“Either way, I’ve got five to one on Mam,” Ian said, laughing. “Her father taught her to shoot, and Uncle Jamie and my da took her on the moors to hunt rabbits and grouse when they were lads. She can hit a sixpence at ten paces, so long as the pistol is true.”

“With whom is thy bet? Joseph Brant, or the Sachem?”

“Oh, Thayendanegea, to be sure. What’s amiss, lass?”

She opened her eyes to see his face a few inches from hers; she could feel the heat of his body in the chilly room and nestled closer.

“I take it thee doesn’t know that Friend Silvia’s husband is here?”

Ian blinked.

“What—the man that’s supposed to be dead?”

“Unfortunately, he isn’t. But he is here. They met, just now, outside the necessary.”

“Unfortunately,” he repeated slowly, and raised one eyebrow. “Why would it be better for him to be dead?”

Rachel heaved a sigh that made Oggy grunt and latch on more ferociously.

“Ouch! I have no objection to the poor man going on living, it’s the ‘here’ that’s the problem.” She told him briefly what had happened.

“And what about Patience and Prudence?” she demanded, re-settling Oggy on her lap. “From what you told me of thy first meeting with them, they’re well aware of the straits in which their mother found herself and how she dealt with their circumstances. They clearly love her and are loyal to her, regardless. But now their father has come back, and they love him, too!”

“But they dinna ken yet—that he’s not dead and he is here?”

“They don’t.” Rachel closed her eyes and kissed Oggy’s small round head, soft with its scurf of silky dark hair. “I have been thinking how we might assist them and Friend Silvia, but I see no good way forward. Does thee have any notions?”

“I don’t,” he said. He went and looked out of the window. “I dinna see either of them. Not that I ken what the man looks like, but—”

“He limps badly and walks with crutches. The Shawnee who captured him cut half his foot off with an ax.”

“Jesus. No wonder he didna go home, then.”

“Silvia said she would speak with his—her husband’s master—I suppose she meant Joseph Brant. Perhaps they’re with him?”

Ian shook his head.

“Nay, they’re not. That’s what I came out to tell ye—Thayendanegea’s gone. I’d told him right off why I’d come, and when we’d finished wi’ eating, he said he’d go himself to Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa and arrange for me to see her.” He lifted his chin toward the window, where the pale afternoon light was coming in. “It’s eight miles, he said, but he’d be back for supper, if he left straightaway.”