It was after midnight when Conawago found Duncan where he kept watch by the river. “He asks for you. I think he has little time left.”
When Macaulay reached out for Duncan’s hand, his grip was as weak as a bairn’s. “It’s all in secret, lad. There’s white cockades all over the regiments now. I ne’er heard a word about killing women and children. I don’t know where it starts. Someone near the top. If I knew I’d tell ye so ye can trade for yer life when the general takes ye. I did wrong by ye. I kept hoping ye would give me reason to dislike ye.” A fit of rattling coughs seized the big Scot. His lungs were filling with fluid. When he spoke again his breathing was labored. “Back home in Stornaway, a priest would come at the end and listen to the dying man’s confession.”
“I am here, Corporal.”
A bitter grin twisted Macaulay’s face. “I’m sorry for the sixteen men I’ve killed in battle,” he said after a few struggling breaths. “I could have just wounded most of them, but I chose not to. I’m sorry for the two men I’ve killed in anger. I’m sorry I have not written me precious mother these four years past. I’m sorry for the wenches I’ve abandoned and the profane words I have spoken. I’m sorry I did not believe me mother when she said me grandmother was a selkie, kin to the seals.” He turned away in another fit of coughing, then reached out and pulled Duncan closer. “Look past the savages to the good the cause can do. Ye can make a good life in the North, with yer own people.”
The effort of speaking seemed to have sapped the little strength the Scot had left. Macaulay reached out for Duncan’s hand, and when Duncan looked down, the white cockade was in his palm.
It was a long time before he opened his eyes again. “It’s time to call them in,” he whispered in Gaelic, and for a moment Duncan thought it was just a fevered rant. “Can you reach them from so far away, lad? I worry that being so deep in the woods I’ll just drop into the heaven of the tribes.”
“I can reach them,” Duncan promised, and when he turned Conawago was extending his pack to him.
An owl returned the call when he piped his first few notes. He started with one of the odes to Bonnie Prince Charlie, then tunes the island clans used when sending boats out to sea. Conawago sat at Macaulay’s side and gripped one of his hands, while Macaulay’s other hand clutched his dirk. Sometime during a haunting ballad for selkies or a call to battle, the tormented Highlander crossed over to the other side.
Chapter Ten
“Nai raxhottahyh!” the old man intoned over the fire of the Grand Council of the Iroquois. “Hail my grandfathers, hearken while your grandchildren cry to you, for the Great League grows old!”
Duncan sat in the shadows behind Conawago, watching, trying to catch the Haudenosaunee words as they were spoken. Conawago had warned him that nothing in the town that was the heart of the Iroquois world would be as it seemed. It would be simpler and more complex than Duncan expected, uglier and more beautiful, the old Nimpuc had declared. Any notion of a grand woodland palace had quickly disappeared when they reached the Onondaga village. Onondaga Castle on its face appeared to be just another worn palisaded town, not much larger than others he had seen. In fact it was not as well protected as many since its population was scattered outside the walls in small lodges and cabins along the riverbank. Only now as Duncan began to relax, grateful for the simple pleasure of warm tea and a safe, soft place to sit, did he begin to notice the subtle differences, the hints that something greater lay hidden beneath the surface.
Cedar smoke wafted from several large, shallow bowls along the perimeter of the central plaza, the scented air calling in the spirits. There were poles arranged around the clearing, many of them intricately carved with turtles, beaver, bears, and other signs of the Haudenosaunee clans. The plaza itself was in fact a shallow bowl of packed earth, with flat tiers rising like concentric rings broken by an aisle that led directly into the largest of the longhouses. It was the simplest of amphitheaters, perfectly designed for public speaking. Duncan had met an old Dutch trader months before who spent an evening speaking with him of his years with the woodland tribes. The Iroquois leaders were not feared warriors, the Dutchman had declared, but feared orators, known for breaking entire woodland nations with the force of their words.
There was a rigid liturgy in all Council meetings, Conawago had explained to him. There would be no business conducted until the members had expressed respect to the spirits and gratitude for what was known as the Iroquois Peace. Deceased chiefs, some gone for centuries, would then be praised, and the ancient laws of the League invoked, the most sacred of which was that war may never be fought among tribes of the League. It was on this last point that the speakers now lingered, Conawago explained in a whisper. The Mingoes were, in the view of the Council, a subordinate tribe of the federation, yet under the self-proclaimed half-king they were acting apart, without the blessing or authority of the Council. As the old chiefs began the second hour of oration, a wiry, leather-faced elder dominated the discussion, an Oneida named Custaloga. He was one of the few on the Council who had served as a war chief, decades earlier, then become a peace chief, now second ranking on the Council. The old man, easily as old as Conawago, had a noble, refined air about him, and those on the Council and those who sat behind them listened in rapt silence as he spoke of past glories of the League.
“Hearken while your grandchildren cry.” Duncan did not understand all the words the wise old sachem spoke, but he knew those and recognized them again and again in Custaloga’s speech. The sachems who made up the council, and the old matrons sitting behind them, with whom the sachems frequently conferred, were clearly distraught. The federation, so powerful for hundreds of years, was starting to show age and decay.
There was a strange fierceness in the old man’s voice, and Duncan saw now that whenever he paused he glanced at an aged woman sitting close by. In the last century, the League had been hit hard by enemies from the North. Entire Iroquois settlements had been annihilated, and the French and northern tribes had laid ambushes that had killed scores of Iroquois warriors. The town where they sat now was not the original Onondaga Castle. Another one, another capital town, had been destroyed, most of its inhabitants massacred, in a surprise attack by the Hurons. Custaloga and the senior chief, Atotarho, had been there, had witnessed the near toppling of the federation. Over half of the Haudenosaunee population had been lost, entire towns obliterated, many loved ones captured and taken into slavery by Huron and other enemy tribes.
Nearly every member of the Council spoke, and as they entered into the third hour, with the sun sinking low, Duncan found his gaze wandering, seeing now Ishmael walking with Kass along the palisade wall, where sentries armed with muskets walked. The big braziers that burned cedar, lit whenever the Council was convened, were being supplemented with more fires and pinepitch torches. Young braves carried firewood inside the adjacent lodge, where the main Council fire, the perpetual hearth of the League, was kept burning. Their day’s labor finished, Iroquois families were filing in through the gate, settling in the growing shadows around the Council ring. The faces of young and old alike seemed fixed with the same expression of solemn anxiety.
Conawago touched Duncan’s arm. A group of newcomers, one of them wearing European clothes and a wide-brimmed black hat, had appeared in the shadows and were urgently speaking among themselves. As he watched, all but two retreated toward the river landing. The remaining two approached the Council ring. One of them, wearing a doeskin shirt with ornate quillwork, was being urged into the ring by his companion, a tribesman who wore the cut-down blue jacket of a British navy officer. Custaloga rose and paced around the ring, pointing to the newcomer. “It is the nephew of Custaloga,” Conawago whispered. “He has been living among the Senecas, in the West. He is called Black Fish, once a mighty warrior.” The man being brought into the ring no longer had the appearance of a great warrior. His belly bulged out, his face was aged beyond his years. Yet as Custaloga related Black Fish’s history and his bloo
d ties with those present, then draped a strand of white wampum over his nephew’s hand, he was greeted with sober deference.
The man spoke too fast for Duncan to follow, but he saw Conawago’s face tighten as he listened. “Black Fish has visited all the major settlements of the League to explain that he has the same dream every night,” Conawago explained. “Such a dream will be taken as an important sign by the tribes, one that can never be ignored.” As Duncan leaned closer the old Nipmuc began translating the man’s exact words.
“Now is the time of night that the graves gape wide and let forth the ghosts!” Black Fish exclaimed in a louder orator’s voice, raising his face toward the rising moon.
Conawago’s translation ended as Black Fish’s speech grew more animated, and even louder. The Nipmuc stared in mute surprise, worry etching his face. The middle-aged warrior was shouting now, leaping about and swinging his arms, jerking his body and crying out in pain from invisible wounds. He was acting out a terrible struggle. As he finished he dropped to his knees and raised his hands toward the heavens and began repeating the same phrases over and over. Duncan needed no translation. “The Revelator is sent by the gods! The Revelator is our father!” he cried out. “The Revelator is sent by the gods! The League will die without the Revelator!” He shouted louder and louder, flailing his arms against his chest as if possessed until finally collapsing onto the ground.
The man in the blue jacket rushed forward to help Black Fish to his feet and escort him away. His speech had sapped all his strength. Conawago studied him intensely as he disappeared among the onlookers. Duncan saw that the other elders watched as well, most with deep alarm on their faces.
“His story spreads around to every Iroquois hearth, exciting all those who hear it,” Conawago explained. “Black Fish has been there, to the other side, Duncan! Sometimes he is abruptly summoned and falls down and is instantly transported there, always to the same place. At first he wanders in a thick fog but then spirits of the long dead find him and take him to a huge bark lodge.” Conawago paused, gazing into the fire. He was clearly troubled by Black Fish’s message. “In it sits Dekanawidah and the other great chiefs who were the founders of the Iroquois League, and his heart fills with joy. But then the ghost of a huge Englishman approaches the founders from behind, raising a sword, intending to stab the ancient one, to kill the first god. Black Fish then sees behind the intruder the shapes of the other original spirits, lying dead with knives in their hearts. Spirits. The spirits have been killed! Suddenly a man runs past Black Fish and wrestles the Englishman. It is the half-king, and he beats down the Englishman and shouts out that he will save the founders from the other English demons, shaped like humans but with horses’ heads, who approach through the mist. Then the spirits declare that the half-king is their revelator, who shall speak for them on earth. Dekanawidah declares that if the League does not listen then the places they hold sacred, the places that connect the Iroquois to the other side, will be destroyed. That which cannot fall will fall. That which cannot burn will burn. And when all the original spirits die, the gates to the other side will be closed forever. ”
Conawago took a long, heavy breath. The Nipmuc was clearly shaken by the words. “He says after his first vision he found the Revelator lying in the forest with bears sitting all around him as if to protect him, and though the Revelator was dead, the biggest of the bears bent over him and breathed into his mouth and the dead man sprang back to life. Ever since, the Mingoes bend their knee to him, and now the Haudenosaunee must as well if they wish to survive.”
The Council had no response to the terrible pronouncements of Black Fish. Most of the Council members silently stared into the fire. Suddenly the old sachem Atotarho rose, followed by the other members of the Council. The leader spoke a quick syllable, and the silence was broken, the Council dismissed.
As Duncan turned toward Conawago, the oldest of the matriarchs, who had sat behind Atotarho, appeared at their side. “We wish you to come with us,” she said in a near whisper, as if wanting to avoid being overheard, then introduced herself as Adanahoe.
As they passed through the palisade wall, Custaloga joined them, holding a torch. He greeted Conawago as an old friend and guided them to the top of the ridge overlooking the town.
“Onondaga Castle has been built half a dozen times, in different places but always near a sacred ground to keep the Council anchored to the spirits,” Custaloga said when he halted. “We do not speak openly of such places. Many in the tribes would not know exactly how to find them. The Council members know and sometimes take their families there, or young ones who show promise of becoming a chieftain.” The old sachem studied the town below, lit by the moon and torches, then led them up a steep ridge behind the first, along a path that was a channel between high boulders. Soon they reached a flat near the top, an expanse of ledge rock where stones were strangely twisted and misshapen. “The Mouth of Dekanawidah we call this place,” Custaloga explained. “For many generations we have come here to listen. The voice from the other side was low, like a whisper. Often we could not understand it, but it was always reassuring because we knew it came from the other side.”
He halted at a gnarled piece of rock in the center of a shallow bowl of solid stone. Surrounding the bowl were boulders as high as a man’s waist, painted with tribal symbols. The center rock was shaped roughly like a human head, and a strong cool current of air blew from the crack that was its mouth.
“I came to sit with it last night. I stayed all night, speaking old words in the hope it might heal itself. But it will speak no more to us,” Custaloga said in a melancholy tone, and he lowered the torch.
Duncan saw now how the rock around what had been a narrow mouth was chipped and broken and the surface of the rock itself strangely blistered.
“I would always come here on the night of the full moon. Last month when I arrived it was on fire. The rock was on fire!” The old man explained in an anguished voice. “I never would have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. And now the mouth will speak no more.” The sachem looked up at them. “Then tonight Black Fish spoke, who has not been here for years. That which cannot fall will fall, he said. The side of the mountain fell over a sacred cave near the Oneida towns. The Oneida had honored the spirits there for as far back as memory reaches. Now that which cannot burn has burned, and the gods stop speaking with us.” The old chief wiped his hand along the rock and raised it, spilling out grey powder. “It is dust.”
Duncan bent low to the stone and rubbed his finger along the surface. A dark greasy residue came away on his finger. He sniffed it. It was not gunpowder, nor any substance he knew. It would have been easy enough to smash the mouth with a hammer, but rock could not burn.
“It is dust,” Custaloga repeated in a mournful tone. “Without the spirits we become dust.”
No one replied.
By the time their silent, troubled procession returned to the palisade, the Iroquois families had dispersed, but there was new activity outside the Council lodge. The sachems had held their meeting before the inhabitants of the Castle and now continued their business more privately, within the lodge. Custaloga motioned Conawago and Duncan inside, following the other elders. Duncan paused outside the entrance and quickly scanned the shadows, finding Kass with her arm around Ishmael’s shoulder. The Oneida woman nodded at Duncan. She would stay with the boy as the sacred work of the Council proceeded.
The longhouse was like no other Duncan had ever seen. The beams that supported the large structure were carefully worked, bound with joints and pins, the supporting posts all carved with images of forest life. To the left of the entry was one of the chambers typically used as a family’s apartment, separated by walls of sewn skins. But this chamber held two older women. One, an elegant looking woman whose braids had red yarn woven through them, was solemnly stringing beads while at her side the second chanted a low song. They were assembling a wampum belt, one of the official messages sent from the Grand
Council, said to be empowered by the spirits. Above them, arrayed on plank shelves, were cylinders of birch bark bound with sinew. A similar container lay before the women. The containers all held wampum belts, he realized, some probably going back generations. He was looking at the archive of the League of the Haudenosaunee.
Beyond the chamber was a great open space extending the full width of the building and twice as deep. The Council members were sitting in a circle, some on low split log benches, some on fur cushions around a large fire ring where fragrant wood burned. As Conawago began leading Duncan toward one of the empty benches near the back, Custaloga motioned them in the opposite direction. They hesitated, glancing uncertainly at each other. The chief was directing them to an open place beside himself and Atotarho, a place of great honor beside the perpetual hearth.
As Duncan and Conawago completed the circle of the Council, Atotarho began an invocation of the spirits, extending a smoldering shank of tobacco to each of the four directions. One of the old women behind the sachems began a singsong chant, pausing at intervals for others to respond. “Ak wah,” the sachems repeated in unison at each pause. Yea truly.
Duncan found himself studying the chamber from which the great League was governed. Garlands of feathers hung along the wall behind the speakers, some composed entirely of hawk and eagle feathers, others entirely of the red and yellow feathers of small songbirds. Battered war axes hung between two such garlands, cornhusk dolls between two others. Along the adjacent walls hung robes of fur and feather and stretched doeskins adorned with figures of animals, trees, and many symbols Duncan did not recognize. Some of the skins seemed to be of great age, and he realized they told stories of events from prior centuries. He saw Conawago’s eyes straying as well, and he knew the old Nipmuc yearned to study the robes and chronicle skins.
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