Original Death amoca-3

by Eliot Pattison

  As the fish were cleaned and spitted for roasting, Custaloga and Tatamy spoke of the difficulties of their respective journeys and offered each other water to wash away the grime of the trail. It was a version of the Edge of the Woods ceremony, a cornerstone of Iroquois diplomacy, in which those who met at the end of a journey offered to clear the soil of travel and extract the thorns of difficult trails. The two chieftains then offered gourds of fresh water for each of the other’s party to drink.

  When he finished, Custaloga stood with his gourd before Tatamy. “You would refuse me the honor of treating with all your warriors?” he asked pointedly.

  Tatamy worked his jaw, clearly struggling for a moment, then turned toward the ridge and gave the call of a meadowlark. Two men rose up from the shadows and began descending the ridge. They had not covered half the distance to the fire before a third figure darted down from the field of boulders and disappeared over the ridge. The two chieftains were letting Woolford flee. The presence of the ranger captain, who fought bitterly with Caughnawags in the field, would have been an awkward distraction to the business of their makeshift council.

  The sharing of the fish and the remaining grapes retrieved from the abbey erased all tension. The Caughnawags and those who lived in Onondaga Castle might be enemies, but they were also family. Soon several were speaking of common relatives. In times of peace, Duncan learned, Mohawks on one side of the Saint Lawrence would often take spouses from among the other. The northern warriors, many of whom wore crosses around their necks beside their spirit amulets, treated the Iroquois elders with wary deference.

  At last Tatamy rose and conferred with several of his men. “We will now go to the stone castle,” he announced, gesturing Custaloga toward the abbey, as his men dispersed toward either side of the island to keep watch. Conawago waited until the two chieftains were nearly at the crest of the ridge before motioning for Duncan to follow with him. The two chieftains were already in the main chapel when Duncan and the old Nipmuc reached them. Tatamy was kneeling before the battered altar. When he rose, his face held more worry than anger.

  He looked to Duncan with challenge in his eyes. “Say the words,” he said.

  “I have come to find five children.”

  Tatamy looked at him without expression. “Say the words,” he repeated.

  Uncertain, Duncan looked over the chieftain’s shoulder to the writing on the wall. “Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.” He read the first line of the prayer, then continued with the unwritten remainder, still in Latin. The northern chieftain closed his eyes to listen better, as if the words transported him to another, more harmonious time.

  “English,” Tatamy said when he finished.

  “Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” Duncan recited.

  “Français,” the chieftain pressed.

  When Duncan spoke the French words, then offered them in Gaelic, there was more curiosity in Tatamy’s eyes than challenge. “My mother,” the chief observed in a distant tone, “always said there must be a different god for each language.” He stepped forward and abruptly pulled down the shoulder of Duncan’s jerkin, exposing the top of the dawnchaser tattoo on his shoulder. “You collect gods like beads, McCallum.”

  “My mother taught me that each man must take his own god into his heart. A strong man knows it does no harm to his god to respect that of another.”

  Tatamy stared impassively. “Do you think you will patch things on the other side by tricking the gods?”

  “Those who seek to play tricks with gods do not deserve their protection.”

  Tatamy cocked his head at Duncan but offered no reply.

  “But sometimes I wonder,” Duncan added, “if it may be the gods who play tricks on us. Making good men kill each other because of the color of the flag they stand under.”

  Tatamy frowned and walked along the religious murals on the wall before turning back to Duncan. “The men I will take you to will probably kill you. They kill a spy almost once a week,” he explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “Hang him. Shoot him by a wall. In the winter they like to tie a rock to him and drop him through a hole in the ice over the river. It has become something of a sport to the French officers and the Huron chiefs.”

  “I will not go the French army.”

  Tatamy grinned. “But our officers are much prettier than yours. Even their monks wear lace. And despite the fall of Quebec, they are still convinced they will be the victors.”

  The meaning of the warrior’s words slowly sank in. “You’re saying the half-king is already with them or soon will be. I will not expose my companions to the wrath of the French or the half-king,” Duncan said.

  “It is your choice,” Tatamy said, and with nods to Custaloga and Conawago he took his leave. As he reached the door he turned and tossed something shiny to Duncan.

  Duncan stared, struck dumb, at the coin he caught. In his hand was a Spanish dollar stamped with the broad arrow symbol of the British army.

  Montreal’s long outer wall stretched for nearly a mile along the river, punctuated at regular intervals by cannon barrels. A surprising number of steeples reached above the wall, reminding Duncan of towns he had seen in the low countries of Europe.

  Any lingering hostility had gone from Tatamy after he had spent hours speaking with the Iroquois elders. Now he conducted them into the enemy city with the air of a stealthy warrior.

  “Hospital, outpost barracks, fur depot,” Tatamy explained with quick gestures as they glided past a group of stout buildings situated near the water, outside the western end of the fortress. The water gates along the riverbank were scenes of intense activity as boats of stores were unloaded, watched over by stern sentinels in the bleached wool frocks of French infantry or militia in woodland dress. Artillerymen were firing cannons in long-ranging shots to calibrate their balls and powder. Duncan’s gut clenched with every shot.

  “Any language but English,” Conawago warned as they beached their canoes and Duncan donned the soft wool foraging cap tossed to him by Tatamy. Most of the chieftain’s men had parted company before the portage around the falls miles above Montreal, but the half-dozen who remained flanked their small party as Tatamy led them through one of the gates guarded by militia, who wore caps matching that of Duncan.

  The town was a thriving mercantile center. Rich convoys of fur-laden canoes from the West and North had been arriving for decades. The streets hummed with activity of merchants and craftsmen. A cobbler worked at his bench before the open door of his shop. Shelves of pewter lined the window of a shop with a huge wooden candlestick for its sign. The size and affluence of the buildings he saw matched many he had seen in New York and Philadelphia, though the great stone structure near the town center was larger than any he had seen in the British colonies. Dogs played with scraps of fur. Aged women, both of the tribes and of the French, hawked baskets, apples, fish, and crocks of syrup, crying out their wares. Along a stone wall, half a dozen old, frail-looking Indian men and women dressed in little more than rags held out bark containers, or just leathery palms, in search of alms. As they rounded the corner Kass hesitated, then retreated to pull Sagatchie away as he stared at the beggars. Duncan paused as he realized Hetty and the hell dog were settling along the wall at the end of the line of beggars. She shook her head adamantly when Duncan gestured her on.

  “We’ll be here when you are ready to leave,” she said in French, turning to the haggard woman beside her, who was admiring the dog, and beginning a conversation.

  They worked their way down another block of merchants then Tatamy signaled for them to wait in the shadows of an alley as two officers in uniformed finery passed by, speaking with excited gestures, toward the ramparts.

  “Pretty lacebacks,” Ishmael whispered at Duncan’s side.

  As the boy stepped away, he grabbed his shoulder. “Lacebacks. Why did you say that?”

  Ishmael shrugged. “Lacebacks,” he said again, pointing to the officers’ uniforms who
se lace collars were visible below blue tricorns. “Lacebacks flutter around. Like Osotku said. I told you they took me to see him, to scare me. He said to me ‘black angels and lacebacks flutter around.’”

  Duncan had heard the words too but had dismissed them as the ravings of a dying man.

  “You knew what he meant?”

  “Not until later. That night they came to look at Conawago and Hetty, the half-king’s oracles. A French officer and a priest. I guess he was what you call a priest. Fancier than a monk. He wore a robe but also a gold necklace and a black cloak with red lining. A laceback and a black angel.”

  Fancier than a monk. A French officer and someone high in the Roman church had come to observe the half-king’s progress. He waited until the rest of his companions had followed Tatamy then warily stepped behind them as the Mohawk led them to the stone tower. They were being taken to the center of the Roman church in Canada.

  In his youth Duncan had seen cathedrals the size of the one Tatamy led them to, but they had all been in ruins, laid waste by Calvin’s reformers. Despite his foreboding, he longed to linger to study the stained glass and the gothic carvings along the pews and altars, but Tatamy hurried them through, to a small arched door behind a row of confessional booths. The northern chieftain paused to be sure they were not followed before opening the door. He lifted a lit lantern hanging on the inside wall and led them down a flight of stone stairs, cupped from long use. Tatamy had identified a long two-story stone building across the courtyard from the cathedral as the seminary, and as they entered a long passageway, Duncan realized they were being led toward it, underground. He assumed the second door that Tatamy led them through would open to another staircase. Instead they reached a small antechamber leading to a low door, heavy with iron studs and an iron cross nailed to its center. The Mohawk gave four slow knocks, and after several moments they heard the sound of a deadbolt being released.

  A small man in a monk’s robe greeted Tatamy in the tribal tongue, then hurriedly introduced himself as Brother Xavier before turning toward a large candlelit table in front of a smoldering hearth. The chamber looked as though it had been built for storage of foodstuffs, but there was no longer any evidence of supplies. One wall of the vaulted chamber was nearly covered by a fading tapestry with the crucifixion scene, at the top of which hung rich pelts and ornate tribal spears. Draped over the shelves of books and manuscripts that lined the other walls were more than a dozen beaded wampum belts. Brother Xavier settled into a chair before a large manuscript volume, pushed his unkempt greying hair back on his nape, and took up his quill as if they had interrupted him in some urgent task of scholarship.

  Even after Tatamy had gathered the group in front of the broad table, the man kept writing. Finally he looked up, with a smile on his long, thin face. “One of my favorite entries in this chronicle is from 1689,” Brother Xavier declared in a refined voice, “when our blessed cathedral was still being built. A young Huron arrived with the tale of a white stag that had appeared along the banks of the inland sea, the great lake that takes the name of his tribe. He said the stag had come to them through a gate to the spirit world, to heaven. One of the young monks named Pierre who was being prepared to go live among the Hurons insisted on going back with the warrior. He was never heard from again. Years later that same Huron returned with one of the fur convoys and told a peculiar tale. He and the monk had found that stag. It let them follow it until they came to a valley thick with fog, though all the surrounding land was under a clear blue sky. The stag waited as if expecting them to continue into the fog with it, and Brother Pierre said it must be the way across, that they must have need of a monk on the other side. The Huron was too frightened, but Brother Pierre went on. Neither he nor the stag were ever seen again. No trace was found of him except his Bible, lying on a perfectly circular rock in a perfectly circular clearing.”

  Tatamy glanced at Conawago. The Mohawk chief seemed disturbed by the tale, but Conawago wore a calm smile. The monk at the table seemed to see only the old Nipmuc. “What will you say, Conawago of the Nipmuc, when you meet Brother Pierre on the other side?”

  “I will ask him if the moon was full on the night he left this world.”

  “The moon?”

  “My mother told me of a white stag that was able to fly through the sky whenever the moon was full. She called it the spirit stag.”

  The monk’s face filled with wonder. He lifted his quill and quickly wrote on a scrap of paper, then rose and spread out his arms. “Bienvenue!” he offered, his greeting warmer this time. “We are honored to have the companions from the Council with us.” Xavier gestured to the volume on his desk. “I am keeper of the archives.” Duncan glanced around the room again. The chambers where monks worked at manuscripts were usually well lit by windows and mirrors. Xavier preferred to work in shadows.

  Conawago inched in front of Ishmael, as if the boy needed protection. Brother Xavier smiled again. He seemed to know much about his visitors. “There are entries about a Nipmuc boy in the last century,” he said to Ishamel, stepping to the side to be able to see the boy more clearly. “He would have been about your age, a lad of great promise, a student in the Ville de Quebec who was sent to our seminary as a novice, one of the first of the tribes to wear our robes. He was even taken to France and introduced to the king, who was enchanted with him. They spoke long into the night about the beasts of the New World. Louis XIV was fond of the notion that the natives of our woodlands were the lost tribes of Israel. The king nearly choked with delight when the boy said he had always assumed the Israelites were a lost tribe of the Americas.” Brother Xavier’s smile took on an air of melancholy. “But we have no Israelites to show us the way today. Just a band of. .” the sweep of his arm took in Duncan, Conawago, Sagatchie, Kass, and the elders, “brave voyageurs.”

  “Whom you have invited into the belly of the monster,” Duncan added. He was uneasy being at the mercy of a French monk, trapped underground. The church was known for working closely with the French army. Black angels were working with lacebacks. Their lives hung on the thin thread of their trust in Tatamy. A squad of soldiers outside the solitary door would mean the end of them all.

  “You dishonor me, McCallum,” the monk replied in a cool tone. “I gave my oath to the Lord above, not to an earthly king.” He opened a heavy tome at the side of his table. “Our prelate opposed this when my old teacher started it. It is still considered wrong by some, even a sacrilege. But I persevere, continuing the work of translation.”

  First Duncan, then Conawago, stepped forward to leaf through the book. It was a Bible written in the language of the Mohawks. As he pushed the book toward Conawago, Duncan exposed correspondence underneath.

  “I do not want more blood spilled,” Xavier declared as he dropped another book over the letters, though not before Duncan cast a surreptitious glance at them. Several were written in Italian. Two more were addressed to Logtown, the largest settlement of the Mingoes, and Fort Detroit, largest of the French forts in the West. “The tribes must settle tribal differences among themselves. They must stop being used by European generals.” He gestured to the chronicle of the missionaries. “When our brothers first landed here, they were certain they had found the lambs of God. They were naive. They were in thrall to the arrogant rulers in Rome who were themselves blinded by the gold and jewels of Vatican robes. They thought they had but to shepherd the lambs. They paid for it dearly. Nearly every missionary we sent among them in the early years died, and never easily. The deaths are recorded here in hideous detail. I was among those missions. I ventured with five other brothers into the West. The tribes tortured my comrades in front of me and sent me back to bear witness. But I went back, again and again. Most of me survived.” He held up his left hand, and for the first time Duncan saw that it was missing two fingers.

  The blast of a cannon, another solitary ranging shot, shook the walls. Tushcona, clearly unsettled, began low whispered prayers, clutching her amulet. The sou
nd of the cannon seemed to prod the monk, to make his words more urgent. “They died true martyrs, do not mistake me, but their deaths were wasted. Rome kept viewing our mission as a conquest and kept dispatching their Christian soldiers to subjugate the wayward flock of the New World. For decades they refused to allow arms to be given to the tribes of the North since that was inconsistent with their vision of the natives as lambs. When the Dutch and English armed their traditional enemies, many in the northern tribes died needlessly. Rome’s version of the truth has pushed the tribes into slow death.”

  The thunder of another gun interrupted the Jesuit, shaking the walls. He glanced resentfully in the direction of the blast.

  “The history of the Jesuits is filled with contradiction,” Conawago observed.

  “Because they think the tribes are their children!” Xavier shot back, fire suddenly in his voice. “That is the error of their ways! The tribes are not the lambs of God! They are the lions of God!” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “They are the means by which we save our corrupted souls!”

  Tushcona’s whispers stopped, as did Duncan’s breathing.

  It was Conawago who broke the silence. “The claws of these particular lions are not the tools of the Vatican.”

  “Are you deaf!” Xavier snapped. “Do you hear nothing I say? That is the error of our ways! Rome has its holy saints and disciples just as the tribes have their holy spirits of the trees and water, but there is only one god, not one God from Rome and one who sits on the great turtle’s back directing the ways of copper men. There is one, and he watches over our grand chess game to see which side is worthy to survive.”

  Duncan eyed the fierce, enigmatic Jesuit, wondering how many sides there were in the game Xavier played.

  “Tell me something, Brother Xavier,” Duncan asked, “are you familiar with the chieftains in the western lands?”