Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [456]
Roger had dozed off, one of the deerskins pulled over him, when there was a sudden noise at the door. He sat up, blinking, to a blaze of fire.
There were four Mohawk warriors in the hut; one dumped a load of wood into the firepit and thrust the brand he held into the pile. Ignoring Roger, the others pulled Père Ferigault to his feet and roughly stripped him of his clothes.
Roger moved instinctively, half rising, and was knocked flat. The priest gave him a quick, open-eyed look that begged him not to interfere.
One of the warriors held his own brand close to Père Ferigault’s face. He said something that sounded like a question, then, receiving no answer, passed his brand downward, so close to the priest’s body that the white skin glowed red.
Sweat stood out on Alexandre’s face as the fire hovered near his genitals, but his face remained carefully blank. The warrior with the brand poked it suddenly at the priest, who could not keep from flinching. The Indians laughed, and did it again. This time he was prepared; Roger smelled singed hair, but the priest didn’t move.
Tiring of this sport, two of the warriors seized the priest by the arms, and dragged him out of the hut.
If they take me away—pray for me. Roger sat up slowly, the hairs on his body prickling with dread. He could hear the voices of the Indians, talking among themselves, receding in the distance; no sound from the priest.
Alexandre’s discarded clothes were flung around the hut; Roger picked them up, carefully beating the dust from them and folding them. His hands were shaking.
He tried to pray, but found it hard to focus his mind upon devotion. Over and around the words of his prayer, he could hear a small, cold voice, saying, And when they come to take me away—who will pray for me?
They had left him a fire; he tried to believe that meant that they did not mean to kill him right away. The granting of comforts to a condemned prisoner was not the Mohawk way, either. After a time he lay down under the deerskins, curled on his side, and watched the flames until he fell asleep, worn out by terror.
He was roused from uneasy sleep by the shuffle of feet and many voices. He sprang awake, rolled away from the fire and crouched, looking frantically for some means of defense.
The door flap lifted, and the naked body of the priest fell into the hut. The noises outside moved away.
Alexandre stirred and moaned. Roger came quickly and knelt by him. He could smell fresh blood, a hot-copper smell he recognized from the slaughtering of the moose.
“Are you hurt? What have they done?”
The answer to that was quick in coming. He turned the half-conscious priest over, to see blood streaming over face and neck in a shiny red glaze. He snatched the priest’s discarded robe to stanch the wound, pushed back the matted blond hair, and found that the priest’s right ear was missing. Something sharp had taken a patch of skin some three inches square from just behind the jaw, removing both ear and a section of scalp.
Roger clenched his stomach muscles and pressed the cloth tight against the raw wound. Holding it in place, he dragged the limp body to the fire, and piled the remnants of clothes and both deerskins on top of Père Ferigault.
The man was moaning now. Roger washed his face, made him drink a little water.
“It’s all right,” he muttered, over and over, though he was uncertain whether the other could hear him. “It’s all right, they didn’t kill you.” He couldn’t help wondering whether it might have been better if they had; did they mean this only as a warning to the priest, or was it only the preliminary to greater tortures?
The fire had burned itself to coals; in the reddish light, the seeping blood was black.
Father Alexandre moved constantly in small jerks, the restlessness of his body at once caused