Nathan picked up a stick and tossed it as far as he could, then watched it drop to earth again. "Oh, it is that. But it's even more wasteful to let all our potential wither on the vine because we're shackled, unable to complete our own destinies." His voice swelled with enthusiasm. "It's a wonderful country, Jason, and it can be even more wonderful."
Nathan turned suddenly to Krystyna who walked between them. "Are we boring you?"
"Oh no!" How could he possibly think she was bored. The idea of a new nation being born was exciting. "I am finding that feelings of freedom are universal, just as I always hoped they were. When I first came here, I thought of Americans as barbarians." She glanced toward Jason and knew that her remark would make him grin. "Totally incapable of the kinds of feelings that cause men and women to form a country, to take pride in that country." She frowned, annoyed by her inadequacy with English. "I am putting this badly."
Nathan laughed, delighted as he shook his head to deny her assessment. Jason interjected, "I believe she thought all we did in the Colonies was scratch ourselves, forage for food, and live hand to mouth with no thought to tomorrow."
Stung because he was laughing at her, Krystyna pointed out, "You still do not think about tomorrow."
"But I do," he protested.
"Not your country's tomorrow," she said pointedly.
Jason sighed. "You're beginning to sound like my father." He resumed walking, and the three of them fell into step. "I'm not sure what my country is. I don't think 'the country' is sure it knows either." It seemed like a hopeless muddle to him. He liked things cut and dried.
"A country," Krystyna began, echoing something her father had once taught her, "is a feeling in your heart. It is an allegiance you have to a place that may go under various names, ones that at times may be considered not even to exist."
She looked up and saw a lone bird circling in the sky, looking for food. It made her feel lonely. "My home is now Prussian territory, but it will always be Poland to me, no matter what they call it. I come from a country which once spread from sea to sea, until its people became weak. They did not notice that their enemies were coming in from all sides and were chipping away at their borders little by little.”
"Someday," she sighed sadly, "we may not be there at all. They will take us and put another name on our soil. But we will be Polish nonetheless, and we will fight to regain what was ours. Our country." She looked at Jason to see if he understood. There was no answer in his eyes. "We will fight to have the right to be free. We will die for that freedom. The other countries are stronger, but their armies will not be stronger than our wills." Her hands tightened into fists as she spoke, hardly noticing the man on each side of her in her zeal. "We shall never give up."
Krystyna stopped abruptly. She had said too much. Men weren't used to hearing such emotions expressed by a woman. She looked at her two companions and found that they were both staring at her. "Have I said something wrong?"
Nathan shook his head. "No, something right. Something beautiful. It's encouraging to know that sentiments such as yours are not confined to just one area."
She laughed. "I was thinking the same thing."
Jason said nothing. Her words had made him thoughtful. These days he found that the more he thought about the situation, the more inclined he was to agree with Nathan and his father.
He looked at Krystyna and wondered what seed had been planted in her that had been lacking in him. He felt an allegiance to his plantation, to his family, yes, even to Aaron, but it went no further than that. What did Boston mean to him? Or Long Island? Or England for that matter? Sadly, he was a man without far-reaching ties and that bothered him.
But I will think about all that some other time, he told himself. Nathan would soon be leaving, and he wanted to enjoy his company as much as possible. Who knew when they would see one another again?
Talking of other things, the three mounted their horses and rode home.
Chapter Seventeen
As Jason, Krystyna, and Nathan walked through the front door, they heard the din of agitated voices, and when they entered the sitting room, they were greeted by a gathering of the county's largest landowners, all talking at once.
"What's going on?" Jason looked around at the animated speakers as fragments of conversation ricocheted about the room.
Savannah looked up from her chair by the fireplace. It annoyed her that Winthrop, who had been vaguely disinterested only a moment ago, seemed to come to life when he saw Krystyna walk in, her cheeks glowing from the cold.
Damn his eyes, Savannah thought. And damn that whore, as well.
She gritted her teeth and glared at Krystyna. The look of unmitigated malice was not lost on its object, nor on anyone else in the room. It doesn't take much to impress Winthrop, Savannah thought. What if he was lured away from her because Krystyna was a countess? Because he wouldn't have to wait, perhaps in vain, before he inherited a title. Savannah couldn't stand the idea of being thrown over for someone else, least of all Krystyna.
Aaron pushed forward from the group. "Haven't you heard?" he asked Jason.
"No, we have been out, riding," Krystyna explained as she pulled off her gloves. She saw Savannah eyeing them. The gloves were another Christmas gift from Jason. He had given them to her with a note, saying that since he couldn't hold her hand, he would be pleased if she would slip it into the kidskin gloves he had had fashioned expressly for her.
Savannah regarded her maliciously. "Is that all you've been doing out there?" Her words dripped sarcasm. "You seem so out of breath to have just been out riding. A horse," she added sweetly. She looked down at her nails, then raised her eyes to see if she had embarrassed Krystyna or if the dolt had missed her meaning.
"We cantered back." Jason cut his sister short.
Or so he thought. "With or without the horses?" Savannah asked. Then, before Jason could make an appropriate reply, she averted her face as if to speak to Winthrop. But her fiancé’s attention was given totally to Krystyna. Savannah rapped his hand with the tip of her fan. "Winthrop, I was speaking to you," she hissed.
Aaron shook his head, dismissing his sister's petty remarks. Far more important things were happening that day. "There was a battle not far from here," he told them. "Yesterday morning. They beat us," he added.
Jason shrugged out of his coat and removed his scarf. "I think that deserves a clarification." He helped Krystyna with her long coat, a Christmas gift from Lucinda. Her scarf came from Christopher. Of the entire family, only Savannah had refrained from giving even a token gift to Krystyna. The lines of battle were clearly drawn. "Who is 'us'?"
"The loyalists, of course," Savannah put in impatiently. "No offense, Cousin Nathan, for I fear that your sentiments are on the side of the misguided troublemakers, but by and large, we are all on Britain's side." She smiled smugly, ably parroting something she had overheard recently. "We of the landed gentry must be on the side of the King, for if we aren't, who will be?"
She looked around the room, pleased with the lofty sound of her own words. There, that black-haired witch wasn't the only one who could spout political sentiments. Savannah didn't care a wit about the situation —indeed, the subject was getting extremely wearisome to her —but she did believe that their best interests were served by remaining with Britain. If the rabble won, the poor would overrun them. That couldn't be allowed to happen. In this, at least, she shared Aaron's feelings.
"If the King is right," Krystyna said, "then God is on his side. If he is wrong, then he deserves to be so informed, or to be replaced if he does not listen."
"Replaced?" Aaron echoed incredulously. "You mean killed?" She is talking treason, he thought. He looked around the room nervously, wondering if anyone there would make her comments known to the proper authorities. The men present were all friends of long standing, but in this situation one's loyalties did strange things to friendship.
"No." Carefully, Krystyna folded her coat over her arm. It was a fine gift and
she meant to care well for it. "In my country, we elect our kings. We have for many years."
"Elect kings?" Savannah laughed. "How absurd." She looked around, hopeful that others shared her opinion and would put this upstart in her place.
"No, it is really quite civilized," Krystyna insisted calmly. "Then one man cannot do too much harm if he is not competent." Until recently, she amended silently, but she was in no mood to go into details and felt that no one really wanted to hear of the situation in her homeland. The struggle these people faced was far too overwhelming at present.
Jason rolled the thought over as he helped himself to cider. The liquid had cooled somewhat since Jeremiah had set the table. "Actually, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea."
"Oh, what would you know of it?" Savannah snapped, her frail patience at an end. "All you know about is that damned tobacco of yours." She turned accusing gray eyes on Krystyna. "And wenching."
Krystyna's fingers tightened about the cup Jason had handed to her. There was a deep silence in the room as the others waited to see what she would say. But it was Jason who spoke.
"I think you overstep yourself, dear sister." His tone was low, but foreboding.
Savannah didn't like being threatened, especially while so many others were watching. "Ah, she has a knight in shining armor to go with her nonexistent kingdom, does she?" Savannah taunted.
Jason had a desire to wrap his hands around his sister's slender neck and squeeze the hatefulness from her.
"I never had a kingdom." There was controlled anger in Krystyna's voice. "It was a manor filled with many peasants, the most ill-mannered of whom were not as bad as you." She turned her back on Savannah and faced Jason. Seeing the approval in his eyes served to hearten her. "I think that I will go to my cabin for a little while."
Jason took her arm and began to escort her from the room. Savannah jumped to her feet and grabbed Krystyna's other arm, jerking her around.
"Listen, you little trollop, I won't be spoken to that way!"
Krystyna silently looked down at the hand that held her arm and then back at Savannah. Her eyes were cold, and there was something almost awesome in them. A regal strength Savannah had no idea how to oppose. Savannah released her grip.
"Then don't make it necessary to do so," Krystyna instructed, her face impassive. "It is true that I am working for your father at the moment. But you will be civil to me, or you will be sorry."
Savannah instinctively knew that this was no idle threat. She saw Nathan smile over Krystyna's head at Jason. Even Aaron looked as if he had enjoyed watching her being put in her place.
Savannah uttered a shriek of exasperation and fled the room.
"Merry Christmas," Krystyna said softly after the other woman's departing figure.
The large Christmas meal served later that day at the McKinley estate left all well satiated. No one felt the deprivation that existed in the ranks of the American soldiers. Christmas that year for the regulars was just another day filled with hardships.
The British troops fared only slightly better when it came to supplies. An ocean separated them from their homes, and for them the holiday was devoid of merriment. They cursed the turn of events that had brought them to these shores to fight King George's war, leaving the comforts of home behind.
Lieutenant St. John Lawrence was one of the many who had been mustered and told that his new duties would be protecting the King's colonies. He realized that he might be forced to fight his brethren in order to preserve what was the King's. The thought did not warm him.
Sin-Jin, as he was known to his friends, had no fixed opinion about the war, neither philosophical nor moral. Fighting it was just part of being a soldier, which, at the moment, was becoming a source of great irritation and discomfort.
He had been at the Battle of Lexington. Marveling at the utter incompetence of the American soldiers, he had been certain that they would call an end to the skirmish once they realized how hopelessly outmatched they were. They were mere farmers and backwoodsmen going up against the world's finest troops.
But he had decided, as the battle dragged on, the enemy was not very bright for they just kept coming, fighting in what appeared to be cowardly Indian fashion. They held their ground with a tenacity unfamiliar to him, and they didn't have the good sense to know when they were beaten.
Nothing had ever made him want to hold on and fight with such ferocity. With the exception, perhaps, of Vanessa.
But Vanessa, with her long, shining coal black hair and her eyes as blue as robin's eggs, was not so much in love with him as she was enamored of his brother's inheritance. Sin-Jin was a second son, and a second son's lot was not a good one. The inheritance, all save a few pounds perhaps, always went to the eldest, and that was Matthew. Sin-Jin bore his brother no malice. That was just the way things were meant to be.
Sin-Jin never fought against the inevitable. That was why he couldn't understand why the rebels were fighting in this crazed fashion. Didn't they know it was futile? They would be beaten in the end; why not give up now before lives were needlessly lost?
More importantly, if they gave up soon he could go home with his regiment. He had been with General Gage in the beginning, before the man had been made Governor of Massachusetts by royal decree. The fighting in Boston was at a standstill with the never-ending siege going on. But in the South, things were just beginning to happen, and they needed soldiers there to stave off a pending insurrection. Sin-Jin was sent South.
Sin-Jin took his lot philosophically, but not without annoyance. If he had to be in this land, he'd much rather be in Boston. At least some of the comforts he was used to were available there. The Colonies were positively backward, and to have to spend his enlistment in this godforsaken area was utterly disagreeable.
But, a war was a war, no matter how sloppily fought, and he went where he was told to go. On December 20th, he was sent to Virginia, where the soldiers were instructed to recapture a British arsenal before the Americans made off with all the powder and ball. Sin-Jin's men found themselves vastly outnumbered. The small band of rebels within the arsenal had swollen to giant proportions as friends and neighbors aged twelve to seventy had poured in to aid them.
His men had never encountered such opposition before, and while they fought because they were paid to, their foes fought for their beliefs. The odds were totally against the British. They were pushed back, and the fighting continued on a running, regrouping basis. At times the British pushed forward, at others the Americans pressed ahead.
It went on for three days. Sin-Jin's army was demoralized. They had held the Americans in contempt. To be beaten by incompetents added insult to injury. On the fourth day, during the morning's final encounter, Sin-Jin was unhorsed and run through with a bayonet stolen from a dead British soldier.
As the searing pain went through him and darkness began to take hold, he heard himself mutter, "God, this is a hell of a place to die."
Cold seeped into his body. Somewhere, far away, an ache began and grew until it inflamed him.
Pain.
There was nothing but pain. In his shoulder, a pounding, throbbing. Sin-Jin's eyes fluttered and opened. He saw nothing. But there was a smell. Something wet and dirty. And oddly sweet. Blood.
Where was he? If this is hell, he thought, then it certainly is cold. He drew a breath, and his ribs responded with fierce pain.
The battle.
A thought pulsed through his brain. He was alive, for whatever that was worth. Sin-Jin raised his throbbing head and looked about. When his eyes focused, he saw bodies everywhere around him. Bodies in British uniforms and bodies in homespun and coats that didn't match.
We lost, he guessed. If they had won, someone would have found him and checked to see if he was truly dead. At least, he hoped so.
Slowly, painfully, he drew himself up. He kept looking around, alert to any movement. His instinct for survival was keen, and he was not about to let himself become a target if he could help
it.
Now what? There was no horse around. That meant walking. In his condition, he wouldn't get far. His tall, lean body protested, telling him that it took an incredible effort to stand, let alone to walk. But if he were to give in and lie down again, he would die of exposure, if not of his wound, and there might be animals out there, waiting to feast on him before he was dead.
He shivered. "No, I'm not ready to die just yet," he said out loud, needing to hear the sound of his own voice. Needing reassurance.
He tested his legs. They were unhurt. Unsteadily, he took up his sword from where it had fallen and awkwardly put it back into the scabbard with his left hand. His right hung at his side, useless.
"A lot of good that'll do me," he muttered. "By the time I reach for it, I'll be run through."
He started to walk.
He had no idea where he was going. Perhaps what was left of his unit was up ahead somewhere. Perhaps not. But if he happened upon the home of British sympathizers, he could get medical aid and something to eat. If I'm lucky, he thought.
He knew that he couldn't stop walking. Not while he was conscious. But his mind floated in and out, bringing back segments of the battle and bits of his life before he had donned a uniform a year and a half ago. Where would I be now if I had been born first? he wondered, trying to keep his mind off the pain and the endless trudging. Probably in Vanessa's arms, sampling her warm, rich body, he decided.
Lucky old Matthew, he thought. Doesn't know how easy he has it.
His legs became heavier and heavier, and he began to stumble. How long had he been walking? Had he gone in circles? No, no, the forest was behind him now. How far, he had no idea. His arm burned.
Lie down, lie down, his body called to him. Rest. Later you can walk.
"Damn," he muttered. "I'm going to die anyway and be exhausted into the bargain. No way to meet your Maker, dirty and exhausted. And defeated. Damn old King George. Damn this war. Damn that bayonet. Damn . . ."
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