3

Of all the seasons in this New World, spring was Xander’s favorite. Virginia even trumped Scotland in his recollections. He recalled his childhood with dimming clarity. The mists and woodland bluebells, the stretches of light as the land embraced the sun after a long winter, the deep lochs and windswept coasts. He closed his eyes, grasping for details denied him. So much had slipped in and muddied the memories since he’d landed on Virginia shores as a lad. His own Scots speech seemed muted too.

This day, as he stood on his own ground, his thoughts were pressed full as a hogshead of tobacco with a great many unsavory things. Tobacco flea beetles. A barn roof riddled with hailstones from the latest tempest. Spoiled seedbeds. Ailing indentures down with the seasoning. Recently appointed, unscrupulous tobacco inspectors.

“True Word!”

His eyes opened at the sound of a youthful voice hailing him by his Powhatan name.

“Wingapo!” Xander called out the customary greeting as the lad emerged over the brow of the hill scored with green fronds of transplanted tobacco and the noonday sun. He’d not seen Meihtawk in a month or more. But whenever he did, he was struck by Meihtawk’s similarity to Mattachanna. Same bone structure and wide-set eyes. Same handsome Mattaponi bearing and warmth of expression. Though they were cousins, the resemblance was remarkable.

“I bring news,” Meihtawk said in English, clearly coming in his role as tribal courier.

At once came the clutch of concern. It seemed all of Virginia braced for another onslaught of terror after a recent tentative peace. Xander leaned his hoe against a stump and gave Meihtawk his full attention, including his leather flask.

Swallowing a drink of well water, Meihtawk looked him in the eye. “Chief Opechancanough asks that you come and kindle a council fire at Menmend, where he hardly has room enough to spread his blanket.”

So, the invitation came with a complaint. Yet the complaint was a valid one. The Powhatan Confederacy, made up of many tribes including the Mattaponi, continued to lose beloved ground, their villages thrust farther west year by year, their once vast territory shrinking before their very eyes. Frustration formed a tight knot in Xander’s chest, eased only slightly by Meihtawk’s obliging manner. It was he who had saved so many colonists in the latest hostilities, warning them of the last planned attack.

Xander nodded. “Tell Opechancanough that I have heard his request and will come. But I will need time to prepare. If all goes well, I will meet you in six sleeps at Monacan Fields when the sun is three fingers high.”

At this, Meihtawk’s face lit with undisguised gratitude. His was a hard task as emissary. Yet surely he knew Xander would not refuse the invitation. Though Xander was continually torn between his loyalties to the English and his ties to the Naturals, the Naturals oft gained his allegiance and the upper hand.

With a farewell, Meihtawk disappeared over the hill, a few indentures watching his going.

Xander drew a linen sleeve across his sweat-spackled upper lip, returning to his hoeing. Field hands spread out on all sides of him as far as the eye could see. His goal at first light had been five hundred tobacco hills by dusk. Orinoco was a laborious crop, robbing the soil and depleting the workers along with it. His attempts to be versatile, to cultivate other exportable crops, were unending.

At suppertime, he sat down at his own table, heaping his plate full of pickled herring and bread. He ate slowly, thoughts full of another table, the fine feast they’d had at the Hopewells’ a sennight before. Tomorrow he’d return, not to dine but to buy. And he’d go early to avoid the usual bustle.

Supper done, he made a move to retire to his study and the quiet to be had beyond the clatter of his aunt cleaning up. Her question caught him at the door.

“Did I hear you say you were going to James Towne on the morrow, Alexander?”

He turned around. “Aye. Are you in need of something?”

A decisive bob of her capped head. “A Border ware jug, if you please. I tripped over Ruby and broke one. And any gossip that can be had about the tobacco brides and their courting.”

“Thankfully, the latter is as easily gotten,” he replied. “Consider it done.”

“Thank you, Nephew,” she said over her shoulder as they went their separate ways.

Once ensconced in his study, his greyhounds near the hearth, he pondered a pipe. Ruby looked up at him moodily as his gaze swept the planked floor where she lay in all her gangling splendor.

“You’re a beauty, girl. Don’t let Aunt Henrietta tell you differently.” He stooped to scratch her velvety head, her reddish coat agleam in the fading light. “As for you, Sir Jett, as noble a creature that ever lived, I believe you shall accompany me to visit Chief Opechancanough. His continued awe of you may serve me well.”

Ruby’s black companion gave a deep, resounding bark, eyes alive with the excitement of hearing his master’s voice. Only with difficulty did Jett finally lay his sleek head on an outstretched paw.

“And let us not forget Selah Hopewell’s kind regard of you both. Surely that speaks to your canine character.”

At once, Selah’s comely liveliness at their shared supper leapt to mind. ’Twas usually Mattachanna’s dusky face that stared back at him. Reaching for an elaborate brass tobacco tamper, Xander pressed last year’s leaf into the pipe’s bowl, tamping down the old, festering ache along with it. Once lit, he inhaled, wanting to banish the vision.

His latest leaf smoked pleasant, strong, and sweet. Consignment agents in England told him buyers were paying thrice what other crop masters made. Even the lowly outpost merchants were clamoring for more Rose-n-Vale hogsheads. ’Twas even rumored a thoroughfare in the town of his birth had been named after him. He shrugged off such ridiculousness as more fancy than fact.

He, a Scottish silversmith’s son.

While Shay removed the merchant scales from their box to begin the day’s business, Selah unpacked newly arrived crates from England holding coveted Chinese porcelain. These fragile goods she displayed in a front window to entice passersby. Such fine wares never lasted long. Obsessed with appearances, James Towne gentry were the first to storm in when a supply ship arrived. Since the tobacco brides’ coming, the brass bell at their door seemed to jingle sunup to sundown.

Glad she was her father as cape merchant took care of accounts while she and Shay handled anything from axes and adzes to linen thread and glass buttons. Goods were arriving regularly now, her favorites from the exotic Indies. With each passing year their inventory grew. Once, James Towne was clad in rags but now boasted the finest imported cloth. Nor were there shelves enough for the wealth of fragrant spices from far ports alongside sweetmeats and culinary delicacies. Though life continued uncertain, at least they faced the future with their bellies full.

Humming a song learned at sea, Shay passed through an adjoining door to a side room where transactions were once made with visiting tribes. A new trading post had been established north of them along the Chickahominy Path, but the latest treaty forbade any cloth, cotton, or other goods be supplied to the Naturals. Though the walls of old James Fort had come down—literally fallen into disrepair and used for firewood in years past—the invisible barriers between Naturals and English still stood stalwart and unsettling.

Some dared to bridge the distance. Those with the mettle of Xander Renick.

As she thought it, the front door’s bell sang out. Though it was early, with light barely peeping over the eastern horizon and illuminating their counter, he was their first customer. Beyond the open door stood his saddle horse, a handsome black. She wondered its name. She knew its reputation. Gotten from Massachusetts, this hardy breed was said to pace a mile in under two minutes, oft traveling upwards of eighty miles in a single day.

“Good day to you, Mistress Hopewell.” He removed his dark felt hat, his gaze canted toward her. Or was it the wares she’d recently shelved behind her?

For a second he hovered on the threshold, sunlight framing him. Though he’d come through their door countless times, he still managed to make a lasting impression. Blame it on his unusual mode of dress, she guessed. A long linen shirt absent of the ruffles so popular with more foppish men draped his upper body, his lower clad in buckskin breeches, his long legs encased in black leather boots. He’d discarded his doublet, a style of dress she’d never liked, in favor of a looser weskit. Not the common dress of field hands but hardly that of a gentleman. His beard was trimmed, shadowing his jaw in neat angles, a hint of Scots red within.

“Good morning, Master Renick.” She looked to the fragile item she held, nearly forgetting about it. “Are you in fine fettle this Wednesday morn?”

“Aye,” he returned brusquely. “I’ve need of a quantity of trade goods. The better sort.”

“I doubt you’ve come for these porcelain cups.” She returned the last to the shelf as he recited what was needed.

“A large quantity of Venetian glass and Cádiz beads, enough to fill two knapsacks. Nine dozen copper pendants. Small tools. As many brass thimbles as you have. An assortment of buttons. Sewing needles and linen thread. Some glass play-pretties.”

“For the children?” she asked, reaching for an assortment of tiny angels and animals. She began assembling the requested items, counting and miscounting, glad to have something to do other than stand mindlessly before him and fix him further in her thoughts.

He signed for the goods to be paid in tobacco, his signet ring glinting on his right hand. His signature was as striking as all the rest of him, the X boldest of all. She wondered that he never signed Alexander, his given name. Renick was an illegible blot of swirling ink save the R.

“So, Mistress Hopewell, how goes the courting in town?” He gave her that unsettling half smile as he was so wont to do.

A peculiar warmth drenched her as she continued gathering his goods beneath his scrutiny. “Wise you are to be in the country, sir. James Towne’s air positively throbs with the heartfelt palpitations of men and women hurtling toward matrimony.”

His robust laugh ended abruptly with the opening of the belled door. All levity vanished as Helion Laurent’s gaze landed on the goods atop the broad counter. Selah resisted the urge to sweep them all into the waiting knapsacks. If she’d been but a few seconds faster . . .

“Monsieur Renick, I have seen you little about James Towne of late.”

Laurent’s voice, as richly layered as a French patisserie, resounded in the still room. ’Twas the only thing Selah liked about him. That and his sonorous name, seemingly pulled from the pages of a French fairy tale. His attire, from his silver-threaded doublet to the large rosettes on his boots, bespoke his genteel standing in James Towne and his last journey to France.

He drew closer, subtle accusation in his tone. “Going over to the Indians? And Mademoiselle Hopewell is aiding you, I see.”

“My business is none of yours,” Xander replied evenly, gaze never lifting from the purchased goods. “And Mistress Hopewell is simply doing my bidding.”

With a dismissive snort, Laurent sauntered about, examining the merchandise, occasionally reaching out to touch some new or novel item. Eventually he stilled before the apothecary jars along a far wall, the tools of his trade as colony physic. But what he dispensed Selah wanted nothing of.

Quickly, she packed up what Xander bought, taking care not to damage his wares.

The sudden, protracted silence brought her father out of his accounting room at the back of the store. “Well, Xander. You are about your business early.”

“A fine ride to town on a May morn,” he replied. “This wind makes water travel chancy.”

“Indeed.” Ustis’s gaze took in the burgeoning knapsacks. “Though your purchases might fare better by shallop.”

Selah reached out a discreet hand and pressed her father’s arm in warning. Realizing Laurent was in their midst, Ustis recovered quickly, taking up a knapsack and accompanying Xander out the door. Selah followed.

Standing out on the dusty street, well beyond overhearing, Ustis spoke his mind. “Tobacco is not your only business, aye? You are journeying to the Powhatans. But not in your official role of emissary since I see no pearl chain about your neck.” Spying a pendant on the ground, a favorite of the tribes, he stooped to return it to its sack. “Need I remind you that no man shall purposely go to any Indian towns, habitation, or places of resort without leave from the governor or commander of that place where he lives . . .”

Xander finished reciting colony law. “. . . upon pain of paying forty shillings to public uses as aforesaid.”

Ustis stood and adjusted his spectacles. “Granted, forty shillings is a pittance to a tobacco lord.”

“I would rather pay thrice that than ask high-minded Governor Harvey’s permission.”

Selah drew nearer, the scent of horseflesh strong. “Father, you forget yourself.” At his blank stare she said quietly, “You are speaking to the recently appointed commander of his shire.”

“Ah, of course.” Ustis looked to Xander as if seeing him in a new light. “And as such you are free to go and do as you please. With certain limitations.”

Selah gestured to Helion Laurent’s tethered horse. “Such an endeavor is fraught with risk.”

“Risk?” Xander looked down at her, amusement in his tone. “Going over to the Naturals or wrangling with the governor and his councilors?”

She nearly rolled her eyes in exasperation at his teasing. “Both.”

Yet this bewhiskered English warrior would go unflinchingly into hostile territory, come what may.

She tried a tone of supplication. “You cannot dismiss what happened to those hapless settlers who agreed to Chief Opechancanough’s last summons.”

“Tomahawked to the last man, despite being armed to the teeth,” he returned matter-of-factly. “That I cannot deny. Pray for me, aye?”

The earnest plea tumbled forth, and Selah’s hand shot out to touch his sleeve. “I will pray for you.” That God has mercy on your stubborn, mercenary soul.

His gaze fastened on her hand, and she released him, the burn of embarrassment following.

But Ustis was not finished. “What brings you to their camp?”

“I know not.”

The terse reply did not allay Selah’s alarm.

“Might I beg you to reconsider?” Ustis asked him. “Take adequate weapons? A guard?”

“And give the appearance of an invading army?” Xander shook his head. “Meihtawk brought the summons from the Powhatans’ principal stronghold of Menmend. I trust him with my life.”

“Aye, he has not failed us in friendship yet. But I would not turn my back on the wily chief, no matter what treaty was recently struck. As for our own government, beware of Harvey and Laurent and their minions lest they get word of what you are about and accuse you of spy.”

With that, her father returned to the store while Selah tarried outside. All around them James Towne was slowly awakening, the saltwater air heavy with the scent of hot cross buns from the bake shop across the shell-strewn street. Gulls careened overhead, screeching and scavenging, further raking her nerves.

“Let us return to more amusing matters.” Xander tied a bulging saddlebag shut. “Has Cecily Ward made her choice?”

Selah looked hard at him, surprised at so personal a mention. Was he partial to Cecily at first meeting? “Nay, not yet. No bride should be pressured, the council has said.”

Xander swung himself into the saddle. “Tell that to a great many overeager men.”

“Truly, several matches have been made already.” She smiled, or tried to, still uneasy at his going. “How long will you be away from Rose-n-Vale?”

“Not overlong. Plantation work doesn’t allow for extended leave.” He winked as he looked down at her. “Don’t look so downcast, Mistress Hopewell.”

He that winketh with the eye causeth sorrow.

The timely proverb did nothing to weaken Xander Renick’s spell.

She looked to her feet rather than dwell on him. “I cannot make peace with your dangerous mission.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It matters to all of Virginia, Master Renick.” Especially your young son. “You are . . . irreplaceable.”

“And you, fair lady, are generous with your praise.” He reined west. “Your prayers go with me and are a far more formidable weapon than any rusted matchlock or rapier.”

Their eyes met a final time. Throat knotted, she watched him go up the street between rowhouses till he was out of sight. Another gull swept down, pecking at some garbage. Its frantic scavenging sent her back into the store, smack into Laurent. She looked about in vain. Shay and her father were occupied elsewhere.

“I’m in need of your assistance in deciding a feminine matter.”

Oh, how he provoked her simply by the overtaxed patience in his oiled tone.

Taking her by the elbow, he led her toward a shelf of fripperies, his cologne overpowering. “What is your personal recommendation for a woman of exceptional taste?”

Shrinking from his touch, Selah led him to more coveted items. “These lambskin gloves here? Or perhaps this blue vial of toilet water?” She refused to lift her eyes to his. “Why not purchase both and let the lady herself decide?”

He laughed. “Well played by the cape merchant’s daughter. Are you always so pecuniary, Mistress Hopewell?”

“If you mean am I trying to pick your pocket, sir, nay.” She moved away from him, relief flooding her when the shop door opened with a jingle and another customer entered in.

To her disdain, Laurent went out without so much as an adieu and bought nothing. Nothing at all.