Dark Tides Page 31

  They had no need for a guard at the ferry in this weather. No Englishman would brave the woods in winter, no Englishman would dare put a boat on the river in this weather. The settlers were uncertain canoeists in the shallow rivers of summer, none of them would take to the icy water in winter floods when floes of ice came tumbling down on the deep waters and a fall into the river would mean almost certain death. In midwinter the rivers would freeze solid, the icy current moving darkly under a treacherous sheet of ice. Any accident in this weather, indoors or out, was sure to be fatal. Ned woke every morning with a sense of relief that his fire had kept in, that he had survived another night. He spent his days in wearying anxiety—fearing a fall as if he were an old man, fearing the cold as if he were a girl, fearing the dark and the howl of the wolves on the other side of the bank as if he were a superstitious townsman.

  One morning he was amazed to hear the clang of the iron on the bar beside the pier, as if someone wanted to summon him, a ferryman, to a frozen river. He had to put on his fur hat, his buckskin cape, his buckskin leggings, his thick mittens, his moccasins, and his oiled cape before he could open his door, kick aside the snowdrift, and step into his basketwork shoes onto the high bank of snow. He tramped around to the side of his house, thinking that he must have imagined the summons, but there, strolling towards him on the top of the bank, coming from the forest, light-footed as a winter hare on his snowshoes, was Wussausmon, dressed in native winter clothes. Ned peered from under the brim of his thick fur hat at his friend, who seemed half-naked. “Good God, man! Are you not freezing?”

  “I’m wrapped up warm enough,” Wussausmon said cheerfully. “You beware that someone doesn’t mistake you for a bear and shoot you. Where did you get that hat?”

  “Made it myself,” Ned said. It was a pair of cured rabbit skins, stitched clumsily together, covering his head and the back of his neck. He had a scarf sent by Alinor from London, knitted wool, wrapped around his mouth which was rapidly growing a beard of freezing ice from his breath.

  Wussausmon suppressed a laugh. “I’ve brought you some fresh meat,” he said. “I was hunting in the woods outside Norwottuck and Quiet Squirrel said you’d be glad of it.”

  “I am,” Ned said, the juices rushing into his mouth at the thought of it. “I haven’t shot a thing for weeks.”

  “They said you’d not been out for days.”

  Ned glanced away from Wussausmon’s bright gaze. “I don’t like to hunt alone,” Ned said shortly.

  “Why not?”

  Ned hesitated to explain his fear. “If the weather closed in…”

  Wussausmon was genuinely uncomprehending. “What?” he asked. “What would happen if the weather closed in?”

  Ned ducked his head, awkward in his shame, lowered his voice though there was no one around the two men but the bare black trees, their trunks striped with snow. “I wouldn’t be able to find my way home.”

  “Find your way home? In your own woods? To your own home? Why ever not?”

  Ned shook his head, feeling embarrassed. “I get snow blind,” he said. “I can’t tell which way I am facing. If it snows heavily—I’m lost.”

  “How can you not know where you are on your own land? It’s so strange.”

  Ned could not argue that it was strange not to know the way to your own door. He shrugged, embarrassed. “Aye; but I don’t.”

  “D’you want to come over to Norwottuck with me? We’re roasting venison.”

  Ned hesitated, longing for company, a warm fire, a good dinner, and the sound of other voices. But he looked at the gray skim of ice and the banked-up ice floes frozen in the river. “How would we get there?”

  “We’ll walk.”

  Ned tasted fear in his throat. “On the river? How d’you know it’s safe?”

  Wussausmon held out his hand. “I just do. Come on. I won’t drop you through it.”

  Ned gripped the outstretched hand. “You’d better not.” He tried to smile. “I’d sink like a stone in these coats.”

  Wussausmon led the way on the snow-topped pier, and then sat at the end, swung his legs round, and stepped down to the snowy river. He took half a dozen steps away into the middle of the river. “See?” he said to Ned. “It bears my weight. It will hold you.”

  Ned clenched his teeth on his fear and followed his friend, putting his feet exactly in Wussausmon’s tracks. There was a creak from the ice and he froze, imagining at once the long snaking crack and his plunge down into deadly black water.

  “It’s nothing,” Wussausmon assured him. “That’s nothing. That’s just it yielding to you. The warning noise is when it splinters, lots of little cracks at once.”

  Ned could not answer, he slid as gently as he could towards the other man. “Go on, go on,” he said. “I don’t want to come too close. I daren’t stand still.”

  Wussausmon turned and led the way, stepping over Ned’s ferry rope, frozen stiff with dripping icicles, passing the ferry’s snowcapped landing place, upstream, to where the white drifted snow of the bank met the white drifted snow on the river. There was no way of knowing when they were on the shore until Wussausmon beamed at Ned. “And here you are!” he exclaimed. “Dry land. We’re on the other side.”

  Ned grinned and gave a little chuckle at his own fear. “Thanks be to God! You’ll think me a coward.”

  “No,” Wussausmon said. “I don’t blame you for fearing it.” He led the way up the bank and away from the river, at a steady sliding pace, deeper into the woods, following a trail that was invisible to Ned, only stopping once, when they had to cross a strange rut, like a wagon wheel track, carved half a foot deep into the snow, curving through the forest from the south, running north towards the village. Beside it was a log tied to a rope and as they went past, Wussausmon picked up the rope, dropped the log into the rut, and towed it along, clearing it of drifted snow.

  “What’s this? This track?” Ned asked. “What is it?”

  Wussausmon glanced behind him, still towing the log, which slid easily on the bed of packed snow. “It’s for a snowsnake,” he said.

  Ned recoiled. “A snowsnake?” he repeated. “You have snakes here? In the snow?”

  Wussausmon laughed. “No. No, Coatman! Coatman! Are you mad? All the real snakes are sleeping; they would die of the cold. This is our track, we make it as the snow starts to fall. It’s how we send messages in winter. We make a deep icy narrow track from one village to another, like this—this is one. And then if we have a message which is urgent, we throw a spear with the message into the entrance of the track. It goes fast, sliding along, and someone picks it up and throws it onward. Like your letters that you send to one another.”

  He saw Ned’s amazed expression. “Only our messages can go through snowy woods and yours cannot.”

  Ned peered at the narrow rut, icy at the bottom, and imagined a spear whistling along it. “It goes fast?”

  “As fast as a man can throw at the beginning—killing speed—and it rattles along, writhing like a snake as it slows down. Then when anyone sees it, they pick it up, read the message, and throw it again. Village to village.” Wussausmon laughed at Ned’s astonished face. “We’re not as savage as you think.”

  “So even in winter, when us settlers are snowed in, you can send messages one to another, all around the country,” Ned said slowly.

  Wussausmon nodded. “And smoke signals,” he pointed out. “We can send messages with smoke. On a calm day you can make a fire on Montaup and the signal will be seen at Accomack.”

  “Montaup? Accomack?”

  “You call it Mount Hope. Accomack you call Plymouth.”

  “And you can travel in winter too,” Ned went on. “When we can’t go on the river or into the forests.”

  “It’s not your home in winter, is it?” Wussausmon pointed out. “In winter it’s ours again, as if the land and the people had never been parted, as if you had never come.”

  Wussausmon turned and went on and Ned labored to keep up wi
th the steady shush-shush of his pace. The village came into sight ahead of them, a cluster of long low huts, walled with reed mats, roofed with thicker mats, the snow cleared all around them, a central fireplace with a huge fire and a whole deer roasting on a spit, a frame to the side where the hide was being cleaned, a big bowl of seething succotash in the embers. Fighting men were sorting spears and weapons in a corner of the village, a man, stripped to the waist because of the heat of the fire, was putting small metal bolts into the heart of red hot embers, drawing them out and hammering. Ned saw, with a pang of dread, that he was making pieces for a musket.

  “See that?” Wussausmon indicated the half-built rearing wooden wall of a huge palisade.

  “You’re walling the village, you’re building a fort here,” Ned accused him.

  “Yes,” Wussausmon said. “So that no one can take this village and burn us out.”

  “You mean like the English did at Mystic Fort? But that was years ago. Nobody would burn you out of here.”

  “Then what is the Hadley militia drilling for?”

  “They’re not drilling now,” Ned said.

  “Just because you can do nothing in winter does not mean that our lives have to stop too.”

  “So this winter, while we hibernate like bears, you’re preparing for war,” Ned accused him. “You send messages in ways that we can’t understand, we don’t even know! You’re bringing the tribes together: against us. You’re walling the village, you’re collecting weapons—I saw what he was making! You’re getting ready for a war.”

  “Yes,” Wussausmon confirmed. “That’s why I brought you here—so you should see for yourself. We’re getting ready—here, and at Montaup, all round the country, all the other tribes are getting ready too. I’ve warned the governor over and over again but he won’t make a new peace treaty with the Pokanoket, he won’t listen to our complaints. But if you, a settler, a soldier, tell him you have seen this, you have seen us armed and ready, he will believe you. I can’t make him listen to me.”

  Quiet Squirrel came out of one of the houses and stood beside Wussausmon, her dark eyes on Ned.

  “Come for dinner with us, take home gifts, you are welcome,” Wussausmon said. “And tell them at Plymouth and Boston that they cannot go on like this. They have to stop at our boundaries, they have to respect our limits. I am showing you this so you can tell them, Ned.”

  “Tell them, Coatman,” Quiet Squirrel said to him. “Be a peace bringer. Make them understand.”

  DECEMBER 1670, LONDON

  Sir James was leaving for Northallerton, anxious to get to his home before the winter weather grew any worse. Avery House was to be shut up for the season. Livia shouldered Glib out of the way as he opened the front door and marched into the hall, hoping to persuade James to postpone the journey.

  “I am sorry, everything is wrapped up here,” James said to her. “I did not expect you today.” He met her in the black-and-white checkered hall, as Glib labored up the stairs and slowly carried boxes down and out of the front door to strap them on the back of the hired carriage. The last of the statues were labeled and ready for collection in the hall beside them. Livia could see through the open door to the parlor that the furniture was draped with holland wraps.

  “But I have a new consignment of antiquities coming,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “How am I to show them?”

  “My dear!” He looked genuinely perturbed. “Why are they sending more? You know I cannot show them again. That was a first and last experience!” He tried to smile, but her grip on his arm tightened.

  “They are my dower, the very last few things!” she said. “I thought you would allow me. In this house, which is to be my home?”

  “I can’t sell another collection,” he said firmly. “One was bad enough. The people who came, Livia, and their belief that they could come time and again until they had decided, the way you had to barter and haggle with them! It was intolerable to me—to you too, I would have thought? The future Lady Avery will not hawk goods like a pedlar.”

  “It is my dower!” she whispered stubbornly, her lower lip trembling. “It is all I have in the world.”

  He hesitated and then found a solution. “I know! What is left of your dower shall come with you. You can put the pieces in the house and in the garden, here and at Northallerton. It can be the fortune that you bring me, my dearest. Not your widow’s dower but your bridal dowry! How would that be? You shall make me into a collector, like your first husband! How is that?”

  “Generous!” she said, trying to smile. “And so like you! Thank you, my darling. So will you give me the keys to the house so I can bring in my little things and make it ready for your return?”

  James shook his head, his mind already on his journey. “Store them at the warehouse,” he advised. “You don’t want the worry of them here.”

  She tried to laugh. “I don’t mind!”

  “No,” he said. “Avery House is being closed up. Let me leave you safely with the ladies at the warehouse, moving them to a new home with the money you have so cleverly earned for them, with your little treasures stored safe. I will go north and make everything ready for you there.”

  “I don’t like you to go so far away!”

  “I shall be back as soon as I can.”

  “We should announce our engagement now,” she pressed him. “Before you go.” She had a superstitious fear that if he left London without her, he would never return.

  “When I come back,” he promised. “But I have to see my aunt at Northside Manor and tell her that my circumstances have changed. I have to tell the minister I want the banns called, and then we can announce our betrothal and I will send for you.”

  “But this will all take so long!”

  “There’s so much to do.”

  “I shall miss you so!” She tried to press herself against him, to remind him of desire, but the front door stood open and Glib was coming and going and James did not dream of embracing her in public. “Oh, James, don’t go! Write and tell them to do everything! Surely you can just write?”

  “My love, I would if I could; but I must—I really must—tell my aunt of our betrothal. I cannot write such news to her, it would distress her. I must tell her in person, I have to see her and explain. She would never forgive me if I thrust you on her without giving her time to prepare. She will want to order new curtains, and new carpets, for Lady Avery’s parlor, and new sheets for the bed. Give us time to get your new home ready for you.”

  “But I want to choose my own things!”

  He smiled. “You shall make it over if there is anything you don’t like,” he promised. “Besides, you have Matteo to care for, and you have to go on with your instruction in the Church of England, and a new house to find for the ladies. You have too much to do already!”

  “I can’t get my money from the goldsmith’s without you,” she pointed out. “And I need money to put down on a new warehouse for them.” She put her hand on his sleeve. “I can’t do it without you,” she said softly.

  He hesitated, hearing the rumble of wheels on cobbles as the carriage came to the door.

  “At least stay another day and take me to the goldsmith’s,” she pressed him. “I have to have my money to pay for my shipping from Venice.”

  He threw a harassed glance towards the front door which stood open, the carriage outside. “How much do you need?”

  “Fifty pounds for the shipping,” she lied quickly, guessing that he would not know. “And a pound for Alys’s housekeeping.”

  Glib was carrying smaller boxes past them and James stopped him. “Put that one down.”

  Glib put the small chest down and stepped back. “You can load the others,” James said to him, and when the footman turned away, he took a small key from his waistcoat pocket and opened the chest.

  Livia’s gaze raked the box which was filled with promissory notes and a few purses of coins. “Are you not afraid of thieves?” she asked.

 
; “I have to have coin in Yorkshire.” He lifted a small purse from the chest and counted out coins. “Fifty-one pounds,” he said. She watched him put the purse back in its place.

  “And you will send for me?”

  “I will,” he promised. “Of course.” He locked the chest and gestured to Glib that he should load it in the carriage. “I can’t keep the horses waiting,” he said.

  “James!” she whispered urgently.

  But he was blind and deaf to her, thinking of his long journey to his beloved home. “Glib will take you back to the warehouse,” he promised her.

  A swift kiss on her hand, not on her mouth, then he bowed to her and walked out of the hall, down the three shallow steps to the street, and got in the carriage. The door was closed on him, the horses strained against the harness and, in a moment, he was gone.

  * * *

  Glib escorted Livia to the water stairs, called a boat with a shrill whistle, and accompanied her as the boatman rowed them down the river to the wharf. The tide was ebbing, he held the boat steady at the foot of Horsleydown Stairs. She climbed the greasy steps, rising up from the stinking low-water level as if she were coming up from a dank hell, Glib following her. In front of the warehouse she turned to him. “Come for me the moment that your master tells the household that he is returning,” she said. A silver shilling went from her gloved hand to his.

  He took the coin, the first she had ever given him. “Won’t he send for you himself?” he asked.

  “I am ordering you to come and tell me before he arrives,” she repeated, her voice sharp. “Of course, he will send for me, but I want to be ready. I want to know the moment he plans to return to London. Do as you’re told, and I will pay you again.”