At the Queen_s command

Chapter Twenty-Six

June 9, 1763

Hattersburg

Lindenvale, Mystria

T hey spent the rest of the day and night at Seth Plant's place in case he decided to return. They also wanted to be there in case anyone came up from Hattersburg to investigate Plant's abrupt trip to Temperance. Owen used the time to copy the technical notes from one journal into the other, providing a very concise and direct compilation of useful military data.

He also took time to fire several shots through the Ryngian musket so he could evaluate it for his report. He carefully paced off forty yards and set out targets. He loaded half a charge and shot. The ball sailed out forty yards but missed low. Three shots later he'd determined that it could take a full charge and delivered the ball out to sixty yards with fair accuracy.

"Not a bad piece." Owen sucked at the tip of his shooting thumb. A little bead of blood appeared beneath the nail. It throbbed in time with his pulse-closer to annoyance than pain. He'd felt much worse in battle.

"Du Malphias' expecting a lot of action, I'm thinking. Nice vent spike there."

Owen nodded. The brass firestone assembly had a small triangular thorn off to the right side. It picked up heat from the brimstone combustion. If the blood under the nail became too much, the shooter could just press his nail to it. The metal would melt through and blood would spurt, relieving the pressure.

"The Ryngians make good weapons. Good soldiers, too." Owen shook his head. "You see them massed in those blue jackets, marching forward with bayonets fixed, it turns your guts to water."

"Good reason to leave war over there." Nathaniel stretched. "Or figure a way to end any war here fast."

For supper they harvested some onions and tomatoes from Plant's house garden. Makepeace mixed them with pemmican before frying it up. While he cooked, the others explained to Makepeace Bone what they were doing. He took it all in with a grunt here and there, then served up dinner at Seth's table.

Owen wanted to dig right in, but Makepeace wouldn't let them start unless they joined hands and bowed their heads as he offered grace. "Dear God, wonderful and terrible, we thank Thee for these gifts. May they strengthen us body and soul for to face the challenges Ye set before us. Amen."

The solemnity with which the giant offered the prayer surprised Owen. Based on the previous night's drinking and grave-robbing attempt, he hardly expected Makepeace to be pious to any degree.

"It's been a long time since anyone has offered to say grace."

Makepeace nodded. "Not many do. Most men out here only get churchy when the minister is looking their way. I was raised Virtuan. Kind of got away from it. Then the Good Lord got it in His mind to be reminding me of what I owes Him."

The man patted the top of his head. "In Second Kings God went and sent two she-bears to kill children who mocked his prophet Elijah. Well, I was mocking a man said he was a prophet. Mocked him for being bald, and an idiot, but mostly bald. 'Bout a day later a he-bear sent by the almighty came and near scalped me bald."

"What did you do?"

"Well, my scalp was flopping down over my eyes, so I just feeled about best I could. Me and the bear, we had a bit of a tussle. I heard tell you ain't supposed to kill the messenger, but that was long after and all."

Nathaniel kept his voice low. "Killed it with his bare hands."

"Only fair, really. Bear didn't have no gun. But when it was over, I was tore up a bit, clawed and gnawed. I went a-crawling, blind like Saul, and I was saying to myself 'The Lord is my shepherd,' over and over. Then a man was there, a shepherd out where there weren't no sheep. He done stitched me up, fed me the sweetest bread I ever did eat. And one morning I woke up, He was gone. No trace of Him around, neither, and I ain't second to nobody when it comes to tracking."

The giant glanced skyward. "Then I looked up and done seen His footprints in the clouds. Now I'm a sinner, but I sin lots less than before, and I take my praying serious."

Owen's eyes narrowed. "You don't wear any sign…"

Makepeace smiled broadly. "When you been touched by the Lord, or His surrogate, you ain't much in need of signs."

Nathaniel nodded. "I'm thinking we're seeing signs from diabolical forces, if you're wanting God's honest truth." He proceeded to outline what Prince Vlad had explained about Ryngian power and what he expected them to do in the west.

Makepeace Bone absorbed it all, then nodded solemnly. "I been a-wondering when God was going to call me to do His work. Sounds like this du Malphias feller is a Diabolist at the very least. Iffen you'll have me, I'll be going with you. If not, I reckon I'll go anyway."

Owen smiled broadly. Right from the start, Makepeace's presence changed the expedition's dynamics. Even though Nathaniel and Kamiskwa had begun treating Owen as more than self-loading cargo after he killed the Ungarakii, they still shouldered more than their share of responsibility. Granted he had no wilderness experience, and they were willing to teach him, but there were some things they chose to do just because it was easier.

With four of them, and Makepeace being as big as he was, they could no longer travel in one canoe. Owen partnered with Makepeace in a second. This made their journeys a bit faster and, despite the aching shoulders and chest, Owen enjoyed the added work.

The giant's presence also made Nathaniel a little less reserved. He'd called Nathaniel "Magehawk," too, but Owen didn't press for that story. That would have violated the trust they'd been building up. Instead he would sit back at night, writing in his journal, as the other three men shared stories they'd obviously heard before but enjoyed nonetheless. And Makepeace, for all of his understatement, told as good a story as the other two.

Listening to them over the next several weeks Owen realized they all had a sense of freedom that he'd never known. One night Nathaniel told a story about his having been caught stealing eggs from an old woman's farm when he was a child. He'd tried for years and years to redeem himself in her eyes. He'd chopped wood in the winter, he'd brought her skins and meat, he'd carried messages, fetched packages, and always stopped in when he was near her home just to see if she needed anything.

"Then, 'bout five years ago, I came up on her farm and there weren't no smoke from the chimney, no chickens in the yard. I was thinking the worst, of course." Nathaniel rotated the spit on which he'd skewered a crow. "I went into Oaktown, asked. They said she was feeling poorly, been taken in by the Preacher and his wife. So I went to see her. She was in her bed and when she saw me, she started cussing a blue streak, calling me all kinds of thief.

"I reckon the Preacher he done read my face. I was disappointed to see her in such a state and all. And he says to her, 'Grannie Hale, you been hating this boy for nigh on to twenty years over a handful of eggs he didn't even get away with. Can't you forgive him, even now?'"

Nathaniel smiled. "So she looked up at him, all toothless grinning and says, "I don't hate him. I done forgive him twenty years ago, Reverend. I just hain't tole him I did. Iffen I had, who'd a-brung me venison and skins? Who'd a-been chopping my wood, hauling water, and patching my roof?'"

"And the Reverend said, 'Maybe he would have found it in his heart to do so anyway.' And she spitted him with a stare was clear-eyed and cold. 'You preach redemption, but it's at a word and a dunking. I make him work for it. It sticks that way.' And ain't no two ways about it, she was righter than rain."

Owen never could have told that sort of story on himself. It would have opened him to ridicule. He got enough of that just because of the circumstance of his birth. And yet the ease with which they shared such stories revealed an inner confidence that he craved.

Is it this place that breeds these men, or the freedom that encourages them? He jotted that question down. He stared at the empty page below it for a long while, and he found himself unable to compose a satisfactory answer.

Three weeks out of Hattersburg, as dusk was falling, they paddled across Pine Lake. Small, not particularly deep, it lay nestled in a small valley, with thick forest right down to the water. A few islands dotted it and fish jumped at bugs. The wind stirred the water a bit, but Owen felt that if he had to live out his days with that vista visible from his front porch, he could die happy.

The wind blew out of the north, slowing their progress, but brought the sound of voices. They came from a long, slender island running northwest to southeast. On the leeward side, where the island's central spine blocked the wind, a fire's golden hints glimmered.

Nathaniel and Kamiskwa immediately cut east. They headed out and around, approaching the island on the windward side. As they got close enough to land, Makepeace and Owen paddled toward the small, sandy beach on the island's lee side. They readied their muskets before they came within range then, fifty yards offshore, changed course to run parallel to the beach.

Makepeace cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. "Hello, the fire. Bonsoir."

Brief movement eclipsed the fire. A voice called back cautiously. "Bonsoir. Who is it, please?"

"Makepeace Bone. That you, Jean?"

"Yes, my friend."

"Who's with you?"

"Etienne Ilsavont. You might like to choose another island, non?"

"Tain't very friendly, Jean."

"My friend, I will shoot if you try to land."

"You shoot, I'll be sore disappointed." Makepeace picked up his paddle and lowered his voice. "We go in easy. You shoot, then me, iffen they start a fight."

Owen, his mouth going dry, watched the island as they paddled closer. He'd long since learned better than to stare intently at any one spot. Instead he broadened his focus, watching for movement. Yearsasa skirmisher had taught him that motion was easier to see than men who wanted to be hidden.

Every stroke, the ripple of water around the bow, filled ears straining for any noise. Owen saw nothing. If they shot, he'd first see fire, then hear the blast. Every stroke brought them deeper into lethal range. Even the most inept shot had an even chance of hitting them. At that range, a.75 caliber ball would crush bone and blow right through a man, possibly even pitching him out of the canoe.

"Come on in. They're inclined to be peaceable."

At Nathaniel's call they sped up. While Makepeace and Owen had distracted the Ryngians, Nathaniel and Kamiskwa had slipped onto the island from the windward side. Having seen them move through the woods, Owen had no doubts that they'd taken the Ryngians completely by surprise.

Owen leaped clear of the canoe as it first touched sand, then dragged it forward. Makepeace climbed out into ankle-deep water and grabbed one of the crosspieces. Without grunt or grimace, he lifted the whole canoe out of the lake and carried it up to dry sand. He set it next to the smaller of two canoes that had been overturned to shelter a thick bale of pelts.

Carrying his rifle, Owen jogged up a slight incline to a flat spot where the Ryngians had built their fire. Nathaniel and Kamiskwa covered two men. The captives were seated on the ground; their muskets lay on the far side of the fire. Both weapons resembled Owen's carbine for length, but were much older and wanted for maintenance.

One man vaguely resembled Pierre. Owen figured him to be Etienne. Thick like his father, possibly brother, and not terribly tall, Etienne looked much younger and had a thick shock of brown hair. He looked more angry than sour, while his compatriot looked just the opposite. Jean looked as much like a drowned rat as he did a man, with his ears and nose warring for prominence. He had no chin to speak of, which he compensated for with a thick and droopy moustache. If not for a high forehead and decently spaced eyes, it would have been simple to dismiss him as a lower-class wastrel.

Makepeace circled around to stand to the right of and behind Jean. Nathaniel sat, but still kept his rifle leveled at their captives. "Now we don't mean you no discomfort or ill will. I pert near forgot that time when you and your pa were emptying my traps, Etienne. How so ever, I do have me some questions."

The younger man glared sullenly at Nathaniel.

Jean smiled half-heartedly. "My friend Nathaniel, you are not one to point a gun unless you mean to use it."

"Just as you was a-pointing at my friends."

"This is true. A misunderstanding, non?" Jean lowered his hands. "We shall start again. Welcome to our fire. Please, share with us."

"Ain't you a mite east of your normal range?" Nathaniel watched them closely. "I don't recall ever seeing you in these parts."

Jean shrugged. "The land, it is so beautiful. We just kept going."

"And I don't recall you traveling with the Ilsavonts."

"These are difficult times, my friend."

"Part of that difficult being your father up out of his grave, Etienne?"

Blood drained from Ilsavont's face. He started to say something, then his shoulders sagged and he began to cry.

Jean rested a hand on his shoulder and said something softly. He turned to look at Nathaniel and Owen. "Please, gentlemen, he has been tortured by this. This is why we are here."

Nathaniel pointed his rifle toward the sky. "Tell me."

Jean and Etienne exchanged glances, then the younger man nodded. Jean let his hand fall from his shoulder and hunched forward. "It is like this. Two months ago a ship arrives in Kebeton from Tharyngia. A man, tall, a scarecrow, a Laureate, they say, he comes with troops and many boxes of equipment. Big boxes, small, and he has servants who help unload, but only at night. He offers good money, much money, for scouts, and for other things. I just found paths for him, yes? I knew of the other things he wanted but he was a Laureate. Like your prince, non? Who can know their minds?"

"What did he want?" Owen dropped to a knee. "The other things?"

Jean stared into the fire. "He wanted bodies. He wanted to know where the Shedashee, they bury their people. He came to some of the resting grounds, but the bodies, they did not suit him. So he asked for other bodies. I hear, you know, men bring him murder victims. There was one small town where we hear there is a frozen body. They keep it in the ice house and charge for to look. And he sends for that body."

Nathaniel nodded. "And that would be Pierre?"

Jean shook his head. "I do not know."

"My father, yes." Etienne lifted his head, smearing dirt as he wiped away tears. "I fetched the body. I thawed it out. I saw it was my father. And a week later, I saw my father alive again."