Fire Along the Sky
Page 118

Sawatis had wanted to be trained as a warrior, and so he was sent to the Wolf longhouse at Good Pasture, where his mother had been born. To Spotted-Fox, who would take on his training and see to it he learned what was necessary. Spotted-Fox had lost his own children to typhoid and measles, and was glad to accept the responsibility.
But here he was, the boy Lily had grown up with. She had played with him and wiped his face, and now his scalp was plucked and he wore stripes of paint on his cheekbones. He had chipped an eyetooth, but otherwise his smile was unchanged, and his hands on her shoulders made her realize how tall he had grown, and how strong.
He said, “Satahonhsata!” Listen. “Do not turn around to look at the officer behind you, he is already suspicious. Smile at me and listen.”
In the same language she said, “What of—” She hesitated to say the name. “The man who brought me this far?”
“He is being held on the other side of the cabin,” said Spotted- Fox.
“Held?” Lily echoed. “But why?”
Gooseflesh had risen all along her back but she smiled as she had been told, and wondered if her muscles might freeze just as they were.
“You must tread carefully, cousin,” said Sawatis. “And gather your courage to you. The officer is no fool, and he will question you closely.”
Of all the things Lily might have asked, one idea presented itself: it could be no coincidence that she had come across family just here and now. She said, “Why are you two here? What has happened?”
Sawatis stepped forward to put his arms around her; it looked like an embrace between cousins, but when he spoke at her ear it was nothing she wanted to hear. “The soldiers are on their way to Nut Island. We will go with them, now that you are here to carry our message back to Lake in the Clouds.”
She tried to speak but he quieted her with his expression, and the press of his hands. “My brother and yours have been taken prisoner,” he said. “They are being held in the garrison stockade on the island.”
“Miss Bonner,” said the officer, so close behind her now that Lily bumped into him when she tried to step backward. Then she pivoted awkwardly, lost her balance, and fell at his feet.
He bent down immediately, this man who had appeared without warning and changed everything in the world. The officer leaned in closer. Even in her duress she could not overlook that he was, in a word, beautiful. His face was square of jaw and perfectly proportioned, with eyes as blue as the sky overhead. As blue as her own, but cold.
“I startled you,” he said. “My apologies. Have you injured yourself?”
“My ankle,” Lily said, and then she did something she had never done before. Out of agitation, out of fear for herself and her brother, for Blue-Jay and Simon, out of anger and pain and shock, she burst into tears in front of this strange man, and gave him an advantage over herself.
Anyone who lived in Montreal knew of the King's Rangers, three hundred professional soldiers of the first stripe, Canadians and Englishmen. And in command of the corps a Major Christian Wyndham, born in Canada but schooled in England. The details came to Lily by way of the company surgeon, who was called immediately to look at her ankle as soon as she had been carried into the cabin.
Mr. Theriot was a French Canadian, a small, round man who stank of stale tobacco, mutton fat, and rum. Lily remembered Curiosity's dislike of Canadian doctors; she would give a great deal just now for Curiosity, who would deal with Theriot and Wyndham too, in short order. Lily felt a bubble of frantic laughter try to push itself out of her throat, and bit her lip.
The surgeon did not take long to examine her ankle, and he never took a lancet from the box of instruments he had propped open—with a panther's skull, Lily saw—at his side.
She said, “I have a skull like that, at home.” And wondered how it was that such a thing could come out of her mouth at a time like this. The doctor didn't seem to notice, or care. He sat back on his heels and gave her moderately good news.
“The ankle is not broken,” he said. “But the sprain is serious. You have injured it before, I think?”
She agreed that, indeed, she had sprained it once as a girl, and quite badly. The same summer of the panther's skull; she almost said that too, but stopped herself by biting her tongue.
“A weak spot then. You will not be walking on it for a week at least, mademoiselle. I will bind it for you.”
The watery brown eyes considered her from underneath a tangle of eyebrows. “The major is waiting to question you, you realize.” He jerked his head over his shoulder. The blanket had been hung again, hastily, to provide her with some privacy.
“I can put him off while you rest for a few hours, if you prefer.”
Lily thought of Simon being held in the stable, under guard. She thought of Sawatis and Spotted-Fox and their news. For a moment she thought she might faint, but then she pinched the skin between thumb and first finger until her vision cleared.
“I am quite happy to speak to the major,” she said, conjuring up a smile from some spot inside her that she hadn't known existed.
Simon had been very specific: if they fell into unfriendly hands, she was to let him do the talking. But now he was somewhere else, and in his place was this man called Wyndham, with his cold smile and colder eyes.
He waited until a junior officer had helped her to the only stool in the cabin, set before the hearth. Then the same man went to a small table he had set up in the corner, where he bent over paper and picked up a quill.