Nathaniel opened his eyes and looked straight at the Hakim. "I'm indebted to you for your help, but I can't go to bed right now. Hannah, tell the men out in the hall I'm ready to see Carryck."

Elizabeth held up her hand. "Nathaniel, please be reasonable. When the Hakim is finished dressing your leg, you will eat, and then you will rest for an hour, and then if you are sufficiently restored, you may speak to whomever you like. But right now Carryck can wait."

He blinked at her. "Maybe the earl can wait, Boots, but I can't. Whatever he knows about Hawkeye and Robbie, I need to hear it."

Hannah's expression went very still as she looked from Nathaniel to Elizabeth. "Are they dead?"

He raised a hand to touch her cheek. "I don't know, Squirrel. Maybe."

She made a little clicking sound deep in her throat, and Nathaniel's grip tightened on her shoulder. "It's a possibility, I can't tell you that it ain't. I managed to get a few words with Stoker's first mate before the dragoons caught wind of me, and he told me that they were picked off the Jackdaw by a frigate headed for battle."

Curiosity put down her bowl with a thump. "That don't make much sense," she said thoughtfully, all of her irritation suddenly gone. "Why take the two oldest men on board and leave the young ones? Maybe the man was lyin' to protect his own skin."

Elizabeth said, "I might come to the same conclusion, if the earl hadn't told me the same story right before Nathaniel came back to the inn."

"But how would the earl know about what happened on the Jackdaw?" asked Hannah. And then her face brightened. "Unless he has had word of the frigate?"

The Hakim had been strangely quiet as he dressed the wound on Nathaniel's leg, but now Elizabeth felt his attention on her.

He said, "The earl knows of what happened on the Jackdaw because he has questioned her captain at some length."

Nathaniel sat up with such suddenness that Elizabeth stepped back in surprise.

"Mac Stoker was here?"

Hakim Ibrahim nodded. "He is here still, and he will be for some time. I have been kept busy treating gunshot wounds just recently."

Nathaniel lay down again.

"I want to see him before I see Carryck."

"Good," said Hannah. "Let's go see him, then."

There was a small silence, and then Nathaniel reached out a hand to Hannah. She came to stand just beside him.

"Squirrel," he said, speaking Kahnyen'kehâka now to spare her embarrassment before the Hakim. "We need you to look after the babies."

"But--"

"I don't want you anywhere near Mac Stoker." His jaw clenched and then relaxed again.

Hannah turned on her heel and held out her palms toward Elizabeth. A request, written in worry lines that were out of place on a young girl's face. And Curiosity watching, wondering if she would give in this time, or do what was best for the child and send her away.

"Your father is right, Squirrel. I will bring you the news myself, if there is any."

She held her head up straight, but her mouth trembled slightly. After a long pause, she nodded.

A servant showed Hannah the way. He wore a long-tailed coat of dark blue with gold facings, and he had a twitch in his left cheek that reminded her of a bird fluttering. She wondered if he had had it all his life, but she could not ask him about it: all the way through the halls he watched her out of the corner of his eye as if he expected her to pull a tomahawk from beneath her skirt and take his scalp.

She had been sent away like a little child, and she was angry about it, and hurt. But even in her poor mood, Hannah could not ignore the castle. It was full of interesting things: bears and stags and dragons carved into wood paneling and even into the rafters. A stag's head mounted on the wall. Paintings of dogs and horses and sailing ships in heavy golden frames. At the foot of a great stair two vases big enough for a girl to hide in, decorated with colorful birds.

There was a little man on the landing, made entirely of polished metal, and she could no more walk past him without stopping than she could have ignored a live monkey. He was barely taller than she was and cleverly made, down to the hinged fingers and the face, constructed of many small plates somehow held together to make a nose and cheeks and a chin. Behind grillwork the eye sockets were blank, and she found herself a little relieved.

"What is this?" she asked the servant.

He cleared his throat. "A suit of armor, miss. As the gentlemen wore tae joust in days lang syne." And seeing her blank look, he added, "Twa men runnin' at each ither on horseback wi' lances, ye ken?"

Hannah did not quite understand why men would wrap themselves in metal to get on a horse, but she sensed that the servant's patience with her questions might not reach so far. She nodded.

The upstairs hall was lined with candle sconces and small carved tables, and on each of them stood a carving of an elephant, some bone white and others milky green. She would have paused to look, but the servant stopped in front of a door.

Hannah did not like to be impolite, so she waited with him. "What is your name?"

One eye blinked, and then the other; it was a good trick. "MacAdam, miss."

"And what is it that you do here?"

"I'm one o' the footmen, miss."

She considered his feet, and saw nothing unusual about them.

"What is it that a footman does?"

"We look after the keeping o' the house, miss. The fires and the lamps, and the rest o' it. And servin' at table, o' course."