The celebration went on for two days, which was a day and a half longer than Marlowe or Elizabeth would have preferred, but they did not think it would be neighborly to ask the people to leave, so they did not. Instead, King James, whose own marriage to Lucy a week before had caused considerably less fervor, sent Caesar and his assistants back to the wine cellar again and again to make certain that none of the guests ran dry.
It was some weeks after that that Thomas found himself alone with Francis Bickerstaff on the wide front porch of the plantation house. The evening was cool, the first signs of summer stepping aside, yielding to autumn its rightful place. Little bursts of red highlighted the green oaks, and the fields behind the house were studded with the short brown stalks of cut tobacco. From the big tobacco barn they could smell the rich aroma of the curing leaves.
“Well, Thomas,” Bickerstaff said at last, “it would seem that your metamorphosis is complete.”
Marlowe turned and smiled at him. It was the first that his friend had said on the subject, and he knew it would be the last. “So it would seem. When LeRois died, and Ripley and the Wilkensons, I reckon they took Malachias Barrett down with them.”
“And I think it safe to say, between us two, that Master Barrett died an honorable death. A death in defense of true honor.” Bickerstaff raised his glass.
“True honor. And an end to Master Barrett.”
He had come to this place and he had re-created himself, taken his old self from the woods, planted it in the rich earth of Virginia, and raised himself up from the dirt into something new.
After all, he thought, what is this place, this New World, this America, if it is not a place of redemption?
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Stephen S. Power, Captain-General of Post Road Press, for his help and enthusiasm with this new series. As ever, thank you to Nat Sobel, Judith Weber, and all the fine people in their office. And thanks to Tish Clark for the just desserts.
About the Author
JAMES L. NELSON is a former professional square-rig sailor and the author of the Revolution at Sea Saga. He lives on the coast of Maine with his wife and children. In cyberspace, he can be found at www.jameslnelson.com.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE GUARDSHIP. Copyright © 2000 by James L. Nelson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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