He had the sense that Captain Wheelock’s word would not be lightly broken. With his anger damped down to a place where he could keep it well controlled, he told the captain, “Thank you,” and they took their seats among the others.
He was careful not to look too soon towards the woman who in fact drew all his interest, though he caught her flowered gown just at the corner of his vision. He tried purposely ignoring it, as much as he ignored that she was talking to Bonneau. He could not have understood their conversation anyway, because they spoke in English, so instead he focused on their hostess, who had brought him coffee. And her son, who seeming much the age that Jean-Philippe had been when he’d first joined the Troupes de la Marine, was chafing at the need to sit politely in his chair.
This one will never settle long enough to be a man of leisure . . .
Smiling faintly at this shadow from his boyhood, Jean-Philippe acknowledged him with one brief nod, upon which the lad must have felt emboldened to speak up in his clear voice.
“Captain Bonneau says you were raised among the Indians.”
His mother cautioned, “Robert, that is not the way to start a conversation.”
Jean-Philippe could see no harm in it, and said as much. “Captain Bonneau exaggerates. I spent a winter living with the Seneca, when I was near your age, but that is all.”
“Without your mother and your father?”
“Yes, it was myself alone.”
Evidently this held some appeal, and yet the boy asked, “Were you not afraid?”
“Of course. We always fear what we don’t know. I was a long way from my home, and it was coming on to winter, and I did not speak the language.” As he said those words he wryly thought again how life had brought him round full circle. “But the people I was with were very kind.”
The boy, uninterested in kindness, wanted stories of adventure. “Did you learn to dance a war dance?”
“No. It was not time for war,” he said. “We hunted, and I learned to make things.”
“What things?”
“Snowshoes. Arrows. Shoes and leggings that work better in the woods to keep your feet and legs warm.”
Only one of those held any interest for young Robert. “Did you have a bow and arrow of your own?”
“I did.”
Respect at last. The boy said, “I would like to live among the wild men, too.”
“They are not wild,” said Jean-Philippe. “They’re every bit as civilized as we are. Maybe more so.”
“But they torture people.”
“So do we. Have you not seen an execution?”
“No. Maman won’t let me.”
Jean-Philippe took the reminder there were some things children did not need to learn too early. “Well, when you have seen one,” he said simply, “you will know we have no right to call another nation cruel.” He paused to drink his coffee, and then added, because ignorance was always to be fought, “I still have friends among the Seneca. Their nation is a part of a great federation, the Haudenosaunee. They have government and rule of law and farms and houses, just like us. Before we came, they also had great towns, big forts, but we have ruined those. The miracle is that they will still speak to us at all. Remember that, if you should get your wish to live among them.”
The boy’s eyes had grown wide. “I will.” He sat a little straighter. “And I will not be afraid.”
“Good. You’ll find most people, when you get to know them, are not what you were afraid they’d be. They’re only people.”
He’d been unaware of anyone else listening until Madame de Joncourt said, “That is a lesson for us all. But Robert, do not think to run away from home just yet to live among the Seneca, or I will have to send Lieutenant de Sabran to track you down and bring you back to me again.”
Her elder daughter joined their conversation with, “Or Captain Wheelock. He has also spent time in the northern forests, have you not?”
The captain smiled. “In campaign tents. It’s not at all the same. And please don’t give me anybody else to find. I’m afraid I shall never be able to make a complete list of those I’m already in charge of. The gaolers have no general list, and several of the prisoners were taken from the barracks and the gaol here without anybody leaving a receipt, and several others in the Jerseys have been carried off by flags of truce,” he said, “from Philadelphia. No doubt they are already on their way to the West Indies.”
The boy Robert asked, “What is a flag of truce?”
“A ship,” Wheelock explained, “carrying prisoners of war to be exchanged, and so it flies a special white flag to let everybody know that it is not to be molested, and it also carries papers that can prove it has permission from our government to sail to a French port. At least, that’s what it’s meant to be. Except these days more often it’s a ship whose owners have done nothing more than buy the white flag and the papers for a secret fee, so they can sail around our laws and sell their cargoes to French ports. If they have a prisoner aboard, so much the better, but if not, they’ll carry anyone who can speak French.”
The youngest of the girls now gave a solemn nod that bounced her curls. “Like Monsieur Laine,” she said. “That’s what he does. He gets to ride on ships, and always brings back sugar.”
In the small, uneasy silence following that statement, Captain Wheelock raised a hand of reassurance. “I heard nothing of that. Honestly, unless your Monsieur Laine is on my list, I have no room within my brain to mark his name. It’s filled already with the names of several hundred prisoners and one ensign named McDonald we’ve apparently misplaced.”
He seemed uncommonly relaxed within this house. And then he turned and smiled down at the young woman beside him and she smiled back, and Jean-Philippe then knew exactly what Bonneau had meant when he’d said the de Joncourts’ eldest daughter was more fond of red coats than of white.
There must, he thought, be twenty years in age between the English captain and young Jeanne de Joncourt, but the captain’s heart showed plainly in that moment. Jean-Philippe could not help wondering if his own face revealed that much when he was watching Lydia.
It made him more determined not to look in her direction now.
He did it so effectively she had to say his name twice over before he reacted to it. As he turned his head she said in very careful French, “Please leave.”
An unexpected order. He was less than sure how to respond till Jeanne de Joncourt laughed and spoke to Lydia in English and corrected her by giving her the proper words in French, and then he understood, but he gave Lydia the space to save her dignity and ask it over.
“May we leave, please?”
“Certainly.” He stood, and took his leave, and thanked Madame de Joncourt once again.
Bonneau said, “Come, I’ll walk you out.” And downstairs while they waited for Madame de Joncourt to fetch Lydia her cloak, Bonneau said low and privately, “Don’t worry. I will keep your sergeant company, and send you word if he grows worse.”
“If he grows worse, he’ll need a priest.”
“You know they are illegal in this colony.”
“So I am told.”
The faintest smile. “I’ll see if there is one that can be found among the Irish.”
“I am in your debt.” There are good people here as well, La Réjouie had said. And that reminded him he owed a debt to someone else. “Tell Captain Wheelock that the ensign he says he’s misplaced, Ensign McDonald, is a prisoner of the Seneca near Fort Detroit,” he said. “At least, that’s where he was when I was taken at Niagara.”
Bonneau looked at him. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I saw him there myself.”
“I meant you’re sure you want to tell him?”
“Captain Wheelock is a man of honour. And his list is long enough.”
Bonneau’s smile this time was more broad. He aimed it straight at Lydia as she approached them, wished her a good day in English, and turned one last time to Jean-Philippe. “Keep well, Lieutenant de Sabran. I’ll see you in the spring when we reclaim Quebec.” Clapping one hand firmly on his shoulder he said, “Oh, and by the way. Your mademoiselle? She’s twenty.”