“I don’t hate Ian Murray,” William said, with some coldness. “I owe him my life, after all.”

“Which is why you hate him,” Cinnamon said, matter-of-factly, and handed William his own best knife, with the beaded sheath. “That, and you want his wife. Don’t tell me it will be all right. I’ve seen what kind of trouble you get into when you are with me. I’ll light a candle to the Blessed Virgin every day until you come back with your cousin.”

“Merci beaucoup,” William said, with elaborate sarcasm. “You don’t have that much money.” But he meant it, and Cinnamon grinned at him.

“Have you got a good thick cloak? And woolen drawers to keep your balls warm?”

“You look after your own balls,” William advised him, putting his foot in the stirrup. “Mind yourself, and do what my sister tells you.”

Cinnamon widened his eyes and crossed himself.

“You think I would dare to do otherwise?” he said. “That is a fearsome woman. Beautiful,” he added thoughtfully, “but large and dangerous. And besides, I want my portrait to look like me. If I made her angry …” He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.

William laughed, and tucking the knife into his belt, patted it and took up the reins.

“Serve you right, gonze. Adieu!”

Cinnamon shook his head.

“Au revoir,” he corrected soberly. “Et bon voyage!”

102

The Winds of Winter

BAR A FEW SHOWERS and one day of solid rain, the weather held and the roads were not bad. As for armies, though …

His job was to retrieve Dottie and bring her home. No one had mentioned her husband, who was presumably still an escaped prisoner of war. Granted, Denzell Hunter might be with Dottie in Virginia, but if he weren’t … He knew his cousin well; he knew Denzell Hunter well, too, and thought that once Dottie was safe, Hunter would likely have returned to the Continental army, as a matter of personal belief as well as military duty. Uncle Hal had shown him the official dispatches and told him what General Prévost supposed to be true, regarding both British and American troop dispositions. Winter was coming, and all hostilities had essentially ceased up north. Sir Henry Clinton had been lurking in New York since Monmouth, and George Washington—according to Hal’s dispatches, which his uncle had thought likely accurate—was still keeping the main body of his men in winter quarters in New Jersey.

One of Washington’s generals, though—Lincoln, the man who’d mounted the unsuccessful siege of Savannah—had gone north with his troops and was presently holding the city of Charles Town, and Clinton wanted it.

“So according to the latest, Sir Henry was intending to send some fourteen thousand troops down the coast to take the place, once D’Estaing’s frogs quit New York, but he was delayed by needing to go and protect Newport, which is where the frogs went next.” Uncle Hal had riffled through the small stack of dispatches, peering through his half spectacles. “And then the frogs bloody turn up here! You did say you thought you’d seen D’Estaing himself?”