The Crafters Book One

by Christopher Stasheff

  She managed a faint smile. Poor Elizabeth hadn’t done much better asea than Arabella.

  The shore was suddenly there, beyond doubt—a dark line curving out to embrace the ship. The waves fell away even more, until she was reminded of one of the little rowing boats upon the Serpentine in London. Richard had taken her there one afternoon, not long after her arrival in England.

  Oh, Richard. She couldn’t think about him, even now.

  Dying as he did. And though she found it hard to recall that last hour, she could still taste that dreadful gin, hear his last words. How could I ever have misjudged any man so? It haunted her.

  How odd that she should like Elizabeth, or that Elizabeth should like her. Richard’s accidental death should have stood between them. Elizabeth’s resemblance to Richard alone should have driven her away from the woman.

  “Leave it be!” she ordered herself sternly. “Think of pleasant things!” She could not greet her elder brother with a tear-stained face.

  The fog had lifted enough for her to make out one of the small shoreline settlements—a summer village for fishermen, if she recalled correctly. Small boats had put out near land and—wonder of wonders!—Was that a patch of blue sky to the north? Lucinda smiled and crossed her fingers under shelter of the blue cloak. She would take that blue sky as a positive omen.

  Men were running barefoot back and forth across the plank deck, shouting orders, drawing in sails. Things creaked rather alarmingly. All the same, she heard the light patter of dainty, slipper-clad feet coming up behind her. Small Elizabeth’s feet might be, and light on them she undeniably was, but Lucinda was always aware of her—by the stares of those around her, if nothing else. She turned and smiled; Elizabeth, muffled and furred to the tip of a rather pink turned-up nose, extended little gloved hands and caught hold of her stepdaughter’s fingers tightly. “Ah! To think we have finally stopped rolling! They say we are very near landfall, Lucy

  dear, but I cannot see it.”

  Small wonder; Elizabeth’s eyes were not strong. She peered in the direction Lucinda pointed, nodded dubiously. “Well! I shall see it all soon enough. Your father is still closeted with Captain Burke. I wonder he’ll be out before we anchor!”

  “I doubt he will, Bess.” Lucinda laughed. “Though he’d have been able to tell you to the moment when we came into the Bay.”

  “Ah. He is welcome to his sea and his ships,” Elizabeth retorted darkly. “I’ll make my bed in this land and my grave, too, rather than take such a journey another time. I wonder you had the courage for it, Lucy! But I know, you have told me, it does not touch you, all this wallowing and tilting of floors under your feet!” She sighed deeply. “None of the new dresses I had made before we left London will fit, I have eaten so little this past fortnight.” She gazed down dolefully at her muffled figure. “There is a decent seamstress in Boston?”

  Lucinda laughed again and patted her stepmother’s hands before releasing them and tucking her own into the fur lining of her cloak. “You will be agreeably surprised, Bess. When I left it three years ago, Boston was a proper city, and if my brother’s letters do not lie, it has grown a good deal since then. We aren’t savages here, you know!”

  “If you say so,” Elizabeth murmured. She didn’t look convinced. She gazed toward the approaching shore in silence, and Lucinda watched her covertly, from under her lashes. But just as she began to think she must find something cheerful to say, to break the other young woman’s low spirits, Elizabeth smiled and shook herself. “I have a few small items to put in my bag before we anchor. Are you coming down, Lucy?”

  Lucinda shook her head. “I packed my cases at first light.”

  “Such enthusiasm.” Elizabeth sighed and shook her head.

  Lucinda watched her hurry back across the deck. Several of the sailors turned to look as she passed them; Lucinda could scarcely blame them. Elizabeth, with her golden hair, the deep rose of her cloak setting off the pale cheeks, those huge, darkly blue eyes . . . And for all her last remark, and the age-envying-youth way she said it, Elizabeth was a bare five years her senior. Twenty-five was barely old if the lady in question were unwed; twenty-five and a wife, when one looked like Elizabeth, was surely the peak of one’s beauty. And how shall I look when I am twenty-five? Lucinda wondered.

  She shrugged the thought aside. She would still be unwed, of that she was certain. I am done with men, she told herself firmly. That aside, what was there for her to choose from here? Lads like that awful boy her father’d have wed her to three years before? If he’d done so—true, she’d never have met Richard, but she would not have been able to care for her mother through her last days.

  Remember your promise to her, she told herself. Remember pleasant things: the opera, the dances. The water festival on the Thames with decorated boats and the barge carrying the King’s musicians—that had been her second hearing of Master Handel’s Water Music, the winter fest this past year, when the river had frozen solid.

  She sighed, remembering. It was the music she would miss the most. Handel’s music, Purcell’s music, the hundred other composers who were born in England or came there, seeking the freedom of London and the English Court. Music, she remembered bleakly, found little fertile ground in the Massachusetts colony. The Puritans did not permit it in their churches; too few other churches had any means of creating music save the voices of the congregation—and few of those could carry even the simple tunes of the best-known hymns. Of course, Harvard had a decent choir, and now and again they ventured into the secular.

  She shook herself. Another moment, she’d be weeping for London. What a dreadful thought! London, after all, was not an earthly Paradise—not with its bad water and chill climate, with the oppressive smoke in winter, the swamps and mosquitoes in summer, with dreadful poverty everywhere and places even an escorted young woman dare not go, for her repute—or worse, her personal safety. And Richard Coucey—

  How odd, how very odd, that a woman as sweet and kind as Elizabeth should be related to someone like Richard.

  “Again!” she told herself very firmly; a sailor hurrying by with a handful of rope halted to glance at her inquiringly, sped on his way when she shook her head and smiled ruefully. You promised yourself to let it all lie; there are more important things this morning! Such things as her brother John, who had threatened not to meet the ship out of resentment against their father’s remarriage; such things as the specially ordered glassware—two narrow-lipped flasks, a long beaker, and an extremely high-temperature oil lamp made particularly to replace old or broken items in the hidden recess of her mother’s herbarium. She’d wrapped them very carefully—against discovery as much as against breakage—in the linen sheets and the embroidered towels she’d brought home for her wedding chest, and tucked the whole under the wonderful rose and sky-blue quilt Elizabeth had embroidered for her.

  She wasn’t entirely certain whether she intended to use them or not: But it seemed, so wrong to let Arabella’s beloved herbarium fall into disuse. And she had to have some interest, since Bess would run the household. The herbarium had provided her mother with income, as well as expanding her scientific knowledge. Andrew had seldom objected to Arabella’s craft—her “tinkering,” he called it. He knew of course she was circumspect, which silenced his greatest concern. After all, several members of her family had been accused of witchcraft. Lucinda wasn’t certain he’d have that same trust in his daughter.

  He didn’t need to worry about John, she thought, and sighed. “And likely not for me, either. Or why I bought the glass at all! Save that Mother intended to buy it from that particular artisan.” And so she had the glass—and her mother’s blood and her books, and something of her knowledge, too. And no heart to use any of it.

  * * *

  The ship let down anchor some time later; by that hour, the sun was high and much of the morning’s cloud cover had blown away. Deeply blue sky, brigh
t gold sun reflecting gold and silver on the choppy water. It looked much warmer than it was. Lucinda settled on the narrow wooden seat of the jolly boat and pulled the cloak snugly around her knees. The calendar and the sun might both say May; the wind said March, most emphatically, and her fingers, in the few moments it took to climb from the ship into the boat, were frozen inside her gloves. She felt the boat rock as her father stepped from the ladder, heard Elizabeth’s faint cry of distress as he handed her into the unsteady little boat. She didn’t look around; the wind was cold enough on the back of her head, even through the hood—and her eyes were fixed on the clutch of people waiting along the dock, only two or three ship-lengths away. John—Would he be there? His last letter to her hadn’t given her much hope. He worried her. John had always been able to press their father’s swift temper, and if he did today, he might well find himself disowned.

  Three years had made a greater change in John than she could have expected. She felt his presence—the first learned and simplest part of Arabella’s dubious gift to her children—before she saw him, but until he began waving wildly and calling her name, she did not recognize him at all.

  The sailors handed her and her traveling bag out first. She had barely set both feet on the planking when a man’s sturdy arms pulled her close, hugging hard enough to drive the air out of her. “Lucy! Good Lord, Lucy, you left a child and came back a lady! Let me look at you!”

  She pushed against his chest and he released her to hold her at arm’s length. He’d grown considerably taller and broader at the shoulders. He’d had a neat beard when she saw him last; he was now smooth-shaven. His long coat and waistcoat were good, serious dark cloth, but only a little behind London fashion; his hose were unwrinkled and spotlessly white—something once unheard of. “You’ve grown yourself, John. And Harvard has apparently taught you cleanly habits.”

  He laughed. “No one will hire a reeky lawyer! But I won’t fight with you—not today, at least.” His gaze went behind her, and she turned to see their father standing on the dock, supervising the bags being handed out. “Not with any of you,” John added firmly. “Before you ask.”

  “I’m glad,” Lucinda said simply. Her own gaze traveled then, to take in the young man standing just behind John and clearly with him. Tall and lean, dark of face, black curls escaping from beneath his hat, black eyes shaded by thick brows, and a faint smile on well-shaped lips. Familiar . . . but who was he? John saw her look, and stepped back to indicate his companion with a slight bow.

  “You surely remember Judah Levy, don’t you, Lucy?”

  “Judah—of course I remember Judah!” She extended both hands and he took them briefly. She wouldn’t have recognized him, either; though they’d all known each other from early childhood.

  “He graduated but a year behind me,” John said proudly.

  “Imagine it, a Jew taking honors in sciences and graduating from Harvard! The founders are doubtless writhing in their graves.”

  “Nonsense,” Lucinda said warmly. Judah merely smiled and shook his head. He was used to John’s rather heavy humor after so many years of it, but he’d always shrugged off such comment in that way, ever since she could remember.

  “And now he teaches and tutors, as I do,” John went on.

  “Though of course my field is law and his the sciences.” His eyes went beyond her and he waved vigorously. “Father! Here we are. Wait, I’ll help with your baggage!” John pushed through the growing crowd, leaving Lucinda with Judah Levy. Lucinda smiled up at him, and received a rather shy smile in response.

  John came back before the silence could grow uncomfortable between them, and—as Lucinda had always best remembered her elder brother—he was talking as quickly as he could form words. He was weighted down with almost all of the personal bags—most of them Elizabeth’s. Elizabeth leaned on Andrew’s arm, wide blue eyes taking in everything around them. Andrew was smiling at his son, and Lucinda didn’t need any of the family extrasensory perception to realize her father was relieved at the way John was taking the remarriage and a stepmother almost exactly his own age.

  John was of course still talking. “I live in rooms at the College, Father, but Mary and James Hazelton and the servants under them have kept the town house up for you. They should have tea laid when we arrive. I brought the carriage for you and one of the farm wagons for the luggage. The carriage only holds two in comfort of course, but I thought Lucy might . . .”.

  Andrew held up a hand for silence. “Bess and I will take the carriage, thank you, John. Lucinda may come with us if she chooses, or with you, if she’d rather. Who is this with you?—oh, of course, young Judah. How is your family, lad?”

  “All well, sir.”

  “Good. Bess, your legs must feel strange, after so many days asea. We’ll go home at once. Lucinda—?”

  “I’ll follow with John, Father. Thank you.” Andrew nodded and followed John over to the small, open carriage. It took the two men to get a very tottery Elizabeth onto the seat; Lucinda could not hear what anyone said, but she could see her stepmother’s deprecating gestures and blushes, heard both men laugh and shake their heads. Andrew patted her shoulder and John bowed over her fingers.

  Lucinda had a sudden image of stern-faced old Increase Mather, or his self-important and rather self-righteous son Cotton, with a wife like Elizabeth—and had to bite her lower lip to keep from giggling.

  John and Judah Levy stowed the last of the bags; the remainder would be sent on to the town house once they were unloaded from the ship’s hold. All the same there was a goodly pile in the back of the open wagon. Lucinda let her brother hand her onto the high seat behind the two horses, and slid over to make room for Judah. “Boston’s grown so much since I left.”

  “It has.” Judah answered her; John had his hands full with the horses and the wharf traffic. “Particularly the harbor, though there are new shops everywhere, and plenty of new houses.”

  “Don’t let the size and the look of the town fool you,” John warned. “Boston is no London. Certain forms of behavior and so on still very much apply, as I hope you will remember.”

  “If you suggest I do not remember how to behave seemingly . . .” Lucinda began warningly. John grinned and Lucinda scowled at him. “For a man who does not wish to fight, John, you are certainly pressing for one!”

  “I merely spoke out of concern for you. Not even to speak of things you did in London such as dancing and going to theater! There are things which were frowned upon when our grandpapa indulged in them, and the frown is still there—if not quite so dark. In a word, sister, caution. By the by, is our new mama religious? I hope she at least observes the Sabbath?”

  “She’s Anglican, of course,” Lucinda said.

  “In times such as these, I fail to see the ‘of course,’ “ John, replied crisply. “Anglican—well, that’s safer than Catholic in Boston.” Judah laughed and John leaned across his sister to smirk at his friend. “It is also safer than being Jewish, but our Judah now attends chapel with me of a Sunday.” He grinned as his sister shook her head in confusion. “It assures Uncle Increase has his place in Heaven, don’t you agree?”

  “John,” Lucinda said sternly, “either you are babbling, or the voyage left my poor brain as unsteady as Bess’s legs. Nothing of what you say makes sense, save that you’ll get yourself in trouble yet with the men who wield power in this colony. Haven’t you any wit at all?”

  “He hasn’t,” Judah Levy said gravely. “But since he merely speaks, and that only in the frivolous manner you’ve just heard, why, no one takes him seriously. Such frivolity by itself might cause some to condemn him, but even your brother’s detractors agree it’s not as great a sin as lechery or strong drink. What he is trying’ to tell you is that I have converted.”

  “Converted? You—are Christian?” She stared at him blankly. “But why?”

  He shrugged. “It seemed the sen
sible thing to do. My beliefs are my own, whatever I outwardly own them to be. And while my family has always been devout, they have not been extreme in their beliefs. Even my father, who would never do such a thing himself, had no quarrel with me for having converted. And quite frankly, my chance to attain a professorship is all the greater.”

  “Call it sensible, if you like,” John said. “I personally think he did it mostly to silence the ministers, who preached to him daily for what seems years. Even so, it sounds quite cold-blooded to me. As cold-blooded as wedding a wealthy man twice your age and many times your wealth, even if it means leaving London . . .”

  “Enough,” Lucinda said firmly. “I know your feelings toward Bess; you made them quite clear in your last letters. I am glad you chose the path of sense today and didn’t make Father cast you aside penniless. But I refuse to argue the matter with you. Elizabeth was a friend of Mother’s, you know. And Father waited well over a year before he even spoke to her, let alone asked her hand! Has Mary kept the garden up?”

  John twisted his lips, fetched a deep sigh, finally nodded.

  “Of course she has, though it’s easy enough in a town this size to purchase whatever vegetables and fruit one wants. She kept Mother’s herb garden up, too—for you, she said.”

  “Good.”

  John eyed her sidelong as he turned the wagon down a: near-empty side street and urged the horses to a little more speed. “You aren’t thinking of using Mother’s herbalry, are you?”

  “Herbarium, John. Perhaps.” He looked unsatisfied with that terse and not very useful reply; Lucinda couldn’t really blame him, considering Arabella’s main use for the little hut at the bottom of the herb garden—a use that had only peripherally to do with tansy and sage, lavender and laurel. Considering his feelings on the subject of magic of any kind: black, sorcerous, white—or family.