Silver Tears (24 page)

Alice’s heart sank. It seemed there was no way out of “this great honor.”

“You must help me, Mathilde,” Alice pleaded. “I’ve made a terrible mess of things. I love my husband. I should never have left him. Won’t you please ask the baron to return me at once to my people?”

Mathilde smiled compassionately, but shook her head. “I am afraid it is too late for that. Even now my husband is on his way to greet our noble guest. They will be here very soon.”

Alice gasped. What was she going to do?

When Alice left the baron’s lodge, a detail of guards was waiting outside to escort her to a secluded spot in the river where she was ordered to strip and bathe. Although the braves who accompanied her averted their eyes, she made quick work of her toilette.

Back at the tent several female servants hovered about, combing her hair and braiding it, scenting her body, and finally dressing her in a fine doeskin costume. When all was ready, they left her alone in the tent.

Alice’s nerves were shattered. During the previous days she had simply assumed that the moment would never come. She had expected something to happen that would save her. Perhaps war would break out, or the visitor’s horse would throw him and break his neck on the way, or Chris might decide he’d waited long enough and come riding into camp to steal her away. Now, however, the afternoon shadows were growing long. Soon her unknown lover would ride into camp and her fate would be sealed.

“No!” she cried aloud, running to the tent flap.

As usual, her way was blocked by a brave with orders from the baron to restrain her at all costs. The young man glared at her and raised his lance, barring the entrance.

“I must speak with the baron,” she demanded. “Immediately!”

Alice had made up her mind. She could not go through with it. She loved Chris and only Chris. There was no way she could allow another man to use her body for his pleasure. To the Indian women, such a sacrifice might seem noble, but to Alice it was degrading and disgusting. She would keep these thoughts to herself, but she had to tell the baron she was ready to go back to her husband.

“Did you hear me?” She spoke sharply to her guard. “Tell the baron I must speak with him.”

Neither of Alice’s two guards spoke English. They only stared at her, holding their lances at the ready. The more Alice insisted, the more confused the two men looked. Finally one of them motioned to someone out of Alice’s line of vision. A moment later Ishani stepped forward.

“Yes, ’ady A’ice? You wish what?”

Alice had seen Ishani only a few times since her arrival at the village and then only from a distance. They had not previously exchanged a word, but Alice had heard more than she cared to hear about the beautiful Indian woman and her husband. She had learned during her time with them that the Abenaki did enjoy gossip, the juicier the better.

“Ishani, I can’t go through with this,” Alice said, stifling her antagonism in her desperate plea for help.

“You must,” the woman answered quickly. “The baron has ordered it. A great honor is yours.”

“I don’t want this great honor,” Alice wailed. “Can’t you help me? Send the baron here. I need to talk with him.”

Ishani, her face placid, shook her head slowly. “He is not here. He went to meet the visitors to show them to camp, and he has not yet returned.”

Alice sank down on her bed of furs, feeling hopeless and defeated. “Then there’s nothing I can do?”

Ishani glanced over her shoulder at the two guards. They were paying no attention, so she quickly slipped into the tent. “There is a way.”

“What way?” Alice begged.

“Remember the three feathers?”

“How could I ever forget?” Alice bristled in spite of herself, but forced a calm reply. “What does that have to do with my present predicament?”

“When the baron returns, I might suggest to him that I know this man and he enjoys two women in his bed.”

“Do you know who he is?” Alice asked, suddenly curious.

Ishani avoided her eyes. “No,” she lied, “but what man wou’d not wish two women?”

“I don’t see your point. How will that help me?” Alice demanded.

“I say to the baron to keep this for a surprise for our guest. He knows that one woman is waiting for him, not two. When he comes, I go to him. You run away before he sees you.”

“Ishani!” Alice cried, amazed at the woman’s cunning and willingness to help her. “It will work. Of course. How can I ever thank you?”

A slow, secretive smile curved Ishani’s full lips. “I need no thanks. I wish to bring happiness to our guest.”

Ishani slipped out of the tent, leaving Alice much relieved and wondering if perhaps she had misjudged the Indian maid.

Ishani was well pleased with herself. Her heart had ached from the first moment that she heard the rumors of the baron’s scheme. He meant to make the Englishwoman pay for all the trouble she had caused. To Ishani’s way of thinking, a public whipping would have been more fitting punishment than bringing Gunn here, than forcing his wife to accept his love. Gunn was too good for this pale-haired woman. He needed a lover who would do anything to make him happy. He needed Ishani!

She did not go to the baron as she had told Alice she would. Instead, Ishani went to the river to bathe and prepare herself for Gunn. She wanted to tell her husband of her great plan—he would be pleased by her cunning. But she dared not breathe a word of this to anyone for fear the baron would find out and put an end to the scheme.

How silly and naive the Englishwoman was to hand over her man so easily. Ishani planned carefully what she would tell Gunn—that Alice had paid her to do this loving duty, a duty any woman should accept gratefully and happily, but one that Gunn’s wife wished to put aside for all time.

“She refused to return to you,” Ishani said, practicing her lines over the bubbling song of the river, “and when the baron ordered her to your tent, she sought me out. She cares nothing for you, Gunn. She was never right for you. Come, put your mouth on mine.”

Ishani smiled at her reflection in the smooth surface of the pool. Only one person would she tell of the Englishwoman’s escape attempt tonight—Scarappi. At last he, too, would have his revenge, and she would be free of his threats forever.

Castin and Mathilde sat alone together in their lodge, talking quietly after Gunn’s arrival.

“I only hope my plan works,” he told his wife. “I’ve reached my wits’ end with that woman.”

“You should not be so hard on Alice, Jean Vincent. She is not a bad person. She misunderstands our customs sometimes. I felt so sorry for her when she came to me for help. She is so afraid, so disheartened.”

“Well, she deserves to be both. It’s high time she swallowed some of her own medicine. She’ll go running back to where she belongs once this is over. I swear, I still think I should have brought some fat old sagamore here to bed her instead of her own husband. That would have taught her a lesson she’d not soon forget.”

“Jean Vincent, shame on you! You know her ways would not permit that. It is bad enough that you have allowed her to think that is what will be.”

A rap at the lodge door interrupted the pair. Nowando showed Scarappi into the room. The fierce-looking brave eyed Mathilde with more interest than the baron found to his liking.

“If you will excuse us, my dear,” he said to her, sending his wife out of Scarappi’s line of vision. Then he turned to the man. “What is it you want?”

Scarappi smiled slowly. “It is not what I want, but what you have planned, Baron. A plot is afoot against your scheme.”

“Speak up, man,” the baron prompted. “What plot? What are you talking about?”

“It concerns Gunn’s woman and another. They defy you even now.”

“Explain yourself this minute.”

Scarappi, who had already been approached by Ishani, told his own version of what the women had planned. He might have gone along with the plot, but why should he settle for the Englishwoman only when he might have Ishani as well? By telling the baron that Ishani was planning to help Gunn’s woman escape her duties so that Ishani could have him all to herself, he hoped to engineer just such a feat.

“You’ve done well to tell me all this,” Castin said when Scarappi finished. “Of course, you’ll be rewarded for your loyalty. Name your prize.”

Scarappi smiled and the tattoos on his face looked like great, black seams. “Ishani,” he said simply. “She was meant to be mine from birth. Wannoak has not got her with child yet. I would have you take her from him and give her to me.”

The baron scowled, not pleased. Gunn had long ago told him of this man’s cruelty to Ishani and her terrible fear of him. She deserved punishment for her scheming, but giving her to Scarappi would be a life sentence.

“I will think on it, Scarappi. You may go now.”

Gunn’s excitement rose as he waited in his tent at the baron’s insistence. “You will be with your wife, but only after we have feasted and talked,” the Frenchman had said.

Even now he could smell meat roasting on spits and hear the shouts and singing of a celebration in the making, but he needed no feasts nor frills as long as he got Alice back.

Finally, deciding he had waited long enough, Gunn threw back the tent flap to go in search of her. The baron was standing just outside, about to enter.

“Welcome again, my brother,” the baron said.

“Take me to Alice,” was Gunn’s anxious reply.

“All in good time, my friend. First, we will eat, drink, and smoke the pipe.”

Twilight was graying the forest as the men reached the center of the village. Gunn glanced about, but saw no sign of his wife. He asked for her again, but the baron ignored his question and led him to a couch of furs placed near the fires. The evening dragged on and on for Gunn as food was passed, wine was drunk, and the long-stemmed clay pipes were handed around.

The baron talked of crops, game, fishing, war and peace, but not a word did he say about Alice. Gunn could take it no longer.

“Where is my wife?” he demanded. “Dammit, Castin, I haven’t waited all this time and ridden all this way just to be entertained.”

“Ah, but you will be, my friend. I insist. Even now she is waiting for you in her tent. But first, a bit of dancing. Afterward you’ll be needing a woman for the night.”

“I have a woman—my wife!”

The baron ignored him and silence fell all around as the erotic throb of drums filled the forest. An ancient ritual dance began.

“The Maize Dance,” the baron whispered to Gunn, “to ensure the fertility of our crops.”

Maidens, dressed only in drapes of woven cornhusks and corn silks, flowed through the camp on bare feet. They were pursued by frenzied young bucks, wearing breechclouts, adorned with cobs of maize. The maidens led their lads a merry chase around the fire and in and out of the forest. The drums throbbed louder, and the maidens danced faster—running and leaping, trying to escape.

Even Alice, sitting alone in her tent, could see the dancers, though she couldn’t see the guest of honor before the blazing bonfire. She watched, mesmerized by the whirling, glistening bodies. Alice’s brow beaded with perspiration and her heart throbbed, echoing the frantic beat of the drums. She ached for a man, for her husband. How she wished she’d been more reasonable. Now she had no choice but to wait for Ishani, then slip away into the night. She had no idea how she’d find her way back to the fort. She only knew she must.

The minutes dragged by, but Ishani did not come. Alice watched as the dancers crept away into the woods. The drums died. Those gathered around the fires rose to go to their tents. A cold hand gripped Alice’s heart. Ishani had never meant to help her. Why should she? They both loved the same man, but Alice had married him. The Indian woman had found a way to get even. Alice sat on the fur-covered ground inside her tent, seething with anger, shaking with fright. Soon the baron would send the man to her.

“Now will you take me to Alice?” Gunn’s need had turned urgent with the long wait. He was fed up with the Frenchman’s game.

Castin nodded and rose. “I will, my friend. However, I must explain something first. Your wife does not know that you are here. I was afraid she would refuse to see you. She is expecting some unknown visitor to her tent tonight.”

“What?” Gunn raged. “You’ve been forcing my wife to entertain men for you? I’ll kill you, I swear it!”

Guards rushed forward, ready to kill Gunn to save their leader, but the big man only laughed at his friend’s rage. “I’ve done no such thing, not until this very night. Your Alice has created chaos in this village. I decided to punish her for her sins by letting her believe that some stranger would come to her.”

Gunn frowned. “She committed serious crimes?”

The baron nodded, then said, “What more serious crime could a woman commit than refusing her own husband, my friend?”

Just then they spotted Ishani, sneaking toward Alice’s tent. “You there, woman,” Castin bellowed, stopping her in her tracks.

Meekly, eyes downcast, Ishani came to them.

“Where were you going?” the Frenchman demanded.

“Nowhere,” she answered, letting her gaze flicker up to Gunn’s face.

The baron had found Scarappi’s tale difficult to believe until this very moment. Now he realized it was true. Alice had meant to flee, unwittingly allowing Ishani to bed down with her own husband.

“You were trying to help Gunn’s wife escape, weren’t you?” he accused.

Ishani remained silent.

“Scarappi came to me,” the baron told her. “He wants you.”

The beautiful Indian woman took a step back and gasped, “No!”

“It would be a fair trade, I think, since you planned to deliver Gunn’s wife into his hands and take Gunn for yourself.”

“Ishani, you didn’t?” Gunn said. “Why would you do such a thing?”

She faced him squarely, a defiant light gleaming in her eyes. “I wou’d do anything to be with you, Gunn. She does not want you. How can you want her so?”

“Well, there you have it, Gunn,” the baron said, “the whole sordid tale. What do you say? Should I reward Scarappi by giving him Ishani? I leave it to you.”

Gunn was furious, as angry as he’d ever been in his life. How could Ishani have sided with Scarappi to harm Alice? He stared at her, hoping to see some sign of remorse, but her eyes held only defiance. He was half tempted to assign her to the fate she had wished for Alice, but he couldn’t do that.