Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 40

"I wonder what that's all about," Nathaniel said, after a long silence.
Hawkeye shrugged, his uneasiness sitting clear on his face. "I expect Carleton finally figured out the connection between Moncrieff and the Earl of Carryck."
Robbie moved to the window, pulling himself up on the bars with ease, in spite of his size. There he stayed for three long heartbeats. "Holy Mary," he whispered, and dropped back down to the floor with a thud.
The cell seemed overlarge with three of their number gone so suddenly. They might each have had a cot to themselves, but instead they paced, winding around each other, from the window to the table to the door, and back again. They could not safely discuss the night to come, with Thompson never far away; they had no patience for cards; and the workmen out in the courtyard did not bear watching for very long. Nathaniel reminded himself that Iona was a resourceful woman a hundred times, and a hundred more. With or without Pépin, she would see the plan through tonight.
Robbie was sleeping when a new guard brought them watery soup and stale bread. He was all long arms and hands, not in his full growth yet, with a dusting of dark blond hair on his upper lip. Generally the guards were a talkative lot, but this one just watched them for a few minutes, sharp eyed and curious for all his silence, and then slipped away without a word.
They roused Robbie and ate without talking, stomachs roiling and clenching in protest. When the sun set, Hawkeye lay down, put an arm over his face, and went to sleep. Robbie tried to follow his example, but Nathaniel could tell by his breathing that he was awake, and uneasy. Outside the small window the sky blazed red and gold with the last of the sun.
Vaguely he was aware of the seminary clock striking the hour. At seven the courtyard was mostly quiet; the men who passed through spoke of their suppers and the weather. At eight it was full dark and a light rain had begun to fall. At nine Hawkeye was awake again, his expression as calm and resolute as Nathaniel had ever seen it. They sat in the dark and damp cold of the spring night, testing the weight of Pépin's candles in their palms, getting a sense of the thin blades inside the wax.
Nathaniel sat on the edge of the cot, facing the door; Robbie stood below the window. Hawkeye took up pacing again, all his consciousness thrown outward into the night. Listening.
The seminary clock struck ten. Nathaniel could hear the rhythm of his own heart, the pulse beating in each fingertip.
The sentry raised his voice in a sleepy challenge at the courtyard gate. A carter with a load of hay. The horse had a loose shoe, clattering over the cobblestones with a hitch.
A minute passed; another. Ten minutes. The carter was telling a story to the guard in a combination of English and country French. In one part of his mind, Nathaniel heard the rise and fall of his voice, but he might have been speaking Latin, for all the sense it made. He was watching his father, as he had watched his father for all his life; just now Hawkeye had the look that came over him when they were on the trail of a deer, when a single false movement would mean going home empty-handed.
Just a few minutes ago there had been total dark, but now Nathaniel realized that Hawkeye's face was bathed in a flickering light. On the other side of the courtyard, the garrison was on fire.
"Jesus wept," whispered Robbie, rising to his feet.
The garrison erupted like an anthill as the sentry sounded the alarm. The seminary bells began to ring almost immediately, and across the city others joined in. There was nothing like a blaze to wake up a town built of wood. Soon half of Montréal would come pouring in.
Over the noise they could just hear running footsteps in the hall, buttons and weapons and keys jangling. A new guard appeared at the door, his face as white as his shirtfront as he worked at the lock, a musket in one hand. No more than eighteen, but tall and well built. His gaze flitted again and again to the glow of fire in the small window.
"It would be easier if you put down the gun, son," said Hawkeye in an easy way. "We won't rush you."
With a soft curse the boy dropped the musket and used both hands to turn the key. The door swung open. His Adam's apple rode the length of his neck as he met their eyes, one by one.
"Iona sends word. You're to follow me."
"Luke," said Robbie, squinting at the boy. "I should ha' reconized ye." He made a feeble gesture with his hand, as if to present the boy to Nathaniel and Hawkeye.
"Who is this, Rab?" Nathaniel had never heard of this boy, and there was something strange in Robbie's expression.
The boy spoke up. "Iona is my grandmother," he said, and Nathaniel saw Robbie's mouth twitch. But there was no time to be surprised and less to ask questions.
"We are damned glad to see you, lad," Hawkeye said. "But where's the other guard?"
The boy shrugged, calmer now as he picked up the dropped musket. "He felt the sudden need to take a nap. We've got to make tracks, there's no more than ten minutes."
"Until what?" asked Nathaniel.
"Until they put the fire out or it reaches the gunpowder stores," said Luke. "If anybody asks, I'm taking you to the lieutenant governor." He pointed down the dim hall with his musket, and they set off.
They ran with the boy at the rear, his musket pointed at their backs, down stairs that echoed with a hundred shouting voices. In the doorway they hesitated at the sight of the fire, creeping along the north wing of the garrison like a blind animal looking for food. The courtyard was full of smoke and rushing men, dodging the gallows in a ragged bucket line. The hangman's noose twirled in the wind. Thompson and Jones were on the other side of the courtyard, in the line with most of the guards, some of them in nightshirts.