Catherine stood at once and, touching her husband’s shoulder with brief affection, beckoned Rachel with a nod to follow her.
“Oggy—my babe,” Rachel said, in the hallway. “Where is he just now?” She had been induced to let a young Mohawk girl mind Oggy while they had tea, but had no idea where the girl might have taken him.
“Oh,” said Catherine, with a little frown. “I saw Bridget take him outside a little while ago. Don’t worry,” she added kindly, seeing Rachel’s face. “He’s well wrapped up, and I’m sure they’ll come back soon.”
“Soon” wasn’t going to be soon enough; Rachel’s breasts were beginning to leak at just the thought of Oggy.
“In that case,” she said, trying to preserve her dignity, “may I trouble you to show me to the necessary?”
The necessary was outside, a well-tended brick structure, and Catherine left Rachel there with a smile. Rachel thanked her and hastily moved behind the privy. Privacy was necessary, but she didn’t mean to express her milk into a cesspit.
She managed the stays barely in time. One thought of her son, heavy and boneless in his absorption, the sudden hard pull of his suckling, and milk jetted from both breasts, spattering among the tattered red creepers that grew up the wall of the privy. She closed her eyes, sighing in relief, then opened them almost at once, hearing the creak of the privy door on the other side of the building, then footsteps on the path.
She had barely time to clutch her cloths to her exposed breasts before a man came round the corner of the necessary, stopping dead when he saw her.
“Wehhh!” he said, goggling at her. He was a white man, though very much tanned by the sun, like Ian. He had no tattoos, but wore clothes that were a combination of Indian and European dress, like Joseph Brant, though his garments were of a much lesser quality. He limped badly, she saw, and walked with a stick.
“If thee doesn’t mind, Friend, I would be grateful for a moment’s privacy,” she said, with what dignity was possible.
“What?” He jerked his eyes from her breasts and looked her in the face. “Oh. Oh, certainly. My pardon. Er … madam.” He backed slowly away, though he seemed unable to remove his eyes from her chest.
He turned hastily at the corner of the necessary and almost immediately collided with someone coming rapidly the other way. Rachel heard the impact, a feminine outcry, another Mohawk execration from the man, and then …
“Gabriel!” Silvia Hardman’s voice said in astonishment.
“Silvia!”
Rachel stood frozen, warm milk dribbling over her fingers.
Both voices together said, in tones of accusation, “What is thee doing here?”
“Lord, have mercy,” Rachel said, under her breath, and took two steps to the corner of the necessary, peering cautiously round it.
“I—I—” GABRIEL’S FACE was pale with shock, but Rachel could see that he bore the signs of work, long months of exposure to the sun, and the marks of starvation, not that long in the past. “I— Silvia? It is thee? Really thee?”
Silvia’s shoulders were shaking under her gray cloak. She lifted a trembling hand to her face, as though wondering whether it really was her.
“It … is,” she said, sounding doubtful, but the hand dropped, and she took a few steps toward her husband and stopped, staring at him. Her head tilted as she looked down, and Rachel saw that in addition to the stick he had dropped, he had a crutch tucked under one arm, and the leg and foot on that side were oddly twisted.
“What happened to thee?” Silvia whispered, and her hand went out toward him. He made a small, convulsive movement as though to take her hand, but then drew back.
“I—was taken. By Shawnee. They brought me north; one night I escaped. That made them angry, and they—chopped my foot in half.” He swallowed. “With an ax.”
“Oh, Christ Jesus, have mercy!”
“He did,” Gabriel said, mustering a very small smile from somewhere. “They didn’t kill me. I still had value as a slave. What—”
“Thee is a slave here?” Silvia was beginning to get a grip on her emotions; her voice held indignation as well as shock.
Gabriel shook his head, though.
“No. The Lord did protect me; the Shawnee sold me to a band of Mohawk who had with them a Jesuit priest—they were escorting him to a mission in Canada. He spoke only French, and I had little enough of that, but he bound and poulticed my wound and I showed him that I could write and figure, and he persuaded my captors that I would be worth more to a man of property than working someone’s fields.”