He had an economy and a surety of movement to everything he accomplished, never giving more energy to a task than was required, allowing the impetus of a tool’s own forward momentum and the pull of gravity to move rock and earth. And yet, at the behest of a neighbor who had no gun for butchering, she had seen Thomas fell an ox with a hammer so forcefully that the brains of the beast had been found in its throat. For all his native strength, though, he had yet to be proclaimed best man at the reaping.
Every man in Billerica with hair on his face worked a scythe to harvest the feed grass, hoping to be the last villager standing in the newly cleared field. Most times, completed within the span of a day and half a night, the scything would have a tinge of desperate zeal to it, a kind of battle. The men would attack the grass, mowing it in ever-expanding patterns, never stopping, except for a brief swallow of water or pocket bread, until exhaustion overtook them. One by one they would drop out until one man remained alone, a corn king, a prince of reeds, upright on the ground littered with broken stalks. Made much over by women and men alike, he would be fed the best meat, given the best ale, deferred to, listened to, sought after. For three years running a townsman named Ezra Black had been proclaimed the winner. Looking at Thomas in the strengthening light, she instinctively knew that he never took the honors as he had nothing to prove to these farmers of Billerica. He simply worked to fulfill his needed allotment of grass, leaving the contest to those yeomen whose reputations, and pride, depended upon such a small and circumscribed ritual.
Within the half hour they had joined the encampment of townspeople at the edge of the field, and upon the completion of the blessing by the Reverend Hastings, the men commenced the reaping. Moving in a northwesterly direction, their long-handled blades swinging in wide arcs, they opened up swaths between the long grasses. The stalks, still wet and clinging from the morning dew, lay crossed together in disordered patterns, turning hour by hour from dark green to yellowish brown. The women and children, some as young as Joanna, followed behind the men spreading and turning the grasses with rakes, gathering them into windrows to dry under the sun. Forty-odd men worked the fields, and they had cleared almost five acres when the drum rolled, calling them to pause for the noon meal of meat and bread and cold water drawn from the river.
Earlier, Patience had pushed a sharp elbow into Martha’s side, pointing out Ezra Black with her chin, remarking, “He is not yet married, cousin, and must marry soon or be thought a scandal.” She raised her eyebrows significantly, and Martha turned away before she betrayed her impatience. There had been a lustful buzzing around Ezra from the outset as first one young woman and then another found reason to drift close to him, to bring him water or to pull her cap aside to show off a small but immoderately straying curl. He was powerfully built with immense arms, thighs, and calves, but with bandy legs and a head full of dark ringlets that looked suspiciously oiled. Martha could have guessed without being shown who the cock of the hour was.
Patience pressed into Martha’s hands a large joint of meat and gave her a push in Ezra’s direction. As she approached him, he grinned widely, his squinting eyes disappearing behind the high mounds of his cheeks.
“You are Martha. Your cousin has told me of you,” he said, wiping at the sweat on his face. He crossed his arms and looked her over like a mare. “She told me you have been saving something for me.” He grinned even wider and winked his eye at her.
She blinked twice and felt the small of her back go rigid. At the setting of her face, there was a slight faltering of confidence in Ezra’s eyes, but he pointed to the joint of meat and winked again. Martha could sense the men and women watching them, waiting for an exchange of words. She handed him the meat, wiping her hands on her apron, and glanced at Thomas, who was drinking from a dipper of water, his eyes thoughtfully on Ezra.
“Well, there is no need for excitation. After all,” she said, looking down at the crease in his pants, “it is such a small joint.”
Ezra threw his head back and bellowed, gazing at her with nodding approval. “It’s not so small as you might think. Why,” he said, rubbing at the side of his nose, “there is plenty enough to feed the both of us.”
Despite her best efforts, she smiled, stifling a laugh, and after gnawing a bit of meat off the bone, he moved in closer. “You hold the rest for me for a short while. I trust it will be warmed in your lap and then I’ll claim it again. As best man.” He grinned at her and picked up his scythe as the drum rolled again, moving away with the tide of men returning to work.
The breezes which had cooled the fields that morning grew slack and then stopped blowing altogether, the sun shining uncensored in a cloudless sky, sparking off the newly sharpened edges of the working scythes. It wasn’t until the light had begun to shift beyond the forests of Chelmsford to the west that the older men, distressed by the heat, began to waver, stumble, and then quit the field, helped along by their women to places in the shade. The spent men rested, boasting of their performance in years past and guardedly laying odds on the last man standing. The women and children labored on, raking and gathering, until close to ten acres had been cocked and loaded into carts and wagons to be taken home, the farmers looking with a sharp eye to every other man’s apportioned share.
At sunset, the lowering rays painted the stalks to a golden red and soon John returned breathless and exhausted, dragging his scythe like a ruined toy behind him. His face was pinched with the heat and he wiped at his neck with a sleeve, saying, “I’m finished …cooked to a goose.” Propping himself sitting against the wagon, he doused his head and neck with the water skin, drinking deeply. Martha came to stand next to him, shielding her eyes with her hands, anxiously scanning the fields. She asked, “Is Thomas yet reaping?” When there was no answer she looked down to see John studying her, one eye squeezed shut against the sweat still pouring down his forehead.
He took another long drink and answered, smiling, “Ezra Black is a dead man.”
Two hours past sunset, there were only five men left in the field, and the villagers sent their yawning, limp children into the blackening shadows to take water to the reapers and to bring back word of who thrived and who faltered. Soon nothing could be seen beyond the cook fires, but the voices of the still-working men could be heard calling back and forth, encouraging, taunting, challenging one another to stay or give up and return to the warmth of a fire and a well-deserved rest. Within an hour’s time the calling ceased and there was no sound from the field but a distant whooshing noise of the evening breezes sweeping and bending the remaining shafts.
Martha sat feeding the fire with dried grasses and watching the children, delighted with the little leather-winged bats that flew above the flames, chasing the sparks as though they were fireflies. Patience, resting hunkered on the ground, had begun nodding drowsily into sleep when a man approached the circle of firelight asking for Goodwife Taylor. He had the ruddy face and breadth of shoulders of a farmer, but his shirt was of a better quality than those worn by the other village men, and though it had been soaked with sweat, it looked decently clean. Patience roused herself and, gesturing for Martha to help her up, rose awkwardly to face him. Straightening her apron down over her swollen belly, she said, “I am Goodwife Taylor.”
“Goody Taylor, my name is Asa Rogers, recently come from Salem with my brother. I’ve heard from some here in Billerica that you’ve land which lies fallow on the river.” He pointed southerly towards the Concord and continued, “I am here to propose a fair price on the land. More than fair, in fact.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “A quite generous offer.”
“Who has put about that the land is unclaimed?” Martha asked, realizing with sudden alarm that he spoke of the plot promised to Thomas.
He cut his eyes briefly at her, and she saw a hard shrewdness far beyond the simple cunning of a farmer at trade. “As it so happens, it was Edward Wright, the tinsmith.” He turned back to Patience, his voice reasonable and reassuring. “Goodwife Taylor, I’
ll be building a mill and need land seated on water. Whatever arrangements have been proposed, if there is no binding contract and no coin proffered, the land is yet in your possession, to be disposed of at your will. And to your gain.”
“My husband is not here…,” Patience began uncertainly, flinching as Martha’s grip tightened painfully on her hand.
“That land is promised to another,” Martha said, noting the barely concealed flash of irritation crossing the miller’s face.
He took off his hat, slapping it twice against his thigh. “What if the land was promised in good faith but accepted under false pretenses?”
Patience frowned and opened her mouth to speak when Martha tugged at her hand to remain silent.
“Very well,” he said after a moment’s pause. He nodded to Patience. “I’ll speak to your husband about this when he is returned. I stay with the Reverend Hastings if you have a change of heart. Good night.” He flashed a final hooded look at Martha and walked away.
As the stars pinpricked their way through the sky, there were only two men left in the field. Martha wrapped some bread and meat in her apron and let Will lead her to the place where he had last seen Thomas working. Martha could see from a distance his broad-brimmed straw hat towering above the whispering grasses, reflecting the faint nocturnal light as sharply as a sail under the moon. She wordlessly gave him the food and drink, and when he had finished, she felt his hand slip warmly around her upper arm. He kneaded the flesh, his fingers gripping her tightly. He released her and stepped away to resume his reaping, careful to keep the swinging blade from cutting her or the child. Close by, she could hear the rhythmic swish of Ezra’s scythe, his breathing beginning to sound burdened. Will took her by the hand, and she followed him back to the cook fires blazing close together in defensive clusters.
One by one, as midnight passed, the villagers and their children drifted off to sleep, the fires wasting down to embers. The breeze turned cooler and Martha lay down under a blanket, Patience at her back, the children huddled together for warmth nearby. She closed her eyes but sleep would not come. Like a plague carcass, the tinsmith had thrown at her the unfamiliar and dangerous-sounding names of Thomas Morgan and Prudent Mary, and a hot, new resentment towards the man pricked at her, knowing that he had pointed Asa Rogers to the land on the river promised in good faith to Thomas. “Accepted under false pretenses,” Rogers had said. She twisted under the blanket, restless and anxious over what this might mean, and Patience muttered impatiently for her to lie still. Martha slid a lingering hand up the sleeve of her own dress, mimicking Thomas’s grip on her arm, and for a time allowed herself to imagine the weight of his arms around her waist.
She woke when the sky was lightening, the stars gone, and she sat abruptly and rubbed at her eyes. A small band of men had walked into the field some distance away and stood motionless looking in the same direction. She quickly rose and walked to where they were gathered and saw that another five acres had been mown through the blackest of night, the grass lying cropped and flattened, as though a monstrous mill wheel had been rolled across the ground. Two men reaping could be seen afar in the newly made clearing. One figure had stopped and leaned heavily on his scythe handle, swaying gently as though balanced on a rending ice floe. The other figure continued in a slow and steady pace, hacking through the stalks with a dulled blade, step and sweep, step and sweep, until the smaller man stopped his weaving and crumpled onto the freshly cut hay.
The fallen man was carried from the field, and there was no clapping on the back or welcoming draught of ale for Ezra Black, only the amazed and wary looks from the waking men and women now running into the field to stare at the victor. Their incredulous faces looked to the tall man, relentless and poised, holding his scythe with a firm and steady hand, as if the roaring pendulum of God had come to sever the life strings between Heaven and Earth.
He walked the few miles to home, refusing to be carried in the wagon’s bed on top of the soft and fragrant mown grasses, and Martha walked beside him, slipping her hand into his at the quarter-mile marker.
CHAPTER 14
BRUDLOE SETTLED THE palms of his hands more securely over the pillow, leaning closer to Hammett Cornwall, who sat next to him on the bed. He studied Cornwall’s large, mournful face, his downturned mouth, and impassive eyes floating wetly within pouches of skin still tinged with gray He had begun to worry about the big man, the way he now often stared at the bedroom walls by the hour, never speaking unless responding in grunts to Brudloe’s questions or directives. Brudloe observed the pallor, the tinge of mottled scarlet around Cornwall’s lips, remaining like a stain, and knew they had both escaped death only barely. The sickness had come upon them quickly, and ferociously, after leaving the ship at Boston Harbor, and if not for the ministrations of the kind Mrs. Parker, their boarding mistress, they both would have been buried with their young companion, Edward Thornton.
“Along with all his fine clothes. And with him an earl. Much good it did him,” Brudloe muttered out loud.
The bed under Cornwall heaved and shuddered briefly, and with an exasperated sigh, Brudloe brought his weight down more firmly on the pillow under his hands. “It’s takin’ forever for this bitch t’ die. She must’ve found a pocket of air in the down.”
Cornwall remained silent, and Brudloe signaled with his chin for the larger man to settle his considerable weight back more firmly over the bulge under the quilt.
The movement under the pillow was growing fainter and he breathed out, “About fuckin’ time.”
Mrs. Parker, the owner of the inn on Water Street where they had landed after the crossing, had been a pleasant diversion once he had recovered enough to plow her well-trod fields. She certainly seemed willing, crawling right into his bed the minute his eyes had lingered on the upper swell of her bodice, chastely covered with a muslin scarf. She had the breasts and thighs he preferred, soft and malleable like undercooked bread. She was enthusiastic and unguarded in her mounting, riding him topside like a weathervane on a pole but, and this was the thing he found the most exciting, with the withholding, almost modest, puckered kisses of a little girl.
She had nursed the men beyond an illness of almost two months, seeing them through the retching and watery bowels that had killed Thornton after the first few weeks. Following the unexpected deaths of Baker and the eel boy, both seemingly washed over the side of the boat in the storm, the captain of The Swallow had kept the three of them, Brudloe, Cornwall, and Thornton, comfortable in his own quarters for the remainder of the journey.
Upon landfall in Boston the captain had led the three of them to what he declared was a reputable inn, clean and no questions asked. Recently, however, Brudloe had wondered about the timing of their illness and the indisputable fact that since his partner’s death, the serving maid, who was also Thornton’s slut, had disappeared.
A few days earlier, Brudloe, still weak from illness, had gone looking for ale and came upon the constable and Mrs. Parker whispering together in the common room. He had thought at first that the constable was another one of Mrs. Parker’s lovers. But she slipped the man a packet of letters with the dry, assessing look of a trading partner, certainly not the face of a woman in the grip of passion, and when the man in turn handed her a bag of coins, Brudloe began to suspect that she might have another business besides innkeeping.
He began searching her bedroom when she went out to market and found buried in a wardrobe letters from a man named James Davids from New Haven, Connecticut. They were instructions, some of them numerically coded, to closely follow the actions of her boarders from England; “pigeons” he had called Brudloe and his fellows.
James Davids was suspected by those in the informing game to actually be John Dixwell, one of the judges who sentenced Charles I to death. Davids had lived in the colonies for years, marrying, prospering at his practice in the law, a confessed confederate of the other regicides as yet to be found and brought back to England for trial and execution. His
network of spies was said to be crawling all over New England, and if Davids knew of Brudloe’s plans in coming to Boston, so did everyone in the New Englander’s pay.
Brudloe had let Mrs. Parker go on thinking he was her pigeon for weeks. Her coy questioning, her spying, her passing of notes to the constable and others continued unabated until he was sure he had convinced her of his and Cornwall’s intentions to go north along the coast up to Portsmouth instead of to towns more inland, where Brudloe suspected his quarry to be. They could have just slipped away one evening while she slept and none would have been the wiser. But last night he had heard her weight on the floorboards at the door while he and Cornwall talked of leaving for Salem again, and he knew he could not leave the woman alive.
After supper, he plied her with drink and led her to bed, sticking as close to her as fur on a dog. He enjoyed her not once but twice, and in the morning while she sat across from him as he ate his breakfast, he let her chatter on and on, one slipper dangling archly off one toe, her smiling, dimpled chin cupped in her hands. Then he had taken her hand and led her back to bed, laid her down, and put a pillow over her face. She had fought harder than he had expected, scratching him, gouging the flesh with her nails, until he had called for Cornwall to pull the blanket up over her arms and legs and sit on the damnable whore. It had taken both of them to get the job done and a part of him had to admire her fight.
The lump beneath the quilt was finally still, and when he pulled the pillow away, her eyes were staring blankly, her doll’s mouth open and glistening. He fell back against the wall, nursing his scratches, and looked once more at the morose Cornwall. Something about the expanse of the wilderness at the near perimeter of Boston had unnerved the larger man. The port town was a ragged dock city like any other, with porters and thieves and doxies strolling the wharves at all hours, albeit with considerably less noise and swagger than in London. But there, beyond Fox Hill, over the Roxbury Flats, grew a forest without visible end, with roads disappearing into a limitless, rolling expanse of thickets and green impenetrable undergrowth mirroring the jade green wall of the ocean that had almost drowned them.