Drums of Autumn (48 page)

“God, protect the house, and the household,
God, consecrate the children of the motherhood,
God, encompass the flocks and the young,
Be Thou after them and tending them,
What time the flocks ascend hill and wold,
What time I lie down to sleep.
What time the flocks ascend hill and wold,
What time I lie down in peace to sleep.

“Let the fire of thy blessing burn forever upon us, O God.”

He knelt then by the hearth and placed the iron into the small hole dug for it, covered it over, and tamped the dirt flat. Then he and I took the ends of the big hearthstone, and laid it carefully into place.

I should have felt quite ridiculous, standing in a house with no walls, attended by a wolf and a pig, surrounded by wilderness and mocked by mockingbirds, engaged in a ritual more than half pagan. I didn’t.

Jamie stood in front of the new hearth, stretched out a hand to me, and drew me to stand by the hearthstone beside him. Looking down at the slate before us, I suddenly thought of the abandoned homestead we had found on our journey north; the fallen timbers of the roof, and the cracked hearthstone, from which a hollybush had sprouted. Had the unknown founders of that place thought to bless their hearth—and failed anyway? Jamie’s hand tightened on mine, in unconscious reassurance.

On a flat rock outside the cabin, Duncan kindled a small fire, Myers holding the steel for him to strike. Once begun, the fire was coaxed into brightness, and a brand taken from it. Duncan held this in his one hand, and walked sunwise around the cabin’s foundation, chanting in loud Gaelic. Jamie translated for me as he sang:

“The safeguard of Fionn mac Cumhall be yours,
The safeguard of Cormac the shapely be yours,
The safeguard of Conn and Cumhall be yours,
From wolf and from bird-flock
From wolf and from bird-flock.”

He paused in his chanting as he came to each point of the compass, and bowing to the “four airts,” swept his brand in a blazing arc before him. Rollo, plainly disapproving of these pyromaniac goings-on, growled deep in his throat, but was firmly shushed by Ian.

“The shield of the King of Fiann be yours,
The shield of the king of the sun be yours,
The shield of the king of the stars be yours,
In jeopardy and distress
In jeopardy and distress.”

There were a good many verses; Duncan circled the house three times. It was only as he reached the final point, next to the freshly laid hearthstone, that I realized Jamie had laid out the cabin so that the hearth lay to the north; the morning sun fell warm on my left shoulder and threw our mingled shadows to the west.

“The sheltering of the king of kings be yours,
The sheltering of Jesus Christ be yours,
The sheltering of the spirit of Healing be yours,
From evil deed and quarrel,
From evil dog and red dog.”

With a look down his nose at Rollo, Duncan stopped by the hearth, and gave the brand to Jamie, who stooped in turn and set alight the waiting pile of kindling. Ian gave a Gaelic whoop as the flame blazed up, and there was general applause.

Later, we saw Duncan and Myers off. They were bound not for Cross Creek but, rather, for Mount Helicon, where the Scots of the region held a yearly Gathering in the autumn, to give thanks for successful harvests, to exchange news and transact business, to celebrate marriages and christenings, to keep the far-flung elements of clan and family in touch.

Jocasta and her household would be there; so would Farquard Campbell and Andrew MacNeill. It was the best place for Duncan to begin his task of finding the scattered men of Ardsmuir; Mount Helicon was the largest of the Gatherings; Scots would come there from as far away as South Carolina and Virginia.

“I shall be here come spring,
Mac Dubh,
” Duncan promised Jamie as he mounted. “With as many men as I can fetch to ye. And I shall hand on your letters without fail.” He patted the pouch by his saddle, and tugged his hat down to shade his eyes from the rich September sun. “Will ye have a word for your aunt?”

Jamie paused for a moment, thinking. He had written to Jocasta already; was there anything to add?

“Tell my aunt I shall not see her at the Gathering this year, or perhaps at the next. But the one after that, I shall be there without fail—and my people with me. Godspeed, Duncan!”

He slapped Duncan’s horse on the rump, and stood by me waving as the two horses dropped over the edge of the ridge and out of sight. The parting gave me an odd feeling of desolation; Duncan was our last and only link with civilization. Now we were truly alone.

Well, not quite alone, I amended. We had Ian. To say nothing of Rollo, the pig, three horses, and two mules that Duncan had left us, to manage the spring plowing. Quite a little establishment, in fact. My spirits rose in contemplation; within the month, the cabin would be finished, and we would have a solid roof over our heads. And then—

“Bad news, Auntie,” said Ian’s voice in my ear. “The pig’s eaten the rest of your nutmeal.”

20

THE WHITE RAVEN

October 1767

B
ody, soul, and mind,’ ” Jamie said, translating as he bent to seize the end of another trimmed log. “ ‘The body for sensation, the soul for the springs of action, the mind for principles. Yet the capacity for sensation belongs also to the stalled ox; there is no wild beast or degenerate but obeys the twitchings of impulse; and even men who deny the gods, or betray their country, or’—careful, man!”

Ian, thus warned, stepped neatly backward over the ax handle, and turned to the left, steering his end of the burden carefully round the corner of the half-built log wall.

“ ‘—or perpetrate all manner of villainy behind locked doors, have minds to guide them to the clear path of duty,’ ” Jamie resumed Marcus Aurelius’s
Meditations
. “ ‘Seeing then’—step up. Aye, good, that’s got it—‘seeing then that all else is in common heritage of such types, the good man’s only singularity lies in his approving welcome to every experience the looms of fate may weave for him, his refusal to soil the divinity seated in his breast or perturb it with disorderly impressions…’ All right now, one, and two, and…
ergh
!”

His face went scarlet with effort as they reached the proper position and, in concert, hoisted the squared log to shoulder height. Too occupied to go on with the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Jamie directed his nephew’s movements with jerks of the head and breathless one-word commands, as they maneuvered the unwieldy chunk of wood into the notches of the cross-pieces below it.

“Och, the twitchings of impulse, is it?” Ian shouldered a lock of hair out of his sweating face. “I feel a wee twitch in the direction of my wame. Is that degenerate, then?”

“I believe that would be an acceptable bodily sensation at this time o’ day,” Jamie allowed, grunting slightly as they maneuvered the log the last inch into place. “A bit to the left, Ian.”

The log dropped into its notches, and both men stepped back with a shared sigh of relieved accomplishment. Ian grinned at his uncle.

“Meanin’ ye’re hungry yourself, aye?”

Jamie grinned back, but before he could reply, Rollo lifted his head, ears perking, and a low growl rumbled in his chest. Seeing this, Ian turned his head to look, and stopped in the act of mopping his face with his shirttail.

“Here’s company, Uncle,” he said, nodding toward the forest. Jamie stiffened. Before he could turn or reach for a weapon, though, I had made out what Rollo and Ian had seen among the shifting leaf-light.

“Not to worry,” I said, amused. “It’s your erstwhile drinking companion—dressed for visiting. A little something the looms of fate have woven for your approving welcome, I expect.”

Nacognaweto waited politely in the shade of the chestnut grove until he was sure we had seen him. Then he advanced slowly out of the forest, followed this time not by his sons but by three women, two of them carrying large bundles on their backs.

One was a young girl, no more than thirteen or so, and the second, in her thirties, plainly the girl’s mother. The third woman who accompanied them was much older—not the grandmother, I thought, seeing her bent form and white hair—perhaps the great-grandmother.

They had indeed come dressed for visiting; Nacognaweto was bare-legged, with leather buskins on his feet, but he wore muslin breeches, loose at the knee, and a shirt of dyed pink linen over them, belted splendidly with a girdle studded with porcupine quills and bits of white and lavender shell. Over it all he had a leather vest with beaded trim, and a sort of loose turban in blue calico over his unbound hair, with two crow’s feathers dangling down beside one ear. Jewelry of shell and silver—an earring, several necklaces, a belt buckle and small ornaments tied to his hair—completed the picture.

The women were somewhat less gorgeously arrayed, but still plainly in their Sunday best, in long loose dresses that reached their knees, soft boots and leather leggings showing beneath. They were girdled with deer-leather aprons decorated with painted patterns, and the two younger women wore ornamental vests as well. They advanced in single file, halfway across the clearing, then stopped.

“My God,” Jamie murmured, “it’s an ambassage.” He wiped a sleeve across his face, and nudged Ian in the ribs. “Make my curtsies, Ian; I’ll be back.”

Ian, looking a trifle bewildered, advanced to meet the Indians, waving a large hand in a ceremonial gesture of welcome. Jamie grabbed me by the arm and hustled me round the corner, into the half-built house.

“What—” I began, bewildered.

“Get dressed,” he interrupted, shoving the clothes box in my direction. “Put on your gaudiest things, aye? It wouldna be respectful, else.”

“Gaudy” was going a bit far in the description of any item of my current wardrobe, but I did my best, hastily tying a yellow linen skirt around my waist and replacing my plain white kerchief with one Jocasta had sent me, embroidered with cherries. I thought that would do—after all, it was obviously the males of the species who were on display here.

Jamie, having flung off his breeks and belted his crimson plaid in record time, fastened it with a small bronze brooch, snatched a bottle out from under the bedframe, and was out through the open side of the house before I had finished tidying my hair. Giving up that attempt as a lost cause, I hurried out after him.

The women watched me with the same fascination I had for them, but they hung back as Jamie and Nacognaweto conducted the necessary greetings involving the ceremonial pouring and sharing of the brandy, Ian being included in this ritual. Only then did the second woman come forward at Nacognaweto’s gesture, ducking her head in shy acknowledgment.

“Bonjour, messieurs, madame,”
she said softly, looking from one to another of us. Her eyes rested on me with frank curiosity, taking in every detail of my appearance, so I felt no compunction in staring at her, likewise. Mixed blood, I thought, perhaps French?

“Je suis sa femme,”
she said, with a graceful inclination of her head toward Nacognaweto, the words verifying my guess as to her heritage.
“Je m’appelle Gabrielle.”

“Um…
je m’appelle Claire,
” I said, with a slightly less graceful gesture at myself. “
S’il vous plaît
…” I waved at the pile of waiting logs, inviting them to sit down, while mentally wondering whether there was enough of the squirrel stew to go round.

Jamie, meanwhile, was eyeing Nacognaweto with a mixture of amusement and irritation.

“Oh, ‘no Franch,’ is it?” he said. “Not a word, I dinna suppose!” The Indian gave him a look of profound blandness, and nodded to his wife to continue with the introductions.

The elder lady was Nayawenne, not Gabrielle’s grandmother as I had thought but, rather Nacognaweto’s. This lady was light-boned, thin, and bent with rheumatism, but bright-eyed as the sparrow she so strongly resembled. She wore a small leather bag tied round her neck, ornamented with a rough green stone pierced through for stringing, and the spotted tail feathers of a woodpecker. She had a larger bag, this one of cloth, tied at her waist. She saw me looking at the green stains on the rough cloth, and smiled, showing two prominent yellow front teeth.

The girl was, as I had surmised, Gabrielle’s daughter—but not, I thought, Nacognaweto’s; she had no resemblance to him, and behaved shyly toward him. Her rather incongruous name was Berthe, and the effects of mixed blood were even more apparent in her than in her mother; her hair was dark and silky, but a deep brown rather than ebony, and her round face was ruddy, with the fresh complexion of a European, though her eyes had the Indian’s epicanthic fold.

Once the official introductions were over, Nacognaweto motioned to Berthe, who obediently brought out the large bundle she had carried, and opened it at my feet, displaying a large basket of orange and green-striped squash, a string of dried fish, a smaller basket of yams, and a huge pile of Indian corn, shucked and dried on the cob.

“My God,” I murmured. “The return of Squanto!”

Everyone gave me a blank look, and I hastened to smile and make exclamations—thoroughly heartfelt—of joy and pleasure over the gifts. It might not get us through the whole winter, but it was enough to augment our diet for a good two months.

Nacognaweto explained through Gabrielle that this was a small and insignificant return for Jamie’s gift of the bear, which had been received with delight by his village, where Jamie’s courageous exploit (here the women cut their eyes at me and tittered, having evidently heard all about the episode of the fish) had been the subject of great talk and admiration.

Jamie, thoroughly accustomed to this sort of diplomatic exchange, modestly disclaimed any pretention to prowess, dismissing the encounter as the merest accident.

While Gabrielle was employed in translation, the old lady ignored the mutual compliments, and sidled crabwise over to me. Without the least sense of offense, she patted me familiarly all over, fingering my clothes and lifting the hem of my dress to examine my shoes, keeping up a running commentary to herself in a soft, hoarse murmur.

The murmur grew louder and took on a tone of astonishment when she got to my hair. I obligingly took out the pins and shook it down over my shoulders. She pulled out a curl, drew it taut, then let it spring back, and laughed like a drain.

The men glanced in our direction, but by this time Jamie had moved on to showing Nacognaweto the construction of the house. The chimney was complete, built of fieldstone like the foundation, and the floor had been laid, but the walls, built of solid squared logs each some eight inches in diameter, rose only shoulder-high. Jamie was urging Ian to a demonstration of the debarking of logs, in which he chopped his way steadily backward as he walked along the top of the log, narrowly missing his toes with each stroke.

This form of male conversation requiring no translation, Gabrielle was left free to come and chat with me; though her French was peculiarly accented and full of strange idioms, we had no trouble understanding each other.

In fairly short order, I discovered that Gabrielle was the daughter of a French fur trader and a Huron woman, and the second wife of Nacognaweto, who in turn was her second husband—the first, Berthe’s father, had been a Frenchman, killed in the French and Indian War ten years before.

They lived in a village called Anna Ooka (I bit the inside of my cheek to keep a straight face; no doubt “New Bern” would have sounded peculiar to them), some two days travel to the northwest—Gabrielle indicated the direction with a graceful inclination of her head.

While I talked with Gabrielle and Berthe, augmenting the conversation by means of hand-waving, I slowly became conscious that another sort of communication was taking place, with the old lady.

She said nothing to me directly—though she murmured now and then to Berthe, plainly demanding to know what I had said—but her bright dark eyes stayed fixed on me, and I was peculiarly aware of her regard. I had the odd feeling that she was talking to me—and I to her—without the exchange of a single spoken word.

I saw Jamie, across the clearing, offering Nacognaweto the rest of the bottle of brandy; clearly it was time to offer gifts in return. I gave Gabrielle the embroidered kerchief, and Berthe, a hairpin ornamented with paste brilliants, over which gifts they exclaimed in pleasure. For Nayawenne, though, I had something different.

I had been fortunate enough to find four large ginseng roots the week before. I fetched all four from my medicine chest and pressed them into her hands, smiling. She looked back at me, then grinned, and untying the cloth bag from her belt, thrust it at me. I didn’t have to open it; I could feel the four long, lumpy shapes through the cloth.

I laughed in return; yes, we definitely spoke the same language!

Moved by curiosity, and by an impulse that I couldn’t describe, I asked Gabrielle about the old lady’s amulet, hoping that this wasn’t an insufferable breach of good manners.

“Grandmère est…”
She hesitated, looking for the right French word, but I already knew.

“Pas docteur,”
I said,
“et pas sorcière, magicienne. Elle est…”
I hesitated too; there really wasn’t a suitable word for it in French, after all.

“We say she is a singer,” Berthe put in shyly, in French. “We call it
shaman;
her name, it means ‘It may be; it will happen.’ ”

The old lady said something, nodding at me, and the two younger women looked startled. Nayawenne bent her head, slipped the thong off her neck, and placed the little bag in my hand.

It was so heavy that my wrist sagged, and I nearly dropped it. Astonished, I closed my hand over it. The worn leather was warm from her body, the rounded contours fitting smoothly into my palm. For just a moment, I had the remarkable impression that something in the bag was alive.

My face must have shown my startlement, for the old lady doubled up laughing. She held out her hand and I gave her back the amulet, with a fair amount of haste. Gabrielle conveyed politely that her husband’s grandmother would be pleased to show me the useful plants that grew nearby, if I would like to walk with her?

I accepted this invitation with alacrity, and the old lady set off up the path with a sure-footed spryness that belied her years. I watched her feet, tiny in soft leather boots, and hoped that when I was her age, I might be capable of walking for two days through the woods, and then wanting to go exploring.

We wandered along the stream for some way, followed at a respectful distance by Gabrielle and Berthe, who came up beside us only if summoned to interpret.

“Each of the plants holds the cure to a sickness,” the old lady explained through Gabrielle. She plucked a twig from a bush by the path and handed it to me with a wry look. “If we only knew what they all were!”

For the most part, we managed fairly well by means of gesture, but when we reached the big pool where Jamie and Ian fished trout, Nayawenne stopped and waved, bringing Gabrielle to us again. She said something to the woman, who turned to me, a faint look of surprise on her face.