Leopard in Exile (15 page)

Blessed Mother with wide, unbelieving eyes.

Wait
! Meriel longed to cry. This was a charge far greater than any she had ever expected would be laid

on her. She barely knew where to begin.

But she
did
know where to begin. That much she had been told. She must go west, into the broad,

unmapped, wild Virginias, which stretched all the way up into the Great Lakes.

And what of Louis? She thought the angel had sworn to her that Louis would be well, but what if that

were only her own hopes smoothing the way for her? How could she abandon her search for him when

she did not know? How could she be sure… ?

There is no certainty this side of Heaven
, Meriel reminded herself stalwartly. She rose to her feet, her

mind made up. There was much to do.

When she left the church, Meriel realized that she must go upon her quest as simple pilgrims went. She

returned to her lodging and changed to her oldest clothes, taking with her no more than she could knot

into a shawl, and began to walk westward. And in her excitement she forgot, until it was too late to recall

it, the letter she had sent aboard the
Jahrtausendfeier Falke
.

As she walked, she worried over Louis' safety and her own sanity, but to have refused the angel's

summons would have been to refuse all that she believed in, and so she went forward, praying for a sign

to soothe her heart When the sun was high overhead she paused to drink from a stream, and to eat the

bread and cheese she had brought with her. When these provisions were gone, she would have no more,

except what God should provide.

As she hesitated on the bank of the stream, Meriel heard a rhythmic crackling through the underbrush.

She froze, visions of wolves, bears, or even lions filling her mind. But all that appeared was a large white

mule, upon its back a man wearing the broad-brimmed black hat of a Jesuit priest.

"Good afternoon," the priest said calmly. "Can I be of assistance to you?"

Meriel shocked herself by bursting into tears. Angelic visitations and heavenly missions were foreign to

her experience, and with the best will in the world, her nerves were sadly shattered.

The priest dismounted, and waited while she cried herself to a stop. "Tell me how I can help you," he

urged gently.

"I don't know!" Meriel cried. She dropped to her knees and clutched at his hand, kissing the ring that

was the symbol of his holy office.

"Are you a Believer, my child?" the priest asked kindly. "Would it help you to confess yourself to me?"

"Yes—no—I don't know, Father," Meriel said wearily. "I scarce believe it myself, and I do not know

what I am to do. I know that I am to go west, but that is all."

"And how do you know this?" the priest asked.

"An angel told me, in a church in Baltimore," Meriel said miserably.

There was a moment of silence.

"I am Father MacDonough," the priest said. "Are you quite certain it was an angel?"

"I have never seen an angel before—but it looked like one. How can I disobey?" Meriel answered

helplessly.

"You must pray for guidance," Father MacDonough said. "And you must consider those whom your

actions may hurt. Your parents, perhaps?"

"No." Meriel shook her head. "There is no one left in Baltimore to worry about me." She spread her

hands in a gesture of submission. "I must go west. Beyond that, I do not know."

Father MacDonough frowned, considering. "Well, perhaps we can travel together for a time. I am

heading into Indian lands to offer the Word of God to the native peoples. I mean to travel as far as the

border of Louisianne, if God so wills. Perhaps you would care to accompany me?"

"If God so wills," Meriel said with relief.

That night they made a simple camp beneath the trees, and said their prayers together. Father

MacDonough had shot a brace of pigeons, and roasted them as the twilight deepened into night. His mule

was laden with trade goods, for he brought more than God's word to the tribes, and he gave Meriel a

blanket in which to wrap herself against the evening chill. As the fire burned low, the two of them lay

down to sleep. Weary from her fears and the long day of walking, Meriel fell asleep at once.

The song of the nightingale and the overpowering scent of roses awakened her. She sat up, opening her

eyes.

Over the embers of the fire, the emerald Cup hovered, its surface aflame with the golden letters of fire.

Through the trees of the forest she could see the mountains, and could feel the Cup drawing her south

and west as if it were a magnet, silently demanding that she retrieve it.

Then she awoke in truth.

Courting birds sang in the tree branches. It was still dark, but she could see the shapes of the trees

against the sky, indicating that the sun would soon be up. On the far side of the fire, Father MacDonough

slept on.

Meriel sat up, shivering as the blanket slipped and the cold air pierced her to the skin. She rubbed the

sleep from her eyes. The Cup was nowhere to be seen, but she knew where it was. West—somewhere

west—and she would be led to it. She no longer doubted. With a lighter heart, Meriel got to her feet and

began building up the fire.

For the first few weeks their path took them past isolated farmsteads, villages, and trading posts.

Everyone they met was friendly, feeding them and often giving them a bed for the night in exchange for

fresh news from Baltimore. Meriel's muscles toughened under the constant exercise, and though her

problems remained as pressing and unresolved as before, she learned not to worry about them. Each

night she saw the Cup, leading her onward into the next day's travel.

Then one morning she awoke, and realized this was the last day she would be able to travel with the

kindly Father MacDonough, for his path tended north, into Ohio country, while hers led her southward.

The miles she had already traversed gave her the confidence to greet this new challenge; one of the things

Father MacDonough had taught her as they walked was which plants were edible and which were not. It

was late spring, now, and though the land did not yet cany its midsummer bounty, there were birds' eggs,

roots, and herbs enough to feed her.

"I will leave you today, I think," Meriel said over breakfast.

Father MacDonough looked troubled. During the time they had traveled together he had never pressed

her for confidences she had been unable to volunteer, but Meriel had always known her explanations of

her mission did not satisfy him.

"My child, this is land over which no European has ever traveled. The tribes we have met so far are

peaceful trappers and traders, but not all Indians are so pacific. A woman alone would be subject to such

terrible danger as you cannot imagine."

"But that is the way I must go, Father. Surely God would not lead me into peril if that were not a part of

His design?" Meriel answered.

"Perhaps your faith is stronger than my own," Father MacDonough said tartly, "But you are walking into

greater danger than you can imagine."

"God leads me there," Meriel said patiently, though she believed what he told her and her heart beat

faster in fear. "I cannot turn my back upon Him."

"And if it is not God Who sends this message to you, but the Devil, leading you on through your own

pride?" the priest said at last.

"Then I will ask God to forgive me that," Meriel answered. "And I know that you fear for me so much

that you have followed me south these last four days, good father, away from your own chosen road. But

today we must part."

Father MacDonough sighed, looking utterly weary. "God defend me from the faith of the young," he

muttered, raising his hand to bless her. "And God defend you, child, if folly and not faith drives you."

That night Meriel slept alone after a cold supper, curled up at the base of a tree. Her faith did not keep

her from spending an uneasy night, and she sorely missed the Jesuit's company. When morning came, she

rose and continued walking through a forest that seemed still to exist in the morning of Creation. For

three days she did not see another human being, then she fell in with a Jewish peddlar who led two

heavily laden mules and carried the most enormous pack Meriel had ever seen. He told her that he meant

to trade for furs along the banks of the Ohio River, and then take a packet-boat into Nouvelle-Orléans to

sell his cargo.

He seemed to accept her appearance without question, though Meriel knew that after so many weeks in

the wilderness her appearance certainly would not pass muster anywhere in polite society. She lost track

of the days the two of them followed the narrow deer-track along the floors of the narrow valleys. The

mountains around them seemed to unfold in endless ridges, until Meriel wondered if they continued, chain

upon chain, all the way to the Pacific.

But at last, when the mountains were only a blue smoke-smudge upon the horizon behind them, she

parted company with him as well. Meriel had only the vaguest idea of how long or how far she had

walked, and in her heart, the faith that had sustained her so long was beginning to waver. How could the

Grail be here in this immense wilderness? And if it were, how could she possibly find it? And even if she

were led to it, what could she possibly
do
about it?

Somewhere, Louis' fate had already been decided, and she might never know what it was. Those who

played the Shadow Game were certainly capable of making one man vanish without trace or record.

Do not think of that
! she told herself fiercely.
You made a promise. You must fulfill it as best you

can. You are not worthless
—
is Louis' love a worthless thing, that he should give it to a worthless

person? Trust, and believe, and you will prevail
.

But her brave self-adjurations were hard to obey. Meriel's husbanded rations ran out at last, and none of

the plants she encountered were familiar ones. Water was becoming harder to come by as well, for the

few creeks she passed were at the bottom of deep ravines, behind protecting screens of thorns, almost

impossible to reach. As the days passed, it began to seem to her that the wilderness might be the only

victor.

The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox

(England and New Albion, July 1807)

A
t Dover, Wessex and Koscuisko went their separate ways, Koscuisko to bring Lord Rutledge to

London, and Wessex to his country estate.

He ought to have gone directly to London and taken his caning for this mad start. That he'd gotten away

with it, and brought Rutledge and much valuable intelligence home with him was sheer luck, and Wessex

knew that this detour to see Sarah was only a temporary reprieve from Lord Misbourne's anger. At the

worst, he might be dismissed from the Tower's service. He was not certain whether the possibility

dismayed or relieved him.

Wessex had always known that the perilous double life he led could not endure forever, but he had

always thought it would end in death, not retirement. Politicals died in service. A retired spy, stripped of

the protection his former masters could afford, could not expect a long life… but might a Duke endure

where one of the commons would be cut down?

The notion might be worth considering.

"Cheer up, lad. We're home," he told Hirondel.

The proud brick towers of Dyer Court flared ruby-bright against the westering sun. The house was as

new as Mooncoign was old—built in the time of Charles II for the first Duke of Wessex to be a model of

comfort and efficiency, for the Dyers had long been a forward-thinking family.

Sarah would be waiting for him there. His errand in France—and the need to cover his traces so

thoroughly on his return, as well as evade their own operatives acting under the "All Agents" order—had

eaten weeks. It was now the middle of July, and his lands drowsed in the long approach to an English

summer. Wessex wondered whether his reception would be as warm as the weather, or as cold as his

doubts.

As it happened, it was neither.

"Does Her Grace dine at home tonight?" Mills, his chief groom, was waiting as Wessex rode into the

stables to turn Hirondel over to him.

"Her Grace do'ent lie here, my lord. She'm come down to lie at Mooncoign a month gone." The craggy

old ostler looked embarrassed to correct his master.

"Yes, of course," Wessex said quickly. So his wife was beneath her own ancestral roof and not his? It

would not do to draw a hasty conclusion as to her reasons, nor to let the servants see he was out of

countenance. Nor would it do to present himself before her in the dirt of the road. "I shall need a chaise

and team in an hour."

His wife's property was the erection of a more exuberant age than Dyer Court, and had been improved

out of all recognition by succeeding generations of Roxburys. From its cladding in white limestone to the

ornamental Sphynxes that guarded its roof, Mooncoign bespoke the excesses that sprang from absolute

license. The arrogance of the Conynghams was legendary throughout the county and the Ton. But the

present Marchioness, his Duchess, was forged of a different steel entirely, and Wessex knew better than

to expect arbitrariness or spite from her. Her actions were always considered and thoughtful—whether