At the Queen's Command (23 page)

Kamiskwa intervened to explain. “She is giving you this to keep you safe. You will have to return it to her when you come back.”

Owen crouched and gave the girl a kiss on the forehead. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Kamiskwa likewise crouched and gave the girl a hug and kiss. He spoke to her softly. She smiled, took a step back, stared at Owen for a moment, then ran off giggling.

“Who is she?”

Kamiskwa smiled. “Agaskan, my youngest sister.”

Owen tucked the doll into the bag that had once contained his clothes and found himself smiling. It occurred to him then that Doctor Frost, Prince Vlad, and now an Altashee child had each given him a gift to speed him on his journey.

And that no one from Norisle had even made a pretense at doing the same.

Kamiskwa, Nathaniel, and Owen departed Saint Luke for Hattersburg by mid-morning. They traveled lightly laden with little more than guns, powder, shot, and supplies. The Altashee provided them with
pemikan
—dried meat combined with tallow and pressed into cakes. The food was packed into one pouch and the three of them alternated carrying it as they went.

The trio set off at an easy pace—what Kamiskwa called a hunting-walk. Owen considered it a stroll, and used the time to ask questions, make calculations, and even take notes. His companions pointed out a few more useful plants, stopped to harvest some tart red berries, and generally enjoyed the countryside.

The day’s rising heat had them stripping off their tunics. By noon they cut onto a well-worn trail so they took off their leggings. Though not nearly wide enough for a modern army to move along, the track did allow them to make good time. By dusk they reached the shore of a small lake.

They made camp in a hollow a hundred yards or so from the shore. The area had clearly been used before—fire-blackened stones formed a circle at its heart. Nathaniel kneeled beside them. “Ryngians.”

Owen picked his rifle up. “How can you tell?”

Nathaniel pointed to the hollow beneath a large stone canted to the side. “Not much wood there. Probably find bones and scat over other side of the hill. Lazy, good-for-nothing bastards the lot of them. Kamiskwa, best we check the canoe.”

“Canoe?”

Nathaniel nodded. “Weren’t thinking we was a-walking Hattersburg way did you?”

“You must have canoes hidden everywhere.”

Nathaniel stood and waved Owen after him. They followed Kamiskwa over a small wrinkle of earth to the east and down into brushy ravine. Two trees had fallen across the ravine, providing a bridge for the brave, but the men ducked beneath them. There, half-hidden by bushes and the shadows of the log lay a birch-bark canoe approximately twelve feet long.

Kamiskwa brushed away some leaves. “Looks sound.”

“Good.” Nathaniel rubbed his nose. “We was happy to see Pierre dead on account of his joy in life was staving canoes in. He was just pure mean. Runs in the Ilsavont blood.”

“People just leave these canoes out here?”

“This ain’t Norisle. We ain’t all thieves. We cooperate. Around these shores is dozens of canoes. You come up, you work. You make one. You take it across the lake and put it away. You tell another man where it is because, the next lake on, or the next river, he’s got one you can use. Now there is those you don’t use.”

Owen worked his way out of the ravine behind Nathaniel. “Yes?”

“Ungarakii have several, most over to the eastern shore.”

“And they’ll kill you if you use them?”

“Nope.” Mischief sparked in Nathaniel’s brown eyes. “They make poor canoes.”

Kamiskwa nodded. “Prone to leaking.”

Owen stopped by the fire ring. “And that propensity, would it be something you help along a bit?” Nathaniel laughed. “It’s our way of encouraging Ungarakii to learn to swim.” “So, even if we’d not found the corpse, the Ungarakii would have been happy to kill us for sport?” “Well, don’t nobody out here kill just for sport. Don’t mean they don’t like killing, though. Ungarakii enjoy it an almighty lot.”

The casual confidence with which Nathaniel made that statement sent a shiver down Owen’s spine. He said nothing, choosing instead to gather firewood. He set the first pile near the ring, then gathered more to replenish the storage area beneath the leaning rock.

The fire offered light and warmth. The men took the opportunity to wash their loincloths and strung them from sticks to let them dry. Owen sat and wrote in his journal. He mostly recorded landmarks and basic information. The impressions he’d had from the day mostly involved Nathaniel’s attitudes toward the Ungarakii and Ryngians. Recording them seemed to be a violation of trust.

The disgust with which Nathaniel had addressed the Ryngians’ selfish use of the clearing echoed his earlier comments about the squatters they’d seen on the way to the Prince’s estate. The idea that people might be wasteful offended him as much as absentee landlords controlling vast tracts of land.

Owen looked up. “If I might, Mr.Woods, ask you a question: When you look out at the land, when you travel through it, what is it you see?”

“Aside from the leaves and all, you mean?”

“Yes. I’m asking philosophically.”

Nathaniel groaned. “You’ll be a-wanting big words, then?”

“Not required. You love the land, clearly.”

“Well, mostly, I reckon, I want it to be unspoilt.” He sat silent for a moment, letting the crackle of the fire and the distant, mournful call of a loon fill the night. “I know men will bugger it all up. Chop down trees, make a farm, but that’s soes they’ll live. The Shedashee do that some, but they do it different. If they packed up Saint Luke tomorrow, how long before the land reclaimed it?”

“A year?”

“A season more like.” Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. “How long for Temperance to vanish?”

“A generation?” Owen remembered marching along a portion of a Remian road in Tharyngia. “Much longer, maybe.”

“Men is arrogant. Now their Good Book tells them that God made them out of mud just like everything else, but they reckon—on account of they disobeyed Him and got theirselves kicked out of that Paradise Garden—they is somehow better than the animals, plants, and dirt.” The scout shook his head. “They go to making rules and laws what is for the benefit of themselves. Lets them get more. Lets them keep more. Don’t matter they lie and cheat to get things.”

Owen frowned. “You’re not just talking about the land, are you?”

“Well, I don’t reckon I am.” Nathaniel hesitated, then smiled. “And I don’t reckon I want to speak more on that particular point. Fact is, however, men and their society do more harm than good often as not. That’s why I prefer keeping far from most folks.”

“Is this a common theme among Mystrians?”

“I don’t rightly know. Could be your little book will tell you. Don’t care. I ain’t a Mystrian.” Nathaniel held a hand up. “Yep, I was born here. Probably die here, too, iffen there’s a God who has a lick of sense. But I ain’t a part of their society. Don’t want nothing to do with it.”

Owen frowned. “Then why not just live with the Altashee?”

“There’s times, Captain Strake, when a man cain’t do what he’d like to do. Cain’t escape your history.”

Kamiskwa snorted. “Not without trying.”

“I reckon, Prince Kamiskwa, you’ve done forgot your original counsel in this matter.”

Owen hadn’t a clue as to what they were talking about, and was equally certain that he’d not get an explanation out of either of them. Nathaniel had seldom spoken about himself. Owen guessed that part of the poking and testing he did was to see how much he could trust Owen. Clearly he’d not made a decision one way or the other and, until then, whatever secrets he harbored would remain hidden.

The soldier couldn’t help but smile. He’d been in the man’s company for over ten days and could have written down all he knew about him on a single page. Catherine would have scolded him for not having learned more. He’d have explained that men don’t talk about things the way women do, and she’d have countered that he was just afraid to ask.

Fear, however, had nothing to do with it. It was respect. He respected Nathaniel’s right to privacy. Who he was, what he did, had no effect on the expedition. If it did, if Nathaniel was a drunkard, then they would have had words.

More importantly, the act of not asking built trust. Owen trusted Nathaniel to tell him anything that was important. So far Nathaniel had upheld his part of that bargain. Not asking personal questions became a silent vote of confidence in Nathaniel, engendering more trust.

Owen figured part of Nathaniel’s attitude came from society’s reaction to something he’d done. Just having children by two women—and Shedashee women at that—to whom he was not married would be enough to raise eyebrows and bring down condemnation. He would have been a right devil to men like Bishop Bumble. Many of those who spoke out against him would be hypocrites. Owen had heard countless superior officers lecture common soldiers on the sins of drink and debauchery, all the while themselves being drunk and just having departed a bordello.

Owen went to sleep thinking on that point and managed, unexpectedly, to sleep through to the last watch. Once the sun rose to splash gold over the lake, the men ate, scattered all signs of their camp, and launched their canoe. Owen sat in the middle as the others propelled the small boat across crystal water.

“I can paddle my share.”

“Don’t you be worrying about that. You just keep your eyes on the shoreline.”

“We’re beyond range for a shot.”

“I reckon, but I want to know if there’s folks watching us.”

Owen retrieved his telescope from his pouch. He swept the shoreline but saw nothing aside from a moose grazing in shallow water. The placid surface reflected the blue sky, save near the shore where the trees’ reflection rimmed the lake darkly.

“It looks clear.”

Kamiskwa, from the front of the canoe, grunted a single word. “
Tekskog
.”

“Do you think, Kamiskwa? Hain’t never been one in this lake afore.” Nathaniel laughed. “Wouldn’t do much good if he saw one.”

Owen sighed. “Should I be looking for something specific?”

“Well, he’s a-wanting you to be looking for a lake monster. Like a big snake, horse’s head, lots of coils. The Prince probably put it on your list. He thinks it’s a big otter.
Very
big. Get enough coats out of it for your army, I’m thinking.”

“You’re serious?”

“Can’t honestly say I’ve seen one, but I’ve heard tell of plenty who have.”

Owen would have dismissed the idea save for two things. First, he had seen creatures in Mystria he’d never seen before. Second, what they de-scribed—granted without the fur—was a wurm in its early life stage.
If there are wurms here and we can find them, we could raise and train them. The balance of Auropean power would forever be shifted.

Over the next three and a half weeks they paddled over countless lakes and ponds, occasionally camping on islands, but only once making their way by canoe from one large body of water to the other. Mostly they stashed their canoe then trekked overland to the next lake to find another canoe and take a lend of it.

The journey thoroughly amazed Owen. Every day led him into territory completely devoid of any sign of man’s passage. He knew it wasn’t true, since they found canoes and campsites, but he saw no fences, no houses, and no roads. He had to look hard for places where trees had been cleared. More than once the forest had reclaimed a lot his guides said had been carved out twenty or thirty years before.

Owen studied the Prince’s list as they went, but the animals proved elusive. He didn’t regret not seeing a jeopard. At night wolves called to each other, competing with loons to be the loudest creatures around a lake. The noises had made him uncomfortable at first, but he learned to like them. Still, he never actually saw a wolf.

They took special notice when the forest went quiet. Kamiskwa and Nathaniel would immediately find cover, check their weapons, and wait to see what was in the vicinity. More than once they heard Ryngian trappers crashing through the brush, all the while remaining undetected themselves. At night, Owen made note of the interlopers’ presence in his journal.

Finally they crossed over a low ridge that separated the Bounty and Lindenvale watersheds. They followed a chain of lakes and streams north and by noon, they stood on a hilltop looking down into the Hattersburg Valley. The town sat at the convergence of three rivers, the largest being the Tillie. The town began with a palisaded fort on the high ground nearest the confluence, and had grown out from there. Trees had been felled and all around the town small homesteads had been cleared.

Nathaniel slapped Owen on the back. “Hattersburg. Civilization as far west as allowed by law.” Then he pointed off toward the east. “Of course, law done stopped back there to catch its breath, so watch your step. This ain’t a place you want to be caught dead.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

June 7, 1763

Hattersburg

Lindenvale, Mystria

T
hey raced the sun to Hattersburg and barely beat it. On the way in they went past several small farms all connected by a sorry excuse for a road. Cabins had been made from logs and outbuildings from roughly sawn boards. Grass and mud stuffed cracks, and shutters closed over empty openings that passed for windows.

“Glass is expensive out here?”

“A mite delicate to be transported.” Nathaniel spit off to the side. “Folks born out here have a notion it don’t truly exist. Lenses on that telescope of yours is the closest they’ve ever seen. A window pane is pure fancy.”

“Is there an inn where we can purchase a room? I do have money.”

“Well, I was being honest with you back there, Captain Strake. You’d best be keeping your mouth closed tight. Listen and learn.” Nathaniel smiled and Owen didn’t feel all that reassured. “Got to trod a slender board in Hattersburg to stay out of trouble.”

Hattersburg looked unlike any town Owen had ever seen, and it was not simply the rustic nature of the buildings. Few had proper foundations, so more than one of them sagged. Several had log buttresses shoring them up. A couple had fallen to ruin and then been pilfered for building material and firewood.