Stewart, for the good of Holy Church?”
“Aye, o’ course. Why else would—”
“Because you covet the Hale Patent. So it is to your advantage to break Ephraim Hale. If I send my Indians to burn his fields and he has no harvest …”
Your Indians, Stewart thought. Aye, that’s surely the nub o’ the thing. Why should I believe a Franciscan priest can say to a Huron savage “Go” and he goes, and “Come” and he comes? Lantak’s a butcher by all reports, as well as a rebel. A merciless wild man his own people have banished, savages though God knows they be. But that’s the way o’ it. This friar and Lantak. A pair o’ madmen making common cause for as long as it suits ‘em. Aye, and God’s truth, I’ve heard stranger tales. “The buildings as well, mon Père. It’s essential that as many o’ the wee out-buildings as possible are burned. The grain already harvested, that’s where it’ll be.”
“But not his house, eh? You wish me to tell Lantak and his braves very specifically that they are not to put the house of Ephraim Hale to the torch.”
He could na look into those eyes, however often he tried. Damn the man. Was it being a Frenchman gave him his superior airs, or his high-born family, or maybe the cloth and his holy vows? But that shouldna be. Supposed to be beggars, own nothing, go about barefoot doing good. Aye, that’s what St. Francis said. He’d have wanted no part o’ this French devil acting high and mighty and giving orders to a gaggle o’ bloody savages. “Shadowbrook’s a remarkable house,
mon Père.
None better in the province.” God’s truth, why was he mumbling and staring at the poxed priest’s poxed feet. Sandals, not barefoot. So much for St. Francis.
“My footwear interests you, my son? You are perhaps thinking that I should be barefoot as Blessed Francis ordained?”
Sweet Jesus, the poxed man could read his mind. Stewart felt the sweat making rivulets down his back, despite the cold. Colder than the Highlands, poxed Québec was. There was a fire in the grate, but so wee and poorly fed it cast a scant shadow and less heat. “I’m thinking,
mon Père,
that it’s past time I started back.” Stewart nodded toward a pouch of coins on the table next to the map. “There’s six hundred livres there. So I need you to tell me if it will be done.”
Père Antoine put his hand over the money, but he did not pick it up. “The burning and pillaging of Ephraim Hale’s Patent? That’s what we’re discussing, isn’t it?” Because if it is done when you suggest, the priest thought—in August, just as the harvest begins—Hale will be bankrupt. Like most men of property he has land, not cash, and he has mortgaged that land to the last sou. So if I do as youask, my one-eyed Scot, Ephraim Hale will be ruined. And his creditors will be happy to sell you his land for six of your British pence on the pound.
The Scot was standing with his hands clasped over the bulge of his belly, his single eye looking at the crucifix on the wall. Waiting for the priest’s final word, a picture of patient devotion whose only aim was to serve.
You’re a villain, Hamish Stewart, and you care as much for Mother Church as I care for that beetle crawling across the hearth. Less. But you will further our holy cause despite yourself. “It will be done, my son. I give you my word on it. And you in turn give me your word that afterward French troops and our Indian allies will have safe passage across this bit of portage?” The Franciscan drew one slim finger across the top of the crude map of the Hale land, from the southern tip of one long lake to the beginnings of the narrow waterway that debouched into another. Control the land between those two bodies of water and you had a straight path in any direction. The way west led directly to the French forts of the Ohio Country.
Hamish looked at the section of the land the Mohawk savages called the Great Carrying Place. “Aye, I swear it.”
“Aye, o’ course. Why else would—”
“Because you covet the Hale Patent. So it is to your advantage to break Ephraim Hale. If I send my Indians to burn his fields and he has no harvest …”
Your Indians, Stewart thought. Aye, that’s surely the nub o’ the thing. Why should I believe a Franciscan priest can say to a Huron savage “Go” and he goes, and “Come” and he comes? Lantak’s a butcher by all reports, as well as a rebel. A merciless wild man his own people have banished, savages though God knows they be. But that’s the way o’ it. This friar and Lantak. A pair o’ madmen making common cause for as long as it suits ‘em. Aye, and God’s truth, I’ve heard stranger tales. “The buildings as well, mon Père. It’s essential that as many o’ the wee out-buildings as possible are burned. The grain already harvested, that’s where it’ll be.”
“But not his house, eh? You wish me to tell Lantak and his braves very specifically that they are not to put the house of Ephraim Hale to the torch.”
He could na look into those eyes, however often he tried. Damn the man. Was it being a Frenchman gave him his superior airs, or his high-born family, or maybe the cloth and his holy vows? But that shouldna be. Supposed to be beggars, own nothing, go about barefoot doing good. Aye, that’s what St. Francis said. He’d have wanted no part o’ this French devil acting high and mighty and giving orders to a gaggle o’ bloody savages. “Shadowbrook’s a remarkable house,
mon Père.
None better in the province.” God’s truth, why was he mumbling and staring at the poxed priest’s poxed feet. Sandals, not barefoot. So much for St. Francis.
“My footwear interests you, my son? You are perhaps thinking that I should be barefoot as Blessed Francis ordained?”
Sweet Jesus, the poxed man could read his mind. Stewart felt the sweat making rivulets down his back, despite the cold. Colder than the Highlands, poxed Québec was. There was a fire in the grate, but so wee and poorly fed it cast a scant shadow and less heat. “I’m thinking,
mon Père,
that it’s past time I started back.” Stewart nodded toward a pouch of coins on the table next to the map. “There’s six hundred livres there. So I need you to tell me if it will be done.”
Père Antoine put his hand over the money, but he did not pick it up. “The burning and pillaging of Ephraim Hale’s Patent? That’s what we’re discussing, isn’t it?” Because if it is done when you suggest, the priest thought—in August, just as the harvest begins—Hale will be bankrupt. Like most men of property he has land, not cash, and he has mortgaged that land to the last sou. So if I do as youask, my one-eyed Scot, Ephraim Hale will be ruined. And his creditors will be happy to sell you his land for six of your British pence on the pound.
The Scot was standing with his hands clasped over the bulge of his belly, his single eye looking at the crucifix on the wall. Waiting for the priest’s final word, a picture of patient devotion whose only aim was to serve.
You’re a villain, Hamish Stewart, and you care as much for Mother Church as I care for that beetle crawling across the hearth. Less. But you will further our holy cause despite yourself. “It will be done, my son. I give you my word on it. And you in turn give me your word that afterward French troops and our Indian allies will have safe passage across this bit of portage?” The Franciscan drew one slim finger across the top of the crude map of the Hale land, from the southern tip of one long lake to the beginnings of the narrow waterway that debouched into another. Control the land between those two bodies of water and you had a straight path in any direction. The way west led directly to the French forts of the Ohio Country.
Hamish looked at the section of the land the Mohawk savages called the Great Carrying Place. “Aye, I swear it.”
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