How scary for Sarah. A new world and a new language for the third time in half a year. Mercy was grateful that Tannhahorens and Nistenha had kept her.
The French officer punched Mr. Williams lightly on the arm and said cheerfully, “Monsieur, we return another day, eh?” He bowed slightly to the assembled warriors.
How careful the French were, so outnumbered.
Perhaps, thought Mercy, they wonder if they were wise to sell guns to Indians who were their enemies not so many years ago but who now live beside the French, enter the French church and speak the French language. No wonder the French stay in Montréal and have made it a fortress. With any misstep, Indian allies could revert to being the enemy.
Mr. Williams embraced the two children. Mercy savored the touch of his hands. Joseph remained as rigid as the wood of a dugout.
“The Lord is with you,” said Mr. Williams. And then, roughly, as though he would shake them like puppies if the warriors were not so close, “But when they force you to go to Mass, do not repeat their prayers! Never touch a cross!”
“They don’t force,” said Joseph. “And we do repeat the prayers.”
“We go every day,” said Mercy anxiously. “We say the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. Father Meriel says it’s the same prayer.”
“He lies! A Catholic priest skulks behind his religion as Indians skulk behind trees.”
Mercy bent her head for Mr. Williams’s blessing, having forgotten that only Father Meriel painted the cross in the air. Sometimes when Mercy left Mass she could feel the cross hovering over her.
But Mr. Williams did not bless her. He pushed Mercy away for the second time and said harshly to Joseph, “I expect weakness in girls, but if you enter a Catholic church, your weakness shames us all.”
Again the interpreter knew better than to interpret. Instead, he guided Mr. Williams toward the canoe. The Englishman climbed in awkwardly, supported on both sides by French officers, and then Mr. Williams, Harvard graduate and minister, put his head in his hands and wept for the daughter he had not been allowed to see. He did not look back at Mercy and Joseph. He had never asked if they were all right.
She felt gray and hopeless. “The Lord bless you and keep you, Mr. Williams,” she called, but he did not hear her over the splashing of paddles, and it was Joseph who smiled gently, and suddenly Mercy knew the Lord to be all things and all languages: Mohawk. French. English. Latin. The Lord did not mind what name Mercy used, as long as she used it well. She did not think He cared whether she answered to Marie, or to Munnonock, or to Daughter. He cared if she kept the commandments.
Honor thy mother and father, thought Mercy. Have I broken that commandment? She clung tightly to Tannhahorens’s hand, trying to discern the truth.
Snow Walker spit where Mr. Williams had stood.
Chapter Nine
Montréal
October 1704
Temperature 55 degrees
Today, Munnonock,” said her mother, “we take you into Montréal.”
Mercy danced with delight. She would be the last English child to find out what a city was.
The family was shopping for a celebration. Snow Walker’s baby sister had reached three years of age. It was time to set aside her French name, Marguérite, and give her a real name: Gassinontie, which meant “Flying Legs,” because from the moment the little girl had been able to walk, she ran instead.
To go into the city, Mercy wore her best deerskin leggings and a tunic heavily embroidered by Nistenha’s mother. Six bracelets that belonged to Snow Walker decorated her arms. Nistenha had spent an hour braiding and greasing Mercy’s hair, working beads into it. Her earrings were borrowed. Nistenha said they would look for earrings that Mercy could wear at the feast for Flying Legs.
Nistenha and Tannhahorens and all Nistenha’s relations went in two canoes, and Ruth’s family in another, and two more Kahnawake canoes also crossed the river to Montréal.
Instead of one small jetty, below the stone ramparts of Montréal were a dozen piers and wharves. Pirogues and flat-bottomed bateaux had tied up, and no fewer than three oceangoing vessels were there. Huge barrels and caskets were being offloaded. On the shore, safely guarded, hundreds of bales of fur were waiting to be shipped to Europe. Above this towered the immense stone convent of the nuns and the spire of the church of Notre-Dame.
The Indian men departed for their errands, and the women and children went in the gate to the markets.
The ladies strolling and shopping wore gowns that glowed in rich colors like the painted letters in Father Meriel’s Bible. Their hair was curled in pillows and curves. In Deerfield, women pulled their hair up into buns and secured it with pins or hid it with bonnets. These ladies wore bright dainty slippers instead of the bootlike shoes of Deerfield. They smelled like lilacs in spring.
Like a savage, Mercy wanted to touch the French ladies’ gowns.
And one of the French children was her cousin Mary.
Mary’s hair had been fixed somehow into rings and on her head was a tiny, silly hat. Her emerald green dress was pleated and sashed and a row of silver buttons glittered all the way down the front. She held the hand of a young Frenchwoman in a pink gown painted with roses and frothing with lace.
Mercy approached her cousin almost timidly. “Mary?” she whispered. “Mary? It’s me, your cousin Mercy.”
The pink lady said, “Oh, ma pauvre petite! Mon dieu, vous êtes en sauvage.”
My poor little one. My God, you have become a savage. In English or in French, savage was a word Mercy had come to dislike.
“Mercy! What’s happened to you?” said her cousin. “Your skin is ruined. You look as if you haven’t worn a bonnet or used a parasol all summer.”
“No,” said Mercy. Parasol, she thought.
Cousin Mary still had her pretty smile, her single dimple and her happy laugh. “This is my new mother, Mercy. You know what? I have a new name too. Now I’m Marie-Claire de Fleury.”
Oh, poor Aunt Mary, dying on the march. Poor Uncle Nathaniel, who had known he would never see his children again. Your parents would weep.
“And Will?” Mercy whispered. “Have you seen your brother? Do you know where he is?”
Her cousin’s voice dropped. “Hush, Mercy. We never talk about that.”
Mercy was familiar with that rule.
They were joined by a Frenchman, very handsome, his jacket bright red, his scarf white, his pistol polished. He was utterly delighted by Mercy and picked her up in the air and beamed at her. “I,” he told her, “am Monsieur de Fleury, father of Marie-Claire.” He and his wife talked excitedly, nodding to one another and alternately embracing Cousin Mary and Mercy herself.
What a swirl of fathers and mothers. They were dead and alive, they were French and Indian and English, they were adoptive and blood, they were priests and parents.
Indeed, her Indian mother joined them.
“Beautiful child, you,” said the father of Marie-Claire to Mercy. “To be savage, no. It is not good. In you, Marie Claire have a sister. With us, you will come. Attendez,” he said sharply to Nistenha. He extended his palm to Nistenha, and on it lay a pile of coins.
They wanted to buy Mercy. They wanted to take her home. Mercy would be this man’s daughter, instead of Tannhahorens’s property. She would have a parasol and silver buttons. She would sleep between sheets on a real bed and eat white bread instead of venison.
Why did the French care about Deerfield children, when they themselves had trooped to Deerfield to destroy it?
Deerfield shimmered distantly, and Mercy could make sense of none of it.
Cousin Mary’s father shook the coins in his hand as if to attract Nistenha’s attention. Mohawks had a great ability to place themselves elsewhere, leaving their bodies to wait out the events around them. The Frenchman might have been a tree in the woods for all the attention Nistenha paid him. She ignored the outstretched palm, gathered Snow Walker, Mercy and their bundles, and moved on without bothering to acknow
ledge the man.
I could be French, thought Mercy.
She looked back, but the family that had offered to buy her had already turned away, and the father and the mother walked on each side of their daughter, and there was no trace of Mary Brooks. It was Marie-Claire de Fleury whose green dress caught the sun.
And then, across a city square filled with stone, stone and stone, instead of mud, dust and dogs, Mercy saw Eben Nims and Sarah Hoyt.
Eben had gotten even taller and filled out. But of course he was eighteen now. He was sun-browned and garbed in Indian clothing. Sarah Hoyt wore an English dress, a French shawl and satin shoes. Like Cousin Mary, she was still very fair; her skin had seen no sun. Never had her auburn hair looked so lovely.
Mercy tore free of Nistenha’s grasp and rushed to greet them. Eben hollered like a boy in a ball game when he saw her and Sarah whirled her in circles.
“How is Lorette?” said Mercy when they were done hugging and laughing with joy.
“Good,” said Eben.
“Bad,” said Sarah. “The men had to run the gauntlet. It was just as people told us. The Indians made two lines, they had clubs and sharpened sticks and whips, and Eben had to run between the lines and get hit and knocked to the ground and kicked.”
“They did that to you?” whispered Mercy.
Eben shrugged. “Your brother Sam is in Lorette, you know. He is fine. He and his master built two canoes. One elm-bark and the other birch. He’s proud of his canoes. Try not to worry about him, Mercy. One day you’ll cross paths at a celebration.”
Sam is fine, thought Mercy. How extraordinary. How can any of us be fine?
She pictured her brother: bigger, taller … and content.
“Benny we’ve never seen,” Eben said, “but I ran into a white captive taken from Albany who lives in the same village as Benny. He says Benny is happy.”
“Boys are always happy,” Sarah pointed out. “They ramble and have adventures. It’s different for the adult captives, though. In Lorette, two Deerfield men are slaves. They’re kept on a leash and they work the fields with the women. In Lorette, only old women without teeth and slaves work in the field.”
“Eben, does that include you?” said Mercy anxiously.
Eben shook his head. “No. My father is teaching me to hunt.”
It was an Indian way of telling Mercy so much. He did not consider the Indian his master, but his father. He was not a slave, but a son who must learn important things. He was not weeding and hoeing, but hunting, which was men’s work.
And the gauntlet was not to be discussed. She wondered if her brother Sam had had to watch when Eben suffered. But she honored Eben’s decision not to speak of it. “And you, Sarah?” she asked.
“A French family bought me,” said Sarah in disgust. “They’re kind, but they’re not adopting me the way your cousin Mary was adopted. I despise the French, Mercy. I despise how the women live. I loathe their perfume and their frippery and their foolish parties.”
“I believe you were less angry when you lived among the Indians,” said Mercy.
“Indeed I was,” said Sarah. “Now ransom is the first and the last word in my heart every waking moment, and then I dream of ransom in my sleep. I want to go home to Deerfield and be a Puritan.”
I have not dreamed of ransom in weeks, thought Mercy. I have not even remembered it. She wondered how Sarah pictured Deerfield? Would Sarah actually go back to that place of death and destruction? Would she start over among the ashes? Or did Sarah believe Deerfield existed as it had before?
“They’re picking out a French husband for me,” said Sarah.
Of course they are, thought Mercy. You are eighteen and beautiful and English women have sons every year. That’s better than a dowry.
“Remember how in Deerfield there was nobody to marry? Remember how Eliza married an Indian? Remember how Abigail even had to go and marry a French fur trader without teeth?”
Mercy had to laugh again. It was such a treat to laugh with English friends. “Your man doesn’t have teeth?”
“Pierre has all his teeth. In fact, he’s handsome, rich and an army officer. But what am I to do about the marriage?” Sarah was not laughing. She was shivering. “I do not want that life or that language, Mercy, and above all, I do not want that man. If I repeat wedding vows, they will count. If I have a wedding night, it will be real. I will have French babies and they will be Catholic and I will live here all my life.” Sarah rearranged her French scarf in a very French way and Mercy thought how much clothing mattered; how changed they were by what they put on their bodies.
“The Catholic church won’t make you,” said Mercy. “You can refuse.”
“How? Pierre has brought his fellow officers to see me. His family has met me and they like me. They know I have no dowry, but they are being very generous about their son’s choice. If I refuse to marry Pierre, he and the French family with whom I live will be publicly humiliated. I won’t get a second offer of marriage after mistreating this one. The French family will make me a servant. I will spend my life waiting on them, curtseying to them, and saying ‘Oui, madame.’ ”
“But surely ransom will come,” said Mercy.
“Maybe it will. But what if it does not?”
Mercy stared at her feet. Her leggings. Her moccasins. What if it does not? she thought. What if I spend my life in Kahnawake?
“What if I stay in Montréal all my life?” demanded Sarah. “A servant girl to enemies of England.”
The world asks too much of us, thought Mercy. But because she was practical and because there seemed no way out, she said, “Would this Frenchman treat you well?”
Sarah shrugged as Eben had over the gauntlet, except that when Eben shrugged, he looked Indian, and when Sarah shrugged, she looked French. “He thinks I am beautiful.”
“You are beautiful,” said Eben. He drew a deep breath to say something else, but Nistenha and Snow Walker arrived beside them. How reproachfully they looked at the captives. “The language of the people,” said Nistenha in Mohawk, “is sweeter to the ear when it does not mix with the language of the English.”
Mercy flushed. This was why she had not been taken to Montréal before. She would flee to the English and be homesick again. And it was so. How she wanted to stay with Eben and Sarah! They were older and would take care of her … but no. None of the captives possessed the freedom to choose anything or take care of anyone.
It turned out that Eben Nims believed otherwise.
Eben was looking at Sarah in the way every girl prays some boy will one day look at her. “I will marry you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I will be a good husband. A Puritan husband. Who will one day take us both back home.”
Wind shifted the lace of Sarah’s gown and the auburn of one loose curl.
“I love you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I’ve always loved you.”
Tears came to Sarah’s eyes: she who had not wept over her own family. She stood as if it had not occurred to her that she could be loved; that an English boy could adore her. “Oh, Eben!” she whispered. “Oh, yes, oh, thank you, I will marry you. But will they let us, Eben? We will need permission.”
“I’ll ask my father,” said Eben. “I’ll ask Father Meriel.”
They were not touching. They were yearning to touch, they were leaning forward, but they were holding back. Because it is wrong? wondered Mercy. Or because they know they will never get permission?
“My French family will put up a terrible fuss,” said Sarah anxiously. “Pierre might even summon his fellow officers and do something violent.”
Eben grinned. “Not if I have Huron warriors behind me.”
The Indians rather enjoyed being French allies one day and difficult neighbors the next. Lorette Indians might find this a fine way to stab a French soldier in the back without drawing blood.
They would need Father Meriel. He could arrange anything if he chose; he had power among all the peoples. But he might say no, and so might Eben’s In
dian family.
Mercy translated what was going on for Nistenha and Snow Walker. “They want to get married,” she told them. “Isn’t it wonderful?” She couldn’t help laughing from the joy and the terror of it. Ransom would no longer be the first word in Sarah’s heart. Eben would be. Mercy said, “Eben asked her right here in the street, Snow Walker. He wants to save her from marriage to a French soldier she doesn’t want. He’s loved Sarah since the march.”
The two Indians had no reaction. For a moment Mercy thought she must have spoken to them in English. Nistenha turned to walk away and Snow Walker turned with her.
If Nistenha was not interested in Sarah and Eben’s plight, no Indian would be.
Mercy called on her memory of every speech in every ceremony, every dignified phrase and powerful word. “Honored mother,” she said softly. “Honored sister. We are in need and we beg you to hear our petition.”
Nistenha stopped walking, turned back and stared at her in amazement. Sarah and Eben and Snow Walker stared at her in amazement.
Sam can build canoes, thought Mercy. I can make a speech. “This woman my sister and this man my brother wish to spend their lives together. My brother will need the generous permission of his Indian father. Already we know that my sister will be refused the permission of her French owners. We will need an ally to support us in our request. We will need your strength and your wisdom. We beseech you, Mother, that you stand by us and help us.”
The city of Montréal swirled around them.
Eben, property of an Indian father in Lorette; Sarah, property of a French family in Montréal; and Mercy, property of Tannhahorens, awaited her answer.
“Your words fill me with pride, Munnonock,” said Nistenha softly. She reached into her shopping bundle. Slowly she drew out a fine French china cup, undoubtedly meant for the feast of Flying Legs. She held it for a moment, and then her stern face softened and she gave it to Eben.
Indians sealed a promise with a gift.
She would help them.
From her bundle, Snow Walker took dangling silver earrings she must have bought for Mercy and handed them to Sarah.