“What does that have to do with speaking Nipmuk?”
“You don’t learn a foreign tongue from a jailer,” she said. “You learn it through long, struggled conversations. A mutual attempt to understand. You learn it from a friend.”
“I see. And that proves your sympathy with the savages.”
“I should not have prevaricated, I should have stated the matter baldly. Indicted Captain Knapp for his brutality, whether the charge be believed or no. He was offered peace, but chose cold-blooded murder instead. The world needs to see that.”
“So how many know the extent of your Nipmuk?” James asked. “Only the ones who’ve read this chapter?”
“The same. Anne, her husband, the printer. So what is it, what are you thinking? Tell me.”
“I start with the assumption that the highwaymen intended to murder Peter Church all along. Maybe they’d have killed the two of us too—they shot Woory casually enough—but Peter was their real target. Maybe it was revenge for disrupting services yesterday, or maybe the conspirators hate all Indians and wanted to kill him for that.”
“Except if you were right about the other thing—that they were already poisoning him from the first night you arrived—it couldn’t have been about Sunday services.”
“Exactly,” he said, pleased at how her mind worked. “And they continued poisoning him up to the moment we left. To make it look like actual disease. It was planned all along.”
“Only he left before they could finish him,” Prudence said. “That’s why they sent men to attack us on the road.”
“Keep going,” he urged. “Why am I asking about the language?”
Her face lit up. “Because Peter spoke Nipmuk. Maybe that’s why they wanted to kill him in the first place.” She grew even more animated. “There must be something they don’t want you to find out from the Nipmuk. Something about what happened to my husband or my daughter. But I speak it. I can go with you and translate!”
He smiled at her enthusiasm. “All we have to do is track the Indians into the wilderness and hope they don’t kill us.”
“I can do that. I can help.”
James scanned the road ahead. The farms were growing thicker, and people were out in some of them, feeding livestock or carrying milk from barns. People eyed them, but as of yet nobody came running to the road to question them or ask them for news or mail.
“We must be close to Danforth’s Farms,” he said. “Time to concoct a story.”
“Oh, yes. What should we say?”
“I’ll be fine, it’s you I’m worried about. Keep your face bundled against the cold. That will keep anyone from recognizing you. If we’re challenged, you’re my wife.”
“Your wife! I could never say that.”
“Fine, then you’re my lover from the city. You’ve run away from your husband with a handsome young stranger.”
“James!” She sighed. “All right, I’ll be your wife.”
“Thank you, my dear, I’d be honored. Where is your father? I should ask his permission. Then the church should publish the banns. That way you can be assured I’m not already married.”
“You’re not, are you?” she asked.
“What does it matter, if it’s only playacting?” He smiled at the worried look on her face. “I’m not married. Yet.”
“Oh, you’re terrible.” She looked like she was trying, but not quite succeeding, to look offended. “Anyway, magistrates marry us in New England, not the church. Marriage rites are not biblical.”
“Is that what they claim around here? You people have some odd customs.”
“How do we explain the horses?” she asked.
“We’ll say we’re from Winton—we’re trying to rebuild. We bought goods in Boston, including these animals to help on the farm.”
“These aren’t draft horses,” she said.
“Did I say farm? I meant for the coach service I’m hoping to establish.”
“Better.”
Their discussion was fortuitously timed. They came over the next rise and into Danforth’s Farms a few minutes later. A wooden palisade cut across fields and cleared forest to enclose an area that was roughly half a mile square. The gates were open and nobody manned the watchtower.
Inside the gates they found a tidy village of thirty or forty houses wrapped around a commons. The snow had grown thicker the farther inland they traveled, and here it was a fluffy blanket two or three feet thick across the commons and atop the roofs.
A box-like meetinghouse with a squat steeple marked the near side of the commons, its outer wall abutting the road. Snarling, grimacing wolf heads had been nailed to the meetinghouse above the reach of dogs, with names scrawled right on the building to indicate the men who’d claimed the bounties.
A cold, miserable-looking fellow sat at the stocks in front of the meetinghouse, his hands, head, and feet sticking out the holes. He strained to turn his head as James and Prudence rode past.
“What cheer, good folk,” he offered in greeting. “Any news from Boston?”
“Governor Leverett traveled to Hartford to negotiate the border with Connecticut,” Prudence said.
“I heard that already. Anything else? Pray, slow down.”
They slowed the horses. “A French fleet was spotted off Nantucket,” Prudence said. “Five ships of the line.”
“Oh, that’s something new. Thank you, Goodwife. And a good day to you, sir.”
There were others about, watching curiously from their stoops, and James didn’t want to appear unsociable and thereby make himself look suspicious. He turned in the saddle as they passed the man.
“What of the weather?” James asked. “Think these clouds will bring snow?”
The man turned his eyes skyward. “Could be. Hard to tell from not knowing.”
“What was that supposed to mean?” James asked Prudence when they’d left the man behind and trotted alongside the commons.
“That’s what passes for Puritan wisdom in these parts. You know, like ‘a hot iron pierces sooner than a cold one.’”
“That sounds painful,” he said. “Anyway, I suppose it’s best not to predict the weather in these parts. If you guess wrong, they throw you in the pillories.”
“And guessing right gets you accused of witchcraft. Only the devil knows the weather.”
If she hadn’t raised an eyebrow, he’d have thought her serious.
Others hailed them as the Connecticut Path left the commons and divided two rows of houses on its way out of town. Prudence did most of the talking, greeting people and asking if the road ahead had been cleared of snow. It had until Marlborough. After that, no. Not until it connected with the highway outside Springfield.
She stopped to chat with one woman for a few minutes, even asked if any riders had come through earlier that day, because they’d found a hat someone had dropped on the road. No, nobody had entered or left the village all day. They were the first outsiders since before the Sabbath.
“I didn’t recognize any of those people,” Prudence said when they’d regained the open country. “So I figured there was no harm in asking.”
“You’d make a good spy.”
“Is that your way of telling me again what a good liar I am?”
“There’s a difference between lying for gain or to cause harm, and lying for duty or honest purpose.”
“Lying for honest purpose. Clever wording.”
“But it’s not just that,” he said. “You carry yourself well, you keep your wits in a scrape. A clever woman makes a good spy if for no other reason than men discount her. Men like to impress a woman, so they’ll blather and boast.”
“Are there many female spies?”
He thought about the few he’d known. “Not nearly as many as you’d expect.”
“Women have more scruples,” she said. “We are reluctant to give them up.”
James chuckled at this. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well, I happen to like mine,�
� she said firmly, “and have no intention of surrendering them.”
“You’d better get over some of them in a hurry. As soon as we arrive in Marlborough, I’m going to find us a room in the inn. That means more lying about being my wife.”
She fixed him with a horrified look. “The roads are quiet—there will be more than one room at the inn, surely.”
“For a husband and wife traveling together? ’Twould raise less suspicion to ask separate quarters for one’s dog.”
“But I . . . we can’t . . .”
“I’m not going to attack your virtue,” he said. “So put that out of your mind. Or are you worried about what people will think?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. People may not know me by appearance out here, but everyone has heard of me. When this all gets out—and it will, you know it will—every detail of our journey together will be known. Including the part where I spent a night at an inn with a strange man from England. Meanwhile, you’ll skip your way back to London to give your report, and if any of your friends hear what happened, they’ll grin, you’ll wink, and they’ll slap you on the back.”
“You must take me for a complete scoundrel.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I’m not the winking sort.”
“I hope not, James. But I reserve judgment.”
He grunted at this. Nevertheless, she was probably right about what people would say. “I’m sorry, there’s no way around it. You might face some humiliation.”
“Humiliation is only one of my worries. They hang adulterers in New England.”
“Then I’ll take you back to England if that’s what it takes to keep you safe. Good Lord, woman, do you want to help your daughter or not?”
“Of course I’ll do it for my daughter. Is that what you’re promising?”
He stopped and turned in the saddle. “Ah, you’re clever.”
“Clever enough. Peter is dead because of you. Goodman Woory too. I don’t mean to join them.”
“I didn’t kill those men.”
“But they’re dead because of . . . whatever it is you’re doing out here. Which is what, exactly?”
“To find out what happened to Sir Benjamin.”
“So you say.”
She was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. “I won’t sacrifice you to my cause, if that’s what you’re driving at. Whatever kind of scoundrel I am, it’s not that.”
“Do you swear it?”
“Did I play the coward when those men attacked us on the road?”
“Nay, you fought like a lion.” She nodded. “So you’ll swear it?”
“I swear I will do everything in my power to keep you from harm.”
“Everything?”
“Everything reasonable—there are murderers after us, after all.” She still didn’t look satisfied, so he added, “I swear that I will not lay hands on you, so help me God, even if we have to spend the night in the same bed.”
“Heaven forbid.” She nodded. “And my daughter. You will help her. Swear it.”
“Now that’s going too far. What are you giving me in return?”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to translate. I want you to lie when necessary. When the time comes, you will testify against Knapp, Fitz-Simmons, Reverend Stone—anyone who might be implicated in the murder of Peter Church and Robert Woory and any other crimes we uncover.”
“I would testify against my own sister if she were guilty of murder.”
“Then I’ll swear to help you find your daughter.”
James met Prudence’s gaze. For a long moment they stared into each other’s eyes. At last he looked away to keep an eye on the road, but still he felt her watching him. Probing, testing. Looking for some sign that he was lying or trying to deceive her in some way.
He wasn’t, he was absolutely sincere, and it was a good thing too. Something inside his head was ringing, warning him. Every bit of experience James had ever had in life told him that crossing this woman would be dangerous.
Whatever had kept her docile and compliant while living under the roof of her sister and the reverend was gone now.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Prudence started to grow nervous by the time they rode into Marlborough in the early afternoon. Now that her bravado was fading, she found herself thinking of spending the night in the same room as this restless, aggressive man. And most likely the same bed too. Heaven help her.
It would have been much easier to share a bed with Peter Church. A Quaker and well into middle age, she wouldn’t have worried about him groping her with lusty hands in the middle of the night. Not that she truly thought James would try anything, but she doubted she’d be able to sleep for the worry of it.
At first glance, Marlborough didn’t seem much different from Danforth’s Farms, maybe slightly larger and more compact. There was an inn and tavern, together with a blacksmith shop in the middle of town. A mill sat by the brook, with the millrace clogged with ice and a waterfall of icicles flowing from the spokes of the mill wheel.
The palisade that shielded the town was charred here and there, and the houses inside the gates had also burned to the ground. The Indians must have forced their way in during one of their raids.
The inn was a tidy place called The Golden Lion, with a red sign and a yellow lion rampant. James asked for a room under the name of James Smith. There was one available. It had a single, not-very-large bed. But when James glanced at Prudence with a question in his eyes, she nodded and said it would do. James told the innkeeper it would be acceptable.
The price seemed outlandish, but James paid without haggling. Then, when the innkeeper asked for an extra shilling to pay for the feeding and care of so many horses, he paid that too, and without complaint. Maybe he was as relieved as she that the keeper addressed her as Goodwife Smith.
Then again, money didn’t seem to be an issue. At supper, James paid ten pence to be served wine instead of the ale that came with the meal. She was unused to its sharp taste and drank it in little sips. The food was surprisingly good, cuts from a suckling pig cooked with tart apples. Wheat bread from finely milled flour, and not a corn pudding in sight, which was a relief. Instead, an apple pastry for dessert, hot and sweet.
“What is that flavor?” James asked after the first bite. “That’s not molasses.”
“Maple sugar.”
“Maple, like from a tree? How strange.”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s delicious, so long as I don’t think too hard about its origins.”
“Isn’t that true of most foods?”
He smiled at this.
There was something she’d been curious about, and now she found the courage to ask. “How is it that you began to work for the king? Is it a family . . . I don’t know, a trade?”
He smiled at this too, and she felt foolish.
“I mean, was your father a spy?”
“My father was a Roundhead. Hung as a traitor after the Restoration.”
Her face flushed. “Pray, pardon me.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
He reached across and put his hand over hers in a comforting gesture. It was somewhat improper, even though he was likely acting a role for the benefit of the maid who was still coming and going from the room. After a few seconds, she withdrew her hand from the table to put it on her lap with the other.
“I don’t like the word ‘spy,’ it’s so coarse,” he said. “Not to mention that they hang spies, and that’s true almost anywhere you go. An agent of the king, on the other hand, may be about any sort of business at all.”
“And what are you about, James? What truly brought you to Boston? Not the murder, I know that’s a story for my benefit.”
“Ah, no you don’t,” he said with a half smile and a raised eyebrow. “You’ll have to be a good sight more subtle than that.” He finished his wine and waved for the maid to come pour him more.
�
�Let me attempt subtlety, then,” she said when the maid had gone. “Why Boston? You seem to think that New England is filled with rustics and governed by bumpkins, so why not do the king’s duty in France instead? Is this punishment for some indiscretion, some failure?”
“The contrary. This is a thorny problem to resolve. If I manage, if I return in triumph, there’s a great opportunity waiting for me in London.”
“What kind of opportunity?”
He studied her carefully. “I don’t suppose there is harm in the telling. I haven’t kept my ambitions secret in London, so why do so here?” He took a drink of wine, then set down the goblet. “King Charles has opened a position as chancellor of his agents for foreign affairs and internal dissent.”
“Lord Spy, you mean.”
He shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. And if I return in triumph, I intend to ask His Majesty for the position. If it’s given me, I’ll be knighted, awarded lands.”
“Can you tell me how you ended up working for the king? Did you volunteer?”
“I was recruited. It was your own husband, Sir Benjamin, who approached me.”
“That must have come as a surprise.”
“How so?”
“Given that your father was a . . . was, you know . . .”
“Hanged as a traitor for the other side? Well, yes, it would have been, but Sir Benjamin was rather more careful than to simply blurt out what he was about. By the time I realized who and what I was, I had been in the king’s service for two years already. There was little room for surprise.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This would have been 1670. I was twenty, studying law at Oxford. Sir Benjamin was a young professor of literature. We were reading the works of William Shakespeare—perchance you’ve heard of him. He was a great playwright early in the century.”
“I’ve read him! Of course,” she added hurriedly, “you cannot playact in New England. It is a sin to deceive.”
“And I see you believe that with all your soul.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “Go on.”
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