A Breath of Snow and Ashes

  Of the North Church tower as a signal light—

  One if by land, and two if by sea;

  And I on the opposite shore will be,

  Ready to ride and spread the alarm

  Through every Middlesex village and farm,

  For the country folk to be up and to arm.’”

  “They don’t write poems like that anymore,” Roger said. But in spite of his cynicism, he couldn’t bloody help seeing it: the steam of a horse’s breath, white in darkness, and across the black water, the tiny star of a lantern, high above the sleeping town. And then another.

  “What happened next?” he said.

  “Then he said ‘Good-night!’ and with muffled oar

  Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,

  Just as the moon rose over the bay,

  Where swinging wide at her moorings lay

  The Somerset, British man-of-war;

  A phantom ship, with each mast and spar

  Across the moon like a prison bar,

  And a huge black hulk, that was magnified

  By its own reflection in the tide.”

  “Well, that’s not too bad,” he said judiciously. “I like the bit about the Somerset. Rather a painterly description.”

  “Shut up.” She kicked him, though without real violence. “It goes on about his friend, who wanders and watches, with eager ears—” Roger snorted, and she kicked him again. “Till in the silence around him he hears/The muster of men at the barrack door/The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet/And the measured tread of the grenadiers/Marching down to their boats on the shore.”

  He had visited her in Boston in the spring. In mid-April, the trees would have no more than a haze of green, their branches still mostly bare against pale skies. The nights were still frigid, but the cold was somehow touched with life, a freshness moving through the icy air.

  “Then there’s a boring part about the friend climbing the stairs of the church tower, but I like the next verse.” Her voice, already soft, dropped a little, whispering.

  “Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,

  In their night encampment on the hill,

  Wrapped in silence so deep and still

  That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,

  The watchful night-wind, as it went

  Creeping along from tent to tent,

  And seeming to whisper, ‘All is well!’

  A moment only he feels the spell

  Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread

  Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

  For suddenly all his thoughts are bent

  On a shadowy something far away,

  Where the river widens to meet the bay—

  A line of black that bends and floats

  On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.”

  “Then there’s a lot of stuff with old Paul killing time waiting for the signal,” she said, abandoning the dramatic whisper for a more normal tone of voice. “But it finally shows up, and then . . .

  “A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

  A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

  And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

  Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;

  That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

  The fate of a nation was riding that night;

  And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,

  Kindled the land into flame with its heat.”

  “That’s actually pretty good.” His hand curved over her thigh, just above the knee, in case she might kick him again, but she didn’t. “Do you remember the rest?”

  “So he goes along by the Mystic River,” Brianna said, ignoring him, “and then there are three verses, as he passes through the townships:

  “It was twelve by the village clock

  When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.

  He heard the crowing of the cock,

  “And the barking of the farmer’s dog,

  And felt the damp of the river fog,

  That rises after the sun goes down.

  “It was one by the village clock,

  When he galloped into Lexington.

  He saw the gilded weathercock

  Swim in the moonlight as he passed,

  And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,

  Gaze at him with a spectral glare,

  As if they already stood aghast

  At the bloody work they would look upon.

  “It was two by the village clock—and yes, I hear the clock chiming in the first lines, be quiet!” He had in fact drawn breath, but not to interrupt, only because he’d suddenly realized he’d been holding it. “It was two by the village clock,” she repeated,

  “When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

  He heard the bleating of the flock,

  And the twitter of birds among the trees,

  And felt the breath of the morning breeze

  Blowing over the meadow brown.

  And one was safe and asleep in his bed

  Who at the bridge would be first to fall,

  Who that day would be lying dead,

  Pierced by a British musket ball.

  “You know the rest.” She stopped abruptly, her hand tight on his.

  From one moment to the next, the character of the night had changed. The stillness of the small hours had ceased, and a breath of wind moved through the trees outside. All of a sudden, the night was alive again, but dying now, rushing toward dawn.

  If not actively twittering, the birds were wakeful; something called, over and over, in the nearby wood, high and sweet. And above the stale, heavy scent of the fire, he breathed the wild clean air of morning, and felt his heart beat with sudden urgency.

  “Tell me the rest,” he whispered.

  He saw the shadows of men in the trees, the stealthy knocking on doors, the low-voiced, excited conferences—and all the while, the light growing in the east. The lap of water and creak of oars, the sound of restless kine lowing to be milked, and on the rising breeze the smell of men, stale with sleep and empty of food, harsh with black powder and the scent of steel.

  And without thinking, pulled his hand from his wife’s grasp, rolled over her, and pulling up the shift from her thighs, took her hard and fast, in vicarious sharing of that mindless urge to spawn that attended the imminent presence of death.

  Lay on her trembling, the sweat drying on his back in the breeze from the window, heart thumping in his ears. For the one, he thought. The one who would be the first to fall. The poor sod who maybe hadn’t swived his wife in the dark and taken the chance to leave her with child, because he had no notion what was coming with the dawn. This dawn.

  Brianna lay still under him; he could feel the rise and fall of her breath, powerful ribs that lifted even under his weight.

  “You know the rest,” she whispered.

  “Bree,” he said very softly. “I would sell my soul to be there now.”

  “Shh,” she said, but her hand rose, and settled on his back in what might be benediction. They lay still, watching the light grow by degrees, keeping silence.

  THIS SILENCE WAS broken a quarter of an hour later, by the sound of rushing footsteps and a pounding at the door. Jemmy popped out of his blankets like a cuckoo from a clock, eyes round, and Roger heaved himself up, hurriedly brushing down his nightshirt.

  It was one of the Beardsleys, face pinched and white in the gray light. He paid no attention to Roger, but cried out to Brianna, “Lizzie’s having the baby, come quick!”, before dashing off in the direction of the Big House, where the figure of his brother could be seen gesticulating wildly on the porch.

  Brianna flung on her clothes and burst out of the cabin, leaving Roger to deal with Jemmy. She met her mother, similarly disheveled but with a neatly packed medical kit slung over her shoulder, hurrying toward the narrow path that led past spring house and stable, into the distant woods where the B
eardsleys’ cabin lay.

  “She should have come down last week,” Claire gasped. “I told her . . .”

  “So did I. She said . . .” Brianna gave up the attempt to speak. The Beardsley twins had long outdistanced them, sprinting through the wood like deer, whooping and yelling—whether from sheer excitement at their impending fatherhood, or to let Lizzie know help was on the way, she couldn’t tell.

  Claire had worried about Lizzie’s malaria, she knew. And yet the yellow shadow that so often hung over her erstwhile bondmaid had all but disappeared during her pregnancy; Lizzie bloomed.

  Nonetheless, Brianna felt her stomach clench in fear as they came into sight of the Beardsleys’ cabin. The hides had been moved outside, stacked round the tiny house like a barricade, and the smell of them gave her a moment’s terrible vision of the MacNeills’ cabin, filled with death.

  The door hung open, though, and there were no flies. She forced herself to hang back an instant, to let Claire go in first, but hurried in on her heels—to find that they were too late.

  Lizzie sat up in a blood-smeared bower of furs, blinking with amazed stupefaction at a small, round, blood-smeared baby, who was regarding her with the exact same expression of open-mouthed astonishment.

  Jo and Kezzie were clutching each other, too excited and afraid to speak. From the corner of her eye, Brianna saw their mouths opening and closing in syncopation, and wanted to laugh, but instead followed her mother to the bedside.

  “He just popped out!” Lizzie was saying, glancing momentarily at Claire, but then jerking her fascinated gaze back to the baby, as though she expected him—yes, it was a him, Brianna saw—to disappear as suddenly as he had arrived.

  “My back hurt something dreadful, all last night, so I couldna sleep, and the lads took it in turns to rub me, but it didna really help, and then when I got up to go to the privy this morning, all the water burst forth from betwixt my legs—just as ye said it would, ma’am!” she said to Claire. “And so I said to Jo and Kezzie they must run fetch ye, but I didna ken quite what to do next. So I set about to mix up batter for to make hoecake for breakfast”—she waved at the table, where a bowl of flour sat with a jug of milk and two eggs—“and next thing, I had this terrible urge to—to—” She blushed, a deep, becoming peony color.

  “Well, I couldna even reach the chamber-pot. I just squatted there by the table, and—and—pop! There he was, right on the ground beneath me!”

  Claire had picked the new arrival up, and was cooing reassurances to him, while deftly checking whatever it was one checked about new babies. Lizzie had made a blanket in preparation, carefully knitted of lamb’s wool, dyed with indigo. Claire glanced at the pristine blanket, then pulled a length of stained, soft flannel from her kit. Wrapping the baby in it, she handed him to Brianna.

  “Hold him a moment while I deal with the cord, will you, darling?” she said, pulling scissors and thread from her kit. “Then you can clean him off a bit—there’s a bottle of oil in here—while I take care of Lizzie. And you lot,” she added, glancing sternly at the Beardsleys, “go outside.”

  The baby moved suddenly inside his wrappings, startling Brianna with the sudden vivid recollection of tiny, solid limbs pushing from inside: a kick to the liver, the liquid swell and shift as head or buttocks pressed up in a hard, smooth curve beneath her ribs.

  “Hallo, little guy,” she said softly, cuddling him against her shoulder. He smelled strongly and strangely of the sea, she thought, and oddly fresh against the acrid pungency of the hides outside.

  “Ooh!” Lizzie gave a startled squeal, as Claire kneaded her belly, and there was a juicy, slithering sort of sound. Brianna remembered that vividly, too; the placenta, that liverish, slippery afterthought of birth, almost soothing as it passed over the much-abused tissues with a sense of peaceful completion. All over, and the stunned mind began to comprehend survival.

  There was a gasp from the doorway, and she looked up to see the Beardsleys, side by side and saucer-eyed.

  “Shoo!” she said firmly, and flipped a hand at them. They promptly disappeared, leaving her to the entertaining task of cleaning and oiling the flailing limbs and creased body. He was a small baby, but round: round-faced, very round-eyed for a newborn—he hadn’t cried at all, but was plainly awake and alert—and with a round little belly, from which the stump of his umbilical cord protruded, dark purple and fresh.

  His look of astonishment had not faded; he goggled up at her, solemn as a fish, though she could feel the huge smile on her own face.

  “You are so cute!” she told him. He smacked his lips in a thoughtful sort of way, and crinkled his brow.

  “He’s hungry!” she called over her shoulder. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready?” Lizzie croaked. “Mother of God, how can ye be ready for something like this?”, which made Claire and Brianna both laugh like loons.

  Nonetheless, Lizzie reached for the little blue-wrapped bundle and put it uncertainly to her breast. There was a certain amount of fumbling and increasingly anxious grunts from the baby, but at last a suitable connection was established, making Lizzie utter a brief shriek of surprise, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  At this point, Brianna became aware that there had been conversation going on outside for some time—a mutter of male voices, deliberately pitched low, in a confusion of speculation and puzzlement.

  “I imagine you can let them in now. Then put the griddle in the fire, if you would.” Claire, beaming fondly at mother and child, was mixing the neglected batter.

  Brianna poked her head out of the cabin door, to find Jo, Kezzie, her own father, Roger, and Jemmy, clustered in a knot a little distance away. They all glanced up when they saw her, with expressions ranging from vaguely shamefaced pride to simple excitement.

  “Mama! Is the baby here?” Jem rushed up, pushing to get past her into the cabin, and she grabbed him by the collar.

  “Yes. You can come see him, but you have to be quiet. He’s very new, and you don’t want to scare him, all right?”

  “Him?” one of the Beardsleys asked, excited. “It’s a boy?”

  “I told ye so!” his brother said, nudging him in the ribs. “I said I saw a wee prick!”

  “You don’t say things like ‘prick’ in front of ladies,” Jem informed him severely, turning to frown at him. “And Mama says be quiet!”

  “Oh,” said the Beardsley twin, abashed. “Oh, aye, to be sure.”

  Moving with an exaggerated caution that made her want to laugh, the twins tiptoed into the cabin, followed by Jem, Jamie’s hand firm on his shoulder, and Roger.

  “Is Lizzie all right?” he asked softly, pausing to kiss her briefly in passing.

  “A little overwhelmed, I think, but fine.”

  Lizzie was in fact sitting up, soft blond hair now combed and shining around her shoulders, glowing with happiness at Jo and Kezzie, who knelt at her bedside, grinning like apes.

  “May the blessing of Bride and of Columba be on you, young woman,” Jamie said formally in Gaelic, bowing to her, “and may the love of Christ sustain you always in your motherhood. May milk spring from your breasts like water from the rock and may you rest secure in the arms of your”—he coughed briefly, glancing at the Beardsleys—“husband.”

  “If you can’t say ‘prick,’ why can you say ‘breasts’?” Jemmy inquired, interested.

  “Ye can’t, unless it’s a prayer,” his father informed him. “Grandda was giving Lizzie a blessing.”

  “Oh. Are there any prayers with pricks in them?”

  “I’m sure there are,” Roger replied, carefully avoiding Brianna’s eye, “but ye don’t say them out loud. Why don’t ye go and help Grannie with the breakfast?”

  The iron griddle was sizzling with fat, and the fragrant smell of fresh batter filled the room as Claire began to pour spoonfuls onto the hot metal.

  Jamie and Roger, having presented their compliments to Lizzie, had stepped back a bit, to give the little family a moment to
themselves—though the cabin was so small, there was barely room for everyone to fit inside.

  “You are so beautiful,” Jo—or possibly Kezzie—whispered, touching her hair with an awed forefinger. “Ye look like the new moon, Lizzie.”

  “Did it hurt ye very much, sweetheart?” murmured Kezzie—or maybe Jo—stroking the back of her hand.

  “Not so much,” she said, stroking Kezzie’s hand, then lifting her palm to cup Jo’s cheek. “Look. Is he no the bonniest wee creature ye’ve ever seen?” The baby had drunk his fill and fallen asleep; he let go the nipple with an audible pop! and rolled back in his mother’s arm like a dormouse, mouth a little open.

  The twins made identical soft sounds of awe, and looked doe-eyed at their—well, what else could one say? Brianna thought—their son.

  “Oh, such dear wee fingers!” Kezzie—or Jo—breathed, touching the little pink fist with a dirty forefinger.

  “Is he all there?” Jo—or Kezzie—asked. “Ye’ve looked?”

  “I have,” Lizzie assured him. “Here—d’ye want to hold him?” Not pausing for assent, she put the bundle into his arms. Whichever twin it was looked at once thrilled and terrified, and glanced wildly at his brother for support.

  Brianna, enjoying the tableau, felt Roger close behind her.

  “Aren’t they sweet?” she whispered, reaching back for his hand.

  “Oh, aye,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Enough to make ye want another, isn’t it?”

  It was an innocent remark; she could tell he had meant nothing by it—but he heard the echo, even as she did, and coughed, letting go her hand.

  “Here—that’s for Lizzie.” Claire was handing a plate of fragrant cakes, drizzled with butter and honey, to Jem. “Is anyone else hungry?”

  The general stampede in response to this enabled Brianna to hide her feelings, but they were still there—and painfully clear, if still tangled.

  Yes, she did want another baby, thank you, she thought fiercely at Roger’s oblivious back. In the instant of holding the newborn child, she wanted it with a yearning of flesh that surpassed hunger or thirst. And she would have loved to blame him for the fact that it hadn’t happened yet.

  It had taken a true leap of faith, across the vertiginous abyss of knowledge, for her to put aside her dauco seeds, those fragile pellets of protection. But she’d done it. And nothing. Lately, she’d been thinking uneasily of what Ian had told her about his wife and their struggles to conceive. True, she had suffered no miscarriage, and was profoundly grateful for that. But the part he had told her, where their lovemaking became more mechanical and desperate—that was beginning to loom like a specter in the distance. It hadn’t gotten that bad yet—but more often than not, she turned into Roger’s arms, thinking, Now? Will it be this time? But it never was.

  The twins were becoming more comfortable with their offspring, their dark heads pressed close together, tracing the chubby outlines of his sleeping features and wondering aloud who he most resembled, of all idiotic things.

  Lizzie was single-mindedly devouring her second plate of hoecakes, accompanied by grilled sausages. The smell was wonderful, but Brianna wasn’t hungry.

  It was a good thing that they knew for sure, she told herself, watching Roger take his turn to hold the baby, his dark, lean face softening. If there had still been any doubt that Jemmy was Roger’s child, he would have blamed himself as Ian did, thought there was something wrong with him. As it was . . .

  Had something happened to her? she wondered uneasily. Had Jemmy’s birth