with a small gesture. He sat quietly for a moment, slender shoulders slumped. He must have brushed his wound accidentally; the clotted mass had cracked, and blood was once more seeping slowly down his neck.

“Forgive me,” Alexandre said. “I should not have asked you; it was only that I was so grateful to be able to speak in my own language; I could not resist the temptation to ease my soul by telling you. But it is no good; there can be no absolution for me.”

The man’s despair was so plain, Roger laid a hand on the priest’s forearm, wanting urgently to assuage it.

“Are you sure? You said that in time of need—”

“It is not that.” He laid his hand on top of Roger’s, squeezing tight, as though he might draw strength from the other’s grip.

Roger said nothing. After a moment, Alexandre’s head rose and the priest looked him in the face. The light outside had changed; there was a faint glow, a brightness in the air just short of light. His own breath rose white from his mouth, like smoke rising toward the hole above.

“Even though I confess, I will not be forgiven. There must be true repentance in order to obtain absolution; I must reject my sin. And that I cannot do.”

He fell silent. Roger didn’t know whether to speak, or what to say. A priest, he supposed, would have said something like “Yes, my son?” but he couldn’t. Instead, he took Alexandre’s other hand in his, and held it tightly.

“My sin was to love her,” Alexandre said, very softly, “and that I cannot stop.”

57

A SHATTERED SMILE

T
wo Spears is agreeable. The matter must be spoken of before the Council, and accepted, but I think it will be done.” Jamie slouched against a pine tree, slumping a little in exhaustion. We had been in the village for a week; he had been with the
sachem
of the village for the greater part of the last three days. I had barely seen him or Ian, but had been entertained by the women, who were polite but distant. I kept my amulet carefully out of sight.

“Then they do have him?” I asked, and felt the knot of anxiety that had traveled with me for so long begin to loosen. “Roger’s really here?” So far, the Mohawks had been unwilling to admit either to Roger’s continued existence—or the alternative.

“Aye, well, as to that, the auld bugger’s no admitting it—for fear I should try to steal him away, I suppose—but either he’s here or he’s not far off. If the Council approves the bargain, we’ll exchange the whisky for the man in three days time—and be off.” He glanced at the heavy-laden clouds that hid the distant mountains. “God, I hope that’s rain coming, and not snow.”

“Do you think there’s any chance the Council won’t agree?”

He sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair. It was unbound and fell rumpled over his shoulders; evidently the negotiations had been difficult.

“Aye, there’s a chance. They want the whisky, but they’re wary of it. Some of the older men will be against the bargain, for fear of the damage liquor might do to the folk; the younger men are all for it. Some in the middle say aye, take it; they can use the liquor in trade if they’re fearful of using it.”

“Wakatihsnore told you all that?” I was surprised. The
sachem,
Acts Fast, seemed much too cool and wily a customer for such openness.

“Not him: wee Ian.” Jamie smiled briefly. “The lad shows great promise as a spy, I will say. He’s eaten at every hearth in the village, and he’s found a lassie who’s taken a great liking to him. She tells Ian what the Council of Mothers is thinking.”

I hunched my shoulders and pulled my cloak tight around them; our perch on the rocks outside the village made us safe from interruption, but the price of visibility was exposure to the bitter wind.

“And what does the Council of Mothers say?” A week spent in a longhouse had given me some idea of the importance of the women’s opinions in the scheme of things; though they didn’t make direct decisions about general affairs, very little would be done without their approval.

“They could wish I offered some ransom other than whisky, and they’re none so sure about giving up the man; more than one lady has a small fancy for him. They wouldna mind adopting him into the tribe.” Jamie’s mouth twisted at that, and I laughed despite my worry.

“Roger’s a nice-looking lad,” I said.

“I’ve seen him,” Jamie said shortly. “Most of the men think he’s an ugly, hairy bastard. Of course, they think that of me, too.” One side of his mouth lifted reluctantly, as he brushed a hand over his jaw; knowing the Indians’ dislike of facial hair, he was careful to shave every morning.

“As it is, that may be what makes the difference.”

“What, Roger’s looks? Or yours?”

“The fact that more than one lady wants the bugger. Ian says his lassie says her aunt thinks it will make trouble to keep him; she’s thinking better to give him back to us than to have ill-feeling amongst the women over him.”

I rubbed my cold-reddened knuckles over my lips, trying to keep from laughing.

“Has the men’s Council any idea that some of the women are interested in Roger?”

“I dinna ken. Why?”

“Because if they knew, they’d give him to you for free.”

Jamie snorted at that, but gave me a reluctant lift of one eyebrow.

“Aye, maybe. I’ll have Ian mention the matter among the young men. It canna hurt.”

“You said the women wished you would offer something instead of whisky. Did you mention the opal to Acts Fast?”

He sat up straight at that, interested.

“Aye, I did. They couldna have been taken more aback had I pulled a snake from my sporran. They got verra excited—angry and fearful both, and I think they might well have done me harm, save I’d already mentioned the whisky.”

He reached into the breast of his coat and drew out the opal, dropping it into my hand.

“Best you take it, Sassenach. But I think you’ll maybe not want to show it to anyone.”

“How odd.” I looked down at the stone, its spiral petroglyph shimmering with color. “So it did mean something to them.”

“Oh, that it did,” he assured me. “I couldna say what, but whatever it was, they didna like it a bit. The war chief demanded to know where I’d got it, and I told them ye’d found it. That made them back off a bit, but they were like a kettle on the boil over it.”

“Why are you wanting me to take it?” The stone was warm from his body, and felt smooth and comfortable in my hand. Instinctively, my thumb ran round and round the spiraled carving.

“They were shocked when they saw it, as I said—and then angry. One or two of them made as though to strike me, but they held back. I watched for a bit, wi’ the stone in my hand, and I realized that they were afraid of it; they wouldna touch me while I held it.”

He reached out and closed my fist around the stone.

“Keep it by ye. If there should be danger, bring it out.”

“You’re more likely to be in danger than I am,” I protested, trying to hand it back.

He shook his head, though, the ends of his hair lifting in the wind.

“No, not now they ken about the whisky. They’d not harm me until they’ve heard where it is.”

“But why should I be in any danger?” The thought was disquieting; the women had been cautious but not hostile, and the men of the village had largely ignored me.

He frowned, and looked down toward the village. From here, little was visible save the outer palisades, with trails of smoke drifting above them from the unseen longhouses beyond.

“I canna say, Sassenach. Only that I have been a hunter— and I have been hunted. Ye ken how when something strange is near, the birds stop singing, and there is a stillness in the wood?”

He nodded toward the village, eyes fixed on the swirl of smoke as though some shape might emerge from it.

“There is a stillness there. Something is happening that I canna see. I dinna think it is to do with us—and yet…I am uneasy,” he said abruptly. “And I have lived too long to dismiss such a feeling.”

Ian, who joined us shortly at the rendezvous, seconded this opinion.

“Aye, it’s like holding the edge of a fishing net that’s underwater,” he said, frowning. “Ye can feel the wriggling through your hands, and ye ken there’s fish there—but ye canna see where.” The wind ruffled his thick brown hair; as usual, it was half plaited, with strands coming loose. He thumbed one absently behind an ear.

“There’s something happening among the people; some disagreement, I think. And
something
happened last night, in the Council house. Emily willna answer me when I ask about it; she only looks away and tells me it’s naught to do with us. But I think it is, somehow.”

“Emily?” Jamie lifted one eyebrow, and Ian grinned.

“It’s what I call her for short,” he said. “Her own name’s Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa; it means Works with Her Hands. She’s a rare carver, is wee Emily. See what she’s made for me?” He reached into his pouch and proudly displayed a tiny otter carved in white soapstone. The animal stood alert, head up and ready for mischief; just to look at it made me smile.

“Verra nice.” Jamie examined the carving with approval, stroking the sinuous curve of the body. “The lassie must like ye fine, Ian.”

“Aye, well, I like her too, Uncle.” Ian was very casual, but his lean cheeks were slightly redder than the cold wind could account for. He coughed and changed the subject slightly.

“She said to me that she thinks the Council might be swayed a bit in our favor, if ye were to give some of them a taste of the whisky, Uncle Jamie. If it’s all right wi’ you, I’ll fetch up a cask and we’ll have a wee
ceilidh
tonight. Emily will manage it.”

Jamie lifted both eyebrows at that, but nodded after a moment.

“I’ll trust your judgment, Ian,” he said. “In the Council House?”

Ian shook his head.

“Nay. Emily says it will be better if it’s done at the longhouse of her aunt—auld Tewaktenyonh is the Pretty Woman.”

“Is what?” I asked, startled.

“The Pretty Woman,” he explained, wiping his running nose on his sleeve. “One woman of influence in the village has it in her power to decide what’s done wi’ captives; they call her the Pretty Woman, no matter what she looks like. So ye ken, it’s to our advantage if Tewaktenyonh can be convinced the bargain we offer is a good one.”

“I suppose to a captive that’s been freed, the woman would seem beautiful, regardless,” Jamie said wryly. “Aye, I see. Go ahead then; can ye fetch the whisky by yourself?”

Ian nodded and turned to go.

“Wait a minute, Ian,” I said, and held out the opal as he turned back to me. “Could you ask Emily if she knows anything about this?”

“Aye, Auntie Claire, I’ll mention it. Rollo!” He whistled sharply through his teeth, and Rollo, who had been nosing suspiciously under a rock shelf, left off and bounded after his master. Jamie watched them go, a slight frown between his eyebrows.

“D’ye ken where Ian’s spending his nights, Sassenach?”

“If you mean in which longhouse, yes. If you mean in whose bed, no. I could guess, though.”

“Mmphm.” He stretched and shook his hair back. “Come on, Sassenach, I’ll see ye back to the village.”

Ian’s
ceilidh
got underway soon after dark; the invited guests included the most prominent members of the Council, who came one at a time to Tewaktenyonh’s longhouse, paying their respects to the
sachem,
Two Spears, who sat at the main hearth with Jamie and Ian flanking him. A slight, pretty girl, who I assumed must be Ian’s Emily, sat quietly behind him, on the keg of whisky.

With the exception of Emily, women were not involved in the whisky-tasting. I had come along, though, to watch, and sat at one of the smaller hearths, keeping an eye on the proceedings while helping two of the women to braid onions, exchanging occasional politenesses in a halting mixture of Tuscarora, English, and French.

The woman at whose hearth I sat offered me a gourd of spruce beer and some kind of cornmeal mush as refreshment. I did my best to accept with cordiality, but my stomach was knotted too tightly to make more than a token attempt at eating.

Too much depended on this impromptu party. Roger was here; somewhere in the village, I knew it. He was alive; I could only hope he was well—well enough to travel, at least. I glanced at the far end of the longhouse, at the largest hearth. I could see no more of Tewaktenyonh than the curve of a white-streaked head; a queer jolt went through me at the sight, and I touched the small lump of Nayawenne’s amulet, where it hung beneath my shirt.

Once the guests were assembled, a rough circle was formed around the hearth, and the opened keg of whisky brought into the center of it. To my surprise, the girl also came into the circle, and took a place beside the keg, a dipping gourd in her hand.

After some words from Two Spears, the festivities commenced, with the girl measuring out portions of the whisky. She did this not by pouring the whisky into the cups, but by taking mouthfuls from the gourd, carefully spitting three mouthfuls into each cup before passing it to one of the men in the circle. I glanced at Jamie, who looked momentarily taken aback, but who politely accepted his cup and drank without hesitation.

I rather wondered just how much whisky the girl was absorbing through the lining of her mouth. Not nearly as much as the men, though I thought it might take quite a bit to lubricate Two Spears, who was a taciturn old bastard with a face like a dyspeptic prune. Before the party had got well underway, though, I was distracted by the arrival of a young boy, the offspring of one of my companions. He came in silently and sat down by his mother, leaning heavily against her. She looked sharply at him, then set down her onions and rose with an exclamation of concern.

The firelight fell on the boy, and I could see at once the peculiar hunched way he sat. I rose hastily to my knees, pushing aside the basket of onions. I knelt forward and took him by the other arm, turning him toward me. His left shoulder had been slightly dislocated; he was sweating, his lips pressed tightly together in pain.

I gestured to his mother, who hesitated, frowning at me. The boy made a small, whimpering noise, and she pulled him away, holding him tight. With sudden inspiration, I pulled Nayawenne’s amulet from my shirt; she wouldn’t know whose it was but might recognize
what
it was. She did; her eyes widened at the sight of the tiny leather bag.

The boy made no more noise, but I could see the sweat run down his hairless chest, clear in the firelight. I fumbled at the thong that held the pouch shut, digging inside for the rough blue stone.
Pierre sans peur,
Gabrielle had called it. The fearless stone. I took the boy’s good hand and pressed the stone firmly into his palm, folding his fingers around it.

“Je suis une sorciere,”
I said softly.
“C’est medecine, la.”
Trust me, I thought. Don’t be afraid. I smiled at him.

The boy stared round-eyed at me; the two women at the hearth exchanged a look, then as one, looked toward the distant hearth where the old woman sat.

There was talk from the
ceilidh;
someone was telling an old story—I recognized the rise and fall of the formal rhythms. I had heard Highlanders tell their stories and legends in Gaelic, in just that way; it sounded much the same.

The mother nodded; her sister went quickly down the length of the house. I didn’t turn, but felt the stir of interest behind me as she passed the other hearths; heads were turning, looking toward us. I kept my eyes on the boy’s face, smiling, holding his hand tightly in my own.