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Authors: Beverly Swerling
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Finally Stewart made himself look directly into the priest’s God-awful eyes.
“Then you can return to New York with an easy mind, my son. I will arrange everything.” The pouch of coins disappeared into the folds of the priest’s habit. “Now, I will give you my blessing for the journey.”
Stewart knew what was expected of him and struggled to go down on one knee. Aye, and it werena easy. Eight years since devil-cursed Culloden Moor, since he’d been in fighting trim. More belly to him now, and his thighs grown like fat hams. Time was when he could live for six months on a sack o’ oats. Now he supped regularly on the incredible bounty of the New World where only the laziest fool need ever be hungry, and he feared it was making a woman of him. But if he got Shadowbrook, everything would be different. He’d be a laird, by God. He’d send to home for a young strong Scots wife and fill her belly with sons. Aye, the way a man was supposed to live. Na fighting and killing and losing, so your heart be broken along with your body. He bowed his head and waited for the priest to pray over him.
Père Antoine made the sign of the cross in the air above Stewart’s bent head and murmured a Latin benediction. Possibly, he thought, the Scot’s last rites. You are engaged in a perilous trade, Hamish Stewart. There are others who are much better at it, and they will squash you when and how it suits them. When that day comes, may Almighty God forgive you your greed and your venal schemes. May you be spared the fires of hell, but may you suffer in purgatory until the angels announce the Savior has come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. “Safe journey,” he murmured as, the benediction finished, the other man lumbered to his feet.
“Thank you,
mon Père.
I count on your prayers to make that a certainty.”
“In a few hours I shall offer Mass for that intention.”
The pair went together to the door. Stewart was wrapped in a thick woolen cloak, but the priest wore only his shabby brown habit. The night was cloudless and all the colder for it. The wind rose off the river and whipped their ears, and the stars were slivers of blue ice in a black sky. Above them the massive fortifications that surrounded the settlement stood out, clear in the silver light of a three-quarter moon.
Since 1608, when Samuel de Champlain resisted the lure of Montréal with its forests and numerous waterways opening to the west and chose instead to make his great military base the natural citadel of Québec, it had been the Fortress City of New France. Built on a rock rising between two rivers, the mighty St. Lawrence and the lesser St. Charles, Québec had remained unassailable for nearly a hundred and fifty years, anchoring Canada for the French king.
Champlain had begun his building in what was now the Lower Town, the place where the priest and his visitor stood. A century and a half later it was a clutter of three- and four-story wooden houses built close together on narrow and stony streets by the waterfront, and almost always wet with the spray that came in off Québec Harbor, the broad St. Lawrence basin that could shelter a hundred ships. Over the years the settlement had climbed the cliffs behind the wharves. Now the Upper Town was surrounded by massive walls, its skyline dominated by the steeple of the cathedral. A short distance away, almost as imposing, was the steeple of the church of the mighty Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Black-clad schemers, priests like Père Antoine himself, but more clever than St. Francis’s simple sons. At least than most of us, the Franciscan thought.
The good God had made him a Friar Minor, but his brains had not been removed at ordination. The black robes had the ear of the bishop of New France and of the pope himself—some said of Louis XV, as well.
Eh bien,
Antoine would count on having the ear of God. As for this strange Jacobite, he would be made to serve Holy Church’s purpose in
“Then you can return to New York with an easy mind, my son. I will arrange everything.” The pouch of coins disappeared into the folds of the priest’s habit. “Now, I will give you my blessing for the journey.”
Stewart knew what was expected of him and struggled to go down on one knee. Aye, and it werena easy. Eight years since devil-cursed Culloden Moor, since he’d been in fighting trim. More belly to him now, and his thighs grown like fat hams. Time was when he could live for six months on a sack o’ oats. Now he supped regularly on the incredible bounty of the New World where only the laziest fool need ever be hungry, and he feared it was making a woman of him. But if he got Shadowbrook, everything would be different. He’d be a laird, by God. He’d send to home for a young strong Scots wife and fill her belly with sons. Aye, the way a man was supposed to live. Na fighting and killing and losing, so your heart be broken along with your body. He bowed his head and waited for the priest to pray over him.
Père Antoine made the sign of the cross in the air above Stewart’s bent head and murmured a Latin benediction. Possibly, he thought, the Scot’s last rites. You are engaged in a perilous trade, Hamish Stewart. There are others who are much better at it, and they will squash you when and how it suits them. When that day comes, may Almighty God forgive you your greed and your venal schemes. May you be spared the fires of hell, but may you suffer in purgatory until the angels announce the Savior has come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. “Safe journey,” he murmured as, the benediction finished, the other man lumbered to his feet.
“Thank you,
mon Père.
I count on your prayers to make that a certainty.”
“In a few hours I shall offer Mass for that intention.”
The pair went together to the door. Stewart was wrapped in a thick woolen cloak, but the priest wore only his shabby brown habit. The night was cloudless and all the colder for it. The wind rose off the river and whipped their ears, and the stars were slivers of blue ice in a black sky. Above them the massive fortifications that surrounded the settlement stood out, clear in the silver light of a three-quarter moon.
Since 1608, when Samuel de Champlain resisted the lure of Montréal with its forests and numerous waterways opening to the west and chose instead to make his great military base the natural citadel of Québec, it had been the Fortress City of New France. Built on a rock rising between two rivers, the mighty St. Lawrence and the lesser St. Charles, Québec had remained unassailable for nearly a hundred and fifty years, anchoring Canada for the French king.
Champlain had begun his building in what was now the Lower Town, the place where the priest and his visitor stood. A century and a half later it was a clutter of three- and four-story wooden houses built close together on narrow and stony streets by the waterfront, and almost always wet with the spray that came in off Québec Harbor, the broad St. Lawrence basin that could shelter a hundred ships. Over the years the settlement had climbed the cliffs behind the wharves. Now the Upper Town was surrounded by massive walls, its skyline dominated by the steeple of the cathedral. A short distance away, almost as imposing, was the steeple of the church of the mighty Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Black-clad schemers, priests like Père Antoine himself, but more clever than St. Francis’s simple sons. At least than most of us, the Franciscan thought.
The good God had made him a Friar Minor, but his brains had not been removed at ordination. The black robes had the ear of the bishop of New France and of the pope himself—some said of Louis XV, as well.
Eh bien,
Antoine would count on having the ear of God. As for this strange Jacobite, he would be made to serve Holy Church’s purpose in
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