by Sara Donati
He raised a brow.
“What about the letter, and my father?”
His look of preoccupation cleared, completely and absolutely.
“I don’t know what it means,” he said. “But I’m guessing we’ll find out soon enough.”
XXV
She who had always been punctual to a fault, who had always saved her strongest censure for those who could not keep their appointments, she was late for her own wedding. It took longer than she would have thought for her color to settle, for the tremble to leave her hands, and then she put on Many-Doves’ wedding dress, looked in the mirror, and had to work hard not to start weeping.
Elizabeth recognized herself not at all. She did not understand how this could be her, Elizabeth Maria Genevieve Middleton once of Oakmere. She stared at her image for long minutes. Soon Mrs. Schuyler or Nathaniel would come to her door again, and what could she say? That she must have a wedding dress that was satin and lace, in which she would feel like who she was? That she could not attend her own wedding as an imposter, wearing clothes she had no right to? In the end, because she could not do otherwise, Elizabeth took off the dress and the leggings and put on her good gray dress with its neat, round lace color, the same dress she had worn in the night to go looking for Nathaniel. It was not fashionable, certainly. But it was her own. Now, in the mirror, she saw herself.
It took another few minutes to tame her loose hair into something that might not affront sensibilities. From the hem of her shift she pulled the satin ribbon and this she wrapped around her head to hold her hair away from her face, tying it to a bow under her ear. It was too girlish, but it was better. The curls drifted around her temples and she resisted the urge to comb them back, tuck them away. This much she could do for Nathaniel, if she couldn’t wear Many-Doves’ beautiful dress.
They were waiting for her; she felt the hush fall on the house when she stepped onto the stair. She had never been more frightened in her life, more acutely aware of herself and her shortcomings, more self-conscious. Poised there at the head of the stair with so many strangers watching and waiting, she sought out Nathaniel and found him, as she knew she would, smiling at her. And it was then that she discovered that it was possible to be terribly frightened and extraordinarily, inconceivably happy, all in the same breath.
Later she remembered very little about the ceremony. The Reverend Lyddeker had a distracted smile, a Dutch accent, and sprinkles of tobacco on his shirtfront; Mrs. Schuyler stood nearby with her daughters Cornelia and Catherine to either side of her, with the late afternoon sunshine setting on their blond heads like halos. The room smelled of fresh-washed curtains and pipe smoke and the grove of spruce that stood outside the open windows. And there was Nathaniel, smiling down at her. When he had her hand in his and felt her tremble, he leaned over and brushed her ear with his mouth.
“Come now, Boots,” he said softly while they waited for the witnesses to come to order. “If you can stand up to Moses Southern, you can stand up to this. It won’t be long.”
There were only two real surprises: her own calm, now that it had come this far, and the ring that Nathaniel put on her finger. She hadn’t thought about a ring, because she hadn’t expected one. It was a simple gold band; she had no idea where he had got it or how, but she was very glad of its cold and unfamiliar grip. It was something to concentrate on when the final words were spoken and she found herself no longer a spinster, but Nathaniel Bonner’s wife, and being soundly kissed by him in a room full of approving strangers.
The long board had been set with linen and china and crystal, dominated at its oval center by four silver waiters with brilliantly polished domes, slightly misty with heat, these surrounded by another ring of open dishes. There were pickled oysters, cold venison, brook trout stuffed with walnuts and cornmeal and fried in butter, a massive ham studded with peppercorns, puree of squash, snowy mounds of rice, stewed corn, green beans in a rich cream sauce. On the sideboard, jostling for room with a legion of ale and wine bottles there was a massive tipsy pudding, a bowl of fruit fool, plates of shortbread and of ginger cake. Around this feast the wedding party crowded, shoulder to shoulder, the room filled with ten different conversations in English and Dutch and Kahnyen’kehàka, the smells of roasted meat, pipe tobacco, fragrant beeswax candles, and the great bouquets of spring wildflowers which flanked the cold hearth. It had taken more than an hour of introductions and congratulations and toasts to the couple and their hosts to get settled here, and Elizabeth was pleased to finally sit quietly. It was a loud and familiar company, and a jovial one.
Under the table Nathaniel’s hand was lying pleasurably heavy and sedate on Elizabeth’s leg. She leaned against him comfortably, very aware of the right to do this now. She was not in the least hungry in spite of the wealth of delicacies that Mrs. Schuyler had seen piled on her plate. From her spot she could look out over the lawns toward the river and the wilderness beyond it, cast now in the early evening shadow. She might be out on the river right now, she knew, if it weren’t for the generosity and kindness of these people, their willingness to put down their work in order to make a wedding party for her. So deep was she in this daydream of what might have been that she started when a hand settled on her shoulder.
“You know what you got here, I hope,” said Sally Gerlach to Elizabeth as she filled her wineglass. From underneath an enormous mobcap the housekeeper’s owlish gray eyes blinked solemnly. “I don’t know as anybody here will tell you the truth about him, but I will. The truth is what a bride needs, you realize. She can do without lace on her drawers, but the truth—” She laughed, and with her the rest of the table laughed, too, the Schuylers and their children and grandchildren, Anton Meerschaum, the minister, other men whom Elizabeth had been introduced to but whose names she could not remember, and Runs-from-Bears, who sat to Elizabeth’s left and ate with great delicacy from surprisingly small servings of squash and venison.
“Now,” Sally said. “Who’ll tell this girlie about her man and young John Bradstreet.”
“It’s a tale that’s been told too many times already,” Nathaniel protested.
“What story is this?” Elizabeth asked.
“That’s a curious one you’ve got there,” said the Reverend Lyddeker with a very unclergylike wink. “She’ll keep you busy.”
“That she will, Dominie,” Nathaniel said, squeezing Elizabeth’s knee. She shifted a little. As if he had read her thoughts, he leaned over and spoke into her ear, his warm breath stirring her hair.
“I understand you’re unsettled,” he said softly. “But try not to wiggle too much, Boots. We’ve outraged these good people enough for one day.”
She pinched him then as hard as she could. Nathaniel hiccuped and caught her hand. He pressed it down against the hard plane of his thigh, laying his own hand flat over it with fingers intertwined.
“Now tell me the story,” she said.
“Aha, and demanding too,” noted the dominie, peering at her over his wineglass.
“John is the Schuylers’ oldest son,” Runs-from-Bears supplied kindly overhearing this last comment.
“And by God he would be under the ground these almost sixteen years if it weren’t for your Nathaniel,” piped up Anton Meerschaum. He thumped the table for emphasis so that the china clattered, and Mrs. Schuyler sent him a look that would have made him cower, if he hadn’t turned his whole attention to the oysters in front of him.
“That is the simplest version of the story,” agreed Mr. Schuyler. “But you should know, Elizabeth, that we are talking about the war. Perhaps that is a topic not welcome to you?”
“Because she’s English doesn’t mean she’s a Tory, Philip,” said Mrs. Schuyler in a slightly disapproving tone. “She may have no opinion on political matters at all.”
“Bone-in-Her-Back without an opinion is a strange idea,” Bears noted dryly, earning a laugh from Nathaniel and a sour look from the bride.
“Nathaniel wouldn’t marry a Tory,” interjected Cornelia with som
e force. She was eighteen, beautiful in a butter-and-cream kind of opulence that glowed, and when she looked at Nathaniel—Elizabeth had seen her looking quite often—there was a hesitancy and shyness that was not otherwise there. Elizabeth feared that the girl was opening herself to teasing of the worst kind, but Nathaniel stared down Cornelia’s grinning brothers and answered her directly.
“You’re right,” he said. “Unless it was a reformed one.” Under the table he found the soft web of flesh between Elizabeth’s thumb and first finger and began to massage it lightly.
“I’m not a Tory sympathizer,” Elizabeth confirmed, pulling her hand away. “And I would like to hear the story of Nathaniel at the Battle of Saratoga, if you’d like to tell me.”
“I don’t think you’ve got much choice,” Nathaniel noted.
“Well, then,” said Mr. Schuyler. “Catherine must start, as it begins with her, back in Albany.”
Mrs. Schuyler was ready to do her part. “Nathaniel was with Sky-Wound-Round’s warriors when they came to town to negotiate terms with Philip. And he brought me a letter from his mother.”
“But tell what he looked like!” called one of her grandsons.
“He looked like a healthy nineteen-year-old, the son of my dear friend Cora Bonner, on his way to war.”
“Oh, Ma,” drawled Rensselaer. “He looked like a Mohawk out for scalps.”
“In those days,” said Run-from-Bears easily, “he was Kahnyen’kehàka, and he took his share of scalps.”
There was a sudden silence. Elizabeth felt all the attention in the room focus on her; even Nathaniel’s thumb had stopped its slow and careful revolution on the palm of her hand.
“That sounds like a different story,” she said to Bears in what she hoped was a neutral tone. “I’m curious about this one right now.” And she leaned a little harder against Nathaniel while she threaded her fingers through his. But her mouth was suddenly very dry, and she picked up her glass.
Mrs. Schuyler was frowning at her son. “Rensselaer, you were four years old in September of ’77.”
“Nevertheless, I remember well enough,” he came back, more subdued now. “How could I forget a Mohawk showing up at the door with his head shaved for battle and you making him come in and have a bath. And he did it, too. I watched to see if that tattoo of his would wash away, but it didn’t.”
There was a welcome ripple of laughter in the room.
The younger Philip Schuyler, a shy twenty-year-old who had barely spoken a word thus far, and who couldn’t meet Elizabeth’s eye, now addressed Nathaniel.
“Do you remember how we watched over your weapons and your wampum for you?”
“Yes, I do,” Nathaniel said. “Don’t forget, it was my first time going to battle, and I was just a little younger than you are now. There ain’t much I don’t remember.”
“I think it was seeing that white men were going to fight with the Iroquois that put the idea in John Bradstreet’s head in the first place,” said Mrs. Schuyler thoughtfully. “About running off, I mean.”
Elizabeth glanced up at Nathaniel. “Men? Was your father with you?”
“No,” answered Mrs. Schuyler for Nathaniel. “Cora wouldn’t let Dan’l near a battlefield that fall, he was down with a recurring fever. She didn’t much care for Nathaniel going off, either, but he was—” She broke off then, and clearly didn’t know how to continue. Elizabeth had already figured out for herself that at the time all this had happened, Nathaniel must have been very recently married to Sarah and obliged to accompany her father into battle, but she didn’t know how to make Mrs. Schuyler aware of her knowledge.
“The other white man was a Scot,” said Nathaniel. “Married into the tribe, by the name Ian Murray.”
“Is that the one who took Works-with-Her-Hands as wife?” asked Runs-from-Bears, showing the first curiosity since the story had begun, and then looking thoughtful when Nathaniel nodded.
Mrs. Schuyler leaned toward Elizabeth. “So you see, the war party came in one hundred and fifty strong, with Nathaniel and this Ian Murray in it. And our John couldn’t stand being down in Albany when the war was taking place on the doorstep up here.”
“So John ran away from your home in Albany to follow Nathaniel and the Hode’noshaunee up to the battlefields,” Elizabeth summarized for herself.
“Indirectly, he did,” confirmed Mrs. Schuyler. “It was about a week after the battle at Freeman’s farm—” She paused as if to gather her thoughts, but there was a tic in her cheek that did not escape Elizabeth. At first she thought it was anger, but then she saw the set of Mrs. Schuyler’s mouth and realized that there was much more to it, fear still not resolved after sixteen years.
“When there was no more news of fighting, John thought he could come up here and rescue his pony,” she finally continued. “And to this day when I think of it, him taking off in the night with a sack of food and an old musket to travel some thirty miles through Burgoyne’s lines—he was twelve, you must remember—” She put her hands flat on the table and her mouth compressed into a tight line.
“He’d get his ears boxed all over again if he were here,” finished young Catherine with a wince. “Never mind he’s twenty-eight years old.”
“And rightly so,” said Anton with an upraised finger. “Just look what it did to his parents, the worry.”
“So how did he find you?” Elizabeth asked.
“He didn’t,” Nathaniel said. “And that’s where the story starts, I guess.”
He took his time to fill his glass and then, when the whole room had settled, he began.
“We missed the first battle by a day. At the time I was mad as hell about it—pardon me, Dominie—that’s how young I was. More than a thousand dead, you couldn’t walk ten paces without stepping in blood in some spots, and me disappointed to have missed it. We stuck around, though, because Gates pulled back before the Tories were down for good—”
Mr. Schuyler looked suddenly very put out. Elizabeth wondered what the story was behind this, but Nathaniel moved on with a nod to his host.
“And another battle was a sure thing. So they set us to work like the rest of the militia and the soldiers, building fortifications and the like. It was frustrating, let me tell you, being sent up to battle and to end up with a shovel in my hand. I was glad of it when they called me in to put me on scout duty.”
Nathaniel paused to drink, but the rest of the table was perfectly still. Even the teenagers, who had been rocking on their chairs and itching to be let free, were suddenly fixed and attentive.
“So I got familiar with the terrain on the other side of things—”
“Behind the British lines?” asked Elizabeth, puzzled.
There was a disapproving frown from Mrs. Schuyler and Elizabeth realized that this story was a precious one, with its own parameters that didn’t allow stray questions. But Nathaniel was patient, if his audience was not.
He raised a brow. “A passing familiarity with the enemy’s situation is generally what you need, Boots,” he said. “So I did some looking around. The Hode’noshaunee fighting for Burgoyne, well, they had already started heading out by that time, and they weren’t in a hurry to turn me in. Now, it must have been about ten days after we set up camp that Varick came to find me.”
“My aide,” clarified Mr. Schuyler.
“Just when I had come to the conclusion that we’d all die of boredom or blisters before another shot was fired. And here was this news that the boy had took off from home and they suspected he was on his way to Saratoga. So I come up here, and sure enough, the Tories had grabbed him when he showed up and stuck him cold and wet in a barn. He had the good sense at least not to tell them whose son he was. And that’s where I found him, coughing and fever-rid.”
He paused to smile at Mrs. Schuyler, as if to remind her that there was a happy ending coming to this story.
“Well, short of it is—” He held up a palm to stop protests from the younger Schuylers. “I got him back down t
o our camp near the lake, and we found him a doctor, a woman tending the wounded.”
“A doctor or a woman?”
“Both,” said Nathaniel.
“A woman surgeon?” asked Elizabeth, confused. “The White Witch,” said Runs-from-Bears. “I’ve heard tell of her.”
“And so has every soldier who set foot on that battlefield,” agreed Mr. Schuyler.
“A Kahnyen’kehàka healer?” Elizabeth was curious enough to risk the displeasure of the rest of the audience with another question.
Nathaniel shook his head. “No, a white woman, and English by the sound of her. Ian fetched her, and then it turned out she was his Auntie Claire. Brought her into camp just when I was thinking we couldn’t do much for the boy. And she hunkers down next to him and listens to his chest and then she forces something down his gullet, and she bundles him up. The thing to see, though, was the way he settled down when he heard her voice, talking low to him, telling him to lay his head down. Like my own ma would have done if she had been there.”
“How old was this woman?” Elizabeth asked, and then ducked her head at the good-natured laughter. “Out of curiosity—” she began feebly, but Nathaniel had put his arm around her and he gave her a little squeeze.
“Well, maybe it’ll put your mind to ease if I tell you that her husband was there too, came along to camp. A big red-haired Scot, wounded at Freeman’s farm. I ran into him later again on the Heights, and I was glad of it, too. I’ve thought of them many times since that day.”
He turned to Mr. Schuyler. “Without her John Bradstreet would have died, so maybe we should be drinking her health.”
“And so we should,” agreed Mr. Schuyler, and raised his glass. “To Nathaniel, who brought young John through the lines,” he said. “And to the White Witch—”
“Claire Fraser,” Nathaniel reminded him.
“To Claire Fraser, who brought him through his fever.”
“What happened then?” Elizabeth asked when they had touched glasses.