Dark Tides Page 15

  “You’d trust him?”

  “He’s a Christian and understands us. He’s a Pokanoket and understands them. I’ll tell him to guide you safely and bring you back at the end of summer and I know you’ll be safe.”

  Ned turned to Wussausmon, and spoke quietly. “They can’t go too fast,” he said.

  “They were soldiers, and yet so slow?” the man asked incredulously.

  “Not like your braves,” Ned shook his head. “They were great men in the English army against the English king. They rode horses into battle. They didn’t run on a warpath like you. And now they’re old. So take them slowly and bring them back to Hadley at the end of summer?”

  The man nodded in silence.

  “Did Quiet Squirrel send you to follow us from Hadley?” Ned asked curiously. “Did you come behind us all the way?”

  Wussausmon grinned. “It wasn’t hard. You went through the trees as quietly as a team of oxen plowing a field.”

  “Quiet Squirrel says it’s my shoes,” Ned admitted.

  “She told me it was the stupid hat.”

  Ned laughed out loud. “She has no respect for me,” he said.

  Wussausmon laughed too. “We’re just men. She has no high regard for any of us.”

  “Did she tell you that Hadley is mustering?”

  “We knew that already.”

  “Have you told Po Metacom?”

  Wussausmon bowed his head and said nothing. Ned felt reproved for rudeness.

  “It’s just that the Coatmen are anxious,” Ned explained. “We know that your king is sending out messages. We hear he’s even talking to the French, as far north as Canada—and they’re our sworn enemies. It would be as if we talked to your enemies—the Mohawks. You’d feel betrayed.”

  “But you do talk to the Mohawks,” Wussausmon pointed out.

  Ned ignored the truth. “It makes the English anxious.”

  “You should be anxious, if you make laws, put them on us, and then break them,” Wussausmon said.

  Ned sighed and gave up on the interrogation. “I’ll tell Minister Russell that you’ve been a good friend to us today. Are you coming back to Hadley this season?”

  “I am going upriver.”

  There were no English settlements north of Hadley; if Wussausmon was going further north it could only be to meet with other tribes, and to invite them to join in a land freeze against the settlers—or worse.

  Ned could not hide his unease. “If the Massasoit is unhappy with the governor and the Council at Plymouth, or the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Council at Boston, he should speak to them. Better to deal with them direct. We don’t like to see you talking among yourselves—joining together.”

  “For sure you don’t!” Wussausmon smiled. “And I often speak with the English governors. The Massasoit is trying to get everyone to agree to stop selling land. He wants us to work as one power. Like you do.”

  “But he can’t order them?”

  “No,” Wussausmon said. “He can’t. He would not. That is why I go north and west for him, to get agreement with the tribes on your borders. Our leaders have to agree with their people, they are not tyrants like your king.”

  “Well, I’d say he’s a better man for that.” Ned was conscious of his divided loyalties. “But you don’t ever want to quarrel with us.”

  “I have no quarrel with anyone,” Wussausmon said quietly. “I live under your laws in your town; but when I am in the forest I live under our laws. I have to serve Po Metacom as he asks, I am his man.”

  “But converted,” Ned suggested. “You are sworn to God. You’re attending him at our request: as his tutor, as our ambassador. You were raised in an English home. You’re our man too.”

  He nodded. “I am of two worlds,” he said.

  “That’s can’t be easy,” Ned said, thinking of the divided loyalties of his home, of his sense of not belonging here, in the world that he thought would be his own.

  “It is not.”

  JUNE 1670, LONDON

  Alinor was well enough to dine with Alys and Livia in the parlor and was curious where Livia had been all day.

  “I am making progress,” Livia said happily. “I have seen the gallery and his garden where we can show the antiquities. They are suitable. So, you can send a ship for my things from Venice.”

  “But who will load them?” Alinor asked.

  Livia spoke to Alys. “My first husband’s steward still runs his workshop in Venice, as he did when my husband was alive. He still stores our goods, for loyalty. I have no money to pay him since my dear Roberto died. But he will do whatever I ask. I will write to him and tell him to pack the pieces that are stored.”

  “You must trust him,” Alinor remarked.

  “Oh yes! He was very good to me when my husband died and the family tried to take everything.”

  “He helped you to hide the treasures?” Alinor suggested.

  “He knew they were mine. It was his workshop where they cleaned and repaired the treasures. He knows I will repay him, when the pieces are sold.”

  “He was your husband’s steward; but he served you?” Alinor inquired. “And took your side against his master’s family?”

  Livia showed a tremulous smile. “I think he was sorry for me when they tried to steal from me.”

  “And Rob did not object to this partnership? This trusting partnership?”

  Livia turned a laughing glance at her mother-in-law. “Ah! I see what you are saying. I must tell you that Maestro Russo is an old man, with a granddaughter of my age, and a wife who is a little old lady. His hair is white, he is stooped over a stick. He has been father and grandfather to me. He loved Roberto and thought of him as a grandson. And Roberto knew that he would do anything for us.”

  “You’re very blessed in your friends,” was all Alinor replied.

  “How long will he need to pack and load?” Alys asked. “We could find a ship sailing for Venice and write to him. But then how long will he need to get the pieces ready?”

  “He knows that I came here to sell my goods, he knows that I have no money until I sell my treasures,” Livia replied. “It will take him no more than a few days to pack and get the permissions for them to leave the country.”

  “If he can pack them so quickly, I can commission a captain here to take your instructions and bring back goods.”

  Livia clapped her hands. “How clever you are! This is what it is to be a woman of business.”

  Alinor smiled and looked from one young woman to the other. “You can find the money?” she asked Alys.

  Alys nodded. “How much space will they take in our store?” she asked.

  “They’ll be padded and crated, I should think they’ll take the whole of the ground floor. But they won’t be there for long, if you will send them on your wagon to Sir James’s house.”

  Alys gave one of her rare smiles. “You’re excited.”

  “This is going to make our fortune!” Livia exclaimed. “And your wharf will become known as a place to ship beautiful works of art and luxuries. You won’t be heaving coal anymore.” She caught Alys’s hands and did a little dance on the spot; her joy was infectious.

  “We’ve never heaved coal,” Alinor said.

  * * *

  That night the two young women talked as they undressed, and brushed each other’s hair.

  “Thank you for looking after my darling Matteo today,” Livia said. “Was he really very good for you?”

  “I’d forgotten what it was like to spend time with a baby so young,” Alys said. “He was perfect. He had the milk that Carlotta left for him and he slept for most of the time. I worked in the counting house, with him in the cradle at my side, and he and I sat with Ma for most of the afternoon. When he woke and cried, I walked him on the wharf and he watched the boats and the seagulls, I’m sure he was taking notice. He smiled and waved his little hands as if he was excited, and when he saw—”

  “Yes, he is very clever,” Livia sa
id absentmindedly.

  “And you? You are happy with the premises that you have found? His house is adequate?”

  Livia noted that Sir James’s name was apparently not to be mentioned. “Yes,” she replied. “There’s a big hall and an open gallery, and a garden. I can show about twenty pieces, I should think. I can use them as examples and take orders for more.”

  “You’ve got more than one load?”

  “It was my husband’s great passion,” Livia said. “I hoped to make a business from it, buying and shipping and selling.”

  “I am surprised there are so many objects, so many people buying them.”

  Livia smoothed her pillow and got into bed. “People were making them for hundreds of years,” she said. “So they are there, all round, if you know where to look, and you care to pick them up.”

  “You pick them up? For free?”

  “My first husband started his collection from his own land. His quarry had been worked for years, and some pieces were just lying around, and there was a ruin of a house nearby with some beautiful urns—vases. Then all the little farmers who had ancient villas on their land or temples buried in their fields learned that people will pay more for the pieces of stone than for the olive crops! So now they dig them up and sell them to collectors and agents for collectors. You can go into the market in Venice and buy pieces of marble or old jewels and gold rings on the same stalls where they sell oil.”

  “There must be treasures in England too then,” Alys remarked. “When my mother was a little girl she used to collect old coins—not gold or silver but the old clipped coins of base metal, just tokens.”

  “What would be the point of that?” Livia asked. “Nobody is going to buy chips of copper. It’s not like gold. There’s no profit.”

  Alys gave a superstitious shudder. “No, there was no real point,” she agreed, getting into bed beside Livia. “She just liked them. She had a purse of them. It was…”

  “What?”

  “Just a purse, of dross.”

  “No point at all,” the young woman said flatly, and leaned over and blew out the candle so the room was plunged into darkness.

  JULY 1670, LONDON

  Alys walked west along the quay to the merchants’ coffeehouse where she did her morning business. As a woman wharfinger she was a rarity in the crowded meetinghouse. Most of the other women merchants, shipowners, ship wives, and carter widows sent an apprentice or a son into the coffeehouses to meet with customers and clients. But Alys had been a regular in two or three coffee shops for years and knew that Paton’s in Harp Lane was the best place to meet shipowners for the Mediterranean and Adriatic trade.

  She looked for Captain Shore, master of the Sweet Hope, who had taken Rob to Italy when he first went to study at Padua. The Captain usually met his customers at a table in a room at the rear of the warren of a building, and Alys glanced over the high-backed settles where a couple of captains were taking instructions and letters for their destinations. She approached a table where a broad man with thinning fair hair and a weather-beaten face was folding some papers into a wallet.

  “Captain Shore,” she said pleasantly.

  At once, he rose to his feet and offered his hand. “Good day to you, Mrs. Stoney. It’s good to see you.”

  Courteously, he waited for her to sit in the chair opposite him, before he dropped back down onto the settle. “I was sorry to hear of the loss of your brother,” he said bluntly. “A fine young man… I got to know him on the way to Venice—Lord! It must have been ten years ago. But I remember him.”

  “Thank you,” Alys said. “I need to send a letter of instruction to a storehouse in Venice about his goods. They belong to Rob’s widow, her personal furniture. There is a steward who will pack the things and supervise the loading on your ship. You’ll deliver to our wharf.”

  “Not going to the legal quay to pay the duty?” the Captain confirmed. “Direct to you, we don’t need to report?”

  “Yes, it’s her personal goods.”

  “I won’t be responsible for their condition,” he warned her. “Furniture: never travels well.”

  “Very well,” Alys agreed.

  “Nothing dangerous?” the Captain specified. “No poisons or guns or cannon or anything I don’t want on my ship. No wildlife,” he added. “Nothing that needs looking after. No pets. No slaves. No vegetables or plants. Just goods.”

  “It’s mostly stone,” Alys assured him. “Statues and the like.”

  “Heavy then,” he said pessimistically.

  “Will you do it?”

  “Aye.”

  “We’ll pay half now and half on receipt.”

  He thought for a moment. “Five pounds a ton,” he said. “D’you know the weight of her furniture?”

  Alys grimaced. “I don’t know for sure. But it can’t be more than six tons. I’ll pay you fifteen pounds now, and the rest, depending on weight, when you unload.”

  “Agreed.”

  “This is the storehouse.” Alys slid Livia’s letter of instruction to her steward across the table.

  “Russo!” the Captain exclaimed, looking at the address. “Oh, I know him. I’ve shipped goods for him before. More than once.” He shot her a look from under sandy eyebrows. “I never knew he was anyone’s steward. I thought it was all his own business—sharp business at that.”

  “My sister-in-law trusts him,” Alys replied. “He was her steward.”

  “If he suits her,” the Captain conceded. “If you’re sure, Mrs. Stoney? It’s not your usual trade and he’s not the sort of man you’d usually deal with?”

  “He is my sister-in-law’s steward,” Alys repeated. “He’s got her goods in his storehouse. She trusts him.”

  “As you wish,” he nodded. “But if it all miscarries in Venice and I have to leave empty-handed, I’ll come back to you for a guinea for my time.”

  “Agreed,” Alys said. “But I expect you to deliver the crates. There should be about twenty.”

  “I’ve got room,” he said. “I’m carrying coffee.”

  “How long?” Alys asked the question that every merchant always asked, knowing that they would never get an answer.

  “As long as it takes,” he said. “What are we now? July? I sail this week, get there early August, then load, then come back. I’ll stop at Lisbon going out and Cadiz coming back. I should be with you end of September.” He rapped the table with his knuckles for luck. “God willing.”

  Alys rose to her feet and spat into her hand and extended it, the Captain did the same. She felt without distaste the warm squish of saliva and his roughened cracked palm. “Godspeed,” she said.

  “Aye,” he said, taciturn, and tucked the order into his wallet and took a pull of small ale.

  AUGUST 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

  Mrs. Rose, the minister’s housekeeper, brought a letter for Ned out to the ferry-house as the burning sun cooled at the end of the day and there was finally some relief from the heat.

  “I thank you for your trouble,” Ned said, surprised to see her.

  “Mr. Russell was going to send one of the slaves, but I thought I’d take a walk,” she said, looking at the dog, and the garden, anywhere but Ned’s face. “Now that the sun’s going down and it’s a little cooler. Is it from your sister?”

  “Yes,” he said, glancing at the handwriting. “Out of season. Usually she replies to my letter spring and autumn.”

  “You write by the tides?” she asked. “Though you’re so far inland now?”

  “The big moons,” he said. “I see them, and they remind me to write.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to read it,” she said, turning back towards town.

  “No! Don’t go at once,” he invited her. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “Well, I thought I would,” she said.

  “Would you like a drink?” Ned indicated the path through the garden towards the river. “You could sit and take a drink? Sumach? Or milk? I’ve got milk?”


  She hesitated, as if she would like to stay.

  “Please,” Ned said. “Take a seat, watch the river, you don’t have to walk back straightaway, do you?”

  “I can stay for a while,” she said cautiously, and took a seat.

  Ned went inside and reappeared with two wooden beakers, beautifully carved, and a jug of sumach berry water. “Here,” he said, and poured her a cup.

  She sipped. “Very good,” she said. “How long do you leave the berries to steep?”

  “Overnight,” Ned replied.

  “Are you not lonely out here?” she asked, watching the sudden turquoise flash of a kingfisher, low over the water, bright as a dragonfly.

  “There’s always someone wanting the ferry,” he said. “Or with something to trade. And the dugouts pass by, quite often they stop to talk, or they have something to show me, or to sell, or a message they want me to tell someone coming after.”

  She gave an exaggerated shudder. “You mean natives? I don’t know how you dare talk to them,” she said. “What messages can you carry for them? I’d be afraid.”

  Ned found himself puffing up a little at her admiration. He checked himself. “We’re neighbors,” he said. “It’s right to be neighborly.”

  “Not with them,” she contradicted him. “I came here to make a new England; not live like a savage.”

  “I hoped for a new England too,” he said. He found himself looking for a common ground with this woman who held such strong opinions; but had never expressed them to him before. “One without masters or lords or even a king.”

  Now she looked up at him with a smile. “You and me both know that you can get rid of a king, but there are always masters, and servants,” she said. “And even though we were well rid of one king, his son came back.”

  “Pray he doesn’t come over here,” Ned said, hoping for a smile.

  “We can trust the governor to keep us free of him, and his heresies. God’s law is greater than man’s—even a king’s—and we have our charter.”