“A white woman wouldn’t be welcome in the camp, especially not with important negotiations under way.”
Alice thought for a moment, then narrowed her eyes and said, “But I don’t suppose the Indian women will be sent away, will they, Gunn?”
“I don’t get your point. It’s an Indian village. Why would they send their own women away, Alice? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Now her anger was clear on her face as she tried to shut the door on him. Chris kept his hand in place, holding it open.
“Alice, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing!” she screamed. “Just leave me be, Christopher Gunn. Go to your squaw, if that’s what you want. I hope you’ll both be very happy. But don’t expect me to welcome you back with open arms. I suppose the two of you planned this little rendezvous while she was here with you at the fort. How cozy! How disgusting!”
Alice finally succeeded in slamming the door, catching the tip of one of Gunn’s fingers in the process. He stormed toward the gate, muttering oaths as he sucked on his hurt finger.
Gunn spent that night alone in his cabin, and the next day he rode off toward the baron’s camp. He did not bother going back to the fort to plead his case with Alice. Let her stew in her own juices while he was away. Maybe she’d be more agreeable by the time he returned.
Stew Alice did. A few days later she poured out the whole story to Pegeen’s eager ears.
“So, I just told him to go,” she concluded. “I won’t be a party to his jolly little threesome.”
“Oh, mum, you shouldn’t have sent him off that way,” Peg replied, her gray eyes clouded with worry. “Not with Indian customs being what they are.”
Alice turned to stare at the girl. “What are you talking about, Peg? What customs?”
Pegeen glanced about and lowered her voice so Sheamus wouldn’t hear what she was saying from the room behind his shop. “It ain’t that they’re really a sinful lot,” Peg explained. “They’ve just got a peculiar way when it comes to hospitality. You see, when an outsider comes to camp, they don’t like to see him go wanting for nothing. So, come nightfall, they parade out their eligible women, and the visitor must take his pick or insult the chief.”
“Surely you jest!” Alice said, horrified.
Pegeen shook her head. “It’s God’s own truth. I’ve heard the men talk. Most of the fellers here will face any sort of danger to take official messages to the Indian camp. They claim they get the pick of the lot when they go, not diseased whores, but chief’s daughters and the like.”
“You’re telling me that my husband is going to be forced to sleep with an Indian maid while he’s at their camp?”
Pegeen shrugged. “Not so much forced as obligated. After all, he’s on a diplomatic mission. He can’t very well insult them, can he?”
“No wonder he refused to take me along,” Alice wailed.
“Well, it wouldn’t be so bad except that Ishani is in that very camp, and I know how you feel about her.”
“You mean how Gunn feels about her,” Alice remarked sarcastically. “At least she’s married now.”
“Mum, you must have misunderstood me. It’s the married ones they choose from. They don’t let their unwed maids lie down with any man. Ishani being a special friend of your husband’s, she’ll be his likely choice, I suspect. Her lying with a man who’s such a brave hero to them for saving the baron’s life will bring honor on her own husband and all his people, so she’s not likely to refuse if he asks for her.”
“Oh, Pegeen, shut up! Just shut up!”
Never in her life had Alice felt tears so near the surface. Why, oh, why, had she sent Chris off with such unreasonable anger? If anything happened, it was all her fault, she told herself. She felt too guilty and sick to allow herself to shed a tear.
Except for small raiding parties, the Abenaki had not yet left their winter quarters on Canoe Island up the Penobscot River because of the special event that was about to take place there. Gunn’s hard day’s ride to meet with the baron was long and solitary, giving him more time than he wished to think about Alice and the harsh words that had passed between them before his departure.
What was he doing wrong? Back in England he’d deftly handled women with temperament and spirit equal to hers. When had he lost his knack?
He glanced about. The tall pines rose over him, blocking out the noonday sun, giving a haunted look to the woods he rode through. His horse whinnied softly and pricked his ears. Gunn realized he was listening more closely, too. A jaybird squawked off in the distance, and closer by some small animal made its way through rustling pine needles. But no real danger lurked nearby—there was no smell of it in the clear spring-scented air. Gunn eased his tense body and let his mind drift back to Alice.
If they were in England, things would be so simple. He knew how she expected him to act—the proper husband, always presentable, always accommodating, a gentleman to the core. But this was not England. Maine was a wild land populated by wild men. To survive among the Indians a man had to think and, at times, act like a savage. Therein lay the root of the problem. Alice had decided to marry him thinking he was one kind of man, only to find out that he was quite a different sort.
As a man, Gunn knew the rougher side of life and had learned to adjust to it. As a woman, Alice refused to admit that her existence could be anything short of the perfect picture her first husband had painted for her. They would both have to change their ideas if they meant to make a go of their marriage.
Gunn let out a long sigh. “Just let me be done with this mission, and I swear I’ll go home to Alice a changed man. We can and we will make it work.”
He spent the rest of his time on horseback listing his failings and deciding how he could change to suit Alice. He’d been a fool to take her in the woods that first night, he decided. He should have waited until he could bed her properly with all the pomp and ceremony a bride expected of her groom. He would give her what she wanted the next time, he vowed.
Gunn threw his head back and smiled, thinking of that night in the pine grove. Alice might not have been happy, “But Lord, Lord, it was sweet,” he murmured aloud, remembering the flames that had singed his very soul as the spitfire clawing and slapping him had turned miraculously into his own purring, sighing woman, her body hot and pliant in its need to be loved. There was no denying that his wife was a passionate female. He’d give all the mythical gold of Norumbega to be with her this very minute, kissing those pouting lips, nibbling at her nipples, fingering that fine down between her thighs until she begged him to sink into her.
A groan escaped Gunn and he eased to a more comfortable position on his horse’s broad back.
Stop thinking such thoughts, he warned himself.
Just then he spied the first signs of the Abenaki camp up ahead. A long canoe of birch bark awaited his arrival to take him across to the island. Gunn dismounted and walked cautiously toward the riverbank. He knew his every move was being watched and had been ever since he left his cabin, even though he had spied no other human being in the forest all day long.
Tying his horse to a silver birch sapling, he opened the leather bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out his white mooseskin ceremonial costume. Quickly shedding his buckskins, he glanced about, embarrassed. If he was being watched, and he was sure of it, the spies about him got a clear view of the full erection caused by his thoughts of Alice. He pulled on his breechclout, anxious to cover himself, then tied on his leggings, the fur sleeve, and the flowing cape that completed his Abenaki attire.
Gunn then climbed into the canoe and shoved off from the bank. He took the single oar from the bottom of the craft and dug it deep into the cold, clear water. Ahead he could see a small greeting party in ceremonial dress gathering to await his arrival. He spotted Ishani among those on the bank, and a fleeting moment of dread shot through him. Tonight—after his powwow with the baron, after the smoking of the pipe, after the feasting and dancing and drinking—his mettle as a diplomat would be put to the test. How would he explain his way out of accepting the tribe’s hospitality without offending their leaders?
Alice stayed busy, setting her mind and her house in order, anticipating the return of her husband. She’d been wrong and she realized it now. All she would accomplish by fuming and fretting was to make them both miserable. The last thing she wanted to do was drive Chris away permanently, but that seemed the course she was on. She was determined to change her ways the minute he got home.
Although she was afraid to sleep alone in the cabin outside the fort’s walls, she went there the day Chris left. With Pegeen’s help, she scrubbed the place down to the bare boards, burned the shabby bed linens, and cleared away every evidence that her husband might have shared his abode with another woman.
When they finished, the cabin looked clean, but bare.
“Lord, mum, what’s your man going to say when he walks in here? It looks nice, of course, but not homey like it did before.”
Alice glanced about. Peg was right. “You just leave it to me, girl. Christopher Gunn won’t know the place when he walks in, but he’ll be pleased as can be when he sees how I’ve fixed it up.”
That afternoon Alice prevailed on two of the off-duty guards from the fort to haul her trunks out to the cabin on sledges. She’d left all her household goods stored at the fort, taking only her clothes to Boston. Pegeen oohed and aahed over the finery as they unpacked. The bare windows were soon draped in rich tapestries. The corner cupboard, which had earlier held only cracked pottery and tin dishes, now gleamed with heavy pewter, crystal, and silver. Oriental rugs in colors of ruby, sapphire, and topaz glowed on the clean heart-pine boards of the floor.
“Come help me hang this drape,” Alice called to Peg.
“Oh, mum,” the girl whispered, fingering the rich, golden-tasseled scarlet velvet. “That’s so lovely it’s absolutely sinful!”
Alice laughed. “Don’t you recognize it? It’s the bed curtain from my room back at Balfour Manor. We’ll put it up here, across the opening between the main room and this little cubbyhole where we’ll sleep.”
As for the bed itself, Alice had plans for it as well. The two women restuffed the hard mattress with goose down. The rough homespun lengths that had served Gunn as sheets were soon replaced by silk. A down quilt went on next and finally a handwoven bedcover from Italy, rich reds and greens shot through with golden threads.
When they were finished, Gunn’s crude cabin looked like a palace in miniature. As a final touch, Alice placed scent bags containing crushed lavender and attar of roses in every nook and cranny. When Peg was not looking, she placed one last little sack under the mattress. This special blend of dried herbs and precious bits of this and that was a concoction her own mother had made before she was hanged. She’d told her daughter it was a secret potion that she should use on her wedding night to ensure happiness and pleasure for the bride and groom. Alice had never before tried the love potion, but her mother had guaranteed its effectiveness.
“There. What do you think?” Alice turned a beaming smile on her helper.
Pegeen giggled. “I think, mum, that your man’s going to want to know where his harem is. The place is too gorgeous and sweet-smelling to belong to any common man. Must be the pleasure palace of some high and mighty spice merchant from the East.”
“Oh, Peg, how you do go on,” Alice said, smiling in spite of herself, thinking that her handiwork was sure to delight and arouse her husband on his return.
To Gunn’s amazement and delight, he found that his presence at the Indian camp had been demanded not for further peace talks this time, but to act as best man at Baron de Saint Castin’s wedding.
“There’ll be no need for powwows for now,” the smiling Frenchman told Gunn. “The minute you return to the fort, inform your commander that he need fear no raids this summer. We wound up almost even last season, and we’ll stay that way for now. I declare a truce between our people for the next few months.” Looking down at the shy, lovely maiden beside him, he added, “I’ll have more important matters at hand than whipping the tails of you bloody English dogs. We can take care of that later. Agreed?”
“I’d like to call a truce for all time,” Gunn said.
The baron shook his head sadly. “You and I, we’ll see peace in heaven, not before then, I’m afraid. But let’s make the most of this happy occasion, my friend.”
Gunn stared at the bride-to-be; he couldn’t help himself. The baron had certainly chosen well. Chief Madockawando’s daughter was a beauty by any standards—dainty, fragile-looking, pale of skin and dark of hair, and seemingly as shy as a ruby-breasted hummingbird. But when she looked up at her tall Frenchman, her black eyes glittered with soul-deep love. There was nothing shy about the passionate looks that passed between the two of them.
“I’d introduce you,” the baron said to Gunn, “but damned if I can pronounce her name. We’re changing that at the ceremony tomorrow. From now on she’ll be Mathilde. A good French name for a good Catholic wife.”
In Abenaki Gunn paid his respects to Mathilde and wished her much happiness, many children, and a long life.
She looked up at him with a shy smile on her perfect, heart-shaped face and answered in beautifully accented French, “We are glad to have you with us, but I wish you had brought your wife.”
Feeling the passionate charge enveloping Mathilde and the baron, Gunn answered, “I do, too, more than you could know.”
T
wo weddings took place the following day. The arrival of the Catholic priest from Quebec to join the French baron and the Abenaki princess had been well planned and thoroughly prepared for. However, the advent of the parson at the fort ahead of schedule came as a welcome surprise.
“Lordy, mum,” Pegeen wailed to Alice, “what if Sheamus O’Dare’s not the right man for me? What if I’m making a mistake?”
Alice, who at the moment was letting out the fabric at the waist of Peg’s best gown to accommodate her bulging figure, laughed at the girl’s belated misgivings. “It seems to me, young lady, that you should have considered that before you let the man impregnate you a second time.”
“I s’pose you’re right, mum. I’ve no choice but to marry him now, right or wrong. There’s never been a bastard in our line for as far back as anyone knows. I’d not want to be the first to put a rotten limb on the family tree.”
Peg’s words pained Alice. Of course the girl had no way of knowing that her mistress had never known who her own father was, but still Pegeen’s reference to bastards hurt.
“There,” Alice said, casting off her sudden depression. “All finished. You’d better get out of it now, or Toby will have you all mussed before time for the ceremony.”
In a moment of sudden enthusiasm Pegeen hugged Alice. “Oh, mum, I’m so happy! I do love that big lug of an Irishman I’m about to wed. Think of it—a new husband, a growing family, and all this great, wonderful land to make our home. It was a fine turn Lord Balfour did me, sending me here with you. I’ll owe him all my days. I’ll owe you, too, mum, letting me choose my own path and find my own happiness the way you did.”
The girl had tears in her eyes. Alice was touched. Any other woman would have broken down and wept along with the bride-to-be. But Alice said quietly, “You owe me nothing, Peg. You’re a good woman with a good heart. If I were more like you, perhaps I could please my man and make him love me the way your Sheamus loves you.”
Pegeen ached for her mistress. “You shouldn’t talk that way, mum. Your man loves you, and you only, I’m certain of it. And there’s no doubting your love for him. It’s just that affection comes easier between us common folk than amongst the gentility. We’re not afraid to show how we feel. We don’t have all society’s prim and proper rules getting in our way. Why, the first moment Sheamus and me laid eyes on each other, he spoke out plain as you please, ‘I’m going to marry you, girl. I don’t know your name yet, but as soon as I can, I’m changing it to O’Dare. So don’t you give me any backtalk. Your future’s settled right this minute.’ By the time he’d finished his pretty speech, I would have let him bed me on the spot.”
Pegeen paused and smiled shyly, then added, “Being the proper upbrought girl I am, I made him court me two whole days, though, before I’d allow him to toss me skirts.”
Pegeen’s confession brought a blush to Alice’s cheeks. She’d felt the same way about Chris, although she’d never admit it to anyone. So why were life and love so simple for Peg and her man, but so complicated for Alice and Chris? It seemed that question would have to go begging for an answer, at least for the time being.
It was a beautiful spring day in Maine. The air was a clear blue, and the bright sun lit patches of wildflowers peeking through the new green shoots carpeting the woods. Seabirds swooped and danced in the sparkling sky over the fort, calling out their excited songs to the world. Everything seemed fresh and new and alive.
The people of the fort were no different. Winter’s doldrums had passed, and good spirits reigned. The soldiers donned their red and white dress uniforms for the occasion. Even Sheamus O’Dare looked handsome in a bearish sort of way. He’d gone to the cold river early to scrub himself clean of his blacksmith’s soot. Pegeen had made him a new shirt and britches, and he wore a spotless leather apron over his clothes. Only the tall, skinny parson, who claimed he’d been chased all the way to the fort by a marauding band of Indians, looked rumpled, mud-spattered, and weary when they gathered in the yard of the fort for the wedding.
Alice held little Toby as the child’s mother and father spoke their solemn vows. He was a sweet baby, with his mother’s large eyes and his father’s open smile. He cooed and gurgled all through the ceremony, making Alice ache to hold an infant of her very own.
A great cheer went up when Mr. and Mrs. O’Dare turned to each other for their first kiss as man and wife. Their embrace lingered on and on until finally the preacher cleared his throat loudly to remind the couple that there was still further business to be attended to.
The baptism of little Toby turned the crowd silent again. Only the infant disturbed the peace, wailing his displeasure at the touch of chilly water on his naked flesh. The moment Toby’s dedication to God was done, the party began in earnest.
Beer, ale, and wine flowed freely. The men had roasted a goat, two pigs, and a deer over open pits in the yard. The aroma of the slowly simmering meat had been tantalizing their senses for hours. Now they could hardly wait to dig in. One of the soldiers brought out his fiddle, another his hornpipe. The spring song of birds was soon drowned out by the tune of a merry jig and the sound of tramping boots. Both Alice and Peg danced until they were ready to drop.
As the sun sank low, Alice saw Pegeen go to her husband and tug at his sleeve. She went up on tiptoe, whispered something into his ear, then kissed his cheek. O’Dare blushed as the men jeered, but he smiled down at his bride and followed her willingly to their own quarters, where their marital bed awaited.
Not until that very moment did the full weight of her loneliness descend over Alice. She felt empty and unloved. Never before in her life had she wanted her husband so deeply. Her whole body ached with need for Chris. The thought of going alone to her bare little room was more than she could stand. She made up her mind what she must do.
Going to the captain of the guard, she said, “I’ll be staying the night at my cabin. Could one of your men escort me, please?”
The tall officer frowned. “That wouldn’t be wise, ma’am. The parson warned us that there are Indians about.”
She stubbornly stood her ground. “Wise or not, I’m going.”
“Very well, ma’am. I’ll send Private Smith along with you and tell him to stay the night on guard outside. That way if there’s trouble, he can alert the fort.”
Alice agreed and soon set out for the home she hoped she would soon share with her husband.
Darkness fell and there was a chill in the air by the time she arrived. In spite of all her work and the fancy touches she’d added, the cabin looked lonely, unlived-in, and uninviting. Quickly she struck a flint to light the fire in the main room. Its warm glow chased away some of the gloom. Candles set about did their part to cheer Alice as well. Soon she felt very much at home, but the ache of loneliness remained.
She went to the tiny bedroom and peeked in. The bed looked soft and inviting. Carefully she turned back the covers and smoothed the pillows. She yawned and stepped out of her slippers. Moments later she crawled naked between the cool sheets, feeling her nipples pucker as the cold silk touched them. How she longed for the warmth of her husband’s body next to hers, for his touch, his kiss, his caress.
“Chris, oh, Chris,” she whispered. “I want you here.”
An altar of pine boughs and wildflowers stood at the edge of the riverbank. Christopher Gunn stood tall and erect, garbed as an Abenaki warrior, looking on gravely as the priest placed the bride’s hand in the groom’s.
The baron cut an imposing figure also, dressed in his French regimental uniform of the
Carignan Salières
, the unit in which he had served when he first arrived in Canada from his native France.
Mathilde looked fragile and ethereal in the ceremonial dress of an Indian princess. Her costume was of the finest white skins, embroidered with a rainbow of beads that resembled colored lace, and painted with ancient symbols to bring luck to the marriage. An iridescent robe of feathers fell from her shoulders, sweeping out behind like a train.
The pair looked properly solemn, but there was no mistaking the passionate gazes they exchanged. The whole feeling surrounding the ceremony was charged by the bride and groom’s need for each other. Gunn found his own longing intensified by the sensual aura they cast.
Feeling a strange heat, he glanced to his left. Ishani stood a few feet away, her lovely dark eyes on him. She did not shy away when he looked at her, but offered him a small, secret smile. Quickly he glanced back toward the bride and groom, but now his thoughts were elsewhere.
He had begged off the night before when the baron offered him a woman. “I’m too saddle-weary to satisfy one of your frisky maids tonight,” Gunn had lied. “A good night’s rest will put me back in my prime, though.”
The Frenchman had taken no offense, much to Gunn’s relief. He knew he was treading thin ice, refusing Abenaki hospitality. To do so was to insult his hosts, and warriors did not take such offenses lightly.
“All right, my friend,” the baron had said, “but tomorrow night I won’t have my offer turned down. You’ll have your pick of the lot and you will choose a woman. How could I enjoy bedding my bride, knowing that my blood brother is sleeping alone?”
If only he’d brought Alice, but he’d had no way of knowing it was a wedding he’d attend instead of war talks. There was nothing he could do about that now. He would just have to think of something before night fell over the camp.
Once the traditional Catholic ceremony was finished, the Abenaki medicine man took over. The baron and Mathilde might be husband and wife in the eyes of much of the world, but the bride’s own tribe would not feel right until their shaman had turned his back on the evil god, Abemecho, to face heaven and the good god, Kichtan, both lying to the southwest, the direction of fair winds. While sacrificing maize and tender birch branches for luck, the wise old man told the assembled tribe once more of how in the beginning of all things Kichtan had created the first man and woman out of stone. When they disappointed their god, he destroyed them, creating a new pair from soft, warm wood.
At this point in the medicine man’s narrative, two Indians dressed as trees danced into the circle. They twirled and whirled, shedding their leaves and branches until finally a beautiful young maid and a handsome brave swayed together, almost naked before each other and their tribe.
Gunn watched the ceremonial dance with growing unease. The woman’s long hair swung to and fro as she moved, one moment covering her chest, the next giving him a tantalizing glimpse of firm breasts peaked with dark nipples. The brave stroked her with long, sensuous fingers whenever she came near. It became quite clear that they were both aroused. At the instant that Gunn thought the brave meant to throw himself upon the maiden, the two dancers vanished into the dark woods. A charged silence fell over the clearing.
Gunn found himself staring after them, swallowing hard. His forehead was beaded with sweat and his own breechclout strained to near bursting. Again, he found Ishani staring at him, but this time she did not smile. Only her dark eyes held any expression, and that expression he knew well—pure animal lust.
Turning from her quickly, Gunn went to the baron to offer his congratulations.
“You’ll sit with us at the feast, of course,” the groom invited.
“My pleasure,” Gunn replied. He only hoped the feast lasted long and late. With any luck he could drink himself into a stupor, the only way he was likely to avoid sharing a tent before morning.
As they took their places at the head of the huge circle formed by the wedding guests, the baron whispered to Gunn, “What did you think of the ceremony?”
Gunn cleared his throat. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it, actually. Damned interesting.”
The big Frenchman laughed. “It would have been even more interesting if we’d done it the traditional way. The bride and groom are supposed to do the dance of the trees, but since Mathilde and I are both Christians, it didn’t seem quite proper. Mind you, I was up for it, but the priest threatened excommunication for both of us if we went through with what he called ‘that disgusting pagan ritual.’”
“If I were you, I’d thank that priest,” Gunn replied in all earnestness.
Great trenchers of food were placed in front of them then. Pretending to be starved, Gunn stuffed his mouth full of
nasaump
, the delicious chowder the Abenaki made of clams, eel, quahogs, and scallops. This was followed by more Indian beer, more French wine, roasted maize, venison, wild turkey, and goose. Finally the long-stemmed pipes of hemlock and crushed ivy leaves were passed around along with more spirits.
While the men smoked and drank, gifts were distributed to the guests. Baron de Saint Castin gave Gunn a handsome wampum belt, woven of purple and white shell beads in symbolic figures. Gunn recognized the significance of the gift. The belt served as a sacred pledge that guaranteed messages, promises, and treaties—another sign of peace, understanding, and friendship between the two men.
“And this is for your wife,” the Frenchman said, handing Gunn a large folded bundle.
Gunn opened it to find a milk-white robe of dressed moosehide, so wonderfully soft that it felt like the finest chamois. Ancient tribal symbols painted in red, blue, and yellow decorated the cloak, and the whole thing sparkled with silver, gold, and copper bead embroidery.
“Alice will think for certain that I found Norumbega when she sees this,” Gunn said with wonder in his voice. “Thank you, Baron.”
The groom chuckled and leaned close to whisper, “Your other gift will be offered soon.”
Gunn tried not to think about that.
By the late hour when the feast finally ended, Gunn was indeed tipsy. The hemlock smoke served to further muddle his senses. If he could crawl to his tent, he would be doing well. The drunker he got, the more often he found Ishani before his fuzzy gaze.
“Getting anxious, are you, Gunn?” The baron nudged Chris and he almost toppled over. “Well, your wait’s almost over, my friend. If I don’t get my bride off to myself soon, I’ll be taking her in public, priest or no priest.”