The Blooded Ones

by Elizabeth Brown

  “Benjamin, we should hurry on,” she began, stunned when he raised her hand to his lips and gently kissed her knuckles.

  “I beg yer leave, Maggie, but I must speak to ye.”

  He caught her by the fingertips and held them tight so she could not flee.

  “I do not wish to cause ye distress,” he began. “But I fear we must act quickly,” he pleaded. She shook her head, afraid of his meaning, uncertain how to placate him and extricate herself from the awkward mess.

  “I don’t know what you mean–”

  “I ask ye to marry me. Please be my wife,” he said softly. She stepped back.

  “Benjamin–”

  “If we do not marry soon, people will soon notice yer condition, and there will be talk.”

  She shook her head and turned her eyes downward, unable to meet his soft searching gaze.

  “I cannot marry you, Benjamin,” she murmured.

  “Maggie,” he sighed. “Yer uncle will disown ye, and possibly send ye back to England. I can do nothing to change that…unless ye marry me now.”

  “Why? Why would you ask this, when you know I carry his child?” she asked, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes as she lost patience with him.

  “It matters not to me,” he said softly. Shocked by his admission, and not expecting such a declaration from a man of his time, she let him hold her closer and raised her swollen eyes to his.

  “Why would I hold ye at fault for such a thing? Ye were lost and injured, ye are lucky to live. It is not your doing what happened,” he replied, his eyes damping with sadness. “Ye came here under contract on yer uncle’s bidding. And whatever happened between ye and Winn…he was my friend, even so. At least I can offer ye protection now.”

  Taken aback by his sincerity and struck by the adamant undercurrent in his words, she leveled her response with the kindest tone she could muster.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “He asked it of me, before he died. He asked me to protect ye. It is the last thing I can do for him...to see ye cared for.”

  She bit her lower lip. No. Winn would not have asked this of her…would he? Winn, her warrior, the man who had killed a brave for placing an ownership mark on her head? Would Winn truly have wanted this? She did not believe he would send her willingly to another man, unless…unless he knew he could no longer be there to protect her from what was to come.

  “What did he say to you?” she whispered. She stepped away from him, but he did not let her leave him entirely. His eyes dipped down and he clutched her hands harder.

  “With his last words, he spoke of ye. He knew the shot was fatal…he asked me to keep ye safe.”

  She bowed her head into her hands and her body began to shake. Memory of his promises stung her as the tears flowed.

  Now you will feel no rain, for I will shelter you.

  Was this his way of keeping his promise, even in death?

  “All right,” she whispered, the words like ice upon her tongue. He ran one hand through his unruly hair and his cheeks burned with a hint of crimson at her declaration. He raised the hand he held to his lips and kissed it gently.

  “Yes, then. Good, it is settled. Come now, Miss Finola awaits us.”

  Finola did not take the news well. She had closed her shop to visitors, yet when Maggie and Benjamin arrived that morning, she allowed them entrance. She stepped back from the door and waved them inside, clutching a wool cloak around her as the snow whipped in behind them. She looked older than when Maggie had last visited, her face drawn, her skin an unhealthy pallor. The older woman sat down on a stool next to the fire and placed her hands close to the flames, rubbing her palms to warm them. Maggie recalled her own desire to let the flames consume her and her heart ached fresh at the thought of their shared loss.

  Benjamin took her cloak from her shoulders and Maggie sank down on her knees in front of Finola. Their hands met and entwined together, and they both kept their gaze on the snapping flames of the fire. Maggie could cry no tears for Winn with Benjamin at her side, but the older woman seemed to know her heart and she patted her hand in a soothing manner.

  “He was the best of them, you know. The Paspahegh, that is,” Finola said quietly. She kept her eyes on the fire as she spoke, and Maggie felt each of her words like a dagger scraping slowly across her skin.

  “He was,” Maggie answered, the words hollow on her dry lips.

  “Will Thomas Martin be punished for his crime?”

  Finola turned then to look at Benjamin, and he paled considerably.

  “You know there was no crime, Miss,” he said, his voice breaking with the last bit of words. He shoved his hat back over his unruly curls.

  “Yes, I know. No crime but the murder of my grandson.”

  “Take care for your words, lest someone else hear them. I will see to my business and return for ye soon, Maggie. Miss Finola.” He nodded to them both in a stilted manner and quickly made his exit.

  Maggie felt a surge of relief when Benjamin left the cabin, leaving her and Finola to speak openly. Finola must have sensed her urgency, because after Benjamin left she quickly closed the door and latched it securely.

  “Come,” she said simply, and waved her toward a separate room in the back.

  Maggie followed her into the second half of the house, a common sitting room with her sleeping space in one corner. The older woman reached under her stuffed straw mattress, and after fiddling through the linens for a few moments, she withdrew a bundle wrapped in silk.

  “What do you have there, Finola?” Maggie asked.

  “Sit down, dear,” she ordered as she unwrapped the bundle. When it was unbound, Maggie did as she was directed and sat down on a chair, nearly missing the seat but finding it with two outstretched hands.

  From Finola’s thin white fingers hung a pendant on a thick gold chain, the center of the setting a fat, shining, Bloodstone.

  “Before ye ask, child, this is my Bloodstone. I cannot give it to ye, it does not work that way. I have the same mark as ye,” she explained, holding out her palm for inspection. It was true. They shared the same brand.

  “But how does it work? Why am I here?” she asked, her questions running together in an incoherent jumble of nonsense. “Tell me!”

  “Aye, of course, I will tell ye! I do not know where yer stone is hidden. My grandson kept his secrets well,” she said softly. Maggie felt a surge of despair at the revelation, but she knew the outcome had bound her to the time more powerfully than any shackle could. “The raw stone needs your blood to work the magic, and once you use it, it bonds to the bearer. My mother taught me how to use it long ago.”

  “Oh,” Maggie said. “Blood…I cut my hand before I picked it up.”

  Finola nodded. “So it knows you now, and you cannot walk again without it.”

  “There has to be another way – have you tried to use another stone?” Maggie asked.

  “There are other ways, with other magic, but the ways to wield that power are long lost to us. But child, if I had your stone here to give ye now, would ye truly want to use it? I think your heart lies here, and this is the time ye now call home,” she said. “The babe in your belly belongs to this time, does it not?”

  “But,” she began, but then her lips fell silent. She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to wash away the doubt the woman brought forth. Would she leave, if she could? Could she walk away from this time? She shook her head. The thought of leaving Winn’s memory in the past hurt more than the notion of what she left in the future, the door to the fable of her old life clicking shut with a gentle tap. By staying in the past, would her son know his father? Or would they both be better off in the time she was born to?

  “Nay, no need to answer me, dear. It is as it should be,” she sighed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the Bloodstones are curious things. They have been used by my people for centuries, and have been known as powerful talismans. Only the most skilled Blooded
Ones can truly harness their power, and once used, the Bloodstone marks its bearer, ye see,” she said.

  “Wait, wait a second! Blooded Ones? What does that mean?” Maggie interrupted.

  “It is what my people are called. Blooded Ones, those who can use powerful magic. Here in James City, a witch,” she answered.

  “So the Weroance was right. You are a witch.”

  Finola shrugged.

  “Opechancanough is an old fool, he knows nothing.”

  “What lies between you? He told me he spared my life, as he once spared yours,” Maggie said. “What was he talking about?”

  “A tale best left buried, is all. It is true, he let me leave. He fears too much what he canna understand. Enough of him,” she muttered, shaking her head. “He is too stubborn to see the truth.”

  Maggie swallowed despite the dryness in her throat. “Were you born here, in James City?”

  “Och, no! My Bloodstone sent me here many years ago, with my son, Dagr. It is a long story for another time, but it is how we arrived. My mother was a powerful Blooded One of the Five Families, and she passed her gift to me,” she said softly, her eyes staring off, seeming lost in her memory for a moment. Her clear blue eyes glistened, but she shook her head a bit and continued. “It seems you have some powerful blood in yer veins, child. Who are your kin?”

  “No, I don’t come from—from anyone special. I don’t even know my parents, my grandfather raised me after my mother abandoned me. I never had anyone else.”

  “But now ye know where ye belong. I saw it in a dream, Winkeohkwet with his Red Woman.”

  “Did you see his death, as well?” she asked, her voiced edged in more bitterness than she intended.

  “No,” she answered. “I did not.”

  Maggie let out her breath in a long sigh before she entered the parlor. Benjamin was waiting to announce their plans, eager to tell her guardians they would marry in the morning.

  Benjamin stepped toward her with his gloved hand outstretched, and Maggie walked toward him, although she was unable to curb a low cry when he squeezed her bruised upper arm in his excitement. His brows darted downward, tiny creases spreading out from each corner of his troubled blue eyes at the sound of her pained noise.

  “Sweetheart, what troubles you?” he asked softly. She winced when his hands closed around her shoulders, and when he pulled her into his arms and his embrace tightened around her ribs she let out a moan.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing,” she lied. She shook her head, more to herself than to him, not wishing to admit aloud what Thomas had done to her.

  He frowned as he looked down on her and reached a purposeful hand to her collar, which he gently pushed aside. She made no effort to stop him, letting him see the lacework of blue and purple bruises that marked her skin. He tilted her chin with shaking fingers, his lips mashed in a single thin line as he drew away. When he spoke, his voice cracked through his gritted teeth.

  “I will be right back. Keep ye here until I return.”

  Maggie watched him swing abruptly around, his cloak whirling in a halo around him as he shoved his hat on his mass of thick black hair and left the house. Alice was nearly knocked over by his exit, and Maggie was surprised to note Benjamin failed to acknowledge Alice as he left.

  Alice swatted fresh snow off her bonnet and dropped a bundle of kindling next to the fire.

  “Did you chase him away, niece?” she asked.

  “No. I did nothing,” Maggie answered with a shrug. She had no idea what was going on in Benjamin’s head. She reached back and loosened the apron at her waist, and then settled down on her knees by the fire. The flames licked her skin, casting a spreading warmth over her face as she leaned close. If she stuck her hand in, would she burn? Or would she wake up from the nightmare she was in and find her husband waiting to welcome both her – and the babe?

  A baby. The last thread pulled from an unraveling yarn, a splinter from the heartwood of a forest, a pledge of his love left nestled within her. Her hand slipped down over her belly and rested there. Her condition was not yet evident, but soon, it would be.

  “Well, he looks to be in a rare temper,” the older woman sniped.

  It was not long before the door slammed open again and Benjamin returned. This time he failed to remove his hat, and he stalked purposefully across the room to the fire where she sat. He held out one gloved hand to her.

  “The minister is waiting for us now, my dear. There is no need to wait any longer.”

  Alice gasped. “Now, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  Maggie looked at his outstretched hand, his long fingers covered by the fine black calfskin glove. She turned her gaze to the fire. She wondered if she could just continue to stare at the flames and forever remain there, eventually melting into its core to disappear into nothingness.

  Another figure filled the doorway, his wind chapped cheeks stunted and beady eyes narrowed, and when Maggie realized it was Thomas, she quickly placed her hand into the palm Benjamin held out to her. Stay with a violent devil, or take what Benjamin offered.

  She had no choice.

  She clutched her cloak around her shoulders as Benjamin hurried her toward the church, barely able to keep up with his rapid pace without jogging alongside him. His stride was long and propelled by his quiet anger, his displayed emotion clear yet much different than she was accustomed.

  The church loomed up ahead, the lights blazing like a beacon to guide them. The faster Benjamin walked, the more she slowed, and finally she grabbed his arm with both hands and urged him to a halt.

  “Benjamin. Stop, please, stop!” she insisted. He swung around to her, his cloak whirling, snow quickly covering the brim of his hat and the tops of his broad shoulders. His cheeks were reddened, from the cold or the anger she knew not, and his soft eyes looked pleading as he gazed down at her.

  “Sweetheart, we can talk inside, after our vows,” he promised. She shook her head, panicking at the realization of what she was about to do. She would tell him she could not wed him, that her heart belonged to her husband even if she could not join him yet in the afterlife.

  “No.” She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “I cannot do this.”

  His brows creased and his mouth fell open with a sigh before he spoke. He still held her hand, but more tightly now, as if he could mask the sting of her words from it.

  “Maggie…I –”

  “I cannot,” she said softly. She had no idea where she would go in the dead of winter without his protection, but she knew it would not be back to that lying, abusive, bastard Thomas. Perhaps Finola would take her in.

  She was stunned when his cold hands slipped around her face and his breath warmed her skin. His eyes were tinged red about the edges as he looked at her, searching for something she knew she could never give him.

  “Maggie, I love ye. I have loved ye since the first moment I saw thee in Finola’s store, yer hair in braids, a pale beauty among all the rest.” He bowed his head away from her gaze for a moment. “I wish I was the first man ye lay eyes on in this fearful new world. But I take thee whole, as ye are, with all that has happened. Without all those of things, I would not have thee,” he said softly. He kissed her then, his lips cold at first but heated with their connection, then moistened by her salty tears. “Ye did not deserve what Thomas did to ye. I promise you, I am not that kind of man. I would never lay hands to my wife in such a way. Let me protect you, and in time—in time ye will grow accustomed to me.”

  She swallowed hard at the memory of the beating. Her eyes searched his, and she could see the earnest plea reflected in his gaze. What choice did she have?

  “But the baby –”

  “Hush. I take thee before God as my wife, and the child will be ours, just as the children that will come of our union. Now, take my hand,” he said. “The minister is waiting for us.”

  Maggie sat with her hands folded on the edge of the bed. She was no idiot, and
she was fairly certain her new husband would expect to share her bed on their wedding night. Men of the time were predictable in their ways, and when it came to both sex and religion they gave no leeway for compromise. Her bruises were tender but healing, and she knew prolonging the matter would only cause more strife. She reminded herself of the reasons, but in the end, the thought of sharing his bed felt akin to a stake through her spine.

  Benjamin was a man of his time. Although he seemed more reasonable than the others and had already pledged he would not be the sort of husband to lay hands on her, she did not expect him to forgo his rights as her spouse.

  When she murmured goodnight and left a chaste kiss on his cheek, he stepped into the room with her and closed the door. He reached to snuff the single candle in the room, then peeled off his calfskin gloves. Always dressed as the proper gentleman, he had several layers of clothes to shed before he took her hand again in the dim light. He turned her slowly back to him, the longing evident in his gaze and building rapidly as he placed his hands on her shift. His fingers shook as he untied the laces, plucking the delicate rounds free one by one. In her flat bare feet her head only came to his collarbone, and she closed her eyes when he bent down to kiss her, his hands sliding around her waist.

  “Will ye have me, dearest?” he asked.

  She nodded. Later, the silence seemed much easier to live through than listening to the ghost of her past. The demons, however, had other ideas, and when he lay sleeping peacefully beside her with his long arm thrown over her belly, she stared up at the ceiling and silently cried in acknowledgement of the devils.

  CHAPTER 32

  Maggie wiped her hands on her apron as she watched the wagon approach the farm. It was not long before she spotted the two passengers, Charles Potts and Jonathon Pace, and decided she should join Benjamin in the barn before they arrived.

  Benjamin lived on a small croft on the outskirts of Martin’s Hundred called Wolstenholme Towne. It lacked the protection of the stockade walls, but it had a separate enclosure of shoulder-high log barriers that appeared to provide adequate security against wildlife and other dangers. Maggie knew Benjamin was quite friendly with the natives and considered them little threat. Yet she knew better than he as to the danger that would come, and she was torn with the urge to alert him to the potential disaster. Of course, she could only offer her womanly advice, for as much as that was worth in the despicable century, and bat her eyelids when he laughed off her ideas. Why on earth should she help any of them, anyway? They deserved to be run off after what the English were bound by history to do to the Natives, but the resolution seemed less clear when the victims in question were living, breathing, human beings who gave her food and shelter. They had no idea what the Indians would do to them in a few short weeks and Maggie could not fathom what her role should be in the tragedy.