She stares at him, trying to absorb his words. She feels dizzy, ill. The price she must pay for James’s freedom—for his life—will be his complete removal from her life. And the price he must pay is even more horrific.
She does not think she can bear it. She will never see him again. James—the man she loves. She is stunned by the thought. It jars her so violently that for a moment she sees nothing but a blank oval where the minister’s face should be. Since childhood she has been taught that love belongs to God, that love of things and people is a certain path to damnation. It is the reason Joseph warned her against loving her children, the reason he never said he loved her. The reason he forbade her from ever saying she loved him.
And indeed, she realizes now, as she sits facing Mr. Mather in his dark parlor, that she never has loved Joseph. It is nothing like the mixture of passion and devotion, gratitude and longing she feels for James. The feeling that she cannot bear to be alive without him.
Yet before this moment, she had no idea her feelings for James were in any way related to love. In fact, she has rigorously avoided examining those feelings. Was she afraid of the truth she would find there?
Dazed, she looks around the room and focuses again with difficulty on Mr. Mather’s long face. “He is Christian,” she says quietly.
“Pardon me?” He seems genuinely puzzled by her statement.
“James Printer is a true Christian,” she says. “Baptized in the Lord. He is not a savage. He was kind to me.”
He shakes his head. “I fail to see how that pertains,” he says. “This covenant is between you and me. And it is binding. It cannot be broken without consequence. You must agree today—now—or there will be no amnesty for the Printer.”
She feels cold all over. As if the rain that soaked her clothes has turned to ice against her skin. She holds herself erect so that she will not shiver.
“I agree,” she says. “I shall begin writing my story directly. This very afternoon.”
• • •
Mary sharpens one of the quills from Joseph’s writing box, then sits at the small table in the parlor, where she has already arranged the bottle of black ink and the two precious sheets of paper she purchased in the market. The table, donated by a member of Increase’s congregation, is so wobbly it can be used only when pushed against the wall. She arranges a sheet on the wooden surface and carefully smoothes it under her hand. She has to force her thoughts away from James. How odd—now that she is banned from seeing him, she is filled with longing. Only a month ago she felt anger and bitterness toward him, counted him as one who had betrayed her. Now she knows he is the only man she has ever loved. Her mind races, inventing one ruse after another to outmaneuver Increase so that she can see James again. She must find a way to meet him. She needs to know if he will comply with the grisly requirement sent down by the Boston authorities. And she must be certain that he knows what she has agreed to do, that she has repaid all his kindnesses in full. That she has saved his life. As he saved hers.
She stares down at the blank paper in front of her. First, she must make good on her promise so that Mr. Mather will have no excuse to break his part of the covenant.
She dips the quill into the ink. She cannot think how to begin. With the selectmen’s order to garrison the town? With her husband’s departure for Boston? With the snowstorm the night before the attack? With the shriek she confused with the wind? She recalls kneeling on the hearth and hearing the first musket shot as she tried to bring the fire to life.
She sees that the ink has dried on the quill while she sat thinking. She dips her pen again and begins to write. The words come with difficulty, with painful slowness, one or two at a time. She starts with the day of the attack, that terrible morning of death and destruction that still plagues her dreams and shortens her sleep.
On the tenth of February, 1675, came the Indians in great numbers upon Lancaster. Their first coming was about sun-rising.
Her words cover less than half the page when Marie comes through the door carrying a basket of goods from the market. Mary quickly blots the paper to dry the ink, realizing that she foolishly has not thought of a place to keep her narrative. She cannot leave it sitting on the table in plain sight, for it will quickly be stained with grease and all manner of other substances.
She rises, takes the page and slides it under the mattress of their bedstead. It will have to wait until she can spare another few minutes to add to it. She wipes her hands on her apron and turns to greet her daughter.
“Did you find some good onions?” she asks, taking the basket from Marie’s arm and setting it on the table.
Marie nods but does not answer, and Mary’s stomach knots. A maternal response, as much a part of her being as her bones and blood. “What is it? Did something vex you at the market?”
Marie dips her head—a gesture of submission all girls learn at their mothers’ knees. It can also signal evasion, Mary thinks.
“You’d best unburden yourself,” she says, pulling the towel off the basket and briskly taking out three onions, a small wheel of cheese, and a loaf of bread. “Did you bargain well for this?” she asks, sniffing, confirming her suspicion that it is not fresh.
But Marie does not answer. Her glance slides sideways and she appears unduly busy with her apron.
Mary sets the loaf on the table and steps directly in front of her daughter. “I’ll have no more of this. Speak the plain truth, child.”
Marie sobs and covers her face with her hands. Mary takes her by the wrists and gently draws her hands away. “Come, tell me.”
And finally Marie confesses what she overheard in the market. “I heard a woman say your name when I was near the weaver’s stall. I peeked over the bolts of cloth to look. There were two of them—finely dressed they both were, with great wide sleeves and lace collars. They spoke exceeding ill of you, Mother.” Her eyes are swimming with tears.
“Tell me,” Mary says—although, in truth, she does not want to hear.
“They said you are unclean. That you brought back queer manners from the wilderness. That you cannot rule your children. That you are tainted.”
Mary feels the air in her lungs go cold. She bites down hard on the words she longs to say. “Go on, child,” she says instead. “Tell me all.”
Marie takes a shuddering breath. “They said if nothing happened, why do you not speak freely of your time in the wilderness?”
A laugh burbles up through Mary’s chest, but she does not release it. “’Tis ignorance, plain and simple,” she whispers.
“’Tis malice, Mother,” Marie says, looking at her directly now. “And it infects others.”
Mary cannot deny this. She recalls the many conversations she had with her sisters and friends about Bess Parker, how quickly rumors and falsehoods had spread from one woman to another. She had not thought of the stories as malicious, but they had certainly been infectious.
“’Tis fear that is infectious, daughter,” she says. “And one thing alone casts out fear.”
“Perfect love casteth out fear, for fear hath painfulness, and he that feareth, is not perfect in love,” Marie recites dutifully. But her face is still sullen with anger and it is plain she does not believe the words.
Or even understand them, Mary tells herself. But then, who among us does?
She thinks of her captivity, how terrified she was in the first weeks, how desperately she wanted to believe that Joseph was coming to rescue her. How James had frightened her at first. For she had believed he could not be trusted—not because of what he had done, but simply because he was an Indian.
How strangely things had been turned and twisted. How poorly her experience had matched her expectations. It was James she had failed to trust, but he had saved her. And Joseph, whom she trusted, had not come for her. Not even as far as Concord after her release.
Love. She is requi
red to love, honor, and obey her husband. But what does such love mean? It is not desire; it is not affection. It is simply one more duty.
• • •
Mary writes her story as she has time, and slowly the words and sentences accumulate. Though it is a duty she did not choose, to her surprise she finds that the more she writes, the more she wants to write. She ponders which words she can use to best express her terror in the days after she was captured, how she can explain her frantic grief when Sarah died. Her waking thoughts are consumed with how to convey her experience.
She longs to hear news that James Printer has come in under the amnesty but she dares not ask anyone. Joseph is clearly pleased that she has agreed to Increase’s plan, and credits himself with persuading her. She does not contradict him. He believes he will benefit in some important way from her labors. She is startled to find that she does not care. Her future—her security and safety—has been inextricably linked to his since the day she married him. Always, before now, she did all she could to ease his life, since whatever was in his interests was in hers as well.
She knows, by the way Joseph watches her when she is writing, that he wants to read her pages. But a perverse caution grips her. She purchases a wooden box with a key in which to keep the pages and she shows them to no one. She finds a loose board in the wainscoting by their bed and hides the box there when no one is looking.
• • •
She has known for weeks that she is the subject of gossip. Still, she has to go out among the people of Boston and strive to be accepted. The men are courteous and kindly, though she notes a hesitation behind their smiles. She suspects that their benevolence is more in deference to Joseph and his friends than a mark of personal regard.
Mary reads the women more easily. Their glances and whispers plainly proclaim their doubts about her virtue. It is now common knowledge that she came to Bess Parker’s defense the evening before the attack on Lancaster. This leads many to conclude that she was unchaste when she lived among the Indians.
One afternoon in late July, Joseph informs Mary of a more vicious rumor. He finds her in the yard, bent over the laundry kettle, scrubbing a stained apron. He asks her to put down her work and attend to him. She shakes the water and soap from her hands and wipes them on her apron, glad for the respite, however brief. Hands clasped behind his back, he paces back and forth between the garden and fence that separates their yard from the neighbor’s. His head is bent so that his gaze falls on his shoes.
His manner unnerves her and Mary feels her stomach clench. What has he heard? She has the terrifying thought that it has something to do with James.
Finally he stops pacing and faces her. “You have sworn that you were not violated during your time with the Indians,” he says. “Yet there is now word among the good people of Boston that you were wife to a savage. What am I to make of this?”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “You must not make anything of it,” she says slowly. “’Tis but the idle nattering of gossips, for I had no intimacy with any savage.” Yet even as she speaks, she is thinking of James, how his kindness had opened her heart, how his warm glances had roused her. She draws up her shoulders so her back is as straight as a board. She knows she must face Joseph boldly, must show no fear, for he will surely interpret it as guilt. “Who is it I am said to have been joined to? Or have these scandalmongers not even troubled themselves to supply a name?”
He gives her a hard look, assured that his gaze will ferret out the truth. “There is a name. One-Eyed John. A Nashaway sachem, recently hanged. He is not unknown to me for he was often in Lancaster.”
Monoco. Mary recalls the sachem’s ruined eye and the shameless way he clutched her hair. She remembers Weetamoo’s mocking dismissal. She recalls James telling her that Monoco had ordered her capture and that he wanted to take her for a wife. And that he had supplied the horse on which she and Sarah rode to Menameset.
“He was in the Indian camp,” she says. “But I did not become his wife.”
“Did he not violate you?” Joseph’s hands are still tucked behind his back where Mary cannot see them. “Did you not prevail upon this Monoco for protection? Did you not trade your virtue for food?”
“As God is my judge, I did not.” She presses her own hands against her waist, forcing them to be very still. “As I have told you, again and again, no one violated me.”
“Then wherefore this tale?” Joseph looks bewildered. “There must be some truth to it, else it would not have spread so far.”
“’Tis the Devil’s work,” she says. “These are vile lies. Rumors! Am I to be punished for sins I have not committed?” She does not know who is behind the story, but Monoco’s interest was no secret in the Indian camps. “Rumors do not need evidence to grow,” she reminds him. “All they require is an evil tongue and an eager ear.”
He says nothing. He appears to be waiting for her to say more.
She looks at the ground and sees that her wet shoes are powdered gray with dust. “I believe Monoco wished to purchase me from my mistress,” she says after a silence. “But she would not sell me.”
“Ah,” he says. “There it is—the kernel of truth that feeds the lie.” He straightens, drawing to his full height, as he so often did when facing the congregation. “We must do what we can to repair your reputation. Lest we both become outcasts.”
She thinks of Bess Parker, and how she was shunned in Lancaster. How cruelly the women spoke of her. Now Mary has become the outsider, the subject of scorn and gossip, the banished exile. Perhaps she deserves no less.
Joseph steps toward her, his hands falling to his sides. “Yet I still perceive guilt writ upon your face.”
She meets his wounded gaze. “If there be guilt in me, ’tis not because I was unchaste, but because I could not save our poor Sarah’s life.”
“Aye, ’tis a pity you could not mend her,” he says. “But you should not let it burden you unduly. The Lord will use her death for His purposes.”
“His purposes?” she says in a thin voice. “How can the death of a child suit His purposes?”
He gives her a long look. “That is not ours to answer. Only your prayers can shed some light in that darkness.”
She knows he does not mean his words unkindly, but they scorch her heart. She pictures Sarah’s inert body lying on the floor of Quenêke’s wetu. She thinks of the terrible cries Bess Parker uttered when her son was taken from her. She hears again the eerie keening of Indian women when their babes died. None of these seem to have any purpose except sorrow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The summer deepens and Mary grows languid in the heat. One afternoon the air is so hot that she sheds her shoes and stockings. When Joseph finds her sitting on the front stoop mending a pair of Joss’s breeches, he yanks her to her feet and steers her quickly inside.
“This is not an Indian camp, Mary.” His face is almost purple. “You know their ways are sinful.”
“What do you know of Indian ways?” She jerks her arm from his possessive fingers and angrily stuffs the thread and needle into her pocket. She is no longer willing to passively submit to his ignorance.
He is startled for no more than a moment. “I am your husband,” he says. “Do not shame me.” He points to her feet.
She looks at her dirt-caked toes. “How does the comfort of my feet bring shame on you, husband?” she asks, though she knows the answer—bare feet and uncovered legs are signs of a whorish nature. Yet how is it that the Indians can dress as they choose—for comfort and freedom—without chastisement from their fellows? The severe conventions of English dress, which fall most heavily on women, seem old things, relics of some dark age before she was born.
He shakes his head. “I know you are still suffering from your ordeal, Mary. But these spells—”
“Spells?” Her back goes as rigid as the floorboards beneath her naked feet. The
threat of witchcraft is palpable in the air. She remembers the times Joseph was called to consult over the signs of witchcraft in towns near Lancaster. How he always returned home agitated and frightened. “I suffer no spells, let me assure you.”
He closes his eyes and goes to the chair in the corner of the room—the chair given by the members of Increase’s church—and sits down. He carefully places his hands on the arms and looks up at her. “Please, sit ye down.” His tone has changed. He addresses her as a farmer speaks to a fretful animal—patiently, gently. “I have news that will interest you.”
Mary drops onto the bench by the hearth and tries to feign interest despite her anger. But her pretense quickly fades when he tells her the authorities have taken custody of many Indian children orphaned in the recent hostilities. “Some are old enough to be bound out as slaves,” he says.
She narrows her eyes and hardens her jaw at the word slaves. She starts to say something, but Joseph cuts her off.
“Most will be sent to Barbados, of course. But there are some”—here he smiles at her—“some who are young and docile enough to be suitable in English homes. And I have been honored”—he pauses again, a technique he has long used in his sermons for dramatic effect—“nay, we have been honored to be offered one of those children.”
Mary’s heart leaps at the prospect of another child to care for. To love. “I would be pleased to adopt one,” she says, eagerly nodding. “Perhaps a girl. Though she cannot replace Sarah in my heart.”
Joseph frowns. “Adopt one? Mary, these children are Indians. They are being offered as slaves.”
Finally she perceives his meaning and in that instant her happiness turns to revulsion. “You would bring a slave into our house?” Her fingers twitch so violently in her lap that she has to push her hands under her apron to still them. “Have you so quickly forgot that I was a slave? Joseph”—she leans so far toward him in her earnestness that she almost rises from the bench—“I was sold like an animal at market. I was dragged everywhere against my will. Made to do the meanest task for no reason. Threatened with death many times at the whim of my mistress.” Her words come out in a rush, so quickly that she gasps for breath when she stops. It is only then, as she stares at Joseph’s stunned face, that she realizes she has told him more about her captivity in a single moment than she has in all the weeks since her release.
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