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shifted her thoughts to the day ahead. If she hurried, she might be able to weed Bourlamaque’s garden before the sun grew too warm. She braided her hair and tied it up with the blue silk ribbon her father had given her, then slipped into her stockings and petticoats. She would have liked to go without her stays, but Bourlamaque did not tolerate undress at his breakfast table. She left them loose instead, then pulled on her gray linen gown. She had just opened her bedroom door when shouting erupted from downstairs.
    “It goes against my conscience as a surgeon and a Catholic! If you wished him to die, why did you bring him to me? Better to have let him perish where he lay!”
    Amalie recognized the voice as that of the fort’s surgeon, Monsieur Lambert.
    “I do not wish him to die!” Bourlamaque spat out each word. “I wish him to live so that I can wrest from him all he knows! I cannot interrogate a dead man!”
    “You do not mean only to interrogate him. That I could understand and condone. You mean to hand him over to the Abenaki, who will burn him alive!”
    Chills skittered down Amalie’s spine at the thought of anyone suffering such a fate, even an enemy.
    “Have you forgotten the number of Frenchmen and Abenaki these men have slain or the Abenaki village they destroyed two winters past or the supply wagons they’ve pillaged, stealing medicines you needed to treat our men?”
    Amalie felt her pulse leap.
    They had captured one of MacKinnon’s Rangers?
    Captured and gravely wounded, it seemed.
    And then she understood.
    Monsieur de Bourlamaque wished the Ranger to live so that he might learn his secrets and give the Abenaki their promised chance at vengeance, but Monsieur Lambert clearly wanted no part of it, afflicted at the notion of saving a man’s life only to hand him over to torture and death.
    “I’ve forgotten nothing!” Monsieur Lambert’s voice shook. “But I took an oath to heal men, not to harm them!”
    “Then heal him!” Bourlamaque’s shout made Amalie jump, his words booming through the little house. “What befalls him when he leaves your care is a military matter and none of your affair!”
    For a moment there was silence.
    Although she knew Monsieur de Bourlamaque was doing his duty, Amalie found herself feeling pity for Monsieur Lambert. On the one hand, healing this Ranger and turning him over to Bourlamaque would save French lives, appease an important French ally, perhaps helping to win the war. On the other, saving the man’s life so that he might suffer torment surely went against all a doctor was trained to do.
    And what would you do, Amalie?
    Would she have been able to tend the Ranger’s wounds, ease his pain, and calm his fever, knowing she was sparing him for the cruelest of deaths?
    She wanted to think that she would. The Rangers had killed her father, after all. They had destroyed her grandmother’s village and sown terror in the forest. But the very thought of saving a man so that he might perish in flames made her stomach knot.
    In truth, she did not know what she would do.
    “Very well, monsieur, I shall do my best to save his life,” Monsieur Lambert said at last. “But know this—I will treat him with the same diligence I would any officer. I will not deprive him of laudanum as Lieutenant Rillieux demands, nor will I suffer your soldiers to abuse him.”
    “I expected no less, mon ami . Leave young Rillieux to me. But how do we know this man is truly Morgan MacKinnon?”
    “One of our partisans claims to have met him and recognized him, and when I spoke the name, he opened his eyes.”
    Not just a Ranger, but their leader!
    And then Amalie understood why it was so important that he survive.
    “If you need anything—”
    “I should like Mademoiselle Chauvenet’s help in tending him once I’ve removed the balls from his leg and shoulder. He is shackled and greatly weakened, so she will be in no danger. She speaks the English tongue and has a deft hand at