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from his face. "It sounds as if you should be up and away, so
that you can come home again. "Journeys end in lovers meeting," after
all."
    "That's one quote
I'll remember." Nathaniel laughed. "It'll serve me well on the long
road home."
     

3
     
    The March winds came
off the St. Lawrence in a rush, nosing up Montréal's narrow lanes to seek out
Nathaniel where he stood in the shadows of the Auberge St. Gabriel. Most of the
city's residents had retreated over slick cobblestones to their dinners by the
time the seminary clock chimed four, but Nathaniel stood motionless and attentive,
oblivious to the icy snow that rattled on roofs of tin and slate.
    The door of the tavern
opened and a servant clattered out, bent to one side by the weight of her basket.
Behind her followed two redcoats, shoulders hunched. Nathaniel pressed himself harder
against the wall, relaxing even as they went past. Their eyes were fixed on
their boots, and their minds on the duty that had drawn them away from hearth
and ale. He was invisible to them.
    Nathaniel continued
scanning the darkening street. Between the houses opposite there was a small
flash of movement. A child, underdressed, searching the gutter as he slipped
along in the shadows. For a moment Nathaniel watched, and then he stepped into
the lantern light and held up a coin. The boy's gaze snapped toward the faint shimmer
and he angled across the lane in three bounds, to follow Nathaniel into the
shadows.
    Perhaps ten years old,
Nathaniel guessed, and small for his age. Eyes wary, one crusted red; his skin
covered with filth and bruises. But he grinned. "Monsieur?"
    Nathaniel held out the
shilling and it disappeared between quick fingers.
    "What's your
name?"
    "They call me
Claude," said the boy. "For another coin I will tell you my family
name."
    Nathaniel exhaled
sharply through his nose. "There's another coin if you get a message to
the big Scot inside." It was a long time since Nathaniel had used his
French, but the boy's nod was encouraging. "Tell him to meet Wolf-Running-Fast
at Iona's, and make sure nobody hears you," he finished.
    "The auberge is full of Scots," the boy said. "All Montréal is full of them. Will
any Scot serve, Monsieur Wolf-Running-Fast?"
    "The tallest one
in the room," said Nathaniel. "White haired, answers to Rab MacLachlan.
With a red dog, almost as big as you."
    There was a flicker of
interest in the boy's eyes. "A coin for each of them, the man and dog?"
    "If they show up
alone, you'll get a coin for each of them."
    "And one for
showing them the way."
    Nathaniel laughed
softly at the idea; Robbie could find his way to Iona's purbl. "You'll get
your coins if you do your job. And a plate of mutton stew, too, I'll
wager."
    "Wolf-Running-Fast,"
repeated the boy. "Iona." And at Nathaniel's nod, he disappeared into
the darkened alleyway.
     
    Nathaniel had been
trained too well to take anything for granted, and so he waited patiently in
the shadows opposite Iona's cottage, in spite of the wind and the rumbling in
his gut. Now that he was here, finally, he remembered why he had stayed away
all these years. At seventeen he had given up both his innocence and his virginity
in Montréal. The first had been lost watching merchants and priests angle for
the peltry and the souls of the Huron and Cree, Abenaki and Hodenosaunee. The
second he had surrendered with less of a struggle to the lieutenant governor's
daughter. The thought of Giselle Somerville left a strange taste in his mouth, as
if he had bit into an apple that looked sound but was inwardly foul. He had
thought she could not touch him anymore, but it was her at the bottom of this trouble:
twenty years, and she had still managed to reach out and put a cold finger on
his cheek.
    The snow picked up,
whipping into his eyes. He pulled his hood down farther and sought the warm center
of himself, as he had been trained to do as a boy. At home both hearths would
be blazing. There might be venison and corn bread and dried