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Part VI: 1750- Another Man's War
Kashofa watched the men gather the body between them and forced herself not to look away.
Tradition, she thought haplessly, The last refuge of the destitute.
But she could not have let them throw the smuggler into the lake. No matter what, for reasons she wasn't sure she could articulate even to herself, that would've been the end of everything.
The end of herself.
Fala, her sister's face resurfaced in her mind's eye, careworn and smiling-eyed, Newest of my ancestors, tell me what I must do. I cannot lead these people, our people. I can barely lead our family.
An osprey skimmed the surface of the lake, scattering the water to either side of it like crystals. It hovered for just a second, and pitched upward again, a fish gripped vice-tight in its talons.
She could almost see the blood dot the water.
***
"You think me heartless?" Calypso asked, "How like a Man," she emphasized the initial, as if to suggest his species more than his gender, though perhaps that as well, "You come into this world thinking you are separate from it, that you are of some higher order, when really you were borne from the same starry sludge as the rest of it. What you call 'heart' was forged in the carapace of Creation before the sun was so much as a spark in the void that became the sky. I have a heart as much as you do...but that is hardly a point of pride. There is nothing particularly special about having one."
She cooed softly at the kelp frond to her right, as if to concede that it too, despite its leafy appearance, had a heart, or something like one.
"Your friend did what men do: he made a promise he couldn't keep. I have lived long and not had much experience of men, but I have found them remarkably constant in this," she paced tightly around Bojack, eyeing the length and breadth of him with careful attention, "Before he was Boston Billy, the man called William McGregor was a wayward sailor, separated from his crew. Young and ambitious and full of sweet promises...he drank in Ogygia, the benighted tip where I was confined for my kinsmen's crimes, and saw not a prison, but a paradise. He loved it so that he promised he would never leave it...never leave me, for I was bound to that isle by an edict more ancient than language.
"But in his eyes...in his heart...there lived the sea. And to the sea he returned, without a word of parting, to make his name and fortune reaving and roving upon the waves my greatsire Oceanus formed from the dying breaths of his sire Dyēus."
She paused as one of her kelpy fronds bristled under Bojack's chin, "You have been here 10 years...a wink for an Oceanid and a generation for a man. Tell me, Mister Bojack..." she sank her teeth into the 18th century manners, seeming to equally mock and shun the civilization that had been allowed to flourish while she sat abandoned on her isle, "Has he made his fortune?"
***
"General," Sera stood at attention, valiantly (and very chivalrously, if he did say so himself) ignoring the painter's simpering laugh. Yes, just like a milkmaid...he felt almost at home, though Evrard was admittedly a touch more intimidating than the parish rector.
"I appreciate the credit to my abilities, General," he smiled easily, "But if I did treat the enemy the way I treat my friends in the city, we'd be at war the rest of my born days..." he shrugged, "They always come back for more."
The amusing thing about Evrard was you couldn't resent him for long. He had the manner of an affable old uncle...stodgy and rigid, but with an ease to his manner. You found yourself wanting to make him smile at you, so rare were his smiles.
And, though smiles were rare in evidence, Sera had to assume he was having some effect on the old officer, given how highly he'd risen in his confidences.
"I received your note," he remarked, lifting it up on the off-chance Evrard had forgotten, "To be quite candid, sir, I was surprised it found me there. I had only taken the room for the night."
This was as diplomatically as he dared broach the subject. If Evrard had eyes on him...if he'd learned about Giacomo...
-Kashofa, Calypso, and Sera
"Hmph," Bojack shook his head ruefully, unable to hide his disdain at the question. "You found us here, wasting away at port, getting shit-faced drunk with no place to go and nary a penny in our pockets. You tell me if he's found it."
***
"It wasn't too difficult," Evrard approached the hot toddy on the nearby windowsill and poured himself a drink. "Not when you have a dragnet across all the brothels in town. And even then, I had my doubts."
As this was transpiring, Rebecca began collecting her supplies and prepared to leave the men to talk their business, but much to her surprise, the general stopped her before she could take another step. "Sit down. You'll need to be hearing this as well."
"Me?" The young artist did little to hide her surprise; suddenly, she felt afraid that she had done something out of line. She had worked tirelessly to get this job; to lose it now...Rebecca couldn't even comprehend the heartbreak she'd have to endure.
"Oui," he replied matter-of-factly as he twirled his drink and took a seat at his nearby desk. "That portrait needs finishing. And unfortunately, I have to business to attend to and quite frankly, I will not be able to accomplish much of anything standing here with my blasted hand in my coat pocket." Evrard glanced towards Sera, instructing him, "This business, naturally, concerns you. Get ready to pack your things; we're going on a trip."
-Bojack, Evrard, and Rebecca
Calypso's laughter had the quality of a stone splashing into a tidal basin: the sound reverbed through the cabin, disruptive yet constrained. Her kelp fronds curled around her shoulders, like a lady's mink stole.
"Many is the man who sets out in search for fortune and glory...precious few are they who return from their questing with anything to show for it but gray hairs and blackened blood to stain their unworthy hands."
Her lips curled imperiously, "You are a pirate as well as he, Mister Bojack...and your hairs, though graying, are not yet gone to gray. Your captain may be content to flounder away the promise of his mortal life...the promise for which he forsook me...but your heart still hungers, does it not? Fortune and glory are not but old men's dreams for you?"
***
Sera twisted his scowl into a puckish wince at Evrard's barb, a sort of "Ah, you got me, old man!" good-naturedness. It was certainly preferable than command learning of his business ventures, but it would do nothing for the regimental rumors about his career in carousing.
Ah, well, rumors were only that. The men could whisper about him having the clap all they wanted, but Sera was clean as a whistle, despite all his many friends, which he attributed as evidence of divine favor on his campaign to become master of all he surveyed worth surveying.
"A trip?" he repeated dubiously, looking at the just as perplexed petit artiste, "And with the mademoiselles, General? A bit of twilit dancing to expel those stubborn humors from your lungs," he shrugged, "This is old hat, of course, but if you are as familiar with my friends as you say, I can recommend a few other retainers for the trip..."
But he lifted his hands in a gesture of faux surrender, not wanting to prance too heavily upon his superior, "Japery aside, I must assume, since you are bringing our painterly chérie, I am not to expect being shot, pierced, or otherwise molested on this adventure?"
-Calypso and Sera
She hisses false promises like the Serpent of Eden, Bojack cautioned himself wearily. Don't fall for her charms.
And yet, the pirate still found himself talking to sea witch, unable to walk away. There was a magnetism to her words, to her presence. Perhaps that was the way of all beings supernatural. Or maybe it was the allure of common sense, something he had not experienced aboard this ship for many moons.
"And what's it to you?" Bojack scoffed with a scowl. "Is this when you offer me riches beyond my wildest imagination? Perhaps ye promise to ferry me to Atlantis where I can live the rest of me days in luxury? Is that it?" Drying off his hands with a rag, he finished, "Even so...I prefer me payment up front. And unless that seaweed you're fondlin's made o' golden fleece, I doubt ye have anything I might want."
***
"Oh, anything's possible," Evrard replied nonchalantly as he dug into his waistcoat for his pipe, finally withdrawing it and bring it to his lips. "This is primarily..." He struck a match and held it over his pipe, waiting for it to catch aflame. "...a diplomatic mission..." The fire was lit and so he put out the match handily. "...with our native allies. We are working towards a peace with the English, which means in turn, so must the tribes who've aligned with our cause."
"A peace with the English?" Rebecca repeated in disbelief. "So this horrid war is reaching its end?"
"Should General Dandridge hold up his end of the bargain, I should hope so," Evrard waved off the mention of the posh military commander, who, at least in this current instance, was of no real concern to him. "The real variable, my dear, are the natives, to whom we've made so many promises in exchange for their aid. How this war's end would affect their politics, I can't begin to comprehend..." He shot a glance to Sera. "...whereas you, mon ami, should have no trouble. Would I be correct in assuming this?"
-Bojack, Evrard, and Rebecca
"There's nothing in Atlantis save the bones of proud men with unwieldy ambitions," said Calypso casually, "No different than the 10,000 other shipwrecks between them and us."
The kelp on her arm lifted a frond, carrying itself somewhat like a snake holds its head; if it had a tongue, it would surely have hissed. Calypso, however, seemed only vaguely amused at Bojack's slight to her leafy familiar.
"Your Captain owes me recompense for his treachery. You beheld his braggadocious defiance with your own eyes, and I expect you know him well enough to know he is intractable as a stone..." her lips curled, "But even the sturdiest stone will weather, if exposed to a strong current.
"Already, you have sown whispers of your own," this was no deduction; she spoke with a certainty, as though she had been watching his conversation with Varun, "You have a sailor's eye for storms, and a pirate's head for smelling the way the wind blows," she reached out as if to take his chin in her hand, but stopped just short of brushing his stubbled jaw, "It is highsummer, the season of my cousin Notus, who carries storms in his chest the way his brothers hold songs..." she smiled sadly, "He was the most sorrowful of Eos's daughters, and in his sorrow he blows many a sailor to their watery end.
"I have been alone very long, Mister Bojack...and the storm building in me is such that even piteous Notus would quake to behold. But you are a worthy sailor...you know to have the wind at your back."
She pulled her hand back, "You are also a pirate...I am not fond of such, but not resistant to casting my lot with your sort. My first suitor had bronze-eyed Athena to be his champion...you shall have me as yours. And you will find me a far more generous patron than your captain."
She snapped her fingers, "Behold, but a taste of the wonders that await you if you cast your lot with mine."
***
Sera was, he thought, quite good at masking his expression. One had to be when one spent so much time among the livery and lace set.
"A peace," he repeated evenly, looking at Rebecca out of the corner of his eye. Evrard was either growing soft in the head in his old age, or that gut of his carried gall as well as pastry. The girl wasn't military...she could be a loose-lipped gossip at best or a vivacious spy at worst and, while that would certainly make her more interesting to Sera, the implications would be ruinous for Evrard's title...and his head.
"I don't suppose this has anything to do with your teatime tête-à-tête with Lord Lobsterback yesterday?"
Sera wasn't a neophyte. The British stationed in New France were spread thin and getting thinner; Sera couldn't imagine they were having a very nice time of things, cooling their heels while their chosen native bands picked away at each other in this interminable stalemate.
It had been rumored around the fort that Dandridge's trip to New Orleans would include some discussion of terms, a broach of concessions...perhaps some negotiated settlement for territory in the islands or in the far Orient...in exchange for the King's men stepping away from New France. At which point, it was only a question of what France, through Evrard, would be willing to give. It was the British that stood most to lose, after all.
But this...
"My understanding was the British weren't fit to stand the winter," Sera continued, evenly, like any reasonably concerned soldier, no more interested than he need...or should...be, "Pardonne-moi, General, but that would seem a situation that advantages us. What could Dandridge have offered to make withdrawal so tempting when victory is merely a matter of time?"
-Calypso and Sera
At his mistress's kall, Kyle the Krab emerged from the shadows, karrying in his klaws what appeared to be a true gem of the ocean: a pearl, the size of a coconut.
Bojack was at first confused and then unimpressed. "A pearl? That is what you have to offer me? That'll net me some gold, for true, but it ain't no wonder by the looks of it."
Kyle was enraged. How dare this smelly pirate talk so badly of his kommander! These were fighting words! Still karrying the pearl, he paced left and right, eager to fight this son of a bitch in the name of the great Kalypso!!!
***
"Ah!" Evrard replied quickly, right on the cuff of Sera's words. "You've answered your own question: time. Three or four more months of skirmishes, freezing in the trenches, ambushes in the woods--so much time spent, so much suffering expended...all to firmly plant a flag on a patch of land that is of no real consequence to you nor I."
Smoking his pipe, he strolled over to his window, looking out over the horizon. Some men saw opportunity in the woods and swampland that unfolded before his eyes; all Evrard had seen over this campaign was senseless death, in the name of God and country.
"I don't suppose you have family back in France? A reason to go home?" Evrard turned to his young compatriots; Rebecca shook her head sullenly, avoiding eye contact. The girl spoke little of her past. The general knew better than to pry into the affairs of women, especially when they were of so tumultuous an age.
He did not wait for Sera's answer, as he very well knew the young officer, for all his talents, thought only of chatte et argent. "I do, as do many of our men. Call me a selfish man but..." Evrard let out a shaky exhale, which turned into a nasty cough. He was surprised to feel such emotion creeping into his words. He had to be careful; he couldn't show such signs of weakness, not while he still wore the uniform of an officer.
"...I'd like to be home," Evrard finally finished, turning to face his new confidantes. "To see my daughter become a woman. To spend my final days with my wife. To be done with all this senseless mort et misère. Above all, Seraphim, I want time. For me and my men. For all that we've had to endure on this accursed campaign, it's what we deserve, much more than any 'glorious victory,' damned to be lost in the annals of history as another footnote in the grievous history of the French Empire."
-Kyle, Bojack, Evrard and Rebecca
"I would watch how you wag your tongue," Calypso cautioned evenly, "My krab has never been known to keep his klaws to himself."
She waved her hand above the pearl, causing it to hover in the air, midway betwixt Kyle and the cabin's low ceiling, about even with Bojack's midsection, "This is no mere oyster spoor, Barbados Bojack. Behold it...not as a thief beholds a new trinket for his purse, but as a windswept sailor beholds the North Star; as a newborn babe beholds its mother; as angels cast from paradise behold the rose glow of dawn at the world's edge. Look upon my gift, Mister Bojack and see."
***
So it was like that. An old man wanting to hang up his hat and die in peace. Sera had thought as much...this was bare-knuckled skullduggery, and a hair's breadth from treason, and not even the kind that would impress anybody.
But he had to hand it to Evrard...Sera didn't think he had it in him.
"No family to speak of, sir," he said curtly, which was no lie in the strict sense. The little hamlet he'd been whelped in was one of the sort where you couldn't sneeze without getting snot on your cousin. His mother had died of a fever that swept the countryside when he was an infant, and his father had gotten his head kicked in by a drayhorse, though, else he'd likely be drowning in brothers and sisters, given there was precious else to do for recreation around the place.
"Perhaps it is my godless bachelor ways, then, but I have made myself quite comfortable in New Orleans..." he folded his arms, the silk lining of his sleeves crinkling ever so slightly as he did, "One must make the best of things."
Which was as diplomatic a way as he could say "Damn you, you jellied pork chop in an officer's sartorials. I'm on the cusp of rolling in enough gold to buy you a new pair of lungs and a host of worthier trinkets besides, and now...now...you want to play the peacemaker?"
But he was very good at hiding his face.
"Your goals are perfectly understandable, General," Sera allowed, without saying they were understandable grounds for institutionalization, "But as you say...it is the natives you will have to convince. We have been very generous with the Eastern Clans...generous enough that I've no doubt they are even now dreaming of victory."
More than that...the Eastern Clans were numerous. Choctaw weren't particularly cosmopolitan, as Indians went, but the clans living in close consort to Europeans traded well, with white and red men alike, all along the coast. By contrast, the Western clans were hardscrabble, isolated from the other Choctaw largely on account of nameless blood feuds that predated the chamber pot, hieroglyphics, and who knew what else. They had always been at a disadvantage...something the English had surely known when they'd cast their lot with them; desperate men attract desperate men, and King George's minions were ever-aching for even a sliver of the Gulf Coast.
"If we ride up to them and announce we are no longer keen to play with them..." he shrugged, "They will not be happy," he eyed Rebecca, "Surely, no place for a woman...as glad as my heart would be for the company, and my vanity for the hope of a new portrait."
-Calypso, Sera, and Rebecca
Kyle klicked perniciously at that sentiment, ready to kill this hooligan if necessary.
Bojack heeded the witch's warning, though he still looked upon the pearl with a exasperated skepticism. Gently, he took the oceanic jewel into his hand and gazed into it, waiting and waiting...
He began to mutter incredulously, "What the devil am I supposed to be looking a..."
Suddenly a blinding flash.
***
"Va te faire foutre!" Rebecca cursed at the arrogant officer, getting to her feet and ready to put the soldier's fisticuffs to the test, proper etiquette be damned.
But Evrard was always one to keep the peace. "That won't be a problem," he raised his voice just slightly, defusing this situation before it even began. "At least, I expect it won't, considering I'm travelling with an intelligent diplomat savvy in their tongue...isn't that right, Capitaine Leon?"
-Kyle, Bojack, Rebecca and Evrard
Sera lifted a hand, palm out, toward Rebecca, winking flagrantly.
A dog indeed, and rabid. She can have it her way, then...and see who comes to her aid when some rowdy Choctaw decide to roll out the welcome wagon.
Let it never be said he wasn't a friend to les femmes, but he knew when not to push his luck. She'd learn too, and quickly, that he was a rare specimen in that respect.
"Too right," he conceded, "My talents are immense and varied, General," he bowed with the requisite twirling of hands, "And ever at your service."
And mine own, you phlegm-fucked frog...and I'll be damned if you hop on home before I've finished furnishing mine.
-Sera
Evrard looked at Sera's bow wearily, drawling, "Yes. Of course." He snapped his fingers as he placed his pipe on a nearby table. "Now if you'll excuse me, Capitaine, we must resume work on this painting. The less work for Rebecca on this journey, the better."
Rebecca returned to her seat and feigned a professional smile towards Sera, silently urging him to leave as well.
The young painter could not lie, though; the idea of going on this adventure excited her. Spending all her days in this echoing and lonely manor had begun to bore her. That boredom was beginning to seep into her work as well. For what better to kill an artist's muse than the lackluster monotony she was forced to endure now?
Oui, this would be good for her, provided the arrogant captain would keep his mouth shut and his hands to himself.
-Evrard and Rebecca
A blunter dismissal Sera wouldn't have expected if he'd whipped his cock out and added some local color to the General's portrait.
"Bien sûr," he nodded curtly, "I shall be off to make arrangements for the journey."
Not expecting anyone to blow a kiss or wave a handkerchief for him, Sera let that be the end of it and excused himself from the general's parlor.
After a few short (if chummy) words to a stableboy to ready his horse, Sera paced the edge of the yard, head bowed in thought.
You're fucked, mon ami...but not yet filleted. Luckily, you're more a fucker than a chef.
The most important thing: there was no guarantee Evrard's grand mission of peace would work. As a matter of fact, Sera would put even odds on them being laughed out of every Choctaw village they went to at the very best. That wasn't even getting started on the obvious assumption the British wouldn't operate in good faith, very likely because they didn't believe the French would!
Suffice to say, Evrard and Dandridge's pretty handshake deal very deliberately didn't officially exist...which meant it would be the easiest (and, indeed, fortuitous) thing for either side to conveniently forget it had ever happened.
In the short term, though, there were complications. Whatever the result of the mission, Sera would nonetheless have to spend the next many days (weeks, more like, given the expanse of the territory and the number of clans in their delegation) away from the city...
...away from Giacomo Vinzetti. And while the extravagant Italian was fond of him, Sera knew that type well enough to understand their moods were changeable as the weather. There was no guarantee he would still hold Giacomo's favor in a day, never mind in a month. Such a man as he was too easily distracted. Stray from his line of sight too long, and it may as well be as though he never knew you.
"Pardon," he flagged one of the stableboys over, "It's Georges is it?"
"Henri, monsieur," but his eyes widened at the fistful of coins Sera heaped into his palm, "But I'll call myself the Pope if it please you."
"Clever lad. I need you to relay a message to the Chateau Chantelle, at the waterfront. It's a hotel..."
"I know it, sir, and it isn't."
"What things are aren't always what they're called. So you shall find this man..."
"A man, monsieur? At the Chateau Chantelle?"
"That is the thing about such hotels, lad. Ladies stay, and gentlemen come. The man is an Italian, and he shall be expecting me tonight. You will leave a message for him: Captain Leon sends his regrets, but has been engaged in military matters."
"For how long?"
"Why should you care?"
"I shan't, but he shall."
"So he will, and you shall tell him I do not know."
"I don't know."
"Nor do I."
"You don't know, monsieur?"
"But endeavor to resume our conversations upon my return to the city," he smiled, "In the meantime, he is free to avail himself of my apartments in Faubourg Marigny."
"Does he have a key?"
"No, and he wouldn't use it if he had. He wipes his arse with better linen than I sleep on. It's the courtesy that counts, lad."
"I hope for your sake he agrees, monsieur."
"That's very charming, Georges, but we both know you are even now imagining throwing me into the harbor to see whether I float."
"Likelier too if your pockets were lighter, monsieur," he extended his hand, palm out. Sera rolled his eyes, dropping another franc in, "Now, off with you, Georges, and merci."
"It is Henri."
"In this life, lad, you are whatever the next man up tells you you are," he winked, "You want your own name, you must earn it."
This philosophy didn't seem to inspire much awe in the stableboy, who snorted noisily and ran out the gates, presumably to the city, to the Chateau Chantelle, and to Giacomo, who was likely to forget the message as soon as he heard it regardless.
A damn tricky spot, but Sera's hands were tied. Some things you couldn't put in writing.
He leaned against the wall, looking out the thin gunslit at the pale blue line of New Orleans harbor, abode of navy men, merchants...and pirates.
A testament to your worldly education, he thought sourly, You've done business with all three.
A keen trick...if he could keep it up.
-Sera
All told, and keeping the delays of the morning in mind, Dandridge's crack team got themselves underway in fair good order. Benefits of a small party, though the old general did have reservations about leaving the garrison unattended. One could never be too careful, as the 'raid' of a few days previously had reminded him.
But one of the raid's masterminds was the locals' problem now, and the other joined to Dandridge's hip, so he must hope for the best.
Indeed, if any of the men at camp had grumbles about not being asked along on this mission...described, for their ears, as a routine ranging to their allies among the clans...they showed no sign. Restless though they may be, they weren't so desperate yet as to be clamoring for extra time in their commander's company, if they could help it.
Well, bully for them.
As for Dandridge's chosen band of sharp-skilled specialists?
"O'er the hills and over the main..." the echoed, in some animal's version of a harmony, from their saddles, "To Flanders, Portugal, and Spain..."
Of the lot, Margate had what Dandridge supposed must be counted as the best voice. He would have the advantage, being raised in a fine house, no doubt with a singing master for part of his youth before he invariably chased him off.
"The king commands and we'll obey/O'er the hills and far away..."
McCrannach's voice was strongest, though: an earthy bellow from deep in his gut. It was he that started this infernal chorus, with camp barely half a kilometer behind them. Dandridge had only managed to eke out the first whisper of a "Now, wait, enough of that..." before being promptly overruled by the enterprising choristers.
"We shall lead more happy lives/By getting rid of brats and wives..."
Fletcher's manner was closer to speaking than singing. He had the habit of chasing each lyric with a toothy grin, as if he expected the natives sharpening their arrows in the brush to emerge with complimentary drinks.
"The scold and brawl both night and day/O'er the hills and far away!"
The boy, Fulbright, needed to be cajoled into the performance, largely by Fletcher, who had vouched for his presence on this mission and so to whom he acted as a kind of shadow. Alone afoot among them, his recitation was more breathless than the others', but he was gamesome enough about it, and backed up with tuneful yapping courtesy of Geordie the setter.
"Courage, boys, it's one to ten/But we return all gentlemen..."
The most surprising betrayal was Dandridge's own secretary. Private Kincaid, who never raised his voice above professional whisper, was no back row chorister, yet sang in a manner he could only describe (and never aloud) as honey sweet.
"While conq'ring colours we display/Over the hills, and far away..."
They rounded off with a hearty cheer, congratulating each other, if not for their tunefulness, than for their pluck.
"That was fun!" Fletcher declared, presumably before anyone else could challenge the assertion.
"Och, then, Rupie," McCrannach, who was riding at the back of their party, craned his neck, "Where'd you learn to sing so pretty?"
"Oh, our Rupert's got a mean set of lungs on him," said Margate breezily, "I've heard him hit notes Cecilia Young never dreamed. You only need to know how to coax the notes out of him..."
"I had the great privilege of hearing Cecilia Young in London," Dandridge remarked tightly, "She played to a full house and commanded attention from the street outside," he fixed Kincaid, who had gone bright crimson, either at Margate's jibe or Dandridge's reprimand (safe bet the culprit, though), "If I wanted a train of sopranos, I'd have sent for them."
Kincaid lowered his blue eyes to the floor, "Of course, General. Naturally."
There was a short silence, the only sound the light crunching of woodland detritus beneath their mounts' hooves. Finally, Fletcher remarked, "If you could send for a train of girls, General, you might've said sooner. Geordie gets more company than me, and he's as good as a Turk eunuch since he got that tick on his..."
"That is very nice," said Dandridge as the men burst into righteous laughter, "That's quite pleasant. Very lovely imagery indeed."
"Come on, General," Margate said breezily from his position on Dandridge's left, "You want us to think you never sang a marching song in your time?"
"I sang many songs," Dandridge remarked stiffly, "On many campaigns, in arenas far less suitable for music than this."
"That'd the Spaniard's tiff, eh?" asked McCrannach.
"The war for the Succession, yes."
"Lost that one, didn't we?"
"The Spanish Succession was not ours to win or lose," remarked Dandridge, "It was not Britain who lost the war, but the Spanish heir we put our arms behind."
"Aye. Can't ever bet on an Austrian, begging your pardon..."
"Don't beg my pardon. I didn't command Her Majesty's armies. I merely marched in them. With a far more stoic comportment than some present company, I might add, were I so inclined, which I am not."
"Is that the reason for this mission, sir?"
They all turned to Fulbright, who had spoken and immediately looked sorry for it, bowing his head. Dandridge's lips tightened and Fletcher began, "You'll forgive Quince if he talks out of turn, sir. Can't imagine where he picked up the habit and all..."
"Shouldn't wonder," Dandridge interrupted, "Your elders can't hold their tongues, Mr. Fulbright, and they can so rarely compel them to form coherent thoughts, so you may as well finish your own."
Fulbright didn't seem thoroughly emboldened by this but, presumably feeling he had no other choice now that his commanding officer had spoken, lifted his eyes, "This mission...to the clans of the Western Alliance. Have you called it because...we bet on the wrong horse?"
Dandridge was silent for a while, aware of Fletcher drawing in a sharp breath. And maybe he was right to...Lord knows, such an observation would be worth a sharp censure at best were it heard by another commander.
Were it heard by Dandridge himself, once upon a not too long ago time.
But given Dandridge was even now pushing against the very limits of his mandate issued by King and Country, he would be a rank hypocrite to broker a protest to a youth with an opinion.
"Tell me, Fulbright...have you any education?"
"No, sir. Not...proper schooling, sir."
"He can do two score sort of bird calls, though..."
"Thank you, Fletcher," Dandridge spoke over the outburst, "One does lose certain things not being in the schoolroom, but it is my notion that lads in schoolrooms lose things the other party gains in plenty. One cannot hope to master all of life's arenas, and so a sensible leader surrounds himself with men of all walks, whose learning may inform his own."
He looked out at the path ahead of them...not so much a path as a rut formed by the passage of pack animals and their carts, back and forth, over interminable stretches of time. Most, he must assume, had been made by his own men, but the impressions of the path were here when they arrived: formed by other armies, foreign and domestic...and perhaps by peaceful parties as well.
This world was not so New anymore and, indeed, hadn't been new even when it was so christened. They were all inheritors of un unruly morass, the breadth and scope of which they could hardly fathom.
Perhaps it was easier, then, to merely ride into the horizon with a song in your breast. Better than having your eye on the path and wondering who would walk along it after you, ignorant as a fawn as to its predecessors on its well-trod course.
"It is not to me to say whether our 'bet', if you shall call it that, was placed in wisdom," he continued, "But I do know that many of the men I fought alongside in Spain perished on foreign soil for a war that was ultimately deemed too costly to pursue, for a crown that was not their own...and for a royal house that we survivors would war with not 20 years hence."
He dug his heels into the sides of his mount, "In my old age, I have grown a certain distaste for gambling."
He spurred his horse on, not looking behind him for fear he would look at his unruly young men and see himself.
-The King's Men
The sun was well past its zenith by the time they neared the village of clan Abaiya Abohli, the first stop on their tour of the country.
"Which ones are these, again?" Margate asked in the lazy tone of voice that Rupert knew to mean he cared more in the question than its answer.
"They are our largest partner in the region," Rupert replied nonetheless, "And a major trading post to points north and west."
"A thousand thanks, Rupie. Can always count on you to be the good student."
Rupert squared his shoulders, endeavoring to betray no overt reaction to Benny's needling. For all his braggadocio about getting what he wanted, you'd think he'd at least have some sense for self-preservation.
Unless he really did believe there wasn't a finger on earth could be laid against him. What a comfort to go through life so convinced. A comfort, yes...and surely a handicap as well, for when the good fortune inevitably ran out.
"I still can't get me head around all them Choctaw words," said Ned with characteristic broad bonhomie, "Never knew there were so many sorts of gargle."
"Spend long enough in a Highland pub, ye'd know an' more," said McCrannach.
"It means 'Among the Woods'," said Rupert, "Or 'forest dweller'."
"How very original," Benny observed.
"There's bound to be some deeper meaning to it," Rupert maintained.
"Oh, I'm so tired of deeper meanings," Benny groaned theatrically, "Everyone ought to just say what they mean. It's exhausting."
"Our ways must look plenty foreign to them," Quintin offered, "We're probably as strange to them as they are to us."
"Well, obviously, but we've got mattresses figured out, haven't we?"
"You will kindly keep your cultural musings to yourself, Corporal," Dandridge said tersely, "Lest I have another diplomatic incident on my hands."
"Oh, I'd make a miserable hostage, General," said Benny, "They'd kill me before breakfast and then what would become of your errand of peace?"
"Don't joke about it, lad," McCrannach frowned, "It ain't nae laughin' matter."
Benny, accustomed to having the last word, nonetheless seemed to realize the folly in pushing the usually genial Scotsman. His face worked into a grimace of amiable frustration as he turned back to the route ahead of them.
McCrannach had served loyally and with distinction during the last Rising, Rupert knew, siding with King and Country when most of his fellow Scots...including the men of his own clan...had joined under the Pretender's banner. It must've been a hard choice, and one McCrannach never spoke of amongst them. What compromises he had made, what privilege or pleasure he had sacrificed...
Well, it wasn't a thing you brought up in polite conversation, and certainly not with a 6 foot behemoth built like an oak.
"Easy, boy!" Ned scolded as Geordie broke into a chorus of yips and yaps, "Rein him in, Quint! Don't need him bringin' down one of their birds on top of all else we're yankin' from 'em."
Quint crouched beside the dog, putting a soothing but firm grip on the curly fur at his neck, "It's not birds, Ned," and indicated with his chin a moving shape in the treetops overhead: a figure, almost perfectly camouflaged by the leafy boughs, peering down at them.
"Ah, I see," Benny noted, "They kip in the trees, hence the name."
"Only a scout," said Dandridge sourly, giving Margate a warning look but evidently wary enough of their company not to visibly reprimand him, "Hail!" he lifted an arm in salute.
Rupert straightened up, craning his neck so as to better make out the painted Choctaw eyeing them from atop the beech tree without appearing obvious about it, "Hʋta̱ffo,"
His Choctaw was clipped and practiced: he hadn't quite grasped the more delicate niceties of the language's intonations. To his own ear, his interpretation dwelled more on the harsh consonants that distinguished Choctaw from the vowel-heavy speech of Europeans. Conversely, he had observed a similar stiltedness in those Choctaw he'd heard speak English: a sort of flat monotone that, he expected, had the effect of making them appear somewhat dim to white men, to which he supposed they must only be as dim as each other.
In this, at least.
The sentry not yet nocking a bow, Rupert decided they were safe to proceed, and deferred to his commander.
"Tell him we are here to see his chief," Dandridge informed, "Hiloha. He shall know me."
The sentry appeared to react at the mention of the name. Rupert cleared his throat and repeated the edict in Choctaw: "We are representatives of the British garrison," which Dandridge had not pointed out but which Rupert thought they'd best make evident, "Here to seek audience with Chief Hiloha."
There was a pregnant pause. Benny's horse snorted in remarkable likeness to his master. Finally, the sentry cantilevered himself backward, from one limb of the beech to another to the next treetop over before vanishing from sight.
"Were we supposed to throw some tuppence?" wondered Benny.
"He's gone to alert the village," said Rupert.
"And what the devil are we meant to do in the meantime?"
"Wait, I expect," Ned swung down from his mount and sank to his haunches beside Geordie, scratching him between the ears.
"I didn't give permission to dismount," Dandridge reminded him sternly.
"Have I got it?"
Dandridge waved a hand dismissively, "But you will mount up at once on their return. It is only respectful to greet your allies ahorse, as I should not have to tell you."
"Saddle sores an' all, sir, agreed."
"Is everything alright, sir?" Rupert asked, noting the general's continued preoccupation with the treetops.
"Thoroughly, Kincaid, as long as you translated truly."
"I endeavored to, sir."
"It is only this is a great and populous village," Dandridge's brows furrowed, "And in wartime. I have never seen it guarded by a solitary sentry."
***
The Frenchman was buried with little ceremony and marginal honor in a vacant plot at the easternmost edge of the lakeshore. It was nothing at all like the conduct with which the Okhtva sent off their own departed, but it was no desecration either, which Kashofa supposed was the best she could hope for.
At the moment, there were bigger concerns.
"How was the search?" she asked her purported second as she entered the meeting house.
Nashoba had been out in the night, searching the surrounding country for their fugitives. Obviously, they had had no luck, but Kashofa figured she'd let him say as much herself.
***
The sentry returned in due course, on foot. Alerted ahead of time by Geordie, Ned (and, by this time, a lazing Benny as well) remounted just as their receiving party arrived: three young men, with the sentry who had first spotted them walking at the head.
Walking, Dandridge noted, not riding, though the Choctaw of Abaiya Abohli were well provisioned in horses.
On closer inspection, the advance guard were three youths: barely a year older than Fulbright, if Dandridge was any judge. They were leanly built, as most Choctaw were, and clad in buckskin breeches and tunics of dyed cloth with rucked collars exposing inked markings down their front.
There was some manner of meaning to these tattoos (Dandridge could almost hear Benny's aggrieved moan), denoting rank, station, and feats of battle, but he was not so well versed, even after three years, to know what they meant. The venerable Hiloha, chieftain of this clan, was marked on the chest and arms, with circular lines like latitude symbols on a map. At their first meeting, he had explained, in halting English of his own, that the lines denoted the years of his seniority over his people, upon his assumption of his mantel after some domestic dispute in his father's generation that had threatened to split the clan in twain.
"We earn our ornaments," Hiloha had told him, "As you earn your medals," and indicated the gold epaulets on Dandridge's jacket...not medals themselves, but presumably near enough in his estimate, "Though ours we cannot remove."
The lead sentry gestured with his hand to follow. Kincaid looked questioningly at Dandridge, who nodded and follow they did.
"Shall we say last rites? Just in case," Benny muttered in a silky stage whisper. Dandridge darted a look at him and he lifted his hands in surrender.
The sentries continued their solemn march, the two newcomers taking up positions to their left and right, like an honor guard...
Perhaps sans honor.
"Not to give due to Margate, General..." McCrannach rode up alongside him, "But there's somethin' about this smells rottener than a bum haddock."
"I had thought that was the point of haddock."
"Aye, and it's never been ta my taste, much ta me auld mam's chagrin. I get the notion we're not being greeted as friends."
"We shall assume ourselves friends until we've reason to be otherwise."
"The first slit throat, then, or do we give 'em a pass if they go for Margate?"
Dandridge cocked an eyebrow, "This is a diplomatic mission."
"Aye, ta yank the rug out from under 'em, and them not chuffed ta see us already."
"Do you require a fainting couch, Mr. McCrannach?" Dandridge reproached, "If your worst fears are to be realized, I had hoped to rely upon the stolidity of a tremendous, battle-hardened Scotsman. If," he repeated, "required."
McCrannach bowed his head, suitably chastened. The sentry walking at his flank passed a caustic glance over them. The youth was tattooed on his chin: a latticework pattern from his lower lip down. His expression was hard, but inscrutable.
The way opened up ahead of them, the dense growth of the wood thinning precipitously to be replaced with signs of habitation. They passed crops of squash and runner bean, the latter running riot in their beds, seemingly uncultivated. Dandridge spotted one or two women as they passed, their braided hair matted with sweat from the heat of the afternoon as they picked pods from the vines and tossed them into baskets.
Two women, and this land so vast...
The village of the Abaiya Abohli appeared on the horizon, lit from beyond by the westerly sun. The curtain wall was a sturdy job of closely bound timber, sharpened at the tips. No great city barricade, but tall enough to keep out intruders...and to conceal the settlements beyond.
"Bit hot for a bonfire, innit?" asked Ned, indicating a thick column of black smoke rising from beyond the wall.
"We should ask them about that," said Kincaid, belatedly remembering he was supposed to be a subordinate, "Shouldn't we ask them?"
"By all means, Private," said Dandridge flatly. Kincaid didn't ask and, for a bare half second, Dandridge debated making it an order.
The stink of smoke became more pronounced as they neared the opened gates.
The gates were drawn for their approach. They were manned by a handful of men: young too, as the scouts were, and drawn in their features, watching with flinty eyes.
They passed with no incident, though more than one of the party peered over their shoulders as if to make sure the gates weren't slammed shut behind them.
The smoke rose from a chimney hole in a dome-shaped structure in the center of the common: the village meeting house. Where Dandridge may have expected to hear high chatter from within, though, to go someway toward explaining the fire, the place was silent. Indeed, there was a pall hanging over the whole village. The broad byways connecting lodgings and storehouses were nearly deserted. One or two women moved by with their heads lowered, lifting their eyes to them as they passed and just as quickly lowering them.
"Geordie!" Fulbright scolded as the dog went scampering to a handcart sitting by the door of a house, "Get back here, boy!"
Ned muttered something to the effect of being buggered by one or two Biblical personages as Fulbright dashed to the crude handcart and began nosing about the covered contents.
"Sorry, sorry..." the boy apologized rapidly, avoiding eye contact with the scout to their left as he passed him, "He's usually very well-behaved. I don't know..."
"Quint," Ned said dubiously, "Quentin!" and swung down from his mount.
The handcart's contents were covered by a sheet of thick hide, the corner of which Geordie took in his snapping jaws and pulled at, just as Fulbright caught up to pull him back, which only expedited his effort.
Fulbright fell backward as the hide fell away and a woman emerged from the house, alerted by the commotion to scream at the exposed contents of the cart.
"Mother of God," Dandridge breathed, unable to keep from recoiling at the sight and smell of rot.
The cart was piled high with corpses: naked, twisted, and horribly emaciated, the contours of their bones harshly outlined against crepey copper-colored skin. Dead but not decayed, the bodies were nonetheless heaped up in such a way as to be indistinguishable from each other: male and female, young and old all blended together.
But there were young: Dandridge didn't need a closer look to make out the diminutive corpses of children among the heap.
Fulbright had fallen onto his backside in the dirt, staring stricken at the cart's contents as Geordie emptied his lungs out in a chorus of harsh keens, competing with the woman who had emerged from the house and, sobbing, rounded on the boy with vengeful fire in her watery eyes.
"Hey!" Ned snapped as Margate drawled, "That's enough," the two men dismounting, Margate's hand going to his scabbard.
They found their progressed impeded, a scout grabbing each of them by the arm.
"Stand down!" Dandridge barked.
"So much for your errand of mercy, General," Margate growled.
"That is enough!" Dandridge rounded on the third scout, the one with the tattoo on his chin, "Is this a way to treat a friend and ally? Where is your chief? Kincaid, tell him what I..."
"I need no translator," the scout spoke in taut, but perfect English, surveying Dandridge through cold eyes.
Kincaid paled, turning to Dandridge, wide-eyed, and well he might...they hadn't exactly kept their confidences close on the way to the village, despite Dandridge's best efforts.
"We are here to speak to your clan's chief," Dandridge said tersely.
"You speak to him," the youth stepped forward, "I am Koi Tamoa, last surviving son of Hiloha and chief of the clan Abaiya Abohli, your 'friend and ally'. Whatever treachery you planned to give my father, you may give to me and my people..." he spread his arms around the village common, to indicate the sparse cluster of thin, sickly men and women who had emerged from their lodgings to witness the reckoning, "What remains of us."
-Rupert, Margate, McCrannach, Ned, Quint, Dandridge, Kashofa, and Koi
There was a short, wickedly tense silence before the boy chieftain...if that truly was his title, which it seemed to be...lifted a hand, barking out a monosyllabic command in Choctaw.
The sentries who'd grabbed ahold of Benny and Ned relinquished them with the fluidity of novelty Swiss automatons. Ned wasted no time starting toward Quint, who staggered roughly to his feet, half falling over again in his haste to put some distance between himself and the cart of rotting remains. The lad white-knuckled Ned's arm, eyes wide as saucers.
"S-sorry..." he apologized hoarsely, "Sorry. C-caught me by surprise..."
"S'alright, lad..." Ned whispered, "Buck up, yeah?" he cast a cautious eye at their surroundings, as if to impart without saying that they were up against it here and, fond as he may be of the stripling Virginian lad, he wasn't keen on reviving him from a faint when they had a village full of surly Indiana scowling at them.
Though mayhap "full" wasn't quite the word.
The boy chief, Koi Tamoa, crossed to the sobbing woman by the wagon, skirting around Geordie who, to his good credit (or, well, his trainer's credit, Ned would think with some pride if he wasn't a hair's inch from pissing himself at the minute) had quieted down in double time, trotting back toward Ned. The setter's attention nonetheless remained on the cart and, more ominously, the plume of smoke rising from the village meeting house.
Koi Tamoa was speaking to the crying woman in barely audible tones, the rougher edges of Choctaw speech smoothened somewhat by the suppressed affect. The woman nodded a few times, her face shining with tears, as two more ladies emerged from the crowd, summoned at a flick of Koi's hand, to gently lead her away.
"She is grieving," the boy informed them neither apologetically nor abashedly, returning to the village center, "This very morning, she bore her son into that cart to be put to rest."
"To rest," Dandridge's eyes lingered on the smoke, "I see. Kincaid, please tell the lady we apologize for our disrespect..."
No sooner had the secretary cleared his throat did the chief speak over him, "Words are wind, and my people have weathered enough."
"Hence the campfire, yes?" Benny asked coolly, eyeing the smoke. Dandridge shot him a warning look and Rupie looked well prepared to keel over in his saddle, but it was McCrannach who chimed in.
"Ye may be past apologies, sir, but ya can understand, I hope, ye're a few notches ahead of us, an' so accountin' for our lack'a courtly manners. I didnae ken the Choctaw burned their dead."
"They don't," Rupert said faintly, "As we don't..."
"Save for in sickness," Dandridge finished for him, his grim visage not straying from the shapes in the cart which, now that the initial frenzy of exposure had abated, could more clearly be examined...there was no mistaking the raised welts on the waxy, coppery flesh.
"Smallpox," he said flatly.
Ned felt Quint's knees shake against him and put a staying hand on the small of his back.
"Don't shake so," Koi continued coolly, "The plague will not turn on the ones who sent it."
"You mean to blame us for your people getting sick?" demanded Benny incredulously.
"The sickness started in the winter," said Koi, "No sooner had the frosts descended did the first fevers begin...among the old and the frail. The first deaths began a week later. Our healers were next to succumb, then the children...but I do not need to tell you what this pox does. It comes from your country. It came to us in your wake."
Dandridge stiffened, "My last visit to your father."
Koi's eyes were flinty and hard, "He was honored by your attention. The day he sickened, he spoke of the great fortune our alliance with the English had brought, and the fortune still to come," he cast his arm about, "We flourish in your favor. So by all means..." he looked from Dandridge to McCrannach, eyes narrowing knowingly, "What bounty have you brought us this time?"
***
Nashoba didn't answer her right away, which told Kashofa well enough already.
"No trace," he said finally, "For our best efforts."
Kashofa smiled knowingly, "An interesting choice of words."
He wasn't respected for his sense of humor, though, "I think you underestimate the number of them who would very much like to have caught the Englishman...dead or alive."
"Then I suppose we should be grateful he got away."
Nashoba cocked an eyebrow, "A dangerous thing to say."
"They know my position," she sighed, moving around the meeting hall in a slow circle, eyeing the empty benches and conjuring in her mind's eye the place as it had been the night their hostage had arrived...and their guest.
Nashoba broke into her thoughts, "You buried the Frenchman."
"You disapprove?"
"Certainly not," she turned to him and he shrugged, "He was beginning to smell," and this time he did favor her with a smile, "We have our traditions. In my father's time, if someone tried dropping a body into the lake...nevermind the body of an outsider..."
Kashofa nodded, "They must think me ridiculous. Cloaking myself in tradition as our clan frays at the edges..."
"Is that what you think is happening?"
She twisted her hands together, worrying the shells she wore around her wrist, "Everyone thinks Harrow killed the Frenchman," at Nashoba's expression, she clarified, "The Englishman."
"I know who he is, and I know what they think. You don't?"
"It would be the easy thing to think, wouldn't it?" she laughed bitterly, "An irate hostage escaped, grabbed one of our own as a shield, and killed a French weapons' smuggler because..." she shrugged, "Their countries are at war? He was in the way? He was surprised?"
"You think it was someone closer to home?"
"I do not know what to think," but, accepting this wasn't a satisfactory answer, she added, "They were in a hurry to sink him."
"That needn't mean anything."
"It may not," she wrapped her arms around herself, "They are angry. Restive. I think 'what motive can they have' and realize I may as well ask why a bobcat pounces on a deer."
"The Frenchman was no deer."
"No," Kashofa granted, "But I let him go."
"And kept his wares."
Kashofa bristled, "I thought it was the right thing."
"Certainly better than letting him leave with them, to sell to one clan or another, east or west."
Kashofa smiled faintly, as if to thank him for this admission, watching the spot on the low wooden benches where General Dandridge's other gift to her had sat for one night.
"I wonder if she is still with him."
"Who?" Nashoba asked, "The girl?"
"Ty," Kashoba replied, "A queer name."
"A queer person."
Sensing some reproach, Kashofa countered, "I couldn't leave her to the British garrison."
"And she could not tell you where she was from?"
"I am not even sure she is a 'she'," her lips curled, "I am cloyingly sentimental. Tappenahomma and that lot would think it very womanish of me."
"Ty reminds you of someone?" Nashoba evidently didn't need to be told whom.
"It is probably for the best you and the men didn't find Harrow. But Ty..." she sighed, "The world is cruel...and crueler when you are alone."
There was a short silence before Nashoba volunteered, without much enthusiasm, "I could gather some men for another sweep..."
"No," she shook her head, "I will need you here."
She left the just in case implicit. Nashoba, a man of few words, only needed a few to understand himself.
***
Dandridge had expected any number of complications upon this mission. He certainly was not so naive as to have not considered McCrannach's point, that their allies would not take kindly to his proposals.
But he had not expected to come to their largest partner in the region and find it utterly decimated. Nor, indeed, had he expected to be dealing with a youth who could well have been his grandson.
He knew Hiloha had a son, but had never met him. His dealings with the chief of the Abaiya Abohli had always been conducted man-to-man, mediated by Kincaid's translations, which had become less necessary with each successive meeting, as the grandiloquent gentleman became more comfortable with English and, indeed, more enthusiastic in his expression.
His had been a grand personality. What would back in Dandridge's country be called a Continental type. The sort of bonhomie an Englishman might be embarrassed of, but would be quite at home in an Italian salon or French parlor.
Of all the clan elders Dandridge had dealt with, he had been the one whose friendship Dandridge had most believed.
With some difficulty about the joints, he dismounted from his horse. This caused a brief commotion from the onlookers, but the murmurs soon dissipated. Kincaid, the last ahorse, likewise touched his boots to the ground, moving to his side as if to make sure his knees didn't pop as he straightened up.
"I am deeply sorry for your father," he addressed this Koi Tamoa, bowing his head, "He was an honorable man."
"Honorable," Koi repeated, "And trusting. I need no recitation of my father's virtues. State your business."
Dandridge suspected he already knew it, fluent as he seemed to be. There was no doubt he'd heard every word he and McCrannach had shared as they were escorted into the village.
"We are on a diplomatic errand," he said at length, "It was our hope that we may discuss the terms of our alliance."
"Discuss," Koi repeated tartly, "Our destroy?"
Margate's lips pulled back in a sneer, but Dandridge curtailed him with a look.
"Trust that we did not know when we set out the difficulties your people have endured..."
Koi's eyes blazed, but Dandridge pressed on, "But these circumstances, to my mind, only bolster the urgency of our errand."
He cast his eyes about the villagers: these women, children, and not-quite-men. Some of them, on closer inspection through the smoky air, bore pox scars of their own...survivors of the plague, and greatly reduced by the effort.
It didn't take a great physician to conclude cold was kindling for sickness. There had been some illness in the barracks this winter...but none too severe, and no casualties.
And yet...
"This conflict with the clans of the Western Delegation has persisted three years now. In this time, there has been negligible turnover of territory and significant loss of resources and..." he hesitated, "Men. The situation being as it is, with no clear path to victory..."
"You mean to end your support of my people."
There was a short silence. Dandridge drew breath in, "We mean to withdraw our supplies of arms and armament in the name of mediating a truce between East and West."
Koi said nothing to this at first, merely looking around the village. His hair, caught in the stale breeze, clung to his profile like strands of spider's web dipped in ink.
"You will stop helping us?"
"Our support will continue, I assure you. In the interest of expediting an end to the conflict..."
"You no longer want to help us fight," not a question. He had a solicitor's grasp on English...Dandridge could almost feel a noose tightening around his neck.
"No," he said, for lack of anything else to say, "But..."
"Then nothing has changed."
"The devil does that mean?" Margate snapped before anyone could stop him.
"Five months since you were here last," Koi stepped closer, not looking away from the Corporal, "Five months since you sowed this sickness among us. Five months since my father was burnt to a cinder, his ashes cast to the wind. Five months of raids by emboldened enemies, burning our crops, picking off our fighting men, terrorizing our women in their grief. Five months without the aid of the English..."
He stopped himself, a hair's breadth from Margate, who had nearly a foot on him yet still seemed oddly shrunken opposite the young chief's cold fury, "So I say to you...nothing has changed."
Margate bristled, opening his mouth, but Dandridge spoke first, "We knew nothing of any raids," realizing as he did that of course he wouldn't...in Hiloha's absence, there would've been no incentive to inform the garrison.
"Was I to send a letter? Stamped with a wax seal? That is your way...and my father quite liked your way," he nodded, "He admired very much the civilized men of England, with their wealth and their customs; their fine clothes and paved roads. He was honored, he said, to have the trust of the English, to accept from them what they had to give," he looked up his angular nose at Margate, "You gave him his death."
"Chief Tamoa..." Dandridge attempted.
"I want no favor from you. You come this way to tell my people to tuck our tails between our legs..."
"There will be a separate peace," said Kincaid, unbidden and somewhat desperately, "Even now, a similar mission is underway among the Western clans..."
Dandridge rounded on the secretary, who reddened, "Sorry, sir, but..."
Koi laughed: a harsh, humorless bark, "They will never accept. The Western clans have been fat and happy these last three years. Even if their French masters cut them loose, they have more than enough to fight on. The Mala'tha alone have been picking the flesh from our clan's bones since my father's death. They have no reason to agree to your 'separate peace'."
Dandridge's stomach turned. He had expected skepticism, but not this. He and Evrard were old men...he could admit it...tempered by caution and weariness. He had not told himself as much, but he had set out...here, at last...counting on the caution of another old man.
Koi Tamoa was young, angry, vengeful, and thought this whole plan ridiculous as his own men plainly did.
"You may yet be surprised," Dandridge maintained, "There are many clans, many chieftains. Surely, there are several among the West as wary of the fighting..."
"We are not some pretty plaything for you to discard once you are tired of us. I am chief of Abaiya Abohli, guardian of the vale and protector of a proud people. You do not ride among us in glory to call us off like mongrel dogs!" he indicated Geordie, who lowered his head with a whine.
"Keep your guns," he continued, "Keep your cannon. Keep your paltry 'gifts'. But this war was begun without you...and it shall end without you as well. Tell your king, if it was he who sent you, that there remains one in the Choctaw nation whose knee will not bend to a white man's purse."
He stepped back, looking out at his people...these emaciated children and tear-swelled women; these boys smothered in warpaint their faces hadn't yet grown into.
"Chief Tamoa," Dandridge attempted again, "It would be foolhardy of me to claim deep understanding of your position. But I need no deep reservoirs of imagination to conjure solidarity...only a lifetime of experience, which I am humbly prepared to offer. If there is anything we can do..."
"Wait a moment."
Dandridge's head turned so slowly to glower at Margate, he was surprised his neck didn't squeak on its hinges.
"They want nothing to do with us," the young corporal spoke with his customary haughtiness, "All but insulted us to our faces. Now you want to scrape for their forgiveness? For what?"
"Hold ya tongue, Margate," McCrannach growled.
"And why should we?" Margate rounded back on Koi, "You have a lot of lip, lad, for the duly appointed Protector of Greater Flypit..."
"Margate!" Dandridge snapped.
"You act as if you've been so duly inconvenienced by us cooling our heels in this marshy arsehole you pretend is a country. As if we're at all obligated to do our pithy best at hand-guiding you into the Enlightenment. As if we've been having the time of our lives in this mosquito-dotted, fetid hellhole, picking lice out of our hair and dropping our men in muddy graves in the name of a passel of painted savages who've been living the same way they did when Christ was still on the tit!"
"Ben," Fletcher warned, and went ignored.
"You want to blame us for your people getting sick?" Margate challenged, looking down at Koi, "Might be...but I'm damn sure sleeping in each other's shit didn't do a damn thing to help your proud people, eh?"
"Corporal!" Dandridge roared, red-faced, but Koi didn't move, didn't blink as he spat into Margate's face.
The other man let out a wordless cry, charging forward. Dandridge moved to intercept him, but was beaten by McCrannach and Fletcher, who each grabbed an arm to restrain him. But Margate was inflamed, scarlet in the face, his eyes wide and white...
"Release him," Koi said calmly, "Do your worse, so I can die like a man. It'll be the most honor an Englishman has ever given me."
"Shut up!" Fletcher snapped, but too late. Margate had managed to shake him off, wresting himself out of McCrannach's grip...
"Benny!" Kincaid stopped in his path, grabbing him by the lapels.
"The bastard! The ruddy, poxy bastard...I'll send him to his father..."
"No, you won't," Kincaid said sternly, though he could not keep the tremor out of his voice, "Let it go."
Margate was quiet, his shoulders rising and falling with the force of heavy breaths. More than one of the boy warriors around them had gone for their weapons. Geordie whimpered timorously at Fulbright's feet.
Finally, Margate stepped back, turning on his heel. Kincaid turned away, lifting a shaking hand to his brow, "I apologize..."
"No," Dandridge stepped forward, "It is I who must apologize, Chief Tamoa..."
"Why?" Koi prompted, "For the one among you capable of honesty?" he sneered, "It is, of course, such a savage custom," he stepped back, "You may be wary of fighting...you have nothing to fight for. But we have everything. And whatever the French have promised you, the Western clans have no reason to lay down their spears until every last one of us has been yoked to them.
"Withdraw as you choose. But we do not need your permission to fight. To survive. We never did."
He dug his heel into the dirt, driving an impression into the soot-stained turf, "For the love I bore my father, you may leave unmolested. But know that if you attempt to impose your will upon my people again..." he looked at the ground and, for a moment, he looked every inch his age, and the stony veneer upon his face seemed to crack before hardening anew, "You may be a mighty nation. But so were we. Once."
McCrannach drew in breath, giving Dandridge a questioning look: "Shall we?"
And what else could Dandridge do? He bowed his head, remounting. McCrannach was next, and then Margate, determinedly avoiding their eyes. Fletcher and Fulbright exchanged a look, the former returning to his horse as Fulbright corralled Geordie, casting a lingering look at the baleful woman whose child lay heaped in a cart steps away.
Dandridge lifted his arm in wordless command, signaling the march, and march they did, leaving the village of Abaiya Abohili behind.
Only their first stop, Dandridge reminded himself, and again felt that phantom noose tightening around his neck, inch by precious inch.
-Dandridge, Benny, Rupert, Murdoch, Ned, Quint, Koi, Kashofa, and Nashoba