Dawn on a Distant Shore (65 page)

The earl smiled at
her, as if this knowledge of the complications of the family genealogy excused
her interruption.

"That's aye true.
In the male line I descend from anither family, but one o' my line wed a Scott
and took her name along wi' her lands. What ye must ken, lass, is this: in Scotland
there's naucht mair important than the land. Which is why so muny men left
Scotland for the New Werld after the Rising. They were looking for a place
where a man could settle his family, and claim new land."

Hannah's whole posture
changed, uneasiness wiped away suddenly by anger. "Steal land," she
said stiffly. "From my mother's people. From my people."

"Hmpf." One
brow shot up and the earl sent Elizabeth a questioning glance.

She said, "The
matter looks very different from the other side, my lord."

"Aye, so it
must."

"Tell the rest o'
it!" Jennet said impatiently.

The earl cleared his
throat. "And so in the Hielands and in much o' the Lowlands the lairds are
called after their lands. Ma surname is Scott but I'm called Carryck after the
earldom I inherited frae my faither. The king calls me Carryck, my tenants call
me Carryck, my wife called me Carryck. And you, my wee cousin, will call me
Carryck, too."

Jennet's mouth fell
open in surprise and then shut with an audible click. Elizabeth might have
laughed at the sight, if she were not herself so surprised.

"Does Jennet call
you Carryck?"

She laughed out loud
at the idea. "Ma mither wad beat me for sic an impertinence," she
said. "And I wadn't be allowed tae visit the greenhouse." Something
occurred to her, and she turned to Elizabeth, flashing her dimples.

"Wad ye like tae
see the smelly tree?" she asked. "It stinks for aa the werld like a
dog twa days deid in the sun."

Elizabeth did not know
what to make of this offer, but the earl resolved the dilemma for her.

"The lady dinna
come here tae see the conservatory, lass. I expect she wants a word wi'
me."

Elizabeth inclined her
head. "If it is not too much of an imposition, my lord."

"Och, ye canna
talk tae the laird when he's putterin' aboot the greenhouse," Jennet said,
brushing a curl out of her eyes. "Ye might as weel try tae get a song oot
of Admiral Liefken here." And she wrinkled her nose at a tulip just on the
verge of opening.

"Wheest,
Jennet." The earl's mouth jerked at one corner, but his tone was stern.
"Dinna forget your manners. I can weel spare time for our guest."

"Ye'll no' want
us here, then. Do ye care tae see the rest o' the castle, Squirrel?"

"Jennet,"
said Carryck, and the little girl drew up suddenly, as if she knew what he might
say, and did not care to hear it.

"Ye'll no' be
snoopin' where ye dinna belong."

She bobbed a quick
curtsy. "Ne, my lord."

"Verra weel. Awa'
wi' the baith o' ye."

Hannah hesitated, but
Elizabeth waved her on with a smile and then stood watching until the girls had
disappeared into the rose garden. When they were gone she waited still, unsure
where to begin now that she had the earl's attention. Everything that she might
say to him seemed suddenly too obvious for words.

He said, "I've
had no word o' the
Leopard
, if that's what ye want tae hear."

Elizabeth composed her
face before she turned to him. "I was hoping you had, yes."

"I've sent word
tae Dundas, and tae the Admiralty, as weel. If there's aught tae learn o' the
ship, it willna be lang."

"Then you do not
know if the
Leopard
was involved in this recent battle with the
French?" It was a fear she had not yet spoken aloud, one she had not even shared
with Nathaniel.

The earl's expression
was unreadable. "I canna say."

"Then perhaps I
might ask another question, my lord."

He worked his thumbs
against the edge of his leather apron. "Wad it no' be better tae wait wi'
this conversation until your guidman is recovered?"

"I am quite
capable of asking questions without my husband's assistance, my lord."

"O' that I ha'
nae doubt," he said dryly.

She clasped her hands
together before her to keep them from shaking. "Perhaps you could tell me
why it is that you have gone to such trouble and expense to bring us here,
against our will and inclination."

His eyes narrowed.
"Ye ken full weel, madam." Something hard had come into his tone, and
he looked now more like the man she had met last night, the one who had
commanded his men with so few words. But if she let him intimidate her at the beginning
of these negotiations for their freedom, they would be here a very long time.

She said, "My
lord. Neither my husband nor his father have any interest in claiming Carryck.
And even if they were interested, why should they be given precedence over your
own daughter?"

His neck flushed a
mottled red. "I have no daughter." The earl spoke unaccented English for
the first time, keen-edged and stark.

"Really? As I
understand it, your daughter Lady Isabel married one Walter Campbell." And
even as she said that name aloud, she recalled the confusion at the inn while Nathaniel
lay bleeding on the floor. The earl had said the same name:
Walter's men
are behind this
. And then he had sent his own men out to find the dragoons
who had come so close to killing Nathaniel.

Walter's men are
behind this
.
Surely there were many men named Walter in Scotland; the earl could not have
been speaking of that Walter Campbell who was married to his only daughter. And
yet she saw on his face that this was exactly whom he meant.

All the warnings of
the past few months came back to her: the Campbells wanted Carryck, and they
would do anything to achieve that end. The dragoons who had kidnapped Mac Stoker
and shot Nathaniel were Walter Campbell's men, and acting on his orders.

"My lord!"

The young man called
Lucas was at the door, hesitating there as if the greenhouse were forbidden
territory.

"My lord, Davie
and the others are come, and they've brung the men ye wanted wi' them." He
sent Elizabeth a nervous glance.

"The
dragoons," Carryck said to Elizabeth, taking off his apron.

Lucas swallowed hard
to catch his breath. "Will ye come, my lord?"

"Aye. Where's
Moncrieff?"

"Still doon the
village, my lord."

"Send for
him."

Elizabeth said,
"My lord, I would like to be there when you question the dragoons."

He glanced down at
her. "That's no' possible, madam. Unless ye've got the gift o' communin'
wi' the deid."

Coming out of the sun
into the shadows of the Great Hall, Hannah shivered. It was the biggest room
she had ever seen, as long and more than twice as wide as the longhouse of the
Wolf clan where her mother had been born, a space where eighty and sometimes as
many as a hundred people worked and ate and slept. This Great Hall was empty
but for tables and chairs, and more surprising still, it had colored glass
windows that threw great patches of deep red and blue and gold down on the
flagstone floor.

"Come on!"
Jennet hissed, taking Hannah by the hand to pull her along. They passed through
an open door into a hall and stopped. Jennet went up on tiptoe to whisper in
her ear.

"The door makes
an awfu' creak."

Hannah wanted to ask
why they had to be quiet if no one was near to hear them, but Jennet was already
working the latch with complete concentration, the tip of her tongue caught
between her teeth as she wiggled it ever so carefully back and forth. Finally the
latch gave with a small squeak and the door opened just wide enough for them to
slip through into Elphinstone Tower.

Stairs wound upward in
a spiral, sunlight falling in dusty bars through a small window at the first
turning. Their bare feet made no noise on the cool stone, but Hannah's heart
beat so loud in her ears that she feared that the men in the courtyard might
hear it, as she could hear their voices. She wondered if this was one of the
places that the earl had been speaking of when he had fixed Jennet with his
stern expression. But it could not be; she seemed so much at ease, and not at all
afraid.

They came to a small
landing with a single door, tall and rounded at the top with a candle sconce to
either side, but they passed by and continued up the winding stairs. Another
door just like the first, and then at the very top was a third and final door,
and here Jennet stopped. She made a funny little bow as she worked the latch,
and ushered Hannah in.

A large room, but
almost empty. A few trunks and a lopsided chair, a rolled-up carpet. It was
full of light, with windows on three sides.

"This is my
secret place," Jennet said proudly. "Ye can see the whole valley frae
here, and the courtyard and the dairy and the stables and everythin'."

It was a wonderful
room, and Hannah told her so. "Does no one ever look for you here?"

A thoughtful look came
over Jennet's face. "Did ye take note o' the first chamber we
passed?"

Hannah nodded.

"It belonged tae
the lady." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "When she died, he locked the
door and put up the key."

"And since then
you've never seen inside?" Hannah asked.

"She died afore I
was born."

"And no one else
has been inside since her death?"

"Naebodie drawin'
breath," said Jennet, with a significant nod.

"Ghosts?"

"Aye," said
Jennet. "They say the lady sits at the window at dusk, watchin', wi' her dog
beside her."

"Who says
this?" Hannah asked. She was perfectly willing to believe that the lady's
ghost lived in the tower, but she was also very curious about the details.

"MacQuiddy."

MacQuiddy was the
house steward, a crooked old man with a single tuft of white hair and a red nose.
Jennet had pointed him out to Hannah when she showed her the kitchens, but he
had been too deep in an argument with the cook to take note of them.

"Does he know
about the ghosts, then?"

"MacQuiddy is
aulder than the laird," Jennet said, fluttering her fingers. "He kens
everythin'. Exceptin' my secret place." She said this very firmly, as if
she expected Hannah to argue the opposite.

"My grandmother
says that only guilty people are afraid of ghosts."
And white people
,
Hannah might have added.

"Och, it's no'
the ghosts that keep people awa' frae Elphinstone Tower--it's the laird. He has
a devilish sharp way when a temper's on him."

Hannah could well
imagine this--she had seen his face last night, when it was not clear how serious
her father's injuries really were. But in spite of the fact that Jennet knew
this side of the earl, she did not really seem at all worried about his temper.
It was hard to know if this was foolhardiness, or simple faith in her own ability
to charm.

"Come,
look," she said, drawing Hannah to the window.

Jennet drew in a sharp
breath, but it took longer for Hannah to make out what was happening in the
courtyard below.

A group of men were
gathered in a rough circle, and at their feet two men lay sprawled on the cobblestones.
One of them stared up blankly into the summer sky, and even from this distance
Hannah could see that his eyes were mismatched: the left was normal, and the
right a bloody starburst. His mouth was contorted in a surprised O.

"Walter's men,
the ones wha' shot yer faither. Baith deid," said Jennet calmly.

Hannah jerked back
from the window. "How do you know that those are the men who shot my
father?"

Jennet wrinkled her
brow at such a strange question. "Because the laird ordered his men oot
after the dragoons wha' kidnapped the pirate and shot yer da. Are ye no' glad
they're deid?"

"Of course I'm
glad," Hannah said. And wondered why she was not.

The earl came striding
into the courtyard and into the circle around the bodies. He stood looking down
while one of the men spoke for some time. He had a high voice for a man, and it
carried to them in bursts. "The Moffat road," Hannah heard, and
"Walter."

"Davie likes tae
spin a tale," observed Jennet. "He took a wild boar the winter past
and the tellin' o' it lasted longer than the hunt."

The earl seemed to
have heard enough, for he walked away.

"What will they
do with the bodies?"

Jennet shrugged.
"Why, the men will drop them on Breadalbane's doorstep. A message, ye see,
that yer faither and the rest o' ye are under the laird's protection."

Hannah thought of
Thaddeus Glove, who had been hanged in Johnstown for shooting an exciseman in
the back, and of the Kahnyen'kehâka woman called White-Hair who had suffered
the same fate for stabbing a soldier, even though the man had survived. She
thought of Runs-from-Bears, who might have gone to the gallows for putting the
Tory with notched ears in his grave, where he could make no more moccasins. She
wondered if no one would be arrested for the murder of the two dragoons, or if the
feuding between clans was so common that others stood back and let them get on
with it. It was an interesting idea, that the Scots might turn out to be like
the Hodenosaunee when it came to blood vengeance, but somehow Hannah understood
that this question should not be asked, at least not of Jennet.