“I expect so,” he said, both face and voice without expression. He turned to Ian.
“Wakefield—or MacKenzie, or whatever the man’s name is—is a good way to the north. They sold him to the Mohawk; a small village below the river. Your friend Onakara has agreed to guide us; we’ll leave at first light.”
He rose and walked away, toward the far end of the house. Everyone else had already retired for the night. Five hearths burned, down the length of the house, each with its own smokehole, and the far wall was divided into cubicles, one for each couple or family, with a low, wide shelf for sleeping and space beneath for storage.
Jamie stopped at the cubicle assigned for our use, where I had left our cloaks and bundles. He slipped off his boots, unbelted the plaid he wore over breeches and shirt, and disappeared into the darkness of the sleeping space without a backward glance.
I scrambled to my feet, meaning to follow him, but Ian stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“Auntie,” he said hesitantly. “Will ye not forgive him?”
“Forgive him?” I stared at him. “For what? For Roger?”
He grimaced.
“No. It was a grievous mistake, but we would do the same again, thinking matters as we did. No—for Bonnet.”
“For Stephen Bonnet? How can he possibly think I blame him for that? I’ve never said such a thing to him!” And I had been too busy thinking that he blamed me, to even consider it.
Ian scratched a hand through his hair.
“Well…do ye not see, Auntie? He blames himself for it. He has, ever since the man robbed us on the river; and now wi’ what he’s done to my cousin…” He shrugged, looking mildly embarrassed. “He’s fair eaten up with it, and knowing that you’re angry wi’ him—”
“But I’m not angry with him! I thought he was angry with me, because I didn’t tell him Bonnet’s name right away.”
“Och.” Ian looked as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or look distressed. “Well, I daresay it would ha’ saved us a bit of trouble if ye had, but no, I’m sure it’s not that, Auntie. After all, by the time Cousin Brianna told ye, we’d already met yon MacKenzie on the mountainside and done him a bit of no good.”
I took in a deep breath and blew it out again.
“But you think he thinks I’m angry at him?”
“Oh, anyone could see ye are, Auntie,” he assured me earnestly. “Ye dinna look at him or speak to him save for what ye must—and,” he said, clearing his throat delicately, “I havena seen ye go to his bed, anytime this month past.”
“Well, he hasn’t come to mine, either!” I said hotly, before reflecting that this was scarcely a suitable conversation to be having with a seventeen year-old boy.
Ian hunched his shoulders and gave me an owlish look.
“Well, he’s his pride, hasn’t he?”
“God knows he has,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “I—look, Ian, thank you for saying something to me.”
He gave me one of the rare sweet smiles that transformed his long, homely face.
“Well, I do hate to see him suffer. I’m fond of Uncle Jamie, aye?”
“So am I,” I said, and swallowed the small lump in my throat. “Good night, Ian.”
* * *
I walked softly down the length of the house, past cubicles in which whole families slept together, the sound of their mingled breathing a peaceful descant to the anxious beating of my heart. It was raining outside; water dripped from the smokeholes, sizzling in the embers.
Why had I not seen what Ian had? That was easy to answer; it wasn’t anger, but my own sense of guilt that had blinded me. I had kept back my knowledge of Bonnet’s involvement as much because of the gold wedding ring as because Brianna had asked me to; I could have persuaded her to tell Jamie, had I tried.
She was right; he would undoubtedly go after Stephen Bonnet sooner or later. I had somewhat more confidence in Jamie’s success than she did, though. No, it had been the ring that had made me keep silence.
And why should I feel guilty over that? There was no sensible answer; it had been instinct, not conscious thought, to hide the ring. I had not wanted to show it to Jamie, to put it back on my finger in front of him. And yet I had wanted—needed—to keep it.
My heart squeezed small, thinking of the past few weeks, of Jamie, going grimly about the necessities of reparation in loneliness and guilt. That was why I had come with him, after all—because I was afraid that if he went alone, he might not come back. Spurred by guilt and courage, he might go to reckless lengths; with me to consider, I knew he would be careful. And all the time he had thought himself not only alone but bitterly reproached by the one person who could—and should—have offered him comfort.
“Eaten up with it” indeed.
* * *
I paused by the cubicle. The shelf was some eight feet wide, and he lay well back; I could see little more of him than a humped shape under a blanket made of rabbit skins. He lay very still, but I knew he wasn’t asleep.
I climbed onto the platform, and once safe within the shadows of the cubicle, slipped out of my clothes. It was fairly warm in the longhouse, but my bare skin prickled and my nipples tightened. My eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness; I could see that he lay on his side facing me. I caught the shine of his eyes in the dark, open and watching me.
I knelt down and slid under the blanket, the fur soft against my skin. Without stopping to think too much, I rolled to face him, pressing my nakedness against him, face buried in his shoulder.
“Jamie,” I whispered to him. “I’m cold. Come and warm me. Please?”
* * *
He turned to me, wordless, with a quiet ferocity that I might have thought the hunger of desire long stifled—but knew now for simple desperation. I sought no pleasure for myself; I wanted only to give him comfort. But opening to him, urging him, some deep wellspring opened too, and I cleaved to him in a sudden need as blind and desperate as his own.
We clung tight together, shuddering, heads buried in each other’s hair, unable to look at each other, unable to let go. Slowly, as the spasms died away, I became aware of things outside our own small mortal coil, and realized that we lay in the midst of strangers, naked and helpless, shielded only by darkness.
And yet we were alone, completely. We had the privacy of Babel; there was a conversation going on at the far end of the longhouse, but its words held no meaning. It might as well have been the hum of bees.
Smoke from the banked fire wavered up outside the sanctuary of our bed, fragrant and insubstantial as incense. It was dark as a confessional inside the cubicle; I could see no more of Jamie than the faint curve of light that rimmed his shoulder, a transient gleam in the locks of his hair.
“Jamie, I’m sorry,” I said softly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Who else?” he said, with some bleakness.
“Everyone. No one. Stephen Bonnet, himself. But not you.”
“Bonnet?” His voice was blank with surprise. “What has he to do with it?”
“Well…everything,” I said, taken aback. “Er…doesn’t he?”