“Alexandre.” The priest came forward, looking both pleased and incredulous. “Père Alexandre Ferigault. Vous êtes anglais?”
“Scots,” said Roger, and sat down suddenly, his lame leg giving way.
“A Scotsman? How do you come here? You are a soldier?”
“A prisoner.”
The priest squatted by him, looking him over curiously. He was fairly young—in his late twenties or early thirties, though his fair skin was chapped and weathered by the cold.
“You will eat with me?” He gestured to a small collection of clay pots and baskets that held food and water.
Speaking in his own language seemed to be as much a relief for the priest as speaking freely was for Roger. By the time the meal was concluded, they had gleaned a cautious knowledge of each other’s basic past—if no explanation as yet for their present situation.
“Why have they put me here with you?” Roger asked, wiping grease from his mouth. He didn’t think it was to provide the priest with company. Thoughtfulness was not an outstanding Mohawk characteristic, so far as he’d noticed.
“I cannot say. I was in fact astonished to see another white man.”
Roger glanced at the door of the hut. It moved slightly; there was someone outside.
“Are you a prisoner?” he asked, in some surprise. The priest hesitated, then shrugged, with a small smile.
“I cannot say that, either. With the Mohawk, one is Kahnyen’kehaka or one is—other. And if one is other, the line between guest and prisoner can alter in a moment. Leave it that I have lived among them for several years—but I have not been adopted into the tribe. I am still ‘other.’ ” He coughed and changed the subject. “How did you come to be taken captive?”
Roger hesitated, not really knowing how to answer.
“I was betrayed,” he said at last. “Sold.”
The priest nodded sympathetically.
“Is there anyone who might ransom you? They will take care to keep you alive if they have some hope of ransom.”
Roger shook his head, feeling hollow as a drum.
“There’s no one.”
* * *
Conversation ceased as the light from the smokehole dimmed into dusk, leaving them in darkness below. There was a firepit, but no wood; the fire died out. The hut seemed to have been abandoned; there was a bed frame built of poles, but nothing else in the hut save a couple of tattered deerskins and a small heap of domestic debris in one corner.
“Have you been here—in this hut—long?” Roger asked at last, breaking the silence. He could barely see the other man, though the last remnants of twilight were visible through the smokehole.
“No. They brought me here today—shortly before you came.” The priest coughed, shifting uneasily on the packed dirt floor.
That seemed sinister, but Roger thought it more tactful—and less frightening—not to mention it. It was no doubt as obvious to the priest as to himself that the line between “guest” and “prisoner” had been crossed. What had the man done?
“You are a Christian?” Alexandre broke the silence abruptly.
“Yes. My father was a minister.”
“Ah. May I ask—if they take me away, will you pray for me?”
Roger felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the cheerless surroundings.
“Yes,” he said awkwardly. “Of course. If you like.”
The priest rose and began to walk restlessly about the confines of the hut, unable to keep still.
“It may be all right,” he said, but it was the voice of a man trying to convince himself. “They are still deciding.”
“Deciding what?”
He felt rather than saw the priest’s shrug.
“Whether I live.”
There seemed no good response to that, and they fell once more into silence. Roger sat huddled by the cold firepit, resting his lame foot, while the priest paced to and fro, finally settling beside him. Without comment, the two moved close together, pooling their warmth; it was going to be a cold night.
Roger had dozed off, one of the deerskins pulled over him, when there was a sudden noise at the door. He sat up, blinking, to a blaze of fire.
There were four Mohawk warriors in the hut; one dumped a load of wood into the firepit and thrust the brand he held into the pile. Ignoring Roger, the others pulled Père Ferigault to his feet and roughly stripped him of his clothes.
Roger moved instinctively, half rising, and was knocked flat. The priest gave him a quick, open-eyed look that begged him not to interfere.
One of the warriors held his own brand close to Père Ferigault’s face. He said something that sounded like a question, then, receiving no answer, passed his brand downward, so close to the priest’s body that the white skin glowed red.
Sweat stood out on Alexandre’s face as the fire hovered near his genitals, but his face remained carefully blank. The warrior with the brand poked it suddenly at the priest, who could not keep from flinching. The Indians laughed, and did it again. This time he was prepared; Roger smelled singed hair, but the priest didn’t move.
Tiring of this sport, two of the warriors seized the priest by the arms, and dragged him out of the hut.
If they take me away—pray for me. Roger sat up slowly, the hairs on his body prickling with dread. He could hear the voices of the Indians, talking among themselves, receding in the distance; no sound from the priest.
Alexandre’s discarded clothes were flung around the hut; Roger picked them up, carefully beating the dust from them and folding them. His hands were shaking.
He tried to pray, but found it hard to focus his mind upon devotion. Over and around the words of his prayer, he could hear a small, cold voice, saying, And when they come to take me away—who will pray for me?
* * *
They had left him a fire; he tried to believe that meant that they did not mean to kill him right away. The granting of comforts to a condemned prisoner was not the Mohawk way, either. After a time he lay down under the deerskins, curled on his side, and watched the flames until he fell asleep, worn out by terror.
He was roused from uneasy sleep by the shuffle of feet and many voices. He sprang awake, rolled away from the fire and crouched, looking frantically for some means of defense.
The door flap lifted, and the naked body of the priest fell into the hut. The noises outside moved away.
Alexandre stirred and moaned. Roger came quickly and knelt by him. He could smell fresh blood, a hot-copper smell he recognized from the slaughtering of the moose.
“Are you hurt? What have they done?”
The answer to that was quick in coming. He turned the half-conscious priest over, to see blood streaming over face and neck in a shiny red glaze. He snatched the priest’s discarded robe to stanch the wound, pushed back the matted blond hair, and found that the priest’s right ear was missing. Something sharp had taken a patch of skin some three inches square from just behind the jaw, removing both ear and a section of scalp.
Roger clenched his stomach muscles and pressed the cloth tight against the raw wound. Holding it in place, he dragged the limp body to the fire, and piled the remnants of clothes and both deerskins on top of Père Ferigault.
The man was moaning now. Roger washed his face, made him drink a little water.