Pierre went to stand by Auguste, seated in a chair with Nicole wiping his slashed face.
Pierre said, "In the will I wrote years ago I named you as my heir. I never thought to change that will. Until today."
Raoul, still wiping his knife, snorted. "No court in Illinois would let a man disinherit a legitimate white brother in favor of a half-Indian bastard."
Pierre let his hand rest on Auguste's shoulder. The boy's eyes burned up at him. Pierre looked down at the blood-soaked napkin that Nicole pressed to Auguste's cheek.
Auguste, speaking in the Sauk tongue, broke the silence that had followed Raoul's words. "Even if he is your brother and my uncle, this man is our enemy, Father. I will stand side by side with you against him." Auguste put his hand over the hand that lay on his shoulder.
Raoul slammed his knife into its sheath. "You've driven me out of my home, Pierre. I'm not living under the same roof with an Indian. I won't be back till I can come back as master of this house."
He strode to the door and turned again. "And then I'll bring my own family with me."
"What do you mean—your own family?" Elysée called across the long hall.
"I'm marrying Eli Greenglove's daughter," Raoul said with a grin. "And that mongrel had better not try to touch my children's birth-right."
He was gone, leaving the door hanging open behind him, sunlight pouring in.