They both stopped as they started, together. They both laughed. And the sound of the laughs, hers to him, his to her, chased away all the other sounds.
‘I’ve never … loved anyone else,’ she said. ‘No man has ever … I’ve never wanted to be with anyone.’
‘Then it is the same for both of us,’ he smiled. ‘For I have never loved anyone either.’
‘I thought, in France …’
‘That wasn’t me. That was someone else. I think … I think I was only conceived when I saw you fall from the Paris sky. I was only born when I returned to my tribe.’
He swung his head to either side, raised his arms to gesture to those who chanted in the smoke. She saw the way his body moved, how it had grown even in the short time that he had been there. She reached out then and touched him, on the big muscle of his back. He turned at her touch and she kept her fingers there, dropping her other arm away. His eyes lowered to her breasts and when she saw him shudder, she felt happy and excited, in a way she never had before.
‘I do not know what to do,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he replied and he took her hand and laid her gently down onto the skins.
‘Do not think of the people,’ he said.
‘What people?’ she said and smiled.
Even though the others seemed far away, their chanting felt near, surrounding them. The rhythm of it took them both and though there was a little pain to start, it receded swiftly, diminished by the strange, the wondrous sensations that their bodies’ joining was causing her. And the chants changed as she did, becoming more urgent, and soon, as he moved in different ways inside her, as his hands stroked and caressed her in ways she could never have guessed at, she found she was chanting too, and her cries and then his rose to mingle with the sounds above them both. She gathered in the smoke, the rattles, the rhythm, the way they moved, until her whole body rushed to a point where everything was one.
There was no moment in the night they were not together, asleep, or awake and moving again, joined by the sounds around them that did not cease.
It was the morning light streaming through the vent in the roof, falling on her face, that woke her. She was on her side and he was curled around her, so that they still touched, at every part of them that could. She moved and he groaned but did not wake, so she slipped out from under him. Gentle snores came from mouths that had chanted all night.
Then she remembered what all the magic had been for. And she ran the few paces up to the platform.
Gaka was on her back, her eyelids half open. The one eye was still rolled over, the other stared straight out.
‘Oh, Gaka, oh Aunt,’ Anne cried, slipping down beside her. Then she noticed two things. The smile on Gaka’s face, and her hand, the one that had been bent and twisted by her sudden sickness. It was open now as if, at the end, she’d reached out for something. And resting in that hand, was Anne Boleyn’s.
NINE
GHOSTS
The full moon did not have the sky entirely to itself. Columns of cloud rolled across it, as they had all day, so that land and water would be suddenly concealed or as swiftly revealed. The clouds pressed down, holding in the day’s heat. The air crackled, filling every nostril with the promise of rain.
The heat was fiercest at the entrance to the lodges for fires burned before each of them, huge pyres consuming all that was thrown on them in moments. It was flesh that burned, but not such as would delight the stomachs of the hungry. For each family had gone to the graves of their dead, all those who had stayed above the earth since the last Kettle, three years before. They had taken them down from their platforms, out of their bark coffins. They had stripped them of the beaver skins that had covered them and, if there was flesh still on their bones, that flesh was purged in a crucible of flame. Then the bones were raked from the ashes, washed, and wrapped again in fresh beaver skins.
Gaka’s relations attended to her body differently, for she was of the most recent dead. As soon as it was discovered, her body had been curled up, chest to knees, hands clasped before her face. Now she lay on a bear skin robe close to the fire as if asleep. Anne sat right beside her, enjoying the heat on her near-naked skin. One hand rested on Gaka’s shoulder, marvelling at the intensity of the dead woman’s smile.
Something moved through her hair. She reached a hand up, thinking it must be another of the giant moths that had gathered around the firelight. But her brushing fingers encountered others and she lifted her head … to a vision that only the presence of so many dead could have conjured up.
She scrambled away, a cry caught in her throat. He followed her, his white hands raised toward her in a gesture of calming.
‘I am sorry, Anne,’ Tagay said. ‘I did not know how to come to you.’
Her breath returning, she studied him. Every part of his body was whitened, except for his face and even that had streaks of the dye across it, five parallel lines the width of each cheek. His breech cloth, even his hair, was covered in the same compound, the stickiness of which she discovered as she raised her hand to it.
‘Ugh! What is it?’
‘A mixture of river mud and shavings of a special rock, ground to powder. Oh, and we each put blood into it, though I think that was more ceremonial.’ He laughed as she tried to wipe her fingers on his chest, increasing the amount she had. Then she laughed too, and wiped them in lines across her own face, a faint mirror of his.
His laughter stopped when he looked down at Gaka. He was silent a moment, studying her. ‘She looks content,’ he said.
She took a sticky, white hand in hers. ‘She begins her journey smiling. Is that not a lesson to us all?’
‘It is. I hope to have a similar smile on my face when I start on mine. And probably thinking about the same thing, the last thing she saw.’
He looked down at her, hoping that she would join him in a memory of the previous night. But the look on her face was sad.
‘Do not make that smile too soon, Tagay.’
‘Not for twenty summers. More,’ he said quickly, but not quick enough to stop the tear that formed in one of her eyes. He reached up to her face, stopped the tear as it ran down her cheek, raised it on a finger’s end, watching it catch and hold the firelight.
‘You promise?’ Both her hands clasped his. ‘When these painted lines are wrinkles?’
‘I promise.’ Then she pulled him to her, careless of the paint, needing to feel his body against hers. Their skin touched and a heat came that had nothing to do with the proximity of flames.
They held each other till they became aware of other sounds around them. The families of the lodge were gathering the last of the bones burned cleaned, wrapping them in skin bundles. Two women came for Gaka and began to fold the edges of her blanket around her. From the far side of the open space, they heard the shiver of tortoise-shell rattles, the first soft chanting of, ‘Ha-eh-eh, Ha-eh-eh.’
Tagay shivered, muttered, ‘I must go.’ He half turned, then hesitated, turned back. ‘There is something else. You must take this.’
She looked down. There was now a dark centre to the whiteness of his hand.
‘Donnaconna’s Oki.’ She pulled her hand back as he lifted the smooth stone toward her. ‘I stopped you throwing it away once. I told you then, it is power. Why do you seek to give that away when you need it most?’
His voice stayed soft. ‘We do not take Oki over there. Only weapons.’
‘Tagay …’
‘I have prayed to it, burnt tobacco for it.’ He hesitated, and she could see the struggle within him. ‘I do not want to lose it in a fight.’
It was an excuse and they both knew it. He wanted it to survive, even if he didn’t.
For a long moment they stared at each other across the stone. Then her hand closed over it and they held it between them. ‘I will keep it for you. But only for tonight.’
She took it and he sighed. Then, looking down at the paint that daubed her, laughed. ‘It is difficult to clean off.’
‘We will clean it off together,’ she replied fiercely, ‘when I give you your Oki back. At the rendezvous.’
‘At the rendezvous.’
Bending to the blanket at his feet, he said, ‘Goodbye, Aunt.’
‘I will see to her, Tagay. I loved her too.’
‘I know.’ He hesitated. ‘Anne, I …’
‘I know. Go on. Go! I will see you at the rendezvous.’
He walked swiftly away toward the river. She watched him until he was out of sight. Then she dropped the Oki into her pouch, and bent to help Gaka’s nieces lift the bundle of skins that contained their aunt. Together, they joined the procession from the village and up the cliff path that led to the Feast of the Dead.
Still the thunder would not come. The air was agitated, the wind building in gusts and sudden short rushes, then dying away to a heated stillness. Changing directions too, bearing sounds to where they lay on the beach. It would blow from behind them and they would hear the tortoise-shell rattles, and the cries of, ‘Ha-eh-eh, Ha-eh-eh.’ Then many of the warriors would turn into the wind, sending muttered prayers toward the sounds, for all had relatives who were beginning their journeys that night to the Village of the Dead. And they all knew that, all too soon, they could be following them on that journey. But when the wind switched and blew into their faces from the water, other sounds came to them, faint but unmistakable. On the far shore, the Tattooed people were holding a feast of war.
Tagay turned his head, looked down the beach to either side. Though the moon was hidden, the ghost warriors were easy to see. Eighty of them, ten from each clan but all intermingled, each clutching their bows and quivers, their war clubs and knives, their own protective Oki of stones, sticks, bones. The ten nearest to Tagay were his guard – older, more experienced fighters. The rest were younger, full of the crazed courage of youth. These also were mainly bachelors, with no families dependent on them in the village.
A hand pulled at his elbow. Nishane, an older member of the Beaver clan, whose scars testified to his history in war, gestured to the water. Carefully, Tagay peered through a little gap in the foliage that hid them. At first, all he could see was what he’d seen in the hour or more they’d waited there – the river glittering or dull depending on the position of clouds and moon, and still maintaining their position against the flow of the stream, the enemy’s cluster of five canoes. There were two men in each and every so often a new craft would appear as a replacement, the one relieved taking back the same message to their camp – that their Tahontaenrat prey were feasting in their village.
Nishane drew Tagay’s attention to other movement in the water and he could now make out the shapes that drifted with the stream toward the enemy’s canoes. Shapes that to most eyes would appear merely as branches of old trees that had fallen into the water. But as the moon suddenly appeared, Tagay could make out the darker shapes at the heart of the floating wood. Not all the warriors of the Deer people had painted themselves as ghosts. Some had found black mud, darker rock powder, though they had still bound it with their blood.
The canoes began to separate to allow the branches to pass between them, a paddle stretched out to fend off a collision. And it was when the paddle reached into the leaves that ten black shapes disengaged themselves from the five, floating trunks. From being stationary in the water the canoes were suddenly all moving agitatedly. Then four of them flipped over, flailing bodies falling. A bone knife that had been covered in mud flashed clean in the moonlight. Cries carried, swiftly cut off as water filled mouths.
One canoe had survived. Tagay could see the two warriors in it, frantically turning the craft toward their own shore, thrusting their paddles into the water, striking at hands that tried to hold them. A paddle was seized but the canoe broke free and immediately began to surge away. Drawing breath now, its occupants began to shout. But the wind was in their faces, bearing the sounds of their tribe’s feast.
One of the other canoes was righted. Two black shapes slipped into it and paddles immediately dipped into the water. The pursued were several canoe lengths ahead but they had only one paddle between them. The gap was closed, the boats merged into one shape. There were grunts, a howl of pain. Then, as the moon hid again, silence. And the five canoes, all righted now, began to pull strongly for the Tahontaenrat shore.
Eighty silent, white figures rose as one from their hiding. The canoes grounded, and ten black shapes leapt out, pulling their craft higher. One of them was limping and it was this shape that made his way straight to Tagay.
The only part of Sada that could be seen clearly were his eyes and his teeth, these because they were bared in a smile.
‘First blood, War Chief,’ he said, dropping something wet at Tagay’s feet.
Tagay looked down. Even in the half light he could see the scalp, the hair pulled up into a single top knot. There was even a trace of a tattooed line curling down from it.
‘First blood.’ He raised his arm, turning to either side so all could see. Instantly, the white figures began to pull larger canoes from their hiding place into the water, six or eight figures climbing into each of them. From behind them other, unpainted men appeared, laying logs along the beach down which they began to roll rafts.
‘Are you sure I can’t come with you, Tagay?’ Sada’s eyes gleamed up at him.
‘We talked of this, cousin. Your leg was good enough for swimming, not for running along a beach, dodging arrows.’
‘It is true.’ Sada reached down, rubbed his ankle, then bent and picked up the scalp. ‘I just wanted a few more of these for my lodge post.’
‘Then I will bring some back for you.’ Tagay looked around, saw that his war party was all embarked. The canoes floated just offshore, all save one nearby. At its prow, Nishane held two paddles. ‘And you have made me a promise.’
‘I know. White Cedar.’ Sada grinned up at him. ‘I heard that you were so tireless at the andac-wanda that the Gods came to chant by the hearth and envy their new rival.’
Tagay smiled. ‘Watch for her, Sada.’ Then he headed to the water.
‘I will. And later we will smoke pipes together in our new lodge near the Big Lakes and you will tell me the story of your feats this night. Night after night, season after season after …’ He faked a huge yawn.
Tagay laughed, then moved down the beach. When he’d climbed into the canoe, he lifted the paddle high so all could see it. As it rose, the moon appeared again in a rent of cloud as if summoned by him.
Glowing in its light, the Ghost Warriors set out across the water toward the village of their enemy.
The song ended. Thirty pairs of feet thumped down together on the dense packed earth, the deer-hoof rattles at each knee shaking in unison with the force. The leader, who had been crouched in an attitude of attack, now swung his club high into the air using its trajectory to pull him up. As the weapon reached for the sky he let out the war whoop, starting high on a note then running down to a moment’s pause before reaching again for the same note but louder, wilder. As his cry finished, every dancer took it up. ‘Ah-aaaaa -Ah,’ burst from thirty throats.
Then the drums came with a slower beat, and the dancers walked to its rhythm around the huge circle of people. Since no one strode forward to make a speech – and there had been many in the hours of the feast – Thomas took the opportunity to move across the circle to Gianni. It would have been rude to do so while the war chief, Falling Day, the man who had first captured them, declaimed the glory of their tribe.
‘Will they have any strength left for their dawn battle?’ Gianni gestured to the dancers.
‘From what I’ve seen of them, they could dance all night and still fight all the next day.’ Thomas lowered himself onto the ground beside the younger man. ‘But these are only a few. How many warriors do you think have gathered here?’
‘It is difficult to say. Six hundred? Seven?’
Thomas nodded. He thought it might be even more. The allies of their hosts had been
coming, in smaller and larger bands, for the entire time they had been there. Through their interpreter he had learnt that those who came were of different tribes yet bound with the Great Hill People in a confederacy of five nations. It was always hard to tell time with them, everything was just ‘before’. But their own tribe had been the last to join the compact, the Hodenosaunee, as it was called. And they had been members for at least twenty summers, it seemed.
‘Do you still hold to your plan, Gianni?’
‘I do. And do you still hold to yours?’
‘What choice have you left me?’
The younger man looked over at him. ‘The choice to wait here till the battle is over and I return. With the hand of the witch.’
‘And with your sister.’
Gianni coloured. ‘Yes, of course. With my sister as well.’
Thomas started to speak again, but there was no point. The younger man would never be dissuaded. He had been very disappointed when Black Snake had failed to return with what they sought. But reasoned argument – that the hand was lost this night of the full moon – was only met with a grunted, ‘Then we will make her find it again.’ Thomas knew that the hand was still Gianni’s obsession. So Anne had to be his. He need not tell her brother why.
‘Remember, Jesuit, you will have to look to yourself. I will not take care of you over there.’ Gianni gestured to the far shore, just visible as a shadow in the moon-hidden night.
Despite his training in calm, something in Gianni’s arrogance could still prickle Thomas. ‘And how many battles have you fought in, boy?’ he said.
‘Well, I …’
‘Exactly. I know you have killed in alleys. You know all about the knife in the dark. But I was storming breaches when you were chasing chickens on your farm! So you look to yourself.’
As the two men glared at each other, a whoop from the war leader, immediately answered by his dancers, signalled another round of the dance. Gianni rose. ‘I will go see to my gunpowder and leave you to your prayers.’
The drumbeats doubled as Gianni walked away.