Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [467]
“My grandmother asks if you will come to her.” The young woman squatted beside me, speaking quietly in English. I was surprised, though not astonished, to hear it. Onakara had been right, some of the Mohawk had some English. They would not use it, though, except from necessity, preferring their own language.
I rose and accompanied her to Tewaktenyonh’s hearth, wondering what necessity impelled the Pretty Woman. I had my own necessities; the thought of Roger, and of Brianna.
The old woman nodded to me, inviting me to sit down, and spoke to the girl, not taking her eyes off me.
“My grandmother asks if she may see your medicine.”
“Of course.” I could see the old lady’s eyes on my amulet, watching curiously as I took out the sapphire. I had added to Nayawenne’s woodpecker feather two of my own; a raven’s stiff black wing quills.
“You are the wife of Bear Killer?”
“Yes. The Tuscarora call me White Raven,” I said, and the girl jerked, startled. She translated quickly for her grandmother. The old lady’s eyes flew wide and she glanced at me in consternation. Evidently this was not the most auspicious name she’d ever heard. I smiled at her, keeping my mouth closed; the Indians usually bared their teeth only when laughing.
The old lady handed me back the stone, very gingerly. She studied me narrowly, then spoke to her granddaughter, not taking her eyes off me.
“My grandmother has heard that your man bears a bright stone also,” the girl said, interpreting. “She would hear more of this; what it is like, and how you came to have it.”
“She’s welcome to see it.” The girl’s eyes widened in surprise as I reached into the pouch at my waist and drew out the stone. I held out the opal to the old woman; she bent and peered closely at it, but made no move to take it from me.
Tewaktenyonh’s arms were brown and hairless, wrinkled and smooth as weathered satinwood to the eye. But as I watched I saw the prick of gooseflesh rising, raising vanished hairs in vain defense. She’s seen it, I thought. Or at least she knows what it is.
I didn’t need the interpreter’s words; her eyes met mine directly and I heard the question clearly, for all that the words were strange.
“How did this come to you?” she said, and the girl echoed it faithfully.
I let my hand lie open; the opal fit snugly in my palm, its weight belied by its colors, glimmering like a soap bubble in my hand.
“It came to me in a dream,” I said at last, not knowing how else to explain.
The old woman’s breath went out in a sigh. The fear didn’t quite leave her eyes, but was overlaid with something else—curiosity, perhaps? She said something, and one of the women at the hearth rose, digging in a basket under the bed frame at her back. She came back and bent by the old lady, handing her something.
The old lady began to sing, quietly, in a voice cracked with age, but still strong. She rubbed her hands together over the fire, and a shower of small brown particles rained down, only to rise up again at once as smoke, thick with the scent of tobacco.
It was a quiet night; I could hear the rise and fall of voices and loud laughter from the far hearth, where the men were drinking. I could pick out the odd word in Jamie’s voice—he was speaking French. Was Roger perhaps close enough to hear it too?
I took a deep breath. The smoke rose straight up from the fire in a thin white pillar, and the strong sweet scent of tobacco mingled with the smell of cold air, triggering incongruous memories of Brianna’s high school football games; cozy scents of wool blankets and thermoses of cocoa, wisps of cigarette smoke drifting from the crowd. Farther back were other, harsher memories, of young men in uniform, in the shattered light of airfields, crushing out glowing fag ends and running to their battles, leaving no more of themselves behind than the smell of smoke on winter air.
Tewaktenyonh spoke, her eyes