Free Shadowbrook by Beverly Swerling Page A

take a decision.”
    Bastard. He could o’ held the poxed boat closer in and kept her steady. Never mind. He was aboard now.
    Dandon took a lantern from between his legs and held it over the side, passing his hand over the opening in a series of signals to the sloop waiting some half a league away. A light flashed quickly in response. “Alors, they are ready for us. Take up an oar,
mon ami.
You will work off some of the fine supper the priest fed you.”
    “Aye, and what supper might that be? Prayers a plenty, but na a crumb to eat.”
    “
Eh bien,
that is what you get for treating with the brown friars,
mon ami.
They are committed to what they call Sister Poverty. At the black gowns you get the finest wine in New France, and the best food.”
    Stewart pulled on his oar, matching the other man’s strokes and settling into a steady rhythm. “And what would the likes o’ you ken o’ supping with the high-and-mighty black gowns?”
    Dandon shrugged. “I have ears, no? Many things I hear.”
    Probably true. Why would he na hear everything that mattered, considering that he worked for the almighty Bigot. God’s truth, there was na a job in the whole o’ America better than Bigot’s. The intendant o’ Canada, the civil administratoro’ New France. Every farthing taken in trade went through his hands, and three out o’ five stuck to his fingers. But the thing about Bigot that made him different, and more successful than most villains, was that he was smart enough to share his profits wi’ his friends.
La grande société,
they called themselves, and high and low belonged. Even Dandon, menial though he be, got his wee bit. That way there was none as could turn on Bigot wi’out implicating himself. A fine plan, simple but effective.
    And one of Bigot’s schemes was heaven-sent for the enrichment of Hamish Stewart, if he could get Shadowbrook. Bigot bought Canadian grain at prices fixed by law, five to seven livres per
minot,
milled it at government expense, and sold the flour to the Crown—that is, to himself—at the market rate of twenty or more livres per
minot.
But the way things were in Canada—inflation fueled by paper money, and the farmers hiding their grain from the representatives of the intendant so they could sell it on the black market—it was possible to do some Scots business with French Bigot. Specially for someone wi’out scruples as how he owed some kind o’ loyalty to the heretic British crown. Just you be smart enough to ken the way his mind works, Hamish laddie, and the mind o’ the mad priest as well, and your fortune’s made.
    The sloop came into view just ahead of them, her single mast and her rapierlike bowsprit showing a parade of white canvas gleaming in the moonlight. Her sails were luffing now, spilling the freshening wind of the approaching dawn, waiting for the command that would send a dozen men into the rigging to set close haul and send her speeding south.
    “Ahoy!” The call was more a whisper than a shout. All seamen knew that voices carried on the water. “Who goes?”
    “I’m not goin’, lad. I’m comin’. And you can save your tar talk for them as is impressed wi’ it. I paid for this passage. I dinna have to talk your talk as well.”
    The seaman let down the rope ladder. “Come aboard, Mr. Stewart. Tide’s turning. Pilot said we’d sail soon as you were back.”
    Until they were through the shoals and reefs of La Traverse, the devilish stretch where the St. Lawrence divided between the southern tip of the long island known as the Ile d’Orléans and the mainland of Québec itself, the grizzled Canadian pilot would be God Almighty, and his words, the Eleventh Commandment. “Canna be soon enough for me, laddie.” Stewart grabbed hold of the ladder and heaved himself out of the dory. “I’ll be happy to see the back o’ this place.”
    “Un moment s’il vous plaît, mon ami,”
Dandon whispered anxiously. “My report, what is it to be?”
    “Aye,