Ian was dealing with a mouthful of the same substance, and took a moment to clear it from his palate before replying.

“Uncle Jamie means to ask his questions,” he answered, giving me a cautious glance as he reached for the bread.

“Does he?” I said, rather blankly, but before I could inquire what he meant by that, the sound of footsteps on the path announced the arrival of Fergus.

He looked as though he had been sleeping in the woods—well, of course, I thought, he had been. Or rather, not sleeping; the men had barely stopped to rest in their pursuit of Hodgepile’s gang. Fergus had shaved, but his normally fastidious grooming was sadly lacking, and his handsome face was gaunt, the deep eyes shadowed.

“Milady,” he murmured, and unexpectedly bent to kiss my cheek, hand on my shoulder. “Comment ça va?”

“Tres bien, merci,” I replied, smiling gingerly. “How are Marsali and the children? And our hero, Germain?” I had asked Jamie about Marsali on the way back, and had been assured that she was all right. Germain, monkey that he was, had gone straight up a tree when he heard Hodgepile’s men approaching. He had seen everything from his perch, and as soon as the men departed, had scrambled down, dragged his semiconscious mother away from the fire, and run for help.

“Ah, Germain,” Fergus said, a faint smile momentarily lifting the shadows of fatigue. “Nous p’tit guerrier. He says Grandpère has promised him a pistol of his own, to shoot bad people with.”

Grandpère undoubtedly meant it, I reflected. Germain couldn’t manage a musket, being somewhat shorter than the gun itself—but a pistol would do. In my present state of mind, the fact that Germain was only six didn’t seem particularly important.

“Have you had breakfast, Fergus?” I pushed the pot toward him.

“Non. Merci.” He helped himself to cold biscuit, ham, and coffee, though I noticed that he ate without much appetite.

We all sat quietly, sipping coffee and listening to the birds. Carolina wrens had built a late nest under the eaves of the house and the parent birds swooped in and out, just above our heads. I could hear the high-pitched cheeping of the nestlings begging, and saw a scatter of twigs and a bit of empty eggshell on the floorboards of the porch. They were nearly ready to fledge; just in time, before the real cold weather came.

The sight of the brown-speckled eggshell reminded me of Monsieur le Oeuf. Yes, that’s what I would do, I decided, with a small sense of relief at having something firm in mind. I would go and see Marsali later. And perhaps Mrs. Bug, as well.

“Did you see Mrs. Bug this morning?” I asked, turning to Ian. His cabin—little more than a brush-roofed lean-to—lay just beyond the Bugs’; he would have passed them on his way to the house.

“Oh, aye,” he said, looking a little surprised. “She was sweeping out as I went by. Offered me breakfast, but I said I’d eat here. I kent Uncle Jamie had a ham, aye?” He grinned, lifting his fourth ham biscuit in illustration.

“So she’s all right? I thought she might be ill; she usually comes quite early.”

Ian nodded, and took an enormous bite of the biscuit.

“Aye, I expect she’s busy, minding the ciomach.”

My fragile sense of well-being cracked like the wrens’ eggs. A ciomach was a captive. In my soggy-minded euphoria, I had somehow managed to forget Lionel Brown’s existence.

Ian’s remark that Jamie meant to ask questions this morning dropped suddenly into context—as did Fergus’s presence. And the knife Ian had been sharpening.

“Where is Jamie?” I asked, rather faintly. “Have you seen him?”

“Oh, aye,” Ian said, looking surprised. He swallowed, and gestured toward the door with his chin. “He’s just out in the woodshed, makin’ new shingles. He says the roof’s sprung a leak.”

No sooner had he said this than the sound of hammering came from the roof, far above. Of course, I thought. First things first. But then, I supposed Lionel Brown wasn’t going anywhere, after all.

“Perhaps … I should go and see Mr. Brown,” I said, swallowing.

Ian and Fergus exchanged glances.

“No, Auntie, ye shouldn’t,” Ian said quite calmly, but with an air of authority I wasn’t accustomed to seeing in him.

“Whatever do you mean?” I stared at him, but he merely went on eating, though a trifle more slowly.

“Milord says you should not,” Fergus amplified, drizzling a spoonful of honey into his coffee.

“He says what?” I asked incredulously.

Neither of them would look at me, but they seemed to draw together, emanating a reluctant sort of stubborn resistance. Either one would do anything I asked, I knew—except defy Jamie. If Jamie thought I ought not to see Mr. Brown, I wasn’t going to do it with the assistance of either Ian or Fergus.

I dropped the spoon back into my bowl of porridge, uneaten lumps still adhering to it.

“Did he happen to mention why he thinks I ought not to visit Mr. Brown?” I asked calmly, under the circumstances.

Both men looked surprised, then exchanged another look, this one longer.

“No, milady,” Fergus said, his voice carefully neutral.

There was a brief silence, during which both of them seemed to be considering. Then Fergus glanced at Ian, deferring to him with a shrug.

“Well, d’ye see, Auntie,” Ian said carefully, “we do mean to question the fellow.”

“And we will have answers,” Fergus said, eyes on the spoon with which he was stirring his coffee.

“And when Uncle Jamie is satisfied that he has told us what he can …”

Ian had laid his newly sharpened knife on the table beside his plate. He picked it up, and thoughtfully drew it down the length of a cold sausage, which promptly split open, with an aromatic burst of sage and garlic. He looked up then, and met my eyes directly. And I realized that while I might still be me—Ian was no longer the boy he used to be. Not at all.

“You’ll kill him, then?” I said, my lips feeling numb in spite of the hot coffee.

“Oh, yes,” Fergus said very softly. “I expect that we shall.” He met my eyes now, too. There was a bleak, grim look about him, and his deep-set eyes were hard as stone.

“He—it—I mean … it wasn’t him,” I said. “It couldn’t have been. He’d already broken his leg when—” I didn’t seem to have enough air to finish my sentences. “And Marsali. It wasn’t—I don’t think he …”

Something behind Ian’s eyes changed, as he grasped my meaning. His lips pressed tight for a moment, and he nodded.

“As well for him, then,” he said shortly.

“As well,” Fergus echoed, “but I think it will not matter in the end. We killed the others—why should he live?” He pushed back from the table, leaving his coffee undrunk. “I think I will go, cousin.”

“Aye? I’ll come too, then.” Ian shoved his plate away, nodding to me. “Will ye tell Uncle Jamie we’ve gone ahead, Auntie?”

I nodded numbly, and watched them go, vanishing one after the other under the big chestnut tree that overhung the trail leading to the Bugs’ cabin. Mechanically, I got up and began slowly to clear away the remains of the makeshift breakfast.

I really wasn’t sure whether I minded a lot about Mr. Brown or not. On the one hand, I did disapprove on principle of torture and cold-blooded murder. On the other … while it was true enough that Brown had not personally violated or injured me, and he had tried to make Hodgepile release me—he’d been all in favor of killing me, later. And I hadn’t the slightest doubt that he would have drowned me in the gorge, had Tebbe not intervened.

No, I thought, carefully rinsing my cup and drying it on my apron, perhaps I didn’t really mind terribly about Mr. Brown.

Still, I felt uneasy and upset. What I did mind about, I realized, were Ian and Fergus. And Jamie. The fact was, killing someone in the heat of battle is a quite different thing from executing a man, and I knew that. Did they?