“Ah. No. It’s—” I stopped abruptly. I’d turned the object over in my hand and saw that he had—as he usually did with things he made—scratched his initials, JF, into the bottom of the piece.

“What’s wrong, a nighean?” He came to look, and taking my hand in his, turned it over so the peg lay exposed in my palm.

“Er … nothing. It’s just … Um. Well.” I could feel my ears getting warm. “It’s a, uh, present for Auld Mam.”

“Aye?” he looked at it, baffled.

“Do you happen to remember Roger telling me he’d been visiting up there and talked to her and she told him that when she, er, visited the privy, her … womb … fell out into her hand?”

He looked up at me, startled. Then his eyes returned to the thing in my hand.

“It’s, um, called a pessary. If you insert it into the—”

“Stop right there, Sassenach.” He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, lips pursed.

“It’s really beautiful,” I assured him. “And it will be perfect. It’s just—I thought—maybe having your mark on it would make her feel … self-conscious?” It had also occurred to me that Auld Mam, being Not Quite Right in the Head, might, conversely, feel special, singled out by Himself. Which was well and good, but might easily lead to her removing the pessary in company to show it off.

He gave me a look, reached out, and delicately tweezed the pessary from my palm with two fingers.

“Not nearly as self-conscious as it would make me, Sassenach, I tell ye. I’ll sand it off.”

83

The Forefeather of a Great Horned Owl

Royal Colony of New York

Early October 1779

RACHEL’S FINGERS TREMBLED, TYING the knot of Oggy’s clout, and the end slipped out of her left hand, the clout came apart, and Oggy’s small penis, exposed to cold air, instantly stiffened and sent a jet of steaming urine a good three feet in the air, narrowly missing her face.

Ian, sitting on the bed half dressed beside his son, laughed like a loon. Rachel gave him a look of annoyance, and he stopped laughing, though the grin stayed on his face as he took the damp cleaning rag from her hand. He slid down onto the floor and began mopping up, saying something to Oggy in Mohawk. The words seemed to burrow under her skin, itching.

He’d been talking to Oggy in Mohawk more and more as they crossed into New York, drawing ever nearer to Canajoharie. Not that she blamed him. Patience and Prudence were enchanted by the sound of the language and could now say a number of useful things, including “Don’t kill me,” “Give me food,” “No, I don’t want to lie with you,” and “I belong to Wolf’s Brother, of the Wolf clan of the Kahnyen’kehaka, and he will castrate you if you molest me.”