The bleeding had stopped. The fever had begun.



NOW THE TREES were talking to him. He wished they’d stop. The only thing Ian Murray wanted just now was silence. He was alone for the moment, but his ears buzzed and his head still throbbed with noise.

That always happened for a bit after a fight. You were listening so hard, to start with, for the sounds of the enemy, the direction of the wind, the voice of a saint behind you … you began to hear the voices of the forest, like you did hunting. And then you heard the shots and shouting, and when there were moments when that stopped, you heard the blood pounding round your body and beating in your ears, and, all in all, it took some time for the racket to die down afterward.

He had brief flashes of things that had happened during the day—milling soldiers; the thud of the arrow that struck him; the face of the Abenaki he’d killed by the fire; the look of George Washington on his big white horse, racing up the road, waving his hat—but these came and went in a fog of confusion, appearing as though revealed to him by a stroke of lightning, then disappearing into a buzzing mist.

A wind went whispering through the branches over him, and he felt it on his skin as though he’d been brushed with sandpaper. What might Rachel say, when he told her what he’d done?

He could still hear the sound when the tomahawk caved in the Abenaki’s skull. He could still feel it, too, in the bones of his arms, in the bursting pain of his wound.

Dimly, he realized that his feet were no longer keeping to the road; he was stumbling over clumps of grass, stubbing his moccasin-clad toes on rocks. He looked back to find his path—he saw it, plain, a wavering line of black … Why was it wavering?

He didn’t want silence, after all. He wanted Rachel’s voice, no matter what she might say to him.

It came to him dimly that he couldn’t go any farther. He was aware of a faint sense of surprise but was not afraid.

He didn’t remember falling but found himself on the ground, his hot cheek pressed against the cool prickle of pine needles. Laboriously, he got to his knees and scraped away the thick layer of fallen needles. Then he was lying with his body on damp earth, the blanket of needles half pulled over him; he could do no more and said a brief prayer to the tree, that it might protect him through the night.

And as he fell headlong into darkness, he did hear Rachel’s voice, in memory.

“Thy life’s journey lies along its own path, Ian,” she said, “and I cannot share thy journey—but I can walk beside thee. And I will.”

His last thought was that he hoped she’d still mean it when he told her what he’d done.



IN WHICH ROSY-FINGERED DAWN SHOWS UP MOB-HANDED

GREY WOKE TO THE drums of reveille, not startled by the accustomed rattle but with no clear idea where he was. In camp. Well, that much was obvious. He swung his legs out of the cot and sat up slowly, taking stock. His left arm hurt a lot, one of his eyes was stuck shut, and his mouth was so dry he could barely swallow. He’d slept in his clothes, smelled rank, and needed badly to piss.

He groped under the cot, found a utensil, and used it, noting in a rather dreamy way that his urine smelled of apples. That brought back the taste of cider and, with it, full recollection of the day and night before. Honey and flies. Artillery. Jamie, blood down his face. Rifle butt and the crack of bone. William … Hal …

Almost full recollection. He sat down and remained quite still for a moment, trying to decide whether Hal had really told him that his eldest son, Benjamin, was dead. Surely not. It must have been a shred of nightmare, lingering in his mind. And yet he had the dreadful feeling of doomed certainty that comes down like a curtain on the mind, smothering disbelief.

He stood up, staggering a little, determined to go and find his brother. He hadn’t yet found his shoes, though, when the flap was thrown back and Hal came in, followed by an orderly with a basin, a steaming pitcher, and shaving implements.

“Sit down,” Hal said, in a completely ordinary voice. “You’ll have to wear one of my uniforms, and you’re not doing it smelling like that. What the devil happened to your hair?”

Grey had forgotten his hair and flattened a palm on top of his head, surprised at the bristly stubble there.

“Oh. A ruse de guerre.” He sat down slowly, eyes on his brother. The bad eye had come open, though it was unpleasantly crusty, and so far as Grey could see, Hal looked much as he usually did. Tired, of course, worn, and a little haunted, but everyone looked like that the day after a battle. Surely if it were true, he’d look different. Worse, somehow.

He would have asked, but Hal didn’t linger, going off and leaving John in the hands of the orderly. Before the ablutions were complete, a young Scottish surgeon with freckles appeared, yawning as though he hadn’t slept all night, and blinked blearily at Grey’s arm. He prodded this in a professional manner, pronounced the bone cracked but not broken, and put it in a sling.

The sling had to be removed almost at once, in order for him to dress—another orderly arrived with a uniform and a tray of breakfast—and by the time he was made tidy and had been forcibly fed, he was wild with impatience.

He would have to wait for Hal to reappear, though; no point going out to scour the camp for him. And he really must talk to his brother before seeking out William. A small dish of honey had been provided with his toast, and he was dipping a dubious finger into it, wondering whether he ought to try dabbing it into his eye, when at last the flap opened again and his brother was with him.

“Did you actually tell me that Ben is dead?” he blurted at once. Hal’s face contracted a bit, but his jaw was set.

“No,” Hal said evenly. “I told you that I’d had news of Ben, and they said he was dead. I don’t believe it.” He gave John a stare defying him to contradict this belief.

“Oh. Good,” Grey said mildly. “Then I don’t believe it, either. Who told you, though?”

“That’s why I don’t believe it,” Hal replied, turning to lift the tent flap and peer out—evidently to be sure of not being overheard, and the thought made Grey’s belly flutter a little. “It was Ezekiel Richardson who brought me the news, and I wouldn’t trust that fellow if he told me I had a hole in the seat of my breeches, let alone something like that.”

The flutter in Grey’s belly became a full-blown beating of wings.

“Your instincts haven’t led you amiss there,” he said. “Sit down and have a piece of toast. I have a few things to tell you.”



WILLIAM WOKE with a shattering headache and the conviction that he had forgotten something important. Clutching his head, he discovered a bandage wound round it, chafing his ear. He pulled it off impatiently; there was blood on it, but not much and all dried. He recalled vague bits of things from the night before—pain, nausea, his head swimming, Uncle Hal … and then an image of his father, white-faced and fragile … “If you and I have things to say to each other …” Christ, had he dreamed that?

He said something bad in German, and a young voice repeated it, rather doubtfully.

“What’s that mean, sir?” asked Zeb, who had popped up beside his cot with a covered tray.

“You don’t need to know, and don’t repeat it,” William said, sitting up. “What happened to my head?”

Zeb’s brow creased.

“You don’t remember, sir?”

“If I did, would I be asking you?”

Zeb’s brow creased in concentration, but the logic of this question escaped him, and he merely shrugged, set down the tray, and answered the first one.

“Colonel Grey said you was hit on the head by deserters.”

“Desert—oh.” He stopped to consider that. British deserters? No … there was a reason why German profanity had sprung to his mind. He had a fleeting memory of Hessians, and … and what?