Ishmael came forward and knelt by the girl. “Jacob Pine is my particular friend,” the boy explained to his companions.
“He charged that Huron,” Hannah said, “hit him hard enough to push the club away from my head. It just broke my arm, then cut my face when he slashed backward at me. That Huron hit Jacob too then, and cut him bad on the shoulder, but the Caughnawags ran up and pulled the Huron away.”
Brother Xavier stepped closer to the girl and turned toward Duncan, as if to cut her off. “When I saw them I demanded they give up the girl, for I know the fate of captives who cannot perform work. Dead Iroquois maidens help no one. She had the care of the seminary physician.” He shifted toward the Iroquois elders. “I told them I know who those five children were, that I would write it in my great book if they injured more of them.”
“Your book?” Duncan asked.
“The chronicle is a living record. Once it is written, the world remembers. They all know that.” Xavier hesitated and flushed at the suggestion that he used the book to shame his native flock. He was, Duncan could see, well aware of the ways the tribes had been abused and cheated with the written words of Europeans. “I mean only that I reminded them that the children must be properly respected. Honorable men do not fight with children as their pawns.”
“Honorable men do not fight with children as their pawns,” Custaloga repeated, directing his words to Tatamy, who remained expressionless.
The monk grew uneasy. “We should not tire our patient,” he said, gesturing them back toward his library vault.
“Mr. Bedford. Is he safe?” Ishmael asked as he rose.
“They took him away, Ishmael,” Hannah said with a forlorn shake of her head. “They said he was to be tortured because he tried to hide us at Bethel Church. They do terrible things to the prisoners they tie to those posts. I pray for him every night. Brother Xavier says he lights candles for him.”
Hetty must have learned her son’s fate, Duncan realized as he followed Xavier back to the vault. She had changed her plans, had helped them go the Council because she had decided her son was lost.
When they returned to Xavier’s chamber, he produced a hand-drawn map and laid it on his table, pointing out the outposts and batteries around Montreal. A large box marked with a B indicated the British base on the southern bank five miles away. Underneath was written the name of the units in the advance positions: Fraser. Montgomery. Black Watch. All Highland units.
“The Caughnawags and Quebec militia wait for their orders,” the Frenchman declared. “As thick as flies in the summer woods.” He indicated smaller boxes, each within two or three miles of a British unit. “When the Scots are eliminated, the other troops brought by General Calder and Xavier Johnson will be useless. The campaign will be lost, the British initiative lost for the year. And that will make all the difference.”
“When?” Duncan asked. “When has a Scottish regiment ever been defeated in this war?”
Xavier’s expression was that of the cunning fox who has made a kill. “The Saint Lawrence will become a gauntlet of death for the English troops. For the glory of Rome.”
“You mean the glory of the Revelator,” Duncan snapped impatiently. Xavier’s silent smile sent a shiver down his spine, and he looked back at Tatamy. Xavier thought they had come to listen to his terms, but Tatamy had brought them to reveal the crimes he could not speak of.
Xavier gestured toward the entryway. “We have laid pallets in the adjoining vault. You can-”
The army coin rang like a bell when Duncan dropped it on the table. Xavier’s gloating expression disappeared. “You mean for the glory of the sainted renegade who had his men hammer the skulls of Christian Mohawks to steal British treasure.”
The color drained from the Jesuit’s face and he dropped into his chair. He had known nothing of the payroll theft.
A low rumble of wheels on stone cobbles woke Duncan from his restless sleep in the empty chamber where he and the others slept. He lay awake in the dim light of the solitary lantern, then finally sat up, stretching, and suddenly saw that Ishmael’s pallet was empty. He slipped out into the dimly lit corridor then up the passage to the cathedral. At the end of the nave, near the altar, a priest was on his knees with an old native woman, both absorbed in prayer. They took no notice of him as he stole out of the cathedral.
He circled the big stone structure and its seminary, thinking the boy may have sought a perch to watch as the ox-drawn cannons crept through the town, then he retraced their path from the river. The stone wall where the beggars sat was lit by street lanterns, and Duncan dropped back into the shadows as he spotted the boy. Ishmael was on his knees before the aged woman beside Hetty, extending a blanket to her. The woman held her palms up to decline the gift, but the boy remonstrated until at last she let Ishmael drape the blanket over her shoulders. Ishmael quickly stepped backward, as if worried she might change her mind, then bent to give Hetty an awkward embrace before hurrying toward the shadows where Duncan stood.
The boy halted as he reached the darkness and turned to watch the old women. They seemed to a mystery to him, and with a tightening in his chest Duncan realized the boy had never had women in his life. Duncan had lost his own mother and sisters, but he had been blessed with memories of good years with them. Ishmael’s only family had been his grandfather, and Hickory John had been hardening him for a life alone in the world.
After several minutes Duncan stepped closer to Ishmael, who acknowledged him with a silent nod.
“That one with Hetty,” the boy said, “she is a Conoy, one of the lost tribes of the Pennsylvania lands. Hetty met her many years ago, wandering in the Ohio country. She had been a revered matriarch, a leader and teacher, daughter of a great chief. She says when the great snows come, the other beggars put on crosses and are allowed to sleep in the back of the cathedral. But she won’t do so because she says it affronts the old gods, that it is not the way of her people. The others laugh at her and say she has no people.”
“She has a blanket now,” Duncan observed.
“Is that the way of it when you are the last of your kind?” There was a catch in Ishmael’s throat as he spoke. “Being laughed at? Sitting in a blanket alone in the raging snow?”
“She is not alone,” Duncan said after a long moment. “All of her gods and all of her people live inside her.”
As they returned to the cathedral Duncan did not object when Ishmael gestured him to a pew. They sat in silence for a quarter hour, gazing at the image of Christ on the cross over the altar and the priest who still spoke with the native woman, who was now weeping. Ishmael finally rose and without a word disappeared back down the stairway.
Duncan lingered a few more minutes then stepped to another arched doorway on the opposite side. The bell tower stairs were so narrow his elbows brushed both walls as he climbed. He emerged onto an open belfry, the highest vantage point in the city. A cool wind blew through the starlit sky. The muscles of small gargoyles jutting off the ledge below the belfry rippled in the silver light, as if the creatures were about to leap into the sky.
Below him the city lay in repose except for wagons with provisions arriving at a single gate. The city was preparing for a long siege. In the far distance, down the wide eastern stretch of the river, the rising moon silhouetted the topmasts of British warships. The clip-clop of a solitary rider echoed off the cobblestones below. A lantern moved along the top of the outer wall, an officer checking his sentries. He gazed over the open expanse of river beyond. If the British ships could advance and hold in the right position against the river’s powerful currents they would pound the walls to dust. But the French artillerymen, famed for their cool, efficient fire, meant to sink the ships before they could secure their anchors. Hundreds of men were soon to die.