Bride of the Wilderness

by Charles McCarry

“Then this must be a general confession. Be brief but heartfelt.”

  He inclined his head, ready to listen.

  Ten paces away, Abenaki warriors were painting the faces of half-naked women to mark them as their property. An adolescent boy, shrieking in fear and bleeding from many cuts, was running the gauntlet between two rows of Indians who were beating him with clubs and hatchets.

  Fanny tried to get to her feet. The priest restrained her.

  “What sins have you committed?”

  Fanny answered him, knowing that he would not let her go until she did. “Unbelief. Despair. I have been angry at God.”

  “How many times?”

  “Many times. Nearly all the time.”

  Father Nicolas gasped, as if he had never before encountered these transgressions, but his voice was mild: “These are serious faults, but you have been separated from the church and you are very young. For now, it is enough to be truly sorry.”

  Father Nicolas hurried on through the forms, muttering so rapidly and so softly in Latin that some of his words were lost altogether.

  “Do not fear, my child,” he said in French. “You will be in a state of grace during the dangers that lie before us.”

  He gave Fanny absolution, and to her amazement, prepared to offer her Holy Communion. She did not want the sacraments; she did not believe in their power.

  All that was happening around her—the burning town, the massacre of innocents, the hate that would not die—proved the truth of everything her father had ever suggested to her about the true practices of the religious.

  Fanny looked at the Manor where Oliver lay bleeding. Against the background of flames, Talks in His Dreams was jogging across the village green toward the big house, his silhouette wavering like a reflection in water. Fanny was certain that Talks in His Dreams intended to set the Manor on fire.

  “That man,” she said. “Stop him.”

  Father Nicolas followed her eyes and saw Talks in His Dreams disappearing into the smoke.

  “He has his work,” the priest said. “Trust in God.”

  Father Nicolas elevated the host, smiling beautifully. The pyx containing it was a powder horn slung over Laux’s shoulder. The host itself was a morsel of barley bread. Laux sipped frozen wine out of the neck of a gourd.

  According to the belief in which Fanny had been raised, these rude ingredients had now become, through consecration, the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ. She kneeled in the snow and opened her mouth for the bread. It dissolved on her tongue, as tasteless as snow. Her eyes never left Talks in His Dreams; he was now so far away that he could only be seen when he passed in front of a burning house.

  “What a brave girl you’ve been, praying in secret all these years, living among God’s enemies,” Father Nicolas said as he put away his Communion kit. “We know a great deal about your life. You must tell me about your confessor in England. What was his name? Possibly I knew him.”

  “Evans, Philip Evans,” Fanny said.

  “Ah, one of the English martyrs. He was hanged in Wales for saying Mass and hearing confessions. He is certainly among the blessed.”

  “Hanged?”

  Until now Fanny had not known what had happened to Philip Evans. She asked Father Nicolas no questions. There was death all around her; she did not want to know more than she already knew.

  Father Nicolas collected his things. “We march in an hour,” he said, in his mild way. “Think about God and His blessed martyrs, not forgetting my martyred brother Evans, and the hardship will seem lighter. Every single one of us, French and Abenaki, has received the sacraments. The entire expedition is in a state of grace.”

  “Father, am I a prisoner?”

  The Jesuit was startled. “No. You are a rescued Catholic.”

  “Then I will remain here.”

  “Remain? You cannot remain. These people have seen you receive Holy Communion from a Jesuit. They will execute you as a traitor.”

  He gestured to the herd of captives standing fifty paces away on the village green. Fanny looked at them. All but a few looked away, unwilling to meet her eyes.

  “I cannot leave my godfather,” Fanny said. “He will die if he’s left alone.”

  Once again the priest appeared to be startled by Fanny’s words; surprise seemed to be his chief mannerism. “This person is a Catholic?”

  “No, but he was present at my baptism and he has always protected me and kept the secret of my faith.”

  “Then God will be merciful to him. Here are your clothes. Look, the Indian is coming back.”

  Talks in His Dreams appeared with an armful of things—Fanny’s warmest cloak, woolen petticoats and woolen stockings, the little sack that Antoinette had sewn to be carried in the holy pocket in her petticoat. It contained Fanchon’s crucifix, the fifty gold sovereigns Praise God had loaned her, miniature paintings of Fanchon and Henry Harding, and the ruby necklace that Oliver had given to Fanny aboard the Pamela.

  Talks in His Dreams had also brought Fanny’s snowshoes and three sacks of the nocake that Thoughtful had hidden in their bedroom.

  No one but Thoughtful could have assembled these possessions or told Talks in His Dreams where to find them. Fanny asked in signs where she was. Talks in His Dreams made the sign for Two Suns and Hair, running, and north.

  Father Nicolas had vanished. Fanny put on her coat and tied the other things into a bundle. Then she started up the path toward the Manor. Talks in His Dreams let her go halfway. Then he came up behind her, gripped her around the waist as he had done before, and, grunting with every step, carried her back between the high snowbanks to the village green. There he set her down and handed her one last gift from Thoughtful, a knife.

  “Look,” a voice said from the crowd of captives. “He’s given her a knife. Papist whore.”

  Most of the captives still wore their nightclothes. Many were barefoot. The men were trussed up, hands and feet tied, bridled like Rose with sticks thrust into their mouths. From time to time one of them would fall down. When that happened, an Abenaki would strike the fallen captive on the soft parts of his body with a club until he struggled to his feet again.

  One or two small children had already been brained for making noise. Mothers suckled their babies, and even some larger children, to keep them quiet. The Indians passed among the women and children, looking at teeth, feeling arms and legs and breasts. Twenty or thirty living men and boys hung in the trees along the green, suspended from ropes tied under their arms. A few had been kicking when Fanny first came down from the Manor, but all now hung limp and unresisting, turning slowly on the ropes.

  The night grew steadily colder. The prisoners, even the men who were tied up, milled constantly, trying to prevent their feet from freezing. The captives stood at the edge of a pond of blood. The cattle of Alamoth, handsome quick-stepping red Devons with long spreading horns, had been driven onto the green. The Abenakis were slaughtering them one after the other by cutting their throats. The blood froze almost as soon as it was spilled, forming a brownish scrim on the snow. Captives, using axes, chopped the dead animals into chunks of meat, leaving the hide on according to the Indians’ orders.

  The captives were staring at Fanny and whispering. She knew very few of them. Betsy Ash was not there. Fanny searched the crowd, looking for Ash, thinking that she could send him to Oliver—surely the French would allow that. What would they want with Ash?

  Then she saw Hepzibah Clum standing with her arm around her younger sister. Both had streaks of red and white paint on their round faces. They were barefoot; Hepzibah wore a nightdress with a shawl over her shoulders, while the younger girl was wrapped in a quilt.

  Fanny went to them, Talks in His Dreams following close behind. The little girl, Totsie, buried her head in Hepzibah’s bosom when she saw the painted Indian approaching. Talks in His Dreams took hold of the long auburn braid hanging down the child’s back and pulled her face around so that Fanny could see it. He touched the paint on t
he girls’ faces and the paint on his own to show that they belonged to him.

  Gurgling the French words, Talks in His Dreams said, “Elle sonts les soeurs de ma femme, quelle joie.”

  To Hepzibah, Fanny said, “He says that he is your sister’s husband.”

  Hepzibah hugged Totsie more tightly and gave Fanny a look filled with loathing. “You can talk Indian?” she asked.

  “No. He’s speaking French. Have you seen Ash?” “What do you care?”

  Hepzibah was running in place to keep her feet from freezing and slapping Totsie on the bottom to remind her to do the same. The snow under their feet had been churned into slush.

  Fanny said, “The Indians have Rose, I don’t know where. Oliver is up there. His stump is bleeding. I must find Ash.”

  Hepzibah, still running in place, began to sob. She looked up at the Manor. There was lamplight in its broken windows. The fires were dying out now, but the acrid smoke that still issued from what was left of Alamoth was settling near to the ground.

  Fanny handed Hepzibah the bundle of clothes that Thoughtful had assembled. Hepzibah, still sobbing, shook her head.

  “Give them to your priest, he wears petticoats,” she gasped.

  The other captives, who had been listening, murmured. “Papist whore!” one said, setting off a string of insults.

  Fanny looked at Hepzibah for a long moment, then turned away.

  Used to be Bear appeared out of the darkness, moving at a trot with Rose’s slender body draped over his shoulders. He set her on her feet beside Fanny. Rose was fully dressed now in a woolen dress and a fur bonnet and her fur-lined cape. Her face was painted blue, with dark lines underneath her lavender eyes and her lips painted white.

  “It’s all right,” Rose said. “All he did was paint my face.”

  “Have you just come down from the Manor?” Fanny said. “What about Oliver?”

  “I know nothing about him,” Rose said, sniffling. “All this, everything, is Oliver’s work. He wouldn’t listen. That little bitch was a papist spy. You know that, Fanny; everyone knows it.”

  The whites of Rose’s eyes, inside the painted blue mask, were red-rimmed from the smoke. Fanny realized that everyone else’s eyes were red too, even the Abenakis’, so that the whole company of people, victor and captives, looked as if they were weeping.

  Used to be Bear stroked Rose’s fur cloak, then reached underneath and squeezed parts of her body, grunting in satisfaction as he felt her arms, her buttocks, her stomach, and ran his hands down her legs.

  Rose made no effort to resist; in fact, she appeared not to notice. She was serene, detached, aristocratic. She inspected the other captives. The sight of them, half-clothed, faces lifted up in pleading, seemed to disgust her. She turned away.

  “Shonts-mwa shonts-mwa shonts-mwa,” said Used to be Bear.

  Rose looked at Fanny. “He keeps on saying that,” she said in a clear drawing-room voice. “Whatever does it mean?”

  “He’s saying, ‘J’ai de la chance, moi,’” Fanny said. “It means ‘Lucky me.’”

  8

  “Are you quite all right?” Philippe asked.

  Fanny was not in the least surprised to see him. He wore a bearskin hat and carried his peculiar stubby musket slung across his back. He was taller than Fanny remembered.

  “Are you in command here?” Fanny asked.

  “I am the only French officer present.”

  “Good. Then you must tell Talks in His Dreams and the others to let me go up to the Manor. There is a wounded man inside.”

  “What wounded man?”

  “My godfather.”

  “What wound?”

  “His foot was blown off with a musket before you came. It was an accident.”

  Over Philippe’s shoulder, Fanny saw the captives looking at the two of them with hatred on their faces. Philippe’s own features, regular and handsome, were as deeply calm as before. The wailing children, the women shuddering barefoot in the snow, the burning town, seemed not to move him at all.

  “You say this man is your godfather,” he said.

  Fanny did not repeat herself or plead. Their eyes were locked together again. Philippe nodded and took her arm. “I will accompany you.”

  “Then hurry,” Fanny said, and ran up the path toward the manor.

  Rose and Talks in His Dreams had left a lamp burning inside the door. Fanny picked it up as they entered. Philippe had unslung his musket and now he held it across his chest. A long bayonet was attached to the muzzle. He went up the stairs first, probing the darkness with the blade.

  Oliver lay on the floor of the passageway, unconscious. Evidently he had crawled after Fanny and fainted there. She kneeled beside him and felt the pulse in his neck as Ash had taught her. It was rapid and thready.

  “Help me, ” Fanny said.

  She and Philippe lifted Oliver onto the bed.

  “The lamp,” Fanny said.

  Philippe held it closer. The bandages covering Oliver’s stump were soaked in blood. Fanny unwrapped them. The whole flap of the wound had come undone from its sutures, spilling the bloody lint that packed the wound. Blood trickled steadily onto the bed from somewhere deep inside the wound. Fanny lifted the leg, directing Philippe to fold the bolster beneath it.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Fanny said.

  Philippe had been watching her in astonishment as she uncovered Oliver’s wound.

  “I think it may be too late,” he said. “There is a great deal of blood.”

  “No,” Fanny said. “Wait.”

  She ran out of the room, leaving the lamp behind. Halfway down the stairs she heard Philippe following.

  “Stay with him,” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  In the library, working by the moonlight and firelight that filtered through the windows, Fanny pulled the books off the shelf and opened the mashed door to the hiding room. At the bottom of the stairs she could already hear Ash’s voice as he prayed inside the stone chamber.

  Within, a candle burned. Ash lay on the floor, beating his fists on the stones as he prayed.

  “Get up,” Fanny said.

  He lifted a face with wet tears.

  “Fanny! Go! Don’t come here!” he said.

  His medicine box and surgical box stood on the table; he kept them by him at all times in case of Indian attack. Now the attack was over and he did not know that it had taken place. Fanny picked them up.

  “It’s Oliver,” she said. “The wound is open.”

  Ash seized his boxes from Fanny and bounded up the stone stairs into the library.

  “My God, the town!” he said when he saw the burning houses through the window.

  “It’s over now,” Fanny said. “Come upstairs.”

  Ash seemed not to notice Philippe, who appeared to be standing guard in the bedchamber. He looked at Oliver’s wound, listened to his heart, rolled back his eyelids.

  “We must be quick,” he said to Fanny. “The artery is leaking.”

  Working with his usual deftness, but keeping silent except to give curt orders to Fanny, he stopped the bleeding and repaired the wound. Fanny assisted him, dipping lint into oil as in the first operation to pack the stump. Ash sewed the flap of skin into place.

  “Bandage it, using plenty of lint,” Ash said to Fanny. “Cover him warmly.”

  Fanny wrapped up the stump, holding it in her lap as she sat on the bed. Oliver remained unconscious, pale-skinned. His breathing was shallow. Fanny knew that even Ash was not certain that he would live.

  Ash sank to his knees and folded his hands to pray; the fingers were smeared with Oliver’s blood. Lifting his eyes, he seemed to see Philippe for the first time.

  “What are you, in that hat?” he said.

  Philippe flinched a little in surprise; he had not heard Ash in full voice before. He ignored Ash, who now was staring at him in growing anger as he realized that he must be the enemy.

  “Hurry,” Philippe said to Fanny in French
, using the familiar form.

  “Dépêches-toi?” Ash said. “Dépêches-toi? What do you mean, dépêches-toi?”

  “We are leaving,” Philippe said.

  “Leaving?” Ash roared. “Fanny! Is this the man?”

  Oliver heard him even in his unconsciousness and cried out. Ash got to his feet, his face working. Philippe stood his ground with his arms folded, as calm as ever. He looked on Ash with curiosity, unsurprised that he spoke French, unsurprised by his anger. His musket stood against the wall behind him; he made no move toward it.

  “Bastard!” Ash cried.

  Fanny laid Oliver’s stump gently down and started to slide off the bed. Before her feet reached the floor, Ash launched himself at Philippe, bony arms flailing. He made no sound at all as he attacked.

  Philippe stepped aside, arms still folded. Ash crashed against the wall and fell to the floor, stunned. He saw Philippe’s musket and seized it. Now Philippe moved, very quickly, and grasped the weapon too. The two men struggled for a moment, then Philippe twisted the weapon from Ash’s hands and backed quickly away so as to have room to use the bayonet.

  “No!” Fanny said.

  Ash threw himself forward again. Philippe reversed his weapon and struck Ash over the heart with the butt. The blow paralyzed Ash but did not knock him unconscious.

  Philippe handed his musket to Fanny and rolled Ash over onto his stomach. With a length of rawhide rope that he produced from inside his clothes he tied Ash’s hands behind him and then trussed up his legs, bending them at the knees and tying the ankles to the wrists.

  His eyes still on Ash, Philippe held out his hand for the musket. Fanny gave it to him.

  “Come,” he said. “We can’t stay any longer.”

  Ash was struggling now, rolling on the floor, but still he did not speak. The wind came through the broken window, blowing snow onto the floor. Philippe took Oliver’s cloak off its peg and spread it over Ash, covering him up head and all.

  He held out his hand. Fanny took it and he led her out of the house.

  They had left the lamp behind. It burned in Oliver’s window.

  Inside the Manor, Ash was shouting. His voice was muffled by the cloak, but Fanny could make out what he was saying. He was calling her name, over and over again.