Dawn on a Distant Shore (33 page)

What had she left
behind on the
Isis
that Giselle wanted?

A great flush of fear
began in a trickle at the back of her neck. Elizabeth shot up from the bench, a
hand at her throat to keep herself from crying out, just as Lady Dorchester
appeared with her arms full of clothing.

"I am sorry, Lady
Dorchester, but I must go back to the ship. Immediately. Please, please will
you lend me a horse?"

The little woman
looked with surprise from Elizabeth to Sir Guy. "But your clothing--"

Elizabeth grabbed Lady
Dorchester by the shoulders; she was as small and frail as a bird. As a child.
"You must see, I cannot delay. My children. She--someone wanted me away
from the ship, that's why they sent the note."

Sir Guy was making
small sounds of disbelief. "Surely you cannot think--"

"Sir!"
Elizabeth cut him off. "My children are in danger, I can feel that in my
bones. If you have any mercy you will not keep me here one moment longer."

Lady Dorchester tapped
her foot. "Major Johnson, a horse for Mrs. Bonner, and without delay. Do
you hear me, man? Without delay. And ride with her."

Elizabeth took a
precious moment to send a look of gratitude to the lady, and then she flew out
the door.

The
Isis
was
gone.

Elizabeth stood on the
dock, her hands pressed to her mouth, and stared. Major Johnson was asking
questions, but she could make no sense of them. Her children were gone. She let
out one keening sob and then bit down hard enough to taste blood.

A nightwatchman slid
up behind her. "Pardon, are you Mrs. Bonner?"

She rounded on him,
grabbed him by the grubby blanket coat. The horses danced away in alarm, their
hooves striking sparks on the cobblestones. The man looked at her as if she might
eat him whole.

And well I might
, she thought.
"The
Isis.
" He tried to jerk away, and she dug in her fingers.
"Where is she?"

He jumped, his eyes
round with fear. "Sailed, ma'am. Sailed not an hour ago for home."

"For where? Where
is home? Tell me, man, where is that ship bound!"

He let out a cry of
pain and yanked free of her grip. "Scotland! She's bound for the Solway
Firth."

The Solway Firth! On
the southern shore of Dumfrieshire. Where Carryck had his seat.

"Tell me,"
she said hollowly. "Who owns the
Isis
? Would it be the Earl of
Carryck, by any chance?"

Major Johnson made a
humming noise, his head nodding. "Yes, that's right. These are Carryck's
boatyards, too--I thought you would have known that."

The
Isis
belonged to the Earl of Carryck. This was Moncrieff's doing, all of it, perhaps
from the very beginning. Elizabeth's hands went suddenly numb, and she thought
she might swoon. But the watchman was talking, and she forced herself to
concentrate and listen to him.

"There's a man
asking for you," he was saying, still rubbing his arm.

"A man? Where,
what man?"

He jerked with his
chin toward the warehouse. "We carried him over there. A big Indian, with
a bump on his head the size of a cabbage."

But Elizabeth was
already off at a dead run, falling once on the wet wood of the dock and then up
again before anyone could reach her.

They had propped
Runs-from-Bears up against the wall. Blood trailed in spider's legs down his
temple, but he blinked up at her. Alive. Alive.

She went down on her
knees. "Tell me."

He held up his fist.
In it, a letter smeared with dirt and his own blood. Elizabeth's hands shook so
that she could barely manage to break the seal. In the light of a single
lantern the penstrokes leaped crazily.

My dear Mrs. Bonner:

Permit me to reassure
you that Mrs. Freeman and your children are in perfect health and will enjoy
every comfort and protection that the
Isis
can offer. I had not planned
to sail without you, but the governor saw fit to take you away at a most inopportune
moment. Fortunately, the first officer's guidwife is on board and will serve as
an excellent wet nurse.

All three children
will want for nothing but your company, a lack which will be soon remedied: I
have arranged passage for yourself, your husband, and father-in-law with
Captain Morris of the
Osiris
, who will present himself to you tomorrow.
It is his first and most important obligation to deliver you with all haste to
the Solway Firth. With good luck the westerlies will have you there in less
than thirty days.

I regret the necessity
of such a drastic step, but your father-in-law denied me every other more reasonable
alternative. In anticipation of the day on which you will be reunited not with
one family, but two, I remain

  Your willing servant

  Angus Moncrieff

Major Johnson walked
up close, his curiosity crawling on his face like lice. "What does it
say?"

Elizabeth crumpled the
letter against her bodice. "He has stolen my children," she said dully.
"My children are gone."

Runs-from-Bears put a
bloody hand on her wrist. In Kahnyen'kehâka he said, "You must find
Wolf-Running-Fast."

"Your
husband," said Johnson, not realizing that he echoed Bears. "Where is
your husband? You need him now." He was trying not to grin, but his expression
was sharp and eager in the lantern light.

Contempt filled
Elizabeth's mouth with bitterness. He thought anger would cripple her, that grief
would rob her of purpose. How little men knew of women; how little this one
knew of anything at all.

"I'm going to
find them now," she said to Bears in Kahnyen'kehâka. "Tell Will what
has happened. And then go home. Go home and tell them that we will be there
when we have my children back."

He blinked at her.
"Bring Moncrieff's scalp with you."

"With
pleasure," said Elizabeth. She put both hands on his face and then she did
something she had never done before; she leaned forward and kissed Runs-from-Bears
on the cheek. His skin was cold to the touch, but the arm that came up around
her was strong.

"Farewell, my
friend," she said. She got to her feet, raised her chin, and met the
major's eager gaze. "Major Johnson."

"Yes, Mrs.
Bonner?"

"I find myself
somewhat faint ..." With a vague movement of her hand she indicated a pile
of crates against the far wall of the warehouse. "My cousin the viscount
is in rooms in the Rue St. Gabriel. Will you fetch him?"

Johnson snapped to
action, marching off to bark orders at the soldiers still milling around the
Nancy
.
She had pleased him with this sudden transformation into what he wanted and
expected of her: a woman in need.

Bears reached out to
squeeze her hand. Elizabeth squeezed back with all her strength, and then she
slipped into the shadows.

She made her way
quietly, feeling with her mind, throwing her senses out into the dark. How many
times had Nathaniel spoken to her of this, the skill of moving through the
night.
You
feel shapes even when you cannot see them
. In English
it sounded strange but in Kahnyen'kehâka it made perfect sense. Now she
whittled down all her senses and moved fast, swallowing the sound of her own
breathing and the hollow rattle of her heart. As she came around the far end of
the warehouse a watchman passed with a lantern swinging on his pole; she pulled
back until he was gone. Hoofbeats on the cobblestones; a man's voice raised in
question. She held her breath and then she ran.

It was very near
morning, the sky lightening. She knew only that the
Providence
was
farther downriver, and so she moved north, slipping in and out of the lanes
that radiated off the docks. From a window overhead a baby's cry sounded to her
like a trumpet blast; her breasts throbbed with it. She dashed away her tears
with an impatient hand and concentrated on the river.

More men were in the
lanes, many of them carpenters and workmen headed toward a large boatworks,
their tools hung about them. Someone must know where the
Providence
docked. Elizabeth pulled her cloak closer around herself and the hood lower
over her face. In French she asked once, and then again and again; but there
were too many ships in port at this time of year and all she got was curious
glances, shrugs, grins. One of them offered her some of his breakfast, another
asked a rough question she did not really understand. But what did she care for
the laughter of these men, or what they thought of her? Her children were gone
and she must get them back.

When the waterfront
was crowded with laborers and seamen she moved out in the open. A merchant in a
fine linen coat that might well have been cut in Paris or London turned away
from her when she tried to speak to him, would not listen to her in French or
English.

A young boy was at her
heels; he had been there for some time before she realized. She stopped and turned
to him. He stared back at her.

"Do you know of a
ship called the
Providence
?"

He blinked.

Elizabeth swallowed
down her desperation. "An American captain who whittles birds from
wood?"

A spark of
recognition: did she imagine it? She repeated herself in French.

"
Oui
,"
said the boy, and thrust out his hand.

She took a coin from
the sack still tied around her waist and pressed it into his palm; gold. But what
difference did it make now?

He ran like the river.
It took all of the last of her energy to keep up with him as he wound in and
out of warehouse yards, through alleys where pigs rooted in filth, past row
houses where women were hanging out steaming wash. "Is it far?" she
asked him again and again. But he didn't hear her, or didn't care to answer.
There was a brand on his cheek. He had limp blond hair and her children would
never look anything like him, and still his dirty neck above a frayed blanket
coat made her want to scream.

Another alley, closer
to the waterfront again and reeking of tarpots and rotting fish. She could just
see the masts of a single ship at the dock, and the sight made her heart leap
into her throat.

At the last second she
saw the man from the corner of her eye, the shape of him darting out of the doorway;
she ducked too late. He had her by the cloak, spun her around to him. And she
fell, still, tangled in her skirts, aware as she went of the jolt to her arm
and hip and of the man himself: Mac Stoker.
Of course
, she thought, as
consciousness flickered and threatened to vanish.
What else?

She said, "If you
try to stop me now I will kill you."

One black brow shot up
high. "Sure and you're in no position to be making threats, Mrs. Bonner."

She struggled, but he
held her where she was with little effort. The truth was, she had no weapons but
money and her wits; she would try the latter first.

"Let me go now,
Stoker. I have no time for your games."

He ignored her and
spoke to the boy, who had pressed himself against the wall to watch, his eyes alight
with excitement. "Away wit' ye, boyo, you've done your job."

Elizabeth's gorge rose
in her throat in a blazing rush: she had walked into this without thought.
I
am most certainly the stupidest creature Providence ever put on this earth.

Stoker got a better
hold on her to haul her to her feet. "I did warn you, did I not, that
there's more than one kind of pirate on the St. Lawrence? And now your babbies
are gone. Don't worry yerself, I'm not after yer virtue or your coin. There's a
better profit in it if I deliver you safe and sound."

Elizabeth jerked
around to him. "
Deliver
me? Where? To whom? The governor?"

Stoker's laugh had an
edge. "Sure and you must have noted that I'm not overeager to do business wit'
the Crown, or I might well have turned you in two days ago for the reward. No,
we're off to the
Jackdaw
, me darlin'. My ship turns out to be of some
use after all, it seems. Or so think your menfolk."

Love is swift of foot

Love's a man of war

And can shoot,

And can hit from far.

--George Herbert, 1633

Just after sunrise
Moncrieff came to tell Hannah what she had already figured out for herself. In
tones meant to soothe and deceive he spoke of troops searching every ship,
confusion on the docks, and a reunion in Scotland. He never used the word
captive,
but he didn't need to. Hannah knew her people: they would shed blood before
they saw their children sail off to a strange land alone. Perhaps they had.

And still Moncrieff
stood in the middle of the stateroom and met her eye. He had to raise his voice
above the twins' shrieking. It unnerved him, and Hannah was glad, although she
let him see none of it, not her anger or the many questions that she would not
ask without giving him an advantage over her. Moncrieff talked and talked, but Hannah
barely heard him, preoccupied as she was with a simple, bone-deep fear. She
held it as she would hold any wild, clawed animal: tightly bound and close,
lest it tear free and draw her blood.