Columbine (26 page)

“So this is the Englishwoman who claims to have gifts from God,” he said coldly.

“It is no more than Protestant trickery. With such blasphemy she dishonors you, Mattasoit, and damns her own soul.”

Behind him stood Mattasoit.

“Beware, mon pbre, she speaks your tongue.”

“Aye, sir, and I’ll not be shamed by anything I’ve done,” said Dianna vehemently as she rose to her feet, her arms still tight around Mercy’s shoulders.

“If I have spoken less than the truth, I’ve done so to save my child.”

The priest ignored Dianna and glanced instead over his shoulder at Mattasoit.

“You did not tell me there was a child with her. The lieutenant has no use for innocents.” “The child is my prisoner along with the woman,” said Mattasoit stubbornly.

“She will have a home among my people.”

“Where she will become another soul lost to the true faith.” The priest slid the polished cross between his fingers thoughtfully.

“I have decided. Come to me, child. Your mother has chosen the path to damnation, but there is still time for your redemption.

The holy sisters will nurture you and teach you the ways of goodness that come from Our Lord’s Blessed Mother.”

The French words were meaningless to Mercy, but she understood well enough the beckoning hand of the man in black and clung more tightly to Dianna.

“You can’t take her from me!” cried Dianna.

“Roman or not, you are still a Christian, and no true Christian would separate a child from her mother!”

“If you truly love her, madame, you should thank me for saving her immortal soul,” said the priest coldly.

“She will be well cared for, much better than you yourself seem presently capable of.”

Angrily Mattasoit gripped the man’s arm.

“I tell you, they are both mine!”

The priest stared pointedly at Mattasoit’s hand, and suddenly on some unseen cue, two French soldiers appeared at the narrow doorway, only their boots and the muzzles of their guns visible, but enough to make Mattasoit release his grip with a furious shove.

“You expect compensation for your efforts,” said the priest calmly, and tossed the Indian a handful of coins. Scornfully, Mattasoit did not catch them but let the coins fall to the dirt floor. The priest’s lips curled beneath his neat moustache.

“As you wish, so shall it be.”

With unexpected swiftness, he grabbed Mercy around the waist and jerked her from Dianna’s arms.

The child screamed as Dianna lunged after her, but as soon as the priest was safely through the door, the soldiers barred Dianna’s way with their muskets.

Dianna shoved against the cold metal, struggling to reach Mercy as the priest tossed the thrashing child onto his saddle and climbed behind her. One soldier shoved Dianna back into the doorway, and then the soldiers, too, mounted their’ horses. Dianna’s final glimpse of Mercy was her skinny bare legs in the new moccasins, kicking vainly against the horse’s side. Dianna stared after the three horses, not caring that she wept before the silent crowd of curious Pennacooks.

Her father, her name, her home and now Mercy and Kit: there was nothing left for her to lose.

It was Mattasoit who at last grabbed her shoulder and shook her roughly to break the spell of her own misery.

“Come, we are leaving.”

Uncomprehending, Dianna looked at him through the haze of her tears.

“We’re going after them?”

“Why? I’ve told you before that the child means nothing to me.” The Indian’s face was rigid with fury. ‘—,nglish and French you have all lied, and betrayed me, and I suffer it no longer. These white men will come for you, but you will begone, and I will be the one to laugh at them as fools!”

His fingers tightened on her shoulder, his nails leaving crescent-shaped marks in her skin even through the wool of her bodice.

“If you were true me’toulin, you wouldn’t have shamed me before the priest. But you are false, like all your kind. And by the time we reach my village, you will beg me to have sold yOU to the French.”

Kit and Attawan waited through most of the night, until the last hour before dawn when sleep is deepest, before they crept together into the village. Clouds hid the moon in their favor, but still Kit tied his light-colored hair beneath his hat and shaded his face with soot. Although Attawan had assured Kit that the villagers had no interest in Mercy or Dianna, and would likely not fight to keep them, Kit refused to rely on their goodwill. Instead he planned to kill the two Abenakis, steal their captives and melt back into the night without waking anyone. They’d use knives, not guns. Knives were silent and quick and did not need to be reloaded. He had never come to enjoy killing, hunting other men, white or red, for sport the way some did, but neither did he shy from it. And he wanted this man Mattasoit. God’s blood, if he had given even one moment’s pain to Dianna or Mercy… As he and Attawan slipped from the shadow of one house to another, their moccasined footsteps silent in the dust, Kit forced himself to put Dianna , from his thoughts and concentrate instead on the long blade of the knife in his hand. But something was wrong. He sensed: it with-his body before’s thoughts agreed, before he saw Attawan stiffen and scowl and gesture toward the rounded wigwam before them.

Neither of the Abenakis were standing guard, as Attawan said they had: been earlier. Immediately Kit’s gaze swept around the rest of the village, looking to see if they’d moved Mercy and Dianna to another house. But there was no sign of Mattasoit or Quabaug, no movement at all beyond one lame dog drowsily scratching his head. Impatiently Attawan ducked into the house, barking a warning that Kit didn’t understand. A woman shrieked and was quickly muffled, and then came a babble of excited voices. Kit followed, his eyes straining to make sense of the mounded figures in the dark house. One, an old woman, waved her arms defiantly in Attawan’s face as her shrill words rapidly rose and fell.

“For God’s sake, Attawan, what is she saying?”

demanded Kit. He could not stand upright against the low, curved ceiling, and bent over he felt awkward and vulnerable.

“Where’S Dianna?”

Disgusted, Attawan tlst his knife back into the sheath at his waist.

“They left before sundown. A French priest and two soldiers took Torn Wing’s daughter, and the Abenakis took your woman.”

Kit fought against disappointment so sharp he felt it like a blow.

“Strange they would be separated,” he heard himself saying as he and Attawan stepped outside. He had come too late. He’d failed again.

“Any notion of where they’ve gone?”

Attawan shook his head.

“They force us to separate, too. I’ll follow the priest.” He laid his hand on Kit’s arm and looked at him seriously, reading his doubts.

“The Abenakis are yours by rights. You will find them, and you will show them that you are worth ten of their worthless braves, that they should not take what is yours. The courage is in your heart, Sparhawk.”

He smiled and shoved Kit playfully.

“Go now, or you shall feel the sharpness of Dianna Grey’s tongue for making her wait.”

The basket Mattasoit had tied to Dianna’s back was heavy, and the hickory splints dug into her shoulders. She tried not to feel it, tried not to think beyond placing one foot after the other. That was difficult enough, burdened beneath the basket’s lopsided weight. But if she stumbled, Mattasoit would hit her and curse her clumsiness. Her lip was swollen from the last time, when she’d tripped across the root, and the coppery taste of her own blood was still in her mouth. He’d been so disgusted that he’d gone on ahead by himself, leaving her with Quabaug’s musket—Asa’s musket—to prod the backs of her legs. One step at a time, only one step, then one step more …. She saw the flash in the fir trees from the corner of her eye, heard first the dry echo of the gunpowder and then the surprised little grunt that Quahaug made as he flopped forward on top of her. Beneath his weight she toppled face first into the dry maple leaves, her breath knocked from her lungs. Gasping, she looked around wildly for the shot’s source and tried to pull herself free from beneath Quabaug’s sprawling, still body.

Then Kit was there, truly there and not just another dream, the sun bright in his haft and the rifle in his hand as he jumped and ran down the hill through the brambles toward her. And above him, behind the broken iak tree, with one eye squinted as he peered down his musket’s barrel, was Mattasoit.

Until Kit had seen Dianna there with the Indian, he had not realized how part of him already believed she was dead. By surrenddring hope, he had tried to defend himself from the ljain of losing her yet again.

But it hadn’t worked: he knew that the moment he saw her again. Without her, his life wasn’t worth living, and all the pretending in the world couldn’t change that.

From the trees he saw the discolored lump of the bruise on her jaw, the tattered, filthy clothing and the way she bowed beneath the basket she was forced to bear, while that Abenaki bastard ambled behind carrying nothing more than old Asa’s musket. Kit’s bullet found the Indian’s breast in an instant, clean and neat, and too easy a death by half for what he’d done to Dianna. But none of that mattered now, he thought joyfully as he plunged through the underbrush toward her. She was alive, and he meant to take her in his arms and beg her to forgive him and swear to never let her suffer again.

Yet her expression was all wrong. Her mouth was twisted open in terror, her eyes rounded and staring away from him, past him.

Instinct made him dodge and drop to the ground, and the musket bullet rang instead into an alder’s trunk, the bark splintering with a crack. Above him he heard Mattasoit’s unearthly cry for battle, and Kit had only time to roll to his back as the Indian threw himself down from the hill, tomahawk in hand.

With both hands Kit held his rifle crossways, catching Mattasoit’s wrist back against his chest. The Indian’s face contorted as he strained to break Kit’s hold. He twisted his leg beneath Kit’s and threw his weight sideways, rocking Kit over with him. Kit slammed the rifle toward the man’s throat and grabbed for his knife. In that haft-second the Indian shoved the rifle away and swung the tomahawk upward.

Swiftly Kit ducked, but not before a handful of severed gold-streaked curls drifted past his shoulder.

He grabbed the Indian’s wrist just as Mattasoit’s fingers tightened around his own.

Helplessly Dianna watched as the two men tumbled over and over across the ground like wild dogs.

They were well-matched in skill and size, each strengthened with blood-lust and anger. It would be a fight that ended only when one man was dead. She hated watching and looked away. There in the grass, not far, lay Asa’s musket where Quabaug had dropped it. Her fingers clawed vainly at the loamy ground and leaves as she tried to reach it, her breath ,1 coming in short pants of frustration as she stretched toward the gun.

But it was too late. She heard the ragged cry, the last sound of a dying man. Dropping her head onto her arm, she squeezed her eyes shut, afraid to look.

Merciful God, she prayed, let Kit be alive! Let him be alive, and I shall never ask for anything else again!

And then Kit was pulling her free from Quabaug’s body and from the crushed carrying basket. The cry she heard now was her own, and tears of relief tracked down her grimy cheeks as she threw her arms around Kit’s neck.

“Oh, Kit, I thought I’d never see you again,” Dianna murmured hoarsely against his chest.

“My own love, my only love!”

Yet strangely he did not embrace her in return, but held her too lightly with his hands on her shoulders.

Puzzled, Dianna drew back’ and he seemed to follow, swaying unsteadily, and toer shock she realized he only stood because of he support.

“Behind that hill are–rthere is a shelter,” he said thickly.

“You need rest, dear ling you are–” He did not finish, clutching at her as his legs gave way. He stared blankly at Dianna, his green eyes too wide open and his face oddly pale beneath the tan.

Now Dianna saw the dark patches on his hunting shirt were blood, new blood, and not all of it Mattasoit’s.

The hair over Kit’s left ear was wet and red, the curl gone limp.

“Nay, Kit, ‘tis you that’s wounded,” she said as she straggled to keep him upright. Lord, why did she have to be so small a woman in a world of large men? She lifted one of his arms across her shoulder like a yoke and tried to lead him.

“Listen to me, love! We must get you to this shelter, but I’ll need your help. Nay, don’t wobble on me now, Kit!”

Kit heard her voice from far away and smiled, wondering why this pretty little woman beside him should accuse him of wobbling. Wobbling was a damned foolish accusation to make to a man. He was steady enough to dance, if he’d a mind to, and mayhap with this very lass, if only she’d stand still long enough for him to catch her. Her face spun before him, her features crazily unfocussed. Silly baggage, to tease him this way!

Somehow Dianna managed to lead him over the hill, not even sure that the shelter he’d mentioned even existed. But there beside the trickle of a nearly-dry stream were the bent saplings of an abandoned Indian camp. The Indians had taken away most of the woven mats that turned the sapling arches into houses, but one little wigwam remained almost intact, perhaps the last refuge of a villager too old or ill to follow with the rest. It was empty enough now, smelling of musty reeds and squirrels, and there were ragged holes in the walls where the mats had fallen through. Yet the wigwam was better than Dianna had dared to hope, and with one final effort, she haft led, haft dragged Kit inside. He groaned, muttering something she didn’t understand, and at last, his body gave way to unconsciousness.

Dianna pushed her hair back from her face and tried to think what to do next. With a quick glance at Kit, she ran back over the hill to where the two dead Abenakis lay. First she retrieved the basket she had been carrying, loaded with provisions Mattasoit had-appropriated from Pennacooks–two blankets a brass cooking pot, twice mended, smoked venison, parched corn, walnuts and a bark basket of cranberries that were only slightly crushed. Next she collected Asa’s musket and Mattasoit’s, too. For a long moment She stared down at Mattasoit’s body,