Cailin swallowed at the constriction in her throat. “Cameron ...” She tried again. “My father said that they’re threatening to make Sterling fight Ohneya. And that ...” She couldn’t say the rest.
“Aye. I believe he’ll have to fight. Bear Dancer seemed unmoving on that.”
“Ye willna let them burn him?” Cailin begged.
Moonfeather’s liquid eyes filled with compassion. “That is where we differ—this woman and the Mohawk sachem. This woman has no intention of letting that happen. You must remember that Jit-sho is our greatest enemy.”
“And Ohneya,” Cailin said. “Don’t forget him.”
“Aye. Ohneya. He is a formidable warrior, but Jit-sho is different. He pressures Bear Dancer to renounce me. He says that because of my white blood, I do not deserve the respect of my office.”
“If the Mohawk won’t accept you as peace woman—” Cameron began.
Moonfeather spread her hands, palm up. “Then it could become very uncomfortable for us all. But to do that, he must discredit me—prove that this woman is without power.”
“If he does?” Cailin said.
Lachpi the Delaware tapped his tobacco pipe against a bed frame. “Then we all die at the stake. Those who cannot fight their way out of this walled town.”
Kitate grunted.
“But ye do have power?” Cailin asked. Anxiously, she glanced from the peace woman to her father. “Ye are who ye claim to be.”
“Perhaps,” Moonfeather said calmly. “That rests in the hands of Inu-msi-ila-fe-wanu, the great spirit who is a grandmother.”
“And Sterling?” Cailin pleaded.
Moonfeather nodded. “Call him Sterling or Na-nata Ki-tehi, he is the same man. And his fate rests with Inu-msi-ila-fe-wanu most of all.”
Later, the same Mohawk woman escorted Cailin to a longhouse bearing the totem of the bear over the door. A surly brave, armed with a rifle and a hatchet, barred the entrance. After several verbal exchanges between the Mohawk woman and the guard that Cailin couldn’t understand, he reluctantly moved aside to let them pass.
Cailin noticed that, unlike most of the other longhouses, the bark on the outer walls of this hut was loose and badly in need of repair. Once inside the dusty interior, she realized that this building was used for storage rather than as a dwelling.
Sterling was in the last room, chained to a newly set post by iron wrist manacles. His hair hung down his back, tangled and dripping, and he was still naked.
“Be quick,” the Mohawk squaw said, then turned and strode swiftly away.
Cailin threw herself at Sterling’s chest and whispered his name hoarsely. She would not cry, she promised herself. She’d not.
It was like hitting a wall of ice. He didn’t embrace her ... didn’t speak ... didn’t acknowledge her presence at all.
Hurt, she shrank away from him and looked into his face. “Are ye daft?” she demanded. “I ken that you’re angry with me, but—”
“Angry? Angry?” The ice wall shattered in a flood of profanity so original that Cailin couldn’t help but laugh at him.
“That’s better,” she said. “I thought they’d beaten the wits out of ye. How bad are ye hurt?”
“I’ve felt better,” he snarled. “That doesn’t excuse your stupidity! How could you disobey me in this, you stupid jade? You’re an idiot. A total featherbrained lunatic!”
She sniffed. “A fine thanks I get for coming to rescue you.”
“Rescue me?” His face darkened until she thought he’d have a stroke. “Is this what you call a rescue? You’ll never get out of here alive. None of us will.”
“I might have known you’d say that,” she retorted. “Typically English. Give up as soon as a noose begins to tighten. Where’s your ballocks?”
“Still where they belong, thank you,” he flung back. “Although how long they’ll stay attached is any man’s guess.”
For a long moment, they glared at each other, then he looked away and swore again.
“Say you’re glad to see me,” she murmured.
“I’d sooner see Beelzebub.”
“You’re lying through your teeth, Sassenach.”
A shudder ran through him. “I thought you were safe, woman. Can’t you see that? I thought you were safe. No matter what they did to me, I—”
She touched his shoulder, running her fingers gently over the swollen, torn flesh, caressing his skin until he turned back, and she saw tears welling in his dark eyes. “Don’t ye ken that I’d rather die here with ye than live not knowing if ye were dead or alive?” she said. “I love ye, Sterling Gray. Heart and soul, body and mind, I love ye. And if it was stupid to come here, then I’m stupid, but I had to chance it.”
“Cailin.” The agony in his voice cut her to the quick. “Cailin ... darling,” he continued raggedly.
She threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head down. His mouth crushed hers, and she clung to him until she grew faint from lack of oxygen.
“I love you,” he said when they drew far enough apart to breathe. “You’re still an idiot, but I do love you.”
“And ye are glad to see me?”
“No. I’m not. And if I die a sniveling coward, it will be your fault.”
“You’re not going to die,” she promised. She was afraid to kiss him again. Once he started kissing her, she’d lose the reason to think. And she needed her wits if they were to survive. “Moonfeather’s going to trade for your freedom. I’m under her protection—we all are.”
“Diplomatic immunity?” Sterling grimaced. “Don’t look for the niceties of honor among the Mohawk.”
“Well, we’re alive so far. They’re preparing us a feast of dog, and they’ve agreed to let me clean up your injuries.” She inspected the angry gash down his thigh. “By all that’s holy. ’Tis a wonder you’ve not taken the rotting sickness. Look at this.” She took a step back. “I’ve brought medicine, and some dried meat and water. I brought a loincloth too, if you think they’ll let you keep it.”
’Tut the damned thing on me. It’s not much protection, but it worries a man to have his most precious possessions dangling in the breeze.“
She chuckled. “And I thought I was your most precious possession.” She handed him the water skin.
“A wife who doesn’t obey her husband. Not likely” He took a long swallow of water. “The biggest mistake I ever made was stealing you from the hangman in Edinburgh.”
“If that’s the worst ye ever make, we’ll both live to rock our grandbabies,” she said. The inflammation on the leg was leaking pus; it would need lancing and washing. “This is going to hurt,” she warned.
He shrugged. “Have at it, woman. You’re not the first to enjoy torturing me. And the Mohawk have had more practice at it.”
She had administered to his leg and was just putting the final stitches in his shoulder wound when the Mohawk squaw returned.
“You come now,” the woman said in stilted English.
“Just a little longer,” Cailin stalled. “I need time to—”
“Come now!”
Cailin whirled and gave the Indian woman her fiercest look. “I’ll go with ye when I bandage this, ye blackhearted daughter of Satan.”
“No! Not wait. Now.”
Sterling nodded. “Go along, lass. No need to set off fireworks over a few more minutes.”
She wanted to kiss him again, to wrap her arms around him and not let go, but his face had taken on that Indian look again. Instead, she smiled and mouthed the words
I love you
as she hastily bound a dressing over his injury.
“You come feast,” the squaw said. “Tomorrow, Shawnee witch fight Ohneya.”
“Tomorrow?” Cailin’s gaze met Sterling’s.
The Mohawk woman smiled slyly. “Ohneya great warrior. Kill witch and take his wife for slave.”
“What?” Cailin asked. “What did you say?”
The Indian woman laughed. “Is Mohawk custom. Witch win, take Ohneya’s wife. Ohneya kill Shawnee witch, take enemy’s wife to his bed. Is fair, yes?” She motioned toward the entrance. “Go now. Eat white dog. Tomorrow, when your man’s head hang on Ohneya’s lodgepole, you eat scraps dogs leave behind.” She rolled her eyes and smirked. “If Ohneya not keep white woman too busy to eat at all.”
Chapter 24
“T
omorrow he may die,” Cailin whispered urgently to Moonfeather. “Ye must help me find a way to go to him.”
The two women moved away from the smoky hearth to talk, so they wouldn’t disturb their sleeping companions. Cailin had lain awake for hours; she guessed it must be sometime after midnight, but all she could think of was Sterling and the danger he was facing.
Except for the occasional cough, or the cry of an infant, the Iroquois camp was quiet. A Mohawk stood guard outside the entrance to the ceremonial longhouse, and Lachpi the Delaware squatted inside the door with a rifle cradled in his arms. Both warriors were too far away to hear what she and Moonfeather were saying. The men kept watch so silently, without moving, that they might have been another pair of upright oak columns that stood in pairs down the center of the massive log structure.
“Your heart is troubled,” Moonfeather replied, placing a warm hand on Cailin’s shoulder. “Mine too. I do not trust the Mohawk. They are as truthful as the English. A promise made today may not be kept tomorrow.”
Hope surged in Cailin’s breast. “Then they may not force Sterling to fight Ohneya?”
Moonfeather made a doubtful sound with a click of her tongue. “That is a promise I expect they will keep. They are bloodthirsty people. The other tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy are not so cruel. I would feel better if Bear Dancer were an Oneida or an Onondaga. He would have more control over his warriors. I see the young men look to Ohneya. If Bear Dancer’s authority as sachem is uneasy, he may sacrifice us all to keep his position.” She made a sound of derision. “Weak politicians are worse than evil ones. Even a wicked man will sometimes listen to reason. Thus I would rather deal with a strong, bad leader such as Ohneya than a good, weak one.”
“How is it that they listen to you at all?” Cailin asked. “Ye be Shawnee, not Iroquois, and ... and ye are a woman.”
Moonfeather spread her hands gracefully.
In the light of the glowing fire, Cailin was struck again by just how regal the peace woman appeared. She could be a Spanish princess, Cailin thought.
“The Iroquois are a race of conquerors and our blood enemies,” Moonfeather whispered softly, “but they are not barbarians. Far from it. They recognize the honored place of women as the Europeans do not. Their women have traditionally wielded great power among them. Normally, they would discount a Shawnee female, but—”
“Aye,” Cailin replied impatiently. “Ye be a peace woman, but I still don’t understand what that means. Are ye a shaman, like Jit-sho?”
Moonfeather chuckled. “Better, this woman hopes.”
“Are you a chief?”
“Nay. A chief can be replaced, while a peace woman cannot be. She is born to the title, not chosen by the Shawnee. She is a councilor, not just to a single village, but to all who call themselves Shawnee. There can be but one, and she must die before another is recognized.”
“will the office pass to your daughter?” Forrest had mentioned an older sister, but Cailin had not met her. She still had trouble believing that Moonfeather was the wife of an English earl. There were so many questions she wanted to ask her, but this was not the time or the place.
“That is not given for me to know.”
“That Mohawk woman who took me to Sterling said that I belong to Ohneya if he kills my husband. Is that true?”
“So.” Moonfeather’s voice was thoughtful but noncommittal.
Cailin was beginning to realize that the Shawnee told what they wanted and left out the rest. Getting an aye or nay was sometimes harder than hiking uphill through a thunderstorm. “If Sterling wins the encounter,” she continued, “this Bear Dancer says they will burn him. There’s no way out for us. I must be with him tonight.”
Moonfeather nodded. “That much this one can give you.”
“How?” Cailin asked. “We are guarded, and so is he.”
“It is not important for you to know how it is done,” Moonfeather said. “Do you remember the way to the place where he is held prisoner?”
“Of course, but—”
Moonfeather gripped her shoulder with surprising strength. “Do not speak. Do not utter a sound. Do not touch the Mohawk guards. And remember that you must return to this longhouse before the first light of dawn. Do you understand? You must follow my instructions exactly”
“I ken your words, but how am I to do this? Ye canna make me invisible.”
The peace woman’s chuckle was low and warm. “Aye, my friend. Something like that. It is an Indian thing that ye canna fathom. Think of the wolf and place your feet as he does, silently. Go to your husband. Quickly. But be back before the sky lightens. This charm will not hold in daylight ”
“Witchcraft,” Cailin murmured. “I canna—”
“Ease your heart, little Christian sister. A peace woman does not bargain with the prince of darkness. Above all, she must follow the way of the light. Your soul is safe enough. Go now. And offer prayers to your Jesus that your husband fights well tomorrow”
Cailin shook her head. What Moonfeather was telling her to do was impossible. Stupid. A madwoman’s ploy. No one could make her invisible. If she tried to set foot outside this building, the Mohawk would seize her—maybe even strike her dead.
But she wanted to be with Sterling—had to be with him if it was humanly possible.
Gritting her teeth, she took a deep breath and began to walk through the darkened longhouse toward the entrance on the east end. It was a chilly night, cool for summer, even damp, but sweat beaded on her face and trickled down the hollows of her throat.
Lachpi will stop me, she thought. I’ll get as far as the doorway, and Lachpi will bar the way. Surely, the Delaware brave wouldn’t let her step past him into danger.
She could hear the rhythmic sound of Lachpi’s breathing now, see the glow from the end of his clay pipe, smell the Indian tobacco. Moonfeather had warned her not to speak. She hadn’t said what to do if her heart was pounding loud enough to wake the village.
Cailin hugged her folded arms against her body. She swallowed, wanting to clear her throat, but she was afraid to make a sound. As a child, when she walked the haunted hallway at Glen Garth, she would whistle to drive away the ghosts. Tonight, she could only keep walking.
Past Lachpi ... through the entranceway.
Moonlight shone on the Mohawk guard’s craggy face. His breastplate of shiny metal glittered with cold fire; the steel head of his war club rose and fell with each deep breath he took. She could smell the fish on his breath, almost feel the slick bear grease on his skin.
Her own skin prickled as she waited for his shout, as she waited for him to lift that terrible club and bring it crashing down to crush her skull.
He passed wind.
Cailin wrinkled her nose and stopped short, ready to die, too emotionally wrung out to take another step.
He stretched and yawned, then scratched beneath his loincloth. A rude noise sounded. The brave sighed with relief as a cloud of evil-smelling gas fouled the air.
Cailin found the courage to move. She held her breath as she darted around the end of the longhouse and stopped again to listen for his footsteps in pursuit.
She heard nothing but the faint creak of a fish drying rack in the night breeze.
Think of the wolf, Moonfeather had said.
Place your feet as he does
...
The moonlight made the way clear. She hurried between the communal dwellings, past sleeping dogs and turkey roosts. No one stopped her; no cur yelped a warning, and no bird squawked.
Ahead, she saw the guard at the entrance of Sterling’s prison. He was a tall, wide man with a shaven head and an immense, sagging belly. Cailin recognized him as one of the members of the original war party that had attacked the plantation.
Would he see her? Tension made her giddy, but she’d come too far to give up now. Chin high, certain that he would see her and raise the alarm, she walked straight toward him.
He gave not the slightest indication that she existed, and she ducked past him and into the musty-smelling storage building.
Inside, there was no moonlight and no fire. She had never been a fainting woman, but gray fog churned in her head, and her knees felt too weak to hold her up. Praying silently, she extended her arms out in front of her and put one foot in front of the other, hoping against hope that she could stay in the center passageway.
The Iroquois longhouses were much bigger than the Shawnee wigwams, one room wide and four or five long. Moonfeather had told her that among the Iroquois, families of the same clan shared a house, each individual group living in one compartment around a separate hearth. When she’d been led to Sterling before, she’d had to thread her way through piles of tanned hides, stacked baskets, metal kettles, and other stored household belongings. In the dark, it was difficult to find her way without tripping over something, but she was heartened by the knowledge that each step took her farther from the guard at the door and nearer to Sterling. Twice, she brushed against a protruding wall and tangled in a mass of cobwebs; once, she nearly walked into a center post.
Just a wee bit farther, she told herself. Then, she heard the faint rattle of a chain ahead and guessed Sterling must be awake. He didn’t call out, but she sensed that he was aware he was no longer alone in the longhouse. She froze, straining to see in the blackness.
“Cailin?” He whispered her name. “I know it’s you. I can smell your hair.”
She didn’t hesitate. She ran to him and slipped under his manacled wrists into the circle of his arms. He moaned softly and squeezed her against him.
“Cailin, Cailin, what are you doing here?”
Moonfeather had told her not to speak. She was afraid that if she did, the spell would break, and they’d be discovered. She answered him with her lips, her touch, her body molded to his.
He groaned and lowered his head.
His kiss was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted.
“This is madness,” he protested. But he kissed her again, and she dung to him.
“Woman, what will I do with you?” He uttered a sound of despair, but he kept kissing her until the feel and scent of him made her giddy and she forgot where she was and what was to come.
“Do you realize what you risk to come here?” he rasped.
She didn’t care what he said. She knew that he needed her here in his arms. She parted her lips and allowed his tongue to slide deep into her mouth.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” he asked her later when they were both breathless.
She put three fingers over his lips.
“Damn it, I love you,” he whispered. “I’ll always love you. Remember that ...”
She turned, still inside the circle of his arms, and leaned back against him. Taking hold of his right hand, she lifted it to kiss the place where the iron manacle bit into his flesh.
He clenched and unclenched his fingers.
“Speak to me,” he begged her.
Her tears fell on his bruised flesh. She opened his hand and turned it to kiss the callused underside of his palm.
“Don’t,” he said. “Do you know how it rips my gut to have you see me chained to a post like an animal?” He made a sound that could have been a sob. “You can’t think about me, Cailin. I’m a dead man. You’ve got to survive.”
Sterling! Sterling!
She shouted his name in her heart, but no sound issued from her throat. It didn’t matter. She was here—with him. She twisted around to face him, stroked his hair, ran her fingers down his cheek, and traced the lines of his mouth and nose. She wanted to memorize every inch of him, to brand his image on her soul so that no matter what happened, she could never forget him.
His hands were bound with cruel fetters of iron, but hers were free. Free to caress his neck and shoulders ... to brush his nipples and follow the contours of every scar and bulge on his chest ... to blaze a trail of scorching kisses down his bare skin.
“Cailin,” he gasped. “Don’t ...”
She paid him no heed.
Always before, it had been Sterling’s touch that had set her desire aflame. Now it was her own.
She wanted to tell him that she was his, that nothing would ever part them. She wanted to press his hands against her womb ... to let him know of the gift she sheltered there.
Instead, she let passion fill her with languid warmth and a boldness that was almost. wanton. Shamelessly, she ran her fingers over his flat stomach and narrow hips, lingering only briefly on the swell of his loincloth before following the hard muscles of his buttocks and thighs.
“Woman ...” He drew in a strangled breath. “What are you—”
She silenced him by kneeling at his feet and resting her cheek against his swelling member. She hugged his leg, massaging the knotted sinew of his calf, before retracing her path to do the same at his thigh. And as she leaned against him, she felt him tremble.
His manacled hands tangled in her hair. He rubbed the nape of her neck with his fingers, making slow, sensual circles that made her skin tingle and her nipples pucker to hard, sensitive buds.
Gently, tenderly, she placed kisses on his most vulnerable spot, adding her own fervent excitement to his.
He let out a long sigh of longing.
It was a simple matter for Cailin to undo his rawhide belt and let his loincloth fall away ... to cup his sacks in her hands and lift their weight ... to explore the fullness of his straining shaft.
How can this be a sin? she wondered. He is my God-given husband. The warmth in her loins had become waves of white-hot heat. She no longer felt the cool air, only the fevered pulse of her blood.
A smile played over her lips as she explored his length, marveling at the smooth texture of his skin and the throbbing power beneath her fingertips.
Groaning, he arched against her.