Theirs was not a large room. Jean-Philippe had not found much within it that could occupy his time during the long hours that had stretched between their dinner and the evening meal, but having no alternative he’d focused on the tasks he could control. His coat had dried, and he had brushed it. He had polished every button, and the buckles of his shoes and belt, and then his sword.
A sword had never been his favourite weapon. He preferred a long gun or a hatchet in his hand, but the English had removed those useful things from him at Fort Niagara and allowed him only, under the surrender’s terms, to keep his sword—a weapon, he presumed, that they thought fitting for an officer.
Like many things that came with rank its ornaments did little to enhance its practicality. The hilt was showy, done in silver figured with heroic scenes whose players he, from lack of education, did not recognize. His uncle, who had given him the sword some years ago, had not known either who the heroes on the hilt might be. The blade, to him, was more important, etched with the words: Draw me not without cause; sheathe me not without honour.
It wasn’t a motto unique to this sword. Jean-Philippe had seen it writ on other blades as well. The only thing that marked this one as his was that his uncle had paid handsomely to have the name “de Sabran” etched above the motto in bold lettering. “A name that has long served the king,” his uncle had reminded him. “See that you bear it proudly.”
There was little scope for pride, he thought, in being made a prisoner.
But still he cleaned the sword and slid it back into its scabbard and arranged it on the mattress of his bed against the wall so he would have it at his back while he was sleeping.
That would not be for some hours. The rain was still pelting in fury against the small room’s only window, but from what he saw of the sky and the cloud-filtered light he could tell it was late afternoon, not yet evening. His muscles and mind raised a silent and impatient protest against their continued confinement.
Not far past the window the watery line of the trees at the edge of the forest was beckoning. He found it galling to think he could not even walk outdoors now without asking permission. And worse, he could not even ask for permission without also asking de Brassart to translate his words.
It was maddening.
He almost never cursed aloud, especially when there were women standing in the next room within earshot, but the words he muttered now beneath his breath would have been impolite to translate.
She could not have heard them. Even though his chamber door stood open she was by the hearth, too far away. Yet from the corner of his eye he caught a swirl of yellow skirts against the floorboards as she turned to lift an iron cooking pot onto its hook with clanging force. And when she shot a glance at him it told him very plainly that she wished, as he did, that he was not here.
? ? ?
De Brassart was taking his time getting ready for bed. He was one of those men who had rituals. Vanities. He was still carefully rolling his stockings when Jean-Philippe asked him, “What was it she said to you?”
“Who?”
“Our young hostess. At supper.”
Their supper, just over an hour ago, had been a simpler affair than their earlier dinner. The woman in yellow had served them herself, and de Brassart had asked her a question she’d answered with firmness.
De Brassart now shrugged. “I asked if they owned but the one slave, and she said in fact they owned none, because one person cannot own another.”
“She said that?”
“She did. Which proves that she knows nothing of the law, or that I did not understand her speech correctly. They have strange ways of expression here,” de Brassart said. “Their English is not always proper English. Their words and turns of phrase are as corrupted as the French your people speak, and I confess some meanings may escape me.”
Jean-Philippe let the small insult pass by, being used to the active disdain of those men, like de Brassart, who lived by their status and gains in the towns and frontiers of New France while insisting the ways of Old France were superior. He needed no man to tell him his worth, nor the worth of his colony.
“Perhaps,” de Brassart said, “I can devise a better way for her to use that pretty mouth of hers, while we are here.” His tone and smile left no room to misunderstand his meaning.
And that insult, while not aimed at him, was one that Jean-Philippe could not let pass. “That’s vulgar talk, unworthy of an officer, and I would have you take it back.”
“Or what?” De Brassart arched a lazy brow. “You’d call me out? Here, in this corner of a godforsaken colony? It seems a lot of bother.” He’d have shrugged it off, but Jean-Philippe persisted, still more calmly.
“I would have you take it back.”
“Oh, fine. I take it back, then. But the days will pass more slowly if I’m not to be allowed any amusement. Still,” de Brassart said, “it is of little consequence. I cannot think we’ll be here long before we are exchanged. There are sufficient English officers imprisoned at Quebec, I’m sure the governor is even now arranging a cartel.”
A possibility, thought Jean-Philippe. Though no cartel would suit him if it did not also free his men. His thoughts turned once more, darkly, to their whereabouts and comfort, for he knew they might be lying in the open at the mercy of the rain tonight, or crowded on the stone floor of a prison plagued by rising damp and sickness, while he lay stretched full length upon a clean straw mattress on a sturdy bedstead with a blanket of good wool.
His thoughts grew darker still, and did not let him sleep. Not even when de Brassart had, at last, stopped fussing with his things and fallen silent for a while until beginning an uneven snore that, in its turn, seemed to awake the man above them, who began to pace the floor with careful steps as though he did not wish to wake the others from their sleep.
Jean-Philippe was used to being on his guard. He’d lived the best part of his life in camps and forts and battlegrounds, and while he might be ill accustomed to domestic life and to the noises of an ordinary family in the night, his senses still were tuned to know which sounds were ordinary and which meant a threat.
Above, the elder brother ceased his pacing and a door creaked open, quietly. The footsteps slowly and with stealth crossed overhead, and then as cautiously began descending the back stairs. They took their time. They paused, and came into the kitchen, where they paused again.
Within the chamber Jean-Philippe lay still and quiet, feigning sleep, but tensed in every muscle and aware of the man’s presence on the other side of their closed door. His sword lay where he’d placed it, in its scabbard at his back, and he prepared himself to reach around and use it if it came to that.
The silence stretched.
De Brassart snored, and snorted once, and rolled.
And then the moment broke. The man within the kitchen moved away, his footsteps pausing farther off, then starting up more heavily, as though he’d put on boots. The kitchen door was opened, once, and shut with firmness.
Years of instinct told him that the danger, for tonight at least, was over. Jean-Philippe relaxed his body, but his mind took longer to comply. When sleep did finally come it brought not rest but troubled dreams, in which he was again back in that cold and dreary forest, keeping watch alone, his limbs like ice. Except this time when dawn arrived—still in that sudden spear of golden light—it swiftly moved away from him and even though he followed it and tracked it through the trees against the darkness, it stayed always out of reach.
Charley
I didn’t realize I was playing with my bracelet until Malaika commented, “You’re going to break that.”