“Monsieur?” A high-pitched voice by his left stirrup startled him and he jerked in the saddle, making his horse shift and stamp.
“What?” he said, looking down incredulously. “Who the devil are you?”
The small black boy—Christ, he was wearing the remnants of a dark-blue uniform, so he must be, or recently had been, a drummer—bowed solemnly. His face, ear, and hand were black with soot on one side, and there was a deal of blood on his clothes, but he didn’t seem to be wounded.
“Pardon, monsieur. Parlez-vous Fran?ais?”
“Oui,” William replied, astonished. “Pourquoi?”
The child—no, he was older than he looked; he stood up straight and looked William in the eye, maybe eleven or twelve—coughed up a wad of black phlegm and spat it out, then shook his head as though straightening his wits.
“Votre ami a besoin d’aide. Le grand Indien,” he added as an afterthought.
“Is he saying something about John Cinnamon?” Brianna asked, frowning. She brushed at the tears streaking her face and sat up straight, gathering her own wits.
“Yes. He says—I take it you don’t speak French?”
“Some.” She gave him a look.
“Right.” He turned to the boy, who was swaying gently to and fro, staring at something invisible, plainly in the grip of exhaustion. “Dites-moi. Vite!”
This the boy did, with admirable simplicity.
“Stercus,” William muttered, then turned to his sister. “He says a press-gang from the French ships heard Cinnamon speaking French to someone on the shore; they followed him and tried to take him. He got away from them, but he’s hiding—the boy says in a cave, though that seems unlikely … anyway, he needs help.”
“Let’s go, then.” She gathered up her reins and looked behind her, judging the turning space.
He’d almost given up being surprised by her, but evidently not quite.
“Are you insane?” he inquired, as politely as possible. “Steh,” he added firmly to his own horse.
“What language are you speaking now?” she said, seeming impatient.
“‘Steh’ is German for ‘stand still’—when talking to a horse—and ‘stercus’ means ‘shit,’” he informed her crisply. “You have children, madam—like the ones you have just been weeping over. If you don’t want yours to be similarly afflicted, I suggest you go home and tend them.”
The blood shot up into her face as though someone had lit a fire under her skin and she glared at him, gathering up the loose ends of her reins in one hand in a manner suggesting that she was considering lashing him across the face with them.
“You little bas—” she began, and then pressed her lips together, cutting off the word.
“Bastard,” he finished for her. “Yes, I am. Go home.” And turning his back on her, he reached down a hand to the boy and lifted him ’til he could get a foot on the stirrup and scramble up behind.
“Où allons-nous?” he asked briefly, and the boy pointed behind them, toward the river.
A large feminine hand grabbed his horse’s bridle. The horse snorted and shook his head in protest, but she held on.
“Has anyone ever told you that being reckless will get you killed?” she asked, imitating his polite tone. “Not that I care that much, but you’ll likely get this kid, as well as John Cinnamon, killed too.”
“Kid?” was all he could think of saying, for the collision of words trying to get out of his mouth.
“Child, boy, lad, him!” she snapped, jerking her chin toward the little drummer behind him.
“Quel est le problème de cette femme?” the boy demanded indignantly.
“Dieu seul sait, je ne sais pas,” William said briefly over his shoulder. God knows, I don’t.
“Will you bloody let go?” he said to his sister.
“In a minute, yes,” Brianna said, fixing him with a dark-blue glare. “Listen to me.”
He rolled his eyes but gave her a short, sharp nod and a glare in return. She sat back in her saddle a bit but didn’t let go.
“Good,” she said. “I walked up and down that shore nearly every day, before the Americans showed up, and my k—my children poked into every cranny in those bluffs. There are only four places that could possibly be called caves, and only one of them is deep enough that somebody Cinnamon’s size could have a hope of hiding in.”
She paused for breath and wiped her free hand under her nose, eyeing him to see if he was paying attention.