The Blooding of Jack Absolute (32 page)

It was a mistake.

When he came, Jack had taken a breath and it was enough to let him push himself from the wall, not off the ground, but along
it, not away from his enemy but towards him, using the slickness of the surface for momentum. Até had stepped back to give
himself room to run, to bring his final blow down and it was the blow he was focused on, not the target. He was half-turned
away. He was running and Jack was sliding and the two met with Jack’s one leg raised at an angle off the ground. Até impaled
himself on it.

His groan was echoed around the edge of the ring, each man there folding in slightly to his centre. Até staggered back, clutching
at his groin, while Jack snatched up his weapon. Both ended with their backs against the pit’s walls, both sucking in rasping
gulps of air.

Jack moved first. The pain in his side had a dullness he feared was only temporary. Before he succumbed to it, he had to end
this. Grasping the club at shoulder height, he pushed
himself off the wall, as if he were striding down a wicket to a short-flighted ball.

One stroke to win the match,
he thought, grimacing at what the movement did to him.

Até came off the wall too, equally pained, equally determined. They met at the exact centre of the pit, both clubs descending
for a blow, clacking above their heads, bouncing off, coming together again. Jack struck, Até blocked it; Até struck, Jack
fended him off, both sucking air as they brought up their weapons, expelling it as they clashed.

It could not go on, exhaustion and pain had to make one slip and it was Jack. A blow hit his club from his grasp. But Até
had not anticipated that giving and his whole body, which he’d put into the blow, followed it through. Suddenly they were
side to side, shoulder pressed to shoulder, and Jack reached both his hands down to twist the Mohawk’s wrist, jerking the
weapon from his grip, his own hands coming around to grab. Fingers entwined, they spun round and around like a children’s
top, bouncing off the earthen walls, to their grunts, to the growing screams of those above them.

Then noise ceased, or at least dropped to only their harsh wheezing, the crump of bodies slammed into packed mud. Until a
voice came, new, authoritative, roaring anger and commands. On the instant, the pit was full of bodies breaking them apart.
And though he saw the fury and the desire in the Mohawk, Jack saw a glimmer of something else there too, that he suspected
was mirrored on his face – relief. Death would not come to either of them that day. And they would not have to kill to avoid
it.

Jack lay listening to the night, wondering what it was that had woken him. He didn’t think it was pain. Though he was beaten
for his part in the duel, it wasn’t any more than he usually suffered, the matriarch of the longhouse lacking the stamina
and accuracy of even an under-usher at Westminster. It was the organizers who suffered more, Segunki and his cronies, unused
to the punishment given to slaves and to the slave work that followed. And he hadn’t rolled onto his side, which, for the
first three nights after the fight, had pained Jack far more than the switch stripes on his arse; a bruise had spread in a
profusion of purples and eventually yellow.

Of the deliverer of the blow, he saw little. If they had shared the briefest of realizations at the end of their fight, Jack
had no desire to expand on the acquaintance. The fellow was still a cheat and he would prefer to keep from his company.

And yet it was from a dream of Até that Jack had awoken. At first he hadn’t been there, hadn’t intruded into the delight of
a night at the Five Chimneys, the taste of the inn’s fine Porter more exquisite than Jack had ever known, his comrades’ banter
more amusing. Then Mohawk had replaced Mohock at his side, though Até had retained some of Marks’s features, his one knitted
eyebrow startling beneath the brightness of the
warrior’s shaven head. There were tattoos upon his scalp which seemed to be leaking ink.

Até had led him outside onto a Tothill Fields more studded with trees than Jack remembered it to be. He’d thought the Iroquois
wanted to renew their combat but instead he just stared, immobile.

‘What do you want?’ Jack had said and, for reply, the other man gestured toward the river that was the Thames and yet was
not, for neither warehouses nor pleasure gardens lined its banks, only an endless forest. Até seemed to be inviting Jack to
enter it with him.

‘Now?’ Jack had wanted to be back amidst the tankards and the laughter. Até had nodded, turned … and then Jack had awoken
and lay there wondering why. It wasn’t the cold, despite the slave’s position furthest from the hearth. He had taken precautions
against it, his thin blanket tucked around, one of the hut dogs pulled close despite its fleas and fetid breath. The hound
was asleep, twitching but only slightly, in some dream of its own. No one else moved and the snoring, which could be as bad
as at Porten’s dormitory, was light. Pulling the dog closer, Jack was about to try to sleep again, suspecting dawn not to
be far off and he would need to be about his chores soon enough. Then what had woken him came again, a whisper, through the
thin birch-bark walls.

‘Pass up to the junction there.’

Though the man’s accent was harsh, the words were definitely in English. They were followed by the sound of several pairs
of feet moving quietly away. Unfolding himself from the blanket and the dog’s embrace – the animal whimpered but did not wake
– Jack climbed carefully over the bodies on the platform, then stepped between those who’d lain closer to the hearths, all
the way to the entrance, pausing there, his fingers on the deerskin flap. From another hut a dog started barking, ceasing
on the sound of a blow, a sleepy curse. The wind that had been gusting throughout the night dropped now. Jack strained for
more English words, which he did not
realize till then how much he’d missed. He presumed that the speaker and his soft-footed companions would be trappers like
the three Canadians who’d come through the village the week before and had stayed for a night of rum and trading. But they
had spoken in their version of French and showed interest in Jack only as a commodity, to be taken off the Abenaki and sold
on to the French Army for a suitable price. His captors had declined their offer. These fellows – they were probably from
the Colonies to the south – though they might not be able to pay his hostage price, could at least take news of Jack’s imprisonment
to the nearest British fort. Contact with them might be his first step to freedom.

Gingerly, he stepped through, lowering the weighted flap behind him. He was immediately shivering, the tattered shirt they’d
given him and the frayed buckskin leggings poor protection against a night which smelled of winter fast approaching. The ground
was hard and he placed one bare foot atop the other, trying to warm each in turn while he turned in the direction he thought
the men had taken. He could see a little, for the night was shading into dawn, the tops of the beech and maples showing what
remained of their autumn reds. But there was no movement, no sign of those who had passed. Fearful now that they may already
have been on their way out of the village, Jack took a step in pursuit. A bird called, shrill, piercing … and the night exploded.

Lanterns pulled from under overcoats illuminated men where only darkness had been, under the trees, in the shadows of lodges.
Brands were lit, flared, and rose like shooting stars to plummet on to birch-bark shelters, barns, piles of drying corn. With
the instant crackle came screams of terror from within. A man from the next hut burst from the entrance; gunpowder flashed
and the Abenaki flew back as if jerked on ropes.

Whoever was killing his enemy was his friend. ‘Heh!’ Jack yelled, moving along his hut’s wall, waving his arms, ‘Heh, there!’

His reply came in ball, two shattering the bark walls each
side of his head. ‘Heh!’ He called again but not so loudly, dropping to the ground, crawling back the way he had come. Another
bullet sprayed dirt up into his face and he froze, not sure which way to move, until five warriors ran from his own longhouse,
the first two falling to shots, the other three crouching and firing in return, then sprinting away. A group of women emerged,
pushing children ahead of them, and Jack took a step toward this crowd – until one of the women pitched forward, half her
face ripped away. The children screamed, scattered, some running back inside despite the fire engulfing the wood, some fleeing
after the men. The attackers began to whoop and, tomahawks drawn, give chase.

Jack ran too, from the burning longhouse, from the bullet or blade in his back. Yet every way was a variation of one he’d
fled – flames, shrieks, gunfire, death. He ran towards a larger group who milled like sheep, until a ragged volley dropped
half a dozen into the mud and the rest broke. He found himself running down an avenue of largely clapboard houses that seemed
deserted – until another shot came, its wind passing close to his ear. He was looking back, even as he ran forward … and careened
into someone.

Bouncing back, falling, he raised arms to ward off blows. Then, through his thrust-out hands, he saw someone doing the same
thing.

‘Até!’

The other’s hands lowered. ‘You!’

Another musket cracked nearby, someone shouted, a figure appeared, silhouetted in flame, pointing at them. ‘Quickly,’ hissed
Até, leaping up. He disappeared between two houses and Jack followed. A path led through a copse of trees and leaving it,
Até ran another dozen paces then threw himself behind a thick tree-trunk. Jack did the same, just as feet found the path and
shouting men ran along it. Ducking his head, Jack waited till the earth stopped trembling before he looked up.

‘They’re … they’re …’

‘Rangers,’ said the Mohawk.

Jack had seen Rangers with the King’s Army at Quebec. ‘They fight on our side, against the Abenaki,’ he said excitedly. ‘They’ve
come to rescue us.’

‘They come to kill.’ Até nodded towards the sounds of terror. ‘I tried to speak to them, for Mohawks and Rangers fight side
by side.’ He lowered his head. ‘They give me this.’

Jack could see a dark furrow, gleaming red along the crown of the Indian’s head. He swallowed. ‘They tried to shoot me too.
But we just have to wait till they beat the Abenaki—’

‘They will not “beat”. They burn, steal, kill. Then go.’

‘So we must go with them.’ Jack half rose, only for the Mohawk to reach out and pull him back down. A shout came from nearby,
another two men ran down the path. When they’d passed, Até whispered, ‘They kill all they see, anyone who look like Abenaki.
Me. Even you.’ He gestured to Jack’s torn shirt, leggings, his straggly black hair.

‘But …’ Jack’s desperation was overcoming his fear. ‘I must try. I won’t stay here to be a slave any longer.’

Até stared at him intently. ‘Then we go other way.’ His head indicated the forest, away from the river and the direction of
the attack.

‘We?’

‘Abenaki maybe think we dead in raid. Maybe they wait for a day to come looking, give us start. We go. Find my people.’

‘Maybe?’

‘Better than here. Better than slave.’

He was right – especially if His Majesty’s Rangers were going to blow his head off before they listened to him. So he nodded
and, on Até’s signal, they both rose, heading back down the path towards the clapboard houses. More were burning now but the
shots seemed to be coming from their left, so they went right. Soon they came to more bodies, two men, a woman and a child
in a huddle. The men had tomahawks which Até picked up, handing one to Jack. The road led them into the centre of St Francis,
quiet compared to the noise of fight and terror that
now came from the village’s periphery. The doors of the church were thrown back and bodies were strewn up its steps.

Até made to go around, to follow the road out of the village. But Jack hissed, ‘Wait!’ and, despite his companion’s curses,
went inside. There were bodies in there too, sprawled over the upturned pews. He didn’t look closely at any after the first
one. Each one there, man or woman, had been scalped.

The altar was wrecked, the objects of veneration scattered around. The Silver Madonna was gone, the plinth that had held it,
kindling. Beneath it, a moment’s rooting gave him what he sought. Carefully tugging the war club, he pulled the spike out
of the vellum and leather. There was a satchel lying in the wreckage on the floor and, dropping
Hamlet
into it, Jack slung it across his shoulder. There were offerings from the harvest festival too and some ears of dried corn
followed the book.

‘Now we can go,’ he said to a glowering Mohawk. Tumult came from the road ahead, shrieks and gunfire, so they cut left and
were soon under the canopy. They ran, until the sounds of massacre had faded behind them. And then they ran on.

‘I think we’ve lost—’

Até’s furious gesture halted Jack’s hopeful sentence. He was peering back into the forest so Jack peered too, trying to pierce
the thick strands of trees. Even though the canopy had grown thinner with the season, with most of the red and yellows of
the maples now lying beneath them, it was still hard to see deeply into the forest, especially in the gloom of twilight. Hard
to hear anything beyond the bubbles trapped in his ears that had hummed with every step. They had trotted most of the day
since leaving St Francis and, since they’d glanced back from a hilltop an hour before to see sunlight gleaming on muskets,
they had run again.

The Mohawk’s hand was still hanging in the air when they both heard it – a distinct crack as something or someone trod on
a stick, sounding like a gunshot in the sepulchral silence of
the forest. They both looked where they thought it had come from – and there, just passing from tree to tree, a bald head
moved, a blue feather, unattached to any bird, swaying across the brow.

Até signalled him down, and the two began to shimmy backwards through the leaves and undergrowth until they reached the scant
path they’d stepped off to look. Then they were up, running. Jack felt his back tighten between his shoulder blades as if
someone had sighted on a place that would soon hold a bullet or a blade. Immediately, his breath again reverberated in his
ears, putting a blanket between him and the sounds of the forest, though it did not shut out the shout that came – the halloo
of a hunter sighting his quarry.