Queen of Swords
Page 86

“Kit,” Luke said in a conversational tone. “You’re just about the last person I expected to see here.”
“Luke.”
“Tell your men to stand down,” called Ben Savard. “Or I’ll fire a bullet into one of those casks and we can watch them burn.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Wyndham did as he was bid.
In short order they stripped the prisoners of their weapons and stood guard while they returned the powder and shot to the armory. Nathaniel stayed close to Wyndham, not talking to the man but watching and wondering at the odd turn of fate. They had come here for Poiterin and were ending up instead with a man who had proved himself a friend and ally over a long and difficult year. They’d have to march him back to the city, where he’d be tried and hanged as a spy.
“We could tie them all up and leave them back in the trees while we deal with Poiterin,” Luke said.
“Best move those wagons around back then,” Bears said. “Nathaniel?”
“I’d say it’s worth a try, if it gets us Poiterin.”
Nathaniel caught Savard’s gaze. The younger man nodded. “Lots of rope in those caissons,” he said. “But we’ll have to work quick.”
They left Wyndham until last. As an officer he would get better treatment than enlisted men, had he been captured by regular army. As it was, Nathaniel was in no mood to take chances. He tied the man’s wrists, taking the time to study him. He looked battle weary and worn down, but he was tough. Nathaniel said, “This shouldn’t take long. We’ve just got some business to settle with an old friend of yours.”
“Poiterin is no friend of mine.”
“Call him a colleague, then. He’s on his way here, hoping to buy Pakenham’s forgiveness the same way you had in mind.”
Wyndham looked him straight in the eye. “I require no one’s forgiveness,” he said. “I am proud to be an officer of His Majesty’s army. I only wish I were a better one.”
Nathaniel said, “Do I have to gag you, or will you go quiet to stand with the rest of your men?”
Wyndham looked at Luke. He started to say something and then just shook his head. “I promise not to do anything to warn Poiterin. In return, I’d just as soon you’d shoot me here and now.”
“I can see how that might appeal,” Nathaniel said to him. “But I fear you’ll have to take your chances with the court.”
The last word was barely out of his mouth when the gunshot sounded, and in that same second Nathaniel felt the rush of a bullet skimming by. Wyndham sagged and then fell to the ground.
Runs-from-Bears and Savard went into the brush after Poiterin, and came back a half hour later. Empty-handed.
Hannah, rolled into blankets before the hearth, was dreaming of home, and resisted the hand that settled on her shoulder to shake her awake.
“Daughter,” came her father’s voice in Kahnyen’kehàka. “Squirrel.”
It was his use of her girl-name that woke her. Hannah sat up.
Nathaniel Bonner crouched before her. He was damp with sweat and his color was high. He had been running, hard and long.
“You’re needed at the field hospital,” he said. “I’ve come to fetch you.”
Hannah dressed quickly and quietly. For once it was a blessing that Jennet was so hard to rouse, because at this moment they could afford no delay. Her father’s expression told her that something was very wrong.
At the door he was waiting with her medical pack slung over his shoulder.
“Who?”
He looked her direct in the eye and said, “It’s not your brother or Savard or Bears.”
Hannah’s breath hitched and caught. With relief, and with a new kind of worry. “Who?”
“Kit Wyndham,” he said. “Poiterin shot him.”
The six miles to the field hospital on the DuPré plantation gave Hannah time to think of many questions, but to ask only a few. The answers were sobering. Kit Wyndham was both badly injured and a prisoner of war, and Poiterin had disappeared again. He wouldn’t go back to Noelle Soileau’s, unless it was to kill her for her part in the trap that he had managed to escape. When Hannah said as much to her father, it turned out that Ben had already thought of this possibility. On his way through the city Nathaniel Bonner had stopped and delivered a message.
Hannah had seen her father deal with all kinds of people over the course of her life, but she could not see him in a room with Noelle Soileau.
“She’s safe?”
“If she does as she’s told.”
It would have to serve. There were other matters to worry about just now. One wounded man and more to come. Even in the full dark, evidence of the coming battle was everywhere on the Levee Road, supply wagons and caissons and men. Hannah was hungry and she was thirsty, but that would have to wait. Something occurred to her.
“Dr. Rousseau?”
“Already there,” said her father. “Since yesterday, according to Savard.”
Hannah was glad to know that Kit was not lying alone in his own blood.
They cut through the fields on a path that was already familiar, moving at a fast trot. For as long as she could remember she had followed her father like this, on one kind of trail or another. It felt right and proper and was a comfort to her.
At the beginning of the row of slave cabins her father took his leave.
“I wish you could stay here with me,” she said, and was embarrassed. But he grinned at her.