by Jo Ann Wendt
For a week, Jericho found herself the center of attention in New Amsterdam. She reveled in it. She'd never been the center of attention before. She told the story of Dove's rescue to everyone who asked. Maritje Ten Boom and the other girls at school grew jealous. She liked that, too. She'd never had anyone jealous of her before.
But as the excitement faded, the gravity of what had happened seeped into her, became real to her, and left her shaken. This had not been make-believe. This had been real. Men had died! Dove had killed for her! It was a sobering revelation, and she grew quieter after that. Overnight, she grew up.
Dove grew up, too. He seemed older, nicer. He showed more patience with her. He took her skating on Collect Pond three times that winter. They were happy romps. At least they were, until Dove would suddenly spot Mrs. Verplanck and his eyes would brighten, and he would go gliding off, leaving her behind as if she were a warty old potato.
She had a few nightmares that winter. Frightening dreams of foxes chasing her on Collect Pond. But the dreams gradually went away. In the end, the experience left two marks upon her: a deep distrust of strangers and renewed anxiety about her birthmarks.
She dealt with both. She gave strangers a wide berth, going nowhere near them. As for her birthmarks, she took scraps from Daisy's sewing basket and sewed pretty wristbands to hide the one that showed, the one on her wrist. Mrs. Phipps thought the wristbands nonsense. Daisy and Cook and Maritje teased her. Jericho didn't care. She grew happy again.
TTien, one cold windy day in March, her world fell apart.
"Daisy, where's Dove! Is he dining w-with us today?"
Dashing into the kitchen for the midday meal, she hung her cloak on a wall peg, grabbed the box that held the wooden trenchers and spoons, and swiftly set the table, her noon task. "Where's Dove, Daisy!"
It was always her first question. Waiting for Daisy to answer, she sniffed eagerly at the delicious smells. Rabbit roasted on the spit, well rubbed with herbs and pork fat.
"I want to tell Dove; Daisy. I w-was fastest adding four- digit columns of sums today. Even faster than the boys. Robert Ten Boom got angry. His face got all red. Robert is used to being fastest. But I'm fastest now. I want to tell Dove."
Daisy didn't answer. Instead, she sank to a cricket stool and burst into tears. Jericho froze. She set the trencher box down with trembling hands, suddenly aware. Everything was different this noon. Goody sat in a corner weeping, wiping away tears with her sleeve. Tending the kettles, Cook was grim, her eyes red, swollen. Black Bartimaeus sat on a stool holding his head in his black hands. Samuels smiled, but wanly.
"Where's Dove?" Jericho demanded. Nobody answered.
"Jericho, come here," Mrs. Phipps said softly. Mrs. Phipps was sitting in a chair by the kitchen window. Sitting! Mrs. Phipps never sat in the daytime. She was was always busy, always bustling about, checking things, doing things
She felt dizzy. Sick with dread. "W-where's Dove?"
"Come here, child." Mrs. Phipps gently held out her hand. She looked older than she'd looked this morning, older by years.
Jericho's heart hammered. "W-what happened? Where's Dove, Mrs. Phipps? W-where is he?" She looked around wildly. "W-where's John?"
Daisy screwed up her face and burst into fresh sobs.
Mrs. Phipps rose wearily and took Jericho's hands. "Child, Master Dove is gone. And John has gone with him, to companion him."
Jericho nodded. "Gone-gone to-to the tap house. Or-or to the fort. Or-or-or m-maybe he w-went to Fort Orange." She nodded desperately, wanting it to be true.
Mrs. Phipps sighed tiredly. "Jericho. Child. You are too young to understand this, but Master Dove has been banished from the colony. Soldiers put him aboard ship two hours ago. The ship just sailed. For the Caribbean. John went with him."
"The Car-Car-Caribbean? Not-not Fort Orange?" She went numb. Then, slowly, she began to shake her head. "N-no. N-no, it-it's not true! He w-went to Fort Orange, Mrs. Phipps. He did, he did, he told me." She turned to the others. "Daisy? Samuels? He w-went to Fort Orange, didn't he!" They wouldn't look at her. Daisy sobbed with fresh despairing sobs. Samuels knelt and hugged her.
Mrs. Phipps gently squeezed her hands.
"Jericho. Child. Listen to me. Wicked things will be said about Master Dove, but you are not to believe them. For they are not true. If I live to a hundred I shan't believe!"
"Dear life," Daisy wailed, lifting red weepy eyes from her apron. "Mr. Verplanck found him in bed wi' her, Mrs. Phipps. He found the two of 'em doin' it."
"Daisy, be silent!" Mrs. Phipps snapped. "Say that again and you forfeit employment in this house. Lord Dove is your master, you wicked girl. He is a good lad. He would never behave so!"
Jericho listened, swallowing. Tears gathered in her throat, choking her. She tore out of Mrs. Phipps's grasp.
"Jericho? Where are you going? Child, stop!"
She was out the kitchen door in a flash, flying down the lane, through the cold splattering March mud, her wooden clogs forgotten, her cloak forgotten. Barking, thinking it a game, Pax galloped with her. She swatted him away. Tears choking her, she flew through the lanes, scattering geese and irate merchants. She flew over the footbridge, past the tap houses, past fur warehouses and finally clattered onto the Dutch West India Company wharf in the East River. She ran out to the very end of it, her shoes thundering on the rotting timbers, her lungs heaving.
The ship was already far out in the harbor, past the rocky shoals on the tip of Manhattan. A small sailing boat, a red- sailed pilot boat, guided it. Boat and ship were already di- minishing in size. She could see sailors scrambling in the rigging, their monkeylike figures small, indistinct.
"Dove," she screamed. "Dove, come back. Take me with you. You promised to keep me. You promised!"
Pax whimpered and nosed her cold, mud-spattered skirts. She batted him away. The ship continued on its impersonal course, plowing out to sea, leaving nothing behind but a lengthening stretch of plowed water that lay gray and turgid under the slate March sky.
Heart pounding with hope—He would come back for her, he would, if he saw her!—she screamed and waved frantically, jumping up and down. But to no avail. Safely past the shoals, the ship's main sails unfurled and caught the wind. The ship bucked and danced, meeting the ocean current.
Throat pounding, she watched the ship grow smaller and smaller, dropping lower and lower in the water, the hull disappearing first, then the windfilled mainsails, then the topmost flag on the crow's nest. She watched until there was nothing to see but gray water and sky. Then, her knees weak and wobbly, she sat on the wharf and watched some more. She didn't cry. She was too shocked to cry. She simply watched. If she kept watch, she assured herself, Dove would turn the ship and come back for her. He would!
Dry-eyed, her brain glazed with shock, she kept watch all afternoon. Pax curled beside her. Daisy and Goody came clumping out onto the wharf, coaxing her.
"Jericho, it's cold. It's fixin' to rain. Come home now. Come'a. Mrs. Phipps says come home. Mrs. Phipps is worried." They plucked at her sleeve. She slapped them away.
Samuels came with her cloak. Only then, as warmth returned, did she notice she was frozen, shaking, the cutting March wind and icy raindrops lashing her face. Samuels coaxed too, his West-Indies voice soft and singy. "Come'a, Jer'cho. Come'a, girl. Come home, come home."
He took her hand. She tore it away. He tried over and over and over. At last he sighed, looked up at the coming storm and left, too. The sky darkened. Lightning flashed. Cold rain fell like sleet. Pax whimpered, pawing at her.
Still she sat, dry-eyed, swatting the icy raindrops off her face, waiting. Finally Black Bartimaeus came, standing over her like a tall black tower. Black Bartimaeus didn't say anything. He didn't speak. He just picked her up in his enormous arms, ignoring her kicks and screams, ignoring it when she beat on his chest with her fists and then burst into sobs that wouldn't stop.
Calmly, the elderly black giant carried her home.
They told her later that she had grieved herself into illness. She didn't remember. She only knew that when Dove left, the month had been March and patches of dirty snow had still lain in the yard. By the time she was well enough to go back to school, June had come and baby robins had hatched in a nest in the wolf skull that was nailed to the wall above the cow-shed door.
It would always remain a wonder to her that so much time had passed without her knowing. For she remembered so little: the smell of the posset Mrs. Phipps made her drink whenever she opened her eyes; the smell of pine whenever Black Bartimaeus sat at her bedside whittling; the smooth, piney texture of the wooden chick or carved owl she would find in her hand when she awakened; the monotonous sound of her own blood dripping into a basin, drop by slow drop, whenever the fort surgeon came and bled her.
The first day she left her bed, she felt so dizzy she had to cling to the wall as the room looped and spun around her. Though weak and wobbly, she was determined; and, hanging onto walls, she made her way to Dove's room and went in. Too exhausted to seek a chair, she sank to the white pine floor and sat. Her eyes moved listlessly around the room, taking it in.
Everything was the same. Eveiything was still there. Yet everything was not the same. Though the room had Dove's things in it, it was no more Dove's room than a dead body is the place where a person lives after he dies.
She gazed listlessly at the familiar bed, the blue silk bed- curtains she'd mended for Dove when he'd stuck a fencing foil through them. She watched motes of dust float lazily in the window's sunshine. She let her gaze fall upon the mahogany wardrobe.
With effort, dizzy, she struggled to her feet, went to his wardrobe and pulled the doors open. Only one shirt remained, an old linen one, hanging on a peg. She took it, and, because she was too weak to walk to a chair, sat on the floor, holding it, smelling it, trying to remember Dove's scent. It was Mrs. Phipps who found her.
"Jericho, you're up and about, child! This is wonderful."
"He's not c-coming back, is he."
"Jericho. Child ..."
Mrs. Phipps hesitated, then came to her. Mrs. Phipps's gown brushed against her. A cool motherly hand felt her forehead, feeling for fever.
"Child, let's have Black Bartimaeus carry you down to the kitchen. Goody and Cook can make you a posset drink."
"He's not c-coming back, is he."
Mrs. Phipps hesitated, then tried cheerfully, "We've new- hatched chicks. Would you like to see them? I'll have Daisy bring two or three into the kitchen."
"He's not, is he!"
There was a long moment of silence. Mrs. Phipps gently patted her cheek.
"No, child," she said softly. "He is not. Master Dove is not coming back."
PART TWO
JERICHO
1666
Chapter Nine
On a warm sultry day in May, in the year 1666, an unlikely trio debarked from a ship into the confusion and clamor of St. Katherine's Docks in London.
An elderly black giant came down the gangplank first, his step unsteady, his kinky gray hair shining like silver in the bright sunlight. As he came, he led an old one-eyed mongrel on a leash and sent solicitous looks over his shoulder. Two women followed. The first was an old war-horse, short and stout of body, garbed in severe black. Unsteady on her sea legs, she clung to the arm of a young woman who was . . . a beauty!
Lolling in the shade of a chestnut tree, avoiding work on the hot day, a group of porters sat up in attention.
"Looky."
"Oh, mother, me balls are turnin' blue."
Desultory laughter peppered the warm air. Pungent remarks flew, and a variety of colorful cures were suggested. The porters sprawled on the cool grass to gawk.
She was a beauty, all right. She had witch's hair—a thick, curly, flaming red mane of it. She had fair skin, fetchingly dusted with freckles, and midnight-blue eyes.
But no one sprang up to offer service. Glancing at her cheap gown, they stayed put. She was servant class, like
themselves. There was no fat gratuity to be earned there. And the day was too hot to labor for coppers.
Spotting the chestnut tree and men sprawled under it, Jericho came marching in a beeline straight to the porter who sat frontmost.
"Will you give me some information?"
"Mebbe. Mebbe not." The others snickered.
Jericho could take the hint. She gave the drawstring of her purse an exasperated yank and drew out a coin. She squeezed it in her palm for a moment, loath to part with it. She'd earned that coin—and every other in her purse!—teaching dame school. She'd saved, determined to have her own dame school someday.
But this was no time to be stingy. Mrs. Phipps was feeling the heat. Even Black Bartimaeus looked unwell. His heart again? Swiftly, she gave the coin to the lazy porter. "Can you tell me where I can hire a runner? To take word we've arrived?"
He made a show of staring at it. "My, my. A whole copper. Sure you can spare it, missus?"
"Yes!" Jericho said tartly. "But see to it that you earn it."
The others laughed. But this time the porter was the goat of their laughter and knew it. He got to his feet with a grin. But lazily. It was only a copper. Jericho wanted to smack him.
"Now then, missus. What d'ye want t' know?"
"I-I-I—" She stopped, drew a breath and started again. If she let these dock sluggards addle her, she'd soon be stuttering like a magpie. "I want to send a message to Number Nine, Seething Lane. I want to send word to Mr. John Phipps that his mother has arrived."
"Mr. John Phipps, missus? Mr. John Phipps, the rich merchant?" He whipped off his cap and bunched it respectfully.
Jericho's eyes widened. Rich? She'd known John was prospering. His letters had come regularly. But rich? Good heavens. She smiled her pleasure at John's good fortune.
"Yes," she said emphatically. "That Mr. John Phipps."
To her amazement, John's name worked magic. Suddenly, the porters could not do enough. Offers of service innundated her like a flood, and a pushing and shoving match broke out. The oafs cuffed each other with their caps. A full-fledged fight threatened. She drew a vexed breath. She was hot and tired. Now this.
"Stop this at once!" she demanded in her firmest dame- school voice. To her surprise, they did. Then, she dealt with them as she would bickering children, fairly dividing the tasks, dispatching one to John's house and the others to the ship to get the trunks. If John was rich, he could pay. She certainly couldn't.
When they'd trotted off in all directions, a latecomer hung on her heels, grinning maliciously. "Ye needn't ha'sent 'em at all, missus."
She threw him a suspicious look. "Why?"
"Ye know that Mr. John Phipps? Why, he comes down t'the docks twice a day in his fine coach, he does. Ever'body knows that. On the lookout fer his mother, he is. Has been two weeks."
If that belated scrap of news hadn't been so wonderful, she'd have been tempted to grab his dirty cap and whack him with it. But she gazed about happily. On the far side of the unloading area, safely out of the chaos, Mrs. Phipps and Black Bartimaeus rested on a shady bench under a tree. Tethered to the bench, Pax was already snoozing, asleep at their feet. Satisfied they were resting, she let her gaze sweep over the immense stone fortress that dominated the river, dwarfing everything else. A thrill shot up her spine.
The Tower of London. She'd heard of it. But she hadn't expected it to be so—huge. Good heavens, it must cover forty acres. She stared up at it, awed.
Behind the Tower, rising in a haze, the chimney smoke of London feathered into the sky like ten thousand gray ostrich plumes as the vast city cooked, baked, brewed, forged, and went about its daily work. Strong smells wafted in the air: cooksmoke, soot, fish, breweries, tar, turpentine, pitch. Out on the Thames, the river was so thick with ships under sail that she couldn't see the south bank.
London. Dove's London. Dove . . .
Was Dove in the city? Her heart flip-flopped unevenly. Instantly, she took herself to task for it. No! She wa
sn't going to feel those childish feelings. She wasn't a child anymore. She was a grown woman. Almost twenty. Dove de Mont was nothing to her. Besides! What had she been to him all these years? Only a postscript, hastily scribbled to the bottom of his annual letter to Mrs. Phipps: My regards to the grubworm.
The grubworm, indeed! She pushed Dove from her mind and put her attention where it belonged. Mrs. Phipps, Black Bartimaeus. She threw them a loving glance. Exhausted, they'd followed Pax's example. They'd nodded off. They're old, she realized with a sudden pang. Someday I won't have them anymore. It was a horrid thought. She swung back to the porter who'd been chattering at her.
"Is there an inn nearby? Somewhere Mr. John Phipps's mother can lie down and rest while we wait?"
"Oh, ye don't want t'do that, missus."
"Why?"
Grinning, he gestured with his cap. "Plague, missus."
She stirred uneasily. "But the plague is over! Mr. John Phipps wrote. There was a plague last year, yes. A horrid death toll, more than one hundred thousand. But it's over."
"Oh, nay, missus. There's still a dab o' plague in London."
Despite the sweltering heat of the day, Jericho felt a cold prickle. Had she traveled all this way to get the plague? To die? She glanced worriedly at Mrs. Phipps and Black Bartimaeus, glad they were resting, glad they weren't hearing this.
"Some mulled ale, then," she directed. "If you wish to be useful to Mr. John Phipps's mother, fetch us some ale." Opening her purse again, she fished out a shilling and directed him to go to the nearest ale house.
"Gimme three shilling more, missus, and I'll fetch ye each a bunch o' posies for yer pockets."
This was too much. "Posies!"
He grinned an unlovely grin. "Certain, missus. T' charm off the plague. Ain't ye heard the chil'run sing? Ring around the rosy, pocket full o' posy, ashes, ashes, ye all fall down. Oh, ay, missus, first sign you got plague is a rosy spot risin' on yer skin. And if a ring forms around it? Plague, missus. Then it's fall down, ye will, and ashes to ashes, dust to dust.''
It was ridiculous. But what if it wasn't?
Wiping her brow, she fished out three more shillings and gave them to him. When he'd trotted off, she looked into her purse and sighed. She'd been in London less than an hour, and already it had cost her four shillings and a halfpenny. At this rate, she'd never get her dame school.