"I will go, then," she said. "And leave you to it."

MacKay's head came up, eyes rolling in pain.

"Ye have my word," he coughed, covering his face with his hands.

A coward, in the end. Nathaniel let him drop to the floor.

"I will send word to the Hakim that you need his attention," Elizabeth said, over her shoulder. "Or would you rather have your wife's help?"

"A fine choice ye've given me." MacKay's shoulders shook, in pain or laughter it was not clear. "Infidel or witch. I'd rather bleed tae death right here."

"Let's hope for her sake you do just that," Nathaniel said.

MacKay drew his sleeve across his mouth. "Ye resemble the earl in mair ways than one. Has anyone tolt ye that?"

"It's been mentioned," Nathaniel said. "It means nothing to me."

"It will." MacKay's mouth twisted. "Soon enough."

20

Robbie MacLachlan sat with his back to the Jackdaw's longboat and stared unhappily into the bowl cupped in his hands. "Should I nivver eat salt beef agin, it will be far tae soon."

Hawkeye raised a shoulder in agreement. Over the brim of his own bowl he was watching Stoker and Giselle, who stood at the rail.

Quarreling voices rose from the stern, a shout of pain and then silence, but these days Stoker didn't seem to hear or care about fighting among his men. Giselle gave him enough trouble all on her own. Now he was grinding his teeth, the muscles in his cheeks as tight as fiddle strings.

"Young love," said Robbie, following the direction of Hawkeye's gaze.

"That's one name for it, I guess."

"She's a braw lassie tae stan' up tae Sweet Mac Stoker, ye must leave her that."

Hawkeye flexed his fingers one by one. "I ain't sure that I'd leave her much at all, Rab. But I'll tell you this, watching her wrangle with Mac gives a man a new appreciation for the easements of old age."

"Aye," Robbie sighed. "Better sore joints than stiff ones."

Neither of them laughed; not only was the truth of it bittersweet, it was as close as they would come to an agreement about Giselle Somerville.

Hawkeye studied her, as he did whenever he could be sure that her attention was elsewhere. The skin across her nose and cheeks was peeling and the long plait of hair lying over her shoulder had gone almost white in the sun; her shirt hung loose to show her throat and chest, pink and glistening with sweat. Giselle looked more like a girl these days, nothing like the fine lady who had flown off the Isis. The truth was, she looked like herself at seventeen, when he had first seen her.

It was hard to believe that it was so long ago. He had gone north because Cora missed Nathaniel and was full of hazy fears for him, so far away in a place she knew nothing about, in a tangle with the daughter of a titled Englishman and a mysterious French lady. Cora sent him to bring Nathaniel home to Lake in the Clouds, with a rich wife, if there was no other way to do it.

All these years later Hawkeye wasn't sure what exactly had happened, except that Nathaniel had agreed to leave Montréal without Giselle, and without much of a struggle. Had he grown tired of the girl, or did she just refuse to leave her father's fine home for a rough cabin in the endless forests? On the way south, glad to be shut of Montréal, Hawkeye hadn't asked Nathaniel for an explanation, hadn't known how to ask, and thought it best to leave the boy his privacy.

What Hawkeye did know for sure was that he hadn't understood Giselle Somerville then and he didn't understand her now. The strange, strong girl who had taken him by surprise in Montréal had grown into a formidable woman, one who was smart enough to hide her ironwood core behind smiles and lace fans, and driven enough to take Mac Stoker to her bed if it served her purposes.

Hawkeye scanned the horizon for the Isis, and was disappointed again. They lost sight of her now and then, but it was more than twelve hours since he had last seen her sails. It made him uneasy in his bones.

"Here's auld Jemmy, wi' a belly fu' o' trouble," said Robbie, bringing Hawkeye out of his daydreams.

The little man who limped toward them swinging a bucket of tar was one of the few sailors willing to give them the time of day. Now he nodded to them briskly and stopped, scratching a mole on the end of his nose with a blackened fingernail.

"Wind's comin' up again," he volunteered, tipping his face up and sniffing at the breeze so that his whiskery cheeks twitched. "We'll be rollin' gunwale-under by sunset, if the Tories don't get us first. Tories or sharks, mates, that's our lot. Tories or sharks."

"Ye've been through muny a storm," said Robbie. "And there ye stand, hale and hearty."

"Aye, but mebbe not for long." Jemmy squinted in Stoker's direction, ready to bolt if the captain's attention should wander his way. He spat a high brown arc of tobacco juice that cleared the rail neatly.

He hunched his shoulders toward them as if he had a secret. "Two times I've run afoul of the Tories, in these very waters. Once on the Little Bess out of Plymouth--the Casterbridge sank us without so much as a by-your-leave and skimmed what men could still swim off the water like cream off a milk bucket."

Robbie glanced uneasily at Hawkeye. "Aye, in the days before the war. But we're flying American colors, man."

Jemmy coughed out a laugh. "As if that would stop 'em. It was eighty-two when the Little Bess went down. Every one of us was American born, and they pressed us, all the same. Didn't have enough of a navy of our own in those days to do anything about it. Still don't. Not yet, at any rate."