I dropped my hands from her and said, “Then everything’s all right. Can you stand it, like this, a while longer?”

She nodded again.

I untied my killikinnick pouch from my belt and dropped it in her lap. It was two feet long and a foot wide, beaded in blue, red and yellow. “Since they’re so careless about giving you decent clothes,” I said, “maybe you can make yourself a belt and headband out of this. Maybe moccasins, even. You’ll find a stone awl in it.”

She put the thing about her, smiled and said, “Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about me. Take care of yourself.”

I turned to my brother.

“Now, Nathaniel,” I said, but I looked beyond him at Marie de Sabrevois. “I want five minutes alone with you, just outside this tent.”

Marie said “No!” quickly, and Nathaniel seemed to waver. But I gave her a second glance; she thought of the letters that for all she knew might be, as I had told her, at Ticonderoga; and I had my way.

Nathaniel followed me outside; a few women looked at us curiously, but they were more interested in the recurrent sound of firing from the south, and Nathaniel and I spoke in lowered voices.

“You can’t get through to Ticonderoga,” he said earnestly. “You’re right in the middle of the British army. Don’t you know that?”

I looked at him. “Nathaniel, I said I wouldn’t ask any questions.”

“You can if you wish,” he said. “I haven’t joined the British.” He hesitated. “Thanks to that lady”—he glanced back at the tent—“thanks to that lady’s great kindness, neither am I prisoner on parole. Everybody’s been very kind to me, thanks to her. I’m—I’m treated as a non-combatant. Officially I’m a guest of General Burgoyne’s.”

“Good God!” I whispered. Then I laughed harshly. “A guest of General Burgoyne’s!”

“Wait,” Nathaniel said. “Don’t jump at conclusions. They’re the kindest people in the world, the British are. After the battle of Valcour, Carleton and Burgoyne treated all the prisoners like guests: gave ’em food and clothes and rum. Carleton talked to ’em like a father! When they were sent back to Ticonderoga, the Americans were afraid to let ’em land, for fear they’d convince the whole garrison that they should never have fought England. Gates sent ’em home, every last man of ’em.”

“Well, well!” I said.

“Of course,” he went on, “I wasn’t sent back with them, on account of being hurt. They gave me medical treatment—the best.”

“Where’d you spend the winter?”

“Quebec.”

“In the hospital?”