“You said what’s happened to her wouldn’t have—you mean, being pregnant?” He didn’t wait for a reply; he had plainly recovered from the shock of the news sufficiently to begin thinking, and was rapidly reaching the same unpleasant conclusions Brianna had come to, some months earlier. He swung his head toward me, eyes wide with shock.
“She’s seven months along, you said. Jesus! She can’t go back!”
“Not now,” I said, with bitter emphasis. “She might have, when we first found out. I tried to make her go back to Scotland, or at least to the Indies—there’s another…opening, there. But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t go without finding out what happened to you.”
“What happened to me,” he repeated, and glanced at Jamie. Jamie’s shoulders tensed, and he set his jaw.
“Aye,” he said. “It’s my fault, and no remedy for it. She’s trapped here. And I can do nothing for her—save bring ye back to her.” And that, I realized, was why he had not wanted to tell Roger anything; for fear that when he realized Brianna was trapped in the past, Roger would refuse to come back with us. Following her into the past was one thing; staying there forever with her was something else again. Neither was it guilt over Bonnet alone that had eaten Jamie up on our journey here; the Spartan boy with the fox gnawing at his vitals would have recognized a kindred soul on the spot, I thought, looking at him with exasperated tenderness.
Roger gazed at him, completely at a loss for words.
Before he could find any, a noise of shuffling footsteps approached the door of the hut. The flap lifted, and a large number of Mohawks came in, one after the other.
We looked at them in astonishment; there were about fifteen of them, men and women and children, all dressed for traveling, in leggings and furs. One of the older women held a cradleboard, and without hesitation she walked up to Roger and pressed it into his arms, saying something in Mohawk.
He frowned at her, not understanding. Jamie, suddenly alert, leaned toward her and said a few halting words. She repeated what she had said, impatiently, then looked behind her and motioned to a young man.
“You are…priest,” he said haltingly to Roger. He pointed at the cradleboard. “Water.”
“I’m not a priest.” Roger tried to give the board back to the woman, but she refused to take it.
“Prees,” she said definitely. “Babtize.” She motioned to one of the younger women, who stepped forward, holding a small bowl made of horn, filled with water.
“Father Alexandre—he say you priest, son of priest,” said the young man. I saw Roger’s face go pale beneath the beard.
Jamie had stepped aside, murmuring in French patois to a man he recognized among the crowd. Now he pushed his way back to us.
“These are what is left of the priest’s flock,” he said softly. “The council has told them to leave. They mean to travel to the Huron mission at Ste. Berthe, but they would have the child baptized, lest it die on the journey.” He glanced at Roger. “They think ye are a priest?”
“Evidently.” Roger looked down at the child in his arms.
Jamie hesitated, glancing at the waiting Indians. They stood patiently, their faces calm. I could only guess what lay behind them. Fire and death, exile—what else? There were marks of sorrow on the face of the old woman who brought the baby; she would be its grandmother, I thought.
“In case of need,” Jamie said quietly to Roger, “any man may do the office of a priest.”
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for Roger to go any whiter, but he did. He swayed briefly, and the old lady, alarmed, reached out a hand to steady the cradleboard.
He caught himself, though, and nodded to the young woman with the water, to come closer.
“Parlez-vous français?” he asked, and heads nodded, some with certainty, some with less.
“C’est bien,” he said, and taking a deep breath, lifted the cradleboard, showing the child to the congregation. The baby, a round-faced charmer with soft brown curls and a golden skin, blinked sleepily at the change of perspective.
“Hear the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said clearly in French. “Obeying the word of our Lord Jesus, and sure of his presence with us, we baptize those whom he has called to be his own.”
Of course, I thought, watching him. He was the son of a priest, so to speak; he would often enough have seen the Reverend administer the sacrament of baptism. If he didn’t recall the entire service, he seemed to know the general form of it.
He had the baby passed from hand to hand among the congregation—for so his agreement had made them—following and asking questions of each person there, in a low voice.
“Qui est votre Seigneur, votre Sauveur?” Who is your Lord and Savior?
“Voulez-vous placer votre foi en Lui?” Do you have faith in Him?
“Do you promise to tell this child the good news of the gospel, and all that Christ commands, and by your fellowship, to strength his family ties with the household of God?”
Head after head bobbed in reply.
“Oui, certainement. Je le promets. Nous le ferons.” Yes, of course. I promise. We will.
At last Roger turned and gave the child to Jamie.
“Who is your Lord and Savior?”
“Jesus Christ,” he answered without hesitation, and the baby was handed on to me.
“Do you trust in him?”
I looked down into the face of innocence, and answered for it. “I do.”
He took the cradleboard, gave it to the grandmother, then dipping a sprig of juniper into the bowl of water, sprinkled water on the baby’s head.
“I baptize you—” he began, and stopped, with a sudden panicked glance at me.
“It’s a girl,” I murmured, and he nodded, lifting the sprig of juniper again.
“I baptize you, Alexandra, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
* * *
After the small band of Christians had left, there were no more visitors. A warrior brought us wood for the fire, and some food, but he ignored Jamie’s questions and left, saying nothing.
“Do you think they’ll kill us?” Roger asked suddenly, after a period of silence. His mouth twitched in an attempted smile. “Kill me, I suppose I mean. Presumably the two of you are safe.”
He didn’t sound worried. Looking at the deep shadows and lines in his face, I thought that he was simply too exhausted to be afraid anymore.
“They won’t kill us,” I said, and pushed a hand through the tangle of my hair. I dimly realized that I, too, was exhausted; I had been without sleep for more than thirty-six hours.
“I started out to tell you. I spent last night in Tewaktenyonh’s house. The Council of Mothers met there.”
They hadn’t told me everything; they never would. But at the end of the long hours of ceremony and discussion, the girl who spoke English had told me as much as they wanted me to know, before they sent me back to Jamie.
“Some of the young men found the whisky cache,” I said. “They brought it back to the village yesterday, and started to drink. The women thought they didn’t mean anything dishonest, that they thought the bargain was already made. But then some argument started among them, just before they lit the fire to—to execute the priest. A fight broke out, and some of the men ran into the crowd, and—one thing led to another.” I rubbed a hand hard over my face, trying to keep my thoughts clear enough to speak.