“Where are they?”
“In the forest. Watching. They won’t come in range of the cannon or long rifles.”
“Will they attack?”
“I don’t know.” Nicholas turned her, pointed to the tip of land that jutted out into the union of the three rivers. “There are the remains of the old French fort, Fort Duquesne.”
“What are they doin’?” She pointed to a group of five soldiers who seemed to be wrestling with a cannon. From the looks they shot her way, she knew they weren’t used to seeing a woman on the walls.
“They’re adjusting the artillery to make certain they’ve got the curtain walls covered.”
“Curtain walls?”
He smiled. “You’re standing on the flag bastion. The walls that stretch between bastions are called curtains or scarps—the main walls of the fort. The bastions make it possible for soldiers to fire on anyone attacking the walls or other bastions. There are no blind spots, no place for an enemy to take cover.”
“So that’s why the fort is shaped like a star.”
“Aye.” He smiled, nodded, then pointed. “The defensive wall over there is the glacis. It gives retreating soldiers some measure of cover. The arrow-shaped walls just inside it are called ravelins. They offer additional cover. Whoever designed it was thinking of an organized attack by the French. That’s why most of the defensive works are to the east.”
Below in the parade grounds, people busied themselves with their morning chores. Mothers and fathers chased their children, cooked over open fires, hung laundry in the wind to dry. Soldiers marched in formation, worked to repair the flood damage, did their best to chase chickens off the ramparts. One rooster perched haughtily on the back of a grazing goat, keeping a careful watch on his hens.
Suddenly the fort seemed terribly exposed, a fragile haven upon which all this life depended. “’Tis its own world, a little island surrounded by peril.”
“Aye. You asked me earlier if the Delaware would attack. Bethie, they don’t have to.”
Immediately she understood. Inside they fort, the settlers and soldiers were isolated, cut off from their fields, with no way to hunt game. Time was on the side of the Indians. When the food ran out... “You think they’ll put us under siege.”
“Aye.” He pulled her closer. “But perhaps reinforcements are already on their way. Would you like to visit the trading post?”
She brushed aside the sense of foreboding that had overtaken her. “Aye.”
They had just reached the bottom of the stairs when the lieutenant who had summoned Nicholas the day before appeared and asked to have a word with him.
“Stay right here.” Nicholas released her and joined the lieutenant a few feet away.
A ball made of an animal bladder rolled to a stop at Bethie’s feet, followed closely by a very muddy boy of three or four. She smiled, bent down, picked up the ball, threw it gently to him.
The little boy caught it, smiled, rolled it back.
She bent down again, felt a man’s hand close intimately over her bottom.
She gasped, lurched upright, spun about, a flush of fear and anger hot on her face.
But Nicholas already had the man by his uniform jacket. In one motion, he slammed the young soldier up against the curtain wall, pressed the blade of his hunting knife against the soldier’s throat.
A hushed silence fell around them.
“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t geld you here and now!” Nicholas’s voice was a rough growl, the look on his face one of primal male rage.
The man, a barmy-faced lad not much older than she, trembled, his eyes wide with terror. “I—I—I’m sorry. I—”
“Sorry is just the beginning!”
The lieutenant stepped forward. “I’m afraid Lieutenant Kenleigh is right, Private Huntley. Corporal, put this man in irons. Take him to the guardhouse to await a court-martial.”
“Aye, sir!”
But Nicholas wasn’t finished. “Do you know what the Cherokee do to a man who violates women? No? Touch her or any other woman again, and you’ll find out!” Then Nicholas released the soldier, sheathed his knife.
